He finished the martini as Susannah Atwood came in the room. "Here's what I believe in, Elle," he said. "I believe in me, I believe in now, I believe in careful planning."
I wanted to ask him if it had been in his plan for someone to murder Jill Morone and kidnap Erin Seabright. I wanted to ask him if it had been in his plan for Paris Montgomery to have an affair with Trey Hughes, but I had already lost his attention.
"My dinner companion has arrived," he said, rising. He looked at me and smiled with a cross between amusement and bemusement. "Thanks for the conversation, Elle. You're a fascinating person."
"Good luck with your karma," I said.
"And you with yours."
As I watched him walk across the room, I wondered what had prompted his sudden philosophical turn. If he was an innocent man, was he thinking this sudden turn of twisted bad luck was payback for the things he'd gotten away with in his past? Or was he thinking what I was thinking? That there was no such thing as bad luck, that there are no accidents, no coincidences. If he was thinking someone was hanging a noose around his neck, who did he like for a candidate?
From the corner of my eye I could see the baseball player homing in on the seat Jade had vacated. I got up and left the room, my patience for flirtation worn thin. I wanted Van Zandt to show up for no other reason than to rub Dugan's and Armedgian's noses in my obvious usefulness.
I believed he would show. I believed he wouldn't be able to resist the opportunity to sit in a public place, relaxed and pleased with himself, conversing with someone who believed he was a murderer and couldn't do anything about it. The sense of power that would give him would be too intoxicating to pass up.
I wondered what his business of the evening entailed, if it had anything to do with the kidnapping. I wondered if he was the man in black Landry had described viciously beating Erin Seabright with a riding whip. Sick bastard. It wasn't hard to imagine him getting off on that kind of thing. Control was his game.
As I stood outside the front doors of The Players, I pictured him in prison, suffering the ultimate lack of control, every minute of his life dictated to him.
Karma. Maybe I wanted to believe in it after all.
T he beating wasn't the worst of it. The worst thing was knowing that when the beating was over, so too would be his life. Or perhaps the worst thing was knowing he had no control in the situation. All the power was held by Alexi Kulak, cousin of that Russian cunt who had now ruined his life.
While the Russian stationed at the back door kept anyone from coming out to witness the act, Kulak had personally slapped a wide swatch of duct tape over Van Zandt's mouth and taped his hands together behind his back. They shoved him into the backseat of Lorinda's rental car, which they drove through an open gate onto the grounds of the auto salvage yard behind the bar. They then parked the car inside a cavernous, filthy garage and dragged him from it.
He tried to run, of course. Awkward with his arms behind him and panic running like water down his legs, it seemed the door grew no closer as he ran. The thugs caught him with rough hands and dragged him back onto a large black tarp laid out on the concrete floor. Tools had been lined up on the edge of the tarp like surgical instruments: a hammer, a crowbar, pliers. Tears flooded his eyes and his bladder let go in a warm, wet rush.
"Break his legs," Kulak instructed calmly. "So he cannot run like the coward he is."
The largest of the henchmen held him down while another picked up a sledgehammer. Van Zandt kicked and writhed. The Russian swung and missed, cursing loudly as the hammerhead connected with the floor. The second swing was on target, hitting the inside edge of his kneecap and shattering the bone like an eggshell.
Van Zandt's screams were trapped by the duct tape. The pain exploded in his brain like a white-hot nova. It ripped through his body like a tornado. His bowels released and the fetid stench made him gag. The third blow hit squarely on the shin below his other knee, the force splintering the bone, the head of the hammer driving through the soft tissue beneath.
Someone ripped the tape from his mouth and he flopped onto his side and vomited convulsively, again and again.
"Defiler of young girls," Kulak said. "Murderer. Rapist. American justice is too good for you. This is great country, but too kind. Americans say please and thank you and let killers run free because of technicalities. Sasha is dead because of you. Now you murder a girl and the police cannot even put you in jail."
Van Zandt shook his head, wiping his face through the mess on the tarp. He was sobbing and panting. "No. No. No. I didn't… accident… not my fault." The words came out in gasps and bursts. Pain pulsed through him in searing, white-hot shocks.
"You lying piece of shit," Kulak snapped. "I know about the bloody shirt. I know you tried to rape this girl, like you raped Sasha."
Kulak cursed him in Russian and nodded to the thugs. He stood back and watched calmly while they beat Van Zandt with thin iron rods. One would strike him, then another, each picking his target methodically. Occasionally, Kulak gave instructions in English so Van Zandt could understand.
They were not to hit him in the head. Kulak wanted him conscious, able to hear, able to feel the pain. They were not to kill him-he did not deserve a quick death.
The blows were strategically placed.
Van Zandt tried to speak, tried to beg, tried to explain, tried to lay the blame away from himself. It was not his fault Sasha had killed herself. It was not his fault Jill Morone had suffocated. He had never forced himself on a woman.
Kulak came onto the tarp and kicked him in the mouth. Van Zandt choked on blood and teeth, coughed and wretched.
"I'm sick of your excuses," Kulak said. "In your world, you are not responsible for anything you do. In my world, a man pays for his sins."
Kulak smoked a cigarette and waited until Van Zandt's mouth stopped bleeding, then wrapped the lower part of his head with the duct tape, covering his mouth with several layers. They taped his broken legs together and threw him in the trunk of Lorinda's rented Chevy.
The last thing he saw was Alexi Kulak leaning over to spit on him, then the trunk was closed. Tomas Van Zandt's world went dark, and the awful waiting began.
39
I watched the world come and go from The Players that night, but Tomas Van Zandt never showed. I heard a woman ask for him at the bar, and thought she might be Lorinda Carlton: the hard downside of forty with a low-rent Cher look about her. If it was her, then Van Zandt must have called her about meeting for drinks. But there was no sign of Van Zandt.
I saw Irina come in with some girlfriends around eleven. Cinderellas on the town, just in time to blow five bucks on a drink and flirt with some polo players before their coaches turned into pumpkins and they had to go back to their rented rooms and stable apartments.
Around midnight Mr. Baseball tried his luck again.
"Last call for romance." The winning smile, the eyebrows up.
"What?" I asked, pretending amazement. "You've been here all evening and no sweet young thing on your arm?"
"I was saving myself for you."
"You have all the lines."
"Do I need another one?" he asked.
"You need to take a hike, spitball." Landry stepped in close on him and flashed his shield.
Mr. Baseball looked at me.
I shrugged. "I told you I'm trouble."
"She'd eat you alive, pal," Landry said, smiling like a shark. "And not in a good way."
Baseball gave a little salute of resignation and backed away.
"What was that about?" Landry asked, looking perturbed as he settled into the other chair at the table.
"A girl has to pass the time."
"Giving up on Van Zandt?"
"I'd say I'm officially stood up. And I officially look like a fool. Did Dugan call off the dogs?"