“It’s not a thousand dollars a year,” he whispered. Then he bent close to my ear. “It’s a thousand dollars a week.”
“OK, Charlie,” I said. “Now let me ask you something else. It’s very important. Did your husband ever use the word ‘Pluribus’?”
“Great,” I said again. “Maybe we’re getting somewhere.”
“No,” I said. “That’s the very last thing he would have done. He was depending on him to get him out from under. Something went wrong, is all.”
“But what sort of a thing?” I asked her. “What was his job?”
He grinned. He looked around his gang and they all grinned back. Exchanged low fives. I waited. The big guy stepped half a pace into our cell. He was enormous. Maybe an inch or two shorter than me but probably twice as heavy. He filled the doorway. His dull eyes flicked over me, then Hubble.