Too Lucky to Live

by Annie Hogsett

  I walked into the bathroom, reconnected with my pathetic stack of clothes and brought them back to put them on. This was Creepy Eye at its dead worst.

  “Okay. I put our toothbrushes and paste on the edge of the sink. I cleaned there first. Return them to that spot if you value your health. I’ll get the car and find us breakfast. And coffee. We’ll feel more human if we have coffee.”

  I slipped into my clothes. As I left, I stopped where Tom was slumped—silent, dazed—and planted a kiss on his forehead. At least he didn’t pull away.

  “We’re going to be fine,” I told him with all the bravado I could muster. “None of this is your fault. None of this is my fault. These are bad people.”

  “Shhh, Allie.”

  “Don’t worry. I bet even they don’t think they’re solid citizens. I’m not telling them anything they don’t know. We’re going to talk about whatever we need to talk about.”

  Except The Valerio Phone Decision. I cursed how abandoned I might be for that one.

  “They’ll get their money and go away. We’ll have Rune and be happy together. Your house or mine.” I forced a grin big enough so he might be able to hear it. “You’re going to have to help me clean up my credit report, though.”

  He wasn’t quite smiling. Not at all, really. But the hard, tired lines of his face relaxed some. That would do. I touched his cheek and grabbed the car keys and my purse from the desk. Disengaged the chair from under the door handle. And left the building.

  I don’t care what the healthy food people say about salt, sugar, and fat. Even a terrible day looks a small amount better after you put away a couple of Egg McMuffins and a large coffee with extra cream. My hands had stopped shaking, at least. I’d got us big OJs, too, and those compacted fried potato things, plus I’d thought to ask for ketchup. I’d wiped off the desk and pulled it over next to the bed so we could both sit down at it. If you didn’t count the bedside tables which had been nailed to the wall, the bed, the desk, and its chair were the sum total of furniture in this demoralizing room.

  I’d checked around for video. I could stand the listening, but I couldn’t help how the idea of the possible watching made my skin crawl. I’d found nothing at all that looked like a camera. Who knew? But I felt better. The spies could be out there or next door, but maybe there was some small vestige of privacy for us here in Room 19.

  The phone rang.

  I picked it up. Put it on speaker. The Voice told me how to do the conference call. I dialed Skip’s number, which Tom knew by heart. “Blind man’s phonebook,” he’d said without smiling. Skip picked up on the first ring. I would have bet he wasn’t alone. Bukovnik would be there, next to him. He was going to be disappointed. I didn’t see any way for him to take control of this situation and/or save the day.

  “Allie,” Skip was sounding as anxious as I was feeling. That didn’t help. I needed his XXL strength and courage. “Are you okay? Where are you? What happened to you last night?”

  “Don’t forget, woman, that I am here.”

  I was doing my best to ignore it. As long as I kept the conversation on the straight and narrow, I could take refuge in a moment with Skip.

  “Allie? What was that? Does this person have you, too?”

  “It’s a three-way call, Skip. I can’t tell you where we are, but it’s Tom and me in this—place. That’s the kidnapper, somewhere else on the other phone. He’s going to listen to every word we say. He says these phones can’t be traced. I assume the FBI is with you. You can tell me.”

  Skip sighed, but I could feel him collecting himself. Thanks. I needed that. “Yes. They’re—Agent Bukovnik—is here. I was afraid of something like this. Are you in danger right now? What is that racket?”

  “It’s an air conditioner. I’ll switch it off for a moment. Wait. There. No. I think we’re safe enough now. It’s—it’s very good to hear your voice, Skip.” I shoved the tears down. Skip. My Momma Duck. I bucked up and soldiered on. “We need to transfer the assets from Tom’s accounts to a numbered account. We’ll get that information when we need it. We have to do this with a phone call tomorrow and they’ll give us Rune.”

  “Allie. That’s not going to be easy. Some of these things are big-time locked in. They’ll lose value. There’ll be penalties for early—The…kidnappers?” I could tell he was having a trouble saying the word, knowing the kidnappers in question were on the line. “They’re asking for everything?”

  “Everything. We demand it all. Or the boy dies.”

  For one wild, disjointed moment I considered that this had to be a landmark conference call for the professional and experienced conference callers at GG&B. I almost laughed. I almost sobbed. But all I said, my voice calm and controlled, was, “Everything.”

  Tom had been listening from his seat on the edge of the bed. Now I put the phone into his hand. “Skip. I’m here to authorize you to strip the accounts. Take everything that’s liquid and pay whatever penalties you need to on anything that’s not. Set it up so I can access it, and then transfer it tomorrow.”

  He abandoned his businesslike tone for a moment. “Skip, I know that’s asking a lot and I’m sorry. But you know I never expected to have this money. Nobody needs money like that. It was always about Rune. Allie and I, we just want him back. Can you do this?”

  “I can try.”

  The Voice barged in. “Do better than try. Do it. Or the boy dies.”

  Skip would be getting pissed at the repetitiveness of the threats. It was aggravating me, too. But you can’t say, “Give me a break, you jerk,” to someone who truly is willing to make a kid die.

  Skip mastered his annoyance “I’ll do what it takes. You need to understand, whoever you are, that I can’t get the entire amount back without some very long negotiation. It’s not up to me. These financial—entities—are bound by their own regulations. I don’t have the authority or the power. But I believe I can get at least eighty percent. The rest will probably go into penalties.”

  “And the man and the woman will have nothing left of this money?”

  That was odd. It confused Skip. And me. I could sense him wondering, as I was, while he paused for a long second: Why did they care, when they were getting eighty percent of 190 million dollars? It felt very personal.

  “Nothing. Pennies on the dollar at some point. Maybe.”

  “Pennies.”

  That seemed to satisfy it.

  Tom broke in. He was annoyed, too, now. “You don’t get it, do you? Whoever you are. This money has never been important to us. All we care about is the boy.”

  “I get it. You will give it all to me tomorrow. I will give you your boy.”

  “Wait. Once I’ve set this up, Tom could move the money from anywhere on the planet. Why does he need to be with you?” I could hear that Skip was getting worried about us again and ignoring the obvious.

  “That’s for me,” Tom answered for the kidnapper. “I will not give the word until I have my hands on Rune. And this person will not give me Rune until the money is moving. Stalemate.”

  A satisfied hiss.

  “Yesss. Stalemate.”

  All done. Tom passed the phone over to me and fell back on the bed. The arrangement that Skip and The Voice and I agreed on was that the kidnapper would initiate a conference call like this one, every hour on the hour, until the transactions were handled. It was going to be a long day. We all hung up. I pictured the kidnapper hanging up.

  He looked like Darth Vader.

  I could see Agent Bukovnik pacing around Skip’s office. Skip would stop him in a minute and tell him to go find himself some coffee or something so the work could get done. I imagined Skip’s young handsome features troubled by the irrationality of the task, by the danger of our situation, by the indiscretion of the FBI roaming the halls of GG&B. That made me grin. A little bit. Skip would grin, too, after he had that though
t, because he’d think of me. We were almost grinning together then.

  I switched the air conditioner back on. I was beginning to see a use for it. Besides cooling the room, which it was lousy at, it had to be messing with the bugging device. I could barely hear us over that thing. Ha. And when I needed to consult Tom—and if we decided to call Valerio—it might come in very handy.

  I slipped back into create-order/ignore-horrible-situation mode. Tidying up the breakfast stuff. Packing all of the scraps and containers back into the McDonald’s bag. I opened the door to let some morning breeze in. I could smell a dumpster out there.

  I was counting on the eleven a.m.-ness of the sunny day to keep the cutthroats and dealers out of the courtyard for a while so I could deliver my bag of trash to the dumpster. Down the way, Doris, the night desk clerk, to whom I had formally introduced myself earlier in the morning, was pushing a cleaning cart. No wonder she looked tired. No wonder the cleaning job was so crappy.

  “Hey, Doris.” I held up the trash bag in case she was one of the spies I feared. “Tidying up.”

  She trundled the cart up to where I was standing and took a moment to light a cigarette and ease her back against the filthy wall. “Afraid the cleaning ain’t too good. They give me this cheap dollar store spray-on shit an’ then go an’ water it down so it don’t do nothing. Moves the dirt around a little, is all. An’ that guy who set up your reservation? He said skip your room anyhow. Not to bother you, cleaning up.”

  “Well, that was thoughtful.” I took a chance. “Who made the reservation? I’d like to...thank them.”

  She squinted at me. Skeptical. “Don’t know how thoughtful. I never got his name. He’s some guy from the street. Homeless, maybe. Drinker, you can tell. Fumes. I don’t think it was his idea. His money neither, far as that goes. He was nervous-like. Scared. He ran through a little list he had. An’ then kinda skittered away.”

  Doris’d been living and working in the don’t-pay-attention-don’t-ask-questions zone for too long to wonder much or to ask questions. What happens in the Price Motel stays in the Price Motel. On the bedspread, to be specific. But I could tell we didn’t add up for her. Under different circumstances, I might have hoped against hope she’d call the police for us. But that wouldn’t help. And it would hurt Rune.

  I trudged back to the room, savoring the bright heat of the sun and trying to figure out what to do. Tom wasn’t in the bedroom and I could hear the shower going. I walked back out and asked Doris for a couple more bars of Camay and another shampoo. She gave me a handful and didn’t ask me to pay for them. For a long moment she looked at me in a worried mom way. “Are you okay in there, hon?”

  I almost lost it. If I’d burst into tears right then, I don’t know what might have happened. But I pulled myself together and nodded. “We’re fine. Just…tough times. You understand.”

  She nodded back, relieved that her good nature hadn’t gotten her dragged into somebody else’s jam. Glad for me that I was merely down on my luck. Good people pop up in the most unexpected places.

  She gave me a smile of commiseration. “Tell me about it. Take care.” She retrieved her cart and moved on down the row.

  We were so on our own.

  Chapter Fifty-three

  Monday limped by, broken every hour on the hour by the phone call to check Skip’s progress. He was progressing. I used a spare soap to clean up some more around the place. Tom and I agreed that the bedspread was something we could fold and put in the corner.

  At lunchtime I got us Wendy’s. For dinner, Popeye’s Cajun chicken. I was beginning to flash on that Super Size Me movie. On the way back from Popeye’s I stopped at a gas station and picked us up a six-pack, which I didn’t mention to Tom. I knew he’d reject any suggestion of unwinding until everything was in place.

  The day would have been tedious beyond description if I had not had the intimation that it would be our last one together. On the eight o’clock call, Skip said we were set and that 152 million dollars could transfer tomorrow.

  God bless you, Skip Castillo, I said to myself, trying not to cry for about the fiftieth time that day. I hope you live to be really, really old and miss me sometimes if we don’t make it.

  We’d have to call him tomorrow when we had Rune with us to get the password and finalize the transfer. That was good. I’d like to hear his voice from wherever we were going. I was learning to take comfort from the meagerest stuff. That was it. The Voice signed off. It would call tomorrow with directions for where we would be going to get Rune.

  Over and out.

  So there we were. Together for a maybe last night, in this miserable, stifling room with the air conditioner howling. I’d stopped noticing the cigarette smell, almost. Poor Tom. This was no feast for the heightened senses.

  He was sitting on the bed. His feet were bare. I admired his ankles and considered that I hadn’t yet had ample time in my life to admire his ankles. He’d discarded his presentable Rock Hall trip shirt last night and hadn’t bothered to put it back on today. His beautiful white tee-shirt was stained with sweat. Tom’s worst fears about the curse of the Mondo had come all the way home to roost. He was down for the count.

  Not if I could help it.

  “Hey.” I went to sit beside him. “I have a plan.”

  I’d bought a six-pack-size cooler to keep my secret beer cold. And a couple of those frozen things to go in with it. Cave Woman plans for every contingency.

  “Let’s take a shower in our luxury bathroom. Together.”

  He didn’t seem all that thrilled with the prospect, but I could follow his logic as he got up, with no comment, to join me. He was hot and sticky. He needed a shower. If I were there, it couldn’t hurt. I’d keep him from tripping over things. Rune wouldn’t be any more kidnapped than he already was if we got into the shower together. My thoughts exactly.

  We scrubbed. We used up most of two bars of Camay. It was companionable in the shower, if not romantic. Yet. I had more plans. We dried ourselves off with the skimpy towels. This was good. I felt chilly. Back in the room, it didn’t seem practical or desirable to dress again in our smelly outfits. Save that for tomorrow. Save everything for tomorrow except being here tonight. Time for my plan.

  “Look,” I said easing down next to him on the bed again, “I got us beers. They’re even cold.” I popped a top and stuck it under Tom’s nose, letting him breathe in the yeasty spray from the can. He almost smiled.

  “Alice,” he said, “you’re a wonder. I should marry you. That beer smells as good as…what was it? Wild Fig & Cassis? No disrespect for Jo.”

  “No disrespect for Jo, I’d have to agree. And Jo would understand. She and I have been through a lot together. I’m probably her best customer. Ever.”

  I popped open a beer for me. I took a sip. It was wondrously cold. We sat for a while, drinking our beers. Making them gone. I let them take effect, ever so slightly, and then opened another two cans for us before I said, “I have a proposition.”

  His smile faded. “Allie. We can’t. Not if they’re watching. And not with Rune—”

  “Stop.” I put my fingers over his mouth. “Forget them. I don’t give a damn about them. I don’t see how they can hear doodly with that hot air machine cranking. And they’re not watching anyway. That was bullshit. Rune is sleeping. He’s fine tonight. Tomorrow we’ll be with him. No matter what. And wherever we’re going tomorrow when we’re with him, we’re all going there together.

  “This is tonight. We have an obligation,” I was crying all the pent-up, unshed tears of the day. “A sacred obligation. To live as well as we can, as long as we can. We have tonight, Tom. Think of all the people on Earth who would give anything for one more night with the person they love.”

  He was crying, too. I put my arms around him and right away we both noticed about the no clothes. We smelled like Camay and that was fine. I kissed him. He
tasted like overpriced toothpaste. And beer. I remembered our first kiss. Beer and chili. I willed us back to the cliff at the edge of the lake.

  “I love you, Allie,” he whispered. “I’m so glad you found me—we found each other—even if—”

  I put my fingers on his lips again. “Stop with the ‘even ifs,’ Tom Bennington. Make me glad you’re with me tonight. Like it’s your job.”

  He made a small sound of acquiescence then and pulled me all the way into his arms. We were clammy and only semi-clean, but the terrain was wonderful and familiar. We got ourselves properly into the bed, between the scratchy sheets. Skin to skin, our bodies started to remember everything our minds had been trying to make us forget.

  All of it was present for us as we lay together. Every kiss, from the first kiss. Every passionate moment we’d spent since our first stormy night. The heat was flowing through us as it had been from the beginning, but the love was there now, too, infusing every touch with tenderness. All the knowing of each other, the seeking. Two almost strangers who’d been drawn inexorably into a very lucky kind of oneness. If only for a while. If only for one last night.

  We fell asleep—almost content, almost happy, almost at peace—in each other’s arms.

  Chapter Fifty-four

  Tuesday, September 1

  Morning again. Before we’d drifted away on love and beer last night, Tom had whispered in my ear, “In the morning. Call Valerio.”

  We had absolutely no Plan B. I was about to use the Valerio phone, and let the chips fall. I’d decided to call, not text. It was maybe riskier to assume that nobody was watching us, but I wanted to know for sure that Valerio got my message, and I wanted to hear him and gauge his intentions while I was putting our lives in his hands. I wished it could have been Tom doing the truth analysis on that one.

  The Voice had rung us up at nine a.m. sharp. We were to get in our car and drive to an abandoned warehouse in an industrial section of Collinwood. Part of an old complex built to service the railroad that still ran through there. The address was on Salter Road. I’d never heard of it, but according to the caller it was accessed off 152nd.