There was the insistent B-flat note again, pulsing from the speakers left and right. She imagined that sound magnified a thousandfold, visualized herself singing on the stage of a vast arena, hundreds of thousands of fans cheering and whistling as she stamped around the stage in her flirty little tunic, wanting more of her, ever more of her, screaming for more of her.
Behind the screen on her left, she could see Jonah looking all muscular and masculine and macho in the clay-colored mask he wore for his entrance, waiting to come on, just waiting to burst onto that dance floor and tear off all her clothes.
aHe took his vorpal sword in hand: aLong time the manxome foe he soughta"
aSo rested he by the Tumtum tree, aAnd stood awhile in thoughtaa AS THEY CLIMBEDthe ladder to the second deck, Avery glanced upward to the sun deck and the pilot house above, where he could see two uniformed figures busily performing nautical tasks, half-turned away from where he and Cal tried to flatten themselves against the side of the yacht so that no one listening to the big performance in the ballroom would catch sight of them in their rubber masks. They reached the second deck of the launch undetected, paused for an instant, but only an instant, to listen to the music coming from the main decka aSo rested he by the Tumtum tree, aAnd stood awhile in thoughtaaaand then, AK-47s in hand, moved into the lounge.
The s.p.a.ce was empty now, bottles gleaming behind the bar, bar stools bolted to the carpeted deck. Abruptly, the singing from the deck below ended. Now there was only a steady beat that sounded to Averyas garage-band ears like a quarter note, a quarter-note rest, then two more quarter notes as they started for the wide mahogany staircase that led down to where Jonah, in a mask quite unlike the ones they were wearing, burst onto the dance floor.
THIS PART OFaBanders.n.a.t.c.ha was straight hip-hop, harsh and relentless, the repeated quarter notes in the background serving as a sort of submerged pulse that seemed slower than the Lewis Carroll lines, making the talk seem crammed over it, word after word crowding into the stanza, but always covertly in time.
aAnd, as in uffish thought he stood, aThe Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, aCame whiffling through the tulgey wood, aAnd burbled as it came!a And here indeed did Jonah come whiffling from behind that tulgey screen erected at one side of the dance floor, wearing the grotesque clay-colored mask, red pin-spots knifing the air to catch the eye sockets as if they were belching flame or spouting blood, burbling as he came.
And now they danced.
Oh, how they danced!
On the video, Tamar and the beast danced for three solid minutes while he tried but failed to defile her. Here on this small parquet floor, they danced an abbreviated version, to be sure, but none the less violent for its brevity. Silently they struggled, the insistent beat in four behind them, Jonah at first insinuating himself upon her in oily intimidation, muscles gleaming, confident of his advances and his allure, Tamar surprised and timorous, but suddenly intuiting intent and beginning to back away from him, which signaled the first blinding light change anda"
The audience gasped.
Where an instant earlier there had been a neutral gray mask covering Jonahas face, almost benign in appearance, a slight smile on the mouthawell, perhaps hewas behaving like an overly ardent suitor, perhaps hehad drunk a wee bit too much, but this playful creature certainly wasnat anyone a girl in a creamy-white tunic need worry about, was he? Not on a lovely day like today, when the borogoves were all mimsy and the mome raths were out-grabing all over the place.
But now, in the blinding flash of an instant, that nice little fraternity brother who just a heartbeat ago had been beseeching a kiss or negotiating a copped feel was suddenly wearing a tarnished copper mask, and his genial smile had been replaced by something more closely resembling a smirk or a snarl, as if the little girl singing her heart out here had somehow offended him by spurning his advances.
And to show how annoyed he was, to demonstrate clearly and without ambiguity exactly how much head been insulted by her having denied his heartfelt compliments and sincere gropings, to indicate without a modic.u.m of doubt precisely how mightily p.i.s.sed off he was, with one vicious swipe of his right handa"which all at once looked rather like a clawa"he slashed out at the skirt of her tunic, opening a slit from her waist to her thigh, down the lefthand side of the garment.
Tamar backed away.
He came at her again, this time clawing at the garmentas bodice, leaving in tatters a goodly portion of the fabric over her right breast. The pulsing beat behind them, insistent, a rap riff without words, a rap stroll without talk, he began stalking her now, closing and retreating, swiping and withdrawing, each new slash of either claw ripping more and more of her tunic away. Viciously, he slashed at her againa"and missed! Seizing her advantage, Tamar shoved out at him, knocking him more completely off balance. He fell to the floor, and lay there as if dead, his hands and arms covering his head and his face. Tamar circled him cautiouslyathe quarter note, the quarter-note restaand drew a sharp breath, b.r.e.a.s.t.s heaving on the quarter note again, again.
Silence.
She moved closer to him.
Bent over him.
A sudden blinding flash of light transformed the copper mask to one of sheer crimson and the creature on the floor became a fully realized raging beast that sprang to its feet and attacked again without warning.
There was no question in this last minute or so of the dance that Tamar was struggling for her life. With each slash of the beastas claws, as more and more of her garment was torn away to reveal the flesh beneath, she appeared to grow weaker and weaker until at last the beast seemed to become a dozen or more beasts, and the a.s.sault became not some college-boy adventure in the back seat of Daddyas Ford but a realized gang-rape in the middle of a dark munic.i.p.al park.
Tamar reached out and up for something.
Both hands closed around something.
She struggled from her knees to her feet.
The beast circled warily, ready to charge her again.
Her eyes turned fully upon him, a laser beam caught in a hot follow spot.
And she rapped out the words in exultant victory.
aOne, two! One, two! And through and through aThe vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
aHe left it dead, and with its head aHe went galumphing back.a The rap ended.
The beast in its enraged red mask lay dead on the floor at Tamaras feet.
Now there was only the B-flat note again, that single repeated ba.s.s note, and Tamar fluidly moving the tune into the bluesy figure of its opening melody.
aAnd hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
aCome to my arms, my beamish boy!
aO Frabjous day! Calloo! Callay!
aHe chortled in his joy.a Tamaras eyes shone, her voice rang out. She was home, baby, she was home.
a aTwas brillig, and the slithy toves aDid gyre and gimble in the wabe: aAll mimsy were theaa aDonat n.o.body f.u.c.kingmove! a Saddam Hussein and Yasir Arafat were coming down the wide mahogany staircase.
2.
TALL AND LEANand with the easy stride of an athletea"which he most certainly wasnata"Steve Carella came into the squadroom at twenty minutes to twelve that Sat.u.r.day night, fresh as a daisy, and ready to go to work.
aItas for you,a Andy Parker said, and handed him the phone.
Actually, it wasnat for Carella.
It was for whichever detective happened to be on duty at the Eight-Seven at this hour of the night. But the Graveyard Shift was just beginning to meander in, and Parker was never too eager to catch a new case, so he considered himself officially relieved, and pa.s.sed the call on to Carella, who was a bit bewildered by the precise timing.
aCarella,a he said into the phone.
ah.e.l.lo, Carella,a a gruff, smoke-tarnished voice said. aThis is Captain Jimson, Harbor Patrol.a A jumper, Carella thought at once. Someoneas taken a dive off the Hamilton Bridge.
aYes, sir?a he said.
aI just had a call from one of my people out on the water, a Sergeant McIntosh, aboard one of our thirty-six footers. At around ten-thirty, he responded to a distress call from the skipper of a cruise yacht called theRiver Princess aare you with me, Coppola?a aItas Carella, sir.a aSorry. TheRiver Princess, some kind of party for a rock singer.a aYes, sir?a aTwo armed masked men boarded the boat around ten-fifteen and kidnapped her.a Oh boy, Carella thought.
aYouare the local onsh.o.r.e precinct. Coast Guard has a DPB waiting to take you out there from Pier 39aa aYes, sir,a Carella said.
He didnat know what a DPB was.
aathatas on the river and Twelfth. How long will it take you to get crosstown?a Carella glanced at the precinct wall map.
aGive me fifteen minutes, sir,a he said.
aThe man youare meeting is a lieutenant j.g. named Carlyle Apted.a aYes, sir. Sir, would you know who the singera?a But the captain had already hung up, and Cotton Hawes was just walking into the squadroom.
aCotton,a he said, adonat get comfortable. Weare up.a COTTON HAWESfelt right at home on the Coast Guardas little 38-foot DPB. This was the kind of boat head commanded duringhis little war. Everybody in America had his own little war, and everybody in that war did his own little thing. Carella had trudged through mud as a grunt in the infantry. Hawes had stood on the bridge of a boat not unlike this one, grinning into flying bullets, spray and spume. Everybody in America whoad ever fought or merely served in any of the countryas innumerable little wars would never forget his own particular war, although sometimes he would like to. But there would always be more little wars and even some big ones, and therefore many more opportunities to remember. Or perhaps forget.
Cotton Hawes stood on the bridge of the cutter alongside Lieutenant Carlyle Apted, a man in his late twenties, he guessed, who had been summoned to the scene the moment Sergeant McIntosh realized he was dealing with a kidnapping here.
aGuess he figured this would get Federal sooner or later,a Apted said.
Then what arewe ding here? Carella wondered. Let the Feebs have it now, and welcome to it.
aWhat youare on now,a Apted told Hawes, perhaps suspecting that Carella didnat really care to know, ais a Deployable Pursuit Boat, what we call a DPB. Sheas a thirty-eight footer, designed to give the Coast Guard a new capability in the war against drugs.a Another little war, Carella thought.
aWhat it is, you see, most of your illegal narcotics are smuggled in on these ago-fasts,a we call aem. Theyare these small, high-speed boats that can carry up to two thousand keys of cocaine. But they canat outrun our DPBs. Means we can intercept and board and make a sizable dent in the traffic.a Carella hated boats. He hated anything that moved on water. Especially DPBs, which seemed to move faster than any d.a.m.n thing head ever seen on water. When he used to bathe his infant twinsa"lo, those many years agoa"even the floating rubber duck in the bathtub made him seasick. Well, perhaps that was an exaggeration. But hewas feeling a bit queasy now, and he was also fearful that all that dark greasy water splashing over the bow might be polluted. His face wet, his hair flying in the wind, he wondered what a nice boy like himself was doing on a swiftly moving vehicle in the middle of a deep river on a shift that had just barely begun.
Tonight, Carella felta"and therefore lookeda"more like a beloved professor of economics at a munic.i.p.al college than a detective. Hatless, dark-haired and brown-eyed, the eyes slanting downward to give his face a somewhat Oriental appearance, he was wearing an orange-colored life vest over dark brown slacks and matching loafers and socks, a blue b.u.t.ton-down shirt, a brown tie, and a tweed jacket that was, in truth, a bit too heavy for the mild weather and a bit too shabby for the sort of party that had been interrupted out there on theRiver Princess. He was frowning. Well, he was more than frowning. In fact, he looked as if he might throw up. Unamused, he stood on the deck of a tossing peanut-sh.e.l.l vessel, braving the raging briny while two old sea-faring types chatted it up and grinned into the wind.
Hawes, on the other hand, was in his element.
Dressed somewhat casually, even for the midnight-to-eightA.M. shift, he was wearing his life jacket over blue jeans, a crew neck green sweater, a zippered brown leather jacket, and ankle high brown boots. He had not expected to be pulled out onto the River Harb tonighta"in fact, head been planning to do a field follow-up on some bikers he suspected were involved in a liquor store holdup, and he figured the protective coloration might help him. Actually, though, his costume would have fit in beautifully at Tamar Valparaisoas launch party, where many of the music industryas moguls were similarly dressed.
aEver hear of this girl before?a Apted asked him.
He had given up on Carella as a lost-cause landlubber.
aWhatas her name?a Hawes asked.
aTamar Valentino,a Apted said.
aNo. Is she famous or something?a aNot to me,a Apted said.
aMe, neither,a Hawes said. aSteve!a he yelled over the roar of the wind. aYou ever hear of a singer named Tamar Valentino?a aNo!a Carella yelled back. aWho is she?a aThe one who got s.n.a.t.c.hed,a Apted said.
aIf she got s.n.a.t.c.hed, she must be somebody,a Hawes said reasonably.
Carella was wondering if the FBI had already been notified.
aI HAVE TOtell you the truth,a Sergeant McIntosh said, aI been with the Harbor Patrol Unit for twenty-two years now, this is the first time I ever caught a kidnapping.a aWe donat catch many of them onsh.o.r.e, either,a Hawes said.
aI know, anything we catcha"other than immediately address-ablea"weare supposed to notify the onsh.o.r.e locals. But ainat a kidnapping federal stuff?a aIt could become,a Carella said.
aI mean, wouldnat this be considered aSpecial Maritime and Territoriala jurisdiction?a aI really donat know,a Carella said.
aI know the Great Lakes are covered,a McIntosh said, aand the St. Lawrence River, and probaly the Mississippi and the Hudsonaa aI couldnat tell you.a aAnyway, what I did was raise the Coast Guard, who I figured would know.a aDid they?a aNo.a aThe way I figure it,a Carella said, athereas a state line down the middle of the river, and if the boat crossed that, then the Feds come in automatically.a aSometimes they come in if the case is really high profile,a Hawes said. aLike if this rock singer is somebody really important.a aWho is she, anyway?a McIntosh asked.
aSomebody named Tamar Valentino,a Hawes said.
aNever heard of her.a aMe, neither.a aSo scratch the FBI.a aUnless the boat crossed that state line,a Carella said.
aExcuse me, gentlemen,a a man in a white uniform said, breaking into the little intimate law enforcement circle. aIam Charles Reeves, Captain of theRiver Princess. Iam sorry to interrupt, but weave got a hundred and twelve guests aboard this vessel and weave been sitting here dead in the water ever since the incident occurred, waiting for some sort of clear indication that we can begin moving her back to port. Is there anyone here who cana?a aYou can move her,a Carella said.
aYou are, sir?a aDetective Stephen Louis Carella. Eighty-seventh Squad.a aAnd you are authorized toa?a aItas our case, yes,a Carella said, and thought, So far. aThis is my partner. Detective Cotton Hawes.a aThen Iall get the engines started,a Reeves said dubiously.
aYes, thatall be fine,a Hawes said.
aWe should be docking in about half an hour,a Reeves said. aWill you be finished here by then?a aFinished?a aWhat Iam asking is will I be able to disembark the pa.s.sengers? The yacht was only leased for the night, you know, not the entire month of May.a Carella looked at him.
aI mean, we all have jobs to do,a Reeves said. aIave never had anything like this happen before on any vessel Iave commanded. Never.a aItall be all right, sir,a Carella said. aWhy donat you go get your engines started?a Reeves hesitated a moment longer, as if there were something more he wished to say. Then he merely nodded and went off toward the pilot house.
aYou donat plan to talk to all hundred andtwelve of these people, do you?a McIntosh asked.
Carella was wondering the same thing.
EVERYBODYwanted to go home.
What had started out as a nice party on a nice boat on a nice river had turned into some kind of Fellini nightmare with people in masks running around doing violence to the same pretty young girl.
n.o.body seemed to agree on exactly quite what had happened.
Given that eye witnesses were notoriously unreliable, this bunch seemed to be more untrustworthy than most. Perhaps theyad been plied with too much alcohol before the occurrence (though the promised champagne toast had to be forsaken, given the unforeseen circ.u.mstances) or perhaps the lighting had been too dim or the power of suggestion too strong. Tamar and the young black dancer had, after all, been engaged in some pretty realistic although terpsich.o.r.ean violence, and all at once twoother black guysa The witnesses were all convinced the kidnappers were blacka acame marching down the grand stairway there, brandishing machine guns, and yelling for n.o.body to f.u.c.king move.
Even Jonah Wills, Tamaras dance partner, was convinced the two guys whoad kidnapped her were black. Perhaps this was because they were both entirely dressed in black: black denims and black sweatshirts and black running shoes and black leather gloves. Their AK-47s were black, too, which might have contributed to the overall impression of black power. Then, too, Jonah himself was blacka"although this wasnat an accurate description of his color, which was more closely related to the mahogany of the stair rail than the color of anthracite, say, or obsidiana"and his presence on the dance floor, muscles rippling and gleaming, wearing a mask quite different from the Hussein and Arafat masks the intruders were wearing, might also have contributed to the consensus of opinion that there were nowthree black men molesting this poor blond white girl wearing hardly anything at all.
Or perhaps the words aDonat n.o.body f.u.c.king move!a hadnat sounded ofay enough to this largely white crowd, although in truth the black-to-white ratio here tonight was larger than youad find at similar glittery events. .h.i.ther and yon throughout this fair city. Then again, this was the music industry here.
Even so, everybody wanted to go home.
Having inherited this c.o.c.kamamie case from Parkera"who was already nursing his third beer in a bar around the corner from his apartment, and chatting up a blonde he didnat realize was a hookera"Carella and Hawes were reluctant to let anyone go just yet, not until they had a clearer picture of just what the h.e.l.l had happened here. They were mindful of the fact that the FBI might be coming in behind them, and they didnat want to hear the usual c.r.a.p the Feebs laid down about ainefficient and insufficient investigation at the local level.a So they went through the factsa"or the perceived factsa"again and again until they were able to piece together a more or less scenario-by-committee, not unlike many of the movies one saw these days, where a hundred and twelve writers shared screen credit, except that it was by now almost two in the morning.
The party guests unanimously understood that the black guy in the mask that kept changing color and shape throughout the course of the song was supposed to be some kind of mythological beast, some kind ofBanders.n.a.t.c.h, in fact, since that was the name of the song, though the mandid warn his son to beware the Jabberwock, my son, didnat he? So maybe the beast was aJabberwock or even aJubjub bird. Whatever the d.a.m.n thing was, it was something to beshunned, man, as subsequent events were all too soon to demonstrate.
Most of the guests agreed, too, that the police should have been called while Tamaras partner was throwing her all over the dance floor and tearing her already flimsy nightgown, or whatever it was, to tattered ribbons, never a cop around when you needed one. Neo-realism was one thing, but here was this big muscular guy tossing around this little thing who couldnat weigh more than a hundred and ten pounds, if that, in an utterly convincing attempt to rape her. It didnat help that she was blond and he was black, the stereotype reinforced. What he was doing to her on that dance floor was intolerable.
So it was with considerable relief that the audience, black and white alike, saw Tamar wrap her tiny defenseless little hands around thin air, saw her grasp whatever imaginary something she was grasping (a vorpal sword, as it turned out), and rise up against this viciousanimal, was what he was! who was determined to violate and despoil this flower of virgin maidenhood. aOne two! One two!a they all agreed, aand through and through, the vorpal blade went snicker-snack! He left it dead,a they further agreed, aand with its head, he went galumphing back.a The witnesses they questioned all seemed somewhat puzzled as towho exactly the ahea in the lyrics was since Tamar was very much a ashe,a especially now that she was standing there tall and proud but bedraggled in her tattered underwear, or whatever it was, with half her admirable attributes hanging out for all and sundry to see. (This was a point that would spark considerable debate in the days to come, but Carella and Hawes didnat yet know the kind of notoriety this case would inspire; for now, they were just two working stiffs doing their jobs, and trying to protect their a.s.ses from Federal flack down the line.) In any case, just as Tamaras father, or whoever he was, her guardian perhaps, finished congratulating her on having slain the Jabberwock (instead of the Banders.n.a.t.c.h, by the way, after whom the song was named) and just as everything was back to normal again, with all the creatures gyring and gimbling and all the mome rathsa Just then, these two big black guys came barreling down the stairway with automatic weapons in their hands. One of them had his right hand on the mahogany banister, his left hand pointing the barrel of the gun up at the overhead. The other man had his weapon sort of cradled in his arms, his right finger curled around the trigger. Both of them came gliding down the steps almost as gracefully as the black rapist had glided through the song, one of them yelling, aDonat n.o.body f.u.c.king move!,a which effectively stoppedTamar dead in her tracksa"but not the words to the song.
Until that moment, many people in the audience hadnat realized she was lip-synching. But now the words kept blaring from the speakers on either side of the dance floora aaborogroves aAnd the mome raths outgrabeaa aeven though Tamaras mouth wasnat moving anymore. She was just standing stock still, staring wide-eyed at these two masked apparitions who came rushing toward her with seemingly malicious intent. She wondered for a momenta"as in fact did the audiencea"if this wasnat somehow part of the act. Had Barney Loomis hired a supplementary dance team to add additional spice to the evening? But just then Jonah, the beast lying dead at her feet, popped up from the floor in response to the growled aDonat n.o.body f.u.c.king move!a Hunched in a danceras crouch, arms widespread for balance, still wearing the hideous crimson-colored mask head worn in the finale, he must have seemed enormously threatening to the two men who were now not two feet away from where Tamar still stood in dumb-founded shock.
The left-handed one (the witnesses all agreed that Saddam Hussein had carried the weapon in his left hand throughout) reacted at once, swinging the gun at Jonahas head. Designed for the Soviet Army following World War II, the AK-47 was a st.u.r.dily built, well-designed gun with a pistol grip as well as a rifle stock. It was the stock that caught Jonah under the chin, sending him falling backward and onto the floor, where once again he lay prostrate as if deada"but this time a thin line of blood began seeping from under his mask.
The two men and Tamar stood frozen in surreal proximity, she in ivory-white tatters, they in inky black costumes and Middle Eastern masks, Mr. Hussein and Mr. Arafat. n.o.body in the audience moved. The witnesses all agreed on this; there was only a stunned silence. The sole sound or motion was on the dance floor itself, where Tamar suddenly tried to break free of the little knot of three, only to be yanked back at once and slapped very hard by Hussein, the left-handed one. She reeled from the blow. The other one, the taller of the twoa The witnesses agreed that Yasir Arafat was about six-feet-two-inches tall, and his left-handed accomplice, Saddam Hussein, was some two or three inches shorter than that, a bit under six feet perhaps, both of them very muscularly built, which perhaps accounted for the first impression of a dance team coming down the stepsa The taller of the two suddenly clamped a wet rag over Tamaras face, and she fell against him limply. He threw her over his shoulder. The left-handed one shouted, aYou move, she dies!a and they backed away up the steps, their guns trained on the still-speechless audience.
That was about it.
BARNEY LOOMIS, CEOof Bison Records, was furious. Or perhaps frumious. Or perhaps both.
aThat son of a b.i.t.c.hslapped her!a he shouted into Carellaas face. He smelled of seared mustard salmon, which was the entre head had for dinner. He also smelled of a menas cologne named aAcrida which a lot of men in the music industry favored because it had the silhouette of a Luger pistol on its label. aSheas a fragile person,a Loomis shouted, aa child practically! This is a child kidnapping, sheas a child, she just celebrated her twentieth birthday in January! I want herback here! That man was a maniac, you could see he was deranged, first he hit Jonah with the gunaa aI think Iam still bleeding,a Jonah said.