Goodbye Sister Disco

by James Patrick Hunt

  Hastings felt some relief. Chet McGregor made more money than Hastings, had a sweet wife and a lovely daughter, and was not a bad-looking dude. But he was one of those guys who always had a need to compete with other men. He would speak often of his days as a champion football player. Not pro or college, but high school. And when Randi told him that Amy’s dad had played baseball for the college team, he had looked at Hastings and said, “Really?” Finding it funny that Hastings had never mentioned it. The close friendship between the men’s daughters made social contact unavoidable. Hastings found himself being very quiet when he was around Chet McGregor. Hastings found Chet not irritating so much as tiresome. Chet liked to talk a lot.

  But Chet’s being a bore was a small thing to Hastings. Chet’s wife after all had been a great help to him and Amy. Her offer to put Amy up at any time had been entirely sincere. And the generosity had been extended without a moment’s thought as to whether it would inconvenience her. It was what people like Terry McGregor did.

  Had the McGregors moved to St. Louis, say, one year earlier, a friendship with them would probably not have come about. Eileen was an unregenerate snob and the likelihood of her taking up a friendship with the McGregors would have been slim indeed. She would have found Chet an unbearable oaf and would have dismissed his wife as a southern sorority yokel. And this conclusion would likely have been based on a five-minute encounter. Or a quick look at the woman’s clothes.

  Hastings himself was a bit of a snob. Indeed, that trait had in part drawn Eileen to him in the first place. But as Eileen would learn after marrying him, his snobbishness was of a different kind.

  Terry McGregor said, “Amy says you have a girlfriend now?”

  Hastings smiled. “Does she.”

  “You been seeing the woman long?” Her tone was pitched just about right. Curious and friendly, though not prying.

  “A few months.”

  “That’s good,” Terry said.

  That could have meant anything. Perhaps Amy had worried aloud that he was lonely. Or that it meant that he had stopped thinking, even in small ways, that Eileen would undergo a full-scale character change and come back to him. Maybe the woman was glad to know he had a lover and companion. She wouldn’t be the only one.

  Hastings said, “I can drop the girls off at school.”

  “You have time?” Terry said.

  “Sure.”

  * * *

  A half hour later, Hastings was motoring down I-64 toward the police department, Forest Park on his right, downtown and the Arch coming into view in front of him. It was catching up with him now, the lack of sleep, and he decided that he would go to the cot room and get a quick nap as soon as he got in. It was that or set his head on his desk, because he could only fight it for so long.

  But then his cell phone rang and he answered it, and it was Klosterman on the line, canceling that nap stat.

  Klosterman said, “Now it’s official.”

  Hastings said, “You mean an official kidnapping?”

  “Yeah, we got a ransom note.”

  “How?”

  “It’s on television. The Internet, too.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “The kidnappers gave a tape to a local news channel.”

  “So the media got it before us?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh, shit,” Hastings said. Feeling really tired now. “Have you contacted the feds?”

  “Yeah. Their ASAC—Assistant Special Agent in Charge—is coming here with a couple of special agents. Show us how this shit works.”

  “Great,” Hastings said. He’d known it would come to this. FBI moving in, trying to take over, talking to all the metro cops as if they were shaved bears. You see this thing here? This is what we call a “recording device.” Can you say that? That sort of bullshit. Only this time, there would be additional axes to grind. Unless they had forgotten about what Hastings did. And feds aren’t high on forgetting. Few law enforcement officers are.

  Hastings said, “What about the ransom note? Or message?”

  “I gotta say,” Klosterman said, “it’s pretty well done.”

  TEN

  The terrain flattens as one crosses the Mississippi River west to east. Gone are the steep hills of the Ozarks and the bluffs of eastern Missouri. The land remains even all the way up I-55 to Chicago. Ronald Reagan was a native of Quincy, Illinois, and being a natural politician, he was adept at exploiting his rural roots for those “It’s Morning in America” campaigns. But privately, he was a man content to live the rest of his days in California, presuming he could not be president. Privately, he would express pity for those who had never managed to escape the Quincys of this world. “There’s nothing to do in those places.”

  It could make you anxious, out there in the heartland. A place where your mailbox might be a good mile away from your house. Long dirt roads that stemmed off cracked roads that could go for miles before hooking up with State Highway 9. The nearest place to buy cigarettes and milk was White Hall. It was isolated. Even though St. Louis was only an hour’s drive away.

  At the end of one of those long dirt roads sat an old white clapboard two-story house. There were two rusted vehicles, skeletal remains, sitting in the unkempt front yard. Behind the main house was a barn, rusted red now and leaning forward like the prow of a ship. Propane tanks were off to the side of the house. They were filled for the winter.

  The house had belonged to Ray Muller’s grandfather, the descendant of the original German immigrant who had come to southern Illinois before the First World War. The grandfather had died two years ago.

  There were about a half-dozen people there now, including Ray and Terrill and Lee. Some of them had to share rooms. Privacy was discouraged. So were monogamous relationships.

  Their new guest had her own room though. For now. She was locked in a room in the basement.

  * * *

  By the time they finished preparing the videotape, the sun was coming up. Jan and Toby were in the kitchen preparing breakfast for all of them. The others were attending to their daily chores. There was a television in the living room, among the sparse and run-down furnishings. The television was off. If you wanted to watch television, you had to have Terrill’s or Maggie’s permission. The same went for listening to the radio. Even if you were in the car just driving to town. Music was okay, though. But no news or talk radio.

  Terrill and Maggie sat at the table in the dining room. The table was covered with papers. On top of the papers were assorted weapons: a couple of automatic rifles and handguns. On the wall behind the table hung a poster that had a picture of an arm holding a rifle and the caption “PIECE NOW!”

  Also on the table was a videotape. It was a copy of the master, which was now upstairs in a cabinet next to Maggie’s bed.

  Maggie and Terrill knew the effectiveness of video. The Western powers—America and their kowtowing British—had viewed videotapes of the capitalist simps being murdered by Al Qaeda. Pleas for mercy delivered from a grainy background, poor sound quality … “Please … please…” All of it stupid and weak, virtually ignored by that war criminal Bush and his poodle Tony Blair.

  But the effect it had on the masses. At least in England. After Kenneth Bigley was decapitated, his family blamed not the Arabs but Tony Blair, going so far as to say that Blair had blood on his hands.

  Terrill sat listening to Maggie as she explained all this, nodding his head at the appropriate times. But he was unsure of something. He said, “Are you saying we should decapitate her?”

  Maggie looked at him, briefly, before shaking her head. She was only three years older than Terrill, but she felt much older. Which was what Terrill needed.

  Terrill was a beautiful boy. Maggie had thought so from the time she first met him. With his thick, dark shaggy hair and his sensitive, almost feminine mouth and eyes that hypnotized. He was a panther made man. A beautiful, beautiful boy. But he needed guidance.

  “No,” Maggie sai
d. “We won’t do that. We’ll kill her if need be. But not that way.”

  “Okay.”

  A boy, Maggie thought. She said, “The objective here is to expose. Expose Gene Penmark for what he is. Him and his kind. We’re not out to horrify people.”

  Terrill said, “Okay.” Like he’d understood that from the beginning.

  “But,” Maggie said, “it helps. The way things are, people have already been conditioned to expect a decapitation. If they expect it, if they fear it will happen, we’ll get results.”

  After a moment, Terrill said, “Right.” He said, “You’ve read Lee’s statement?”

  “Yeah, I read it.”

  “And?”

  “I worry about her,” Maggie said. “She reminds me too much of those coffeehouse liberals.”

  “She’s one of us now,” Terrill said. “And she knows it.”

  “How was she last night?”

  “She was fine. Didn’t bat an eye.”

  “She’s a schoolgirl.”

  “She’s of value to us. She knows how to turn a phrase. And she’s loyal.”

  “To what?” Maggie said. “You, or us?”

  Had it been someone other than Maggie, he might have said, What difference does it make? But it was Maggie he was sitting with. And without Maggie, he would be nothing. He said, “It’s us. I just helped her understand her priorities, that’s all.” Terrill got a little back then. “Are you sorry that I recruited her?” he said.

  “No,” Maggie said. “I’m not sorry. If we are to grow, we’ll need people as well as money. It’s not a social club. It’s not camp. Make sure she knows that.”

  “She knows it,” Terrill said. “So you’re okay with the statement.”

  “Yes,” Maggie said. “Have Ray and Mickey drop the tape off in town this morning.”

  “Why don’t we let Ray stay here,” Terrill said. “I’ll go with Mickey.”

  Maggie lifted her hand in conciliation. Suit yourself. She had to give Terrill something once in a while.

  * * *

  Judy Chen was not a native St. Louisan. She had come to Missouri from Boston to go the state university’s journalism school in Columbia. As cow town a place as ever they made, but it was the right place to start if you wanted this sort of career. She got out of there at the age of twenty-one and took a job in Amarillo, Texas. Which was a dump, but it was a job and it put her in front of the camera. She was there when Oprah came down with all her minions because the cattle ranchers had sued her for libel. Covered the trial to the degree her station would let her, hoping that national exposure would move her onward and upward.

  After Oprah won the trial, Judy put out feelers to the major networks and CNN and MSNBC, but none of them gave her any positive feedback. Nor did any of the major eastern cities express interest. But she did get word back from a St. Louis affiliate who asked if she could overnight a résumé and some professional photos.

  That got her out of Amarillo.

  St. Louis wasn’t too bad. But Judy Chen was as ambitious as she was cute, and she had no long-term plans to stay.

  On this morning, she got out of bed when her alarm told her to and packed her stuff to go to the gym. She’d had the same trim waist she’d had when she graduated high school, but it didn’t come easy. She would ride the exercise bike for one hour before showering and changing into her professional clothes.

  She lived in a high-rise apartment on Lindell Boulevard, near the St. Louis Cathedral.

  She stepped out of the elevator. The doorman opened the door and she walked out of the lobby and down the street.

  Her Land Rover was parked around the block. After she’d unlocked it and gotten inside she heard her cell phone ring.

  She answered it quickly. “Hello?”

  “Judy?”

  “Yes?”

  Judy Chen had been asked out by football players, baseball players, men of power and wealth, most of them not caring anything about who she was or what she thought, but very much interested in screwing the cute little Asian chick they’d seen on television. Usually, she said no. Very rarely did she give out her private cell number. She said, “Who is this?”

  “Well, for purposes of this conversation, my name is Carl.”

  “What can I do for you, Carl?”

  Terrill said, “Boy, you are tough. Well, today is your lucky day.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “You know about Gene Penmark’s daughter being kidnapped, don’t you?”

  Judy looked at the screen on her cell phone. The number was not identified. She took her hand off the ignition key.

  “Who is this?”

  “I told you: my name is Carl. Or Bill. Whatever you like.”

  “You said something about Penmark’s daughter.”

  “Yes. I also said that today is your lucky day.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “Do you know why?”

  “Why?” She had already asked him this, but she knew that he wanted to control the pace of the conversation.

  The voice said, “Turn around.”

  Judy turned around. On her backseat was a brown paper bag, the top folded over.

  “You see a brown paper bag?”

  “Yes.”

  “Inside that bag is a videotape. On that videotape is Cordelia Penmark. She was kidnapped last night by some very serious, very determined people. Cordelia is alive, you understand. She is very much alive. But she has been abducted.”

  “I—”

  “Ah, Ms. Chen, I’m talking now. Take that tape to your station and play it. It’s going to be the story of the day. Oh, and don’t bother thanking me.”

  The man hung up.

  A few seconds passed before Judy Chen looked in the bag and removed a videotape. She drove straight to the station and didn’t stop to change out of her gym clothes.

  ELEVEN

  Most of the men on his team were in the detectives’ squad room when he got there. Klosterman, Murph, Rhodes. They had the television set up and they replayed the tape. Not the original, Klosterman pointed out, but a tape of the news that had run a few minutes earlier.

  News reporter Judy Chen was on the screen, saying that this was a News 9 special report. There were some graphics and then another woman’s voice could be heard. The voice said, “Gene Penmark is a billionaire. His net worth is approximately two-point-four billion dollars. He is the owner of Penmark Industries. Last month, he floated his microchip company to Entech Company. As a result, Gene Penmark made a personal profit of forty-six million dollars. That figure does not include the net worth of his remaining businesses. That figure does not include the fifteen-million-dollar yacht he keeps on the French Riviera. That figure does not include the twelve-million-dollar jet he keeps at Lambert Airport. Out of that forty-six-million-dollar pure profit, Gene Penmark is being asked to give up two million dollars in exchange for the safe return of his daughter. We believe the decision is an easy one.”

  The screen changed and there was a young girl wearing a dress. She was holding a copy of the day’s early edition of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. She said, in a strange tone, “Please do as they ask, Dad. I want to come home. Please.”

  The picture changed and went back to Judy Chen at her desk. She said, “The police are continuing their investigation.”

  Hastings said, “Has anyone here spoken to that fucking woman?”

  Klosterman knew he was referring to the news reporter, not the kidnapping victim. He was angry about it too and he said, “We have no record of her calling the Department.”

  “Goddammit,” Hastings said. “God damn it.”

  Rhodes walked up on shells to him. “George,” he said, “Captain Brady says the assistant chief wants to see you.”

  No doubt he would, Hastings thought.

  * * *

  Assistant Chief Fenton Murray’s relationship with Hastings was not entirely settled. To start with, Murray had never worked as a detective; his entire career had been in ei
ther patrol or administration. When he was a patrol lieutenant, he generally took home less money than the average detective, who was technically lower in rank. The reason was, detectives worked a lot of overtime. The detectives did not openly speak of being an elite group. But they were a different tribe. A tribe within the greater tribe of the Metropolitan Police Department. Fenton Murray was black, but had been a policeman long enough that he was probably more Irish than anything.

  Hastings, for his part, did not believe that he had any quarrel with Murray. He thought Murray was a bit full of himself and something of a blowhard, but he was more or less honest and a straight shooter. Whatever else could be said of him, Murray was not the sort of man who would glad-hand you in person, then push you off a cliff when your back was turned.

  Fenton Murray had been with the St. Louis PD his entire law-enforcement career. In contrast, Chief Mark Grassino had been brought in from Atlanta to run the Department. Grassino had been assistant chief in Atlanta and had been in St. Louis a relatively short time. Hastings’s contact with Grassino had been limited but positive.

  Hastings was thinking about that now—wondering just how much of the chief’s goodwill he had expended—though he wished he weren’t, as Murray’s secretary led him through the anteroom to Fenton Murray’s office.

  Murray was on the phone when he walked in, saying, “Yes, sir. Yes.” Gesturing for Hastings to take a seat in front of his desk. “Yes, sir. Lieutenant Hastings is here now.… Yes, sir. Okay.”

  He hung up the phone and made a face. Mock curiosity.

  Hastings said, “You’ve seen the news, sir?”

  “Yes, I have. How did that happen?”

  “I’m waiting to ask her.”

  “That was the chief on the phone. He’s not happy.”

  “I don’t blame him.”

  Fenton Murray went on as if he hadn’t heard the acknowledgment. “It’s a matter of perspective, Lieutenant. Perspective. One of the richest men in this city, perhaps the richest, his daughter’s kidnapped … people want to believe we’re doing something about it. And some television news reporter is one step ahead of us. We can’t very well solve this by watching television, can we?”