Dangerous Games (8 page)

“It’s hard to fight an armed man,” Tess said.

“Not if you’re armed also.”

“You’re saying you own a firearm?”

“I do. I carry it at all times. And I know how to use it. Probably as well as you do, if not better.”

Tess thought Madeleine was trying awfully hard to prove how tough she was. She seemed to need to prove herself in many ways. “Kolb pled to the stalking charge,” she said. “So there was no trial?”

“No trial. Only a one-year sentence. With good behavior he got out in ten months.”

“Did you ever think about relocating?”

“I’m not going to be driven out of my home.”

“Have there been any problems since his release? E-mails? Sightings of him?”

“Nothing. And I’ve been vigilant, believe me.”

“But now you think there may be a connection between Kolb and”
—the Rain Man
, she almost said—“the recent kidnappings. A similarity in the wording…”

“Of an e-mail he sent me, and the second ransom note. He made the victim write a message, and he left it in her car.”

“Yes.”

“The note was quoted in today’s paper. It may have been made public earlier, I don’t know, I haven’t been following the news. But when I read it this morning…well, there was one part where he said he had trouble managing his disappointment, but he was working on it.”

“I remember.”

Madeleine got up and retrieved a manila envelope from the mantelpiece. It was filled with sheets of paper. She slipped out the top sheet and handed it to Tess.

“Here’s one of the e-mail messages he sent me. The data all went to the police—my floppy disks, even my hard drive. But I kept printouts.”

Tess read the message. The key text had been highlighted with a yellow marker:
I’m not so good at handling disappointment. Maybe I need to work on that
.

“I see.” Tess glanced at the envelope. “Are those the rest of the e-mails?”

“Yes. You can have them, if you like. Of course, you can get the original data from the police or the district attorney—whoever has it now. Assuming they haven’t thrown it all away.”

“They should have returned it to you.”

“I never wanted it back. Here, take this.”

Tess accepted the envelope, slipping the first message inside. “Thank you. So you think Kolb may have gone beyond stalking to actual abductions?”

Madeleine sat down again. Tess noticed that she was perched on the edge of her chair. “He intended to abduct me. Maybe he still does. Who’s to say he wasn’t stalking those first two women? Now that they’re dead, who’s to say he won’t focus on me next? But, of course, nobody will listen to the rantings of a pampered society woman.”

“I’m listening right now.”

“Yes. You are.” She gave a short nod, as if taking note of this fact. “So were they?”

“Were they what?”

Madeleine spoke slowly, as if to a child. “Being stalked?”

There was nothing in the FBI report that suggested this scenario, but Tess couldn’t say that. “I can’t go into the details of the case.”

“That sounds like a yes to me.”

“You shouldn’t interpret—”

A wave of her hand. “Never mind, I understand. It’s confidential information, not to be shared with civilians. Although I think that where my own personal safety is involved, you might loosen up the rules a little.”

“We haven’t established that there’s a threat to you, Ms. Grant.”

“No,” she said bitterly, “you’ll have to wait until I’m dead to do that.”

Tess ignored the remark. “On the phone you told me that Kolb was obsessed with Mobius. How do you know that? Did he mention Mobius in his e-mails?”

“No, never. But in his apartment the police found a scrapbook full of newspaper clippings about the Mobius case. And about you.”

Tess felt a chill. “Me?”

“Well, you received a lot of press coverage, as well.”

That was true. She’d used the PR to gain clout in the Bureau.

“I’m not saying he was focused on you,” Madeleine went on. “Just that he was fascinated by everything pertaining to the case.”

“Which is not a crime, obviously.”

“No, it isn’t. In fact, I think they even had to give back his scrapbook. He’s probably still got it.”

“Wonderful.” Tess didn’t like to think of articles about her in the hands of William Kolb. “Well, I think I have all I need from you, Ms. Grant. There’s just one thing I’m wondering about. Why didn’t you call the police with this information?”

“Why bother? They didn’t pay any attention to me before.”

“Things might be different now.”

“We’re still dealing with a cop. They protect their own.”

“Kolb can’t be a cop after a felony conviction.”

“An ex-cop, then. It doesn’t matter. Once you’re part of the fraternity, you’re in it forever.”

This answer wasn’t good enough. Tess decided to press the point. “Ms. Grant, what aren’t you telling me?”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s something you’re avoiding.”

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

“I’m sure you
do
.”

“I called you because I’m trying to assist your investigation. I don’t expect to be insulted and mistrusted for my efforts.”

“Why did you call me at all? Or the tip line? No matter how you feel about the LAPD, the logical thing would have been to call the police detective who arrested Kolb.”

“I did call—” She stopped.

“You called the detective?”

Reluctantly she nodded. “He was less than receptive to my suggestion.”

“He didn’t believe you?”

“The police never believe anyone. They’d rather give out traffic tickets than solve a serious crime. Do you know I have a neighbor whose home was burglarized while she was in Barbados—ten thousand dollars in losses—and the police wouldn’t even dust for fingerprints? No time for that, they say. They’re understaffed and underbudgeted, they say.”

“So you’re saying the detective ignored your tip?”

“He was quite rude about it.”

“Why would he behave that way?”

“You’d have to ask him.”

“Maybe I will.”

“Even if you do, he’ll only invent some face-saving excuse. It’s what they do.”

“And your staff? Where are they?”

“I told you, they have the night off. I didn’t know the FBI was hiring people with attention deficit disorder. Or is it short-term memory loss?”

“They didn’t have the night off. They made you dinner and were clearing the table a short time ago. When I told you that I was coming over, you hustled them out of the house. Why?”

“I made my own dinner and cleared my own table.”

“So if I were to come back tomorrow and interview your servants, that’s what they’d say?”

“That’s what they’d say.”

Tess rose from her chair. “I’m sorry, Ms. Grant. To be honest, I don’t think I can help you.”

Madeleine stood also, her face draining of color and expression. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t feel you’ve been completely straightforward with me. And unless you’re going to tell me the truth, I don’t see how I can be of assistance.” She handed back the manila envelope.

“You’re returning this?” Madeleine said in astonishment.

“I won’t need it.”

“This is outrageous. You won’t do anything?”

“I’m afraid I can’t.”

“It was a mistake to call you. You’re as incompetent as the police—and as rude.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way.”

“This man could be coming after me. After
me
.”

“If he is, you’ll need to be more cooperative in order to enlist my assistance. I can’t work in the dark.”

“I’ll speak to your superiors. I’ll speak to whoever runs your office here in Los Angeles.”

“That should be a pleasant chat.” Tess smiled. “You and he may see eye to eye on a lot of things.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Good night, Ms. Grant.”

“This is outrageous,” Madeleine Grant said again as Tess headed for the foyer.

It was a calculated risk, walking away. Tess knew she could probably work through the LAPD if she had to, though it might be hard to get the e-mail messages from them without tipping off Michaelson. And, of course, there was the risk that Madeleine would follow through on her threat to report her to the Bureau. All in all, she would find it safer, easier, to work with Madeleine—but only if the woman stopped playing games.

Just past the threshold, Tess paused and dug a business card out of her coat. She handed it over. “If you decide to tell me everything, not just the sanitized version, let me know.”

“Sanitized version? You’re a disgrace to your profession.”

“So they keep telling me.”

Tess walked down the front steps, aware again of being stared at. But this time she had no doubt as to the source of the gaze.

6

Kolb cruised Hollywood Boulevard, surveying the crowds of moviegoers and club crawlers. The phone conversation had unsettled him. When he was restless, he often came here.

His headache was a cloud of pain drifting around his skull, a moving field that traveled with him. He steered his beat-up Oldsmobile through heavy traffic and exhaust fumes. The radio worked, but he never listened to it. He didn’t need some talk-show jackass telling him what to think.

This part of the Boulevard was a dirty stretch of shotgun flats—cheap motels and week-by-week lodgings, liquor stores, and adult video shops, and all the social detritus they attracted. With the windows of his car rolled down, he could hear the competing squalls of boom boxes and car radios, the laughter of kids congregating on street corners, the blare of sirens. Although LA had funneled millions into giving the Boulevard a face-lift, much of it remained a festering garbage dump, a dark lump of scar tissue in the heart of the city, as the city itself remained a hungry tumor in the heart of the world. Los Angeles, the new Babylon, the breeding ground of the cancer eating away at civilization.

Above him was the perfect illustration of his point, a lighted billboard promoting the latest Hollywood product, a teen sex comedy. The gigantic image of a nearly naked girl floated against the dark sky. Kolb knew the kind of movie it would be, a joyless thrill ride laced with coarse language and empty titillation, a diversion for pampered children who wanted some meaningless fun in their meaningless lives. Another chunk of offal dumped by this city into the sewage canals of modern culture to pollute a dying nation.

He idled at a red light next to a boosted-up Jeep blaring rap music. Behind the wheel, a kid in sunglasses bopped to the pounding beat.

Who was it who’d said that civilizations were born to war anthems and decayed to waltzes and minuets? Hell, maybe nobody had said it. Maybe he’d made it up himself. Anyway, it wasn’t exactly true. There were no waltzes anymore. America was rotting to the sound of ghetto slang rhymed and chanted at top volume.

Tenement noise for a nation of trash. Trash like the punks outside the Safeway and their tattooed whores. They came swarming into this country like termites infesting a half-dead tree, nesting in the dry wood and hastening the rot. He didn’t hate them for their skin color, only for the culture they brought with them, the ugly music and stinking food and loud, undisciplined, street-smart attitude. They humped like stray dogs, too. It was as if they were in a constant state of arousal, perpetual heat. Maybe the baggy pants they wore gave their genitals too much room to float around. Or maybe some unconscious survival drive was prodding them to reproduce so prodigiously that they could complete their takeover of the country by sheer numbers.

Decadence. A society in decline. The signs were everywhere, but only a few men had the courage to see.

The attempted rehabilitation of the Boulevard had involved removing the most visible elements from public view. Those would be the hookers, of course. Arrests had been made, sweeps had been carried out, and the upshot was that the girls in micro-minis had moved a block south to Selma Avenue, where they gathered in the same numbers as always.

Kolb hooked onto Selma and watched the girls give him the bump and grind. Their squawks and howls sounded like the shrieks of beggars in some feculent Third World alley. They were the female principle in distilled form, raw and desperate, and like all women they bore the shadow of something enigmatic and prehuman, some lingering primitivism that found expression in menstrual blood and the damp, secret darkness of the womb.

The whores disgusted him. The thought of putting his cock between their legs, inserting it into a soup of disease…He might as well try screwing a test tube full of bacteria.

Even so, he found himself inexplicably slowing the car, easing up to the curb. He leaned toward the open window on the passenger side and smiled at the girl who drew near.

“Want some action, honey?” she asked in a bored voice.

“What’ll it cost me?”

“You a cop?”

Not anymore
, Kolb thought. “No way.”

“For twenty-five I can give you a suction job you won’t never forget. You want something more, or different, we can negotiate.”

“You clean?”

“What, you mean, like, drug-free or some shit?”

“No, I mean, you have any fucking diseases you’re going to give me?”

“You don’t get no diseases from a lube job, honey.”

That was bullshit. Any flesh-to-flesh contact posed a hazard. “You can get a disease from any goddamn thing.”

“I ain’t got no disease.”

“Sure you don’t.”

He looked at her in the glow of a streetlight. She couldn’t have hit thirty, but her face was already seamed with age. There were blisters on her lips, and her hair was thinning. The dim light and a layer of makeup could not conceal the film of sweat beading her skin. She repulsed him.

“You’re a goddamned walking disease,” he said, not raising his voice, “only you’re too fucking stupid to know it.”

She drew back. “Honey, I think we better call this thing off.”

“It was never on. You think I would let you touch me, a piece of filth like you?” He felt his lips skin back, baring his teeth. “A piece of fucking
filth!
”