One Fine Day You're Gonna Die (4 page)

Robin has put on her coat and is knotting her scarf. It appears that my apologetic smile has lost its charm.

I keep my focus on Boomer.

“I know the feeling,”
I say.

“I kind of figured you did,”
Boomer says.
“Anyway, long story short, my lady found a
biker with a bigger Hog, and she moved along.
For a long time, I was kind of where Gabe is
now. After my lady left, I soaped a lot of backs,
but none of them passed the Zest test. I was
beginning to think I'd lost something I would
never find again, then along came a lady with a
bar of Dove.”

“And soaping your new lady with Dove
was good?”

“Transcendent,”
Boomer booms.

I wouldn't have figured Boomer as a guy who'd describe his love life as “transcendent,” but life is full of surprises.

“So your message to Gabe is that somewhere
there's a lady with a bar of Dove that has
his name on it?”

“You got it, Charlie D.”
Boomer's laughter is as generous and enveloping as a bear hug.

“Thanks for calling,”
I say, and I mean it. The light on line two goes out, and I'm back to line one.

“
So, Gabe, think you can hang on until
your Cinderella appears?”

“I've pretty much given up on happily-ever-afters,”
Gabe says.
“When my radio came on
this morning and I heard the announcer say
that Robin was going to be your guest, I saw the
shape of my day. I'd drive to the hospital, listen
to jokes from my colleagues about turning forty,
open a couple of gag gifts and pretend to be
surprised when someone brought a cafeteria
cake into the staff lounge. And that would be my
birthday. At the end of my shift, I'd go back to
an empty condo and life without Robin and Kali.
I couldn't face it.”

Robin levels a last lethal look at me and walks out the studio door. She doesn't wave goodbye.

I turn my attention back to Gabe.

“So you decided to call in to our show
tonight,”
I say.

“Only after picking up the one thing
I needed to make my birthday complete,”
he says.

My heart is pounding.

“And what was that?”
I ask.

“A vial of saxitoxin.”

Robin has entered the control room. The space is brightly lit. I see everything, but hear nothing. It's like watching a silent movie. Without even a glance at Nova, Robin strides through the door that leads to the hall that will take her out of CVOX.

I open the talkback to Nova.

“We can't lose Robin,” I say. “Go after her. Unless I'm mistaken, Gabe is playing for keeps. Tell Robin that if she saves Gabe's life on air, she'll be able to write her own ticket for her call-in show.”

When the control-room door closes behind Nova, my pulse begins to race. It's just me and Gabe now. I turn on my microphone.

“Okay, Gabe. You've got my attention.
What's saxitoxin?”

CHAPTER SEVEN

G
abe is clinical.
“Saxitoxin is a poison,”
he says. There is no hint of emotion in his pleasant tenor. He might be delivering a lecture or reading an entry from a textbook.
“Some people call it shellfish toxin,”
he says
. “It kills quickly. And there's no antidote.”

“So if a person changes his or her mind,
nothing can be done,”
I say.

I stare at the door that separates the CVOX control room from the world where no one can control anything. Gabe continues his lecture about saxitoxin. The seconds tick by on the studio clock. No one comes through the door to the control room. Nova is smart and persuasive, but Robin's egotism may be a rock that cannot be cracked.

Just when I reconcile myself to flying solo, the door opens. As she resumes her customary place on the other side of the glass, Nova gives me a discreet thumbs-up. Robin sweeps back into the studio, takes her chair and slips on her earphones. She listens long enough to hear Gabe say that death from an injection is painless, and then she turns on her microphone and pounces.

“Gabe, you're not interested in injecting
yourself with anything. You're not interested in
dying. You're just interested in making my life
a living hell.”

“If your life is a living hell, why not join
me?”
Gabe says.
“The vial is full. Saxitoxin
for all.”

Robin shrugs off her coat. Seemingly she's back on the team.

I turn off my mike and switch on the talkback. Nova is tense, but she's in command. “Get Gabe's address from Dr. Harris and keep him talking until we can get a police shrink there.”

“Will do,” I say. “Dr. H., what's Gabe's home address?”

Robin's face flushes with anger. She reaches over and flicks on her microphone.

“Gabe, listen to me. You've got everyone
here in a panic, but I know you're faking.
Don't play along, Charlie D.”

I attempt to clear the air.
“Gabe, this is
a high-stakes game, so I need you to tell me the
truth. Are you planning to commit suicide?”

“I prefer to think of it as exiting on my own
terms,”
he says.

There's a hopelessness in his voice that I recognize.

“Let's rethink this, Gabe,”
I say.
“I've been
where you are, standing so close to the Gate of
Hell I could read the inscription over the entrance.”

“‘Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.'”
Gabe supplies the passage from Dante's
Inferno
.
“One of life's nastier surprises is that
even our suffering is not unique.”

Dr. Harris cannot contain her impatience.

“Gabe, you're an adult. Whether you choose
to end your life is your decision. I've lost track
of the number of times you've threatened
suicide. You're like the boy who cried wolf.”

“Ah, but one day, there really was a wolf,
and he ate the boy. My wolf is a vial of saxi-toxin.
It takes so little—there's more than
enough here for both of us. Just a pinprick from
the hypodermic and, within seconds, oblivion.
Would you like to say goodbye, my dark star?”

Robin spits out her response.

“To you? I don't think so. I've already said
goodbye to you a hundred times. You never get
the message.”

Gabe sounds weary.

“Actually, I was wondering if you'd like to
say goodbye to your daughter.”

“What?”
For the first time since she walked into the studio, cracks appear in Robin Harris's facade.
“What are you talking
about, Gabe?”

“You never quite hear me, do you, my
dark star? I simply asked if you wanted to say
goodbye to Kali?”

Robin's eyes are wide with fear.

“What are you talking about? You know I
wouldn't let you anywhere near my daughter.”

“Too late, Robin. She's here with me now.”

“You're lying. I talked to Kali two hours
ago. Her nanny had just given her a bath and
tucked her in.”

“And Kali was wearing her new pajamas—
the ones I bought her for Halloween—but why
don't I let Kali tell you about them.”

As she describes her new pajamas, Kali's voice is as tuneful as a well-played flute.

“
You were gone before Gabe came, Mummy.
The pajamas he gave me are dark blue and
they're covered in moons and stars…and when
the lights go out, the moons and stars glow
in the dark.”

Dr. Robin Harris seems to crumple before me.

“That's her voice,” she says. “Oh my god, Gabe has my daughter.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

F
or the first seconds after she hears that her six-year-old is with Gabe, Dr. Harris looks as if she's been sucker-punched. But she's a champ, and she comes out swinging. She pulls her microphone closer, a rookie mistake but—given the circumstances—understandable. I reach over and adjust it.

“How did you get her, Gabe?”
she asks. She makes no attempt to disguise the hostility in her voice. Both Robin's tone and her question surprise me. I thought her first concern would be Kali's safety. But it's not. Dr. Harris obviously sees Gabe's possession of her daughter as a kind of power play.

“What did you promise Inge?”
she asks.
“She would never simply hand Kali over to you.
She's been my nanny since Kali was born.”

“Which means she has seen how deeply I
love you both,”
Gabe says quietly.
“Inge and
I talk all the time. She's been concerned about
this rift between you and me. I wish you could
have seen her face when I told her the estrangement
was over.”

“She believed you?”
Robin says.

“She was ecstatic,”
Gabe says.
“We were
all ecstatic, weren't we, Kali? Kali and I were
so happy that we decided to let Inge go to a
Halloween party she was invited to and have an
adventure of our own.”

“Gabe, I need to talk to my daughter.”

“When you're angry, all the music goes
from your voice, Robin. Mummy's a little upset,
Kali. You can say hi to her, but remember we
can't tell her where we are. That's a secret.”

“Hi, Mummy,”
Kali says. She is at the center of this drama, but her voice is bubbly and unconcerned.
“Gabe bought me a new
game of Candy Land. We played it up at the
lake, 'member?”

Robin's tone is urgent.

“Listen to me, Kali. You have to get away
from Gabe. Start screaming and run.”

There's a bell-like sound in the background on Gabe's end of the line. I raise a finger and mouth the word
listen
to Robin. She furrows her brow in concentration but shakes her head. She can't identify what we're hearing.

Gabe comes back on the line.

“
My turn to talk, Kali,”
he says.
“Mummy
doesn't understand that we're playing two
games tonight. You and I are playing Candy
Land, and all of us are playing hide and seek.
Mummy is It. It's not fair for the person who's
It to tell us to scream and run, because as soon
as she finds us, the game is over.”

Robin's composure shatters.

“Gabe, please…”

“
Your voice is full of music again,”
Gabe says.
“I've never been able to resist your music.
Kali wants us to sing a song for you. I want
to do that too. We want you to remember how
much we loved you.”

Suddenly I know this isn't a game. This is for real.

“Gabe, you're not going to—”

He cuts me off.
“Kali, let's sing for
Mummy.”

Gabe's voice is a pleasant tenor, and Kali's little girl voice is fresh and tuneful. They sing a duet: “You Are My Sunshine.” By the time they finish, Nova is in tears, and my throat is thick. Robin is frantic.

“Kali, listen to me,”
she says.
“This isn't a
game. Gabe isn't your friend. He's going to hurt
you. You have to get away.”

“She can't hear you, Robin,”
Gabe says.
“I have the phone, and you won't be talking
to Kali anymore because you cheat. You don't
play by the rules. I'm not surprised but I am
disappointed. I had hoped that perhaps since
this was the last time the three of us would be
together…”

My heart is pounding. I can barely form the words.

“Gabe, don't kill that little girl.”

“Trust me, Charlie,”
he says gently.
“It's
for the best.”

“How can killing a six-year-old child be
‘for the best'?”

Gabe sounds very tired
. “There are
circumstances…”

I find myself shouting
.

“What circumstances could possibly justify
taking a child's life?”

“There aren't any.”
Robin's voice is fervent.
“Gabe, stop this. I want my daughter. I
won't press charges. I give you my word.”

“Even the music in your voice won't sway
me this time, my dark star. There've been
too many words, and I remember them all—
especially the ones at the end. You told me I
‘no longer meet your needs.' I wept, but your
eyes, ‘those silent tongues of love' Cervantes
wrote about, were cold. You were my whole
existence, Robin.”

“People fall out of love,”
Robin says tightly.

“I didn't,”
Gabe says.
“When I promised
to love you till the day I died, I meant it. In
less than half an hour my birthday and my life
will be over. I will die loving you, and that, my
beloved, is a great gift.”

CHAPTER NINE

R
obin's body is shaking, and when she speaks, there is a quiver in her splendid voice.
“Stop this Gabe. I want my
daughter back.”

“Why? So that one day you can tell her
that she no longer meets your needs? For the
past six months, I've spent every waking hour
trying to figure out what happened between us.
I've talked to a colleague of ours in psychiatry
who knows you. In fact, he was one of your
conquests. He says you have a fear of being
abandoned—that's why you always leave other
people before they can leave you.”