Don't Say a Word

by Andrew Klavan

  “Yeah, well … We had to do something, lady,” D’Annunzio said. “I mean, these guys sound very serious. Cameras and shit—excuse my language. But I mean, I’ve seen this kind of thing before. When they take the trouble to use cameras, you know you’re dealing with serious people.”

  Agatha looked down the hall. She wrung her hands in front of her. “You shouldn’t have. I … I …”

  “All right, all right, don’t panic,” said D’Annunzio. With another grunt, he climbed to his feet. He began to run his hand up the shower wall as if he were feeling for something. “This has got to look good. Smile. We’re just having a friendly conversation with the plumber.”

  Agatha did not smile. She looked at the man. She studied his back. Yes, she thought. He could be a cop. He could be.

  “I shouldn’t stay too long either,” D’Annunzio said. “Just tell me whatever you can, as fast as you can.”

  Agatha kept wringing her hands. Her hands felt cold and damp. Once more, she glanced down the hall. She drew a deep breath. All right, she thought. All right. No-choice is the easy choice.

  She nodded. She smiled—sweetly—the way she had smiled at Billy Price. She swallowed hard. “They took my daughter,” she said, smiling. “Last night. They just came in … . They’re watching us. They can talk over our phone. They say they’re listening, that they have microphones, but I don’t think they do. But they can definitely see us. They’ve got me trapped here.”

  “Keep going,” said D’Annunzio. “What’s Jessica look like? How old is she?” He kept feeling the walls.

  Agatha forced her smile up again. “She’s five. She has long sandy hair, blue eyes, round cheeks. She’s very pretty. She was wearing a nightgown with valentines …” She couldn’t go on. She would’ve started crying.

  “How about the kidnappers?” D’Annunzio said. “You’ve talked to them?”

  “Yes. One of them. He’s very … cruel. Angry.”

  “Anything that indicates where he might be? A noise on the line. A slip of the tongue.”

  She thought a moment. She glanced down the hall toward the silent phone. “No. Look, you shouldn’t stay anymore. You should go. I mean it.”

  D’Annunzio turned to face her. He looked at her with kind, melancholy cop’s eyes. He nodded once. “Okay,” he said.

  He knelt down and placed his wrench back in his toolbox. He closed the box and latched it.

  “Where’s your husband?” he said.

  “I don’t know. He had to go out. He said he had to do something and then they would give our daughter back. They wouldn’t let him … They told him not to tell me where he’d be … . But he said he would meet with them”—she had to clear her throat—“at nine.”

  D’Annunzio nodded. He smiled and winked. He could’ve been saying: No leak in the plumbing here, lady. Everything’s copacetic. A-OK.

  But what he said was, “Good. We’ll track him down.”

  Agatha nodded, smiling back at him. “Be careful. For God’s sake, please.”

  D’Annunzio left the bathroom first. Agatha followed him down the hall. He opened the front door and lifted a hand to her. He grinned.

  “We’ll get her back for you, Mrs. Conrad. You have my word. Don’t do anything suspicious. And try to stay calm.”

  Tears flooded Agatha’s eyes. She said nothing. She kept her stupid smile plastered in place. She moved to the door as D’Annunzio stepped into the hall.

  She looked out into the hall as he moved away from her. One step, she thought. One step over the threshold, and she would be free.

  She smiled once more at D’Annunzio as he walked away. Then she pushed the door closed, shutting herself into her apartment.

  She turned to the phone again. It didn’t ring.

  Plumber’s Helper

  The moment he was out of the Conrads’ apartment, Sport began to strip off the plumber’s overalls. He hurried down the hall to the far apartment, 5H. He glanced back over his shoulder to check the empty hall. To make sure Aggie Conrad stayed safely out of sight.

  Oh, he thought, there’s a smart cunt all right. He peeled the green suit off his arms. There was no question about it. She was one smart little mommy. Pretending to be a sweet little hausfrau who wouldn’t hurt a fly. And all the time the wheels are turning. All the time she was thinking how to get you, how to get at you, go for your balls. Sport knew that type; he hated that type. He hadn’t minded the doctor so much. He liked the doctor in a way. The doctor was tough. Sport could respect that. But this one … She was just smart and tricky. Just playing on a man’s mistakes. No, he had no time for that at all.

  Well, he thought. It was his own fault. It was his own damn mistake that gave her the leeway. He had known he’d fucked up the minute he hung up on her that first time. The minute he calmed down a little, he realized he had given himself away. He had watched her through the binoculars, waiting to see if she’d noticed it. And she’d noticed it, all right. Smart, sneaky little cunt. Sport could see it on that punk’s face, that Billy Price. She was telling him everything, telling him to call the cops. She had realized that there were no microphones.

  He reached the door of 5H now, knocked quietly. As he waited for an answer, he finished taking off the overalls. His lips were moving silently as his angry thoughts raced.

  This was what he’d wanted to avoid all along. The whole point had been to avoid personal contact with anyone, so that even if he got caught, there’d be no one to identify him. But he’d had to find out what the Conrad bitch knew—and now she’d seen him.

  “Shit,” he whispered aloud.

  Now they’d have to move too. A smart cunt like that, once she knew there were no microphones, she might begin to wonder why she couldn’t see any cameras either. She might figure out that they were watching her from across the courtyard. Then—if she did manage to contact the cops—then they’d have real problems on their hands.

  No, they would wait a bit, give Sport time to get on the road—then Maxwell would take the kid back to the old place.

  He knocked at the door again, louder. His overalls were off now. He was in his jacket and tie again. His D’Annunzio outfit. A navy sports coat, a blue shirt, a striped tie. Classic American cop. He had used this earlier to talk his way into Price’s apartment. He wrapped the overalls around his work box. He tucked the bundle under his arm. He shook his head.

  Never should’ve happened, he thought. The whole thing never even should have started. All he’d wanted was to get out of the Correction Department, stop being a god-damned guard, take his crack at a singing career, a new life. That was all. And there’d been money enough for that. After his accident, after his settlement with the city, there’d been money enough for that and more. But he had to get smart. He had to start listening to Eddie the Screw. Christ! What could’ve possessed him? That old man, that old rummy: Eddie. He’d been sitting in the old Harbor Bar, where the Rikers guards gathered, for three straight months—ever since he’d gotten out of jail. He’d been telling the same story over and over again to anyone who’d listen, to any Rikers guard young enough or polite enough or drunk enough to listen: “Oh, when I was a CO like you, I was no fool, not me. I ran the drug trade in the department, made myself a little fortune, that’s right. And when the feds came after me, did they get a piece of it, did they get any of it? No, sir. No, sir, I outsmarted them all.” Every night, night after night, he went on and on about it. No one really believed him, no one really paid attention to him. Until Sport suddenly had his brainstorm, suddenly decided—hey, maybe he’s serious. And after that, it was all this goose chase, this bullshit scam, this treasure hunt …

  He heard the peephole cover slide back. He took a deep breath, composed his features. Then Billy Price’s door opened a crack. Sport stepped in.

  Maxwell closed the door behind him. The big man stood over him, his great shoulders hunched, his small, babyish face jutting forward. It was that guilty-little-boy look he always got afterward. As jumpy as Spor
t felt, he could not really get mad at the guy.

  “Did he call the cop back?” Sport asked.

  “Yeah,” Maxwell said. He gave a little laugh when he said it. His eyes shone. “Yeah. D’Annunzio was still there too. He told D’Annunzio not to come. He told him they’d found the girl.”

  “Good,” said Sport.

  Maxwell laughed again. It was almost a giggle. “I took his pants off. I held his balls.”

  Sport snorted. “I guess that would convince him.”

  “I said I’d leave him alone if he did it right.” A childish laugh burst from him machine-gun style.

  Sport smiled with one side of his mouth. He looked at the monster and shook his head. What a fucking character, he thought.

  Almost reluctantly, Sport moved out of the foyer, deeper into the apartment. He thought, might as well see what we’ve accomplished here. The apartment was not yet fully furnished. There were no pictures hung on the walls. There were no carpets on the parquet floor. Some boxes still sat unopened in the corners. But the glass and metal bookcases had been set up. There were photographs on them, and books and knickknacks. And there was a sitting area by the far windows: a coffee table, a wicker sofa, some Breuer chairs.

  Billy Price was sitting in one of the Breuer chairs. He was wearing a black sweatshirt. He was naked from the waist down. His mouth was taped shut. His hands were taped behind his back. His head flopped to one side like a rag doll’s. His eyes were open.

  His throat had been crushed—really crushed. Sport gave a soft whistle when he saw it. It looked as if a train had run over the guy’s neck or something. Sport lowered his eyes to Price’s crotch. Jesus Christ, he thought, shaking his head. That crazy, crazy Maxwell.

  Maxwell still hovered behind him, shoulders hunched, face jutting. He watched Sport eagerly, expectantly. Sport turned to him, gave him a big smile and a wink. He reached up to pat his thick shoulder with his hand.

  “Way to go, big guy. Looks good,” he said.

  Maxwell nodded and smiled. Sport took one more quick look around the room.

  “Okay. Let’s go.”

  Maxwell’s smile faltered. “What about the Conrad woman? Shouldn’t we do her too?”

  Sport shook his head. “She doesn’t know anything. She doesn’t know where we are. She still thinks we got cameras in there.”

  Maxwell sighed and straightened. He nodded somberly.

  Sport gave a sympathetic laugh. “That was the whole point, see? Now she thinks the cops have been there. Now she’ll just sit tight. She won’t do anything till we’re done.”

  “She won’t do anything if she’s dead either,” said Maxwell.

  Sport laughed again. Thank you, Professor Pinhead, he thought. “No, no,” he said. “See, then we’d have to worry about the doctor, okay? He’s smart, see, and he knows what’s happening. He got me to let him talk to the kid before. He could pull something like that again. You know? If he finds out his wife or the kid are hurt, we lose him, then we’re screwed. You see what I’m saying?”

  Maxwell hung above him, looking down at him. Does he see what I’m saying? Sport thought. What a stupid question. The guy couldn’t pull the wings off a fly without an instruction manual.

  Sport gave Maxwell a playful slap on his meaty arm. “Hey,” he said. “Hey. You wanna be rich, don’t ya? You wanna go away?”

  Maxwell wagged his head.

  “You wanna have all the boys and girls you want and not have to go to jail anymore, right?”

  “Yeah,” said the big man sullenly.

  “Well, then we gotta get on the horn here, pal. I’m gonna need time to get down to the clocktower. And you gotta pack up. We’re moving you back to the old place.”

  “Aww,” Maxwell said.

  “For Christ’s sake, it’s just for a few hours. Just in case the woman figures things out. She was smart about the microphones.”

  “She wouldn’t be smart if she was dead,” Maxwell muttered.

  Sport laughed and shook his head again. He kept shaking his head as he walked to the door. Maxwell shuffled after him.

  The Kid

  They had left Jessica lying on the bed. They had taped her hands behind her back. They had taped her ankles together. They had taped her mouth shut. They had left the television on. “It’ll give her something to do,” Sport had said. The room was dark except for the TV’s flickering light.

  The little girl lay on her side. She was trying to keep her eyes open. They kept sinking half closed though. The blue of her eyes seemed foggy, as if the light in them were going out. Her face, her round cheeks, were mottled, red in patches and then chalky. Her mother had braided her hair to keep it from getting tangled at night, but the braid had started to come undone.

  Jessica felt sick and bad. The chloroform had made her stomach hurt. She was scared of vomiting. She thought she would have to swallow the vomit because of the tape over her mouth. She had peed on the mattress too and she felt bad about that. She couldn’t help it. She had held it in as long as she could, but it had finally come out. Now she had to lie there on the wet bed. And there was pee all over her valentine nightgown, her favorite. After a while, she started to cry again. It felt like she was suffocating. It made her feel dizzy. Sleepy. She closed her eyes.

  She slept, but even then she felt hot. When she woke up, there was sweat on her forehead. It felt like the time she had had chicken pox, like that bad fever she had then. It made her want to sleep again, but she was too sick.

  She stared at the TV. There were two men talking there. She hoped her daddy would come soon. He had told her on the phone: You’ll be home soon. She thought he must be coming to get her now. She thought he would knock on the door very loudly—so loudly that the bad men would be scared and have to let him in. And then the bad men would see him and they would be really scared because he would be very, very mad. He would look all dark and growly the way he did that time she stood up on the big rock in Central Park when he’d told her not to. And Daddy would hit them. (Daddy did not think hitting was right—that’s why he never hit her—but he would make an exception in this case.) He would punch the bad men right in the nose. He might have to hit the big one with a stick or shoot him with a gun. And then Jessica would go over and hit them too.

  Oh, but now she felt sick. She felt so sick. She really was going to throw up. The tape over her mouth seemed to be choking her. Tears sprang to her eyes. Mommy! she thought. Suddenly, in a fit of frustration, she tried to pull her hands apart. She rolled frantically back and forth on the bed. She was crying. She tried to breathe in and couldn’t. Her eyes rolled in her head. She lay still. She felt hot and far away.

  A little while later, she was awake again. She felt even sicker than before, even hotter. She was starting to cry though, and she couldn’t breathe. Oh, Mommy, she thought. She gave one of her hands a sharp, short pull upward.

  The hand came free.

  For a second, Jessica didn’t even think about it. She just reached up and picked at the tape on her mouth. It hurt but she didn’t care. She had to get it off. She had to breathe.

  She peeled the tape off. She lifted herself up a little. She thought she was going to throw up. She gagged. Her tongue stuck out of her mouth. But there was no vomit. She settled down on the mattress again, moving away from the wet part. She lay still and took deep breaths.

  And then it occurred to her: her hands were free.

  She brought her arms around in front of her. They were stiff, sore. She rubbed her wrists. She still felt sick, but she didn’t feel as hot or dizzy as before.

  As she looked at her hands, she began to get worried. She glanced up at the door. Maybe she should try to put the tape back on, she thought. The bad men would be angry if they saw she had taken it off. She hadn’t meant to do it really. It had just happened. Because she couldn’t breathe. But they might not understand that. They might think she was being bad.

  Maybe, though, she could wait. She had heard the bad men go out a while ago
. Maybe she could wait until they got back and then put the tape on real quick before they saw her. It was still wrapped around one hand. She could just slip the other hand into the loop. And put the tape over her mouth again too.

  Moe, the Turtle Tot, was lying on the bed next to her. Sport had left it there, “That’ll keep you company,” he’d said, after he’d taped her up. Jessica reached out and took hold of Moe. She pulled him close and leaned her cheek against him. She began to suck her thumb. She knew it was a babyish thing to do, but she couldn’t help it now. She stared at the television. A commercial had come on now. Little boys and girls were running in a playground. One of the boys fell and got his shirt all dirty. His mommy had to wash it in the laundry.

  Jessica wished her mommy was here.

  Jessica slept for a little while—she didn’t know how long. When she woke up, there were more commercials on the television. She was glad for a second because she did not feel as nauseated as she had before.

  But then she thought, What if the bad men had come back while she was sleeping? She looked at the door. She listened. She couldn’t hear anything besides the TV.

  At first, she thought she should put the tape back on just in case. But she did not want to put the tape on her mouth again. Maybe, if she was very quiet, she could peek outside and make sure the bad men were still gone.

  That was what she decided to do.

  She sat up, glancing at the door to make sure no one came in. She slowly scraped the tape off her ankles. It didn’t hurt as much there as it had on her mouth. When the tape was off, she put it on the bed so she could use it later when the bad men came back. Then she climbed off the bed. Hugging Moe under one arm, sucking her thumb, she started walking to the door.

  She walked very quietly, on tiptoe. Blue light from the TV danced over the door. She felt the wet spot on her valentine nightgown against her leg. She hated that. She had tried so hard to hold it in. Mommy would understand that when she told her, but she hated it all the same.