The Face

any devil. He did not believe in supernatural things of any shape or meaning. He believed only in the power of chaos.
        Nonetheless, he chose to believe that the thunder should be taken as an omen, signifying that his trip this coming evening to Palazzo Rospo would unfold as planned and that he would return to his home with the sedated boy.
        The universe might be a dumb machine, clattering nowhere but moving fast, with no purpose other than its own eventual cataclysmic destruction. Yet even so, it might from time to time cast off a bolt or a broken gear from which a thoughtful person could foretell its next turn of direction. The thunder was such a broken gear, and based upon the timbre and duration of it, Corky confidently predicted the success of his scheme.
        If the biggest movie star in the world, living behind fortified walls and an electronic moat, with full-time security and bodyguards, could not keep his family safe, if the only son of the Face could be [369] plucked from his Bel Air estate and spirited away, even though the actor had been explicitly warned by the delivery of six packages wrapped in black, then no family was safe anywhere . Neither the poor nor the rich. Neither the unknown nor the famous. Neither the godless nor the God-fearing.
        That message would penetrate the public hour by hour, day by grueling day, as Channing Manheim’s long and excruciating ordeal unfolded.
        Corky intended first to destroy the captive boy emotionally, then mentally, and last of all physically. He would videotape this process, which he expected to take weeks. He would edit the tape, make copies on equipment that he had acquired for this project, and periodically pepper selected publications and television-news operations with evidence of Aelfric’s brutalization.
        Certain media would be loath to show any of the video or even still frames from it, but others would recognize the competitive advantage of acting without conscience or taste, and with noble words would justify a plunge into the grossly sensational. Thereafter, some of the squeamish would do likewise.
        The boy’s terror-stricken face would haunt the nation, and yet another blow in a long series would be struck at the foundations of America’s order and stability. Millions of citizens would be robbed of their already shaky sense of security.
        Two streets from Hokenberry’s bungalow, as Corky approached his BMW, a lance of lightning pierced the clouds, thunder cracked, and a boil in the heavens burst. Rain that had drizzled suddenly fell by the ton, weight enough to press half the huff out of the wind.
        If thunder alone had been an omen of his triumph, more thunder preceded by lightning was confirmation that he’d properly interpreted that first rolling peal.
        The sky blazed again, and growled. Fat leaf-snapping droplets of [370] cold rain roared through the trees and pounded, pounded the pavement.
        For a sweet half-minute, Corky capered like Gene Kelly, singing “Shake Your Groove Thing,” not caring who might see him.
        Then he got in the car and drove away from there, for he had much work to do on this most important day of his life to date.

CHAPTER 54
        
        AS ETHAN WAITED FOR MUSIC THAT WOULD wither the soul and for the hospital elevator that would bring it, his cell phone rang.
        “Where are you?” Hazard Yancy asked.
        “Our Lady of Angels. About to leave.”
        “You in the garage?”
        “On my way down now.”
        “Upper or lower level?”
        “Upper.”
        “What’re you driving?”
        “A white Expedition, like yesterday.”
        “Wait there. We have to talk.” Hazard hung up.
        Ethan rode the elevator alone and without music. Apparently the sound system was malfunctioning. Nothing but hiss-pop-crackle came from the ceiling speaker.
        He had descended one floor when he thought that he detected a faint voice behind the static. Quickly it became less faint, though still too weak to convey meaning.
        By the time he traveled three floors, he convinced himself that this was the eerie voice to which he had listened for half an hour on the [372] phone the previous night. He had been so intent on understanding what it was saying that he’d fallen into something like a trance.
        Drifting down from the ceiling speaker, in a fall of static as soft as snow, came his name. He heard