Sport stepped up to her. She recoiled, but he grabbed the back of her neck with one hand. He tried to put the washcloth over her mouth with the other. But she pulled back, shaking her head.
“No. No,” she sobbed. “Please.”
Sport forced the cloth over her mouth. She pulled away again. She gasped, sobbing. Sport pulled her head back toward him, stuffed the cloth up to her mouth. He felt her pitch forward. She threw up on the bed, a great yellow gob.
“Ah, shit!” Sport said. He pulled back a second to get away from the mess.
“Oh, no,” the little girl cried, looking at the vomit. “Oh, no.” Her lip was bleeding. She sobbed again.
Sport shoved her head back into the cloth. “Now, just be quiet,” he said.
This time, the little girl couldn’t get away. She looked up at Sport above the cloth. The tears poured out of her eyes. Then her eyes closed and she went limp. Sport let her fall back onto the bed. He waved his hand in front of his face to clear away the smell of vomit.
Cursing, he pulled the dirty blanket out from under the girl. He rolled it up with the vomit inside and threw it into a corner. Then he looked up and saw Maxwell.
Maxwell’s hands were still out in front of him. His cheeks were red. He seemed frozen in place. And look at this, Sport thought, a fucking dick like a flagpole.
He straightened and slapped Max’s shoulder. He tried to keep the anger out of his voice. “Come on,” he said.
They left the kid in the bedroom and closed the door.
When morning came, Maxwell was still sitting in front of the door, staring at it. He was sitting in one of the director’s chairs. He was hunched forward, rubbing one hand with the other. He kept staring at the door.
Sport and Dolenko were across the room. They were at the glass doors that led out to the balcony. Sport was sitting in a director’s chair, holding the portable phone on his lap. Dolenko was standing beside him. He had the binoculars plastered to his bug eyes. He had them trained on a line of windows in the building across the court. He was bouncing up and down on his toes.
Dolenko giggled as he looked through the binoculars. He had a high-pitched giggle like a girl’s: Hee hee hee. “Look at this. They don’t even know. He’s sitting down to have breakfast.” Even his voice sounded sinewy and strained. “Oh, this is great. Tits is going in the nursery.” Hee hee hee: he giggled again. “They’re looking for her. Where is she, Pa? I dunno, Ma. Where could she be?” Hee hee hee.
Sport snorted. He shook his head at Dolenko’s goofy sense of humor, but it did make him smile. He sat slumped in the chair and looked out through the doors. Even without binoculars, he could see the Conrads clearly: their two small figures moving in the apartment across the way. They moved more and more frantically.
Dolenko bounced up and down faster. “They see the door! They see the door!” he said.
Sport laid his hand on the phone-pack’s receiver. Whatever else you said about Dolenko, he thought, you had to admit he knew his electronics. Originally, Sport had wanted to bug Conrad’s apartment, maybe even place some hidden cameras in there. When that turned out to be unfeasible, Dolenko had come up with the transmitter idea. Now, Conrad’s phone was hooked right into Sport’s portable cellular. Sport could call in—but Conrad couldn’t call anyone but him.
Sport lifted the receiver to his ear.
A moment later, he saw Conrad running toward his telephone. He heard the click as the doctor picked the phone up. He heard the doctor pressing the buttons, hitting the plunger. Then there was a moment’s silence.
Sport took a breath and spoke quietly. He was excited, but he tried to keep his voice even and steady. “Good morning, Dr. Conrad,” he said. “My name is Sport.”
There was a pause. And then Conrad sputtered, “What the hell—”
Sport cut him off. “Listen to me. Don’t say a word. I have your daughter.”
The pause was longer this time. Then: “Who are you? Who the hell are you?”
“I’ve been working on your apartment for several days, Dr. Conrad. I’ve planted cameras there—I can see what you do. I’ve planted microphones and I can hear what you say. In fact, that’s a very nice shirt you have on.” Sport squinted. “Orange suits you. And you should wear jeans more often.”
“Look at him. Look at him: he’s looking for the cameras,” Dolenko whispered. Hee hee hee. “He’s looking around like: Wo, shit! Where are they?” He laughed.
Sport waved at him to be quiet. He kept his eyes on the window across the way, on Conrad’s figure. “If you try to go out,” Sport went on, “if you try to contact anyone in any way, I’m going to kill your daughter. If you try to dismantle my equipment, if you do anything suspicious at all, I’ll kill her.”
“You bastard. Where’s my daughter? I want to talk—”
“Oops,” said Sport. He smiled. “That was a mistake. If you make another mistake, your daughter will suffer. If you make a mistake after that, your daughter will die.”
He waited a moment. He wanted to see if the rich Park Avenue doctor was going to open his big mouth now.
“All right,” Conrad said after a moment. “What do you want?”
Sport’s smile widened. His eyes were bright. “Now you’re getting the hang of it, Doctor. Listen: Do you have any appointments today? Are you expecting any calls?”
Silence on the line. Then: “No. No.”
“Tell me now, because if anyone pops up later, it’ll spell oopsy-daisy for our dear little Jessica.”
“No. We were going … There’s nothing. No.”
“Good. I want you to just stay where you are and don’t do a thing. You can eat and you can shit—and even when you shit, I’ll be watching you. At seven o’clock this evening, I’ll call you again. Then I’ll tell you what you have to do to get your daughter back alive.”
“Listen—” said Conrad.
Sport placed the phone back on the pack. He laughed quietly. Hee hee hee, said Dolenko beside him.
Maxwell sat hunched in his chair, staring at the bedroom door.
Tough
Slowly, Conrad put the phone down.
“Nathan?”
He took a deep breath.
“Nathan, what …”
Finally, he managed to turn to her, face her.
“Oh, Jesus, Nathan,” she said, “what is it?”
Aggie was leaning toward him, clutching her hands between her breasts. Her eyes were wild but she wasn’t crying. She seemed to be pleading with him. “Nathan?”
It was a moment more before he could speak. He cleared his throat. “Someone’s taken her.”
“Taken …?”
“Listen to me, Aggie.” He stepped forward. Took her by the shoulders.
“Taken her? Taken my baby? Why would they … ?”
“Ssh, Aggie, listen …”
“But why would they take my baby? Why would they … ?”
“I don’t know. Aggie, listen to me, I don’t know.”
“They have to bring her back. Won’t they bring her back? Do they want money? We can give them money, they can have all our money, Nathan. Did you tell them? You have to tell them that, so they’ll bring her back. Nathan …”
“Oh, Jesus!” Conrad threw his arms around her, pressed her to him. Tears sprang into his eyes but he sneered them down. He held Aggie tight. She only trembled against him. She kept talking into his chest.
“They can’t just come in here, can they? Into our home? Into our apartment? Take my baby. They don’t want to hurt her, do they? I mean, she’s just a little girl.”
“Ssh.” Conrad whispered it into her ear. Kissed her cheek desperately. “Ssh.”
“Should we call the police? Maybe if we call the police …”
“We can’t. They’re watching us, listening. Somehow they … They’ve been putting cameras in the apartment. Microphones. They can see what we do, they can hear us …”
“But we have to … we have to do something …”
&n
bsp; “We have to wait. This man—Sport—he’s going to call us at seven. He’ll tell us what to do. If we don’t just wait … if they see us do anything … they’ll … they’ll hurt her, Aggie …”
“Oh, no. Oh, God.”
Conrad squeezed his eyes shut, holding her tight. “Ssh,” he whispered in her ear. “Ssh.”
After a moment, Agatha slowly pulled away from him. She looked up at him. She still wasn’t crying. But her eyes were wide, like the eyes of someone who’s been punched in the stomach. She shook her head at him, exploring his face, looking for something from him, anything.
Conrad touched his wife’s cheek. “It’s going to be all right,” he said.
“Why is this happening? Nathan? Why is this happening?” Finally, the tears started. “Oh, Jesus. My baby girl. Jessie. Oh, God.”
She wept, trembling, covering her mouth with her hand. Reaching out with the other hand blindly, she found a chair. She pulled it to her, sank down into it. She sat at the dining table and cried. Wearing his white bathrobe, her hair hanging down in tangles, her round cheeks mottled and damp, she looked old and lost. She rubbed her hands together on the table.
Conrad turned his eyes away from her. He ran his fingers through his thin hair. She kept crying and wringing her hands. He couldn’t look at her. After another moment, he left the room. He went quickly into the bedroom. His medical bag was on the floor of his closet. He knelt down and opened it. Rummaged through it until he found a container of Xanax.
Clumsily, he shook two of the pills out into his hand. “This will help,” he whispered to himself. The pills were purple ovals: one milligram apiece. He shook out two and put the cap back on the container. Then he opened it again and shook out another pill.
He got a glass of water in the bathroom. He carried the pills and the water back to Aggie. She was still sitting at the dining table. She was staring at the wall. She was silent, but the tears ran steadily down her cheeks. She kept wringing her hands.
“Here,” Conrad said. He set the water and pills down in front of her. He looked away from her. He looked at the door where the chain hung down, cut. “This will help,” he said.
Aggie looked up at him, dazed. “What?”
“It’s medicine. It’ll help you.”
Aggie looked down at the purple pills. She looked up at him again. Still crying, she laughed. Then she stopped laughing. Suddenly, as if she were slapping his face, she hit the glass of water with her hand. It flew off the table, hit the maroon play rug. The water spat out on the rug leaving a dark stain. The glass rolled noisily onto the floor.
“Goddamn you, Nathan,” Aggie said. It was a voice Conrad had never heard from her before. Guttural, trembling. “Goddamn you.”
When she looked up at him, Conrad’s stomach felt hollow. His legs felt weak. He sank into the chair across from her. “I’m sorry. Oh, Jesus, I’m sorry, Aggie.” He reached out to take her hand but she pulled it away. She wouldn’t look at him. Conrad’s throat tightened. He had to fight down the tears again. “I couldn’t stand to see you … ,” he said. “I couldn’t …”
He couldn’t say any more. He looked down at the table. After a few seconds, Agatha turned to him. Her tears had stopped. She looked weary, bowed with weariness. She reached out and took her husband’s hand. Conrad grabbed her hand in both of his.
“I know,” she said softly. “I know.”
In the first hours after he talked to Sport, Conrad thought he would go out of his mind. He and Aggie sat in the apartment. Their own apartment. Staring at the walls. Staring at the windows like prisoners. They didn’t talk. They didn’t know what to say. They didn’t want them—Sport; whomever—to hear. They just sat there. They sat on the sofa, holding hands. Conrad sat thinking. He was thinking about Sport.
He was thinking about Sport’s voice.
If you make a mistake …
The sound of Sport’s voice. He was thinking about its sweet, untroubled, mocking charm …
… it’ll spell oopsy-daisy for our dear little Jessica …
He did not recognize the voice; he could not place it. But he thought he recognized that tone well enough. He thought he had heard that tone once or twice before. On the wards of hospitals. From the unshadowed corners of sealed white rooms.
If you make a mistake …
After a while, Conrad stood up. He started to pace. He had to think. He had to think about Sport. He had to think about what Sport had said.
Good morning, Dr. Conrad.
He had called him Doctor. He had known who he was. Maybe he was a former patient. Maybe he just wanted some attention. Or drugs—maybe he thought a doctor could help him get drugs. He had to want something. Drugs. Money. Something.
Conrad paced. He thought about seven o’clock when Sport and he would talk again.
Then Agatha began to cry. He stopped pacing. He sat down and held her. They held each other. They urged each other to stay calm, to eat, to keep up strength. They didn’t eat. They couldn’t. They waited. The hands of Conrad’s watch seemed not to move. The gray daylight at the window seemed not to change.
The deadness of time seemed to swell up inside Conrad. There were moments when he wanted to tear his skin to get at it. He wanted to charge out the door, shouting for the police. He wanted to reach through the phone line and drag Sport through it, shake him: “Where’s my daughter?” There was even one moment, after about two hours of this, when he had a fleeting fantasy of getting a kitchen knife and killing both his wife and himself. Anything to make it end.
But that was the worst of it. After that, it seemed, the nature of the day began to change. The very nature of time, it seemed, began to change. It began to move, it began to get quicker. Husband and wife went into the bedroom together. They sat on the edge of the bed and watched TV. Cable news. A new report every half hour. Upheavals in Eastern Europe. An oil-tanker fire in the Persian Gulf. Half hour by half hour, the day began to go by. Conrad stared at the TV, at the news. He thought about Sport. He remembered Sport’s voice—and he remembered his own voice. He had sounded scared; he had been scared, and he had let the sound of it into his voice.
He grit his teeth at the thought. His breath came trembling out of him. He stared at the TV. Actor Mel Gibson was making a new movie. There was snow in the Western states. Colder weather was coming to the East. The light changed at the window, turned to steel. Conrad and Aggie lay down on the bed. She slept for a while and he held her. He stared at the ceiling. He thought about Sport. He thought about seven o’clock.
When Aggie woke up, she decided to get dressed. She stood in a corner and Conrad held his bathrobe up in front of her. Quickly, she put on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt from the Mohonk Mountain House. She looked around the room as she dressed, trying to spot the cameras. When she went to the bathroom, she covered her lap with a towel. Even so, her eyes stung with humiliation.
At five o’clock, they made dinner. They stood at the kitchen counter side by side. They made sandwiches: ham and cheese. Agatha was slicing French bread when she broke down and started to cry again. Conrad almost snapped at her. He wanted to yell: Stop it. Don’t you know you’re killing me? Instead, he put his arm around her shoulder. Crying, she went back to cutting the bread.
At the very end, time slowed again. It almost seemed to stop. The light died outside and night came to the window. Up until then, Conrad had been watching the light. When it’s dark, he’d told himself; when it’s dark, he’ll call. Then, when the light was gone, there was nothing else to watch. For that last half hour, he and Aggie sat at the dinner table. They pushed their plates aside though there was still food on them. They held hands. They tried to smile.
At five of seven, Agatha took his hands in both of hers. She tried to smile, but she was crying again. “Tell them, Nathan … ,” she managed to say. “Tell them … we’ll do anything. Make sure you tell them.”
Please, he thought. Please stop. But he patted her hands and tried to smile too. “It’ll be a
ll right,” he said hoarsely. Agatha tried to nod.
He glanced at his watch. It was seven o’clock exactly. The phone rang.
Conrad stepped to the phone. Aggie was at his shoulder. He took a breath. The phone rang again. He picked it up. There was silence on the other end. He said nothing. He waited.
“Don’t you even say hello, Doctor?” Sport said. “Manners count, you know.”
Conrad took a moment before he answered. He’d had nearly eleven hours to think about this. He wanted to get it right. “Hello, Sport,” he said. And it was good. It sounded calm and strong. The Doctor is in. “Hello, Sport. Let’s talk about my daughter.”
There was a hesitation. Conrad could hear it. Then Sport said, “I’ll tell you what, Doctor. I’ll talk. You listen. That’s the way it is with shrinks, isn’t it? I talk, you listen?” He chuckled quietly. “So you listen, and I’ll tell you exactly what you’re going to do to—”
“No,” said Conrad. He pressed the phone tight against his ear. He stuffed his free hand in his pants pocket so the son of a bitch wouldn’t see it shaking. “No,” he said, “I’m afraid that’s not good enough, Sport.”
“Nathan!” Agatha whispered sharply.
He turned his back on her. Pressed the phone tight against his ear.
On the other end of the line, the fluid voice turned hard and dark. “Careful, Doctor. Remember what we said about mistakes.”
“I do remember, Sp …” Conrad had to stop, had to swallow to get his voice back. “ … Sport. But all the same, before we go on, before you tell me what has to be done, I want you to let me speak to my daughter.”
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