by Gail Bowen
Robin has put on her coat and is knotting her scarf. It appears that my apologetic smile has lost its charm.
I keep my focus on Boomer.
“I know the feeling,” I say.
“I kind of figured you did,” Boomer says. “Anyway, long story short, my lady found a biker with a bigger Hog, and she moved along. For a long time, I was kind of where Gabe is now. After my lady left, I soaped a lot of backs, but none of them passed the Zest test. I was beginning to think I’d lost something I would never find again, then along came a lady with a bar of Dove.”
“And soaping your new lady with Dove was good?”
“Transcendent,” Boomer booms.
I wouldn’t have figured Boomer as a guy who’d describe his love life as “transcendent,” but life is full of surprises.
“So your message to Gabe is that somewhere there’s a lady with a bar of Dove that has his name on it?”
“You got it, Charlie D.” Boomer’s laughter is as generous and enveloping as a bear hug.
“Thanks for calling,” I say, and I mean it. The light on line two goes out, and I’m back to line one.
“So, Gabe, think you can hang on until your Cinderella appears?”
“I’ve pretty much given up on happily-ever-afters,” Gabe says. “When my radio came on this morning and I heard the announcer say that Robin was going to be your guest, I saw the shape of my day. I’d drive to the hospital, listen to jokes from my colleagues about turning forty, open a couple of gag gifts and pretend to be surprised when someone brought a cafeteria cake into the staff lounge. And that would be my birthday. At the end of my shift, I’d go back to an empty condo and life without Robin and Kali. I couldn’t face it.”
Robin levels a last lethal look at me and walks out the studio door. She doesn’t wave goodbye.
I turn my attention back to Gabe.
“So you decided to call in to our show tonight,” I say.
“Only after picking up the one thing I needed to make my birthday complete,” he says.
My heart is pounding.
“And what was that?” I ask.
“A vial of saxitoxin.”
Robin has entered the control room. The space is brightly lit. I see everything, but hear nothing. It’s like watching a silent movie. Without even a glance at Nova, Robin strides through the door that leads to the hall that will take her out of CVOX.
I open the talkback to Nova.
“We can’t lose Robin,” I say. “Go after her. Unless I’m mistaken, Gabe is playing for keeps. Tell Robin that if she saves Gabe’s life on air, she’ll be able to write her own ticket for her call-in show.”
When the control-room door closes behind Nova, my pulse begins to race. It’s just me and Gabe now. I turn on my microphone.
“Okay, Gabe. You’ve got my attention. What’s saxitoxin?”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Gabe is clinical. “Saxitoxin is a poison,” he says. There is no hint of emotion in his pleasant tenor. He might be delivering a lecture or reading an entry from a textbook. “Some people call it shellfish toxin,” he says. “It kills quickly. And there’s no antidote.”
“So if a person changes his or her mind, nothing can be done,” I say.
I stare at the door that separates the CVOX control room from the world where no one can control anything. Gabe continues his lecture about saxitoxin. The seconds tick by on the studio clock. No one comes through the door to the control room. Nova is smart and persuasive, but Robin’s egotism may be a rock that cannot be cracked.
Just when I reconcile myself to flying solo, the door opens. As she resumes her customary place on the other side of the glass, Nova gives me a discreet thumbs-up. Robin sweeps back into the studio, takes her chair and slips on her earphones. She listens long enough to hear Gabe say that death from an injection is painless, and then she turns on her microphone and pounces.
“Gabe, you’re not interested in injecting yourself with anything. You’re not interested in dying. You’re just interested in making my life a living hell.”
“If your life is a living hell, why not join me?” Gabe says. “The vial is full. Saxitoxin for all.”
Robin shrugs off her coat. Seemingly she’s back on the team.
I turn off my mike and switch on the talkback. Nova is tense, but she’s in command. “Get Gabe’s address from Dr. Harris and keep him talking until we can get a police shrink there.”
“Will do,” I say. “Dr. H., what’s Gabe’s home address?”
Robin’s face flushes with anger. She reaches over and flicks on her microphone.
“Gabe, listen to me. You’ve got everyone here in a panic, but I know you’re faking. Don’t play along, Charlie D.”
I attempt to clear the air. “Gabe, this is a high-stakes game, so I need you to tell me the truth. Are you planning to commit suicide?”
“I prefer to think of it as exiting on my own terms,” he says.
There’s a hopelessness in his voice that I recognize.
“Let’s rethink this, Gabe,” I say. “I’ve been where you are, standing so close to the Gate of Hell I could read the inscription over the entrance.”
“‘Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.’” Gabe supplies the passage from Dante’s Inferno. “One of life’s nastier surprises is that even our suffering is not unique.”
Dr. Harris cannot contain her impatience.
“Gabe, you’re an adult. Whether you choose to end your life is your decision. I’ve lost track of the number of times you’ve threatened suicide. You’re like the boy who cried wolf.”
“Ah, but one day, there really was a wolf, and he ate the boy. My wolf is a vial of saxitoxin. It takes so little—there’s more than enough here for both of us. Just a pinprick from the hypodermic and, within seconds, oblivion. Would you like to say goodbye, my dark star?”
Robin spits out her response.
“To you? I don’t think so. I’ve already said goodbye to you a hundred times. You never get the message.”
Gabe sounds weary.
“Actually, I was wondering if you’d like to say goodbye to your daughter.”
“What?” For the first time since she walked into the studio, cracks appear in Robin Harris’s facade. “What are you talking about, Gabe?”
“You never quite hear me, do you, my dark star? I simply asked if you wanted to say goodbye to Kali?”
Robin’s eyes are wide with fear.
“What are you talking about? You know I wouldn’t let you anywhere near my daughter.”
“Too late, Robin. She’s here with me now.”
“You’re lying. I talked to Kali two hours ago. Her nanny had just given her a bath and tucked her in.”
“And Kali was wearing her new pajamas— the ones I bought her for Halloween—but why don’t I let Kali tell you about them.”
As she describes her new pajamas, Kali’s voice is as tuneful as a well-played flute.
“You were gone before Gabe came, Mummy. The pajamas he gave me are dark blue and they’re covered in moons and stars…and when the lights go out, the moons and stars glow in the dark.”
Dr. Robin Harris seems to crumple before me.
“That’s her voice,” she says. “Oh my god, Gabe has my daughter.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
For the first seconds after she hears that her six-year-old is with Gabe, Dr. Harris looks as if she’s been suckerpunched. But she’s a champ, and she comes out swinging. She pulls her microphone closer, a rookie mistake but—given the circumstances—understandable. I reach over and adjust it.
“How did you get her, Gabe?” she asks. She makes no attempt to disguise the hostility in her voice. Both Robin’s tone and her question surprise me. I thought her first concern would be Kali’s safety. But it’s not. Dr. Harris obviously sees Gabe’s possession of her daughter as a kind of power play.
“What did you promise Inge?” she asks. “She would never simply hand Kali over to you. She’s been my nanny s
ince Kali was born.”
“Which means she has seen how deeply I love you both,” Gabe says quietly. “Inge and I talk all the time. She’s been concerned about this rift between you and me. I wish you could have seen her face when I told her the estrangement was over.”
“She believed you?” Robin says.
“She was ecstatic,” Gabe says. “We were all ecstatic, weren’t we, Kali? Kali and I were so happy that we decided to let Inge go to a Halloween party she was invited to and have an adventure of our own.”
“Gabe, I need to talk to my daughter.”
“When you’re angry, all the music goes from your voice, Robin. Mummy’s a little upset, Kali. You can say hi to her, but remember we can’t tell her where we are. That’s a secret.”
“Hi, Mummy,” Kali says. She is at the center of this drama, but her voice is bubbly and unconcerned. “Gabe bought me a new game of Candy Land. We played it up at the lake, ’member?”
Robin’s tone is urgent.
“Listen to me, Kali. You have to get away from Gabe. Start screaming and run.”
There’s a bell-like sound in the background on Gabe’s end of the line. I raise a finger and mouth the word listen to Robin. She furrows her brow in concentration but shakes her head. She can’t identify what we’re hearing.
Gabe comes back on the line.
“My turn to talk, Kali,” he says. “Mummy doesn’t understand that we’re playing two games tonight. You and I are playing Candy Land, and all of us are playing hide and seek. Mummy is It. It’s not fair for the person who’s It to tell us to scream and run, because as soon as she finds us, the game is over.”
Robin’s composure shatters.
“Gabe, please…”
“Your voice is full of music again,” Gabe says. “I’ve never been able to resist your music. Kali wants us to sing a song for you. I want to do that too. We want you to remember how much we loved you.”
Suddenly I know this isn’t a game. This is for real.
“Gabe, you’re not going to—”
He cuts me off. “Kali, let’s sing for Mummy.”
Gabe’s voice is a pleasant tenor, and Kali’s little girl voice is fresh and tuneful. They sing a duet: “You Are My Sunshine.” By the time they finish, Nova is in tears, and my throat is thick. Robin is frantic.
“Kali, listen to me,” she says. “This isn’t a game. Gabe isn’t your friend. He’s going to hurt you. You have to get away.”
“She can’t hear you, Robin,” Gabe says. “I have the phone, and you won’t be talking to Kali anymore because you cheat. You don’t play by the rules. I’m not surprised but I am disappointed. I had hoped that perhaps since this was the last time the three of us would be together…”
My heart is pounding. I can barely form the words.
“Gabe, don’t kill that little girl.”
“Trust me, Charlie,” he says gently. “It’s for the best.”
“How can killing a six-year-old child be ‘for the best’?”
Gabe sounds very tired. “There are circumstances…”
I find myself shouting.
“What circumstances could possibly justify taking a child’s life?”
“There aren’t any.” Robin’s voice is fervent. “Gabe, stop this. I want my daughter. I won’t press charges. I give you my word.”
“Even the music in your voice won’t sway me this time, my dark star. There’ve been too many words, and I remember them all— especially the ones at the end. You told me I ‘no longer meet your needs.’ I wept, but your eyes, ‘those silent tongues of love’ Cervantes wrote about, were cold. You were my whole existence, Robin.”
“People fall out of love,” Robin says tightly.
“I didn’t,” Gabe says. “When I promised to love you till the day I died, I meant it. In less than half an hour my birthday and my life will be over. I will die loving you, and that, my beloved, is a great gift.”
CHAPTER NINE
Robin’s body is shaking, and when she speaks, there is a quiver in her splendid voice. “Stop this Gabe. I want my daughter back.”
“Why? So that one day you can tell her that she no longer meets your needs? For the past six months, I’ve spent every waking hour trying to figure out what happened between us. I’ve talked to a colleague of ours in psychiatry who knows you. In fact, he was one of your conquests. He says you have a fear of being abandoned—that’s why you always leave other people before they can leave you.”
“I will never leave Kali.”
“Oh, but you will. Mastery is as necessary to you as oxygen. One day, you’ll decide that Kali hasn’t turned out quite the way you hoped—she’s too tall or too awkward or too dull or just inconvenient. You’ll tell her it’s time she moved along— that you’ve found this great boarding school for her. She’ll plead with you. She’ll promise to change. She’ll vow to do whatever it takes to become the person you want her to be. That’s when you deliver the coup de grâce and tell her that there is nothing she can do that will make you love her again. There is simply no place for her in your life.”
“Gabe, I swear to you…”
“You’re not trustworthy, Robin. You’ve broken your word before.” There’s no anger in Gabe’s voice—just sorrow. “You offer Kali death by a thousand cuts,” he says. “I offer her oblivion. You tell me which is the real act of love?”
Robin stands so abruptly that her headset is pulled off and clatters noisily onto the desk.
“For God’s sake,” she says. “Why isn’t anybody doing anything?”
Nova’s voice over the talkback is urgent. “Help her, Charlie. We’ll go to music. Dr. Harris chose Verdi’s Requiem when we did the pre-interview. We’ll play the opening.”
“Got it,” I say. I turn back to Gabe and our other 150,000 listeners.
“We all need a chance to let our pulse rates slow. Verdi’s Requiem—the choice of our guest expert tonight—should do the job.”
“That will be pleasant,” Gabe says. “Kali and I like Verdi, don’t we?”
I can hear Kali’s giggle. So can Robin. She buries her face in her hands. I flip off the button that controls my microphone and move my chair closer to hers.
“I know this is hard,” I say, “but try to keep it together. Our producer has been on the phone with the police since we heard Kali’s voice. They figure Gabe’s using his cell phone, but they’re having difficulty tracking his location. You and Gabe were close. Where do you think he would he feel safe with Kali?”
Robin shrugs. “I don’t know—his new condo maybe. He gave me the address, but I didn’t put it in my book. The hospital will have it.” She frowns. “He wouldn’t take her there. He knows that’s the first place the authorities would look.”
“Was there someplace he and Kali liked to go?”
“Alligator Sam’s. It’s near my house. They have slides, play structures, toys—the kinds of things children enjoy. Gabe said they have a little coffee bar where parents can chat while their children play. Gabe and Kali loved it.”
“It’s late, Robin. A place for kids would be closed by now.”
“Maybe the hospital…? That was always like home to Gabe.”
“Which hospital?”
“Lakeshore.”
“Okay, I’ll pass that along to Nova, but Lakeshore’s huge. Where would they even begin?”
“We have codes to alert staff. Code black indicates a personal threat—a hostage situation—a threat of injury or attack. The police will know.”
“Good. But, Robin, I have to tell you. I don’t think Gabe took Kali there. Hospitals are noisy places, and I didn’t pick up any background noise on Gabe’s end of the call.”
“That’s not right,” Robin says. “There was that bell sound. You noticed it, but I didn’t at first. I think it was just one of those noises I was so used to hearing that it barely registered.”
“Maybe we’ll get lucky and hear it again,” I say. “We’re going back on the air now. Ro
bin, give Gabe whatever it takes to keep him on the line. Listen for that sound. Try to identify it. It’s the only hope we have.”
She doesn’t move. She seems frozen.
“Are you all right?” I ask.
Robin Harris runs her fingers through her shining auburn hair.
“I’m fine,” she says. “I just hate that Gabe is being allowed to control the situation.”
I’m dumbfounded.
“This isn’t about control,” I say. “This is about finding your daughter. If you gave me your daughter’s class picture, I couldn’t pick her out. All I know about Kali is that she has pajamas that she believes are magic and she knows how to sing ‘You Are My Sunshine.’ She’s a stranger to me, but there is nothing I wouldn’t do to keep Gabe Ireland on the line because as long as he’s talking to me, he’s not telling your daughter that the injection he’s about to give her won’t hurt a bit.”
Robin Harris stares at me, absorbing what I’ve just said. Then she extends her hands palms up in a gesture of helplessness.
“I don’t know how to do this.”
I shake my head.
“You are the proverbial riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma,” I say. “Dr. Harris, I don’t get you. How difficult can it be to make Gabe believe that you love your daughter? That your life will be destroyed if anything happens to her? That a six-year-old child deserves to live?”
She turns, so that once again, I’m confronted with her perfect and distant profile. I’m not a guy who feels he needs to make a point by pounding the table, but tonight, confronted by the lack of comprehension on Dr. Robin Harris’s lovely face, I pound the desk.
“Just say the damn words, Robin.”