“But he has that gallery.”
“He has that storefront with crazy rent that’s usually empty.”
“Huh. I always thought it was a prestigious little place.”
“It hemorrhages dough.”
Terrance took this in as the agent finished his second shot.
“Make no mistake, I like David,” Peter added. “I think his dad is CIA. Did you know that? Once upon a time, managed clandestine work against the Nazis. Now he’s a paper pusher. At least that’s the facade. ‘Personnel.’？”
“David told me something like that when Kate introduced us and we got to talking about our families. I had no idea his old man might be CIA, but it sounded as if he did something interesting in World War II.”
Peter nodded. “Guy may have been a super spy, and he may have been some bureaucratic underling. No idea. Either way, whatever he does now, it doesn’t result in the kind of scratch that can prop up his son’s ailing gallery. Damn thing’s a hobby.”
“David—”
“Look, David is good for Katie and she’s good for him. It’s just…”
“It’s just what?”
“It’s just that no man likes to be a failure in his wife’s eyes. Especially given that pair’s history. Remember, they grew up together back east. Same apartment building on the West Side. That’s what I mean about how they could be so damn good for each other. And so when that gallery finally goes belly up? It won’t be pretty.”
“For their marriage.”
“Uh-huh.” He nodded at the four men behind them. “I don’t know whether it’s two years down the road or four or five. But Reggie Stout and I have talked about this. At some point, Katie Barstow’s marriage is going to tank, and Reggie’s going to have his hands full as her publicist and father confessor.”
* * *
.?.?.
And so Terrance zipped up his fly.
And at the moment when the guard used his gun to motion him back toward the hut, he dove at him. Just threw himself into the fellow and drove him into the hard, dry ground. And he knew instantly that he had gotten lucky: the kidnapper’s finger had not been on the trigger and so he hadn’t inadvertently discharged the rifle. He hadn’t even yelled, because he’d had his breath knocked from him when his body had slammed into the earth.
Terrance hadn’t hit someone in decades. He’d been twelve, maybe thirteen, when he’d gotten into a fight with a couple of idiot white boys who’d jumped him, but he recalled keenly the pain in his knuckles when he pounded his fist into the side of his captor’s face and the nauseating squishiness when he punched him in his Adam’s apple. The guard was stunned, and Terrance was able to wrestle the gun from him. He stood up quickly and kicked him in the stomach and the groin to ensure his obedience, and pointed the rifle down at his chest.
“Make a sound and I kill you,” he told him. He didn’t recognize his voice: he sounded winded himself and more than a little crazy.
But the guy nodded sheepishly, gasping for air and curled up in a ball with his hands on his crotch. Beaten, it seemed. Absolutely beaten.
“Now stand up,” Terrance commanded. He didn’t move, and so Terrance repeated himself. “Get the fuck up.”
He rolled onto his hands and knees and gingerly pushed himself to his feet. “You’re Russian,” Terrance said. “Why the fuck have you kidnapped us?”
The fellow was quiet and rubbed at his neck.
“Tell me,” Terrance hissed. “Answer my question.”
The guard seemed to be formulating his response. But then his eyes moved just enough that Terrance could see them even in the dusk, and he gave Terrance a tight-lipped smile. He brought one finger to his lips, the universal sign to be quiet. For a second Terrance thought there must be a wild animal behind him, a leopard or a lion, but would that have made the guard smile? Not likely.
Which was when he heard the dual clicks, a sound he knew only from movies, but a sound he knew well: it was a rifle reloading. It wasn’t a big hungry cat over his shoulder, it was something that was, arguably, much, much worse.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
David Hill
David Hill laughed when he was asked about the artists whose modern paintings grace the main room of his gallery. “Reefer madness, I call them,” he said, because they reflect a sensibility that can only be called marijuana chic. One critic who is particularly dismissive told us in confidence, “The people who would like them listen to Bob Dylan and the Beatles, but they don’t have the thousands of dollars for paintings like these. Even Hill’s movie star friends—people like Katie Barstow—aren’t buying them.”