No Legal Grounds (26 page)

It was the same dream.
Sam, alone on a road, a car in the distance. Getting closer. He ran, but his legs were pylons stuck in wet sand. The car gaining speed.

And then an earthquake. The ground started shaking. The asphalt split down the middle with a cracking sound. The temblor was so violent he couldn’t run or get any traction at all.

Then the earth opened up, and everything was falling in, the whole world, and Sam was shaking all over, his head and bones rattling, and someone was saying,
Hey!

Sam jolted into wakefulness.
“Hey,” a voice said. “Come on. Time to go.”
Where was he? Lights and sounds. Casino. The smell of a lounge

He was in a leatherette chair. Yes, he’d been so tired. He’d ordered a Coke. Must have faded.
Sam rubbed his face. “What’s that?”
“Sleep it off somewhere else, sir.” It was a security guard. A young one. All decked out in a costume from security central casting.
“Oh, yeah,” Sam said. “Sorry. I’m so tired.”
“Outside, sir.”
“Right.”
He staggered at first, like a Vegas drunk, then found his way — the guard right beside him — to the doors. How long had he been inside this place? Judging from the light and heat, it was getting on to late afternoon.
And still no call from Nicky.
Maybe it was time to get the cops after all. The FBI, as this was an interstate violation.
Heather. Was she even still alive?
He had emerged from one nightmare only to discover he was right back in one that was worse, because it was real.
There wasn’t much more of this he could take.
His phone vibrated in his pocket.
Now. Finally.
He flipped it open without even looking at the LCD.
“I’m here,” he said.
“Where?”
“Linda?”
“Where are you, Sam?”
“Why are you calling me?”
“I want to know what’s going on.”
“I can’t tell you yet, I — ”
“I saw the picture.”
“What?”
“The photo. With that woman. Did you know there was a photo?”
Of course. What a prize chump he was for not thinking of that, for not anticipating the lengths Nicky would go to humiliate him. The hooker probably had a camera in her briefcase. “I can explain, only not now. You’ve got to believe me.”
“Sam, were you set up?”
“I can’t talk about it now.”
“Just tell me that much.”
“Yes.”
Silence.
“Do you believe me?” he said.
“I think so. What’s he done? Where are you?”
He heard the tone for call waiting. “I have to go. Don’t worry. Please.”
He switched the call.
“Hello.”
“Sammy! You ready to be really, really nice?”
“Where’s my daughter?”
“Now there you go again. Remember when Ronald Reagan said that?” Nicky went into a whispery Reagan voice. “
There you go again
.” And he laughed.
Sam decided not to say another word, to follow Nicky wherever he wanted to go. Until he got Heather back.
“So let me ask you again, Sammy. Are you ready to be really, really nice?”
“Yes.”
“Good! How about another hooker?”
“No.”
“No? No
what
?”
“No hooker.”
“Sammy, don’t try to be funny.”
“I’m not.”
“Listen carefully. Do you want another hooker?”
“No.”
“No what?”
“No, thank you?”
“That’s it! Okay, Sammy, you get to hear from your daughter. Hang on, will you?”
Silence, then the sound of something moving, like a scraping. Then a voice, his daughter’s voice, crying out, “Stop! Stop!”
Oh, dear God, make him stop!
Tears of sheer frustration bit Sam’s eyes. Powerless, he kept the phone on his ear.
Nicky said, “She says she’s fine, Sammy, and not to worry — ”
“What do you want me to do? What?”
“She says you’re not to worry, because you haven’t lost a daughter.”
“Tell me — ”
“You’ve gained a son!”
“Tell me what you want me to do, Nicky.”
“Be nice. Are you ready to be nice?”
“Yes.”
“Because I’m going to let you come see her, Sammy. I’m going to be nice to you, even though you haven’t been nice to me.”

Linda thought she ought to call the police. Right now. End of story. Maybe they had a way to trace Sam’s cell phone. He was obviously in trouble, in danger of some sort. And he was stubborn too, and would try to make things right on his own.

The situation with the girl still bothered her. She wanted to believe Sam, she really did, yet there was something else going on. It was a slight fraying at the edge of her marriage. Had she just noticed it, or had it been there for a long time, unnoticed?

She had to remind herself that Sam had always been trustworthy. But how could he have even allowed himself to get into that situation?

And where? Where was that photo taken?
It seemed like her finger hovered over the phone keypad forever, waiting for instructions from her mind to call the police. Finally, she sat down heavily in the dark of the family room and just listened to the crickets outside the house.
“Mom?”
Max was in the room.
“I’m here,” she said and flicked on a light.
“What’re you doing in the dark?” he said.
“Just thinking.”
“About Dad? ”
“Yes.”
Max picked at his powder blue UCLA T-shirt, the one Sam had gotten him at Pauley Pavilion last year. “Where is he?”
“He’s out taking care of some things.”
“But where?”
She looked into her son’s persistent eyes. She knew that look well, and that it wasn’t to be played with. “I don’t know,” she said. “But I just talked to him on the phone. I’m sure he’ll be back soon.”
“It’s about that guy again, isn’t it?”
“Probably.”
“Is it wrong to wish somebody dead?”
Now there was an unexpected curveball. The tone in his voice told Linda that this was one of those questions she couldn’t finesse. She prayed that whatever she was about to say would come out halfway coherent and all the way true.
“You’re talking about the man who’s been bothering us, right?” she said.
“Yeah,” Max said.
“Then I think it’s all right to pray that he stop and also for God to do whatever it takes to make sure he doesn’t hurt anybody else.”
“Yeah, I know. But what if you had a gun and he was trying to get at Dad or me or Heather? You’d shoot him, wouldn’t you?”
She knew she would. She would not hesitate at all. “If it ever came down to that, I would protect my family.”
“Is that all right with God?”
“I’m pretty sure it is.”
Max went into a deep thought for a moment. Then he looked at his mother. “I think it would be okay with God, totally.”
She couldn’t argue with that, nor did she wish to. She put her arms out to her son and he came to her. She hugged him. “And God knows where Dad is, and we’ll pray for his protection, okay?”
“Okay,” Max said.

Four times so far, Sam drove to a new spot and waited for Nicky’s call. This was the game.
Nicky called two more times, and Sam continued deeper into the desert. The homes became fewer, more widely spaced. The realm of desert dwellers. People who marched to their own drumbeat.
Sam remembered camping in the Mojave desert with his father once. They thought they were all alone in the world. But one late afternoon a man in jeans approached. No shirt, about forty, with a beard and blue bandana, and a pit bull on a leash.
Oh, yes, and he had a pearl-handled revolver in a holster at his hip.
Sam’s dad stood with his .22 rifle held loosely in one arm, barrel pointed at the ground. It was not threatening, but it wasn’t vulnerable either.
The man without a shirt laughed and said, “Welcome, strangers. This is my place, but you’re welcome to stay the night.”
Sam looked around and could see only dry desert. For miles. He also saw the look in the pit bull’s eyes.
The man walked away, seeming to disappear into the desert itself. And Sam’s dad said they should pack up and find another spot. “You never know about these folk,” he said.
Right, and as Sam drove through Nicky’s hoops, he thought this was not the kind of place he wanted to tarry in for very long.
It took two hours for Sam to drive where Nicky told him. But when he was finished he wasn’t two hours beyond where he’d started. He’d been driving around in a few circles.
But finally there it was, coming up out of the desert floor like an alien creature. It had an unfinished and forlorn look, as if some prefab job had been dropped here in the desert and forgotten. Isolated, like a lot of places in this part of Nevada. Owned by the sort of people who put up signs saying No Trespassing. That Means You. Killer Dogs. Only there was no fence around this one.
No power lines that Sam could see in the fading light. Could be it had its own generator. At their first meeting, Nicky had said he was in construction. So maybe he was constructing his own little fortress out here.
But for what purpose?
Had it been built for just this moment?
He stopped his car a good fifty feet from the house. As he got out the heat of desert twilight engulfed him. He considered getting the Browning from his trunk but thought better of it. If he was being watched that wouldn’t be a good move.
Then again, Nicky Oberlin might not even be in the place. This could all be another ruse. Some crazy Gabby Hayes type might run out with a shotgun and tell Sam to get off his property.
No Gabby. No sound at all. Sam took a cautious step forward, then another, watching for signs of life. This was not a place where life seemed likely to prosper, unless you were a snake or a Gila monster.
Nicky Oberlin might just fit in after all.
Was Heather inside?
Sam took one more step and then heard something creak.
“Right there, Sammy. That’s fine right there.”
Sam stopped. Nicky was speaking through a screen door but there was no light inside. The voice came from the dark.
“Let me see Heather.”
“Easy there, Sammy. You’re not calling any shots. You’re not the lawyer now, babe.”
“Come on then, let’s do it.”
“Easy, buddy. I’ve got to make something clear. I have a real bad boy of a gun here, and it’s pointed at your daughter’s head. If you try anything, she’s gone.”
Sam’s entire body chilled. Never had he felt so powerless, so bereft of options. As a lawyer he’d been trained to be able to find
something
favorable in any circumstance. Here and now, his skills failed him.
Nicky spoke again, with a playful voice. “Hey, you remember that night back in the dorm when you got drunk and started doing a Mick Jagger imitation in the hall? You remember that?”
How long was this going to take? Sam figured he had no choice but to listen until Nicky was ready to make the exchange.
“No.”
“No? Come on, it was one of the great moments. You guys were having a party in your room. Keg, grass. Everybody was there. Not me. I was trying to study while everybody was out having a good time. But you were playing loud music and it was the Stones. You know I hate the Stones, Sammy? Especially that strutting Jagger. You never knew I hated ’em, did you? You never asked if you could play your music like that, did you?”
“I wasn’t a nice guy back then.”
“You were just into yourself, boy. You thought you were the king of everything. So I came out to see what all the noise was about and there you were, holding a bong in your hand like it was a microphone, and strutting around like Jagger while ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ was playing.”
“Sorry.”
“Hey, Sammy, were you around when Jesus Christ had his moment of doubt and pain?”
“Can we get on with it, Nicky? You wanted me, here I am. Let Heather come out.”
“First you tell me that, Sammy. Tell me you were around JC.”
“I don’t know what you want to hear.”
“I want to hear you say what I tell you to say!”
“You want me to talk about Jesus Christ? What do you want to know?”
“Tell me he’s a fake.”
Sam waited.
“Tell me you renounce him as your Savior and Lord.”
“Bring out my daughter. Then you can settle your accounts with me.”
“Did you hear what I said? Renounce Jesus Christ.”
“Not gonna happen, Nicky. Next move.”
Heather screamed. Sam had to fight himself not to run forward, through the screen, and clamp his hands on Nicky’s neck. But the gun . . .
“Now do what I tell you, Sammy. Renounce Jesus.”
“Don’t do it, Daddy!” Heather yelled. Then she screamed again.
Dear God, Sam prayed, make him stop.
“I’m coming up there,” Sam said. “We’re going to settle this man to man. Stop hurting a little girl.”
“Little!” Nicky cackled.
Sam took a tentative step forward, keeping his eyes on the black rectangle that was the screen door. This was going to be a deadly chess game. Chess had never been Sam’s game, but he was determined not to make a stupid move.
“Not another step, Sammy.”
Sam stopped. It was fast becoming night, and in a few minutes it would be pitch black. But the timing was all up to Nicky. His personal darkness was the rule now.
“Why don’t you take off your coat?” Nicky said.
“I’m not carrying a weapon,” Sam said.
“I told you to take off your coat. Do it now. Throw it as far away from you as you can.”
Sam complied. He threw his coat vigorously to the side.
“Cell phone?” Nicky said.
“Yes, I’ve got a cell phone.”
“I know that, dummy. I was talking to you on it. Don’t go insulting my intelligence, boy. Just toss it up here on the porch.”
“What can that possibly matter?” His cell phone was his only link to the outside world and he didn’t want to give it up.
“Did you hear what I said?”
“Just bring Heather out and I’ll give you whatever you want.”
There was silence for a moment. Then Heather screamed again.