Her eyes flashed. “I think it’s exciting.”

“I mean…of the month.”

That made her laugh. She raised an eyebrow. “Other ports in a storm…?”

“Maybe later,” I said, and smiled.

She looked like AIDS-bait to me. I could be reckless, but not that reckless.

Disappointed, she took a step away and accepted the cell phone, and within seconds was saying, “Daddy?…I’m fine, I’m fine…yes!..Daddy, you know that man you sent…what?”

She frowned up at me in confusion. “He says…he says he didn’t send anybody.”

I gestured impatiently for the phone and she gave it to me.

“Good evening, sir. I have your daughter. As you can hear, she’s just fine…Get together one hundred thousand dollars in unmarked, non-sequential tens, twenties and fifties, and wait for the next call.”

I hung up.

She looked at me with wide eyes and wide-open mouth.

“Relax,” I told her. “I’m not going to kill you-just turning a buck.”

“You bastard! You prick! ”

She spit in my face.

I wiped it off with a hand and gave her a look.

She started backing up, her eyes wild, and I got hold of her, carried the squirming creature back to her bed and dumped her there.

I thrust a stern finger in that cute face. “Look! I gotta get some sleep. Pipe down, or I’ll duct-tape your little trap.”

She behaved after that, though she cried and sniffled and tried to make me feel as sorry for her as she did for herself, which would have been impossible; on the other hand, some of it was genuine-she did have cramps. I cuffed her to the bedpost and she was able to recline. I even covered her up.

Then I went over and curled up on the other bed, nine millimeter in my waistband.

I’d taken some risks tonight.

I lived and worked on this lake, after all. But it was winter, and the bodies wouldn’t turn up for a long time, if ever, and the Outfit had used this part of the world to dump its corpses since Capone was just a mean street kid. Very little chance any of this would come back at me. And killing Harry and Louis had, at least, killed my insomnia.