Shame (36 page)

“Marco,” screamed James.

In unison, Feral and Janet said, “Polo.”

James dove and tagged Feral.

“I guess you got me,” Feral said.

“How many times have you tried calling her?” asked Lola.

“Four,” said Caleb.

“Maybe her phone’s out of juice.”

He shook his head. “More than two hours ago she said she was going to talk with Anna, and then she was going to have Anna call me. Something’s wrong.”

“Call her again,” she said.

One ring, two rings...

“Marco,” yelled Feral.

“Polo.”

The boy was to his left and drifting back. The girl was off to his right, probably near the edge of the pool, ready to make a break for it. Both were close.

Feral faked left, then broke right. He swam with strong strokes, reaching, reaching...

Got her.

She was laughing, but it was a frightened laugh, the kind that bordered between being excited and being frightened. And then Feral heard something else.

“Excuse me,” he said. “Somebody’s calling.”

He pulled himself out of the pool and walked over to the ringing cell phone.

Three rings, four rings. And then the ringing stopped. But the line wasn’t dead. Caleb could hear breathing.

“Elizabeth?”

“I’m afraid she’s unable to come to the phone right now.”

Caleb knew that voice. Remembered its every inflection. It was the voice that had drawn him to the Sanderses’ house. Hate rose up in him. Pent-up emotions choked Caleb. He wanted to kill.

“You.”

“Yes.”

“Where’s Elizabeth?”

“She’s safe. She’s sleeping now. Poor girl was exhausted.”

“What do you want?”

“What I’ve always wanted. A face-to-face with you. A chance for us to communicate. Kindred spirits should talk.”

“Kindred spirits?”

“Yes. We have much in common.”

Lola moved her head close to Caleb’s, trying to hear what was being said.

“We don’t have anything in common.”

“Methinks thou doth protest too much. Oh, I’ve studied you, Gray Junior, I know you like no one else knows you. I might have done the killings, but you were there with me in spirit. Kill one for the Gipper, eh?”

“You’re insane.”

“Don’t kill the messenger, Gray Junior. Hard as you might find this to believe, I’ve never meant you any harm. I even think of myself as your friend.”

“Friend?”

“I’m prepared to prove that. I have certain—mementos—that will allow you to have your life back, if that’s what you truly desire. These items will prove your innocence—such as it is.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I could have killed you last night, but I didn’t. Besides, it’s not as if you have a choice in the matter.”

Feral held the phone out, keying on the two voices coming from the pool.

“Marco.”

“Polo.”

Caleb covered his mouth with a suddenly trembling hand, then moved his shaky hand over the receiver. “He’s with my kids.”

“Do you have access to a car?” Feral asked.

“Marco,” Caleb’s daughter shouted.

“Well?” Feral said.

Caleb forced himself to speak. “I can get one.”

“Then do so, and drive to La Jolla.”

“Polo,” said Caleb’s son.

“There’s a restaurant in downtown La Jolla called The Top Hat. Be at the maître d’ stand in forty-five minutes. Don’t be late. And don’t bother to order any food, because you won’t be staying to dine.”

In the background, Caleb could hear the cries of Janet and James. Their voices paralyzed him:
Marco! Polo! Marco! Polo!

“But first, Gray Junior, the ground rules. Obey them, and your children will live. No tricks. No police. Just the two of us. Is that understood?”

“Yes.”

Feral lifted the cell phone up again, held it so that Caleb could hear his children’s voices.

“It’s one thing for some strangers to die,” he said. “Family is different, though.”

“If you touch my children, I’ll kill you. I swear to God I will.”

“I’ll be carrying Miss Elizabeth’s cell phone. That’s how I’ll be communicating with you. But I think you’d better hurry along right now.”

Feral didn’t hang up right away. Caleb heard his daughter yell, “Marco.”

And then, before the line went dead, he heard the killer’s answer: “Polo.”

“Give me the keys to your car,” Caleb said.

He got up from the sofa, staggering for a moment on unsteady legs.

“Look at you,” said Lola. “You’re ill.”

“Give me the keys
now
.”

“You’re too sick to do this alone.”

He took a threatening step toward her.

“Let me go with you.” She moved back, trying to keep her purse away from him.

Caleb grabbed her by the arm. His hands were merciless. She squealed with pain as he wrenched the purse from her hands. He didn’t acknowledge her hurt. Seeing his face, Lola backed away from him.

But it’s only fear for his family that’s showing, Lola told herself. “I can hide in the backseat of the car,” she said. “I can help you.”

He turned the purse over and started emptying its contents.

“You need me,” she said. “Not two hours ago you were out of your mind with fever. You’re still not thinking clearly. You couldn’t be. Or else you wouldn’t just be walking into his trap.”

He found the keys.

“You’d be thinking how to stop him once and for all. That’s how you can make your family safe. Not by sacrificing yourself.”

He started to walk toward the door, but Lola stepped in his path. She spoke quickly before he could throw her out of the way. “We can talk things out in the car. Together we can come up with some kind of plan.”

Caleb didn’t push her aside. He looked at Lola and she at him. His eyes frightened her. They looked into her and made her reconsider what she was trying to do. I’m not brave, Lola thought, and I’m not a brave. I am a Two-Spirit. And I’m very afraid.

All I need to do is look away, she thought. That would say everything without her saying anything. As he passed by she could tell him Godspeed and God bless. And then, to make herself feel
better, she could call the police. She could promise herself that somehow she’d get the goddamn cavalry out to help him.

But that would be a lie, and she wasn’t good at lying to herself. Not now, not anymore. Oh, she’d tried telling herself lies for the longest time, but she had always known what was true and what wasn’t. Like now. She was afraid, and there was reason to be scared, but to deny Caleb would be like denying herself.

“Okay,” he said.

She steadied him, and he steadied her, as they walked out to her car. Before getting inside she said, “I have to go get something.”

He sat there for a minute, wondering if he should turn the ignition, wondering if she just wanted him to drive away, and just when he’d decided that she did, Lola returned with a bag and an Indian blanket in hand. She opened the passenger door, put the seat forward, then went to the backseat and lay down.

Caleb started the car. When he looked back in the rearview mirror she had all but disappeared under the blanket, but he could still hear her rustling through the bag.

“What did you bring?”

“My medicine bag. A Bible. Some clothes. Oh—and a gun.”

L
ET ME OUT.
Lola practiced mouthing the words under her blanket. Lip-synching almost made them a reality. Lola knew that she only needed to say those three words and she’d be safe. But they were fifteen minutes into the drive and she still hadn’t said them.

She heard a cough from the front seat that sounded as if it was covering a sob. Though he was physically sick and mentally tortured, Caleb was still trying to maintain a brave front. She knew without his saying anything that all he could think about was his children.

“Maybe we should discuss a plan,” Lola said. Her words seemed to echo back at her, smothered by the blanket covering her.

His hard tone overcompensated for his pain. “How’s this? Loan me your gun and I’ll kill him.”

“The gun’s yours. I’ve always doubted I could pull the trigger anyway.”

“That won’t be a problem for me.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“He’s not going to just let you shoot him,” Lola said. “He’ll be watching you, manipulating you.”

And making sure no one’s helping you.
She could tell him that, make Caleb think her presence was jeopardizing his children, and he’d be the one to insist she leave the car. That way he would be making the decision. She could live with that, couldn’t she?

But instead she said, “He might fix it so he knows you don’t have a weapon on you.”

“I’ll use my hands, then.”

Caleb’s voice was measured, even anticipatory. She shivered a little.

“Don’t let revenge cloud your thinking,” she said. “I could call the police and tell them Elizabeth has disappeared and where we’re headed.”

“No. I don’t want to send him into hiding. I want it to end tonight.”

“So does he. And he knows a hell of a lot more about you than you do about him. He’s controlling how the two of you will meet, and he’s prepared his playing field.”

“I’m used to uneven playing fields.”

“Maybe it doesn’t have to be so uneven. Maybe we can do something to distract him.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Maybe we can scare him somehow.”

“Maybe you could do one of your stage numbers. That ought to distract him.” A moment later, Caleb said, “Sorry.”

“Don’t be. I know just the one I’d like to do. ‘Staying Alive.’ At the club we always bring out the bubble machine for that one. And I wave a lot of big feathers. Bee Gees music always needs lots of feathers. And my six-inch platform shoes, of course. Sometimes I segue into Nancy Sinatra’s ‘These Boots Were Made for Walking.’”

She sang the chorus from the song but then found her voice wavering. She had this premonition that the boots were walking over a grave.

“My stomach hasn’t felt like this in a long, long time,” Lola admitted. “It feels like we’re going to war. Not the kind of war with uniforms and marching, but a more personal kind of war, like when I used to go to high school and I’d know I was going to get beat up, even though I could never be sure when and where the attack was coming.”

Caleb didn’t say anything, but Lola knew he had similar memories.

“Back then I used to drink Pepto-Bismol for breakfast,” she said. “I tried to wear the right clothes, men’s clothes, but that didn’t help. The clothes couldn’t hide how different I was. I wasn’t the bad boys’ only target, though. There were other kids who didn’t fit in. I remember praying that today would be their turn and not mine.

“I’d like to think I have changed since then, that I got stronger when I started putting on dresses, but I don’t know if that’s true. I’m still afraid that all it would take is someone looking at me wrong and there I’d be, begging those bullies to go pick on someone else instead of me. I wonder if we ever really change.”

“We do change,” Caleb said. “We have to.” He fervently wanted to believe what he was saying.

“Or is it that as we get older we just try to find ways to avoid conflict, ways that allow us to pretend that we’ve grown stronger? I remember the first time I went out in public in women’s clothing. I was sure everyone was looking at me. And I was sure they were all thinking, ‘There goes the freak.’ And gradually it dawned on me that few, if any, people were taking notice of me. Mostly it’s still that way. When I go out I don’t know whether I’m being bold or whether I’m passing for a woman or whether the world’s unobservant or whether people just don’t care.”

“It may be a little bit of each,” Caleb said.

“I’ve never been brave, you know. Sometimes I do a very un–Frank Sinatra version of ‘My Way.’ But I didn’t really do it my
way at all. Wearing women’s clothing really wasn’t a choice for me. It was as necessary as breathing.”

“If you weren’t courageous, you wouldn’t be helping me now.”

“Don’t pin a badge on me,” Lola said. “Truth is, the only reason I haven’t jumped out of the car is because I’m afraid of how much analysis it would take to make me feel right about myself again.”

“Fear,” Caleb said. “Everyone’s great motivator.”

Lola heard the echo in his pronouncement. His own fears talking. She could tell he was thinking about his family again.

“Your kids were playing in a pool,” she said. “He wouldn’t have had the opportunity to snatch them in front of other people.”

“He knows where they are. That’s all that matters now.”

“If something happens, I’ll call the Sheriff’s Department. Elizabeth said they were keeping tabs on your family. They’ll be able to protect them.”

“Thanks.” His gratitude sounded raw and exposed and desperate.

“I always wanted kids myself,” said Lola. “I had this fantasy that I would meet a man with little children, a widower, and that I’d be their mother. Silly, huh? I’m one of those fools for love, and what’s even dumber is that I keep setting myself up for failure. The kind of man I want is the kind of man who runs away from the likes of me.”

“Love happens when you don’t expect it,” Caleb said. “I didn’t think I’d ever fall in love, or that anyone could fall in love with me. But when it happened, I treated it more like a curse than a miracle. I resisted love’s blessings so much that it was almost like I was embracing Anna and pushing her away at the same time. I guess I was afraid—no, I was sure—that she couldn’t possibly love the real me.”