Talk (28 page)

"It's not Jessica," Agent Cole told him.

"Go back outside."

"I've got to see," he insisted.

"I've got to know for sure."

Leopold helped her down from the windowsill.

"I knew you loved me," he told her, holding her hand.

She knew she had seen him before. He wasn't an employee of West End, she had never worked with him anywhere else, he had never been a guest, but she had seen him. More than once. And the last time hadn't been too long ago, either.

"No more exploring, my darling," he murmured.

"Not until we've had a little more time together." He picked up the lantern, leading her along with the other.

He smiled, eyes shining with love.

"My precious darling," he murmured, and Jessica was scared he was going to kiss her, but all she could do was close her eyes against the horror.

He pressed his damp mouth against hers and she felt herself getting woozy.

Cooperate, make him feel at ease, comfortable with you, make him think you like him. As long as his fantasy is intact, he won't hurt you.

"Leopold," she said, gently but firmly pushing him back. She gave what she hoped was a womanly- sounding sigh.

"You and I have had no time together. And I--well..." she tried to give a maidenly blush.

"Well, you know how women are..." About to puke.

He was studying her in the lantern light.

"I don't think it's proper to be kissing before... well..." She looked at him shyly.

"You need to be courted," he said.

"Exactly," she said, smiling her best smile.

"I need to sit and talk a while, get to know you better. Not that I don't like you already--and care for you," she added quickly.

"I apologize, Jessica," he said in a courtly, gentlemanly voice.

"I

did not mean to be improper. But I have waited so long. I have loved you for so long. "

Jessica wasn't sure where to go from here.

"Leopold" -she hesitated "--dear."

His eyes were shining.

"Yes?"

"We have met before, haven't we? I mean, not just in our hearts."

He brightened even more.

"I went to your show.

Mother went to your show, too, several times before she died. When it was a little show. "

"You mean in Arizona?"

He nodded.

"Mother loved your show. We never missed any. Not even one. You see," he said confidentially, "Mother loved you, too."

"Oh," Jessica said.

"I feel honored."

His expression went very soft.

"She is very pleased about us."

She tried to smile.

"You came and visited me at West End, too, recently, didn't you?"

"Yes," he said.

"You work for the state, don't you?"

"Yes."

"I remember you, Leopold."

He beamed.

"I knew you would."

"You had glasses on," she said.

"You had makeup on," he said fondly.

She forced herself to smile.

"I like you better this way."

He sighed, happy.

"Perhaps you could make us some tea now. We can visit more and then we can be together."

"Why, that's an excellent idea," she said.

"Some tea and a few cookies." Be together? What did that mean? She shuddered to know.

Holding her hand tightly, Leopold led her back to her rooms.

Will! " Alexandra cried, running across the outer- room of the FBI's field office in Buffalo.

"No, she's definitely not there," he said quickly, his voice hoarse.

"I looked myself. There's just the one body, and it's from a while ago. We were scared there were more, but there's not."

"Thank God," she said, burying her face in his shoulder. Will put his arms around her. Then Alexandra stepped back, looking up at him, eyes bloodshot and full of tears, chin slightly trembling.

"I don't know how much longer I can hold up."

"I know, I know," he murmured, putting his arm around her and guiding her past the front desk toward the back room.

"But we're close, Alexandra, I know we are. And if anyone can keep this guy under control, you know it's going to be Jessica." He paused, waiting for her to look at him.

"You know that, don't you? That Jessica can take better care of herself than any one of us? That she can talk her way out of anything?"

"I think so," Alexandra said in a small voice. Now she took the lead, opening the door to the conference room. There was a mess of files, papers and computer printouts all over the table

"I've been poring over Plat- tener's records as they come in."

"Where's Dirk?"

"Hell if I know," she said, sitting down at the table She gestured to the piles of paper.

"Every work review Plattener's ever had says essentially the same thing. He is gifted and works hard, but does not communicate well with his co-workers. In fact, no one has ever felt comfortable working with him, for him, or supervising him. And yet everybody hired this guy and continued to employ him until he quit."

"What jobs do we have?" Will asked, dropping into a chair.

"New York State Energy Commission," she said, passing that file to him.

"Niagara Power Project, Arizona Power Authority board, and a series of jobs in graduate school and college--NY Valley Power and Electric, Transelectric Equipment Corp, Erie County Transformer and Condenser Company" -Dirk appeared in the doorway.

"Hi. I heard the news about the storage locker. It's bad news, I know, but it's good news, too. Will. I'm convinced Jessica's still alive."

"Thanks," Will mumbled, looking through the file.

To Alexandra, Dirk said, "The locals are checking out the work addresses."

"Will," she said, "I'm thinking that if all the places he worked around here are as large as they sound, we need to check to see if they have any abandoned or infrequently used facilities. You know, a warehouse, storage facilities, a plant--anywhere he might be hiding Jessica."

There was a quick knock and Agent Cole came in.

"Guess what? Plattener attended an energy conference at Hoover Dam in May."

Will looked to Alexandra, not getting it. The anchorwoman's eyes had narrowed.

"That's near Las Vegas."

"Exactly," Agent Cole said.

Alexandra turned to Will.

"That's where that ten- thousand-dollar cashier's check was drawn for Bea."

"Okay, you sit right there and make yourself comfortable," Jessica told Leopold, practically pushing her captor down on the sofa.

"Let me go and put the kettle on and freshen up a little and then I'll be right back. Here, listen to some music," she suggested, turning the cassette player on.

"And here's a nice book," she added, handing him a large picture book, America The Beautiful.

She went into the kitchen, took off the rubber gloves, filled the kettle and turned the hot plate on medium. Then she went to the bedroom, calling a merry "I'll be out soon!" over her shoulder.

She closed the bedroom door and raced around the bed. In his delirium.

Hurt Guy had crawled halfway under the bed, where he now lay, twisted and unconscious, his breathing irregular. If her hunch was correct about how Leopold was going to want the night to go, she had better move Hurt Guy back next door. As for herself--well, there was still the steak knife under her pillow and maybe this time she'd use it.

But how to move Hurt Guy? She tried to turn him onto his back, but he groaned so loudly she had to clamp a hand over his mouth.

Now what?

"You've got to get under the bed. Guy," she whispered to him.

He moaned, totally out of it, spittle oozing from the side of his mouth.

She gave up and let him sleep, pulling the blanket up around him.

She went into the bathroom and took off her clothes. She vigorously brushed out her hair, gave herself a fast wash at the sink and dressed quickly in slacks, blouse and the new cowgirl boots. She put on a little eyeliner, blush and mascara, just enough to make her eyes dazzling. As she emerged from the bedroom, she called to Leopold, "Our tea must be ready." He didn't turn around.

"Okay, Leopold? Tea and cookies?"

"Ye-ye-ye-yes," he stammered without turning around.

She prepared a pot of tea and placed milk, sugar, spoons, cups and saucers and a plate of shortbread cookies on a tray and came back out to the parlor.

"Okay, here we go, a nice pot of tea and cookies," she said, rounding the side of the couch.

And there she found Leopold, eyes closed in concentration, his mouth stretched into a hideous grin while he frantically masturbated.

"It's got to be here somewhere," Alexandra insisted, riffling through the papers on the table yet again.

"Somewhere he knows that's still around where he could be hiding Jessica."

"The battery factory's gone," Wendy said.

"The electrical-equipment corp has been checked. Where else?"

"Exactly," Alexandra sighed.

"Where else? We checked the schools, the neighborhood, everywhere we knew he worked."

"Let's try the mother's friends," Kunsa said, jumping up and going to the door.

"Debbie!"

In Sun City, Arizona, Agent Yargen, the FBI agent from the local bureau, hung up Mrs. Marcino's tele

phone and went back to sit with the widow in the living room of her condo.

"Can I ask you another question?"

Pleased at the attention, the elderly woman's eyes shone.

"Pray do."

"Did Mrs. Plattener ever mention the kind of work James did?"

"Oh, yes, all the time. He was a very important scientist."

"What about when he was younger? Anything about working in a restaurant?"

She looked at him as though he were mad.

"He was a very important scientist," she repeated.

"But do you remember anything about James working at an unusual job?"

"All of his jobs were unusual."

"Yes, I understand that, he was a gifted man."

"He was a very important scientist," Mrs. Marcino said patiently, hoping at last the agent would get the party line correct.

"Think, Mrs. Marcino, think back to all those long conversations you had with Mrs. Plattener. Did she ever mention any jobs James did that were different from his other ones?"

"I remember all of Lillian's stories very well," she said. She smiled apologetically.

"I just can't remember whether or not I took my pills this morning."

The agent smiled politely.

"She told so many stories about his inventions and how he saved the state so many millions of dollars." She looked out the window at the sun starting to rise over the desert landscape.

"Her happiest time, though, I think, was when he was a boy. I think he was a boy-and he solved a problem where she worked. It was an electrical problem, as I recall, and it was going to cost the hospital many thousands of dollars to fix and I believe James fixed it all by himself for nothing." She beamed, looking at the agent.

"I think that was unusual. That James worked with his mother that time. It was the only time. When he was fixing whatever that problem was at that hospital."

"What hospital is she talking about?" Kunsa muttered.

"The woman was a private nurse. Why would she be working in a hospital if she was a private nurse?"

"What do her records say?" Alexandra asked.

"There are no records!" Kunsa exploded.

"The agency's been out of business for twenty-one years and nobody knows where the hell all the records are!"

"Okay, okay," Will said calmly, holding a hand out as if to physically push the frustration level down around the table "let's stop and think." He paused.

"This Mrs. Marcino. Somewhere in her brain she knows. We just need to coax her memory."

"Is this really Alexandra Waring?" Mrs. Marcino exclaimed into the phone.

"Yes, it surely is, Mrs. Marcino. And I am very, very grateful to you for helping us in this special investigation. And as soon as I am at liberty to explain it to you, I will personally fly down to Sun City to thank you myself."

"My!" she said.

Despite her fear and exhaustion, Alexandra smiled.

"This is what I need to ask you about, Mrs. Marcino. You told Agent Yargen that James Plattener once worked at the same hospital that Mrs. Plattener did."

"Yes, he was a very important scientist."

"Now, my question is, do you remember what kind of nursing Mrs.

Plattener was doing for the hospital? "

"She didn't work for the hospital," Mrs. Marcino said.

"She worked for a family. A very well-to-do family."

Alexandra caught her breath.

"You mean she was a private nurse?"

"Oh, yes, she was a private nurse to a Mr. Porterly. She was always talking about Mr. Porterly and what a handful he was. And how whenever he went into the hospital, she would go there every day to nurse him."

"Do you remember his first name? Mr. Porteriy's ?" name' "No, I'm sorry, she always called him Mr. Porterly, with great respect for the name." She chuckled.

"But I don't think she respected him very much, it was the family, you see. They were very, very wealthy and this was how she was able to take care of her little James. Because the Porterlys paid her very, very well."

Jessica dropped the tray on the coffee table with a clatter and turned her back on Leopold with the excuse of changing cassettes in the tape machine.

"Would you pour the tea, please, dear?" she asked. You filthy pervert.

He didn't say anything.

Jessica finished changing the cassette--to The Marches of John Philip Sousa--and turned around. Leopold had stopped masturbating and was simply sitting there, looking at her, holding his flaccid penis in his hand.

"I like sugar and milk in my tea, how about you?" she said, drawing up a chair and leaning over the tray to pour tea. She looked him square in the eye and she was somewhat shocked to realize that he was now looking back at her just as squarely. Not an encouraging sign, she didn't think.

"I asked you how you liked your tea."