by Gary Parker
An elderly gentleman in a blue security uniform inside the glassed-in gatehouse waved at Rick as he approached, and he pulled ten one hundred dollar bills from his cash and an identification card from his shirt pocket, discreetly folded the cash, and handed it with the ID to the guard. The man quickly slid the money out of sight, then studied the ID.
“You a sub today?” he asked Rick.
“Yes, sir. The regular guy’s wife had a baby.”
“His fifth. Seems like he ought to watch more TV.”
“That’d be my next move if I was him.”
The guard handed back the ID, then lowered his voice. “Tony vouches for you; I can trust that?”
“In and out in a flash, no harm done, I promise.”
The guard waved him through and Rick exhaled and headed the van toward the service entrance of Rolling Hills— the plush facility where the richest people in the world sent their disturbed, their addicted, and their depleted for replenishment and recovery.
Nolan Charbeau sat on a stiff leather chair in the basement of Rolling Hills, his eyes fixed on a row of monitors that decorated the wall before him. Although he’d barely slept in two days, he didn’t feel particularly tired. A steady diet of amphetamines plus a metabolism that operated well on about four hours of sleep a night warded off the weariness that defeated most men. He scanned the monitors one after another, his instincts reminding him of a long-proven truth. In a crisis, normal men returned to those who loved them most. In Rick Carson’s case that truism offered only two choices—his grandfather or his mother, and Charbeau fully expected Rick to seek out his momma first, just as he would have done.
A private, early-morning phone call from the local police chief and a midday million-dollar donation from The Walter Augustine Foundation had more than convinced the CEO at Rolling Hills to allow Charbeau to conduct his surveillance of the property.
“I’m watching for Rick Carson,” Charbeau informed the executive, a man in a navy suit, crisp white shirt, and striped tie. “Shouldn’t take more than a couple of days.”
“The police are here too,” the CEO said. “They don’t mind your presence?”
“They’re on board,” Charbeau lied, failing to mention that only the chief knew of his presence. “No worries from that angle.”
“I’ll tolerate no violence,” the CEO said, asserting an authority he no longer held since he’d quickly accepted the donation. “And keep things low key, no one else with you.”
Charbeau smiled as if agreeing but made no promises. Now, having ushered the regular guard out of the room, Charbeau watched the monitors alone, his eyes sweeping from the two entry gates—one for the vendors and employees in the back and one for guests and family at the front—to the hallways running past the large suites where the clients resided. If Rick Carson showed up here, as Charbeau fully expected, he’d put the clamps on him. And, contrary to what the CEO wanted, if that required violence, so be it.
After parking the van in a clearly defined space near the home’s back entrance, Rick climbed out, rubbed down his beard, and moved as naturally as possible through the rear door and into the food preparation area. Thankfully, as his accomplice had told him, Taste Buds employees turned over with great regularity, and the workers in the kitchen paid him little attention.
As previously instructed, Rick made his way to a men’s dressing area down the hall from the kitchen, pulled a freshly starched white jacket and black slacks off a rack in the corner, and slipped into them. After buttoning the jacket, he pulled on a pair of shiny black shoes from beside the rack and tied the laces. Then he moved back to the kitchen where a large African American woman in a gray uniform pointed him to a service cart stacked with food trays. “Julio Montoya?” she asked.
Rick nodded.
“New guys.” The lady shrugged. “All the time, new guys. Go—elevator over there.”
Rick stepped to the cart, pushed it to the elevator, and hit the button for the fifth floor. A couple of minutes later the elevator stopped and he stepped off, the cart before him. A quick scan of the area revealed the video cameras—one above each of the five suites on the hallway—and he quickly faced sideways, hoping to hide as much of his face as possible from surveillance.
With the cart before him, Rick headed to the last suite on the right, a suite as luxurious as those found in any of the world’s finest hotels. Just two big differences—bars covered the windows of the suite and the service staff removed all sharp objects from the rooms when they left.
Keeping his head down, Rick reached his mother’s suite, stopped, and glanced around again. Nothing looked threatening, so he quickly pulled a tray from the cart, propped it on his shoulder, and hit the call button on his mother’s door. Conflicting emotions pumped through him as he waited. Although he’d fought her about it more than once, his mother had always insisted that he stay away from Rolling Hills.
“Not here,” she had said the last time he caught her in an almost-lucid moment, about eight months ago. “No good here, shameful. Stay away, forget me, go on with your life.”
“I want to see you,” he argued. “Take care of you.”
“No good!” she shouted, tears in her eyes. “Hurts, I’m sorry, but no good here, shameful. Run far, run.”
His heart broken, Rick had argued with her for almost an hour, but she became more and more agitated, so he finally gave up and left. When he’d visited again a couple of months later, his mom had refused to speak, just sat there with her arms folded and her eyes vacant. Now, although unsure what she’d do when she saw him, Rick felt that his best hope for finding out what happened to his dad rested somewhere in the confused, often incoherent tangles of his mother’s mind.
“Yes,” his mom called over the intercom.
“Dinner,” he said.
“Okay.”
The door lock clicked, and Rick glanced up and down the hall a final time and pushed open the door. His mom, Rebecca Elizabeth Carson, only daughter of the richest man in the world, stood all the way across the majestic room, her eyes fixed on something beyond the barred, round-topped window through which she gazed. Her sandy blonde hair lay softly just above her shoulders. She wore a finely tailored tan suit, with a blue silk blouse and discrete tan pumps.
“Mom?” Rick whispered, hoping to shock her into recognizing him.
She turned, her green eyes searching Rick’s but without any sign of recognition. She looked normal, a distinguished woman of fifty-six years, mother of one son, patron of the arts, magnanimous giver to multiple charities, a face fit in her younger days for fashion magazines. Too bad that something had shifted in her brain, a psychotic episode, a nervous breakdown; a mental collapse—none of the doctors knew exactly what to call it, said nobody did.
Away doing his own thing when she first fell apart, Rick had missed the signs pointing to the collapse and still knew few of the details surrounding it. A call from Pops gave him a thin outline of what had occurred.
“Your mother,” Pops said in his subtle southern style. “She’s troubled.”
“Troubled?” Rick asked.
“Your father and I put her in an institution today, the finest facility, I assure you. She will receive the absolute best care that money can provide.”
“What’s wrong with her?”
“Diagnostics are being performed even as we speak, but these things aren’t easily defined. She suffers from paranoia, racing thoughts, delusions, confusion.”
“What caused it?”
“Who knows, Rick? Physiology, chemical imbalances, some intense trauma. When you’re dealing with emotional distress, answers come hard.”
Rick had asked scores of other questions when he rushed home half a day later, but neither his father nor Pops knew much more. Or, if they did, they weren’t telling him. He visited her every day for almost a month, talked to every doctor he knew and some he didn’t, without gaining any more understanding; he finally gave up and returned to his life. Yes, he had continued t
o question his dad from time to time, but nothing ever changed and he eventually stopped inquiring.
“It’s me, Mom.” He tried again to jar her into the present. “Rick. You okay? I’ve missed you.”
She waved him off and he tried another tactic.
“I brought you dinner,” he said.
Rebecca stepped back and pointed to a table. “There,” she said.
Rick placed the tray on the table, glanced at his watch, and waited for his mom to sit.
A power bar in one hand and a Coke in the other, Charbeau watched the monitors and weighed what he’d do when he found Rick Carson. Mr. Augustine wanted him captured without harm, but circumstances didn’t always allow such tidy outcomes. If Carson resisted, which Charbeau fully expected, he might have to take him down, and he felt no qualms about that. Better to displease Mr. Augustine than let Rick Carson mess him up.
Charbeau’s eyes landed on the monitor trained on Rebecca Carson’s door as a food server carried a dinner tray inside. The view flipped to the suite’s interior as the server closed the door and spoke a few unheard words to Mrs. Carson. Charbeau watched the server’s back as he placed the tray on a table and laid out the dinner. After a moment, Mrs. Carson sat down, placed a black cloth napkin into her lap, picked up her silverware, and started to eat. The servant waited, his presence a precaution against any misuse of the knife and fork on Mrs. Carson’s tray.
Charbeau wished he had ears in the room, but the surveillance didn’t provide audio, so he focused on the server’s lips, hoping to read a word or two if he spoke again. The server’s lips moved, and Charbeau set down his Coke and leaned closer to the monitor. He sensed something odd in the man’s manner but couldn’t put his finger on it, so he waited, momentarily unsure of what to do. Although he cared nothing about the CEO’s warnings, he didn’t want to cause any unnecessary disturbance. Trouble brought attention, and with so much about to happen so soon, he felt like a coon in a swamp at night, the less noticed the better.
The server bent nearer to Mrs. Carson, almost to her shoulder as if speaking into her ear, and Charbeau’s suspicions sounded a low alarm as he studied the server more intently. He looked about the same height and weight as Rick Carson, but the camera angle made it impossible for Charbeau to identify him for sure. Plus, the dark hair and beard didn’t fit the photos Charbeau had studied.
The server placed the palms of his hands on the table and said something else, and Charbeau’s heart skipped. Then he dropped the power bar and bolted for the door, his mind clicking with a thousand scenarios of what he might do next.
“Mom!” Rick said, leaning to her as she sipped from her water glass. “I need you to pay attention. It’s me, Rick, and I have to tell you something. It’s sad, Mom, hard to say.”
Her eyes widened as she faced him, but he still saw no sign of recognition in them.
“Dad’s dead,” Rick said, hoping to shock her into lucidity. Her head snapped back as if slapped.
“I’m sorry,” Rick continued. “But somebody . . . murdered him.”
“Steve,” Mrs. Carson said, her hands on her pearls.
“Yes, Mom, and I’m Rick. I need to ask you some questions.”
“Steve’s dead?”
“Yes, Mom.” Tears flooded Rick’s eyes, but he wiped them away. “Dad left a note, three words, ‘I could not.’ That mean anything to you?”
“Murdered?”
“Yes, I’m sure of it.”
“Murdered, murdered, murdered!” Her voice rose with each word, and she popped up and paced around the table, first one direction, then the other. Rick took her by the arm to hold her still.
“Dad typed four capital letters on his computer. CONS. Those letters mean anything to you?”
Rebecca pulled her arm from Rick and circled the table again, around and around and around. “Cons, cons, cons, Steve murdered, dead, I could not, Cons, dead and gone, Steve dead and gone, he could not.”
“Mom!” Rick grabbed her once more. “The cops want to question me about Dad’s death. They think I killed him. I need your help. Does anything I’ve said make any sense to you?”
“Sense, what makes sense? Steve dead, gone, Cons, he could not, I could not, nobody can, not that, not ever, too long, too much, could not, Cons, always Cons, forever Cons, who could, I ask you that, who could? Steve could not, not then, not ever. Who could?”
Charbeau reached the fifth floor and shoved open the door to the hallway, his mind churning. If the man in Rebecca Carson’s room wasn’t Rick, it was somebody sent by him. No way a normal employee talked so directly, acted with such familiarity with a woman of her station.
Charbeau counted six people in the hallway, a couple of menial employees, their uniforms making their status obvious, plus three residents and one doctor. Although he wanted to sprint, Charbeau decided against it. No reason to arouse attention if he could avoid it. His hand moved to the Glock 19, the fifteen-round magazine pistol strapped to his left side under his black jacket. If all hell broke loose in the next few minutes, he had just the right weapon to calm things down again.
“C-o-n-s, Mom,” Rick insisted, knowing he needed to hurry. “Does it mean anything to you?”
“Cons, cons, consequences, constipated, conscription, cons, cons, cons . . .”
Rick hung his head, unsure what to do next. If his mother knew nothing, or knew but couldn’t remember, he possessed no plan B. All caution gone, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. Anybody watching now knew he wasn’t a server, but time for subterfuge had ended.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” he whispered. “About Dad’s death, about neglecting you. When this is over, I’ll come for you, I promise. I should have done it long ago. I’m a bad son, I see that, but I’ve never known what to do. Everyone said this place was good for you, but I don’t believe that, don’t think I ever did. I’ll bring you home—that’s a vow, me to you. You won’t have to live alone any longer.”
Rebecca looked up at him, her eyes suddenly softer. “Rick?”
“Yes, Mom, it’s Rick. And I’m going to take care of you now that Dad’s gone.”
“Steve’s gone?”
“Yes, I told you. Dad’s dead, murdered.”
She sucked in her breath. “Murdered. Steve gone. Could not. Cons, could not. Conserve, consecrate, conspire, cons, could not, conspiracy, cons, conspire, cons, conspiracy, conspiracy, conspiracy.”
“Conspiracy?” He leaned away and searched her face.
Her eyes seemed to recede within her skull, to disappear into a dark and empty space. “Conspiracy, conspiracy, cons, I could not, he could not, Steve could not, Steve murdered, could not, conspiracy, conspiracy, conspiracy.”
Glock in hand, Charbeau broke into the room and spotted Rick holding his mom, Mrs. Carson’s back to him, Rick behind her.
“Mr. Carson,” Charbeau said, closing the door, his weapon aimed. “So glad to make your acquaintance.”
“Who are you?” Rick asked, neither he nor his mom moving.
“I’m not the police, if that’s what concerns you.”
Rick studied him for several seconds, and Charbeau saw strength in his eyes, more than he expected.
“You were in Montana, weren’t you?” Rick asked.
“Don’t jump to no conclusions there, Golden Boy.”
“Did you murder my dad?”
Charbeau shrugged. “Murder is such a harsh word. Your father, what can I say, he proved to be a fly in the ointment of bigger issues, wasn’t strong enough to shoulder his share of the load.”
“He could not,” Mrs. Carson whispered, turning to face Charbeau.
“So you killed him,” Rick said, backing slightly away from his mom. “But why?”
“He’s dead, let it go at that. How doesn’t really matter, does it?”
“It does to me. You’re a hired hand—somebody above you ordered the assassination. Am I right?”
Charbeau shook his head, tiring of the exchange. The police, even as
dull as they were, would eventually check in with Mrs. Carson, and he wanted this matter concluded long before that occurred.
“You need to come with me,” he ordered Rick, the Glock pointed.
“Not likely,” Rick said.
He moved into the room, closer to the them. “But I insist.” “And I refuse.”
“I have the leverage,” Charbeau said, indicating the Glock.
Mrs. Carson took a half step closer to Rick, her body squarely between him and Charbeau. “Protect my son,” she whispered. “A mother protects, protects.”
Charbeau smiled at her. “You surprise me, Mrs. Carson. Such a clear head. Watching out for your boy as he hides behind his momma’s apron.”
“Follow me,” she ordered Rick, reaching back quickly to grab his arm. “A mother protects.”
“No, Mom!” Rick exclaimed, not willing to put his mom in danger.
“No argument! Stay behind, behind, behind.” She positioned herself directly between him and Charbeau, her posture allowing no discussion.
Charbeau watched, his Glock trained on Rick as Mrs. Carson started to move, Rick’s steps reluctantly mimicking hers as she edged toward the door. He considered shooting Mrs. Carson, but then rejected the notion. Not even he and Augustine were immune from the law if a woman of her status ended up dead. Besides, his momma had always told him never to hurt a woman, and he felt bad when he went against what his momma would have wanted.
“I have no qualms about taking you out too,” he said, deciding to fake it.
“Take me out,” Mrs. Carson said, still moving. “Take me out, out, out.”
Charbeau waved the Glock, but Mrs. Carson reached the door anyway, her eyes trained on him the whole way, Rick behind her.
“You surprise me,” Charbeau said to Rick. “Putting your momma in danger.”
“You won’t shoot her,” Rick said. “Easy to see that.”
“Go,” his mom whispered. “Go.”
She turned quickly, jerked the door open, and pushed Rick through it. “Go now!”