“I’ll talk. You listen,” he said. “When I’m wrong, you correct me. Do you understand?” Tucker Poesy shook her head appropriately. “If you were in Central Station, you were also on the train. That means you were in Bergen op Zoom, weren’t you?” Again she shook her head, yes. “No way you could have known I would be in Bergen op Zoom unless you followed me. You did know I was coming to Holland. You had to know that. You were at the airport. You followed me. I led you to Harry Levine. You followed us both to Amsterdam.” He leaned toward her to see if she was hurt worse than he thought. She was not. “You haven’t said anything. I’m right, so far?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Where did you come from?”
“London.”
“Good,” said Walter. “Good.”
“What’s good?”
“It’s good you’re telling me the truth, right away. I hate it when people don’t cooperate. So,” he continued, “someone told you I was on my way to Holland and you arranged to be there when I arrived. You had plenty of time. My flight would take eight or nine hours. London is a short hop.” He was watching her injured face carefully. The muscles in her cheeks were relaxed. There was a swelling on the left side, a big one, and her lip had been cracked at its outer edge. The bleeding had subsided. Only a little drip at the corner of her mouth still ran. The lines in her forehead showed no unusual disturbance. He asked, “How long have you known Louis Devereaux?” No sooner had he asked that, than everything in Tucker Poesy’s face changed. She didn’t know it, but he did. He could see her thinking of an answer and finally giving in to the simple truth.
“A few years,” she said.
“I looked at your gun,” Walter said, holding it up. “Israeli. Hard to find, I think. You don’t see too many of these.” She said nothing. She knew she didn’t have to acknowledge everything Walter said. “You don’t follow people. That’s for sure,” he said with a laugh. “You don’t follow people if you carry a unique and very dangerous weapon. What do you do?”
“Kill.”
“Good,” said Walter, holding her pistol in his hands, examining it. “I don’t mean it’s good you kill-you kill people I assume-I mean it’s good you’re telling me. I respect that.”
“Bullshit,” she mumbled.
“Huh?”
“Go fuck yourself!”
“What did you say?” Walter said. “Fuck me? Fuck you! This is my house!” he bellowed. “You came into my house! You’re lucky I didn’t kill you. You’re lucky I don’t kill you now.” He wanted to reach out and grab her swollen jaw. It was hard to restrain himself. He needed a moment. Finally, he looked at her, naked except for a bathrobe thrown over her like a light blanket. “Keep your fucking mouth shut,” he said.
“Clothes. My clothes,” she whimpered.
“No,” Walter said sternly. “You’re fine the way you are.” He heard her curse him again as he walked away.
When Billy arrived, Tucker Poesy could see the two men talking. Walter gestured, pointed to her out on the deck. He was still unnerved, angry, his raw edge showing. She took note that Billy registered no surprise or shock. He removed a gun from his belt and showed it to Walter, then shoved it back in his pants. Here she was tied to a chair, barely covered, otherwise completely naked, legs spread apart and this guy just glanced at her and then returned his attention to Walter. Shit! she said to herself. A professional!
The two men talked for another minute or two and Billy left. Walter returned to the deck where she had pushed aside most of the cobwebs clouding her brain and regained her sense that she was buried neck-high in shit and had not the slightest idea how to extricate herself. Not yet, anyway.
“Billy will be back to get you,” Walter said. “He just went to get a piece of equipment he needs to move you in that chair.”
“What? You can’t keep me in this chair… like this.”
“When he does come back, he’ll take you somewhere else. If you keep your mouth shut, you won’t be gagged. If you make noise, we’ll tape your mouth too. So, if you’re going to fuck around, get ready to breathe through your nose. Billy will keep you until I’m done.”
“Like… this?”
“Someone will feed you. If they feel up to it, you’ll be taken to use the toilet. It’ll be a hardship. You’ll be hosed down to stay clean.” Tucker Poesy looked at Walter in disbelief. Fear crept over her like red ants on a helpless grasshopper, some pinning the poor insect down, others boring into its head, eating it alive. “You’ll be alive,” he said. “But not much more.”
When the telephone rang, Sadie Fagan was preparing dinner. She was also watching the Six O’Clock News on channel 2. She gathered a bunch of long celery stalks on a wooden cutting board, sliced them into small pieces and threw the pieces into the same bowl where she had already put shredded carrots and cut cucumbers. Then she looked around for a green pepper. The local TV anchorwoman had her serious face on. She reported on a home invasion in one of Atlanta’s finest neighborhoods, Inman Park. No one was injured, but a man named Otto Heinrich, a violinist for the famed Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, had been home when the break-in occurred. Nothing had been taken and Mr. Heinrich said the man who entered his house surprised him but said nothing. Police were investigating the incident and offered no more information at this time. She didn’t mention it, but the anchorwoman herself lived only a few blocks away from the scene of the crime. The touch of real fear in her eyes played well on screen. They cut to a reporter standing outside the violinist’s gable-roofed, Victorian-style house. It was already dark outside. Behind the reporter, the lights of neighboring homes could be seen twinkling through the leaves and branches of the tree-lined block. Inman Park always had that gingerbread look about it. The television camera caught a street scene of bucolic splendor, right there in the middle of the city. A home invasion? Sadie was mortified. How could such a thing happen-there? It was almost as if it happened in her subdivision. When the reporter, a lovely young woman with perfect hair threw it back to the studio, the anchorwoman, still appropriately grim, wrapped the piece with the news that Mr. Heinrich was the husband of Isobel Gitlin, Executive Director of the Center for Consumer Concerns. Isobel’s fifteen minutes ended a while ago, and she was glad of it. Apparently beyond her control, a residue lingered. Isobel Gitlin? Sadie had heard the name, but couldn’t place it. Anyway, the phone rang. She turned from the TV, wiped her hands dry with a paper towel, and answered it. She never heard the anchorwoman say, “Isobel Gitlin will be remembered, of course, for the pivotal role she played in the Leonard Martin affair.”
“Hello,” said Sadie.
“Aunt Sadie, it’s me.”
“Harry! Where are you, my darling? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, Aunt Sadie. Really, I am. I wanted you to know everything’s going to be all right. I didn’t want you to worry.”
“Worry? Me? Oh, Harry, it’s so good to hear your voice.”
“I would have called sooner, but things have been kind of hectic. I’ve been traveling.”
“I know, dear,” said Sadie, dabbing her eyes with the corner of her kitchen apron. “I spoke with Chita. She told me. And I met Mr. Sherman. He found you? And you’re safe now?”
Harry assured his aunt of his safety. He told her about his trip to Holland, to Bergen op Zoom, Roswell’s sister city. He mentioned that Walter had located him and how he and Walter went through Belgium and Spain on their way to Mexico and finally to the cabin in the mountains of New Mexico. No one would ever find him there. “Walter said this was a safe place. It certainly is in the middle of nowhere. It’s really amazingly beautiful here.”
“How long will you be there?” she asked. “What’s going to happen with all this?”
“I can’t say, Aunt Sadie. I don’t know. Chita said to trust Walter Sherman, and I do. I am.”
“I love you, Harry.”
“I love you too. I really shouldn’t talk too long.” Walter had warned him not to use the phone at all. “Don’t worry if you don’t hear from me again for a while.”
“Have you spoken with your Aunt Chita?”
“No, not since we got here. I’ll try her, but you know she’s tough to get a hold of. If you talk to her first, tell her I’m all right and tell her I love her. Goodbye.”
