Ben put a hand on my shoulder. “Alex, I don't know what to say I'm stunned. I haven't seen a ruling from the bench in five years. I'm so sorry”
I barely heard him, and I was hardly conscious of my family swarming around me. I looked up to see Christine and Anne Billingsley squeezing past to leave.
“What happened to you?” I asked, the words just coming. It was as if every muscle of control I had been exercising for the past couple of days gave out at once. “Is this what you wanted? To punish me? To punish my family? Why, Christine?”
Then Nana Mama spoke. “You're cruel, and you're selfish, Christine. I feel sorry for you.”
Christine turned from us and started to walk away very quickly, without saying a word.
When she reached the courtroom doors, her shoulders hunched forward. Suddenly, she put a hand to her mouth. I couldn't tell for sure, but I thought that she began to sob. Ms.
Billingsley took her by the arm and ushered her out into the hallway I didn't understand. Christine had just won, but she was weeping as if she had lost. Had she? Was that it? What had just happened inside her head?
A moment later I entered the hallway in a daze. Nana was holding one of my hands, Jannie the other. Christine was already gone, but someone else I didn't want to see was waiting there. James Truscott had somehow gotten inside the courthouse. And his photographer, too. What the hell was with him? Coming here. Now. What kind of story was he writing?
“Tough day in court, Dr. Cross,” he called up the corridor. “Care to comment on the ruling?”
I pushed past him with my family, but the photographer snapped off several invasive pictures, including single shots of Damon and Jannie.
“Don't print a single picture of my family” I turned to Truscott.
“Or what?” he asked, standing defiantly with his hands on his hips.
“Do not put my family's pictures in your magazine. Do not.”
Then I yanked away the photographer's camera and took it with me.
Chapter_37 LATE THAT SAME DAY, the Storyteller was driving north on the 405, the San Diego Freeway, which was moving okay at about forty or so, and he was working over his “hate list” in his mind. Who did he want to do next, or if not next, before this thing wound down and he had to stop killing or be caught?
Stop! Just as suddenly as it had begun. The end. Finished. Story over He made a scribbly note in a small pad he always carried in the front-door pocket. It was difficult to write as he drove, and his car edged a little out of its lane.
Suddenly some moke to the right sat on his horn, and Stayed on it for several seconds.
He glanced over at a black Lexus convertible, and there Was this total moron screaming at him - “Fuck you, asshole, hick you, fuck you” - and giving him the finger. The Storyteller couldn't help himself - he just laughed at the red-faced idiot in the other car.
The jerk was so out of it. If he only knew who he was going postal at. This was hilarious] He even leaned over toward the window on the passenger side. And his laughter apparently made the nutcase even angrier. “You think it's funny, asshole? You think it's funny?” the guy screamed.
So the Storyteller just kept laughing, ignoring the irate bastard as if he didn't exist and wasn't worth coyote piss if he did. But this guy did exist, and actually, he'd gotten under the Storyteller's skin, which really wasn't advisable, was it?
Eventually, he drifted behind the Lexus, as if chastened and remorseful, and then he followed. The moke's black convertible got off two exits later. So did he.
And this wasn't in the story. He was improvising now He continued to trail the convertible's taillights up into the Hollywood Hills, onto a side road, and then up another steep hill.
He wondered if the driver of the Lexus had spotted him by now Just to be sure he did, he started honking and didn't stop for the next half mile or so. Figured the other guy might be getting a little spooked by now He sure would if it were him, especially if he knew who he had hassled down on the freeway Then he pulled out and started to pass the convertible. This was the coolest goddamn scene yet - he had all the windows open in his car, wind whipping through. The driver of the Lexus stared over at him, and he wasn't cursing or flipping him the bird anymore. Now who was showing a little remorse? A little r-e-s-p-e-c-t. The Storyteller's right hand came up, aimed, and he fired four times into the other driver's face, and then he watched the convertible veer into the rocky wall on the side of the road, carom off, swerve back onto the road, then hit the rocks again.
Then nothing - the annoying bastard was dead, wasn't he? Deserved it, too, the asshole.
The shame of it, the pity, was that sooner or later this killing had to stop. At least that was the grand plan, that was the story.
Mary, Mary
Chapter 38
DETECTIVE JEANNE GALLETTA floored her two-year-old Thunderbird. She had driven faster than this before but never on L.A. city streets. The storefronts on Van Nuys blurred past while her siren droned a steady rhythm overhead.
Two black-and-whites were parked in front of the café when she got there. An unruly crowd had already begun to clot the sidewalk across the street. She was sure that TV cameras wouldn't be far behind, and news helicopters, too.
“What's the situation?” she barked at the first officer she sa who was halfheartedly doing crowd control.
“All contained,” he said. “We did a silent approach, front and back. There's a few of our guys up on tile roof, too, You've got about two-dozen customers and staff inside. If she was here when we pulled up, then she's still in there.”
That was a big if, but it was something to go on, Galletta thoU&" to herself. Mary Smith might still be inside. This thing could end right here. Please, dear God.
“All right, two more units inside as soon as you can get them here, two more on crowd control, and keep that guard front, back, and top.”
“Ma'am, this isn't my crew “I don't care whose crew it is. Just get it stopped and stared into the officer's eyes. ”Am you follow?”
“Perfectly, ma'am.”
Galletta headed inside. The café was one big rectangle, with a coffee bar in front and rows of computer carrels in the back. Each electronic terminal was its own little booth, with shoulder-high privacy walls.
Everyone in the place had been corralled at the mismatched tables, chairs, and couches.
Galletta quickly surveyed their faces.
Students, Yuppies, senior citizens, and a few Venice Beach hippie-freak types. An officer reported to her that they had all been searched and no weapons were found. Not that it meant anything. For now, they were all suspects by default.
The manager was a very nervous young guy in horn-rims who didn't look old enough to drink, and who had the worst case of acne Galletta had seen since her high school days in the Valley A mini CD-ROM pinned to his chest said BRETT in red Magic Marker. He showed Galletta to one of the computer carrels near the back.
“This is where we found it,” he said.
“Is there an exit that way?” Galletta asked, pointing down a narrow hallway to her left.
done.“ She I clear? Do The manager nodded. ”The police are already back there. They sealed it off."
“And do you keep some record of who uses the machines? ”
He pointed to a credit-card swiping device. “They had to use that. I don't really know how to get the info out, but I can find out for you.”
“We'll take care of it,” Galletta told him. “Here's what I want you to do, though. Keep everyone in here as comfortable as you can. To be honest, it's going to be a while. And if anyone wants anything, make it a decaf.”
She gave him a wink and a grin that she didn't feel, but it seemed to calm the poor guy down some.
“And ask Officer Hatfield over there to come see me.” She had met Officer Bobby Hatfield briefly once before, and she always remembered his name because it was the same as one of the Righteous Brothers.