Think zombie movie. We’re holed up and hiding from the populace as if this is a zombie movie. Everyone is dangerous. The fan base is activated. We see news reports and videos of fans forming search parties. Accent on the party part. Drinks, hors d’oeuvres. A novel social excuse. Faces from the search parties leaning into the frame of the local news cameras, waving and smiling. They’ll split the reward, they say on camera. Like lottery winners from a factory shift.
We track the parts of the city where the searches are going on, flipping between local channels to try to get coverage as complete as we can, but of course, we know the news coverage isn’t comprehensive.
Although it is a city long on security—with security cameras in lobbies, on boulevards, in casinos, a city of metal detectors and pat-downs and gym-buffed guards, it is also, paradoxically, a city that’s easy to hide in. There are more hotel and motel rooms per square foot than in any other city in the world, and no hotel or motel operator is very interested in much more than payment and a passing assurance you won’t bomb or burn down the place. The issue in hiding is that you must hide intelligently. Not necessarily in an otherwise empty and stray motel, where you’re more likely to be noticed, which would likely be included in any systematic search, but in a busy place where you’re part of the crowd, where it’s impractical to search. But maybe even in plain sight. Should the Stewartsons and I all become conventioneers? Blend into the ophthalmologists’ convention? The gastroenterologists’ annual event? And Amanda here, she can be my daughter, along on a junket, along for the ride.
If Wallace the Amazing doesn’t respond in some way, I’m worried about what the Stewartsons will do to Amanda. They won’t kill her. But they will blithely, eagerly, do something short of that. A finger. An ear. Something traditional. They are trained in maiming, highly versed in such tactics, and eager about it, and it provides a further way for them to test my loyalty, bind it with blood. I feel it coming.
Because by now I know who they are. Or were. Sitting with my laptop in the down hours with Amanda, waiting for Wallace’s response, I’ve been able to follow the thin digital thread further—track their post-government, pre-Wallace career. An electronic maze, a warren, of military and federal government sites opened their digital doors to me just a crack, just enough, leading me twisting, turning, down narrow Internet alleys to a little discovery that on reflection isn’t startling at all. They were part of a response team for US corporations whose executives were kidnapped in South America. They were the experts called in to recover the executive, and they have seen all the tactics from the other side, seen how well they work, how effective they are, know just how and when to deploy them. Their names are scrubbed. No Stewart Davidson, no Sheila Barton. But there they are, in photos on black websites that I managed to hack, depicted on a team of operatives. A whole little subworld of security firms, paramilitaries, mercenaries—and there they are.
No one comes in or goes out of the motel room. We have called off the maid service, but clearly in a change of shift there has been a miscommunication, because I hear a maid and her cleaning cart rattling up to our door, the maid humming vaguely to herself. She knocks, announces herself in English badly fractured with some kind of Eastern European accent, waits in an unrushed silence for our response.
Stewartson, annoyed, gestures us to be quiet, draws his gun, goes to the door, keeps his attention keenly on the door handle.
The maid waits a few moments, then knocks again. I would have brought Amanda to the bathroom, to join Archer Wallace in there, but there is no time, and it will look more obviously suspicious if we are seen in the process of locking a teenage girl in a motel bathroom. A foreign-born maid, with limited English? With any luck, completely unaware of, out of touch with, a Vegas stage show, or the televised images of a kidnapped daughter.
We hear the maid’s key card slide into the slot and the beep of the door unlocking, and Stewartson says loudly, “It’s occupied. Ocupado!” and before Stewartson can stop her, the maid enters, babbling to herself in some Eastern European language, still humming to herself, and only looks up after a beat, fear seeming to fill her eyes, as she sees the room is occupied. Extremely occupied. She is wearing a hearing aid, so she obviously couldn’t hear Stewartson.
Now Stewartson flies at her, stands over her, gesticulating, but it’s unnecessary. She is already backing out, apologizing profusely in broken English and her own tongue, pointing to the hearing aid in explanation.
But not before Dominique and I exchange glances.
I am, as you can imagine, very impressed with her performance. The hearing aid. The mumbled, concocted Eastern European dialect. I don’t know, of course, what she thinks of my performance. Sitting on the bed next to Amanda, my hands snugly behind my back, as if tied. Trying to look like a victim, alongside Amanda. Dave and Sandi, occupied with the maid, don’t even notice me.
Falsehood, inconclusiveness reigns. The moment is, shall we say, interrogative.
And tapping somewhere deep in Dominique’s alert, attuned researcher/detective brain—does she notice similarities beyond our identical, vaguely imploring side-by-side position on the edge of the bed? Does our identical seating provide a clue to her unconscious? Does she take note of the similar scoop of eyes, the identical lower lip, the similar cherubic faces? And pick up on something that no one else in the world knows?
“Stupid bitch,” says Stewartson, after he has slammed the door on the crazy, mumbling maid.
I don’t know where Dominique stands, of course. Loyal employee and bedmate of Wallace, or has the discovery of my existence changed her, as discovering her is part of what changed me? And beyond that, isn’t there the confirmation, the resurfacing, of what I thought I sensed before? A chemistry between us? A heightening connection?
And she—in parallel, a mirror—doesn’t know where I stand.
How could she, since I don’t know?
We gather for the Amazing Wallace’s show once more. Once more, he seems to go on as if nothing is wrong, the consummate showman, and then, consummate showman, he sees it. It comes to him.
“My God.” He falls to his knees, struck down by the knowledge. He can’t contain it, as he must know he should, but he can’t. It’s too much, too burdensome. He blurts it out. It is knowledge pounding inside his head that must come out. “I see the door. The room number. Room 201. A motel.” He pauses, bends his head to the floor. Looks up, stunned. “1508 Trailer Road. That’s it. She’s there.” He turns desperately to the crew offstage. “She’s there. Call the police right now. Right now. Go, go, go.”
And he collapses onto the stage.
The audience gasps.
Some of the crew comes onstage to help him. A stage manager takes the microphone. “Please . . . let’s all just wait a few minutes, all right?” The motel is only minutes from the theater. “Let’s just take a deep breath here, and wait . . .”
The police arrive in force, en masse, tires screeching, sirens wailing, baying like excited hounds wearing buffed metal coats of black and white, plus Incident Command and SWAT—all barely ahead of the TV camera crews. We see it all on the television in our room, watch them surround the motel, watch the quick action, examine the methodology, compare this reality to the fictional version we have seen in dozens of TV shows.
It should have occurred to me that Wallace the Amazing, finding us through Dominique, would co-opt the moment first for theater.
Of course, we have moved. We are watching from a much safer place. A place no one will ever look for us, I feel sure.
Big Eddie’s hideout house. In a Vegas development of hundreds of identical homes. Nondescript. Off the radar. Its identicalness to the houses around it, still its best architectural feature. And never occupied. Perennially empty real estate. Which I know from my reconnaissance of Eddie and his henchmen when they took Wallace here. When I saved him.
The site of my boss’
s kidnapping, which I singlehandedly foiled.
The site of his daughter’s kidnapping, which I have cooperatively planned.
Big Eddie’s unoccupied hideout house—where I have gone from hero to criminal.
In the wake of Dominique’s visit to the motel, I suggested that we move. They thought I was being overly cautious, but I pointed out that the coincidence of the maid’s screwup and her hearing aid was all a little too much for me. We discussed it; they argued about the risks of moving itself, I stood my ground, and prevailed. I assured them I had the perfect place. I knew of course this would endear me more to the Stewartsons, they’d trust me more—but mostly, I was afraid for Amanda’s safety in a police raid. If the atmosphere was sudden, and intense, and unanticipated, I was afraid of what Dave or Sandi or a suddenly unchained Archer Wallace might do.
And if Wallace the Amazing knows that I’m involved in some measure (whether as perpetrator or victim), will he think to look here? He was brought here blindfolded on that night of course, but he presumably does know the location because he left here by crossing through the desert himself. Will it occur to him that we are here? I don’t think so (it never occurred to you, after all, did it?), but I have to admit, there’s a little piece of me that wants him to think of it. A little piece of me that wants him to find us. To end this.
The Stewartsons’ car is in the garage. The house’s curtains are all drawn. We transmit no signs of life. The only light inside is the television, which we are gathered around.
Back to the show. An audio patch to a police captain, his voice crackling across the stage. “Your daughter was here. We showed the picture to the night manager. He doesn’t speak English—but he pointed to the photo and nodded and said yes and gave us the room number. You were right. But we missed them.”
You couldn’t ask for more drama onstage. But we had avoided it. And I had a little more time to decide where I stood, whose side I was on, and what to do about my daughter. Or so I thought.
As it turned out, time had run out—in a different way.
Dave Stewartson, seeing that my instinct about the maid had been right, starting to feel cornered by the Amazing Wallace’s reckless aggressiveness, shows his own fury rising, unleashed, barely contained in the hideout’s eerie dark.
In a minute, he is standing there with a bowie knife that I’ve never seen before—drawn out of the same black suitcase from which he had pulled the voice dissembler box—and he summarily offers me a choice I did not see coming, at a speed I did not see coming.
“Finger or ear,” he says. Looking at me. As if the decision is mine. As if it’s my call.
Finger or ear. The long, ignoble tradition of kidnapping—proof of both possession and commitment. Clarity of intent.
Stewartson is furious at his treatment as a criminal. In his mind, I see now, this has been a mission of rendering justice. (Justice for what exactly, I don’t quite know yet.) He is cornered—by a city on the prowl for him. By a victim, a mark, who has reduced it all to stage antics, to a promotional opportunity. He’s going to exact his revenge, put it back on track by going back to basics, to the tried-and-true. A return to tradition. As if the spirit of Big Eddie and his henchmen, the predilection to violence, inhabits this place.
“Finger or ear,” he says again. He looks at me when he says it. To gauge my reaction to the idea. Still suspicious of my commitment? Or indicating he wants me to do it? “It’s the only kind of motivation human nature seems to understand,” he says, more pissed-off than philosophical.
I am genuinely confused by this. “But Wallace knows we have her. We hardly have to prove it. He’s mobilized the whole city looking for her. You send a body part to prove—”
“That’s not the point,” he cuts me off. “The point is to send a finger or ear even though we don’t have to. To demonstrate our intentions. To imply it’s only a starting point . . . that we’ll send her back in pieces, assembly required, if he doesn’t stop fucking around and start listening. He’s upping the ante . . . well, we are too.”
Finger or ear. Traditional forms of kidnapping ID. Today, the Stewartsons could send an article of clothing, a lock of hair, a saliva sample from which to pull DNA. But it wouldn’t have shock value, or implied threat. Proving possession is only partly the purpose. Proving seriousness of purpose is the larger part.
Finger or ear. Red or black. In this city of all or nothing, of win or lose, a moment where I can’t step away from the table.
I am thinking at light speed. “Maybe someone else’s finger or ear . . . so we don’t damage the goods . . . don’t decrease the value . . .”
He smiles, shakes his head. “A trick, you mean? A magic trick in the city of magic?”
I look at him, feigning ignorance, but I know of course what he’s going to say.
“Not these days. Not anymore . . . they’re going to DNA test it anyway, confirm it’s hers. Standard procedure.” Revealing, unintentionally or not, his conversancy and familiarity with official law enforcement.
“But DNA testing, even expedited, takes, what, twenty-four, thirty-six hours?” I point out. “By then the whole thing will have played out, our stand-in finger or ear will have served its purpose, we’ll have our money by then.”
DNA testing. It could show—show young Amanda, show the world—that Wallace the Amazing is not her father. That her father is “unknown”? That would be a good result, and not the result I expect. Because I imagine, despite Wallace’s efforts at privacy and discretion, that my sperm donation, the science of my fatherhood, will inevitably surface in the glare of the case. In the process of verifying Amanda’s DNA, won’t a thorough investigation entail maternal and paternal samples? If so, it will come out that there is only a partial match, and therefore a sperm donor. In which case, is the “unknown” donor actually the father, trying to take back his own daughter? Who will apparently do whatever it takes to get her back? Aren’t fathers like that? Isn’t it obvious?
I feel the world—the crime—closing in on me. Circling around behind me, biting me in the tail.
“Yeah, expedited DNA testing will probably be at least twenty-four hours,” Stewartson agrees. “And Wallace won’t wait for the result; he can’t afford to wait for verification.” He spits the word out in disgust. “We’ll get the money. He sees his kid’s finger or ear in front of him, he won’t risk waiting,” Stewartson says. “I mean, come on, is this his kid or not?”
“The way he’s stalling and grandstanding on us, maybe he’s trying to make us think it’s not his kid,” observes Sandi.
“But he’s onstage saying she’s all he cares about.” I point out.
“That’s what makes me think he doesn’t care. That he’s just using this . . .”
It makes me wonder: How could Wallace not be more panicky? How could he not send the money? Does he know from Dominique that I am with Amanda? And as long as she is with me, is he gambling that I will keep her safe?
“Finger or ear?” Dave repeats, a little impatiently. “One of us decides, the other cuts.” Unsaid—that this way, we’re both complicit. In for a penny, in for a pound. Blood brothers.
I am looking at him calmly, searching my brain frantically, desperately, for a way to forestall it, for an argument he’ll buy. Don’t damage the merchandise—rule number one. You’re upping the ante, sending it into another sphere, why do that? Why not a substitute finger or ear? Let me find us one. As you say, Wallace will pay, it’ll terrify him, he won’t wait for verification anyway, so why not a stand-in? It’s Vegas—why not a trick? The way he’s already tried to trick us with the fake detectives, why not a trick in return? But these are arguments I’m afraid the Stewartsons won’t sit still for. Arguments that will do double damage, by making them question me again, where one swift slice of the knife will seem to seal my loyalty forever.
DNA testing—twenty-four to thirty-six hours. Whether and
wherever and however the ransom is paid, twenty-four to thirty-six hours is my real deadline, I sense. Twenty-four to thirty-six hours to somehow play this out, to put this right. A private deadline, a ticking clock, a lit fuse . . .
“Let’s go, Chas. What’s it going to be?”
I have no choice. I’m trapped. Finger or ear. I have to do it. I have to deliver.
“I’ll cut,” I tell him. “You choose.”
He ponders silently for a moment. “She’s a pretty girl.”
“Yes, she is.”
A small moment of human consideration, of softness, from him? A small flicker of humanity to reveal to himself, to admit to himself? Or to banish ruthlessly in his consciousness, to vigilantly guard against in his decision-making. In this brief moment, Amanda’s beauty could work decisively for or against her.
He weighs it a moment more. Makes what is probably a practical, and not an aesthetic, calculation. He shrugs. “Finger.”
I know what you will say now, about my fatherhood, about my values, about me. But you need to understand the position I was in. The limited choices. Limited, desperate choices, as I pull on the latex gloves in preparation. One among numerous pairs that Dave has with him—more evidence of his career of professional invisibility, of leaving no trace.
We do it in the house’s tiny interior downstairs bathroom, where the light can’t be seen from outside, where I can wipe the tile, if necessary. We stand over the sink and faucets, ready for the mess. Sandi and Dave stand just outside the bathroom door, because there’s no room for anyone else in here. Archer Wallace is chained to the sturdy old-fashioned living room radiator, a few feet beyond us.
There is no loose-floorboard magic escape to pull off this time.
It is hard to describe. Amanda’s screams are horrific. Her eyes are jolted wide. She passes out, apparently in shock, slides to the floor. The blood is everywhere, more than any of us would have thought. There is in that moment, frankly, a confusion, a blunt chaos, of horror. Sandi, tough Sandi, wretches and turns away. Stewartson shuts his eyes, flinches. Even Archer screams out, “My God, no!” I think they could not believe that I was going through with it. I can’t believe it myself.
Two for the Show Page 17