It was approaching nine o'clock on Sunday night. A large-boned woman with silver hair, her face broken by lines and her nose as sharp as a Confederate sword, sat in a high-backed leather chair and stared at her elderly husband through chill gray eyes. One of the new Perry Mason series shows was on television, and both the woman and her husband Edgar enjoyed watching Raymond Burr. The man sat in a wheelchair, his body shrunken in blue silk pajamas, his head lolled over to one side and a pink flap of tongue showing. His hearing was not what it used to be before the stroke six years earlier, but the woman knew he could hear the telephone because his eyes had widened and he was shaking more than usual.
They both knew who was calling. They let it ring.
The phone stopped ringing. After a pause of less than a minute, it began again.
The ringing filled the mansion and echoed through its twenty-three rooms like a voice crying in the dark.
Natalie Terrell said, 'Oh dear God,' and she got up and crossed the black and crimson Oriental rug to the telephone table. Edgar's gaze tried to follow her, but his neck wouldn't swivel past a certain point. She picked up the receiver with wrinkled, diamond-ring-adorned fingers. 'Yes?'
No answer. Breathing.
'Yes?'
Then it came. Her voice: 'Hi, Mother.'
Natalie stiffened. 'I don't care to talk to -'
'Don't hang up. Please don't. All right?'
'I'm not going to talk to you.'
'Are they watching the house?'
'I said I'm not going to talk -'
'Are they watching? Just tell me that.'
The elderly woman closed her eyes. She listened to the sound of her daughter breathing. Mary was their only child, since Grant had committed suicide when he was seventeen and Mary was fourteen. Natalie struggled for a moment, right against wrong. But which was which? She didn't know anymore. 'There's a van parked down the street,' she said.
'How long has it been there?'
'Two hours. Maybe longer.'
'Do they have the line tapped?'
'I don't know. Not from inside the house. I don't know.'
'Anybody hassle you?'
'A reporter from the local paper came this afternoon. We talked awhile and he left. I haven't seen any policemen or FBI, if that's what you mean.'
'FBI's in that van. You can believe it. I'm in Richmond.'
'What?'
'I said I'm in Richmond. At a pay phone. Have I been on TV yet?'
Natalie put a hand to her forehead. She felt faint, and she had to lean against the wall for support. 'Yes. All the networks.'
'They found out faster than I thought they would. It's not like it used to be. They've got those laptop computers and shit. It's really Big Brother now, isn't it?'
'Mary?' Her voice quavered and threatened to break. 'Why?'
'Karma,' Mary said, and that was all.
Silence. Natalie Terrell heard the thin crying of a baby through the receiver, and her stomach clenched. 'You're crazy,' she said. 'Absolutely crazy! Why did you steal a baby? For God's sake, don't you have any decency?'
Silence, but for the crying baby.
'The parents were on television today. They showed the mother leaving the hospital, and she was in such shock she couldn't even speak. Are you smiling? Does that make you happy, Mary? Answer me!'
'It makes me happy,' Mary said calmly, 'that I have my baby.'
'He's not yours! His name is David Clayborne! He's not your baby!'
'His name is Drummer,' Mary said. 'Know why? Because his heart beats like a drum, and because a drummer sounds the call to freedom. So he's Drummer now.'
Behind Natalie, her husband gave an incomprehensible shout, full of rage and pain.
'Is that Father? He doesn't sound good.'
'He's not. You've done it to him. That should make you happy, too.' About eight months after the stroke, Mary had called out of the blue. Natalie had told her what had happened, and Mary had listened and hung up without another word. A week later, a get well card had arrived in the mail with no return address and no signature, postmarked Houston.
'You're wrong.' Mary's voice was flat, without emotion. 'Father did it to himself. He mindfucked too many people and all those bad vibes blew his head out like an old lamp. Does all his money make him feel better now?'
'I'm not going to talk to you anymore.'
Mary waited in silence. Natalie did not put down the phone. In a few seconds she could hear her daughter cooing to the baby.
'Let that baby go,' Natalie said. 'Please. For me. This is going to be very bad.'
'You know, I'd forgotten how cold it can be up here.'
'Mary, let that child go. I'm begging you. Your father and I can't stand any more.' Her voice snagged, and the hot tears came. 'What did we ever do to make you hate us so much?'
'I don't know. Ask Grant.'
Natalie Terrell slammed the telephone down, the tears blinding her. She heard the labored squeaking of the wheelchair as Edgar pushed himself across the Oriental carpet with all the strength in his spindly body. She looked at him, saw his face contorted and his mouth drooling, and she looked away quickly.
The telephone rang.
Natalie stood there, her head and body slumped like a broken puppet dangling from a nail. Tears raced down her cheeks, and she put her hands to her ears, but the telephone kept ringing… ringing… ringing.
'I'd like to see you,' Mary said when Natalie picked up the receiver again.
'No. Absolutely not. No.'
'You know where I'm going, don't you?'
The mention of Grant had told her. 'Yes.'
'I want to smell the water. I remember it was always a clean smell. Why won't you meet me there?'
'I can't. No. You're a… you're a criminal.'
'I'm a freedom fighter,' Mary corrected her mother. 'If that's criminal, to fight for freedom, then yeah, okay, I plead guilty. But I'd still like to see you. It's been… Jesus… it's been over ten years, hasn't it?'
'Twelve years.'
'Blows my mind.' Then to the child: 'Hush! Mama's on the phone!'
'I can't come there,' Natalie said. 'I just can't.'
'I'll be here for a few days. Maybe. I've got some things to do. If you'd come see me, I'd be… you'd make me feel real good, Mother. We're not enemies, are we? We've always understood each other, and we could talk like real people.'
'I talked. You never listened.'
'Like real people,' Mary plowed on. 'See, I've got my baby now and there are things I have to do, and I know the pigs are hunting me but I've got to go on because that's the way it is, that's how things stand. I've got my baby now, and that makes me feel… like I belong in the world again. Hope, Mother. You know what hope is, don't you? Remember, we talked about hope, and good and evil, and all that stuff?'
'I remember.'
'I'd like to see you. But you can't let the pigs follow you, Mother. No. See, because I've got my baby. I'm not going to let the pigs take me and my Drummer. We'll go to the angels together, but the pigs won't take us. Can you dig it?'
'I understand,' the older woman said, her hand tight around the receiver.
