The Hook

by Tim O'Mara

  That was no tourist.

  I called Uncle Ray, put my food on the bench, and he was in front of my building in twenty minutes. He officially introduced me to his new ‘boy,’ who happened to be female. Officer Paulson, the cop who had followed Allison the other day. Long story short, if you were one of ‘Chief Donne’s Boys,’ that meant you were hand-chosen by the man himself to be his driver, Cop Friday, and at his overall beck-and-call twenty-four/seven for six months. It was grueling work, but when the half-year was over, you were given a gold shield and assigned to whatever part of the city was most in need of young and hungry detectives. That’s why she had been assigned to watch our place.

  Paulson was the second of her family to join the ranks of the NYPD. Turns out my uncle knew her dad and that was one of the factors that led to Paulson’s being on the fast track. We shook hands and after I had given her the description of the kid who was following me, she went inside my uncle’s official Town Car and called in the info.

  ‘You never saw this squirt before?’ Uncle Ray asked.

  ‘Just on the bridge and then now. Before that, nothing.’

  ‘Any ideas who he might be?’

  ‘Been thinking about that and I came up with one possibility.’

  After a brief pause, my uncle said, ‘Ya mind sharing it with me?’

  ‘Oh, yeah.’ I was tired. ‘Allison’s been doing these pieces on this kid who ran away from his family. A White Nationalist family.’

  ‘Harlan S.,’ Uncle Ray said.

  ‘You’ve read it?’

  ‘Of course I’ve read it, Ray. You told me about it the other night.’

  ‘Oh, right. Anyway, that’s the only idea I have, but I’m not sure why he’d be following me.’

  ‘According to the pieces she’s written so far, he’s scared and confused.’

  ‘That’s the way she described him to me. And that’s all she said to me.’

  ‘Scared and confused people don’t always make the most rational decisions.’

  I let that sit for a bit and came up with, ‘If Allison has become the person Harlan trusts the most …’

  ‘Then,’ my uncle continued for me, ‘the person that Allison trusts the most takes her place.’ Uncle Ray squeezed his lower lip. ‘He’s coming to you for protection?’

  A loud delivery truck rambled by. ‘Makes as much sense as anything else.’

  Officer Paulson came out of the car holding a laptop. She went over to my uncle and said, ‘I called in the description, Chief.’ She handed the laptop to her boss. ‘You might want to take a look at this.’

  Uncle Ray did and after a few minutes handed the laptop to me. ‘Ray,’ he said.

  I took the laptop and read.

  ALLISON ROGERS: SPECIAL REPORT FROM THE FIELD

  We are still in the same house as when I woke up. They’ve let me come downstairs, but I still have no idea where I am. The curtains are all drawn and the house is bare enough to give no clues to its location. No local newspapers, no photos, no phone with an area code. We’ve just eaten a breakfast of eggs, pancakes, bacon, and really strong coffee.

  The men who have taken me – I’ve counted at least five – are now willing to speak to me and have ‘requested’ that I just quote them for this entry. No comments from me, just thoughts they wish to share about why they are doing what they are doing. These are their words, unedited by me.

  ‘The Catholic school I went to as a kid,’ one man says, ‘it just closed last year. My grandfather went to school there. We had to find a new place for our son to attend. Takes two buses to get there now, unless I drive him, and I’m usually gone to work by the time he’s ready to go to school.

  ‘Know why it closed? “Lack of enrollment” the diocese told us. Too many Catholics moving out over the last five years, and too many non-Christians moving in. That’s not exactly how the diocese put it, but you can tell just by looking around. Lots of dark-skinned people. Not black like the so-called African Americans, another kind of dark. Like from India. Maybe Pakistan. I think they’re Muslims or Hindus or something. I know they put a mosque where the McDonald’s used to be. Kinda funny. Bunch of people who can’t eat the cow ’cause they worship it take the place of Mickey D’s.’

  ‘This might surprise you,’ another man says to me, ‘but I read Voltaire in high school. Not by choice, of course, but because they made us. I still remember some of it. You know what three evils he said work helps us keep at bay?’ He counts them off on his fingers. ‘Boredom, Vice, and Need. I lost my job because I was told I was being downsized. That’s all they told me. “Downsized.” My dad never got downsized. He worked for the auto factory in Tarrytown for thirty-five years, never got downsized.

  ‘So, yeah, I’m bored. I’m working part-time at the salvage yard dealing with stuff other people throw away. Buying metal offa guys I’m not allowed to ask where they got it. They just wheel it all in their shopping carts – which they obviously stole – and we buy it. Copper pipes, metal tubing, stuff like that.

  ‘Could I be selling drugs? Damn straight I could. I know lots of white guys who do that. Over half the people I know are on some kind of prescription or another. Can’t afford the drugs at the store, they don’t have any drug plan, they get on ’em on the streets. Folks don’t care where they get their drugs from as long as they make the pain go away. And the irony – I think it’s irony – is that the pain was caused by the job they don’t have anymore. A lot of them used to do the heavy lifting the machines are now doing. Threw their backs out. Screwed up their knees and shoulders. Something you gotta understand about machines – they don’t feel pain and don’t have to have a health plan. Just need some power and a little tinkering with now and again.

  ‘That’s one of the things I need – a health plan. Insurance. Know where I go when I’m sick? I don’t. I can’t afford to get sick. One of my kids gets sick we go to Doctor ER. They take care of us, try to bill us, but we don’t have the money to pay. The government takes care of that. Used to be my tax dollars went to that. Now, I don’t have a job, so I don’t pay taxes.

  ‘So, yeah. The guys you see around here? They face Voltaire’s three evils every damn day: Boredom, Vice, and Need. Like we need a French guy who’s been dead since before we were a country to tell us that.’

  One more man chose to speak with me.

  ‘Remember when Obama said when things get real bad that’s when folks like us cling to our guns and our Bible. He got that right, at least. Damn near screwed up everything else. We keep hearing the economy’s getting stronger and some say Obama started that. I don’t buy it. I like this new guy; he may not exactly be one of us, but at least he’s from around here and looks like we do. Not African. As far as the economy getting better, look around. These guys look like they got money to invest in the stock market?

  ‘Long as I can remember, we’ve been hearing about tax breaks for the middle class. Ha! There ain’t no middle class anymore. The tax breaks go to the rich and we live with that because we get our Supreme Court judges that we want and get to hold on to our guns. The only “trickle down” we get is when we’re getting pissed on by the politicians, the rich guys, and the folks who shouldn’t even be around us. Maybe I should be in the Trickle Down Umbrella business, huh? That’s kind of funny.’

  That’s all the talk for now it seems. I’m not sure what the rest of today will bring. Maybe more Boredom, some Vice, and a little Need.

  But as they say on TV, ‘Watch this space.’

  Allison Rogers for New York Here and Now

  After finishing the piece, I read it again. Maybe I was looking for a clue, a secret message that Allison had placed there only for me, something only I would figure out to let me know where she was. But shit like that only happens in the movies, right?

  Anyway, I was able to come up with one positive piece of news.

  ‘They’re still in the same place,’ I said.

  ‘Maybe,’ Uncle Ray corrected me. ‘Remember, she only gets
to post what they tell her. She could be anywhere, Ray.’

  I knew he was right, but I also felt she hadn’t been moved since this morning. When they had moved, she mentioned it. Now she mentioned they hadn’t moved; she wrote that. Either way, Uncle Ray could have been right: she was writing only what the captors allowed. They had not only taken her, they had taken her voice.

  My phone rang. Henderson again. ‘What’s up, David?’

  ‘Just read the latest post. Sounds like she’s doing OK. Considering.’

  ‘I guess. Any news?’

  ‘Negative on that end, I’m sorry to say. We sweated a lot of assholes in the tri-state area over the past twelve hours and have come up empty. Good news is that our profiler says that since the kidnappers are clearly getting what they want out of Allison, the risk is lower at this time of doing her harm.’

  ‘At this time?’

  ‘Yeah.’ He paused. ‘There’s always the chance they get enough from her or that she decides to stop giving it to them. Then the dynamic changes.’

  Henderson had a nice way with euphemisms. I told him so and then told him about the kid who’d been following me, and our best guess as to his identity.

  ‘Outstanding,’ he said. ‘I’ll send that out to my people in the field. That’s all you got on the kid?’

  ‘Allison made a promise to him to keep his info confidential. And honestly, she didn’t know all that much.’

  ‘Gotcha. Later, Ray.’

  I put the phone back in my pocket and caught Uncle Ray up on my call with Henderson. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘So we got a little more than we had this morning. Not much, but better than nothing.’ He looked around my block. ‘I’m gonna put a uniform out here, Ray. Just in case that kid comes back.’

  I thought about that. ‘If he does come back,’ I said, ‘a cop’s just gonna scare him off again. Wouldn’t it be better if we let him make contact?’

  He took out a cigar. ‘Good point. OK, I’ll make it plain clothes. They see anything, they’ll observe and only move in if necessary.’

  ‘Sounds fair,’ I said. ‘Thanks.’

  He looked at the bag of food I was holding. ‘Go upstairs and eat, Ray. Take a shower, a nap, watch last night’s Yankees game. We’ll be in touch.’

  That was his way of saying that I was back to playing the waiting game again. And he was right. I said goodbye, thanked Office Paulson, and went up to my place.

  Allison’s and my place.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  All the stress and excitement of the last few hours had made me hungrier than usual because normally, the Shrimp Lo Mein takes me two sittings to finish. This afternoon it was gone in one. I showered, channel-surfed aimlessly and eventually settled on a nature show about how the coral reefs along the Australian coast are eroding at a faster rate than scientists originally had thought. I switched to an all-nineties music channel and cleaned up the apartment a little. I even did a mixed load of my laundry with Allison’s, although we never normally combined our clothes when washing them.

  I fielded phone calls from Royce, Edgar, Henderson, Billy and Uncle Ray. My mom and Rachel also called. It felt kind of like all those years ago when I almost died falling off that fire escape: everyone was checking up on me and asking for new developments. The only thing missing was doctors and nurses coming in every half-hour to make sure I didn’t get any sleep. The feeling sucks, by the way.

  I poured myself a big plastic cup of water – mostly ice – and went out onto the deck with my cell phone. I grabbed one of the cushioned chairs and stared up at the almost cloudless sky. I watched as one small cloud made its way overhead and slowly broke apart in the upper atmospheric breeze. By the time it had completely vanished my eyes were closed, and I was somewhere between sleep and consciousness, aware of my surroundings yet working them into a semi-dream.

  At some point in the dream, I was getting hit by flying insects. Every thirty seconds or so, one would crash into my chest or my lap. A few crashed into the window while others landed on the tile of the porch. Whatever they were, they woke me. Another one came flying in when I realized they were pebbles coming from the backyard of my apartment. I looked over the edge and there was the last person I expected to see.

  The kid who’d been following me.

  I was about to yell down but didn’t want to draw attention to him. He had come back for a reason, and the last thing I wanted to do before finding out why was to scare him away. I raised my hands palms up and shrugged.

  He looked up and mimed opening a door, put his hand to his mouth as if eating, and then pointed to his left. Did he want me to let him in and feed him? I waved him up. He shook his head and went through the motions again: opening a door and eating. Then he pointed to his left again. After he pointed, he scaled the fence and disappeared.

  Shit. I had lost him again.

  I went through his signs. Opening a door. No, it occurred to me, he was using a key. Key. Then he was acting like he was eating. Hungry? Chewing? No. Food. And pointing to the left.

  Damn this kid was smart. He figured the front of my place was being watched and wanted me to meet him at the grocery store – Key Food – on the other side of the avenue. I put my sneakers on, grabbed my reusable tote bag and headed downstairs. When I hit the street, I gave a wave to the unseen undercover cop who was watching my place and headed over to do a little food shopping.

  Since it was just around dinnertime, the store was crowded. I looked around for my stalker, but couldn’t find him. Confident that he’d find me, I strolled through the aisles making mental notes of things I’d pick up the next time I really went shopping. When I got to the produce section, I felt a tap on my back. I turned.

  ‘Harlan?’ I said.

  He grinned and took off his sunglasses. ‘You can call me that, I guess, sir.’

  ‘So you followed Allison home after one of your interviews, huh?’

  ‘I had to make sure she wasn’t a cop,’ he said. ‘Or one of my dad’s people.’

  ‘Smart,’ I said. ‘What do you want with me, Harlan?’

  ‘I’ve been reading Ms Rogers’ pieces since she was taken.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘I know where they got her, sir. Or at least where they’re gonna take her next.’

  I took a step toward him. Just one, so I didn’t scare him off again. ‘And how would you know that?’

  He looked down at his feet for a few seconds then back at me. ‘Because I offered to trade myself in for her, sir.’

  OK. ‘Why would you do that?’

  ‘Because I’m the reason she was taken, sir.’

  I stayed silent on that point. ‘First, lose the whole “sir” thing. Second, how do you know who took her, Harlan?’

  He scratched at his blond hair. ‘I wasn’t sure at first. But I know this one guy who’s with my dad a lot, and he’s kinda … whatcha might call extreme. They keep telling him to tone it down, that if they wanna be taken seriously, he needs to cool it. Out of all the people in the group, he’s the only one I could think of who’d do this kinda thing.’

  ‘So you just called him? You had his number?’

  ‘Yeah, we all do,’ he said, tapping his temple. ‘And I was right. See, when Ms Rogers wrote about that first place they took her, I thought it mighta been the old camp they just bought about two hours north of here, close to the Massachusetts border. That was Chilly’s idea. Chilly’s the guy who’s a bit extreme.’

  ‘Chilly?’

  ‘Guys he used to run with said he’s got ice water in his veins, so …’

  ‘You and Chilly make a plan for this … exchange?’ I asked.

  ‘Tonight,’ Harlan said. ‘Up at the camp.’

  ‘How’d he expect you to get up there?’

  ‘I told him the truth. That you’d help me.’

  I paused and said, ‘Because I want Allison back as much as anyone else?’

  ‘That was my thinking, sir.’

  This was one smart kid. Damn smart. There
was one thing gnawing at me, though. A pretty big thing.

  ‘This guy Chilly,’ I said. ‘Off the rails and ice water in his veins. What makes you think you can trust him?’

  ‘I can’t,’ Harlan said. ‘But he thinks just ’cause I’m a kid, he can trust me. So I think that maybe gives me an edge on him.’ He saw my smile and gave me one back. Then he said, ‘You can get a car?’

  ‘Oh, yeah. I can get a car.’

  He looked at his watch. ‘Can you get one in a few minutes? We need to be up there kinda soon.’

  ‘What’s kinda soon?’ I asked.

  ‘I was told eight-thirty.’

  I told Harlan to stay at the store until I picked him up, and then rushed back to my apartment, calling Edgar along the way. I got dressed for a trip upstate and went to the back of my closet to the lockbox where I keep my gun. I’ve only used it once in the past few years and that was only as a prop to scare some people who needed scaring. I hoped this night would be no different, but I loaded it just the same and put some extra ammo in my vest pocket.

  Then I called Billy and David Henderson and told them what was up. They both said they could be at my place in half an hour and I told them there wasn’t time for that. I gave them the GPS signal for Allison’s phone – Edgar had insisted on installing that – and told them I was on my way to the New York State Thruway. Harlan had a rough idea where the camp was and with GPS he’d figure the rest out. Neither Billy nor Henderson liked the idea, but I really didn’t care right then.

  Edgar called. He was downstairs.

  I was lying to Edgar and he knew it. I told him I had to get the kid back home and needed to do it by myself. Although he didn’t buy it for a second, he gave me his car and asked if I’d be at The LineUp later.

  ‘I hope so, man,’ I said, patting his shoulder. ‘But later than usual.’

  We got to the Brooklyn–Queens Expressway, then the Cross Bronx and onto the Thruway in not too much time. I set the cruise control at seventy and started in with the questions.