Hosts

Fielding is leading the way. "Let's go to my study where we can talk."

Her dread increases as she closes on Fielding's back, fumbling in her—Holdstock's—coat pocket and withdrawing a slim wire with a wooden handle on each end. Although she's never seen one, Kate knows it's a garrote. And she knows that Holdstock made it himself this afternoon, spending an hour drilling a midpoint hole through each of two short lengths of doweling, threading electrical wire through, winding it around and around and triple-knotting it.

Kate from the outset disliked this dream, and hates it now, but she can't stop Holdstock from crossing his wrists and looping the wire over the unsuspecting Doctor's head, from wrenching back on those handles and cinching the wire tight around Fielding's throat, from twisting the wire against the nape of his neck to lock it in place.

A grunt from Fielding as he claws at his throat and tries to turn but she—Holdstock—she—Holdstock—dear Lord, she can't be sure—keeps a relentless grip on the handles and stays behind the frantically struggling doctor. She can see half of his panicked, wide-mouthed face as it darkens toward blue, see one of his baffled, bulging, blood-engorged eyes as it pleads for mercy, for air, for life.

And Kate wants to scream but she's mute, tries to loosen her grip on those handles but ca

And now Fielding is kicking and spasming and clawing and twisting madly, slamming the both of them against the dining room table, doing anything within his fading power to break free, but Holdstock's body outweighs his by at least fifty pounds and Kate uses that to hang on, a homicidal rodeo rider on a doomed horse.

Stop it! Oh, dear God, let the poor man go!

But her cries are silent, her pleas unheeded.

And now Fielding's legs give way and he drops to his knees. Kate goes with him, directly behind, maintaining her relentless tension on the wire. His frantic movements slow, his body sags to the side. But Kate stays with him all the way to the floor, never letting up, shoving him onto his face and jamming her knees into his back and hanging on through the terminal spasms as the cells in Fielding's oxygen-starved brain and myocardium fire randomly, agonally, and then finally, not at all.

A stink fills the air as Fielding's sphincters relax. That's the sign she's been waiting for. Kate unwinds the wire and pulls it free. She jumps as Fielding sighs—a flat, atonal sound. But it's only the trapped air in his lungs escaping past his vocal cords. Gripping the table she hauls herself to her feet.

She stares down at the corpse of what had once been a brilliant man. Her dread has changed to remorse, deep regret… such a waste.

Heading for the door, she stuffs the garrote in one pocket and pulls a glove from another. She pulls on the glove and uses that hand to open the front door and close it behind her.

Kate is weeping inside as she walks back down the street, pursued by regret and remorse, and perhaps even a trace of guilt that is not her own.

SUNDAY

1

"Did last night really happen?" Beth said, her lithe body snuggled against his under the sheet.

Sandy stroked her bare shoulder. "Last night? That was this morning, babe. And I can't believe it's only eight and we're awake already."

They'd stumbled in around five, too wired for sleep, so they'd stripped and made wild, wild love. Sandy didn't know about Beth, but last night had been the best of his life—not that he had a whole lot to compare it to.

"I don't think I slept at all—I mean, I know I closed my eyes, but I don't think I slept a wink. Did it really happen? Was it a dream or was that really Leo DiCaprio with his hand on my shoulder? Was that really us in that club?"

"That was us," he replied. "And that's going to be us from now on."

On the way to Tribeca in the cab, the mysterious fellow they'd hooked up with at Ke

That turned out to be a major overstatement, but Rolf had not been exaggerating about the club. Its entrance was an unmarked red door on Franklin Street. He'd had Sandy and Beth wait in the cab while he talked to someone inside the door. Finally, after what had struck Sandy as more of a negotiation than a conversation, the three of them were passed through.

Through the course of the next few hours Sandy learned that Rolf's day job was managing an ultra-exclusive accessories department in Blume's where he met the rich and famous, and his real talent seemed to be an ability as a hanger-on to parlay his acquaintanceships into entrees to exclusive scenes; he'd used Sandy's celebrity as a wedge into the nameless space, a place he'd never be admitted to on his own.

Once inside Rolf led them up a narrow staircase to a low-lit room with a small bar and lots of comfortable chairs grouped around low tables. It had taken all of Sandy's will to keep from gawking and tripping over his own feet as they followed Rolf to the bar.

He left them there and Beth's nails had been digging into Sandy's upper arm as she whispered, barely moving her lips: "Did you see who was in the red chair? And over in the corner—don't be obvious—is that who I think it is?"

It was.

Rolf meanwhile circulated to a few tables, bending and whispering in ears. Minutes later he'd returned and said, "Bobby would like you to join him at his table for a drink."

"Bobby?" Sandy said. "Bobby who?"

"De Niro, of course."

Oh, shit, he'd thought. I can't do this. He's… he's fucking De Niro and he's going to see right through me! But then he thought, Wait. Has De Niro ever been trapped in a speeding subway car with a murderous psycho blowing away everyone in sight? Fuck, no.

But Sandy had. So what was so scary about Bobby De Niro?

"Okay," Sandy had said, cool as a cube. "Let's go."

And so they'd had a drink with De Niro while Sandy told the story, and during the telling other famous faces had gathered around, listening, nodding, murmuring approval and awe.

And then Harvey Weinstein had drawn Sandy aside, talking about working up a piece for Talk with an eye toward developing the article into a screen property. Sandy could barely speak, just kept nodding, agreeing to anything, everything, his gaze always drifting back to Beth, deep in filmspeak with De Niro and DiCaprio.

"I still can't believe I spent the night talking about my student film with Robert De Niro—who kept telling me to call him 'Bobby'! How could I call him 'Bobby'? The word wouldn't pass my lips."

"I heard you calling DiCaprio 'Leo'."

"That's different; he's my age. But Robert De Niro… he's a god. He's Mister De Niro. And he's going to help me with my film! Lend me equipment! Let me use his AVID! Pinch me, Sandy."

He did. Gently. "There. And we're still right here together. You're on your way, Beth."

"And I owe it to one person. The Savior."

Sandy was a little miffed. He'd thought she was going to name him.

"The Savior didn't get you into that club."

"Not directly, but if not for him, the only place I would have been last night was six feet under."

Sandy couldn't argue with that. A small part of him kept insisting that he would have found some way to survive, but when he took a hard look back on that scene on the Nine… no way.

"Do you really think you can get him amnesty?" Beth said, stroking his arm.

"I think so." He hoped so. "I'm going to try like all hell, but the decision won't be up to me."

It won't be up to anybody if he doesn't get back to me, he thought.