Hostage (17 page)

“And here’s a tape too,” said Elliot, slamming a cassette into Matthew’s grip. “Have fun, Mr. DeMille, Mr. Great Director Man.”

Matthew took a deep breath, told himself to push it away. The pain. Get rid of it. Ignore it. You’re not going to have a seizure. You can’t. There are more important things right now.

He took a deep breath, turned to Tina. “You ready?”

“Yeah,” she replied, and then took another swig of Gatorade.

“That’s right, Tina,” said Elliot. “Drink up. I think you were dizzy because you’re dehydrated. That happened, of course, because you had such bad—”

“Elliot!” snapped Matthew.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah…”

Staring at her, though, Matthew thought how she looked so drained, literally so. So white. Sure, she’d just lost a ton of liquid but, God, what was happening to them? And why now? Must be all the stress. The moving around. They just had to make it through the next few days, and then… then, well, who knew if they’d even still be alive. And who cared anyway?

“What about the syringe? You got it?” asked Matthew.

“Yep, yep, yep, she does. Loaded and ready,” volunteered Elliot. “I saw her put it in the pocket of her sweater vest.”

Patting the side of her sweater, the visibly weak Tina nodded and said nothing.

“Very great,” said Matthew. “Come on, it’s show time.”

Matthew turned toward the door, felt his head swell. He took a couple of steps, clutched the metal doorknob, and steadied himself. And then he swung open the door and entered the small white room, followed by Tina and Elliot.

“Hello, Johnny,” said Matthew.

Clariton was slumped on the floor, his butt on the blue nylon sleeping bag, knees up to his chest, head folded against his knees. He looked up, face red and sweaty, brow all wrinkled. His striped tie hung open and loose, and his gray suit looked as if he’d been sleeping in it for a week. Sure, it was written all over him. He was scared as hell. Which was exactly what Matthew had wanted.

“You people are disgusting,” he barked.

Elliot shrugged. “Hey, he sounds like my father.”

“You’ll never get away with this.”

“I beg your pardon, kind sir,” countered Elliot, “but I think we already have. I mean, I hate to disappoint you and everything, but look at where you are, chained to some pipe in some basement. Far as I can tell, there ain’t a bunch of Mounties lurking around here either.”

“You might as well face it,” said Matthew, “from your point of view things don’t exactly look rosy.”

Clariton stared him right in the eye. “You’re sick.”

“Now he sounds like my mother.” Elliot grinned. “Hey, Matt, this is just like in that film,
Chinatown,
you know, when Faye Dunaway goes: ‘My sister, my daughter, my sister, my daughter.’ Only now I’m going: My father, my mother, my father, my mother, my father, my mother, my father, my—”

“Elliot,” said Tina, clearly exasperated and taking him by the arm. “I think your meds are making you a little hyper. You just sit down here and be quiet. We’ll take care of things.”

“Oh, okay,” said Elliot, leaning against the wall and sliding down into a corner. “Yeah, I guess I am a little cranked up. I’ve taken about thirty pills today, not to mention all that—”

“Elliot, shut the fuck up!” yelled Matthew.

His voice small, Elliot pulled his knees up to his chest and replied, “Yes, Mr. Boss Man.”

How in the hell, wondered Matthew, had they ended up with a nut case like him? Matthew shook his head, then turned, surveyed the place. Okay, now what?

“Tina, you want to just sit down there next to our esteemed guest?”

“Sure.”

“What are you doing? What’s going on?” demanded Clariton. “Listen, if you let me go now, I’m sure—”

“It’s home-movie time,” interrupted Matthew, lifting up the camcorder. “It’s time to tell the world what’s up.”

“No,” said Clariton, pressing himself back into the corner. “No, I won’t say anything.”

“You don’t really have to. We just want to show people that we have you and that you’re alive—though, I might add, a tad disheveled.”

“Fine, but just wait until they find me! Do you know what’s going to happen to you then? Do you?”

“You know what, Mister Big Shot, we don’t really care if a SWAT team bursts through the door right now, because just getting this far means we’ve already been wildly successful.” With a sly grin Matthew added, “I think you had better realize, Johnny, you ain’t callin’ the shots here. I think you better realize you’re in mighty deep shit.”

“I… I…”

“This is how it’s going to work. Today Tina is going to tell you her story, which is a real heartbreaker. Tomorrow Elliot will tell you his juicy tale—”

“Trust me, it’s certifiably pathetic!” Elliot said with a giggle.

“And the day after tomorrow I’ll tell you mine, a confession of sorts.” Matthew lifted the camera to his eye, focused, and pressed the ON button. “Say cheese, asshole.”

Still wearing her running shoes, Tina edged over to the congressman, braced herself against the wall with one hand, then, biting her bottom lip in pain, lowered herself to the floor next to him. She took a deep breath, then brushed aside some of her blond hair and smiled at the lens with the remnants of her best model face. Almost unseen, her right hand traveled down her side and into the pocket of her sweater vest, where she clutched the small device.

“Hi, Mr. Clariton. My name’s Tina. The camera’s rolling now, and I just wanted to ask if you have any idea why we kidnapped you today?”

“You people are disgusting!”

Forcing a coy look, she asked, “What people? Oh, and don’t forget to look into the camera so all the nice viewers will be able to see you.”

“You homosexuals! You deviants!”

In the background Elliot started cackling, and he shouted, “Think again, dumbo! She’s not a lesbo—she’s a breeder, just like you!”

“That’s right,” said Tina, taking a deep breath of air. “I’m straight. I’m a mother. And I’m a person with AIDS.”

“Well, I don’t care. You want to hurt me, don’t you?” Clariton looked right at the camera, turned back to Tina, then started jerking on the handcuffs, rattling them against the pipes. “You can’t do this, you can’t hold me hostage! This is a federal offense!”

Tina countered, “And what you’ve been committing, sir, is an offense against humanity!”

He stopped, sat there quite still, staring at her. “What… what are you talking about?”

“Your position on AIDS, of course.”

Clariton turned to Matthew and the lens, said, “Listen, so… so I believe in the traditional family, a man, a woman, their children. So I—”

“You fool!” snapped Tina. “Gay people have been around since the beginning of time. You might as well accept that fact.”

“All I’m saying—all I’ve ever said—is I don’t endorse their lifestyle and that I won’t work to defend their special interests.”

Tina shook her head and rolled her eyes in disbelief. “So what you’re saying is it’s okay for gay people to die, because you don’t like them, which is repulsive, of course. But what about me, a straight woman with AIDS? There’s an epidemic going on out there, and it’s a whole hell of a lot bigger than I can handle.”

“Of course it is,” said Clariton, slipping into politician mode as he tried to defend himself. “But it’s not the duty of any government to support people who’ve engaged in proven high-risk behavior.”

“How dare you!”

“Listen, basically all I’m saying is that the government should get out of the way and let the private sector handle this mess. There’s never been a disease as lucrative as AIDS and—”

“There’s never been one as political either.” Tina shook her head. “You know as well as I do that the American government would have been all over this—they’d do something like a Manhattan project when they developed the nuclear bomb, or a NASA project to get a man on the moon—if AIDS were killing straight white people in the United States. Or, let me say, straight white men.”

Clariton started shaking his head. “This is ridiculous! I can’t believe I’m having this conversation. Here I am chained to some pipe basically trying to defend what I was elected for.”

“You were elected to be a leader, Mr. Clariton. And as a leader you’re supposed to show people right from wrong. Or perhaps you only care about your political future.”

In the distant background Matthew heard it again, that thunderous rumbling. He ignored it, kept the camera trained on them. Tina was doing great. Better than great.

“Tell him about Chris,” nudged Matthew.

Tina reached into her pocket and nervously clutched the little surprise lying in there, then turned away and stared blankly at the floor. For a long time she said nothing, lost, undoubtedly, in layers of memories, so many of them sweet, so many of them painful.

Then she looked right at the camera and forced some kind of wretched smile. “Chris… was beautiful.”

“Yes, she was.”

Clariton started squirming. “You’ll never get away with this, you fools, you’ll never—”

“Shut up!” snapped Tina, surprising even herself with her harsh tone. She then laughed and said, “You know, I used to be so polite. Everyone liked me. So pretty. So kind. I was a model, you know. In New York. And I was very successful too. You’d never know it to look at me now, but—”

“She was on the cover of
Vogue
once!” called Elliot from the side. “God, and her hands used to be so pretty. Such gorgeous nails. Tina was even a hand model, you know. They used her hands on lots of TV commercials.”

“That’s right.” Tina blushed, staring down at the nails that were now ravaged by fungus. “But then… but then…” She looked at Clariton. “Do you have any idea who Chris was?”

“Of course not. How could I? I’ve never seen you before.”

“She was…”

“Go on,” urged Matthew. “Tell him.”

“Chris was my little girl. My little baby.” Again Tina drifted away for a long, sullen moment. “Six months ago, just after she turned two, Chris died of complications from AIDS. She contracted the HIV virus from me in utero. And I… I contracted it from my boyfriend, David, who was also Chris’s father and who’d contracted it from someone—a woman—in Thailand.” She took a deep breath. “David died about a year before Chris.”

Matthew zoomed in on her. She was being more strong and direct than he’d expected. He was shocked, in fact, at how up front she’d become. Even as recently as six months ago she was the stereotypical Minnesotan, facing the pains of the world with a determined smile. Then again, Chris had still been alive, and there had still been hope. Now everything was as black and white as life and death.

“Some babies, they… well, they’re able to…”A tear streamed down Tina’s left cheek, cutting through her thick makeup and finally sinking into a sore. “Some babies are able to fight it off, somehow get rid of the virus. But… but not my little Chris. I did everything I could, I really did, but when she died none of the new drugs had been tested or approved for children. I had almost three hundred thousand dollars saved up, and I spent every dime of that trying to cure Chris. I flew her all over the world—London, Paris, India—visiting all the top doctors who were doing the most radical work. In the end nothing could save my baby. She just wasted away, and she died in my arms at… at…” The pain burned all over again, and tears blistered from Tina’s eyes. “Mr. Clariton, my little girl died in my arms at home last fall.”

His voice unusually somber and sober, Elliot said, “Watching that little girl die broke my heart, it truly did.”

Clariton looked at Tina, glanced at the camera and Matthew, then back at Tina. “I’m sorry… .”

“Thank you,” replied Tina.

“I’m sorry,” continued Clariton, clearly perplexed, “but what does that have to do with me?”

“Oh, fuck,” cursed Matthew, wishing the camera he was now aiming at the congressman were a bazooka. “What are you trying to do, dig your own grave?”

Weeping into her hands, Tina shook her head, then looked up and glared at Clariton, saying, “I thought maybe I’d like you even just a little bit in person. I really didn’t think you’d be so arrogant. But what am I supposed to think of a man who wants to dismiss AIDS as something he can blame on gay people when I for one am a straight woman who got it from a straight man? What am I supposed to think of a supposed leader who wants to slash research when there are hardly any drugs out there for kids with AIDS, let alone a vaccine? Don’t you realize I’m scared as hell about what’s going to happen to me? Don’t you understand that I’m terminally ill? If I somehow survive the next few days I’ll probably die within the next few months. Where? I don’t have any money left, I spent it all on my baby. I don’t have any family. If people like you, Mr. Johnny Clariton, have their way, I’ll probably die in the street!”

This was it, the time, and Matthew aimed the camera on Tina’s pocket and said, “Do it, Tina.”

“Yeah,” echoed Elliot. “Do it!”

She wiped her eyes, further smearing her makeup, and grinned ever so slightly through her tears. “He’s really making all this so easy, isn’t he?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” demanded Clariton, suddenly nervous. “Listen, lady, I’m sorry about your kid. I’m sorry you lost her, but I didn’t have anything to do with it. I mean, isn’t that obvious?”