Stolen

by Daniel Palmer

  “I love your fear,” Uretsky said, his voice a sharp whisper. “I wish I could eat it. It would fill me up. Tell me more. Are you afraid of Dobson figuring out that you were playing a part?”

  “How did you know?” I asked. A second ago I had been held spell-bound by Uretsky. That spell was broken. Now I wanted answers. “Dobson, I mean. How did you know?”

  The phone felt sweaty pressed up against my ear. The air inside the apartment turned thick and soupy, as though I were on a mountaintop without enough oxygen to sustain me.

  “Check under the lip of the kitchen counter,” Uretsky said.

  I stood, my legs shaky and uncertain as I stumbled over to the kitchen. Ruby stepped out of my way, the panic in my eyes transferring panic into hers.

  I felt underneath the lip of the granite-colored laminate counter of the kitchen island. My fingers grazed against something stuck to the underside of the counter and held in place by a sticky adhesive. I pulled, it didn’t give way easily, but eventually a small object—not much heavier than a quarter—came free. The object, obviously a listening device, was about the length of my ring finger and pinkie put together. A small battery attached to a green-colored circuit board abutted a black plastic rectangle stenciled with the lettering ZA-2. Two thin antennae extended several inches outward from the rectangular compartment.

  “Did you find it?” Uretsky asked.

  “I found it,” I said. “Are there others?”

  “No,” Uretsky said. “That’s the only one.”

  I showed Ruby the listening device and mouthed: “You were right.” She took the device from me, palming it in her hand like it was a bug or the feces from some rodent. She put the device on the kitchen counter and smashed it with the bottom of a saucepan. The force of the strike echoed throughout the tiny apartment like a gunshot.

  “Do you want me to stop?” Uretsky said as soon as the din died down.

  “Yes, you son of a bitch,” I said, snarling. “I want you to stop right now.”

  “Then you’ll have to keep playing the game.”

  I went back to my desk, sat down, and watched Dr. Adams continue to struggle against her restraints. Her determination, the force of her attempts to break free, had the arc of a firework, bright and intense one moment, dimming until vanished the next.

  “I’ll call her office. I’ll tell them she’s been kidnapped.”

  “And I’ll know it, and I’ll kill her.”

  “If I refuse your demands?”

  “Then I’ll keep killing women. And those killings will go on and on, and you’ll know that only you possess the power to stop me. Their blood will be on your hands. And I’ll give proof to Dobson about your insurance fraud scam, too. You’ll be arrested for that crime, and Ruby will be left all alone. Defenseless. Unprotected. Do you get what I’m saying? But you won’t care about that, either, because you can handle the blood of the innocents. You’re comfortable with inflicting death, suffering, and pain. Game over. Well played, John Bodine. Very well played.”

  “I hate you,” I said.

  “No, not yet you don’t,” Uretsky said. “But you will. I’m going to teach you the real meaning of hate.”

  “Tell me exactly what you want me to do,” I said.

  And so Uretsky told me.

  CHAPTER 20

  Ruby and I went to a 7:00 p.m. movie. The film was irrelevant—an action comedy featuring well-paid, well-known actors traipsing about in exotic locales, having lots of chases, driving and crashing lots of cars, firing guns and wisecracks with equal frequency. We didn’t get any snacks. Neither of us could eat. We sat in the back of the theater. I watched the happy couples in front of us laughing at all the jokes and nibbling away on their munchies. It was impossible for me to focus on the make-believe world of this film while I was being held prisoner by my reality.

  My conversation with Uretsky brought back a quote from Franklin D. Roosevelt. I hadn’t thought about that quote since I stopped climbing, but when I came across it in a book I was reading, I thought it appropriate for a guy who trudged himself to great heights and into potentially perilous situations. Roosevelt said during his Pan American Day address of April 15, 1939, “Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.” I used to think about those words while navigating a particularly tricky route—ascending a steep section of rock, negotiating a path around a crystal forest of seracs, which are nothing but giant ice pillars that are prone to collapse. To think I would die on the mountain was, for me, akin to summoning that very fate. Freeing my mind from negative thinking assured me—or so I believed—of a safe ascent and descent.

  Here I was, secure footing, no ropes required, and yet I was a prisoner of my mind. Sure, I could go to the police, but I could not free myself from Uretsky’s grasp. Whenever I tried, I saw Dr. Adams struggling with her restraints and then flashed on her dead body, fingers missing. I imagined the police, with Dobson in tow, coming to arrest me. I pictured Ruby, alone and vulnerable, being stalked by a predator with pruning shears while I sat helpless in a jail cell. Men might not be prisoners of fate, I thought, but I was certainly a prisoner of Elliot Uretsky.

  By the number of explosions and gunshots that sounded in rapid succession, I guessed the film was nearing its denouement. Ruby must have sensed the same, because she nudged me and asked, “What time is it?”

  I checked the time on the iPhone, covering the bright display with my hands.

  “Eight forty,” I said, whispering in her ear.

  “I think we should have kept a lookout. We would have been able to identify him if we had.”

  I shook my head slightly. “We don’t even know if he’s here,” I said. “All he said was that if we left the theater before the film ended, he would know it, and we’d lose the round. You know what that means.”

  “Dr. Adams,” Ruby said. “We did this to her, John. All she did was try and help, and now she’s going to die.”

  “No, she’s not,” I said. “I’m not going to let that happen.”

  Soon as the movie ended, Ruby and I got up from our seats and headed for the exit. We were the first people out the doors of our theater, but I saw a number of men—some with their kids—already entering the men’s room directly to our right. We stepped aside to let the rest of the crowd filter out. Ruby and I waited against the wall until the people entering and leaving the restroom dwindled to a trickle and eventually stopped altogether. The next round of movies was starting up.

  “Wait here,” I said.

  Ruby looked horrified. “What if he tries to take me?” she said. “He won’t,” I said.

  “How do you know?”

  “I just do,” I said. “God help me, but I’m starting to understand his game, his rules, the way he thinks.”

  “But, John—”

  “You just scream, scream as loud as you can if anybody even comes near you. But nobody will. Trust me on this, Rube. I’ll be right back. I promise.”

  I pushed open the restroom door and entered the bathroom. There was nothing special about the space—urinals, stalls, sinks, and a wastebasket overflowing with crumpled-up brown paper. There wasn’t a security camera to be seen, of course. That was all part of Uretsky’s plan. He could be filmed coming into the movie theater, but we didn’t know what he looked like, so he couldn’t be identified. He could enter the restroom, carrying something, probably concealed underneath his coat, but there would be no evidence or recording of what he left behind.

  I looked under the stalls for shoes but didn’t see any poking out. I checked the door. Nobody was coming in. The bathroom was empty. Time to make my move. I dug my hands into the overflowing wastebasket, feeling sticky, wet paper towels, crumpled soda cups, and half-eaten bags of popcorn. If anybody came into the bathroom, I was prepared to say that I’d accidentally tossed my wallet into the trash. Nobody came in. I kept feeling around, digging my hands deeper and deeper into the oily mess, until my fingers brushed up against what felt like a plast
ic bag.

  Bingo.

  I hauled up the bag, spilling the discarded contents resting above it onto the floor. I was cleaning up the droppings and putting them back in the wastebasket when the bathroom door opened and somebody came inside and caught me, literally, holding the bag—a thirteen-gallon white kitchen garbage bag, to be precise.

  “People have no respect for public places,” I said to the man as he squeaked past me to get to his chosen urinal.

  He didn’t say anything in reply. I wouldn’t have said anything to me, either.

  I left the bathroom, returning to the carpeted hallway of the Cineplex. Ruby saw me with the bag.

  “Anything strange happen?” I asked her. “See anybody hanging around, watching you?”

  “No,” Ruby said. She pointed to the bag. “Is that it?” she asked.

  I hefted up the bag to show Ruby that it had weight, and said, “I haven’t looked yet, but I assume so.”

  “Uretsky put it there?”

  I nodded.

  “John, what are we going to do?” Ruby’s voice pierced my heart with the sound of pure desperation.

  “We’re going to get out of this,” I said. “You’ve got to trust me.” We walked in silence back to the car, a bright red Ford Fusion that Ruby referred to as Ziggy, in honor of the David Bowie CD of the same name, which always seemed to be in the CD player whenever we went for a drive. We parked in the garage, away from other cars, but I still looked around to make sure we were far from prying eyes when I finally opened the bag.

  I showed Ruby the first item, a black ski mask with red stitching around the eye and mouth holes. Ruby had to look away. Next, I pulled out a white T-shirt and green army jacket. Uretsky had pinned a note to the jacket. His penmanship was impeccable.

  Sometimes games provide instructions to help you along the way, read Uretsky’s note. Here’s my instruction for you. Wear these clothes when you commit the robbery, and change back into your clothes afterward. That’s what a real criminal would do. I’ll text you with your next steps.

  There was something else in the plastic bag. I reached inside and took the object out. I held it in my hand, surveying its weight, and though I knew steel felt cool, it still burned like a hot coal against my skin.

  “Do you have to use it?” Ruby asked.

  “That’s his rule.”

  “How will he know if you don’t?”

  “It’ll be on the news,” I said. “At least, I imagine it will be.”

  “Not it, John, you. You’ll be on the news.”

  “I don’t know what kind it is,” I said. “I don’t know anything about these things.”

  “Is it loaded?” Ruby asked.

  I raised the gun, careful to point the barrel out the car window in case of an accidental discharge. It took a bit of fumbling, but eventually I figured out how to drop the clip. Sure enough, it was fully loaded.

  “What now?” Ruby asked.

  I showed Ruby the note Uretsky pinned to the olive-green army jacket that had been stuffed inside the white plastic kitchen garbage bag. She was still reading—or probably rereading—the note when my iPhone buzzed. I looked at my phone’s display: Uretsky, who had sent me a text message. He had my phone number, but I knew his would be untraceable. Either he was using a disposable phone or he’d sent it using one of the many text-messaging services that provide the sender with absolute anonymity.

  Uretsky’s text read: It’s now ten o’clock. Giovanni’s Liquors on Kent Street in Somerville will close in exactly one hour. You have that amount of time to rob the proprietor at gunpoint of one hundred fifty dollars cash.

  Uretsky sent Giovanni’s exact street address, but I already knew the store well and could get there without GPS guidance. The liquor store was just a few blocks from where we lived before I became Elliot Uretsky. I’m sure that was intentional. The next text from Uretsky made me fire up Ziggy’s four-cylinder engine and burn rubber peeling out of the parking garage.

  He had sent me a picture of blood-stained pruning shears.

  CHAPTER 21

  I tried to keep my speed down as we crisscrossed Boston’s maddening one-way and dead-end streets. Now, it’s a myth that the winding roads of Boston were originally carved out by aimlessly wandering cows. In truth, it was probably bad planning and topography that determined the haphazard layout.

  Despite the dizzying and vexing street design, I somehow managed to avoid making any wrong turns. We didn’t get pulled over by the cops, either. The ski mask and gun were resting on the floor between Ruby’s feet, and I was sure they would have generated more than a question or two.

  Ruby, meanwhile, had my cell phone out and was using Google Maps to plan our escape route.

  “I could park on Kent Street,” Ruby said, talking fast and in a loud voice. The anxiety came shooting out her throat like an angry swarm of bees.

  “Go on,” I said, punching the gas to pass a slow Honda.

  “You come out of Giovanni’s, and then you run left,” Ruby said, staring at the display screen. “Kent Street will be the first street you come to. You jump into the car, and I’ll turn left onto Somerville Ave. Then I should be able to take a right on Lowell Street.”

  “What about the plates?” I said. “Somebody might see our plates as we’re driving away.”

  “What do you want me to do?” Ruby shouted at me. Her hands and arms were shaking. Strawberry-colored splotches—stress marks—marred her face and neck.

  I heard an angry horn blast to my right, and I jumped a little, not realizing I had drifted into the wrong lane. I got Ziggy back on course and waved to the irritated driver, who delivered a proper Boston salute.

  “It’s okay. It’s okay,” I said to Ruby. My brain kicked into another gear, one honed from years of climbing, which had heightened my ability for impromptu thinking.

  “Here’s what’s going to happen,” I said. “You park on Kent Street. You get out of the car. You walk away. You’ll leave the trunk open. Got it? You leave it open.” I glanced over at Ruby, then back to the road. A fender bender would mean a death sentence for Dr. Adams. “Got it?” I asked again, this time more forcibly as I changed lanes.

  “Got it,” Ruby said, a stab of disgust to her voice.

  “When I get to the car, I’ll climb inside the trunk and close it myself. You wait twenty, thirty minutes, and then get back into the car and drive away. Don’t open the trunk to let me out until we’ve got Ziggy parked in the alley behind the Harvard Street apartment. It’s dark back there. Nobody will see me climbing out.”

  Ruby stayed quiet for a moment, showing me her profound displeasure. “Shit, John,” she said. “You know something? You sound like a real criminal.”

  I parked Ziggy a few blocks away from Kent Street, and then I checked the time. Ten thirty at night already. The minutes were passing.

  “I’ll walk from here,” I said. “You’ll have plenty of time to get Ziggy over to Kent Street. You can hang out at the Arrow Lounge while you’re waiting the twenty or so minutes I need to pull this off. It’s close by.”

  Ruby and I had been to the Arrow Lounge before. We both knew this neighborhood well. Hell, I’d bought booze from Giovanni not that long ago. I reached over and picked up the gun from between Ruby’s feet, dropped the clip—this time without fumbling—and emptied the bullets into the palm of my hand.

  “What are you doing?” Ruby asked.

  The look I gave suggested the intent of my actions should be obvious. “What do you mean, what am I doing? I’m not going in there with a loaded weapon. Did you think I was?”

  “John!” she yelled, sounding more frightened than angry. “What if Giovanni is armed?”

  I shrugged my hands.

  “You’ll have no protection,” she went on.

  “I’m not going to shoot Giovanni, no matter what,” I said.

  Ruby covered her mouth with her hands. “Maybe we should just forget this,” she said in a muffled voice. “Let’s go to the police r
ight now. Let’s do it.”

  I grabbed my phone and showed Ruby Uretsky’s last text message—the one with a picture included. She sucked in a horrified breath, grimaced, and quickly looked away.

  “That’s Rhonda Jennings’s blood on those pruning shears,” I said. “Next, it will be Dr. Adams’s. I can’t face the guilt of causing another death. You can’t either, Ruby. She helped save your life. We need to do the same.”

  “How would he even know you robbed the store?” Ruby asked.

  I threw my hands in the air in a “Beats me” gesture. “Like I said, maybe he thinks it’ll be on the news. I don’t really know. I mean, how did he find out our real identities? How did he know I was talking to Clegg outside O’Brian’s? How?”

  Ruby’s expression became contemplative. She turned her head and gazed out Ziggy’s fogged-up window.

  “What is it?” I asked her.

  “When we got back to the apartment . . . after . . . after what happened to Rhonda, you told me that David arrested somebody right before Uretsky called.”

  “Yeah, that’s right,” I said, nodding.

  I glanced at the time. Five minutes had ticked past; time kept moving like it was high on speed.

  “The guy he arrested was inside Clegg’s car when Uretsky called.”

  I nodded again. “So?” I asked, back to watching the time.

  “Could you see inside the car, John?” Ruby asked.

  I swallowed hard.

  “No,” I said.

  “I’m just saying—”

  I understood right away. “You think that the guy Clegg arrested was Uretsky?” I recalled the man’s face: boyish features, sharp nose, thin frame, buzz-cut hair. Could he be Elliot Uretsky? “But he’d be in jail if that were so,” I said.

  “He could have posted bail.”

  I nodded. “But that doesn’t explain how he knows so much about us,” I said. “Or how he made a phone call with handcuffs on.”

  “Not if . . . not if Clegg . . .”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying, what if Clegg is in on it?”