Hanging Curve (6 page)

As she sank into the luxurious leather seat, her smell of perfume and sex mingling with his scent of money and impeccable pedigree, he laughed again.

He thought of his ancestors, of the great Hampton hereditary line, now brushing up against this lost girl. Probably the daughter of drug addicts, garbage collectors, dive bar waitresses, folks with the IQ of a couple of egg yolks.

“What are you in the mood for tonight, honey?” she said.

He smiled. His teeth were a dazzling white, not quite perfect because he sometimes ground them at night while he slept, and along the very bottom edge of his front teeth the line was just a tad rough, not quite straight.

“I’m in the mood for everything,” he said.

She tried to scoot over across the center console, but he gently moved her back with a motion that appeared to be a caress.

She chattered as he drove for several blocks, but he barely listened, the thrumming in his blood filled his ears with thick insulation.

He pulled into the parking lot of a storage unit facility without having to stop for the gate. A shell corporation buried in his commercial real estate portfolio owned the place. Through a series of corporate memos, he had insisted the front gate be disabled and the security cameras removed. Cost-cutting measures, the memo had said.

The Beemer slid down to the very back of the parking lot.

He backed the car into the corner and turned to her.

“Let’s start with you giving me a BJ,” he said.

Hampton unzipped his pants as she bent her head across the center console. He turned his body to give her better access to his crotch and when his torso was turned, he corkscrewed back and drove his elbow into her jaw. He heard the sound of bone on bone and her eyes rolled into her head as she bounced back, then forward into his lap.

He pushed her back into the passenger seat, pulled the Beemer ahead and thumbed the button for Storage Unit 27. It opened, and he pulled the Beemer in, then closed the door.

He got out of the car, turned on the storage unit’s lights, and pulled the girl from the car.

He dragged her onto a mattress that sat on a plastic tarp.

He bound her arms, spread her legs, and stuffed a gag into her mouth.

When she regained consciousness and opened her eyes, he smiled at her.

“I’m assuming you’ve heard of my family,” he said. “The Hamptons?”

12.

Nicole

“Hey, we’re cutting into tonight’s profits!” Jay Lucerne bellowed as he popped the cork from their second bottle of champagne. Nicole laughed at the sheer delight on her partner’s flushed face. She thought he might be a little drunk, but he always had a car and driver at the ready.

He leaned across the table and topped off Nicole’s glass, then refilled his own. The wait staff had gone home for the night, as had the kitchen staff. It was now just Lucerne and Nicole.

“I still can’t believe it,” Nicole said.

“Believe it,” he said. “Thicque is here to stay. I didn’t hear one complaint, there wasn’t one mishap, and my sources tell me that at least two of the critics who dined here tonight were wowed. We can expect raves in tomorrow’s paper.”

Nicole smiled. Jay Lucerne had more connections than a gossip columnist. She sipped from her champagne glass, not really wanting any more, but the slight buzz was helping her come down from the high of the evening.

It had been a deliriously fantastic experience. The customers had poured in. Her friends showed up. The critics received their food on time and flawlessly prepared. It had been a boisterous, loud, warm, loving evening of food and wine and drinks and laughter. It had been the kind of opening night she had always dreamed about. Already, Nicole was looking forward to the next night and the next and the next.

She looked at the empty seat next to her and thought of Mack. The idea popped into her head that the evening would truly be perfect if he were sitting next to her right now.

Nicole looked up and caught Lucerne studying her.

“What’s wrong?” he said. “Are you drunk?”

“No, I’m not drunk,” she said. The corner of her mouth turned up in the faintest of smiles. She pushed the image of Mack from her mind.

“I’m happy.”

13
.

The Messiah

The small group walked into the desert, without words, without sound. The moon lit up the sand, and the stars turned the contingent’s shadows into thick, dark beings that mirrored their masters.

There were six men in all. They formed a loose circle with the sixth man in the middle. He was tall with long hair. He wore linen peasant pants and a loose cotton shirt.

The others had neat crewcuts and wore black shorts with black tank tops. Their skin glinted in the moonlight.

They crested a small rise in the desert sand and the man in the middle stopped. The other stopped like dogs on one leash.

The leader surmised the surroundings, looked to the heavens, exhaled a deep breath. His body relaxed.

“Disciples disrobe,” he said.

The others immediately pulled off their shirts, and dropped their shorts. Soon, all of them stood naked, save for the man in the middle.

The leader let his eyes roam his followers until he settled on one of the men.

“Bartholomew,” the leader said. The third man in the circle, tall and athletically built, left his spot and stood in front of the leader.

The others in the circle turned around, and faced outward, away from the leader.

The man known to the others as The Messiah, nodded to the man now standing in front of him. The follower dropped to his knees. The leader freed himself, then reached down, palmed Bartholomew’s head, and slowed the man’s ministrations, until he was moving at an unhurried, leisurely pace.

“Jedidiah and Matthew, prepare Joseph,” the leader said. Immediately, two of the men led a third to the center of the circle, within a few feet of The Messiah. They put their hands on his shoulders and guided him to the ground. Joseph was the youngest of the group, and also the slightest. His body trembled beneath the moonlight.

One of the men took Joseph’s hands and gently pulled outward, so that he was kneeling on all fours.

The desert wind picked up and sent a fine spray of sand over the group.

The Messiah lifted Bartholomew up and gently pushed him back toward the circle where he resumed his place, facing away from the drama unfolding in the center.

The Messiah walked to the three men in the middle and observed the youth. He knelt down behind the young man who tried to turn, but one of the disciples held him in place.

The Messiah lifted his shirt and tossed it to the ground behind him. A large chain with a heavy crucifix was around his neck.

He shoved himself roughly inside the youth. The Messiah reached up and took the heavy chain crucifix from his neck, leaned forward and wrapped it around the young man’s neck. He took the loose ends of the chain and wound them around his hands, like a garrote.

The Messiah felt the desert wind on his face, the slight sting of granules of sand. He thought of the ancients, of the Hebrews and the Philistines, of great treks across deserts like this one. Lost souls looking for a light, a spirit, guidance. He imagined a white-hot light radiating from his very essence, brighter than the burning salvation of Jesus, Mohammed, and Shiva combined.

He rode the young man and his hands slammed apart, tightening the chain garrote. The youth began to snort and twist, but the Messiah maintained his hold.

The young man’s tongue shot from his mouth, his face turned purple.

The Messiah’s eyes blazed. He thought of a majestic mountain circled by millions of his followers, kneeling, all begging him for final salvation.

The Messiah kept the chain tight around the youth’s throat, the links tearing through the skin, blood soaking the sand below.

When the Messiah heard the young man give his death rattle, and when he felt the body relax as the last bit of life ebbed from the youth beneath him, he stood, breathing heavily.

When he spoke, he felt as if the voice of God himself poured like pure oxygen from his lungs.

“Prepare the grave,” he said, his voice thick with exertion.

Immediately, the remaining four men dug into the sand with their bare hands.

14.

Mack

He sat up and watched the thick stand of palmettos sway gently back and forth in the early morning Florida breeze.

The steam from his coffee met the breeze and Mack watched as it caught then swirled upward, like cigarette smoke on a lazy day.

Voices invaded the solitude of the morning and Mack saw a red kayak nose into his view. The Estero River swam to the south and west where it eventually pooled and became Estero Bay. From there, one had several access channels to the Gulf of Mexico.

Mack watched the kayakers, a young man and woman, college age, probably here on break. They’d almost certainly rented the kayaks from Estero River Outfitters, just up the road from Mack’s place. If they’d come to see alligators on the river they’d missed that opportunity by about five years or so.

Mack sipped from his coffee as the sliding glass door behind him opened.

“Good morning, ladies,” he said.

Two women approached the table. One was a tall woman, her skin the color of mocha, with broad shoulders and thick, sturdy legs. As always, Mack was struck by the beauty of her face. Adelia Williams had the kind of stunning, classic features Mack always thought of as regal.

Adelia was a live-in nurse for the other woman now taking a seat next to Mack. Janice Mack was five years younger than him. He always had, and always would, think of her his little sister.

In the morning light, he studied her face. She had his eyes, a blue green that seemed to reflect the waterways around his home. She was tall, like him, with an athletic frame that now carried some extra weight.

She turned and faced her brother.

Wallace looked at her, into her eyes, tried to get a feeling for where she was today. He didn’t like what he saw.

“This is my house,” she said.

Mack drained the rest of his coffee and stifled the sigh that nearly escaped his mouth. Adelia caught his eye and he gave her his cup for a refill.

“Yes, I know,” he said, playing his part in the conversation that he’d played many times before. He knew what was coming before she said it.

Her eyes squinted and Mack met them directly.

“Well why are you here?” she said. “And more importantly, who the heck are you?”

“I’m Wallace, your brother,” he said. “And I live here with you. We share this house.”

There were several variations on the next part of the conversation. Mack hoped it would be one of the less dramatic avenues.

“Okay,” she said, and sat down. Mack felt a small amount of relief. Sometimes she denied she had a brother. Sometimes she accused him of being a spy, impersonating a brother she didn’t have. Or a spy from the doctor’s office where no one liked her.

“Someone was watching me yesterday,” she said.

Mack nodded. One feature of Korsakoff’s Syndrome was confabulation, a function of the brain that compensated for severe memory loss by creating new, totally fabricated events. Mack sometimes compared it to living with an actor who constantly improvised everything in her life.

“That’s interesting,” he said. “Hey, I thought I’d ask Adelia to make waffles this morning, Janice. How does that sound?”

Adelia returned with a fresh cup of coffee and put her hand on Mack’s shoulder.

“I’ve got fresh blueberries, bought ‘em yesterday at the market,” she said.

Janice stared at the river. Mack could see reflections of the water in her eyes.

“I’ll try a waffle,” she said. “It sounds good.”

“They’re very good,” he said. “There’s nothing better than fresh blueberries and I think we’ve got some real maple syrup somewhere.”

He stood and moved toward the kitchen when she spoke again.

“But someone really was watching me,” she said. “A man.”

15.

The man strapped into the fishing chair of the seventy-two foot Hatteras sportfishing boat was known to the Internet hacking community as Millipede. He’d earned the nickname from his own spyware program, one of the first of its kind that had an amazing ability to grow millions of “legs” and scurry from one secure server to another, undetected.