Winner Take All

by T. Davis Bunn

  Dale blinked slowly, drawing himself into the here and now. “You want to ask about my being fired.”

  Once again, the day proved remarkably adept at blindsiding Marcus. “Say what?”

  “They canned me this morning.”

  “I got the skinny from an inside contact,” Omar confirmed. “New Horizons is issuing a statement this afternoon. They claim they have no choice but to terminate Mr. Steadman’s position as chairman.”

  “This was inevitable,” Dale replied.

  “I’ll tell you what it is,” Marcus fumed. “It’s typical.”

  “The New Horizons spokesperson repeated the recent character assault brought out in court. Seemed positively delighted to do so. Didn’t show a bit of interest in the testimony that ran counter to Hamper Caisse’s witnesses. She claimed they simply can’t afford more adverse publicity.”

  When Dale resumed his blank inspection of the distance, Marcus said, “That’s nothing more than a perfect excuse. My guess is, they’ve already started rolling back Dale’s changes. The increased wages tied to higher productivity, the new doctors and factory clinics, the child care centers, they’ll be gone before you know it.”

  Omar flipped to a blank page in his notebook. “Can I quote you?”

  “Be my guest. New Horizons will return to their same old tactics. Only now they’ll trumpet how these new ideas brought them nothing but more bad news.”

  “Do you think they’re behind this little girl’s abduction?”

  “You know I can’t answer that.”

  “Mr. Steadman, do you have any—”

  “Don’t respond, Dale.” Marcus resisted the urge to shove the reporter aside. “We’re leaving now.”

  CHAPTER

  ———

  27

  WHEN MARCUS did not pick up his phone, Kirsten listened to the answering machine’s message, waited through three tight breaths, then hung up and dialed Dale Steadman. He answered before the first ring was halfway finished. “Mr. Steadman, this is Kirsten Stansted.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Düsseldorf.”

  “Have you seen Erin?”

  “Not since my arrival. But she’s here.”

  “I watched the video of you serving her with the court papers.”

  It had not even occurred to her that he might be present. “I’m very sorry about that.”

  “Don’t be. The judge watched it too. It made all the difference, believe me.”

  “I needed to check with you about a couple of things, please.”

  “Sure. Do you like opera?”

  “What I’ve heard, which isn’t a lot.”

  “I always figured myself for a bluegrass sort of guy. The year after I busted my shoulder, I was doing rehab at a sports clinic outside Boston. My trainer and her husband were real opera fanatics. I got tickets to the Met and flew us down for the weekend. Figured if she could put up with me groaning and sweating on the table for six hours a day, I could sit through three hours of people hollering words I couldn’t understand.”

  She refused to offer what he wanted, which was an invitation to delve further into reminiscences and regret. “The reason I’m calling, I’m facing some unexpected expenses here in Germany.”

  “Spend whatever it takes.”

  “I can fax you an itemized breakdown.”

  “Don’t bother. I’ll be a moving target for a while. I actually thought your call was going to be the New Horizons board rep telling me I’ve been canned.”

  She didn’t want the man’s trust. Nor did she want to feel more sympathy and shared sorrow than she already did. But the emotions welled up unbidden. “I’m so sorry.”

  “The way I see it, they knew about my drinking and they made it their business to find out about my marital problems.”

  “You’re saying that was why you were hired?”

  “They wanted somebody they could yank up the flagpole, wave in front of the press, and say, Look at what we’re doing. We’ve hired ourselves a reformer. But when I started putting into place things they didn’t like, they could cut the rope and say it was on account of my personal difficulties. I was a patsy from the get-go.”

  “Could you please fax me an authorization to give the detectives a retainer?”

  “No problem.” He made note of the number, then added, “Marcus is lucky to have you.”

  That was definitely a course she had no intention of taking. “I was wondering if you could also fax me a photograph of Celeste.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “I’d like to have something to show around.”

  “Give me five minutes.” A pause, then, “This is hard on you too, isn’t it.”

  “A large black and white picture would probably come through more clearly,” she replied, then hung up the phone. Kirsten sat on the edge of the bed, staring at her hands. She glanced at her watch, rose, reached for her purse, headed for the door.

  Downstairs she waited as the fax pulsed through the machine. The receptionist took one look and beamed back at the smiling baby. “What a lovely child! Is she yours?”

  Kirsten accepted the fax and headed out the door. “For the moment.”

  It was the hour before sunset as the taxi drove Kirsten through a middle-class residential quarter. Neat apartment blocks stood tightly abreast. Trees and a meager strip of green formed a rivulet down either side of the central trolley tracks. The buildings were of a regimental order, all six or seven stories, all freshly painted, all double-glazed and politely ornamented. They broke ranks only to permit in the side streets and more battalions of close-ranked buildings. When a trolley rattled down the street, the residential cavern trapped the sound and kept it there forever.

  Her taxi rounded a corner, took a second sharp turning, and suddenly entered a world of cathedral greens. The forest was so ancient all Kirsten saw were vast spaces and living pillars. The taxi driver took deep breaths through his open window and pointed to the ancient growth. Kirsten nodded her understanding. She had entered the city’s lungs.

  From the outside, the church was singularly unimpressive. All she could see when she rose from the taxi was the wall of a forest hut. A thick coat of gold-green moss bound the structure to the forest floor. Once inside, she found that three of the sanctuary walls were glass. As she took her seat, the wind flung a fistful of apple blossoms at the glass, as though the trees sought to join the congregation.

  The service was a standard midweek rite, intended primarily for fellowship. Kirsten sat and listened to her own internal discourse. She was not yet able to examine her flaws and come to terms with all her emotional baggage. But she had an instinctive understanding of Erin Brandt. Their motif was the same; to appear to be someone else, to form a wall no one could breach.

  Until now.

  After the service, people flowed good-naturedly into the adjoining kitchen-dining area. The covered dishes emitted a rainbow of odors—curries and chilies and cumin and spices she could not identify. Kirsten remained standing by her chair and observed the casual intermingling of Europeans and Asians and Arabs and Africans, the diversity a living condemnation of most American churches.

  The couple waited until the congregation had dispersed to approach. Only one other person remained seated up by the nave, a gray-haired matron who appeared to study Kirsten even with head bowed and eyes diverted.

  The younger woman demanded, “You’re taking on Erin Brandt?”

  “I represent an attorney acting on behalf of her former husband.”

  She had the weak countenance of many redheads, as though the effort of inserting such brilliance into her hair had drained her features of strength and clarity. “I sing with the opera. My husband is one of the lead dancers with the Stadtsballet.”

  The young man was slender and muscled and held himself with taut grace. He asked his wife, “Does she look like a lawyer to you?”

  “And just exactly what is a lawyer supposed to look like?” The woman did not turn arou
nd. “Male?”

  “This is your career we’ve got on the line here. Our careers.”

  “Where else would be safer? Tell me that and we’ll go there.”

  “You heard them the same as I. This case is high profile. People are watching.”

  Kirsten asked, “Who has been talking about me?”

  “I can’t tell you that.” She seemed irate with her own need to talk. “Look. If there was a support group for left-behind parents, we couldn’t ever discuss it, you understand?”

  The young man continued to glare at his wife. “The German government takes a very hard look at any resident foreigner who makes trouble.”

  “This isn’t just a problem for Americans. It’s a dilemma facing people from nations right around the globe. And it’s getting steadily worse. Word is out.”

  Kirsten asked, “What can you tell me about Erin Brandt?”

  “Almost nothing. She got her start singing in a convent choir. I know that much.”

  “It could be a lie,” her husband muttered.

  “I don’t think so. She was too angry with herself for telling me.”

  The gray-haired woman on the front row remained intently focused upon the hands in her lap. Kirsten asked, “When was this?”

  “Not long after she returned to her position as resident diva. Erin was furious after she said it. So angry she frightened me. Like I was suddenly a threat.”

  “Because she had spoken to you?”

  “Because I listened. Erin knew I’d been paying attention.”

  “But why was this important?”

  “I don’t know. But it was. To her, it was something vital.”

  The gray-haired woman rose from her seat and turned their way, revealing features cast into permanent resignation. The couple said nothing as she slipped into the pew in front of Kirsten. She spoke in German with heavily accented weariness. The singer translated, “You have succeeded in worrying Erin Brandt.”

  “May I ask who you are?”

  The couple exchanged glances with the woman before the singer responded. “Goscha is Ms. Brandt’s housekeeper.”

  “Goscha.” Kirsten turned so she faced the woman directly. “Can you tell me how the baby is doing?”

  The woman made a careless gesture of clearing away sudden tears. The singer translated, “Erin and her manager took the baby away this morning. She has no idea where to.”

  Kirsten touched the woman’s sweatered arm. “Was Celeste all right this morning?”

  The woman struggled to respond directly. “Is beautiful child. Please, you are forgiving my English, yes?”

  “Of course.”

  “Celeste is little angel.”

  “Why did they take her away?”

  The woman switched back to German, which the singer translated, “Erin is preparing to travel again.”

  “When?”

  “Tomorrow. She has agreed to sing at a gala function.”

  “Where?”

  The housekeeper replied with a gift bearer’s determination. “New York.”

  Kirsten joined the crowd drifting into the forest and the night. The path back to the main forest road was poorly lit and furrowed from recent rains. Women in high heels pitched like drunken ballerinas and grabbed at whoever was closest. The atmosphere was gay and soft as the air, good friends reluctant to leave the dusky respite. The trees were blue-gray shadows etched against the fading summer light. An orchestra of birdsong made a mockery of the autobahn’s distant thunder.

  Kirsten felt an urgent need to talk with Marcus. Yet the flush of pleasure over sharing these events also raised the specter of panic and flight. Which saddened her, thinking that perhaps this would remain a part of her forever, an addictive craving for the needle of isolation.

  A hand gripped her arm. For an instant she thought it was another parishioner offering support over the rocky path. Then the thumb searched out the soft point in her elbow, and punched down like a stake going for blood.

  The pain was a white flash against the backdrop of falling night, so severe she had to gasp first, before the scream could be formed. Another hand was there and ready, this one gloved and closing over her throat and dragging her back the three paces into the first line of trees.

  A man breathed into her ear, “Sometimes there ain’t nothing as real as pain. Tell me I’m right.”

  Kirsten struggled for a purchase against the hand over her throat. The man lifted her up slightly so that her toes scrabbled across the leaves. Her nostrils became filled with the man’s stench. The odor was as strong as his grip, a revolting combination of old sweat and cheap cologne.

  “Know what I think? Pain’s like a flower. You get inside deep enough, you find it just keeps on opening up.” His voice was muffled by cloth. “One level to the next. On and on. And you can’t decide which is worse. Living with the pain you know, or worrying about how bad it’s gonna get.”

  The man slackened his grip on both her elbow and her throat. The dual agonies were replaced by a single throbbing ache that coursed through her entire upper body, melded together by sheer terror.

  “Now you just calm down and listen hard. Either that or I’m gonna introduce you to the next level. Nod that you’re paying attention to what I’m saying.”

  The distant road flashed with the brilliance of a car pulling away. Another car started and turned on its lights. A spectral glow lit their tiny corner, the tree trunks turning silver on one side and black on the other. The man was so strong he could hold her full weight by the gloved hand gripping the bones of her lower jaw.

  Kirsten clenched both her hands to the wrist and forearm and took as much of her weight as she could. She might as well have been holding a roof brace. She nodded.

  “Okay, here’s the deal. You made yourself busy asking questions and causing problems. Nod that you’re still listening. See how easy it is? Now nod again, and show me you’re gonna be leaving tomorrow. Good. Nod once more. We’ve got us a promise, right? You’re nodding ’cause you don’t ever want to know what kinda pain I can cause you if I want.”

  The next car illuminated their monochrome grove. The man’s second hand released her elbow and flashed a blade before her eyes. “Some pains, they stay around for what seems like forever.” He moved the blade back and forth, like a barber ready to probe and shave. “They’re there every time you look at yourself in the mirror. You think maybe I oughtta show you what I mean, make sure you don’t ever forget our little talk?”

  A woman’s voice called from down the path, “Ms. Stansted?”

  The man froze.

  Footsteps scrunched back down the gravel walk, and the singer called out, “Kirsten?”

  The man held the blade up before Kirsten’s eyes, a warning.

  Footsteps came farther back down the path. “Are you there?”

  Kirsten lifted both feet off the ground, nauseated by the man’s stink and that flashing blade. But the fear of having the singer move away and leave her there alone was far greater. She cocked her ankles so as to sharpen the edge of her heels, and drove them like dual spikes into his ankle.

  The man grunted softly, the sound scalding her ear. The blade wavered slightly. She ducked her chin down as far as it would go. Her senses were filled with the man’s oily stench. She fought down a rising gorge and opened her mouth so wide she heard her bones grind against the pressure of his grip.

  “Kirsten? Are you—”

  She wedged her chin down, fitting her mouth about the width of his wrist. Then she bit down with every shred of force in her entire body.

  The man bellowed.

  Somewhere out in the distance, a woman screamed in response.

  Kirsten hung on to his arm like a leech. She beat her elbows back against the solid rock of his chest and hammered down with her heels a second time. And ground her teeth deeper.

  Something sliced her at the hairline, not a strike so much as a flash of light deep inside her skull. There were more shouts now, and she was poundin
g his leg and ankle and biting so hard she felt nothing else, heard nothing, not even the muffled screams choking her own throat.

  There was the sound of people rushing into the trees. The man ripped his arm free and flung her to the earth.

  “She’s over here!”

  Kirsten fell to all fours. Hands reached down for her, then backed off as she squeezed her body like a fist in the effort to be sick, to rid herself of the stench and all that had just happened.

  “She’s bleeding! Somebody get a towel!”

  A hand touched the point below her ear where she could sense the wetness, and there came a searing pain. But with it was the relief of knowing it was over.

  As she rose from the earth, Kirsten grabbed several leaves and stuffed them into her own mouth. The sweet earthy grit did much to cleanse away the taste of that man.

  CHAPTER

  ———

  28

  “KIRSTEN, I DON’T LIKE THIS. Not at all.”

  It was approaching midnight, two hours since the police had driven her back to the hotel. But the residual fear would not let her be still. Kirsten cradled the phone with her shoulder and continued to pack. “Could we move beyond this, please? Erin is going to New York. I intend to follow her.”

  “The woman had someone attack you tonight and—”

  “Marcus, I didn’t tell you about this so you could use it like a club. I told you because I felt you should know what happened.”

  When Marcus had answered the phone and heard her voice, he had sounded so delighted, so open, so eager. Kirsten had retreated instinctively, watching herself cut him off and hating the weakness. But she was powerless to do otherwise. Even so, to hear him respond with his own curt professional tone hurt far worse than her neck’s throbbing.

  “I don’t understand why you’re so determined.”

  Kirsten pressed down the clothes into her suitcase, punching them in time to her words. “What has hiding brought except misery and lies upon lies?”

  “Are we talking about the case here?”

  She did say what she was thinking, that her own internal fight was so tightly interwoven now, she could not halt one without retreating from the other. “This is important, Marcus.”