The Kill Riff (35 page)

    "That's Reese," Cass said from behind him, grateful that the lump was still there, had not crawled off into the night to stalk her another day. "The firewood's wet, but I brought a stack inside before it started pouring. Don't know why I thought of that, considering the mental state I was in."

    "The mind does weird things to keep itself on track during stress," he said. Behind them the fire had calmed down to glowing embers, pulsing good heat.

    She moved past him to close the back door and slide her arms around him. "I'm just glad you finally showed up," she told him, and this time he knew she meant it.

    Cass was a woman who would not lie to him.

    She had been broken and now was healed before him, like the void left by Kristen had been healed by his masterful plan. He was still a bit stunned by the knowledge that his careful vendetta was over. Gabriel Stannard would be crushed by paranoia, without being touched by a single glove. Lucas' own skill as an assassin had been (in the parlance of Kroeger Concepts) "trending steadily downward." It was time to finish it.

    Cass took his face in her hands to aim, and kissed him. His arms crooked under hers and pulled her closer, drawing her up onto her toe tips as their kiss waxed into a healing charge of energy. Her fingers dallied in his hair. As she stretched up to meet him, she squeezed his uninjured leg, oh so gently, between her own.

    Their talking was done for the evening.

    

    

    THAT NIGHT THE COASTLINE FLOODED from Santa Cruz to Santa Monica, where most of the pier submerged at an estimated cost of two million dollars. The PCH buckled, and expensive Malibu homes glissaded muddily down to meet the riptide. Movie stars bitched on the late news, helicopter flybys were bollixed by the downpour, and the Red Cross came out to sandbag. Phone communications went completely to hell.

    At the very moment Lucas and Cass were slowly and carefully undressing each other in the warm yellow radiance of the fireplace, Sara slammed the hotel room phone into its rack. Its red bubble pager light winked once on impact, as if in pain.

    "Damn it-I had them, I was on hold, then I lost them. Or they lost me. It must be a sign that I'm not supposed to do this.'' She plopped into a weary lotus position on the left-hand bed, her jeans stretching taut as she crossed her legs in order to knead her bare feet.

    Three feet away, Burt Kroeger rubbed his face until it was ruddy, then rose from his recliner fortress of pillows to pour more coffee from the room service tray. His gray cloud of hair was frazzled enough for Sara to perceive that his hairline had retreated, but the arrangement of his hair was artfully designed to conceal this.

    "If you don't get through soon, I'm going to start spiking this coffee. And we'll both start drinking it. And by morning neither one of us will be capable of interfering anymore." He looked back at her. "That's a joke. Sara-don't second-guess yourself. You're not turning Lucas in, you're merely seeking assistance in Los Angeles to try and locate him-if he's down there at all. You're a professional; they'll take an educated guess from you seriously. And if they will, why won't you?"

    "It's still a betrayal," she said. "I hate that feeling." She seemed small and lost, there at the edge of the large and hardly rumpled bed.

    Burt lit up another filterless Marlboro from the hard pack he'd pulled out of a vending machine that morning, and coughed on his first puff. "Filthy habit. I started up again almost as soon as Lucas came home from Olive Grove." He paused to smoke a bit. "If you and I were going to sit and do nothing, we would be much more rested now, and our credit cards less abused. So let's not play this game of woulda-coulda-shoulda. We're in it. It's too late to go back and pretend we're not involved."

    "I know, I know…'' She squeezed his hand. Daddy image. Father figure. "It's just that-"

    "You care about the guy." It was obvious to Burt, perhaps just as obvious to the world at large. "Me, too. That's why we're out here in alien territory while the whole state drowns, acting like jerks-because we both love the son of a bitch. End of story."

    "Maybe they will turn up Lucas in L.A… hitchhiking, or wasting time at the movies, or… something." It sounded lame. It was lame.

    "We've called in the marines just in case. Look at it that way. We have a better chance of finding him this way even if he has to endure a nasty little search and seizure. At least then we'll know. Calling the cops was a good idea, Sara. I sure as hell don't know where else to look for him."

    She bunched pillows into the small of her back, and her spine popped when she eased back. "I'm beginning to think that at Olive Grove we treated him exactly the opposite of the way we should have treated him."

    Burt crushed out his smoke. "How's that?"

    "Suicidal depression usually involves a load of guilt. The therapist must help the patient alleviate the guilt and eliminate the impetus for the urge toward suicide. But if you're dealing with a psychotic personality, sometimes you have to do the reverse-instill guilt, because he doesn't have any built in. They don't care about things the way you or I might. They don't worry about good or bad in the sense we were brought up to understand."

    "Lucas a psychotic? That's news to me."

    "My age is showing, sorry. We supposedly stopped calling them psychotics in the 1950s. The APA's buzzword became 'sociopathic.' By 1970 that had expanded conveniently to include 'antisocial.' The psychopathy I'm talking about is the textbook form, not the splatter movie form. I was thinking, what if you reinterpret Lucas from this slant? A lot of items suddenly link up."

    Burt sneezed. "Stuffy in here." She saw his eyes automatically seek his vial of blood pressure medication on the desk. "I don't know anything about psychopaths except the Hollywood brand."

    "There's a certain kind of psychopath whose behavior turns toward pure problem solving. His urges are translated into instantaneous action. He wants to do something, anything to correct whatever wrong he sees in his situation. It's the same kind of frustration that makes teenagers break windows."

    "Or saints make what the history books call bold steps?"

    "Anything but inertia. Oh, the classic psychopath has many qualities we groundlings often envy. They are very driven individuals. Obsessed, almost. They can be utterly pragmatic, or charming to get what they need, or aggressive and unrestrained. A fellow named Cleckley noted this more than forty years ago; he wrote a seminal book on the subject called The Mask of Sanity. He acknowledged the existence of what he called 'the successful psychopath.' A restless, gallant, daring type who generally gets what he wants, is bored spitless by most of life, and who finds most pleasures transient and most disappointments recurring.''

    "You're describing most of the uptight three-piece-suiters on Broker's Row," said Burt.

    "No doubt." She sought her Salem 100s, slid out a slim ciggie, and occupied her hands with it. It was comforting to sit and speak pseudoacademically, as though she were still a student, arguing theory in some campus cafeteria. "Some doctors speculate that this sort of 'psychopathy' is the survival mechanism we've evolved for coping with the 21st century. There are studies revealing that the children who had well-rounded upbringings and responsive, loving parents grow up to be dominated by the psychopaths-the kids who were rejected, or treated with cruelty or indifference. So the question arises: Do we mistreat our children on purpose, so they'll grow up to be survivors, or do we raise meek 'good citizens' who will ultimately be pushed around by the psychopaths?"

    "Sounds like something essentially very seductive," he said, turning on to the idea. "You're talking about dressing your mind for success-programming for a competitive society. Part of me likes the idea already. Part of me is frightened by it-the lure of altering yourself to win. Put a price tag on it, and a lot of people would line up to pay cash money." Even now, the promotional aspect of Burt's consciousness was at work:
How can this be sold? Who would want it?

    Only every person who wasn't as successful as he or she thought they should be.

    "It is seductive. This kind of psychopath has the gift of being able to maneuver people, but at the cost of his own innocence. He can hug someone mechanically because the hug is what is required to gain some objective… but he has no concept of what other people feel when they embrace. To him there is no such thing as the emotional rights of another person. No idea of 'good' or 'bad.' When he's caught in what you or I would consider a sin, he's repentant only because he's pissed off at being caught, because for him there is no such thing as guilt. If you accuse him, he'll act the outraged innocent-
I didn't do it! It wasn't my fault!
Or he'll vigorously protest that he's been framed. But as soon as you let him go, or forgive him, that repentance evaporates. His goal has been achieved; he was never really at fault. He'll steal from his friends, and say he loves those he uses. The only thing he'll ever feel is a sense of accomplishment. For such a person, the only beauty is domination, the wielding of power, attracting attention. To be outwardly seamless, never stumbling, never unsure of himself, never admitting it if he is, never looking awkward or stupid. The only grace is in speed, in performance. The psychopath is 'on' all the time, or tries to be, and has nothing but contempt for those who cannot match his level of performance, or who lack the proper skill or defenses. Harrington called them 'Zen sadists.' ''

    Sara seemed wearied, as though her explanation had brought things she did not wish to see floating to the surface.

    "Suppose the Whip Hand plan was in Lucas' mind from the very first?" said Burt. "I mean, assuming he's guilty."

    "Then I was misdirected by an expert." She thumped her skull against the padded headboard. "If, if, if! Not knowing is…" She petered out in frustration.

    "Driving you nuts, I know." He ruffled his own hair again. "I think it's hot shower time. Bang on the door if you reach anybody on the phone."

    She smiled wanly at his shambling exit. The door thunked shut, and the sound of hot water gushing made her think of warmth, and how that warmth could pound the weariness right out of your bones.

    Calling the cops had ultimately been her decision; Burt had deferred to her all along. He, too, took her professional credentials seriously. But it was also a way of abrogating responsibility for what happened. In turn, the burden of guilt would fall to Sara, since her treatment of Lucas had been so wrong. She wasn't sure she was ready to acquiesce, to accept that horrible feeling without protest.

    The police would ask why she hadn't proffered her theories earlier. She would say she'd only just put the chain together herself. They might ask how possible it was for Lucas to seek out his doctor. She wasn't so sure of the answer to that one. There had been no messages for her at Olive Grove and no taped news on her answering machine at home. Lucas knew where she lived, had her address and number and vital stats. The police would check her records as a matter of course. They would discover that Sara held a carry permit for a.38-caliber Colt Diamondback revolver. It had been a gift from her father, who'd taught her to shoot. She had fired it maybe twice since 1976, and it was hidden at the bottom of her overnight bag. Burt had not seen it.

    The police might want to slap a watchdog on her. She wondered if Gabriel Stannard had given them a call yet. He was now the last surviving member of Whip Hand-unless you counted Jackal Reichmann, currently a resident of the intensive care ward at Tucson Medical Center. Reichmann was currently in deep coma, inside an oxygen tent, his heart, lung, and bowel functions monitored by racks of beeping machines, with twenty tubes carrying fluids in and out. His bed was next to that of Pepper "Mad Max" Hartz, the only other survivor of the massacre at the Arena.

    
Do you really want to ignore that, Sara?

    Burt showered, and she was left alone with her mirror image, the brainless snow on the hotel TV, and her own noisy, intrusive thoughts.

    On more than one occasion she'd emphasized to Lucas that guilt was his enemy, to ignore it, to push guilt from his mind, to evict this unwanted tenant that was trying to make him kill himself. If that wasn't programming for psychopathy, what was?

    One thing she had not mentioned to Burt stood out saliently now. The books all took pains to note the male psychopath's "strange ability" to inspire fervent devotion in women… even women who had been lied to, or ripped off, cheated on, or fucked over. Of course, the reverse applied equally to female psychopaths, but that condition wasn't what was making Sara nervous. Her hands wanted to jitter because there was a distinct possibility that she was trying to find reasoned, academic, professional excuses for Lucas… because she loved him. Lying alone on a rented bed, she knew he had somehow won, and she wondered if he felt anything for her beyond the satisfaction of successfully manipulating her.

    While still in school she had memorized a quotation from Casper Sotheby, and she recited it almost subaurally to herself: " 'Compassion does not exist for him, nor love, except as a means to an end. He makes the sounds of love by rote, having collected them for their functional use. He is the one who says, "I love you," without having any practical comprehension of what it is to love. And the tragedy is that he will get what his handicap tells him he wants, without ever understanding the tools and capacities he holds in his hands. It is akin to the analogy of a blind person never missing the color red.' "

    She let the tears come, and they did not shame her.

    And when the room phone finally rang, its red light sputtering insistently, she picked it up.