The Lioness(21)

“I suppose you talked about Olivia that night.”

Felix wasn’t sure what to make of the agent’s observation. He made it sound like he had used his sister’s death to pick up a starlet. “Carmen’s smart, she reads the papers. She knew and put two and two together. I didn’t bring it up. She also knew that Amsterdam had flopped, and the whole idea that she was willing to talk about my latest movie debacle impressed me. She made me want to open up.”

“A lot of people avoid our failures. Just pretend they don’t exist.”

“It’s true.”

“Tell me something.”

“Sure.”

“Which had you more upset? The fact that Amsterdam tanked or that your sister was dead?”

He saw Carmen standing in the entrance to the dining room, scanning the tables for him.

“I’ll know if you’re lying, Felix. I really will,” Peter continued, and though Felix had never been arrested, he had the feeling that this was, at least a little bit, what an interrogation felt like. He could sense the strange intensity in the question and in the way that the agent was pressing him. It wasn’t bullying, but he still felt intimidated and scared. Transparent. Quickly he stood, waving at Carmen and then motioning at the empty seats at the table.

“My sister,” he said to the agent, hoping he sounded just a little indignant, even though on some primal level he knew he was lying. “Obviously.” Then he kissed his wife on the cheek and told her that the kitchen staff made an omelet that was fluffy and light and delicious. Lying, he understood, was a reflex of his, and he supposed this was what made him a writer.



* * *



.?.?.

There were only five of them in the Land Rover, counting their two abductors, and so Felix assumed that the six other Americans were wedged into the first one. The vehicle that had a bunch of windows shot away. But he guessed some could be back at the camp, waiting to be tossed into one of the lorries. Or, dear God, dead, too. The problem was that the other Land Rover was just far enough in the distance that he couldn’t see where everyone was, and now they were separating. Fanning out. Already the first vehicle was disappearing from view.

He tried to convince himself that the others, wherever they were, were fine. They had to be. They couldn’t be dead, he reassured himself. Their captors had demonstrated that they were willing to kill Africans, but this had to be a kidnapping and they certainly wouldn’t risk the wrath of the United States by murdering Americans. Not possible. It just couldn’t be possible.

They’d been driving fifteen minutes, and when Felix turned around, he noticed that Reggie was rubbing the back of his skull, where he’d been hit, with one hand. His other hand was in his front pants pocket. They passed a herd of wildebeest and then a field with baboons, including four small ones—children—climbing up and down a tree with a slender trunk. They were playing a game, it seemed, trying to pull each other down before one could reach a branch about ten or twelve feet off the ground, and he was reminded of a new kids’ toy called Chimp to Chimp, where you had to use little plastic monkeys with S’s for arms to lift other identical monkeys off the table. Whoever could lift the most chimps off the table and create the longest chain won.

Felix allowed his gaze to linger for a moment on Reggie’s hand in his pocket. He saw the tip of a jackknife and realized the publicist was either trying to flip open the blade or, perhaps, surreptitiously remove the knife. Rubbing his head? It was a magician’s distraction, a bit of vaudeville misdirection for the guard in the back row. Felix considered stopping him: reaching back and putting his own hand on top of Reggie’s forearm, because he didn’t want the other man to do something that might get them all killed. He was afraid that the guy, because he was a veteran and happened to have a little pocket knife with him, would try something stupid.

But he didn’t want to risk drawing the attention of the guard with the guns behind them. That scared him too.

God, everything scared him. Everything. He had to pee, he had to pee badly, and he knew it was more because he was frightened than because of the breakfast coffee.

He spotted a lone ostrich in the distance, and the big bird seemed fearless to him. He wondered what that was like—to be stoic, to be strong, to be unafraid—as his eyes, once more, began welling up.





CHAPTER NINE


    Margie Stepanov





The rumor is that Katie Barstow’s wedding dress is being designed by MGM’s legendary costume designer Helen Rose. But the actress was spotted at a bridal boutique on Santa Monica with her sister-in-law, Margie Stepanov. Margie is married to Katie’s brother, Billy, and very likely a bridesmaid. And so it’s possible that Katie was merely picking out dresses for her entourage. We would know if the star had had a falling out or a couture disagreement with the venerable Miss Rose.

—The Hollywood Reporter, June 15, 1964



Margie put both of her hands across her belly as the Land Rover bumped along, and she thought of the child inside her. The link had been the baby baboons they had just passed. She was terrified for herself, but she was filled as well with self-loathing for being here in the first place. She should have listened to her physician; she shouldn’t have come. She had jeopardized the kid. (Already that’s what she and Billy were calling the fetus. The kid. It worked for them since they had no idea whether it was a boy or a girl, and the reality that she had not had any morning sickness further solidified the nickname in their minds. Their baby was jaunty and easy and unflappable: the kid was such a trooper that he or she didn’t even make Mom vomit.) Neither the monster who was driving nor the one who was in the last row of seats and pointing a gun at them had even bothered to wipe the remains of poor Juma’s brains off the window.