“You think Uretsky is working with Clegg?”
My incredulousness was evident.
Ruby nodded, and vigorously. “What if David snapped? Survivor’s guilt, or something like that, and he blames you for picking him over Brooks. You said he’s getting divorced, right?”
I nodded.
“Maybe that pushed him over the edge,” Ruby continued. “Some kind of stress-induced insanity. I don’t know. I’m just thinking out loud here.”
I brushed the idea off like it was something crawling up my neck.
“No,” I said. “That’s crazy.”
I wouldn’t admit it—not then, anyway—but Ruby had dug a foothold into my rock of denial, and I’d begun to imagine the impossible. I recalled what Clegg had said to me inside the bar. Here’s your living proof that crime doesn’t pay. Why did he say that?
I glanced again at the time. Ten forty.
“We’ll talk about this later,” I said. “After.” I moved to open the door.
Ruby reached across her seat and grabbed my arm. “John, what if there are other people in the store?”
I gripped her hand. “I’m going for the cash, and then I’m gone.”
“Yeah, well, what if somebody tries to stop you? You know, plays the hero.”
“I’ll wait until the store is empty.”
“What if you can’t?”
“I don’t know, Ruby!” I didn’t mean to shout at her, but my nerves were already frayed and on edge.
“Maybe you can hand him a note?”
“A note?”
“Explaining what’s going on,” Ruby said.
“And then take his hundred fifty dollars?”
“Tell him you just need to pretend to steal the money.”
“He won’t go for it. He’ll think I’m crazy.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I’d think I was crazy.”
“I want to kill him,” Ruby said.
“Me too,” I answered.
I tried to move, but Ruby wouldn’t let go of my arm.
“What if he sees you running toward Kent Street?” she asked.
“Who?”
“Giovanni. What if Giovanni sees you running toward Kent Street?” This made me pause.
“Shit,” I said.
“The police might start searching the cars.”
“Make it an hour,” I said.
“An hour?”
“Leave me in the trunk for an hour. They can’t just pop the trunk without having probable cause. A parked car isn’t probable cause.”
Ruby looked pleased by something. “I don’t know if you’ll even have enough air for an hour. I’m not going to wait that long. There’s a railroad track running perpendicular to Kent Street,” she said, remembering. “I saw it on the Google map. Maybe they’ll think you ran down the tracks.”
“Maybe,” I said.
She clutched my hands and looked intently into my eyes. “Don’t do this, John,” she said.
“I don’t have a choice.”
I took off my shirt and put on the clothes Uretsky had provided for me. Just the feel of the fabric made my skin itch, and the thought that Uretsky might have once worn these clothes made me want to burn them. I decided I’d do just that—each article of clothing I’d incinerate into ash. I got the shirt and jacket on. Next, I pulled the ski mask over my head, just to test it out.
“How do I look?” I asked Ruby.
I watched Ruby gulp down her concern.
“Scary, John,” she said. “You look really, really scary.”
CHAPTER 22
I tucked the gun into the waistband of my jeans, stuffed the ski mask inside the pocket of Uretsky’s green army jacket, and kissed Ruby good-bye. It was a long kiss, more desperate than passionate, the kind that spoke of final farewells. Forget the maxim “Live each day like it’s your last.” If I lived each day feeling like this, I’d go totally insane.
I hurried along the concrete sidewalk, a block away from Giovanni’s, and kept my head low. Taking a glance down Kent Street, I saw ample parking for Ruby. Thankfully, there were already several parked cars in addition to the available spaces. A deserted street might have drawn unwanted police attention to a lone car. Parking here required a resident permit, which we happened to have. Was it happenstance that Uretsky picked a store for me to hit in our neighborhood or part of his planning? I had no way to know. I just kept walking.
I knew this neighborhood well—it was far removed from the livelier locales of Somerville—so it was no surprise to find the streets quiet at this time of night. A weeknight in a quiet neighborhood meant fewer cars on the road, too, and fewer witnesses to my upcoming crime. Was that part of Uretsky’s planning as well? Did he want this to be a layup, because he wanted me to get away and keep playing his twisted game? Another maxim came to me, the tried and true: Only time will tell.
Yes, time would indeed tell all.
Low scudding clouds, dirty and gray as the sidewalk, glowed eerily above the city lights, providing a foreboding canopy under which I walked. I took another glance at my cell phone. Ten fifty-five. Five minutes until showtime. I had shut my ringer off because I didn’t want anything to distract me while I was pointing an unloaded gun at an innocent man’s chest.
Ruby had sent me a text message. I love you, she wrote. Be safe. Please be safe. XOXO I LOVE YOU I LOVEYOU I LOVEYOU
“I love you, too,” I whispered to the air.
I texted her back. I’ll be safe. I love you more than anything. Then I shut off my phone.
I quickened my pace crossing the sidewalk in front of a shopping plaza. The wide parking lot that abutted a Family Dollar Store, Papa John’s Pizza, and a dog grooming business created an open area that left me feeling vulnerable and exposed as I passed. I crossed over a side street, relieved that a yellow-brick café called City Munchies provided some shelter. The lights above the café’s orange-colored awnings were on, but those inside the store were not. Quiet streets could mean a quiet liquor store. I hoped Giovanni had serviced his last customer before I went barging in. Witnesses were bad enough, but hostages would be a heck of a lot worse.
I’m doing this for Dr. Adams, for Rhonda, for Ruby. . . .
Giovanni’s occupied the lower level of a three-story, vinyl-sided building. I saw a few lights on in the apartments above the store, meaning people were at home—people who might see me dashing out Giovanni’s front door, headed straight for Kent Street. I said a silent prayer, not just one evoking God’s name, but a real honest-to-goodness prayer, something I’d never done before, even on my most perilous climbs. Nature had always been my religion, but at that moment I needed a dose of the more powerful to guide me.
I decided to do a walk by first, check things out, and get a lay of the land. A quick glance inside the liquor store would allow me to scope out the scene before I went barging in with gun drawn. The neon glow from an array of beer signs hanging in the store windows lit my face as I ambled past. I took a quick glance inside, so focused on my surveillance that I momentarily lost my footing. I regained my balance and finished crossing in front of the store, taking quicker steps than before.
On what had to have been the most conspicuous walk by in crime history, I managed to catch a quick glimpse inside and saw the guy working the cash register. I assumed he was Giovanni. If so, Giovanni was a portly fellow, with a dark oil slick of pomade-covered hair, wearing a short-sleeved button-down black shirt that showcased two beefy—and hairy—forearms. He looked bored leaning up against his counter, aggressively chewing on something—an entire pack of gum, or so it seemed to me. I didn’t see anybody else inside.
I stood in the doorway of the adjacent hardware store. My chest heaved while I labored for breath. My throat closed up, heart rate jacked, blood thudding in my ears, hands slippery, and my skin clammy to the touch. I took in a bunch of short breaths the way a free diver readies himself to take a plunge.
“You can do this. . . . You can d
o this. . . . You can do this . . . ,” I said aloud.
The front door shouldn’t be locked, I thought, though I didn’t check it on my flyby. I could imagine Giovanni’s stunned expression were he to see a man in a ski mask, pulling haplessly on his locked front door. That would make the news for sure.
I took several furtive glances up and down the street while withdrawing the ski mask from my jacket pocket. I pulled the mask over my head, feeling the wool scratching against my face. I was hit by an instant uptick of adrenaline, the mask somehow emboldening me. I reached into the waistband of my jeans and gripped the gun with my sweat-slickened fingers. I looked left, then right. It was clear in both directions.
Springing from the shadows of the hardware store, I made a dash to the adjacent building, grabbed hold of the door handle to Giovanni’s Liquors, and pulled the door open. I burst into the store with my arm outstretched and the unloaded gun trained on Giovanni. It didn’t sound like me shouting: “Get your hands up. This is a robbery!”
But it was.
CHAPTER 23
By the time I came through the doorway, Giovanni had his hands high in the air. I could see the white folds of fat where his shirt had lifted up, black hairs peppering his ample midsection. Under the glow of overhead fluorescents, I ran across the linoleum toward the cash register while Giovanni was saying, in a thick Italian accent, “Don’t shoot! Please don’t shoot! Please!” His plaintive cries rung in my ears but didn’t deter me.
I wanted to rip off my mask and tell him everything. Show him the picture of the bloody pruning shears Uretsky would use to sever Dr. Adams’s fingers, but I knew he wouldn’t believe me, so I didn’t lower my weapon.
I thought there weren’t other patrons in the store when I burst inside. Prejudging situations I couldn’t foresee was what got me off so many mountaintops, but this time around, that sixth sense failed me, and in a big way. A bespectacled elderly woman with a hard-bitten face and crinkly hair—mostly gray—wearing a ratty navy overcoat, emerged from behind the aisle of peach schnapps, holding two plastic bottles of the worst kind of vodka. I didn’t expect to see an old woman in the store at this late hour, but she had veins that looked like they had absorbed a lot of alcohol over the years.
The lady shrieked when she saw me and dropped both bottles onto the floor. They thudded and rolled but didn’t break. I looked at her long enough to see her slip into an aisle, one black orthopedic shoe disappearing, followed by the other.
I returned my attention to Giovanni. How must I have looked to him—gun shaking in my outstretched hand, head covered by a dark mask with red stitching around the eyes and mouth? He looked frightened enough, but his mouth kept on working.
Chewing. Chewing. Chewing.
I approached Giovanni with prudent steps, as if I was crossing a ridgeline and not a floor. Without turning my head, I called out “Ma’am” to the old woman who had vanished down an aisle behind me. “Please come out where I can see you. I promise I’m not going to hurt you.”
Giovanni was shaking. He looked pale and sweaty, but that didn’t stop him from working whatever he had in his mouth.
“Ma’am,” I shouted again. “Just come out where I can see you.” I didn’t like the quaver in my voice. It sounded nervous. I closed the short gap between the cash register and myself with shuffling side steps. Twice I glanced behind me, but seeing no sign of the old lady, I snapped my neck back to look again at Giovanni. I got close enough to poke Giovanni’s chest with the gun barrel. Close up, I could see his big teeth gnashing away on something black and pink. Gum mixed with tobacco? That’s what it looked like to me. My suspicion was confirmed when I spied a dribble of brownish spittle that slid between his lips and snaked down his chin. Giovanni risked lowering his hand to wipe away the dribbling mess. He lowered his hand calmly, without asking permission, which made me think he was pretending to act nervous. I should have paid more attention to that fleeting thought.
“I’m really, really sorry about this,” I said. “I don’t want to do this, but I need a hundred and fifty dollars in cash from your register, or a woman will die.”
“What?” Giovanni said.
I could see him try to puzzle through my explanation for this crime. Cash from your register, he got, and got that pretty clearly, too. The woman will die part? Well, that must have been nonsensical.
“Please,” I said, glancing behind me again for signs of the old woman. “If you give me a hundred and fifty dollars, you’ll save a woman’s life. I’ll repay you. I promise.”
“You a crazy man,” Giovanni said, gesticulating with his raised hands. “Please don’t hurt me, crazy man. Please. I give you what you need. Please. A hundred fifty dollars, right? I get it. Right now. I get it for you. Just don’t shoot.”
Giovanni patted the air with the palms of his hands, a gesture that implored me to remain calm. Then he bent at the knees and started to drop out of my view. He didn’t ask my permission to move. That should have been my second clue that something wasn’t quite right.
All of this happened in a matter of seconds, but that was all the time Giovanni needed. He popped back up like a jack-in-the-box, wielding a twenty-eight-inch metal bat.
I’d never seen a 250-plus-pound man vault a four-foot counter, but Giovanni went up and over like he was hurdling a laundry basket. Before I could back away, he swung the bat at me, level with my arm, while shouting a string of expletives in Italian. I could see the veins on his neck bulge like thick strands of climbing rope. His protruding muscles were rippled from years of hauling boxes of booze.
I dodged his swing just in time to avoid a direct strike. The head of the bat, however, connected with my gun hand, and I felt a flash of pain rocket up my arm. The gun fell with a clatter—no risk of discharge there.
Giovanni charged. Streams of brown spit sprayed from between his snarled lips. His eyes, clear and focused, narrowed on me. He raised the bat again and swung.
I ducked, allowing the bat to strike a triple-high stacked display of Two-Buck Chuck wine instead of my head. Half a dozen bottles set atop a sealed cardboard box shattered on impact, spewing a geyser of red wine that splashed my face and clothes in a splatter that looked a lot like blood.
Giovanni came at me again, the bat slung over his right shoulder, like a plus-size Babe Ruth with a vendetta. He backed me up against a magazine rack, so there was no place for me to go but down to the floor. I shielded my head with my hands, readying myself for the strike, but it didn’t happen.
I looked up just in time to see Giovanni’s feet slip out from underneath him—the wine had turned the linoleum into an ice rink. He crashed hard onto his back, shaking the floor on impact. The bat dropped from his hand and rolled noisily into the shattered wine display.
I rose from my crouch and went for the cash register. I was thinking I could grab the cash and make it out the door before Giovanni regained his footing. Ah, but “the best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men go often awry,” or so the Robert Burns poem goes (Ruby was an English lit major in college). I made it to the cash register all right, but when I got there, I saw that Giovanni wasn’t trying to get up off the floor. Instead, he lay on his back with his legs kicking wildly and his hands clutching at his meaty throat, gulping for air. He made a slight coughing sound, but nothing more. One of Giovanni’s thrashing feet kicked the gun down an aisle and out of my view.
I forgot all about the cash and thought only of Giovanni. Was he having a heart attack? I wondered if he might be having a seizure, but saw his skin turn a disturbing bluish gray and his fingernails darken. I went over to him and bent low. I approached cautiously.
“Can you talk?” I shouted. “Are you all right?”
Obviously, he wasn’t. Giovanni responded with another wheezing cough, all the while keeping his hands wrapped firmly around his throat. Choking, I thought. He’s choking to death on that hunk of gum and tobacco he’d been chewing.
I knew how to administer first aid, so I didn’t feel pani
cky about what to do next. It would be impossible for me to get him into a standing position to administer the Heimlich maneuver. I needed to employ a different approach.
Still wearing my ski mask and green army jacket, I straddled Giovanni’s thighs. I placed the heels of my hands, one on top of the other, against the middle of his fleshy abdomen and administered two thrusts, pressing inward and upward to help dislodge the object.
Before I could administer the third thrust of five, I felt a heavy thud against my head. I winced, but the blow was more startling than painful. I looked to see what struck me and saw the old woman, purse in hand, hoisting the makeshift weapon above her head, ready to make another strike.
“You get off him!” she yelled, though the force of her voice had clearly diminished with age. “You stop hurting him right now.”
I felt like John trying to save a life, but the woman’s petrified expression reminded me that I still had my frightening black ski mask on.
“Ma’am,” I said. “This man is choking to death. I’m trying to help him.”
At least I had the wherewithal to address her as “Ma’am.” Meanwhile, she had the wherewithal to strike me again with her purse, repeatedly. Ignoring the blows, I administered three more thrusts. Whirling around, I straddled Giovanni again, this time facing his head. He bucked beneath me like a wild stallion, but my thighs dug into his side hard enough to hold me fast. I pulled apart Giovanni’s jaw and reached my hand into his mouth, grasping hold of his thick, slimy-to-the-touch tongue, and pulled it away from the back of his throat. The blows from the old lady’s purse struck my shoulder again.
“Please, ma’am!” I shouted. “Let me save his life!”
“You should be ashamed,” she said, delivering three quick, successive blows with her purse.
Whap. Whap. Whap.
I managed to work my finger deep inside Giovanni’s cheek and, using a sweeping, hooking motion, slid it across the interior of his mouth to the other cheek. The tip of my finger sunk into a pliable substance blocking his windpipe. Caution here was critical, else I risked pushing the tobacco wad deeper down his throat. Feeling like I had a good hold, I removed my finger from Giovanni’s mouth, carrying with it a saliva-soaked blob of tobacco leaf and gum.
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