The Best Bad Dream (21 page)

They quickly went through the first few, then found something interesting. It was a survey that had been done by an architect named Gerald Hoffman and a geologist named Gary Wohl.

Jack was stunned.

“Look at this. Wohl says in this survey that they were looking for one of the lost Tewa Pueblo Indian tunnels that the Indians had built to hide from the Spanish conquistadores. The caves were never found but are said to still exist. Wohl claims to have found remnants of the old cave and tunnel system.”

Jack looked at it and shook his head in amazement.

“It's odd, though. The rest of the report gives the soil and rock composition but never says whether or not they found the actual cave.”

“Come on,” Oscar said, “that's because there is no cave. Even if it
had
been there it would be gone by now. The sands out there are shifting constantly. Whatever existed probably would have caved in by now.”

“Maybe not,” Jack said. “Trey built those burial caves to last. They might have thought they would have to be underground for long
periods of time. Let's say Blue Wolf found the remnants of a cave and then, if they had a need for secrecy, maybe they rebuilt it deep in the ground. Maybe no one but a few of the elect on the staff even knows about it. Then they could take people from Blue Wolf to the cave for the ceremony.”

Oscar shook his head. “But these are all just old legends,” he said.

“But remember that Tommy said something about ‘under.’ Underground. That's got to be it. Whatever is happening is happening out there. And I just thought of someone who might know a lot more about it than she let on.”

He turned off the computer and grabbed his shoulder holster.

“C'mon, Oscar, we got a party to crash.”

They roared out on the highway toward the mountains of the moon.

They were stopped by the guard at Blue Wolf, but Jack showed him his FBI card and they were quickly buzzed through.

They drove to the residence buildings, parked in the lot, and walked into the lobby.

Jack hit the buzzer and Kim Walker answered.

“Hi, Kim. It's Jack Harper.”

“Jack, what a surprise. But do you always just show up without calling? I'm afraid I'm rather busy just now.”

“This won't take long, Kim,” Jack said. “ I think I've found Jennifer and I really need your help.”

“Jack, I'm happy for you,” she said in a hesitant voice, “but I'm not at all sure what I can do. And I'm afraid I'm going out tonight.”

“This is a matter of life and death,” Jack said.

“Well, all right then, though I can't imagine what help I'll be.”

She buzzed the door and Jack and Oscar were inside, headed up to the fourth floor.

Kim Walker was dressed in a bathrobe, her wet hair combed back.

“Kim, this is my partner,” Jack said. “Oscar Hidalgo. I haven’t been frank with you, I’m afraid. We’re both FBI agents.”

She turned away and walked toward the bar.

“Is that right?” she said. “Well, that’s very interesting. But as I said before, I’m not sure how I—”

“I’ll tell you what’s interesting,” Jack said. “Kidnapping. Kidnapping is a major crime. Especially if there’s violence and guns involved. Don’t you agree, Oscar?”

“Si,
es muy malo.
You could go to prison for eight or nine years for just holding the person. Then, when firearms and violence are involved, well, that could make things much more interesting. Like eighteen years. And, of course, if the person kidnapped is a woman, well, many judges are very unforgiving. Could be maybe twenty-five years.”

Kim Walker’s hand began to shake a little. She poured a glass of white wine and sipped it.

“Now those are tough sentences,” Jack said, “but what is really tough is if the kidnapping victim is killed. Then the miscreants become candidates for a first-degree murder charge.”

“Murder?” Kim asked.

“I know what you’re going to say,” Jack said. “That you wouldn’t have anything to do with murder. But see, if you’re an accomplice to murder, meaning if you don’t tell us what you know about Jennifer Wu and if, tragically, she happened to be killed, then you would be a
full accomplice to murder and suffer the same fate as the actual killers. Which would be life in prison. Many people think that might actually be worse than the death penalty.”

Kim Walker’s face looked pale as she quickly drank her wine. She pulled her robe up to her neck, as though she were trying to disappear.

“Well,” she said, “I don’t think this has anything to do with me.”

“That’s a good thing,” Jack said. “I’d hate to see you in jail as a lifer. They don’t have many massages in prison, unless you count the ones you get from the two-hundred-and-fifty-pound dykes who share your cell.”

“And to think I really liked you,” Kim said.

“Did you?” Jack responded.

He walked toward her and stared down at her.

“I liked you, too, until I started wondering why you were so anxious to meet me. Listen, Kim, we know something is going down tomorrow night. You tell us what it is and we’ll talk to the district attorney for you.”

“You have no idea what you’re getting into,” Kim said. “This isn’t a criminal gang you’re breaking up. It’s the most important discovery since . . .”

“Go ahead and say it,” a voice said from behind them. “Why be falsely modest? It’s the most important discovery since the beginning of human history.”

Jack and Oscar turned and saw Lucky Avila and two of his goons walk into the room. They held pistols in their hands.

“Drop your gun, Jack. I’d hate to have to kill you before you had a peek at what we’re talking about.”

Jack gave Oscar a quick look but neither of them had a real chance. They did as Lucky demanded.

Lucky smiled and went over to Oscar.

“I don’t know you, friend, but you’ve chosen the wrong side in this battle. Turn around.”

Oscar was slow to do it, so Lucky cracked him on the side of the head with his gun butt. Oscar went down hard on the condo floor.

Jack stepped forward to help him but was bludgeoned by one of the other boys and fell on top of his partner.

“Don’t they look peaceful there?” Lucky commented. “Well, they wanted to know what was really going on and now they’re going to find out. Roll them up in that rug and get their asses down the stairs to the car.”

Kim shook her head. “They’re FBI,” she said.

“Yeah, I know,” Lucky said. “If they weren’t, they would
already
be dead. This has to be handled with some tact and discretion.”

“Not your strong suit,” Kim said.

“Shut the fuck up before I decide to make you the star of the show.” Kim didn’t need to be told again.

Chapter Twenty-eight

Even Wade had noticed how much Kevin was dragging. He asked him how he was doing and Kevin said he was just tired from studying for finals, but the look Pop gave him said it all. He flat out knew Kevin was holding something back.

Which made Kevin think he should just break up with Vicki and go back to being a kid again.

But he just couldn’t do it. Not yet. Every time he thought of not seeing her again it drove him crazy.

Leaving her there with her creepy husband, James. He’d learned a lot about him. James was a crazy man, wildly impulsive. Sometimes he beat Vicki up when he came home loaded and she’d said that once he’d even tied her up and threatened her with a gun!

When he thought of that, how weird James was, Kevin would forget all about leaving her. Instead, he would go the other way, and start thinking about leaving
with
her. Maybe they could just get the hell out of Los Angeles, go to New York or someplace where they would never be found. Why the hell not? She could work and maybe he could still go to school. The thoughts floated through his overheated brain like pieces of scrap paper.

He cradled his lacrosse stick and looked down the road.

And there she was, coming toward him in her car. Waving to him from behind the wheel. Even a half block away he could see her smile and thought he could already smell her perfume.

She stopped the car next to him with a screech, then rolled down the passenger window and leaned across the seat toward him.

“Hey, buddy, you’re looking kind of lonely standing there in the dark.”

“Maybe I am,” he said.

“Well, maybe you should get in with me, then.”

“You think so, miss?”

“I do,” she said. “I just can’t resist a man with a big stick.”

Kevin laughed and felt the wonderful sensation of illicit joy. Within two seconds he was in the car, putting his hand on her white thigh as they drove toward a golden moon.

In bed she was wilder than ever. Long ago he had seen some old Western with his dad and one character had called a woman—Jane Russell or someone like that—a “regular wildcat,” and Kevin had laughed at how lame the metaphor was. But not anymore. Because that was exactly what Vicki was: a regular wildcat, a mountain lioness. The way she arched her back when she was coming, the way she scratched at him . . .

Never let this end, he thought. Never, ever let this end.

Then, just as he was shooting off in her mouth, the bedroom door opened.

“Well,” James Hastings said, “isn’t this cozy?”

He was wearing a herring-bone overcoat, which gave him a very East Coast, preppie look. He also had stylish glasses, and his haircut
looked like it had cost five hundred bucks. When he smiled the whiteness of his teeth practically blinded Kevin.

On the bed Vicki scrambled under the covers, peeking out like she was a little child terrified of a whipping from her father.

Kevin reached for his shorts and quickly put them on.

“James,” Vicki said, “I can explain.”

“Of course you can,” James said. “How about you, kiddo? Can you explain?”

Kevin felt as though someone had lit a Bunsen burner under his head. His cheeks and ears were flaming hot.

“I’m sorry,” Kevin said. “No, wait. That’s not true. I love Vicki.”

James Hastings unzipped the briefcase he had with him and took out a gun.

“Oh, God,” Vicki said.

James laughed and aimed the gun at Kevin’s crotch.

“I can shoot you right in the balls and no one would ever blame me.”

Kevin felt himself shaking but he reached over and took Vicki’s hand.

“You couldn’t get away with it.”

“Yes, I could,” James said. “I’m the CEO of my company. I’m the head of three notable charities. I play golf with the mayor at the Brentwood Country Club. There’s no jury in this town that would convict me. But I’m not going to touch you.”

Kevin heard the words but noticed a cruel smile on James Hastings’ face.

“Vicki is going to do it.”

Kevin was so astonished by what James had said that for a second he couldn’t quite believe he’d heard it.

“You’re crazy,” he finally said.

“Am I? Get out from under the covers, Vick.”

She was whimpering now, but crawled out from under the quilt like a slave.

James handed her her short, sexy, silk robe, the one she’d used to drive Kevin crazy during their first few liaisons.

Funny, he thought, she doesn’t look sexy in it now.

James handed her the gun.

“Shoot him,” he said.

She was crying. “I can’t, Jim. I can’t.”

Kevin was shaking with fear but he also wanted to laugh. This was so absurd. James Hastings had no idea of what his wife was like. The very idea that she would even consider shooting him was so ridiculous. They were in love, for Chrissakes.

“You
can
shoot him, and you will,” James said.

She shook her head violently back and forth.

“No, no, no,” she said. “I can’t. I don’t want to.”

James smiled and shook his head as if to say, “These darn kids. No discipline anymore.”

“Well then, what
do
you want to do?” James asked, in a sugary voice.

She looked up at Kevin then, and there was something so achingly beautiful in her eyes that Kevin wanted to put his arms around her and take care of her. Now and for always.

“Did you hear me, Vick?” James asked. “What do you want to do?”

“I can’t use the gun,” she said.

“No?” James asked.

“No,” Vicki said, “I want to use the knife.”

“Ohhh,” James said. “Like the one in Chicago. What was his name?”

“Simon,” she said lightly. “His name was Simon. Now will you please tie him up, James?”

“What are you saying?” Kevin asked, incredulous. “Vicki, I love you.”

She looked at him and shook her head in a sad, reluctant way.

“No, you don’t. You’re just like all the other ones. So young. Never had an older woman. Oh, it’s all so exciting at first but soon you’ll start seeing how deep the wrinkles are on my face and you’ll start comparing them to the girls at school. Their flawless faces. Their perfect, nonsagging breasts. Their legs with no ugly broken veins, and you’ll ditch me just like all the other boys did. And what will happen to me then? I’ll be left alone, weeping, broken-hearted.”

“I won’t do that. Not ever,” Kevin cried.

Vicki’s face was all exposed teeth as she screamed into his face.

“Yes, you will. All that matters in this world is youth and beauty. Once it’s gone you’re nothing. Less than nothing. You’ll laugh at me!”

I won t!

“Yes, you will!” Vicki screamed. “You all do. And you’ll tell other people about this old freak who fucked you for a while. And you’ll laugh at the weirdness of it all.”

“But I won’t,” Kevin said.

“That’s right,” Vicki said. “You won’t. None of my lovers will ever laugh at me again!”

“It’s time, Vick,” James said.

Kevin felt as through an electric shock was passing through his body.

God help me, he thought.

He saw James reach into the briefcase and take out a tightly wrapped coil of nylon rope.

“Oh, Dad. Dad . . .”

But then he thought of his dad. And somehow just seeing him in his mind’s eye made him just a little less afraid. He remembered something his father had told him about the Clutter family, the ones that Hickock and Smith had murdered in their own home. They had
been watching
In Cold Blood,
with Robert Blake, and after the killings Kevin had been badly upset and said, “All along I thought they were going to let them go.” But his father had shaken his head and said, “No, son. If you learn one lesson from this movie it should be this: if you’re ever facing someone with a gun, never, ever let them tie you up. Once they do that you’re already dead. Clutter thought that by cooperating with them he would save his and his family’s lives. But he was dead wrong. Once they tie you up, they feel contempt for you. You’re no longer a person to them but a
thing,
like a rabid dog or a sick animal that has to be put out of its misery. That’s how the mind of a murderer works. They like to see you sitting there waiting for them to gut you.”