"Who's Bruno Hauptmann in our story? Who is Soneji trying to set up?9' Jezzie called out over the wind.
Was Jezzie trying to give me her own alibi? Was it possible that she'd been framed by Soneji somehow? That would be the ultimate... But how? And why?
“Gary Murphy is Bruno Hauptmann,” I told her, because I thought I knew the answer. "He's the one
Gary Soneji cleverly framed. He was convicted and went to jail, and he's innocent."
We talked back and forth for the first half hour of the ride. Then it got quiet for mile after mile of open highway.
We were both off in our own private worlds. I found myself just holding on to her back. I was remembering different things about us. Feeling so bad inside; wanting all the feeling to stop. I knew that she was a psychopath, just like Gary. No conscience. I believed that business, the government, Wall Street were filled with people like that. No regret for their actions. Not unless they got caught. Then the crocodile tears started. “What if we go away again?” I finally asked Jezzie the question I'd been working up to. “Go down to the Virgin Islands again? I need it.”
I wasn't sure if she'd heard me. Then Jezzie said, "All right. I'd like some time in the sun. The islands it is.
I moved in behind her on the speeding motorcycle. The deed was done. We streaked through the beautiful countryside, but all the blurred passing scenes, everything that was happening now, hurt my head and it wouldn't stop hurting.
Along Came A Spider
CHAPTER 81
AGGIE ROSE Dunne wanted to live more than anything else. She understood that now.
She wanted her life to return to the way it had been. She wanted to see her mother and father so much. To see all of her friends, her Washington and Los Angeles friends, but especially Michael. What had happened to Shrimpie Goldberg? Had they let him go? Had he been ransomed, but for some reason she hadn't?
Maggie worked picking vegetables every day, and the work was hard, but, most of all, the work was the most boring thing she could ever imagine doing. She had to put her mind somewhere else during the long days under the burning sun. She just had to get her mind off what she was doing, and where she was.
Nearly a year and a half after the kidnapping, Maggie Rose Dunne escaped from where they were hiding her.
She had disciplined herself to wake up early every morning, before any of the others. She did this for weeks
446 before she tried anything. It was still dark outside, but she knew the sun would start to rise in almost an hour. Then it would be so hot.
She went into the kitchen in her bare feet, holding her work shoes in her hand. If they caught her now, she could say she was only going to the bathroom. Her bladder was full, a precaution she'd taken in case she was caught.
They'd told her that she would never escape, not even if she got out of that particular village. It was over fifty miles to another town, in any direction she chose. So they told her.
The mountains were full of snakes and dangerous cats. Sometimes she heard the cats growl at night. She would never make it to another town. They told her that.
And if they did catch her, they would put her under the ground for at least a year. Did she remember what it was like being buried? Never seeing the light for days at a time?
The kitchen door was locked. She had learned where t I he key was kept with a lot of other rusty old keys in a tool closet. Maggie Rose took the key, and also a small hammer to use as a weapon. She slid the hammer under the elastic of her shorts.
Maggie used the key for the kitchen door. It opened, and she was outside. For the first time in so long, she was free. Her heart soared like the hawks she sometimes saw flying high over the hiding place. Just the act of walking by herself felt so good. Maggie Rose walked for several miles. She had decided to go downhill, rather than up the mountains-even though of the children swore there was a town not far in at direction.
She had taken two hard rolls from the kitchen and she snacked on them through the early morning. It started to get warm as the sun rose. By ten o'clock, it was quite hot. She had been following a dirt road for miles, not walking in the road, but staying close enough. She always kept the road in sight.
She walked on through the long afternoon, amazed that her strength held up in the heat. Maybe all the hard work in the fields had paid off. She was stronger now than she had ever been. She had muscles everywhere.
Late in the afternoon, Maggie Rose could see the town as she continued down the Mountainside. It was bigger and more modern than where she had been kept for so many months.
Maggie Rose started to run down the final hills. The dirt road finally intersected with a concrete one. A real road. Maggie followed the road a short distance, and then there was a gas station. It was an ordinary gas station. SHELL, the sign said. She'd never seen anything more beautiful in her life.
Maggie Rose looked up and the man was there.
He asked her if she felt all right. He always called her Bobbi, and she kn I ew that the man cared about her a little. Maggie told him that she was fine. She had just been lost in a thought.
Maggie Rose didn't tell him that she'd been making up stories again, wonderful fantasies to help her escape from her pain.
Along Came A Spider
CHAPTER 82
RY SONEJI/MURPHY undoubtedly still had his aster plan. Now, I had mine. The question was: ow well could I finish mine off? How powerful was my resolve to succeed, no matter what the human cost? How far was I willing to go? How close to the edge?
The trip to Virgin Gorda began in Washington, D.C., on a bleak, rainy Friday morning. It was about fifty degrees. Under normal circumstances, I couldn't have gotten out of there fast enough.
We had to change to a three-engine Trislander in sundrenched Puerto Rico. By three-thirty in the afternoon, Jezzie and I were gliding down toward a white sandy beach, a narrow landing strip bordered by tall palms swaying in the sea breeze.
“There it is,” she said from the seat beside me. “There's our place in the sun, Alex. I could stay here for about a month.”
“It does look like what the doctor ordered,” I had to
449 agree. We'd soon see about that. We'd see how long the two of us wanted to be alone together.
“This weary traveler wants to be in that water. Not looking down at it,” Jezzie said. “Exist on fish and fruit. Swim till we drop.”
“That's what we came here for, isn't it? Fun in the sun? Make all the bad guys go away?”
“Everything is good, Alex. It can be. Just go with it a little.” Jezzie always sounded so sincere. I almost wanted to believe her.
As the door of the Trislander opened, the fragrant smells of the Caribbean breezed in. Warm air rushed over the nine of us inside the small plane. Everybody was decked out in sunglasses and brightly colored T-shirts. Smiles broke out on nearly every face. I forced a smile, too.
Jezzie took my hand. Jezzie was right there-and yet she wasn't. Everything seemed dreamlike to me. What was happening now... couldn't be happening.
Black men and women with British accents took us through a sort of relaxed minicustoms. Neither Jezzie's nor my bags were searched. This had actually been prearranged with the help of the U.S. State Department Inside my bag was a small-caliber revolver-loaded and ready.
“Alex, I still love it here,” Jezzie said as we approached the tiny queue for taxis. Along with the cabs were a number of scooters, bicycles, dirty minivans. I wondered if we'd ever take. another motorcycle ride together again.
“Let's stay here forever,” she said. “Pretend we never have to leave. No more clocks, no radios, no news. ”
“I like the sound of that,” I told her. “We'll play 'let's pretend' for a while.”
You're on. Let's do it." She clapped her hands like a small child.
The island scene seemed unchanged since our last visit. This had probably been the case since the Rockefeller family began to buy up the island back in the 1950s.
Cruis
e ships and sailboats were collecting out on the sparkling sea. We passed small restaurants and shops for snorkeling gear. The brightly painted one-story homes all had TV antennas sticking from their rooftops. Our place in the sun. Paradise iezzie and I had time to catch a swim at the hotel. We showed off a little. We stretched our bodies, racing out and back to a distant reef. I remembered our first swim together. The hotel pool in Miami Beach. The beginning of her act.
Afterward, we sprawled on the beach. We watched the sun drop down onto the horizon, bleed into it, then disappear from sight.
“D6jA vu, Alex.” Jezzie smiled. “Just like before. Or did I dream that?”
“It's different now,” I said, then quickly added, “We didn't know each other so well before.”
What was Jezzie really thinking? I knew that she must have a p Ian now, too. I figured she knew I was on to Devine and Chakely. She needed to know what I planned to do about them.
A young black stud, muscular and trim in his white bathing suit and crisp hotel T-shirt, carried pifia coladas down to our beach chairs.
Let's play “pretend” didn't get any better than this.
“Is this your honeymoon?” He was loose and carefree enough to joke with us.
“It's our second honeymoon,” Jezzie told him.
“Well, enjoy it doubly,” said the smiling beach waiter.
The slowdown pace of the island took over eventually. We had dinner at the hotel's pavilion restaurant. More eerie d6 A vu for the two of us. Sitting there in the perfect Caribbean surroundings, I believe that I felt more duplicitous, and completely unreal, than I had in my entire life.
I watched the grilled pompano and grouper and turtle come and go. I listened to the reggae band get ready. And all the while, I was thinking that this beautiful woman beside me had let Michael Goldberg die. I was also certain she had murdered Maggie Rose Dunne, or at least been an accomplice. She'd never shown a hint of remorse.
Somewhere back in the States was her share of the ten-million-dollar ransom. But Jezzie was smart enough to let me “split” the trip expenses with her. “Right down the middle, Alex. No free fides here, okay?”
She ate island lobster and an appetizer plate of shark bites. She drank two ales at dinner. Jezzie was so smooth and smart. In a way, she was even scarier than Gary Soneji/Murphy.
What do you talk about to a murderer, and someone you loved, over a perfect dinner and cocktails? I wanted to know so many things, but I couldn't ask any of the real-questions pounding in my head. Instead, we talked of the coming vaca tion days, a “plan” for the here and now in the islands '
I stared across the dining table at Jezzie and I thought that she had never looked more physically striking. She kept tucking her blond hair behind one ear. It was such a familiar and intimate gesture, that nervous tic. What was Jezzie nervous and concerned about? How much did she know?
I 'All right, Alex,“ she finally said. ”Do you want to tell me what we're really doing on Virgin Gorda? Is there another agenda working here?"
I had prepared myself for the question, but it still took me by surprise. She had fired it in beautifully. I was ready to lie. I could rationalize what I had to do. I just couldn't make myself feel particularly good about it.
“I wanted us to be able to talk, to really talk to each other. Maybe for the first time, Jezzie. ” Tears started in the comers of Jezzie's eyes. They slowly ran down her cheeks. Shiny streams in the candlelight.
“I love you, Alex,” Jezzie whispered. “It's just that-it will always be so hard for the two of us. It's been hard so far. ”
“Are you saying the world isn't ready for us?” I asked her. “Or aren't we ready for the world?”
“I don't know which of those is fight. Does it matter that it's just so hard?”
We walked along the beach after dinner, down toward a ship-wrecked galleon. The picturesque wreck was about a quarter of a mile from the main pavilion restaurant. The beach appeared to be deserted.
There was some moonlight, but it got darker as we approached the fallen ship. Shredded pieces of clouds streamed across the sky. Finally, Jezzie was little more than a dark shape beside me. Everything about the moment made me extremely uncomfortable. I had left my gun in the room.
“Alex. ” Jezzie had stopped walking. At first, I thought she'd heard something, and I looked over my shoulder. I knew Soneji/Murphy couldn't be down here. Was it possible I could be wrong?
“I was wondering,” Jezzie said, “thinking about something from the investigation, and I don't want to. Not down here.”
“What's bothering you?” I asked her.
“You stopped talking to me about the investigation. How did you wind up with Chakely and Devine?”
“Well, since you brought the subject up,” I said to her, “I'll tell you. You were right all the time about the two of them. Another stone-cold dead end. Now. Let's have a real vacation. We've both earned it.”
Along Came A Spider
CHAPTER 83
TARY SONIFJI/MURPHY watched, and his mind wan dered. His mind traveled all the way back to the rfect Lindbergh kidnapping.
He could still picture Lucky Lindy. The lovely Anne Morrow Lindbergh. Baby Charles Jr. in his crib, up in the second-story nursery of the farmhouse in Hopewell, New Jersey. Those were the days, my friends. Fantasy days at their best.
What was he actually watching in the much more banal here and now?
First, there, was the pair of FBI goonigans in a black Buick Skylark. A male and a female goonie, to be precise, who were on stakeout duty. They were certainly hannless enough. No problem for him there. No challenge whatsoever.
Next, there was the modern high-rise building where agent Mike Devine still lived in Washington. The Hawthome, it was called. After Nathaniel, of the dark, brooding heart? Rooftop pool and sun deck, garage
455 parking, concierge service around the clock. Very nice digs for the ex-agent. And the FBI goons were watching the building as if it might sprout wings and fly away.
A few minutes past ten o'clock that morning, a Federal Express deliveryman entered the chichi apartment building.
Moments later, dressed in the Federal Express uniform and carrying actual packages for two tenants in the Hawthorne, Gary Soneji/Murphy pushed the buzzer for 17J. Avon calling!
When Mike Devine opened the door, Soneji sprayed him with the same strong chloroform potion he'd used on Michael Goldberg and Maggie IZose Dunne. Fair is fair.
Just like the two children, Devine crumpled onto the wall-to-wall carpeting in his foyer. Rock music played from inside the apartment. The inimitable Bonnie Raitt. “Let's Give Them Something to Talk About.”
Agent Devine woke up after several minutes. He was woozy and had double vision. All of his clothes had been stripped off. He was totally confused and disoriented.
He was propped up in the bathtub, with cold water halfway to the fim. His ankles were handcuffed to the faucet handles.
“What the fuck is this?” His first words came out slurred and sloppy. He felt as if he'd had about a dozen highballs.
“This is an extremely sharp knife.” Gary Soneji/ Murphy bent over and showed off his Bowie hunting knife. “Watch this graphic demonstration. Focus those big blurry blue eyes of yours now. Fo-cus, Michael.”
Gary Soneji/Murphy barely nicked the former agent's upper arm with the knife. Devine cried out. A dangerouslooking three-inch cut opened up instantly. Blood flowed into the cold, swirling bathwater.
“Not another peep,” Soneji warned. He brandished the knife, threatening Devine with another nick. “This isn't exactly the Sensor razor from Gillette or the Schick Tracer. More like scratch and bleed. So please, be careful. ”
“Who are you?” Devine attempted to speak again. He was still slurring badly. “Whoreyou?” he said.
“Please allow me to introduce myself, I am a man of wealth and taste,” Soneji said. All right, yes, he was giddy with success. The prospects for his future were shining so bright again.
/>
Devine was even more confused now.
"That's from 'Sympathy for the Devil.' The Stones? I'm Gary Soneji/Murphy. Excuse the tacky deliveryboy uniform, the rather crude disguise. But I'm in sort of a hurry, don't you know. It's a pity, because I've been wanting to meet you for months. You rascal, you.
“What the hell do you want?” Devine struggled to maintain some of his authority, in spite of the very dicey circumstances.
“Cut to the chase, hmmmm. Okay, good. Because I am seriously rushed. Now. You have two very clear choices. ONE-I'll have to cut off your penis here and now, put it in your mouth as a convenient gag, and then torture you with little flesh cuts, hundreds of cuts, starting with the face and neck, until you tell me what I need to know. All fight so far? Am I being clear? repeat-choice number one: painful torture leading vitably to exsanguination. ”
Devine's head involuntarily leaned back away from the looming madman. His vision was clearing, unfortunately. His eyes, in fact, were wide open. Gary Soneji/ Murphy? In his apartment? With a hunting knife?
“SECOND OP'FION,” the madman continued to rant in his face. “I am going to get the truth from you right now. Then I'll go get my money, wherever you've stashed it. I'll come back and kill you, but nicely-no theatrics. Who knows, you might even manage to escape while I'm gone. That's doubtful, but hope springs eternal. I have to tell you, Michael, that's the option I'd choose. ”
Mike Devine was clearheaded enough to make the correct choice, too. He told Soneji/Murphy where his share of the ransom money was. It was fight there in Washington. Gary Soneji/Murphy believed him, but then, who could really tell about these things. He was dealing with a police officer, after all.
Gary paused at the apartment door on his way out. In his best Arnold Schwarzenegger/Tenninator voice, he said, “I'll be back!”
Actually, he was feeling exceptionally good about things today. He was solving the goddamned kidnapping himself. He was playing policeman, and it was kind of neat. The plan was going to work. Just like he'd always known it would.
Alex Cross 1 - Along Came A Spider Page 30
