Deathgrip Read online

  Present tense. Lorraine kicked off a commercial-free half-hour and shut down the microphone.

  “Any reprisals from that little faith healing service you guys did yesterday?” She grinned crookedly, twirling a lock of hair around one finger. “Warn me next time, okay? I was listening in the hammock in the backyard, and I fell out. You almost broke my wrist.”

  He reached for it, kissed it with healing chivalry. “No foreseeable reruns. Popeye was less than thrilled.” He explained the circumstances. “He came through that door ready to explode.”

  “Yuck. The biggest blast since the Hindenburg.”

  Paul shook his head, so sorry, some people just don’t get it. “I don’t think he really understands what he’s supposed to do here, you know? Rock and roll is supposed to be offensive, it’s the nature of the beast.”

  “He’s the original hypocrite, didn’t I warn you? The man’s soul could fit in a thimble.”

  On and on, management-bashing, the deejay’s favorite contact sport.

  Paul watched her set things up for more tunes, smooth ballet from cart machine to turntables to CD players to racks of albums. Poetry, sweet and carnal. Then, with her back to him, she bent at the waist to rummage in the cabinet beneath the turntables, where some CDs were stored. That view, inverted heart-shaped denim perfection. Fifteen years ago, surfing through puberty, such a sight would have sent him scurrying shamefaced to the nearest toilet to drop to his knees and conjure fantasies so intense they hurt. Now? He tried not to ogle. He really tried. But in some ways, the male of the species was always stuck at fourteen.

  “Peter Hargrove,” her voice a sudden growl, “I hate you when you do this to me!”

  Paul watched as she straightened, bringing with her an ashtray, clear glass muddied with nicotine grime. She stared into the jumble of butts with profound disgust. Was there any antismoker so venomous as an ex-smoker?

  “He does this on purpose, you know.” Her eyes narrowed to slits, as if nothing would give her greater pleasure than concocting a tasty ashtray stew and serving it to a helplessly quadriplegic Peter Hargrove. “About once a week, he hides this where he knows I’ll find it. It’s just like when he holds those unlit cigarettes under my nose before he smokes them.”

  “He can’t help it.” Paul Handler, attorney for the defense. “He was born a corrupting influence.”

  “And you. You’re just as guilty as he is.” Those green eyes were luminous now. “You’ve got four hours to find these things and get rid of them before I show up.”

  Paul, sappy grin and all, went backwalking across the booth, Lorraine advancing like some vengeful temptress. She held the ashtray before her, and he formed a cross with two fingers to ward her off. But she was invincible. Pressed him against the wall, close contact in five or six exquisitely stimulated spots while she lifted the ashtray into dumping position, say aaah, and had him beg for clemency.

  A golden moment, shattered when he looked toward the booth’s door and saw they were being watched.

  “Now there’s professionalism in action.” Spoken with an amused smirk. Clifford Frankl, one of the sales staff. Or sales geeks, the current term of vogue when they were in absentia. He joined them, and the ashtray was unceremoniously emptied into the waste can. Paul, wistful, watched the gray ashes sift downward while Clifford spoke his business.

  He’d just sold a remote broadcast for the following Tuesday at University City’s newest business, a record store called The House of Wax, on Delmar Boulevard. Popeye’s boy wonder, that was Clifford, the sales geek who always made his quotas and usually smelled as if he’d just eaten his way through a truckload of Certs. Clifford had sold the store owner on the idea of pairing up KGRM jocks Paul Handler and Peter Hargrove for two hours of live-on-location on-air mayhem. Paul said fine, dandy, and Cliff sprinted for his desk phone to call Peter at home.

  “I’m jealous,” Lorraine pouted. “You guys get all the glory. Nobody ever asks for me.”

  Paul smiled, hugged her, and patted her on the back. “Show more cleavage,” and they both laughed when she pulled away to slug him on the arm.

  Plenty of affection between them, Paul had no qualms with that, in fact it had been quick in coming months ago. Little kindnesses, warm moments, and small intimate touches … but never intimate enough. He knew there could never be passion, had resigned himself to that dismal fact, never those animal strivings for blissful union, turning breath desperate and voices hoarse. And this was worse, really, than complete rejection. For the regret was endless, perpetually renewed, always there.

  Sunday morning, two days later.

  Paul was just working his way into some strange dream about riding a horse when the noise came, rhythmic pounding that the dream incorporated as thunder. His grasp was tenuous, the dream scattering into gossamer filaments as he swam to awakening. He opened his eyes, focused on the bedroom ceiling.

  Too bright, too early. The clock radio near his head blinked nine-thirty-six. Good morning, Mister Sun. Piss off and die.

  The infernal pounding at his door persisted, and Paul grumbled himself out of bed. He navigated the stagnant sea of dirty socks and underwear on his bedroom floor, then covered the narrow hallway to the living room. During the night his shorts had twisted themselves to one side; fixing this was priority one of the new day. He kicked aside a stray section of yesterday’s Post-Dispatch, and it tented beside a table laden with books and tapes and the odd beer bottle or two. At the far end of his sofa, on a table of their own in a leaker aquarium they called home, lived a pair of gerbils christened Calvin and Hobbes. They peered at him, four bright black eyes, then scurried behind their wheel, as if fleeing a carnivorous giant intent on breakfast and none too picky.

  Paul opened the door in mid-pound, confronted a smiling Peter Hargrove with arms full of good tidings.

  “Rise and shine! Ready for company?” Peter set his sacks on the floor, plucked out a Pete’s Wicked Ale — he claimed the brand was named after him — and twisted off the cap as if wringing the neck of a chicken. He offered it to his host.

  Paul declined, sagging against the doorjamb and scrubbing sleep from his eyes. “When you said we should get together today, I kind of thought you meant, like, noon or after.”

  “You midday jocks are such pussies.” Peter retrieved his sacks and aimed for the kitchen. Keep a schedule like his, and this was the biological clock’s equivalent of early afternoon.

  Paul shut the door, then collapsed into his couch, a plush old secondhand monstrosity that did everything but hug you. Sinking into its cool depths, he listened to Peter rearranging the contents of his refrigerator. Bottles clinked endlessly.

  “If you woke up Mrs. DeWitt and got her all cranky,” Paul croaked, “I’ll kill you. Not kidding. I’ll show you the hammer.”

  “Relax. I’ll sit on her.”

  Good enough. Janet DeWitt was a sixty-something widow who lived directly below lucky Paul. She gave everybody in the building grief about too much noise, real or imagined, but Paul, by virtue of logistics, caught the biggest portion. One of the kinder building rumors about her he had heard was that her husband had died in self-defense.

  “Hey,” Peter called. “You got this package of cream cheese in here that expired last December. Want me to pitch it?”

  “Naaah. Leave it. That’s my science project.”

  It must have been a deejay occupational hazard. You’re single, you still live like a college student years after the diploma. Only the married jocks were grownups. And the divorced ones, like Peter? They were the worst of all.

  He returned to the living room, toting his ale and a bag of pork rinds and the orange juice pitcher. Paul accepted the latter with both hands, like a child with an oversize mug, and swigged directly from the spout.

  “Breakfast of champions.” Peter settled into a plaid recliner that no one reclined in because it tilted back unevenly, felt like the next stop would be the floor. He fed himself an enormous pork rind; the crunch might ha
ve leveled a lesser building.

  Paul propped both bare feet onto his coffee table, a shellacked piece of stained pine balanced on a pair of orange crates. The gentle breezes wafting in through his third-floor windows were warm and comforting, to be cherished. It was late June, and soon the temperature would only be shooting upward toward misery. St. Louis summer humidity was infamous.

  They stared at each other, orange juice to ale, sleepyhead to the guy with crumbs in his beard. Peter smiled. “Are we having fun yet?” and Paul responded with a thumbs-up.

  “How long ago was it you were married?” Paul then asked.

  Quick mental calculations. “We got married twelve years ago. We split, mmm, five years ago.”

  Paul nodded. “The seven-year itch.”

  “Shit. Tell me about it,” and Paul could hear the regret, very faint, 20/20 hindsight masked with bravado or indifference. Equally phony. Peter generally spoke of marriage in only the most disparaging of terms, listen to Wicked Uncle Pete and save yourself a world of hurt. As if it would take a cattle prod to get him back up the aisle. All bluster, Paul sensed. All bluff. He was as frightened of pain as anyone. Maybe more so; he was already presensitized, knew extremes of pain on a first-name basis.

  “Answer me this: When did you talk the least about her? At work.”

  Peter stroked his beard. “When it got shitty, I guess. I don’t know why. That was just the way I was.”

  “Don’t you think that’s the way most people are? Or, say, one extreme or the other? They don’t say a thing, or they talk too much, like they’re trying to convince themselves everything’s great, everything’s great.”

  “I suppose. Yeah, you’re probably right.”

  Paul nodded, wiggled out of his slump to set both feet on the floor.

  “Lorraine?” Peter asked. “Is that what this is about?”

  “Just wondering. Just curious,” and indeed, he was, staring into his pitcher to contemplate the marvels of Minute Maid and life in general. How things had fared in the Sheppard/Savage household in their first several months was before his time, and it wasn’t something he wanted to go around asking about. Not proper, not proper at all. But since he’d found a home at KGRM, since he and Lorraine had forged a genuine friendship, the amount of information she had volunteered about married life wouldn’t even fill a Post-It note. Which, in retrospect, seemed a bit odd. Silence could carry more implications about the state of affairs than innuendo.

  “So ask her,” Peter finally said. “Just sit her down and point-blank ask her how things are going. Easy enough. She wouldn’t mind, hell, she likes you better than any of the rest of us, I think.”

  Paul, shaking his head, “No, no, I couldn’t do that. I’m not out to cause any trouble, really, I’m not.”

  “Might work, you never can tell.” Peter leaned back and poured down a big sullen gulp of ale, smacked his lips once and held them tight. Staring straight ahead. “That’s how my ex ended up with the guy she married after me.”

  “Oh.” Paul’s voice was soft, tiny, surprised. “I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”

  Peter nodded, yeah, yeah, everybody’s got their story, the one that got away, here’s how I fiddled while Rome burned. Silence on the home front, while outside, in the city, some distant church bell rang clear and hollow, a wafting memory of smaller towns, more innocent days. Innocence lost. Ten o’clock and all’s hell.

  “My my my,” Peter said, “what an absolutely cheery morning this is turning out to be.”

  Paul felt like a weasel. Drag the man down, way to go, dredge up the worst time of his life. He perked up, change of subject: “Cartoons. We need cartoons.”

  “Now you’re talking. Is Elmer Fudd on? I’d kill for some Elmer Fudd.”

  Paul got up and went for the TV, clicked it on. An older model, not yet having given up the ghost, its video lagged behind audio while the tube warmed up.

  “…and while she’s gone, she wanted me to let you know that she’s thinking about each and every one of you.” Some as-yet-faceless voice on the TV, emerging from the great gray unknown. “Amanda keeps you in her prayers night and day, and I know she would welcome yours as well. Both for success in her missions, and her safe return.”

  “That’s not Elmer Fudd!” Peter rattled his cellophane bag in annoyance. “I know what the man sounds like, and that’s not him.”

  The picture rippled into being, and Paul saw a man standing before a large pulpit, surrounded by lilies, other greenery. A tall fellow, wearing a white suit, his handsomely chiseled face earnest and imploring. Lush purple curtains comprised a partial backdrop, apart from a choir, and across the curtains draped a gold banner that read ARM OF THE APOSTLE.

  “Okay, get that clown off the air, I know who that is now.”

  Paul’s hand lingered on the knob, trigger pressure. An overhead tracking shot caught an audience in an auditorium, colorful sea of smiling people amid fields of golden carpet, with tall thin rectangles of stained glass set along ivory walls.

  “Who is he?” Paul said. “I don’t recognize this one.”

  “Never heard of Donny Dawson?” Peter shrugged when Paul said the name, drew a blank. “One of those faith healer bozos, shouts a lot and throws people’s crutches across the stage, that kind of crap. Give him a few more years and he’ll be as bad as Oral Roberts, claiming he’s raised people from the dead. What a crock.”

  “You don’t think there’s anything to it?” Paul flipped the dial until he found gold, Daffy Duck. Surely Elmer would follow.

  “Hell no. What, you’ve never seen those guys in action? All that ranting and raving? It’s just a big show. Like pro wrestling, for holy rollers. Aw Paul, don’t tell me you actually think these guys are for real.”

  He’d returned to the contemplative solace of the sofa. “I’m not saying that none of it is faked. I just think it’s a mistake to lump everybody into one category. Maybe there’s somebody genuine among the crooks, you never know.”

  “Well it’s sure not him.” Peter rolled his eyes, turned the first ale into one dead soldier. “I knew that Methodist upbringing didn’t leave you unscarred.” His voice sounded condescending, a veiled invitation to drop the whole thing. Punctuated by a return trip to the fridge.

  And who’s to say, Paul thought, that I didn’t actually cast the summer cold demons out of your head? He couldn’t decide if he was half joking or three-quarters serious.

  Paul watched the cartoon as an exploding cigar stripped away all of Daffy’s feathers, leaving him this nubby little plucked thing, fuming with indignation. By next scene all his feathers were back in place. Nothing short of amazing.

  That magic of television. The one world where anything could happen.

  And given time, probably would.

  Chapter 4

  The lies didn’t taste nearly as bad in Donny Dawson’s mouth as he had feared.

  All well and good. It looked as if he and Gabriel Matthews and a tiny supporting cast were actually going to pull this off, this elaborate charade. The microcosm making up their world at the Oklahoma City compound and over the airwaves was being spoon-fed vast amounts of not-quite-truths regarding the whereabouts of Amanda Dawson, and they would happily swallow every last morsel.

  All had, of course, begun frightfully enough. As Donny was on his way to the chapel after her fall, Doctor Irv Preston had been summoned, leaving the last of his day’s already-behind-schedule patients double-parked in his waiting room. A quick on-site examination lent voice to his fears: cerebral hemorrhage, brought on by a sharp blow to the head. Result: arterial bleeding and cerebral edema, swelling of the brain.

  Preston had disinfected the gash in her scalp, then covered it with steri-strips, thin pieces of tape to close it until suturing. He’d run his hands over her to check for broken bones, and found none. But it wasn’t going to be enough — his voice was grave on this matter. Hospitalization was essential. Amanda was comatose.

  Preston had taken her in himself, regis
tering her under a false identity. She would not be staying long, perhaps a week, long enough to get proper emergency care. A CAT scan confirmed Preston’s suspicions of edema, lots of intracranial pressure needing relief. Amanda was started on an intravenous regimen of Manitol. With a bit of luck, over the coming week her swelling would abate with the ease of slowly letting air out of a balloon.

  After this, she would be moved back home, to a bedroom outfitted for her very special needs, tended to by a private nursing staff of three, each holding down an eight-hour shift. And paid extraordinarily well, for silence as well as expertise. Preston would take care of securing the nurses, highly skilled and tight of mouth, all three.

  Gabe had briefed Donny on it all during a break in the taping of the show that first terrible night, the two of them in his dressing room, door locked, conspirators in seclusion.

  “It’s not going to be enough,” Donny had said. Hands trembling until he laced his fingers so tight they appeared bleached. “We’ll have to account for her disappearance.”

  “I know, I’ve thought of that.” Gabe massaged the bridge of his nose and poured ice water for them both. “I think I know a way around it.”

  Donny was all ears and clammy sweat.

  “Since this is a coma, we’re talking about a wholly indefinite period of time. It could just be a matter of days before she comes out of it. Or it could take a lot longer. Irv told me you just can’t predict it, ever. Since we can’t predict it, we can’t plan time frames around it.”

  Donny’s eyes closed. This was getting worse all the time, lie upon lie upon lie. “So what do we tell everyone?”

  “That she’s on a missionary trip, indefinite length of time. I think El Salvador would be good. No small need for Christian people there, and it certainly has its share of violence and turmoil. Tomorrow I can talk to Carmen in the photo lab. She’s got a good stock file of pictures she shot there last year. Now, we’ll have to let her in on this, so this is up to you. Do you trust her?”

  Donny nodded, reflex action. Gabe’s idea, let him do what he thinks best. “She’s good people.”