63

My eyes wouldn’t focus but something about the color of the ceiling looked familiar. Ivory-white. I knew those recessed lights. I made out my office. Blurry figures against the wall to my left. Jill taped to a dining room chair. Something covered her mouth. Her stockings. Frieda and Garth on the floor beside her. Bound and gagged.

Panic hit me like a fist. I struggled against the binding. Pain seared through my head and neck. I remembered Massy bent over me. He must have tasered and then drugged me. Duct tape fixed my arms to a plastic-molded chair. My chair. I relaxed, tried to empty my mind. But I smelled my own sweat and the fear inside it.

He stepped from behind my chair. He’d bleached his hair blond and affixed a blond beard over his jaw and cheeks. The man before me was an older version of Les Filson. His irises gleamed like blue Christmas lights. Contact lenses.

My children whimpered behind their gags. Jill’s sad eyes bore into mine. I couldn’t read what she was trying to tell me.

“We’ve got the whole family here,” Massy said. “Isn’t that nice?” He ran his fingers through his straw hair. “My mother was such a pretty blonde. She had much better hair than mine.”

“A beautiful woman with an ugly heart,” I said, studying his face for a reaction. Nothing. “Where’s Blake?”

“Oh, is that his name? I’m afraid Agent Blake decided to spend eternity in the living room.”

He’d killed Blake. He would kill all of us. Kill Garth and Frieda. My throbbing head focused my mind. He had to have a weakness. Everyone did.

“If only your mother had been like Magnolia,” I said. “At least Magnolia loved my father.”

Massy turned and slapped Jill. Garth and Frieda screamed behind their gags. My body jerked and the pain sliced through me.

“Each time you mention my mother it will get worse,” he said.

Garth and Frieda’s eyes begged me to do something. Tears streaked their faces. They looked so small bound up on the floor.

“I’m here where you want me,” I said. “You don’t need them gagged.”

“I can take the gags off,” Massy said. He turned to them. “But only if you don’t cry. Can you do that?”

He didn’t worry about them screaming. Maybe removing their gags flattered his sense of control. I could exploit that.

He bent down. He wore blue socks with red diamonds over his soft Italian loafers.

When the gags were untied, Garth and Frieda both wept softly. Words were the only comfort I could give them. “We’re just going to talk with this man.” To Massy, I said, “Right?”

“The son of the Preying Hands would never hurt children,” Massy said.

Garth sniffled and said, “He pretends he’s nice.”

“Smart boy,” Massy said. “You must have some of Grandpa’s genes. That’s why you wear that Superman shirt.”

“It is not,” Garth said.

Jill nodded at our boy, feeding him strength. She turned to Massy, her eyes in slits. I sucked in her rage.

He took a few steps and undid the stocking gag around her mouth. I knew the reason. He wanted to hear her scream.

“Leave the children,” Jill said. “You only need me.”

My brave wife. But I was afraid her courage would only stimulate him. I had to slow things down, give the FBI and police time to realize that Massy wasn’t in Julian. They’d try to reach me. They’d come looking. But it would all take so long.

“We have a lot to talk about,” I said.

He strode to the desk, where my computer was turned on. He plugged something like a microphone into the USB port and typed on the keyboard.

A high tenor voice on the computer’s speaker said, “Hello?”

He was using Voice Over IP so the call couldn’t be traced.

“We’re all here,” Massy said. “William, Garth, Frieda, and even Teacher Jill. It’s a family reunion.”

“Someone’s weeping. Is that a child?” The voice came from Harvey Dean Kogan. He sounded surprised, as if he didn’t know that Massy had kidnapped us.

“Harvey, did you think I’d let you die without a retirement party?” One of Massy’s Christmas-tree-light eyes winked at me. “Cell phones are illegal at Stateville, of course. But all it takes is money and a cooperative employee. Plenty of those. You can practically hold try-outs.”

He and Kogan had talked by phone for months. Maybe years.

“So what do you say about that, little brother?” he went on. “Talk to me.”

Blake had said Massy wouldn’t start his killing ritual until after I gave up hope of negotiating with him. I had to keep talking. “Would you really hurt your family?” I said. “The man you consider your brother? I can’t believe you broke into my house.” The Stingray at the prison was sucking up all the voice transmissions. Now the FBI knew where we were. They’d send a SWAT team to our house.

“I saved you,” my father’s voice said from the computer speaker. “That witch of a mother would have killed you without me. You owe me.”

“Oh, Harvey. How long have I been repaying that debt? You’ve become so tiresome. I think the cancer has spread to your anterior frontal lobe.”

Kogan had in fact been guiding and molding Massy for years. Years of killing. I looked at Jill. The fury in her eyes buoyed me.

“I’m hot,” Frieda said. Her hair was matted to her head.

“Children shouldn’t be tied up in this heat,” Jill said.

Massy laughed. “So I should let them run outside and yell for help?”

Kogan said, “Do you really think they’ll do that with their parents there? Anyone good at this would know better. You’re disappointing me, Lawrence.”

My father was trying to help us. Bullying Massy, and, at the same time, playing to his exulted sense of control.

Massy smiled and pointed to the microphone plugged into the computer. “Voice scramblers are so cheap these days. Leave it to the Chinese. There must be fifty kinds.”

So my father’s cell phone and my computer were both masked. Even if the Stingray still allowed the prison to hear me, the cops couldn’t decode the words. My voice had been scrambled when I said Massy was at our house. But wouldn’t the prison deputies have put electronic surveillance in his cell? If Kogan would just repeat where we were …

Massy took two steps to Garth and loosened the rags around his arms and feet. “I’ll release the boy,” he said.

“I’m hot,” Frieda said. “Please.” She was about to cry.

“Shut up,” Massy hissed. He turned to me. “Do they pay you so little at that prissy bank? You can’t even afford air conditioning?”

Frieda whimpered. Garth took a step to her and kneeled. He wiped away her tears and the sweat from her hair. He gave her a hug.

“You know, if you run I’ll hurt your sister first,” Massy said. “Then your mommy and daddy.”

Garth stared back at him. Fearless. Even if I ordered him to flee, he wouldn’t run. It was as if he’d retreated inside one of his soldier and superhero games.

“You are truly an intriguing boy,” Massy said. He returned to the desk.

From the speaker, Harvey said, “If you go through with this, you’ll just keep suffering, Lawrence.” It was a fatherly voice, the father that Massy yearned for.

“My, you are certainly not the man you used to be,” Massy said. “Do you think I’m still a gullible child?”

Garth had leaned over. He slipped something from his sock—the blue pocketknife Mike had given him. Our seven-year-old had hidden it while he was at school. He carried the knife all the time so he’d always be prepared to defend his family. But Massy was a grown man. If Garth attacked, Massy would kill him.

I shook my head at our boy. There had to be another way.

Garth slipped the knife into the waist of his pants, his Superman T-shirt covering it. He had his own plan.

“Our son is so scared, he can’t even talk,” I said.

Massy turned to Garth. “There’s no reason to be frightened.”

Jill glanced at me and looked away. “He needs comfort,” she said.

Massy smiled sweetly at our boy. “Come here and let me give you a hug.”

Garth shook his head. “I want my dad.”

Massy studied me, reconfirming how I was trussed to the chair. “Go to him. Give your daddy a last hug.”

Garth ran to my chair and threw his arms around me. He climbed on my lap and gripped me harder. When his body covered my bound right side, he stuck the knife between my wrist and the arm of the chair. His hand, hidden by his body, gently sliced the tape.

Massy stared at the computer. From the speaker, my father’s calm voice said, “Hurting William and his family was never what we talked about.”

He’d helped Massy plan everything.

Rage boiled in my whole body. I focused on the duct tape. As soon as my son cut me free I’d explode. I wouldn’t need help from the police.

Massy turned and his fake blue eyes took in my reaction to what my father had just said. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of looking surprised.

“I always suspected you worked together,” I said. “Of course, you killed and cut up Magnolia all on your own.” The last part was a reminder aimed at Harvey Dean Kogan.

“A surprise gift for my mentor,” Massy said.

Frieda began to cry. Jill whispered, “Mi querida,” then other words in Spanish I couldn’t understand.

Jill squinted at Massy. “So, your pretend father was the mastermind. You were just a follower.” She was goading him, to draw his focus away from Garth and me.

“She thinks I just follow orders,” Massy said to the computer. “Tell her whose idea this was.”

My father said, “If you hurt them, your mother’s hold on you will only get stronger. Her cold eyes will watch you forever.”

That was a message to me. Massy’s mother was his weakness, the wound we could use. But how?

Massy pointed at Garth. His head was buried in my shoulder. “Superman, come here. I want you beside me when you say hello to your grandfather. The fallen superhero.”

Garth began to shake. He stopped cutting. I pushed down my face and touched him with my cheek. The pain in my head was dissolving.

Jill said, “You don’t harm children. That’s one of your laws.”

Massy strode toward me. His soft loafers bounced on the carpet. My right arm was almost free, but the other arm and my legs were still taped to the chair. Massy pulled Garth off my lap to stand. He would see the knife.

But Garth’s hands were empty. Plastic pressed against the underside of my arm. Garth had turned the knife sideways and wedged it between my wrist and the arm of the seat.

He sat Garth in front of me on a dining room chair between the desk and the floor lamp. “You’re going to enjoy this, Harvey. We’ve got your whole bloodline right here in this room. Except Polly, of course. But she and I will have a chat later.”

Our boy’s mouth quivered. His arms and legs began to shake and the front of his blue jeans turned dark. As he sobbed, the urine ran down his leg. He was a child trying with all his force to be a man and, like all children, failing.

“There’s no need to cry,” Massy said. “All superheroes wet themselves. Until someone teaches them their powers. Isn’t that right, Harvey?”

“I thought you were a better student than that,” my father said.

Massy strode behind my chair. My right arm could break through the tape, but I needed more than one arm. I needed more time. Where were the police?

“Tell me why you want to be my brother,” I said.

Instead of answering, Massy stepped in front of the chair and spoke to Garth. “You’re a wonderful boy. I think I’m going to adopt you.”

I nearly tore through the tape.

Then my mistake hit me. Like a hammer. Why would the FBI bug my father’s prison cell when they thought the Stingray would sweep up the entire phone conversation? If the police burst into his cell, Massy would hear it and cut off the connection. Maybe they were listening through the door. But what could they hear? Kogan had the phone jammed to his ear and was speaking quietly.

The police weren’t coming.

Unless they’d tried to call Blake’s phone. Then they’d realize something had happened to him. At our house. The police just needed time.

“I want to tell you a secret,” Massy said to Garth. “A very important secret. Did you know that all superheroes lose their fathers? That’s the first step for them to gain their powers.”

I said, “That’s not true.”

“Shut up or I’ll gag you.”

He wouldn’t gag me. He wanted Garth and Frieda to see and hear me die. He wanted Harvey Dean Kogan to hear it.

I looked at Jill. She stared into my eyes as if telling me there was a way out. But where? I only had one arm free.

Massy adjusted the shade on the floor lamp. “We need proper lighting for Scene One,” he said.

“Stop it,” Garth said. His little boy’s voice was so small. “Stop it.”

“Lawrence!” my father said. “If you do this, I’ll tell all the newspapers, all the magazines, all the internet bloggers. ‘He was no son of mine,’ I’ll say.”

Massy addressed the computer. “Just listen to yourself, Harvey. You’re pathetic. How could I ever think you were my father? I’ve decided to own the last of your bloodline. Garth—or whatever name I give him—will be mine. All mine. I’ll raise him the way your mother raised you.”

“I forbid it,” my father said.

Frieda moaned. Her eyes filled with tears.

Jill said, “Te amo.” Then more words in the Spanish that Frieda loved. Our daughter stared at her mother. She took sobbing breaths. She stopped crying.

My own eyes clogged with tears. It was all I could do not to tear through the tape on my right arm.

Massy grasped a metal object on the desk. A scalpel. “It’s time to get rid of your pitiful mistake-of-a-son,” he said. “What do you think of that, Harvey? Does it make all your senses jingle and jangle?”

“Lawrence, long after you’re executed they’ll still be talking about the Preying Hands. They’ll talk about you too if you stop this.”

My father was using anything he could think of to save us. Why wasn’t he yelling out our location?

“Pop, do you know where we are?” I said.

“He broke into your house,” my father said, his voice loud.

If the prison deputies were listening, they knew where Massy was holding us. They’d deduce what had happened.

Massy shook his head at my deception. “Now I have to go faster. And you’ll hear it all, Pop.”

He took three steps to the office door and closed it. He bent down and tightly wedged a door stopper underneath. Even Garth wouldn’t be able to run.

Jill must have seen that my right arm was almost free. I was working the left to be able to rip it from the tape. Her eyes crinkled and her lips formed a kiss.

“Even a bound woman makes you afraid, doesn’t she?” Jill said.

My wife was giving me time.

Massy strode to her chair and looked down. “Green irises. Very well formed, almost classical.” He raised the scalpel.

Both our children wailed.

I had to do something. Anything. “Call Harvey’s wife,” I yelled. “The woman who betrayed him. Let her hear.”

Massy drew back. He strode toward me and wagged his left finger. “For that bungling attempt, you go first. And as you go, think about what your children will see.”

Frieda wailed. He whirled and shouted, “Shut up!” She kept sobbing.

Garth slipped off his chair.

“Perhaps I should do the squealer first.”

“You’re a terrible photographer, do you know that?” I said. “The Preying Hands thinks you have no talent.”

Massy turned slowly and raised the scalpel. “All right, if you insist.”

Harvey Dean Kogan’s voice rose from the computer. “I can teach you more about the art. William and I both can.”

Massy laughed. “Clumsy.”

He walked behind me. I tried to tear my legs from the chair. He grabbed my hair and yanked my head back, exposing my neck. Above me, his eyes studied my quivering face. I looked at his long chin and waited. His hand looped in front of me. The scalpel glinted. He brought it down slowly from above. He wanted me to see my own death.

With all my strength, I wrenched my right hand free. The ripping sound of the tape made him glance up. The scalpel froze. I flung up my hand and grabbed his wrist. I pulled it down and jerked forward. My teeth sank into the top of his hand.

Frieda shrieked. Massy yelled. He stepped from behind the chair. His face contorted, he stared at the bloody indentation on his hand, then at me.

Blood dribbled down my chin. I spit out pieces of flesh. Where was the pocketknife? I spotted it on the carpet, out of reach. My eyes darted back to Massy. I had to get him on the ground. Even with one arm. I lunged at him, dragging the chair with me.

He jumped back. The scalpel flew from his bloody hand and bounced under Jill’s chair.

I was on my side on the floor. Jill shouted. Frieda screamed. And yet I heard them as if under water. My eyes gauged the distance to him.

Massy glanced over the carpet. He couldn’t locate the scalpel. The blood streamed from the top of his hand. He howled.

Garth was kneeling beside Massy’s leg. The blue pocketknife stood out rigidly from Massy’s loafer. It was stuck in the top of his foot.

Garth crawled to Jill. He picked up the scalpel from under her chair and scurried to me. I grabbed the blade and sliced through the tape on my left arm.

Massy seized the floor lamp from beside the desk. He raised it by the neck over his head. He took two limping steps toward me, his eyes slitted in pain. The knife still stuck out from the top of his shoe. As he swung the lamp down, I jerked the chair over the top of myself and ducked my head under its long back.

The brass lamp thudded against the plastic and shook my whole body. I cut blindly at the tape anchoring my right leg to the base. I didn’t have enough time. Massy was standing just beyond my reach. He raised the heavy base of the lamp again.

“Your own mother hated you!” Jill’s shout cut through the din.

Massy turned toward her and I lunged, digging at the floor with one elbow and my one free leg. I slashed at his Achilles tendon. I felt the heavy pop.

Massy screamed.

I rolled away and the lamp crashed into the carpet beside me. I sawed at the tape binding my other leg to the chair.

Massy wailed. He stood on one foot, the other one flopping from his ankle. He dropped the lamp and fell to his knees. Sat on the floor. His bloody hand yanked the knife from his shoe. He crawled toward Jill and Frieda. Frieda’s shriek was the terrible high pitch of a teakettle.

“Your own mother never wanted you!” Jill bellowed.

He stopped. His eyes expanded.

The last tab of duct tape gave way. I grabbed the lamp and jumped to my feet. Massy paused as he extended the knife toward Jill’s throat. He looked back at me.

I swung the base of the lamp into his head. There was a crunch.

His body collapsed onto the carpet. I heard a high keening. Like air leaking from a pinched-off balloon. I raised the lamp high over my head. Swung the base down with all my strength. Once, twice, three times, an ax against a block of wood. My wife and children shrieked. Like television sounds from another room.

I stumbled to the computer. My blood-spattered hand reached toward the power button. Over the speaker I heard Harvey Dean Kogan, my father, say, “What happened? William? Lawrence?”

“It’s me,” I said.

I heard him gasping. Then, “Willy, he was never supposed to hurt you. I just wanted to see you. How can you blame a man for wanting to see his son before he dies?”

I disconnected him.