Allison moved to the edge of the patio. She watched Broom pace the length of his cage, unsettled, making frustrated grumbles. His Allison was standing so close, but she was not approaching, not speaking to him.
"It's just a giant zoo," Sean blurted. "That's what it's all about."
"I know," Allison said.
Sean drew away from Patrick's side, glanced quickly over her shoulder at Broom.
Then in an exhausted voice, Sean said, "He's been collecting animals for the last year, endangered animals. They're building a tourist attraction. A goddamn theme park."
Patrick smiled at Sean. A forbearing look. Let her have her say. The helpless face of love. A bottomless devotion.
He stepped forward, a hand resting on Sean's shoulder, moving her forward with him. Then he turned his gaze to Allison, and she saw the frost glaze his eyes. But still that smile, that vacant smile.
"I wish you could have visited the work site, Allison. I truly wish you could have seen what we're achieving. You would have approved, I'm certain. It's a remarkable project. I've gathered together some of the best animal people in the world. Veterinarians, biologists, primatologists. Someone said the other day that working on this endeavor was like being part of the Manhattan project. I liked that. I like to think we are creating something the world has never seen before."
"Come here, Sean," Allison said. "Come over to me."
"No," Patrick said. "I'm terribly sorry, Allison, but we can't stay. We just came to retrieve the photographs you mentioned. Then we have to turn around, begin our long journey home. There is still so much to do."
"You get the photographs, I get Sean. That's the arrangement."
Allison held out the packet in her right hand.
"Oh, I'm sure that was your notion of an arrangement, yes. But it was never mine."
Patrick's right hand dipped into his trouser pocket and came out with a small black automatic. One hand on Sean's shoulder, the other pointing the pistol at the ground. Patrick seemed unconscious of its presence in his hand. He would shoot her and fly away unfazed. So powerful was his self-hypnosis, so complete and invincible his detachment.
He said, "You know, Allison, for some time now I've been wanting to give you my sincerest thanks. You don't realize it, but without your help and Harry's, I would never have been able to manage the De Novo endeavor — the zoo, as Sean likes to call it. Truly, it was your newsletters that helped me identify exactly the people I needed to make all this succeed. I wanted you to know that, Allison. Your work has not been in vain. It should give you comfort. The Farleigh family has made a monumental contribution to my country's future."
Broom had picked up two handfuls of straw and was standing at the bars staring out at Allison. Sulking, on the brink of a tantrum.
"Things have been going exceptionally well," Patrick said. He slid his hand all the way across Sean's shoulders, tugged her close. She crossed her arms across her chest as if taken by a sudden chill. "Phase one is almost completed. Except for the unfortunate incident in Borneo, I've managed to collect close to a thousand endangered animals with few significant difficulties."
"Unless you count the fifteen people your men have killed," Allison said. "The hundreds of animals they slaughtered."
He smiled even wider.
"I am very impressed, Allison. You've been busy, haven't you? You have been figuring everything out, just as I suspected you might."
"You told them to kill as many animals as they can to make what you're collecting more precious."
"Yes, yes," he said. "A simple business principle, really. Increase the value of your product by shrinking its general availability. I believe you refer to it as cornering the market."
Sean pulled free of Patrick's grip. She stared down with horror at the pistol in his hand, seeing it for the first time. He glanced curiously at her, blinked, then turned back to Allison.
"It only makes sense," he said. "After all, most of them are professional hunters. A very systematic group, very efficient — very well paid, I might add. By the time De Novo opens, they'll have finished their work, and the species represented in our preserve should be far more precious and rare.
"I know it sounds coldhearted, Allison. But you see, I look at it this way. I'm simply assisting the general trends, speeding up the inevitable. One might even argue that for the last few thousand orangutans or white tigers, it is more merciful to shoot them outright than to leave them in severely reduced habitats. If you think about it logically, cut away all the sentimentalizing malarkey, which is really worse? To have the loggers strip away the orangutans' food sources mile by mile until your precious apes are left to starve, or to end their lives as painlessly as possible?"
Allison watched Broom stalking the perimeter of his cage, his hands still gripping the wads of straw.
"Patrick," she said. "You can annihilate all the animals in the world for all I care, but we had a bargain. And you're going to honor that. That's all that matters to me. Now put your gun away, and let Sean come to me. Take your snapshots and go home. We won't bother you anymore, and you won't bother us."
She held out the packet of photographs, then stepped to her right and pitched them into the orangutan's cage. Broom made a deep grunt. "It's all there. Negatives, everything."
"What is this!"
"It's very simple," Allison said. "You and I go into the cage together, retrieve the photos. Broom won't hurt you if you're with me. Sean stays outside."
"No," he said. "I can't do that."
"What are you afraid of? If Sean loves you she won't flee. Only if she's your prisoner."
"I'm afraid you must have misunderstood, Allison. Your daughter and I have no intention of separating. Our bond is too strong. Our love."
He turned to her, but Sean's eyes were on Allison.
"You would wake up one day," Allison said. "Maybe not this month, maybe not next month, but someday soon. And you wouldn't recognize the woman lying beside you. Oh, she'd still be my daughter, but you wouldn't know her anymore, because the mirage would have decayed. Not the sweet, unattainable American girl you fell in love with a long time ago. But this other person, a complicated woman. Independent. You'd look at her lying there beside you and you wouldn't know what to do, Patrick. It would terrify you. You wouldn't be prepared for it. This stranger in the bed. This person whose life you've destroyed, who hates you — your captive. All so you could live out some daydream you had as a boy. Some goddamn, twisted hallucination."
"Mother," Sean said. She lifted a hand toward Allison and started forward.
"Don't," he said. "Stay where you are."
Allison took a step forward, stood waiting for Sean.
Patrick raised his pistol, leveled it at a spot a few feet to Allison's left.
"Sean, no," he said. "Stay here, stay with me." She came forward into Allison's arms, pressed her face into her breast and began to sob.
Patrick marched toward them, stopped a foot behind Sean, shaking his head in speechless fury. He hesitated a moment more while Sean continued to cry. Then he turned from them and stepped up to the bars and aimed his pistol into Broom's cage.
"You thought you were so smart, Allison. Your little plan to separate Sean from me. But, you see, I don't need you to protect me from some brainless ape."
He fired twice into the cage. The orangutan roared and swung up onto its platform, taking cover behind a railroad tie.
Allison pushed Sean aside, lunged for Patrick and seized his wrist, tried to shake loose the pistol. But Patrick wrenched his hand free, and hooked his arm hard around Allison's head, held her in a grinding headlock. He pinned the side of her face against his ribs, and she felt the cold circle of the barrel jam against her cheek. Behind them Allison could hear Broom raving, a tortured wail as he jumped back to the floor of his cage and stamped back and forth.
"Go back to the front gate, Sean," Patrick said. "Go on. Do it now. Don't disobey me. Wait for me there."
Allison snarled and trie
d to twist her head free, but Patrick cinched her harder, cut off her air, gouging her cheek with the pistol.
"Let go of her," Sean said. "Let her loose, goddamn you. I'll go with you, I'll go back to Brunei. But I swear to you, Patrick, if you harm my mother, you might as well kill me right now. Because I'll fight you every second for the rest of your life."
In a voice as calm and empty as a sleepwalker's, he said, "I'm going to do this, Sean. Whether you look on or not. It has to happen. It would be better for you, it would be better for both of us if you simply walked back to the front gate now. Wait there for me."
Allison drew the Zippo from her pocket, opened it. She reset her feet, spreading them wide, angling for access.
"Please, Sean," Patrick said.
She felt the pistol cock at her cheek.
Allison flicked the lighter's rough striking wheel, lowered the blaze, and held it steady against the crotch of Patrick's pants.
CHAPTER 40
Patrick Bendari Sagawan screamed and began to fire his pistol wildly. The third of his four shots struck Allison in the thigh. A hard tug, a nasty sting. Slung backward, she crumpled to the flagstone patio.
She drew a painful breath, then forced herself back up to a crouch, gripping the numbed flesh, and watching as Patrick howled and trotted in place, an awkward dance, thrashing with both hands at the faint glow of fire, a low blue halo that wafted from the crotch of his trousers to his belt, then flared again at the midriff of his white turtleneck, moving so erratically he didn't seem to know where to slap next.
In his cage Broom roared and tore at the remnants of his wooden perch, ripping free a four-by-four post and flinging it against the bars.
As Patrick continued to shriek and prance, Sean dashed in close to him, bobbed below his swinging arms, stiff-armed him in the sternum, pushing him aside. She snatched up the fallen pistol, spun away, trotted over to Allison and squatted down beside her. She targeted Patrick, hand quivering.
"Is it bad?" Sean touched a hand to Allison's wounded leg.
Allison sucked in a breath, whistled it out.
"I'm fine," she said, putting an arm around her daughter's shoulders. "Never better."
It was a minute more before Patrick had suffocated all the flames. Sobbing, he stumbled backward, one bare leg exposed, his flesh from thigh to knee was blackened and peeling like the loose, papery bark of a birch. The air reeked of charred meat.
In a whimpering swoon, the young man collapsed against the bars of the cage, began to slide against them down to the ground, but he dropped only a foot before his body halted, then jerked suddenly back to attention. And began slowly to rise, his feet lifting off the ground, going up stiffly.
"No, Broom," Allison shouted. "No!"
She tried to stand, but groaned and sank back.
Broom's giant hand gripped Patrick by the throat, hauling the man upward, his back riding against the rails of the cage. She heard the squeals then, the frantic shrieks of the parrots and mynahs, the screams and croaks and wild machine-gun clicks and chatter of the starlings and lorries and flamingos. A great flutter and thrashing of wings, as Patrick rose higher and higher, moving smoothly as if he were being magically levitated toward the sky.
Allison's leg had stiffened, but she was still lingering in the golden moments of numbness, spared a little longer the pain she knew would soon overpower her. Again she tried to rise, but the leg gave way beneath her.
Sean ducked in close, put an arm around Allison's waist, and hauled her upright. Allison lay her arm across Sean's shoulders, steadied herself against her daughter's sturdy body. It came as a strange surprise feeling the power in Sean's arms and back, the ease with which she lifted Allison upright, maneuvered her to one of the cement benches and settled her there.
No hugs between them for years, hardly a brush of flesh, and now the shock of her daughter's embrace, discovering her substantial firmness, her muscle. This strong woman Sean had turned herself into.
"Jesus, would you look at that. Hoisted on his own petard, or however the fuck it goes."
Orlando White, holding a pistol loosely at his side, gazed up at Patrick dangling in Broom's grip, several feet off the ground. Patrick's back held hard against the bars, his pants still smoldering.
"What the hell is a petard anyway? You know, Allison?"
"It's finished, Orlando. Put the pistol on the ground. It's over."
Sean held the pistol out rigidly, aiming at the small man.
"First of all, my correct name is Orlon. Though on occasion I've been known to answer to Big O. You, Allison, since we're on such close personal terms, you are permitted to call me Big O. But not that other."
"Put the gun down. Put it down now."
Orlon's eyes flicked between Allison and the weapon in Sean's hand.
"What I've found is," Orlon said, angling a step to his right, Sean tracking him with Patrick's pistol. "A lot of people in times of stress, they snatch up a gun, aim it at somebody, they think that person's going to automatically do what they say, shaking and shivering. Oh, Lordy, don't shoot me with your awful scary gun, please, ma'am. That's how people think.
"But the reality is, when it comes the moment to actually squeeze that trigger, make that big old awful explosion and send a wad of hot lead on its way — well now, that's another whole situation entirely.
"I look at the three of you standing there, and I gotta say, you got that L.L. Bean look. You had your weekly manicure, your facial, your fresh-squeezed orange juice every morning, floss and brush, always sleep in clean jammies. That's how you look. Same as your husband, poor Harry. Neat and polished, oiled and vacuumed.
"People like you, you got a natural aversion to making messes. And believe me, young lady, a gun like that one, you hit a human body in the right spot, I guarantee that thing'll make a jumbo mess. Spread bone and blood and gore and shit like you wouldn't believe. 'Cause I've seen it happen. I've been there on site at actual murders. Unlike the two of you."
Out on the edge of her vision Allison saw someone coming down the path. Not letting her eyes move, but seeing the person edge closer.
Orlon had begun to pace in front of them, ten steps one way, ten the other. He was keeping his distance steady, twenty feet, maybe thirty. Allison's pain was seeping into her leg now, the dull ache spiraling up, beginning to cripple her whole body. She could feel her heart struggling to stay with this moment. A serious tremble in her breath.
Orlando halted and faced them. Pistol still hanging at his side.
"It looks to me," he said, "like what we got here is an awfully familiar High Noon situation. We have a face-off, we draw. Find out who's quicker, who's the better shot. I mean, I got nothing against the classics, and I guess you could argue what we're doing, we're just acting out some mythical thing, repeating a thousand years of High Noon.
"But you know, if it were completely up to me, if I were on my own, Orlon White scripting this from a distance, I'd try to rough up the predictability of it. Throw in some kind of crazy curveball thing. You know, like if in the middle of the standoff the young lady there, say she pulled her trigger before we'd actually squared up and got ready to draw on each other, and click, click, she found out her handgun wasn't loaded. Now, that would be something a little unique, a little out of left field."
"It's loaded," Sean said. "Trust me."
"Okay, okay. Then fine, let's say it's loaded. If it is, then we definitely need to work out another arrangement here, another variation. See, 'cause I just got a natural aversion to formulas, watching the same old thing coming down the pike again. Not in my movie, man. No, sir, I got higher standards than that. You appreciate what I'm saying, don't you, Allison? I mean, you got some taste and judgment, I believe."
In her peripheral vision Allison could see the man inch closer. Tall, big. Then almost involuntarily she found her eyes straying to the man, seeing who it was.
Orlando caught Allison staring over his shoulder.
"Oh, now, now. How man
y boring fucking times have we all seen that one? Someone sneaking up on me, I swing around, your little girl shoots. Hey, that's right out of Triteness 101. I mean, Allison, I'm seriously let down with you. I know we can do better than that, you and me. We put our heads together, I'm sure we can improve on that old commonplace."
The man came forward. A grin suddenly twisted Orlon's mouth.
"See, I knew who it was all along. It's just my brother, Allison. My brother Ray."
"Okay, Orlon. Put your weapon down now," Ray White said.
Orlon smiled wider and came around slowly, looking at his brother. Raimondo held the end of a leather leash with a big choke chain at the end. The choker around Thorn's neck. Thorn's hands were lashed behind his back, his face swollen and bloody. In Ray's other hand was a shiny revolver aimed at Orlon.
"Ray, Ray, Ray. What happened, man, you get lost? Hey, you're missing all the fun. We already started without you."
"I'm serious, Orlon. Put your fucking gun down. You and me, we're finished with this shit. We're starting over. This is our chance to break out of this cycle, man."
"Hey, I like the cycle. I'm happy how it's going. You want to turn into a monk, spend the rest of your life in Raiford, shit, help yourself. But I'm not going that way."
"We're not going to hurt these people, Orlon. They haven't done anything. Not even Allison. She's been right all along. A pain in the ass, yeah, but she was doing the right thing — going after our sorry criminal asses. That was right, Orlon. What we been doing is wrong. There's a difference, man. We knew it once, where the exact line was, but then we forgot. We just kept doing the things we were doing so long, we started thinking they were right."
"Listen to you. Man, it just doesn't stop with you, does it? Mother Teresa White. Always got a lecture ready."
Orlon looked up at the stars for a moment, then revolved his head around like he was chasing the flight of an errant bug.
"You remember this place, Ray?"
"What place?"
"Parrot Jungle. Where we are right now."
"I remember it, yeah."
Gone Wild (Thorn Series Book 4) Page 39
