Private Screening

by Richard North Patterson

  “Fish. Sleeping. Sex, in season.”

  “They don’t seem afraid of us.”

  “They’ve been hunted enough. But it’s okay—we’re not too close.”

  “Hunted?”

  “Clubbed in fishnets, or harpooned, or even shot.” She sat next to him on the grass. “When we first came here, I found a seal on the beach someone had shot through the head. I couldn’t go back until it washed out to sea again.” She paused. “I dreamed about it for weeks. Because I couldn’t imagine who would do that, or why.”

  Something in the way she said it made Lord face her.

  She had picked a wildflower, turning it in her hand. “The problems between us,” she murmured finally. “It’s more than just the trial. Part is something I never told you.”

  Her eyes seemed darker, Lord thought. “What was it?” he asked.

  Stacy hesitated a moment. “I’ve had this dream. Carson shooting Jamie, over and over.”

  “The way it really happened?”

  “Not exactly.” She kept turning the flower. “Before he fires, Carson looks backstage, then nods. I can never figure out why.”

  “Or what it means to you?”

  “No. But at the ending, that’s what Jamie asks me.”

  He watched her. “Do you recall when you first had it?”

  “Yes.” She looked up at him. “It was the morning after you cross-examined me.”

  He felt his eyes narrow. “Do you know why?”

  “No.”

  Lord gazed out at the seals. At length, he told her, “I guess you’ve left me without much to say.”

  “I’m not asking you anything.” When he turned, she was watching him. “Just stay for a while, okay? That’s part of why I told you now.”

  Would she still be there, Phoenix wondered, when he returned?

  Miles passed, trees and mountain trails he hardly noticed, waiting to find out. When at last he reached the meadow, the cabin was a dot only two hundred yards away.

  At seventy yards, he braked, taking the binoculars from his dashboard. His palms were wet with anxiety.

  She was sitting on the porch.

  He stared through the binoculars, watching her face, she unable to see his. Her gaze at the van was expectant.

  Still here. Waiting.

  He remained there. For a moment, he could believe that she admired his genius, was more than just a prisoner. Had chosen him above Parnell.

  Yet, if she saw his face, he must kill her.

  They stayed like that, van in the meadow, Alexis waiting on the porch. He was uncertain how long he could sit and watch her, so tense with wanting to step on the accelerator that he could feel his own pulse.

  Suddenly, Alexis understood.

  She rose, looking out at him. Then she turned, entering the cabin, slowly and reluctantly. As the door closed, quite softly it seemed, a tremor ran through him. -

  He felt the tightness in his throat as he drove to the cabin. When he stepped down from the van, slamming its door shut, he half-thought the cabin door would open at the sound, with Alexis standing there to see him. Half-wanted this.

  The only sounds were his footsteps on the porch, stopping abruptly.

  The hood was left for him, next to where she had sat.

  At that moment, he knew his drama would end, not with Alexis, but with Tony Lord.

  It was late afternoon. They sat in Stacy’s kitchen finally eating a desultory snack. In the last few hours, he had told her a little of his marriage, and his son; it was meant as a distraction, Stacy knew, to help time pass with something other than what had happened to her. But that he seemed more human brought her back to it.

  The silence, Stacy realized, was hers. Tentative, she broke it.

  “At the Parnells’,” she asked quietly, “when you said that Jamie was so smart it scared you, what did you mean?”

  Lord looked startled, and then considered her. “I really don’t want to go where this would take us.”

  “It won’t change what I saw in him.” She hesitated. “I guess I’m asking what made you say it.”

  Picking up his wineglass, Lord turned it in his hand. “Just as well,” he said at length. “Because it has more to do with me than him.”

  He hunched back against the chair, still contemplating his wineglass. “I grew up believing in politics and politicians,” he began. “Before Robert Kennedy was shot, I wanted to be one. Then, like a lot of people, I saw that we’d begun electing presidents by whoever could finance the glitziest ads and cleverest thirty-second media events, none of which says anything real about them or what had made me care. I was young and had ideals, and like someone young, I took it personally.

  “Kilcannon didn’t invent that. But he was too smart not to excel, and too dimensional not to understand what was happening to him.” Lord hesitated, still examining his glass. “I didn’t know him, but that much was obvious. And the really smart ones are the most dangerous, at least to themselves, because the tension between ambition and contempt for where it takes them starts tearing them apart.” He looked up. “Or does that seem too presumptuous?”

  Stacy watched him. “No,” she said finally.

  “When you saw me that night, I was angry that a client of mine had been caught up in it. Since then, I’ve understood a little more about ambition, and about the pressures on Kilcannon.” He paused, still watching her. “Enough to be sorry for what I said.”

  “Are you sorry you defended Harry Carson?”

  “Not for itself, no. What I’m sorry for is that Christopher paid a price for that.” He looked away. “And that anyone else did.”

  “Then you believed in your defense, all along.”

  Lord’s eyes narrowed. “I never had a compelling reason not to,” he answered, then glanced at her quizzically. “Did you ever have a subject in school where sometimes you got the right answer, and sometimes the wrong one, but never quite knew why?”

  “Calculus.”

  “For me it was chemistry. Anyhow, an insanity defense is like that—win or lose, you’re never sure.”

  Stacy reached for a tone of dispassion. “So you live with it.”

  “It all came down to the date, really.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “How did you happen to pick June second, anyhow?”

  “Chance. As I told you at the trial, Jamie didn’t ask me until the week before. So I called John.”

  “Did Kilcannon name the date?”

  She’d begun gauging his expression. “John had it reserved,” she answered slowly, “so we’d have a place. He always said I’d end up raising money.”

  “He was right,” Lord shrugged, and then Stacy realized that the courtroom look was a kind of screen which fell across his eyes.

  The telephone rang.

  Pensive, she cocked her head toward the sound, asking if Lord would answer. He did.

  “You’ve got a problem,” Cass told him.

  When Lord glanced back, Stacy started clearing dishes. “What is it?” he asked.

  “Harry doesn’t want to see anyone. He’s gone into a shell—”

  “This can’t wait.” Stacy turned to him; more calmly, Lord added, “Tell them I’ll be there early morning.”

  As they watched each other, Cass asked, “Have you found out something, Tony?”

  He hesitated. “I hope not.”

  Turning, Stacy put their leftovers away.

  After a moment, Lord said, “Is there anything else?”

  “Moore called,” Cass responded. “This morning, their Tulsa office got a call from someone claiming to be Phoenix, directing that SNI tape the first five minutes of his transmission in strictest confidence. A ‘private screening,’ he called it.”

  “Did he give reasons?”

  “No.”

  As she closed the refrigerator, Lord saw Stacy rest one hand against it, quite still.

  “Then we’ll have to wait,” he said to Cass.

  Parnell was alone, waiting. It was 7:30.
>
  The drapes were drawn, and his television ran without sound. In his mind, Alexis lay beneath her captor, crying out.

  He no longer trusted his reactions. The six days since she had vanished stretched like years; meeting Lexie Fitzgerald seemed closer in time. This morning, he had lacked the will to shave.

  His moods swung wildly. In moments of elation, he imagined her coming home, thankful and deeply changed. And then he knew that she would die on television.

  Suddenly, he recalled the revolver in his desk drawer.

  He passed the flickering screen, taking the gun in his hand. His own face was on SNI, a rerun. The idiot host of a sadist’s “Queen for a Day.”

  Parnell held the revolver out in front of him. In his mind, Phoenix knelt there, begging.

  Parnell put a single bullet through the mouth of his hood.

  The click of the empty revolver brought him back. He was being punished, he knew at once, for murdering Robert in his heart.

  Climbing the stairs, he realized he was counting steps.

  She had kept his room the same; the rock albums, the projector, the photo of John Garfield. Opening the window, he saw Alexis through the glass of her own dressing room.

  Get a hold of yourself, Colby.

  He left quickly. When he reentered the library, it was 7:45.

  There were reporters waiting in front of his house. To steel himself, he imagined they could see him.

  He put the gun away. Turning up the volume, he sat as if he were waiting for a film to start. Except that ten minutes seemed endless.

  At 8:01, Phoenix had not appeared.

  Parnell’s hands clenched into fists. He was making him wait, to see if he had pleased this terrorist enough for his own wife to live.

  At 8:06, SNI was showing a clip of Lord cross-examining Stacy. Each question seemed like torture.

  When the picture changed, Parnell rose from his chair.

  Tears were running down Alexis’s face. “I’ve watched you with these people, Colby.…”

  She seemed to choke as he moved toward her, and then her face raised to the camera.

  “You gave them money in Robert’s name.” Her voice filled with scorn and anger. “Why didn’t you do that while he was alive …?”

  Twisting away, he knew he had felt her thinking this so often and so long that now he had imagined her saying it. Then he heard the slow, deep words, “Charity does begin at home.…”

  She had said it, in front of strangers. Millions of strangers.

  “Tomorrow,” the hooded figure went on, “the jury will advise me to spare or execute the remaining member of your family. But you must have completed two final acts of penance.

  “First, you will prepare five million dollars in unmarked bills, to be used as I direct.” The blurred hood moved toward the camera, finishing with distorted softness. “Then, on SNI, you will answer your wife’s question.

  “If you refuse to do so, she will die within seconds.”

  Parnell sat on the rug, where he had imagined killing Phoenix, and began to sob.

  Stacy sat in the window seat, hands folded. Lord kept himself from touching her.

  The end of the shotgun was inserted in Damone’s mouth. Only his eyes moved.

  The voice of Phoenix droned on.

  “There are also two conditions on the life of John Damone. First, Stacy Tarrant must pledge her concert money to Greenpeace, the Committee for a Nuclear Freeze, Homes for the Homeless, and the Food for People Program.…”

  “Yes,” Stacy said. “All right.…”

  “The second condition must be fulfilled by her attorney, Anthony Lord.…”

  Stacy half-reached for him. It was sudden, instinctive.

  “He alone can effect the release of John Damone and Alexis Parnell, should she survive. At 8:15 tomorrow, he will appear to give Miss Tarrant’s answer, and to state his willingness to follow whatever instructions I shall give.…”

  She flinched when the phone rang again. “Keep watching,” he said quickly. “I’ll get it.”

  “If Mr. Lord does not, both hostages will die at 9:00 P.M. tomorrow, on SNI.…”

  “Yes,” Lord snapped into the telephone.

  “This is Johnny,” Moore said. “He’s already told us part of it on tape.”

  “What does he want?”

  “The money.” Moore paused. “He wants you to be the courier, Tony.”

  Lord sat down. Quietly, he asked, “Did he say why?”

  “He doesn’t want us to slip an agent in on him. But he’ll recognize you from SNI.”

  It numbed him. “Does that sound right?”

  “It’s a reason. Dealing with an amateur is in his interest.”

  “Are you any closer to who he is?”

  Another silence. “We’re not, no.”

  Lord couldn’t think of anything more to ask.

  “After you watch the tape,” Moore said finally, “we’ll talk. There’s a lot for you to think about.”

  Standing, Lord walked toward the living room. The extension cord stopped him short of seeing Stacy.

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah, I’m sorry about this.” Moore waited a moment. “What time will you be here tomorrow?”

  “Not much before noon.”

  “Can we make it sooner?”

  “No,” Lord answered, and hung up.

  Pacing his control room, Phoenix imagined what Lord must think. He would try to put together reasons, then weigh his chance of surviving against his son. Put him in the balance with two hostages, or one.

  He turned to Alexis.

  Watching her husband, she had wept—not with pity, he hoped, but catharsis. Yet she still sat at the console, eyes averted. Where he needed admiration, he saw doubt.

  He watched until her gaze met his.

  Her mouth opened, forming words. Her look made it a statement: “You won’t kill Lord.”

  He shook his head, in sheer relief that she asked nothing for her husband. And then he stopped. As if, he realized, she might sense his lie.

  When she began walking toward him, he could not move.

  Each step was trancelike, eyes wide and unsmiling, as if desperate for warmth and reassurance. Two feet away from him, she hesitated.

  Shaken loose from Parnell, Phoenix realized, she had no one.

  In his imagination, she was straining to see him through the hood. Lifting it from his face.

  With the last vestige of self-control, he moved his head from side to side, and pointed to the cabin.

  For a moment, she was still, awaiting some new signal. Please, he thought, let me be. Live to hear Lord’s answer.

  She turned, briefly looked back, then walked to the cabin.

  He dared not go there for five minutes. When he did, her door was still ajar.

  He took one deep breath, then crossed the room, locking her inside again. His forehead rested against the door.

  He sat on the floor, shaken.

  Forty-eight hours more, he thought, to spare her life and wait for Tony Lord to come.

  They sat on her porch. Fireflies flashed and vanished, and crickets thrummed above the deep, distant echo of the ocean. The air had a coolness which would turn to dew.

  “Do I have a vote?” she asked him.

  He turned to her. Quietly, she said, “I don’t want you to go.”

  His head tilted. “Even for Damone?”

  “Yes.” There was a long silence. “What I do for him is different.”

  “What about Alexis? Yesterday, you asked me what you’d tell yourself if something happened to either of them.”

  Stacy hesitated. “What about today?” she asked. “When you told me about your son.”

  He could not answer. When the telephone rang, it sounded harsh through the window screen.

  Stacy stood quickly, as if to keep him there. He heard her answering, then silence, and walked inside.

  She held out the phone, mute. When he took it, she stepped back.

  �
��Harry wants to see you,” Cass said tersely.

  Lord kept watching her. “Did he say why?”

  “No. But right after Phoenix mentioned you, he told some shrink he’d changed his mind.”

  Lord saw Stacy become quite still, mirroring his reaction. “I’ll be there as soon as I can,” he said finally, and hung up.

  She did not move. “What is it?”

  “Carson wants to talk with me.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know.” Lord hesitated. “He’s a client, Stacy.”

  Her head bowed. A moment later she looked up again, flicking back her hair. “I’ll call my driver,” she said coolly.

  Day Six: Saturday

  THE drive south to Atascadero State Mental Hospital took seven hours. It was still night when Lord got there, and he had not slept.

  An iron gate surrounded the complex. Driving through, Lord parked near a dark, sprawling rectangle that only sunlight could make worse; it would not hide the bars in several windows, or the armed guard at the entrance.

  The guard led him up some battered stairs to a labyrinth of cinder block and tile. The echo of their footsteps brought back the night he’d first met Harry Carson.

  At the end of the high-security wing was a locked metal door. Through its observation window, Lord saw a chair and a Formica coffee table. Carson sat on a worn sofa whose color had probably been green, tapping a cigarette on the table. The rhythm had no purpose but passing time.

  Someone in another room began shrieking. When the guard opened the door, admitting Lord, the screams didn’t register on Carson’s face. A fluorescent light flickered overhead.

  Quietly, Lord said, “Never give us a good place to talk, do they, Harry?”

  Carson did not answer. When the door shut, cutting off the shrieks, Lord took the chair across from him. In a flat voice that his first soft tone made harsh, he said, “Tell me about Damone.”

  Carson stopped tapping the cigarette.

  A moment passed. As if to stretch it out, Carson put the cigarette in his mouth. He struck a match, took one deep drag, and softly answered, “John asked me to shoot Kilcannon.”

  Lord felt his eyes close. For some period of time—it may have been a minute or only seconds—he could think of nothing to say.