Fever City (18 page)

‘Of course he'll leave you alone if what you say is true.'

‘Keep out of this, Eva . . . She's right. How do I know any of this is true?'

‘You don't,
Monsieur le Président
. You just need to make a leap of the faith . . . '

Hastings slowly turned. Luchino was standing by a newly-opened window, the curtains rippling around him like a great cape, a gun pointing at the others. He saw the instinctive quiver in Hastings's hand—the one that was holding the gun.

‘Calm down,
mon ami
. We are on the same side, remember?'

Eva pointed at Luchino. ‘I like him more.'

Luchino bowed gallantly. ‘My friend and I, we are in trouble. Explain to them.'

‘We were hired to kill you, but we don't want to.' Hastings shrugged. ‘It'll be tough enough standing up to them, without having to worry about your people coming after us too. We need to make sure that doesn't happen. That's why we need the photos.'

‘If it's amnesty you want, I'll give it to you.'

‘Not amnesty, amnesia.'

‘That's it?'

‘And a million.'

‘Who's behind this?'

‘Everyone. No one.'

‘What about that lunatic Howard Hughes?' JFK caught the trousers Hastings tossed him. ‘Or Old Man Bannister? I bet that son of a bitch is in on it too.'

‘If we knew for sure, we'd already be dead.'

Hastings nods at Luchino. ‘We're going. We'll take care of the girl.'

‘I don't like the sound of that.'

‘Trust me, you'll be safe.' Hastings handed Eva her dress. ‘In the meantime, you better clean yourself up, Mr. President, you look like shit.'

Kennedy froze, staring at them. ‘Who are you people?'

Hastings and Luchino exchanged looks. ‘The best,' Luchino said.

‘Give me one reason why I should trust you.'

‘Because we're the ones holding the guns and we haven't used them.'

‘You used a camera though, you sanctimonious bastard,' Kennedy said, tying up shoelaces.

‘Relax, Jack, if they wanted to hurt us, they would have already done it.'

He started doing up his shirt, dropping a cuff link in his impatience. Luchino picked it up and handed it to him. Kennedy snatched it from his hand. ‘I'll have your hides, I tell you that, if you don't hand over that film now.'

‘You give us two million and the photos will go away.'

'He just said one.'

‘A million each,
n'est-ce pas
?'

The president gestured to Eva as he did up his tie. ‘What about the girl?'

‘I'm a lady, show some respect.'

‘She's safe with us, and that's a promise. We'll get her out of here, no questions asked. But if anything ever happens to her that we can trace back to you . . . '

‘We will certainly not like it.'

Eva nodded towards Luchino. ‘The perfect gentleman . . . ' She turned her back to Hastings. ‘Zip me, will you . . . ?'

The glide of the zipper filled the silent room.

‘So we have a deal?'

‘Fuck you, yes . . . '

‘A pleasure doing business with the Land of the Brave.'

‘Fuck you too. And de Gaulle.'

Luchino offered his arm to Eva, who shook her head. ‘I'm walking out of here unescorted. And I'm going home on my own.'

‘Such a pity, a beautiful woman like you . . . '

‘Drop dead, if you pardon my French.' She looked back at JFK. ‘Despite early indications, it turned out to be a memorable night after all . . . '

JFK stared at her, straightening his collar. ‘Best if we not see each other for a while . . . '

‘Is never long enough for you Jack, 'cause it does me just fine.'

Hastings walked Eva out of the room, her high-heeled shoes dangling from one hand. He slipped something into her bag. If she felt it; she didn't show it. He turned to the president. ‘We'll be in touch.'

‘How will you get in contact?'

‘I have your direct number.'

Kennedy's jaw dropped, exposing gleaming white teeth which made his face look even more tanned by contrast. ‘That's impossible. Wait a minute. What are your names?' But they were already walking out the door. Hastings paused, turning back to the president. ‘I want you to know, I was there . . . '

‘There?'

‘Brentwood. The night she died . . . ' The door closed behind him. The president stood there for a long moment, then sat down on the bed and put his head in his hands.

W
hy in Christ's name did she do that?' Schiller shakes his head, watching the ambulance doors close on what, less than twenty minutes before, had been our only important witness—in custody, that is; and still capable of talking. Press hounds snap away, the pop of their bulbs punctuating Schiller's breathing. Greta Simmons hadn't just killed herself. She had also probably just pulled the plug on the kid.

‘Fear . . . ' Only this was no fear for self. This was fear on a grand scale. The kind of fear that cripples just by imagining it. The kind of fear that doesn't just end lives but whole worlds.

Schiller thumps me in the chest with his stabbing fingers, a cigar, like a burning fuse, locked between them. ‘This was your fucking fault. I told you to go easy on her!'

It wasn't that Schiller meant to lie. Greta wasn't the only one who was afraid. Schiller knew fear as well. That's what being on the Force too long does to you. First it makes you sick with yourself. Then it makes you sick with all humanity. And then, after years of disillusionment and self-hatred, something unexpected happens—a magical adjustment, like after that fifth shot of whiskey. Suddenly nothing matters anymore. You wake up one morning and realize you just don't care. You start to glide. You learn to live with the condition of being, not caring. The same things happen but you're no longer implicated. You're simply a bystander. Not innocent. Not guilty. Not even aware. You're just there, repeating lines and gestures automatically, pulling out cuffs or badges, weapons or tickets according to minor cues. Knocking on doors or ramming them open, walking away from sobs or curses. Constantly moving away from everyone and everything. Reacting but never feeling. You have finally found your balance in indifference. That's what the Force does to you after all those years. The great self-survival paradox: inhuman but alive.

And then something happens that threatens your blissful emotional numbness. And when it does, you don't react in anger or even in shock. Just in fear; fear that you might start caring again. That you might become human again, and you'll do anything to stop that: lie, cheat, maybe even kill.

Schiller looks up at the busted window, terror in his eyes. ‘What makes you so afraid you have to commit suicide?' Asking the question as though he were talking about himself.

Greta wasn't afraid: she was terrified. And this wasn't a suicide, it was a sacrifice. Greta Simmons didn't give a damn about Ronnie Bannister. But she gave her life to protect something. ‘The question is: who was she protecting?'

‘The kidnappers.'

Faulty cop logic. ‘She could have turned them in; could have even walked with some of the reward money.'

‘The Old Man would never have allowed it.'

He's right. The Old Man was too vindictive to allow anyone connected to the case to just walk. Including Schiller and me. When this is all over, he will find some way to punish us. Even if we get the boy back safe and sound, we will still incur his wrath. It is the common caprice of the tyrant. Everyone is to blame. ‘It's not the kidnappers she's protecting.'

‘Who then?'

‘Try this: they snatch someone close to Greta, then blackmail her into helping them kidnap the Bannister kid.'

‘A hostage . . . ?' Schiller stews on it, turning it over in his mind's digestive tract, warm acidic fluids working hard to break down an unorthodox idea. ‘How the fuck would killing herself help the hostage?'

‘From the moment she was taken into custody, the hostage was compromised. If Greta squealed, they'd snuff the hostage. She knew they wouldn't hesitate.'

‘But how would they know what she said?'

‘Let's say she was being tailed.'

‘No one was tailing her. I would have known.'

Twenty bucks to the right cop would have made sure he never knew. And normally they would have been doing Schiller a favour: not knowing was not caring. ‘Let's say we were being bugged. Let's say they knew she was being questioned. She knows they're listening. Don't you see? She does it for them. It was theatre.'

Schiller's eyes bulge at the notion. ‘What's to stop the bastards from killing the hostage anyway?'

‘Nothing. But at least Greta did the best she could. At least they know she didn't rat anyone out. If the hostage lives, he'll know Greta sacrificed herself to save him. Maybe she wanted to punish him with the memory. And even if they still snuff the hostage, at least now she'll never know about it.'

He's half-convinced.

‘We need to find everything we can about Greta Simmons. Where she was born, where she came from, if she had husbands, lovers . . . '

‘Captain.' Sam's face appears through the smashed window. ‘It's time.'

‘After we're done here, you and me both, we talk to Greta's mother.' Schiller stomps across the shattered glass, heading up the steps. A reporter runs up to him. ‘What about the rumour that the nanny died under interrogation?'

Schiller stiffens, staring hard into the as-yet un-rearranged features of the newshound. ‘Interrogation? This ain't the fucking SS.'

The reporter doesn't like the tone. He follows us, persisting. ‘Bet you gave her the third degree, just like Violet Sharpe.'

Schiller wheels on him, shoving his open palm hard into the reporter's face, the great mass of his hand completely covering it from sight. ‘Take a hike, you muckraking piece of shit.' The reporter staggers backwards and falls on his ass in a fountain. His peers applaud and jeer him, some taking photos as Schiller disappears inside. I start to follow, freezing when I get a glimpse of something reflected in a shard of broken glass. A face at the high window. Like a ghost surveying a ruined world. Old Man Bannister peers towards the horizon, a corrupt and brutal pharaoh contemplating the destruction he has wrought.

And as if in response to this painful epiphany, a keening wail fills the air, low and faraway, slowly rising in pitch. At first I think it is the Old Man, lamenting his sins; but it is coming up from the valley, looming towards us. Birds break from the trees in panic, escaping the arrival of troubled spirits. Other sorrowful voices join in the grieving howl, vibrating off the hills as they multiply and approach, the hair rising on the back of my neck. Schiller's heard it too, slowly turning towards the approaching sirens.

The first motorcycles enter the great gates, hovering around an armoured car like wasps.

This is what a cool million gets you: Head of State security.

The convoy pulls up, tires shrieking on gravel, sirens slowly retreating like departing spirits at a séance, cops dismounting, taking up positions. Inside the armoured car, a child's life is hanging in the balance.

Upstairs, the lawyer, Adam Granston, is standing on one side of the Old Man, Mrs. Bannister on the other. All three stare at the ivory-handled telephone as though it were a scorpion, its tail raised, ready to strike. A grandfather clock begins to chime, its musical rumble reverberating in the silence of the empty house. One, two. Three.

Nobody breathes.

Schiller looks at me.

The ring is like a gunshot fired without warning, everyone reacting with the shock. The Old Man snatches the phone so quickly he drops it; curses . . . ‘Hello?' There is an inhuman whine at the other end. ‘Hello . . . ?'

Mrs. Bannister pulls the phone from his grasp and returns it to its cradle. He looks up at her, speechless at her temerity. ‘They'll call back . . . '

The kidnappers will be either awful angry or awful scared to be hung up on. I'm banking on the second. You don't just blow off a million bucks if someone hangs up. You get back on the phone and give them another chance. You negotiate. The ransom goes up. Or down. You threaten. You reason. You cut them a break, or a body part. You do whatever it takes to get the goddamn loot.

Again everyone jumps when the phone rings again, but the shock has already been replaced by a sense of professional action. This time Schiller cues Sam to start rolling the tape and Mrs. Bannister answers the phone, calmly passing it to the shaking hands of her husband.

‘Hello?'

‘Listen carefully, I am only going to say this once . . . No police. We see any police and the kid is dead. Got it?'

‘Yes.'

The lisping voice continues. ‘Load the money into four large suitcases—black, all the same size.'

‘The same size.'

‘Put them in the back of the car, not the trunk.'

‘Not the trunk . . . '

‘Just the driver, understand?' He's not going anywhere near a fancy word like chauffeur. ‘The driver goes to the corner of Jefferson and Lincoln. Four o'clock.'

‘But that's only one hour.'

‘The driver's not alone, the kid is dead.'

‘He will be alone.'

‘He better be. Tell the driver to wait at the gas station.'

‘What does he do there?'

‘He waits by the phone booth, and when the phone rings, he answers it. Got it?'

‘And you will tell him what to do?'

‘He will follow instructions or the kid is dead.'

‘He will, he will.'

The voice is growing looser, more assured. He's going off script, happy with the fear he has created. Happy to have the power. ‘We see any cops, we smell a setup and the kid is dead. Anything suspicious and the kid is dead, got that?'