Bury the Lead - By David Rosenfelt Page 0,68
hear Laurie give out a short scream, and as I reach for the point of impact, I feel a sticky liquid on my hand. I look down and see that my shirt and hand are a bright red.
I’m not in pain, but rather stunned, and it is this plus dawning fear that sends me to my knees. I can hear the crowd around me on the street yelling, and some people are running for cover. Laurie comes to me to hold me on the ground, and I am literally shaking in fear.
I let her lower me farther to the ground, but I am slowly realizing that I am not hurt. “Oh, my God, Andy. It’s paint,” she says. “It’s paint.” She’s half laughing, half crying. “It’s paint.”
It takes me a moment to realize that my lifeblood is not literally draining from me onto the street. Once I do, I instantly know what has happened. Lassiter has given me a demonstration of his power; obviously, this could have been a bullet, and I would be dead.
“Where is he?” I say, but I know that he is nowhere to be found.
Laurie, no longer worried about me, jumps up and scours the crowd, but Lassiter has melted away. I stand up, feeling some embarrassment, and we don’t wait for the police. We rush to the parking lot, get our car, and head home.
Laurie drives, and I spend the ride trying to reduce my anxiety level. Lassiter was trying to scare me, and on that he more than succeeded. But he was not trying to kill me, merely to demonstrate that he could do so. And his primary goal, I believe, was to have fun, to receive a bizarre diabolical pleasure. Cindy Spodek was right when she said he was insane.
When I get home, I get in the shower and scrub off the paint that has penetrated to my skin. Once I’ve done so, Laurie, Tara, and I watch the reaction to my interview on television. It is all that anyone is talking about, and Lassiter’s picture is everywhere. To my surprise, most of the pundits are not dismissing this as a desperation ploy, but rather taking it seriously. The scene on the street goes unmentioned, as if it never happened.
I slowly start to feel like myself again. I have to admit that I’m enjoying the coverage and feeling pleased at my ability to dominate the news. Laurie seems to tire of it more quickly than I do. “Feel like watching a movie?” she asks at about ten o’clock.
“A movie? You want to watch a movie? We’re watching real life, and you’re sitting here with a real star!”
She nods. “And it’s thrilling, just thrilling. But just for a brief break from all this exciting reality, let’s watch some fake life, with a fake star. Shall we?”
Not waiting for an answer, she searches through the movie channels and settles on Witness, with Harrison Ford. “This should do it,” she says. Tara barks her agreement, and I am officially no longer a part of the evening’s entertainment. And though it’s a great movie, and I watch it with them until the end, Ford cannot begin to match my screen presence.
I wake up at seven in the morning to take Tara for a walk. Laurie stays in bed, and my plan is to join her again when we get back. I negotiate with Tara, and she agrees to cut the walk down to a half hour, providing I buy her a bagel. Little does she know that I was going to buy her one anyway. Chalk one up for human shrewdness.
I try to accomplish all this without fully waking up, and I’m doing pretty well until we approach the house. I am horrified to see Vince Sanders pulling up in front. I briefly consider sneaking in the back and then not answering the doorbell, but if Vince is up this early in the morning, he’s not going to give up that easily.
“Vince, what a pleasant surprise,” I lie.
“You got coffee?”
I nod. “In the house. But I’m not drinking it until after the Olympics.”
He holds up a bag. “Good. I got donuts. And wait’ll you see what else I got.”
I let him in the house. “Laurie here?” he asks.
“Upstairs,” I say. “In bed. Which is exactly where I was going to go.”
“You trying to make me feel bad?”
“Yes.”
He considers this for a moment. “It ain’t working. You know I’ve been doing a lot of research on this. Well,