No answer. Breathing.
"Yes?"
Then it came. Her voice: "Hi, Mother."
Natalie stiffened. "I don't care to talk to -"
"Don't hang up. Please don't. All right?"
"I'm not going to talk to you."
"Are they watching the house?"
"I said I'm not going to talk -"
"Are they watching? Just tell me that."
The elderly woman closed her eyes. She listened to the sound of her daughter breathing. Mary was their only child, since Grant had committed suicide when he was seventeen and Mary was fourteen. Natalie struggled for a moment, right against wrong. But which was which? She didn't know anymore. "There's a van parked down the street," she said.
"How long has it been there?"
"Two hours. Maybe longer."
"Do they have the line tapped?"
"I don't know. Not from inside the house. I don't know."
"Anybody hassle you?"
"A reporter from the local paper came this afternoon. We talked awhile and he left. I haven't seen any policemen or FBI, if that's what you mean."
"FBI's in that van. You can believe it. I'm in Richmond."
"What?"
"I said I'm in Richmond. At a pay phone. Have I been on TV yet?"
Natalie put a hand to her forehead. She felt faint, and she had to lean against the wall for support. "Yes. All the networks."
"They found out faster than I thought they would. It's not like it used to be. They've got those laptop computers and shit. It's really Big Brother now, isn't it?"
"Mary?" Her voice quavered and threatened to break. "Why?"
"Karma," Mary said, and that was all.
Silence. Natalie Terrell heard the thin crying of a baby through the receiver, and her stomach clenched. "You're crazy," she said. "Absolutely crazy! Why did you steal a baby? For God's sake, don't you have any decency?"
Silence, but for the crying baby.
"The parents were on television today. They showed the mother leaving the hospital, and she was in such shock she couldn't even speak. Are you smiling? Does that make you happy, Mary? Answer me!"
"It makes me happy," Mary said calmly, "that I have my baby."
"He's not yours! His name is David Clayborne! He's not your baby!"
"His name is Drummer," Mary said. "Know why? Because his heart beats like a drum, and because a drummer sounds the call to freedom. So he's Drummer now."
Behind Natalie, her husband gave an incomprehensible shout, full of rage and pain.
"Is that Father? He doesn't sound good."
"He's not. You've done it to him. That should make you happy, too." About eight months after the stroke, Mary had called out of the blue. Natalie had told her what had happened, and Mary had listened and hung up without another word. A week later, a get well card had arrived in the mail with no return address and no signature, postmarked Houston.
"You're wrong." Mary's voice was flat, without emotion. "Father did it to himself. He mindfucked too many people and all those bad vibes blew his head out like an old lamp. Does all his money make him feel better now?"
"I'm not going to talk to you anymore."
Mary waited in silence. Natalie did not put down the phone. In a few seconds she could hear her daughter cooing to the baby.
"Let that baby go," Natalie said. "Please. For me. This is going to be very bad."
"You know, I'd forgotten how cold it can be up here."
"Mary, let that child go. I'm begging you. Your father and I can't stand any more." Her voice snagged, and the hot tears came. "What did we ever do to make you hate us so much?"
"I don't know. Ask Grant."
Natalie Terrell slammed the telephone down, the tears blinding her. She heard the labored squeaking of the wheelchair as Edgar pushed himself across the Oriental carpet with all the strength in his spindly body. She looked at him, saw his face contorted and his mouth drooling, and she looked away quickly.
The telephone rang.
Natalie stood there, her head and body slumped like a broken puppet dangling from a nail. Tears raced down her cheeks, and she put her hands to her ears, but the telephone kept ringing… ringing… ringing.
"I'd like to see you," Mary said when Natalie picked up the receiver again.
"No. Absolutely not. No."
"You know where I'm going, don't you?"
The mention of Grant had told her. "Yes."
"I want to smell the water. I remember it was always a clean smell. Why won't you meet me there?"
"I can't. No. You're a… you're a criminal."
"I'm a freedom fighter," Mary corrected her mother. "If that's criminal, to fight for freedom, then yeah, okay, I plead guilty. But I'd still like to see you. It's been… Jesus… it's been over ten years, hasn't it?"
"Twelve years."
"Blows my mind." Then to the child: "Hush! Mama's on the phone!"
"I can't come there," Natalie said. "I just can't."
"I'll be here for a few days. Maybe. I've got some things to do. If you'd come see me, I'd be… you'd make me feel real good, Mother. We're not enemies, are we? We've always understood each other, and we could talk like real people."
"I talked. You never listened."
"Like real people," Mary plowed on. "See, I've got my baby now and there are things I have to do, and I know the pigs are hunting me but I've got to go on because that's the way it is, that's how things stand. I've got my baby now, and that makes me feel… like I belong in the world again. Hope, Mother. You know what hope is, don't you? Remember, we talked about hope, and good and evil, and all that stuff?"
"I remember."
"I'd like to see you. But you can't let the pigs follow you, Mother. No. See, because I've got my baby. I'm not going to let the pigs take me and my Drummer. We'll go to the angels together, but the pigs won't take us. Can you dig it?"
"I understand," the older woman said, her hand tight around the receiver.
"Gotta change Drummer's diaper," Mary said. "Bye, Mother."
"Good-bye."
Click.
Natalie backed away from the phone as one might retreat from a particularly deadly snake. She bumped into Edgar's wheelchair, and he said something to her that sprayed spittle.
Perhaps thirty seconds passed. The phone began to ring once more.
Natalie didn't move.
It rang and rang, and finally Natalie stepped forward, reached out, and picked up the receiver. Her face had gone deathly pale.
"We've got it on tape, Mrs. Terrell," one of the FBI agents in the white van said. She thought it was the younger of the two, the one who'd shown her the phone-tracing device that automatically printed out a caller's number. "It was from a pay phone inside the city limits, all right. We're getting a precise location on it now, but your daughter'll be long gone by the time we get a car there. Do you know where she's going, Mrs. Terrell?"
Natalie had an obstruction in her throat. She swallowed and swallowed, but she couldn't make it go away.
"Mrs. Terrell?" the young man urged.
"Yes," she answered with an effort. "Yes, I do know. She's… going to our beach house. In Virginia Beach. The address is…" She couldn't get her breath, and she had to stop for a moment. "The address is 2717 Hargo Point Road. It's a white house with a brown roof. Is that all you need?"
"Do you have a phone number, please?"
She gave it to him. "Mary won't answer the phone, though."
"You're sure about this, then?"
"Yes." Again, the breathless sensation. "I'm sure."
"How?"
"She mentioned Grant, her brother. He committed suicide at the beach house. And she said she wanted to smell the water." Natalie felt a sharp stab in her heart. "That's where we used to take her when she was a little girl."
"Yes, ma'am. Excuse me, please." There was a long pause. Talking it over, Natalie surmised. Then the younger man came back on the line. "Okay, that does it. Thank you for your cooperation, Mrs. Terrell."