Private Screening (36 page)

Lord heard her intake of breath. He forced himself not to watch her.

“This concert will be broadcast live on SNI. During the performance only, the audience may pledge donations through its local affiliates.

“If you contribute five million dollars, then I will give her John Damone.

“If not, I will execute him on the night which follows, as the world watches with her.

“Do not feel too sorry for them. Both have prospered from her career without sharing its benefits with others. If they had, my intervention would not be necessary.

“Now it is required.

“At eight o'clock tomorrow evening, Stacy Tarrant will appear on SNI, to tell you whether John Damone will live to see eight-thirty.…”

Lord felt sick. As he turned to her, Stacy's eyes seemed to glisten in the faint electronic glow.

Parnell touched where Phoenix had struck him.

His skull throbbed, and he had not slept or eaten. His weakness was like a fever which floated him in and out of clarity. Both Danziger and the red-bearded FBI agent seemed like strangers, inhabiting his library in some vague, depressing dream. As they watched his television, reporters waited outside.

The screen went blank.

In that instant, eerily, he felt himself lying in the field again, dew on his face, the tape in his mouth, visions of what this madman was doing to Alexis becoming a hallucination. Writhing on his side, trying to drain saliva from the back of his throat, his brain losing oxygen. Trying to stay alive, to save her.

Then gagging, a rattle in his throat. Choking to death.

Footsteps.

Hallucinating. Passing away.

Leaves cracked.

“He's choking.”

The blindfold grew yellow.

A blinding light, the tape ripped from his mouth, gasping for breath.

A camera filming him.

“It's all right,” the dark-haired woman had said. “We're from SNI.…”

On SNI, the hooded image reappeared.

Returning to the present, Parnell felt this as a double shock.

“Alexis Parnell,” Phoenix was telling him, “will live or die as her husband deserves.

“Colby Parnell is a wealthy man. The price for the woman he supposedly loves must be more than the pittance he pledges to charity.

“In order that we can fix this price, Colby Parnell will reveal to you, directly following Stacy Tarrant, his tax returns and charitable contributions for the past twenty years.

“Together, you and I will gauge the depth of his generosity. We will assess the true motives, in dollars and cents, behind his newspaper's opposition to programs for the poor.

“And then we will decide what is appropriate.

“On the third and fifth days of his trial, at eight o'clock, I will order him to carry out separate acts of contrition. He will complete each act on the day following my broadcast, or Alexis Parnell will be executed.

“You will be his jurors. On the fourth and sixth days of the trial, again at eight o'clock, he will report to you the state of his compliance. As with Stacy Tarrant, if he displeases me in any way, the following night I will execute his dependent as he watches.

“But if he keeps her alive, then at the end of his report on the sixth day,
you
will cast an advisory vote through SNI on what her fate should be.

“And on the seventh day, you will witness her release or execution—live.”

The picture changed.

“My God,” Parnell whispered.

Alexis looked frail, vacant. Remembering the moments before SNI had found him, Parnell thought that she had broken. Then her lips moved. “Please.…”

Parnell stood.

“Please, Colby—get me away from here.”

The screen went black. As Danziger turned to him, shaken yet half-querying, Parnell knew he was thinking of Robert.

Parnell's voice was thick, and he could look at neither man.

“Don't try to rescue her,” he managed. “I'll do anything he asks.”

It had been some moments, and Stacy had not spoken.

“A terrorist miniseries,” Lord murmured reflexively.

Standing, Stacy whirled and slapped him across the mouth.

Her eyes shone. Tasting blood on his lip, Lord saw that the slap had been instinctive, as though Phoenix had reminded her just how much she hated him.

“That one's free,” he told her. “But it's the last.”

She backed away, breathing hard. Then she turned and walked to the deck.

Switching off the television, Lord gave her a moment before he followed.

Head bent, she leaned on the railing with both hands. Lord thought, but was not sure, that she was crying.

He stopped a few feet from her. “I came to help you,” he said. “I still want to.”

Her face raised to the ocean. “I have to do the concert—no matter what.”

“You wanted my advice on getting him back. The first step is demanding to see him, like Parnell just saw Alexis.…”

“I don't
want
to make demands. I don't want him dead.”

“Phoenix hasn't proven he isn't. Until he does, you lose your leverage by promising him anything.”

She turned to him, in shadows, speaking in a lower voice. “You think Phoenix has already killed him, don't you?”

Lord wished that he could see her face. “What I think,” he said finally, “is that unless you ask, we're not doing all we can to prevent that.”

“I don't know.…” Her shoulders turned in. “I need some time, to think.”

He waited a moment. “Whatever you decide, we'll have to fly to San Francisco. To go to the FBI,
and
to SNI.”

She touched two fingers to her eyes. After a time, she said “Tomorrow morning, then.”

Feeling her aloneness, Lord wondered if to be with him only made it worse. “Can your driver take me to a hotel?”

“Yes. I'll have the guard let you out.”

He had started through the sliding door when instinct made him turn, to find her watching. “I'm not Harry Carson,” he told her. “I don't have any answers about him. You should know that.”

She did not answer. Leaving, he heard waves lap on the beach, deep yet steady.

Day Two: Tuesday

R
EPORTERS
began scrambling down the steps of the Federal Building in San Francisco. As Stacy watched from inside the limousine, their faces merged with those at Carson's trial in a surreal collage. From one side, a photographer sprinted across the plaza with the building's glass and concrete as his backdrop. Stacy saw him grow larger, camera case flying as he came toward her at an angle. At the moment he aimed his camera, using a flashbulb to penetrate the window, she flinched at her dream of Carson.

“Are you all right?” Lord asked.

She nodded without looking at him and opened the door.

For a superstitious moment, the press of people and lenses meant that Damone was dead. She stopped, disoriented. “Hey, Stacy,” someone called, “you going to sing for him?”

Don't let Phoenix do this to you, she thought—not in public. “Let's get through them,” she murmured to Lord, starting to move, and then police were hurrying them up the steps. As they moved, there were exclamations of surprise when the crowd saw who she was with. Realizing she and Lord would be photographed together, Stacy kept her head down.

Near the entrance, the hazel-eyed SNI reporter watched Lord from between two police. “Well,” she said to him, “it's the odd couple.” Stacy saw Lord's sharp returning glance, and then they were inside.

The tile lobby was sterile and rectilinear. As an elevator opened, she recognized Parnell.

There was an ugly bruise near his temple, and his look at her was pleading; the crisp suit and breast-pocket handkerchief somehow made this sadder. She went to him instinctively.

Face to face, Stacy could not remember his first name. She touched his arm, half-whispering, “I hope Alexis will be all right.”

His eyes were puffy. “And Mr. Damone.”

When she nodded, Parnell leaned closer. “Please,” he said under his breath, “don't take any chances with them.”

She felt Lord watching. “I won't,” she answered.

He pressed her hand. Then they went on with their lawyers, Stacy toward the elevator, Parnell to face the crowd.

They sat in a windowless conference room, sealed from the jangling of phones and extra FBI agents crowding the halls and offices. Across from Lord and Stacy were Ralph DiPalma, a red-bearded FBI agent named Moore, and United States Attorney David Johnson, a thin man with a wary, anxious look.

“As this is a federal investigation,” Lord was saying, “I'm curious why Mr. DiPalma is here.”

Johnson hesitated. “The U.S. attorney,” DiPalma answered in a monotone, “is allowing me to probe any connection between John Damone's kidnapping and the murder of Senator Kilcannon.”

As Stacy turned to him, Lord's expression did not change; the sense of lightning thought behind this self-control fascinated and angered her. “Do you have evidence of that, Ralph? Because any conflict of interest on my part would be unfair to Miss Tarrant.”

As DiPalma gave him a quick, nettled look, Stacy noticed the FBI man's curious watchfulness. “In both cases,” DiPalma retorted, “Miss Tarrant can be viewed as a victim. And the theft of money from her concert is still unsolved.”

Lord examined him. “If you
do
find anything,” he told Johnson politely, “please let me know.”

Johnson shifted his chair. “As far as we can, Mr. Lord.”

Moore turned to Stacy. “The investigation is being run out of Washington,” he explained. “But I'm case agent for San Francisco. My job right now is to get more background on Damone, and it seems like you're the only person who was close to him.”

Unsettled by DiPalma, Stacy hesitated. “John had a kind of defensiveness,” she finally said. “Like being close would hurt him.”

Moore raised an eyebrow. “In what way?”

“The way most people get hurt.” That she hadn't slept, Stacy realized, made her more irritable. “I don't think he had much love when he was young, that's all. Maybe Vietnam—it could have made him feel apart.”

“Did any of that affect his work?”

Stacy shook her head. “He had this absolute conviction that was almost magnetic—when he said something, people believed it. It was just that he didn't care about building a reputation. Except for me.”

“Did you ever ask him about that?”

“As you said, we were close. Part of being close with John was knowing not to push.…” She stopped, turning away.

“Would you like coffee or something?”

“No—it's okay. It's just that you don't know him, and I'm talking like he's dead.” She looked at Moore. “Do
you
think he is?”

Moore appraised her with clear blue eyes. “I'm sorry. But we just don't know.…”

“What I've suggested,” Lord put in, “is that Miss Tarrant at least demand that Phoenix put Damone on camera.”

Moore kept looking at Stacy. “What if I make him angry?” she murmured. “Then John dies.”

Moore glanced at Lord, then Stacy. “We agree with Mr. Lord's advice—it's a way of protecting him. If Phoenix thinks he has to keep Damone alive to get you out on stage, maybe he will.”

For a moment, Stacy closed her eyes. “Then I'll try.”

Nodding, Moore seemed to search for a more neutral topic, in present tense. “Does Damone have interests outside music?”

“Getting away from it all.” Stacy flicked back her bangs. “He's got a pilot's license and travels all over the world. And when being cooped up makes him crazy he goes backpacking in, the Sierras, maybe once a month for four or five days.…”

“He goes alone?”

“I think so.” Stacy smiled fleetingly. “He told me as long as I sold records, he didn't need friends.”

That Moore did not smile made her feel isolated. “Did he have
any
other friends?” he asked. “Maybe from Vietnam?”

Stacy's smile faded. “Except for Harry Carson?” she asked coolly.

Moore glanced at Lord again. “Yes.”

“I don't think so—he never liked being reminded of it.” Stacy paused. “Why?”

“I'm looking for someone who might kidnap him, or know how that might hurt you. It might be the only lead we get.”

She shook her head, embarrassed by the whipsaw of her emotions. “I'm sorry—really, that's all I thought about last night.”

As Moore nodded, Stacy felt the others watching her. Lord broke their silence. “Miss Tarrant has two days left. What are your chances of tracing his signal by then?”

Johnson frowned. “It's theoretically possible. But until next year, the Soviets have the only satellite that can do it.”

“Have they been approached?”

“By the State Department. The Russians refused on grounds of national security. Given the political content of Phoenix's first broadcast, Washington thinks they're loving this.”

Stacy thought of a surrealist play, hours of absurd dialogue which would end in shocking violence. “You must have some idea where he is,” Lord pursued.

Johnson turned to Moore. “Based on where he kidnapped Mrs. Parnell,” the agent said, “the probability that he's not in a city, and the time of his broadcast, we think Phoenix is somewhere in Northern California. But unless we can find out who he is or locate him through some tip, that's an enormous area, and a random search by choppers might only spook him. With this little time …”

“If there is some tip, would you try a rescue?”

“There're problems. To start, Colby Parnell doesn't want us to—it's more than possible that his wife or someone else would end up dead. I know what you're looking for, Tony, but there's no realistic chance of a successful rescue operation before this theoretical concert.”

“Then how does learning his identity help the victims?”