John Verdon - Let the Devil Sleep

“Are you telling me you won’t cancel it?”

“Please. Let me give you some context here. Without context we can’t make good decisions. Please. Allow me to finish. I was starting to say there are a few things about RAM you may not know. Such as, we have more number-one shows running than any other cable or broadcast network. We have the highest-”

“I don’t care.”

“Please. Allow me to speak. These are facts you may not be aware of. We have the highest total audience figures in the business. Every year the numbers get better. Our parent company is the largest media company in the world, and we are their most profitable division. Next year we’ll be even more profitable.”

“I don’t see the relevance of this.”

“Please. Listen. We understand programming. We understand audiences. Bottom line? You want to talk bottom line? Bottom line is, we know what we’re doing and we do it better than anyone. You had a program idea. We’re turning that idea into gold. Media alchemy. That’s what we do. Turn ideas into gold. You understand?”

Kim leaned forward, her voice rising. “What I understand is that people have gotten killed because of this program.”

“How many people?”

“What?”

“Do you know how many people die on this planet every day? How many millions?”

Kim stared at him, momentarily speechless.

Gurney took the opportunity to ask casually, “Will the new murders boost your ratings?”

Getz flashed another grin. “You want the truth? The ratings will shoot through the roof. We’ll run news specials, Second Amendment debates, maybe even a spin-off series. Remember the project I offered you? In the Absence of Justice -a hard-nosed review of unsolved cases? That could be a hot one. That’s still very much on the table, Detective. The Orphans of Murder could have real legs. A franchise. Media alchemy.”

Kim’s hands were balled into fists. “That’s so… so ugly.”

“You know what it is, sweetheart? It’s human nature.”

Her eyes blazed. “It sounds to me like ugliness and greed.”

“Right. Like I said. Human nature.”

“That’s not human nature! That’s trash!”

“Let me tell you something. The human animal is just another primate. Maybe even the ugliest and stupidest one. That’s the real truth. And I’m a realist. I didn’t create the fucking zoo. I just make a living in it. You know what I do? I feed the animals.”

Kim rose from her chair. “I’m done here. I’m leaving.”

“You’ll miss a nice sushi lunch.”

“I’m not hungry. I need to leave here. Now.”

She began walking in the direction of the front door. Gurney got up without comment and followed her. Getz stayed where he was.

He called after them as they neared the door. “Before you folks leave, I’d like to run something by you. We’re trying to pick a new slogan. We’ve narrowed it down to two. The first is ‘RAM News: The Mind and Heart of Freedom.’ The second is ‘RAM News: Nothing but the Truth.’ Which one rings your bell?”

Shaking her head, Kim opened the front door and exited as quickly as she could.

Gurney looked back at the man who was still sitting at the acrylic table.

He was picking bits of invisible lint off his pale lavender jacket.

Coming down the switchback road through the pine forest that separated Getz’s hilltop estate from the main road, Kim drove wildly enough to distract Gurney from his thoughts about the RAM executive and his slimy media enterprise.

The second time the car skidded sideways onto the narrow shoulder, he offered to take the wheel. She refused, but she did lower her speed.

“I can’t believe this,” she said, shaking her head. “I was trying to create something good. Something true. And look what it’s turned into. A horrible mess. God, how stupid I am! How stupidly naïve!”

Gurney looked over at her. Her conservative blue blazer, her unadorned white blouse, her almost severely simple hairstyle suddenly had the appearance of an adult’s costume worn by a child.

“What am I going to do?” She asked the question in such a small voice that he barely heard it. “Suppose the Shepherd keeps killing people. That warning-‘Let the devil sleep’-that was meant for me. But I ignored it. That makes every new murder my fault. How can we stop Getz from going ahead with this horrible thing?”

“I don’t think we can stop Getz.”

“Oh, God…”

“But there might be a way to stop the Shepherd.”

“How?”

“It’s kind of a long shot.”

“Anything is better than nothing.”

“I may need your help.”

She turned to him. “I’ll do anything. Tell me. Whatever it is, I’ll-”

The car was drifting rapidly toward the guardrail.

“Jesus!” cried Gurney. “Watch the road!”

“Sorry. Sorry. But please-anything you want me to do, just tell me.”

He wondered about the wisdom of discussing it while she was driving. But he didn’t have the luxury of waiting. Time was the resource he was running out of quickest. He hoped his doubts and fears wouldn’t come through in a way that made his thinking sound as shaky to her as it had to Clinter. “This is all based on two things I believe about the Good Shepherd. First, he’ll gladly kill anyone who poses a threat to him, as long as he feels he can do it safely. Second, he has good reason to consider my interest in the case a threat.”

“So what do we do?”

“We take advantage of the bugging system in your apartment to allow him to overhear certain things-things that will motivate him to take action in a way that will expose him.”

“You think it’s the Good Shepherd who’s been eavesdropping on me? Not Robby?”

“It could be Robby. But my money would be on the Shepherd.”

She appeared troubled by this idea but then nodded gamely. “Okay. What are we going to say for him to overhear?”

“I want him to know that I’ll be in a very isolated place, in a very vulnerable position. I want him to believe that the situation offers him a unique chance to get rid of me and Max Clinter-that he needs to get rid of us, and there’ll never be a better time to do it.”

“So we’re going to sit in my apartment and you’re going to say stuff to me in the hope that he’s listening?”

“Or that he’ll be listening later. My guess is he’s recording the transmissions from those bugs on a voice-activated device that he probably checks once or twice a day. As for ‘saying stuff,’ the way we disclose the information will need to be subtler than my just telling it to you. There needs to be a cover story, an emotional dynamic, a reason we’re in the apartment, some tension. Ordinary, sloppy reality. He has to be made to feel that he’s hearing things he’s not supposed to be hearing.”

• • •

When they arrived at Gurney’s farmhouse a little after three, Kyle was in the den at the computer, surrounded by printouts, a BlackBerry, an iPhone, and an iPad. He greeted them without looking away from the screen, which was filled by some sort of spreadsheet. “Hey, folks. Welcome back. Be right with you. I’m closing this down.”

There was no sign of Madeleine, who presumably was still at the clinic. While Kim went upstairs to change out of her business clothes, Gurney checked the landline’s voice mail. No messages. He used the bathroom, then went out to the kitchen. Remembering that he hadn’t had any lunch, he opened the refrigerator.

A minute or two later, when Kim came back downstairs, he was still staring at the shelves without really seeing anything. His mind was elsewhere-trying to get a grip on the elements of the drama he and Kim would be staging that evening, the drama on which so much depended.