“Settle down, son,” said Hummel, easing me into the backseat and removing the cuffs. He slammed the door. I heard him go around to the front; then the engine started—muted, as if my ears were stuffed.
I peeled back an inch of blindfold and inspected the interior: blackened windows that let in only hints of light. A black glass partition sealing off the rear compartment. A cell lined in gray vinyl—rock-hard bench seats, nylon carpeting, cloth roof. No dome light. No ornamentation at all, not a clue to make or model. The plain-wrap styling of a midsize economy American sedan—a bottom-of-the-line Dodge, Ford, or Olds, but with a twist: no door handles. No ashtrays or seat belts. No metal at all.
I ran my hands over the doors, trying to find some hidden latch. Nothing. A hard rap on the partition brought no response. San Quentin on wheels.
We began to move. I peeled off the blindfold. Heavy-duty black elastic, no label. It already stank of the fear in my sweat. I heard the spatter of gravel, muted like the ignition. Soundproofing.
I pressed my face to the window, saw only my reflection in the darkened glass. I didn’t like the way I looked.
We picked up speed. I sensed it the way you sense acceleration in an elevator—a pit-of-the-stomach lurch. Cut off from the world, I had only my fear to listen to; I might have been in a crypt.
A sudden turn made me slide across the seat. When the car straightened, I kicked the door, then karate-kicked it hard. No give. I pounded the windows until my hands hurt, attacked the partition. Not even a hint of vibration.
I knew then that I’d be there as long as they wanted me to. My chest went tight. Any road noise the soundproofing let in was blotted out by the pounding of my heart.
They’d robbed me sensorily; the key was to regain my bearings. I searched for mental signposts; the only thing left was time. But no watch.
I began counting. One thousand one. One thousand two. Settled back for the ride.
After about forty-five minutes the car came to a stop. The left rear door opened. Hummel bent low and peered in. He wore mirrored sunglasses and held a long-nosed chrome-plated Colt .45 parallel to his leg.
Behind him was cement flooring. Sepia-tinged darkness. I smelled auto fumes.
He raised his other hand to his crotch and unbound his shorts. “Transfer time, son. Gonna have to cuff you again. Bend forward.”
No mention of the fact that I’d removed the blindfold. I stuffed it behind the seat and did what he asked, the good little prisoner. Hoping compliance would buy me the privilege of vision. But the moment my hands were bound, on went the elastic.
I said, “Where are we going?” Stupid question. Helplessness does that to you.
“For a ride. C’mon, C.T., let’s hustle.”
A door slammed. Trapp’s voice said, “Let’s move this turkey.” Amused. A moment later I smelled Aramis, heard the buzz of his whisper in my ear. “Fucking butler did it. Isn’t that a hoot, faggo?”
“Tsk, tsk,” I said. “Bad language for a born-again.”
Sudden bee-bite pain behind my ear: a finger flick. “Shut the fu—”
“C.T.,” said Hummel.
“All right.”
Double arm-grip. Footsteps echoing. The auto fumes stronger.
An underground parking lot.
Twenty-two paces. Stop. Wait. Mechanical hum. Gears grinding, something sliding, ending with a clang.
Elevator door.
A push forward. Slide shut. Click. Rapid climb. Another push. Out in the heat, the stench of gasoline so powerful I could taste it.
More cement. A loud whoosh, growing louder. Very loud. Gasoline … No, something stronger. An airport smell. Jet fuel. Whoosh whoosh. Gusts of cool air slicing through the heat.
Propellors. A slow chug picking up speed. Helicopter rotor.
They dragged me forward. I thought of Seaman Cross, driven blindfolded to a landing strip less than an hour from L.A. Flown to Leland Belding’s dome. Somewhere out in the desert.
The rotor noise grew deafening, scrambling my thoughts. Gusts of turbulence slapped my face, plastered my clothes to my body.
“There’s a step here,” Hummel shouted, putting pressure under my elbow, pushing me, lifting me. “Step up, son. There you go—good.”
Climbing. One step, two step. Mother, may I … Half a dozen, still more.
“Keep going,” said Hummel. “Now stop. Put your foot forward. There we go. Good boy.” Hand on my head, pushing down. “Duck, son.”
He placed me in a bucket seat and belted me in. A door slammed. My ears clogged. The noise level dropped a notch but remained loud. I heard radio stutter, a new voice from the front: male, military-flat, saying something to Hummel. Hummel answered back. Planning. Their words drowned out by the rotor.
A moment later, we lifted off with a surge that bounced and buffeted me like a pachinko ball. The copter swayed, rose again, gained stability.
Suspended in midair.
I thought again of Seaman Cross’s nose dive from celebrity to death. Missing notes in a public storage vault. Books recalled. Locked up, raped. Head in the oven time.
If you’re right about a tenth of this, we’re dealing with people with very long arms….
The copter kept climbing. I fought the shakes, worked hard at pretending this was an E ride at Disneyland.
Up, up and away.
We’d been traveling for more than two hours by my slow count when more radio noises burped from the front of the cabin and I felt the copter take a drop in altitude.
More radio stutter. One decipherable word: “Roger.”
We dipped for landing. I remembered reading somewhere that copters cruised between 90 and 125 knots. If my counting was near-accurate, that meant a 200- to 250-mile trip. I mentally traced a circle with L.A. at its center. Fresno to Mexico longitudinally. From the Colorado desert to somewhere over the Pacific on the east-west axis.
No shortage of desert in three directions.
Another sharp drop. Moments later we hit solid ground.
“Smooth,” said Hummel. In seconds I felt his breath, hot and spearminted, on my face, heard him grunt as he loosened the belt.
“Enjoy the ride, son?”
“Not bad,” I said, borrowing someone else’s voice—some Milquetoast’s quavering tenor. “But the movie stank.”
He chuckled, took hold of my arm, guided me out of the copter and down.
I stumbled a couple of times. Hummel kept me upright and moving, not breaking half a step.
The old heave-ho march—he’d probably used it on a thousand Vegas drunks.
We walked for a slow-count of four hundred. The air was very hot, very dry. Silent.
“Stay here,” he said, and I heard the horsey clump of his departing boot-steps, then nothing.
I stood there, unguarded, for a three-hundred count. Three hundred more.
Ten minutes. Left to my own devices.
Another five minutes and I started to wonder if he was coming back. Three more and I hoped he was.
His walking away meant escape would be folly. I tried to picture where I was—at the edge of a precipice? Playing target at the end of a shooting range?
Or simply dropped in the middle of nowhere, gift-wrapped brunch for the scorpions and the buzzards.
Donald Neurath’s obituary came to mind … unspecified causes while vacationing in Mexico.
Maybe Hummel was bluffing. I considered moving. Uncertainty locked my joints. I was a man with one foot on a land mine, immobility my life sentence.
I stood there, counting, sweating, trying to maintain. Enduring the molasses drip of time slowed by fear. Finally I forced myself to take a single step forward—a baby step. Mother, may I? Please?
Solid ground. No fireworks.
Another step. I swung one foot out in a slow arc, testing—no tripwires—was inching forward when an electric whine sounded from somewhere behind me.
Stop and go. Whine stop whine.
A golf cart or something like it. Comin
g closer. Footsteps.
“Cute little dance, son,” said Hummel. “We could use the rain.”
He put me in the cart. It had shallow seats and no roof. We rode under a blazing sun for about fifteen minutes before he stopped, eased me out, and led me through revolving doors into a building air-conditioned to frigidity. We passed through three more doors, each one opening after a series of clicks, then made a quick right-hand turn, went thirty more paces, and entered a room that smelled of disinfectant.
“Stay loose and no one’ll hurt you,” he said.
Multiple footsteps shuffled forward. Off came the handcuffs. Several sets of hands pinioned my arms and legs, braced my head, tilted it back. Fingers filled my mouth, pried under my tongue. I gagged.
My clothes were stripped off. The hands ran a marathon over my body, ruffled my hair, probed my armpits, my orifices—deftly, quickly, without a hint of prurient interest. Then I was dressed again, buttoned and zipped, all of it over in a couple of minutes.
I was walked through two more clicking doors and deposited in a big, deep chair—leather, tannically fragrant.
The door closed.
By the time I yanked off the blindfold, they were gone.
The room was big, dark, done in Neo-Home-on-the-Range: plank walls, Navajo rugs over distressed pine floors, wagon-wheel chandelier brass-chained from a beamed cathedral ceiling, a set of armchairs fashioned of cowhide stretched on a stag antler frame, wall-size oil paintings of tired-looking cowboys, and bucking-bronco bronzes.
In the center of the room was a big claw-footed, leather-topped desk. Behind it a wall display of flintlocks and engraved antique rifles ran from floor to ceiling.
Behind the desk sat Billy Vidal, bright-eyed and brush-cut, square-jawed and perfectly seamed. His strong-tea tan was set off nicely by an ivory-colored turtleneck under a white cashmere V-neck. No cowboy gear for the chairman of Magna; he was Palm Beach polished, golf-course fit. His hands lay flat on the desktop, manicured, baby smooth.
“Dr. Delaware, thank you for coming.”
His voice didn’t fit with the rest of him—a hoarse, wispy croak, cracking between words.
I said nothing.
He looked straight at me with pale eyes, held the stare for a while, then said, “That was an icebreaker that fell flat.” His last words petered out to a lip-sync. He cleared his throat, produced more laryngitic whisper. “Sorry for any inconvenience you’ve been caused. There didn’t seem to be any other way.”
“Any other way for what?”
“To arrange a chat between us.”
“All you had to do was ask.”
He shook his head. “The problem was timing. Until recently I wasn’t sure it was wise for us to meet. I’ve been debating that issue since you started asking questions.”
He coughed, tapped his Adam’s apple. “But today, when you visited my sister, you made the decision for me. Things had to be done quickly and carefully. So once again, I’ll apologize for the way you were brought here, and hope we can put that to rest and move on.”
I could still feel the chafe of the cuffs around my wrists, thought of the copter ride, mainlining fear while waiting for Hummel and his golf cart, fingers up my ass.
Cute little dance, son. I knew my rage would weaken me if I let it take over.
“Move on to what?” I said, smiling.
“Our discussion.”
“Of what?”
“Please, doctor,” he rasped, “don’t waste precious time being coy.”
“Short on time, are you?”
“Very much so.”
Another staring match. His gaze never wavered but his eyes lost focus and I sensed he was somewhere else.
“Thirty years ago,” he said, “I had the opportunity to witness an atomic test conducted jointly by the Magna Corporation and the U.S. Army. A festive event, by invitation only, out in the Nevada desert. We spent the night in Las Vegas, had a wonderful party, and drove out before sunrise. The bomb went off just as the skies lightened—a supercharged sunrise. But something went wrong: a sudden shift in the winds and all of us were exposed to radioactive dust. The army said there was little risk of contamination—no one thought much about it until fifteen years ago, when the cancers began appearing. Three quarters of those present that morning are dead. Several others are terminally ill. It’s only a matter of time for me.”
I studied his well-fed face, all that glowing bronze dermis, said, “You look healthier than I do.”
“Do I sound healthy?”
I didn’t answer.
“Actually,” he said, “I am healthy. For the time being. Low cholesterol, excellent lipids, a heart as strong as a blast furnace. A few lumps in my esophagus removed surgically last year, no evidence of spread.” He pulled down the collar of the turtleneck, exposed a hot-pink, puckered scar.
“Delicate skin, I develop keloid scars—do you suppose I should bother with plastic surgery?”
“That’s up to you.”
“I’ve considered it, but it seems such a foolish conceit. The cancer’s bound to return. Ironically, the treatment includes radiation. Not that treatment has made much of a difference for any of the others.”
He folded his collar back in place. Tapped his Adam’s apple.
“What about Belding?” I said. “Was he exposed?”
He smiled, shook his head. “Leland was protected. As always.”
Still smiling, he opened a desk drawer, took out a small plastic squeeze bottle and shot some kind of atomized spray down his throat. He deep-swallowed a couple of times, put the bottle back, reclined in his chair, and smiled wider.
I said, “What is it you want to discuss?”
“Matters that seem to interest you. I’m willing to satisfy your curiosity on condition that you stop turning over rocks. I know your intentions are honorable but you don’t realize how destructive you could be.”
“I don’t see how I could add to the destruction that’s already taken place.”
“Dr. Delaware, I want to leave this earth knowing everything’s been done to cushion certain individuals.”
“Such as your sister? Isn’t cushioning her what caused all of it, Mr. Vidal?”
“No, that’s incorrect—but then, you’ve seen only part of the picture.”
“And you’re going to show me all of it?”
“Yes.” Cough. “But you must give your word that you’ll stop probing, let things finally rest.”
“Why pretend that I have a choice?” I said. “If I don’t give you what you want, you can always squash me. The way you squashed Seaman Cross, Eulalee and Cable Johnson, Donald Neurath, the Kruses.”
He was amused. “You believe I’ve destroyed all those people?”
“You, Magna, what’s the difference?”
“Ah. Corporate America as Satan Incarnate.”
“Just this particular corporation.”
His laugh was feeble and breathy. “Doctor, even if I did have an interest in … squashing you, I wouldn’t. You’ve acquired a certain … aura of grace.”
“Oh?”
“Oh, yes. Someone cared deeply about you. Someone lovely and kind—dear to both of us.”
Not dear enough to stop him from erasing her identity.
I said, “I saw that someone talking to you at the party. She wanted something from you. What?”
The pale eyes closed. He pressed his fingers to his temples.
I said, “From Holmby Hills to Willow Glen. Five hundred dollars a month, in an unmarked envelope. Doesn’t sound as if she was that dear to you.”
He opened his eyes. “Five hundred? Is that what Helen told you?” He produced another wheezy laugh, wheeled his chair back, put his feet on the desk. He wore black silk corduroy slacks, tan lambskin kilties with argyle socks. The soles of the shoes were polished, unmarked, as if they’d never touched the ground.
“All right,” he said. “Enough shilly-shallying. Tell me what it is you think you know—I’ll correct y
our misconceptions.”
“Meaning you find out how much trouble I could cause you, then act accordingly.”
“I understand how you could see it that way, Doctor. But what I’m really after is preventive education—giving you the whole picture, so that you no longer have any need to cause trouble.”
Silence.
He said, “If my offer doesn’t appeal to you, I’ll have you flown back home immediately.”
“What are my chances of arriving there alive?”
“One hundred percent. Barring acts of God.”
“Or God pretending to be the Magna Corporation.”
He laughed. “I’ll try to remember that one. What is it then, Doctor? The choice is yours.”
I was at his mercy. Going along meant learning more. And buying time. I said, “Go ahead, educate me, Mr. Vidal.”
“Excellent. Let’s do it like gentlemen, over supper.” He pushed something on the desk front. The gun display wall half-rotated, revealing a closet-sized passageway with a screen door that he opened to fresh air.
We stepped onto a long, covered patio, supported by gray-brown turned-wood columns and paved with rust-colored Mexican tile. Thick-trunked bougainvillea rooted in clay pots wound their way around the columns and up to the roof, where they spread. Straw baskets of donkey-tail and jade plant hung from the rafters. A large round table was covered with sky-blue damask and set for two: earthenware dishes, hammered-silver flatware, crystal goblets, a centerpiece of dried herbs and flowers. He’d been sure of my “choice.”
A Mexican waiter appeared from nowhere and held out my chair. I walked past him, crossed the patio, and stepped out into the open air. The sun’s position said dusk was approaching, but the heat was midday strong.
I stepped back far enough from the building to take it in entirely: long, low, single-storied, textured mock-adobe walls, windows trimmed with the same gray-brown wood used for the columns. Flagstone walkways cut a swath through an acre or two of lawn bordered by yellow gazania. Beyond the grass was dry dust and an empty horse corral. Past the corral, more dust, miles of it, the biscuit-colored monotony broken only by clumps of aloe and Joshua tree, and paint-by-number splotches of ashen shadow.
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