The Inverted Pyramid (An Alex Vane Media Thriller, Book 2)

by A. C. Fuller

  7:06 p.m.

  As Greta put her phone back in her yoga bag, it rang. Alex.

  "Hey baby," she said. "Have you forgiven me?"

  "For what?"

  "Going to yoga?"

  "Where are you?"

  "On my way, right now. Aren't you home?"

  "Turn around. Go home."

  "We talked about this."

  "No, I. . . out of . . . James . . . Bice is—" The line was cutting in and out.

  "Alex, I can't hear you? The line is bad." She walked away from the buildings and in between the cars parked along the street. "Alex?"

  "Can you hear me now?"

  "Yeah, Bice what?"

  "Bice is in the city. Right now. He's at your yoga class. Get in a taxi and go home."

  Greta stopped walking and looked up and down the block for a taxi. Then it hit her.

  Camila.

  "Alex," she yelled into the phone. "I'm not there yet, but Camila is."

  She let the phone drop away from her ear and started running north.

  7:09 p.m.

  Alex scanned 155th Street for a taxi. James and Lance were jogging up behind him, but he bolted when he saw a cab halfway down the block. It turned before he could reach it.

  At the corner of 155th and Amsterdam, he spotted another one and waved it down. He darted through traffic, and once inside the taxi, he said, "Washington Heights. 171st Street and Amsterdam. Wait for those two."

  He waved toward James and Lance, who were running up behind the taxi, as he pulled out his phone. They slid in, pushing him up against the door on the far side. The driver took off as Alex dug out the card of the NYPD detective he and James had met with the day before.

  He dialed the number. "C'mon, c'mon," he said to himself as the taxi turned north up Amsterdam. After four rings, the detective answered, and Alex almost shouted into the phone. "Detective. Alex Vane. I know where Bice is."

  57

  7:09 p.m

  A light rain had started to fall, and the patter on the roof of the car broke the silence. Bice held the gun in his right hand, pressing it low into Camila's side.

  "Why did you come here tonight?" she asked.

  Bice felt the pressure building in his head as he tried to draw up memories of his mother. Her hair was blonde, he knew that, but he couldn't see it. Maybe it had been dirty blonde.

  He stared into Camila's dark brown, almost black eyes, wondering why his mother hadn't protected him against his father. Where was she? What had she been doing?

  "I came to shoot Greta," he said.

  "Greta? Why?"

  "Were you texting her?"

  "I was. She's not coming anymore. If you want to kill someone, it will have to be me."

  Bice rummaged through her purse with his left hand until he found her phone. After reading her last few texts, he said, "I knew you were lying."

  He stared out the window toward the subway exit.

  "She's always late," she said. "Why don't we talk?"

  The voice was back, not any louder, but screechier than ever before. Like a siren that stretched from ear to ear around the back of his head. Bad-bad-bad.

  He raised the gun slightly and pressed it into her ribs. "I need to think! Don't talk to me."

  "You know what I'm wondering about?" she asked. "That bible quote you read to Alex."

  "I didn't read it. I memorized it."

  "John 12:25. I'm thinking that you've probably been struggling with it for a long time."

  He thrust her phone at her. "Text Greta. Find out how far away she is."

  "I've been thinking about that verse ever since Alex mentioned it to me. But I don't think it means what you think it means."

  Bice felt a knot growing in his stomach. His eyes darted from the window to Camila and back.

  "You have it all wrong," she said.

  Eyes still on the street, gun pressed into her side, he jerked his left arm around and punched her in the stomach. "I said stop talking to me!"

  She doubled over and coughed, then sat back up. "You think it has to do with suicide," she continued in a strong but wheezing voice. "That you shouldn't kill yourself, because then you'll be stuck with your life forever. That your miserable existence here on earth will continue forever in hell."

  Bice let the gun drop a little and looked at her timidly. She was staring right at him. Right into him, he felt.

  "Am I right?" she asked.

  "Yes," was all he could manage.

  "And you think that Alex will ascend to heaven, will lose his earthly life forever?"

  "Yes."

  "That's not what it means." She'd regained her breath. "It means that the more you value your temporal existence, the less likely you are to get into heaven. By valuing life on this earth, and prioritizing it over the eternal, you are denying God, denying the ultimate value of heaven. But by hating life, in the sense of recognizing the temporary nature of the body, of this life on earth, we keep our eye on the prize, so to speak. Heaven."

  Bice set the gun gently on his thigh.

  "You had it backwards, Denver. With all his superficiality and enjoyment of life, Alex is the one who's going to hell, according to the quote. Not that I believe in hell, exactly, but that's my reading of it, anyway."

  The knot in his stomach was gone. He felt light, almost relaxed, and the memories were coming faster now. Her hair was dirty blonde. He could see her, lying on the couch in the living room of their Connecticut farmhouse. The front door open. A cool breeze.

  "When I first got in the car, why did you say that about your mother?" she asked.

  "I—"

  "I read the letter you wrote to Martha Morelli. I know that your mother allowed what your father did to you."

  "I wanted Alex to read it."

  "I know. And I know what it's like when a father hits a child. I know what it does." She paused. "It's not your fault."

  He remembered before the suicide. Before the beatings. Before the drinking. A glance between his parents in the cold, gray kitchen, wind whistling outside.

  "Do you hear me? It wasn't your fault."

  Another memory came. His mother, in a thin cotton nightdress, walking across a creaking floor. He was in bed. She was tucking him in.

  Camila said, "I'm sure she did the best she could, but it wasn't good enough."

  Another. A smile from his mother. He'd found a nickel in the couch, and she'd said he could keep it. She'd smiled at him, and he'd felt the glow of being approved of by the one who mattered most.

  Bice stared through the windshield, eyes unfocused, remembering.

  "What are you feeling?" Camila asked.

  He looked at her, and she was looking at the gun.

  "Greta's not coming, is she?"

  "She would have been here by now. Maybe someone warned her. Maybe the police know you're here. Maybe she got lost or just bailed. But it doesn't matter now."

  "No, it doesn't. I feel a little better."

  58

  7:19 p.m.

  The taxi stopped abruptly at a red light on Amsterdam and 170th.

  "Pay him," Alex said to Lance. "I'm not waiting for the light."

  He sprang from the taxi and sprinted up Amsterdam, leaping puddles and curbs and dodging pedestrians. He hadn't paused long enough to have a single rational thought, but as he turned onto 171st, he was overcome with a full-body desire to hang onto Greta and the baby, and never let them go.

  He scanned the street.

  He'd never been to the yoga studio with Greta, but he knew it was in an old church that had been converted into offices and businesses in the gentrification process of the last few years.

  He saw it halfway up the block and took off again.

  When he reached the steps out front, he took out his phone while making a three-hundred-sixty-degree turn, focusing for a second on every face.

  The rain was picking up, and mixed with his sweat, it was blurring his vision. He blinked furiously, turning in all directions, looking fo
r Greta.

  Nothing.

  He began up the steps, three at a time.

  Then he heard her. "Alex!"

  The call was faint, coming from far behind him. At the top of the steps he swiveled around and saw Greta, half a block away, in a full sprint toward him.

  59

  7:20 p.m

  "I'm glad you feel a little better," Camila said. "Why don't you put the gun on the floor, or in the glove compartment?"

  "Do you remember the time we met?" Bice asked.

  The voice was still there, but it had faded into the background just a little. The pressure in his mind had softened slightly, and his vision was blurry.

  "Vaguely."

  "You were with John Martin, at Mac's funeral."

  "I remember."

  "Do you remember what we talked about?"

  "Of course I do. That was the conversation that got John killed."

  "It was. But do you know what I was thinking about the whole time?"

  Camila didn't respond.

  "I was thinking about getting a blow job from you in the back seat of my limo."

  His eyes began to focus and he stared into her eyes.

  Her face was expressionless.

  "Do you know why?"

  "No."

  "I haven't had a woman I didn't pay for since Martha. It's easier that way. No attachment, no hassle. But I always wanted a nice girl, a smart girl. A professor type, like you. Like Martha. Someone to want me again. To love me again."

  "That makes sense," she said. "Every man wants that. Every person wants that." She paused until he met her eyes. "You can still get that. Put the gun on the floor, and I'll tell you how."

  He placed the gun between his feet on the black mat.

  "Martha loved you," she said. "She did. In her book, she wrote poems about you."

  "You're lying."

  "I'm not. She wrote about how you made love by the window in her apartment in New Orleans—how the magnolia tree was coming in through the window. I feel like I got to know you through her poems."

  "I—"

  "She felt terrible about leaving you. She did love you."

  Camila reached her hand out and put it on his leg.

  He tensed up at first and leaned away slightly.

  She said, "You know that a blow job is not going to happen. And it's not even what you want. You know that, right?"

  "I know."

  "But can you feel this? Just this, between us. We're both here, right now. Nothing else. You're not paying me. You're not forcing me."

  He could feel it. The pants against his flesh under her hand. His whole leg relaxed as if melting into a puddle.

  "None of what happened when you were a boy is your fault. And it's not too late to change."

  He smiled, feeling her hand on his leg. Warm and pleasant. He hadn't felt anything like it since Martha. It was like a bright light was shining on the point of contact between her hand and his leg, and in that one point on earth, everything was finally alright.

  But the rest of him felt even darker and denser, more rigid and horrifying in comparison. As though that tiny, brilliant crack of light was shining on just how dark the world was. On how dark he was. On what he'd done to Mac. To Demarcus Downton. To John Martin. To Bhootbhai. And, of course, Allister Vane and Martha Morelli.

  "I'm working on a book," Camila said. "It's about human connection. I feel like I'm just getting how important it is. About how what we're seeking on our screens is really something we needed to get as babies. I was actually talking about this just a few days ago with Alex."

  Bice flinched slightly when he heard the name, but she kept her hand steady on his leg and he relaxed again. "I was talking about that with James as well," Bice said, weakly. "About how technology is changing journalism."

  "And imagine when the screens get better. Some have cameras now, and soon that will be video. And at some point, they will have Web browsers, like Netscape. No one will ever look up from his lap again. One day, you'll be sitting in a coffee shop, staring down at a text or a photo, and the real person will walk in, and you won't know what to do. You will have forgotten how to talk with them. You'll be like, 'What are you doing here? You're supposed to exist only in my phone.'" As she said it, she removed her hand from his leg and gave a kind of shrug, mimicking confusion.

  As her hand left his leg, the dark, sick feeling overwhelmed him and his body seized in a violent contraction. Bad-bad-bad-bad.

  Memories of all the worst things he'd done raced through his body, as though pouring from the depths of hell. In his head, the voice was screeching, clawing at his mind, dissonant and raw. Bad-bad-bad-bad.

  "Denver, what's going on?"

  She reached for his leg, but he shoved her away with his right hand, then leaned down to grab the gun off the floor with his left. Bad-bad-bad-bad. "This is your fault," he hissed, desperate to quiet the voice.

  Before he knew what he was doing, he'd taken the gun into his right hand, pressed it into the right side of Camila's chest, and fired.

  A loud sucking sound came from her chest as she slammed back into the car door.

  Her head thudded against the window. Her mouth opened wide, trying to bring in air.

  He stared at her for a moment, realizing in an instant that he'd made a mistake. Shooting her hadn't quieted the voice, and he needed to be punished.

  He began counting to twenty in his mind, slowly at first, then more quickly as the voice grew louder and louder, finally becoming a single note, like a broken whistle, piercing his brain.

  Baaaaaaaaaadddddddddddd.

  When he hit twenty, he put the gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

  60

  7:23 p.m

  Alex ran into Greta's arms halfway up the block. "Why did you come, I said—"

  "Cam . . . ila." She looked around frantically. She was panting, her face red. "Camila is here. Inside. Or somewhere."

  A taxi stopped next to them, and James and Lance jumped out.

  Then he heard the shot. Alex jumped back, then spotted the black Lincoln about fifty yards away.

  About twenty seconds later, he heard a second shot and watched an explosion of glass fly from the window and disappear into the heavy rain.

  61

  News Scoop Office, West 160th Street, Washington Heights, Thursday, September 23, 2004

  James sat at his desk and opened the laptop Innerva had given him. He opened the e-mail program and a new message popped up.

  From: polly@s134dbs.in

  To: james@s134dbs.in

  Subject: Are you coming?

  I thought more about our conversation, and I'm more convinced than ever that we need to do this, James. We've stumbled upon the future of journalism, and, though I agreed not to release any of the documents relating to Bush and Kerry—out of respect for your wishes and your friends—from here on out it's radical transparency.

  I'm going to do this, and I want you to join me. Together, we can be the ones that bring the corruption, the scandals, and the hypocrisy to light. We will be the first international data-leak journalists.

  I'll be in India until three days from now. If you want to meet me, you need to leave tonight.

  Call me.

  IS

  James opened a program called FreePhone and found Innerva's contact, which she'd programmed in before giving James the laptop.

  The computer let out a few tinny rings, then she answered. "Are your friends there?" she asked.

  The line was operating on a slight delay, but the sound of her voice relaxed him. "No, I'm alone. The woman you met, Camila. She was shot two days ago."

  "I've heard, James, and I'm sorry. She seemed nice."

  "I saw her earlier today. She's alive, and it looks like she will be alright. Alex is at the hospital now."

  After a long silence, Innerva asked, "Have you decided?"

  He felt his throat tighten. He didn't want to disappoint her, and he didn't want to disappoint Alex. "I c-can
't do it. I started this company with Alex and Lance."

  "And what do you want?"

  He heard her breathing on the line and stared into the screen, waiting.

  "There's more out there," she said. "Doing this has made me see how much more. Bush, Kerry, they're inconsequential. There are bigger stories to tell."

  "I know," he said, and he had to admit that she was right.

  Despite the story in The Times, the election was moving forward as though nothing had happened. There were rumors that the Department of Justice was going to investigate Plutarch Capital, but James had little doubt that, by the time they found anything, Gathert would have retired with his vast wealth and passed his goals along to someone else.

  He and Alex could add their personal angle to the story in the coming days, but it wasn't going to have the type of impact he'd hoped for.

  "James, do you hear my voice? I'm going to do this. I want you to join me. We can do it together."

  "I-I-I—"

  "James, listen to me. Remember Kaleja mooh ko Alana? You can stop stuttering. I am here with you. There's nothing to be nervous about."

  "I don't know," he said. "Alex and Lance . . ."

  "They can continue without you. You have bigger things ahead. And from where you are, you'll be able to help them."

  "How?"

  "If you feel guilty, you can send them a story every now and then. We will have information that no journalist has. That no one has."

  "If I come with you, where would we start?"

  "First, we'd set up somewhere secure, with servers all around the world. Untraceable. Next, we'd recruit a few more members. Then, we'd unleash the dragons on everyone and everything that is corrupt in this world. I have money to get us started."

  He looked around the office. He studied the gleaming floors, the couch, his three monitors.

  "James, are you there?"

  "I'm here."

  "What do you say?"

  He stood up and put both hands on the desk. He leaned in, speaking quietly with his mouth right next to the microphone. "If I don't leave now, I won't leave," he said. "I can't look Alex and Lance in the eye and tell them."