by Farris, John
". . . I guess so. Las Vegas. I don't remember."
"He saw a show; I believe it was Lincoln Grayle?"
"Oh. The magician. Yes. He enjoyed the show very much. And meeting Mr. Grayle afterward. You see, Jimmy was a Lucky Ticket holder."
"So Jimmy was interested in magic?"
"Well. Not that I recall. He likes sports." Rita Nixon took a long breath. Her right hand trembled. "Jimmy doesn't like to talk about himself."
"He's not a talker, but he is a doer," her father said. "Whatever you ask of him, Jimmy gets the job done. You never hear a whine out of Jimmy, like so many kids these days. Nothing's ever good enough for 'em."
Gruvver kept his eyes on Rita Nixon. "Do you know if Jimmy was ever hypnotized? At a party, or—"
"What are you getting at, Officer?" Zetella interrupted.
"Detective. Mrs. Nixon?"
". . . Hypnotized? I don't know. I don't think so. Would anyone like more lemonade? Marge made it. I love you, Marge. I love you too, Powzie. Everything's going to be all right, I know it. Because otherwise. Simply can't. Bear it." She began breathing rapidly, too rapidly. Bloodless nostrils pinching in.
"Oh, darling," Marge said.
Matt Ronyak cleared his throat. "Thank you for your time, Mrs. Nixon. I'm sure that'll be all." He looked at Gruvver, who was looking at some tall hollyhocks that grew near the patio.
The detectives had lunch at a Hardee's where Memorial Drive passed under 285, the Interstate highway that circled Atlanta.
For the better part of their meal Lew Gruvver was silent, a finger lightly brushing the underside of his chin when he was in deep-think mode. Ronyak did his usual monologue about his missed opportunities in the business world.
"Six-seven years ago we could've taken out a second on the house and used some of that money Easter Belle's mama left her. Bought us that bankrupt AM station in Douglas County, reformatted it Hispanic. We'd have been the first in the Atlanta broadcast area. Hell, I seen it comin'. The construction trades brought 'em north. Now there's at least a quarter-million Hispanics live up here, a Mex restaurant in every shopping center, and half a dozen Spanish-language stations, all making good money. They even do the Braves games in Spanish now."
"Uh-huh."
Ronyak watched Gruvver and muffled a few belches with the back of his hand. The farts would come next. Lately he ate like a dog; chewing hurt his gums.
"Where did you think you were going with that notion about hypnosis? I believe it's common knowledge you can't hypnotize people to do something that's against their will, murder included."
"Uh-huh."
"So?"
Gruvver returned from his reverie with a heavy sigh, drank from his lukewarm glass of raspberry tea.
"Hypnosis seems innocent enough as a party game, but amateurs without meanin' to can surely mess up a mind that's on the edge of overload anyhow. And Jimmy might have had a high level of suggestibility."
"You think Jimmy Nixon was in a fuckin' trance when he killed Skeldon?"
"It could be more complicated than that. I majored in cultural anthropology, did my senior thesis on pathologies of communication—"
"Oh, no shit?" Ronyak said with a smile.
"—Took parallel courses in population genetics, cybernetics, mass psychology, and chaos theory at Georgia State—"
"Anthropology and mass psychology? Your ideal occupation would be running a strip club."
"It all comes in handy sometimes where I do pull my paycheck. Matt, what I know about Jimmy so far bothers hell out of me."
"We don't need to get too involved here" Ronyak cautioned yet again. "They laid Skeldon to rest this morning up there in Lumpkin County. Five thousand mourners and the Goodyear blimp. Chief, the Mayor, the goddamn Governor, they just want this one off the books, forget all the National Enquirer crap about cults and Dark Forces at work."
"Nothing that sinister."
"You said the devil."
"Devil's in all of us, dude. Nowadays he's called 'The Stress of Modern Living."'
"Clears that up."
"Jimmy snapped. Like you said."
"Then what was that stuff you were talking, the artistic brain?"
"Atavistic. Primal. The reptilian complex of the triune brain, which doesn't have the neural circuitry that allows us modern folk to cope with new situations. Reptilian mentality is instinctive, limited to flight or fight. 'Snapping' is another way of sayin' that Jimmy underwent a rapid personality change. Puberty can be chaotic. The hormone frenzy. Sexual, parental, and peer-group pressures. Man said once, 'Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.' My daddy had that on a bronze plaque on his desk. He was a bank loan officer, until stomach ulcers did him in."
"Mine was pretty well eat up by adult-onset diabetes."
"Think Jimmy didn't have a shitload of pressure on him, even if he didn't allow it to show? This's the age of information overload. Wars everywhere; atrocities, genocide, famine, disease. Economy's a loser, layoffs, no jobs. Global warming, disappearing rain forests, the poles are shifting, the ozone fuckin' layer's about to disappear, we'll all get skin cancer if terrorists with suitcase nukes don't get us first. Child pornographers, stalkers, rapists, politicians. Not necessarily in that order. Dirty water, air's worse, cows are crazy, can't eat meat. Bitch, moan, sob. Life's tough, school's tougher, football is a grind. Some of these high school coaches are sadistic morons. Summer camps, temperature on the fields around here can hit 130 degrees. Get tough, suck it up, God damn you, Nixon, dig; you wanta play football for me this year? Yes, sir, yes, sir.
"Now Jimmy, don't you know he could've been burdened with guilt notions about the divorce? My fault, shoulda done somethin', kept Mom and Dad together. So he's sittin' there in that arena for an hour listening to a famous and respected preacher pound it into his head that he's nothing but a guilty little shit, a sinner bound for hell because of his sins. Maybe that wasn't exactly Pledger Lee's style, but it's pretty much the same message with all of them. Come forth and open your heart to Jesus. Christ died for your sins. Come and be saved; you're nothin' without Him, a crispy critter. But Skeldon might've had the exact reverse effect on Jimmy—denial first, then extreme anger with at last something to focus it all on: this man down there who is tormenting him. Then snap, baby."
After a few moments Ronyak nodded.
"Okay. You're happy now, right? It all makes sense to you."
"Fact is, makes no sense a'tall."
Ronyak grimaced. "I need to use the bathroom. Fuckin' ice tea goes right through me."
"'Cause there have been two other cases recently of violent, animal like attacks on prominent religious figures. November seventh of last year in Chandrapur, India. A so-called Spiritual Master named Sai Rampa had his own throat ripped out by a twenty-four-year-old woman from Karlsruhe, Germany, who had previously worked as an au pair in the states, guess where? Vegas.
"In February the Dalai Lama, visiting some of the movie-star gong-beaters in Los Angeles, received a flesh wound on the chin when a nineteen-year-old Vietnamese kid made a try for him outside the Beverly Hilton. Misjudged his distance or maybe he stumbled on the red carpet trying to get to the Dalai Lama, then one of the LAPD Special Squad guys shot him through the head. The Veet kid was employed as a busboy in a hotel restaurant in—ready for this?—Las Vegas. Quit his job and took a bus to L.A. the same day the Dalai Lama arrived for his fund-raiser."
Gruvver sat back in the booth and considered Ronyak's lack of expression.
"I did a global on the M.O. before I came to work, couldn't sleep last night 'cause of the hair up my ass. Okay, the applause sign is flashing and I'm ready to take MY bow."
Ronyak stood slowly, as if his lower back was paining him. He glared at Lewis Gruvver.
"You are not going to say another damn word about this to anybody. Not now, not ever."
"You're not curious? Three major religious leaders, icons, you could say, two of them dead with their throats bitten through after
vicious attacks by, I'm reasonably sure, complete strangers to the victims?"
Ronyak leaned over and tapped a forefinger on the table, his face congested, cheeks reddening.
"Be a smart cop, Lew. But never a smart-ass. It's not our business. We don't need this."
"Matt. Have I done gone and scared the crap out of you?"
"Man, you just let it go!"
"I can let it go," Gruvver said. "But whatever it is, it ain't gonna go away."
Chapter 8
COLDSTREAM BRIDGE, CALIFORNIA
OCTOBER 11-12
On the first full day of her captivity, unusually warm and clear for coastal California north of Frisco, the Assassin took Betts Waring out behind the cottage of the two-hundred-acre farm he was leasing and showed her how the cervical collar that she wore around her neck would work should she decide to attempt an escape when he wasn't around.
He placed an identical collar on the neck of a dummy. He had painted sunflower eyes and a full smiling mouth on the stuffed head, giving it that little touch of personality. From a distance of twenty-five feet, using a wireless handheld detonator, he blew stuffing into the low branches of some oak trees and scattered the birds for a few minutes.
Betts, hands at her sides, flinched at the muffled explosion but watched the demonstration with narrowed eyes. Staying calm. Elevated blood pressure would strangle her in that tight collar.
"A car driving by with the radio tuned to the wrong AM station could set this one off by accident," she said, carefully fingering the padded collar that held her chin rigidly high. Her mouth was almost too dry to allow for speech, but her voice didn't waver. "Or haven't you thought about that?"
"Of course. My little road is gated and there are pitfalls if one doesn't know the way. The nearest state blacktop is three kilometers from the house, which does limit the possibility of accidental detonation." He paused, frowning. He hadn't put on any makeup this morning, not even a hairpiece. It was a grim business to look at his face for even a few seconds. Look him in the eyes, never. "But that was cunning of you, Betts. You've learned something you didn't know before. I wonder what other pertinent observations you've made so far?"
She had planned to say as little as possible to him, but now, having seen him blast the head off Sunflower Man, keeping silent might indicate she had been intimidated.
"Those are gulls over there, coasting above the hills. We had fog earlier. I can still smell the sea, so it's probably within a couple of miles. A lot of dried cow flop in the pasture we walked through, but I haven't heard any cows and the farm looks fallow, untenanted. The apple trees are overgrown and need a good pruning." Betts leaned back in order to look up at the sky. "We may be under a north—south flight path for commercial aviation. The plane that flew over us a couple of minutes ago was beneath FL20 and still climbing. So at a climb rate of about two thousand feet a minute for a heavy, it was only eight or ten minutes, say, from SF0." She caught his look. "A nephew of mine flies for American. The road you mentioned is probably the coast highway that jogs inland for a dozen miles before meeting the coast again at, I think, Bodega Bay. So the nearest town of any size is either Bodega or. . . Coldstream Bridge. I could use a drink of water."
"Certainly." The Assassin handed her the water bottle hooked to his belt. Betts squeezed some onto her dry tongue.
"What did you knock me out with?" she asked him.
"Nothing an oral surgeon wouldn't give you before a couple of difficult extractions. And later, a mild hypnotic to keep you blissfully asleep for twelve hours. By the way, what is that patch you wear under your right arm for?"
"High blood pressure." She hesitated, then added, "I've also had a couple of TIAs—transitory ischemic attacks."
"I see. That reminds me, with all that was going on up there at the lake; I never had the opportunity to express my condolences on the tragic loss of your husband. Was it his heart, Betts?"
"Yes." Betts had another squirt of water, rinsed her mouth, leaned toward the ground, and spat. She'd been without cigarettes for much too long, and was mad for a smoke. But he wasn't a smoker. Disapproved of the habit. He did, however, like to eat. And Betts was hungry.
"What's for breakfast?" she asked.
"I've stocked up on all of the ingredients you'll need to turn out a batch of those wonderful bacon-crumble waffles. Also that commercial brand of coffee you seemed to prefer at the one breakfast we enjoyed together. But I am so hoping to convert you to a Jamaican blend I buy at this little Rastafarian grocer's in North Beach."
"Is that where you're living these days? San Francisco?"
He showed her as merry a grin as anyone with a partly melted face could manage.
"Now, Betts. Never ask. Deduce."
"I've deduced that you don't want to kill me"—her heartbeat sprinted again—"yet. And God knows I'm not material for a sex slave."
"That is droll, lovey. Not that I don't think you're a very attractive woman, and the new 'do you've adopted is so gray-panther retro."
"Attractive for my age?" Bells said with a poisoned grin. "So if it isn't sex, and it's not just my cooking, what are you after?"
The Assassin gathered the decapitated dummy under one arm. She could have done it then, kicked him in the balls from behind as he bent over. But she was still fighting the effects of Versed or a similar tranquilizer, a disconnect of a second or so between impulse and action. And he hadn't told her everything about the heavy explosives-laden collar that was chafing her neck. Only hinted at the possibilities. She couldn't remove it herself, of course, without the damn thing going off. He'd warned her about that immediately.
"You know," he said. "I must have her, Betts."
The beating of her heart seemed to stop as it chilled to ten below zero.
"Go ahead and kill me, then. Because it's not gonna happen."
"Oh, I hate that kind of talk! We are going to be together for a while, so I think we should make every effort to be civil to each other. The time passes so much more quickly."
The cottage to which he had brought her in the night was stone with a shake shingle roof, one-car garage. Sunny and open, one large bedroom and a sleeping loft. House Beautiful kitchen, cabinet doors inlaid with stained glass, copper pans hanging from a rack over the island range. A "Great Room" beside the kitchen, stone fireplace wall for those chilly fall and winter nights. Wide peg-and-groove cypress wood floors throughout. His taste in art was minimalist abstract.
Betts had the run of the house as well as a small flagstone veranda with wisteria vines and hanging birdhouses, two rocking chairs.
Stick to the premises and she wouldn't explode. Make a run for it, any direction, sensors would respond to her attempted flight, and bang!—No more Betts from the collarbones up.
She wasn't sure she believed him. They were all expert at head games, even those with little formal education. Remorseless in their own logic. More often than not bright as quicksilver, quite personable, until they abruptly chilled: when in silence came the seep of madness to their gaze. If they were of a certain bent, like her captor, it was the last thing you ever saw.
Satellite TV, magazines that included a couple of trade journals Betts subscribed to, some good novels (he was an ardent fan of Tolstoy); the Assassin had made an effort to distract her from the discomfort and anguish her situation provoked.
What she desperately wanted to know but hadn't been able to pull out of the conversation over breakfast was how he planned to persuade her to give Eden up to him.
There was a dirty blue pickup truck in the garage. Oregon plates. Part of the garage was partitioned in raw plywood, a cozy well-lighted dressing room where, with the aid of multiple mirrors, he did his makeovers into the characters whom he then inserted into the mirage-filled landscape that constituted his exterior life. While he worked he listened to, on shellac recordings, one of the mellow thrushes or gilded-tongue tenors of the big-band thirties. His wardrobe took up most of the loft in the garage.
Betts did
the dishes, then watched TV while the Assassin applied himself to the day's disguise. When she heard him speak, from behind her, she thought someone else had entered the cottage. It gave her quite a jolt. She turned and beheld the cowhand—faded denims, calf-roper boots with dirt in the creases, straw hat, talkin' the talk. His left arm was in a cast and a sling.
"Rance Jool, ma'am, from up a Malheur Lake? Jool's been in the cattle business there since silent pitchers was in style. Aw, arm's not painin' all that much, but thanks for askin'. Got it walked on by a ton a bad medicine in the short go last weekend. Heard the sucker crack like a .30-.30 on a winter mornin'."
"Good God," Betts said, staring at him. Brown contacts and a feckless gaze, blond eyelashes, sun-wrinkles, a friendly jut-toothed smile, little sandy ridge of mustache on his upper lip. The latex work so slick you couldn't spot a seam in broad daylight. And that warm baritone drawl. You trusted him for the lonesome in his voice. This hurt westerner. Men would be buying him a round on short acquaintance. Women, well, they'd go for the whole nickel.
"So what are you up to now?"
The Assassin took off the sweat-stained straw hat and spoke in his usual voice.
"I could be gone until quite late," he said. "If you choose to spare me what is bound to be a tedious excursion, we'll just get on with it now, E-mail sweet Eden the instructions I've provided. But then I don't have the necessary code word to reassure her that all is well with you, do I?"
Betts folded her arms, afraid that she might start shaking.
"So I guess the next step is. . . you get out the cattle prod and pliers?"
"Physical torture? I am accomplished, darling, and it has been necessary on occasion. But I don't want our relationship to deteriorate so drastically. I admire the spunk you've shown so far."
"Brainwashing? Or one of the hypnotics you're probably familiar with?"
"No, no, I'm not an expert in those areas. I understand that drugs do not always have the desired effect. Experimentation would be time-consuming, and I don't want to damage your mind or mar your perceptions. I need your wholehearted cooperation in this matter."
