David Dun - Overfall

“How dangerous are they?”

“I think they are business people. Would they kill somebody? No. They’ll try to get their property back. This is really eating on you, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

“It was an honest mistake with Jason. You can’t blame yourself. …”

“Well, I do. And now to top it off I’m going behind Sam’s back.”

“You have no ill motive whatsoever. You’re trying to protect yourself and Jason.”

As she left Josh’s she felt guilty, nasty. There had been a little magic cord between her and Sam-something mysterious and indefinable. Now it was gone. At home she sat down at the computer and tried to compose an e-mail to Sam, but she couldn’t think what to say.

“What are we gonna do?” Paul asked.

“Hit it head-on and hard.”

They waited thirty minutes over some take-out Chinese food that Typhony brought from her brother-in-law’s place. He was blond and hadn’t a speck of Chinese blood, but he cooked great Chinese.

With one last swallow Sam picked up the phone.

“What have you done?” he said to Anna. His voice was firm but soft.

“Please, Sam, just trust me.”

“I trust you fine. You have one chance. Tell me what you’ve done.”

“Don’t be a jerk, Sam. You’re putting me in a corner.”

“I’m gonna hang up now.”

“No!” she shouted. “Can’t you see I need some autonomy here? Some freedom. You’re pulling this ridiculous macho crap on me.”

“Listen to me.”

He could hear her take a deep breath.

“I’m going to have a sponsor call you.”

Before she could ask “A sponsor?” he hung up.

“Well?” Paul said.

“We call Peter Malkey.”

She plopped the receiver into its cradle. She should have known what Sam was capable of. Damn him.

The phone rang.

“Anna. It was great to see you at the party last month.”

Instantly she recognized Peter Malkey. The producer was one of the few LA people she trusted.

“Are you calling about Sam?”

“He gave you the ‘Sam’ card, huh? Then he likes you.”

“What if he hadn’t liked me?”

“Actually, whether he liked you or not, you might have gotten any one of the other cards. He’s got John of the Silverwind. Sonny of the Silverwind. Or maybe Robert I don’t know them all. Those of us in his little club mostly call him Sam the History Man.” Malkey seemed to search for what to say next. “This call is unusual because you already know him. Few people know him before they get this call, and most don’t even know him after they get it. Sam works in mysterious ways.”

“Well, you tell Sam to get his mysterious ass back on the phone. He hung up on me.”

“That attitude won’t work with Sam. Not even for Anna Wade.”

“All right, what do I do?”

“You told someone to find out about Sam, didn’t you?”

“Yes.” She sighed.

“Who?”

“Josh.”

“Oh, damn.”

“What’s that mean-oh, damn?”

“Josh still loves you. Everybody knows that. He’s stubborn and powerful. Bad combination. Somehow you have to make him stop if you ever want to hear from Sam again. I can vouch for Sam. He’s pure gold. Total integrity. Other than stretching the law a little.”

“I’m not going to simper. I want to talk to Sam. Tell him to call me.”

“A contest of wills. Okay. I told you I can’t do that. But he says you have an e-mail address. Write him.”

With that Peter hung up.

She typed out an e-mail:

We went through a lot together. You need to help me through this. I need to know you’re safe for me.

She sent it. Instantly a reply came back, and a dialogue began.

Trust Peter.

I want to trust you.

Good, that’s fine. Trust me.

I need information!!!

Good-bye.

Come back here and fight like a man, you weenie!!!!!

Nothing. Boiling, she called Peter.

“Help me.”

“I can’t.”

“What the hell do I do?”

“Call Josh. Tell him it’s imperative that he stop immediately.”

She called Josh and argued for twenty minutes. Finally, hearing the desperation in her voice, he agreed to stop, at least temporarily.

She called Peter back and explained.

“Temporarily isn’t good enough. Make him stop until you tell him to start.”

Josh relented.

Her e-mail in-box dinged.

Good girl.

She typed back:

Don’t call me girl.

Remember, Peter said to charm me. So charm.

Crapola on you!

Call Peter for lessons.

The phone rang. It was Peter.

“He wants to meet you in LA as planned, Friday at eight P.M., but you’re to meet at the Fish House instead of the Plaza. The Fish House is-”

“I know where it is.”

“Okay. There will be a man at your door shortly. His name is Shohei. Don’t ask him a bunch of questions. He’s Sam’s man. He’s there to protect you.”

She rolled her eyes but said nothing.

“Also he says this about your meeting. Are you listening closely?”

“Yes.” She sighed into the mouthpiece.

“You know, you’re Anna Wade. You’re above whining. Not even a whisper of a whine should cross your lips.”

“Peter, how did you know to say that?”

“It’s word for word what Sam told me to say.”

“Does Sam scare you?”

“In the beginning he scared me every day.”

“Does he bug people?”

“Oh, he bugs a lot of people. I’d say he just bugged the hell out of you.”

Normally she was in control of everything and everybody in her life. Even the chaos was ordered. Nothing about what was happening with Sam felt like control.

Growing up, she had not been one of those kids who kept her things organized all the time. Her room was usually a mess. Her mother nagged her when there was a spare moment.

However, at the end of every week she picked up her things, got all the books on the shelf, the clothes in the hamper, the papers in their proper place or thrown away. She started over. Thus, as to her physical space, she presided over a gradual deterioration of orderliness that was always recovered at week’s end by a sort of reverse big bang.

Even in adulthood she lived that way when she wasn’t traveling. Her assistant was to leave her worktable alone until the end of the week. There could be no inspiration on Thursday if it didn’t look like she had been doing something on Wednesday. On Saturday morning, however, she and her assistant cleared her desk so that it was completely free of everything but the telephone and the letter opener. Things would be filed, put away, or shelved as appropriate.

Not only her desk but the entire apartment was to be put back in order at week’s end. The magazines that on Friday were on all the little tables, or the manuscripts on the couch, or the week’s opened mail at the kitchen desk, were all to be gone by Saturday morning. Normally Anna started before the cleaning lady arrived, feeling as though she had to get the place clean so that it would be presentable to the cleaners. Somehow this struck her assistant, whose back ached along with Anna’s, as slightly ironic. Anna couldn’t see it as the least bit strange.

People were different. With people she was much more cautious because unlike things, people could not be put back in place once they moved. She liked the people in her life not to move. Although she found it disquieting, she discovered that she tended to relate to people on the basis of how they fit into her plans. If they didn’t have a place in her plans, she tried to be nice, because she wanted everyone to like her, but she didn’t want that more than she wanted to get on with her plans. That was especially true by the time she reached eighteen. It made understanding Jimmy difficult because he didn’t have any plans.