After their morning showers, they took a drive to the beach. As Sarah played within the incoming tide, building sand castles and digging for sand crabs, Jim and Nancy sat on beach chairs looking out at the ocean. Nancy had brought a Kay Hooper paperback but wasn’t reading it. She was looking out at the ocean, and Jim found his own gaze drawn toward the ocean as well. A moment later Nancy’s hand found his, her fingers intertwining with his. He held her hand and looked at her. She was smiling. “I love you, Jim.”
Jim smiled back. “I love you, too, Nancy.”
Her face tilted close to him. He leaned close to her. He was barely aware of the oncoming touch of her lips when everything dissolved and his head was awash in a mild, pulsing pain.
He blinked and looked up, raising himself from the bed. Nancy was asleep beside him on her stomach. His body was dotted lightly with sweat, and his head ached. The mid-morning sun streamed through the curtains and he could dimly make out the sound of the television from the den; Sarah was up. He glanced at the clock—it read ten thirty-five. He’d been dreaming.
Careful, so as not to disturb Nancy, Jim got out of bed and went into the den to tend to his daughter. Nancy didn’t wake up until nearly two p.m. Everything that happened in his dream had been a reversed image of the general mood that pervaded the rest of the weekend.
*
Sunday afternoon.
He was on hold for five minutes before he was transferred to Detective Gerald A. Pearce.
“Jim Cornell?”
“Speaking.”
“What can I do for you, Mr. Cornell? The desk clerk said you wanted to talk to a detective rather than have a squad car dispatched to your house.”
“That’s right,” Jim said, suddenly feeling nervous about the phone call now.
It was Sunday afternoon and the girls had gone to the grocery store. Jim had been debating all weekend whether he should call the police and at least try to see if he could make a criminal case out of Julie’s threats. The more he thought about it, the more he didn’t want to go through with Julie’s offer despite the risks. What would it hurt if he called the police and talked to them? Julie’s threat now rang false in his ears. He’d stolen more time away from the house Saturday afternoon after Nancy woke up for a quick trip to the library where he’d done some research on a few unsolved murders in the Los Angeles area that were referenced in Arthur Meadows’s book. None of the cases he found in the Los Angeles Times microfilm gave any indication that they were occult related. He was now convinced Julie’s threats were simply that—threats to scare him into obedience.
“Somebody’s been threatening you?” Detective Pearce asked.
“It’s a little more complicated than that,” Jim said. He gave Detective Pearce a quick run-down on Julie’s blackmail attempt. The detective was silent as Jim spun the narrative out, interrupting occasionally to ask questions. When Jim was finished he felt a sudden pit of fear in his belly. Am I doing the right thing? Of course I am. That bitch threatened to have me killed. She threatened my child, for God’s sakes. She’s done this shit before, so of course I’m doing the right thing.
“I have to admit, your story sounds intriguing,” Detective Pearce said. There was a short pause. “I’ll have to follow up on this.”
“She won’t find out, will she?” Jim blurted, suddenly scared.
“Long as you don’t tell her,” Gerald said. “And I doubt you’re going to do that.”
“No...no, of course not.” Jim wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead and glanced at the clock in the living room. He probably had another fifteen minutes before Nancy and Sarah were home. “I just...I don’t want her to know I called the police or talked to them. I’m scared for my family.”
“I know,” Detective Pearce said. “The important thing is to stay calm. Is your family home now?”
“No, they’re at the store.”
“Keep them at the house until you hear back from me.”
Cold steel tickled Jim’s spine. “Do they have to know about this?”
There was a short pause. “Mr. Cornell, how serious are you about us wanting to follow up on your complaint?”
Jim didn’t know what to say. Part of him wanted to just give the police free reign and haul Julie’s ass into jail and tell Nancy everything, but another part was so terrified of Julie that—
There was an echo on the line.
He paused. Listened.
“Mr. Cornell?”
“Yes?”
“This is a serious matter, sir. What you’ve just described is not only a felony, but it can be construed as a terrorist act.”
“Terrorist act?”
“The threat of physical violence constitutes a terrorist act,” Detective Pearce explained. “If your neighbor threatens to beat you up and you’re seriously in fear for your life and physical well-being, he could be arrested for it. That’s a terrorist act. Ms. Montenelli made this threat in more subtle tones, but it means the same thing. Plus, she extended the threat to your family. That’s two more counts.
That echo on the line...so faint...
The realization of what he was hearing hit him and Jim felt his face go pale.
Seven years ago an old high school buddy of his had moved to Texas. His friend had always been a bit of a pothead, but he’d cleaned himself up a bit, gotten engaged, and started a business. He lived in a small town in West Texas and it wasn’t long before he started complaining to Jim about the government-mandated pesticide programs that were wreaking havoc in his area. “Goddamn pesticide planes fly over three times a day spraying fields with this shit,” Bill said one day. “And they end up spraying the whole town. We’ve got people sick all over, people’s animals are dying, and the more we complain to the State, the more those dickheads tell us it ain’t their problem. They’re just following orders from the Feds.” Bill had become something of a fanatical activist against the pesticide sprayings to the extent that, he confided in Jim one day, the Feds were watching him. “They’ve even got my phone tapped,” he’d said during another conversation. “Know how I can tell?”
“How?” Jim had asked.
“Hear that echo on the line?”
At first Jim hadn’t heard anything. He’d assumed Bill was just being paranoid. but the more he talked to Bill and strained to listen, the more he heard the echo. He’d told Bill what he was hearing. “Yep, that’s it. That’s those fuckhead FBI dicks listening in on our conversation.”
The echo he was hearing on his line now while speaking to Detective Pearce was the same one he’d heard seven years ago talking to his old friend.
He gripped the receiver hard. “Listen, I gotta go.”
“Mr. Cornell—” Detective Pearce said, but Jim hung up on him.
He sat on the sofa holding the cordless phone in his hand, worry spiking his veins. Oh my God, is my phone tapped? Was somebody else listening in to our conversation?
When the phone rang he nearly shot to the ceiling.
He answered on the third ring. “Yeah?”
It was Detective Pearce. “Mr. Cornell...I think we were disconnected.”
Jim closed his eyes, regretting he’d even called the police. He tried listening for the echoing sound, but didn’t hear it. Maybe he was imagining it. “I know...sorry...sometimes my line acts up and...”
He continued babbling his excuse and heard the echo again; faint, persistent. “Listen, my wife just got home,” he said. “How about if I meet you later?”
“Sure.” Detective Pearce gave him an address and phone number and Jim jotted them down. “You can come to my office.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Jim said. “Thanks.”
When he hung up he heaved a sigh of relief. He glanced at the clock. He’d only been on the phone for ten minutes, and Nancy and Sarah had been gone for nearly thirty minutes, but it felt like hours had passed.
He spent the rest of the day in constant worry, wondering if he’d done the right thing.
*
Sunday night.
That evening he couldn’t get to sleep. He lay awake in bed for hours staring at the ceiling, letting his imagination run, trying to think about the different scenarios that could happen. He thought about calling Julie and confessing his mistake immediately, telling her he was not going to go through with filing his criminal complaint, but he was afraid to do that.
Before he went to bed, which was long after Nancy and Sarah retired, he double-checked that all the doors and windows were locked.
He lay in bed listening for every sound, feeling his heart race as his mind kept him awake with worry.
*
Monday afternoon and evening.
Despite his nervous state, things went fine the following afternoon. He called Detective Pearce from a phone booth after dropping Sarah off at her sitter’s an hour early (and he instructed Wendy, the woman that took care of Sarah, to keep a close watch on her, to not let her play outside even in her own fenced-in backyard because Sarah was sick the night before and he and Nancy were trying to keep her indoors—he didn’t want to tell Wendy the real reason he was being so paranoid, and hoped this ruse would work). He told Detective Pearce he wanted to cancel everything. “Are you sure?” Detective Pearce asked.
“Yeah, I’m sure,” Jim said, feeling nervous.
“Listen, Mr. Cornell...I ran a preliminary check on Julie Montenelli and it came back clean. She has no criminal record and I think even if we were to pursue this, we’d have a hard time. She’s got a lot of friends in high places, if you know what I mean.”
“I know.” Jim sighed and closed his eyes, trying to stave off the headache that wanted to rage through his skull. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I need to think about this,” he finally said. “Let me call you in a few days.”
Detective Pearce agreed and Jim went to work, trying to keep his mind off what he was now coming to think was a colossal fuck up, but hoping it wouldn’t boil down to that.
The day turned out to be almost perfect.
He was so busy at the Polo Club that he didn’t have time to let his mind wander and dwell on his problems. Instead he had to focus on pouring and mixing drinks, washing glasses, filling the orders for the waitresses and restocking the liquor cabinets. When evening rolled around—the busiest time of the day—he scanned the club quickly and saw no sign of Julie. By the end of the evening he felt better; during his breaks he’d spoken to Nancy, who reported that her day had been normal (“the goddamn bill collectors are calling, but what else is new?”) and that Sarah was doing fine (“she asked me why she couldn’t go outside today and Wendy said you told her Sarah was sick last night. What’s that all about?”). Jim had made up a story about not wanting Sarah outside because she’d been sniffling earlier and he’d simply told Wendy not to let her outside because he felt the woman wouldn’t take a case of the sniffles seriously. Nancy knew immediately what he was talking about and didn’t press the issue. Sarah was still building up her white cell count from the chemo, and keeping her from getting sick was imperative.
So when he finally stepped outside to leave for home he decided he was going to face this problem like a man: call Julie, tell her he screwed up and that he wouldn’t do it again. He wasn’t going to follow up on any kind of criminal complaint. Hell, she didn’t even have to pay him to lead their next human sacrifice to their ceremony; he’d do it for free. He was thinking these thoughts, wondering if he should even tell her this (because, after all, maybe that echo you heard wasn’t a tap on the line. Maybe it was something else) when he was suddenly conked on the head from behind.
He crashed to the ground, barely able to put his hands out to break the fall, when he was kicked in the stomach. His breath let out in a sudden whoosh and then he felt a hand grip his hair and pull his head back. The attack happened so fast that he wasn’t able to collect his bearings. He couldn’t see his assailant, and just as he was thinking, oh shit, he’s going to hit me in the face, I’m going to be beaten to shit, a rough arm encircled his throat and a guy he’d never seen before stepped in front of him and slapped a strip of duct tape over his mouth. He caught a quick glimpse of the guy before another slap of duct tape was placed over his eyes—swarthy features, an ugly sneer, a thick swatch of dark hair—and then a second pair of hands was pulling his arms behind his back and lashing them together with duct tape as he was shoved into a vehicle. He knew it would be useless to put up a fight, knew he’d be hurt even worse, and the only thing he could think of as the car pulled away from the Polo Club’s parking lot and he was driven away was Nancy and Sarah and how he was going to miss them and how much he loved them.
*
Tuesday, 2:50 AM.
Wherever it was they took him, it wasn’t too far.
They were on the road for perhaps fifteen minutes before the car pulled to a stop and the doors were opened. Jim felt rough hands grab him by the shoulders and pull him out. He stood on wobbly feet and was pushed forward. He didn’t know where he was and he couldn’t see a damn thing, but he was scared out of his mind.
“Sit.” The man that uttered the command forced him into a stiff wooden chair and Jim sat down. Jim was breathing heavily, not even feeling the pain from the blows to his head and stomach, not even sure where his captors were now. Not a word was spoken except that one command, but Jim felt the presence of somebody else close by. And some sixth sense told him it was Julie.
Then there was a sudden punch to his abdomen and Jim doubled over in pain. A second blow blasted across the small of his back and he almost stumbled to the ground on his face, but he was held up, pushed back into the chair and then a fist crashed into his stomach. He gasped in pain, his cries muffled through the duct-taped gag. Another blow crashed into his ribs and this time he did fall to the ground only to be kicked and stomped about the back, abdomen, and chest. He rolled around on the cement with each kick and blow, trying to avoid them, yelling desperately through the gag for help, knowing it wasn’t going to come, knowing he was going to be stomped to death and then as suddenly as the beating began it stopped and he was hauled to his feet and the blindfold and gags were ripped away. He yelped in response to the trauma to his skin and for a moment he was blinded by a pair of sodium lights glaring from a spot on the wall. He squinted, unable to see, and then a voice said, “Sit him down. I want to talk to him.”
At first he didn’t know who the voice belonged to, but when the fourth person stepped in front of him, partially blinding the harsh glare of the fluorescents, he saw it was Julie Montenelli.
She didn’t look pleased to see him.
Oh Christ, Jim thought, his mind working in overdrive. Oh God, I’m fucked—
“What did I tell you when we had our first meeting, Jim?” Julie asked. She was direct, her voice tinged with anger.
“I-I-I know I fucked up,” Jim stammered, his heart beating wildly in his ribcage. In the few seconds it took his eyes to adjust to the harsh lights, he saw that he was inside what appeared to be a warehouse. The walls were high, bare concrete and he could make out a small office to his right. “I’m not going through with it, though. I’m not—”
He didn’t see the slap coming. It rocked the left side of his face, snapping his head around. His face stung. He heard her breath heaving from the exertion of the blow and he closed his eyes as the pain washed over him in waves. Please get me out of this, please don’t kill me, please don’t kill my family, I’ll do anything you want—
“I so don’t want to have to do this,” Julie said, the glare in her eyes pure anger.
“Then please don’t hurt her!” Jim said. “Please don’t kill me, I didn’t mean it, I’ll do anything you want! Anything! Just don’t kill me!”
“A detective paid me a visit today,” Julie said, unmindful of his pleadings. She leaned toward him. “I knew he was coming, and you better be thankful I was prepared because I was able to charm him and refer him to my attorney. Right now my attorney is working with the Pasadena Police Department in
cleaning up this mess and when its all over they will have it on record that you’re a crank, that you’re financially desperate and that you tried to blackmail me.”
Jim heard her but what she said didn’t register at first. He was afraid his last few minutes alive would be in vain. He was afraid that if he was killed he wouldn’t be able to save Nancy and Sarah, that once Julie was finished with him she would carry out her threats to his family and he had no way to warn them. “Please,” he pleaded. “Please don’t kill me!”
“Jim.”
He tried to calm his breathing, afraid to look at Julie.
“Jim. Look at me.”
He slowly raised his head. Julie stood before him, her face still bearing a countenance of anger. “How often do I have to remind you of how long my reach is?”
Jim didn’t know what to say. He could only look at her.
Julie reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a small digital recorder. She pressed a button and voices emanated from it. At first Jim didn’t recognize them, but then he made them out clearly. His voice was clear as was that of Detective Pearce. He shouldn’t have been surprised, but hearing the conversation he’d had with Detective Pearce yesterday still turned his stomach over, making him feel light-headed. Julie stopped the tape and pressed another button and there was a whirring sound. She didn’t say anything, just kept her smoldering gaze on him as she fast-forwarded the tape and stopped it, then pressed the play button. More voices, then he made them out clearly. It was Wendy Bergan, Sarah’s babysitter, chatting on the phone with her mother. “Mom, I just don’t know if it’s a good idea. Hank and I have enough going on this weekend with our own plans and I just don’t know if—”
“If you can make the drive, please try to come up,” Wendy’s mother said. “Your father isn’t getting any younger, you know.”
Do Unto Others Page 5