Then the tenth ring came, and he pulled the receiver away from his ear. It shook in his frustrated grip. He wanted to slam it down, to obliterate its power over him. He was terrified of breaking the connection.
His gaze traveled to the video monitors. As far as they were concerned, it was an ordinary day. A little bit of tension being generated by the Philadelphia Eagles, but that was expected: shit, the odds were five to one in their favor. It scarcely qualified as a break with routine.
Brrrrrrng. Number eleven. He waited. As he did, his free hand drifted to the channel cue for monitor number 2, which was wired to the local cable feed. He flipped through the channels with the sound turned down.
Brrrrrrrng. WMAR from Baltimore was NBC as well, running about two seconds behind ‘PAL. WBAL, 11 on the dial, was midway into that Fess Parker classic, Climb an Angry Mountain, while Channel 13 was stuck on Senior PGA Golf.
Brrrrrrng. They were Remembering World War Two on Channel 15, getting regional football coverage on 21, back to seniors’ golf on 27, locked on the Firing Line on Hershey’s public station, Channel 33. The Home Shopping Network offered more junk to people who couldn’t afford it; Poison preened on MTV; Marilyn pouted on Cinemax; HBO and Showtime ran simultaneous screenings of Aliens. Normal, normal, normal.
Brrrrrrrng. He was starting to feel like an idiot, holding this ringing phone to his head. The smart thing to do would be to bug out of here, hop on his hog and motor home. Fuck Laura, and most certainly fuck Kirk. Fuck his job, if it came right down to it, although there was no reason in the world why it should.
He started to hang it up.
Brrrrrrrrng.
“No,” he said, bringing the phone back to his ear. If she wasn’t there, going home would be worse than pointless. Brrrrrrrng. And then what would he do? Drive around until he found her? Pace holes in the carpet? Micki was a wild card; the last time she blew into town they took off for two days, hightailing it to Baltimore, for chrissakes. Did he have to check every park, every ice cream parlor, every goddam hospital in the tri-county area? Put out an APB?
Brrrrrrrrng. Bottom line: he didn’t know where the fuck she was. She knew he was here. And as an added bonus, at least here he could monitor the situation, determine how crazy it actually was out there…
…though it struck him, through the next several rings, that there was nothing on the tube to corroborate the stories pouring in off the phones. He flicked over the remaining channels, saw no discrepancies. Between the big game, Outdoor Life, and the last ten minutes of Gone With the Wind, it was plain that the world could end and you’d never even know it…
…and suddenly there was a voice on the other end of the receiver. “Hello?” it said. A woman’s voice.
For the second time, he was surprised into dumbstruck silence.
“Hello?” she said again. The voice was winded, unfamiliar; and for one horrible, ludicrous second, his mind spun a wrong number, you got the wrong fucking number tape loop at him. His voice, when it spoke, seemed to come from somewhere else.
“Micki?” it said, way ahead of him.
“Gary?” Yes. Micki. “Thank GOD.”
“What?” Something in her tone sunk his lungs to his groin. “Where’s Gwen? Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, everything’s fine. She’s right here,” Micki said.
And from behind her, Gwen’s voice echoed his name.
Up until that moment, he’d been living in a state of extreme and emphatic denial. No way could he possibly admit to himself how terrified he was, how completely and utterly his life would be destroyed if anything happened to this woman or the beautiful child she bore. No way could he admit to himself how astonishingly delicate was his entire world, how painfully mortal and frail.
How thoroughly it hinged upon that love.
And upon that love’s survival.
“Put her on,” he said, in a voice so thick it could barely pronounce the words. “Please.”
Gwen still moved a little unsteadily. All assurances aside—all understanding aside, as affirmed by the nurse upon her release, and by the sound of her baby’s heartbeat—she still felt jittery and frightened and weird. Of course. She was pregnant, and therefore psychotic.
At the moment, she lived for the sound of Gary’s voice.
“Baby?” she said.
“I’m here.”
“Oh, baby,” she said, voice tremulous with tears, “I’m so sorry I snapped at you…”
“It don’t matter, darlin’…”
“Oh yes it does…”
“Oh no it doesn’t. Listen.” Was he crying, too? No, just wired. Taut. “Did you have any trouble out there? Getting home?”
“No, but…” Hesitating a moment.
“But what?”
“…but we had a…oh, God, I guess I had a panic attack or something stupid. I was sh-sure that…that the…that S-Spike…” She couldn’t even bring herself to say it. She started to cry harder.
“Let me talk to Micki.”
“NO!” she barked, quickly reining herself in. “I-I’m fine.” The silence on the other end was palpable, frightening. “The people at the hospital said I’m fine.”
“Oh, great…” His voice trailed away at the end. “Fuck!” She could just see him: teeth clenched, fist clenched, struggling with his own composure. Gary’s fear always translated straight into anger, then pulled back to simple intensity. There was nothing to do but ride it out.
“Okay,” he said finally. “I want you to stay right where you are. Don’t go anywhere. Just wait for me.”
A deep, shuddering breath. “Are you coming soon?”
A pause. Then, “I’m on my way. And listen. You take real good care of yourself and Spike till I get back, you hear me?”
“Okay…”
“You promise?”
She smiled, just a little. Astounding. “Scout’s honor.”
“I love you more than anything, darlin’. You know that.”
“I know.”
“See you soon.”
“I love you…”
He blew her a kiss.
And hung up the phone.
And the horrible thing was, the second he hung up, she knew that she was never going to see him again. It made no sense, but she knew it was true. Cold, terrible certainty flooded her core like the mournful peal of cathedral bells, filling her with its hollow sound.
Of course, she’d been sure about the baby, too.
And look how wrong she’d been…
Gary stood by the console, the receiver still hot in his hands. It was time to go. Gwen was home, Gwen was safe, fuck everything else, bye-bye and sayonara, suckers!
So why wasn’t he moving already?
Damn good question, he told himself. The fact was, Gary couldn’t just fuck everything else. The fact was, Gary was a man torn between the urge to flee and the need to take care of business. Not just any business. Not business as usual, at any rate.
No, it was a very particular business that Gary had in mind. The kind he couldn’t leave hanging. The kind he could only conduct face-to-face.
The kind with Kirk’s name written all over it.
What are you talking about? his rational mind screamed. Gwen is home! Get back there, idiot!
But the truth be known, he just couldn’t. It surprised no one as much as himself. Up until the moment he’d heard Gwen’s voice his priorities were clear and incontrovertible. Find Gwen. Find out what the hell was going on. Then, and only then: get Kirk.
One. Two. Three.
The moment he’d spoken to her and knew she was safe and sound, however, the priority list had neatly flipped. “Find out what the hell is going on” retained its pivotal number two slot, it being central to the others and at the core of this entire situation. “Find Gwen,” being accomplished, went to the end of the line. He knew where she was, and she was staying put.
That left the new number one, with a bullet.
Get Kirk…
“No
,” Gary told himself, “I gotta go.” He looked at his legs, as if expecting them to auto-perambulate across the control room. “I’m going now,” he reiterated, and took three decisive steps toward the door before stalling.
He couldn’t.
“God dammit,” Gary hissed. Bile percolated like acid in his belly, demanding vengeance. Demanding payback. He had to go. He had to stay.
Gary stood in the doorway, listening as the monitors relayed the flow of life as he knew it.
And waiting, just a minute longer.
For Kirk to come back…
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
There was a Rutter’s Farm Store on Penn Street, just around the corner from the West Side Farmer’s Market. Kirk was pretty sure they’d have a pay phone he could try. During the last fifteen minutes, driving aimlessly around town, he’d had a good heart-to-heart with his brand-new personal Savior; and while Jesus hadn’t actually spoken, neither had he disagreed when Kirk suggested throwing himself upon Laura’s tender mercies.
The entire experience, in fact, was religious as hell. It had flensed him of his foolish pride, left him chastened and humble and ready to serve. Now all he needed was a working phone, that he might plead forgiveness and a shot at his old job back. At this point, he’d happily cover mall openings for the rest of his life. No problem at all. High school graduations? Pooper-scooper repeal laws? You got it. Anything. Anything at all.
Anything to spare him from the agony of defeat.
Kirk pulled into the parking lot and hopped out, left the engine running. He didn’t even notice the car that sidled up beside him at the curb. He had his quarter in the slot and the number punched up in the time it took to blink.
When the prerecorded operator’s voice came on the line, he nearly tore the phone off the wall.
“God damn it!” he raged, frustration and fear going off in his guts like a napalm rain as his fist went WHAM against the phone booth’s safety glass, WHAM until it bowed, WHAM WHAM WHAM in two-fisted rapid succession…
“‘Scuse me,” said the voice, and before he could turn, there was somebody else in the booth with him: pushing in behind him, pressing him face-first against the wall.
“HEY!” he yelled, but it was too late. The punk was already reaching for him, reaching past him to the phone. He had a flat colored object in his hand; and when it hit the phone’s coin box, it adhered to its surface, proudly flashing its circle and slash.
NO FUTURE, it said.
“Thanks,” the kid muttered, sliding back out with the same casual indifference he’d displayed sliding in.
Any other time, Kirk would have just been pissed. But the fire still strafed his gut, and now it flooded up his throat as well. “Hey!” he hollered, stepping out after him. “What the fuck is the matter with you?”
The kid kept walking, heading for the car. His jacket bore the same insignia as the sticker.
“HEY!!” He could feel his blood pressure rising, the first throbbing bloodrush in his temples.
“What!” The tall kid stopped, then turned around, wearing a pained what-now expression. “Don’t blow a hose, okay? I said excuse me.”
Behind him, a car horn tootled. For the first time, Kirk noticed the diseased VW parked beside the ACTION-9 mobile. There was an odd, very interesting-looking punky girl in the driver’s seat, but that didn’t change the fact that she was sitting in the ugliest car he’d ever seen in his life. She looked at him and started to nod.
“You’re Kirk Bogarde,” the girl said, smiling.
Kirk froze. All his professional flags went up. Do I know them? he silently asked himself, suddenly imagining tomorrow’s top story today: EX-REPORTER SUFFERS MAJOR MINIT MARKET BREAKDOWN. Film at eleven…
“Oh, yeah!” The tall kid snapped his fingers, rolled his eyes and tapped his forehead. “You’re that dork from Channel 9. The pooper-scooper dude.”
Kirk recoiled, a little stung.
“You want a real story?” the girl offered. “Check this out.”
The kid held something up for Kirk to see, and he suddenly found himself eye-to-eye with the most reprehensible magazine cover he’d ever seen. He lost a couple of seconds to utter shock.
And then, all at once, he began to laugh.
“Wait a minute.” Staring, incredulous. “That’s Werner Blake porking that baby!”
“Yep.” The punk nodded. “That’s my dad.”
And suddenly, Kirk heard the voice of his savior.
“Did you say dad?”
“Duhhh…” the kid said, mocking him.
“Wow.” Feeling his circuits click back into life. The fire was in his veins, not his digestive system. Back where it belonged.
“Wow,” he reiterated: voice droll and knowing, in the lower register. The kind of voice that assumes an immediate insider’s grasp of the situation. “You two must be very close…”
The kid and the girl simultaneously burst out laughing, as if he’d triggered some extremely inside joke. That they weren’t laughing with him, entirely, was not a major problem. They could cop any attitude they wanted. Kirk’s mind had kicked into overdrive, and the grail was suddenly in his sights.
“What would you say,” he asked, very carefully, “if I told you that I was gonna nail his fucking ass to the floorboards, over a chemical spill in Hellam Township?”
“What chemical spill?” they wanted to know, their interest suddenly piqued.
“Tell you what,” he bargained. “You talk to me, I’ll talk to you. But it has to be right now, okay? Before they can cover it up completely.”
The punkoids gave it about fifteen seconds of serious contemplation—should we trust this geek or not?—before seizing on the moment. Voting in favor of total destruction.
And telling him everything he needed to know.
Blake was home. On the phone. All day. Blake was acting severely stressed. Yes, it seemed that a coverup might well be in the works up at Casa Blake. Beyond that, the inside scope on the day-to-day of Werner Blake was every bit as corrupt as Kirk could ever have dared to dream.
Chances like this came only once in a lifetime.
The Kirk that jumped back in his car five minutes later was like a man reborn. His doubts were abolished. His dick was hard. And Jesus, like Laura, could kiss his rosy red ass.
Kirk Bogarde was back.
And his moment of truth was at hand.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
By two twenty-four Laura was on her second pack of Newport Lights and counting. Her mouth felt like the inside of an ashtray; the rest of her just felt like shit.
She couldn’t reach Kirk. Kirk was incommunicado. Kirk had fallen off the map, been swallowed by Black Bridge. Kirk was fucking history the minute she next laid eyes upon him.
In the meantime that left Laura at the nerve center of an information-gathering apparatus that couldn’t pin anything down; instead she was stuck in a basement with no windows and no real clue as to what was going on outside, playing a game of blind poker with a telephone and a set of scanners.
The phone rang again.
Laura groaned. She’d been on the phone all afternoon, fielding calls from every wacko in the tri-county area or trying to get some real information.
Trying to get through, period.
Laura called Hellam Police. No one answered. She called Paradise City Police, but they knew very little about Hellam Township. She tried the State Police, tried a dozen times to get through to the EPA and PEMA.
All for nada.
The phone rang again. Laura took a deep breath, and picked it up.
“WPAL NEWS…”
“Laura!” A deeply resonant voice came over the line. “What the hell’s going on down there, babe?”
Oh God; she recoiled. “Dougie,” she said.
Dougie Trumble was the lantern-jawed anchor from Channel 23, the local ABC affiliate. He was a total pig, and Laura detested him. She turned the tables in an eyeblink. “Damn, Dougie, I was hoping you could tell me…�
�� she said, all innocent intent.
“I, uh, heard there was a big spill, and…” he said, instantly retreating. “You mean, you don’t know?”
She was playing the same game. Something for nothing. Try to peek at the other player’s cards. Don’t tip your hand. Dougie was sniffing around, buddy-buddying and fishing for information, the public’s need to know and yadda yadda yadda.
“Sorry, Dougie, can’t help you,” she said, blowing him off.
It was a tactical decision; neither of the other networks carried the AFC games, and hence both had six o’clock broadcasts. Either one could blow them out of the water.
But Dougie was forty-eight miles away, in Harrisburg; and while CBS kept a bureau office in town, it was closed on Sunday. Neither one had anyone in the area, and Black Bridge was nothing if not extremely local.
If she could play this one close and tight, she still had a scoop. The public’s need to know didn’t even enter into it.
This was business.
Laura hung up, cutting the game short. She just wasn’t in the mood. She felt increasingly sealed away from a world that was getting stranger by the second.
And she was scared.
Because Roger and Toby are out there, aren’t they? her conscience reminded her. Roger took Toby to Philly to see his first football game, and you didn’t go because of your stupid job, and you hugged Toby and didn’t kiss Roger, and now they’re there and you’re here and you have a decision to make…
“Stop,” she told herself, massaging her temples. She shuddered at the thought of her family out there somewhere, the lifelines that could be cut in an instant. The familiar pastoral space between Paradise and Philly seemed suddenly alien, foreboding…
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