Land Of The Blind

would say I had nothing to do with it. The motive would always be his disagreement with Michael over Empire. My motive – Dana and our daughter – would stay secret forever. And since I would be with Dana when it happened, my motive would also be my alibi.

Perfect. Cold. I could hear my own breathing.

The cab left the freeway for the flat prosperity of Sunnyvale: small stucco war-era houses remodeled and expanded until they threatened to burst their small lots; new apartment complexes and condos and low-slung business parks where fortunes had been made and lost and were slowly being made again; an anachronistic villagelike downtown shaded by the condos and apartments rising around it. I was suffocating.

There was some kind of street fair going on and the cabbie had to detour around it – blocks of Berkeley vendors unloading knit hats and bracelets from Volvos and microbuses, and I thought I might choke in the back of that cab. The heat.

I had found a way to murder my enemy. What are you doing? Nothing! Settle down. You're just seeing an old friend.

'Seeing an old friend?' the cabbie asked. 'That's great.'

Was I talking out loud? Jesus. 'Yeah,' I answered. Was I really doing this? I checked my watch. Almost ten. The meeting would be any minute.

The cab stopped in front of a small, one-story stucco house, leaning out over two painted posts onto a lawn pocked with oranges from a small, leaning tree. No garage, just a cloth carport over a blue minivan. A tricycle sat on the front porch. My daughter's tricycle. My wife was in that house. The air was shallow and sharp in my chest; I couldn't get it to go any deeper, my lungs pressed beneath some weight.

I paid the cabbie and walked up to Dana's door. And that's when I knew I couldn't do it. My God. We were going to kill Michael. I'd told myself that Eli had lost his mind, but it was me. 'My God!' I said aloud. 'We can't do this.' I rang the bell over and over. We had to hurry. We could still warn him. Michael's cell phone number! Maybe we still had time.

My first thought when Michael answered the door was relief: Oh, thank God. I didn't do this. Then a little girl came up and peeked around his hip. She was beautiful, round faced and pigtailed, wearing pajamas with Belle from Beauty and the Beast on the front. Amanda.

'Who is it, Daddy?' Behind them was the house not of a Silicon Valley mogul, but a struggling, working couple: a box of Cheerios on the dining room table, papers and bills spread out, toys and pillows on the carpeted floor.

'What the hell are you doing here?' Michael asked me.

I couldn't look away from the girl. 'Is Dana here?' I asked.

'Mama's gone,' said the girl.

'She's in Spokane,' Michael said. 'That freak friend of yours said he didn't trust me. It had to be Dana. I don't know why I ever got involved with you crooks.'

I just stared at that little girl, at Michael and Dana's little girl. She held out a picture she had drawn. I took the picture and looked down at it. It was a stick-figure girl with stick-figure pigtails. 'That's me,' Amanda said. 'What's on your eye?'

'It's… it's a patch,' I said. My legs felt weak beneath me. I thought of what Eli had said. He's going to hurt like he's never imagined someone could hurt. Oh my God.

'Are you a pirate?'

'He sure is, sweetie,' said Michael. 'What do you want, Mason?' Behind him, his telephone rang.

7

WHAT ELI WANTED

What Eli wanted was the money he believed Michael owed him, the venture capital he was convinced Michael was holding back: $500,000, according to the ransom note Dana read over the phone. Michael listened with his hand on his head, making little moaning sounds every few seconds. I set Amanda's drawing down on the dining room table and stood next to Michael, my head next to his so that I could hear what Dana said.

''Get the money and fly to Spokane,'' Dana read. ''There is a flight out of San Jose in ninety minutes. That gives you just enough time to go to the bank and get to the airport. The flight lands in Spokane at three-thirty. Exit the airport and walk to the garage. On the top floor, near the elevator, you will find a gray Mercedes-Benz with the top down. Put the money in the car and then go back into the airport and sit at the pay phone directly adjacent to the escalator. When Eli has the money, he will call and tell you where to find me. I'm in a cabin in the woods. If you do everything right, he won't hurt me. But if you call the police or don't bring the money, he will kill me. If you bring the police, he will never tell them where I am and I'll-'' She stopped. 'What's that word?'

'Starve,' said Eli in the background.

'It looks like swerve.'

'No,' he said. 'It's 'starve.' How could you swerve to death?'

'Yeah, I didn't think that made sense,' she said, and I couldn't believe how matter-of-fact she sounded, as if they were just chatting. ''Starve to death,'' Dana said. ''You have until four o'clock. If Eli doesn't have the money by four o'clock, he will kill me.' 'The phone went dead.

'Dana!' The phone dropped out of Michael's hand. 'Jesus. This isn't happening!' He tried Dana's phone again, but there was no answer. While he listened to it ring, he suddenly pushed me in the chest. 'Did you have anything to do with this?'

'Of course not,' I said. 'I love Dana.'

He just stared at me. Then he threw his phone across the room and put his face in his hands. Amanda started crying. 'Daddy?'

Michael picked her up and comforted her. His hand was on her head. It fit perfectly between her pigtails. He was crying, too. He pressed her hard to his chest, and her little legs swayed side to side. She had frills on her socks.

So perfect. So cold.

'Listen,' I said. 'Nothing is going to happen. I'll take care of this, Michael. I'll make sure nothing happens. Eli isn't violent. He's just confused. He'll listen to me. I'm going to get Dana back and get Eli some help. I knew he was losing it. I knew-' I couldn't finish. I couldn't tell him that I had pushed Eli to this point.

'I don't have that kind of money,' Michael said. 'We gotta call the cops.'

'No,' I said. 'Not yet. Don't force his hand. I'll fly back up there. I'll talk Eli down. Don't worry. I won't let anything happen. He's just confused.'

'What if he hurts her?'

'He won't,' I said. 'Look, you can call the police if you want. But please. Let me fly up there and see if I can stop this. Get me on the plane and then it's up to you. Call the police. I don't care. But give me a chance to make this right.'

Michael considered me. I'd always thought we looked alike, but as I looked into his teary eyes I felt so much smaller than him, so much less.

'Okay,' he said.

He let me on his computer and I signed onto my e-mail and wrote Eli a quick note, just in case he checked.

Eli-

Don't do anything. I'm coming back there. Don't move. I need to talk to you.

I lied about everything. There is no more money. I'm sorry. For everything.

It's going to be okay.

Clark

We ran out to Michael's minivan, parked under the cloth carport. His hands shook as he worked the keys – hung on a long gecko key ring – and he beat on the dashboard as we sat snarled in traffic, trying to get around the street fair and the construction. The drive took forever, Michael yelling at drivers and squirreling the minivan from lane to