Natural Suspect (2001) (7 page)

The clown gestured toward his nose.

"Honk, honk," he added.

Patrick felt cold circulate within him, as if he'd stepped into a freezing river current. "What do you want with me?"

"Not an unreasonable question," the clown said. He placed his briefcase and plastic cooler on the floor, then knelt down and opened the briefcase. He removed a small, silver dental probe which he flourished in the air between himself and Patrick.

"Is it safe?" the clown demanded in a gruff, Teutonic accent. "Tell me, pliss, is it safe?"

Patrick felt his mouth dry, his heart pound. "Please," he replied, "I don't understand ..."

The clown frowned. The makeup he wore gave his every expression an exaggerated impact, as if the smiles were in response to something truly hilarious, and the frown a result of some great and utter disappointment. "You're not a film buff?"

"What?"

"A film buff. Don't you like the movies?"

Patrick opened his mouth to reply, but could find no words.

The clown shook his head, making the multicolored wig bounce around. "I was hoping you'd be a film fan. Tell me, you don't recognize the late Sir Laurence Olivier's great line from
Marathon Man?
Where he has a bit of a discussion with Dustin Hoffman over diamonds and dental care? Come on, Patrick, everyone remembers that scene. Unforgettable ..."

He waved the dental probe in the vague direction of Patrick's mouth, which, at that moment, seemed to Patrick to be wisely kept shut.

The clown's smile returned. "No? Alas. It does seem to me that I am running into more and more uneducated types in my line of work. But
I had hopes for you, Patrick. I mean, a newspaper man--or, even an aspiring newspaper man--ought to be well versed in popular culture, don t you think?"

The dental probe glistened, reflecting light from a single, bare overhead bulb as the clown swung it around. Then, abruptly, the clown stopped the probe in mid-swing and suddenly pointed it directly at Patrick's mouth.

"You should not be silent when I ask you a question," he said, his voice suddenly cold and even, terrifying in its abrupt flat tones. "When I ask, you should answer. This will hurry things along and limit your and my involvement. Again, I remind you, this would be a wise philosophy to adopt for the foreseeable future." The clown leaned forward and tapped the dental probe against Patrick's lips.

Patrick could feel sweat beginning to gather beneath his throat, dripping down his chest. The same was true beneath his armpits. "What do you want from me?"

"Ah, better. What I'd like is the truth. Can you manage that?"

Patrick nodded.

"I need to hear you," the clown said, a singsong, false menace in each word.

"Yes. Of course. Whatever you want, just let me go."

The clown smiled. "Maybe. Maybe not. That remains to be seen.
Cooperation
is the key word here, Patrick.
Cooperation
and
compliance.
Two key words. Think you can manage those?"

"Yes. Please. What are you going to do to me?"

The clown smiled again. "Why, Patrick, I'm going to hurt you. Isn't that obvious?"

Patrick moaned. "Please, I'll do whatever you want. . ."

"Of course you will," the clown said, matter-of-fact obvious-to-see filling his voice. "I mean, look at you. Look at me. I'd have to say you're not in much of a position to negotiate. You're in a position to--"

He gestured toward the trussed man, as if urging him to complete the sentence, which Patrick did, rapidly.

"--cooperate."

"And?"

"Comply," Patrick added hastily.

The clown looked at his dental probe, abruptly shook his head again, and returned it to the briefcase. But whatever relief Patrick might have momentarily felt at the disappearance of that device was replaced by a new horror when the clown removed a small, surgical steel scalpel from the case. He held it up to the light, admiring it.

"Remarkable, these things. So precise you hardly feel the slice. Hey, doesn't that sound like an advertising agent's nifty slogan." The clown adopted a sonorous mock announcer's voice. "Acme Scalpels. The choice of surgeons all across the globe. Endorsed by ex-KGB, ex-SAVAK, and former Cali cartel operatives everywhere. So precise, you'll hardly feel the slice ..." He glanced at Patrick's face. "Or, at least, that's what I'm told. Haven't had the experience firsthand, you know." The clown approached the chair. He placed the blade of the scalpel against the last joint of Patrick's little finger on his left hand. When he pulled back, there was a small cut in the finger, and a thin red line of blood sprang up.

It did hurt, like a paper cut, but Patrick didn't move.

"Brave boy," the clown said, observing Patrick's face. "That couldn't have been pleasant."

He moved the blade over Patrick's right hand and repeated the slice against the flesh of the thumb.

Patrick thought he might pass out and in that second couldn't tell whether unconsciousness might or might not be preferable.

The clown took the blade and moved it to Patrick's crotch. An involuntary whimper escaped from the bound man's mouth.

"Yes," the clown said, as Patrick's head spun dizzily. "That's something to be afraid of, isn't it?"

"Yes," Patrick coughed out. He was surprised he could make any noise at all, his terror was so complete.

The clown hovered over him, huge, menacing.

"So, now, on to the questions. Tell me what you know, Patrick. And tell me how you know it. ..."

"Know about what?" Patrick started, but the clown merely waved the scalpel in the light so it glistened, then gestured toward Patrick's groin.

"Please, don't insult my intelligence. You've been snooping around and digging about, trying to come up with some information that will help you get a job as a real newspaper man. You're ever so curious about the late Mr. Hightower. Now, Patrick, no First Amendment protections in here. Please answer. Immediately."

Patrick nodded and started speaking rapidly. "I know that Arthur Hightower wasn't dead when they think he was because someone saw him at the Sweeney Hotel and I know that he was supposed to sign some papers which he didn't and that his lawyer knows a woman named Cordelia who is dating a guy I know which doesn't add up and ..." The words poured out of Patrick in a rush. A torrent of discombobulated information, some nugget of which he hoped would please the clown who was leaning toward him, listening carefully.

"And . . . ," Patrick continued, only to stop abruptly, when the clown held up the scalpel.

"Patrick," he said slowly, "you have been busy. More busy than you probably can imagine."

The clown seemed pensive for an instant, as if digesting what Patrick had said. The would-be reporter simply held his breath, waiting for instructions.

"Did you know," the clown said slowly, but then picking up the pace of his words, "that scientists believe that within the next couple of hundred years the human race will no longer be born with the small toes on our feet? They are genetic and evolutionary anachronisms, Patrick. A leftover from our time swinging about in trees. We don't use them for anything except a little bit of balance. So, like all else that Mother Nature finds obsolete, they are slowly but surely being phased out of the body picture. Did you know that?"

"No," Patrick replied, shaking his head.

"Well, now you do. And so, I suspect you won't miss yours. ..."

With that, the clown suddenly bent down and seized Patrick's right foot. Before the surprised erstwhile reporter had time even to shout, the clown had taken the scalpel and neady severed the small toe from the foot. Pain shot through Patrick's leg, black hurt clouded his eyes, he wailed once and almost lost consciousness.

The clown rose, holding the small toe.

"I'll save this for you," he said. He reached over and opened the small blue plastic cooler, which was filled with ice, dropping the toe into the center. "As you can see, Patrick, there is room in the cooler for other digits and appendages."

The clown stared hard into Patrick's eyes. "Don't pass out, Patrick. Your life depends on it."

Patrick was in more pain than he'd ever known in his life. But the agony took a backseat to the fear that washed over him. He nodded.

"They can do wonders with microsurgery, if you want the toe back . . . ," the clown said. "Do you remember John Wayne Bobbitt? Who had his, shall we say,
unit,
severed by his angry wife. They reattached that. This should make you think about the possibilities, Patrick." He held up his hand, stopping any response from Patrick, then reached down into his briefcase. He came up with a plastic bottle of hospital disinfectant, which he opened and squirted onto Patrick's maimed foot. "Now, Patrick," the clown said slowly, "I want you to calmly and carefully describe for me everything you did and heard leading up to your arrival at the Sweeney Hotel. Leave nothing out. Then I want you to pay special attention to accurately reporting what the half-drunk and extremely indiscreet attorney, Mr. Kellogg, so inappropriately told you at the Sweeney Hotel Bar. Think of this as your first real reporting assignment, Patrick. Who, what, where, when, and how. The mantra of the news profession. Safety is in the details, Patrick. Safety and what little chance you have to live through the next few minutes. Do you understand?"

Patrick nodded. He swallowed as much of the pain and fear as he could, and then carefully began to relate everything he'd heard and done that had brought him so close to death at the hands of a clown.

"Morgan?"

No answer.

"Morgy-Worgy?"

No answer again, except a deep, satisfied snore.

Sissy Hightower rose naked from the bed, leaving her husband asleep. She stepped away, turning back to stare down at Morgan the painters nude form. He had pasty, white skin, which looked to her as if it could use some time outdoors, and an unpleasantly flaccid paunch. She looked at the arms that had held her a short time earlier, and for a moment wondered if her husband had ever lifted anything heavier than a paintbrush. It was a good thing, she thought, that she had not demanded that he try to carry her over the threshold on their wedding night, because the weakling might have had a stroke. She thought the same might be true if he ever managed to extend the time of their love-making beyond thirty seconds.

She walked briskly across the bedroom, pausing only to pick up a red silk robe from a crumpled heap on the floor where her husband had tossed it in a paroxysm of sexual excitement, part of the grand total procedure of two minutes that he'd managed that particular night. She pulled the robe tightly around her near-perfect form, pausing briefly to examine herself in a floor-to-ceiling mirror that did nothing but remind her that she was beautiful in every inch, nook and cranny.

"Mirror, mirror," she whispered, "on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?"

She smiled, and thought: Don't answer that question. No need to.

At the door to the bedroom, she turned one more time to examine her husband. "At least you're rich," she said out loud. She took note of the empty brandy snifter that had been tossed aside, and the thick oriental carpet of their bedroom preventing it from breaking. Morgan Hightower let out another long, unpleasant snore, and shifted position. "Out like a light," she said. "A couple of drinks, a little bit of the old in-and-out, a shot-in-the-dark, and you're gone for ten, maybe twelve hours." It always astonished her how long the rich could sleep. It was as if having money made them tired. People with ambition, she thought, need less sleep.

She closed the door behind her and walked through the artist's studio, pausing only briefly to examine the portrait of her on which Morgan was working. "Can't even get my tits right," she thought. She shook her head and kept walking. There was a small, spare bedroom down the hallway, which she entered. She walked immediately to the closet and removed a battered old leather suitcase. She took this to the bed and unzipped it. Inside there was a Ruger nine-millimeter semiautomatic pistol, two spare clips of ammunition loaded with wad-cutters, a state-of-the-art IBM laptop computer, some spare clothes, two passports (one American, the other Venezuelan), approximately ten thousand dollars in U
. S
. currency and similar amounts of British pounds and Russian rubles, a small jewelry bag that contained an assortment of pearls, diamonds, and other precious stones, a half kilo of cocaine packed in see-through Baggies, and three paperback novels: Thomas Hardy s
The Mayor of Caster bridge,
Dostoevsky's
The Brothers Karamazov
, and John Fowles s
The French Lieutenant's Woman.

Sissy removed the computer and the Fowles novel.

She took the computer to a small vanity desk, reached underneath, plugged the modem connection into the telephone line, and then sat back as the screen blinked on. It made a whirring noise as it warmed up. Sissy's fingers flew across the keyboard, and in a moment she was connected to the Internet. She typed in her password and discovered an e-mail message waiting for her. She clicked the cursor on the message and read it aloud: