'Go ahead. Wait, I want to keep the line open. They called, I talked with him, I had a million questions and he hung up on me. 'Stay off the line. We'll get back to you.' Use my daughter's phone, it's through that door. Kids, on the phone all the time, you could never reach the house. I had that other thing, Call Waiting, drove everybody crazy. All the time clicking in your ear, telling this one to hold on, you have to take a call.
Terrible. I got rid of it, got her her own phone, she could stay on it all she wanted. God, take anything I got, just give her back to me!'
I CALLED TJ's beeper and punched in the number on the Landau girl's Snoopy figural phone. Snoopy and Michael Jackson both seemed to play key roles in her personal mythology, judging from the room's decor. I paced, waiting for my call, and found a family photo on the white enamel dressing table, Yuri and a dark-haired woman and a girl with dark hair that fell past her shoulders in cascading ringlets. Lucia looked to be about ten in the photo. Another photo showed her alone, older, and looked to have been taken last June at graduation. Her hair was shorter in the more recent photo and her face looked serious and mature for her years.
The phone rang. I picked it up and he said, 'Yo, who wants TJ?'
'It's Matt,' I said.
'Hey, my man! What's goin', Owen?'
'Serious business,' I said. 'It's an emergency, and I need your help.'
'You got it.'
'Can you get hold of the Kongs?'
'You mean right away? They sometimes hard to reach. Jimmy Hong got a beeper, but he don't always have it with him.'
'See if you can get him and give him this number.'
'Sure. That's it?'
'No,' I said. 'Do you remember the laundromat we went to last week?'
'Sure.'
'Do you know how to get there?'
'R train to Forty-fifth, a block to Fifth Avenue, four, five blocks to the wishee-washee.'
'I didn't realize you were paying attention.'
'Shit,' he said. 'Man, I allus payin' attention. I's attentive.'
'Not just resourceful?'
'Attentive an' resourceful.'
'Can you get out there right away?'
'Right now? Or call the Kongs first?'
'Call them, then go. Are you near the subway?'
'Man, I always be near the subway. I talkin' to you on the phone the Kongs liberated, Forty-third an'
Eighth.'
'Call me as soon as you get out there.'
' 'Kay. Somethin' big goin' down, huh?'
'Very big,' I said.
I LEFT the bedroom door open so that I could hear the phone if it rang and went back into the living room. Peter Khoury was at the window looking out at the ocean. We hadn't talked much on the drive, but he'd volunteered the information that he hadn't had a drink or a drug since the meeting I'd seen him at.
'So I got five days,' he said.
'That's great.'
'That's the party line, isn't it? One day or twenty years, you tell somebody your time and they tell you it's great. 'You're sober today and that's what counts.' Fucked if I know what counts anymore.'
I went over to Kenan and Yuri and we talked. The bedroom phone didn't ring, but after perhaps fifteen minutes the one in the living room sounded and Yuri answered it. He said, 'Yeah, this is Landau,' and glanced significantly at me, then tossed his head to get the hair out of his eyes. 'I want to talk to my daughter,' he said. 'You got to let me talk to my daughter.'
I went over and he handed me the phone. I said, 'I hope the girl's alive.'
There was a silence, then, 'Who the fuck are you?'
'I'm the best chance you've got of making a nice clean exchange, the girl for the money. But you'd better not hurt her, and if you're playing any games they better get called right now on account of rain.
Because she has to be alive and well for the deal to happen.'
'Fuck this shit,' he said. There was a pause and I thought he was going to say more, but he hung up.
I reported the conversation to Yuri and Kenan. Yuri was agitated, concerned that I was going to screw things up by taking a hard line.
Kenan told him I knew what I was doing. I wasn't sure he was right, but I was glad for the support.
'The important thing right now is to keep her alive,' I said. 'They have to know that they won't be able to rig
