even.
Abuse victims were encouraged to strike back at the people who had made their lives a misery. They could do this in a small, irritating way by constantly ordering pizzas – or taxis, or mail-order goods – for their one-time tormentors, day after day, week after week. Or they could get more serious and infect their office computers with pictures of child pornography. Or they could jeopardize their careers by calling their companies and suggesting that they had been operating some kind of illegal kickback.
Members of Whipping Horse who had taken their revenge on their abusers were asked to report back to a secure email address, describing exactly what they had done, ‘in full, grisly detail, please! So that we can all enjoy how you made the bastard(s) squirm!’ Those who had carried out the most extreme acts of retribution would be invited to join an ‘inner sanctum.’
‘The inner sanctum will regularly meet to devise effective punishments for abusers of all kinds, and also for those who abuse by omission, by trying to pretend that abuse does not exist, and that life is all happiness and sunshine. For the first time, victims of abuse can show the world what it is like to have your life damaged beyond human repair, and your very soul taken away from you. For the first time, victims of abuse are being offered a path in the darkness.’
At nine twenty-seven the following morning, Frank was woken by the phone ringing. It was Nevile.
‘They’ve found a list of Dar Tariki’s members. They include all the people who volunteered as suicide bombers. Richard Haze Abbott, Alexander Sutter, the man and the girl who blew up The Cedars – everybody. The police have been able to make two or three arrests, but at least seventeen of them must still be in hiding someplace. Presumably the ones who are going to carry out the next nine bombings.’
‘Do they have any idea who’s behind it?’
‘Not so far. The FBI have been talking to John Kellner all night, apparently, but they don’t think he
‘Maybe you should to talk to him, so that you can feel his aura.’
‘I did suggest it. But the police are being more than a little cagey at the moment – not answering my calls, stuff like that. I don’t think they’re very happy that it was you and me who found that stash of explosives. They don’t want the
Frank ran his hand through his sleep-tousled hair. ‘So tell me, who bombed The Cedars?’
‘An artist called Gerry Francovini, twenty-six years old, from West Hollywood. And a girl of twenty-four called Tori Fisher, from Palo Alto originally. She was a model or something.’
‘Not much more than kids themselves.’
‘True. But it still doesn’t excuse what they did.’
‘I don’t really care about who they were, or why they did it. What I want to know is who put them up to it.’
The next call came ten minutes later, from Astrid. ‘Do you want to meet me this afternoon?’ she asked him.
‘Why don’t I buy you lunch? I’ve been staying with my sister but I’m moving into the Franklin Plaza, and the room won’t be ready till three.’
‘I’m sorry, Frank. I promised to have lunch with my friend.’
‘Can’t you put her off?’
‘I’m sorry. I’ll see you about three thirty, OK?’
‘Astrid – before you hang up, I wanted to ask you something about your ring. You know, the one that your father gave you – the emerald. St John the Evangelist’s birthstone. I mean, it was such a coincidence—’
Before he could say any more, she cut the connection. Frank stared at the receiver for a long time, almost as if he expected it to speak to him, and tell him the answer to everything he wanted to know. But then Carol called up the stairs that breakfast was ready, so he hung up and went to take a shower.
I may miss Margot, but it’s Astrid that I really want, he thought as he soaped himself. The smell of her skin, the curve of her hip. The slight seductive droop of her eyelids, as if she’s dreaming. So Nevile thinks she’s dangerous. That only makes her all the more exciting.
Twenty-Seven
Frank took Carol and Smitty for a Zen burger at Iyashinbou at Century City, by way of a thank you for putting him up. Carol had protested that he could stay with them for as long as he wanted, and it wouldn’t cost him a bean, so long as he didn’t mind babysitting now and again. But he didn’t want to risk those phony cops turning up and shooting their way through her door, not with children around.
Iyashinbou was always preternaturally chilled out, with its raked-gravel garden and its pools full of lazily swimming carp, but this morning the atmosphere everywhere in Hollywood was palpably more relaxed. The bombing was over and the dreaded Dar Tariki Tariqat had turned out to be nothing more than a collection of vengeful geeks. People couldn’t understand Islamic fundamentalists, but they could understand geeks – and they could understand why these particular geeks had gone the way of Timothy McVeigh. They could even empathize, although they couldn’t forgive, especially those whose favorite soaps had been permanently canceled. All in all, it was a good movie-type ending. In fact, several screenwriters were busy working on bomb-outrage scripts, with Morgan Freeman already tipped for the role of Commissioner Campbell.
‘You ask me, I blame the Web,’ said Smitty. He was wearing a purple Rams sweatshirt and a baggy pair of Desert Storm combat pants. ‘Before the Web, your average loser had no way of getting in touch with any of your other losers. All of your losers, right, they were
Carol said, ‘I feel sorry for those young people. I know I don’t have any reason to, but I do. They were beaten and sexually abused and God knows what else, and the world took no notice. I know it’s been a terrible price to pay, but maybe it’ll change some attitudes.’
‘I’ll have the teppanyaki burger with eggplant fries,’ said Smitty. ‘And a cold Sapporo to chase it down the old red lane.’
Frank and Carol both ordered yakitori chicken burgers and vinegared rice balls. Frank had chosen to have lunch at Iyashinbou because it had been Mo’s favorite restaurant – apart, of course, from Shalom Pizza on West Pico. The idea of a Japanese burger restaurant had appealed to Mo’s sense of total absurdity. He had liked it even better when he had found out that ‘Iyashinbou’ meant ‘Greedy Guts.’
While they were waiting for their food, Carol took hold of Frank’s hand across the table. ‘You must feel you’ve gotten some kind of closure for Danny. Especially since you found those bombs yourself.’
‘I don’t know yet. We still need to know who organized all of this bombing, and who paid for it. I mean, how could a bunch of amateurs get themselves together to blow up half of Hollywood, Internet or not? Especially a bunch of emotionally damaged people like Dar Tariki Tariqat.’
‘You know something?’ said Smitty. ‘We live in a different world these days. When we was young, what did we care about Islam? Nothing. Islam was what you said when somebody asked you what was for lunch. We didn’t even know that Islam existed. Now we have to walk on fucking eggshells. Same with gays. Same with vegetarians. Same with pediatricians.’
‘Don’t you mean pedophiles?’
‘Whatever.’
Smitty was still grumbling about political correctness when Frank saw a figure walking across the plaza in front of the restaurant. The windows of Iyashinbou were tinted dark metallic gray, so that it looked as if it were thundery outside. The figure was wearing a baseball cap with a long peak, and drooping maroon shorts, and he was dragging a dog on a very long string. As he came close to the restaurant, he stopped, and peered intently inside, even though he couldn’t have seen anything but his own reflection.
