Michael Marshall - The Straw Men

Michael Becker stood a couple of yards behind Zandt, staring into the eyes of a man he had sat in sunny offices with, emailed jokes to, hugged after near-successful runs for the television end-zones. The man who had visited his house a hundred times, who had come to family dinners, who had sat in his daughter's bedroom and chatted to her about what a fine time she'd had in England. Who'd known that talking about England might be a way to hold her attention for long enough for the right moment to arrive to abduct her.

Wang said nothing.

'Charles doesn't kill the girls,' Zandt said. 'He doesn't abduct them either. That would be dangerous. Charles doesn't want real danger. He wants power, and kicks, and a feeling that he moves in mysterious ways. All Charles does is pass on information. Charles can find special girls, quality girls. Charles works on commission, I'm sure, but mainly Charles works for fun.'

'Charles,' Michael said, 'Say something. Tell me this isn't right.'

'Yes. Tell us how much you get per girl,' Zandt said. 'Explain why, when these people could pluck people off the street, it means so much more to them to reach directly into families. To steal from people who are supposed to be your friends. Explain the thrill of that, because we really fucking want to know.'

Without warning he stepped back and stomped viciously on Wang's chest. Then he was back in the man's face, shouting: 'Who takes them? Who does the abducting? Where do they go?'

His eyes still on Michael Becker, Wang licked his lips.

'You think I know their names?'

Zandt: 'Describe.'

'If I don't?'

Zandt moved the gun an inch and pulled the trigger. The bullet smashed into the marble just behind Wang's head and ricocheted viciously across the room. Shards of marble and glass sliced across the man's scalp and face. The gun was moved back to his neck.

Wang spoke fast. 'There are three I know of. There were four, but one disappeared two years ago. They all look different — what the hell do you want me to say? You think we meet up and have beers?'

'Describe the one who took Michael's daughter. You must have had contact with him.'

'It was all done by email and phone.'

'Bullshit. Emails can be logged and phones can be tapped. But two guys meeting in a hotel bar someplace, in LA, who's going to pay attention to that?'

Wang licked his lips again. Zandt moved the muzzle of the gun until it was square in the middle of his forehead. Wang watched pressure being applied to the trigger. His lips started to move, but the cop held up his finger.

'Don't just tell me what you think I want to hear,' Zandt said. 'I think you're lying, I'll kill you.'

'He's a tall guy,' he said. 'Blond. Husky,' he said. 'His name is Paul.'

Zandt stood up and wiped the man's sweat off his hand. He took a step back to stand with Nina,

leaving Michael facing Wang.

'Is this true?' Becker's voice was barely audible. 'How. How could. Why? Why, Charles? I mean…' At a loss, standing in a house he would never be able to afford no matter how many studio asses he kissed, he fixed on something trivial but concrete. 'It can't be for the fucking money.'

'You're a little man, with little goals,' Wang said bitterly, wiping blood off his lip with the back of his hand. 'Silly girls who've never been fucked. An old maid imagination. You've never touched anything big, and you never will. You'll certainly never touch her, not now.' He winked. 'You'll never know what you're missing.'

Zandt was faster. He intercepted Becker, grabbing his shoulders and throwing all of his weight in the other direction. He was heavier than the other man by some margin, but still only just managed to hold

him away.

'Didn't happen, Michael,' he said. 'It didn't happen.'

After a moment, the force in Michael seemed to drop away. Zandt still held him firmly, as Becker

stared over his shoulder at the man who smiled up at him from the floor.

'We're not going to kill him. Do you understand?' He pulled Becker's face round, so that he could look at him properly. The man's eyes were wide, unseeing. 'I can't promise I can give your daughter

back. She may be dead, and if she is then this man is partly to blame. But we are going to leave this house and walk away. That's the only thing I know for sure that I can give you. That you not walk out of here as a murderer.'

Becker's eyes slowly came back into focus. His body went slack for a moment, and then became rigid again. But he took a step back, and let his arms rest down by his sides.

Zandt put his gun away. The three of them looked at the man lying on the floor. 'You're going to have company very soon,' Zandt told him. 'Cop company, fed company. Company with search warrants. Better get the place tidied up.'

Then they left, leaving a pale man staring after them.

Nothing was said until they stood beside the car. Michael looked back up at the house. 'What am I

supposed to do?'

Nina started to speak, but Zandt overrode her.

'Nothing. Don't tell the police. Don't tell your wife either. I know you'll want to. But not for the

moment. Most of all do not come back up here. What needs to be done will be done.'

'By whom?'

'Get in the car, Michael.'

'I can't let you do that for me.'

'Just get in the car.'

Eventually Becker climbed in and drove away, the car barely rolling down the road, veering slowly

from side to side. Nina got out her phone and started to dial. Zandt knocked it out of her hand, and it fell to the ground

to skitter six feet along the road surface.

'Leave it,' he said.

She glared at him, but let the phone lie where it had fallen. 'So — did you really call the cops?'

'You know I didn't.'

Zandt lit a cigarette and they waited. Ten minutes later they heard the sound that Zandt had been expecting, the muffled report without which he would have walked back into the house and done what was required, regardless of anything Nina did to try to stop him.

And yet, as soon as he heard it, he felt utterly weary and not in the least triumphant. More as if by getting closer to the source of these events all he had done was further compromise himself; as if the smell from what lurked under mankind's surface was now so strong that he would never be able to wash it off.

She turned to look at him. 'So he's dead.'

'All he did was hand the girls higher up the ladder. We could have wasted days interrogating him and

all he would have done is fuck us around.'

'Not saying you're wrong. I'm just asking what you're thinking of doing next.'

Zandt shrugged. 'Good,' she said, stooping to pick up her phone. Lights were coming on in porches across the street. 'Because it won't be too long before the cops do get up here. I don't want to be around when they do.'

She strode off toward her car, adding over her shoulder. 'And I have a couple of people who think they might be able to show you where to find a blond man kind of like the one you've just heard described.'

Zandt stared at her. 'What?'

'Hopkins and the other guy. He called just before you did. They have a video showing a man at half of the major-league atrocities of the last decade, including the school in Maine this morning. A guy who Ward also thinks he saw at this place up in the mountains.'

'If you knew this, why didn't you stop me with Wang?'

She looked at him across the roof of the car. 'I didn't want to save him any more than you did.'

30

Neither Zandt nor Nina knew that, while Wang had killed himself, he had made a phone call before doing so.

First he had laboriously pulled himself to his feet, hands slipping in the smears of his own blood. He was unable to stand completely straight. He had been beaten up before, had volunteered for the experience on more than one occasion, but this was different. The cop had not been bearing Wang's pleasure in mind, and things were broken.