Shares

by A. W. Gray

  Meg wiggled and squirmed, grabbing at his buttocks, pushing herself downward, the rough crotch of his trousers pinching first her chin, then her nose, and then her forehead. All at once she was free, rising, stumbling, righting herself. Then she was running for all she was worth, her bare feet slapping tile, then thudding on carpet as she left the cage and sprinted through the sitting room. The open front door was in sight, just a few more strides, the outside light flooding the hallway like the near-death experience. She would make it. She would will herself to make it. Just a few more…She stubbed her toe on a leg of the sofa. Blinding pain shot through her foot and halfway up her calf as she sprawled headlong and rolled onto her side, looking fearfully over her shoulder. Inside the cage, the squatty man stood upright, then bent down and picked up the knife. Blood dripped from the end of his nose onto the tiles. Meg choked back a sob and scrambled behind the couch, grabbing at her injured foot and biting her lip to hold back screams of agony.

  Basil thought that he’d lost his eye. He screamed, dropped the knife, and brought up his hands to shield his face. Jesus fucking Christ, she’d blinded him. The goddam vicious broad had attacked him. Oh, Jesus, oh, Jesus, it hurt, it hurt.

  He barely felt the woman as she squirmed down between his legs and fought her way free, barely heard the sound of her bare feet as she sprinted from the cage. Christ, he was blind, was going to be a fucking beggar poking around on Eighth Street with a cane and a tin cup. He lurched backward, fell from the bed onto the floor, and uttered a series of moans as he struggled to his feet. The goddam heartless woman had ruined his life. Had ruined his goddam life, goddam her, she had…He wiped blood from his eye with his fingers, and suddenly he could see. More blood flowed down to block his vision. Dumbly, he wiped again. He wasn’t blind. Oh, thank sweet

  Christ, he wasn’t blind. He stared at his reddened fingers as relief flooded over him.

  He peered around inside the cage. Jesus, the broad was gone. Where the hell did she…? Basil bent over, picked up the knife, looked at the open cage door. She wasn’t going to escape, no way would he let her do that. Jesus, a mile and a half minimum to the highway, he’d run her down before she was out of the house’s shadow. Goddam broad had tried to blind him.

  Roaring in anger, swabbing the blood from his eye with one hand and brandishing the knife in the other, Basil charged from the cage and out through the sitting room.

  Meg was certain that her right little toe was broken, but barely noticed the pain. She curled up into a ball behind the couch and tried to squirm underneath. He was coming. She had hurt him with the brush handle, and now she was going to die. It was all over, everything was over. God, she was going to…He ran right past her. She blinked in astonishment as the squatty man thundered by, his foot landing heavily less than a yard from the end of her nose. He kept on going, snarling, the floor shaking with his every step. As he charged through the entry hall and, his frame outlined in sunlight pouring through the doorway, ran outside, Meg drew her knees up to her chest and hugged them. Her entire body shook. The pain shooting through her toe and up her ankle was a godsend, a blessed reminder that she wasn’t dead.

  Basil Gershwin blinked his one good eye against the glare of sunlight and paused for an instant on the porch. A gentle wind rustled tall grass on his left. His Honda sat where he’d parked it, nose on to the porch. He shook his head in confusion. His vision blurred by blood and perspiration, he looked up the path leading toward the blacktop road. At the top of the rise, a figure stood.

  The fucking broad. Jesus Christ, the fucking woman up there, getting away. She’d run a helluva lot faster than he’d thought she could, Jesus, a hundred yards or more. No matter, he’d run her down. Run her down and then haul her kicking and screaming back into the house, and then he’d teach her a fucking lesson. Teach her to try and put out old Basil’s eye. Damn right he would. He yelled at the top of his lungs, jumped from the porch, and charged up the hill.

  He’d gone four or five steps when he heard the pop, a tiny explosion from up where the figure stood. The noise puzzled him. His vision cleared for the barest instant, and the figure on the hill sharpened into focus. Jesus Christ, that wasn’t no broad up there, it was…The bullet tore into Basil’s forehead just above his eye, disintegrated bone and brain matter in its path, and then sizzled on to finally lodge in the dirt at the foot of the porch. Basil stood still as a painting for an instant, the top of his head missing, ripped arteries spraying a high-pressure geyser of blood. A final thought remained frozen in the half second of consciousness left to him. That ain’t no broad up there. Then the lights went out forever. Basil Gershwin fell forward onto his face and died.

  Randolph Money lowered the rifle, unscrewed the silencer from its barrel, and shook his head in admiration. Christ, there’d never be another guy like that, never in a million years. No need to go inside and check on the girl. The absolute killing machine had done its work, and then had lusted for more, charging straight up the hill in the face of a loaded gun aimed at his head, no fear, absolute concentration. Randolph Money should pen an ode to the guy. Give Money a holding company, say a movie or publishing outfit, staffed with killing machines like Basil Gershwin, no conscience, absolute concentration on the goal, and Randolph Money would own the fucking world.

  He returned to his rented Ford, dropped the rifle in the trunk along with the pistol, and left the scene with twin dust clouds billowing out behind. Halfway to DFW Airport he pulled off Highway I83, drove a mile to the north, and finally stopped beside a creek which wound through a forest of mesquite trees. After weighting the rifle and pistol down with good-sized rocks, he tossed them into the stream.

  He arrived at the Delta counter three quarters of an hour ahead of his L.A. flight’s departure time. When the gate attendant asked, Money told her that he wasn’t checking his luggage, that the alligator-and-leather suitcase was light as a feather, just the right size for carry-on. Then he took the suitcase with him into the gift shop and looked over the rack of paperback books. One was a movie tie-in, Robocop, and as he studied the half robot, half man pictured on the cover, Money showed wide-gapped teeth in a grin. Christ, as if they’d had the guy in mind, Randolph Money thought. Jesus, but he was going to miss that Basil Gershwin guy.

  Meg lay curled up behind the sofa for more than an hour. The pain in her foot settled gradually down to a throb. Two or three times she touched her swollen toe, but otherwise she didn’t move. Each outside noise, each rustling of the wind through the open doorway, brought instant terror. She finally decided that maybe, just maybe, she was going to go on living.

  She struggled up, tested her weight on her right foot, then yelped in anguish. Her mouth worked in concentration for a moment, then she gritted her teeth. Walking on her heel with her toes pointed up, she limped through the front door and out onto the porch. She gulped coolish, fresh air. She didn’t have the slightest idea where she was, might even be in Oklahoma. There was a lake nearby, water lapping a shoreline, the odor of wet moss wafting up her nostrils. She looked up the slope, caught sight of the sprawled body, averted her gaze from the bloody head.

  There was a Honda parked at the end of the porch. She moved in the auto’s direction and, hopping on one foot and using the fender for support, peered in the driver’s window. No keys in the ignition. She wondered if it was the squatty man’s car, and if so, if the keys were in his pocket. She limped over and stood over the body. Flies swarmed around the head. She bent from the waist and retched.

  She summoned up her willpower, stooped down, and felt in the corpse’s pocket while keeping her head turned away. On the opposite shore of the lake were condo roofs, a dock, two cabin boats swinging from moorings. Her hand inside the pocket contacted pieces of metal. She pulled out two keys, connected by a chain from which also dangled a plastic Avis tag.

  She hobbled over to the car, got in and turned the key, halfway expecting a bomb under the hood to blow her to kingdom come
. The engine caught and raced, then smoothed out and purred. Meg inhaled through her nose, put the lever in reverse, backed out, then drove slowly up the incline. Halfway to the crest of the hill she stopped, the squatty man’s near-decapitated form visible in the rearview mirror. God, Meg thought, someone killed him. Someone that’s likely still nearby. Her hands trembling, her heart coming up in her throat, Meg gave the Honda some gas and proceeded on.

  30

  Felicia Tate stood with one drape pulled back, looking out the den window in Morgan Carpenter’s home. “Who called those people?” Tate said. Visible through the pane, a white Channel 8 News truck sat in the drive behind the Porsche, the Jag, and two unmarked federal Tauruses. A young man in shirtsleeves emerged from the driver’s door of the mobile news unit. He was beefy, sweating profusely, and toted a Minicam. From the passenger side came a beautiful, willowy black woman of around thirty, wearing high heels and a beige dress. Tate recognized the woman, Janet-Wheeler-reporting-from-the-scene, articulate and with the camera presence of a Kathleen Turner. From the rear of the truck came two more men, one of whom began to assemble a tripod. “Who yanked their chain, Dave?” Tate said. She let the drape fall back into place and turned to face the room.

  Agent Turner was seated on the bench in front of the grand piano. He watched the far corner of the room. “Yanked whose chain?” He lifted his ankle to rest on his knee and pinched the scarred toe of his boot.

  “Who?” Tate said. “Those television people out there.” She’d borrowed the Carpenters’ servants’ quarters to shower and freshen up, but still wore the wilted jogging suit in which she’d stayed the night at the lakeside condo. She went over and sat on the front edge of a straight-backed chair, folded her arms, and gave Turner the evil eye. At that instant the doorbell bong-bonged.

  Turner pulled on the front of his T-shirt.

  “Have you got any idea what this can cause?” Tate said.

  Turner used one finger to play a note on the piano, bonking the key four times.

  “Who called these people?” she said.

  Turner cleared his throat. “I think they assumed the deal would be over by now. That the—”

  “They who, Dave?”

  “—money’d be delivered, and we’d have the girl back.”

  “They who?” Tate said.

  Turner looked at the ceiling. “Suits downtown. Look, I got no say-so.”

  An FBI agent in a brown suit came in from the entry hall. “There’s some media people out here,” he said, leaning on the piano’s coal-black lacquered wood.

  “Tell them…” Tate rubbed her eyes, muttered, “God help us,” then said, “tell them just a minute.”

  The FBI agent went back into the foyer.

  “So I’ll understand all this,” Tate said to Turner, “the FBI alerted the media without discussing it with the U.S. Attorney’s office. When did this happen?”

  One corner of Turner’s mouth tugged to the side. He got up and stood facing the fireplace, picked up a gilt poker, placed the poker back into the rack. “Last night, I think. Look, they thought that even if we didn’t have the girl, by now it’d be too late to do anything.”

  Tate blinked. “They, hell, Dave. You.”

  “Now hold…” Turner retreated from the fireplace and now sat in a chair in front of the piano. “We just wanted to be the ones doing the announcing. Since it’s our case.”

  “Sweet Jesus. You’re sacrificing the victim just so the FBI can make the announcement. Sweet Jesus. So now, what do you think you’re going to tell them?”

  “They should have been called and told the deal was off.”

  Turner said.

  “So why weren’t they?”

  “I forgot. Hauling that suitcase down to the bank and all that.”

  “Just superior,” Tate said. “So what do you tell them?”

  “I don’t tell them shit. The agent-in-charge is due out here.”

  Tate pointed a finger with a dully polished nail. “Your agency’s going to have hell to pay.” She raised her voice and shouted out into the foyer, “Someone get Mr. Carpenter in here. Seems we’ve got a problem to solve.”

  Morgan Carpenter said dully, “You people called the television.”

  “We acknowledge it’s a little glitch,” Turner said. “It’s not a mountain. More of a molehill.”

  “You people called the television,” Carpenter said. He was seated in one of the easy chairs with Turner on the piano bench. Sis Carpenter, wearing a pale blue parachute silk jogging suit, leaned on the piano. Her gaze moved incredulously from Tate to Turner to Carpenter, and back to Tate.

  “The FBI called them,” Tate said.

  “It’s a federal error,” Turner said. “The agency making it really doesn’t matter.”

  Tate moved the drape aside and peered out the window. “For the record, don’t be involving our office in this.”

  “Why not?” Turner said. “It was you people that caused it, butting in on the investigation.”

  “You people called the television,” Carpenter said.

  Tate spread her fingers, then her hands, palms down. “It’s your daughter, Mr. Carpenter. But I’ve been in on a few of these things, and I hope we’ll benefit from experience. I think, here’s what we should do.”

  Carpenter leaned back and studied the ceiling like a man who’d just learned that he had terminal cancer.

  “These reporters.” Tate said, “aren’t going to listen to law enforcement. An appeal from the victim’s family, asking that they put the lid on it, might do the trick. I think you should go out there and face them along with us. Appeal to their sense that, releasing the story now puts your daughter in jeopardy.”

  “You people called the television,” Carpenter said.

  The agent in the brown suit came in from the foyer. “Mr. Brickman’s out here.’

  Tate snapped her chin to one side. “Who is he?”

  “The agent…” Turner said. “The agent-in-charge of the Dallas office. He’s the one that has to give any statement to the media.”

  “What happened to the other guy Percell?” Tate asked.

  “Took an appointment in Washington.”

  “He wasn’t here six months.”

  Turner shrugged. “They change guys pretty often.”

  “You people called the television” Carpenter said.

  Tate walked up nearer Carpenter’s chair. “I think we have to go out there, Mr. Carpenter. It’s the best chance we’ve got.” She showed a sympathetic smile and extended her hand.

  “You people called the television,” Morgan Carpenter said.

  Wilson Brickman had iron-gray hair, a square jut-jawed face, and a neck like a retired linebacker’s. He wore a charcoal gray suit, and stood near the stone cherubs on the porch with Assistant USDA Tate and FBI Agent Turner behind him. Morgan Carpenter, blinking in the glare from the handheld light, slumped alongside. Brickman said in a Pat Summerall baritone, “You’re taping this, right?”

  Janet Wheeler smiled an Entertainment Tonight lead-in smile, at the same time checking the sound meter on her handheld microphone. “No interviews are live anymore,” she said. “Just action scenes. Mostly ball games, the sports. Maybe we should wire you with a clip-on.”

  “There’s been a…listen, can we be off the record here?” Brickman said. Behind him, Turner and Tate exchanged a look. Morgan Carpenter stared off into space.

  “Douse it, John,” Janet Wheeler said loudly. The light went off. The beefy mobile unit driver lowered his Minicam.

  “We’re trying to prevent a tragedy here.” Brickman said.

  “We’ve got to make the public aware. Sometimes it’s painful to some, but we feel—”

  “There’s been a big mistake. This shouldn’t have been released as yet.”

  “It can be a major story,” Wheeler
said. “National import. I assume the victim’s indisposed, following her ordeal.”

  “I’ve got to level,” Brickman said. “We don’t have the victim as yet. To release the story might put her life in—”

  “Over nine million dollars, is that right?” Wheeler said.

  “This man could lose his daughter,” Brickman said, indicating Carpenter. “None of us want the responsibility for that.”

  “How about,” Wheeler said, “an interview where we agree not to release it until the victim’s accounted for?” Then, over her shoulder, “John? John. Do you think we need some powder, on Mr. Carpenter’s forehead?”

  “What we’re wanting to do,” Brickman said, “is withhold all comment until the thing’s over, and ask your cooperation in keeping the lid on.”

  “It’s a big expense,” Wheeler said, “bringing all these people out, where the release came from your office to begin with.”

  “Maybe we can…” Brickman looked beyond the media people, toward the street. “What’s this?” he said.

  A brown four-door Buick Roadmaster pulled in and parked in the drive, followed by a red panel truck with “Channel 4 News” painted on its side. A man in a suit emerged from the Buick, a square-shouldered guy of around forty with razored hair and polished shoes. He fast-stepped across the drive toward the porch. A thin man in shirtsleeves came from behind the wheel of the mobile news unit, lugging a Minicam, as a black woman with an hourglass figure came from the passenger door carrying a microphone. Two guys climbed out of the back of the truck, and one of them set about assembling a tripod.

  As the square-shouldered man came up on the porch, Brick-man said, “What’s this?” a second time.

  The newcomer extended his hand. “Wilson? George Patman. It’s high time we met, though these circumstances are a bit out of the ordinary.”