Innocent Blood

Twenty-Eight

Charles Lasser was standing in the middle of the room in his shirtsleeves, his shoulders hunched, grasping a golf club. His head was wreathed in cigar smoke, so that it appeared for a moment as if he didn’t have a head at all. Then he looked up, and the smoke swirled away, and he was staring directly at Frank with eyes that glittered like nail heads.

‘Who the hell let you in?’ he demanded. ‘Kim Cu’c!’

‘Mr Lasser, please, I try to stop him.’

‘It’s not her fault,’ said Frank. He took a few steps toward the window so that his back was covered.

Charles Lasser lowered his head again, hesitated, and then putted his golf ball under his desk. ‘You’re going to have to leave, Mr Bell. I have nothing to say to you. Besides, you’re putting me off my stroke.’

‘You may not have anything to say to me, but by God, I have plenty to say to you.’

‘Oh, yes? I thought you would have been far too busy writing funeral speeches for your friends.’

‘Jesus, you’re twisted. If it hadn’t been for you, my friends wouldn’t be dead.’

‘You’re out of your mind, Mr Bell. You think I killed them? What on earth makes you think that?’

‘Because you’re a goddamned sadist and you know damn well who was financing Dar Tariki Tariqat – it was you. And you bombed my office right after I came here and warned you about Astrid. You didn’t bomb any of the studios; you didn’t bomb the executive cottages – no, you bombed my office, and if I hadn’t stepped out for a minute you would have killed me, too.’

‘You want me to go bring security, Mr Lasser?’ asked his receptionist.

Charles Lasser shook his head. ‘Don’t worry, Kim Cu’c. I can deal with Mr Bell. Mr Bell is suffering from delusions, that’s all.’

He walked back to his desk, which was a huge mahogany construction with carvings of satyrs’ heads and bunches of grapes and fluted pillars. He parked one substantial buttock right on the edge of it, and sat there smiling at Frank, occasionally slapping the shaft of his golf club into the palm of his hand.

Frank said, ‘Why don’t you admit it? You bombed my office, didn’t you? You organized all of these bombings. This was nothing to do with child-abuse victims getting their revenge, not really. This was you getting your revenge on the entertainment business.’

Charles Lasser grinned. He seemed to have too many teeth, and even though they were perfect, they were yellowed by nicotine. ‘That’s a great theory, Mr Bell. I have to give you ten out of ten for creativity. I can’t say that Star-TV hasn’t profited from this terrorist campaign, and we’ve been very lucky so far that they haven’t targeted us. But you’re giving me far too much credit. I never would have had the brains to think of it, myself, and I certainly wouldn’t have had the courage to carry it out.’

‘You had the courage to break Astrid’s nose.’

‘What? Didn’t I make this clear to you the first time? I don’t know anybody called Astrid.’

‘You beat up on her today. Don’t try to deny it; it won’t work. I just left her at the Sisters of Jerusalem, waiting for treatment.’

Charles Lasser sighed in exasperation. ‘I’ve been in meetings all day. We’re launching nine major new series next season. I don’t have the time to break girls’ noses.’

Frank approached him, so close that Charles Lasser could have struck him with his golf club if he had wanted to. ‘I warned you,’ said Frank. ‘I warned you that if you touched Astrid one more time, I’d come back, and that I’d make sure that you never hurt her again.’

‘So you did. But read my lips, Mr Bell. I didn’t know any girl called Astrid when you first came here, and I haven’t made the acquaintance of any girl called Astrid in the meantime. All right. So somebody’s broken Astrid’s nose. I sympathize, I really do, whoever Astrid may be. But you’ll have to go looking for somebody else to threaten, because it wasn’t me.’

Frank pulled the .38 out of his inside pocket. The hammer got caught on the lining, which tore. He pointed the gun at Charles Lasser’s face and cocked it.

‘Christ Almighty,’ said Charles Lasser.

‘Yes,’ said Frank. ‘Christ Almighty. May Christ Almighty forgive you for what you’ve done, for all of the innocent people you’ve killed, and for beating up on Astrid just for your own enjoyment. You’re a sick man, Mr Lasser. You murdered my son, you murdered my friends, you murdered women and children who hadn’t even begun to live out their lives.’

‘Kim Cu’c,’ said Charles Lasser, without taking his eyes off the muzzle of Frank’s revolver. ‘Call security.’

‘Police, too, Mr Lasser?’

‘Are you deaf or something? I said call security. No police. Impress that on security, too – no police.’

‘What, are you scared?’ Frank asked him, even though his own hands were shaking and he found it difficult to keep it aimed at Charles Lasser’s head.

‘I’m not scared of anything, Mr Bell. Never have been, and never will be.’

‘That’s because you’ve never had to face up to someone your own size.’

‘So what are you going to do? Shoot me? Then what? You’ll spend fifteen years on death row and then they’ll give you a lethal injection.’

‘Not if I don’t kill you. Not if I simply shoot your balls off.’ With that, Frank slowly lowered the gun and pointed it between Charles Lasser’s legs.

Charles Lasser took a deep breath. ‘I’m telling you . . . I don’t know a girl called Astrid. I haven’t hurt any girl called anything.’

‘Well, you’re a pretty convincing liar, I’ll give you that. Kim Cu’c, don’t you go for that door! First of all we have to give your boss here a refresher course in “Girls I Have Busted the Noses of.” Maybe you don’t know Astrid by that name, Mr Lasser, but she came to see you today and you beat her very, very badly – the worst I’ve ever seen any woman beaten, not that I’ve seen very many. She’s five feet four, brunette with pale blue eyes. She has a pattern of moles across her chest like Andromeda and she always wears an emerald ring. Now, does that jog any memories? It was only this afternoon when you busted her nose, after all.’

Charles Lasser’s mouth opened, very slowly, and then closed again. ‘You . . .’ he began, but then he had to take two deep breaths to compose himself. ‘Who the fuck have you been talking to?’

‘I haven’t been talking to anybody. I saw Astrid for myself.’

‘Astrid? Is that what she says her name is?’

‘Then you do know her?’

Charles Lasser didn’t answer. His breathing was becoming increasingly labored, and he was almost chewing his breath with his perfect yellow teeth. Frank didn’t really know what to do – whether to shoot him in the head or shoot him in the balls or whether to turn around and leave him gasping. He seemed to have struck him harder by describing what Astrid looked like than he could ever have done with a .38 bullet.

‘I want your assurance,’ said Frank, growing bolder.

‘What?’

‘Here and now, I want you to give me your assurance that you’ll never see Astrid again.’

Charles Lasser shook his head in apparent disbelief. ‘My assurance? How can I give my assurance?’

‘It’s simple. I count to five. If by the time I count to five you say “I promise that I’ll never see Astrid again,” I put the gun away and I leave. If you don’t, I blow your balls off.’

‘You’re pathetic,’ said Charles Lasser. ‘Do you know that, Mr Bell? You’re completely and utterly sad. You don’t even know what the fuck you’re asking me to do, do you?’

Frank was confused. ‘I’m telling you to leave her alone, that’s all! Is that so difficult to understand?’

Charles Lasser started to laugh – the loud, desperate laughter of somebody who finds the world so ridiculous that he can’t think what else to do. ‘I don’t know where you belong, Mr Bell. I think you’re too crazy even for a nuthouse.’ Then abruptly he stopped laughing. ‘You’re not going to kill me, though, are you? You’re not even going to shoot my balls off. Let me tell you this, Mr Bell: any man who walks into my office with a gun and threatens me with it, he’d better fucking use it or else he’s going to pay.’

‘I don’t need a gun,’ Frank retorted. ‘All I have to do is tell the media about you and Astrid.’

‘Tell them what? The cops have interviewed me already. I don’t know any Astrid.’

‘But you know a girl with an emerald ring and a pattern of moles like Andromeda.’

Without any warning at all, Charles Lasser got off the edge of his desk, took two steps toward Frank, and whacked at his wrist with his golf club. The gun flew out of his hand and tumbled on to the carpet. Frank turned around, and as he did so, Charles Lasser whacked him again, right across the side of his head.

At first he couldn’t open his eyes. He had a cracking headache, worse than any headache he had ever experienced before. He felt as if his skull was actually split open, just above the bridge of his nose.

Eventually he managed to open his left eye. He was lying in the back of a panel van, with a corrugated aluminum floor, between stacks of khaki boxes and cheap gray removers’ blankets. The van’s roof was made of amber-tinted fiberglass, through which he could make out a dark shadow and a narrow band of sunlight, as if it were parked in a garage, or under a bridge. He struggled to sit up and realized that his wrists were tightly tied up behind him, and his ankles, too. His right eyelid felt like it was glued together, and he could feel a map of sticky blood all over his face.

‘Jesus,’ he said. The pain in his head was almost unbearable. He thought of rolling over on to his side, but he was afraid that it would hurt too much. Instead he tried to concentrate on who he was and what he was doing here. ‘Frank Bell,’ he croaked, after a while. And when he said that, he remembered Charles Lasser hitting his wrist, but that was all.

He had no idea how long he had been lying here. It was obviously daylight, but it could have been the following morning. He felt stomach-empty sick, but he hadn’t eaten anything before he had gone to see Charles Lasser, and the blow to his head could be making him feel nauseous. That, and the oily chemical smell that permeated the back of the van.

He managed to lift up his head a couple of inches. Not only was he tied up, hand and foot, but he was wearing a thick blue canvas vest. Raising his chin a little more, he could see that the vest had deep pockets in it, and that the pockets were filled with putty-colored blocks that looked like Play-Doh.

He let his head drop back. He was all dressed up like a suicide bomber.

About five minutes later, he lifted up his head again. It was gloomy in the back of the van, but there was enough light for him to be able to read the stenciled words on the side of the khaki boxes. IMI – Handle With Care. It didn’t take an explosives expert to work out that there were enough demolition blocks in here to bring down a sizeable building.

‘Hey!’ he shouted.

He waited, but there was no answer. ‘Hey!’ he shouted again, and kicked his heels on the floor.

Still no answer. ‘Get me out of here! Do you hear me? Get me the hell out of here! The cops are going to come looking for me! Do you hear me? I told the cops where I was going!’

He listened and listened. He could faintly hear traffic, and the sound of an airplane. He lowered his head again. He could only imagine what Charles Lasser had planned for him. This van was probably going to be used for Dar Tariki Tariqat’s next attack on the entertainment industry, and when it blew up, he was going to be inside it, dressed like a martyr. If there was enough left of him for the crime scene team to identify, it was probably going to be assumed that he was a member of Dar Tariki Tariqat, too.

Why the hell hadn’t he pulled the trigger when he’d had the chance? He had thought that he had been angry enough to kill Charles Lasser, after the way that he had beaten Astrid, but maybe the truth was that he would never be angry enough to kill anybody. He was a comedy writer. The worse things got, the funnier they were. He couldn’t even stop himself from thinking what his friends would say, when he was blown to smithereens. ‘That was Frank all over.’

He waited and waited and gradually the throbbing in his head began to subside, although his wrists and ankles were tied too tightly and they began to feel cold and numb. He wondered if Astrid had seen a doctor at the Sisters of Jerusalem. He wondered if she was wondering where he was. He wondered if anybody was wondering where he was.

He thought about Dusty and Henry, in Pigs, about writing a story in which Dusty thought that Henry was kidnapped, except that he wasn’t really kidnapped, he was hiding because Dusty had called him ‘the stupidest thing since a single sock-suspender.’

He thought about The Process, and the susurration of the desert sand. You may never pass this way again in a lifetime. You have crossed the street, my friend, and you can never go back.

Maybe an hour later, he heard voices outside. He thought about shouting out but then decided against it. The voices went away.

He might have slept for another half-hour, although he wasn’t sure. Suddenly he felt somebody shaking his shoulder.

‘Wake up!’

He opened his eyes. It was Danny. He looked pale and worried and his hair was sticking up at the back, like it used to do when he first woke up in the morning. He was still wearing his funeral suit.

‘Danny?’

‘Wake up, we haven’t got much time!’

‘Am I dreaming this?’ Frank asked him.

‘No . . . turn over.’

‘What?’

‘Turn over, on to your front.’

Frank hesitated. He couldn’t decide if he was dreaming this or not. But Danny had saved him back at the Sunset Marquis, hadn’t he? And what had Nevile said, that spirits always stay close to the family they love? He rolled over, grunting with pain.

‘Keep very, very still,’ said Danny. ‘I’m going to untie your knots, but it’s very difficult.’

Frank’s face was pressed against one of the corrugations in the floor, and he had an agonizing pain in the small of his back. He was trembling, but he managed to keep still while Danny tried to untie him.

Danny said, ‘It’s trying to move things, that’s what I’m not very good at. I can touch things, but I can’t really feel them.’

Over twenty minutes went past. Frank couldn’t feel Danny’s fingers at all, only coldness, like a soft icy draft blowing through the crack in a window, in winter. But he could feel the cords that tied his wrists, and millimeter by millimeter they were working loose.

‘Danny, even if you can’t do this, I want to thank you for trying.’

‘I can do it, Daddy. Just keep still.’

‘You know how much I love you, don’t you? You know that I never meant to hurt you?’

‘I know.’

The cord jerked looser, and then suddenly the knot unraveled and Frank’s hands were free. He rolled around again, on to his back, and managed to sit up. Danny was kneeling next to him, smiling.

‘You’re something, you know that? You’re really something.’

‘I’m always close by, Daddy. I can’t let anybody hurt you.’

Frank shook his head. ‘I was the one who was always supposed to look after you.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Danny. ‘In proper families, everybody looks after everybody else.’

‘Danny,’ said Frank, and his eyes filled up with tears. He reached out to hold him close but Danny folded up and disappeared, as if he were as insubstantial as a silk scarf. Frank sat still for a few minutes, rubbing the circulation back into his wrists. Then he leaned forward and started untying his ankles.

Another two hours passed in silence. Then suddenly there was a loud bang and the back doors of the panel van were unlocked. Somebody said, ‘Here you go, sir. Step up on this.’ The van was shaken from side to side, and then the door was closed.

Frank looked up. Charles Lasser was standing amongst the boxes, looking down at him. He was wearing a baggy suit of natural-colored linen, with a large green handkerchief crammed into the breast pocket.

‘You’re awake, then, Mr Bell?’ he said in a voice as rich as fruitcake.

Frank didn’t answer.

‘I guess you’re interested to know how long you’ve been here. Well, I can tell you. Almost fifteen hours. The time is twenty minutes before noon.’

‘The cops know that I came looking for you,’ said Frank.

‘No, they don’t. Nobody knows that you came looking for me.’

‘Astrid knows.’

‘How many times? There is no Astrid.’

‘Oh, really? So what was it that upset you so much when I described her?’

Charles Lasser smoothed his hand through his hair, again and again, as if to reassure himself that his head was still there. ‘I wanted to ask you about that, Mr Bell. Where did you see this girl, and when?’

‘I met her after you bombed The Cedars. My son was killed that day. She helped me to get through it.’

‘You met her after The Cedars was bombed?’

‘That’s right. We’ve been meeting each other, on and off, ever since.’

‘You never met her before?’

Frank gritted his teeth in exasperation. ‘What do you care?’

‘I care a great deal, Mr Bell. But I think you’re telling me lies. Either that, or you’re totally mad. Who told you I hurt her?’

‘Nobody told me. I saw the bruises for myself, the cigarette burns. I followed her and she went to Star-TV and then she went to your house.’

Charles Lasser pressed his hands together as if he were praying. ‘I don’t understand this at all.’

‘What’s to understand?’

Charles Lasser was thoughtful for a moment. Then he looked around at all of the khaki boxes and said, ‘I suppose you’ve guessed what’s going to happen to you now. In fifteen minutes’ time, this van will be driven through the gates of Culver Studios. Once it’s well inside the studio complex, I’m going to take this out.’

He reached into his inside pocket and produced a black plastic box with a red button on it. ‘A remote control, which is tuned to the detonator inside that very fashionable vest you’re wearing. Yes, Mr Bell – you are going to set off this particular bomb, or at least everybody will think that you did.

‘There probably won’t be very much left of you, but what there is will identify you as a suicide bomber from Dar Tariki Tariqat, which will make sure that yours is a name that Hollywood will speak of from this day forward with hatred and disgust. Oh – and more than likely, your father’s name, too, because everybody will assume that you were abused when you were younger, like every other member of Dar Tariki Tariqat.’

‘What the hell is wrong with you?’ said Frank.

‘Nothing at all. It’s just that when I take my revenge, I like it to be very comprehensive, and wide ranging, and complete.’

‘Revenge? Revenge for what?’

Charles Lasser looked at his Rolex. ‘I have to be going, Mr Bell. I have a meeting at Spago’s and you have a meeting in hell.’

‘Just tell me why,’ said Frank. ‘If you’re going to blow me to bits, I think I deserve that much.’

Charles Lasser hunkered down beside him. His linen pants were too tight between his legs, so that his testicles bulged. He smelled of stale cigars and a very heavy aftershave.

‘I was born in Lithuania, Mr Bell, to a family so poor that I didn’t have a pair of shoes until I was twelve years old. My father beat me and abused me every day. But one night, when I was fifteen, he climbed into my bed, drunk as usual, and I strangled him with my bare hands. I carried his body downstairs to the living room and sat him in his chair, and I poured lamp oil all over him. Then I set fire to him.’

There was a staccato knock at the van’s rear door. ‘Mr Lasser, sir? We’re getting pushed for time.’

Charles Lasser called back, ‘Coming, Michael!’ Then he leaned closer to Frank’s ear and said, ‘On that night, when my father’s body was blazing in front of me, I swore that I would never let anybody take advantage of me, ever again. I would never let anybody scorn me or laugh at me. I would always have my revenge, no matter how long it took, and I would always make sure that my revenge was a hundred times worse than what had been done to me.’

‘And you call me mad?’

Charles Lasser gave him a slow, amused smile. ‘I like you, Mr Bell. I’m sorry our acquaintance has to be so brief.’

‘Me too,’ said Frank, and as Charles Lasser turned to leave, he seized him around the neck and hit his head against the side of the van as hard as he could.

Charles Lasser gave an extraordinary high-pitched squeal, like an injured pig. Frank grabbed both of his ears and hit his head again, and again, and again. The van boomed like the inside of a kettle drum.

‘Everything OK, Mr Lasser?’ called the voice from outside.

‘Everything’s fine!’ Frank shouted back, trying to sound gruff.

‘Only a couple of minutes to go, Mr Lasser.’

Panting, Frank wrestled himself out of the suicide vest. Then he lifted up Charles Lasser’s lolling arms, one after the other, and tugged it on to him. It was a tight fit, because he was so huge, but he managed to fasten two out of the three buckles at the front. Then he took the remote control box out of Charles Lasser’s pocket and wedged it into his belt.

‘Mr Lasser! Time to go!’

Frank slapped Charles Lasser’s face. ‘Wake up, you bastard! Come on, wake up!’

‘That’s it, Mr Lasser, else we’re going to miss our twelve o’clock deadline!’

‘Wake up, for Christ’s sake!’ Frank hissed at him. He hoped to God that he hadn’t killed him. There was blood on his collar and his face was mottled and gray.

‘Wake up, will you, for Christ’s sake!’

Charles Lasser’s eyelids quivered, and then he snorted and opened his eyes. He stared at Frank, trying to focus.

‘Get up,’ Frank ordered.

Charles Lasser looked around. He blinked once, and then he blinked again. Then he filled his lungs and roared, ‘You piece of shit! I’ll rip your fucking head off and piss down your neck!’ He grabbed hold of one of the support bars along the side of the van, and heaved himself on to his feet.

Frank stumbled back. He hadn’t expected him to wake up so volcanically. He took out the remote control box, yanked out its antenna, and held it up in front of Charles Lasser’s face.

‘Stay there! Don’t move!’

‘You pathetic moron,’ sneered Charles Lasser. ‘Michael! Louis! Get in here!’

‘Don’t move,’ Frank repeated. ‘I don’t think you understand what’s happened here. You see what this is?’

Charles Lasser frowned at the remote control box, trying to get it into focus. Realization spread slowly across his face. Then he looked down at his chest and placed both his hands on his big, flat RDX breasts.

The rear doors were opened wide, and two men in brown coveralls climbed into the van. One was bald and wore earrings; the other had a shock of black hair like a young Columbo.

‘Stay where you are!’ Frank screamed at them. He sounded much shriller than he had meant to, like a panicking ballet dancer. The two men ignored him and started to push their way forward between the boxes.

‘Do what he says!’ Charles Lasser bellowed.

‘Mr Lasser?’ said the bald one.

‘Don’t you understand English? Do what he says! Or haven’t you noticed that I’m wearing twenty-five pounds of plastic explosive and he’s holding the remote?’

The man with the shock of black hair crossed himself twice. The bald one simply looked confused.

‘Back off,’ Frank ordered them. ‘Get out of the van, and then walk away. When Mr Lasser and I climb out of here, I don’t want to see you anywhere in sight, otherwise it’s boom! You got it?’

‘Boom, yes, OK, we got it,’ said the man with the black hair. He pulled at the other man’s arm and together they retreated to the rear of the van and scrambled out.

Frank turned to Charles Lasser. ‘Now you.’

‘And supposing I refuse? If you press that button in here, then that’s both of us gone.’

‘You know something?’ said Frank. ‘It would be worth it.’

Charles Lasser looked at him for a moment, and then he said, ‘What do you want me to do? Apologize?’

‘That’s up to you. All I want you to do is confess.’

‘There’s still nothing to connect me with Dar Tariki Tariqat. Believe me, I was very careful about that. Nothing to connect me, except you.’

‘Just get out of the van,’ Frank told him.

Charles Lasser wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. ‘I could turn your life around for you, Mr Bell. You could write a show for Star-TV, and I’d give it the kind of promotion that most writers can only dream about. I could pay you three million dollars a year.’

‘Get out of the van, please,’ Frank repeated.

‘Nobody’s a saint, Mr Bell, not even you.’

‘What kind of a man are you? You killed my only son, you killed my friends, you killed dozens of innocent men, women and children, and now you’re offering me a TV show?’

‘Life has to go on, Mr Bell.’

‘Out.’