Ray looked at her. Red hair loose today. That Windsor knot still bothering him, how skinny it was, not a nice triangle like it was supposed to be.
"You're right, Orlon. I should never have dropped those photos off with Allison. That was dumb. I should've consulted with you at least."
"Bitchcraft," Orlon said. "You were under this woman's spell. That's all it was, bitchcraft."
Orlon shook his head sadly and reached out and pressed the pistol against Tricia's throat.
"Hey!" Ray started for him, but Orlon held up a hand.
"Look at her," Orlon said. "Look at this woman."
Tricia's chin and lips were quivering.
"She's giving out advice, telling you how to run your life, Ray, but what does she know? Book shit. College shit. Has she ever looked into the barrel of a gun? Hell, no. But that guy with the gun in Hialeah, that father out there pointing that forty-five at you, Miss Book Learning here, she thinks she knows exactly what that moment is all about. She tells you, and you fucking listen to her."
Orlon tipped the barrel up, pressing the muzzle into the underside of Tricia's jaw, tilting her face up into the air.
She was trying to speak, trying to say something to Ray, but nothing was working, eyes streaming with tears.
Orlon pulled the trigger, and the hammer clicked on an empty chamber. Tricia tried to pull away, but Orlon kept the barrel hard against her neck and wouldn't let her move.
He pulled the trigger again and again. Empty. Tricia took a long gasp of air, her eyes fluttering shut, and she pitched sideways, hit the edge of her desk, twisted and tumbled onto the rug, faceup, eyes closed. Out, gone.
Orlon bent over her and pressed the gun against her temple and pulled the trigger again and again.
"That's why I went outside," Orlon said. "I took out the bullets."
"You asshole."
"Now she knows about an empty gun. Now what she said is true." Orlon looked at Ray. "Before, she didn't know what the fuck she was talking about, so it was just an accident she happened to speak the truth. But I've furthered her education. Next time it comes up, Miss Tricia can talk about empty guns with some authority."
Ray leaned down and straightened Tricia out, made her more comfortable. She was unconscious. Gone down the long, black slide into slumberland without even a last whoop good-bye.
"Christ," Ray said, and looked up at Orlon. "I love this woman. I do. I love the hell out of her."
"But you see what she was doing, Ray. You see it now, don't you? She was making you betray your solemn oath."
Ray touched her shoulder, her cheek.
"You didn't have to scare her like that."
"She knows things, Ray. You told her intimate family secrets. We couldn't just walk away, her knowing what she does. Not without showing her what the consequences of her actions could be."
Ray touched Tricia's hair, stroked it. More coarse than he'd imagined, crinkly and thick.
"What we got to do now is to start over," Orlon said. "Right from the beginning. Now that I finally know what the hell Mom said, that's what we should do."
"Keep the family together." Ray heard the words come from him, like a dreamer talking. "That's what she told me."
"It's not much," Orlon said. "But it's something."
Ray caressed Tricia's cheek, soft, warm. He guessed now it was over between them. You didn't scare your shrink to death one minute and ask her to marry you the next.
He should've realized a long time ago it would never work with Tricia. It would've been bigamy anyway, 'cause Ray was married already.
Him and Orlon, till death did them part.
CHAPTER 35
"Allison was just here. She came to my office."
"Harry, you called me on the international phone line at nine in the morning to tell me your wife came to your office?"
"I tried you at home, told your man it was an emergency, he gave me this number. I didn't know what else to do."
"Well, now you found me. Talk."
Patrick straightened the sheets around him, glanced over at Sean. She'd rolled away from him, a tremble in her back. Crying.
Harry's pitiful voice spoke into Patrick's ear.
"She's onto us, Pat. She's figured things out."
"I made arrangements for Allison some time ago. There is nothing to worry about from her. Erase her from your mind."
"What arrangements?"
"Don't worry yourself about it."
"Not those same guys. Those fuckups. Not them."
"Harry, I'm hanging up now."
"This is wrong. This isn't working the way we planned. It's gone way off track."
Patrick was quiet. There was something in Harry's voice he'd glimpsed before. Only then it had been no more than a small vein of weakness, a fissure in the great bedrock of his greed. Nothing to worry about, a trait, in fact, that Patrick could exploit. But now it had grown. A widening crack. His voice almost a screech. Harry's cowardice was souring into full-fledged panic.
"Harry, have a drink. Have several drinks. Relax. Don't worry yourself about this anymore. It will be finished before you know it."
A pause filled with static, then Harry said, "This isn't right. I'm sick of it. I don't want any more killing."
"Neither do I, Harry. I abhor violence. But this is not a conversation for the international phone lines. Do you understand me?"
"Call them off," he said. "I don't want Allison hurt."
Patrick was quiet for a moment, gathering his patience. He fluffed up the pillow, propped it against the headboard, pulled himself up and settled against it. Feeling a twist in his stomach, some knot of feeling. Worry. Worry for having become involved with this family, for staking so much on these people, all of them without backbone. Only Allison was even close to Patrick's equal.
"Harry," he said at last. "I can call them off. But you know what that will mean. If Allison knows what is going on, and if she talks to the right people, it is the end of Rantel, De Novo, your career. My future."
"Goddamn it. Call them off. We'll worry about Rantel later."
"All right, Harry. If that's the way you want."
"I'm serious. I don't want any more violence."
"If it is important to you, Harry, of course I'll do it."
"Okay. Good."
Harry breathed into the receiver. He was panting. The crackle of cellophane rippling across the line, electronic surf.
Harry said, "We'll find a way to defuse Allison. No one takes her seriously anyway after the Joshua Bond thing. She could talk all she wanted, no one's going to believe her. This isn't the end of De Novo. We can cobble this back together, I know it. I'll take care of Allison. She'll listen to reason. I can still talk to her, show her how important this is. She's still my wife, for chrissake."
"You know her better than I, Harry."
"Can I trust you, Patrick? You'll rein these people in?"
"Please, Harry. I want what is good for all concerned. As I told you, I abhor what has taken place. I am in total agreement with you that the violence should halt."
"Okay. Look, I'm sorry I bothered you, Patrick. But I feel better. You'll make that call right now. Okay?"
Sean made a move to rise from the bed, but Patrick gripped her wrist, held her down.
"And listen, Patrick," Harry's voice was fraying again. "I know you find Sean attractive. I realize that. But you can't be with her. Sexually, I mean. You can't be with her. Promise me that."
"What are you talking about now, Harry?"
"It's not right," Harry said. "It wouldn't be good."
"I'm hanging up now, Harry. Our conversation is over."
"No, listen. There's something you don't know. When I was over there on my first tour, in Brunei twenty-five years ago, I met a woman. I had a lover there. It was my first posting. I fell in love."
"Touching, Harry. Very touching."
"It was the sultan's sister, Patrick. Your mother. Kalami."
Patrick drew the phone f
rom his ear as if it had stung him. After another moment he brought it back to his ear.
"You're lying, Harry. You're inventing an ugly lie."
"No, it's true, Patrick. It's true, I swear."
"No, Harry. It isn't true. It's a lie. It's a fucking, terrible lie. I never heard you say this."
He put the receiver back.
Sean tried to wrench free, but Patrick held her wrist a moment longer, staring at her. Analyzing her bone structure as if for the first time.
"Let me go, goddamn it."
With a hiss he dropped his hold. Sean rolled over to face him. Lower jaw jutting out. A vein rising at her temple.
"That was my father."
"Yes."
"Does he know?"
"Know what?"
"That you murdered Winslow."
Patrick sighed.
"I told you, Sean. It was an accident. A ghastly mistake. I never meant for that to happen. None of us did."
"Of course. You meant to kill Allison, but Winslow got in the way. An accident."
"Yes, that's right. I saw her, she saw me. Our eyes met and held for a moment. At that point, I had no choice. I pulled the trigger. It was awful. It was a terrible moment."
"You bastard. You fucking bastard."
"I gave you the absolute truth, Sean, because I want to be perfectly straightforward with you. I could have easily denied the whole affair, pretended innocence, or come up with some other story, an alibi, but I didn't do that. I confided in you because of my love for you. Because of our future together. I don't want our marriage to be founded on lies."
"You're crazy," she said. "You think I'd marry you?"
"You must try to calm yourself, Sean. I realize it is a terrible shock. You are feeling pain now, confusion, anger. Perhaps even fear. But eventually that will all subside, time will wash it away. You'll see things as I see them. And we will be again as we were yesterday."
"Does my father know what you did?"
"Your father," Patrick said, and sniffed at the thought of him. "Your father is a weak man. He has appetites beyond his abilities. He lacks discipline and strength of purpose."
"But does he know?"
With both hands Patrick combed the hair away from his face.
"Sean," he said. "Harry helped plan every facet, every detail. He put me in touch with various men around the world, men I needed for my project. He has been extremely helpful at every stage, from the beginning till today. I could not have accomplished all that I have without his assistance. I am deeply in his debt."
"He okayed the plan to kill Allison? He knew it was you who shot my sister?"
"He knew that a regrettable accident took place in the jungle. That a tragic mishap occurred while reasonable men were engaged in a difficult and crucial enterprise."
Sean turned her face away from him. Stared at the far wall.
"And you actually think I'm going to forgive you for killing Winslow?"
"I don't see what choice you have."
"Forgive you or die. Those are my options."
"All you have to do is continue to feel about me as you did yesterday. Feelings don't simply come to an abrupt halt.
We have experienced a setback, a bump in the road of our relationship. We'll recover. Now come here. Make yourself comfortable, lie with me."
She turned back around, glaring at him. Still beautiful, even now, even in her anger, her confusion. Still the staggeringly beautiful teenage girl in the yellow summer dress strolling down the Boulevard Jalang Tasek. Even Harry's awful lie could not taint his vision of her.
"And what if I refuse? What's to keep me from running into the hall, screaming for help?"
Patrick sighed, smoothed the bedspread around him.
He looked off toward the window and said, "If I thought there was no hope, Sean, if I thought you could never forgive me, we could never regain what we had a few short hours ago, if I thought I could not trust you in the presence of others, then I don't know. I don't know what I would do."
"Tell me something, Patrick."
He shrugged away the sad thought he was having, and looked back at her.
"Yes?"
"What's so goddamn important that my sister had to be sacrificed for it? My mother?"
"Tomorrow," Patrick said. "All will be clear."
She turned away from him again, showed him her beautiful bare back. Patrick stroked her shoulders, drew himself up, came close to her and began to massage the tight muscles in her neck and shoulder blades.
"Why don't you just do it," she said. "Put a bullet through my brain and be done with it."
"It's all right, sweetheart. It's all right. You're safe. Don't worry, please. It hurts me to see you this way."
"You fucking bastard."
He let a few seconds pass, then a few more, waiting for her harsh words to break apart, disperse.
"Now rest, sweetheart. I have one phone call to make before I join you. I'll do it in the bathroom so you won't be disturbed."
But before he made his call Patrick took the letter opener from the desk, and searched the room carefully for anything else that might tempt her.
***
"He phones, we gotta drop everything, clean up after him. Have gun, will travel. The Paladin brothers. Jesus, I'll be glad to be done with all these people."
Orlon was weaving the Vette fast through the traffic on U.S. 1, cutting people off, bouncing from lane to lane, pitching Ray from one side to the other. Nine at night, Friday, most of the traffic was headed out to South Beach, see and be seen. . . .
"And shit," Orlon said, "I don't know why we don't just go to the house, wait there. Less people around."
Ray looked away out the side window, trying not to watch how close Orlon was riding some eighteen-wheeler's bumper.
"He's at the office working late. Nobody's around."
Orlon said, "What's that address again?"
Ray told him for the fifth time. 305 Biscayne. The Columbus Building.
"Hey," Orlon said. "Remember that little office complex, the one used to be around there, near where the Columbus Building is now?"
"No."
"Well, you remember Dr. Krakel?"
"The dentist," Ray said. "The one didn't use novocaine."
"Yeah, guy didn't believe in it. Sat there in his office running fucking Nazi experiments on little kids. See how much pain they could take before they puked or passed out."
"He didn't use novocaine on us," Ray said, "because it was too expensive. Mom couldn't afford it."
"What?"
"Too expensive," Ray said. "Mom told him no. Do it au naturel."
"Is that right? How'd you know that?"
Ray watched as U.S. 1 widened by one lane, turned into I-95, and Orlon gunned the Vette past a dozen cars, touching ninety before he had to brake hard for the exit ramp to downtown.
"I know 'cause I heard Mom arguing with him about it. Trying to get him to throw it in for free. But no, it was ten dollars extra for novocaine. She didn't have the ten bucks, so we didn't get it. No big secret there."
"You telling me all that fucking pain," Orlon said, "a couple dollars more we wouldn't have had to endure it?"
"Ten dollars," Ray said. "That was a lot to Mom back then."
Orlon swerved in front of a white Lexus at the light on Flagler, made a quick right with no stop for the red light. Cars honking behind them. Orlon gunned it, jammed Ray's head against the headrest for a hundred yards.
Halfway up the block, letting off the gas, he said, "I bet this guy we're going to see, he always got novocaine when he was a kid. I bet his mom didn't say, no, I can't afford it, go on, torture the shit out of the little tyke."
"On the other hand," Ray said. "This guy had to live with Allison for the past twenty years."
Orlon looked over at him again, an uncertain smile.
"What's your point?"
"The universe is fair," Ray said. "You suffer early or you suffer later on. You and me suffered early, an
d this guy, the one that got novocaine, he got stuck with Allison."
***
"And now," Orlon said, "he's getting stuck with us."
The ape was strapped into the steel chair, seven monitoring wires attached to him, brain waves, heart rhythm, breath rates, perspiration. Patches of shaggy orange hair had been shaved from his chest and skull so the wires could be implanted, the flesh greased.
The nozzle of the propane torch was attached to one end of an accordion arm that was carefully calibrated to move as close as one inch and as distant as a foot from the orangutan's face. At that moment, the fire burned four and a half inches from the ape's nose, its flame shooting several inches into the air.
The ape had stopped fighting against the straps. He'd even quit watching the fire hiss. He simply sat still as if he were unaware of the danger that hovered so close to his face. He stared straight ahead through the blue flame, making eye contact with the laboratory assistant.
When the professor finished the next notations on his clipboard, he looked up and instructed Bernice to adjust the distance two inches closer. But she didn't move. She was looking into the ape's eyes. The professor cleared his throat and asked the young lady if she heard him. Bernice balked a moment more, then responded that yes, she had heard him.
The orangutan held her eyes as she stepped forward and adjusted the accordion arm, bringing the flame two and a half inches from his nose. A random puff of air might have easily set his facial fur ablaze. The professor studied his assistant for a moment, then shook his head and returned to his gauges, and began to make further notes. There were tears in Bernice's eyes.
The ape closed his eyes and the professor watched with dismay as the heart monitor showed a sudden steep decline. The orangutan's pulse was quieting. Eyes closed, limbs no longer twitching, hands open and relaxed against the arms of the chair. As though the orangutan were putting himself into some kind of meditational trance.
CHAPTER 36
"Nice view, counselor. Cruise ships, ocean. Everything glittering. Hell, we're up so high you could take a piss, it'd evaporate before it hit the ground."
Gone Wild (Thorn Series Book 4) Page 35