“I see.”
“Only I don’t know his address, and if I have to ask him, it won’t be a surprise anymore.”
“Uh-huh.” Lyons would never give out a phone number, but an address seemed harmless enough. After all, they weren’t talking about Kitty Kelly or Teddy Kennedy here. The worst that could happen was that Riley’d get some extra junk mail. And if Lyons refused to help, the guy (who was almost certainly on the up-and-up) would call Riley and tell him how the hard-ass in personnel had ruined his nice surprise. Then Lyons would make an enemy of the most respected reporter on this rag only three weeks into the job.
“Uh, what’s your name?” he asked.
“Latovsky,” said the caller. “Dave Latovsky. But don’t tell him, okay? Like I said, it’s a surprise.”
No one could make up a name like Latovsky, and Lyons brought Riley’s file up on his terminal.
Riley didn’t live in Albany as Adam assumed, but on Friends Lane right here in Glenvale, ten minutes from the hospital.
He thanked the man and hung up. Then he unwound the handkerchief from around the mouthpiece and took the plastic tooth protector out of his mouth.
“Barb?” Riley called.
Her car was there, but she didn’t answer. Maybe Lisa had driven today, but Barb should be home by now anyway, unless they’d sprung one of those “team” meetings on her. She loathed them, called them arrant bullshit, said they’d lick illiteracy in America in a month if they taught as much as they met.
He stripped off his jacket and hung it up, then went down the hall to the little washroom under the stairs. His back still ached from the wrench of trying to save himself and his chair from toppling over, his nerves still tingled with the memory of Latovsky’s pork roast-sized fist poised to smash his face in, and as an extra added—a little icing on the cake of this truly lousy day—he was getting a sinus headache.
He pulled down his tie, unbuttoned his collar, and turned on the hot water. When it steamed, he soaked a washrag and pressed it against his aching eyes, then looked at himself in the mirror. His eyes were already swollen; the headache was going to be a doozy. He’d take some antisinus crap, eat lightly, and go to bed.
He heard a thump, turned off the water, and opened the washroom door.
“Barb?”
No answer; it must have been a squirrel on the roof or a branch hitting the house. Something was kicking up out there; the spruce trees along the Northway had thrashed in the wind and the sky was pale gray by the time he pulled into his driveway. Dave was going to have rotten weather for his fishing trip with “the kids.” They’d be Latovsky’s Jo and Jeanne Hinkley’s little boy, whose name escaped Riley. Jeanne was pretty, funny, and bright; she had long legs, big tits, and was mad about Dave, as a lot of women had been through the years. He should marry her. Probably would as soon as he got over his letch for the Sybil from Connecticut...
The thought came out of nowhere and took Riley by surprise. But he knew it was true the second he had it.
Poor Dave had conceived a passion for the lady from Connecticut, who was already married and must be more than a little nuts.
Riley was sorry he hadn’t gotten a look at her. He’d asked Mary Owen if she was pretty, and Mary had said, “More what you’d call ‘handsome,’ like they say in novels.”
Whatever it was thumped again and he called, “Barb?”
Still no answer, and he squeezed out the rag, hung it up, and went down the hall to the kitchen door. She might be in the basement doing laundry, but not on Friday, he thought. They usually went out, or she’d cook something a little special to celebrate the start of the weekend.
He pushed open the door and saw her.
She was tied to a kitchen chair with clothesline, with a dishtowel around her mouth as a gag. Her eyes rolled above the brightly colored cloth, fixed on him, and he froze.
“Barb...”
She jerked her head forward and squealed under the cloth, trying to tell him something. But he was too stunned to get the message or do anything but leap forward to tear the gag out of her mouth. Then he saw movement out of the corner of his eye, turned and saw a man in black with a black knit ski mask like a commando in a forties B movie.
The commando had a gun trained on him, a big one with a chrome body and Bakelite insets in the handle that Riley knew, as any crime reporter (or movie buff) would, was a Colt Python.
The commando gestured with it and said quietly, “Inside.”
Riley clutched the door, afraid he’d fall to his knees if he let go.
“I said inside.” The man jerked the gun, and Riley let go and took a staggering step into the room. His legs felt like mush but held him up. He realized, too late, that Barb’s head-jerking had been a message for him to run while there was still the ghost of a chance of getting away. He might have made it; could have leaped back, yanked the door shut, and could be racing across the lawn to the Edelmans next door to call the cops.
He’d blown it.
But it didn’t have to be the disaster it looked like, didn’t have to be a disaster at all, and his mind started to work in spite of the panic blowing hotly in his chest like a breath of hell. They were being robbed; it was simple and happened all the time to all sorts of people. Some South Albany crack-head had decided to come north and try his luck in Glenvale and the moron had picked their house.
Really dumb because they had zilch. The TV, the VCR, Riley’s collection of movies that were worthless to anyone but him. His PC, a good IBM clone, but the insurance would cover that. The only real loss would be his grandpa’s old gold watch, but it was rolled in a sock in his dresser drawer and anyone dumb enough to choose to rob the Rileys instead of one of the families on Greener, or another rich street, might miss it. Would miss it, Riley concluded. The watch was safe, and Riley was suddenly calmer. Much calmer now that he knew what was going on. His legs stiffened, his facial muscles relaxed; his eyes moved almost easily from the enormous gun to the mask’s eyeholes, like pits in the knit.
“Take what the fuck you want and get the fuck outta here,” he said. His voice was steady (Latovsky would be proud of him) and saying fuck seemed to help for some reason.
The mask’s mouth slit writhed and the commando said quietly, “What the fuck I want is her name, Mr. Riley.”
The panic started to come back, and with it a dizzying sense of disorientation, because he didn’t know what the commando was talking about. He forced the panic back down, swallowed a glob of burning spit, and asked, still pretty steadily, “Whose name?”
The mouth slit spread as if the commando smiled and he said, “Isn’t that just remarkable. You have something so deeply embedded in your mind, you’re sure everyone will automatically know what you mean. But of course they won’t.”
The voice was low-pitched and well modulated, the accent educated. Embedded was not a South Albany crack-head’s word, and the panic started blowing up again.
The commando said, “I mean the woman in your article, Mr. Riley. The Clairvoyant.”
Her. The Sybil from Exurbia whom he’d just sworn on his mother’s life never to name. But Latovsky didn’t expect him to get his head blown off to keep the oath. He didn’t expect it of himself.
He tried once anyway. Feebly, but he did try.
“I don’t know her name,” he said.
The commando took a couple of long strides across the kitchen and crouched down next to Barb. He put the gun against the side of her knee, digging it into the folds of her corduroy skirt.
“Try again, Mr. Riley,” he said almost pleasantly. “Who is she?” He looked up at Riley, the overhead light pierced the eyeholes of the mask and Riley saw eyes as expressionless as marbles, except for what looked like mild curiosity, maybe about how long this was going to take.