F. Paul Wilson - All the Rage

Finally he wound down. He stood staring at his silent, white-faced men. He knew what they were thinking: would he make an example of one of them as he had in the past?

Nothing Milos would have liked better—make someone the fall guy and shoot him dead right here. But that would be a waste of a good man, and if he was going to find out who did this, he'd need every one of them.

"Does anyone have anything to say?" he said when the silence had stretched to the breaking point.

More silence.

"Have any of you noticed anyone strange hanging around, anyone snowing unusual interest? You, Vuk." He singled out an ex-corporal from the Yugoslav army who liked to bleach his hair. The man blinked but otherwise remained calm. "You've been on patrol this week. You see anyone paying too much attention to the house?"

"No, sir," he said. "Ivo and I ran off a man and his wife yesterday, but they were just walking on the beach. When they stopped to look, we moved them on. The wife didn't want to go, but the man gave us no trouble."

Milos nodded. "What is on the security cameras?" he said to Dositej, the surveillance man.

Dositej jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the half-dozen monitor screens in the surveillance booth. "I've been checking last week's tapes, sir. Haven't found anything yet."

"Nothing?" Milos said, feeling his anger rising again. " Nothing ?"

Just then a phone rang. Dositej, anxious to duck the spotlight, hurried to answer it.

"It's Kim," he said after listening a few seconds. "Says you've got a call."

"I told him no interruptions!"

"He says it's from someone who wants to know if you got any old tires you care to part with."

Everyone started talking at once. Milos felt a sudden calm. He didn't have to search out the enemy; the enemy was coming to him.

Grabbing the phone from Dositej, he pointed to Mihailo, his balding, bespectacled communications man. 'Trace the call." Then he spoke to Kim upstairs. "Put him through."

A crisp, WASP-inflected voice that sounded like a cross between George Plimpton and William F. Buckley came on the line. "Mr. Dragovic? Is that you?"

Milos could hear the same words echoing from across the room where their conversation was playing from a speaker on the communications console.

"Yes," Milos said, straggling to modulate his tone. "Who is this?"

"I'm the president of the East Hampton Environmental Protection Committee, Mr. Dragovic. Did you get our message tonight?"

"Message?" Milos said, playing along. "What message?"

"The tires, dear boy, the tires. Surely you noticed them, although considering the simply dreadful house you've built there, I suppose it's possible you might have missed them. Anyway, I'm calling just in case you've missed the point."

Milos felt his teeth grinding. "Just what was the point?"

"That you're not wanted out here, Mr. Dragovic. You are cheap and vulgar and we will not tolerate your type amongst us. You are a toxin and we are out to clean you up. You are garbage and your house a waste dump, and that is how we intend to treat it until you decide to pack up your trashy self, your trashy friends, your trashy lifestyle, and go back where you came from."

Milos clutched the receiver in a death grip and sputtered a reply. "Who are you?"

He heard an exultant "Yes!" from the communications console. He looked over and saw Mihailo giving him the OK sign. He'd traced the call.

"I believe I told you: this is not the militant wing of the LVIS, this is the East Hampton Environmental Protection Committee, and we mean business. Be warned, Mr. Dragovic," the man on the phone was saying. "We are quite serious. This is not a game."

"You think not?" Milos said, smiling. "I say it is—one that two can play." He hung up and turned to Mihailo. "Who is he?"

"Can't say," Mihailo said, adjusting his wire-rimmed glasses nervously, "but he was calling from the city—a pay phone in the East Eighties."

Milos cursed silently. He'd been hoping for a name, but he should have known the man would not call from his home.

"I think I've got something," Dositej called from the video monitoring room.

Milos stepped into the cubicle where Dositej was leaning close to a monitor, his nose almost touching its screen. "What is it?"

"I remember now. This car came by yesterday. Pulled right up to the front gate and stopped. I was about to send someone out when it pulled away."

Milos saw the grainy image of a man staring at the house from the passenger seat of an American-made sedan.

"I know him," said Ivo. "He's the one we chased off the beach."

Milos turned. Vuk and Ivo stood side by side. "You think he could be the one on the phone?"

Vuk shook his head. "Not the same voice. And the man we chased was too afraid of a fight to try anything like tonight."

"I'm not so sure," Ivo said, squinting at the screen. "We saw a man who did not want to fight, but I would not say he was afraid."

Milos considered Ivo the more perceptive of the two. And he did not bleach his hair, which was another plus. "We must find this man."

"No problem," Dositej said. Milos turned and saw the image of the car frozen on the screen. Dositej was pointing to the bumper. "There's his license plate."

Milos felt a grin spreading across his face as he stared at the numbers. Whoever you are, he thought, I will find you. And I will make you wish you had never been born.

13

Luc cradled the bottle of 1959 Chateau Lafite-Rothchild in his arms like a baby. He smiled at the thought. He and Laurell had had no children—thank God… she probably would have turned them into monsters just like her—but his wines were a consolation. Better, in fact. Each year, instead of costing you more, a good wine increased in value as well as flavor.

This Lafite, for instance. One of the finest ever produced, and never abandoned by its true parents. Every couple of decades or so Chateau Lafite sent over a team of experts from France to recork and top off its older vintages. This particular bottle had been recorked by the cMteau in the mideighties; they'd even affixed a label as proof.

And a wine, unlike a wife or a child, will never break your heart.

When Laurell had sued him for divorce, she'd added injury to insult by demanding half of his wine cellar. The slut knew nothing about wine—she drank white zinfandel and wouldn't have been able to distinguish jug wine from premier cru. She wanted his only because she knew it was valuable and that splitting it up would break his heart.

She'd wanted to hurt him. She'd already forgiven him for two affairs, but the third had sent her over the edge. He'd tried to tell her that none of them meant anything to him, and that was true; he'd sworn that he loved her and only her, but that of course wasn't.

When was the last time he'd loved? Curious question. He made love, but that was different. He preferred brief, intense affairs, where both parties went their own ways afterward with no strings.

The ultimate had been that afternoon with Nadia. Such intensity, such abandon. He felt himself growing hard at the memory. Nadia hadn't wanted strings then and maybe wouldn't now. He'd love an encore, and he'd go for it if he were sure it wouldn't interfere with her work. He'd have to wait and see. Stabilizing that molecule was the top priority.

Another priority was packing this wine, the wine Laurell had coveted. She'd thought she'd crush him, but he'd anticipated her. As their marriage had deteriorated toward the breaking point, he'd methodically smuggled out his best bottles and substituted junk. Laurell wound up with a nice selection of vin ordinaire. She'd howled when she got the appraisal, but when asked which specific wines were missing, she hadn't a clue.