“No one says ‘scoop’ anymore.”
“You know you have to keep this quiet, Barry.”
There was a beat of silence. “What time is the ransom exchange?”
“Soon.”
“How soon? Give me a window.”
“Within the next three hours.”
“Fine. At seven a.m., I break the story. I do it live on the West Coast edition of GMA. I’m passing up the East Coast time slot for this,” he added in an aggrieved tone.
“I appreciate it, Barry.” The words tasted like poison in her mouth. “It’s the right thing to do.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m a saint. Look, if I get word someone else is about to break the story, I’m going on live no matter what time it is.”
“No one else knows about this.”
“You didn’t know I knew till I called your office.”
“Nobody’s going to break this story without calling me first, and you’re the only one who’s called.”
“So far. One more thing. When this is over, I want an interview with Chelsea. An exclusive sit-down—one hour, minimum—full details of her ordeal.”
“She can do that.”
“If she’s still around. If not, I get an exclusive with the grieving mom.”
Kate resisted the urge to fling the phone out the window. “All right.”
“I’m doing you a solid, Kate. You owe me one.”
“Of course I do, Barry.” I owe you a slap in the face, she added silently.
With luck, she would have a chance to make good on that obligation. She looked forward to it.
SWANN crossed the railroad tracks, tugging the girl along. Their shoes crunched on chunks of gray gravel between the wooden ties. Yards away, a sheet of newspaper blew across the tracks like a tumbleweed, folding and unfolding itself as it fell end over end.
The sky overhead was crisscrossed with high-tension cables and crowded with stars. Swann had been all over the country, and the stars were the one thing that never changed. People said they were giant balls of heat and light millions of miles away. He didn’t know about that. He cared only about facts he could use. Something unimaginably far off, something he couldn’t touch or taste, steal or sell, meant nothing to him.
He did like to look at them, though. The stars.
Together, he and Chelsea approached the fire under the bridge and the tattered vagrant warming himself by the flames. His face was changed now, overgrown with a mountain man’s beard. But the crippled hands told the story.
“Hey, Bob,” Swann said with a slow smile. “Long time no see.”
Bob Ellis got to his feet, shoulders hunched. His eyes stared up like the eyes of a dog awaiting punishment. He seemed to want to speak, but no speech came.
“This is my friend Chelsea. She’s promised not to make trouble. She knows it’ll go hard for her if she acts up. Isn’t that right, Chelsea?”
Mechanically, she nodded.
“Good girl. Sit down.”
She huddled close to the fire as if she were cold.
Swann watched her until he was sure she wasn’t going anywhere. Then he took a step toward Bob. The homeless man backed up against the stone pillar and reached out with a pleading gesture. Swann waved him off.
“Hey, hey, no need to be scared of me. Our little misunderstanding is all in the past. We’re buddies now. Come over where it’s warm, and we’ll shoot the shit.”
He took a fistful of Bob’s woolen coat and escorted him to the fire, exerting gentle downward pressure. Bob sat, facing the girl across the flames. His stink was something awful, but she didn’t seem to notice.
Before seating himself, Swann rummaged through a sack of Bob’s trash pickings and came up with an unopened can of peaches. He could use the sugar hit. “May I?”
There was no answer.
“I mean,” Swann added, “it’s not like you’ll be eating ’em. You couldn’t even get the can open with those messed-up paws of yours.”
He sat down beside Bob, crowding him, and produced a pocketknife. He pried open the rusty pull-tab and popped the lid, then speared a chunk of peach with the knife and put it in his mouth.
“Juicy.” He patted Bob on the shoulder. “Almost makes up for stealing my sandwich that time.”
A sound like a sob escaped Bob’s throat. Swann pretended not to notice. He looked past the fire and smiled at the girl.
“See Bob’s hands? And his face—how fucked up it is? I did that. You might be wondering why.”
He paused for the question, but it didn’t come. He answered it anyway.
“I had this deli sandwich, roast beef and mayo, no lettuce, no tomato, on a hard roll. Was keeping it in the fridge. Bob ate it. I don’t like people eating my food. It got my dander up. I took a dislike to him.”
Bob shivered. Swann continued to look at Chelsea, and she continued to watch the flames, her eyes empty.
“I know my reaction may appear extreme. But here’s something I learned a long time ago. Violence is the only thing men respect, the only thing that matters. Men of violence made every damn thing there is. History is a chronicle of violent men. So’s the nightly news. You know how the Romans maintained their empire? They crushed every rebellion. They smashed every rival. They crucified thousands of people and burned whole cities and salted the earth. In this world, you got to stand up for yourself, even if it’s only over a sandwich.”
Bob wept.
“But like I said”—Swann speared another slice of peach—“that’s all in the past.”
He swallowed the peach with a noisy slurp and turned to the man next to him.
“Feels like old times, doesn’t it, Bob? Us having a talk, sharing a meal. Want to know a secret? My gal here is a movie star. I abducted her. She’s my captive.” He said the word with satisfaction, liking the sound of it. “I’ve moved on from those small-time jobs we used to pull. I’m into something big. You know that movie, I Am Legend? That’s going to be me, Bob. By this time tomorrow, I’ll be a goddamned legend.”
He leaned in, wrapping one arm around Bob’s shoulder. The shock of contact startled a single word out of the man. “Fuck.”
“Fuck is right.” Swann paused with a chunk of peach in midair, trembling on the tip of his knife. “Hey, you remember my snake, don’t you, buddy? You saw me in the buff enough times when we were on the run, camping out and bathing in the river. But did I ever tell you why I got that ink? What it means to me? Because of course it means something. A man doesn’t put himself through that kind of pain for no reason. See, it’s not just any snake. It’s a python.”
The bit of peach went into his mouth.
“And a python has a special way of killing. He hypnotizes you with his eyes. He charms you. And when he’s got you sleepy and smiling, he wraps himself around you and then he starts to squeeze. Gently at first, then harder, but so gradually you almost don’t notice. Until you try to suck air and your rib cage won’t expand. Then you know you’ve drawn your last breath, and you never even put up a fight.”
He ate the last peach and tipped the can to his mouth, draining the syrup, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
“People talk about sharks and panthers, but for my money, the python is your perfect killing machine. Because he kills you and he makes you like it. He makes you cooperate in your own death. And that’s more than instinct. That’s genius. A man who could kill like a python would be king of the fucking world. And that’s me, Bob. I’m the king, and soon the world is going to know it.”
Swann had surprised himself with this little speech. These were thoughts he hadn’t shared before. He hoped Bob appreciated the rare privilege of being taken into his confidence.
He pitched the can away in a lazy overhand toss. It hit the concrete embankment and clattered down, coming to rest in the riverbed among the other trash.
Then there was a long silence except for the crackle of the fire. The girl didn’t move, hardly breathed, but her eyes seemed bigger than before.
“Pretty soon, princess over there is going to get a look at my artwork. Up close and personal. I got this place down in Baja, on the coast in a little village where nobody speaks English and people mind their own business. That’s where we’ll be living, the two of us. I’ll have changed my look, and she won’t get out much. But I’ll keep her plenty busy at home.” He patted his groin and smiled at Chelsea. “I’m going to snake you, sugarplum. Snake you good.”
Her face showed no expression, but a slow shudder moved through her thin body.
“Know what you want,” Swann said, “and take it. That’s how it is for me. That’s my Golden Rule.” He checked his watch. “Hate to eat and run, Bob. But I’ve got miles to go, and all that shit.”
His grip on Bob’s shoulder tightened just a little.
“Hope there’s no hard feelings,” he said, smiling, and slowly, tentatively, Bob smiled back, half his mouth lifting in a lopsided grin.
The python’s victim. Mesmerized. Trusting.
“But before I go,” Swann added in a casual tone, “there’s just one more thing.”
Just a touch more pressure on Bob’s shoulder.
“I never did finish the job I started on you, did I?” Swann’s smile bloomed in its full radiance, and Bob tried to shrink away. “What do you say I finish it now?”
A snap of his right hand and the gun was up, quick trigger pull, Bob Ellis’s face disappearing in a mist of blood.
Swann watched him fall sideways like a bag of laundry. He looked at the girl and saw her blink once and shiver.
“Not like the movies, is it, princess? A little more graphic in real life.”
Swann leaned over Bob Ellis and found the nail buried in the side of his head. He made a quick incision, opening up the scar tissue, and forced his knife under the misshapen nail head. He got some leverage and jerked the nail from side to side, extracting it in fits and starts, the metal slippery with blood. When the nail was halfway out, Swann took hold of it between his fingers and wrenched it free.
Slowly, he stood and released a deep exhalation. His palms didn’t itch anymore.
“Guess I should’ve let him keep this.” Swann twirled the nail. It gleamed, black with blood. “But I believe I’ll have a use for it before long.”
He put the nail in his pocket and began to laugh, and the funny thing was, once he got started, he just couldn’t stop.
KATE had no idea how Victoria would react upon learning that her daughter had been found and then lost again. She imagined a variety of responses ranging from grief to rage, but Victoria took the news blankly.
She merely nodded once, as if confirming something to herself, and said, “All right.”
She seemed to be off in another place, zoned out. Kate wondered if she’d taken something.
Probably not. Probably, it was shock.
Victoria had done her job, though. She’d obtained all the necessary jewelry from the shop on Rodeo Drive and, with Sam’s help, packed it in a valise. Kate hefted the bag. Two million dollars didn’t weigh very much.
“And I know how Swann got ahold of the list,” Victoria said, her voice flat. “The only person who had it, other than myself, was Gregory Niles, my insurance agent. I called him on the way to the store. He told me there was a break-in at his office last week. The place was vandalized. Papers strewn everywhere. All the files in disarray. He’s still trying to restore order.”
“And your file was missing?”
“Not all of it. Just the asset inventory.”
“He didn’t tell you?”
“He didn’t know. Not until I told him I had reason to believe the inventory had been taken. He went over and checked. I got his call as I was driving back. That one page is gone.”
“That explains it, then,” Kate said. She didn’t mention that there was still the mystery of how Swann had known the identity of Victoria’s insurance agent in the first place.
Victoria seated herself in one of the Eames chairs, and Sam took up a matching position in the other one, nursing a drink. Ice water, Kate thought at first, but when she drew near, she smelled a faint acrid odor. Scotch. The ice clinked with each slow swallow. He seemed unperturbed, indifferent to his daughter’s fate. Kate found herself hating him.
Skip and Grange arrived a moment later. Alan installed Kate’s SIM card into a spare cell phone so the phone would receive her calls. Skip watched with a bland smile of approval.
Her gaze traveled toward Sam again. The ice clinked in his glass as he took another swallow. She could almost taste the slow burn of alcohol, like liquid fire. It was the first swallow she liked best, the warm shock of hard liquor on her tongue, then sliding down her throat and singeing the delicate membranes, then settling into the stomach, the gut, and simmering there, a bonfire that cast long, vaporous tendrils of heat throughout her body, into her bones, along her spine…
She tried not to look at the drink in his hand, the cocktail glass, the melting ice, the slosh of clear liquid, the fatal temptation. Not one drink in seventeen years. She’d broken the addiction by willpower. No support group, no sponsor, no twelve steps. She’d done it herself, and she would not undo it now.
But damn, it sure would taste good.
Four o’clock came. The phone didn’t ring.
“What makes you think he’ll call?” Victoria asked at 4:02. “You chased him down, wrecked his car. You made him angry.”
“Angry or not, he’ll call. He wants his payment.”
Victoria looked at her ex-husband. “What do you think?”
Sam scratched his chin. “The sensible thing is to call.”
“Will he do the sensible thing?”
“That’s just it. I don’t know. There’s no telling with Swann.”
“He wants his payment,” Kate said again, repeating the words like a mantra.
“He does,” Sam agreed. “But he can’t always keep ahold of himself. If he gets worked up…”
“You mean he could have killed Chelsea,” Victoria said, not asking a question. “He could have gotten so angry he did something crazy.”
“It’s been known to happen.” Sam looked at Kate, and she knew he was thinking of Lazarus, with his broken hands and a nail in his skull.
Another minute ticked by. The cell phone didn’t ring.
“He’s not calling,” Victoria said.
Kate held her voice steady. “He will.”
Suddenly, Victoria was on her feet, shaking like a taut wire, her hands squeezed into fists at her sides. “He won’t. He killed her. He killed her!”
“We don’t know that, Mrs. Brewer.”
“I know it. I can feel it. In here.” She thumped her chest with a small white fist. “She’s gone. My baby’s gone.”
Kate moved toward her. “Take it easy, now.”
“I won’t take it easy. She’s my only child and I’ve lost her.”
“Mrs. Brewer—” Kate reached out.
Victoria brushed her hand away. “Don’t touch me. Don’t pretend to understand. You’ve never been a mother, have you? So you don’t know. You can’t.”
She spun and fled the room, retreating down the hall and disappearing behind a slammed door.
Sam began to rise. “I’d better go talk to her.”
“No,” Kate said. “Let me.”
He looked at her skeptically. “Your funeral.”
“Give me a shout when the phone rings,” she said as she left the room.
KATE went down the hall to the closed door and tested the knob. It turned freely. She pushed it open and stepped into a bedroom.
Chelsea’s bedroom. That was obvious from the furnishings and decor. The girl had her own place now, a condo in an exclusive West Hollywood high-rise, but her mother had left her bedroom unchanged and untouched, a vault of memories.
Victoria lay curled on the bed, her knees pulled high and her head buried in her arms, a childlike pose. Above her hung a framed poster advertising Chelsea’s first feature film four ye
ars ago, the girl’s seventeen-year-old face smiling down.
Softly, Kate closed the door, then sat on the edge of the bed.
“Go away,” Victoria murmured.
Kate extended an arm and laid her hand on Victoria’s ankle, resting it there gently, just to establish contact.
“You’re wrong.” Her throat was tight and the words came with difficulty.
Victoria didn’t answer.
“I don’t know what you’re going through. I can’t. But I do know something about loss.”
Victoria made a dark, dismissive sound.
“I was married once. I was very young. He abused me, and I abandoned him. Stole his car, actually.” She managed a smile at the memory. “I drove that car to LA, and when I got here, I was alone and broke, and too proud to go back to New Jersey. And then…”
She swallowed. This was the hard part.
“Then I found out I was pregnant.”
The words dropped into the stillness of the room like coins down a deep well, with no splash and no echo.
“That was when I really panicked. I had no money, no job. I was living in a cheap hotel. I was scared to death. And so I went to a clinic and—they took it out of me. For some reason, I wanted to see it, but they wouldn’t let me. They wouldn’t tell me if it was a boy or girl. They said it was better not to know.”
Victoria lifted her head, watching her.
“But in my heart, I always felt it was a little girl. It just felt that way to me. And this will sound stupid, irrational, but…I loved her. I know I didn’t have any right to love her. But I did. I do.”
“Yes,” Victoria said with a strange new inflection, which was simple kindness.
“After it happened, I got some jobs and made a little money, enough to live in a crummy apartment by an alley, with crackheads down the street. But I couldn’t stop thinking about her. I would cry all night, and sometimes I’d drink too much. Eventually, I was drinking nearly all the time. I didn’t have a job anymore. I didn’t have anything. I thought about suicide.”
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