Another reason to sell the mansion was that it was too large for a single person no matter how secure it had been built. After a quick search, turning off the lights behind me, I passed through a long wide hallway acting as both the laundry-storage room and an unfrequented corridor to the garage.
When I came to the entrance to the garage, I gasped and swore to myself a harsh, “Jesus Christ!”
Between the two 2001 Mercedes which faced me, one white, one black, Josh sat tied to a plain wooden chair with duct tape over his mouth and blood trickling from his nose. His eyes were open and I rushed to his side, only to catch sight out of the corner of my eye as though a forgotten ghost: Lloyd Mills.
“Goddamn!” I cursed, stumbling back.
He had a revolver in his hand and wore his hair slicked back now, giving his face an outright ruthless look. It might not have been just this single effect distorting his face. He seemed to have lost more weight, if that was even possible, and his narrow cheeks and resentful eyes completely took away whatever former attractiveness he had.
“Christian,” he said in a low calm voice, “it’s been a long time.”
The words themselves came out eerily. I caught Josh’s eyes signaling something. I felt someone behind me and a shudder shot through me as I spun and saw the pale haunting face of Tim Daniels, a man morphed into a wizened semblance of his former self. He cracked me over the head with something in his hand, a pistol I think, and when I woke, I too had been tied to a chair and gagged, not far from Josh, whose face I could see. I realized I couldn’t have been out for more than a few minutes. I tested the bonds and looked around. I had been tied expertly, my hands behind my back and my legs taped firmly to the legs of the chair. Both cars were parked on either side of Josh and me, so that we were sandwiched, and partially hidden, by them.
What was Tim up to? Was it true, as I had so often heard from the police after the murder of Sally, that he’d gone completely psycho? Would we be tortured or just murdered? If I was to be killed, why hadn’t they already done it? Then, there was Lloyd. How did he fit in? Who’d found who? The faint scent of petrol couldn’t hide my body odor; I knew it from my days in court: The smell of my own fear, a fear one feels when death is close by, when the reaper is within reach, like that morning at the Grand Hyatt all those years ago when I’d tried to commit suicide. I thought of Stan. What would he do now in this time of need? For some unknown reason, this made me feel anger, I’d Sally’s killer within my grasps but I was on the wrong end of the barrel, but this remained secondary to fear. However, even in the garish light of the garage, my fear lessened as the minutes ticked by. I closed my eyes and slept.
When I awoke, I saw that Josh had taken my lead and was sleeping too. I heard something behind me and then saw Tim hop up to sit on the hood of the black Mercedes only two feet away from Josh. He was eating something—a power bar—and had placed his gun in his lap. What had once been a sincere contemplative young religious man in Thought Jacob had grown through the decades into a masquerade misshaped by obvious facial ticks which dark pleasures bring, the pockmarks of a nervous disorder, and unfeeling appalling eyes. Josh awoke and Lloyd came into my sights, dawning a smile which distorted his face, and there we were, all four of us.
“I remember being tied to a chair,” Lloyd said softly as though to himself, “and you being on the other side of the gun. How does it feel? Not so great, I’d wager. I loved Sally but her fate befell her in the light of an unhealthy desire for revenge, a desire to which you two fuckers have grown devoted, but Mr. Daniels and I aren’t here for these base motives, nor to even go over the past, nor to justify our past behavior. What has happened is done. The four of us are here for the same reason. To stay alive, and if everything goes well, no one gets hurt and no one will be the wiser. Mr. Daniels needs me to facilitate the exchange of funds from Tappet’s accounts to ours. We want five million American dollars each. We’d like more – you’re capable of much more, Christian, as we all well know – but for you, ten million is a doable proposition without the need for anyone. Burgess is here, just in case you were wondering, to do our leg work, plus we would like to keep our eyes on him while we are doing business with you. It seems that he’s always on the hunt for Mr. Daniels. Has he ever been off the Tappets’ payroll since your trial? My new business partner, here, is damn fed up with it, sir, and tired of running. Right, Mr. Daniels?” Tim nodded. “This is what we will guarantee if you agree to pay,” Lloyd continued, “and of course, permanently call off Mr. Burgess.”
Lloyd reached into his jacket-pocket and showed me several recent photographs of Una, Mary and Stan in their new home in Jamaica, clear photos, very close up. “When Mr. Daniels and I met,” he said, “he was making plans to do more than visit them.”
He looked over at Tim who jumped down and in one jerk, ripped off my gag. “How did you get in here?” I shouted, my lips throbbing in pain. Tim punched me in the face and I saw stars for a minute and tasted blood.
“Do you agree to meet all our demands?” Lloyd asked. I nodded. “How soon can you move the money into our accounts?”
I looked over at Josh. Would they take the money and kill us anyway? Probably. Should I stall for time? Probably, but I could feel the gun in my pocket. They hadn’t searched me and if I agreed to everything quickly, they’d untie my hands to let me carry out the exchange. Should I take the chance? “Immediately,” I whispered.
Lloyd’s eyes opened wide in surprise and he traded a glance with Tim who nodded. “Do you mean by the morning?” he asked.
“I can transfer it over the web right now if your accounts have complete electronic access and then you can check the transfer independently by cell.”
Lloyd and Tim left the garage to confer and I breathed in deep breaths trying to calm myself. “Josh,” I whispered, “are you armed?” He shook his head. “I am,” I said softly, “if they untie my hands, I’ll shoot them both.”
Josh vigorously shook his head. Tim and Lloyd returned, and then, Tim slapped my face with lacerating force. I almost passed out. “One single miscue,” he whispered. “I’ll kill you with pleasure.”
I could taste the blood in my mouth again. Tim untied my legs and pushed me along with Lloyd trailing us, and sat me before my computer, then, Tim untied my hands and I at once jumped to my feet seizing the Ruger. I aimed point-blank at Tim’s head and pulled the trigger. It clicked several times and Tim punched me in the face with a short guttural chuckle. I’d forgotten to load it. Stars exploded before my eyes and the gun fell to the floor. This time, I passed out. When I awoke my nose was still bleeding. I think it was broken.
“Please, Christian,” Lloyd pleaded, “transfer the money now, before he kills you.” With my nose bleeding and head pounding, I sat in my chair, and within minutes, moved five million dollars into each account. Lloyd phoned Zürich to double-check. “Let’s be off,” he said cheerfully when he’d hung up. Tim raised his pistol to my head, looking into my eyes with a smile, but Lloyd grabbed his arm as he shot, and the bullet only grazed me. I fell back.
“You said no killing if I got you the money,” Lloyd said. “Now, keep your word!”
Tim taped up my hands and legs to the chair, and they left together, but Tim had taped sloppily, and by this alone, I knew he intended to come back to finish me off as soon as he could get rid of Lloyd. I rocked the chair back and forth until it fell over. I kicked off my shoes and squirmed out of my pants, scrambling to my feet in my briefs and bending down at the desk so I could pull out the third drawer. With my hands behind my back, I felt for a box of bullets, then rushed around looking for the Ruger. I heard footsteps on the stairs. “Hurry!” I urged myself.
I found the pistol under a plant, and with the shells in one palm, the gun in the other, both hands still behind my back, I raced in my briefs down the back stairs and through the pantry into the kitchen. I placed the gun and shells on a chair, climbed on the counter under a muted light and drew out a cutting knife with a twelve-in
ch blade from its casing. I held it behind my back and easily cut the tape.
I caught my reflection in the mirror as I loaded the Ruger, or should I say, I caught the reflection, once more, of a complete stranger. My face had dried blood on it and my hair was matted with blood from the three blows. As well, my eyes were alive with agitation, I no longer looked like a banker or an unfriendly loans-officer, and that at least was some improvement.
Placing the remaining shells in my jacket, I crept out to the garage, again turning off the lights as I went. Was Josh still okay? There hadn’t yet been shots. I slowly opened the door and peeked in. From Josh’s eyes, I saw that Tim hid somewhere nearby. I quietly retraced my steps through the laundry room to a telephone and dialed 911. The house was dark but I caught a flicker of movement and dropped to my hands and knees. The phone landed several meters away. I heard the operator’s voice come on, a plain spoken female voice. I fired one shot blindly down the hallway toward where I had come. I scrambled under a dinner table and over to a tall oak buffet.
A shot was fired and grazed the buffet. I ducked to the floor again, turned and fired in the direction of the shot. A cold sweat came to me. I reloaded with shaking hands. I put my back against the side of a wide wall-unit, finding some protection on two sides. I waited for several seconds to go by, and when flashlights appeared on the window, I nearly jumped out of my skin, but then crouched down. “Police,” came the sharp shouts, but I didn’t answer.
I heard retreating steps running on the stairs and I raced through the pantry up the backstairs just in time to see Tim make the top of the stairs. He saw me as well.
For some inexplicable reason, The First Law of Life must have fled the mansion at that moment.
I fired first, hitting him in the shoulder with a lucky shot. I jumped to my feet triumphantly, crying out in joy, and fired repeatedly into his chest and head, then reloaded quickly before the police came, and emptied the chambers at him again as I kicked him backwards down the bloodied stairs. For a moment, all noise receded and I sat on the top step, rejoicing as the blood formed in a pool around his body below. To my surprise, a calmness overcame me and my nose-bleed stopped.
“Put your hands into the air!” a harsh voice said from behind.
I raised my hands high, and several sets of arms seized me from behind and pushed me roughly to the floor, but I really didn’t mind. “Check the garage,” I said softly when the lights came on. “Detective Burgess is tied up down there.” My voice was just a whisper as though I talked to myself. “Show him some respect too, unlike me, he does this for a living, and I can tell you, it’s no easy job.”
Within an hour, the police and ambulance had gone.
I phoned Una Mary and Stan and told them what had happened. They were relieved that the dangerous turn of events had gone my way. I cleaned up the blood and took a shower.
Peter Burgess came by the next day to tell me Lloyd Mills had escaped, possibly via JFK. Peter had patches of gray hairs showing on the sides, but generally looked his old self. I returned to work on Monday as though nothing had happened, but of course, it had made the papers and everyone around me was gossiping all day. I didn’t care.
I was at my office on 9/11. We all stopped and watched CNN, CNBC, and the other news networks. I remember how it came to me like a science-fiction movie, jumbo-jets slicing into skyscrapers, surely it was a joke, but no. My disbelief lasted all day and none of us at the office could turn away from the windows or the televisions even as the dust-cloud came toward us.
As the days passed, my disbelief turned to anger. I felt I knew what made those eighteen young men kill themselves. They themselves were high jacked as teenagers, just like Sally. They did it for an ideal that they didn’t understand, for a heaven of which no one has any proof, or of a supernatural being no one can agree on.
Claude Vorilhon, the media-thirsty head of the worldwide Raelian cult, an alleged ‘atheist-religion’ believes Elohim, an alien race of beings who started the human race through cloning, communicates through him to mankind. They’re claiming to be cloning human-beings. Vorilhon asserts that the French Secret Service and the CIA are out to assassinate him that his followers may have to be prepared to die for him. In the late 2000s, cults like Landmark Education, Scientology, and the Art of Living grew incrementally innocuous and were marketed for those with middle-class middle-age naïveté who had in their high school years rejected reason as a tool to manage their lives. They turned away from secular or political idealism to the supernatural, embracing gurus on the right, science fiction in the center and sharmas on the left. The cults are all as dumb as dirt but are now slickly packaged to fool the unsuspecting and disillusioned soul.
Although I killed Tim Daniels, I found out that he too had been an orphan, and that The First Law of Life for orphans and people born unlucky had not been utterly defeated at all. I dread to even visit Una, Mom and Dad any longer for fear of bringing on calamity. I thought I could outrun it, ignore it, join it, defeat it, pay it off, but no. I had read that some people believe that if you are born unlucky, you can’t defeat the first law no matter what you do. It is predestined. I have resigned myself to this inevitable truth.
Stealing Flowers Page 36