evening, sir.' He at once looked past Mitch to Anson. 'Pleased to see you, Mr. Rafferty.'
With no sound that Mitch could detect, the ornate iron gates swung inward. Beyond lay a two-lane driveway paved with quartzite cobblestones, flanked by majestic phoenix palms, each tree lighted from the base, the great crowns forming a canopy over the pavement.
He drove onto the estate with the feeling that, all forgiven, Eden had been restored.
The driveway was a quarter of a mile long. Vast, magically illuminated lawns and gardens receded into mystery on both sides.
Anson said, 'Sixteen manicured acres.'
'There must be a dozen on the landscape staff alone.'
'I'm sure there are.'
From red tile roofs, limestone walls, mullioned windows radiant with golden light, columns, balustrades, and terraces, the architect had conjured as much grace as grandeur. So large that it should have been intimidating, the Italianate house instead looked welcoming.
The driveway ended by encircling a reflecting pond with a center fountain from which crisscrossing jets, like sprays of silver coins, arced and sparkled in the night. Mitch parked beside it.
'Does this guy have a license to print money?'
'He's in entertainment. Movies, casinos, you name it.'
This splendor overawed Mitch but also raised his hopes that Julian Campbell would be able to help them. Having built such wealth after being critically wounded and released from the FBI on permanent disability, having been dealt such a bad hand yet having played it to win, Campbell must be as street-smart as Anson promised.
A silver-haired man, with the demeanor of a butler, greeted them on the terrace, said his name was Winslow, and escorted them inside.
They followed Winslow across an immense white-marble receiving foyer capped by a coffered plaster ceiling with gold-leaf details. After passing through a living room measuring at least sixty by eighty feet, they came finally into a mahogany-paneled library.
In response to Mitch's question, Winslow revealed that the book collection numbered over sixty thousand volumes. 'Mr. Campbell will be with you momentarily,' he said, and departed. The library, which incorporated more square footage than Mitch's bungalow, offered half a dozen seating areas with sofas and chairs.
They settled into armchairs, facing each other across a coffee table, and Anson sighed. 'This is the right thing.'
'If he's half as impressive as the house—'
'Julian is the best, Mickey. He's the real deal.'
'He must think a lot of you to meet on such short notice, past ten o'clock at night.'
Anson smiled ruefully. 'What would Daniel and Kathy say if I turned away your compliment with a few words of modesty?'
' 'Modesty is related to diffidence,' ' Mitch quoted. ' 'Diffidence is related to shyness. Shyness is a synonym for timidity. Timidity is a characteristic of the meek. The meek do not inherit the earth, they serve those who are self-confident and self-assertive.' '
'I love you, little brother. You're amazing.'
'I'm sure you could quote it word for word, too.'
'That's not what I mean. You were raised in that Skinner box, that rat maze, and yet you're maybe the most modest guy I know.'
'I've got issues,' Mitch assured him. 'Plenty of them.'
'See? Your response to being called modest is self-criticism.' Mitch smiled. 'Guess I didn't learn much in the learning room.'
'For me, the learning room wasn't the worst,' Anson said. 'What I'll never scrape out of my mind is the shame game.'
Memory flushed Mitch's face. ''Shame has no social usefulness. It's a signature of the superstitious mind.''
'When did they first make you play the shame game, Mickey?'
'I think I was maybe five.'
'How often did you have to play it?'
'I guess half a dozen times over the years.'
'They put me through it eleven times that I remember, the last when I was thirteen.'
Mitch grimaced. 'Man, I remember that one. You were given a full week of it.'
'Living naked twenty-four/seven while everyone else in the house remains clothed. Being required to answer in front of everyone the most embarrassing, the most intimate questions about your private thoughts and habits and desires. Being watched by two other family members at every toilet, at least one of them a sister, allowed no smallest private moment…Did that curt you of shame, Mickey?'
'Look at my face,' Mitch said.
'I could light a candle off that blush.' Anson laughed softly, a warm and bearish laugh. 'Damn if we're getting him anything for Father's Day.'
'Not even cologne?' Mitch asked.
This was a jokey routine from childhood.
'Not even a pot to piss in,' Anson said.
'What about the piss without the pot?'
'How would I wrap it?'
'With love,' Mitch said, and they grinned at each other.
'I'm proud of you, Mickey. You beat 'em. It didn't work with you the way it worked with me.'
'The way what worked?'
'They broke me, Mitch. I have no shame, no capacity for guilt.' From under his sports coat, Anson withdrew a pistol.
Chapter 25
Mitch held his smile in anticipation of the punch line, as if the pistol would prove to be not a weapon but instead a cigarette lighter or a novelty-store item that shot bubbles.
If the salty sea could freeze and keep its color, it would have been the shade of Anson's eyes. They were as clear as ever, as direct as always, but they were further colored by a quality that Mitch had never seen before, that he could not identify, or would not.
'Two million. Truth is,' Anson said almost sadly, without bite or rancor, 'I wouldn't pay two million to ransom you, so Holly was dead the moment she was snatched.'
Mitch's face set marble-hard, and his throat seemed to be full of broken stones that weighed down speech.
'Some people I've done consulting work for — sometimes they come across an opportunity that is crumbs to them but meat to me. Not my usual work, but things that are more directly criminal.'
Mitch had to struggle to focus his attention, to hear what was said, for his head was filled with a roar of lifelong perceptions collapsing like a construct of termite-eaten timbers.
'The people who kidnapped Holly are the team I put together for one of those jobs. They made a bundle from it, but they found out my take was bigger than I told them, and now they're greedy.'
So Holly had been kidnapped not solely because Anson had enough money to ransom her, but also because — primarily because — Anson had cheated her abductors.
'They're afraid to come directly after me. I'm a valuable resource to some serious people who'd pop anyone who popped me.'
Mitch assumed he would soon meet some of those 'serious people,' but whatever threat they might pose to him, it could not equal the devastation of this betrayal.
'On the phone,' Anson revealed, 'they said if I don't ransom Holly, they'll kill her and then shoot you down in
