by Hunt-David
I strip off my clothes, take a long hot shower, then nestle against him in the sandalwood-scented sheets. He moves a little, feels for me, cups my breasts with his hands. Yes, please hold me, Sasha. I want nothing more now than to fall asleep in is strong dark arms.
* * * * *
Eleven a.m.: I'm standing in front of Dad's bakery, having traveled to the Richmond by bus. Baking time has long passed though the wonderful aroma of bread production is still in the air. Most of this morning's loaves have been delivered to client restaurants, while the remainder are on sale at the front of the store to walk-in customers.
Dad, I learn from his manager, is at the Russian coffeehouse up the street taking his midmorning break. I saunter up there, catch sight of him through the window sitting at a table wearing glasses and reading today's Examiner.
I watch him awhile, note the absentminded way he drinks his coffee, bringing it slowly to his lips, taking a sip, then another, replacing the cup on the table, then turning the page.
I have no desire to go in there now and wreck his tranquility, but there're things he must be told. I don't believe I pushed Rusty to kill himself. I can't imagine him submitting to arrest and disgrace. I'm pretty sure he would have ended his life if only for the sake of Soo-Lin. That's the trouble — I'm just pretty sure, not sure a hundred percent.
"Dad."
He looks up, shows me a big grin, removes his glasses.
"Hey, darlin', sit down. This is great! What brings you out?"
Suddenly he looks concerned. He knows I've not come bearing happy news.
"What's the matter? You look tragic."
I sit beside him, take his hand in mine, blurt it out: "Rusty's dead. Shot himself last night. Worse, I saw him do it. I'm sorry, Dad — he was in deep, deep shit. He must have felt it was his only way."
* * * * *
We walk back to the bakery, get into his car, drive out to Lincoln Boulevard
, then down to the parking area near Baker Beach. It's foggy; there's hardly anyone around, just a dozen or so hard-core nudists lying faceup on their towels hopeful the sea fog will lift.
"God, I hate guns!" he says.
We're walking on the sand just above the tide line. There's seaweed and driftwood strewn by the waves.
"I'm sick of them too," I tell him. "Lately they seem to have taken over my life. I bought one after I took that shooting course. Cost me a bundle. Never fired it. Now I don't want it anymore."
He's less surprised than I'd have thought about Rusty going bad, says it was always in him, the temptation, and that it's a fine line that separates criminals from cops.
"We play the same game, you see, except on opposite teams. The law's on our side, that's the difference. As for right and wrong, who's to say?"
I know he doesn't believe that, but understand why he must say it. It's hard enough for him to have lost his closest friend. To despise Rusty for turning corrupt isn't possible for him yet. Perhaps it never will be.
He puts his arm around my shoulder, holds me against his side.
"I'm just so sorry you had to see him do it, darlin'. Just so damn sorry, that's all."
We drive over to Rusty's house in the Sunset. While Dad goes in to visit with Soo-Lin, I wait in the car. There're masses of Chinese people coming and going. Soo-Lin lost both a husband and a brother last night.
Dad isn't gone long. When he comes back out, I notice a bitter sadness in his face.
"She couldn't look me in the eye," he says. "She knew what he was doing. She knew all along. For all I know, she pressured him into it."
He pauses, then smacks his fist into his palm. "But pressure — that's no kind of goddamn excuse."
16
Though Ramsey Carson posted bail within eight hours of his arrest, it's two weeks before he calls.
"I want to talk to you about Amanda Vail," he says, smooth, deferential. "I was wondering — may I take you to lunch?"
"I don't do lunch," I tell him, working to keep my voice steady. "But I'd be happy to come see you at your house. I've heard a lot about you gun collection, Mr. Carson. I'd like to see it too, if that's all right."
"Sure! We'll kill two birds. Here, tonight, eight p.m.. We have a lot to talk about, I think."
I turn up at eight in my usual tough-girl photographer garb — black boots, jeans, T-shirt, black leather jacket, Contax camera around my neck. Though I don't plan on taking any pictures tonight, I wear my camera as an emblem.
The house is as Bee Watson described, even more luxurious, I think. The blooming jasmine in the courtyard emits a perfume suggesting sweet and careless wealth.
Carson is dressed like a British sportsman in town for the day — tweed jacket, tattersall shirt, gleaming shoes, dark flannel slacks. He greets me with a smile perfectly composed, not at all like the distraught character I saw two weeks ago doing a perp walk in manacles.
He shows no sign of worry on account of his forthcoming trial. Perhaps he thinks the charge of murder will be dropped, and that a plea to having fought a duel will only add to his mystique.
He escorts me up to the gun room, offers me a drink, smiles when I ask for a glass of water. He shrugs, pours one for me, then a large cognac for himself. He swirls it in a snifter, then, donning a pair of white cotton gloves, proceeds to show me the Farouk guns I've heard so much about.
Though they're extremely well wrought, I'm not really very interested.
"Actually there're a couple of other guns I'd rather see," I tell him.
"Oh?" He raises an eyebrow. "You must be quite the connoisseur."
"Show me Mandy's Winchester and the revolver you used to kill Tommy Dunphy."
He stiffens. "You're well informed, Ms. Farrow. I don't usually show those guns to strangers."
"You want to know about Mandy, don't you? That's why you invited me. So let's cut the crap."
He gazes at me, amused. "Bitchy little broad, aren't you?"
I grin.
He grins back. "All right. It's not like they have any real value, you understand."
He opens a cabinet beneath one of the gun racks, pulls out the weapons, lays them on the refectory table beside the Farouks. They appear pretty scruffy in such exalted company, beat-up stocks and dull metal barrels beside a matched pair of gleaming masterworks of the gunsmith's art. But the way Carson handles them tells me that for him they carry a lot of meaning. I'm going to have to play my cards cleverly, I think, if I'm to walk off with them tonight.
As I move to touch them, he winces slightly. Perhaps he thinks I too should put on gloves. I ignore him, pick up Maddy's Winchester, fondle it, am surprised at how small and light it is. I feel a strange sensation too — the same slightly squeamish feeling I get when working with her cameras.
"Here's my proposition. I'll tell you the full life story of Mandy Vail, whom I knew extremely well. In return I want these guns."
He scoffs. "Not much of a deal, Ms. Farrow."
I study him, the astute real estate investor. He negotiates deals every day, while I barely do one a year.
"Suppose," I ask him, "I throw in the shots I took of the goings-on in apartment five."
He turns grim. "You're bluffing."
"Think so? Ever notice the attic window in the little house across Cypress Alley? It's got a view right into the bedroom. I staked you out. So did Mandy... before you paid a street enforcer two hundred bucks to scare her off." I stare at him. "You didn't know the 'old biddy' was Amanda Vail, did you? Or that she was known the last forty years as Maddy Yamada, one of the most respected photojournalists in the world?"
"That can't be," he says, sinking into one of the chesterfields, pomp deflated, self-assurance draining from his eyes. "Not her. Couldn't have been. I don't believe it."
"It was her all right. And you had her killed."
Though he continues to shake his head, he knows I'm telling him the truth. "Tell me what you know?" he say finally. And, when I shrug, he whimpers: "Please."
"The guns?
"
He waves his arm. "Take them. Take the goddamn things. They're just worthless junk anyway."
* * * * *
It's after midnight when I finally leave, having told him Maddy's story and answered numerous questions about her life and work. Now I carry the weapons out in a splendid English leather gun case probably worth twenty times the value of what's inside.
I'm exhausted. Bee was right about Carson being emotionally dead. There's barely, I think, the tiniest pith of human feeling in him. Recounting Maddy's story, I felt as though I were talking to an empty suit. Though stricken at first by the news that it was his beloved Mandy he'd ordered chased away, he could only relate the episode to himself.
"Way back when we were young I was crazy about her," he told me. Then he shook his head. "Hard to feel much of anything for her now, except..." He winced. "She made a damn nuisance of herself."
I stared at him, incredulous. "A nuisance! You call her a nuisance? "
He shrugged. "Hiding in a little room behind a camera — that wasn't the shooter I fell in love with when we were young."
Well, I think, as I wait now for my taxi outside his gate, impossible to feel anything for him. He's a killer, a monster. Even his madness fails to move me.
Maddy, I think, would know just how to photograph him — mercilessly, straight-on, full-frame, beneath a relentless noonday sun, letting the harsh light strip him to the very core of what he's become, exposing his ice-cold killer's eyes so that they meet the viewer's gaze.
* * * * *
Six days later: Hank Evans and I, faces painted dark and dressed in black fatigues, lie beside one another on a rise behind a large felled oak not two hundred feet from the main compound of the G.G.C..
It's exactly 12:15a.m., the sky is studded with stars; behind us hangs a delicate crescent moon. The air tonight is sweet, redolent of resin and by leaves. The ground's so dry I hear the crackling of tiny twigs whenever I make the slightest move.
Though I told Dad I was sick of guns, I'm not finished with them yet, there being a few loose ends to tie up before I expel them forever from my life.
Hank, preparing to leave me here while he ventures into the very heart of G.G.C. property, is on a high.
"Gonna be a piece a cake, Kay," he whispers. "Fun too. That's the best part. You're going to see how much fun it is."
His plan, to probe right to the clubhouse, do his business then safely retreat, has been meticulously prepared. He's come in her twice this week to haul supplies, reconnoiter and check his route. Meantime I phoned Vince Carroll, told him to go away for a few days, preferably someplace where he'll be seen by lots of witnesses. As a result he and Pris have gone off to Tahoe for a week to attend a workshop/seminar: "How to Operate a Profitable Bed-and-Breakfast Inn."
An hour ago Gale Hoort drove us to our starting point, a spot on a fire road that intersects with the southern perimeter of G.G.C. grounds. From there we made the trek to our present location in less than forty minutes. We walked single file, I following in Hank's footsteps at thirty feet, the two of us communicating by hand signals. No snakes this time, no animals breaking through the brush, no tripping over logs, or branches springing back to lash my face. I've had the pleasure tonight of prowling the forest with an expert woodsman, one moreover who's been an army ranger and Lurp mission leader in Vietnam.
Hank checks his watch. "It's time," he whispers. "If I go now, I'll have forty minutes in the clear."
He's referring to the G.G.C. security check-in procedure, disclosed to us by Vince. The club, he informed us, has four guards on duty on weekday nights, hired through a contract security service. The men are new to the area and perfunctorily trained. Three are stationed at the main gate, the other two on either side of the club compound. The fourth man sits in the club security office monitoring motion detectors, security devices and the guards' field radios. Each guard must check in hourly with the office on a regular rotation, starting at five minutes past the hour. Thus our window of opportunity will last from now to 1:05 a.m., more than enough time, Hank believes, to accomplish the mission and withdraw.
After he rises to a crouch, I help him slip into his backpack. Inside are fifteen half-pound blocks of C-4 plastic explosive wrapped in wax paper, fuse igniters, gas tank charges with timers, heavy duty padlocks, remote detonators and two hundred feet of detonation cord. The electronic unit to set off the detonators stays here with me.
In addition we both carry a field radio, water canteen and flare gun hooked to our belts. I also carry my cell phone to call Gale when we're ready for pickup, while Hank wears a holstered army-issue Colt .45 and a bandolier containing a half-dozen extra magazines.
I've been worried about that Colt, afraid he'll use it. The only condition I've set for tonight is that no guard or guard dog be harmed. Hank's given me assurances. He's going to create diversions to pull off the guards and will neutralize the dogs by placing his own locks on the kennel gates. But, he's also warned me, if anyone shoots at us, he won't hesitate to return fire.
"Not to kill them, Kay, but to force them to take cover."
Though I'm not crazy about the idea, I can think of no alternative, for I've decided that under no circumstances will I submit to capture here a second time.
Hank, giving me a farewell pat on the back, crawls out from behind the oak trunk, then starts to move, belly to the ground, toward his next position fifty feet away. We both have our field radios turned on with the understanding that we'll use them only in event of an emergency.
As I watch him crawl away, I ask myself what I'm doing here, whether I've become so addicted to danger and excitement I've lost my common sense. Aikido used to be enough for me. On the mat I found all the excitement I required. But since my fight with Julio Sanchez, I've been appalled by me apparent craving for more. Even the sickening experience of being abused by Chipper and Buckoboy failed to slacken the hunger. Finding Kevin Lee's body inside the car, tripping over Wo Hop To bodies down in Drawbridge, staring into Rusty's eyes at the very moment he blew out the back of his head — all that violence hasn't daunted me, seems rather to have increased my appetite. Tonight I hope to purge myself of the need.
Hank's out of sight now, but I know pretty well where he is, moving stealthily along the lengthy wall of boards and sand that constitutes the rear of the G.G.C. firing range. Back there he's out of sight of the guard on the near tower, assuming said guard is even awake and doing his job.
Two minutes later Hank reappears. Though I see very well in darkness, I pick up his pair of Russian army-surplus night-vision binoculars in order to follow him as he moves among the service buildings, then toward the kennels to place his locks. This is his first task, which could turn dangerous if the dogs become excited and start to bark.
Give him five minutes to reach the kennels, one to place the locks, five more to reach the vehicles in the service parking lot, five to set his gas tank charges on the cars and propane tank, then sneak away.
As I wait for him to reappear a the side of the lodge, I think about the different motivations that have brought us here to rain ruin upon the G.G.C..
For Hank the desire springs from a long-seething rage against rich dilettantes who have created a fiefdom by fencing off fine hunting lands previously open to all. He hates them for importing game, hunting with expensive firearms, despises their power, snobbery, hypocrisy, exclusivity, rough and illegal treatment of poachers and apparent immunity from the laws and social norms that prescribe his life and those of his friends. It's a blue-collar rage he feels, anger against privilege fueled by tales of the revelries and orgies that take place at the club. In the end, I think, it's the same strain of fury that possessed Russian peasants as they observed their aristocratic masters living decadent lives of pleasure at their expense.
My anger is sharper, more personal, for I was bound to the pool table, then threatened with the ritual gun. The men who abused me have been well punished, but for me that's not nearly enough. I want the whole
enterprise destroyed, most particularly the site of my degradation. "If you're going to blow the place up," I told Hank, "don't forget to do the gun room for me."
I catch sight of him now at the corner of the lodge. He rises, waves his arm to signal that so far things are going well. The diversion explosives are set, the detonation cord is strung. In exactly one minute he'll ignite the fuses. Then when, hopefully, the guards are drawn away from their towers, he'll break into the main lodge to inflict some truly serious damage.
I check my watch, then huddle down. It's so quiet now, so still, I relish my knowledge of what's about to happen. As a surge of power washes over me, I think that, indeed, the old adage is true: knowledge is power... and tonight the power belongs to me.
A flash of light. Then a huge report. The Boom! crashes across the compound, rages against my ears. I duck, quickly slip on a pair of heavy shades to protect my eyes. When I look up again, it's in time to see the first fireball rise like some kind of weird gaseous specter from behind the lodge, quickly followed by a series of explosions on the far side of the compound.
The fireballs come quickly — two, three, four, five! Within seconds the smell of burning gas wafts to my nostrils. The light of the fire sets the nearest tower in silhouette. I observe the guard standing at the railing, then scampering down the ladder to the ground. I pick up the night-vision binocs to watch him as he races toward the front yard of the lodge, meets up with another man, probably the guard stationed in the security office, then the two of them as they run toward the back to see what's happening in the parking lot.
Since I certainly don't want them to get hurt, I send them a wish-message: Don't go too close! It's not your club! Run away! Let the G.G.C. be damned!
A huge blast lights up the sky. Must be the propane tank, I think. What a diversion! Jesus! I hope Hank didn't plant any more explosives back there.