done. She had the cutest little red and black blanket. Here’s a tape, might clue you in on why Jasmine Jolene moved out. Why she’s been ducking you. Owe you that, I guess, Great Man. Now I owe myself something else. A little drinky, a little bye bye.
Bye bye, Great Man!
Ryan stared at the note—then looked at the tape. He was strangely reluctant to listen to it. At last he put it in the tape player, and pressed Play.
19
“I just don’t feel comfortable in this park anymore, Bill,” Elaine said. “Bodyguards or not.”
She and Bill stood on the little bridge, watching the reflected light play in the stream. The cryptic pagan graffiti of the Saturnine cult marked the wood of the little footbridge. They’d seen bullets lying about in the grass —and ADAM syringes.
Bill nodded. “Does seem daft, coming ’ere. Suppose she steps on one of those syringes? What’ll that do to her?”
Elaine put her hand to her mouth. “Oh—I hadn’t thought of that.”
“But—she and Mascha were all atwitter about coming here, love.” He slipped his arm around her shoulders. “A few minutes more, and we’ll go home, eh?”
He glanced over his shoulder, saw Constable Redgrave and Karlosky, talking a few strides away, each with a shotgun and a pistol. The little girls were playing with the little wooden dolls Sam Lutz had made them over by a boulder, close to the sliding Japanese-style doors, about fifty feet away.
A drumming of propellers caught his attention, and he looked up to see a security bot fly overhead. It whined past, watching for splicers. Arcadia had been cleared of splicers and rebels—at least for the time being. Bill had requested a day with his family in the park, and Ryan had seen to it.
“I just have the worst feeling, Bill,” Elaine whispered…
Bill sighed, wanting a cigarette. Real tobacco was in short supply. “I know. You’re right. I’m going to get us out of here.”
“Bill!” Redgrave called, worry in his voice.
Karlosky was already hurrying toward the boulder where the girls had been. They were gone…
“Sophie!” Bill shouted. He found himself running after Karlosky. “Redgrave—keep Elaine here!”
“That door—” Karlosky puffed.
Bill saw it then—the sliding door was open. And the girls were nowhere to be seen. His daughter was gone.
Then—there she was. Sophie, stepping through it, alone, tears in her eyes. “Daddy?”
Karlosky ran through the door, calling, “Mascha! Hey kid! Where you go!”
Bill ran to Sophie, swept her up in his arms. “Crikey, I was so worried, love, don’t run off like that. Where’s Mascha?”
“We heard someone call us—from the tea room! We went through the door, but it was someone I don’t know… a big man… He said she had to go with him—for Rapture!”
“What!” Still holding her, Bill stepped through the door—and saw no one except Karlosky coming back, frowning.
Karlosky shook his head at him. “They’re gone.”
But there was Mascha’s doll, lying on the floor. Its head was snapped off. Bill put Sophie down, placed his hands on her shoulders, and looked tenderly into her eyes. “Did he hurt you, love?” Bill asked, heart sinking as he thought about poor Mascha…
Her lips quivered. “I pulled at his arm, and he pushed me down! And I ran away!” And then she burst into tears.
Elaine rushed up, then, crushing Sophie to her, tears of mother and daughter running together.
Redgrave was close behind her—he’d been watching her back. “Bill—where’s the other one?” Redgrave asked, looking around.
“Some bastard took her…”
He stepped up to Karlosky, drew him aside. “You see anything?”
“Nyet—but I think I heard Cavendish back there.”
“Cavendish? I’ve got to get my wife and girl back to our place. You and Redgrave see if you can find Mascha, will you?”
“We try. But…” Karlosky shook his head. “Not much hope.”
It seemed to Bill that those three words summed it all up.
The automated voice at the Gatherer’s Garden machine, near the entrance to the strip joint where Jasmine worked, seemed to be speaking directly to Andrew Ryan, as if teasing him, mocking him. He ignored it, as well as the startled man taking tickets at the door. He rushed into the strip club, disregarding the swaying woman on the stage.
He beelined right to that backstage door he’d been so familiar with before he’d gotten Jasmine into her luxury apartment…
He should have taken her in hand, forced it out of her—not gotten so caught up in other things.
But too late. He kept hearing the tape over and over in his head
Sold his child!
He slammed into the back hallway, down the hall, into the bedroom where strippers did their “extra” shows for special customers, and there she was, barely dressed, yawning on the wrinkled bedclothes. Jasmine Jolene, looking sleepy. Pretending all was right with them when she saw him come in. Pretending that she was glad to see him.
“I… I thought you’d forgotten about me…” she squeaked. Forgetting her elocution lessons in her fear. “But I’m so glad you didn’t.”
“You sold my child! To Tenenbaum! To Fontaine!”
She scrambled away from him. “I’m sorry, Mr. Ryan. I didn’t know. I didn’t know Fontaine had something to do with it! I…”
He couldn’t bear to hear the lies coming out of that pretty mouth. He lunged at her, closed his hands over her soft neck.
“What are you doing?” she gasped. “No, no don’t! Please! I loved you—don’t, please, don’t! No,
