Somebody Somewhere

by Tom Lichtenberg

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 1998 by Tom Lichtenberg

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Prologue

After midnight there is no one on these streets, except the occasional cops who sit in their cars and wait for fools like me who think they can make it home before they fall asleep. I didn't even want to be out there. I should have been dreaming already, all nice and curled up besides my girlfriend with her cat on my head and my hand on her hip. Instead we had one of those fights. I don't even know what the fight was about - I never really do - unless it was just for the sake of it, so we could be mad at each other for a couple of days and then have really good make-up sex on Wednesday. Maybe that's what it was about. Whatever.

The last thing I remember is her saying 'It doesn't matter what you say, you're still an asshole!', and me jumping up off the bed and grabbing my jacket and heading for the door.

Damn, I only remembered when I started the car and was already on the road that I'd left my overnight bag back there. I hoped there wasn't anything in it that I didn't want her to see.

Sometimes you have to keep things back for their own good - they'd get the wrong idea, and wouldn't understand, and it would only lead to trouble that you don't need. I was pretty sure there was nothing in the bag, but with her you never know what might set her off, especially in the frame of mind she was in that night. Oh, I remembered about the fight, of course. It was about those friends of hers, the ones we really don't like but have to go and have dinner with every now and then - Franklin and Jeannie.

She thinks that Jeannie thinks that Franklin thinks that I think that they're a couple of losers and I hate them, whereas I think that she thinks that Franklin thinks that Jeannie thinks she's the better looking of the two of them, and that's what's really bugging her - also that she thinks that I think so too, which I do, because it just happens to be a fact, but it doesn't much matter to me, which she thinks I'm lying about, which I'm not. Or something like that. I was pretty tired in any case, so it's understandable if I was a little fuzzy around the edges. But I wasn't so tired that I couldn't help notice that there were a lot of police cars blocking off the left turn only lane on to Bog Avenue, with their blue and red lights flashing and their radios buzzing with static.

A cop with a flashlight waved me through at the corner, and I thought, woah, there must have been a pretty big accident or something, because Bog Avenue is a major thoroughfare and you don't just go blocking the whole thing off because somebody stalled out or something. I figured I'd turn on the radio just in case I could find out what was happening out there. Well, that's about all there was on the radio at that time.

Apparently, and this is really weird if you ask me, but some guy had gone and kidnapped his girlfriend earlier in the evening - this was out in the Central Valley; I mean it's more than a hundred and twenty miles away. And they came all the way over here, with the cops on their ass the whole way, and then they got off the freeway at the Bog Avenue exit, and turned down our street - I mean my girlfriend's street - and must have driven right by her house. Damn. I mean, what are the odds of that? Then they must've run out of gas or something because they got out of the car and broke into someone's house and were holed up in there right now - just a couple of blocks away - just totally surrounded by cops and then when I heard about it on the news I looked out the window and saw the helicopter hovering overhead and the searchlights from somewhere panning the sky.

The weird thing is it could have been my girlfriend's house they broke into. It could have been anybody's house. From a hundred and twenty miles away. You could never see that one coming. On the news they didn't know if there was anybody home inside that house. They didn't seem to know much of anything. They didn't know who the guy was, or who the girlfriend was, or what was really going on. But how could you really know what the hell was going on in a situation like that? You could get the facts, but you wouldn't really know, if you know what I mean. The last thing I wanted to do that night was kidnap my girlfriend - in fact, I was driving away from her as fast I could without getting caught in a speed trap.

Part One

High Park is a pretty mixed town. It's got a rich part and a poor part and the tricky part sometimes is telling the difference between the two, especially at night. This is because there is so much money in the town that they fixed up the poor part too, so it doesn't look so poor - I mean it's got lots of streetlights, nicely paved sidewalks, clean streets, planted trees, and even the storefronts aren't too shabby, although they are the usual assortment of check cashing lottery selling liquor stores and corner markets. Whereas the richer part has got no sidewalks, hardly any streetlights, and everybody's hidden behind stone walls.

There is a small downtown, but mostly everybody works and shops in College Town, which is only a few miles away. The town itself isn't famous for anything. It started out as a suburb, and it pretty much remained that way. Over the years it had seen its changes of population - the rich part was handed down from one white generation to the next, while the poor part went from Okie to Irish to Black to Hispanic to Laotian and Vietnamese by now. All that really changed in the poor part was the signs on the corner grocery and liquor stores. Lately, though, there had been a housing market boom all over the greater Bay Area, and there were all sorts of better-off people moving into the poorer part, and fixing up the little bungalows that were crowded side by side. On the streets you could see the new For Sale signs and the picket fences blooming, and even smell the paint jobs, while right next door it might be squalor and filth hidden out in the back. It made for certain tensions on the street and in the stores. Are you one of us or one of them?

They call this kind of place a bedroom community, whatever that means. At night there is almost no one on the street, except for the occasional neighbor out walking her German Shepherd, or a drunk, out nursing his beer. It's a sleepy little town. Not too bad a place to raise a child. The schools are said to be okay. The housing prices, though, are getting ridiculous. Well, it's the same all over. That's about all there is to say about the town. You wouldn't even know it existed, except that on the freeway, the Bog Avenue exit sign says Bog Avenue. High Park.' When David Wayne Bailey told Karen Wong to take that exit, she did.

After all, the guy had a gun pointed at her head.

Henry and Valerie Roth, of 314 Seventeenth Street, had been married for eleven years. Almost everything in their house was hers. Henry was away a lot on business, and Valerie kept the home fires burning - literally, in fact. The heater was kept at a toasty seventy eight degrees year round. Valerie couldn't stand to be cold. Her favorite colors were all warm, especially black, her favorite, and she wouldn't eat cold food at all. Nothing less than her version of room temperature would do. Something about the house reminded you of childhood, though the Roth's had no children, and no plans to ever have any. Perhaps it was the wallpaper, a very light blue with tiny white stars, the same wallpaper covering every room except the kitchen, which was white. Or maybe it was the oversized and fluffy furniture, which made their guests feel small and lost and decidedly uncomfortable.

Whenever they had company, which was rarely, everyone would want to be the last to take a seat, and counted themselves lucky if they were forced to sit on one of the simple wicker kitchen chairs. Also, it was crowded. The rooms were small and Valerie had filled them up with lots of beautiful things. She had wood and glass displays in every corner of the living room, each one housing a collection of pretty stone and glass and wooden objects. Paintings and framed photographs were covering each wall of every room - mostly scenes of nature, or still-lifes of flowers or fruit. One by one each thing displayed remarkably good taste. In the aggregate, though, it was way too much.

She spent her days prowling for more, and more, and never knew when to stop. The kitchen was always spotless, as Valerie rarely cooked, and Henry was hardly ever home for meals. A visitor would swear the neatly lined up pots and pans that hung from hooks across the beam had never once been used, and this was probably true for some. Four stools were lined up at the bar, and seemed to never have been moved. The only indication of life in the kitchen was the cat food bowl for Puff, their tiger striped cat, who generally lived outside. Valerie let him in for meals and promptly shooed him out again as soon as he was finished. Occasionally she found him curled up on the bed although she hadn't let him in. Whenever that occurred, she picked him up and tossed him gently out the window. Then she would remove whatever he'd been sitting on and take it immediately to the washing machine out back. Yet Puff was her cat. Henry didn't like the thing at all.

On occasions when the husband was at home, they spent their evenings watching the TV, or rather, he would watch while she pretended to, but actually perused her catalogs and magazines, all the while seething in a rage which had been building up for years. This is how it happened, at nine twenty two p.m., on the evening of December 3rd, that Henry and Valerie Roth were minding their own business, and not talking to each other at all, when some stranger came crashing in by their front door, dragging some unknown girl ahead of him, at gunpoint.

When Chief Inspector Stanley Mole arrived, it was already a mob scene. Sergeant Peterson spotted him on the perimeter and led him in to the hastily formed command center, where Lieutenant Richards was standing with a cell phone holstered loosely on his shoulder. He lit a cigarette and greeted the Inspector.

"Nice night for a walk, eh Stan?"

"Nice night for a walk," Mole replied. It was their standard joke of a greeting. They were gathered behind a mobile rescue van, in front of a bright blue bungalow at the end of Seventeenth near Pine, a dead end in a middle of a nowhere neighborhood. Behind them a phalanx of black and whites were arranged with their red and blue lights flashing and splashing on the puddled streets.

"Made any contact yet?" Mole asked.

"Naah," the Lieutenant replied. "We keep calling, but he just lets it ring awhile, then picks it up just long enough to hang up on us. Oswald over there's still trying."

"Tell him to give it a rest," Mole said.

"Yo, Oz," Richards shouted. "Take a break!" The cop named Oswald shrugged and hooked his radio up in his squad car. There must have been about twenty other cops gathered around, doing nothing. Most of them were standing behind their cars in little groups, chatting. Some were High Park PD, and some were county sheriffs. The rest were CHP.

"So what do we know?" Mole asked.

"Not enough," said Richards. "We've been chasing this guy all night. You know that? All the way from friggin' Sacto."

"How the hell'd he end up here?" Mole was groping around his jacket pocket for a smoke. Richards offered one of his. Mole took it and lit up. He held it tightly in his fist, as if he was trying to keep it going in a hurricane. He took his drags slowly, like someone twenty years his age.

"Go figure," Richards said. "Got off the friggin' freeway, that's how. Made a right, made another, made another, came down Pine, made a left on Seventeenth, all the way to the end. Jumped out, grabbed the girl, busted in the front door. Must've been unlocked."

"Looks quiet enough around here."

"You gotta lock your friggin' door," Richards said. " I don't care where you are. It's the goddman u.s. of a. we're talking about. Friggin' four year olds shoot their dads!"

"So then what?" Mole inquired.

"So then it's you and me and all the rest of us standing out here in the friggin' wet and cold, that's what. Calling the number, letting it ring, him hanging it up. That's it."

"So do we know anything about this guy?"

"Grabbed the girl outside of Sacto, little place called Roseville. Neighbor saw 'em leaving the apartment, noticed the gun, called it in. Got a good look at the car and the plates. CHP got lucky, spotted him getting on the freeway, went after him."

"Any shooting?"

"No shots we know of. None back at the place in Roseville. Nothing on the freeway. We could see he had something pointed at her, though. Made her drive."

"She was driving?"

"Uh huh."

"All the way?"

"Yep."

"Huh." Mole was trying to picture it. The little black Honda was perched in the driveway, halfway in between turned around and smashed against the garage. The driver side door was still open.

"Anybody check out the car yet?"

"No, not yet. Thought it might be too close to the house. Didn't want to spook him. Gimme the word, though, I'll send a couple of guys in there."

"No, not yet," Mole said. There was not enough information to go on. Did the kidnapper know this house? Was it his house? Was there anybody else inside? Who was he and who was the girl? Richards' reply was I dunno' to these and all the other questions he was asked. Mole checked his watch. It was only a quarter past ten. He had a feeling it was going to be a very, very long night.

On the whole, Henry thought, I'd rather be in Singapore. Of course, I'd rather be anywhere than tied up on my own couch in my own living room while some sweaty moron with a gun keeps waving it around and talking nonsense. He tried to shift again to get a little more comfortable. If only I wasn't wearing these stupid Dockers, he thought. They were too big in the back and were all bunched up. He couldn't seem to find the right position. My favorite pants, he thought, are still in Singapore. This was not an unfamiliar longing.

Frequently when he was home in his house with his wife and her things he would wish he was back overseas on a job. Henry was a trade show specialist, what they liked to call a Technical Support Engineer at NGage Technologies, Inc. He spent a lot of his time shuttling around the Pacific Rim, flitting from one show to the next, setting things up, troubleshooting the inevitable glitches, taking things down, and moving on. A regular telecom cowboy. Everywhere he went was a place where he had been before. There were always people he knew who were happy to see him, people he was happy to see. There was always a lot of smiling involved, as he was basically a friendly kind of guy, who was always happy to do whatever it was that the others felt like doing, who would always do the driving, who would buy another round, who would laugh at anybody's joke, who would be there whenever he was needed.

He wasn't much needed at home. Certainly at this moment there wasn't much he could do. He thought that remaining as calm as possible was the best approach. No use saying anything that might upset this whoever he is. And the girl was totally freaked out already. Nothing he could do for her. Seemed like a perfectly nice girl, though. Parents were probably from Taiwan, he thought. He could tell those things. And then there was Valerie. He was sure that she would think of some way she could make things worse - she always did. It was like a gift she had. He didn't even want to glance at her out of the corner of his eye, didn't want to see the expression on her face. He wished that he could make her stop whatever it was she was thinking, just stop, whatever it was. It couldn't be a good thing. He knew her too well for that. But when was the last time she'd done anything he wanted her to do?

It was a very clean house. David had noticed that right away. But there were far too many things in it - carpets, tables, chairs, lamps, paintings, vases, bookshelves, books - there was hardly any room to move in, only narrow pathways through the things. A lot of buildup, he thought. It's probably been years since anyone's made a fresh start around here. The people in the house were exactly what he would expect. Him, early middle aged, quiet, slow, kind of round around the edges. T-shirt. Dockers. Tortoise shell glasses. Stupid looking face.

Undoubtedly a techie. Her, same age but noisier, quicker, trimmer, all in black from shirt to shoes - hair dyed black? or natural? Phony, he decided. He was glad he'd brought along the duct tape, which he'd done in case the push had required a little extra. Now they sat there on their ugly overplush couch, gaping at him like goldfish. The telephone was ringing. Every now and then he picked it up and set it down again. And every time, it started ringing again immediately. Cops, he thought.

'Way too many things in here' he said aloud, to no one in particular. He rubbed his forehead with the hand that held the gun. Karen was standing in the clutter, staring out the window at the blinking lights outside.

'Sit down' he told her. She sat down. The telephone was ringing. Every phone he'd ever heard was ringing in his head. And he had heard a lot of phones. Sometimes when he'd install a line he'd hear a conversation going on, and it always seemed to be familiar. Something about the tone, the topics, the pauses and replies, like one big conversation all the time involving all the world. You could tap into it, plunge into the stream, and if you knew how to listen, you could maybe understand. The house was warm, at least. A little too warm. Gas heat, he thought. He could smell the gas. No one else was in the house. It was small enough that you could cover every room with just a few steps in any direction. There was a clear view to the street out front, from the living room where they were gathered. A wall was partially blocking the view out to the back, but he positioned himself behind the doorway to the kitchen, where he could see his captives and the front and back doors too. Ringing again. He picked the telephone up, and set it back down in its cradle.

'No kids?' he asked, and Valerie shook her head. It seemed to David that she wasn't scared enough. The husband, he was docile and resigned, and that was good. Karen was almost unconscious, which was fine. He hoped she wouldn't remember too much about this. They'd have to work it out later. Valerie was watching him like he was a goddamn TV show. He pointed the gun at her. She didn't look away.

'Bang', he said. That ought to keep her quiet.

It wasn't long until the circus came to town, led by the ubiquitous Caitlin Carpenter of KTVV-TV. She and her newsvan had every angle covered, literally. The other stations' newsvans were stuck behind hers, and she wouldn't let even the FBI trained negotiator's car through at first. Evan Johns, the negotiator - familiar to viewers everywhere as an ever popular pundit - pushed his way through the mass of cables, and soon planted his trademark cane near the foot of Chief Inspector Stanley Mole.

'Got here pretty quick', Mole murmured, half to himself.

'Not really' Johns replied, 'traffic was a bitch. Actually they called me in an hour ago, told me to get in the car and tool around the freeway till the son of a bitch decided where to land'.

'Son of a bitch got a name yet?' Mole inquired.

'Bailey', Johns consulted his notepad. 'David Wayne, 29. Lives in the town of Roseville, out near Sacramento. Originally from Reno, Nevada. Delightful son of Henry and Rosalie Bailey - high school teachers both - and beloved kid brother of one Amelia Brosius of Modesto. Works for The Phone Company.'

'AT&T?' Mole asked.

'That's what I thought', Johns replied, 'but no. Actually is something called The Phone Company - do installation, service, maintenance. Our friend David works the lines'.

'Gets around then', Mole half-said.

'Seems to know the victim' Johns informed him, slyly. Mole got the impression that Johns was holding out on him.

'How come nobody's telling me this stuff?' Mole said.

'Told everyone to wait so's I could fill you in. She's an acquaintance of our friend, at least. Not sure what else, if anything. In any case, he's been seen before in her vicinity. Put it that way for now.

'And she is?' Mole waited for more details to come trickling down his way.

'Karen Sylvia Wong' Johns said. '26, single, roommate, cat, Honda, which we see before us even now. Works for Federated out of Sacramento. Sales and Marketing, they tell me'.

'Huh', Mole said, 'so she gets around too'.

'Meaning?'

'Never know who people meet or where'.

'Oh' Johns said, glancing at Mole as if really noticing him for the first time. Mole had a reputation for muttering and making people wonder what the heck he was talking about. One thing Evan knew for sure about Mole, and it was legendary - he wasn't much of an interrogator. Suspects were always asking him to repeat the question. Meant he probably wasn't going to be much help with this case either.

'Inspector? Inspector?' Caitlin Carpenter had pushed her way into the inner circle and was clamoring to get a comment from the Chief. Mole signaled to Richards to get rid of her.

'Any comment, Inspector?' was the last thing he heard from her as the Lieutenant's man Oswald was escorting her back to her van.

'What else you got?' said Mole.

'People who live here' Johns replied. 'Henry and Valerie Roth. They inside?"

'Appears so' Mole replied. 'Curtains drawn but seems like more than one or two shadows in there'

'Not much on them' Johns said. 'He's got some high-tech gig. She's the happy homemaker. No kids we know of, though."

'Ain't much of a happy home tonight' Mole shrugged, gazing off towards the living room.'We know that much, at least'.

They used to eat lunch in the same restaurant - Monty's down on First Street. That's where he first saw her. David liked the turkey club special with chips and hamburger dills, and coffee with lots of sweetener. Karen he knew liked the avocado omelet, with wheat toast instead of hash browns, and Diet Dr. Pepper. Sometimes she went there with some people from her office. Sometimes she went alone. David had just happened to be in the neighborhood that first time. He had never been to Monty's before. There was a big installation job at the Fourth Fidelity Bank next door. He'd been working hard all day and needed a break.

From the moment he saw her he knew, and sometimes it is like that. When you leave a place and go somewhere else, when you start out on a journey of any kind, you know there is a goal, that something is waiting at the other end, though you may not know what it is. That somebody somewhere is out there. This is one of the wonderful things about life. You will find out when you get there. She was sitting in a corner booth by the front window. He must've passed by her when he came inside but didn't even see her until he was seated at a table where they just happened to put him, in a chair that just happened to have that perfect view. It was nothing that anybody else would have noticed, and even David would have had trouble explaining just what it was.

Something in the way she moved, as the old Beatles song went. Yes, it was exactly like that song. It popped into his head the moment he saw her, and at that moment she was reaching for her glass of Diet Dr. Pepper with her left hand while holding on to the half-folded tabloid with her right. She nearly knocked over the glass but didn't take her eyes off the story while she managed to get the straw to her mouth. It was everything about her. The long dark hair. The slim physique. The tiny black shoes she wore, the dark blue dress, the bright red lips, but mostly it was the way she moved. Later, as he watched her returning to her office in the Federated building, it was the way she walked as well. The phone was ringing again. After awhile, David picked it up and heard Evan Johns' voice say

'David! Lis-' before he put it down again. It wasn't the first time he'd heard his name being spoken, sometimes seemingly at random, on a telephone he just happened to pick up. That kind of thing happens more often than you think. He had first heard Karen's name that way. He knew it was her because he saw her answering the phone in her cubicle. He was halfway into the ceiling, stringing line. It was odd because before he heard her name he hadn't even seen her there, sitting almost directly beneath him, and there was no reason why that name should make him suddenly look down. He remembered her, of course. In fact, she was the reason he had volunteered for this assignment, although he knew the chances of actually finding her inside this huge office complex weren't good. Yet there she was. It was another instance of the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow refusing to be denied And so it couldn't have been an accident that his light-pen happened to fall from his shirt pocket directly onto her desk.

'Whoops' David said. The pen startled Karen as it landed on some papers with a sharp crack.

'Sorry about that' she heard a voice say from above. She looked up and saw a head with a sheepish grin peering down from the ceiling.

''I'll come down and get it' David said.

'That's okay' Karen said, 'I can hand it up to you'. She picked it up and tried to stand on her chair but it swiveled and she nearly lost her balance.

'Just a minute' she said, getting down off the chair, and considering the alternatives.

'You could toss it to me' David said, and one of his arms appeared out of the opening, reaching down. Karen tossed the light pen but it didn't nearly reach him, and only landed on the floor. She bent to pick it up, and tried to throw it again, with similar results. By this time both of them were laughing.

'Just don't tell me I throw like a girl' Karen said.

'It's okay, really', David said. 'I'll stop by later and get it when I'm through with this'.

'Okay' Karen said, and set the pen on her desk and watched while David disappeared, crawling through the ceiling, pulling telephone cable behind him. A little while later he did stop by, and managed to have a brief conversation with her while retrieving the pen. She mentioned again her lack of throwing ability, and David saw an opportunity to ask if she liked baseball, which she did. He followed that by mentioning that his brother-in-law worked for the Modesto A's, and if she liked, he'd be happy to take her to a game sometime. She said maybe. He gave her his card and said she could call him anytime. Afterwards he was happy all day, as if he had seen the promised land. He knew it was a good beginning. He was especially pleased with the baseball angle, because it would give him a great opportunity to show his sister that he really was a typical guy, no better or worse than anybody else. She had never thought much of him, and yet he obviously had more skills and intelligence than Charlie, that moron husband of hers. When they were young, she would never stop scolding him about not living up to his potential, about selling himself short, about him being smarter than he thinks, about how he ought to go to college, ought to get into a profession, ought to do this and do that, until it was clear to him that unless he did these things he would never measure up and would never be good enough for her - which put her in the same category as his parents. He would show all of them someday, but that wasn't the important thing to him now. Karen was.

Henry, on the other hand, had a way with women. He didn't know why and never thought about it much. When other men asked him about it, he would shrug and say 'people are nice to people who are nice to them', and decided that was probably the reason. Other men thought it was because he was pretty much unattractive to women, considering that he was a little too heavy, a little too short, a little too bald, and not especially intelligent or interesting, and that would make him safe to be around, and actually all of those things contributed to his popularity instead of working against it. Whatever the reasons were, he was never at a lack for female companionship, and this talent, if you will, followed him all over the globe. Henry was rather proud of the fact that he could get practically any woman to accompany him practically anywhere. But he didn't have to. His job took him to them instead. Whether it was Taipei or Singapore, Tokyo or even Frankfurt, Henry had female friends in every city that hosted a telecommunications trade show. There was always someone meeting him at the airport, putting him up at her house, driving him around town, and it was part of Henry's talent that these women's husbands and boyfriends not only didn't mind, but were nearly as happy to see him as the women themselves were. He kept his own marital problems to himself.

Everyone knew that he was married. They even knew that her name was Valerie, and that she was an interior designer, and that they lived in California, but that was all. He had no photographs of her to show around, which was remarkable because Henry was famous for taking pictures of practically everybody else. Friends joked that it was his calling in life, to meet everyone in the world and have his picture taken with them. Henry would laugh along with the joke, and then say,' but seriously now, it's because I love you guys'. A short sentimental moment would follow, but then quickly the laughter resumed when somebody ordered up another round. The truth was that he had no use for Valerie, and she brought no joy into his life. There was nothing, really, and no reason why they were still together, except inertia. His feelings towards her had taken such a turn in recent years that she was not only the only person in the world he really didn't like, but he poured all of his potential dislike of anybody else into his dislike of her. Just sitting there in the same room with her was enough to make him queasy. He didn't even like the fact that she had touched the clothes he was wearing, even if just to put them in the washing machine. There were times he would actually get up, shower and dress, then go to his office and shower and dress again, but this time in clothes he kept secretly at the office, which he would send out to the laundry after changing back to go home in the evening.

Henry chalked it all up to what he called 'the price you pay', though he would never ever talk about it with anyone. All of the good things in his life - and every other little thing in it was very good indeed - was due to the fact that he paid this price. He sincerely believed in that. And he felt that as long as he kept paying the price, that nothing else bad could ever happen to him. This superstition lived in the very back of his mind, and never made its way into the open. It was a comfort to him, and helped him endure the hours he had to spend in her company. She would just sit there, and he would just sit there, in that hot little house, both steaming. He knew she could see right through him. He knew she could read his mind. He knew she hated him as much as he hated her. It was the perfect stalemate.

From the start, Valerie was just pissed off, but this was almost her natural state lately. Ever since she'd found the thing she'd been on the verge of exploding. And him just sitting there like a piece of wet toast. After all the crap I have to put up with, she said to herself, and now this too? Sure, the creep had a gun, so you pretty much had to do what he said; let the little bitch tie them up with tape; watch the creep go pacing back and forth; sit there in her own damn house while the cops outside just stood around and did NOTHING. Well, they kept trying to call the house. Probably got some expert talker out there. Probably huddling over strategy right now. Where the hell did these people come from? What the hell were they up to? Valerie and Henry knew less about the situation than practically anybody else in the area, and it was happening in their house. The house was the only thing she had left. Certainly the marriage had been less than nothing for years, and the few friends she still had were people she'd admit she despised, if pressed. Well, anyone who liked her husband had to have something wrong with them. He was such a ... fill in the blank, she said to herself. Even now, just sitting there. Hasn't even said a word. She at least had shouted at the intruders when they first came storming in, not that it had done any good. The creep had just ordered her to shut up and sit down. She was too angry to think clearly about the situation. It was all too much. The bitch. The creep. The fill in the blank. Her wrists were hurting already. She had to pee. The telephone kept ringing. She was thirsty. Yet she wasn't frightened.

'I'm thirsty' she said.

'Shut up' David told her.

'It's not fair' she said.

'Shut up' he repeated. The bitch was staring at her now. Valerie made a face at her. Stuck out her tongue. The bitch looked away. Henry, meanwhile, was trying to be invisible, and was succeeding.

'He just keeps hanging up' Johns said. 'We're not going to get very far like this'.

'Gonna be a waiting game' said Mole.

'A friggin' cold one!' Richards added. The three men were huddled together in the street, trying to stay warm through the heat of their cigarettes. It had started to rain again, and the wind was picking up.

'Gotta wonder about these guys' Richards said. 'Why you gonna kidnap your girlfriend? Makes no friggin' sense.'

'You're saying that a criminal's gotta be sensible?' Mole asked him.

'No, I mean, say he ain't no criminal. After all, we got nothin' on this guy, am I right? Nothin' previous?'

'You're right' Johns agreed. 'Nothing but a parking violation'

'So it's a man-woman thing'.

'Now you're saying that a man woman thing has gotta make sense' Mole said.

'But come on, what's he gonna do? Kill her? Coulda done that already. Let her go? Coulda done that too. No way out of it now.'

'He doesn't know what he's gonna do' Mole said. 'The guy just did something stupid and now he's stuck. Jumped in with both feet first, and found out he can't swim.'

'I'm calling again' Johns said. 'Sooner or later he's gonna wanna talk.' The phone rang fourteen times before it was picked up.

'David. Listen. I'm with the FBI. My name is fuck, he hung up on me again'

'Son of a bitch'. Richards said, 'I'm really starting to hate this bastard'. Mole knew that Johns' approach was never going to work, but he considered the chain of command, and didn't give the same advice to Johns he'd given to Oswald earlier in the evening. Let Johns do his thing. Mole would get his chance. It was a waiting game in more ways than one. Johns was predictable. Once you'd caught his act on TV there was nothing else to expect. The calm demeanor. The know-it-all expression on his face. Just waiting to have the last word on everything, every time. Probably rehearsing tomorrow's appearance on Good Morning Bay Area already. The Inspector knew about Johns, but Richards never failed to surprise him. How could the guy be so innocent after all this time, still expecting bad guys to be reasonable, to have reasons, to think and act like normal people do? Mole had been on the force for more than twenty-five years, beginning on the street, then working his way through burglary, arson, vice, and homicide. Now he had his choice of cases, being the Chief Inspector. Everything major came through him. If he decided to deal with it personally, then he did. Otherwise he passed it on. It was cases like this that most intrigued him. When someone committed a seemingly senseless deed, when they were so obviously out of their gourds, just by the mere fact of their action, that was when Mole got interested. Most of the time, he had to admit, the cause was sheer stupidity.

There were a lot more stupid people, who did a lot of incredibly stupid things, than most of us would like to admit. It was like one of those polls the media was always taking, where it turned out that fifty percent of the population didn't believe that men had landed on the moon, and it makes you look around at every other person you see and wonder, is that guy one of them? Is that guy someone who thinks he's been abducted by aliens? It was because he'd seen so much of this stupidity, that he couldn't be like Richards and expect any more from anyone. Yet he still had some faith. And every now and then he'd had the chance to reach someone, and make a difference in their life. At this stage in his career, it was the only thing he hoped for. The man inside that house was obviously desperate, and a desperate man is a dangerous man. He is also a vulnerable man. Mole was already getting an idea.

David was trying to get a clear picture of the situation in his mind, but it wasn't easy, with the constant ringing of the telephone, the increasingly unbearable heat in the stuffy little house, the woman with the foul mouth over there on the couch, and trying to make sure that Karen was okay. He kept offering her something to drink, or something to eat, and asking if she was all right, but all she would do was nod or shake her head a little and stare at one of the few empty spots on the wall in front of her. He didn't know what was going on with her. She was like catatonic. As for the rest of it... He knew it couldn't last. A few hours more, perhaps. Sooner or later, something would have to change. Could they make a run for it? He had scoped out the back yard through the kitchen window, and seen he was surrounded. He could make a dash, but not with Karen, and he wasn't going to leave her like this. The fresh start wasn't just for him, but for both of them, together. He knew it was something that she understood, although he was beginning to doubt that she was ready for it. They had discussed it the day they had lunch together at Monty's. This was a week or so after the encounter with the light-pen. He had noticed her leaving for lunch, and on the chance that she was going to be alone, had followed her to the restaurant. If she had been with company, he would have backed away, but she was by herself - another stroke of luck. He caught up with her near the entrance and they exchanged greetings. If she hadn't liked him at least a little, she wouldn't have accepted his offer to treat. And they had a very nice conversation that day, covering a lot of ground. He talked perhaps a bit too much about himself. Later he berated himself for not always asking about her. Women like that, he reminded himself. Talk about her. Ask about her. But she also talked about herself. She was such a nice young woman. Extremely friendly, and kind as well as beautiful. She was also very happy. She kept talking about her nieces and her little nephew. You could tell she was a good person. David felt an enormous tenderness for her developing inside him, and a desire to protect her. Someone that sweet could not survive for long in this world, David thought, without someone to shelter her. He didn't talk about that, but he talked about the way things happen in life, the way things tend towards complications, until there's too much buildup and then there has to be a new beginning and a cleansing of the old. It's the theory of critical mass. That's what Karen said when she agreed with him. A natural law of physics. So he knew she understood. But now the cops were all around and this was becoming a brand new critical mass, when all he had wanted was the new beginning. He knew they'd keep calling until he talked to them. What did they expect him to say? It briefly occurred to David that the cops outside had no idea who he was or who Karen was or what he wanted or what all this was all about. He also realized that he didn't know who his captives were, not even their names. It had been an hour and a half so far. David had to figure out what to do. Then he realized that the cops didn't care who he was or who Karen was or what he wanted or what all this was all about. As far as they were concerned, it was a guy with a gun holding hostages. Would they storm the place? Not until they'd talked to him first. He knew that much from TV shows. Would they use tear gas then? After he talked to them it was a distinct possibility. They would come in firing after that. But not until he talked to them. Then I won't talk to them, he decided. That would be the plan for now.

Karen's problem began the day she gave him her number. It didn't seem like a bad idea at the time. He was interesting enough, and pretty good looking, too; in fact, she was definitely attracted to him. He was tall and solidly built, had a country-western-singer-type hard-yet-sensitive face, and grayish-green eyes which seemed to have a gentleness in them. He spoke softly and about unusual things. Most of the men she met were in the industry, and prattled on and on about connectivity, interoperability, marketability, and other such things. In her line of work it was subtly understood that no one really knew what anyone else was talking about, and no one was going to give the game away, because they all made too much money, and got to travel and have serious sounding titles on their business cards. It was like a huge international tea party. Talking to David was like visiting another dimension. He saw a different side of things. The first real date they had went well, she thought. Nothing much, just dinner and a movie. She liked it that he took her to a plain old-fashioned type of diner, not unlike the place they'd first had lunch together. She really liked simple food and unpretentious places, and he seemed to guess that about her. He'd brought her roses too, red roses; as if he knew her soft spot. The whole evening was one of him trying to be on the behavior she would like, and she could see him shifting and adjusting to everything she said and did. If she hesitated for a second at the door, he quickly moved to open it for her. If she seemed to lean towards the seat near the window, he stepped back to take the other one. She enjoyed being the center of his attention. The movie was a light-hearted story about a pack of cute little kids who got lost in the big city and ended up rescuing a bag lady who turned out to be an heiress who was really the long-lost grandmother of the cutest little kid. Enough to make you laugh at the appropriate moments and cry a little on cue. David responded in the typical way, which was something else she approved of. She valued the normal above all else. Nothing weird, thank you very much. The rest of the evening, David continued in his gentlemanly manner, properly escorting her home and seeing her to the door. No kiss or attempt at a kiss, just a friendly 'good night' and a 'see you again soon'. He was the perfect cowboy. Karen had a thing for cowboys, and flowers, and babies, and kittens, and the novels of Ayn Rand. Afterwards, he started calling. He called the very next night and asked her out again, and she made some excuse because she didn't like rushing things. She figured he would get the message. She preferred to take things one small step at a time, and actually, for Karen, her pattern consisted of such very tiny steps that only a couple of guys had ever had the patience to persist . Her roommate, Kristi, was always teasing her about it.

'How are you ever going to get a husband that way?' she'd say, and Karen wanted to 'get' a husband, and she wanted to be married, and she wanted to have children, but she always assumed 'she'd know' when the guy was the right guy and the time was the right time, and she rarely doubted it would happen eventually. David was making mistakes, though. She had a very definite procedure and he was stomping all over it. He was being too persistent, and that put her off. He was calling her every night, which at first was flattering, but soon became obnoxious. It seemed the phone was always ringing, and Kristi and Karen had to stop answering it. David left short, awkward messages, saying little.

'Just calling to say hi'.

'Just wondering how you're doing...'

'Just calling to see if you want to go out this Friday'.

'Just calling to see if you're okay'. Karen knew that she would have to give him 'the talk', but in order to do that, she would have to see him face to face, so she put it off for a little while, which only made matters worse. After a couple of weeks she bit the bullet and agreed to meet him for dinner. She gave him the talk. She didn't like being rushed. She didn't like feeling pressured. She liked to go slow. Very very slow. He couldn't keep calling her every day. He couldn't keep stopping by the office to chat. He would have to cool it, back off, settle down, take some time off, give her some space and let things take their natural course. He was apologetic and seemed to understand. He hadn't meant to bother or upset her. It was just that he liked her so much. He agreed to do things her way, and for a week he didn't call even once. When he did call again, she said she didn't want to go out with him anymore. That wasn't fair, according to David. Wasn't he playing by her rules? Now she was the one who wasn't. He seemed to think that she owed it to him to go out with him, like she was in his debt. Karen had been through similar situations before, as had Kristi, and her sisters, and all her women friends, really. Just stick to it and don't give in and he'll go away in time. Guys don't like to feel like idiots any more than women like to be pestered by them. Later on they'll look at you with a hurt little puppy expression on their face, but at least by then they've stopped being a pain. It seemed that David was going to follow the usual pattern, too. There were a couple more of the obligatory difficult conversations, this time on the phone; a series of increasingly more pathetic messages on the answering machine; and finally a respite, a period of nearly a month when she didn't see or hear from him at all. At that point, she thought it was finally over. So easy to get into these things. So hard to get out.

I'm gonna tell you how it's gonna be ... you're gonna give your love to me ... if love is love'll not fade away ... if love is love'll not fade away ... All it needs is a little push, he heard somebody say one time, just to get over the hump, and then you're free and clear. Once he realized that, it all became so obvious. Just a little push, to get over the hump, and he knew very well what the hump was. It was Roseville. It was the here and now. It was all of the little things, the incidentals, the accidental people you only happen to know and get mixed up with. Get away from these elements, go somewhere that's fresh and clean, that's free and clear, and make a brand new start. Wasn't it the same way eleven years ago when he left Reno and moved down into the valley? He left those elements behind and made a brand new start, and it worked. They say that every now and then you have to make a sacrifice. Out with the old and in with the new. All the ancient peasant peoples did that all the time. Make a sacrificial thing and break it. Make somebody king and give him all the virgin girls, then one year later, cut his throat and eat his heart. All for the betterment of the community. Had to laugh at that. You see the headlines nowadays - moral standards of the majority - and remember how those standards change in time. So it was a simple matter, really. A little push. That's why he needed the gun. It was the show of force, the sign, the token of the push. When he first got the gun, and that was years ago, it was to use it on himself. Of course he couldn't do that. He made the sacrifice instead, but kept the symbol with him, and now it was becoming something else. That's a good thing, David thought. Transmutation of the soul. And so the push. Once he'd gotten her away from all the little things, the elements, as he called them, then they would make a brand new start. He was thinking Monterey. He liked the sound of that, and he had been there once and thought it was a nice and pretty little town. He had the skills he would need to make it happen. As a professional telephone lineman he could pick up anywhere, especially now in the deregulation era when there were all these little companies starting up all over who thought they'd make a killing in the computer-driven explosion in telecommunications. It all comes down to the connection, he knew, and somebody's got to go out there and do the dirty work of hooking it all together. So that won't be a problem. And he had a little money saved up too, enough to get a place to live and a used but working truck. If she wanted another cat, they could do that too. And she would make new friends, in time, and build up all the residue and incidental conglomeration of stuff that comes with just being alive. You come into the world with nothing and right away there's stuff that just starts glomming on, it sticks to you and keeps accumulating day by day. A little push, 'cause every now and then you have to scrape it off and scrub your body and soul right down to the bone and marrow till its fresh and clean. It was definitely a good thing. The first thing was to get her out of that apartment, where she was shackled with that annoying roommate (Kristin? Krista? Kristine? something like that) who'd just hang up the phone if she answered and it wasn't for her. What kind of person would do a thing like that? Not the kind of roommate you would want to have, he thought, so selfish. And that whiny little cat (Sasha? what kind of name was that?). That whole stupid apartment complex annoyed him, with its one long balcony in common like the deck of a cruise ship or something, and the dinky little swimming pool in back, and that stupid yellow brick wall in front with the pointy iron bars and security gate that never protected anyone. In their new place there would be a real security system that would actually do the job. They would also shed themselves of that creepy neighbor, Gary, who was always leering at the girls and stopping by on some pretense or other - borrowing this, returning that - as if they wanted to see him. Couldn't wait to get rid of that guy, and the whole scene, all of it, was just a pile of stuff that happened to grow and could just as easily not. A little push was all it really needed. Free and clear, starting over all over again. He had thought it through. It was going to be just fine.

Part Two

'Oh my God' was all she could think as she drove her small black Honda through the night. 'Oh my God' and 'Jesus please don't let him hurt me'. The freeway signs meant nothing to her, other than is this where he is going? Is this where he's going to take me? And as they passed them - Davis, Vacaville, Fairfield, Berkeley - the same thing over and over in her mind, just 'Oh my God' and 'Jesus please don't let him hurt me'. She kept trying to distract herself, but it was hard. Her hands were tightly clenched around the wheel, her back straight up, her shoulders drawn in together, and she was already stiffening in pain all over. The gun was usually in his lap. Every now and then he'd put his hand over it for a moment and she would nearly stop breathing. Then he'd forget about it once again. Ever since the cops got on their tail he'd changed. She really didn't want to think about it. I've got to think of something else, she said, I've got to get my mind off this, and at the same time knowing that she ought to be prepared at any moment, just in case she had to make a move. She knew she'd never be ready. She wasn't capable of anything. Birthdays, Karen thought, I have to think about birthdays. My birthday, January Twenty Sixth. My sisters' birthdays, Joie, April Ninth and Celia, May Thirteenth. Joie's Billy will be five on August Twenty Eighth, and Barbara will be three on February Fourth. Granma will be 75 on January Ninth and Granpa will be 79 on February Tenth. Oh, and Celia's Suzie will be one October Fifth. Oh my God, she's only two months old and I might never see her again! No, don't think about that, don't think. The cops were right behind her, one in the fast lane like she was, and others had been filling all the other lanes behind them since around Davis. Are they going to make it worse? She couldn't think of anyway it could end. At first she was sure that he would take her to some woods somewhere and rape her before he killed her. Now she wasn't sure. The cops behind them meant he wouldn't have the time to rape her first. He's going to shoot me, Karen thought. Any time. He could push me out the door and take the wheel. Oh my God. There was traffic now and she was sure the cops would pull in front or somehow force her off the road, and yet they kept their distance. She was staying in the fast lane, and it was almost funny how the cars in front of her pulled over fast and let her through. As if they knew what this was all about. As if they heard it on the radio. Everybody knows what's going on except for me, she thought. Suzie's only two months old. She tried to think about the presents she was going to buy her niece for Christmas. She'd seen the cutest little jumpsuit, and a mobile with Santa's reindeer. You could light them up and make them sing a little song by pushing on the buttons. Each little reindeer had its own little song, and its own special button to push. She was trying to stay on the road. It didn't help that her leg was falling asleep and her arms were getting heavy too. She felt so tense that she could scream at any time. And him just sitting there beside her, like a rock by now. Did he have any idea what he was going to do next? This couldn't be the way he planned it. Planned it, she thought, like he was like a normal person who thought about things. She doubted it. He could do anything at any time, that's all that she could think. I have no idea, she thought. Please Jesus, don't let him hurt me. Please get me out of this. I never asked for anything for myself before.

'Take the bridge' David said suddenly, crushing the quiet.

'What?'

'Take the bridge', he repeated, 'get over to the slow lane now and get on the bridge' Karen turned the signal light on and began to maneuver to the right. It was almost a relief to have something else to think about; the cars she'd have to get around, the distance to the fork in the road, the bridge itself.

'The toll' she said. Now it was David's turn to say

'What?'

'The toll' she said, 'it's a three dollar toll'. David almost laughed. She's worrying about the toll. As if she didn't have anything else to be worrying about. Like our situation. Like how we're going to find our way out of this mess, and into the new life waiting for us on the other side. But he couldn't laugh. Instead he reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. The Highway Patrol had seven cars behind them. There were several others at the Toll Plaza. There was a helicopter overhead. News vans from every major station were following the police. Everyone was all lined up and following their orders. Keep your distance. Don't do anything rash. First do no harm. Karen looked pleadingly at the woman in the tollbooth as she handed her a five, and could hardly keep from crying as the woman calmly handed her a neatly pre-folded pack of two ones. I don't want to die, Karen thought. I just don't want to die.

'Get going', David said. She stepped on the gas, and the caravan started moving again.

At least they haven't broken any of my things so far, Valerie was thinking. But that could change at any time. The guy seemed pretty unstable - well, duh, she said to herself, but that's not what I mean. She meant that he seemed unsteady on his feet, like he could topple over any second, taking with him her grandmother's vase, or the lamp she'd bought at the Perfider auction. If only he would stop the pacing. It was literally making her dizzy and sick to her stomach. And why's he keep twisting his head around like that? Oh, he was looking at the telephone.

"They're gonna call again", she said.

"What?". He twisted around to face her. David was standing behind the overstuffed chair he'd put Karen in, which was facing the couch the Roths were tied up on. Next to the chair - to David's right - was a wooden block table where the telephone sat next to a knockoff Tiffany lamp.

"The police", Valerie said. "Who'd you think that was, calling all those times? They've stopped for now but they're gonna call again."

"It was ringing just now", David said.

"No it wasn't. They haven't called in like twenty minutes", Valerie said. David gave her a look like she was making some kind of joke he didn't understand, like she thought he was stupid or something. Of course it was ringing. It was ringing even now. He picked up the phone and set it back in its cradle. Oh Christ, Valerie said to herself, this is worse than I thought. Now he's imagining things. The psycho bastard's probably schizo or something. Just great, she thought, now I'm stuck here in my own house with a nut case and his chippie, not to mention my stupid useless husband. He's probably checking out the bitch right now. Just his type. She glanced at Henry, who was indeed looking at Karen. She was sitting straight up, looking small and frightened in the oversized chair, her arms on its arms, her feet not touching the floor. Like some stupid little China doll. Valerie had despised her on sight, and hated her more every minute.

"Why don't you spread your legs a little wider", she blurted out at Karen, "my husband's having a hard time seeing your panties!" Karen instantly crossed her legs, and stared at Valerie like she was an escaped crocodile or something. She couldn't assimilate fast enough. Valerie was chuckling at her own little joke - a hard time, right. Henry was trying to pretend he hadn't heard. He was trying to pretend that none of this was happening. But David wasn't amused. He turned and pointed the gun right at her and said,

"Don't you talk to my girlfriend like that! Who do you think you are?"

"Your girlfriend, huh? Then why's she flashing my husband?"

"I am not! " Karen finally spoke up. "What's your problem, lady?"

"What's my problem? Your boyfriend, for starters."

"He's not my boyfriend", Karen said, more quietly, and then, almost whispering, added, "Can't you see that?"

"I don't give a shit", Valerie said, "just cover yourself!"

"Just shut your mouth!" , David said, but he was talking to the wrong person. Nobody tells Valerie Roth to shut her mouth.

"Go fuck yourself", she said.

"Valerie, for chrissakes, please", Henry said, "the guy's got a gun."

"Was somebody talking to you? ", she said to her husband. "I don't think so."

David picked up the phone again, but this time he didn't hear anything. He almost put the phone down by force of habit before he realized how strange it was. He always heard something when he picked up a telephone, some kind of messages coming from somewhere, and ever since he'd been in this house it had been tantalizing him again. Now he listened, and it was a curious silence. He could make out noises in the background, and they weren't circuit noises, so he knew there was someone on the other end of the line. It sounded like voices almost way off in the background, very businesslike, and occasional splashing like speeding cars on a flooded freeway.

'Did he pick up?' Johns abruptly asked, and Mole quickly clamped his hand over the phone. He made a sign for Johns to be quiet. Now that he'd gotten David's attention, he didn't want to mess it up. Before he made this call, Johns had been coaching him on appropriate negotiation tactics, and Mole obediently ignored everything he said. Obviously Johns had had no luck so far, which was why he'd given up, so why should Mole pay any attention to him? Tactics. Text books. Those things only worked in the police academy training labs. In real life, people get killed.

'Who's there?' David finally asked, but Mole didn't answer right away. He took a moment to try and gage the tenor of David's voice.

'Mole' he replied at length.

'What?' David thought he heard a guy say 'mole'. The hell was that?

'Inspector Mole' he repeated. 'Who am I talking to?'

'You know my name' David said. He was pacing again, from the kitchen doorway to behind the couch. He thought he saw Valerie wiggling, and waved the gun in her direction. Valerie lifted her chin since she couldn't give him the finger.

'I'm asking you'

'The other guy knew my name' David said.

'Don't know what your talking about' said Mole. 'Who are you?' Mole had Johns to contend with as David did Valerie. Now Johns was waving his arms and shaking his head and mouthing the words 'no no no'. Mole turned his back on him.

'My name ...' David began to say ' ... is not important.'

'Look' Mole quickly spoke up, 'all I wanna know right now is if everyone's okay in there, all right?'

'They're all right' David said, and Mole nodded in Richards' direction.

'That's good' Mole said, 'and you? You okay?'

'I'm okay' David replied.

'Good' Mole said. For a moment he wished he'd paid at least a little attention to Johns' instructions, because he didn't know what to say or do next. Keep the guy talking? Distract him so the goons could go in? Maybe let the guy make the next move. After all, it was his mess they were all in now.

'Anything I can do for you?' Mole asked, and Johns looked at him like he had gone berserk. What's with this guy? Johns was wondering, senile already?

'You could all go away' David replied, and Mole laughed out loud.

'That's a good one, son. Ain't gonna happen. You know that.'

'It's all I want' David said.

'Well, I can't do that' Mole told him. 'How about door number two?'

'What's that?' David asked.

'You let 'em all go. Then you put your weapon down and come out with your hands in the air. We don't shoot you. Sound like a plan?' David didn't answer right away. He knew the guy was playing with him, but not like he'd seen on a million and one cop shows. The guy wasn't saying the right things. And anyway, he knew the guy knew his name, so why was he lying to him? Why was he pretending not to know the other cop who'd been calling all those other times? And how did he know he had a gun?

'How do you know about my weapon?' He asked, suspiciously.

'I'm looking right at you' Mole said, 'right through the curtains. Unless that's some kind of deformity you got with your hand there.'

'You know who I am'

'So?'

'How come you said you didn't?'

'How come you kidnapped that girl?'

'I didn't kidnap her' David said.

'What a loser!' Valerie said out loud. Henry tried to sink even lower into the couch. She wants to get us killed, he thought. She really does! Me and her together.

'You shut up!' David yelled at her.'I'm not playing around!'

'What's that?' Mole asked.

'I wasn't talking to you' David said, 'it's this stupid woman in here. What do you think this is?' he yelled at Valerie again, 'some kind of game show? I got a loaded gun here, lady!'

'What's going on in there?' Mole asked.

'Gotta go' David said, and he hung up the phone.

'Damn!' Mole yelled, and almost threw the phone at the house. 'God damn mother ' but he gripped it tighter instead, and kicked at a puddle.

'What is it with you?' David was standing between Karen and Valerie, looking down at the latter. 'We got a serious problem here, and you're only making it worse.'

'Oh right' Valerie snapped, 'go ahead and blame me! Like I busted into my own house, tied myself up, and started waving a gun in my own face.'

'Yeah, well that's the way it is now, so you'd better be quiet and deal with it.'

'I gotta pee' she said, squirming on the couch. 'I'm totally uncomfortable and I gotta pee.'

'I don't trust you' David said.

'Oh yeah' Valerie replied, 'like what am I gonna do? Anyways, I'm sure your little karate kid girlfriend here will beat the crap out of me if I make any stupid moves'

'Let her go to the bathroom' Karen suddenly spoke up. 'I have to go too.' David turned and said

'You can go any time. You know that'.

'Let her go first' Karen said.

David wasn't sure what to do. He didn't want to untie her, because then she might do anything. It was definitely better to have her under control. He could make Karen escort her to the bathroom, but he didn't really trust Karen either. He didn't even want to let Karen out of his sight, let alone Valerie. He backed away from them, towards the bathroom. He wanted to get another look at it, make sure there wasn't an easy way out. He saw there was only a very small window which was fairly well up off the floor, and it opened vertically to possibly a height of one foot maximum. It didn't look like anyone could get through it. Still, he didn't want the cops seeing anyone or talking to anyone or making any kind of signs through there. He told Karen to come to the bathroom, and he made her check and make sure the window was completely closed and locked, which it was. Then he stepped away and told her she could use it. He closed the door behind him, but stood there listening closely.

'I gotta pee' Valerie muttered on the couch.

'You'll get your turn' David said. 'Then will you shut up?'

Valerie didn't answer. After a few minutes, Karen came out of the bathroom and walked back over towards Valerie.

'Can I untie her?' she asked David.

He nodded, not moving. Valerie leaned forward and Karen unwrapped the duct tape slowly. When it was loose enough Valerie nudged her out of the way - she didn't want Karen tearing it off too fast - and left the remaining tape dangling from her wrist.

'Can I go now?' she asked and again David nodded. He was standing guard by the bathroom door, feeling extremely nervous. He really wanted to get past this episode quickly, and wouldn't relax until they were all back in their places once again. Valerie seemed to be taking a long time in there. David was sweating, straining to hear anything unusual. He knocked on the door.

'Gimme a break' Valerie shouted back at him.

David sighed and leaned back against the wall. What was he going to do with these people? At least the man was behaving himself. More than that, the guy was practically invisible, useless. Wonder what she sees in him, David thought. Lively woman like that, vegetable like this. He really hated the weakling kind of guy.

'Hey you' he said to Henry, 'You gotta go too?' Henry just shook his head and didn't speak up.

'Well, you let me know when you do' David told him. 'Looks like we might be here awhile.' Henry was looking at Karen and wondered if she could see the embarrassment on his face - not for himself, but for his wife. He decided he ought to say something, and that this was probably the perfect time.

'I'm sorry about her' he said to Karen , 'I don't know why she says those things' Karen looked at him and shrugged. Valerie was the least of her problems.

'What was that?' David asked.

'Nothing' Henry said.

'Who are you talking to?' David asked him. He didn't want anyone talking to Karen. The last thing he needed was these people causing trouble. Henry slouched back in the couch and didn't reply. Karen looked away, and David turned his attention back to the bathroom door. Finally, he heard the toilet flushing, and shortly after Valerie came out.

'Your welcome' David said. He wasn't sure, but it sounded like fuck you very much' was her response. He smiled as she let Karen wrap the tape around her wrists again at David's command. This time, though, Karen didn't wrap them very tightly.

Mole was trying to get David on the phone again. It was better to be standing there listening to the phone ring than to Evan Johns' reprimands and instructions on proper procedure.

'The guy's got hostages' Johns reminded him. 'Those people have got to be our first priority. You have to bargain for their safety, get him to let them go in exchange for something. The homeowners first, then the girlfriend.' Mole knew that Johns was right, but he also knew that he was dealing with a guy who didn't see things like a normal person would. The hostages weren't even real to him, and until they were it made no more sense to be talking about them than about the nice shiny bricks in the walkway.

'Let me talk to him' Johns demanded. 'You get him to answer the phone and then hand him over to me.' Mole shook his head. He knew that Bailey was not going to talk to Johns. This was a guy who had nothing but contempt for things like standard operating procedures. That's why Mole was trying to mess with him a little, to show him that he too was a man who didn't play by the rules. If Bailey could think that Mole was someone more like himself, then maybe they could get somewhere. Maybe they could make some kind of connection that way, or maybe Mole was just being stupid. He wasn't sure about that himself.

'That you Mole?' he heard David's voice in his ear, and he snapped back into reality.

'Yeah, Bailey, it's me' he said, 'What's going on in there? You're freakin' everybody out.'

'Women had to pee' David explained. 'It's all right now.'

'That's good' Mole replied. 'You gotta take care of the women. That's what a man's for.'

'What?' David said.

'Nothin'' Mole told him, while telling himself to cut the crap. First you have to find out how this particular maniac thinks. You can't assume it.

'They're okay' Bailey said. 'Don't you worry about them'

'I'm worrying about you' Mole said. 'How's it gonna be? This is not the happiest circumstance you got going on for yourself tonight'

'Not the way I planned it, that's for sure' David said, and Mole thought, what? this guy had a plan? Hate to know what it was.

'What brought you here to High Park?' Mole asked

'You did!' Bailey replied. ' Wasn't my idea to have a million cops on my tail. We were just taking a trip.'

'And the gun?'

'Just something I needed. Like a car's gotta have gas. Like a flashlight needs a battery. It takes one thing to make another thing happen.'

'You gotta explain it to me' Mole said. 'I don't follow you'

'Don't matter if you do' Bailey said. 'Only thing that matters is what you're gonna do now.'

'What are you gonna do?'

'I'm not going anywhere for now' Bailey said. 'That's for sure. Course if you let us, we'll be on our way. Nobody's business anyway.'

'Is now' Mole said. 'The other guys out here, they wanna cut the power to the house, put you in the dark. Standard operating procedure, you know.'

'Do that' David said. 'and I'll just shoot at whatever moves .'

'That's why I ain't gonna let 'em' Mole said, and motioned to Richards to pull the men back from the pole. He might have gone ahead, depending on David's answer. He was playing it one moment at a time, trying to gage the best way to get into this guy's head, and maybe under his skin. Being like a friend was one option. But he'd be just as happy to blow the guy's brains out.

'You do what you gotta do' Bailey advised. He didn't want to play that good cop game. Mole didn't realized he'd blown it till suddenly all he heard was the dial tone in his ear. Maybe Johns was right, he told himself. Maybe he should be leaving it to the so-called experts.

Valerie wasn't stupid. She knew that Karen had tried to be nice to her, and by being nice was trying to tell her something. The girl wasn't here because she wanted to be. Obviously it was just the maniac, and he must have had a thing about the girl and that's what this was really all about. Karen was pretty much in a daze. She was rocking slightly in her seat, looking very small and cold. Valerie realized that she should be feeling more sympathetic towards her than she was, but she couldn't help it. Just the sight of the girl was making her mad. She was exactly the kind of thing her husband went for. He was probably fantasizing about her right now. What would he be imagining? Valerie had no idea what her husband enjoyed sexually. They hadn't been doing that kind of thing for a long time. Her own fantasies were frightening, so she put them away in the back of her mind. She had never done any of the things she wanted to, so she imagined that the girls her husband went with did them all. She pictured him all sweaty and grunting, his fat ass hovering over one of these tiny little Asian things who pretended to be getting off but were really only looking at their watch and counting the money they'd have coming, so to speak. But why them? What was it about them? That is what she really wanted to know. She had asked him directly once, a couple of years ago, and he had simply denied everything. Claimed he had never been unfaithful. Claimed he was not attracted to that kind. Claimed it was all in her mind. Claimed he only had some friends here and there, which was part of why he enjoyed the traveling, along with the job itself. Claimed he didn't know what she was talking about. But she knew and she had seen the evidence for herself, no matter how he lied. It wasn't fair. Every other week or so he got to go off to some so-called exotic location. The only thing exotic about it to her was the different whores he had in every port, and him, always so happy to be jetting off to be with them. She wondered what they did in the meantime, between his visits. No doubt they had a hundred American businessmen they slept with every month. And what she did in the meantime, between his returnings home - nothing. not a god damned thing, and when he was home, nothing then too. How could she be expected to be sympathetic towards this one, having it barge right into her own home, waving it right in her face - look at this, this is what gets him off, this is what he likes, not you.

It was already getting to be a long night. Almost midnight, and the standoff continued. There was no way to get to Bailey without endangering the hostages, and that was strictly out of the question. Outside, in the rain, the Inspector was pacing as steadily as the kidnapper was inside. It was almost eery the way the two were mirroring each other. Or at least this was the angle that KTTV-TV reporter Caitlin Carpenter was rehearsing into the microphone. She had managed a decent vantage point behind the cops yet still in front of the house, with a good view of the curtains and the shadowy figures behind it. It was all news all the time, and the news was not very good. In Modesto, a KTTV-TV reporter had gotten a hold of Amelia Brosius and her husband, Charlie. They had a lot to say. David was always a difficult person, stubborn, willful, had to have his own way. It didn't surprise them much, because he'd never been popular, certainly not with girls, but they didn't know he had a gun. Charlie would have expected him to use a knife, that would have been more in character. He'd once waved one around at the dinner table when the issue of a professional career was raised. He's a very proud man, Amelia added, gets his back up easily. They'd better go easy if they don't want nobody gettin' hurt. In Sacramento, a KTTV-TV reporter was camped on the doorstep of Mei Wong's house. The old woman was inside being comforted by her other two granddaughters. Nobody was making any statements at the moment. A visibly shaken brother-in-law had pleaded with Bailey to let Karen go, and asked for everybody else to pray. That was decent footage. There was bound to be more if they waited it out. In Reno, a KTTV-TV reporter was tracking down Henry and Rosalie Bailey, but they seemed to be out of town. At least the lights were off and no one was answering the doorbell, or picking up the telephone. Maybe they were there, or maybe not. It was worth keeping the reporter on the scene, just in case. He had already found out some interesting information about them. Seems they both worked as high school teachers, in the same high school. More than that, it turned out to be the same high school that one of the hostages - Valerie Roth - had gone to in her youth. In a bizarre twist of fate, Rosalie Bailey had been Valerie's tenth grade Spanish teacher, and Valerie had gone on to marry a man named Henry. Also of note was the fact that Valerie had gotten a B in Spanish that year. And now she was being held hostage by her former teacher's wayward son, seventeen years and several hundred miles away. Not a bad angle at all. Back in High Park, Caitlin Carpenter was doing her best to keep the patter flowing on and on in this especially dark and dreary night, when the only sounds were the splashing of the raindrops and the incessant ringing of a dozen different telephones.

Henry had to admit it to himself - the girl was definitely hot. He'd been sitting there for hours now, looking straight at her most of the time, and only finally now could he admit it to himself. Maybe it was because his wife was sitting there on the couch right next to him, and her very presence was usually the ultimate antidote to any form of arousal. Maybe it was because there was a lunatic waving a gun around and muttering to himself. Maybe it was because the girl was obviously terrified and exhausted. Maybe that's why it had taken him so long to get to this point. Or maybe those were all just reasons why he was now getting so excited. His usual kicks were far more tame than this. Meet some girl at a trade show booth. Flirt a little. Pretend he can barely speak the language. Take her out to lunch. Buy her something pretty. Take her for a spin in his fancy rental car. Take her shopping. Spend some time at the beach if it's a nice, hot day. Let her show him a cute little place she knows. Offer to do a favor for a friend. Smiles all around. No touching, please. You're a nice guy, Mista Roth. I like you, Henry. Have a photograph taken by some passerby. Put it away with the others, when he gets home. Every now and then he'd find a drinker. She'd get loaded and let him do her. Didn't happen too often, and when it did, he didn't enjoy it much. He didn't like women who drank, but he didn't know how to get a sober woman to sleep with him. He would throw away any photographs that were taken of him with one of the drinkers. He didn't want to remember them, and didn't count them among his friends. He wouldn't look them up the next time he was back in town. Henry didn't like to drink, but that had never stopped him. The first time he had sex with Valerie the both of them were lit. He remembered it clearly. Rum and Cokes. His best friend's college graduation party. An upstairs bedroom. Puking and fucking and laughing a lot. Somebody pounding on the door. This used to be a happy memory, but for the last several years it had just made him sick. Sometimes he would joke with his friends and himself that if it hadn't been for alcohol he never would have ended up married, and whether that was true or not ( the truth was that he ended up married because he was totally passive and it was all her doing ), it was the reason he kept trying to stop drinking, and every time he found himself in bed with one of the drunks, it was like Valerie all over again, in a different shape and size and color. So usually he settled for being the nice guy, and having the photograph, and knowing he had been spending time in the company of a woman he would really have liked to, you know. Only then, if she had, then she wouldn't have been that kind of woman, now would she? Henry knew he was pathetic, and hated himself for it. But he was also somewhat reconciled by now, and was able to forgive himself, and explain it away, like a man with his stash of pornographic magazines; he could enjoy it as long as nobody else knew about it. He was enjoying Karen that way now, enjoying those thin smooth legs, her long black hair, her pretty, even dainty, little face. How he would like to take her for a spin right now, in some fancy rental car, and maybe spend some time at the beach, on a nice, hot day. He would only hope that she didn't turn out to be a drinker.

I'm through playing games, David told himself. Stupid cops. They don't even know what's going on. It's probably just another day at the office for them. Hi honey, I'm home. My day? Same old, same old. Think they know it all, seen it all before. Cop sounded bored on the phone. Bored! At least they've all shut up in here for a change. Valerie was staring at one of her nicely framed paintings on the wall behind the front door. Henry was staring at Karen's thighs. Karen had her eyes closed - was she asleep? That'd be okay, David thought. The house seemed even warmer, warmer by the minute. David had scanned for the thermostat and found it. He thought about turning it down, but didn't, and didn't know why. The gun was slippery in his hand, he was sweating so much. Funny thing, though; his other hand was dry. For several minutes, no one had moved or made a sound. David had a little time to think, but then the phone was ringing again. He picked it up. Nobody there. Or was it Mole again, playing his little game? David heard the dial tone, steady but not monotonous. It was almost musical to him. Somewhere in the background he could hear some fuzziness, and a tiny, high pitched squealing. Carrier waves. Modulation. Interference. Static. He had spent a lot of time with the dial tone playing in his head. Usually he would pick up something from it, something he could think about. There were messages on the wires, and they always spoke of the moment. He had a theory about that. More than a theory, really, it was the truth about the way things are. It was more like a revelation. Every moment has its essence, and you can catch it, if you know how, and you can decipher it, if you know the code. It had happened many times before. The first time he recognized it was the day that changed his life forever, and he knew that he must have been hearing it for some time, that it was all right there before him and he'd missed it, until that day. He had heard something in the dial tone. And then something else. Not words, but communications. They had led him to Sacramento. They had led him to the job. They had led him to Karen. They had taught him about the sacrifice, and the cleansing. He couldn't tell you how it had done this. He didn't really know how himself. It was a different kind of knowing. And now he was hearing nothing but a kind of grainy interference, when he was most in need. In his ear the level of noise and static was increasing steadily, and he put the phone back in its cradle. For the first time that day, David began to understand that things had really gone wrong for him, and it was not going to turn out the way he had planned.

Henry couldn't help himself. He had to get closer to the girl. Just looking at her was driving him crazy. He realized that the situation was dangerous, and that he was not going to get what he really wanted, but he was ready to settle for anything. He had to know what she smelled like. What it felt like to be next to her. He wanted to hear her voice again. She looked like an angel, dozing off in the big comfy chair. What a look on that lovely little face! So innocent, so sweet. He couldn't imagine how she could have ever had anything to do with this guy. He couldn't believe she did. He must have grabbed her off the street. The guy was getting weirder by the minute. Talking on the phone to nobody. Picking it up when it wasn't even ringing. Listening intently, like there was a slow-talking God on the other end of the line. For a second, Henry could feel Valerie's eyes on his face. He always knew when she was looking at him. There was a special heat in her glances, like some kind of flesh-burning laser beam. It's the She again, he thought. The She. And then he realized that if he couldn't get closer to Karen, maybe he could make her get closer to him.

'Excuse me' he said. Nobody seemed to hear him.

'Excuse me' he repeated in a louder voice.

'Terrific' Valerie said. 'On top of everything else, now you'.

'What now?' David had only heard Valerie, and turned towards her. She gestured her head towards her husband.

'It's him' she said.

'Excuse me' Henry said for the third time, now that he had David's attention.

'What?' David said, 'What do you want?'

'I need to go to the bathroom now' Henry said. David just scowled at him, and didn't move away from the wall he was still leaning back against.

'You let them go' Henry whined.

'Jesus Christ' David said, rubbing his head with his free hand. He had totally forgotten about Henry. The guy had made zero impression on him. Loser. Nothing. Invisible. It'll be all right, he told himself. This guy won't do anything. He walked over behind Karen's chair, and gently put his hand on her head. She nearly jumped out of her seat in shock.

'What is it?' she shouted, and when she realized it was his hand on her hair she felt sick and tried to squirm away. He let his hand fall away, and try to speak gently to her.

'I need your help again' he said. She didn't answer. So he gestured towards Henry and asked her to unwrap his hands. She didn't get up right away, but after a few moments she did, and moved over to the couch. Henry turned his back to her and Valerie as she knelt down between them. He could still feel the beam on the back of his head, scorching. She had seen through him again. Don't think about that, he told himself. He felt Karen's hands on his as she slowly unwound the duct tape. She even grazed his forearm with her wrist at one point. Her hair was falling only inches away from the back of his head. He could feel her there. He couldn't help himself. He knew he was getting aroused. He knew it might show. Still he had to take a chance, and when she had loosened the tape enough, he deliberately took her hand in his for a second - not even a second - not enough time for the gesture to be taken as anything but an accident. He let go and got up, not even turning around to look at her, not even saying thank you. He didn't dare give anything away. He just moved, half bent over, straight to the bathroom and closed the door as rapidly as he could. Once inside, he sighed with relief and excitement. She had smelled so good. My God, he told himself. What is wrong with me? He felt like a boy again, caught in the act. They were outside waiting for him to return. He was aching inside, but didn't dare act on his impulses. Since he didn't really have to go to the bathroom, he figured he would just go through the motions. He lifted the toilet seat and sat down. He tried to remember the moment, but already he was losing the scent. The bathroom stank of the soaps and shampoos that reeked of his wife. It was enough to make him gag. He opened the window and stuck his head outside to breathe. He hated this bathroom, and avoided it as much as possible. He used the old toilet in the garage whenever he could get away with it. It smelled like old stale piss, but at least it didn't smell like her. He got up and flushed the toilet, knowing he would have to go back out there. He really wanted to stay and think about Karen, but it wasn't going to be possible. Through the window he could hear the sound of radios outside. This was really happening. It had already been a very long night, and yet it was still early.

Who knew how long this standoff would continue? We could be up all night, he told himself. Oh well. Time to go and face the music. He pretended to be washing his hands, and then headed for the door, but as he reached it, he suddenly smiled,and realized that when he got back out there, she was going to have to tie him up again. Now that was something to look forward to.

Just as David thought, Henry presented no threat to the situation. He seemed almost happy to resume his position on the couch. The funny thing was how the wife seemed to be more enraged at her husband than at him. Imagine being married to that, David said to himself. There was nothing he could do for Karen. He kept asking if she was thirsty or hungry and she just kept saying no and shaking her head. She collapsed back into the overstuffed chair and tried to curl up in it, but she couldn't get comfortable, especially in the too short skirt she was wearing, which she was regretting, not for the first time that night. She kept tugging at it, but that didn't help. Finally she gave up, and tucked her knees up in front, and tried to rest again. David watched her little struggle, then looked away. He would have to make it all up to her someday. Some other day.

Tonight was all a lost cause. He felt calmer inside. Gradually, everything was becoming clear. He had only needed time, and a little hint from fate, to start seeing the scene as it was. I have to go with it, he said to himself. It's not my game alone anymore. There are other players now. Other people have to make their moves, despite themselves. They may not want to be here, but here they are. I put them here. I made it happen. He felt he already knew what was going to happen next, and that the rest would come to him in time. He reached over to the end table, and picked up the telephone, this time before it had a chance to ring.

'Bailey' he announced.

'Hi', the voice on the other end seemed surprised. It was a woman. David had been expecting Mole.

'Caitlin Carpenter' she introduced herself, 'KTTV-TV. Are you David Bailey?'

'No, I'm the other Bailey' he sarcastically replied. 'Do the cops know you're calling me?'

'No sir', she said, 'it's just you and me'

'And your viewing audience'

'I swear', she said. 'Anyway, do you think I'd let you go on live?'

'Guess not', he said, ' I might say a dirty word or something'

'My point exactly' she said.

'So what is it you want?'

'That's what I want to know from you' she replied, 'that's what everybody wants to know. Why'd you do it? I mean, come on, kidnapping your girlfriend, what's up with that?'

'You wouldn't understand' he said.

'I'm sure' she told him. 'Did you really think you'd get away with it? What were you gonna do anyway? Do you even know?'

'Who are you really?' He asked. ' You sure don't sound like any kind of journalist I ever heard of'

'You mean you never seen me? Channel Three Reports! Caitlin Carpenter. Stockton? We've got you covered!' David set the phone on his shoulder and looked around the room.

'Any of you ever heard of a TV reporter named Caitlin Carpenter? Channel Three Reports?'

Valerie and Henry shrugged and shook their heads. Karen didn't move.

'You really don't know who I am? Don't you watch TV?'

'No' he said. 'It's just a lot of crap that nobody needs in their head'

'Whatever' she said. 'So tell me, really. You're not going to hurt her, are you? She seems like a really nice girl. Got a wonderful family, too.'

'No' he said, 'I would never hurt her'

'That's good' she said, ''Cause really, that would not be nice'

'So who says I'm nice?' he asked.

'Everybody' Carpenter replied. 'Co-workers, the roommate, neighbors. Maybe a little pushy, from what I hear, but not a bad guy, an okay guy, really'

'What do you mean pushy?'

'Oh, I mean like waving a gun around and kidnapping a nice girl, things like that? Sound familiar? Seems like 'pushy' might be an okay way of saying that'

'Sometimes it takes a little push' he said.

'For what?'

'To get over things.'

'Huh', Carpenter said, 'I don't follow you there. Can you explain that to me?'

'Just did' Bailey told her,' you said I was pushy. I said it takes a little push sometimes, to get over things. Things that are in the way'

'So like what exactly is in the way?'

'You, exactly, for one thing' he said. She didn't reply. He continued, 'and all those cops out there, for another thing, exactly. In the way'.

'Yeah, okay, but we all came later. After'

'So?'

'So what was in the way before?'

'Everybody' he told her. 'In your own words. Co-workers, the roommate, neighbors. The god damned cat for chrissakes. And all the other things. The wonderful family. All of it. You're all in my way! Get the hell out of my way!' and he slammed the phone down on its cradle. He looked around the room at everyone. They were all paying attention now. Even Karen was sitting up and staring at him.

'Different game!' he said, waving the gun in the air. 'It's a new game now.'

"God damn reporters!" he continued, "who the hell do they think they are? Asking you any old thing. Telling you about yourself. What the hell do they know? They never heard of you before, don't know a god damn thing about you, and there they go, sticking their nose in everywhere". He kicked at the end table, but only grazed it with his foot. The telephone shook a little. The others were keeping their mouths shut. He was making them nervous.

"As if" he said, " as if they really give a damn. D'ya hear that, honey? Says you got a wonderful family. How the hell they know that? Gone and woke 'em up in the middle of the night, that's how. Already gone out there and woke up everyone you ever knew, everyone who ever knew me, they're all out there now, getting their stupid little faces on TV. God damn 'em all!" And with that he flung the back of his hand against the wall, the hand with the gun, and the butt of the pistol cracked the plaster and made Valerie jump.

"Watch it!" she said

"What?" David was sick of her and more. "Your beautiful little paint job? I don't give a damn, lady, so you just shut up!" She shut up. David started pacing again, from back behind Karen's chair in a semicircle to behind where Henry was sitting on the couch, and then back again. The sweat was returning to his hand, and to his forehead. Then suddenly, as he was turning back toward the couch again, there was a solid thud coming from behind the bathroom door. David wheeled and fired his gun at it. The door flew open and crashed against the bathtub. Valerie and Henry tried to duck, but only after the gunshot had whistled between their heads. At that moment, everyone in the room was having the same thought - the cops were coming in! David crouched behind the big stuffy chair - if the cops were coming from there, they were going to have to go through Karen to get to him. He didn't even think about it. He could see that the bathroom window was partially open, and he could also see that it was a very small window. There was no way a cop was going to fit through that. Tear gas? But he didn't smell anything.

"Who the hell is it?" He shouted. "You better get the hell out of there!" There was no reply, and no sound at all in the house for several moments. Then, breaking the silence, the sound of a cat, crying. And almost immediately afterwards, the sound of Karen, also starting to cry.

"God damn cat!" David muttered, and then he saw the thing, cautiously peering out from behind the bathroom door. He stood up, and let his pistol hand drop to his side. Slowly, both Valerie and Henry squirmed back upright on the couch. For an instant they exchanged glances. From Henry's side the glance said, 'you and your stupid cat. You don't even like the damned thing'. From Valerie's side it said, 'you let it in on purpose, didn't you? Opened the window and let it in, because you know it always pisses me off'. She couldn't believe it. What a stupid ... fill in the blank. As Puff made his way to the kitchen in search of food, David stood behind the chair where Karen was now sobbing deeply. She was shaking all over. David felt like he was paralyzed, then realized that he was shaking too.

Part Three

The stillness did not last for long. Within moments the phone was ringing again, yet this time David didn't seem to hear it. It rang eleven or twelve times before Valerie finally spoke up.

'Answer it' she said. There was no response from David, who was still standing, like a stone, behind the overstuffed chair.

'Answer the phone' she repeated, more loudly this time. Still nothing.

'Do I have to get it myself?' she asked. 'Come on. You have to answer the goddamn phone. It's gotta be the cops! They must've heard the shot' At the word 'cops' David snapped out of it, and started towards the front door. Valerie held her breath. Was he going to give himself up? What would they do if he opened the door? Would they open fire? She prepared herself to dive to the floor, but David only took two steps in that direction, before he seemed to wake up a little more, and reversed direction. He went back to the phone, and picked it up.

'Yes' he said quietly into the mouthpiece. It was Mole.

'What's going on in there?' he wanted to know. 'Everyone okay? Talk to me, Bailey. '

'It's okay' David assured him. 'It's all right'

'What do you mean it's all right? That was gunfire in there'.

'An accident' he said. 'It was nothing'.

'Talk to me', Mole coaxed. 'I gotta know. There's some people out here with some pretty itchy fingers'

'Everyone's all right' David said. 'Don't worry about it.'

'Can you believe this?' Mole was talking to Johns and Richards.'Telling me not to worry about it. He's in there taking shots at something, while he's got three innocent people in there'. He returned his attention to Bailey.

'Hey, it's my job to worry about it. Tell you what. This has been going on long enough. Let me come in and you and me talk about all this face to face. What do you say?'

'You gotta be kidding' Bailey told him.

'Who me? No way. Look, I'm an old man. I'm out of shape too. I couldn't take you if I tried. And of course I'll be unarmed.'

'Not a chance' David said. 'Look, I told you everything's okay, okay? We don't have anything else to talk about', and he put the phone back down.

'Moron!' Mole shouted into his phone as soon as he heard the dial tone. 'Can you believe this guy?'

'You're getting nowhere with him' said Johns.

'You wanna try? okay!' Mole replied. 'He's all yours' and he handed him the phone. 'I'm going to take a hike!' Mole stomped off, his boots furiously splashing at every puddle they could find. He was muttering every curse he ever knew. Something about this guy. Totally out of it. Biggest loser he ever met. He knew he wasn't in the right frame of mind for this kind of thing. Better to let Johns deal with it. Better to have let him do it from the start. He had had enough of these stupid crazy motherfuckers. He just didn't give a damn anymore. Let them all blow their brains out, for all I care, he thought. Serve and protect. The kind of crap that goes on every day, every god damn day, all over the god damn country. You would think that by now. You would have to agree. What the hell kind of country is it anyway, bunch of losers and weirdos. Can't get laid so he's gotta grab someone and drag her all over creation, hole up in a house with a couple of people you never would have ever come across, just sitting there, minding their business, watching the god damn television, for chrissakes, watching crap just like this on the tube and here it comes right into your home, live and direct, and a god damn platoon of police surrounding the neighborhood and doing nothing, not a god damn thing but sitting around on their butts getting wet. It was the thing that Mole couldn't get out of his mind, those people, just sitting there, watching TV, and out of the blue, from a hundred and twenty miles away, who the hell would have ever thought? I mean, come on, you're just sitting there! It's one thing if you're looking for trouble, wrong place wrong time, that kind of thing, but in your own little house, your cute little trouble-free bungalow hideaway, with your curtains and your rugs and your grandmother's rocking chair, just a damn good thing they didn't have kids, that's all I can say, he thought. And the damndest thing was there was no one around, on any of the side streets he went down. Once you got around the corner from the flashing cop car lights it was nothing but darkness and rain and people sleeping safely in their nice warm beds. Nobody on the street at all. Lights out.

The late night local news had run all the footage they could muster, but they only had half an hour, and by now were long since off the air. Only the national cable news station was reporting on the crime. They didn't have anyone live on the scene, so they relied on the local reporters still camped out in various locations around the state. Caitlin Carpenter had frantically worked on her tape recording of the phone conversation she'd had with Bailey. She was cursing that there weren't more good quotes, but still, she had to admit, she had one great one with that 'sometimes it takes a little push' line. To get over things. Things that are in the way. It wasn't only what he said, but how he said it too. No inflection, bland, like a stone cold killer. And the dramatic finale - 'You're all in my way! Get the hell out of my way' and then slamming down the phone - she caught that clean. All of it, clean. She had fed it to the folks back home, who got it on the overnight news. Caitlin Carpenter reporting for KTTV-TV, live, on the scene, in High Park, California. She even got to watch it in the van. Damn I look good, she thought. Especially with the wet hair in the wind. Damn. Other reporters had gotten some footage too. In Roseville they'd persisted long enough to get Karen's sisters to make an appearance before the cameras. It was all that you'd expect. Some crying. Some praying. Begging. Please please please don't hurt her let her go she's a good person God help her. The smug reporter trying his best to squeeze into the picture beside the grieving family. In the background, the telltale sound of babies crying.

At 314 Seventeenth Street, in High Park, California, Karen Wong could not stop crying. All of the night's events had finally caught up with her, and she was seeing it all clearly for the first time. It had been like a bad dream from the start. She still couldn't believe that he had actually come to her house, demanding that she leave behind everything she cared for and go off God knows where with him, a guy she had only wanted to be rid of, once and for all. And then, when all she said was no, he had pulled a gun on her and said something like, "but I insist". She thought he had to be kidding. What kind of joke was that? She knew there was something a little weird about the guy, but she had never seen this one coming. She thought he only had a crush on her. The rest of it was just a blur. He'd grabbed her by the arm and literally dragged her down the steps and to the car, her car, not even his, and pushed her into the driver's seat. With a gun at her head. Driving, terrified, chased by the cops, and never knowing from one minute to the next about anything. Nothing made any sense at all. And finally this little house, with this unbelievably rude couple - some of the things this woman said! And the husband, talk about gross! Makes David look like a perfect gentleman, the way he's been staring and staring. And the phone, always ringing. So hot in here. So hot and yet feeling naked, almost, feeling besieged, surrounded by people who only wanted to hurt her, and what had she done? Nothing. Minding her own business, just living her own little life. It was the thing with the cat that had finally brought her down - the panic and the shot and especially the way that David had lost control. She had almost come to rely on his relative stability. Anybody else would have been a basket case long since, like her. He seemed impervious to it all, the way he kept hanging up on the cops. She was already going to do anything he told her to - whether it was tying those people up, or untying them, or tying them back up again, whatever. That was her only plan. Do what he says. But now she felt like she couldn't do that anymore. She didn't trust him. She didn't trust anyone, and she felt so alone, and not only was she going to die, but she was going to die stupidly, for no reason, and in the company of people she hated, who hated her. I want to go home, she thought. All I want to do is go home.

Things were also coming into focus for David. He was beginning to understand that no one else was going to be able to resolve the crisis, not the stupid cops outside, not the television reporter, nobody else. Certainly Karen was useless at this point. As for the other two, they were really getting on his nerves. The woman was still looking at him with an expression of utter scorn, and the man looked like he was going to open his fat mouth again. What was it going to be this time? Has to go potty again? Wants a drink of water?

'You should do something for her' was what Henry actually said. David didn't catch it. He thought he heard something else, something incomprehensible. It sounded like 'do you want anything else with that?'. It was becoming hard for him to distinguish between what he heard and what was actually said. He knew there was a difference, though. I'm not going crazy, he told himself. I may be hearing their thoughts instead their words, but not yet clearly. Valerie's thoughts were a stream of hostility; he could almost see them.

'What do you care?' she snapped at her husband, who ignored her, and repeated his earlier statement while looking directly at David. The guy was looking right back at him. How come he was pretending not to hear?

'Look at her' he continued, 'look how upset she is. You really should be taking care of her. She's supposed to be your girlfriend, right?'

'What do you care?' This time it was David saying that, with Valerie nodding her head in agreement.

'He wants her' she added. David cocked his head in her direction. Did she really say that?

'What did you say?' he asked her.

'He wants her' Valerie repeated. 'My husband. He's got a thing for girls like her.'

'What do you mean, girls like her?' David demanded. 'There's no such thing as girls like her.'

'Oh, right', Valerie said, 'like she's some kind of princess, I forgot. Maybe to you. To him, she's just his type, that's all. The kind he gets off on'

'Valerie! Don't be ridiculous' Henry said, 'I'm just trying to help a little here.'

'Help yourself!' she spat at him.

'Then how come you two are married' David wanted to know, ' if you're not his 'type', as you put it'

'Gee' Valerie sarcastically replied, 'good question. I'll have to think about that'

'I don't know what she's talking about' Henry said, 'This doesn't have anything to do with me. I was just concerned about her'

'You forget about her!' David snapped. 'And stop looking at her! I don't know what your game is, buddy, but you stay away from her'. David was starting to sweat again, and now he was waving the gun in Henry's direction.

'I don't need you or anybody else telling me what to do' he yelled. 'And that goes for you too' he added, gesturing towards Valerie. The couple looked away from each other, away from David. Valerie muttered at the window,

'Well? what do you think? The little cunt worth dying for?' She knew that Henry would hear it. He did. They all did.

This was too much for David. After all he'd been through and put up with that day, to have this lady using that kind of language about Karen. He went straight over to her, never mind that now he was standing alone, in front of the window, his silhouette easily visible through the curtains to the police outside, who watched spellbound as he raised his arm and pointed the gun directly at Valerie's head.

'What's the matter with you, lady? You wanna die or what?' he demanded. Valerie lifted her head and looked directly at him. She started to say something, then stopped herself. But then she went ahead anyway.

'You'd have to hit something with that first. Then maybe you'll scare me a little.'

'You are out of your mind!'

'Coming from you, I'll take that as a professional diagnosis!' The gun was only inches from her forehead, but of the two of them it was David who was covered in sweat, David who was trembling. Outside, the marksmen were waiting for the order, but no one was in charge. Lieutenant Richards had deferred to Agent Johns, who was waiting for Inspector Mole to return. He couldn't make the decision. He stood there with the cell phone in his hand, and all he could think of doing was to press the redial button. When the phone rang in the house, nobody even noticed. It was such a familiar sound by then, and Johns had been calling and calling and David wouldn't answer, as if he knew it wasn't Mole. The ringing only irritated him. It was one more thing that was getting in his way, preventing him from doing what he had to do. He cocked the hammer on the gun, and brought it directly between her eyes.

'I want you to take it back', he said, as calmly as he could. 'Apologize to her'

'I wasn't even talking to you', Valerie said, quietly, 'Or her.'

'Apologize anyway'

'Ok.' She started to turn her head towards Karen, and her forehead bumped into the gun. 'I'm going to look at her now' she said to David, who pulled the gun back slightly.

'Thank you' Valerie said. She turned completely towards Karen, who was still curled up in the chair, but had stopped crying and was merely sniffling.

'I'm sorry I said that word' she told her. 'I was talking to my husband. I didn't mean to insult you personally.' Karen sniffled a little more, and thought she nodded her head, but didn't, actually. Valerie turned her head back towards David, and, looking directly down the barrel of the gun once again, said

'There's something you ought to know'

'Yeah? What's that?'

'Something you should see for yourself.'

'What for?' he asked, but Valerie didn't answer the question

'She's sitting on it' Valerie said.

'Don't you start that again!' David said.

'No, I mean it', Valerie said, 'it's under the cushion she's sitting on. Tell her to get it' David nodded, and gestured towards Karen.

'You heard what she said' he told her. Karen nodded this time and felt under the cushion with her hand. She had to sit up slightly to retrieve the book that was under there. It was a large notebook with a plastic cover. Henry gasped

'Where did you get that?' he yelled at Valerie

'Same place you were hiding it' she replied.

'That's mine' he shouted. 'Give it to me."

'Look at it!' Valerie said to David.

'What is it?'

'Go over and look at it'

'Don't' Henry screamed. 'It's mine. Give it back to me. It's none of your business!' David backed away from Valerie, lowering the gun as he did. He was never going to shoot her anyway. All he wanted was for her to shut up. He took his old position behind Karen's chair, out of sight from the window, and looked over her shoulder. She was holding the book on her lap.

'Open it' David said.

It was one of Henry's photo albums - a recent Hong Kong collection, to be precise, for he had them organized by country, as well as by year. Henry at the trade shows, Henry with his girls. David and Karen didn't think anything of them at first. So there were some pictures of this guy and some young ladies. So what?

Valerie encouraged them to keep looking, don't stop. You'll see what I mean, she said, and so they did, Karen turning the pages, and David inspecting the photos. Henry was red and squirming on the couch. Never before had he hated his wife so much. He told himself that this was really the end. He would never speak with her again, no matter what happened. As if she really cared. One shot after another, Karen and David were beginning to see the pattern. There were different women on every page, yet always the same woman, really.

Young, pretty, smiling Chinese women, all of them short, like Karen, all of them thin, like Karen, posing with Henry here, posing with Henry there. Sometimes he was just standing beside them. Sometimes he was holding their hands. Sometimes he dared to put his arm around their waist or shoulder. Always looking right into the camera, smiling a big happy smile on his big fat red American face There were hundreds of these pictures; there must have been dozens of these women. Karen understood what it meant, and she looked up at Valerie at one point with a questioning look on her face.

'That's why I said what I said', Valerie told her, and Karen said

'It isn't me'

'I know that' Valerie said. 'I'm sorry'

'So am I' said Karen, and meant it. David had seen enough, and didn't want to see anymore. He reached over and pulled the book out of Karen's hands. He tossed it over at Henry, saying,

'Here you go, cowboy. You wanted it' The album bounced off Henry's knee and landed, face down, on the floor. Henry wanted to hide it again, even though it was too late. He tried to kick it under the coffee table but it was just out of reach.

'Quite a collection you got there' David said.

'And that's just one place, one year' Valerie added. 'I don't even know how many of those things there are, how many of those ...' her voice trailed off.

'It isn't what you think' Henry said, weakly.

'I wouldn't have guessed it' David said, 'guy like you.' He shook his head, in disbelief, 'What do they see in you?'

'It isn't what it looks like' Henry tried to explain.

'Just his type, isn't that what you said?' David asked Valerie. 'See what you mean, now.'

'Something you have in common', Valerie said.

'Not me' David told her. 'She's the only one for me'

'You'd take any one of them, I'll bet' Valerie replied. 'What's the difference?'

'Hey' Karen objected. 'You just said you were sorry.'

'What is it about them anyway?' Valerie wanted to know. 'What do they got that I don't?

What's so special about them?' Neither David nor Henry was going to answer that question. They looked at each other instead, and for a moment shared a secret and silent agreement. But Valerie wasn't done yet.

'Is it the submissive thing? Something like that? You're so big and strong and they're so cute and tiny, you could break one in half without even trying' Still David and Henry continued to seem to ignore her.

'Or is it those big brown eyes, looking up at you like some kind of cuddly stuffed animal? Henry cracked a little smile. Maybe she was on to something there, but she couldn't see his face.

'It can't be just those skinny legs - hell, even I got those.' This time it was David who almost smiled. He had noticed those legs before, first thing he saw when he entered the house.

'Can't be the small tits. Or is it?'

This statement had no effect on either on the men.

'Is it something special about their pussies, is that it? Are they like shaped differently? Tinier? What is it?'

'Shut up!' David turned and yelled at her. 'You keep talking like that I'll blow your head off.'

'Oh my' Valerie mocked him, 'I guess it is their little cunts after all. What exactly is it, anyway? You can tell me.'

'I told you to shut up' David repeated, 'and stop using that word'

'Cunt?' she said.'You don't like the word 'cunt', is that it? Or is it only you who's allowed to say it, that's probably more like it. That's the word you're thinking of when you fuck her, isn't it?'

'I'm warning you' David was closer this time

'Or maybe it's what you're thinking when you just look at her' Valerie added.

'You're going to get us all killed' Henry said.

'Oh, look who's talking' Valerie retorted. 'Who started all this, anyway? You and your phony concern for the poor little thing. 'Do something for her'' she mocked him. 'We're all just cunts to you too, aren't we?'

'Not you' Henry said. 'The last thing you are.'

'That's right', Valerie said, 'I'm a person. I'm a human being.'

'So am I' Karen piped up. ' I'm a person too, you know.'

'Not to them you're not' Valerie told her.

'Maybe not to them, but I'm still a person too' Karen said.

'Calling yourself a human being, that's a joke' Henry said to Valerie. 'You know what you are.'

'Oh yeah? What am I?' Valerie wanted to know. 'Come on, tell me'

'You know' Henry said. 'I don't have to say it'

'Everybody just shut up!' David shouted. 'Now!'

'I want to hear it from you' Valerie said.

'You're a bitch, that's what' Henry said

'Well you're a fucking asshole' she replied

'Now!' David yelled again, but no one was listening to him. 'Do I have to shoot you all just to get you to shut up?'

'You know what?' Valerie said. 'You can just go fuck yourself!'

'Better than fucking you!' Henry said.

'I wouldn't fuck you in a million years'

'Thank God for that'

'I wish you were dead'

'Yeah, well maybe you'll get your wish tonight, only you'll be dead too'

'Fine with me, as long as I get to watch you die' David thought about firing the gun again, but decided against it. Instead he picked up one of Valerie's crystal candle holders and threw it against the wall behind them. The glass exploded on impact and shattered into tiny fragments. It got their attention. Henry and Valerie finally shut up.

'That's better' David said. 'Next time I'll just use your heads for target practice'

'Big man' Valerie muttered

'Not another word!' David demanded. Valerie merely scowled. It looked like she was going to say something else, but David interrupted,

'Not a-no-ther word!' he repeated. 'Jesus fucking Christ!'

Inspector Mole returned from his sojourn a little calmer, but no less frustrated, and still without a plan. Richards and Johns were talking at the same time, trying to fill him in on everything that had taken place in his absence. He didn't try to slow them down, make them speak one at a time, or even really listen to them. He got the idea that Bailey had made threatening gestures with the gun, that there was lots of yelling and screaming, and finally some smashing of glass. Apparently, Johns had had no luck at all at getting through on the phone. Some of the men were eager to move in, but then that was their job. Mole had no intention of letting them do it.

'So as far as we know, they're all okay in there' he said to no one in particular.

'As far as we know, that's true' said Johns.

'So what would you do next?'

'Move in', said Richards.

'Wait', said Johns.

'Okay' , said Mole, 'then that's exactly what we'll do. Gimme the phone, will you?' Johns handed it over, and Mole pressed the familiar re-dial button. The phone rang only twice before Bailey picked it up.

'Friggin' amazing' Richards muttered.

'It's like the guy's got ESP', said Johns

'That you, Mole?' Bailey said.

'You know it is' he replied.

'Still got nothing to say'

'It can't go on like this' Mole said. 'Gotta do something'

'Don't do anything stupid', Bailey warned him.

'That's supposed to be my line', Mole replied.

'I just answered the phone to tell you that I'm not going to answer it again', Bailey said., 'so you might as well stop calling. Stop calling anyway,' he added. 'You're giving me a headache'.

'Wait', Mole said, 'Don't hang up. You gotta help me, David. I don't know what to do now.

What do you say?'

'If I were you', Bailey said, 'I wouldn't do nothing. There's nothing you can do that'd do anybody any good. Seems to me the only thing you could do is just mess things up, so you might as well do nothing.'

'You know', Mole said, 'I think you're right about that. I think you're absolutely right'. It was Mole who hung up the phone this time, only he didn't let his colleagues know that.

'Not a damn thing I can do' he said to them. 'It's all up to him'.

Things tend towards complications. Do they ever, David thought. It's a natural law of physics. Things tend towards complications until it's all too much and then there has to be a new beginning and a cleansing of the old. It's the theory of critical mass. In this hot little house, critical mass had just been reached. It was impossible to think straight anymore. At least the phone was going to stop ringing. He trusted Mole on that. But he couldn't stop Valerie and Henry from fighting unless he kept on breaking things or shot somebody. And Karen had turned into, he didn't know what. Something less than useless. All she could do was whimper and cry, and she was ugly when she was crying. David suddenly realized there was no way out. Mole was right. It couldn't go on this way much longer. Something had to happen, and it was up to him. The only thing to do was make it clean, he told himself. Things got all piled up, and now they had to go. Too much crap was in the way. It's got to be all or nothing, he told himself.

'You', he said, pointing with his gun at Henry. 'Get up'

'What are you gonna do?' Henry asked.

'Just get up!' David repeated.

'Don't hurt me' Henry begged him. He didn't want to get up. David cocked the hammer back and took dead aim at him.

'If you don't get off of that couch right now' he said,'I'm going to blow your head off'.

'Okay,okay', Henry struggled to his feet. He nearly fell head first into the coffee table, but finally managed to stay on his feet.

'Now you' Bailey said to Valerie. She stood up easily.

'Karen', he said. 'I want you to go over and open the front door. Slowly' She did what she was told. As she approached the door, David backed away towards the kitchen, still aiming the gun in Henry's general direction. When she got to the door, and started to open it, he repeated

'Slowly'. She froze for an instant, then did as he instructed. The cold night air came rushing in, as David flattened himself against the wall.

'Now all of you', he said, 'just get the hell out of here right now before I change my mind'. He didn't have to repeat himself this time. Karen dashed out the door, followed by Valerie and Henry, running as fast as they could with their hands still tied behind their backs. David retreated to the kitchen, where he could still see out the open front door, but couldn't be seen from there. Now maybe I can think things through, he said to himself.

You'd think she'd have had more character, he thought. Some kind of strength, some inner something, but he couldn't see anything inside her now. That woman, on the other hand. Annoying, yeah. A bitch, for sure. But damn, she had a lot of nerve. Even with the gun against her head, she was more together than anyone had a right to be. But Karen. Was all she was good for like those women in the pictures? Looking pretty and happy and smiley when everything was being handed to them on a platter? Because you know that Henry had to pay for them, no way he was getting it for free, not with all of them. And you pay them, and you give them stuff, and they'll be smiley on cue whenever you want, just as long as things are good. Something goes wrong, and then they turn into what? Something less than useless, that's what. He had thought that she understood what it meant to make a new beginning, and what it would take to do it. It was pretty clear now that she couldn't face up to anything. That' s how it seemed to David. Maybe she really was just another one of them after all.

Maybe the woman was right. And if that was true, then he didn't really know her at all, did he? And what did he know about her, anyway? He'd never seen her tested before. That was my mistake, he thought. Next time I'll know better. You never really know what's in someone until you see them tested. And wasn't this the test itself? There wasn't any other way. This is how it had to be, he thought. And now I know.

The former hostages were gathered up quickly by the cops outside, and hustled out of the line of fire. First they were brought to Mole, who wanted to make sure they were really okay. Blankets were thrown around their shoulders to keep them warm and dry, and Mole instructed his men to get them away from the scene as quickly as possible. The TV crews only managed a fleeting shot of Karen being hustled into a black and white. Valerie and Henry somehow made it through without being caught on tape. Mole, Richards and Johns still remained in their spots, and conferred about what to do next. They each maintained the same positions they'd been keeping all night.

'Move in', said Richards. 'He's alone now. We can get him.'

'Hold back', said Johns,'He's alone now. He can't hurt anybody else.'

'I agree' said Mole. 'He's not worth risking any more lives for. Especially not our men. Serve and protect, it says. Doesn't say anything about walking into a death trap for no good reason.'

'Gonna call him again, at least?' Johns asked.

'No', Mole replied. 'I'm through with this guy. He never gave us nothing to work with. Maybe it was me.'

'No', Johns said, 'You did the best you could. At least he would talk to you.'

'Yeah, but he never said anything'

'Maybe you're right', Johns said. 'Nothing we can do for this guy. See what he does next.'

'Whatever it is', Richards said, 'I hope he does it soon. Freezin' my friggin' ass off out here, and for what?'

'For nothing', Mole said. 'It's all for nothing'.

They didn't have to wait very long. When they heard the shot, they all know what it meant.

'Only hope he did it clean', Mole said.

'Never know', Richards replied, 'guy like that, probably fucked this up too'. But David got it right. This time it really was a new beginning.

Epilogue

Well, what can I tell you? You go to bed one night and all this stuff is happening out there somewhere, and you sleep like a baby, and you wake up in the morning and everything's all over. I got up, got dressed, fed the cats, fed myself, took a shower, got dressed, had some breakfast, hit the road. I'm driving to work when suddenly I remember, oh yeah, whatever happened with that guy who kidnapped his girlfriend and got holed up in the house in High Park? So I turn on the radio and I have to listen to traffic and weather together, and then a commercial about having a heart attack and wouldn't it be better not to, and then another commercial in which they tell you that if you get this loan then you can buy a washing machine today and still have money left over for your children's education tomorrow, and I'm thinking, these people have obviously never compared the price of a washing machine to a typical college tuition, because it made no sense at all, but anyway. Then there was a story about the mayor who took the bus for a change and was late to work so now he wants more cops on the street, or something like that. Somebody else got caught embezzling money from a church. I'm like, come on, last night it was all you could talk about and now you gotta tell me what happened. And then another commercial, this time for a hair spray, I think, or maybe it's a gel, or I don't know, something to do about hair. Come on. Okay, then finally after a lot of other stuff they get to the story and all they say is that the guy let all the people go and then he shot himself. That's it. I mean, last night they didn't know anything, and it was all they could talk about. Now they know something but they're not talking about it anymore because it's over.

Later on that day I got the afternoon paper and picked up some particulars, but not much, really. They have the people's names. They have the whole chronology. They have some quotes from a cop on the scene and a neighbor back in the sticks from wherever this guy crawled out of. The couple that was in the house, they don't want to say nothing. The girlfriend, ain't talking. And of course the guy himself is dead. So you never really find out. These things just happen, and while they're happening you have this buzz and all this hype, can't stop the hype. Soon as it's over, move on, who cares. That's it.

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