A Song for the Asking

by Steve Gannon

  Voss paled. “I don’t know nothin’ about that.”

  “I think you do. I even know why you did it,” said Kane. “Angelo ratted out your partners on the Bradley kidnapping, right? Or maybe killing him was just a way to make sure that his sister Sylvia keeps her mouth shut.”

  “Kidnapping? I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about,” said Voss, clearly shaken by Kane’s words.

  Kane knew Voss was lying, but his instincts also told him that the youth across the table wasn’t the third kidnapper. “Let’s clear the air here,” he said. “This isn’t about Angelo Martin. We’re not talking about some worthless gangbanger getting capped. That kidnapped boy was the son of a senator, Miguel. A senator. We know for a fact that Angelo Martin’s death is connected, and we know you’re involved. You have one slim chance of coming out of this without pulling a death sentence, and that’s telling me everything you know right here and now. I want that other guy. Who was with you in the car that night?”

  Voss glanced away.

  Kane’s hand shot across the table, grabbing Voss’s chin. “Look at me when I’m talking to you.”

  Jerking free, Voss balled his fists and glowered at Kane with red-eyed, unadulterated hate.

  Slowly, Kane stood and took off his watch. Carefully, he laid it atop the typed pages on the corner of the table. “You want to take a poke at me, Miguel?” he asked. “I can tell from the look on your face that you’re thinking about it. Go ahead. Nobody can hear anything outside. It’s just you and me.”

  Voss’s eyes shot around the room. No weapon, no place to hide. Just the huge cop with a short fuse.

  “Over here, Miguel. I’m not going to tell you again.”

  Voss reluctantly turned his gaze back to Kane.

  “I’m sick of your lies,” Kane said. “There’s nothing I’d enjoy more right now than subduing a hemorrhoid like you who made the mistake of attacking me during an interrogation. Go ahead. Do it.”

  Voss opened his hands. “I ain’t doing nothin’.”

  “Yeah, you are. You’re going to tell me who pulled the trigger on Angelo. We know everything else. I don’t think you were the one, but if you don’t give me a name, we’re going to hang it on you, and the kidnapping along with it. That friend of yours used your gun to whack that kid, your girlfriend’s car to dump the body, and left you holding the bag. He screwed you, Miguel. You don’t owe him anything. You were there, but you didn’t pull the trigger, did you?”

  “No.”

  “I didn’t think so. Who did?”

  “I …”

  Time to go ballistic. With blinding speed Kane jerked Voss to his feet. “I’m done screwing with you,” he bellowed, nose to nose with Voss. “Give me a name.”

  “I don’t know—”

  “Bullshit! Talk!”

  “Jimmy.”

  Kane watched with arctic satisfaction as Voss began to fold. “Jimmy who?”

  “Kearns. Jimmy Kearns.”

  Kane shoved Voss back into his seat. “I’m going to give you one more chance, Miguel. I may be able to help you yet. Are you done lying?”

  Voss stared numbly at his hands.

  “You’d better be,” Kane warned. Lowering his voice, he added, “Lie to me again, and I’ll make you wish you never heard my name. Understand?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good. Now start at the beginning. And this time, don’t leave anything out.”

  *

  Nate looked up from The Road to Oz. Dorothy had just discovered that her homeward journey had somehow landed her in the curious town of Foxville, and the Fox-King she’d met there had advised, “Be content with your lot, whatever it happens to be, if you are wise,” and of course Dorothy had come to the conclusion that she might as well explore the magical city of Foxville a bit before returning to Kansas, and that Auntie Em wouldn’t be angry is she didn’t stay too long …

  There it was again.

  Nate lay very still, listening.

  He had heard Allison at the front door some time back, probably letting in one of her friends. Since then the house had been quiet except for an occasional bumping sound, as though someone were moving furniture. Figuring Allison had decided to rearrange her room, he’d ignored it. But lately a new and puzzling noise had begun. Now it sounded as if Allison had grown tired of simply rearranging furniture and had graduated to breaking it.

  He heard a sudden crash from Tommy and Trav’s room, then the squeak and thump of drawers being pulled from a dresser.

  What’s Allison doing?

  Nate moved to the trapdoor. He began to open it, freezing as an unfamiliar voice sounded directly beneath him in the entry. “Cal, you done yet?”

  Another voice sounded from deeper in the house. Agitated, breathless. “Don’t rush me, Joey. You’ll get your turn.”

  Nate considered easing the hatch closed. No. Might make him look up. Holding his breath, he peered through the opening. A man with skinny, hairless arms stood below. He had cracked the front door and was peeking nervously out at the street. “I got a bad feeling about this,” the man called into the house.

  Seconds passed. Nate heard a sharp slapping noise, followed by the muffled sound of someone crying. Then, “Ain’t nobody home but sweet-cheeks here,” the other man answered. “Keep checkin’. There’s bound to be cash somewhere.” The man below studied the street a bit longer, then closed the door and retreated into another part of the house.

  Nate listened until he heard the door to his parents’ bedroom bang open. Silently, he closed his hatch and latched it shut.

  Stay here till they leave? They haven’t found me yet. Maybe they won’t. But what about Allison?

  Nate remembered the sobbing he’d heard. He tried to drive it from his mind. Couldn’t. Clenching his teeth to keep them from chattering, he unlatched the hatch.

  He heard a crashing noise coming from his parent’s room. And an odd grunting coming sound from deeper in the house. The living room.

  Nate opened the hatch. Trying to ignore the trip-hammer pounding of his heart, he climbed down the ladder to the entry.

  Get to the phone, call 911, wait till the police come.

  He hesitated. There were two phones in the house: a portable in his parents’ bedroom, another in the kitchen. The first was out. That left the kitchen. But to get there he would have to go through the living room.

  Hugging the wall, he crept silently down the hall. He paused when he reached the doorway to the living room. The grunting had grown louder. “You love it, don’t you bitch?” he heard a voice laugh. “Oh, yeah. You love it.”

  Nate eased his head around the corner, risking a glance into the room. He could see the kitchen on the far side, the phone tantalizingly out of reach. More of the living room coming into view … TV, coffee table …

  Nate’s eyes widened in horror when he saw the man on the couch.

  He had his jeans down around his knees. Allison lay trapped beneath him, her skirt up around her waist, torn underwear bunched around one ankle. Tears streamed down her face. A strip of duct tape sealed her mouth, another bound her hands. Blood ran from her nose. A grotesque artwork of red smeared her thighs, hideously finger-painted on the white canvas of her legs. But most chilling, the expression Nate saw in his sister’s eyes—the hopeless, heartrending look of pleading, terror, and worst of all, despair—would stay with him the rest of his life.

  “Damn, you, move!” the man on top commanded. His muscular buttocks thrust again and again, pounding with virulent fury at the helpless girl beneath. He stopped to deliver a backhanded blow, sending a spatter of blood gushing from Allison’s nose onto the back of the couch. “I said move!”

  Nate’s heart plummeted as he saw his sister’s pelvis begin to jerk spasmodically, grinding in obscene lockstep with her attacker’s. “That’s better. Keep it up, bitch,” the man ordered.

  Suddenly a sound came from behind.

  The other one’s coming!

  Fighting a surge of p
anic, Nate glanced down the hall. He couldn’t retreat. As quietly as possible, he slid behind the door and held his breath. An instant later the second man burst into the living room. “I found some jewelry in the big bedroom,” he said. “That’s all there is. Let’s go, Cal.”

  “Joey, get the fuck outta here till I’m done,” the first man snarled. “There’s gotta be cash. Find it.”

  “There ain’t none. I looked.”

  Cal grabbed Allison’s hair and jerked her head from the couch. “Where’s the money?” he demanded.

  Allison moaned.

  “She might be able to talk better if you took off the gag,” Joey pointed out.

  Cal ripped the tape from Allison’s mouth. “Where’s the money?”

  “There isn’t any,” Allison sobbed. “My father doesn’t keep cash in the house.”

  Cal doubled up his fist. Coldly and deliberately, he hit her in the mouth. Grinning, he drew back his arm and hit her once more, transforming her face into a mask of blood. “Where is it?”

  Nate crept from his hiding place and backed into the hallway, swallowing hard against the gorge rising in his throat.

  “She don’t know, Cal. You’re gonna kill her!”

  “Bullshit! She knows and she’s gonna tell.”

  Nate could hear them arguing as he retreated toward the entry.

  The phone in Dad’s room? No time. Run to the neighbors for help? Stop a car on the highway?

  All at once he remembered the gun.

  It was a .38-caliber Smith & Wesson, his father’s service revolver before he had switched to the Beretta automatic. Nate knew he kept in on the top shelf of the entry closet, supposedly out of range of prying hands. He also knew from experience that he could reach it from the ladder to his room.

  Nate padded quietly to the front of the house. He ascended the ladder in the entry, stopping two-thirds of the way up. Resisting an urge to climb the final rungs to his room and lock the hatch behind him, he leaned out and groped through the clutter on the closet’s top shelf.

  It has to be here somewhere. Please be … There!

  His trembling fingers closed on the gun. Then the box of .38 hollow-point cartridges.

  Hurry … hurry …

  Struggling to control his shaking hands, he opened the cylinder, jamming in shells as he’d seen his father do many times at the academy qualifying range.

  One, two, three, four … that enough? No, fill it. Don’t want to come down on an empty cylinder …

  A cartridge slipped from Nate’s fingers. He froze as it hit the floor.

  Cal looked up from the couch. “What was that?”

  “I didn’t hear nothin’,” Joey answered.

  Cal listened carefully. “Guess you’re right.” He sucked his finger. It still throbbed from the bite, not to mention slapping around the bitch. Maybe she really doesn’t know where the money is, he thought. If she does, she sure took a lot of punishment without talking.

  Cal decided he could search the rest of the house later. It wouldn’t take long, and besides, all the rough play had made him hot. Christ, I’m hard, he thought. For some reason Joey watching made it even better. “Ooooohhh, baby, get ready,” he panted, picking up his rhythm and closing his eyes, straining now.

  “Get off my sister.”

  “Huh?” Cal opened his eyes. A kid around nine or ten with curly red hair stood just inside the room. He was holding a pistol in both hands.

  “Where the hell did you come from?”

  “Get off my sister,” the boy ordered again, his voice shaking.

  “Damn, Joey,” Cal laughed. “Lookit what we got here. They’re givin’ the diaper patrol guns now.” He rose from the couch. Using Allison’s torn underwear, he wiped himself and then pulled up his jeans, stuffing his still-swollen penis into his pants.

  Joey noticed that the cocked pistol in the kid’s hands looked too real for comfort. He backed away. “Let’s go, Cal. There’s nothin’ here anyway.”

  “Are you nuts?” Cal glanced at the girl on the couch. “We won’t get two miles down the road if we don’t tie up baby brother here along with his sister. Besides, I ain’t finished.”

  “I wanna go now.”

  Cal grinned, watching as the boy motioned with the gun toward the door, noticing he could barely hold the pistol in his trembling hands.

  “Both of you get out,” the boy pleaded, so scared he had begun to cry.

  Cal smirked. “You’ve got guts, kid,” he said, slowly moving forward. “I’ll grant you that. Now, gimme the gun.”

  *

  Kane had nearly finished taking Voss’s statement when a knock sounded at the interrogation-room door. “Sorry,” said Santoro, sticking his head into the room. “Phone.”

  “Can’t it wait?” asked Kane.

  “The desk said to get you right away.”

  Leaving Santoro with Voss, Kane returned to his workstation. “Kane,” he said, lifting the receiver.

  “Detective, your son’s on the line,” a voice informed him. “He sounds upset.”

  “Tommy? Put him through.”

  A slight pause. Then, “Dad?”

  “Nate? Jesus, I thought Tommy had wrecked his car or something. You know you’re not supposed to call me here unless it’s an emergency.”

  “Dad, can you come home?” Nate sobbed. “Please?”

  “Are you crying? What’s wrong, kid?” Kane asked softly. “Talk to me.”

  “Please, Daddy. Just come home.”

  When Kane arrived at the beach house, he found the front door locked. He fumbled in the darkness for his keys. After coming up with the right one, he inserted it and twisted open the dead bolt. The light was off in the entry.

  “Dad?”

  Kane stepped into the unnaturally quiet house, feeling an electric prickle of alarm as he smelled the odor of burned gunpowder.

  “Nate?” he called, flipping on the light.

  Nate emerged from the darkened hallway. He lowered the pistol in his hands and ran forward, stopping short when he saw the look in his father’s eyes. He stood numbly, gun at his side, tears of relief wetting his cheeks.

  “What the hell’s going on?” Kane asked. Without waiting for a reply he ripped the revolver from his son’s hand and opened the cylinder. Two shots had been fired. “Damn it, kid, I told you never to touch my guns. Never.”

  Nate swallowed. He opened his mouth to speak, but couldn’t.

  Kane shoved the pistol into his belt. Then he grabbed Nate and shook him. “Start talking. You have some explaining to do. What happened? What the hell were you doing with my gun?”

  “I thought the other one might come back,” Nate choked.

  “What other one? Quit blubbering and talk!” All at once Kane saw the blood. A trail led down the stairs to the beach. More smears were on the lower door, on the walls, a splatter leading down the hall …

  “Christ, did you … ? Oh, sweet Jesus! Allison! Where is she?” Kane’s fingers dug into Nate’s arms, closing like coiled springs. With growing dread he shook his son again, trying to rattle an answer from the sobbing child. Receiving none, he started down the stairs to the beach. “Allison! Allison!”

  “In here, Dad.”

  Leaving Nate in the entry, Kane thundered down the hall to the living room. He found his daughter on her knees beside the couch. She had a sponge in her hand. A pail of soapy water sat beside her, along with a pile of towels from the bathroom. More were scattered on the carpet, soaking up blood.

  Allison glanced dully up as Kane entered, then returned to her work. “Don’t worry,” she said quietly, as if speaking to herself. “There’s a lot, but I think I can get it all up before Mom comes back.”

  Kane pulled Allison to her feet, brushing back her long, damp hair from her face. “Oh, sweet Jesus,” he whispered again, horrified by what he saw.

  Allison’s eyes were bruised and dark and purplish. One had already completely swollen shut. Crusts of dried blood ringed each nostril. A de
ep, ragged laceration traversed her cheek. But the worst damage had been done to her mouth. Cal’s blows had split her lips, making it difficult for her to talk. Seeming strangely ashamed, she looked up at her father, then back at the stains on the rug. “Let me go, Dad. I have to get this finished.”

  “Leave it.” Kane put his arm around her and led her toward the couch. “Come over here and sit down.”

  Allison twisted away, her eyes round with panic. “No!” she cried, staring at the couch. Then, struggling to control herself, she stammered, “I … I don’t want to sit.”

  “Okay, okay, you don’t have to,” Kane said gently. He looked at the dark pool seeping into the carpet in the center of the room, the smaller puddles by the door, the trail of red leading into the hall—realizing it couldn’t have all come from Allison. “Honey, try to get ahold of yourself,” he went on, unable to control the tremor in his own voice. “Tell me what happened.”

  Folding her arms across her chest, Allison took a deep breath and began speaking in a monotone, barely moving her swollen lips, her words leaden and sounding as if she were describing something that had happened to someone else. “There was a noise on the street. Some guy was breaking into Evelyn’s BMW next door. He came inside here. There was another one, too. They wanted money. They wouldn’t believe me when I said there wasn’t any. They … they beat me up.”

  “Did they do anything else?” Kane asked, his fists balling at his sides. “They didn’t—”

  “No.”

  Kane let out a small sigh of relief. “What happened then?”

  “I … I got away and grabbed your gun. I told them to leave. When they wouldn’t, I … I shot one of them.”

  Nate had followed his father in from the entry. He stood mutely by the door, carefully watching his sister.

  Kane’s eyes narrowed. “Where are they?” he asked, his tone turning hard as granite.

  “One guy ran. The second guy … I think he crawled out the back door.”

  Kane withdrew his automatic. “Nate? You see where he went?”

  “Nate was asleep in his room the whole time,” Allison lied. “He didn’t see anything.”

  “Nate, go to the kitchen and call the Malibu sheriffs’ office,” Kane ordered. “The number’s by the phone. Have them send a unit down here right away.”