Private Screening (37 page)

“If we can use that to find
where
he is, then we might consider surrounding it and trying to negotiate.” Moore paused. “If time's too short, then we may have to tell him
who
he is on SNI.”

Lord watched him. “There are risks to that,” he finally said. “Whether you're right or wrong.”

“It's a last resort. The idea is to shrink him to human size, including in his own mind, and get the hostages out alive.” Moore's speech became emphatic. “We think he might be less likely to kill, and more afraid we'll hunt him down, if we've already identified him.”

“How do you plan on doing that?”

“We've got over four hundred agents running down every potential lead or tip, trying to trace unusual purchases of broadcasting equipment, combing the records of prospective terrorists, and going through the lives of everyone involved for at least the past ten years. That's why all the questions about Damone.” Moore leaned back so that his gaze took in both Lord and Stacy. “At the most, we've got two days until her concert date, and five before the deadline on Alexis. And the more excited Phoenix gets, our psychiatrists think, the more likely he is to kill at any time. So if either of you think of anything that might lead us to him, call me right away.” He turned to Stacy, quieter. “If we can't stop this, I'm afraid that what to do about Damone comes back to you.”

Stacy found that she couldn't say anything; really, there was nothing left to say. Without glancing at Lord, she nodded.

Smoking dope, Phoenix watched himself on SNI.

The images he saw were a collage of all his hopes: his own hooded visage, people watching in bars and airports, the president denouncing him. Millions waiting to see what he would do next.

To the moment he disappeared, each step of this drama was meticulously planned, except that he did not know how it would end.

The missing piece excited him. It was part of the challenge he had set himself, to pit his mind and instincts against theirs, proving his transcendence until he saw the climax he should give them. The ultimate act of improvisational genius.

He grinned at the thought, their struggle as the raw material of art. So much like a trial.

Instinctively, he turned to the locked door.

She lay behind it, the center of his drama, her fear of him a magnet. The feeling this gave him—that anything could happen to her—had become his threat on television.

Phoenix stopped smiling.

His plan was to preserve her for the end. But if then he let her live, how could he give them the last thrill they'd be waiting for?

So much depended on what he saw through SNI.

Taking another drag, Phoenix faced the television.

They were showing Stacy now, wondering if he had the power to make her step onstage again, for John Damone's sake. Though Phoenix feared her answer more with each hour that passed, for this moment they were paired before the world.

Her face leaped out at him.

She and a blond man were pushing through a crowd. Still the television, he realized, though the voice of the hazel-eyed newswoman seemed a thousand miles off.

“Emerging from seclusion, Miss Tarrant appeared at the Federal Building in startling company.…”

As he turned, Phoenix could see that the man was Tony Lord.

Phoenix stared at him in disbelief.

“Both refused comment. But despite Lord's successful defense of the man who murdered Senator James Kilcannon, Miss Tarrant's former companion, a government source confirms that she has retained him to help secure the safe release of John Damone.…”

Phoenix ground the joint beneath his boot. Her picture was still beside his mattress. He gripped it in both hands, fighting the impulse to tear it apart.

Angrily, he pinned her face above his bed.

There were more reporters in front of the Mark Hopkins—SNI had found out where she was. Why couldn't they wait, Stacy wondered; in three hours she would come to them.

Lord turned from the window. “We need to talk,” he said. “Do you like sandwiches?”

“Anything.”

“Let's take off,” he told the driver. “Head down California.”

As they drove away, Stacy saw a woman running toward them in the rearview. “Where are we going?”

Lord shrugged. “I'm making this up as we go along.”

They dropped from Nob Hill, crossing Van Ness, and headed up Washington Street, past a wooded park, elegant apartment houses from the twenties, private homes and consulates. Away from downtown, Stacy thought, San Francisco was still human-scale, and then she recognized the neighborhood where Alexis had given the party. She turned from the window.

“What about beer?” Lord was asking.

They were stopping near a delicatessen. “Just not light beer,” she said finally.

He looked into his wallet, grimacing. Stacy gave him ten dollars.

Through the window, she saw him call someone from a pay phone. Then he came back with a bag and directed the driver two blocks north.

They stopped at the garage of a white nineteen-thirtyish apartment building. “Let's take my car,” Lord said.

Parked near the exit was a beat-up Datsun. Getting out, Stacy saw that it was equipped with a break-in alarm and lock for the hood.

Lord watched her hesitation. “It's okay,” he told her. “The radio still works.”

“I wouldn't mind just quiet.”

Leaving the garage, Lord wound through the Presidio, passing views of water framed by pine boughs, then downhill to a beach at the mouth of the bay. He parked facing the ocean; near them, Stacy saw a police car.

“Better view than at a restaurant,” Lord remarked, and gave her a beer and sandwich.

Stacy took a bite, looking out. A trace of fog made the setting sun an orange, hazy disk. A terrier ran at the water's edge; his owner chased him; a man and woman built a bonfire. To their right, the ocean narrowed to the Golden Gate; on the left was a cypress-covered cliff, dotted with stucco houses whose colors caught the light.

Lord followed her gaze. “It's how I imagine an Italian hill town,” he said. “Portofino, maybe.”

“You've never been there?”

“I come here instead.” He smiled briefly. “Every time I see my son.”

Glancing across, Stacy realized he no longer wore a ring. “When I was his age,” Lord was saying, “my mother bought a Woolworth's painting of the Golden Gate. I think that's when I decided to come here—I didn't know it was so cold I'd have to look at this through windows. But Christopher loves it.”

That for once he seemed unguarded made her hesitate. “What did DiPalma mean?” she finally asked. “About connecting Carson to this.”

Lord's eyes narrowed. “I don't know—considering that Harry's a high-security patient in a state mental facility.”

“It doesn't sound that simple.” Her voice rose. “My God, remember what Moore said? We're talking about two people's lives.”

Lord glanced at her half-eaten sandwich. “You've got the broadcast yet, and we've got to decide what you'll say—”

“I never asked you to decide what we should talk about.”

Lord watched as she put down the sandwich. “In that case,” he said evenly, “you should have noticed at the trial that DiPalma goes too far. Always.”

Stacy felt herself redden. “And you just wait until he does—always. But that doesn't make him wrong.”

“Why don't we just get this out.” Lord's voice was tighter. “Conspiracy theories are the last resort of people who can't let go. DiPalma can't let go because he lost the case. You can't let go because you lost Kilcannon. About which, believe it or not, I'm very, very sorry.”

“
Sorry
.…”

“Sorry,” Lord shot back. “In spite of all you think it's done for me. And I was also as sorry about pulling that film on you as anyone with a client to defend could afford to be. But I'd do it again, because that's my job. Now, which is your reason for hating me—the film, the verdict, or that I once admitted not admiring Kilcannon?”

Stacy fought for control. “All of them,” she retorted softly. “But what scares me is how smart you are.”

For an instant Lord looked so stunned that it mingled with her own surprise at quoting his words to Jamie. She felt their taut, trapped emotion, and then Lord smiled without humor. “In other words, you're afraid I won a case when I knew better.”

“Yes.”

“That can happen. But if I tell you I honestly don't know what DiPalma's talking about, will you accept that? Because
you're
my client now, and I'm as concerned with that as Moore is. Not to mention Alexis and Damone.”

She turned away—drained, obscurely embarrassed. “Go ahead.”

“Your immediate problem is whether to do that concert. I'm not sure you should.”

Distracted from anger, Stacy imagined standing behind a curtain, but the impulse to perform seemed something from another life. “If John's alive,” she answered, “that's non-negotiable.”

“My thought is that Phoenix may release him if there's nothing to gain. And you won't become a target again—for him or whoever else.”

“That's what Colby Parnell tried, with his son.” She turned. “Did you see him this afternoon?”

Watching her, Lord's expression became one of resignation. “You're fairly attached to him, aren't you—Damone.”

Stacy faced the windshield. A half-sun tinged the fog and dusk pink-gray, making the couple's bonfire a yellow, flickering shape. It made her feel cold.

“Yes,” she said. “I am.”

“How did you meet?”

“John was at Berkeley on the GI Bill. After a while, he got involved booking concerts with student money. I'd started doing clubs, and he was wondering what to do when he got out. One night he came to see me.”

The last sun slipped beneath the water. Tentative, Lord asked, “Were you lovers?”

Stacy turned to him. “You asked me that before,” she said with equal restraint. “About Jamie.”

Lord expelled an audible breath. “Someone's blackmailing you, Stacy—in a particularly perverse and intimate way. I want to know what strings he's found to pull.”

His face was covered by darkness; like Jamie's, she thought suddenly, as they'd ridden to the concert. “It doesn't matter,” she told him. “Not this time. Let's go now, okay?”

Lord regarded her a moment, then started the car. Two sets of headlights lit the beach, his and the police car's. Stacy watched them, silently reliving what she had not said.

Gazing from her apartment, she'd felt John's lips on the nape of her neck.

For that instant, her senses took in everything: nighttime, Berkeley, the smell of fall, the way his beard felt. Then she turned in half-surprise; he had never touched her as a lover.

As his mouth pressed into hers, she felt his chest and arms, then his hardness. She closed her eyes.

His hand covered her breast.

Stacy broke away before she knew it. “No—”

It seemed to change the meaning of their empty wineglasses, the soft Carly Simon record, her unmade bed. John was breathing hard.

She tried sounding more controlled. “It's not right. Not with what we want.”

His own voice was thick. “We can have both.…”

“I don't want a lover-manager.” The hurt dulling his eyes reassured, then disturbed her. “It's not you,” she tried, “it's me. I want to know you ten years from now, okay?”

He gave a bitter, one-sided smile. “Can I quote you when some other guy moves in?”

Slowly, her tension became disappointment. “Whoever else,” she answered, “is temporary. Please, let's not change things.”

He watched her, three feet away. Something in his look seemed so thwarted and then so sad that it was as if he had wanted her for years. It made her feel selfish, and much younger than twenty-one.

“Stop it, John.”

The sour smile returned. “I have a problem, as they say, with rejection. You're paying for it.”

His hurt and latent anger unsettled her. “I'd feel better if you talked to me instead.”

After a moment he lay back on the bed, shoulders against the wall, staring up. His Bronx-edged voice was flat and distant, as though he were talking of someone else.

“When I think about being a kid,” he began, “I remember the light catching my mother's hair. The same picture every time—black hair, olive skin.

“She's listening to a Frank Sinatra record in this walk-up we had, waiting for my father.

“He'd split because he didn't like having me. I used to hear him—I was a pain in the ass, a millstone, she could have gotten an abortion. I hid in my room, pretending he wasn't my father, or that I could beat him until he begged me to stop.”

Stacy turned to him, wondering if he was inventing this to get her into bed. But his eyes had closed as if he were transported.

“After he left, she used to meet him and stay overnight. When she came back she'd always hug me, like an apology. But each time I got more sure she'd leave.

“When I was thirteen, he came back. I saw them whispering in the doorway—I can remember the look she gave him, so quiet and cool.” Damone shrugged. “They left me there. I never saw either one of them again.”

His eyes remained shut. Realizing his story had ended, Stacy was still unsure of what to believe. She sat quite still, confused.

“I'm sorry,” she finally told him, and felt foolish for it.

Opening, his eyes glinted. “It's not all bad,” he said. “Part of me still hates him, and wants her attention. That was what kept me going in Vietnam, getting my high-school equivalency, then through college. It's like I had a family to make it for.”

As Stacy looked at him, quiet, his own eyes changed.

Hesitant, she touched his face. Then, slowly, his forehead came to rest on hers.