‘What? Didn’t I make this clear to you the first time? I don’t know anybody called Astrid.’
‘You beat up on her today. Don’t try to deny it; it won’t work. I just left her at the Sisters of Jerusalem, waiting for treatment.’
Charles Lasser sighed in exasperation. ‘I’ve been in meetings all day. We’re launching nine major new series next season. I don’t have the
Frank approached him, so close that Charles Lasser could have struck him with his golf club if he had wanted to. ‘I warned you,’ said Frank. ‘I warned you that if you touched Astrid one more time, I’d come back, and that I’d make sure that you never hurt her again.’
‘So you did. But read my lips, Mr Bell. I didn’t know any girl called Astrid when you first came here, and I haven’t made the acquaintance of any girl called Astrid in the meantime. All right. So somebody’s broken Astrid’s nose. I sympathize, I really do, whoever Astrid may be. But you’ll have to go looking for somebody else to threaten, because it wasn’t me.’
Frank pulled the .38 out of his inside pocket. The hammer got caught on the lining, which tore. He pointed the gun at Charles Lasser’s face and cocked it.
‘Christ Almighty,’ said Charles Lasser.
‘Yes,’ said Frank. ‘Christ Almighty. May Christ Almighty forgive you for what you’ve done, for all of the innocent people you’ve killed, and for beating up on Astrid just for your own enjoyment. You’re a sick man, Mr Lasser. You murdered my son, you murdered my friends, you murdered women and children who hadn’t even begun to live out their lives.’
‘Kim Cu’c,’ said Charles Lasser, without taking his eyes off the muzzle of Frank’s revolver. ‘Call security.’
‘Police, too, Mr Lasser?’
‘Are you deaf or something? I said call
‘What, are you scared?’ Frank asked him, even though his own hands were shaking and he found it difficult to keep it aimed at Charles Lasser’s head.
‘I’m not scared of anything, Mr Bell. Never have been, and never will be.’
‘That’s because you’ve never had to face up to someone your own size.’
‘So what are you going to do? Shoot me? Then what? You’ll spend fifteen years on death row and then they’ll give you a lethal injection.’
‘Not if I don’t kill you. Not if I simply shoot your balls off.’ With that, Frank slowly lowered the gun and pointed it between Charles Lasser’s legs.
Charles Lasser took a deep breath. ‘I’m telling you . . . I don’t know a girl called Astrid. I haven’t hurt
‘Well, you’re a pretty convincing liar, I’ll give you that. Kim Cu’c, don’t you go for that door! First of all we have to give your boss here a refresher course in “Girls I Have Busted the Noses of.” Maybe you don’t know Astrid by that name, Mr Lasser, but she came to see you today and you beat her very, very badly – the worst I’ve ever seen any woman beaten, not that I’ve seen very many. She’s five feet four, brunette with pale blue eyes. She has a pattern of moles across her chest like Andromeda and she always wears an emerald ring. Now, does that jog any memories? It was only this afternoon when you busted her nose, after all.’
Charles Lasser’s mouth opened, very slowly, and then closed again. ‘You . . .’ he began, but then he had to take two deep breaths to compose himself. ‘Who the
‘I haven’t been talking to anybody. I saw Astrid for myself.’
‘Astrid? Is that what she says her name is?’
‘Then you
Charles Lasser didn’t answer. His breathing was becoming increasingly labored, and he was almost chewing his breath with his perfect yellow teeth. Frank didn’t really know what to do – whether to shoot him in the head or shoot him in the balls or whether to turn around and leave him gasping. He seemed to have struck him harder by describing what Astrid looked like than he could ever have done with a .38 bullet.
‘I want your assurance,’ said Frank, growing bolder.
‘What?’
‘Here and now, I want you to give me your assurance that you’ll never see Astrid again.’
Charles Lasser shook his head in apparent disbelief. ‘My
‘It’s simple. I count to five. If by the time I count to five you say “I promise that I’ll never see Astrid again,” I put the gun away and I leave. If you don’t, I blow your balls off.’
‘You’re pathetic,’ said Charles Lasser. ‘Do you know that, Mr Bell? You’re completely and utterly sad. You don’t even know what the fuck you’re asking me to do, do you?’
Frank was confused. ‘I’m telling you to leave her alone, that’s all! Is that so difficult to understand?’
Charles Lasser started to laugh – the loud, desperate laughter of somebody who finds the world so ridiculous that he can’t think what else to do. ‘I don’t know where you belong, Mr Bell. I think you’re too crazy even for a nuthouse.’ Then abruptly he stopped laughing. ‘You’re not going to kill me, though, are you? You’re not even going to shoot my balls off. Let me tell you this, Mr Bell: any man who walks into my office with a gun and threatens me with it, he’d better fucking use it or else he’s going to pay.’
‘I don’t need a gun,’ Frank retorted. ‘All I have to do is tell the media about you and Astrid.’
‘Tell them what? The cops have interviewed me already. I don’t know any Astrid.’
‘But you know a girl with an emerald ring and a pattern of moles like Andromeda.’
Without any warning at all, Charles Lasser got off the edge of his desk, took two steps toward Frank, and whacked at his wrist with his golf club. The gun flew out of his hand and tumbled on to the carpet. Frank turned around, and as he did so, Charles Lasser whacked him again, right across the side of his head.
At first he couldn’t open his eyes. He had a cracking headache, worse than any headache he had ever experienced before. He felt as if his skull was actually split open, just above the bridge of his nose.
Eventually he managed to open his left eye. He was lying in the back of a panel van, with a corrugated aluminum floor, between stacks of khaki boxes and cheap gray removers’ blankets. The van’s roof was made of amber-tinted fiberglass, through which he could make out a dark shadow and a narrow band of sunlight, as if it were parked in a garage, or under a bridge. He struggled to sit up and realized that his wrists were tightly tied up behind him, and his ankles, too. His right eyelid felt like it was glued together, and he could feel a map of sticky blood all over his face.
‘Jesus,’ he said. The pain in his head was almost unbearable. He thought of rolling over on to his side, but he was afraid that it would hurt too much. Instead he tried to concentrate on who he was and what he was doing here. ‘Frank Bell,’ he croaked, after a while. And when he said that, he remembered Charles Lasser hitting his wrist, but that was all.
He had no idea how long he had been lying here. It was obviously daylight, but it could have been the following morning. He felt stomach-empty sick, but he hadn’t eaten anything before he had gone to see Charles Lasser, and the blow to his head could be making him feel nauseous. That, and the oily chemical smell that permeated the back of the van.
He managed to lift up his head a couple of inches. Not only was he tied up, hand and foot, but he was wearing a thick blue canvas vest. Raising his chin a little more, he could see that the vest had deep pockets in it, and that the pockets were filled with putty-colored blocks that looked like Play-Doh.
He let his head drop back. He was all dressed up like a suicide bomber.
About five minutes later, he lifted up his head again. It was gloomy in the back of the van, but there was enough light for him to be able to read the stenciled words on the side of the khaki boxes. IMI – Handle With Care. It didn’t take an explosives expert to work out that there were enough demolition blocks in here to bring down a sizeable building.
‘Hey!’ he shouted.
He waited, but there was no answer. ‘Hey!’ he shouted again, and kicked his heels on the floor.
Still no answer. ‘Get me out of here! Do you hear me? Get me the hell out of here! The cops are going to come looking for me! Do you hear me? I told the cops where I was going!’
He listened and listened. He could faintly hear traffic, and the sound of an airplane. He lowered his head again. He could only imagine what Charles Lasser had planned for him. This van was probably going to be used for
