The Frumious Bandersnatch

from its hasp. He picked up the AK-47 from where he’d momentarily placed it on the floor, and cautiously opened the door.

She was sitting on the floor with her back to the rear wall of the closet, knees bent, long legs tucked under her, skirt tattered, panties showing. Her brown eyes were wide at first. She blinked them against the sudden light that flooded in.

“Nothing stupid now,” he said.

She opened her eyes again.

He was still wearing a dumb Halloween mask. One of those rubber things you pulled over your entire head. He was Yasir Arafat. She looked straight into the mask. Tried to read the eyes in the holes of the mask.

“Take a good look,” he said. “They’re brown. Like yours.”

She craned her neck, lifted her chin, shook her head violently from side to side, telling him she wanted the gag removed.

“You’ll scream,” he said.

She shook her head no.

“If you scream, I’ll have to hurt you,” he said.

She kept shaking her head no.

“Are you hungry?”

She nodded. Then shook her head strenuously again and again and again, asking him to please remove the goddamn gag.

“Promise me you won’t scream.”

She nodded. Rolled her brown eyes heavenward in solemn promise. He smiled.

Reaching behind her head, he felt for the knot in the twisted rag, found it.

“Turn,” he said.

She turned her head.

He put down the rifle for a moment, started plucking at the knot with the fingers and thumbs of both hands. She spit out the gag the moment she felt it coming loose. Kept coughing. He was afraid she might scream. He was ready to hit her if she screamed. He didn’t want to hit her, but he would if she screamed.

“You okay?” he asked.

She nodded.

“Hungry?”

She nodded again.

“I’ll untie your feet,” he said.

She nodded.

“You won’t try to run, will you?” he asked.

Not until you untie my hands, too, she thought.

“I won’t try to run,” she said.

Her throat felt dry, the gag in it all that time.

“If you scream, remember…”

“I won’t scream.”

“I’ll hit you.”

“I remember.”

“Good. So let me untie your feet now.”

Good, she thought. One step at a time.

She stretched her legs out toward him. Suddenly realized she was half-naked in the tattered costume. Almost pulled her legs back. He seemed not to notice. He took a sling blade knife from his pocket, snapped open the blade. It cut through the duct tape like water. She was more afraid of the knife than the rifle.

“Want to stand now?”

“Yes.”

“Want to try standing?”

He closed the knife, put it back in his pocket. She wondered all at once how they’d known where to find her last night. There hadn’t been any publicity about the cruise…well, she supposed anyone who’d been invited might have talked about it. It occurred to her that someone who’d worked on the video might be in on this. She started running faces through her mind. The grips, the stage hands, the prop guy, the lighting people, the sound technicians. Was one of them an accomplice here?

“You have to believe we’re not going to hurt you,” he said.

“I believe you,” she said. “What is it you want?”

“Just to get you back home safe and sound,” he said.

“I mean…howmuch do you want?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“Who do you expect to pay it?”

“Barney Loomis.”

He knew Barney’s name. He was going to ask Barney for the money, however much it was, unless he’d already asked him. This had to be an inside job. It had to be someone familiar with…

“I’ll be calling him tomorrow morning. We’ll arrange an exchange as soon as possible.”

An exchange, she thought. Me for the money.

How much money? she wondered.

“Everything will be fine,” he said. “You have to believe me. We don’t want to hurt you, and we don’t want any trouble. Just don’t scream, and don’t do anything foolish, okay?”

“I won’t do anything foolish,” she promised.

“Cause no one will hear you, anyway,” he said. “There’s no one for miles.”

She said nothing. Was he lying to her?

“Let’s get you something to eat, okay?” he said.

“I have to pee,” she said.

THERE WAS Apalpable air of excitement in the small dark screening room.

Honey and Hawes sat side by side on cushioned movie-theater seats, six rows of them, eight seats to the row, cup holders on the arms of each seat. They were sitting in the third row. Hawes felt privileged. This was a room reserved for top brass. That was part of the excitement. He was a mere flatfoot being treated like a VIP by a beautiful television celebrity.

Another part of the excitement had to do with the video itself. Watching it on a sixty-inch screen in this exclusive chamber was a very different experience from watching it on a vintage television set in a stuffy little swing room with a patrolman snoring on a cot not twelve feet away. The tape seemed more vibrant here. The tape seemed more immediate.

Moreover, Hawes was watching it through Honey’s eyes as well, and Honey was reacting not merely to its immediate unreeling but to the expectation that it would be aired on the Five O’Clock News, not an hour and a half from now. When the two masked perps came down those mahogany steps, she actually grabbed Hawes’s hand and squeezed it. When the left-handed perp hit the black dancer, she yelled, “Oh JesusChrist! ” And when he slapped Tamar, she winced and turned her head into Hawes’s shoulder. He almost came in his pants.

“Do you know how many people will be watching this?” she asked. Her eyes were glowing. She could hardly sit still.

“How many?” he said.

“Thirty million.”

“That many watch the local news?”

“Who’s talking local? We’ll air it here in the city at five, and then give it a second shot when we go network. At six-thirty tonight, every man, woman, and child in the United States will be seeing it! Ohwow, Cotton!” she said, and impulsively leaned over to kiss him on the cheek.

Oh, wow, he thought.