Fever City (11 page)

‘That's not possible,' Schiller says.

I pull him aside. ‘It's possible if it's the FBI making the call . . . '

‘What are you, nuts?'

‘They tried to snatch a suspect, why not a kid?'

He throws my arm off, speaking in a violent whisper. ‘Keep your opinions to yourself, will you? The walls have ears.'

He's afraid. Maybe he knows for a fact the place is wired. How would Schiller know? The FBI would never tell him. They hated Schiller almost as much as they hated Parker.

Police Chief Parker . . . Of course. He had never valued his surveillance as evidence but as intelligence. It was the illicit skinny Parker was after, not the legal weight of proof. He just wanted to know who Sinatra was fucking that week. Parker was as bad as J. Edgar: two crippled figures of authority jerking off to the sounds of spinning 7-inch reels. But why bug Old Man Bannister's joint? Parker was a racist who hated gangsters and unions, but who always had a soft spot for the rich.

I can smell Mrs. Bannister's perfume suddenly swelling behind us, like the Sundowner Winds moving across Santa Barbara in April: strong and troubling, spiced with sea, salt and the lemon thrill of magnolia.

‘What exactly are the opinions that Mr. Alston should keep to himself, Captain?'

Schiller glares at her, speechless, then pushes past me, staring through the great windows looking down on LA: a city increasingly out of his control. I turn to Mrs. Bannister. ‘About who's interested in kidnapping your son.'

She grips my arm. Her fingers are strong. I can feel the heat of her body flowing through them. ‘My sister's son.'

The mistake wasn't on purpose. I normally don't slip up on facts like that. But I normally don't talk to women like Mrs. Bannister. ‘Son, nephew—what's it matter? He's family, Mrs. Bannister . . . '

Schiller clears his throat, watching Old Man Bannister like a cat watching the neighbour's dog. ‘You've decided to agree to the demands, sir?'

The Old Man wheels himself fast towards Schiller, as though intent on running him down. Schiller takes a step back, banging into a table. There is the tinkle of crystal rocking, kissing; nearly falling. ‘What choice do I have?' Schiller's big hands nervously calm the sea of glasses. ‘If I don't pay, they say they'll kill Ronnie.'

‘That's what they always say . . . ' Mrs. Bannister has the falsely reassuring tone of a doctor trying to calm the spouse of a terminally-ill patient. ‘It's what they're trading on, fear.'

‘What they're trading on is death. I will not sit here and let more innocent blood be spilt.'

Mrs. Bannister freezes. Just for a second, but it's enough. She's the only other person who noticed. She looks up at me. She knows I've heard it too. ‘Mr. Bannister needs to rest . . . ' She takes the handles of his wheelchair and starts pushing him out of the library.

‘I will not be put to bed like an old man.'

‘But, darling, that's exactly what you are . . . ' She turns, a wicked nod to me as she disappears, the wheels of the chair rutting against the floorboards as they go down the hallway. Schiller exchanges looks with Sam. I offer Schiller a cigarette. He ignores it, helping himself to the decanter instead. There is a long pause as he gulps down the brandy, then refills his glass. ‘Play that last conversation,' he tells the kid, wiping his mouth with the back of a shirtsleeve.

There's the fast musical hum of voices running backwards. The stolid click of a button, and then spools start to rotate; time begins to miraculously repeat, the same moments happening again and again forever. Eternity inside a plastic box. It is the same voice I overheard before. Thick. Somehow muffled; as though speaking through a handkerchief. I listen but can't catch an accent. ‘The arrangements have been settled.' Not fixed, but settled. Oddly formal. Maybe the kidnapper had no education; he was self-taught, and proud of it. Always going after—seeking—the right words.

‘I have not agreed to any arrangements.' I can't help smiling at the belligerent pride of the obstinate old man.

‘We want one million dollars in unmarked bills.'

The gasp from Old Man Bannister is audible. ‘How much?'

‘You heard me. Come alone, in a car.'

The instructions don't make sense. There is a pause as Bannister grapples with the order. ‘I can't drive.'

‘You heard me. Come alone in a car or the kid is dead.' It's as though the caller is reading a carefully written speech that's been checked for grammar.

‘But I'm in a wheelchair.'

The tape hisses while the voice considers this unscripted development. Obviously this is news to him. The kidnapper doesn't know Old Man Bannister's crippled.

That means the kidnapper doesn't know Old Man Bannister. Period.

‘Then send a driver.'

‘My chauffeur?'

A pause as the voice on the telephone grapples with, then understands, the word. ‘That's right. Tell him to stand by for instructions. We'll call at three o'clock. Any attempt to follow him, any cops, and the kid is dead, got that?'

‘Let me talk to Ronnie.'

‘ . . . The kid?'

Almost as if he didn't even know the name of the boy.

Almost as if they didn't really have him.

‘Please. I need to know he's all right.'

‘He won't be, if you don't do what we tell you to do.'

There is the slow heave of the old man's breath, seeking to force his will on the situation, as though the kidnapper were just another banker, or newspaper publisher or judge. ‘What is your name?'

The question seems so frankly ludicrous in the context of what is happening—extortion, kidnapping, ransom demand, possible murder—that I laugh. Sam looks up at me, perplexed.

‘Call me Jesse . . . '

Not bad. The Old Man has forced a handle on the kidnapper. Although obviously not his real name, somewhere in the labyrinth of personal history and connections, the name Jesse would somehow lead to the kidnapper's identity.

‘Jesse fucking James!' Schiller says, excitedly refilling his glass.

‘Jesse? You won't get the money until I know Ronnie is safe.'

There is a long pause.

When the kid screams, it's a shock. So loud. So insistent. Sam and I exchange glances. The Old Man's voice breaks in. ‘Stop it, stop it,' the Old Man shouts. The screaming ends as suddenly as it began.

I look at Sam. His eyes are welling with tears. He looks away. Hissing emptiness fills the room. Then, after a very long moment: ‘Satisfied?' The kidnapper's voice is harsh and determined now. It has crossed a line. I have no doubts about what it implies: fuck with us and the kid's history. ‘No more communication with your son. Get the money and wait for instructions. Otherwise we start dropping pieces of the kid all over the city. And the blood will be on your hands, not ours.'

Ours. At least two of them. Does that include the insider?

Old Man Bannister struggles to recover his breathing; his voice broken with horror. And with anger. ‘Why in God's name are you doing this?'

Long pause.

You can actually hear the moist satisfaction of the kidnapper licking his lips before he finally answers. ‘Because you deserve it.'

Silence stretches between them, waiting to snap. The tapes hiss with suspense. ‘One more thing—'

A slender finger with ruby nail polish leans over, and hits the pause button. The tape stretches, almost snaps as it lurches to a sudden stop, tautened tight to breaking on its reel like a victim on the rack. Sam looks up questioningly at Mrs. Bannister. She's staring at me.

‘Maybe he doesn't want to hear this part . . . '

I exchange glances with Schiller. ‘He . . . meaning me?' I turn to the kid. ‘What the hell is she talking about?' His face flushes red and he looks away. ‘Play it again, Sam.' He hesitates, then hits the button and the tension of the tape eases, distortion then Jesse's voice filling the room. ‘You can tell the private dick I know who killed his brother . . . '

The click of a hang-up cuts off the sound of something almost like a laugh. There's the long white whine of disconnection. And then the smash of a glass as I hurl it across the room.

She hands me a glass. Brandy. All I've wanted to do since I first met her was sweep her into my arms and feel the promise of the dark warmth of her body against mine. I can't take her, but I can take the liquor, can taste the smoke and fire, the dark warmth now inside me. Only burning, not healing.

Schiller wipes his face with a handkerchief. ‘How the hell did he know you were here, Alston?'

‘It's not like he's Howard Hughes, Captain Schiller.'

‘She's right. They've been watching us. From the beginning. For all we know they're watching us right now.' Schiller swears. ‘They're professionals, and yet . . . '

‘What, Mr. Alston?'

‘Jesse sounded so sure of everything; everything except for your husband and the boy. The mark and the victim are normally the only things they are sure of.'

Schiller pours himself a refill. ‘What the hell are you getting at?'

‘Only a hunch but . . . ' I turn back to Mrs. Bannister. ‘Imagine if the boy is not with Jesse.'

‘But we all heard Ronnie, Mr. Alston.'

‘Did we?'

‘What the . . . ' He checks himself, with a glance at Mrs. Bannister. ‘ . . . Heck are you driving at?'

There is a gleam of self-satisfaction in her eyes. We're on the same wavelength; have been ever since we first met. ‘I think what Mr. Alston is suggesting is that it could have been another child . . . '

‘Not to put too fine a point on it but . . . One screaming kid sounds just like any other.'

The penny drops, right on Schiller's crown. One of LA's finest cops, and it never occurred to him.

‘Where does that leave us, Mr. Alston?'

Us. ‘We pay the ransom . . . '

‘But what if they don't have Ronnie?'

‘What if they do? It's only a hunch.'

‘Hunches are what you're paid to have, Mr. Alston . . . So what do you advise?'

‘We wait for instructions for the drop.' I look at my new watch. Nearly eleven. ‘Almost lunchtime and I still haven't had breakfast.'

‘If you're hungry, Mr. Alston, I'll have someone fix you something to . . . ' Her voice trails off. Those days of servants on tap are gone; maybe for good.

‘I wouldn't want to put you to the trouble of fixing a meal. In your own home and all.'

‘Lay off, Alston.'

She smiles politely at Schiller. ‘It's all right, Captain, Mr. Alston's had a shock; like all of us.' She hands him a full balloon of brandy. A vote of confidence. She'd rather have Schiller drunk than in my way. ‘I make a wonderful omelette, Mr. Alston. Just as long as I can remember where to find the kitchen . . . '

I turn to Schiller. ‘You hungry too?' He's staring at the brandy decanter. Who needs to be hungry when you're as thirsty as Schiller? I follow Mrs. Bannister out of the room; she's very easy to follow. But I suddenly freeze outside the library doors.

Mrs. Bannister has vanished.

Not even the click of heels on the oak floor. I look up and down the hallway. There are trails in the floor varnish from the wheelchair. A wall slides open opposite me. Mrs. Bannister's standing inside an elevator on one leg, rubbing her foot with one hand, holding a shoe in the other. ‘The problem with Italian shoes is the better they look, the more they hurt . . . '

‘I thought the problem with Italian shoes was that they normally hold Italian women.'

She gives a light whistle. ‘Why, Mr. Alston, that sounds like the voice of bitter experience . . . '

‘My wife's Italian.' I hear the betrayal in my voice.

She smiles. She's heard it too. The first rule in successful adultery. Mutually denigrate your respective spouses. ‘Going down?' I step inside the elevator, squeezing past her. ‘I hope you're not afraid of small, tight spaces?'

‘I'm not claustrophobic, if that's what you mean . . . ' I lie, feeling the warm flush of her body against mine.

‘What I mean is that some men just don't feel relaxed.' She slips her foot back into her shoe. ‘In tight spaces, I mean . . . ' She brushes a spot of soil from my shoulder. There is a ring and the elevator doors slide open onto a closed wall.

A crest of panic rises in my chest, then is controlled. ‘It was put in when Mr. Bannister had his accident. Although it cost us a fortune . . . ' Us. ‘ . . . And it's always breaking down. Give me a hand, will you?'

We each take a part of the door frame and pull away from each other, sliding the hidden wall panels open.

We're in the entrance hallway, to the left of the stairway. ‘Tell me about the accident?'

‘Which one?'

Interesting. I thought we were talking about the Old Man. What other accident could be on her mind? They didn't mean to kidnap the kid? Elaine was supposed to have been dead when they buried her? Elaine was supposed to have escaped unharmed?

I follow her down the corridor. ‘Your husband's . . .'

‘It was a riding accident.' She crosses the enormous kitchen, passing through bolts of sunshine that pick up the gold in her hair. The diamonds in her anklet sparkle then are lost in the shadow.

‘That's why he's in a wheelchair?'

She looks at me. ‘Surely you knew that?'

‘I thought maybe old age played a part.'

‘Don't be coy, Mr. Alston. Men like my husband may get old but they never get feeble. Not unless they're suddenly broken.'

‘I heard it was no accident.'

We stare at each other in the long silence. ‘My husband was riding his favourite horse. He loved that horse more than . . . ' She didn't have to fill in the missing words: more than his wife. ‘ . . . Except Ronnie, of course.'