Game Theory

by Barry Jonsberg

  Please don’t hurt her.

  I will do anything you say.

  Whatever you want, just don’t hurt her.

  I was altering the balance of power. I was refusing to acknowledge that this was how the rules worked. There were two players in this game and it’s my mind against yours. You think you hold all the cards, but you don’t. Stew on that for an hour, fucker.

  I knew, of course I knew, that this was a gamble and I was dicing with Phoebe’s life.

  Actually, I hadn’t thought that when I got the call. I had simply reacted, the words spilling from my mouth directly from my unconscious, where I must have been mulling over the situation from a game theory perspective and finding possible strategies. But what if he was so angry he’d hurt Phoebe, just to teach me a lesson? Cut off a finger and send it through the post? Want to play games, fucker? Want to fight with both hands tied behind your back? Bring it on.

  I clung to the toilet bowl and tried to keep my world from shifting.

  I realised I was assuming it was a man. Was that an automatic response because statistics tell us it is men who commit crimes, that less than ten per cent of convicted criminals are women? Was a woman emotionally incapable of kidnapping a little girl? I imagined not, but I didn’t know and why would someone change their voice so that it was gender-neutral unless she was female? Then again, maybe a man would want me to be thinking along those lines . . .

  I shook my head and tried to focus. He, she, whoever, might hurt Phoebe, but I didn’t think it would happen like that, not then, staring at the blank whiteness of the porcelain. This guy is organised. He plans. He knows our routines, he took out a security camera, he got Phoebe from a supermarket, past cameras and guards, without anyone seeing. Wouldn’t that be easier for a woman? Don’t think about that now. Deal with what I know or can reasonably surmise. He is meticulous. He has my mobile number. How did he get that? From Phoebe? Would she give that up willingly? Can’t think about that either. This has to be about money and nothing else. Phoebe is an asset to him and there’s no point damaging an asset because then the price goes down. He’s demonstrated he is intelligent. An intelligent person doesn’t give way to anger, because it’s not profitable.

  Among all the flotsam swirling in my mind, it was this piece of logic I held onto; without it I would drown.

  I glanced at my watch. About five minutes since I’d received the call. Why had I said an hour? Wouldn’t fifteen minutes have been enough? No, I decided. It wouldn’t. An hour was right. I got to my feet, though I had to steady myself with a hand on the cistern. Whether I was right or wrong, I had to follow this through. But there were people downstairs who deserved the information in my head. I couldn’t keep all of this to myself. But even then, I was thinking game theory. They were players but that didn’t mean they had to know everything.

  The scene in the front room hadn’t altered much. Mum still sat. Summerlee had fallen asleep, or passed out. Dad paced. I disrupted the tableau.

  ‘I just got a call,’ I said. ‘The person who took Phoebe.’

  For a second or two there was a stunned silence. Maybe Summerlee picked up on the sudden charge in the atmosphere because she opened an eye and struggled to straighten herself. Then it was verbal mayhem.

  ‘Is she all right?’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘Oh my God.’

  ‘Did you talk to her? Is she okay?’

  I held up a hand.

  ‘He . . . she . . . didn’t say anything. Just that he had Phoebe. He or she’s ringing back in fifty minutes.’

  ‘You couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman?’ Dad said.

  ‘The voice was disguised. I think he or she must be running it through a computer program. Kind of a vague North American accent, but androgynous. Could be anyone.’

  ‘We should call the police.’ This was Mum.

  ‘No police,’ I said. ‘He said no police. He will only talk to me. No one else listening. He said that he would know if anyone else was listening in.’ My mind had suddenly cleared and the lies tripped off my tongue. Would anyone notice the discrepancy between my first statement and the qualifications I was now making? He only said he had Phoebe. He didn’t say anything else. Apart, it seemed, from plenty. But no one noticed. Mum and Dad were too drunk on hope and Summerlee was probably just too drunk. I held my mobile phone in my hands and trusted no one would notice it was turned off. Mum gave me instructions, as I knew she would. What she really wanted was to be the one doing the talking on the phone, but if that wasn’t possible she’d go for the next best thing and jerk my strings, to give herself some semblance of control.

  ‘Insist on talking to Phoebe,’ she said. ‘Don’t even engage with him until you’ve established she’s safe and unharmed. Listen out for background noise. Anything that might give an indication of where he might be. You know, the sound of a train or a plane or something.’ It occurred to me that Mum had watched more thrillers than I’d realised, but I didn’t say anything. Just nodded. ‘When he talks about money, don’t try to negotiate. Just agree to his demands whatever they are. There will be ways to trace the money later.’ Maybe her head was full of exploding bags of cash that painted red dye onto the perpetrators, or serial numbers that could be traced or GPS devices hidden in the lining of a suitcase. I nodded.

  Mum went on in the same vein for twenty minutes. Ideas bubbled from her. Dad tried a couple of times to interrupt, but she ran over his words and didn’t even notice she was doing it. Was it possible for me to record the conversation on my mobile phone? Perhaps we could record the entire conversation if I put it on speakerphone? Maybe we should let the police know anyway. Couldn’t they track a phone? If I kept the guy talking they’d be able to trace him. SWAT teams going in while he talked to me. Phoebe being swept up in the manly arms of a good guy while the kidnapper was gunned down as he resisted arrest.

  We wallowed in Hollywood horseshit, but then again, even Hollywood horseshit has to be based on something, doesn’t it? The simple truth was we were all out of our depth.

  But Mum’s pronouncements made me aware of something buried deep within my character. Those movie scenes. The vigilante doing whatever it took to defeat the bad guy. You messed with the wrong person, motherfucker. The realisation surfaced slowly. I could be that vigilante. If it was a man, I could kill him. If it was a woman, I could kill her. Maybe even if it wasn’t necessary.

  The last fifteen minutes, for me at least, were worse than all the hours that preceded them, possibly because I was the only one who knew my phone was switched off. Dad sat down on the couch and instantly Mum got up and started pacing, as if they were on a roster and had switched duties. I went out to the kitchen and all eyes followed me. I’d thought about fixing myself another drink of whisky, but decided against it. I poured myself a glass of milk instead. It tasted horrible, but I forced it down. If I was going to throw up again, I wanted something in my stomach. Anyway, it was an act that mimicked normality and I needed that. I opened the fridge to return the carton of milk and, using the door as a shield, switched on my phone. Two missed calls. Caller unknown. I closed the fridge and returned to the living room.

  Mum screamed when the phone rang, and then stuffed her hand into her mouth. Five minutes early, but I couldn’t do any more. I let it ring twice before touching the answer symbol. Suddenly, the milk wanted to make a reappearance. I swallowed.

  ‘Hello?’

  There was a long pause.

  ‘You were busy?’ That computer voice, leached of feeling. Yet I detected (imagined?) the emphasis on the last word. I tried to focus. I even followed Mum’s advice and listened for background noises, but there was nothing. I didn’t reply. Let him give information. Dad was waving to try and attract my attention, so I turned my back on him.

  ‘Are the police there?’ It didn’t even sound like a question. Emotions, intonations, give us cues. We can read them easier than we think. It was disorientating, almost alarming, to listen to a voice
and not pick up anything other than basic meaning.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘No police.’

  ‘That’s probably a mistake, Jamie. I expected you to call the police. It’s what I would have done in your situation.’ I didn’t say anything. But I felt perversely pleased that I hadn’t met those expectations. ‘Or maybe you’re lying to me and the police are there. It makes no difference one way or the other. You should know that.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘It’s very simple. I will return Phoebe unharmed as soon as I receive two million dollars in cash.’

  ‘I want to talk to Phoebe,’ I said.

  ‘Sorry. That’s not happening.’

  ‘How do I know you’ve got her?’

  ‘Ask me a question only she would know the answer to. I’ll ask her and relay it back to you.’

  ‘That’s complicated. Why can’t I just talk to her?’

  ‘Because I say so. Now, do you want to ask that question, or not?’

  I thought, but my mind was blank. How dumb was that? When it came down to it I couldn’t think of one thing that only Phoebe and I would know. It seemed emblematic of my betrayal of her, but I couldn’t afford to dwell on guilt. I racked my brain.

  ‘Ask her what the suitors want when they have their ninja rats at the ready.’

  There was silence for a beat or two. ‘You are serious?’

  ‘Ask her.’

  There was no change down the line, but I knew he no longer had the phone to his ear. I focused intently but could detect no variation in the quality of the silence. Then the voice came back.

  ‘Princess Phoebe’s hand and her other bits.’

  I bit so hard on my bottom lip that I tasted blood. ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘How do we do this?’

  ‘I’ll call you at midday tomorrow. Try not to be busy. Oh, and Jamie. I would seriously think about involving the police, if I was you. Ring them now, get it set up so they’ll be ready when I call you. This really isn’t something you can handle by yourself.’

  He knows game theory, I thought. He knows game theory.

  ‘Tell Phoebe I love her,’ I said. ‘Tell her we all love her and we will get her back safe.’

  There was that blank silence again.

  ‘I will, Jamie. I’ll tell her. But it’s up to you to make that last bit come true. I mean, you didn’t do a good job of looking after her today, did you? This is your chance at redemption. Don’t fail.’ He hung up. I stared at the phone, put it in my pocket. And then I answered my family’s questions. There were many and they came quickly.

  CHAPTER 15

  We were all at the cop shop by ten in the morning. A car came to pick us up – me, Mum, Dad and Summerlee. It was driven by the guy who’d taken Phoebe’s photograph. He didn’t say much during the drive. Neither did we.

  Mum had rung Dixon the previous night, as soon as I’d told everyone about the call. He’d listened, asked a couple of questions and then made arrangements for the morning. He suggested we all try to get some sleep. Summer took his advice but only because I don’t think she had much choice. At some stage during the night – around five, I’d guess – I tried to ring the guy back by accessing the last call on my phone’s menu. Yet another robotic voice told me I could not be connected. At least this one was recognisably female. Dad watched as I tried. When I shook my head he took the bottle of whisky and poured what was left down the sink. Then he resumed his pacing. The night crept into day.

  The police station was disturbingly normal. A couple of people were sitting in chairs and a guy in uniform was behind a counter, listening to a woman reporting a crime. From the brief snippet of conversation I overheard I think it was something to do with a stolen purse. It crossed my mind to tell her that she was belittling herself by being there. She’d lost her purse? The sun was shining, people were laughing and joking, the day was going on, just like any other day. A purse. I’d lost a sister. She should go through those doors, raise her face to the sky and thank whatever god would listen. I’d lost all tolerance for the trivial and wondered if I’d ever find it again.

  We were taken through a locked door and down a corridor to an interview room. I was expecting to see Dixon, but he wasn’t there. A guy in a sharp suit sat behind a desk. He was probably in his late thirties. A woman, slightly older, stood at his side. She was dressed in a business suit that looked expensive. I noticed she had a thin dusting of moustache on her top lip. It seemed at odds with her general appearance which could have passed for that of a company executive. They smiled as we entered. Not a full smile. Not the kind of smile that said, we are having a great day. Isn’t this fun? More a smile that conveyed the deadly seriousness of our collective business while retaining the human touch. Did they get training in that? Practise it in front of the mirror each morning? I was tired. I was close to shutting down. My brain was making wild, bordering on chaotic, connections. Everything was absurd.

  They introduced themselves. Detective Inspector Gardner and Detective Moss. Mum leaped straight in and asked about progress. Detective Moss briefly left the room to find us a couple more chairs while her colleague answered. He did his best to give the impression of considerable and ongoing industry and I’m sure that was true. Many people had been interviewed: all of the supermarket staff on duty and a fair number of customers. Police were working to track down other people who were in the store at the time in question. They had been planning an appeal for information on local radio and a special broadcast on television had been arranged, complete with the photograph of Phoebe. Now, with the news that the kidnapper had made contact, they were rethinking. Maybe it was a good idea to keep the media out of it for the moment, until more information was forthcoming. They didn’t want to add another factor into an already volatile situation. Nonetheless, the police had already gathered considerable intelligence – he really used that word – and were confident of gaining more as the investigation proceeded.

  He talked a lot, the Detective Inspector, but it all boiled down to fuck all. No one had seen anything. It wasn’t surprising when I thought about it later. The man in his suit talking on his phone. The woman with the Celtic tattoo and the troublesome kid. All those people going about their daily lives, orbiting their own individual suns. What to make for dinner. How to sort out that problem at work. Is that lump on my breast cancerous? It’s what I’d done. I’d been absorbed in dill, mushrooms, Turkish Delight and maths homework. Why would I pay particular attention to worlds that brushed my own but never made proper contact?

  Mum asked questions as if by doing so, she could force meaningful answers.

  Detective Moss made me go through the conversation I’d had with the kidnapper the previous night. She was gentle but persistent. Mum kept trying to put in her version, but Moss steered the conversation away in a diplomatic fashion. I kept to my fiction that the first call had been simply a statement that he/she would ring back in an hour. I couldn’t tell the truth because no one would understand. I tried to convince myself the lie wouldn’t matter or wasn’t important. Detective Moss led me through the second conversation time and again. She seemed particularly interested in the remark that I had been poor at looking after Phoebe at the supermarket and that this was my chance at redemption. I noticed she doubly underlined something in the notes she was taking and put an exclamation mark in the margin.

  ‘Where’s Dixon?’ I asked after I’d been through the same version for the fourth time.

  ‘He’s not on this case,’ said Gardner. ‘Not now it’s no longer a missing person but a suspected kidnapping.’

  ‘Why?’ I asked. ‘I liked him.’ It was strange. Until I said that I had no idea it was true.

  ‘Not his area of expertise,’ said Gardner.

  ‘I want him involved,’ I said.

  Gardner pursed his lips and glanced at his colleague. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Not possible. But I’ll tell him what you said, if you like.’

  That was the first time I understood we were no longer in cha
rge; though, come to think of it, we had never really been in charge from the start. Protocols existed. My sister was not my area of expertise. These strangers, who didn’t know her, had abducted her also.

  My phone was hooked up to a computer, presumably with recording software, so we could all listen through the speakers. We were offered tea or coffee. I accepted the coffee on the grounds that caffeine might just keep me going a bit longer. Mum and Dad didn’t have anything. The strain was showing. Dad seemed to be withdrawing into himself and his skin was shrivelling in response. Mum, perhaps to compensate, was becoming bigger, her voice louder and more strident. She asked about tracking conversations, establishing locations via GPS. Gardner was respectful but his answers didn’t give much away. Eleven-thirty arrived. Hours later it became eleven forty-five. Gardner told us how the situation was going to be handled.

  ‘I want you to let me deal with this wherever possible, Jamie,’ he said. ‘It’s impossible to predict how this might pan out, so we can’t lay down any hard and fast rules. You were told to contact us, so it’s reasonable to assume the perpetrator wants us to handle the negotiations.’ I couldn’t believe he’d used the word ‘perpetrator’. He continued. ‘He or she wants to talk to us directly. Are you sure you couldn’t tell the gender from the phone conversation?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Okay. We’ll call the perp “he”. It’ll save time.’

  I nodded again.

  ‘Then again,’ said Gardner, ‘he may want to deal with you and let us listen in, for reasons of his own. I guess what I’m saying is that we should play this by ear. What I do insist on, however, is that no one says anything at all unless specifically asked to.’ He looked long and meaningfully at Mum as he said this. ‘No off-the-cuff comments. Keep quiet. If you can’t, then you’ll have to leave the room. Is that understood?’ We all nodded. Gardner turned to Summerlee. ‘It’s possible he will want to talk to you, given you’re the one who can afford the ransom money. If he asks, just say that Detective Gardner will handle all negotiations on your behalf. Okay?’