The Listener

by Robert McCammon

  “Sure. A lot of money to be made there. I’m sure also that the story went out to a lot of other newspapers, maybe clear to California. You know, I’ve wanted to meet you for quite some time, shake your hand in person for the job you’re doin’ helpin’ New Orleans and this whole country get back on its feet. Think I could come by some evenin’, meet you and the family?”

  “We’d be happy to have you over,” Ludenmere said.

  “How about tonight?” Angenelli asked, around his chewing gum.

  Ludenmere’s stomach lurched. “No…my wife…Jane…and I…and the children…we’re all goin’ out to supper tonight. It’s been planned for…oh…a week, I guess.”

  “I see. Maybe next week, then?”

  “Yes. Next week would be fine.”

  Angenelli chewed on, as Ludenmere thought he was about to jump out of his skin.

  “Let me tell you a little about kidnappers,” said Angenelli, and no longer was his voice warm and smiling. “There are some vile and desperate people out there, Mr. Ludenmere. So bad a fine man like you could never imagine it. Just about every day—somewhere—these people take another human bein’ for ransom. Oh, it’s the hard times, I know, but that’s not the all of it. It is very rare that a payoff is made and the victim is returned alive. Oh yeah, the kidnappers always say to keep the cops out of it or things’ll get rough, but…it gets rough anyway. Now…some of these kidnappers do it strictly for the money, sure, but there are some who do it because…well, let’s just say they were born to the job. Their vileness was just searchin’ for a way to spill out. They like the thrill of it, the idea that they’re in charge, that they’re somebody who ought to be respected, even if they have to take children off the street to do it. Then you’re not dealin’ with human bein’s like you and me anymore, Mr. Ludenmere. You’re dealin’ with animals who don’t have any problem about cuttin’ a little girl’s throat once they get their money. Or…they might do it anyway, money or not, if it suits ’em. That’s the reality of things, sir.” He paused for a few seconds before he spoke again, and he cracked the gum with his teeth. “Now…do you have anythin’ you want to tell me?”

  The world stopped.

  It only lurched forward again when Ludenmere said, “No.”

  “Your children are at home, you say?”

  “Captain Angenelli…let’s be logical, all right?” Ludenmere turned around in his chair to gaze down upon the docks and the warehouses, the boats and the river and the city and none of it seemed to matter worth a damn anymore. “Logical,” he repeated, with an effort. “How would a Redcap at Union Station know that my children had been kidnapped this afternoon? How? And he says he can’t tell you, correct? So what is he…a mind reader? Only…he’s not a mind reader, he’s just a…I don’t know, a troublemaker or crazy or…like I say, flyin’ high on dope. How do you explain him?”

  “A downright puzzler,” said the captain.

  “Know what I’m gonna do tonight?” Ludenmere pressed on before the other man could respond. “I’m gonna hug my children and kiss my wife, and we’re goin’ out for a nice family supper that’s been too long comin’.”

  “Good for you. Where’re you eatin’?”

  “Arnaud’s,” Ludenmere answered quickly. “Of course.”

  “Heard that’s a fine place. A few dollars over my budget, though. Well, then…I suppose I should let you get on back to work, shouldn’t I?”

  “Wednesdays are always busy here.”

  “Yes sir. All right then. Tell you what, let me leave you my number and when you decide on a night I might come over and meet the family, you can let me know. That suit you?”

  “Yes, it does.” He wrote the number down on his notepad with his black Parker but his hand was so shaky it was hardly legible.

  “I guess that’s it, then. Sorry to have to bring this to your attention.”

  “It’s your job, Captain, and I appreciate that you take pride in it. Thank you for the call.”

  When Angenelli had hung up, Ludenmere went into action like a bullet shot from a pistol. He got up, knocked at Victor’s door, opened it and found the corporate lawyer’s office empty. Victor may be somewhere else in the building. On his way across the office to his own door Ludenmere staggered and had to catch himself against the wall, which made the array of framed citations and awards—including several from the Triple-B—shudder on their nails.

  He composed himself and in the outer office asked Alice to cancel the call to Rich Buchanan, then to find Victor for him and have Victor come see him at once. Then he turned around, went back into his own office and shut the door. He walked into his small private bathroom, shut that door as well, opened up both faucet taps on full blast, leaned over and threw up into the toilet the remnants of rubbery chicken, mashed potatoes, string beans, okra, buttermilk biscuits and pecan pie until the blood gushed from his mouth and the fouled water beneath his gasping face turned a dull and cloudy red.

  Sixteen.

  “Is that a real gun?” the boy asked.

  “Real enough,” Donnie said.

  “Prove it,” came the challenge.

  Donnie almost opened the cylinder to show Little Jack Ludenmere the bullets but he caught himself. Ginger wasn’t going to let that happen, anyway; she’d been ready to take one hand off the Oldsmobile’s steering wheel to punch him in the ribs. “Now’s the chance,” she said with grit in her voice, “to show you’re smarter than a third-grader.”

  “Fourth grader!” Little Jack had nearly shouted it with indignation. “I got double-promoted!”

  “Settle down,” Nilla told him. She put her hand on his arm to calm him, just as Hartley had put his hand on her own. “Where’re you taking us?” she asked the brown-haired woman at the wheel.

  “Timbuktu. Now shut up and keep him shut.”

  “I’m not afraid of you,” Little Jack sneered at Donnie, even though the pistol was pointed right at his face. “Our daddy’ll find you and whip your tail!”

  “You’re a comical little motherfucker,” Donnie said, with a crooked grin on his mouth.

  “Please, sir,” said Hartley. “Your language.”

  The pistol’s barrel shifted toward Hartley. A red tinge had begun to surface on the younger man’s hollow cheeks. “Don’t tell me how to talk, squarehead. Hey, I’ll bet you take that glass eye out of your face you look like you’ve got an asshole in there. You ever done that? Speak! I asked you a question!”

  “Leave ’em alone,” Ginger said. The rain had picked up and the wipers were working harder. Ahead of them the straight gray road was bordered by scrub forest and thorny thickets broken by an occasional shack that might be occupied or might be empty, it was impossible to tell. “We’ll be comin’ up to the place in a minute, don’t antagonize ’em.”

  “Don’t what?”

  “Don’t get ’em riled for nothin’.”

  “Somebody’s breath stinks,” said Little Jack, and he added, “I’m lookin’ at you.”

  “You and me,” Donnie said to the boy in what was nearly a guttural growl, “are gonna have a lot of fun, I can tell that right off.”

  “Ignore him,” Ginger ordered. “I mean it. You be the grown-up.”

  Donnie make a noise with his lips like an explosive fart, but he said no more.

  After her head had cleared from the impact of being driven off by these two and having a pistol waved in her face, Nilla Ludenmere had realized that she might have to grow up fast, if for no reason but to protect her brother. Gone, it seemed, were the days of dolls, pretty dresses and pretend tea parties; all the sunny playtime of a ten-year-old seemed as distant as her daddy and mama were right now, and she had realized also that Mr. Hartley could not protect them. That alone was a terrifying thought, but she knew it to be a fact. “What do you want with us?” she asked, though she had already reasoned it had to be about money.

  “Just a short visit,” the woman at the wheel said. “That’s all.”

  Nilla pressed on. “How
much money are you wanting from our daddy?”

  “Nothin’ he can’t afford. You’re a smart little girl, aren’t you?”

  “I know why you took us.”

  “So you do.” Ginger was looking through the rain for an old barn coming up on the right.

  About a half-mile past that was a dirt road—mud today, have to be careful not to get the tires stuck—where they were meeting Pearly after he’d made the call at the phonebooth in the Rexall Pharmacy on West Esplanade Avenue in Metairie and bought the items they needed.

  They passed a wooden sign with the words printed neatly in white: Welcome to Kenner, A Town With A Future. About thirty yards beyond the sign was a second one, smaller, just a couple of boards nailed together and put up on stakes. Painted on that sign in ragged red letters was 2nd Annual Rattlesnake Rodeo, Sat. Sept. 1, Judging At Noon, Kelso Park.

  “You see that?” Donnie asked Ginger. “What the fuck is a rattlesnake rodeo?”

  “Bunch of redneck geeks go out in the woods to catch rattlers,” she answered. “They make a contest out of it, who bags the most and the biggest. Then they cook ’em up and eat ’em.”

  “Really? Shit, that’s ugly. You ever et snake?”

  “Yep.”

  “What’s it taste like?”

  “Chicken,” she said, “only snakier.”

  Nilla closed her eyes, the better to concentrate. What followed was always like a low level of electricity flowing through her body, and she knew what that was like because when she was five years old she’d stuck a fork in a wall socket. It wasn’t that extreme, wasn’t the same as the shock that had sent her to the hospital and remained vividly in her memory as a quick buzz of blasting pain, but it was there all the same. She called out to him. :Curtis, talk to me.:

  It took him a few seconds to reply, and always when she spoke to him and he spoke back to her like this she heard in her brain a quiet crackling sound like that from the records her mama liked to play on the gramophone, that old-sounding piano music from people who sounded foreign with names that she’d first thought were Baytovin, Showpan and Moe Zart until the music teacher at the Harrington School had taught lessons on the classical pianists last year and cleared that up.

  :I’m here, Nilla,: he came back, and she was glad he used her name because it made her feel he was close to her.

  :We’re in the town of Kenner,: she said. :On a long road with woods on both sides. Did you call my daddy?:

  :I’m sorry, but I couldn’t get him. I called the police, they said they’d tell him and they’re comin’ to the station to pick me up real soon.:

  :All right. Just so he knows.:

  :He ought to know by now. Don’t be afraid, he’ll get you out of this.:

  :I’m not afraid,: she answered, and maybe she was but she didn’t want this woman and man to see it, and Mr. Hartley’s strong hand on her own was helping keep up her pretend courage. :I want this to be over, and I’m scared for Little Jack.:

  :It’ll be over soon, I’ll bet.:

  “Hey Vesta, I think this kid’s gone to sleep!”

  Nilla opened her eyes. The man with the gun was grinning at her.

  Donnie glanced at Ginger and saw from the hot glare in her eyes and the slight display of bared teeth that he had awakened the demon. “He ain’t here, so what does it matter?” Donnie asked. She shook her head and returned her attention to the road. Her ominous silence was enough to tell him that he would pay with his balls the next time he dared to speak her real first name.

  “Here’s the turn,” Ginger said.

  :We’re turning off the main road,: Nilla sent to Curtis. :Bumpy…muddy. Going into the woods.:

  :Okay,: he said. :I’m here with you.:

  Ginger drove as far as she dared along the muddy road bordered by dripping forest and then stopped the car. She turned the engine off.

  “Why’re you stoppin’?” Little Jack asked, and this time there was a quaver in his voice.

  “We’re gonna take you in them woods and skin you alive,” Donnie hissed. “Gonna throw your skins up in the trees and we’re gonna cut your fuckin’ heads off and leave ’em for the—”

  “All right, all right,” Ginger interrupted. “Cut that crap.” To the others she said, “We’re gonna sit here and wait for a little while. Should be about fifteen or twenty minutes.”

  :We’re waiting,: Nilla told Curtis. :Here in the car.:

  :Waitin’ for what?:

  “What are we waiting for?” she asked the woman.

  “Listen, kid,” Ginger said, and swivelled around in the seat to take stock of Nilla Ludenmere. “You need to button your lip ’cause you’re startin’ to bother me. Donnie…our chauffeur friend is thinkin’…just thinkin’…about reachin’ for that door handle. See how he’s all crouched forward, like he’s gettin’ ready to run a race? Hartley, you’ll take a bullet before you get that door open, and out here nobody’ll hear the shot.”

  “You’re wrong,” Hartley answered, his face expressionless. “I would never leave the children.”

  “Oh, a hero. Well, good for you. Bein’ a hero cost you that eye and give you that scar?”

  “That’s my business.”

  :Curtis,: Nilla said, :the man’s name is Donnie and the woman’s name is Vesta.:

  :What about the other man?:

  :The other man is—:

  She was interrupted when Donnie reached over the seat with his free hand and grabbed hold of her chin. It jarred her so much her mind tumbled and she lost the connection with Curtis.

  “You’re a pretty kid,” Donnie said, staring fixedly into her eyes. “You favor your mama?”

  At once Little Jack grasped Donnie’s hand and like a spitting wildcat he thrashed about trying to dislodge the grip. When Donnie just laughed at this effort over Ginger’s command to let the girl go, Little Jack’s teeth went for the man’s hand. At once Donnie jerked his hand back as if from a hot stove and laughed like this was the greatest comedy he’d ever seen.

  “Ma’am,” Hartley said quietly, as he reached around Nilla and lodged his fingers into the back of Little Jack’s coat collar, “can’t you control your monkey?”

  In an instant Donnie’s face flooded with blood; even the whites of his eyes seemed to shimmer with it. His mouth was a twisted line and all his laughing was done. He cocked the revolver’s hammer, aiming the barrel straight at Hartley’s face.

  “Shake it off,” Ginger said, as if she were telling someone to shoo a fly away from a picnic basket. “He’s likin’ to bait you. Hartley, I wouldn’t do too much of that if I was you, it’s a real dangerous game. Donnie, ease up on that hammer, now. Do it. Come on, ease up.”

  “Kill this one-eyed motherfucker in five seconds,” Donnie vowed. His voice trembled with the passion of the idea.

  “Let’s don’t make a mess,” she told him, her voice light and seemingly carefree. “Ease that hammer in now, let’s straighten ourselves up.”

  For all his eight-year-old bravado, Little Jack suddenly shivered, broke and began sobbing. “Want to go home…go home…want to go home…” he cried, his head buried against his sister’s shoulder. All Nilla could do was stroke his hair and say the stupidest thing she thought she’d ever said in her young life, “We’ll go home real soon, I promise.”

  Donnie eased the hammer forward. He stared daggers at Clay Hartley, whose single eye stared back impassively and whose glass eye seemed to reflect the insane savagery of killing.

  ****

  Curtis had been listening for Nilla to continue and was about to call her when a man in a brown suit and a woman in a pale purple dress and a hat with a sharp-tipped black feather in it came right up to him in the station and parked their two bags at his feet. Then they looked at him as if they could see right through him and the man put his hands on his hips and said, “Well? Do you work here or not?”

  “Yes suh I do, pardon me,” said Curtis, and so he carried their bags about forty feet to the desk where the luggage tags we
re filled out, since the next train was not due to leave for nearly an hour, and got a nickel for his effort. He touched the brim of his red cap and said, “Thank you, suh,” and then he heard Cricket’s voice behind him say, “That there is Curtis Mayhew.”

  Curtis turned around. Coming toward him was a slim and distinguished-looking white man—an older fellow, maybe in his early sixties—wearing a pressed gray suit and crisp fedora, a white shirt and a black tie with small white dots. He came on with a brisk stride, while Cricket made a motion at Curtis of shrugging his shoulders before he turned away to tend to his own self.

  “Curtis Mayhew,” said the white man when he reached the subject of his interest, and he looked Curtis up and down from the tips of his spit-shined shoes to the peak of his crimson cap.

  “Yes suh, that’s me.”

  “I am empowered to take you out of here to meet someone who very much wants to meet you.”

  “Who would that be, suh?”

  “Curtis?” Ol’ Crab must’ve seen Cricket bring the man in, because suddenly he was right there johnny-on-the-spot, positioning himself off to one side but nearly between them. “You entertainin’ a visitor? Are you a traveller today, suh?” he asked, his gaze searching for the luggage that he knew was not there.

  “I need to take this boy out of here for awhile,” came the answer.

  “Oh, you do? Well…seein’ as he’s workin’ and we got trains due in and out of here ’fore he gets off work…I don’t see how that’s possible.”

  “Hm,” said the man. He made his mouth crimp with irritation. Then he pulled out a thin wallet from inside his coat and produced a bill with Alexander Hamilton’s portrait on it. He held it under Ol’ Crab’s nose and waved it as if spreading the heady perfume of money. “I imagine you’re in charge of the Redcaps,” he said. “Will this set him free for the rest of the day?”

  Ol’ Crab didn’t look at the money. He smiled politely, “Sir,” he said, sharpening the word, “if you don’t remove that little slip a’ green paper from in front of my face, I might forget I’m a gentleman and you’re a white man.”

  “Oh, you want twenty dollars, then?”