“Less disgusting.”
“That’s terrific. Can I ask a favor?”
Mark’s face subtly closes down, as though he’s afraid Koo is about to take advantage of this altered relationship. “That depends.”
“I could really use a drink.”
Mark relaxes, with the first honest uncomplicated grin Koo has ever seen on that face. “Sure thing,” he says. “And you ought to take your pills, too.”
“My schedule’s so thrown off, I don’t even know which ones to take.”
“I’ll bring you the case.”
This is ridiculous, Koo thinks, watching Mark move around the room; I think I’m happy. Under the circumstances, that must mean I’ve flipped out completely. And why not?
Mark first brings the pill-case and a glass of water, and Koo thanks him, then says, “You know I ought to be in a hospital.”
“Not yet.”
Koo frowns hard, trying to read something constant in that ever-changing face. “What’s going to happen?”
“We play out the hand,” Mark says. “I’m not changing that. Peter wants to kill you, you know, but I won’t let him.”
“Because of the TV show.”
“That’s right. He sent the Feds an ultimatum they can’t accept, then he’ll have the excuse to kill you and blame them.”
“Lovely.”
“He was going to send them one of your ears, but I wouldn’t let him.”
“My ear? Good Christ!”
“We took one off Joyce instead,” Mark says, his manner calm, merely informational. “She still had one in good shape. Scotch and water?”
“Oh, definitely.”
Trying not to think about people who want to cut off his ears and ultimately murder him, Koo browses among his medicines until Mark comes back with a very strong Scotch and water. Mark sits on the edge of the bed, watching Koo drink, his expression soft, even friendly, and for a moment or two neither of them speaks.
Koo sighs. The liquor is relaxing him, easing his mind and the pain in his arms. He says, “I hope you didn’t inherit my stupidity.”
Shrugging, Mark says, “I must have got it from somewhere.”
30
Liz awoke with Peter’s hands on her body. “Don’t move,” he said, his voice low and teasing. Uninterested but not repelled, she remained where she was, on her back on the large bed in the master bedroom, with reflected sunlight amber on her closed eyelids, while Peter manipulated her with his hands, prodding and kneading her breasts while his finger nuzzled her clitoris. He was impatient and too rough, so it took longer than if she’d done it herself, but finally the familiar pressure began to build, the growing tension through her body until the magic instant of transformation, when this caterpillar yet again burst into a butterfly; only to subside, twenty seconds later, into the same caterpillar as before, long-bodied and ground-locked, with stiff limbs, abraded skin, angry mind.
(There had been a time, years and years ago, when orgasm had spread a warming beneficence through her mind and body that might last for hours, even for an entire day, but that was part of a past so dead that Liz hardly remembered it. These days, orgasm was a quick almost-angry relief, a sudden spasm of pleasure, used up in the instant of its birth, leaving no residue at all.)
“Now me,” Peter said.
Liz opened her eyes at last. By day this bedroom proved to be done in shades of tawny green; avocado, some lighter tones. The effect was vaguely unpleasant, like the metallic color of a rental car. Sunlight streamed through sheer curtains gauzing the view of sea and sky. Peter, wearing only a shirt, had shifted around to sit with his back against the headboard, bare legs extended, erect cock jutting up at an angle like the stubby cannon on a courthouse lawn. He was smiling at her, with a kind of challenge in the smile. “Come on,” he said.
She sat up, turning sideways toward him, and reached out her left hand to hold and stroke his cock. She felt no sexual interest at all, but had no objection to bringing him off with her hand.
But he had different ideas. Still with the same obscurely hostile grin, he said, “No, honey, it’s round-the-world time.”
“Not today,” Liz said. “I don’t feel like it.”
“You will. We’ll start with the mouth.”
Looking at him, she understood that the setbacks of the last two days had left him with the need for revenge. He had tried to dominate the world and had failed; he would soothe his wounds by dominating her.
Up to a point. Her hand motionless, she said, “If it hurts, if anything hurts, we stop.”
“Sure.” He grinned more broadly, shrugging. “You know me.”
“Yes, I know you,” she said, and twisted around to lie on her stomach with her head in his lap. Could she make him come fast, get this over with? But she’d barely put the head of his cock into her mouth, now stroking the shaft in short quick movements of both hands, when he said, “All right. Next, next.”
He was in a burning hurry. She rolled onto her back and he descended on her, poking between her legs. “Easy,” she said. “You’re scraping me.”
“What are you so dry for?”
There was no answer that wouldn’t be insulting. She remained silent, and the natural juices solved the problem, and almost immediately he was out of her again, kneeling back on his haunches and saying, “Roll over.”
“Not dry, goddamit.”
With a schoolboyish laugh, he reached over to the bedside table and showed her the tube of K-Y jelly. “I thought of everything.”
So she rolled over, lifting onto her knees while her cheek and shoulders remained on the sheet, and the cool jelly was pleasant on the rim of her anus. “Take it slow,” she said, lips moving against the sheet. “We haven’t done this for a while.”
“Yes yes, sure.”
The first stroke was a shock, making her fingers close into fists grasping bunches of sheet, and she was about to tell him to quit, that’s all, forget it for today, but he paused unmoving at the end of the thrust, and now at last he became gentle, murmuring words to her and stroking her long back, his fingers soothing over the old scars. When he moved again it was slowly, carefully, and she was prepared for it; and each stroke after was better.
The anal orgasm was rare enough to be always a surprise, and something of a shock; less pleasurable than the normal way but equally powerful, and at the same time somehow grim, grinding. If the normal was a transformation from caterpillar to butterfly, this was from corpse to vampire. Liz groaned with it, arching her back, biting the sheet, and soon afterward he came to his own triumphant finish. Withdrawing, he patted her on the rump in easy conquest before going off to the bathroom. Liz rolled over and pulled a blanket up across her body, ducking her head under it, closing her eyes. She didn’t like it that she’d come.
She heard him return from the bathroom, but remained under the blanket. Again he lightly slapped her buttock, saying, “Get dressed now, come on downstairs. We have things to do. We’re ending it today.”
*
Peter felt cheerful and in charge as he trotted down the stairs. He wasn’t grinding his cheeks, he wasn’t worried about the future, he wasn’t troubled by the past. Decisions, whether they turn out to be right or wrong, have a satisfying calmative effect in themselves.
The only residual annoyance, in fact, was that the Feds hadn’t as yet made the latest tape public; were they trying to outbluff him? Well, it didn’t matter; they’d have to release the tape after Davis’ body was found.
Ginger was at the kitchen table, morosely eating a bowl of soup. He looked up at Peter’s entrance, saying, “Your friend should have brained that idiotic woman with a rock before she used up all our food.”
“We won’t be here much longer,” Peter said carelessly. “What’s that, the Scotch broth?”
“I won’t be here much longer, at any rate,” Ginger said, glowering at Peter’s back as Peter found a bowl and filled it from the pot on the stove. “I leave for Tokyo this afternoon.”
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“Very good idea.” Peter sat to Ginger’s left and shook salt and pepper over the soup. “By tonight, we’ll all be out of the country.” Casually, as though an afterthought, he added, “We’ll need money.”
“I’m not sure I can do anything about that.” Ginger was remaining surly, despite Peter’s good temper.
“Oh, but you can, Ginger. You can hardly do anything but. You want us safely out of the country just as much as we do.”
“How much do you want?”
“Twenty thousand.”
Ginger slapped his spoon on the table, more exasperated than angered. “Peter, you’re such a fool! How am I supposed to get you twenty thousand dollars today?”
“Out of the bank.”
“Peter, honestly, living the way you do, you just don’t know a thing about the adult world. In the first place, if I had twenty thousand dollars in the bank, I wouldn’t withdraw it all at once for any reason on earth, because all transactions over five thousand dollars are reported to the government.”
Peter was astounded. “They what?”
“You’re fighting the system and you don’t even know what the system is. The justification is, they’re looking for tax swindlers.”
“But that’s invasion of privacy!”
“I know that.” Having been given this opportunity to flaunt his expertise and make fun of Peter along the way, Ginger’s mood was improving dramatically. “In the second place,” he went on, “I don’t even have twenty thousand dollars in the bank, I very rarely have more than three or four. All my money goes directly to my accountant, who handles my finances, pays my bills, makes my investments, and gives me dribs and drabs when I ask him pretty please. If I demand twenty thousand dollars all in a heap, he’ll most certainly want to know why I want it. And if he doesn’t want to know why I want it, I’ll fire him.”
As Ginger’s mood improved, Peter’s soured. There were always problems, nit-picking minor stupid problems that had nothing to do with anything, but were just there to get in the way. It was barely possible to keep an overall plan in mind, much less act on it in a direct and sensible manner. “All right,” he said. “Five, then. Or forty-five hundred, so you won’t be reported.”
“Don’t have that much,” Ginger said cheerfully. “Not readily available.”
Peter watched him, not liking what was happening but seeing nothing to be done about it. “How much do you—How much can you let us have?”
Ginger considered, his little eyes amused, his natural monkey glitter returning at last to his features. “Two,” he finally said.
“Two! That’s barely enough to get us out of the country.”
Ginger shrugged, and returned to his soup.
Two thousand dollars. Peter’s teeth began absentmindedly to gnaw at his cheeks. Should he travel alone after all? He’d originally intended to dump the others after this operation, leave for Algeria alone, but now that a further operation would be necessary he needed to keep the group together. The remnant, Larry and Liz, really, that’s all there was; Mark was another problem.
One possibility was Canada. They could go there, lie low for a while, then kidnap a prominent Canadian and hold him for the same ransom; an interesting complication for the United States government, to risk the loss of another country’s citizen. Of course, the list of prisoners to be released would be much more carefully compiled this time. Peter would have to find ways to make absolutely sure there had been no changes of heart among those to be freed. And the subject for kidnapping would have to be a more serious figure; the effort to go over the government’s head to the heart of the people had not been altogether successful.
Liz came into the room while Peter still brooded; her presence activated him again, reminding him that he was still in charge, the group was still his to control. And to remind him also of his cheeks; damn, he’d been biting them again. Consciously stopping, he said to Ginger, “All right. Two thousand it is. But you’ll get more to us later?”
“Of course,” Ginger said blandly, obviously not caring if Peter believed him or not. “You’ll get in touch with me the usual way, let me know where you are, and I’ll send you as much as you need.”
You’re lying, Peter thought, looking into those spiteful monkey-eyes. You’re lying, but it doesn’t matter. When the time comes, you’ll pay. “That’s fine,” he said aloud.
Liz had found a can of Tab in the refrigerator. She snapped it open and stood leaning against the counter, watching the two men at the table, saying nothing.
Ginger said, “I’ll go to the bank now.”
“Wait. I want you to take Mark with you.”
Ginger looked insulted. “To be sure I don’t run away?”
“Good God, no,” Peter said. “You’re smarter than that. You weakened last night, but now you know what’s sensible.”
“I know what’s possible,” Ginger said, a surprising bitterness briefly on his face.
“Whatever. The point is, I need Mark out of the house while Liz and I take care of Davis.”
Liz shifted position, staring at Peter, but still didn’t speak. Ginger frowned at the two of them. “Take care of Davis? I don’t suppose you mean to let him go.”
“Of course not.”
“To what end, Peter?”
“We start building now toward the next effort. Credibility is all we can hope to emerge with from this episode. Which reminds me; I’ll want you to help me make one more tape, to leave with the body.”
Liz said, “Why send Mark away? I thought he was...the one to do this sort of thing.”
Suddenly angry, or nervous, Ginger said, “Don’t talk about these things in front of me.”
Ignoring Liz, Peter turned toward Ginger his coldest smile. “It’s too late for you not to know, Ginger,” he said. “Haven’t you accepted that yet? It’s too late.”
31
There was a kind of dormitory upstairs in the Police Headquarters Annex, where they permitted Lynsey to get a couple hours’ sleep, on a narrow cot under a rough wool blanket. Policewoman Austin, the songwriter, woke her with a conspiratorial wink and grin at 7:30; she made what repairs she could in the ladies’ room, and went downstairs to find Mike Wiskiel sitting in moody exhaustion at his desk, drinking a plastic glass of pale orange juice. Her own, when he poured a glass for her, was less pale; it must have come from a different container. “Ms. Rayne,” Wiskiel said, as he handed her the glass, “you look like hell.”
“Good. I wouldn’t want to feel this way and not show it. Has anything happened?”
“We’re creeping forward, in our fashion. Jock’s men have started interviewing hi-fi equipment places. The New York police Telexed; they’ve checked all likely hotels in their area and Merville isn’t there.”
“You think he’s here.”
“I hope he’s here. I want to sit down with him and have a good long talk.” He drank some of his orange juice. “Let’s see; what else? Oh. Washington’s decision on the new tape. We’re to ignore it.”
Lynsey stared in astonishment. “Ignore it? For Heaven’s sake, why?”
“Well, that isn’t Koo Davis’ ear. Also, it isn’t a voice we’ve heard before. Also, Davis’ voice isn’t on that tape. Also, the tape itself is a different kind. It all adds up to the reasonable possibility that the tape is a hoax.”
“But that was an ear, a human ear! What kind of hoax would—”
Wiskiel shrugged elaborately, spreading his hands. “The decision came from Washington,” he said. “I’m just passing it on. The assumption is, if it is a hoax we’re better off not confusing the actual kidnappers by responding to it. And if it isn’t a hoax, our silence may push them to make contact some other way.”
“By really cutting off his ear.”
“Let’s hope not.” Looking at his watch, he said, “It’s eight o’clock. Can you call now?”
“He won’t be there yet, but I’ll leave a message.”
She phoned, got a sleepy-sounding receptionist
, and left her name and number: “Please tell him it’s urgent, and I’d appreciate it if he’d call me first thing.”
Eight o’clock. Less than four hours to go.
It was five past nine—two hours, fifty-five minutes to go—when Hunningdale finally called back. “How are you, dear?” he said. His voice was a light calm baritone; an excellent tool for negotiation.
“Upset,” Lynsey told him. “You know I handle Koo Davis.”
“Oh, do you? Of course, I’d forgotten. Wait a minute—does this have to do with the FBI visit I had yesterday?”
“Yes.”
“Lynsey,” the voice said, calm and comfortable but also with warning in it, “I’ve known Ginger Merville for years and years. He may be a little flaky, but he wouldn’t kidnap anybody.”
“He knows some strange people, though,” Lynsey said. “Doesn’t he?”
“We all know strange people, dear. For all I know, I’m strange people myself.”
“The FBI just wants to talk with him, that’s all.”
“Lynsey, are you suggesting I change my story from yesterday’s version, call myself a liar? On the phone?”
No, this couldn’t be done on the phone, Lynsey could see that. She said, “I’ll come to your office. Could you see me this morning?”
“There’s really no point in it, dear. And my schedule is absolutely jammed. By the time I get there—”
“Where are you now?”
“I’m calling from the car.”
“Where are you?”
“Where?” A little pause, and then he said, “Pasadena Freeway. Why? Do you want to hitch a ride?”
“Yes. What’s your route from there?”
“This really is a waste of time, Lynsey.”
“Chuck,” she said, “they’re going to kill him. Maybe it is a waste of time, but I’ve got to do something.”
He sighed, then said, “Very well. I take the Harbor and the Santa Monica to Overland, then up to Century City.”
The Comedy is Finished Page 25