Ring Game (44 page)

Polly laughed. She filled a teakettle from the tap and placed it on the burner. “I just happened to be up,” she said. “I looked out and saw you. You know what I thought? I thought maybe you were Hyatt Hilton.” She laughed again. “Isn’t that funny?”

Chip did not think that was funny. It was a very unfunny situation altogether. Polly was dressed in a silky nightie—more of a nightshirt, really—and nothing else. She had left her rubber boots by the door. Her legs were extremely naked. Chip had never seen Polly without stockings. He could see little squiggly veins on her thighs and behind her knees, and a painful-looking corn on her little toe. Her hair was short, thin, and close to her head. The fact that Polly wore wigs was no secret, but he had never before seen her without one.

The most startling difference between this Polly and the Polly he knew was the color of her face—bright pink—so pink and puffy he could almost feel the heat coming off it.

He’d thought at first she was furious, red with anger, but she didn’t seem to be angry at all. Then he remembered the reason she and Rupe were here. The big lie. The plastic surgery. The pink face must be from that.

Polly took a mug from the cupboard and set it beside the stove. It was one of the official ACO mugs with the double helix printed on one side and a stylized picture of Rupe and Polly on the other. “Would you like a cup of tea?”

Chip shook his head.

“Are you going to tell me what you’re doing here?”

Chip clamped his teeth together and lowered his eyes to Polly’s knees. Even with the veins she looked good for a woman of her age. She moved closer to him. Her hand settled on his head and rubbed gently, the short, stiff hairs holding her palm away from his scalp. She smelled like soap, but with a sourness behind it.

“Do the girls ever rub your head for luck, Chip?” She moved around behind him. He felt something soft, a breast, briefly touch the back of his head.

“What girls?” Chip’s shorts were getting crowded. He squirmed, shifting his hips to a new position.

“All the girls. What are you doing here, Chip?”

“I came to tell you something,” he ventured.

“Oh?” Her fingernails were touching the sides of his head, stroking his temples.

“Came to warn you.”

“Warn us about what?”

“Um. People.”

“What people, Chip?” She moved back in front of him, crouched to bring her glowing pink face down to his level.

“What happened to your face?” he asked.

“Just a little sunburn.” The teakettle began to whistle. “What people?”

“I know where you were,” Chip said.

“Oh? And where was that?”

“The water’s boiling.”

“Where is it you think we were?”

“You and Mr. Chandra went to a plastic surgeon.”

“Yes? So?”

Chip glowered.

“Do you think there is something wrong with that, Chip? With trying to look good?”

“It’s a lie.”

“So? How is it different from you sneaking up on us, looking into my bedroom window? Spying on us. Who are you spying for, Chip?”

“I wasn’t spying.”

“What were you doing?”

“I was reconnoitering.”

“For who?”

Chip said nothing.

“Chip, if you were me, and someone wouldn’t answer your questions, what would you do to get them to answer? Think about that.” Polly stood up, put a teabag in the ACO mug, and filled it with boiling water from the teakettle. “Are you sure you don’t want a cup?”

“What kind of tea is it?” Chip asked.

“Earl Grey. You scare me, Chip. Looking in my window. Keeping secrets. I’ve been watching you. I know you liked Hyatt. You always liked him. Are you working for Hyatt, Chip?” She had come in close to him again; the sharp aroma of the brewing tea swirling into the sour, soapy smell of her body.

“Chip?”

She reached down. He thought for a moment that she was going to unbuckle his belt. Instead, she dumped the mug of hot Earl Grey onto his crotch.

The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.

—Tertullian

T
HE SOUND OF BLOOD
droplets falling changed as the fluid level rose. Now that there was an inch or two in the champagne bottle, the sound was more of a
ker-plop,
about two every second. Before, it had been more like
plip, plip, plip.

Hy had been quite apologetic after hitting her.

“Look, Carm,” he’d said, leading her back toward the makeshift altar. “You gotta understand, I’ve been working on this for a long time. This is my shot, Carm. I gotta take my shot. And it’s your shot, too. It’s our shot.”

She’d said, “I know it, Hy. I understand,” not wanting him to hit her again.

“This is where we’ve gotta pull together, trust each other. We go forward, follow the plan as best as we can and believe in it all the way. You start having doubts, that’s when things fall apart. You gotta trust me on this one, Carm.”

She’d said, “Don’t hit me anymore, Hy.”

“I said I’m sorry. Here, sit down. Are you okay? Okay. Look, you got a little cut on your chin. That’ll look good, like you put up a fight. Trust me.”

“I do trust you, Hy. But doesn’t it matter I’m pregnant?”

“Yeah, it matters. It matters a lot. It’s good. It’s a good thing. I mean, the whole virgin bride thing takes on a whole ’nother slant.
Pregnant
virgin bride. They gotta love it. You know how far a guy like Drew Chance can run with something like that? We’ll probably get invited to the White House.”

That was when Carmen had decided that Hy was not simply a stupid fucking asshole. He was an
insane
stupid fucking asshole.

She’d said, “If we’re gonna do it we ought to make it look really good.”

“It’s gotta look good.”

That was when she’d swung the champagne bottle and hit him on the nose and took off running. She’d have got away, too, if she hadn’t been half drunk and fallen down before she even got out of the chapel. Hy had been genuinely pissed after that, but at least he didn’t hit her again, not right away. He’d just dragged her back in and tied her up, and this time she didn’t resist. He tore open the bag containing the phlebotomy setup, a piece of clear plastic tubing with needles at both ends.

“Which needle goes in your arm?”

“Neither one.”

“One of ’em’s going in, Carm.”

“Okay then. The small one.”

“They’re both the same.”

“So what are you asking?”

When Hy finally found a vein, the blood had squirted out quickly, all over his shirt. Carmen had laughed. He must’ve hit her a good one then, because she didn’t remember him taping the phlebotomy tubing to her arm. Next thing she knew he was shaking her awake.

“Carm? Listen to me, Carm. I gotta go. You listening?”

She was listening.

“If Chip shows up, tell him to get lost, okay? Tell him I had to leave.”

“Take this tube out of my arm, Hy, or I’ll kill you.”

“Just hang in there, Carm. And remember our story. Remember all that money we’re gonna make. You’re gonna be on TV, Carm.”

“Hy, I could bleed to death here.”

“Don’t be silly. It’s coming out a drop at a time.”

“I’m serious, Hy.”

And then he was gone. She heard the limo start and roll away, and the only sound left was the
plip, plip, plip
of blood droplets falling from the other end of the phlebotomy tubing into the Freixnet bottle.

Carmen strained against the ropes. Hy had done a good job. She tried to twist her arm, to dislodge the needle, but it was securely taped in place—
ker-plop, ker-plop, ker-plop
—the sound was almost soothing. She wondered how long it would take for her to lose consciousness. A part of her—a rather large part, she realized—was looking forward to it.

She dreamed she opened her eyes and saw two nostrils, headlights in negative, coming at her, and behind them she saw a beautiful woman with a glowing pink face; the angel of death.

Officer Rob Grunseth, three-year veteran of the Prescott Police Department, had been working the dogwatch three months now, and it was killing him. The gallons of sugary coffee and the half dozen or so Hostess Fruit Pies he consumed during each eleven-to-seven shift had pretty much ruined his digestive system, not to mention his waistline. A few days back, at his wife’s insistence, he’d gone to see a chiropractor. The guy had cracked his spine a couple times and told him that, in time, his biological clock would reset itself; his body would adjust to working nights. The chiropractor had told him to quit drinking coffee, quit smoking, and avoid snacks, especially sugary snacks. He had prescribed a sour-tasting Korean ginseng tea—Grunseth was on his fourth cup—and a one hundred fifty-watt full-spectrum lightbulb, which was now shining directly in his face from the desk lamp. The visit had cost him a hundred and six bucks, including the lightbulb, and he still felt like shit, like he was gonna fall asleep sitting at the desk.

The chiropractor had told him to listen to his body. At three-thirty in the morning, way past the time anything interesting was likely to happen in Prescott, Grunseth’s body was making a powerful case for a fruit pie, a Winston, and a cup of something that didn’t taste like wet grass clippings. His body was saying screw this Korean tea. And screw this job, too. His wife’s brother, up there in St. Paul, making a clean forty a year at the Ford plant, building pickups. No kids calling him Barney Fife. No listening to that fart-ridden Amundson’s theories about crime in small-town America—where the hell was Amundson, anyways? The guy says, an hour ago, says he’s got to run home for five minutes to pick up some prescription pills. Probably givin’ it to the wife, what he was probably doing. Leaving Rob Grunseth, Mr. Reliable, chained to the goddamn phone, all alone with his goddamn ginseng tea. And then his wife calls, crying about their eighteen-year-old niece Daphne who apparently got herself impregnated by a guy works stocking produce over at the IGA. Like he needed one more thing to think about with this ulcer or hiatal hernia or stomach cancer or whatever the hell it was he had. What the hell. He’d smoke a goddamn cigarette is what he’d do, and that chiropractor and that Chief Becker could just stick their antismoking talk right up their self-righteous butts. Becker was the worst. He had his way, smoking would be a capital offense. He liked to brag that not one Prescott cop smoked. Most of them did, of course—just not around Becker.

Grunseth walked out the back doors, leaving one of them cocked open so he could hear the phone. It had started to rain. He ran out to his patrol car, the only car in the quarter-acre parking lot, and got the half pack of Winstons out of the glove box. Nothing he hated more than rain. He ran back to the entryway and lit a match. He was about to touch it to the tip of the cigarette when a pair of headlights rounded the end of the long building and some big white thing, a goddamn limousine, came sliding around the corner, the back tires skidding on the rain-slick pavement. The driver locked up the brakes, causing the rear end to slue around and smash into the grill of the only car in the quarter-acre lot, which happened to be Grunseth’s patrol car.

Grunseth felt a burning sensation and noticed that the match he had lit was broiling the tip of his thumb. He blew it out and dropped the smoking match, shaking the pain out of his hand.

A man in a maroon tuxedo jumped out of the driver’s seat of the limo and ran up the steps. He fell to his knees and grabbed Grunseth’s trousers. “Please help me! Oh my God! They’ve taken her!”

“Just you take it easy now,” Grunseth said, stepping back from the man’s clutches. A drunk, an escapee from some wedding reception or class reunion. Blood on his face, his nose all swollen. Maybe got himself beat up.

“You gotta help me,” the man said. “We have to save her. Please!”

“Save who? Was there an accident?”

“Yes! I mean, no! We were kidnapped. I got away. They have my fiancée. They kidnapped us. The Amaranthines!”

“Amaranthines?” That sounded familiar. There was a bunch called themselves something like that, building a big place up on the bluffs, a few miles down river. But something about this guy was wrong. He was bleeding and his tux was torn up, but he didn’t have that stunned look. He looked nervous and excited, but that was it. Like a kid doing a fraternity prank, only this one was too old for that.

“You have to come with me. We have to save her!”

Grunseth said, “Mister, nobody’s going anywhere until you start making some sense. Now just you come on inside out of the rain and sit down and tell me what happened, okay? Meantime, I got to fill out a report on that police car you just punched in the front of.”

The man followed Grunseth into the police station, looking at the empty desks.

“Hey,” he said. “Where is everybody?”

“You’re looking at him,” Grunseth said.

The next time Crow woke up he was alone; his thoughts ran clear and cold. Staring up at the acoustical tiles. They looked close, as if he could reach up and touch them, feel their texture. But he didn’t want to move. His thoughts flicked from one memory to another, clicking like a slide projector. Sam. Sam and Axel. For one frightening moment, he thought he understood his father. Sam, Axel, Sophie—the whole social dynamic suddenly made sense, including his own place in it. He moved to the next thought quickly, not wanting to get stuck there, and clicked on—Carmen and Hyatt? The limousine. The Clark station. Asking for Marlboros. That was all.

He heard feet in the hallway, two people walking, and voices. Getting louder, then fading as they moved past his room.

He closed his eyes and watched a parade of faces. Debrowski. He realized with a silent jolt that she was angry at him. Not pretending to be angry. Really angry. She was furious, and not just because he’d hurt himself. She’d been mad before that. Ever since he’d picked her up at the airport. Maybe even before that. Ever since Paris.

Well, he was mad at her, too. What had she been thinking, staying in Paris for three months? Treating him like the Ugly American and then, waiting for the Metro, when he wondered out loud how his cat was doing, just making small talk, she jumps on him, telling him maybe he should go home and check. Fly four thousand miles to make sure his cat didn’t have a damn hairball? Was she trying to get rid of him?