Buzz Cut

by James W. Hall

  "Now what's wrong?"

  "I'm just disappointed. I guess I was hoping Lola was the bad guy."

  "She is."

  "Yeah, but I wanted it to be her alone. It would feel better."

  "You mean you could hate her better."

  Sugarman was silent.

  "But we know Sampson's in on it," Thorn said. "We saw him look in the footlocker, pretend there was money in there. By then the money's already flying back to the U.S., but he's acting like it's sitting out on the Sun Deck. Acting for our benefit, I might add. And all that bullshit about not wanting outside help, that was part of the blueprint. If we'd had a couple of electronics wizards on board, somebody smarter than Murphy, they would've found the autopilot, ripped it out, the whole thing's over in a second. Even the way he dealt with Gavini. His little compromise to stop in Nassau. He knew that was where everything would begin. It wasn't any compromise."

  "I don't know, Thorn. I'm beginning to get doubts."

  "You see something I don't?"

  "We know Fiesta's in trouble. Sampson told me that much. Cash flow problems. But if he wanted fifty million dollars, why the hell wouldn't he just sell the damn company, cash out, walk away? You heard that radio report, Wally was offering him somewhere around fifty as it was. Papers all drawn up, ready to go. Sampson could've taken that money and gone. He didn't need to pull a stunt like that. All those risks, people getting killed, all that."

  "Maybe he wanted fifty-eight times two."

  "Times two? How's that work?"

  "Insurance," Thorn said.

  "What? You think he took out extortion insurance?"

  "There's umbrella policies."

  Sugarman sat up, turned down the radio. This morning Thorn had finally talked him into a jazz station. He'd heard so much radio chatter and recycled news it'd probably cut his IQ in half.

  "He steals the fifty-eight from himself," Sugar said. "Then gets reimbursed?"

  Thorn rolled down his window. The breeze off the bay was scented w7ith roast turkey. The happy cries of children at play came floating down from Sampson's.

  "He doubles his money. Gets the fifty-eight from Wally. Right away, it's stolen in a big-time terrorist assault. Lola is hurt. Dale Jenkins is murdered. The ship is hijacked by some kind of remote-control autopilot bullshit. All very high profile, makes the number-one slot on the evening news, all that.

  "The insurance people don't even need to send an investigator out to look things over. Everything's been on TV already. Everybody in America knows all the details. The insurance people fork out the fifty-eight. They want to keep Fiesta's business. Hell, they're going to get to raise premiums big time now with all this mess. So now he's got a hundred and sixteen million. That ought to be enough to retire on, or start a new company if that's what he wants. A year from now he turns to Wally and sells him the rest of his shares. That should cushion his old age."

  "Then why the Juggernaut? What's that all about?"

  "It could be for the exposure," Thorn said, "make sure the TV people had it all. If there's a big splash, Sampson's and Lola's lives at risk, nobody's going to be suspicious of them."

  "I don't buy it. They could've died out there. All of us could have."

  Thorn watched a small snowy egret pecking in the sand below the swings.

  "Gotta be a double-cross," Sugar said. "Butler takes the money and runs. Leaves them behind to die. They think the autopilot's going to shut down, but he's programmed it to keep going."

  "Then all this is a waste, sitting out here. There isn't going to be any meeting. Butler disappears with his cash. Story's over."

  Sugar leaned forward, thrust his head through the sliding partition. "Unless Butler still wants them dead. And that's why they're hunkered down in there, because they're afraid."

  "We thwarted his plan," said Thorn, "turning the Eclipse like that. Gave him some unfinished business."

  "We should lay all this out for the cops," Sugar said. "This lone-wolf bullshit, I don't like it. We can't protect them."

  "Look, it's still the same thing. If there's a chance in hell of finding Monica, then Sampson has to be walking around, free to move, contact Butler, get his money. Even if it's the other way, and Sampson's a target, then we have to stay put, keep him in sight. We find Butler, we find Monica."

  "I got a bad feeling. I never liked lying to the police. They could've handled this better than we could."

  "Oh, come on, man. You think our FBI lady friend would've sat there and listened to a couple of citizens? A story so weird, complicated, so goddamn extreme. Hell, Sugar. Cops're like everybody else. They like Sampson, they're in love with Lola, lining up to get their autographs. They want to believe in those two. Worst case, they would've brought Sampson in, had us face to face. Then where would we be? You think we'd ever have a chance of seeing Monica again?"

  Sugar's face was empty. Eyes fixed on the flight path of an incoming passenger jet.

  Thorn turned up the radio, a slow saxophone full of cheap booze and sexual heat. Sugarman leaned over and turned it down.

  "You're Morton Sampson, Thorn, you're a smart guy, well known, well liked, richer than the Pope and all twelve apostles together. Are you going into business with a wacko like Butler Jack? You going to attempt a big-time out-in-the-open scheme like what we just went through with a fucking loose cannon like him? I don't think so."

  "It's what happened."

  "It's too weird."

  "It's simple," Thorn said. "One, two, three. Butler delivers the empty footlocker, flies off with the money. And with Monica."

  "We hope with Monica."

  "He flew off with Monica. That's how it went."

  "Okay, okay. He's decided to stall on number eleven. For reasons completely unknown, and unverifiable, he's not going to do the last thing on his fucking list. He's done everything else right on schedule, but he's not going to do that."

  "Screw you, Sugar."

  "I'm just trying to prepare you, Thorn. I'm just stating the obvious."

  The big game started at one o'clock. Thorn tried to interest himself in it, but to do that he had to choose sides, and after listening to the fans for each team ranting for the last couple of days, he couldn't work up any affection for either of them.

  Sugarman went to the bathroom to wash, Thorn had his seat reclined a couple of notches. Listening to the war chants of the opposing football fans. His eyes were drifting closed, the first gray shreds of a nap when something tweaked his peripheral vision. He lifted his head, then cocked the seat straight up and watched a white Winnebago roll past the guard gate and head down the lane to Sampson's estate.

  Breathless, Sugar threw open the rear door and slid inside. He thumped Thorn on the arm. "What're you smiling at, Jeeves? Go, go."

  "Maybe we should just sit here, let them settle things. Nab whoever is left standing."

  "Go on, Thorn. Go on."

  Thorn started the big beautiful car, slid it into drive.

  And it was true what they said about Rolls-Royces. Even when you raced the engine to redline, all you could hear was the tick of your own heart.

  CHAPTER 38

  Climax. The Romans took it from the Greek klimax, meaning ladder. A series of steps of increasing forcefulness, one above the next, leading upward to a peak or culmination. Taking one to a high point above the earth, a place from which a greater vista could be seen. Also referring to a moment of ecstatic sexual excitement in which one reaches the peak of erotic agitation, the top rung of the carnal ladder, a place and time when one can go no farther and must let go, drop off and fall back to earth. A ladder. Step one, step two, step three, four and five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, and then finally eleven. Ever upward toward the zenith.

  Or in a narrative, that moment when, as Aristotle and his buddies said, the moment of revelation is at hand, all prior moments leading inevitably to this. Romance, foreplay, copulation, climax, afterglow. Sex and story, climbing ever higher.

  Butler Jack knew it
now. He had climbed to the top of the ladder he'd erected. He had seen what could be seen from there. But the ladder was wobbly and he had not poked his head through the veil of clouds, looked on the face of God. The view from the final rung was not much better than it had been from the ground.

  He had climbed on top of Monica's body and reached the climax of his story, but his revelation was not at hand. She lay there like a dead woman. She lay there like number eleven. His penis had remained flaccid; no matter how much he ground his naked hips against her thighs, he'd been unable to grow hard. Unable to achieve the climax he had climbed the ladder to reach.

  Of course, it was partly due to his nuts. They were damaged, maybe permanently. Recoiling, shrinking into the protective cavity of his body, cringing out of sight to avoid the mission that was assigned to them. Mission, emission, omission. Ladder to a sky that wasn't there.

  Butler parked outside Morton Sampson's gates.

  The ice turkeys sparkled in the sun. Coins fell onto the silver trays and the children squealed with avarice and greed. A large man in a gray uniform stopped him at the gate, asked for his invitation. Butler touched him with the power in his hands and the man fell silent.

  Butler marched on, down the rows of tables. Both his hands were wired today, sparks on the left and right. Two battery packs on his belt. He stalked toward the pool house where Morton and Lola sat in the shade, enthroned in straw chairs, their faithful employees lined up to genuflect, kiss their rings. The same pool house where the two of them had disappeared in that other story so many years ago. Some of these same people had been there twelve years ago and had seen Lola and Morton sneak away into that den of debauchery. And they had snickered.

  Time was a lie. Twelve years ago was today. It lived out there under the same sun. Butler was twelve years old. His mother was as young and beautiful as a fairy-tale princess. She deserved to live in the castle. Everyone said so. But Butler was the problem. Butler was her embarrassment, her shame. The odd boy who weighed her down, complicated things, diminished her market value.

  Butler walked toward them. The pool house.

  The coins fell into the silver trays and small hands shot out, the strong grabbing money from the weak. One side or the other. It's a war. She'd said that. Monica, the girl. The beautiful girl with the golden hair sprinkled on her arms. She'd said that. I will wait for you always, forever, till the end of time. Those were the words. Now this was the end of time. This was the climax. The ladder. Moving to the top, the sky only inches away.

  Morton's eyes were on him now, watching him approach. Lola looked up too. She came to her feet, she raised her hand, she opened her mouth. His mother. The one whose body had formed him. The one whose body had nurtured and then expelled him into the harsh empty air of the world. They had cut him loose from her. Slapped him on the back and sent him on his way.

  The crowd parted. They weren't snickering anymore. They looked at him with awe. Lola and Morton backing away from him. Nowhere to hide.

  He was here again. Both hands buzzing. Ready for climax.

  ***

  Thorn and Sugar separated. Sugarman ran through the gates, bent down to check the pulse of a man lying in the grass. Then he rose and headed at a run down the rows of tables.

  Thorn watched him go. Then he walked over to the Winnebago, and halted for a moment, listening. Sensing something, he wasn't sure what. Feeling his heart tighten, the blood singing in his ears.

  He stared at the door. He'd seen what had happened to Murphy, some booby trap Butler had laid out for him. A succulent square of cheese on an electrified silver platter. Murphy's body was sprawled in a sickening tangle on the lobby floor, his cheeks blackened, his hair singed. Eyes locked open, an appalling grin.

  With that image in his head, Thorn drew his hand back, refused the lure of the doorknob. Instead, he moved around to the side of the van, took hold of the lower lip of the single window, and chinned himself a foot off the ground. Through the gauzy curtains he saw her sitting upright on the edge of the lower bunk. Her hands seemed to be secured behind her. She was wearing a silky negligee with a ragged tear at the neckline.

  Monica had her right foot extended straight before her like a dancer doing a warm-up stretch. With her toes she seemed to be trying to pluck a tissue from a Kleenex box that sat on the workbench across from her. Thorn raised his fist to rap on the glass, then jerked it away. He'd noticed the contraption on her head, the same headset Murphy had been wearing when they'd found his body, the two small earplugs melted inside Murphy's ears.

  Through the filmy curtains Thorn could see the microphone stem on Monica's headset was cocked down so there was only an inch of clearance between it and her wide arresting lips.

  ***

  ***

  A word would kill her. Any word. The sharp sound of it. Its scrape, its resonance, its bumbling buzz.

  She'd never liked words anyway. What tiny freight a few syllables could convey was nothing compared to an artful slash of ink across an empty page. The eye was a thousand times more discriminating than the ear. What could be said, after all? The world was sight. Color and light and the fine etchings of even the smallest organisms, the most ordinary textures were more beautiful than the greatest music. Well, that might be pushing it. But still.

  Take that single Kleenex poking out of its box, inches out of reach of her big toe. The way it hung like a membrane of smoke above its container. Like a sheet of parchment made of gas. She could draw that. She could show it, its fragility, its impermanence, its motionless movement. She knew she could do it, even though she'd never tackled a subject such as that before. All its surfaces, as soft and flowing as fog, an airy Mobius strip, even more complex than that. She would make it her next project. Yes. She would focus on the simple things. The easy objects of the world, those trashy, always present articles, underappreciated for their beauty, though they populated every corner of our lives, gave texture to our simplest moments.

  She stretched her leg, straightened and softened her muscles, and with that prehensile ability that women sometimes have in their feet and toes, some wonderful vestige of the tree life, she snatched loose a tissue.

  Then bent her leg toward her, a weird yoga, stooped forward carefully, inched her toes and the tissue close to the tiny microphone. Perhaps even the scratch of something as soft as Kleenex would set off the voltage. Perhaps she was about to kill herself with an object as flimsy as air.

  But it didn't matter now. Better that, to go down struggling, take a shot at wrapping the microphone, knot it tight with Kleenex, muffling it so she could scream, better that than have Butler Jack climb onto her again, attempt another rape. Better to die now in the street outside her childhood home, die in her own way than by whatever method he had planned.

  She lipped the tissue from her toes, creased it, puckered her mouth and, with her eyes crossing as she marked her progress, she settled the Kleenex across the black stem. When it was done, hanging there, she allowed herself a deep breath. With horror she heard it whistle through her clogged nasal passages, almost a shriek. She braced herself, tensing her arms against the numbing bite of the handcuffs. But the violent shock didn't come.

  After the moment passed, she opened her eyes, looked across at the next sheet. Only an inch of it had peeked through. A harder job, this time. She raised her foot, stretched it out, opened the clamp of her toes.

  And at the edge of her vision, she saw him.

  She didn't look right away. Didn't want to see his pasty skin, his empty eyes. She lowered her foot as he came forward. It wasn't Butler Jack. He didn't speak, didn't have to. She recognized the way he displaced the air. She turned to him.

  Thorn stood in a stream of brightness from the skylight door swung open above him. He wore a gray suit with gold buttons and red piping on the sleeves like a Confederate band leader.

  There was a moment of airless silence as he smiled then opened his mouth to speak. Monica jerked forward, panicked, clenched her lips into a shush
ing pantomime. He nodded that he understood, quickly raised both palms in a calming gesture, and mouthed the words very slowly, just a whisper of breath behind them. I know. I know. I know.

  ***

  "The money's all gone," he said. "I wrote the checks, sent them off already."

  Butler grinned at them.

  Lola and Morton were standing in the shadowy cool interior of the pool house. Wood louvers on the door and windows. White canvas covered the overstuffed pillows on the couch and chair. A vase of daisies on the leather-padded bar. Overhead a ceiling fan turned idly.

  "Fifty-eight million dollars, minus some expense money for me. I sent it to Lucy and Tawana and Sutu, wrote the checks yesterday. My two thousand children."

  Smiling at them. His parents cowering. Lola in a yellow sun dress, Morton in white pants, a French blue shirt with a dark pattern of sweat outlining his little belly.

  "That's fine, Butler," Lola said. "You're a good boy. You're generous, you're kind."

  "No, I'm not. You must be thinking of your other son."

  He extended his left hand and sparked it at her. "And anyway, I don't need your approval, Lola. Not anymore. I do what I do for my own reasons. I took the money and I gave it away. It's all gone."

  Smiling. Feeling the smile widen as he raised his right hand and sparked it at Morton. The big man flinched. Two steps away. He'd backed them against the bar.

  "So, tell me. Is that where you did it? That couch over there?"

  Lola glanced toward the white rattan sofa. Morton continued to stare at Butler's hands. His mouth had fallen open like a dreamer about to snore.

  "Or did you do it on the floor, right here on this straw mat. Like dogs. Tell me, Lola. Where did you perform your act? What exactly did you do to hook him anyway? Oral? Was that what he liked? Is that it? Did you let him hurt you, take unnatural advantage? Tell me. I'm a big boy. I understand these things. Matters of fornication. I want to know what happened here. Everything. Did he pay you afterward?"