The Best Bad Dream (3 page)

There was a mocking laugh from the other room.

“Right,” Kevin yelled. “I'll kick your butt, Granddaddy!”

“Hey,” Wade said. “If you hit me and I hear about it, I'm gonna really be pissed off.”

Jack laughed and shook his head. His dad had used the exact same lines on him when he was Kevin's age. It was comforting to hear the old saw, and Jack felt relieved that Kevin had laughed at the joke. Maybe he was feeling a little less furious at Jack for leaving.

He went into his son's bedroom and found him lying on his bed reading a manga called
Death Note.

“Hey, Kev,” Jack said, sitting down next to him, “I'm sorry I have to go right now.”

It's that woman you talk about sometimes, Michelle Wu, isn't it? Kevin asked.

It is, Jack said.

“Why do you have to fly off to save her butt? Isn't she a criminal?”

“Yeah,” Jack said, “she is. But she also saved my life about two years ago.”

“You told me already,” Kevin said.

His tone was filled with doubt.

“It's true,” Jack said. “She really did. I owe her.”

Kevin put the book down and Jack took the opportunity to give him a hug.

“I'll get back as soon as I can, Kev, Jack said.”

“I know,” Kevin responded, “I just wish you had more time for me sometimes, Dad.”

“I'll make time, Kev. I promise,” he said.

But even as he spoke the words he felt as though they were a lie.

Chapter Four

Jennifer Wu felt as though she'd been hit over the head with a fifty-pound weight. Every inch of her skull was racked with a pulsating pain. Staved in by a ... what? A gun barrel? No, something bigger than that. A big iron pole of some kind? Maybe, but that would make a huge lump, and as she raised her left hand and felt around her head, there was no lump, on either temple or anywhere else.

So she was wrong. There wasn't any pole used on her.

But why the terrible pulsating headache? Like with a migraine, her skull seemed to expand and contract with every beat of her heart.

Maybe . . . maybe she'd been drugged.

She felt herself waking up a little more. She blinked her eyes and saw a deep blackness in front of her.

God, she wanted to scream, and nearly did, but then she thought about it for a second. No, she wouldn't scream for help. Because it was obvious that she'd been kidnapped, and whoever had taken her had probably used drugs.

She realized that she was in some kind of cell. What else could it be? (Even though she could see nothing at all in front of her.) She had free use of her arms and legs. She could move around, and she didn't
seem to be beaten anywhere on her body. So whoever had taken her hadn't hurt her, except for her head.

But why then? Why had they grabbed her out of the Indian pueblo and brought her here?

It didn't make any sense at all.

It wasn't as though she was a rich person whom they could ransom for big money.

Unless they thought that her sister would pay for her. She wasn't sure if Michelle was all that rich. Nobody quite knew how much money her sister had.

But maybe whoever had snatched her had thought Michelle was rich and would pay a ransom for her return.

She sat up and blinked. Gradually, her eyes got used to the darkness. Now she could see she was on a bed, that there was a toilet in the corner with a shelf where things had been laid out for her. Toothpaste, a toothbrush. A washrag, soap, a towel.

Yes, and toilet paper. How thoughtful.

But over on the other side of the room . . . just as she had suspected . . . prison bars. She
was
in a cell, somewhere.

Jesus, now she could see a hallway. She got up, and on shaky feet walked over to the cell bars. There was a small blue light down there somewhere, like a night-light.

Again, such a thoughtful touch. She almost laughed.

Then she had another thought, a weirder one. If she was in a cell block, then there might be other prisoners in here as well.

Which meant. . . which meant what?

That some lunatics or—or terrorists, yes, it could be terrorists—had picked up a group of normal Americans and were holding them for ransom.

But what kind of terrorists? Certainly not al-Qaeda. Not in an Indian pueblo. No, the weird thing was that the most logical terrorists would be the Indians themselves. Did Indian nationalist groups do this kind of thing?

She had never heard of anything like that before.

It made no sense whatsoever. But there were fights over Indian casinos. Maybe it had something to do with that. Because there was a big casino, the River Rock Casino, just three miles away from Taos. She didn't think it was Indian-owned though . . . wasn't it partially owned by a consortium of business people who merely used the Indians as a front? She wasn't at all sure. Could this be some kind of crazy part of a war between the whites and the Indians?

But as soon as she thought of such a thing the notion seemed even more absurd.

Native Americans weren't into kidnapping people.

But who was? One thing for sure was that she'd never be able to figure this out by herself.

She was dying to yell down the hall and see if someone else was here. But there had to be guards. And if she called out they'd come running and maybe they'd beat her.

Yeah, maybe this time they really would split her brain open with a club.

There had to be some way to find out where she was, and who else was down here.

Jennifer crept over to the left side of the cell and whispered around the corner, “Is there anyone over there? Can you hear me?”

There was no answer.

Okay. It was night (she thought) and they were asleep.

She tried again, a little louder. “Anyone? Anyone there?”

She jumped as she heard a voice whisper back to her.

“Yeah, girlfriend. Who are you?”

A woman with some kind of an accent. What was it? New York? The Bronx maybe?

“My name is Jennifer,” she whispered. “Who are you?”

“Gerri. Gerri Maxwell. From the Bronx. Where you from?”

“I'm from Los Angeles. I'm just visiting here with my sister and we were touring the Indian pueblo in Taos, and somebody came up behind me and—”

“And shot you full of some kind of sleeping shit, and here you are.”

“Yes, I guess so. I don't remember how it happened. I have the worst headache.”

“Yeah, I know ‘bout that, too. It lasts maybe three, four hours, then it goes away.”

“But what the hell is going on?” Jennifer asked. “Why are we here?”

“I don't know. There was another person down here, too. Woman named Mary. But now she's gone.”

“Gone? What do you mean?”

“I mean that this guy came down today and said they were letting her out.”

“They did?”

“Yeah, that's right. They said she was getting sprung.”

“Did they say
why
she was getting out?”

“No. He just said it was time for her to go.”

Jennifer felt a cold chill up her back.

“Did he say exactly that?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean what were the exact words the guy said?”

“Jesus, girl, how the fuck should I know? Does it matter?”

“Yes, it could. It could matter very much. Try to remember, won't you?”

“All right. . . The mother came in here . . . said, ‘It's your turn.’ Yeah, that was it, he said, ‘It's your turn, sweetheart.’”

“Oh, Jesus,” Jennifer said. “What did the guy look like?”

“Big guy, looks like a ... what. . . like one of them bugs. A praying mantis. Dressed all in leather. With a mask. Scary son of a bitch! Man's a fucking hyena. He likes to punch you in the . . . inna private parts, if you get my drift. Anyway, when they come to get Mary, she changed her mind. All of a sudden she dint want to get out no more. Put up one hell of a fight, hanging onto her jail bars. The son of a bitch had to kick her around a little to get her loose. Then they had to use the needle on her.”

Jennifer felt the chill coming again.

“The needle. Christ. Why, why do you think she had that kind of reaction?”

“Well, she told me she was real worried that wherever they took you next was going to be a lot worse than here.”

“Like what?” Jennifer asked.

“Like nothing. She didn't itemize it, baby. Just ‘worse.’ But that don't make no sense. Look, the way I see it, we were put in here like for ransom or something. You know? The mantis-baby even joked about it once to me. Last week.”

“How long have you been in here?”

“I don't know, you lose track of time. Maybe a week.”

“A week?” The thought made her want to cry. She could barely stand another minute, much less a week.

“Well, I don't know about you, but I ain't lived a perfect life, so maybe they're having a hard time finding anyone who would want to go my bail.”

Jennifer felt her knees weaken and her breath get short.

Hey, Jennifer. Yes?

“Don't worry. You seem like a nice girl. Somebody will pay to bail you out pretty soon. I'm sure of it.”

“Yeah, thanks, Gerri.”

“I'm going to sleep now,” Gerri said. “We can talk more tomorrow.”

“Yeah, good night, Gerri,” Jennifer said, scarcely believing her own voice. This couldn't be happening. Not to her.

Jesus, what was Michelle doing?

Was anyone looking for her?

And what would happen when that hyena, Mr. Mantis, came to take her away?

Chapter Five

In Albuquerque, Jack rented a Ford Mustang and headed up the interstate to Santa Fe. He'd never been there before but knew that Hollywood movie stars and wealthy Los Angelenos went there to chill out. Also, an actress he'd dated a couple of years ago had told him that the town was filled with New Agers. The kind of people who scurried to that posh burg in the Sangre de Cristo mountains to find some deeper meaning in their lives. His partner, Oscar Hidalgo, who had been out there before, laughed at them for buying crystals, getting themselves rubbed down with “ancient stones,” and taking two-day courses in meditation supposedly taught by some
curandero,
or witch doctor. Yeah, maybe old Oscar was right, but what Jack found funny was that Oscar actually believed in
curanderos
himself but only if they came from
his
town—Juarez. All of the
other
witch doctors were hustlers and cons.

As he pulled into Santa Fe and stopped at a light he saw the first sign of the kind of thing he'd been told about. There, in a little park just off the highway, was a group of older people being led by a white-haired man. They were all dressed in dark blue jumpsuits with a Blue
Wolf Lodge logo embroidered across the front pocket. Jack had done a little research on Santa Fe on the plane and knew that Blue Wolf was an exclusive lodge with a very wealthy clientele. The group he was watching now was elderly. Several of them must have been in their seventies. The white-haired man may have been even older. Yet they were all working out with incredible grace. They were doing what Jack knew were Tai Chi moves. He watched as they made graceful parabolas with their arms and hands. He smiled sympathetically as one of the older men kicked his left leg high into the air and came down on tiptoes, like a stork or a crane.

The white-haired man went around correcting their postures. There was one woman—a short, squat Mexican—who was having trouble holding her form. Jack watched as the older man worked with her. He was very patient.

She seemed to be explaining that her shoulder was frozen, or in pain. The older man nodded and rubbed it, and she tried again.

But the woman gave him a pained expression and it looked as though she was starting to get mad. She pointed at her shoulder again, as if she was saying, “This exercise is too much for me.” Her teacher spoke to her in what looked like a kindly way, though Jack could hear nothing of what was said.

Jack found the little soap opera fascinating but was frustrated that he wouldn't be able to find out the outcome because the traffic light had changed.

Whatever the problem the woman was having Jack found himself impressed with the little band of old folks. It would be easy to laugh at them, but what the hell. . . they looked like they were dealing with old age in a graceful, and—dare he think it—healthy way. They weren't overweight like his dad, and they would probably live to a ripe old age. Jack had always had a sentimental love of the ravers and wild men, but
he'd already known three federal agents who had died within a few years of their retirement. Why? Because they had nothing to do, no sense of community except the bar. He worried about his dad for the same reason. Maybe it would benefit the old man if he had a group that looked after one another, worked out together, though he strongly doubted that he would ever see Wade doing Tai Chi in the local park.

But it was kind of cool to see the old folks doing their thing. Maybe he was going to like Santa Fe after all.

And maybe he would find Jennifer Wu right away and he could hang out and do a little sightseeing while he was here.

He and his hot, illicit girlfriend, Michelle Wu.

He met her in La Plazuela, the restaurant on the ground floor of La Fonda. It was a stunning room full of turquoise-colored windowsills,
latilla
ceilings, and handcrafted chandeliers with birds, snakes and lizards painted on them. The floor was dark brown tile and at the end of the room was a brightly burning fireplace. The restaurant was filled with tourists, but when Jack saw Michelle Wu the room seemed to fade into a misty background.

Dressed in a white lace dress, her black hair radiantly pulled back, Michelle looked like a goddess. Jack blinked as he walked toward her.

He realized he'd never seen her dressed like this before. Usually she was under a car working on the brakes or fixing a leak in the oil pan. Her daily costume was a skintight Lakers T-shirt and even tighter black Levi's.

“Jackie,” she said, smiling. “I can't believe you're here.”

She threw her arms around him. Jack wanted to take her into his arms and kiss her. But he did the proper thing instead, pecking her lightly on the cheek.