Conrad turned and looked up at him. Looked through the thick black glasses, into the wide eyes distorted by the lenses. Stupid eyes, he realized suddenly. Venal and coarse, yes—but stupid, mostly, and frightened of the smart and complicated world.
“Jerry,” Conrad said sharply. My daughter’s been kidnapped. My house is under surveillance. Please. You’ve got to call the police.
But he didn’t say it. He couldn’t force the words out.
There’ll be someone with you every step of the way. If you make a play, if you make a noise, if you make a mistake … she’ll be dead.
“I guess it is kind of late,” he said softly.
The elevator stopped at three. The door opened.
“Later, Nater.”
Sachs stepped out. Conrad rode to the fourth floor alone.
It was seven-forty now. He had fifty minutes to get it done. He passed the correction officer—that same massive woman—at her desk. He unlocked the ward doors. He walked down the hall toward room number three.
Aides came toward him in the shadowy hall. Others came up behind him and passed by. Conrad avoided their eyes. He clutched his key chain. He looked down at his key chain, at the thick master key.
What is the number? he kept repeating to himself. Just one simple question.
He reached the door and slid the key into the lock …
And as he did, panic mushroomed inside him. His face went clammy. His hand started to shake so hard it made the doorknob rattle.
I can’t … do this. I can’t do this.
He couldn’t breathe. He looked around him and the hall, the lights, the shadowy people, seemed to tilt and fade … .
I can’t do this. Aggie …
He had left her …
Aggie.
He had left his wife alone.
With them.
With them—and who the hell were they? They were watching her, listening to her. And they could come right in. They could pick the locks as they had before. Christ, they could just knock—Aggie would do anything they told her to do. She would do anything to save her baby. How could he have left her there? What kind of man … ?
I can’t …
And now he was going in to see a patient. A severely disturbed woman who had begun to trust him. He was going to ask her a question—and he did not know … anything. Whether they knew her, whether they could help her … Whether their question would hurt her or drive her wild. It might destroy what was left of her sanity—and he didn’t know. He didn’t know.
What number? Why Elizabeth? Why me?
For Christ’s sake, why me?
I don’t want to stay here, Daddy. They’re bad men. Why can’t I come home?
He should have refused. He should have called the police. He should have negotiated …
His vision blurred. His hand kept shaking. Oh, God, he thought, they’re going to kill my daughter.
And he couldn’t help her. He was powerless against them, he was nothing, he couldn’t help, he couldn’t …
“Damn it, damn it, damn it!” he whispered.
He stared at his hand, trying to focus. He fought to control his breathing, to push the breath out with his abdomen, ease it out. The Doctor … . The Doctor is in.
“Goddamn it!”
He swiped quickly, angrily at the sweat on his face, the tears in his eyes. He gripped the key hard until the edges of it dug into his fingers. Until the quaking of his hand slowed to a steady spasm.
What is the number, Elizabeth? That was all—all he had to say, all he had to ask her. He could do that. He could stay in control long enough to do that. He could get to the clocktower on Leonard Street and tell them the number. They would give him his daughter back alive.
Simple as that.
With a fierce effort of will, he swept his mind clean. He turned the key until the knob turned too. The heavy wooden door swung into Elizabeth’s room. Conrad moved in after it. He pulled the key free. The door swung shut behind him with a hollow thud.
And then he stopped. Just over the threshold, he raised his head and stopped. His mouth opened. His hands went cold.
Oh, Jesus. Oh Jesus. Oh Jesus.
The room was empty.
At-Home Mother
The big closet in the nursery was Jessica’s private play-space. Agatha had cleared the floor for the purpose. Jessica liked to sit in there when she wanted to be alone. She would draw or make puzzles. Or she would play with dolls, absorbed in their story, speaking their dialogue quietly to herself.
Ranged around the closet walls, like an audience, sat her stuffed animals. Teddy bears, alligators, martians, clowns. Kermit the Frog, Goofy, Strawberry Shortcake. Her friends—that’s what she called them. As in “Can I bring a friend to the park?” or “Can you sew my friend’s eye back on?”
Agatha was standing now in the closet doorway. She was looking down at Jessica’s friends. There were so many, dozens of them. Jessica hated to throw them away. And when she looked up at you with trembling lips and said, “Oh, don’t throw my friend away, Mommy”—well, what were you supposed to do?
Aggie smiled a little at that—smiled without knowing it, lost in thought. It really did seem as if they’d kept every creature they’d ever gotten. Goofy—he’d been Jessica’s favorite for almost six months when she was three. And Miss Piggy, right up near the front—she’d shared Jessica’s bed through most of last spring. And then there was Snow. Way toward the back of the closet. White Snow.
“Wi no,” Agatha said aloud.
He was a small teddy bear, gray now, even black in some places. He was missing one orange eye. His right paw was leaking foam. A patch of purple stitching marred one side—it had been an emergency and purple thread was all Aggie’d had. Still, it was sad to see old Snow shunted to the back like that. Half buried under Sebastian Crab and a Pound Puppy. Supplanted by a dozen other characters Jessie had seen on TV or at other kids’ houses.
White Snow had been there first, been there before any of them. He was the very first, in fact. Aggie’s mother had brought him to the hospital the day Jessie was born. She’d tucked him under Aggie’s arm where she lay in bed. She’d said, “About time,” and she’d nodded once firmly. Aggie could only shake her head wearily in response. Here she had been the first of her clan ever to graduate from a four-year college; she had left a drab career in social work to win glamour, money, and even a little fame as an artist; she had married her mother’s own ideal of respectability—a Jewish doctor, for heaven’s sake—and this, this now, was the first time the crusty, disappointed old woman had shown the slightest sign of pride or even interest in one of her younger daughter’s accomplishments.
A teddy bear. White Snow.
Of course, the baby didn’t care about the bear in the beginning. For more than a year and a half, the faithful creature just sat nameless and ignored in one corner of her playpen. But one Sunday, just after Christmas, when Jessica was nineteen months old, his time arrived. Nathan was reading in one of the armchairs. Aggie was lying on the sofa, calling out clues to the Times crossword puzzle. Jessica was on the floor, “cribbling” with a crayon on one of Aggie’s drawing pads.
Suddenly, the child looked up. Her eyes opened wide, her jaw dropped. Her finger shot out, pointing urgently at the balcony doors.
“Dis is … ? Dis is … ?” she cried. “Dis is … ?”
Nathan glanced over at the doors. He grinned. “Hey! Dis is snow. Snow.”
“Noe!” said Jessie. She spoke the word with amazement.
She lowered her hand and stared at the big flakes tumbling out of the sky. “Noe!”
“Yeah,” said Nathan. “Pretty neat, huh?”
“Noe!” Jessie wrestled her way to her feet. Toddled over to the playpen as quickly as she could. Agatha laughed. When she hurried like that, she looked, Nathan said, like a robot stumbling downhill. But she’d made it to the pen, reached inside, and plucked out her old teddy bear. She held it up to Nathan. Her voice was strained with urgency. “Noe!”
she cried.
“Yeah, that’s right!” Nathan laughed. “Snow is white. White snow.”
“Wi noe!” Jessica cried out in triumph. “Wi noe!” And she clutched the bear to herself fiercely. Rocked it back and forth in a tremendous hug, cooed over and over in its ear, “Wi noe. Wi noe.”
From that time—oh, for at least a year—she had dragged that bear around with her everywhere. She had taught White Snow the new words she learned. Showed him the pictures in her books. Tucked him into bed for his naps. Held him under her arm when she went to sleep. Aggie even remembered having to give the old bear a good-night kiss every night when he and the child were set down in her crib.
Aggie moved to him now at the back of the closet. She knelt down in front of him. She wanted to straighten him a little: Take Sebastian Crab and the Pound Puppy off him. Maybe move him up a little toward the front. Not too much. Not so much that Jessica would notice it … That is, when she came home … when Nathan brought her back …
Agatha stifled a sob and took the old bear into her arms. She held it tightly. She rubbed her cheek against its worn, patchy gray fur.
“Wi noe,” she said to him.
Her eyes filled. Her vision blurred. She clutched the one-eyed bear to her chest. She could remember—she could feel—the warm weight of the newborn there. The doctor had whapped it onto her swollen breasts like a caught fish. Aggie had still been panting from the labor. She had kept saying, “Oh. A baby. Oh. A baby.” Over and over again. They had had to wait so long. Until Nathan was all well. Until his practice was set up. Until there was money. Until he felt sure. She had looked up and she had seen Nathan standing over her. He had been crying and smiling at once. “Oh,” she had told him. “Oh, Nathan. A baby.” And then later, her mother had come to the hospital and given her the bear. White Snow.
Aggie sniffed her tears back fiercely. She daubed at her eyes with the bear’s ear. Don’t let them see you cry, she thought. Let those sick bastards rot in hell before they see you cry, Aggie. She could feel their cameras everywhere around her—on her, like a stranger’s hands. She could imagine them—silhouetted figures with hot, white eyes—watching her. Watching her.
Who are you, you bastards? Why are you doing this to us?
It took a few more moments before she could relax her hold on the teddy bear. Then she slowly lowered him to the floor, set him in his place. His place in the back of the closet. A place of his own. She rested him against the wall, seated him erect.
Don’t worry, she thought to him. Nathan will get her back. He’ll get her and bring her back, truly. He’s doing it right now.
She had told herself that a hundred times, a thousand times in the half hour since he’d left. Nathan was out there, getting her, right this minute, right now. He hadn’t told her where he was going. They wouldn’t let him, he said. But whatever they wanted him to do, he would do it; whoever they were, whatever they were trying to get from him, he would hand it over and bring back their child. She kept telling herself that. Soon, she kept thinking—in just a couple of hours—by nine-thirty at most, he would walk in, carrying their daughter in his arms.
She looked down once more at the shabby gray bear. It’s going to be all right, she thought. Just hang on. Nathan will bring her back. Everything’s going to be all right …
And just then, the doorbell rang.
Aggie’s breath caught. She didn’t move at first.
Don’t open the door for anyone.
The doorbell rang again.
Aggie raised her eyes, searched the closet ceiling, appealed to the cameras hidden there. What should she do? What did they want her to do?
There was knocking now. Soft, but steady and insistent. What if it was them? What if they wanted to come in? What if they got angry at her for not coming to the door?
The knocking paused a second. The doorbell rang again. Then there was more knocking.
“Mrs. Conrad?” It was a man’s voice, calling to her.
Slowly, Agatha rose to her feet. She moved out of the nursery as if in a trance. Her feet drifted forward as if she were being drawn on by some mysterious force. Her eyes continued to dart from place to place. Searching for cameras. Glancing at the phone: Call, you bastards. Tell me what to do. Let me know what you want. For Christ’s sake, I’ll do it, just call.
“Mrs. Conrad?” The soft, steady rapping continued.
Agatha reached the door. She stood before it, running her fingers up through her hair. What do they want me to do? She couldn’t decide.
Very slowly, she lifted her hand. As quietly as she could, she slid back the cover of the peephole. She leaned forward, peeked out.
The man in the hall waved at her. He was a handsome young man with slick black hair. “Hi, Mrs. Conrad,” he said. “It’s me.”
She wasn’t able to place him for a second. Then it came to her. Price. He was the new neighbor, Billy Price, from 5H. She hadn’t spoken to him except to say hello around the elevator. The building gossip was that he was a twenty-five-year-old stockbroker originally from Topeka, Kansas. Unmarried. Harvard educated. Three younger brothers, parents still living.
“Uh … hi … ?” She had to clear her throat. She moved close to the door and spoke to it. “Could you come back later, Billy? This isn’t a good time. I’m not dressed.”
“Doesn’t bother me any,” said Billy Price. He laughed boyishly. “Come on, Mrs. Conrad. Agatha, isn’t it? You gotta let me in. I know you’re by yourself but … really.”
Aggie didn’t answer. She glanced back at the phone, back at the door. Call, she thought. Tell me. What do you want me to do?
You gotta let me in.
Why would he insist like that? And how could he know she was by herself? Maybe he’d seen Nathan go out but … he’d seen her with Jessica before, he knew she had a daughter. How could he know Jessica wasn’t here now?
“Oh, A-ga-tha.” This time he sang her name out. It sounded threatening, dangerous.
If he wasn’t one of them, why didn’t they call?
“Let me ii-in, Ag-a-tha.”
Without thinking, Aggie shot out her hand. Pulled open the door.
Billy Price stepped inside immediately. Aggie had to step back to get out of his way. He smiled shyly, closing the door behind him.
“Hi. Remember me? Billy Price? From down the hall?” His eyes went up and down her. She was still in her jeans and sweatshirt. She hadn’t put on a bra. When he looked at her, she felt her naked breasts under the shirt. He smiled that shy smile again, but when he raised his eyes to hers, she could see that they were not shy at all. They were hot; they were laughing at her. “I really am sorry,” he went on. “I just wanted to borrow the yellow pages, I haven’t got mine yet. And … the truth is, I knew you were home and I … Well, I haven’t had a chance to get to know you so I … I thought I’d come by. You know?”
“Well, I …” Aggie tried to form the sentence, but her mind was racing. Was he one of them? Why was he toying with her? “It’s—in the kitchen. The phone book. I’ll get it.”
“Oh, there’s no hurry,” said Billy Price. He took another step toward her. He was too close now, she could feel his warm breath on her face. “Really. I thought, you know … What I mean is, I’ve noticed you around the hall, Agatha, and I thought … well, with your family out and all, this might be a good time for us to, I don’t know, talk, sit down together. Get to know each other.”
Then, with the screech of a buzz saw cutting through stone, the phone rang behind her.
Aggie jumped. She gasped. “Sweet Christ!” she said. She spun around.
The phone rang again.
Breathing hard, she glanced back at Billy Price. He was staring at her. She forced a smile.
“Why, it’s the phone,” she said. “Won’t you excuse me?”
Her heart was knocking at her chest as she staggered to it. She turned her back on Price. She picked up the receiver.
“He … Hello … ?”
And a voi
ce shrieked wildly in her ear, “Who’s that, you cunt, you cunt! I told you no one comes in! I’ll cut her open, I’ll cut your little girl in fucking half, you stupid cunt! Tell me who it is now, now, now, now, now!”
“I … How can I … I …”
“All right, cunt!” And then the man said, “Get me the girl.”
“No, I …”
Through a haze of terror, Aggie heard her daughter’s voice in the background: “Let me go! No! Please. Please …” She started crying.
“Please,” Aggie whispered. “I just don’t know how to say it …”
The man’s voice was suddenly calmer, quieter. Aggie could still hear Jessica crying. But it was a cry of fear—Aggie could tell; she wasn’t in pain. Not yet.
“Jessie,” she whispered.
“Listen,” the man on the phone said breathlessly. “I’m your friend. Okay? I’m your friend Louise. You understand me. You say, ‘Oh, hello, Louise.’”
“Oh, hello …” Agatha’s voice cracked. She tried again. “Hello, Louise.”
“Good. Now say, ‘Let me call you right back, Louise. So-and-so just dropped by for such and such a reason.’”
“I … I …”
“Say it, you dumb slash!”
“Yes, uh, let me … let me call you right back, Louise. Uh … Billy Price, my new neighbor from down the hall, he … he just dropped by to borrow a phone book. Just to borrow a phone book.”
“Good,” said the man. “Now, you get that miserable fuckhead out of there in jigtime, cunt, slash, fucking cunt. You’ve got sixty seconds. Then I cut her.” He slammed the phone down.
Agatha lowered the receiver to its cradle. She turned to face Billy Price. Price was still staring at her.
“I’ll get the phone book,” she whispered.
“Uh … really,” Price said a little uncertainly. “Really, there’s no hurry.”
“Yes,” said Agatha. “Really. There is.”
She left him standing there and rushed into the kitchen.
The phone book was always in there—Aggie did most of her talking on the kitchen extension. She had left the book on the windowsill this time. It had been buried under the big cookie tin, a box of Baggies, and a half-eaten bag of pretzels. She held all these in place with one hand. With the other, she started to wrestle the big book out from underneath.
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