by Tim Green
Connie stuck out her lower lip, but got up and followed.
67
JAKE COULDN’T FEEL HIS HAND beyond the metal cuff. A bead of sweat fell from his brow, striking his cheek before he tasted its salt. His shoulders ached in the pits of his arms. His joints trembled and throbbed. The tip of his middle finger just tickled the handle of a rusty pipe wrench. He knew that was what the vague shape and the feel of pitted metal had to be.
The wrench lay along the wall behind the water heater. With all his might, he’d been unable to unseat the heater or the pipes that flowed from it. The wrench, if he could reach it, would allow him to attack the joint where the pipes met the tank.
His breath filled the silence in short puffs. His mind went red and he bellowed with rage, pulling until something popped in his wrist, splitting his anger like a thunderbolt. At the same instant, the distinct sound of metal grating against concrete rang out in the darkness. Jake’s eyes watered from the pain, but he stretched again, this time feeling the lip of the wrench handle, this time gaining a purchase. The wrench scraped the floor.
Jake wrapped his fingers around the cool heavy tool. He checked himself from smashing the side of the tank and sat cradling the wrench until his breathing slowed and the pain in his wrist receded to a dull throb. With his fingers and his eyes, he examined the contours of the pipe. Where it hooked into the tank, he fixed the mouth of the wrench and tried to wriggle it on. The teeth bit. It was too tight. He fumbled with the barrel that adjusted the opening. Rust powdered his fingertips. It was frozen.
He slammed the wrench on the floor, showering himself with concrete splinters until the pitch changed. Again, his fingers worked the barrel. This time, it moved. He widened the mouth and wedged it onto the pipe. It fit. He grabbed the end of the handle and pulled, groaning. It didn’t move.
With the handcuff rattling against the pipe, he stood, braced himself, and put a foot onto the wrench. He stood on the handle with both feet and bounced. The wrench screeched and moved, so he kept bouncing. There was a snap, and his feet went out from under him. He fell to the floor, still cuffed to the pipe. Tepid water stinking of sulfur sprayed out of the opening, soaking his clothes.
Jake recovered and slipped the cuff off the broken end of the pipe. When he was halfway up the stairs, the water in the tank quieted to a trickle. Jake stepped carefully and tried the door. It was locked. He slipped back down the stairs and made his way to the weak source of light, scooping the wrench up out of its puddle on the way.
He rolled a barrel over beneath the window and climbed up. A board had been awkwardly fitted into the stone frame covering most of the glass. Jake lifted it away, sputtering from the dust. Corrosion had frozen the latch, and when Jake applied the wrench, the window handle snapped off like candy. He banged on it for a moment before simply smashing the glass and using the wrench to dislodge the jagged edges. A tangle of shrubbery awaited him. Thick stems of lilac and forsythia.
Jake heard footsteps crossing the floor above him. He plunged into the opening and fought with the thick undergrowth, squirming through, wincing at the scratches. From the other side of the small house he heard shouts. His hands broke free from the shrubs and found tall grass. He flailed, pulling himself through into an overgrown yard bordered by woods. He could smell the fresh dark shadows beneath the trees, but took only one step before someone tripped him and he tumbled to the ground.
“You’re a mess,” Slatten said in his gravelly voice. He pitched the butt of a smoking cigarette toward the trees.
The grass swished in front of Jake. One of Slatten’s men, wearing sunglasses and the same tan utility vest from the night before, stood ready. Jake slowly got up, ready to launch himself at the man. He felt he had nothing to lose.
“Relax, Clark Kent,” Slatten said. “I’m here to invite you to dinner. The congressman wants to see you.”
68
BY TWO-THIRTY, Muldoon’s story for that day’s show was coming together. They had a copy of the death certificate, and the undertaker had confirmed that he never saw the body of the baby allegedly buried in the Van Buren family cemetery. Nothing so far had disproved Martha’s contention. No comment had come from Van Buren, but that in itself was worth something. Muldoon spoke to Sam’s grandmother, beat around the bush, and didn’t get a refusal to let Sam appear. That was enough for Muldoon to stretch the truth and tell Katz they had the green light. The show’s lawyer was still concerned, saying only permission from Jake could guarantee they wouldn’t be sued, but Katz knew the story would pull huge ratings and keep their momentum from sweeps going right through the summer, so he was willing to take a chance.
Muldoon left the edit room with specific instructions on some final cuts, then went downstairs. Sam was in the makeup chair, fussing about the girl brushing gel into his lashes.
“Hey,” Muldoon said, “your dad does it.”
“That’s right,” Connie said.
Sam stopped fidgeting.
“Nervous?” Muldoon asked, leading him down the hall toward the studio.
Sam shrugged, then messed the part they’d given him out of his hair.
“I could use something to eat,” Sam said.
“Didn’t you get bagels?”
“They’re gone. How about some pastrami or something?”
“No problem,” Muldoon said. “Goddamn it, Connie, I said take care of him. Hey, the minute we’re done, we’ll get you something.”
Sam nodded.
“Nancy’s great,” Muldoon said, and Connie nodded in agreement. “It’ll be like talking to your . . .to someone you know.”
Muldoon held the studio door open for Sam, then followed him into the cool, cavernous room, where a hundred different lights clung to the steel grid hanging from the ceiling. Orange, yellow, and blue light washed over the rich wood of the set and two white spots shone down on an interview area where the overstuffed furniture had been arranged to look like someone’s living room. The stage manager sat Sam down and an audio man wired a microphone up under his shirt. Connie stood off to the side.
Nancy arrived with a flourish, talking on her cell phone, followed by her personal assistant, two PAs, and the show’s publicist. The makeup girl orbited her with hair spray, darting into the group to spray and pat, then darting out. Nancy stepped up onto the set and stopped at its edge to finish her call. Sam stood up and shifted from foot to foot, looking mostly at the ground. While she spoke, Nancy made a kissing motion at Sam and waved with the tips of her fingers. When she hung up, Muldoon introduced them.
“Your father’s an absolute superstar,” Nancy said, taking Sam’s hand, her words gushing. “And you? You’re just gorgeous. Look at the size of you. Thirteen? You look like you’re ready for college.”
She smiled once more at Sam and looked at Muldoon.
“We’re ready?” she asked in a flat tone.
He handed her the script and she took out a pen, slashing here and there, more for effect than anything, before she handed it back to him without looking up and turned to the makeup girl.
“I don’t want bags under my eyes today,” she said with a smile that didn’t match her tone.
Sam gazed up at the lights, some glowing dully like jewels, some glaring white, all of them shining down like nearby stars. The set seemed to float in darkness, a fragment of an upper-class living room torn free and cast into the Milky Way, an outpost in space. Three cameras orbited the set, robotic satellites, one swinging from a long black boom, the others sliding along the concrete floor, massive pieces on an invisible chessboard.
Sam’s face grew hot under the spotlight’s glare. His eyes watered. The makeup on his cheeks dried, contracted, and itched. The gel in his hair smelled like the hair salon his mother used to drag him into before he was old enough to be left home alone. A bead of sweat trickled free from his armpit and ran down into the waistband of his underwear. Sam shifted and moved his tongue around on the inside of his mouth, searching for moisture.
A
stagehand asked him if he felt okay. He nodded. The same man asked if he wanted a drink. The words stuck in his throat so he shook his head no. Nancy cleared her throat and read a few lines into the camera, then started over, introducing him with words like desperate and bewildered, words that made him sound like something he wasn’t.
Sam found himself staring into the show host’s eyes, looking for a handle in the bright blue color to hold on to, but he couldn’t make a connection. The pupils didn’t contract or dilate. The irises didn’t shift except to pick up the next question off the teleprompter strapped onto the camera hovering over Sam’s shoulder. He told himself this was the right thing to do. He told himself the media attention would help find his dad.
“Sam,” Nancy said, her voice softened with practiced compassion, “tell us who your father is.”
Sam opened his mouth and wrestled his tongue free from its knot. A noise came out. Nancy smiled patiently and nodded. She wore a mask of kindness. Sam gulped and took a breath.
“Jake Carlson.”
“Our Jake Carlson, right?” she said softly.
“Yes, American Outrage.”
The show’s name squeaked out of his mouth and his cheeks grew warm.
“I know your father has been working on an important story involving organized crime,” Nancy said, as if Sam’s breaking voice were part of every interview. “Can you tell us what happened to him?”
“Well, a few days ago, someone tried to kill him,” Sam said. He stopped and looked around, expecting something to change, some kind of reaction, but they all just kept floating in space.
“Tell us about that,” Nancy said.
“The district attorney left a message on our home phone telling him to be careful. There’s these Albanians that are pretty bad.”
“The Albanian mafia?”
Sam shrugged. “Yeah.”
“Are they the ones who have your father?”
“I don’t know. He’s gone and I know they’re after him.”
“And you’d like us to try and help?”
“And the FBI.”
“Of course, and we’ll do that. Now how does Martha Van Buren fit into all this?”
Sam took a deep breath. Something inside him loosened and the words began to spill. “I was adopted. My dad was helping me look for my biological mom. My own mom, my real mom, she died. So, my dad was up in Syracuse, doing the bunker-man story for the show and that was where they got me, from an agency there. Where my mom and dad got me. Back when my dad first started in TV. So, he went to where the adoption agency was and started asking questions, you know, investigating, and he ran into these Albanians. We found out that they were taking babies from their country and bringing them over for people here to adopt.”
“But it turned out that you weren’t from Albania, isn’t that right?” Nancy said.
“We thought I was,” Sam said. His words weren’t doing justice to the way he felt so he began to talk faster. “But then we found out that there were a couple babies who were from here. One of them, we think, was Martha Van Buren’s son. They had a funeral for her baby, but it was a trick. Her baby didn’t die.”
Muldoon retreated to the control room, where he gave Nancy’s changes to the teleprompter operator. He stayed in the back and swallowed down a sixteen-ounce cup of coffee, watching while Katz and the director walked Nancy through the interview, feeding her questions and instructions through the clear plastic IFB plugged into her ear.
Muldoon listened, but he realized early in the interview that it would end up as filler more than anything. It would be difficult to build an entire segment around the kid. On camera, his awkward size, braces, messy hair, and natural glowering expression all worked against an audience’s natural sympathies.
Nancy’s final question to Sam was, “Do you think Martha Van Buren is your mom?”
Sam’s eyes glistened and he swallowed, shaking his head in confusion. “I don’t know for sure. But she thinks she is.”
Nancy let that one stand for a moment, then she quietly thanked Sam for his courage and said she’d do everything she could to help Sam find his dad.
When it was over, Katz turned and looked up at Muldoon and gave him a subtle thumbs-up.
Muldoon pursed his lips and nodded. When he returned to the set, Nancy passed him on her way out, berating the publicist for the two-page spread in Us when she’d been promised three. She ignored Muldoon and disappeared with her entourage, leaving the studio suddenly quiet. Muldoon took a weary breath and forced a convivial smile onto his face. The audio man was removing Sam’s wire. Connie was right there next to him.
“You did good,” Muldoon said, patting his shoulder.
He told Connie to take Sam to get his makeup taken off and that he’d meet them in the greenroom. Muldoon watched them disappear down the hall, and he walked in and sat down on the couch, pinching the bridge of his nose between a thumb and forefinger and fighting back a yawn.
He took a couple deep breaths, thinking about his next move, when he heard a phone ringing softly. It was a cell phone, but not his. It was Sam’s, lying on the cushion of the couch where he’d been sitting. Muldoon glanced at the greenroom door, stood, and scooped it up. The caller ID read DAD.
Muldoon swallowed and clamped a hand over his chin. Finally, he flipped it open.
69
SLATTEN FIT HIS KEY INTO THE HANDCUFFS and snapped open the lock. He slipped them through his belt without looking. The skin had swollen around the metal band circumscribing a purple canyon around Jake’s wrist.
“You did that to yourself,” Slatten said, shaking his head and biting back a grin. “You think you’re Superman or something?”
“Fuck you,” Jake said, returning the older man’s stare.
Slatten turned and pushed through the grass, rounding the old farmhouse and climbing up into his Suburban. Jake followed and stood at the passenger door. Slatten’s man shadowed him.
Slatten rolled down the window. “Get in.”
Slatten’s man climbed in back.
After a moment, Slatten said to Jake, “What the hell else are you going to do? Run off and rub two sticks to make a fire?”
Jake opened the door and got in, but he didn’t look at Slatten. The rutted road bounced them along the edge of the clearing, then dipped into the trees. Several times they crossed streambeds over the backs of soggy logs, once backing up to start again with their tires chewing off soft orange splinters. Branches whipped the window and snapped the radio antenna, its twang accompanying the thud of rocks on the undercarriage. For thirty minutes they wove through the woods, twisting, turning, veering both right and left at various forks. Jake began to think they were going in circles until they rounded a bend and came out on a country road that spit them onto Route 85, where they headed north. About ten miles later, they passed under the stone entrance of Ridgewood.
Jake shifted in his seat, damp suit pants, dress shirt, and coat clinging to his skin. They pulled around to the back of the mansion. Slatten got out and led Jake into a service door. They climbed three flights of stairs.
“I’m guessing you wouldn’t mind cleaning up,” Slatten said, showing Jake into a bedroom suite and swinging open the door to a large marble bathroom highlighted by gold fixtures.
“I wouldn’t mind if you let me go,” Jake said, touching the puffy skin around his wrist, feeling for the groove.
Slatten turned to Jake and tilted his head. “You can go.”
“Right. You kidnap me, fucking handcuff me in a dungeon, and now I can go.”
“As far as whatever ordeal you’ve been through,” Slatten said in the steady tone of a practiced liar, “the police are looking into the men who grabbed you from the train. When you’re tired of our hospitality, I’ll call the police and have them arrest you for coming here a second time after you were warned. They can process you, I’m sure it won’t take you more than a day to get bail worked out, and you’re on your way.”
“That’s ho
w this works?” Jake said.
Slatten flattened his lips together and nodded, then invited Jake into the bathroom with a sweep of his hand. “There’s a robe in there. If you put your clothes in that laundry chute there, they’ll clean them up pretty quick. Most of the staff is third generation, some fourth.”
“I need to call my son,” Jake said.
“They’ll be plenty of time after you speak with the congressman.”
“He doesn’t know where I am,” Jake said. “He’s with a friend and she doesn’t know where I am either.”
“Don’t the cops give you a phone call after a couple hours? Just let me know.”
Jake shook his head.
“Can you get me some goddamn Advil, anyway?”
Slatten grunted, then turned toward the door, pausing after he opened it to say, “Oh, did I forget to tell you? Dinner is at eight.”
Slatten closed the door and Jake heard the sound of a bolt sliding home with a definitive click.
70
JAKE?” MULDOON SAID.
“Who is this?” said a voice in a thick accent.
Muldoon’s heart took off. He crossed the room and shut the door tight.
“My name is Conrad Muldoon,” he said, tightening his grip on the phone. “I’m a friend of Jake Carlson’s.”
There was a pause. “Where is the boy?”
“With me,” Muldoon said.
“Let me speak to him. He wants to know about his mother. We will tell him.”
“He’s not here,” Muldoon said.
“You’re fucking with us?”
“No,” Muldoon said, holding up his hand as though he was calming them.
“Get him. He will want to know about his mother.”
“I can work that out,” Muldoon said. “We can meet you. Just tell me where.”
Muldoon could hear the distinct sound of the man with the thick accent covering the phone. He glanced at the door and started to pace, motioning his hand in little circles to hurry them.