All The Hidden Pieces

by Jillian Thomadsen

  “What happened?” he asked, his voice grainy and weak.

  “You were assaulted,” Greta responded. “How much do you owe them?” She had practiced asking that question all morning – a tone of voice that was entreating instead of judging, a query that should have been easy enough to answer.

  But he surprised her by sticking to his story. “Mom – I don’t…”

  Before he could say anymore she was in front of him, her face ruddy and her eyes narrowed. She felt the same burst of adrenaline that she’d experienced when she heard his yells from the front sidewalk – a crazy jolt of energy that made her want to rip the lines to his machines and shake him until he came to his senses.

  “Don’t. You. Dare. Lie. To. Me,” she said, glowering at him, her face suspended a few inches above his face as though disembodied.

  John’s expression changed and she wasn’t sure whether it was fear from seeing a side of her she’d never displayed before or the physical manifestation of a decision to start being up-front with her.

  “I don’t owe anything,” John repeated. “I hacked this guy’s computer.”

  “You…what?”

  “His email, actually. I hacked into it.”

  “Who? What?” Greta asked. This wasn’t the confession she had been expecting. She was prepared to hear about drug deals and unpaid bills, loans from the wrong sort of guys to finance a well-hidden drug habit. “What does that mean, John? Pretend I was born in the Stone Ages and please explain it to me.”

  John sighed. “My friends…they, uh, sometimes…ummm…are they going to get into trouble if I speak honestly?”

  “No. Please be honest.”

  John continued. “My friends sometimes, you know, smoke pot or something else. Nothing hard or anything. But the guy who sells to them often complains about the bigwig at the very top. Says the guy in charge doesn’t treat anyone well and that he brags about how he has an in with the cops. So you can’t say anything to the cops about my assault. Mom, I mean it.”

  Greta exhaled, closed her eyes and opened them very slowly. “I won’t say anything about this to the cops, John.”

  “Anyway, this guy at the top is such a hypocrite, Mom. I recognized his name because I’ve seen him profiled in the local paper for, like, donating to charities. He’s got this public image where he’s basically the Pope, and meanwhile he’s selling drugs to guys like Tai and Robert. I promised Tai I wouldn’t tell anyone the name but I didn’t promise to do nothing. I thought it would serve this guy right to knock him down a few notches.”

  “But Johnny…” Greta started. She stared down at her hands while she thought about what to say. The words flowing through her mind were too abrasive, too candid. Only a child would hear the name of a dangerous public figure and think to put him in his place. This was an undeveloped mind – a kid who lacked the proper judgment to stay far away.

  John continued. “It was so easy, Mom. I hacked into his email and then I sent a bunch of stupid messages to him from himself. They weren’t trolling or anything, just dumb. It was just to have some fun with him. I guess he got the message.”

  Greta exhaled and looked over at the machines in his room. There were the monitors, pulsing and beeping, and the slow drip into his arm from the bag. She then looked up at the fluorescent lighting and spoke to him in an admonishing tone that she wondered if she should have used months, maybe years ago.

  “Well this kind of behavior isn’t okay, John. Are you at all surprised that he got the message? Or that he sent you a message back?”

  John countered her rebuke with silence.

  Greta looked at his bruised face and asked, in a softer voice, “How did he find out it was you, anyway?”

  “I told him it was me. I put my signature on everything I do. I’m not some coward, hiding in my room.”

  “Oh Johnny,” Greta said, and closed her eyes while she rubbed the edges of her fingers against her temples. This was his puerility again – an arrogance endemic to being fifteen.

  “Are you mad at me?” John asked.

  Greta took John’s left hand in hers. Anger was one of the many emotions she was acutely feeling.

  “I think…” Greta began, and then she moved closer until she was leaning over him. At this closeness she could smell him now – a metallic whiff of blood and gauze, and the faint hit of soap.

  “I’m thinking so many things right now,” Greta said. “First of all, I think you need to find some new friends. I think you’re hanging out with people who don’t value you. They don’t see all that you’re capable of, all that you can do. And I guess I didn’t see it either. I spent so much time focusing on your limitations and not enough time seeing how gifted you are. I don’t want you ever hacking into anyone’s email ever again – no matter who they are – but I do see that your brain works in amazing ways, John. You see hidden things that the rest of the world just overlooks. Don’t waste your life, Johnny. You can give the world so much.”

  John pressed his lips together and looked at her. Tears clung to the edges of his eyes. She thought he might refute her – shake his head like he typically did, or cover his ears. But this time, he just looked at her with a face that seemed so blank, so innocent.

  Greta squeezed his hand again and continued. “I think we should pull you out of Edwardsville High. That school has done absolutely nothing for you except introduce you to the likes of Tai Gausman.”

  “But what will I—?”

  “When you’re not at the auto body shop, you can sit down with me and we will work on reading and writing. Johnny, I’ve been in exactly your shoes. I know how hard it is and I can teach you. I’ve been telling you this for years and you’ve never listened to me.”

  John made a fist with his hand, and Greta wasn’t certain whether this was involuntary or not. She cradled his fist with her palms and brought it up to her cheek. “Listen to me now,” Greta whispered.

  John straightened in his bed and unclasped himself from her grip. He unclenched his fist and stared down at it as though it was an alien appendage with its own thoughts and motives.

  “I can work with you,” John eventually said. “So, it’ll be, what? A few hours here and there to get better at reading and writing?”

  Greta nodded. “Yes. Every single hour that you would otherwise be at school.”

  “Hmmm,” John said. He seemed to be weighing the prospect but Greta knew that he would do it. He had asked a question about the time commitment, which was a momentous step forward from every other time that she’d broached the topic.

  “Do you think you can clean up your act, John?” Greta asked. She looked directly at him, wanting to convey the seriousness of the question, the necessary prerequisite for her vision to take shape.

  “What do you mean?” he asked. “I already told you I’m not on drugs.”

  “I believe you that you’re not on drugs,” Greta said. “I’m talking about less time on the computer and less time with Tai and Robert.”

  She expected a fair amount of pushback from this part of the proposal. Tai and Robert were not directly behind John’s assault…but Greta saw them as encumbrances to John’s forward trajectory. It wasn’t just that they regularly engaged in drug use – John had admitted as such, even if their influence hadn’t reached so far as to ensnarl him in it. It was that every time she saw them they were brooding or complaining, attired in all black and protesting the world and their place in it.

  Greta knew these behaviors were typically teenage; she even saw some vestiges of herself as a sixteen-year old – a defiant and strong-willed creature, one willing to sacrifice her most precious connection with her mother, to upend the very notion of home, rather than admit she was wrong.

  If only someone had gotten to her when she was sixteen – sat her down and made her visualize the future she was shaping for herself. If only she had given herself the chance to turn it all around.

  “Yeah, I can agree to that,” John said.

  “Really?”
Greta stared at him and tried to figure out whether it was really that simple or whether he was just trying to appease her.

  John took his time answering her. He pressed his lips into a thin line again and held back tears. When his words finally did come out, he sounded coarse – pinched air and uneven sound. “I want my life to change,” he said, and then he repeated himself. “I want my life to change.”

  “Well let’s change it then,” Greta said, and it took all of her self-control to remain perched casually on his hospital bed instead of smothering him with affection.

  “Oh, one more thing,” Greta said. “I think I know the answer to this question, but just to be sure…who is this guy at the top you were talking about, the one whose email you hacked? What’s his name?”

  “I’m afraid if I tell you, you’ll get Robert and Tai in trouble. I don’t want them to get in trouble.”

  “John, I promise you, I will not get them in trouble.”

  “Okay.” John took a deep breath. “His name is Steven Vance.”

  ***

  Vance did not want to be found – that much was obvious. Greta tried calling the number listed for his real estate business, but the receptionist simply took down her information and pledged a callback that never manifested.

  Greta didn’t want to sit around and wait, and she wasn’t the type to concede defeat. She had a message that she wanted to convey to Steven Vance and the more he evaded her, the stronger her drive to deliver it to him.

  One evening, she showed up at The Thirst – aware that she looked out of place among the sea of partygoers. Greta was stern-faced and engrossed with her mission. Clad in a t-shirt, jeans and sneakers, she was able to charm her way past the velvet rope after listening to a brief lecture about dress etiquette from the bouncer.

  Once inside, Greta stepped into the flush of music and strobe lighting. She passed young women selling tubes of alcohol and swarms of gyrating bodies. One man stretched an arm out as she passed to try to slow down her pilgrimage.

  “Hey hey!” the man said. He had dark-framed glasses and a crew cut, and he looked only a few years older than John. “Why are you in such a rush? Sporting the casual look, I like that.”

  Greta just smiled at him and moved on. She found the staircase and just as she had started her ascent, she caught sight of Steven Vance coming down.

  He was larger than she remembered – heavier, more muscular. His hair had greyed slightly and his skin looked weathered but he was still attractive – he still looked recognizably like the man who had set her up in an apartment years ago.

  When Vance passed her, he allowed his eyes to rest on her for just a moment before moving on – a split second of eye contact with no hint of recognition. Then he whiffed past her.

  “Steven!” Greta called out and he halted on his step and spun around. He looked at her, studying her more closely from the vantage point of a few steps below, but didn’t say anything.

  “Do you remember me?” Greta asked.

  Vance walked slowly back up the steps. When he reached her step, he gave a half smile. “Greta?” he finally said, but he seemed unsure of himself, and just as she was about to nod and explain her presence, his phone buzzed.

  Vance picked up the call. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m coming right now. Right now.” He put the phone back in his pocket and asked, “Are you going to be here for awhile?”

  “Yes, I actually came here to talk to you.”

  “I need to take care of something. Can you go and wait in my office and I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

  Vance waved an arm and a beefy security guard appeared on the steps. The guard escorted Greta up the remaining stairs, back through a hallway and into a large, square-shaped office with glass-paneled walls that overlooked the downstairs dance floor.

  He left the room and then Greta took a seat on the couch. The beat of the music droned into the room and occupied her until Vance made his way back.

  This time, when he came into the room, he greeted her with a warm hug and sat across the coffee table from her in a large armchair.

  “Greta, you still look amazing,” he said affectionately. “What have you been up to all these years?”

  “Well, I’m married now and I have two kids,” Greta said, and she pulled her phone out of her bag and placed an image in front of Vance. It was a candid photo of Olivia – blonde, pig tailed, wearing a tutu, playing in the backyard.

  Vance shook his head. “Beautiful. Just like her mom,” he said.

  Greta took the phone back and sighed heavily. “And here is a photo of my son John.” She changed the image and placed the phone back on the coffee table beneath him. It was a photo of John from the hospital bed – eye and jaw swollen, head wrapped, tubes spreading out from his bony frame.

  Vance picked up the phone and stared at the image for a little while. Greta could tell that he was calculating. He looked like a chess player caught at a decision point, his tongue curled upwards behind closed lips.

  A minute later, Vance asked. “This is your son?” When Greta nodded, he cocked his head and murmured, “I had no idea.” Then he handed the phone back to her and ran his hands searchingly across his lower chin, as if stroking a phantom beard.

  “Your guys really beat him up pretty good,” Greta said. She glared at him, perhaps hoping to provoke a staring contest…but Vance’s eyes were everywhere: on the ceiling, on her phone, which was now a blank screen, on her sneakers, then back up to the ceiling. He had the decision point expression on his face again – the tentativeness about what to say, whether to insult her intelligence by denying his involvement or whether to confess to crimes he likely didn’t even discuss with close confidantes, let alone a near stranger.

  Greta felt like she was bearing witness to Vance’s internal struggle. These two contradictory sides of Steven Vance now juxtaposed against each other – the public image of benevolence he fought so hard to portray and the dubious dealer who operated in the dark.

  Greta tried to back him into a corner. “These were your men who took him out,” she said. “Don’t try to deny it. I know how you work.”

  Vance didn’t flinch. He smirked widely and without apology – lips stretched to the edges of his lower jaw. After a few moments he said, “I don’t know why you’re coming in here like this or what you expect me to do. All I ever did for you was provide money and housing. I took you off the streets, Greta! If it weren’t for me, you’d still be homeless and illiterate, pouring people’s coffee for two bucks an hour. Truly no good deed goes unpunished.” Vance grunted and pulled his phone out of his pocket. He started swiping and tapping as if he had already moved on from this visit.

  Greta had anticipated his martyr defense and she responded in a calm tone. “Steven, I am grateful for all that you did for me years ago. But that was in the late nineties and this is now. I didn’t come here today to pick a fight. I just want your guys to leave my son alone. That’s all. ”

  She waited to see if he would accept his role in John’s beating by agreeing to talk to his men – or if he would counteract her claims with evidence of John’s own crimes. But Steven Vance remained unmoved. “Sorry but I had nothing to do with your son or with the guys who put him in the hospital. I gave up that business years ago.”

  “It must drive you crazy,” Greta said softly. “You’ve taken such measures to project this image. You want everyone to think you’re such a good guy…but I know the truth about you.”

  Vance stood up and walked towards the door. If she was expecting a confrontation or staunch denial, he didn’t play the part. He was unflappable as ever – his denial a refrain that oozed smoothly from his lips.

  “I wish your son a speedy recovery,” Vance said, holding open the door. “I’ll have my receptionist send flowers to his hospital room.”

  This angered Greta more than anything – more than his repeated repudiation of responsibility. She leaped from the couch and stood a few inches from him, so close she could smell tobacco and whis
key on his breath. “You’ll do no such thing! You leave him alone!” she yelled. And then, because her anger had swelled into a vicious storm – a torrent of vehemence she could no longer contain, she said through gritted teeth, “I have bought a gun and been to the firing range, Steven. Don’t think I’ll hesitate to use it if you guys go near him again. You leave my boy alone!”

  Greta walked out of his office and left The Thirst. Back inside her car, she caught her breath and every emotion she had been feeling seeped out of her. She sobbed in the front seat while clutching the steering wheel, staring up at the club.

  Thirty minutes later, she felt stable enough to drive home. The confrontation and emotional release had a cathartic effect. As she climbed into bed next to Tuck that night, she felt lighter, her next move elucidated as clearly as if she’d been considering it all along.

  On Monday morning, November 9, 2015, Greta drove to the St. Louis office of the FBI and gave an official statement about Steven Vance.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  October 2, 2017

  Hobbs knew a federal agent when she saw one. Hunky, military-grade seriousness, thick-shouldered and slackened jaw. She knew as soon as she walked into Weaver’s office on Monday morning and saw the young man occupying one of the seats across from Weaver’s desk.

  “Hobbs, you’re just in time,” Weaver said. “Agents Eversgard and Waldron came this morning to talk to us about Steven Vance.”

  The hunky man stood up, walked over and shook her hand. “I’m Eversgard, with the FBI, nice to meet you.”

  He pumped her hand once and then – just as she was about to give her name – he made a sliding motion to her right, where Dean Adams was standing. “Hi,” he said in a deep voice. “Eversgard, FBI, nice to meet you.”

  There was another man sitting in the other chair. He was older, gray-haired, with wiry glasses, almost comically nerdy. He stood up and nodded at Hobbs and Adams but didn’t bother to make his way over. They waited a few moments and then Martinez walked into the room.