He remembered the girl had asked a question. He adjusted the mirror again and looked back at her.
"What did you ask?"
"Will there be dancing at the party for my mommy?"
"Sure, baby, plenty of dancing."
"I'm not a baby."
"Yeah? Who cares?"
38
THE gears of the Boxster whined loudly as Cassie wound them out on the way into Laurel Canyon.
"Nine-one-one emergency, how can I help you?"
She had the phone on speaker.
"Listen to me, you have an officer down. An officer down!"
She gave the address of the house on Selma and the location within where Thelma Kibble could be found. She also described the wound she observed and told the operator to dispatch the ambulance.
"I am doing that by computer while we speak. What is your name, please?"
"Just send the paramedics, would you?"
She disconnected the call and immediately hit redial. At first she got a recording saying all 911 lines were busy but an operator picked up before the recording was completed.
"Nine-one-one emergency, how can I help you?"
At first Cassie thought it might be the same operator.
"Can I help you?"
She decided it wasn't.
"There's a man trying to abduct a little girl. You have to send someone."
"What is the location, ma'am?"
Cassie looked at the dashboard clock. It was three-fifteen. She knew Jodie Shaw's schedule by heart and that she left Wonderland Elementary every day at three. If Karch hadn't already made his move he would have to do it at the house. She gave the operator the address of the house on Lookout Mountain Road.
"Hurry! Please!"
She disconnected the call. She caught the light at Hollywood and Laurel Canyon Boulevards and sped north into the canyon. She realized that she was probably closer than any LAPD patrol cruiser, unless there happened to be one already in the canyon or at Wonderland Elementary. She had to decide what to do if she got there first.
Traffic slowed as it winnowed to one lane and she found herself caught behind an old LTD that was meandering into the canyon.
"Come on!" she yelled, her hand pressed on the horn. "Let's go! Let's go!"
She saw the man in the car in front of her looking at her in his mirror. She waved him to the side but he just raised the middle finger of his right hand to her and seemed to intentionally drive even slower. On the next turn she passed him, a dangerous maneuver that made an oncoming car pull off the road. The driver of that car and the man in the LTD serenaded her with long blasts of their horns. Cassie stuck her fist out the window and raised her finger to the LTD. She sped ahead.
She made the turn onto Lookout Mountain and sped up the hill. She slowed as she went by Wonderland Elementary. There were still children in the play yard and the street was crowded with double-parked cars as parents stopped to pick up their children. Cassie picked her way around but didn't bother looking for Jodie. She knew the schedule. She was at home - or already with Karch.
As she made the last curve before the Shaws' house her heart jumped up into her throat. Up ahead was a police car, its lights flashing, parked in the street. Her hope was that it was there in response to her 911 call but her gut said that was impossible. She had made the call just three minutes earlier.
Cassie slowed the Boxster as she got to the house. She saw two police officers, a male and female team, standing on the lawn just inside the picket fence. They were looking at a woman whose face was so contorted and red that it was a moment before Cassie recognized her as Linda Shaw, the woman who had raised her child.
Tears were streaking her face. Her hands were white-knuckled fists held tight against her chest. The female cop was bending down a bit and looking into her face. She had one hand on Linda Shaw's arm in a comforting fashion. The other officer was speaking into a hand-held radio. Cassie knew she was too late.
All at once all three of them looked out into the street and at the Porsche, their attention drawn by the rumbling of the engine as Cassie powered it down.
The two officers checked the car for a few moments and turned their attention back to the woman between them. But Linda Shaw's eyes held on the Boxster. They pierced the windshield and looked right at Cassie Black. The two women had never met before. The adoption transfer had been handled blindly because of Cassie's incarceration and her desire at the time not to meet the people who would take her child.
But in that fleeting moment when their eyes met, Cassie felt something transmitted. They had connected on the cold plane where the worst fears of motherhood are hidden. In Linda Shaw's tortured and wet eyes Cassie saw that there could be no greater love for her daughter.
Cassie was the first to turn her eyes away. She kept the Boxster driving smoothly by. She knew she could take Lookout Mountain up to Sunset Plaza and then back down into the city without having to go by the house again. That was what she would do, she decided.
And then she would go where he wanted her to go. Karch. They would play this out whatever way he wanted.
39
THE desert sky was blue-black, the air cool and crisp. Karch loved the desert at night. He loved how peaceful it was and the memories it brought him. Even inside a Lincoln moving at ninety miles an hour he appreciated it. The desert was restorative. It was the city that took everything away.
He was halfway between Primm and Las Vegas and the glow of the Strip was lighting the horizon ahead like a distant wildfire. The 15 Freeway was wide open. He checked the dash clock and saw it was almost eight. He decided it was time to call Grimaldi. The old man was probably going nuts anyway, wondering and waiting. He turned the overhead light on and checked the girl once more. She was still lying across the backseat asleep. Just looking at her made Karch yawn. He hadn't slept in over thirty-six hours.
He shook it off and gulped black coffee from a to-go cup. He had bought it all the way back in Barstow and it was cold. He put it back in the dashboard cup holder and got the cell phone out of his jacket. He punched in Grimaldi's private office number and then turned the overhead light off. The call was picked up immediately.
"Yes?"
There was a lot of background noise. People noise, talking and yelling and clapping. Karch knew Grimaldi had picked up the extension in the crow's nest.
"Vincent, I need you to go to your computer."
"Where the hell you been? I've been paging you since - "
"I've been trying to get your money back. Now can you - "
"All I want to know is if you have it, not that you're trying to get it. Trying doesn't mean anything without the other."
Karch shook his head. He felt like yelling into the phone but knew it would wake up the kid. He kept his voice calm and even.
"It's coming, Vincent. But in order to collect it I'm going to need a little help. Now, can you check a room for me or not?"
"Of course I can check a room. Let me put you on hold while I get someone out here. Hold on."
Grimaldi didn't wait for a reply. Karch was put on hold as the Lincoln steadily closed in on Las Vegas. After a good five minutes Grimaldi finally picked back up. The background noise was gone. He was in his office now. There was no banter. He got right to the point.
"What's the number?"
"The penthouse. Two-thousand-one. Like the space odyssey."
"Wait a minute. That's the - "
"I know. Anybody in it?"
"I'm checking . . . No, it's clear tonight."
"Good, Vincent. Now block it off and reserve it under the name Jane Davis. You got a pen? I'll give you a credit card number."
Karch took the passports out of his pocket and pulled an American Express card off the paper clip on the Jane Davis identification package. He turned the overhead light on and read Grimaldi the card number.
"Got it," Grimaldi said. "What else?"
The tone in Grimaldi's voice made Karch smile. It was so eager. Karch knew
he was in control now. The trick would be to maintain it after this was all over. He spent the next ten minutes outlining his plan, looking over his shoulder twice to make sure the girl was still asleep and not listening. While he spoke the Lincoln passed the WELCOME TO LAS VEGAS sign that had adorned the city's outer perimeter for four decades. The neon-edged shapes of the Strip hotels came into view. Grimaldi badgered him during the telling with questions and voiced doubts. By the time he was finished the mood had shifted and he was exasperated.
"You sure this will work?" Grimaldi said.
"It is called synchronicity, VinCENT," Karch said angrily. "Have you ever heard the word? It will all fit together and you will have the money back. That is what you want, isn't it?"
"Yes, Jack, it's what I want."
"All right then, we're in business. Better get things going. I'm almost there."
He closed the phone and put it on the seat next to him. He checked the girl again and saw she was still out. He turned the light off just as the phone started to ring. He quickly grabbed it and opened it up before it woke the girl.
"What's wrong now, Vincent? You can't find synchronicity in your dictionary?"
"Who is Vincent?"
It was Cassie Black. Karch smiled, realizing he should have known it would not be Grimaldi because he didn't have the number.
"Cassidy Black," he said quickly, hoping to cover. "It's about time you checked in. Those were some nice moves you made today. But I think that if maybe we had been on my turf then things might have turned out - "
"Where is she?"
Her voice was a steely wire. Karch paused, his smile still fixed on his face. The moment was delicious. He had control and he was going to win this one.
"She's with me and she's doing fine. And that's exactly how she'll stay as long as you do exactly what I tell you to do. Do you understand that?"
"Listen to me, Karch. If that little girl gets hurt in any way . . . then it won't go by, you understand. I will make it my life's work to fuck you up. Do you understand that?"
Karch didn't answer for a while. He opened his window a half inch and got out a cigarette. He lit it off the dash lighter.
"Are you there, Karch?"
"Oh, I'm here. I'm just thinking to myself how ironic this is. I mean, I think it's irony - I never was very good in English class. Is it ironic when somebody whose plan it was to abduct a child complains about that very same child being snatched by somebody else first? Is that irony?"
Karch waited for her to answer but nothing came over the line. His smile broadened. He knew he was cutting her right to the bone. And the truth was always the best and sharpest knife to use for such a procedure.
"So tell me something, Cassie Black, what were you doing living in L.A.? Selling cars or watching the girl? And who was it you were going to take to Tahiti with you, seeing that Max can't exactly make the trip?"
He waited but there was only more silence on the open line.
"The way I figure it, I probably got to her maybe a half hour or an hour before you. So save the righteous indignation. I don't buy it."
He thought maybe he could hear her crying but wasn't sure. He felt some kind of strange closeness to her. Maybe it was from knowing her plan, from knowing what her secret dream was. It felt wonderful to be so intimately knowledgeable of the very thing another being lived for. It was almost like love.
"That's right," he said quietly. "I know all about you and your little plan. Keep an eye on the girl and wait out your parole - what did you have, a year or so to go? Then grab her and head off to paradise - Tahiti, the place you and Max had that wonderful, wonderful time so long ago. By the way, I have something of yours - and I don't mean the girl."
He hooked the phone in the crook of his neck and picked the passports off the seat next to him. He opened one and looked at the photo of the woman he was now talking to on the phone.
"Jane and Jodie Davis," he said. "Isn't that nice? Whoever made these up for Leo did a really fine job. Too bad you didn't get the chance to try 'em out."
Cassie was silent.
Karch kept sticking in needles.
"I guess when that For Sale sign went up you knew you were in trouble. Jodie told me the family was moving to Pawis, as she calls it, in a month. I bet that sure as hell shook you up and put a clock on your plan. You went to Leo for a job. And he put you into the Cleo again. Now here we are."
"What do you want me to do, Karch? I have the money. Let's talk about the money and get this over with."
"Where are you?"
"Where do you think, L.A."
"That's bad. I guess that means you didn't get my little message until it was too late for Agent Kibble. Too bad. That'll be a big pair of shoes to fill at the parole office."
Karch started laughing as he pulled into the exit lane for Tropicana Boulevard. He would be at the Cleo in ten minutes.
"You're sick, you know that, Karch? Thelma Kibble never did anything to you."
"Honey, let me tell you something. Half the people I take out never did anything to me. Neither did Jodie Shaw - or should I say, Jodie Davis. I don't give a fuck, you understand?"
"You're a psychopath."
"Exactly. So this is what you do. You listening? You bring that money back to Vegas as fast as you can. I don't care if you are flying or driving, but you get back here to the Cleo with it by midnight tonight. Back to the scene of the crime."
He checked the dash clock.
"Four hours. That gives you plenty of time. When you get here you call me again and I'll have someone bring you up to me."
"Karch, you - "
"Shut up! I'm not finished. I better hear from you by midnight or the Shaws will have to go back to High Desert to see if some other convict's got a bun in the oven they want to give away."
"I didn't want to give her away!"
Karch held the phone away from his ear.
"I had no choice! I wasn't going to raise my daughter in a - "
"Yeah, yeah, same difference. You and Max must've thought along the same lines."
There was silence on the line for a long time.
"What are you talking about? You killed him. I know it was you up there that night."
"I was up there, but you got the rest wrong, lady. But I gotta tell you I didn't even know for sure what happened until today. Until I found out about the girl."
He paused and she said nothing.
"You want me to go on?"
He waited again. Finally, in a small voice, she told him to go on.
"See, I was in the bed like I was asleep. I let him go through the room and then go out into the second room, the living room. I then got up, got my gun from under the pillow and went out there. I confronted him. I had the gun and he didn't have shit. What else could he do but get down on the ground like I told him. But he didn't do it. I told him again and he just looked at me. Then he said something that's taken me all this time to figure out. Because, see, I didn't know about the baby, about you and him and what you told him that night before he went up to do the job."
40
CASSIE hated driving through the desert at night. It was like being in a tunnel with no end. What Karch was saying only made it worse. Tears began clouding her vision of the road in the lights of her car. She swallowed and tried to calm her voice.
"What did he say?" she said. "Tell me what he said."
She had the call on speaker. Karch's voice came to her out of the dark. Disembodied and carrying a slight echo, it sounded as though he was all around her and even inside her head.
"He said 'Not again. Better none, than one in stir.' Then he turned and ran right through that window. And I never knew what he meant until I found out from Kibble today what he knew that night. You told him he was a father, that you and him, you know. So he knew right then if he went with me he'd be in jail when that little kid was born and grew up. And that happened to him, remember? He grew up with an old man in stir. And he didn't want that for anybody."
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He stopped talking and Cassie had nothing to say. She wished she could just hang up, pull off the road and walk blindly into the desert night. She wouldn't care what was waiting out there in the darkness.
She believed Karch. She had no reason to but she knew in her heart that he was telling the truth about what Max had said. She realized then that telling him, surprising him with the news that night, had set things into a terrible motion. In her mind she suddenly saw Max's crumpled body on the casino table. She had run to him and cradled his head in her arms. They'd had to pull her away from him.