Hostage (20 page)

Rawlins turned, stumbled across the bedroom, and dropped himself on the edge of the bed. Right, he’d found what he was looking for. And he immediately understood that it didn’t make any more sense than it had before. He bowed his head into one hand, thought perhaps this tough cop was going to cry yet again, but then realized he was way beyond that. Far too exhausted. He glanced back at the doorway, saw Matthew’s pathetic frame. And the gun.

“Why the hell are you pointing that thing at me?” asked Rawlins.

“What?” said Matthew, his anger and disbelief quite evident. “Listen, asshole, don’t play any games with me. I know why you’re here.” Matthew hurried to the front window, stood by the sill, and carefully scanned the street. “There are probably a dozen cops out there, right?”

“I… I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yeah, right.”

Rawlins looked up, not in the least bit angry, merely totally confused. “Don’t you know why I’m here? I—” Rawlins stared at him, saw the perplexity in his face. “Remember that night we got so drunk?”

Matthew was quite still, quite focused on Rawlins. Clearly confused, he then ran his hand over his stubbly head, trying to understand what Rawlins was talking about. And then it struck him, and the smallest of smiles eased onto his face.

“Oh, man. Oh, shit,” Matthew finally said, lowering the gun. “You’ve got it, don’t you?”

Rawlins nodded.

“When did you find out?”

“Just today.” His eyes began to bloom with moisture, and though he wasn’t so sure why it was important, added, “After lunch.”

Rawlins then watched as Matthew leaned against the window-sill, staring out at the night and the street and the streetlight. He watched as Matthew’s shoulders started shaking. As he clasped a hand over his mouth. As he completely lost it and gasped for air.

But, wait, realized Rawlins. This guy, this fellow queer, wasn’t crying for Rawlins and his fate.

“Jesus Christ, you’re laughing, aren’t you? Laughing at me?” said Rawlins, as shocked as he was incredulous. “What… what kind of sicko are you?”

With a huge grin spread across that skeletal face, Matthew turned to him. “So you don’t know, do you?”

“Know what?”

Rawlins felt a surge of repugnance rise in his throat. How could he have ever been attracted to someone like this, someone who could find humor in another’s demise? This guy was disgusting, he was—

Rawlins caught himself. If this guy was nearly as sick as Curt had been, could he also be as nuts as Curt was in his final days? Could that explain this grotesque scene?

Rawlins asked, “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Let me guess. You haven’t listened to the news all day. And you haven’t been down to the police station either. Right? Am I right?”

“So?”

“Wonderful, I love it!” hooted Matthew. “Here I stopped home for some pills, and I thought you’d caught me!”

“What the—”

“That’s exactly what the entire first month was like for me. I just wandered around in a fog after I found out. I didn’t hear a thing about anybody else, and I didn’t give a flying fuck either. I’m sure that as far as you’re concerned the only thing that happened in the entire frigging universe is that you’ve seen your future and you’ve solved the biggest mystery of your own life. What I mean, of course, is that you’ve found out exactly what millions of others would pay dearly to learn—simply, you found out how you’re going to die, didn’t you?”

Rawlins sat back down on the bed and suddenly felt himself shuddering. “You’re crazy.”

“No, not at all. I just have a bigger vision.” Matthew added, “You’re a bit late, but welcome to the party.”

It was then that Rawlins heard a voice, weak and shaky, calling out from some grave. He heard an angry voice, one determined to get even. Dear God, was that what this was all about?

“You did something today, didn’t you?” asked Rawlins.

“Boy, oh, boy, I’ll say so.”

“I came here tonight because in all probability I picked up HIV from you. Right in this very room, right over there, actually, where you used to have a futon.” He closed his eyes, for he was just beginning to understand. “But no wonder you thought I was here with a bunch of cops, no wonder you thought someone was after you.”

Matthew’s eyes opened wide in amusement. “Oh, do tell, do tell. So you know something after all.”

“I guess so.” Rawlins nodded. “You kidnapped someone, didn’t you? In some restaurant downtown, right?”

Matthew gasped. “Very good, Einstein. Now, how did you find that out? Did you hear a bit of something on the radio?”

“No.”

“Overhear someone gabbing at the doctor’s office?”

“No.”

“Oh, of course not. How stupid of me. Your wonderful boyfriend, Mr. Television himself, confessed all. Actually, I wondered if your Mr. Wonderful recognized me. You know, I met him once, but of course that was before I looked like this.”

“No, Todd didn’t say anything.” Rawlins looked right at him. “Actually, it was Curt.”

Immediately Rawlins understood that if there was anything that could have shocked Matthew, it was that. The other man’s glee crashed in a million pieces. And again he raised the pistol.

“Oh, fuck,” moaned Matthew. “Don’t tell me you’ve got direct dial to heaven. And don’t tell me Curt relayed all this via your Ouija board either.”

“I won’t.” Rawlins thought back to all of Curt’s ramblings. “But I will tell you I spent a fair amount of time taking care of Curt just before he died.”

“Oh, goddammit!”

“So apparently he wasn’t as nuts as I thought he was.”

“I knew he was going to let it slip! I knew it! Why couldn’t that queen have died about a month earlier?” Matthew shook his head. “Elliot has such a big fucking mouth—he’s the one who told Curt in the first place. ‘We got this cool thing cooked up, Curt,’ says Elliot. ‘Man, it’s so unbelievably hot, you gotta join us. We’re all going to be so famous, dude.’ But of course snooty Curt wouldn’t have anything to do with it. Shit, it’s just like I told Elliot—Curt was going to spill it all unless we didn’t do something.”

“Well, he did—blab, that is.”

Rawlins thought back to Curt’s rantings, which Rawlins had dismissed at the time. Back then they hadn’t made any sense, dribs and drabs of threats and conspiracies sprinkled as he drifted in and out of dementia. Back then they seemed more like the delirious plottings of a hideously ill man about to tumble from the precipice of life.

“So you really did it?” said Rawlins, stitching together Curt’s mumblings. “You kidnapped someone?”

“You got it.”

“Someone important?”

“Quite. A politician.” Matthew grinned. “Mr. Johnny Clariton himself.”

After the events of the day, Rawlins was too numb to react. “No shit? And now you’re holding him hostage?”

“Something like that.” With a sigh Matthew said, “You probably know where we have him too, don’t you?”

Rawlins thought for a moment. “Probably.”

“Then I regret to inform you, Mr. Rawlins,” began Matthew, taking aim, “that I’m either going to have to kill you or I’m going to have to take you with me as, shall we say, Mr. Hostage Number Two.”

“Well, you more or less have already taken care of the first option.” His years of professional training defeated by today’s medical report, Rawlins passively pushed himself to his feet. “So is it safe to assume you’re going to insist on driving again?”

Oh, he didn’t like
this. Oh, this scared him. Thinking back on everything he’d read, Elliot knew this wasn’t good. Tina had been in the bathroom since Matthew had left, and he knew there was nothing left to come out of her except her insides. And that was exactly what seemed to be happening. If they weren’t precisely where they were in these subterranean chambers and if the police, the FBI, and who knew who else weren’t looking for them—which they surely were—Elliot would drag Tina to the closest hospital and make them fill her up intravenously with fluids.

“Oh, Elliot, I can’t stop it!” she moaned from behind the closed door. “The cramps are so bad.”

“I know, dear, I know.”

There was another gush from inside her, and she cried, “There’s so much blood!”

“Just be cool.” Elliot leaned against the door frame and mumbled, “I can’t say for sure because of course I’m not a doctor, as we both know, but I think this goes beyond cytomegalovirus colitis. I mean, CMV isn’t usually quite so… so aggressive. It could be another organism, say giardia, which is definitely not fun. But no, that wouldn’t explain the blood, now, would it? Nor would simple food poisoning, say, if you ate some meat that wasn’t cooked all the way through or ate some bad mayonnaise. I mean, actually it sounds to
moi
like you’ve got a lesion or something going on, you know, like one of your intestines has cracked a leak. Tina, hon, you sure you never had any KS?”

“No. No… oh, my God, ow!” Crying, she paused, gasped for air. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Well, I suppose you’d know if you did.”

Okay, so what else could it be? He thought through all the typical stuff—lactose intolerance, spicy foods, fatty foods—all that crap, but none of them would explain the blood. Scratching his nose, he glanced over at the huge boxful of drugs they’d dragged down here. Unfortunately, this went way beyond anything he could deal with. Maybe when Matthew returned they should just take her out of here and ditch her somewhere, then call 911 and tell them to fetch her. Or maybe she couldn’t wait that long. In fact, listening to her writhe, he doubted she could. What she probably needed and needed now was not only an IV of fluids but a good, strong transfusion.

“Hon,” he called through the door, “I can hear you crying in there, but can you tell me, are any tears rollin’ down those pretty cheeks of yours?”

“What?” She sniffled. “Actually, no.”

He slapped his cheek, rolled his eyes. Oh, this was definitely not cool. No tears meant her body couldn’t spare a drop of moisture, which clearly signified that Tina was already acutely dehydrated. Notwithstanding that her kidneys could be seriously and permanently damaged—big deal at this point—she was probably just minutes away from slipping into shock. Shit, when the hell was Matthew going to get back?

Okay, okay, just think, you moron.

Elliot scurried over to the boxes of food. There was nothing he could do about the loss of blood—who knew, maybe it wasn’t so awfully bad, maybe it was just scaring Tina—but he’d had, unfortunately, personal experience with massive diarrhea, and he knew just what to mix up. Finding a bottle of corn syrup, he poured about a half cup of the gooey liquid into a big plastic cup.

From the bathroom she said, “I think it stopped. The cramps are gone.”

“Oh, that’s fab!” exclaimed Elliot as he grabbed a bottle of apple juice from the cooler. “I’ll be right there; I’m making you a cocktail. But just stay put, okay? I don’t want you gettin’ up or movin’ real fast.”

“Sure… I’m just going to wash my hands.”

He dumped the juice in the cup, added some water, and swirled it all together. Oh, and a big dash of salt, of course. Taking a quick sip, Elliot shrugged. Not his best, but not so bad either, and guaranteed to do wonders for the body’s chemical harmony.

“Jeez, this is just like being back at the restaurant. You know, I was a pretty damn good waiter. People really liked me. I made tons in tips—unfortunately much more than I ever did on my paintings, but that’s a sob story for another time. Tina, how about a graham cracker?”

From behind the closed door he heard a
thunk,
the sound of something solid hitting something hard. He glanced over, heard nothing else.

“Tina? Hon? You okay?”

Everything terrible flashed through his mind, and for a moment he couldn’t move. Then, with the drink in hand, he hurried over to the door and tapped. Nothing. No moaning, no crying. A zip of fear shot through Elliot. Standing there holding the plastic cup, he knocked again.

“Tina?” he called, his hand shaking as he put the cup on the floor. “Tina, it’s me, Elliot! Open up! You gotta open up, hon!”

Elliot’s stomach heaved and his body flushed with panic. Something was wrong, horribly so. Dear God, he thought. I’m not a doctor. I’m not a nurse. And my dear friend is mortally sick.

“Tina?”

No, he couldn’t fail her, not now. Tina needed him, and she needed him now. He kicked back in, barely missing a beat, and pushed the door inward, but it opened only a few inches before it hit something. Terrified, Elliot peered in and saw Tina’s twiglike body sprawled on the floor, a small pool of blood spilling from her head.

“Tina!” screamed Elliot as he pushed his way in. “Tina!”

When the limo pulled
up in front of Rawlins’s place, Todd proceeded as if he didn’t have a clue that anyone was following him. He thanked the chauffeur, climbed out of the Cadillac, and stood in the middle of the street, looking up at the clapboard house and making sure that whoever was in the car that had pulled over at the end of the block saw him.