“Yes?” Spence’s voice sounded guarded.
“It’s me. I have a lot to tell you fast, so you’ll need to listen closely. I’m making some big changes in my life, and because of that your life will change, and so will everybody else’s. First, you’ve got to call a meeting of all the people who work for me. Call Temptress and Wash, and have them call their people together just before the shift changes at four. Here’s what you’ve got to tell them…”
35
SPENCE STOOD on the central stage at Siren. It was a wooden disk-shaped dais two steps up from floor level, with a brass pole in the middle of it. The white spotlights shone down on him. The nearby tables each had five or six chairs occupied by waiters, busboys, dishwashers, and young women with long hair. Most of the crowd was dressed in blue jeans, T-shirts, or sweatshirts. Two bouncers leaned against the door, listening for latecomers.
“First of all,” said Spence, “I’d like to thank everybody for coming here today, especially the people who work at Temptress and Wash. We’ll make this short, because I know you’ve all got to get to work soon. As of an hour ago, Mr. Kapak has retired from business. He asked me to thank all of you for your loyalty and apologize because he couldn’t be here to say it in person. He said he’s sending every employee of his companies a bonus check in the mail. Some of you may get yours as early as tomorrow.”
There was a wave of applause, punctuated with a few whoops and whistles.
Spence waited until the noise died down. “I strongly advise you to deposit your check as soon as possible. Sometimes when businesses change hands there are legal problems and accounts get temporarily frozen.” He paused. “The next thing is that everybody still has a job. For now we’ll run everything pretty much as it has been” There was more applause. “And the last thing I want to do is introduce my business partner.”
He beckoned to the back of the crowd and a man stood up. “His name is Peter Rollins. He’s the partner who will be overseeing the day-to-day management of the three clubs. Come up here, Pete. He’s got a lot of experience owning and operating bars in the East, so if you have problems or questions, ask him.”
The man who came forward and stepped up onto the stage was not someone who seemed familiar, although a few in the audience had seen him before, in dim light from a distance. At that time his name had been Joe Carver. But the man they thought of when someone mentioned the name Joe Carver had always worn a ski mask, and this morning he was very far from Los Angeles.
Since he left Los Angeles, Jefferson Davis Falkins had been driving the black Trans Am with the window open and his left arm resting on the top of the door, so it was already acquiring a red-brown tan. The silky brown hair of Melisande Carr was blowing around her perfect ivory forehead, but that didn’t seem to bother her at all. Her expression was beatific as she reloaded the magazine with .45 ACP rounds, inserted the magazine, and pushed it home with the heel of her hand.
The three-thousand-dollar sound system mounted under the dash, in the doors, and behind them cried high and hummed harmonically in the foreground, and thudded in the background so deeply that it vibrated their teeth.
Carrie pressed the button on her armrest to lower her window all the way. The wind inside the car grew stronger, so her hair lashed about violently. She took a look behind the car at the long, empty road, then held her right arm out, gripping the pistol. As the little white metal sign with the number sixty-five approached, it seemed to be moving faster and faster, but as it came, she steadied her arm until she could hold the sight on it. She pulled the trigger, the big gun jumped and roared, and in the last second she could see the blue sky shining through the hole she had punched in the sign as it flashed by the car into the past.
“Did you get it?” Jeff shouted over the music.
“What?”
He lowered the volume. “Did you hit it?”
“Drilled it. That’s some dead signage.”
“That’s what—six in a row? You’re really improving.”
She put the safety on and slid the gun into her purse on the floor. “While you’ve got the radio off, we should talk about what we’re going to do before we get there.”
“Get where?”
“To the next place.”
“Oh,” he said. “I thought we’d check into a nice hotel for a few days, to get over the stress and strain of being on the road all this time without stopping. We’ll eat some good food, drink some champagne, and hang around the pool. And we can catch up on all the sex we’ve missed.”
“What a surprise. Then what?”
“While we’re doing all that, we take a close look at the town and see what seems good to us.”
“How long does this go on?”
“Until we see something we like or see that there isn’t anything good and move on.”
“If there is, then I suppose you want to plunder it and then move on?”
“That’s the general outline of the idea. So what do you want to do?”
“That. Exactly that.”
She leaned her head against his shoulder as he guided the car down the long, straight highway. Far ahead he saw a car moving along in the right lane, a bright red dot on the gray ribbon. He was going fast, so after a minute or two he was gaining on it visibly. He could see now that it was a Corvette, and there were two heads in it. He could see for miles ahead, and no car was coming toward them, so he pulled to the left to pass the Corvette. The driver of the Corvette kept his speed constant instead of trying to race with him, and that was a relief. As he accelerated past, Carrie leaned away from him and straightened. He glanced at her in time to see her raise her right arm to the window. He drew in a breath to shout, but there was the loud report of the pistol, her hand jerked upward, and something terrible happened inside the Corvette.
On the Corvette’s windshield a hole had appeared in the center of a blossom of milky, pulverized glass. The driver’s head jerked against the headrest but didn’t come back. He slumped in his seat, and the Corvette wavered, then swerved, then bounced off into a field of alfalfa, grounded itself on some unseen obstacle, and stopped.
Jeff stood on the brakes of his Trans Am, guided it to a stop along the shoulder of the road, threw it into reverse, and backed up quickly. He swung open his door, pivoted out of the driver’s seat, and ran. He sprinted across the field to the car, and as he came, he could see the disaster through the windshield. The driver had been a man about fifty years old with a balding head and a pair of aviator sunglasses, but there was a perfect round hole in the left side of his forehead. The passenger beside him was a blond woman, a bit younger than the driver. Her face, hair, and blouse were spattered with tiny droplets of blood, and she was rocking back and forth, crying. It was a special cry, her red-lip-sticked mouth in a wide-open, unchanging “Aaaaah! Aaaaaah!”
Jeff went to her side of the car, opened the door, and tried to pull her out. “It’s all right. You’ll be okay,” he said gently. His words made as little sense as her cry. It wasn’t all right, and she wouldn’t be okay. The man beside her, who seemed to be her husband, had just had his brains blown out onto the headrest. Jeff wasn’t even sure why he wanted her to get out of the car. He looked past her and saw, through the driver’s side window, Carrie walking up. She still had her .45 pistol in her hand. She leaned in and looked at the dead driver. Then she walked around the car to stand by Jeff.
“Look at this,” he shouted. “Why did you do this?”
“Because it’s exciting.”
Jeff had no words.
“I told you I wanted to do it. I’ve been telling you for days. I guess you haven’t been listening to me—not really listening.” She shrugged. She looked at the woman, who had, at some point, lowered her scream to a quiet, sobbing moan. “I guess I’d better do this one too, huh?”
“No,” said Jeff. “What’s wrong with you? You can’t just kill people.”
She leaned close to the woman and spoke distinctly. “His name is Jefferson Davis Falkins, and I’m Melisande Carr.” She straightened and turned to Jeff, smiling. Her face was beautiful and perfect, but watching him from
