Hostage (21 page)

It had once been a typical home for this area—a Minneapolis “foursquare” with a kitchen, living room, dining room, and staircase each occupying a separate corner of the downstairs—but during the Depression it had been carved into two apartments, one up, one down. For years Rawlins had rented the upstairs place, where a lamp now burned in one window. But Todd knew that the light didn’t mean that Rawlins was home or had stopped by. Leave it to a cop to keep a few of his halogens on timers.

Consumed with worry, he quickly crossed the concrete walk, across the boards of the front porch, and to the door. He rang once, barely waited, then took out Rawlins’s keys, which he’d gotten in an exchange as symbolic for both of them as the giving of rings. Opening the lock, Todd charged upstairs, taking the steps two at a time and bounding into the living room.

“Rawlins?” called Todd, his voice booming. “Rawlins, are you here? Rawlins?”

There wasn’t so much as an echo, and Todd quickly moved through the small dining room, the plain kitchen with the small table, the bedroom, and finally into the bath at the very end. No one, and nothing, not even a single item, out of order. He’d been hoping to find Rawlins here, of course, but had feared something worse, namely that Rawlins might have somehow hurt himself. Instead, everything was perfectly fine, and there was no sign that Rawlins had even been home. Todd hesitated in the kitchen, leaned against one of the white metal cabinets, and placed a hand to his forehead. Okay, there was one thing he needed to find, but where would Rawlins have put it?

His desk.

Todd returned to the bedroom, his eyes falling first, of course, on the mattress where he’d spent a handful of nights in lustful tangle. Crossing to the other side, he went to the small wooden desk and pulled on the long arm of an architect’s lamp. He flicked on the bulb and opened the top middle drawer, but found nothing except pens, paper clips, tape, a beat-up old calculator, and a variety of other home-office junk. Pulling open the right drawer, he found boxes of new checks, some bills, and letters. He moved to the drawer beneath that and found what he was looking for: a trove of photographs. Twenty, maybe thirty envelopes of glossy prints that never had and never would make it into an album, for while Rawlins loved to snap pictures he was not an organized soul. Todd opened the first envelope, found pictures of the two of them cross-country skiing. Trying to ignore any sentimental thoughts, Todd moved right on, flying through envelopes of Christmas, a Halloween ball, a family reunion. On and on. Until he found it: the stack of pictures Rawlins had pulled out just a few days after Curt had died. Todd shuffled through the first ten until he came to one of Curt and another man seated on a log. Recalling that Rawlins had mentioned he’d taken it while camping up in the Boundary Waters four or five years ago, Todd tried to remember what Rawlins had said about this guy pictured with Curt. Unable to, he jammed the small print in his pocket, stuffed the others back in the drawer, and snapped off the light.

Staying close to one wall, he returned to the living room, a boxy, rather unattractive space—it was common knowledge that Rawlins didn’t have the queer decorator gene—with a pathetic couch, a TV, a couple of chairs, and two windows up front. A single lamp burned on the other side of the room, and Todd slowly made his way up to one of the windows. But it was no use, he realized. The miniblinds were pulled completely up, and Todd couldn’t check the street without revealing himself.

He turned around, heading down the hall, through the kitchen, and to the back door. A large exterior staircase had been tacked on to the rear of the house, and Todd now made his way down to the yard, around the edge of the house, and into the dark that sliced between Rawlins’s and the neighboring home. Proceeding to the front, he peered out at the street, his breath smoking in the cool night air. Parked cars, most of them older models and most of them pocked with rust scales, lined the street.

There was no doubt in Todd’s mind that he’d been followed over here, though he hadn’t been able to discern just who or in fact how many people had been in the other vehicle that had tailed the limousine. So what could this be about? It could be the police, he supposed, but why would they monitor Todd’s coming and goings unless they thought he was somehow involved in Clariton’s abduction?

Somewhere a car door opened and closed, the sound muffled in the cool night, followed by steps on the gritty sidewalk. Todd edged closer to the corner of the house, but didn’t see a soul walking along. Scanning the street again, his eyes proceeded up the block, car by car, Ford to Honda to Olds to Toyota. And there it was, the front of the vehicle that had tailed the limo from Todd’s condo all the way over here. Bending over carefully lest they spy him spying them spying him, Todd caught a glimpse through the windshield of the driver. Definitely a man. Whether or not he was alone, however, Todd couldn’t tell.

Suddenly he heard it again, the footsteps. Or were they different ones? These were quick and fleeting, their noise ricocheting up the street, between the houses. Was someone running up to Rawlins’s house? Todd turned his head from side to side, but couldn’t see a thing. Wait. The fear plunging through him, he realized that the footsteps were simply bouncing off the neighboring house. Oh, shit. Someone was charging him from behind.

Todd spun around just as a huge figure descended, grabbing and hurling him against the house, flattening him against the clapboard. Todd noted that his attacker had a gun, and he lifted his arms, tried to protect himself, but the other guy was too strong. Too professional. When Todd saw one of the large arms come swinging up to his face, he thought, Oh, crap, this is really going to hurt. But instead of a solid fist smashing his jaw, a massive hand was thrown over his mouth.

“Keep quiet!” demanded the figure. “Don’t move!”

Recognizing his assailant, Todd stared at the man. Him?

“Someone followed you here,” whispered Lyle, Johnny Clariton’ s bodyguard.

Shocked by the other man’s presence, Todd barely moved his head up and down.

“Who are they?”

The hand was lifted from Todd’s mouth, and Todd spouted with a question of his own. “How… how the hell do you know I was followed?”

“Because I tailed you too,” said Lyle, his deep voice hushed. “There are two guys out there.”

“Two?”

“Yeah, two of them in that car down the street. Who are they?”

“I don’t have any idea.”

“Yeah, right.” Lyle flattened Todd even farther against the wall, raised his pistol, and placed the barrel deep into Todd’s temple. “Once again, pal, who are those guys out there?”

“And once again, asshole, I don’t know,” shot back Todd.

“Were you involved with kidnapping Clariton?”

“Absolutely not.”

Todd felt Lyle’s angry eyes burning into him. And then all of a sudden the handgun was pulled away and Todd was released.

Straightening his shirt, Todd moved a foot or two away and quipped, “I guess I can now comfortably say that no friend of Johnny Clariton is a friend of mine.”

Lyle stepped up to the edge of the house and peered down the street. “So what the hell’s going on around here?”

“That’s a very good question.” Right then there was only one thing Todd was certain of—that he didn’t want to hang out with Lyle—and as he started for the street he said, “And I guess there’s only one way to find out.”

“Hey, you idiot!” snapped Lyle, grabbing Todd by the arm. “What are you trying to do, get yourself killed?”

“You’re the cowboy swinging a gun around.”

Todd jerked himself free, wasting no time in heading for the street and away from Lyle, who stayed planted in the shadows of the house. Todd cut across the grass, across the sidewalk, and stepped into the street, walking right up the middle of the pavement. The mysterious car was parked about a quarter of a block away and pointed toward Todd. So Lyle was right, mused Todd as he neared the sedan. There were in fact two guys, a balding guy behind the wheel and someone else next to him whom Todd dearly hoped he recognized.

Once a viewer had alerted Todd about a stalker in her neighborhood, and Todd had gone over and staked it out, watching the guy for three days, then finally climbing out of the van and just walking over to the guy, the photographer’s camera rolling behind him. The man was so stunned that Todd was approaching him so directly that he did nothing, just sat there until Todd more or less cornered him. And that’s what he hoped, he thought as he now raised his right hand in greeting, would happen with this situation.

But the direct approach didn’t look as if it was going to work on this one.

The vehicle’s engine came to a sudden and loud roar. Todd didn’t like the sound of that, but he proceeded on, his hand still held up in friendly greeting and a stupid smile plastered on his face. He flinched slightly when he saw the wheels turning and the nose of the car pulling out, but he pressed on.

However, when the car shot out of its parking place and started racing down the street toward him, Todd slowed and quietly muttered to himself, “Hi, guys. What’s going on?”

He stopped dead. Wanting the guy in the passenger seat to be one person in particular, Todd kept his eyes aimed on him. But in fact the car wasn’t going to stop, that much was clear, because it was zeroing right in on Todd, gaining speed with each foot. Yet Todd didn’t move. He didn’t flinch until the last possible moment. And only when he was positive that the man in the passenger seat wasn’t Steve Rawlins did Todd jump out of the way, throwing himself between two parked cars as the silver Chrysler roared past him and into the night.

They took Matthew’s vehicle
and Rawlins drove, and the first thing they did was drop off a large manila envelope containing the videotape. The second was to head all the way out here and park just outside this huge box of a building. As they climbed out of the van, a 747 roared overhead as it descended, so low that all other sounds were drowned out.

Having entered a rear door of the large structure, they now walked along, Rawlins all but oblivious to the gun stuck in his side. He did exactly as he was told, for he was a willing hostage—or better yet a listless one—and he turned one corner, another, then proceeded down a narrow hall, just as Matthew ordered.

When they reached a door with a keypad mounted to the side, Matthew punched in the combination, swung open the door, and said, “Welcome to the bowels of capitalism.”

“So where are we going?” inquired Rawlins.

“Down, down, down. Someplace no one would ever think of looking, yet at the same time someplace so incredibly obvious. You’ll see. It’s the one place I hate most in these United States of America.” Matthew grinned. “I worked out here for a while.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, my modeling days were over, but it was before I got really sick. I needed a job, and, actually, it was the only place that would hire me. Granted, it was only a McJob—you know, a minimum-wage deal—but I needed something.” He needled Rawlins with the gun, shoving him down the first set of stairs. “Keep going.”

“Why?”

“Because I told you to, asshole. And I have a gun.”

“No, I mean, why did you do something as extreme as kidnap someone? Why not—”

“Why not give out red ribbons?” Matthew laughed. “Or T-shirts or posters or coffee mugs with AIDS slogans so that people are reminded each and every day that something big and nasty is lurking out there in lots of bodily fluids? I could have done that or organized something like the Salvation Army—and that thought did occur to me, you know, nice faggots ringing little fairy bells on street corners, asking for donations to help the sick homos—but the problem is only partially tied to lack of funds. The real problem, you see, is here,” he continued, tapping his shaved head. “People in America believe in good and evil, white and black, capitalist and commie, straight and gay. But the problem with AIDS is ever so much more complex. For example, some people—some people like Johnny Clariton—are even saying the epidemic is over. First they ignored it, then they blamed it on faggot immorality, and now they say it’s over. I say bullshit. Sure, some guys are taking these new drugs and they seem to be getting better—if they’re lucky enough to get them in time—but that might only last a year or two. And then what? What if AIDS mutates around all the meds and turns into some sort of supervirus that nothing can control? No, it’s way too early to slap a smiley face on this one.”

“Matthew—”

“Shit, do you realize that only about a tenth of infected Americans can get these new drugs? It kind of makes you wonder about the other thirty million people on this planet with HIV. I mean, how many people in Africa or Asia do you think are able to get any of these ‘cocktails’?”

“Matthew,” interrupted Rawlins, “you’ll never get away with this.”

“I’m not looking to get away with anything; I’m looking to prove a point. And the point is that one battle is being won—yes, progress has been made—but the war is far from over. If Johnny Clariton really thinks AIDS is manageable, then let him manage it himself. Then we’ll see how he justifies cutting both research and subsidies to people who can’t afford the drugs that are out there now. It’s ridiculous, fucking ridiculous!”

Matthew was beyond desperate, Rawlins knew, and that made him the most dangerous sort of perpetrator.

“Maybe, though, I should just give you my gun, my dear Mr. Rawlins, and then you can fire away and be the big hero. Trust me, I’d be delighted to have a quick ticket off this planet.” With his pistol he shoved Rawlins downward. “Keep going.”