F Paul Wilson - Novel 04 (19 page)

Katie pulled away and stared at
her. “Why are you wearing a Minnie Mouse mask?”

“I told you how I can’t
let you see my face, but I thought you’d like this one better than the
Roseanne mask. You do, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“And how about your new
clothes?”

Katie looked down at her plaid
shirt and Oshkosh overalls. “They’re okay, I guess.”

She’s right. Poppy thought.
They’re okay. Barely okay.

She’d sent Paulie out for new
masks and dry clothes and underwear. She’d given him the size and that
was about it. He’d done good with the masks—Minnie for her and
Mickey for him—but the clothes… “At least they’re
dry.”

She reddened and looked away.
“I’m sorry.”

Poppy grabbed her and hugged her
again. “Don’t you be sorry! Don’t you dare be sorry! That
wasn’t your fault. It was ours. We forgot to give you your medicine. That
won’t happen again.”

What’s up with me? she
wondered as she pressed that skinny little body close against her. She hated
kids. Never wanted any, but now all she wanted to do was like hold and protect
this one. It’s like I’m a different person.

She remembered waking up with a
headache, and hearing this rattling and thumping coming from somewhere in the
house. She’d tried to wake Paulie but he was like dead to the world. So
she got up and went to see… and went to pieces when she found the kid in
the middle of a fit.

Not the first time she’d seen
a fit. God, no. She’d seen far more than her fair share and had hoped and
prayed she’d never see one again.

“I promise you. Glory,”
she whispered into her hair. “It’ll never happen again.”

Katie said, “My name’s
not Glory.”

Poppy stiffened. Glory? Had she
really called her Glory?

“You’re right,”
she said quickly. “Of course it isn’t. What was I thinking?”

Was that what this was all about?
Glory? Was Katie the kid Glory might have been? If she’d lived? She repressed
a shudder. That was scary. And yet…

The phone rang in the other room.
She left Katie on the bed and opened the door enough to poke her head through
just as Paulie picked it up and said, “Yeah?” Had to be Mac.

“Yeah, she’s
fine… Nope. No problems. Got the pill into her just like the directions said…”

Poppy caught his eye and glared at
him through the mask. He shrugged, like. What else am I supposed to say?

Better say nothing, Paulie. Mac
finds out you almost messed up his little package and he’ll be like all
over you.

She was still pissed at Paulie.
Really, how could one man be so stupid? He had the pills in his goddamn pocket.
All he had to do was— She cut off the train. She got crazy every time she
thought about it. Better to leave it alone.

But she was still royally pissed.

“What?” Paulie was
saying. “Aw, come on! You gotta be shitting me, man!” Uh-oh. What
else had gone wrong?

She saw Paulie glance at her but
his gaze skittered away. He turned his back and lowered his voice, but she
could see his shoulder muscles bunching up and knew he was arguing. He stole a
second gun-shy look her way, then took the phone into the bedroom.

Obviously, Paulie and Mac
weren’t seeing eye to eye about something. She wondered what it was. No
matter. She’d find out soon enough. She closed the door and returned to Katie.

Took a long time, maybe fifteen
minutes, before Paulie knocked on the door.

“You wanna come out here a
minute?”

She slipped out the door, closed it
behind her, and immediately pulled off the mask. Cool air felt great on her
face. Hot and humid inside that plastic. She blotted the moisture off her face
with her sleeve, then looked at Paulie. Jesus, he looked totally spooked. His
eyes were darting all around the room, anywhere but at her.

“What’s wrong?”
she said.

“That was Mac.”

“Who else would it be.
What’d he want?”

“He says the package’s
father ain’t cooperating.”

“Ain’t cooperating? You
mean he don’t want her back?”

“I don’t know exactly.
Mac says he’s giving him a hard time.”

Poppy looked at the bedroom door.
Jesus! Somebody steals your little girl and you haggle over the price? Like
what kind of father does that?

“The son of a bitch.”

“Yeah. So…”
Paulie was staring real hard at the floor. “So Mac wants us to send the
guy a persuader.” Poppy froze, staring at Paulie, who was still looking
at the floor. She’d been gut punched once, and that was how she felt
right now. She thought she was going to puke. But she controlled it. And she
controlled the urge to launch herself at Paulie and start screaming like a
banshee. She controlled everything.

And slowly she turned to ice.

Then steel.

No one was going to hurt that
little girl.

“Uh-uh,” she said
softly. She kept her voice low, even. “Not a chance.”

Paulie’s head jerked up like
he’d been slapped. He stared at her like she was a stranger. Obviously
he’d expected a different reaction.

“Hey, Poppy, we gotta do
it.”

“Really? Says who?”

“Mac. I told
you—”

“Mac says,
‘Jump,’ and you say, ‘How high?’ That how it
goes?”

“You think I want to do this?
You think I want to hurt a kid? Christ, gimme a break! But this is Mac’s
gig.”

“I don’t care if this
is God’s gig—no one’s touching that kid.” She started
to turn away but he grabbed her arm.

“Look. Mac wanted us to send
the guy one of her fingers. I talked him down to a toe. A toe. Poppy! A
freaking little toe! She’ll never miss it!”

Poppy wrenched her arm free.
“Not a fingernail, Paulie! Not a hair! You got that?”

“It’s got to be done.
Poppy!”

She went to the guest room door,
turned, and faced him.

“Over my dead body.”

She could see that Paulie
didn’t really believe her. How was she going to convince him? How could
she stop him?

He took a step toward her.
“With or without you, it’s gotta be done.”

“Through me first, Paulie.
You’re gonna have to beat me to a total pulp before you get to her. I
know you can do it. But will you do it? I hope not. I don’t think
it’s in you. But if you do, you better kill me. That’s all I can
say, Paulie—you better kill me. ‘Cause if you don’t, and you
hurt that little girl, I’ll kill you. Some night when you’re
sleeping, I’ll put a knife through your heart. That’s my promise:
You hurt that kid and some morning real soon you’re gonna wake up dead.”

He stood and stared at her, his
hands opening and closing at his sides.

“Christ! You’re really
serious!”

She nodded. Yeah, she was. And that
amazed her. She barely knew this little Katie and yet she was ready to die for
her. What the hell was going on?

“You’re forgetting Mac,
aren’t you?” he said. “We don’t do what he wants, we
could all wake up dead. And then he can take any damn part of her he feels like.”

That shook her. Paulie was right.
Mac wanted what he wanted. He was paying you, he expected you to take orders.
Who knew what he’d do if they told him to shove his persuader.

Paulie ran both hands through his
hair. “This is just great! I do what Mac wants, you’ll kill me. I
do what you want, Mac kills me. How the fuck did I get into this?”

Poppy felt sorry for him. She was
putting him in a real jam. She didn’t want to see Katie or Paulie hurt.

“There’s got to be like
some way out of this,” she said.

“Yeah?” Paulie said.
“Like how? Mac wants a piece of her to send to her father. He’s not
going to settle for anything less.”

Poppy didn’t know where the
idea came from—she just blurted it out: “All right. Send one of my
toes.”

Paulie gaped at her. “Are you
nuts? That’s not only crazy, that’s stupid. Like her father
ain’t gonna know the difference. What’s happened to you. Poppy?
What is it with you and this kid? I thought you hated kids.”

“I… I do,” she
said. “But not this one.” Poppy leaned back against the door.
Suddenly she felt miserable. Her ice and steel were melting away. She was all
shaky inside.

“Can we call a truce?”
she said.

“Sure.” Paulie had his
hands on his hips and was walking around in circles. “But that’s
not gonna help us when Mac calls back with the address of where I’m
supposed to deliver his persuader. What do I tell him then?”

“We’ll think of
something.”

He stopped and stared at her. He
looked worried— real worried. “Don’t be so sure.”

“I think I need a hug,”
she said, taking a small step toward him.

He continued to stare at her, then
shook his head and opened his arms. He wasn’t smiling—she could
tell he was a long way from that—but she really did need a hug.

She fell against him and clutched
him to her.

“Don’t let’s
fight, Paulie. We’re in this together, and together we’re bigger
and better than Mac.”

“I ain’t so sure of
that. One thing’s for sure, we ain’t meaner. And that’s gonna
get us in trouble.”

“We’ll think of
something.”

“We’d better.” He
kissed the top of her head. “You make me crazy, you know that?
You’ll be the death of me yet.”

Poppy clutched him tighter. Dear
God, she hoped not.

Daniel Keane watched his grandson
swing from rung to rung on the jungle gym and felt a little sick. Not because
he feared he might fall. No, in this upscale Mclean, Virginia, playground, the
ground under the slides and swings and jungle gym was padded. Danny had already
fallen twice and bounced right back up again.

Little Danny—five years old,
named after his grandpa, and full of boundless energy. A regular little monkey
on those bars. But thinking of Danny and how precious he was to everyone who
knew him led to thoughts of John Vanduyne’s little girl. And thus the nausea.

Dan knew her name…
Katie… knew everything about her and her father. And he’d fed all
that information to Carlos Salinas. Who used it to kidnap her.

Dan didn’t know for sure that
it had been done, but he’d checked on Vanduyne yesterday and learned that
he’d left his office almost immediately after arriving, and hadn’t
been heard from since. Dan had a pretty good— and pretty
sickening—idea what that meant.

That poor man. What he must be
feeling.

Dan tried to imagine what it would
be like to hear that someone had kidnapped Danny. He found it beyond
comprehension.

And that little girl… the
terror of being snatched from the street or wherever it was and kept prisoner
by strangers. He swallowed back a surge of bile.

God, he hoped they were treating
her all right, that they’d let her go unharmed when this was all over.

But he had no control over any of
it. He’d fed the stuff to that human slug, Salinas, and that was it. Dan
had made suggestions as to how to best put it to use, but the final decision
was up to Salinas.

He tried to concentrate on Danny.
This was a sort of farewell trip to his favorite park. Carmella was taking
their daughter and the grandchildren to their Florida condo for a couple of
weeks. Dan would have loved to go along, to sit in the purifying rays of the
sun and try to forget what was happening here. But he had to stay. Especially
now that Winston had dropped his decriminalization bomb.

And now, when the wheels were in
motion and he couldn’t reverse them, he had to ask himself whether
he’d do the same if he could go back and relive the past couple of
months.

Yes. He doubted he’d change a
thing. Because too much hung in the balance. This was so much bigger than the
well-being of one little girl. A whole nation was at stake, a nation full of
little girls like Katie Vanduyne… and little boys like Danny.

“Don’t blame me,”
he whispered to no one.

Blame that lousy, spineless excuse
for a president. The country was already in the toilet, but legalizing drugs
would pull the plunger. Tom Winston couldn’t be talked out of this mad
crusade—God knew how many people had tried—so he had to be taken
out.

Even if it meant colluding with
people Dan despised more than the President. It was, quite literally, a deal
with the Devil, and if he burned in hell for it, so be it. Somebody had to stop
Winston.

Daniel Keane sent up a
prayer—not for himself, but for that little girl. He prayed that this
crazy, brass-balled scheme would work out with no one getting hurt…

Except the President.

The computer screen said no mail.

John pounded his fist on his thigh.
He’d have much preferred to slam it on the desk, but that would bring his
mother running, asking, “What’s wrong? Has there been any word? Do
you think she’s all right? Why aren’t they telling you what they
want?” And a million other questions.

He’d lied to her on his
return from Lafayette Square, telling her the kidnappers hadn’t phoned
him, that he’d stood around looking stupid, waiting for the phone to
ring.

A good lie. It kept Nana’s
anxiety at its current, just bearable level.

And it explained why he’d
rushed in and gone straight to his computer to send off e-mail to the
kidnappers. As far as Nana knew, it was to ask why they hadn’t called. In
reality, it was to explain why they’d been cut off and to arrange another
call.

A lie was the only way. How could
he tell Nana what they wanted him to do? And worse, that the call had been
interrupted by some imbecilic woman in the park?

She’d go to pieces.

The phone rang.

John stared at it. Who was it this
time? Phyllis again? He’d called in sick this morning, telling her he had
a bad case of gastroenteritis and didn’t dare get far from a toilet.
Highly unlikely he’d be in tomorrow either. See you Monday.