Stolen

by Daniel Palmer

  “Well, let’s assess the situation,” I said. “The Uretskys seem to have vanished.”

  “True,” Ruby said.

  “But Elliot is a murdering psychopath who is still antagonizing us.”

  “True, as well.”

  “We know he’s going to try and make me commit another felony, and we have no clue what his snake and lotus flower thing means.”

  “Kesha,” Ruby said.

  “It’s not Kesha,” I said, “but yes, Kesha. Meanwhile, the Uretskys’ neighbor, Ruth Shane, is convinced that Carl Swain has something to do with their disappearance, or at least Tanya Uretsky’s disappearance, and it turns out she has some real reasons to think the way she does. Swain is a registered sex offender with a gun-toting mama.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “We wait for Uretsky to contact me. Today should be the day. And we take it from there.”

  We didn’t have to wait long. We were back in the apartment on Harvard Avenue, or “John’s Place,” as Ruby had taken to calling it. Ruby was feeding Ginger, and I was washing the potatoes we would have with dinner. Neither of us had grown accustomed to the fact that while embroiled in this nightmare, Ruby and I were required to observe the rules of life. We had to eat. We had to sleep. We were still alive, and though trapped beneath the shadow of pain and guilt cast by the deaths of Rhonda Jennings and Brooks Hall, we were obliged to live.

  I kept my phone by the sink. When it chirped, I drew in a ragged breath, glanced at the text message, and yelled out, “Uretsky!”

  Ruby came running over to read it. I assumed his text was untraceable; a guy who knew how to configure routers to hide out on the Internet knew how to send untraceable texts, too.

  Uretsky’s text message read: Have you figured out my clue?

  I texted him back—what the hell, why not? I was honest, too. I saw no reason to lie. It wouldn’t help us any. I wrote: We couldn’t spell your clue.

  He wrote back: LOL! I didn’t think of that. Honestly, this deranged psycho used LOL! Like we were pals having a conversation over a Facebook status. The snake and lotus flower are gripped in Qetesh’s hands.

  I showed the phone to Ruby and said, “Google Qetesh. Q-E-T-E-S-H.” Ruby went over to my laptop and typed in the correct spelling. She read for me verbatim what Wikipedia had to say about it. “Qetesh is a Sumerian goddess adopted into Egyptian mythology from the Canaanite religion, popular during the New Kingdom. She was a fertility goddess of sacred ecstasy and sexual pleasure.”

  “What the heck?” I said, mulling that over. “Google the snake and lotus flower and Qetesh.”

  Ruby did just that. “There’s a stone carving of Qetesh that shows her standing on the back of a lion. She’s holding snakes in one hand and a lotus flower in the other. According to what I’m reading here, these are symbols of creation. John, what is he planning?”

  I heard the slight tremor in Ruby’s voice. Her alert eyes were wary.

  What do you want from us? I texted to Uretsky.

  The bastard typed a three-word reply: Check your in-box.

  CHAPTER 30

  I’d been through this before, so I expected everything that happened next, or I should say that I wasn’t surprised. I followed the instructions and looked at the admin e-mail account for my One World game. Right at the top of the queue was an e-mail from Elliot Uretsky. The time stamp on the e-mail read one minute in the past, and the message contained only a link, which I clicked without hesitation.

  An on-screen prompt appeared, asking me if I wanted to allow a two-way video chat. No, of course I didn’t want to, but I did it, anyway. I had to. I also knew that the Web page that loaded ran through the same anonymous proxy server Uretsky had used before, to broadcast poor Dr. Adams’s misery.

  The black rectangular shape centered on the Web page gave way to a depressingly familiar image, one that filled me with horror and rage all over again. I gazed upon the concrete windowless room, nondescript in every way except for a single lightbulb that dangled above a sturdy oak desk chair. I couldn’t feel the dampness of the room, but I could hear the echoes of dripping water from a corroded copper pipe—but only when the woman beneath that pipe wasn’t making muted cries for help.

  I couldn’t see the gag silencing those cries, because a bag made from a velvety silk cloth, one that shone like a panther’s fur in the dim room, had been placed over her head. Her hands, white skin tanned to a shade of brown, were bound to the arms of the chair, and I assumed her feet were secured as well. I also assumed the chair was bolted to the floor; otherwise, her thrashing would have toppled it over.

  Uretsky’s face filled the screen—not his face, really, but the mask of Mario from the Super Mario Bros. video game. Uretsky had used the same character as his Facebook avatar. The red hat, bulbous nose, and trademark mustache of Mario were all there, but Uretsky had cut out eyeholes where the mask’s eyes should have been, and he cut a hole for his mouth as well.

  “John, how nice to see you again,” Uretsky said. That voice, soulless as the dead, chilled my skin. “You’re looking unwell, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

  “What . . . ,” I said, trying to catch my breath, finding it hard to speak. “What are you doing?”

  Ruby got her face in front of the laptop’s camera and shouted, “Stop it! Stop it now! You let her go!”

  Uretsky screamed loudly in response, with a high-pitched shriek, not unlike the noise of a boiling teakettle, a yell so piercing that we were both silenced.

  “I can’t think when you two are shouting at me,” Uretsky said.

  “Well, we can’t talk to you with that mask on. Take it off, you coward.”

  “Can’t do that, John,” Uretsky replied. “You might take a picture.”

  “You’re not a felon. I checked.”

  I regretted the words the moment they slipped out of my mouth. “You checked up on me?” Uretsky said, his voice rising with surprise.

  “On the Internet.” I spoke quickly, crafting a suitable lie without much fumbling. “I used a Web search to look you up. Not the police. I didn’t violate the rules.”

  Uretsky stepped back from the camera, pondering. He nodded, slowly and several times, and I thought I could see the faint outline of a smile inside that grotesque mask. “Oh, very well. You didn’t cheat. So, what did you find?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” I said. “But I do know about Carl Swain.”

  I fixed my gaze upon Uretsky’s eyes when I said Swain’s name, searching every pixel of the grainy video feed for a slight glimmer of recognition, a hint that I’d struck a nerve. Did he know Swain? Was there some connection? Behind the ovals he had cut out for eyeholes, I saw nothing but the black infinity of death. If Uretsky wondered about my non sequitur, he didn’t say.

  “I’ve made sure to keep my face off the Internet. You don’t know what I look like, and that’s part of the fun. I want to keep this mask on, and I want you two to keep playing my game. Is that understood?”

  What other choice did I have but to nod?

  “Now then,” Uretsky continued. “Have you figured out what you’re to do next?”

  “Qetesh,” I said.

  “Yes, Qetesh, a luscious Sumerian goddess. Her name means ‘holy woman,’ ” Uretsky said. “A goddess of sacred ecstasy and sexual pleasures. So, do you get it yet?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Well, it’s going to be a dandy good time,” Uretsky said. “But I decided that you’ll need a bit more incentive than Dr. Adams’s life to pull this one off.”

  Uretsky stepped away from the camera, giving us a clear view of the woman strapped to the chair, still struggling mightily, albeit futilely, to break free. Uretsky, mask on, materialized behind the woman, as though conjured from the ether. In a sweeping motion, he ripped off the hood covering the head of his prisoner. Ruby gripped the back of my chair in response.

  “Mom?” Ruby’s shaky, uncertain voice caught in her throat. Eventually, after recognition set in,
once the brain had time to process the inconceivable, Ruby shouted, “Mom!”

  It took me a moment longer to register what I was seeing, but there she was, Winifred Dawes, Ruby’s mom, tied to that chair and somehow Uretsky’s prisoner.

  Ruby began to scream. Her anguished cries, so visceral, so instinctual, went far beyond any sound I had ever heard from my wife. “Mom!” Ruby shouted again and again before the sobs took over.

  Ruby, hyperventilating, couldn’t speak for a minute or so. She lost her footing, and I gave her my chair, while I leaned in close to get level with the camera. Ruby’s eyes stayed fixed on her mother. I didn’t know if Winnie could see her daughter, but the pain etched on her face whenever Ruby spoke told me that, at a minimum, she could hear her voice.

  “Please . . . please, Elliot,” Ruby managed to say. “You could just let her go . . . let her go, now. Okay? You could do that.”

  Winnie, with her short and spiky hair, bleached blond in some spots, left brown in others, and her skin pruned by the persistent Caribbean sun, should have seemed a familiar sight, but here, in this dark prison, she was barely recognizable. Her bright blue eyes were as wide as two quarters, but I couldn’t get a good look at her face. She kept shaking her head, as though her hair were on fire. The ball gag in her mouth, I suspected, had once been in poor Dr. Adams’s mouth, too.

  “I’d make the introductions, but I know you’re already well acquainted,” Uretsky said from behind Winnie. “And you’re going to have to push the limits to save this sweet lady’s life . . . or not.”

  “Let her go,” I said. We still had a chance to save Winnie’s life if we did whatever Uretsky had in mind. Perhaps that was why my voice came out sounding oddly calm. “She’s done nothing to you. Come get me instead, dammit!”

  Winnie nodded a vigorous yes. Son-in-law or not, she’d switch places with me in a heartbeat. I couldn’t blame her. That was just the survival instinct kicking in.

  “Doesn’t work like that,” Uretsky said. “You’ve got more crimes to commit, John . . .” Here Uretsky paused . . . waiting . . . waiting . . . and then he said two words that truly chilled my bones. “And Ruby.”

  I hated that he’d even spoken my wife’s name. The privilege wasn’t his. Besides, this wasn’t about her; it was about me, and what I’d done to him, or so I thought.

  But in that very next instant, I knew. Qetesh. Sacred ecstasy. Sexual pleasure. Uretsky wanted Ruby to commit the next crime, not me. And I knew what the crime was, too.

  “Please,” I said. “Don’t do this. There’s got to be another way.”

  “No,” Uretsky said. “The show must go on.” The mask made Uretsky’s low voice sound hollow and breathy, more terrifying. “Now, Ruby, aren’t you at all curious how I managed to get your mom to be my guest here?”

  Each ragged breath Ruby took sounded like a record skipping. She managed only to say, “Please let her go. Mommy, I love you. Don’t worry. We’re going to save you. I’ll do anything.”

  Uretsky put the bag over Winnie’s head again. He came around in front of her chair to face the camera.

  “I called your mom and pretended to be one of John’s climbing buddies, told her we were the closest of friends,” Uretsky said. “I also broke the good news that you’d gone into complete remission, that the meds had worked wonders, and I was putting together a big surprise party in your honor. You and John knew nothing about this, of course, but I was arranging the flights and accommodations for all the out-of-town relatives. Guess who picked her up curbside at the terminal?”

  Behind Uretsky, I could see Winnie thrashing about like her chair was electrified.

  “This isn’t an acquaintance’s life hanging in the balance. It’s Mom. Good relationship or not, she’s still your mother, Ruby. How far are you willing to go to save her? What will you do? Can you be transformed? Those are my questions. Questions that demand answers.”

  “What do you want me to do?” I said.

  “Not you,” Uretsky said, confirming my darkest fear. “Ruby is going to have to participate this time.”

  “What do you want?” I asked again.

  “Qetesh represents divine sexual pleasure. Ruby is going to provide someone with the real deal.”

  “She has cancer, you sick bastard,” I said.

  “The crime she is to commit is one of the oldest known professions.”

  Ruby got her face level with the camera. She didn’t flinch from Uretsky’s eyes—eyes swimming with madness. “Tell me,” she said.

  “You will go to a bar of my choosing, and there you will proposition a stranger for sex in exchange for cash. You will whore yourself to this strange man and bring him to a hotel room that I’ve set up for this rendezvous. I’ve taped an envelope to the front right tire of your car.” Ruby and I glanced at each other, thinking the same thing: He was here? “Inside that envelope you’ll find the address to the hotel I’ve rented under the name John Bodine, and the key card to your room. You will also find the name and address of the nearby bar where you will select your client. You will let him have his way with you, whatever his desire, and then, once it’s over, you’ll take his money. You have twenty-four hours to complete this task. Simple as that.”

  “And if I don’t?” Ruby asked, her voice a whimper.

  Uretsky held up the pruning shears for us both to see. “Then I’ll strip your mother of her fingers, one by one, before I strip her of her life.”

  CHAPTER 31

  With five hours to go before Uretsky’s deadline, I found myself at a bar, my guts twisted and my pretended calm threatening to come undone. I’d promised myself I wouldn’t drink—I needed to keep a clear head—but after overhearing Ruby’s conversation with a man neither of us knew, I’d either order a whiskey or throttle the bastard.

  It hurt me desperately, the worst kind of ache, the remorseful kind, every time I looked at Ruby. I could think only of what she was going through and of all the pain I had caused her, distress piled on top of distress. Sure, I had stolen Uretsky’s identity with the very best of intentions, but that excuse rang particularly hollow when it was Ruby who had to complete this repulsive task, not me.

  Even so, I could not crumble under the oppressive weight of regret. Climbing had taught me to do the exact opposite, and those instincts are difficult to suppress. Up on the mountain, when a rope system fails or a seemingly steady rock is found to be dangerously unstable, I didn’t anguish over my predicament. Instead I acted, immediately and decisively, to ameliorate the threat. My life depended on it. The time for self-reflection came after the climbing was done. So until Ruby was safe and Winnie free, until Uretsky was no longer our black cloud, I was going to keep climbing and fighting to stay alive, and Ruby, who had never climbed a day in her life, would have to do the same.

  We didn’t sleep a wink after hearing Uretsky’s demands. We were too busy putting together a contingency plan.

  “What if I can’t go through with it?” Ruby asked, a thin band of tears lining the bottoms of her eyes.

  I told her it was all right. I’d already come up with a way she wouldn’t have to.

  We contemplated abandoning Plan A (Ruby sleeps with stranger) for my Plan B, but Ruby decided—for her mother’s sake—that she would have to bow to Uretsky’s will. The decision had to be hers and hers alone. Hadn’t my intervention already dropped enough misery on our family?

  But every dangerous climb required a contingency plan, so I spent the hours before our deadline arrived putting the pieces in place for Plan B.

  Just in case.

  Oh, how I hoped we would use it.

  We spent some time searching for an outfit Ruby could wear, only to discover the cancer had sucked so much life from her body that nothing she owned fit anymore. She sat on the floor of the closet, clothes tossed all about in a pile, crying, sobbing, really.

  “You take care of this,” she said, but only when the tears allowed her to speak. “It’s so repulsive I can’t even think about it.
Get me something I can wear. Just get this fucking over with!”

  I went to the Gap down the street and bought her a steel-gray satin sheath dress for about eighty bucks. In fact, I bought two, and for good reason. We would need two dresses for Plan B to work. Ruby put the dress on, looked at herself in the mirror, and said, “I’m going to burn it after this is done.”

  “We’ll make a pile,” I said, in reference to the clothes from the robbery that we had yet to dispose of.

  She gave me a forlorn look. We left the house and went to the bar.

  Though her body was full of sickness, and her heart filled with dread, Ruby still managed to turn every head in the Red Bell Lounge, Uretsky’s chosen watering hole for this crime. I walked close by, keeping a protective and vigilant watch over my wife, even though we had agreed to act like strangers. Ruby shot me a look that forced me to back away.

  “Don’t blow this,” her eyes were saying.

  Every surface of the lounge, including the front of the bar, was draped in rich red velvet, the color of blood. The lounge was crowded with an eclectic clientele, which made it easy to discreetly work the room.

  Ruby saw a lonely-looking guy sitting at the bar. She broke away from me and approached him with a surprising confidence. She got maybe five feet from him, stopped, and turned to look at me. Her mascara painted several black lines down her cheeks because her tears wouldn’t stop flowing.

  While Ruby raced off to the bathroom to reapply her makeup, I searched the bar for anyone who might be paying extra close attention to us. Perhaps that person would be Uretsky, watching. Maybe that was why he insisted we find our “john” at the Red Bell, or maybe it was for our convenience, because this place was so close to the hotel. Then again, I had already figured out how Uretsky would verify that Ruby had gone through with it. I had figured out his plan and crafted a plan of my own.

  Plan B.

  Ruby came back from the bathroom, looking poised and ready to try again. Twice more she attempted to solicit a man for sex, but with each attempt she broke down. Ruby’s body simply wouldn’t allow her to betray her heart. Consensual or not, what Uretsky demanded of her made it rape by proxy. It was a knife wound to both our souls.