Whatever It Takes

by Ben Boswell

  She sighed skeptically. "Okay."

  The kids sleep through anything. They barely stirred when I got them out of bed and strapped them in the car. And I don't think they moved at all on the other end when I took them into my mom's home.

  She helped me tuck them in, but stopped me as I was trying to get out the door.

  "What the heck is going on Daniel?"

  "I told you."

  She laughed darkly. "I've known Kris as long as you have. You know as well as I do that she would never do something this ill-planned."

  I sighed. "Okay," I said in a tone of regretfully coming clean. "We had a fight. We just need some time to patch things up, without the kids around."

  She shook her head. "Oh Daniel, what is wrong with you men?"

  "Huh?"

  "Is it really that hard to keep it in your pants? Look at what you've done now."

  "Jesus, mom, it's not that."

  "What is it then?"

  "It's hard to explain."

  She gave me a sad, disbelieving look. I didn't care. Her disapproval was the least of my problems.

  "This isn't like you and Dad," I replied, unable to contain myself.

  I left.

  No, this wasn't like my dad having an affair with his secretary. This was much, much worse.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I got back to the house. I called Jessi again. Texted again. Left long voicemails. Begged her to return my call. Nothing.

  I went back down to her room and tossed it, looking for something, anything. Under every pile of clothes I hoped, prayed, I would find a stash of coke, something. I went through all her crap. I didn't find anything other than a bunch of dirty clothes, a small baggie of pot, some credit card and cell phone bills, a letter from DMV, and a handful of "house rules" from strip clubs down in Iron City, an old industrial part of town that was now home to a bunch of nightclubs. I took all that with me, minus the dirty clothes.

  By the time I was done going through her stuff in detail, it was almost 4:00 am. I went back upstairs and started going through our finances. We had $7,500 in our checking account. Another $10,000 in a savings account, and $10,000 more in a brokerage account. We both had 401(k)s totaling $30,000 between the two of us. We had $40,000 equity in the house. Both our cars were old, bought used, and worth maybe $10,000 between them. No way I could come up with $250,000, not without asking for a lot of help from other people, broadening the circle of knowledge until someone, surely, decided to bring in the authorities. I couldn’t risk that, not while Sal had Kris.

  All the while, I kept calling Jessi. Probably twenty, thirty times. I wasn't even leaving a message anymore. Just waiting for her voicemail to pick up before hanging up.

  I’d need some time off. So I called my work, Kris’ as well, and told them we were both taking time off to deal with a family medical emergency. By law they had to grant that request which gave us a little breathing room.

  A little after 9:00 am, I took a shower, changed and downed some coffee. I went to the bank, and withdrew the money from our accounts, just leaving the minimum in there to keep them open. I guess bank employees are trained to be on the lookout for this sort of thing. They must have asked a million questions. Even though I was authorized to make the withdrawals, the fact that Kris' name was on the accounts as well led them to delay, asking me to get her to co-sign the withdrawals. It took me over an hour to fight my way through the paperwork to get my own money.

  It was even worse at Fidelity. We were invested in some "life-cycle" fund, which they claimed could only be liquidated at market close. I grumbled about a family emergency, and they assured me I could receive a check or bank transfer tomorrow, which would mean I wouldn't be able to actually get the money until Thursday.

  All of this took me the better part of the morning to square away, and at the end of it I had only $16,500 to show. I wanted to call Sal, offer him the money as a show of good faith, and plead for him to release Kris. But I had no way to reach him. I had to wait for him to contact me. I stewed in my own impotence. I started to drive home.

  I called Jessi again. Barely listening as I waited for her, by now, infuriatingly dismissive message: "Sorry baby, I'm not avail. Beep."

  "Jesus, Danny Dan, what the fuck is up with you? I need this phone for work. Can't have you calling non-stop."

  "Jessi, is that you?" I exclaimed in shock, nearly running off the road.

  "Fuck man, you called me."

  I pulled over, cutting off a truck that honked at me furiously as he passed.

  "Jessi, I've been trying to reach you all night."

  "Yeah, 36 missed calls."

  "Have you listened to your messages?"

  "No. I was busy."

  "Jesus, Jessi! They took Kris. Sal came to our house. Said you stole from him. And he took Kris until you pay it back."

  "I didn't steal anything. I just, um, borrowed some merch. I need a couple of days and I'll pay it back with interest. Just relax."

  "Fuck Jessi, you don't get it. He… he….” I couldn’t get the words out. I hoped my tone would convey it. “He assaulted her and took her with him."

  I thought that would get Jessi's attention. And it did, but not in the way I expected. She didn't gasp. She didn't apologize. She just laughed. Loud, long, hysterical laughter.

  "What's so fucking funny?" I screamed into the phone.

  She could barely contain her giggles. "Come on, you gotta admit thinking about Kris the Priss getting slutted out is funny."

  I shook my head. "I don't think you understand..."

  The mirth disappeared completely from her voice, "Oh I do. I understand better than you can imagine. Don't worry, Danny Dan, I can tell you from experience that a few cocks never hurt anyone."

  "Please, Jessi, don't do this."

  "I'm not doing anything, except a little business. Just a couple of days. But I need this phone, and I can't have you tying it up all the time. So, sorry Danny Dan, but I'm gonna block you."

  "Jessi, no, just listen..."

  "Bye," she said as she hung up.

  I redialed her number immediately. It went right to her voicemail, but I knew that even if I left a message, it would never get to her.

  I slammed the steering wheel in fury, until my palms ached, calling Jessi every name in the book. All I could think of was strangling her.

  _____

  On the way home I bought a handgun. Two forms of ID. An instant background check and I was armed. Homicidal, desperate, and packing heat. I didn't know what I would use it for, but for the first time in my life, I felt that I was probably better off with a weapon.

  I considered buying one of those prepaid phones and calling Jessi again, but I realized she would just block me again immediately. I could have bought a hundred and forced her to block all of them, but that would just annoy her, and as much as I wanted to murder Jessi at the moment, I needed her in a cooperative mood.

  Back at the house I paced around frantically, trying to think of a plan of action. But I was trapped. I couldn't call the cops, now less than ever, since explaining the twenty-hour delay would make me seem even more suspicious. We were now at the point where they would not even consider looking for her until I'd been fully investigated and cleared, and that could take months.

  I needed to find Jessi, but had no good idea how to do that. I'd been thinking it was just a matter of getting through to her, but obviously, I actually needed to physically get a hold of her. Unfortunately, I didn't have the first clue on where she might be other than that she was somewhere conducting business. For all I knew, she had driven Sal's coke down to Vegas or someplace to make a sale.

  All I could do was wait with my handgun and $16,500 in cash and hope that a solution presented itself.

  But waiting was virtually intolerable, because every instant that wasn't fully occupied, my mind turned to Kris, and a cycle of torments began.

  I imagined what they were doing to her. The sin of my evening with Jessi was again comin
g home to roost, this time by forcing me to imagine Kris in her sister's place, submitting to the same debauched acts. I shook my head, trying to get the image out.

  But the moment I cleared my mind of those images, I was forced to confront how badly I'd let Kris down. She was my first, my only love. Being without her seemed unimaginable, and yet, she surely hated me. Hated me for enabling her sister's drug use and prostitution. Hated me for not defending her, for letting her be taken away by brutish men who were even now...

  I shook my head again. No, I couldn't go down that path. But I couldn't stop myself. I could see her, dropping to her knees, performing oral sex on Sal, sucking on his fat prick, swallowing his disgusting load. She'd been protecting the kids. But was she also punishing me? Was part of this her way of telling me that I no longer mattered, that I was out of her heart, her life, forever?

  I groaned in frustration. No, now, I was just being selfish, making this about me, turning her torment into my own. That wasn't fair. Wasn't honest. I'd fucked up, and she was paying the price, and realization of it made me look at the handgun in a new light. I shook my head. No, I wouldn't do that. I wouldn't take the coward's way out.

  And so it went, every avenue ending up in the same place, the same dark hole of guilt, self-loathing, of feeling trapped and desperate.

  _____

  My anguish was punctuated by the doorbell ringing a little after 8:00 pm. I hid the gun beneath an old newspaper and answered the door.

  It was Jerry, and he was alone.

  I could probably surprise him and kill him. But then what?

  "You gonna let me in, or what?"

  "Yeah," I grunted. "Where's Kris?"

  "Don't worry, she's in a good hands," he replied with a leer that seemed to confirm my worst fears.

  "If you fuckers hurt her..."

  "Yeah, yeah," he cut me off dismissively. "You'll kill us all. Okay, tough guy, enough chatter. You got Sal's stash?"

  "No --"

  "Okay, see ya then," he said, cutting me off. "I'll give your regards to wifey."

  "No! Wait. Please. Look, I have some money. You know, to show I'm working on it." I grabbed the cash out of a drawer and waved it at him.

  "How much is that?"

  "Sixteen-five."

  He took it out of my hand and shook it contemptuously. "Sal is not going to be pleased."

  "Tell him it's all I could get that fast. I'm working on more."

  "Tell him yourself," he said as he pulled out and dialed his phone.

  He held the phone to his ear. "Hey, Sal, so I'm here with dumbass. He's got a partial payment here. Sixteen-five."

  He listened for a moment then handed me the phone.

  "Hello," I said cautiously.

  "Well, numb nuts, looks like we have a problem. I told you I need either my coke back or two-fifty, and you come back with sixteen. You think I'm fucking around?"

  "It's the best I could do so fast. Please, just take the money and let Kris go. We'll make up the rest somehow. Please."

  He laughed at that. "No, I don't think so. I think you'll just have to try harder. Anyway, I... I mean, we are having fun with Krissy, just like she promised. We've made a little game of it. It's pretty easy to round up guys who've gotten head from Star, so we're having a little competition to see which sister sucks the meanest cock. It's two-two so far, which means your wife is holding her own with a seasoned pro, but we've got another few guys to break the tie."

  "Sal, please, I'm begging you. You've punished her and me enough. Just take the money, and even if you don't let her go right away, at least just leave her alone."

  "No can do, buddy boy, but I will give you a token of my good will. I've been getting all worked up thinking about fucking her sweet little pussy. But I'll hold off on that for another twenty-four hours."

  "I can't get the money that fast. Please, Sal, please."

  "Well, then I guess this time tomorrow night, I'll be balls deep in her hot little box."

  "No, please..."

  But he'd hung up. Dejected, I passed the phone back to Jerry, who silently pocketed it. He gave me a shrug as if to say "Nothing personal." And then with my money in his pocket, he turned and left.

  This time, though, I was quick-witted enough to follow him outside and write down his plate number as he drove off. I wasn't sure what good it would do me, but I was going to try to gather every bit of information I could.

  _____

  After Jerry left, I drank. I drank because I couldn't think of what else to do. I drank because I was too tired to do anything else. I drank because I couldn't bear to be alone with the thoughts swirling around my head sober. I drank to escape. And it worked… at least for a few hours.

  CHAPTER SIX

  I woke up the following morning early, hung-over, not refreshed, but at least a little rested and determined to find Jessi. The sunlight helped clear away the gloom of my thoughts. And the sleep, imperfect as it had been, seemed to have jumpstarted my mind.

  I didn't have much to go on, but I laid out all the stuff I'd taken from Jessi's room. After a while, I noticed something. All of her old bills and correspondences had different addresses on them. She'd been living a peripatetic life for years and just seemed to use whatever current address she had at the time. She'd probably never bothered to go back and change them. But what struck me was the letter from DMV. It was actually addressed to our home, but she'd only been back with us a few weeks.

  And then I remembered, back when she was sixteen and had gotten her driver's license, she'd lived briefly with us. Those addresses were not just necessarily from the past, but might be part of a circuit of places she moved to from time to time as circumstances dictated. Just as her boyfriend getting busted had brought her to us, her need to go to ground after stealing from Sal might send her back to one of her other crash pads.

  I had three other addresses. And even if she wasn't at any of them, those were also likely people within her circle, people who might have some idea of where she might currently be.

  I took a quick shower, changed. Then packing the papers and the gun in a backpack, I drove into town toward the first address on my list.

  I was tempted to just charge up to the front door of each place and demand to know where Jessi was. Indeed, it took all my willpower to prevent myself from doing that. But after a day and a half of that sort of frantic, and ultimately fruitless, effort, I decided to be more considered and careful as I proceeded.

  _____

  The first address on my list turned out to be a large, shambling, rundown, clapboard house near Collegetown. I groaned inwardly. It seemed that it had been subdivided into apartments, probably inhabited by transient college kids with no knowledge of previous tenants. I also realized it would probably be hard to talk to all, or even most, of the renters.

  I staked out the place for a while. It was still reasonably early. I got there just before 8:30 am with a cup of coffee and a doughnut. I parked across the street and down half a block and just watched, trying to get a feel for the place.

  Every time the front door opened, I was hoping against hope that it would be Jessi, and that I'd have her, just like that. No such luck, though I took pictures of all the residents with my phone as they exited.

  They were all kids, some obviously college students, several even wearing university sweatshirts, while others just looked like young folks heading out to work. I'd been right about the numbers. At least a dozen people lived there.

  Finally, I decided I'd have no choice but to ask some questions. I waited until I saw a young couple leaving together. I reasoned that was going to be my best bet for a cooperative response: a woman for empathy, but with her boyfriend there to make her feel safe enough to speak to a stranger.

  The problem was what to say. I'm not grizzled, but I was a little haggard and anyway, I look my age—which meant I was asking questions about a woman nearly ten years younger than me. It was hard to imagine how to avoid a stalker vibe.

  "Hey
, guys, I'm sorry to bother you, but does Jessi Taylor still live here?"

  As expected the guy shook his head and tried to keep walking. His girlfriend slowed, although she didn't answer right away.

  "She's a cousin,” I continued. “My folks asked me to look her up next time I was in town, but I wasn't sure I had the right address."

  The woman stopped. "No, I don't know her. But I'm not sure I know everyone who lives here, you know."

  "She's tall, dark hair. Last time I saw her, she had like a violet streak in it," I said with an eye roll designed to suggest my interest in her was purely platonic.

  The woman laughed. "That could describe half the girls at school. Is she a student? You could check with the registrar or something."

  "Yeah, maybe I'll try that. You sure you don't know her? She was always a bit of a partier, you know. Anyone like that in the house?"

  I saw her eyes narrow. I'd tripped her creep meter. I needed to back out gracefully.

  "Never mind. Thanks for your help," I said amiably. I turned and walked away.

  I sat back down in my car, keeping an eye on the building. After a while, there was less foot traffic so I decided to drive around the block looking for Jessi's car.

  It occurred to me that I should have done that sooner. If she had spotted me, she might have already escaped out the back and driven away right under my nose. I didn’t see anything useful and after thirty minutes, I was back in front of the group house. By then there were some people coming back, probably after a morning class.

  I tried the "cousin" bit with another young woman, but she was alone and brushed me off pretty quickly. And then I tried with a dude, who apparently pegged me as a stalker and messed with me for a few minutes before blowing me off.

  After I retreated to the car the third time, I noticed a campus police car slow-rolling down the block. Maybe I was just being paranoid, but I decided to take off and try one of the other addresses for a while. I'd been at this one for half the day and hadn't gotten so much as a hint of Jessi.