"What happened to you? What happened?" I'm yelling into his face.
"Nothing," he bubbles. "I'm fit as a fiddle."
"How old are you?"
"Same age as you are," says my smiling father. Then he wriggles free and runs away. I chase after him and we end up on a golf course, of all places, tearing up and down the fairways. In the dream my old man is fleet and cagey afoot.
But I always catch him on the fringe of the thirteenth green, tackling him from behind. I lie there in the soft dewy grass for the longest time, pinning him while I catch my breath.
And when I finally roll my father over, he's not smiling the way he did in my mother's snapshot. He's stone dead.
In the dream I start shaking him like a movie-prop dummy, this fellow who looks too much like me; throttling him not out of grief but in a fever of exasperation.
"You're not funny!" I scream at the whitening face. "Now wake up and tell me how long ago you died!"
That's the way it always ends, me shaking the ghost of my father so ferociously that his teeth fall out of his skull like stars from a black hole.
After a dozen or so nights like that, who could blame Anne for bolting?
I wake up to face Juan and Evan, staring as they would at a five-car pileup.
"Long night?" says Juan.
"You're supposed to be in Tampa."
"Got your message. I woke up early and drove back."
"Evan," I say, "would you excuse us?"
The kid nods disappointedly and mopes toward his desk. What am I now, the entertainment committee?
Juan has brought a bag of breakfast from the cafeteria. He drags an extra chair to my desk and sets out bagels, croissants and orange juice.
"Congratulations," I tell him. "I saw where you got your leave of absence." It was posted on the bulletin board.
"Yeah. Starting Monday."
"I'm proud of you, man. Aren't you juiced about the book?"
He shrugs. "My sister's not so thrilled."
"I'm sorry. That's rough."
"She understands, though. Least she says so."
"You'll do a terrific job," I tell him. "Lizzy will be proud of you when she reads it."
I dive for the phone: Eddie Bell again, calling to flog the Audrey Feiffer obit. Quickly I transfer him to Evan's line and replace the receiver.
Juan says, "Tell me what's happened with your story, Jack."
"It ate me alive, that's what happened. They've grabbed Emma."
At first Juan doesn't say anything. He sets his half-eaten bagel on the desk and looks around, making certain we're not being overheard. Then he takes a drink of juice before calmly asking, "Who's got her, Jack?"
"The widow and her boys."
"What do they want?"
"A song." I tell him the title. "It was on the hard drive we took to Dommie's."
"So, give 'em the damn thing," Juan says.
"I fully intend to. The problem is—"
"They might kill you anyway. You and Emma both."
"Bingo. So I've borrowed a gun."
Juan looks alarmed. "Jesus. Why don't you go to the police?"
"Because they'd never find Emma alive," I say. "This is not your textbook kidnapping, this is Fargosquared. These dipshits are making it up as they go along."
Somberly he eyes the silent telephone. "When are they supposed to call?"
"Any time," I say. "You know what numbskulls they are? They think I want money, in addition to Emma's return. They don't seem to grasp the concept of ransom—that it's the kidnappers who customarily make the demand. See what I'm dealing with?"
Juan leans back, staring into the distance. "What kind of gun?"
"Lady Colt. And don't laugh."
"Jack, you ever fired a pistol?"
"Once or twice. Okay, just once." It was on a police range. I plugged a paper-silhouette felon in the thigh, then wrote a humorous twelve-inch feature story about it.
Juan gets up stiffly. "Man, I need to think about this. Call me as soon as you get the word."
"You'll be the first."
Leaning closer, he says, "Where do you think they're keeping her? What's your best guess?"
"I've got no idea, brother. Not a clue."
"Mierda."
"Just tell me how you did it," I whisper, "that night on the boat from Cuba. Was it reflex? Or did you plan it all out? I need guidance here."
"I'll tell you what I remember, Jack. I remember it seemed easy at the time." Then he squeezes my shoulder and says, "The bad stuff comes later."
Half past noon, the phone finally rings again.
"Tagger?"
"Jerry, you old rascal. What's up?"
"Parry's at eight-thirty," he says.
"Tonight?"
"You're gonna need a boat and a GPS and a spotlight."
"You're nuts," I say.
"And bug spray, too. Better get your ass in gear."
"Where?" I'm scrambling to take down everything he says, word for word.
"The big lake."
"Not Okeechobee. You've got to be joking."
"What's your fucking problem, Tagger?"
"For starters, it's about forty miles long and thirty miles wide."
"Yeah, that's how come we're meeting in the middle. To make sure you ain't bringin' company."
"Jerry, you watch entirely too much TV."
"Write this down, fuckface." He reads me some numbers and instructions for navigating the lake, departing from a marina in Clewiston. I tell him I don't know how to work a GPS.
"Then it's gonna be a long night," he says.
Lake Okeechobee—what unbelievable morons.
"I don't suppose you checked the weather station. What if the boat sinks and the 'package' gets ruined? Ever thought of that, Jer?"
"Then maybe ourboat sinks, too. Get the picture?"
He's a lost cause. Time for a different strategy. "Tell Mrs. Stomarti there's a better way to do this. A smarter way."
"She don't care. She won't even be there." Showing uncharacteristic good sense, I'm thinking. Hurriedly Jerry adds, "Anyway, I don't know who you're talkin' about. I never heard a that person." "Golly, you're too slick for me!"
"Eight-thirty," he says again. "Be sure and come alone."
"Where do I get a boat at night?"
"Steal one, you dumbass. That's what I'm doing."
I'm halfway to the elevator when Abkazion intercepts me. The gravity in his voice makes me think he's found out about Emma. That would be a large complication.
"Where you headed, Jack?"
"I've got to meet with a source."
"Better postpone it."
I follow him to his office, the same room where I bonded so warmly with Race Maggad III. Abkazion, however, is a different species of animal. He has no poses or pretensions; he fits comfortably in the newsroom, and his word is usually final. If he knows—and how he would, I can't imagine—that Emma has been kidnapped, it will be damn near impossible to make him back off.
The assertion that I alone can devise her safe return would strike Abkazion as preposterous. Yet that's the pitch I'm preparing to make when he says something startling:
"MacArthur Polk died this morning."
"No way."
"At home," Abkazion says.
"For real?"
"Oh yes."
"How? In his sleep?" I ask pointlessly.
"More or less. You ready to rock and roll?"
The irony, ruinous as it may be, is exquisite.
"I can't do the obit," I inform the managing editor of the Union-Register,
"What're you talking about?"
"I can't miss this meeting today. The source says it's now or never."
Abkazion peers at me as if he's examining for factory defects. "This would be a front-page story, Jack. Your first front-page story in about a thousand years."