Shorts - Thriller 2: Stories You Just Can't Put Down (21 page)

“I gave it to her years ago, but she wasn’t in the belfry that night,” Parker said.

“Who was?”

He frowned. “I—I’m not sure.”

“Think real hard.”

He’d been picturing that face all morning. He could see the shooter turning to him, a face so like Resa’s, but so different. “It’s a little blurry.”

Kent eyed him critically. “No more bullshit, Parker. I know you lied when the kid died. And I know you’re lying now. So stop yanking my chain and give it to me straight. Was Theresa D’Amato in the bell tower?”

“Not in the belfry, no.”

“Then who? Who shot you?”

“I…I think it was someone who was trying to look like her. I only saw the face for an instant and it was dark, but…” He swiped a hand over his forehead, a bead of sweat there. “I think it was Frankie D’Amato.”

“Her cousin.”

Parker knew it sounded nuts. “But he’s in a mental hospital.”

“Not anymore.” Something shifted in the hospital room—the tiniest drop in temperature. In that heartbeat, with his partner hesitating, Parker sensed what was coming and it scared the hell out of him. “I tried to call you about that,” Kent said.

“It
was
him?” Parker gaped. “Frankie D’Amato.”

Kent leaned forward in his chair. “Frankie D’Amato walked away from the hospital Friday sometime. No one knows exactly how it happened, but they think he slipped into scrubs, then pilfered some poor nurse’s locker. Probably walked out of there decked to the nines.”

Parker felt his entire life beginning to unravel. Frankie D’Amato, Theresa’s cousin, had been institutionalized in a mental facility for five years…ever since Ian’s death.

“And on the day of the escape, what happens? Frankie’s mother, Lorna, is found dead at the base of the stairs, a convenient accident, if you ask me. Then you’re shot in the belfry of
the D’Amato Monastery Estates at a gala hosted by Frankie’s uncle. Coincidence?” Kent shook his head, clasped a hand over one knee. “I don’t think so.”

“You’re serious?”

“Dead.” And he was. Gone was any twinkle in his eyes. “Someone worked real hard to make it look like Theresa was in the tower. Octavia and a few other guests swear they saw Resa in the belfry. Then there’s a pistol registered to you that was found on the floor, as if someone had dropped it.”

“Not Resa.”

“Well, her prints are on it.”

“I gave her that gun a long time ago.”

Kent nodded. “I knew you’d defend her. Lucky for you, we’ve got some evidence that leads in another direction. We found hairs at the scene—synthetic.”

“A wig.”

“And pieces of leather in the bell rope, the escape route the attacker used.”

“Gloves,” Parker whispered, remembering his assailant sliding past him on the ropes.

“That’s right. So if the assailant was wearing gloves, there’d be no new prints on the gun.”

“It was Frankie,” Parker said.

“I think so. Shoe prints are larger than Theresa’s, and a silver Mercedes registered to Lorna D’Amato was left with the valet, who remembers the woman who dropped it off. Someone who looked a lot like Resa, but, the valet thought, a little larger. Even though Frankie’s small for a man—five-six—it would be tough to look as petite as Theresa.”

“What about Resa’s car?” Parker asked. “Didn’t the valet see her, too?”

“She parked in the family’s private lot, didn’t want to get stuck in all the hoopla.”

“It wasn’t Resa,” Parker insisted.

“We’re looking at all possibilities, but right now Frankie D’Amato is our prime suspect. The guy’s got lights on upstairs but nobody’s home. He knows the winery well, was raised there before Alberto was pushed out. Then there’s the matter of Alberto’s suicide. Was it? And Lorna’s death down the stairs?”

Parker sensed what was coming.

“Then there’s Ian D’Amato.”

“Let’s not go there.”

“Why? Because you lied in your deposition? Lied to protect Resa?”

Parker ground his teeth together at the notion. At the time he’d thought he was protecting the woman he loved, but the lie had actually only fanned the fires of hell that were the D’Amato code of secrecy.

“Frankie swore Theresa pushed the kid to his death, that he witnessed the whole thing.”

“She was with me.”

“I know you alibied her, Parker, but that never really hung together for me.”

A dull roar, like the sound of the sea in a cavern began in Parker’s head. “You would believe a mental patient over me?”

“I’m not saying I believed Frankie. I don’t think I ever heard the true story on that incident. Which had to have affected Resa deeply. She was the kid’s mother.”

“Yes,” Parker hissed. Everyone knew this much.

“And yet she let her aunt Lorna raise him. That’s kind of odd, don’t you think?”

“She was young. Unmarried.”

“Even so,” Kent continued, “Theresa allowed her child to be raised by an aunt and uncle who were at odds with her side of the family.”

“They offered.”

“And why was that?”

Parker closed his eyes, wishing for escape. “It happened before my time.”

“We know that. You didn’t meet Theresa until a year after the kid was born and married her a year after that. Then three years later, when the boy was five, he dies and you get a divorce soon after.”

“I don’t see what this has to do with—”

“Sure you do, Parker. No more bullshit.”

The roar was getting louder, the surf pounding through his brain. “Theresa didn’t kill Ian.”

“Then who did?”

Parker didn’t answer.

“So this is the way I think it went down. Theresa goes to her aunt’s house to take the kid away. The nanny is out, probably with Alberto, and the kid is supposed to be in his room. Theresa sneaks up the back stairs and goes into Ian’s room, but he’s not alone, is he?”

Parker waited. Knew what was coming.

“Frankie’s there with the kid, and she freaks. Apparently no one told her about how Frankie got kicked out of three prep schools for deviant behavior. All a family secret. So back in the kid’s room a fight ensues and somehow the boy falls out the window. Frankie always insisted Theresa pushed him. You and Theresa testify that he was playing too close to the edge. So the death is ruled an accident and Frankie snaps.”

It smacks Parker for the second time that day—the lie. “It was a terrible tragedy,” Parker says quietly.

Noah Kent stared at his ex-partner as if Parker were a moron. “You’re sticking to that story.”

“It’s what happened.”

“And so Frankie gets sent away and he spends the next five years plotting his revenge. Maybe he knew you would be there
at the winery, maybe not, but somehow he’s going to set Theresa up to take the fall, so she’ll have to be locked away and suffer as he has since the kid’s death.”

“Sounds like you’ve got this one sewn up.”

Kent folded his arms. “Hey, after all these years I ought to be good at this. If you’ll excuse me, I got a perp to track down.” He started for the door, then stopped. “Just one more thing. Who was Ian’s father?”

The question iced over Parker’s aching head. “Theresa never said.”

“Yeah, right…and the kid was cremated, right? Convenient. It would be nice if there was some chance of running his DNA.”

Parker’s heart nearly stopped.

“The way I figure it,” Kent said, “Frankie D’Amato might just have been the kid’s father. That’s why the boy was being raised by Alberto and his wife. They were Ian’s grandparents. Just like Silvio Senior and his wife, Octavia.”

Parker didn’t agree, though his partner had it right. Kent had obviously spent some time puzzling it all out.

“Who knows how it played out? My guess is that Frankie raped Theresa, and the family kept it hush-hush. On the day Ian died, Frankie probably found her there in the room with the kid and freaked out.”

Close, buddy.
Kent was so close to the truth….

He had insisted in accompanying Theresa that day when she went to take the child away from the D’Amato’s San Francisco mansion. Ian had begun to turn inward, and Resa suspected abuse. She’s seen no alternative but to remove her son until she was sure the environment was safe. But upon entering the child’s room Resa came upon a horrific scene, the abuse obvious.

Frankie had snapped, turning his wrath on Resa, and in the ensuing struggle Ian had climbed to the windowsill and pressed himself into the corner, edging away from Frankie.

That was the scene Parker came upon when he rushed up the stairs, responding to the sound of frantic voices. Parker’s sole mission was to get the boy away from the window and out of harm’s way.

“Stay right there,” he had told the boy gently, moving stealthily so as not to startle him. “Don’t be afraid. No one’s going to hurt you.”

But Frankie had snarled, swinging at Parker, then lunging toward Ian, who gasped in fright. Galvanized by fear, the boy scooted back, hunkered at the edge of the window for a second, then quietly slipped out.

“There was a family history of abuse. Alberto D’Amato, Frankie’s father, had trouble keeping his hands to himself, too. So for Frankie to pass it on…” Kent shrugged. “Like father, like son. That sound about right?”

Parker looked away. “If I knew then what I know now…”

“Hell, Lucas, we’ve all got regrets. But sooner or later, if you don’t let some of it go, it’s going to eat you up.” Kent shoved his hands in his pockets, looked down at the floor thoughtfully. “That whole family is bad news, man. Real bad.”

Parker couldn’t argue.

He’d heard it all before from his own damned conscience. He should have intervened earlier. He should have saved Resa’s kid from Frankie’s abuse. He should have wrung Frankie’s skinny neck, the slimy predator. He should have known what was going on, but he didn’t. Too little, too late.

Resa could not forgive herself.

Frankie blamed her for everything that went wrong; she had been his victim since childhood.

“Do you have any idea where Frankie D’Amato is?” Parker asked. The Frankie he knew would not drop his vendetta, which meant Resa was not safe. He had to protect her.

Kent shook his head. “But we’ll find him.” He sent Parker a cutting glance. “Especially now. He went after one of our own.”

“Retired,” Parker muttered.

“Same thing.”

Parker groaned. “I got to get the hell out of here. Sign me out, will you?”

Kent rested one fist on the doorframe. “Promise me you’ll stay out of bell towers for a while?”

“That’s an easy one.” Parker rubbed the back of his neck, but it didn’t ease the ache in his head. Resa was right about not being able to escape the past. There was no escaping it, but maybe it was enough to survive it. Survive the past and damn well try to get a handle on the future.

He swung his legs to one side of the bed and took the first step. One painful step at a time.

Mel Brooks once said, “Tragedy is what happens to me. Comedy is what happens to you.” This couldn’t be better illustrated than in “Suspension of Disbelief.” Tim is an award-winning author who knows that even in the darkest moments humor can be found.

This story takes a sideways glance at the complex relationship between a bestselling writer and his editor. Fortunately most authors’ experiences with editors have not been quite as unusual as those of the fictional mega-author featured in this story, but the familiar tension between art and commerce was clearly the inspiration for this fantastic tale. Tim takes the conventions of a classic thriller and twists them hard, until we are left with a punch line that is simultaneously funny and disturbing.

“G
ive us the manuscript or we’ll kill your wife.”

Jim Masterson stared at the narrow man threatening him, trying to remember when they’d first met. A long time ago, before Jim was married. At least a year before he was published. A lifetime.

“All we want is the book, Jim.”

“It’s not finished.”

“That’s why I’m here.”

Jim watched his editor of more than ten years help himself to one of the overstuffed chairs in front of the desk, carefully setting his briefcase on the hardwood floor. Carl Ransom had always dressed immaculately, even in the old days. Today it was a gray suit and cream silk shirt, the half-Windsor tight enough to squeeze any last vestige of humanity from his narrow frame.

Carl leaned forward to slide a computer out of his briefcase, a sleek titanium notebook that opened like a thinly veiled threat.

“Where did we first meet, Carl?”

The question threw the editor for a moment. He blinked a
few times before the corners of his mouth turned. “The Four Seasons, breakfast. I was a junior editor at the time and you—”

“Just got my first publishing contract.”

Carl nodded as he busied himself with the laptop. “Feeling nostalgic, Jim?” He unceremoniously pushed a row of pencils to one side. “Jesus, after all these years, I still can’t believe you write with those things.”

“My readers haven’t complained.” Jim scooped the pencils up protectively and arranged them closer to his side of the desk. Ten number two’s, each sharpened to a perfect point, arrayed next to ten red Bic pens. Jim evenly spaced the pens and set them next to the neatly stacked pile of manuscript paper.

Carl reached into the briefcase again, then slid a small plastic card into a slot in the laptop.
Tap, tap, tap.
“They have these things called computers now.”

“The Internet’s distracting.”

Carl snorted. “Listen to you. For your next book remind me to get you a walker, maybe a hearing aid.”

Jim ignored him, listening to the susurrus of traffic three stories below. His office door was closed, as was his habit when writing. Normally his only company was the classical music from his stereo and the view, but today he’d made a mistake. He’d let someone inside his sanctuary.

“Voilà!” Carl spun the laptop around and slid it forward. “What do you see?”

Jim squinted at the monitor, where a rectangular window on the screen showed a video of a woman in a dress walking across a Manhattan street. He looked closer. The view was from several stories up, maybe four or five.

The woman carried a briefcase in her left hand. The briefcase didn’t have a shoulder strap and looked heavy, as if it were overstuffed with anything and everything a busy woman might need over the course of a day. It looked all too familiar.

Jim felt a knot tighten in his gut as his heart stopped. “That’s Emily.”

“Bravo.” Carl brought his hands together with a languid
clap, clap.
He leaned forward. His right index finger was poised over Return on the laptop’s keyboard. “And for bonus points, what do you see
now?
” The skin under his nail turned white as he mashed the key.

A red circle with two lines intersecting it appeared over the image of the walking woman as she made her way through a throng of pedestrians. Even as she dodged a man with a stack of boxes on a handcart, the animated crosshairs stayed on her.

“A team of snipers is tracking her progress for the next forty-five minutes.” Carl rubbed his hands together. “We know her routines, her regular appointments.” He made a theatrical turn of his wrist. “So unless we get the final pages in…
forty-four minutes,
Emily will be shot in the head.”

“How—” A trickle of sweat started down Jim’s spine as he looked at his editor’s ascetic face, searching for a smirk, some sign that a punch line was on its way. But Jim had never known Carl to have a taste for practical jokes. As utterly mad as it seemed, he knew this was real.

“Amazing what they can do with computers nowadays, isn’t it? The tech department pulled this together—you should see what they’re doing with our Web site. Virtual chats with authors, interactive short stories. You really need to embrace technology, Jimbo.”

Jim started to rise from his chair.

“Not so fast, cowboy.” Carl tapped more keys and three additional windows appeared on the screen, each with a different view of lower Manhattan, a shifting crosshair at the center of every one. Emily moved through the upper left screen, oblivious, a duck in a pond.

“Covering the upper left is Bob, my assistant editor. He’s an
ex-marine, which comes in handy. Upper right is a buddy of his, I forget his name, but we’ve used him before. An expert marksman. This one here is Steve—he normally handles the romance writers. And this—” Carl’s finger circled the crosshairs in the lower right quadrant. “That’s the summer intern.”

“You’re full of shit.”

“Am I?”
Carl slammed the top of the laptop down. “You have any idea how many books we sold last year with your name on them?”

“I didn’t write most of those books.”

Spittle almost oozed from the corners of Carl’s mouth. “Take a guess.”

Jim shrugged. “Millions.”

“You’re off by a factor of ten.” Carl took a deep breath and forced a smile, pried open the laptop. “And you’re correct, you only write one book a year, per your contract. But we put your name on those other books, in much bigger type than your co-writers. Want to know why?”

“Because I’m a writer who’s sold a lot of books.”

“Because you’re a
brand.
” Carl blew out his cheeks. “You like being rich?”

Jim looked around the spacious office, visualized the rest of his three-story town house, one of several he owned in cities around the world. He knew it was a rhetorical question.

“Let me put it in perspective.” Carl pulled a sheet of paper from his briefcase and glanced at a row of numbers. “You are the face of a franchise that generated
hundreds
of millions of dollars over the past decade.”

“So?”

“So people get killed for a helluva lot less. This isn’t some corner crack deal we’re talking about here. You think I’m happy about this?”

Jim tried to remember the last time he’d seen Carl happy. An
image flashed across his mind of a young editor sitting across from him at breakfast, just two guys talking about writing and books until their eggs got cold.

“What the hell happened to you?”

“I moved on.” Carl worked the muscles in his jaw. “I became the caretaker of the house that Jim built, while you…you stayed behind that damn desk.”

“You’re insane.”

“Jim, pick up a pencil and start writing.” Again the flourish with the watch. “We’ve pissed away seven minutes.”

“I can’t finish the book in half an hour.”

“Bullshit. Two months ago you showed me a rough draft, with only one chapter to go. I know how fast you write, you could bang out the ending with your eyes closed.”

Jim selected one of the pencils and rolled it back and forth, trying not to look at the computer screen. “I don’t know how the story is going to end. Call it writer’s block if you—”

“Writers get blocked, brands don’t.” Carl steepled his hands together. “Besides, we know how it’s going to end. We already discussed it.”

“It doesn’t feel right.” Jim stole a glance at the screen. Emily had moved into the upper right quadrant. Her long brown hair was loose around her shoulders as she hefted the briefcase. “The characters wouldn’t—”

“Don’t start with that writer crap about the characters telling you what to do.” Carl looked as if all the acid reflux in the world was holding a convention somewhere deep in his esophagus. “The characters aren’t alive, but your wife is—for now.”

“This book will have my name on it,” Jim said deliberately. “No one else’s.”

“This is a thriller.” Carl’s nostrils flared. “Hero saves the day. The guy gets the girl, or the girl gets the guy, whatever. Oh, and the bad guy gets his comeuppance.”

“That doesn’t seem very thrilling.”

“You give the people what they want. That’s your fucking job.”

“Maybe they want something different. Something unexpected.”

“You’ve become a fantasy writer now? What world do you live in?”

“You write the damn ending.”

“Believe me, I would.” Carl pushed his wire-frame glasses up on his nose. “But like you said, this book will have your name on it. The
one book a year
that gets scrutiny from the critics, the one that sets the standard for all the books to come. And that book, my friend, that book needs your
voice.
” Carl said the last word as if it tasted bad, his own voice bitter around the edges. “Those jarring juxtapositions, those evocative metaphors that you’re known for.”

Jim felt sweat on his upper lip and looked at the computer screen. Emily was in quadrant three. As she walked, she brought her hands up and pulled her hair back away from her face, so Jim could clearly see her profile. He forced himself to breathe.

Carl sighed. “I’m not a writer, we both know that. I handle continuity, eliminate redundant phrases. Clean up the mess you leave on the page.”

Jim watched Emily step off a curb into traffic, her heels just visible beneath her slacks. He always wondered how women could walk in those things. He took a deep breath and turned his gaze back to Carl.

“I need a week.”

Carl shook his head. “We’re on deadline. And this time the emphasis is on the first half of that word.” He picked up a pencil and held it between his thumb and forefinger. “Finish the damn book.”

“It’ll feel forced.”

“Every month this book is delayed costs us—” Carl waved his arm around the room, a gesture that encompassed the known universe. “You, me, the publishing house, the chain stores. You think I’m ruthless, try negotiating with the chains. What’s the value of a human life when you’re operating on that scale? Every month costs us millions, Jim.”

“Millions.”

“This is the entertainment business, partner. Timing is everything.”

Jim kept his eyes on Carl’s fighting the urge to track Emily’s progress.

“You’re bluffing.”

“Excuse me.” Carl spun the computer around and tapped a few keys, then turned it back toward Jim. The four live screens had been replaced with an article from one of the daily newspapers, lifted off their Web site.

Despite himself, Jim began to read the headline out loud. “‘Local author kills himself after murdering—’”

“‘—his family.’” Carl shook his head. “Tragic. He was one of ours. Paranormal, gothic romance. We made a fortune during the vampire years.”

“Kill me—or Emily—and there’s no more books.”

“Actually, there’s one more.” Carl hit another key and an image of a book cover popped onto the screen. “I had the boys in the art department work this up. Whattaya think?”

Jim blinked at his own face, a publicity photo from last year. An easy smile next to lurid type, his name across the top in bloodred letters.

“It’s true crime, of course.” Carl shrugged. “Not as big a market, but it’ll cover our investment. After that, we turn someone else into a franchise.”

“Franchise.”

“You think you’re the only thriller writer in the world?” Carl
tapped another key and the book cover disappeared. “Give ’em the shelf space, plenty of guys could sell a ton of books.”

Jim almost started laughing but the sweat on his palms made him stop. “How long have you been planning this?”

“Remember a few months ago, when we sent you with two other writers to that police firing range?”

“Research for the next book.”

“Exactly. How many rifles did you fire that day? Wasn’t there a hunting rifle with a scope, a sniper rifle, a couple of others. How many?”

Jim looked at the quadrants on the computer screen and felt his blood congeal.

“Four.”

“With your fingerprints all over them.”

“It’ll never hold up.”

Carl smiled, an expression that looked like it hurt. “Famous author of serial-killer novels. Writer known for gruesome torture scenes. Don’t you think a jury would agree that you fit the profile?”

“I’ll tell them the truth.”

“We’re talking about the law, here. The truth is irrelevant. Face it, Jim, you’re fucked. Finish the book, live happily ever after. You can’t seriously be thinking that if we don’t pull the trigger today, there won’t be tomorrow? Or the next day.”

“Have you read the book lately, Carl?”

The question momentarily disarmed the editor. “What do you mean?”

“The ending we talked about, it just won’t work. People will see it coming.”

“You haven’t changed in over ten years. People
want
to see it coming.”

“It won’t be believable.”

“Since when does that matter? Suspension of disbelief is the
cornerstone of a thriller, buddy. You should know that better than anyone. You think James Bond can really survive all those explosions without messing up his tuxedo?”

“But this character—he’s different. He doesn’t always do the right thing.”

“Your books have a moral compass,” said Carl. “That’s what we’re selling. Reassurance. Faith in the outcome. So have a little faith and start writing, or we’ll kill your fucking wife.”

“Okay.” Jim lifted the manuscript and removed the bottom page, glancing nervously at the clock. “But I don’t think I can finish in time.”

“Show me something and I’ll go away. Just get a few words on the page and maybe I can buy you some time. We can always kill your wife—or someone else close to you—another day.”

“Let me show you what I’m talking about.” Jim turned the page around so it was facing his editor. He carefully selected one of his red pens and took the cap off, circled a paragraph near the top of the page. “Read that.”

Carl slid the laptop to one side, just as the image of Emily jumped to the lower right quadrant. Jim took a deep breath and held it, wondering if he loved his wife more than his characters. Thinking about all the things that had changed since he first sat down in his chair behind this scarred desk and started writing so many years ago.