by Julia Dahl
“Do you really think he’ll send it out like that?”
“He might not, but it’s out there. Ridley’s seen it. Probably the goon who took your phone.”
“Eric.”
“Eric. And maybe Eric’s buddy, and maybe his buddy. It doesn’t have to be on Instagram to make the rounds. I’ll never know when I’m with somebody who saw it. I have to figure out a way to live with that. It pretty much takes up all my brain space.”
“Right.”
“This will help, I think,” she said. She stood up and walked to the window that looked out over the city. “I think it might rain tonight. Nobody’s gonna think it’s weird you’re wearing gloves. Nobody’ll even look twice.”
Soon it was time to go. Claudia had come up with the plan: Sundown was at 7:45, so it would be full dark by 8:30. She sent Jeremy a text from a burner phone that purported to be from an emeritus professor who was a studio musician for Lady Gaga. Hey man, it’s Barry Lawes, sorry for the late notice but I might have a session spot opening for you. Come by the office around 8:45 and meet the gang?
It worked perfectly. Jeremy texted back within minutes:
i’ll be there!
“Easy,” she’d said, showing Trevor the phone. “We even got an exclamation mark. Fish on a fucking hook.”
Trevor got to the Mews at sundown. It was raining and Claudia was right—that was a good thing. Nobody would be lingering, smoking a cigarette or having a conversation in weather like this. They’d be focused on getting where they were going. He pulled up his hoodie and walked one side of the street, then the other. He saw only three other people, all scurrying under umbrellas or bent beneath shoulders and a hat or hood, just like him. He made up a little story in his head in case he ran into anyone he knew, or if someone asked what he was doing. He’d gesture to the duffle under his shoulder and say, Got sent on a prop run! See ya later! The duffle was unzipped just enough for the bat to poke through. Trevor wanted to keep a hold on it; he didn’t want to fumble when he saw Jeremy.
The address Claudia had given was closer to University than Fifth Avenue, so Trevor lingered under an awning near the gate there. He’d been through this little alley once or twice before. The houses along the cobblestone street—were they houses or offices?—seemed as if they belonged in a storybook, with window boxes full of flowers and heavy iron doorknockers. Quaint rectangular buildings, two floors, four windows; some red, some yellow, some white. It felt like a movie set, and in this movie the hero and the villain were clear. What Trevor was about to do to Jeremy was just the logical final scene: comeuppance. The thought settled his nerves just as he spotted Jeremy coming toward him on University. Trevor slid the bat out of the duffle and held it beside his leg as Jeremy turned into the Mews. This was going to be easy. He ran forward, raised the bat, and swung. Jeremy fell onto his knees, then collapsed, rolling off the curb and into the gutter. Trevor looked up and saw a woman rounding the block from Fifth. Jeremy groaned quietly, but didn’t move. Had the woman seen? Was she on her phone? Jeremy’s headphones were lying in a puddle beside his phone. The woman was getting nearer. He grabbed the phone and ran, jogging two blocks to the edge of Washington Square Park with the bat still in his hand. He heard no shouting, no footsteps. The sidewalk was crowded with people passing, but no one paid him any attention. An athlete late for practice. Trevor spotted a bench and sat down, further soaking his pants. He put the bat in the duffle and shoved it underneath with his feet. No sirens, no second looks, just his heart like a firecracker knocking against his ribs. He took a deep breath, and then another, and then another. He forced himself to think. He had to ditch the bat. Trevor stood abruptly, started walking, then stopped short and ran back for the duffle. He was going to make a mistake soon. Get out of the park. He walked toward the library; it was in the opposite direction from his dorm, but also from the alley. Half the street was closed due to construction; cars honked in the wet, their headlights lurching at his legs. At the corner of West Fourth, water flowed into an open storm drain. He slid the bat from the bag and dropped it and the phone down, watching a moment to make sure they disappeared. He continued east, thinking he’d take the long way home. The empty bag he shed a few blocks south, into one of several dumpsters outside Kmart. The gloves went into a trash can along Broadway, and the hat into another on Fourteenth Street. His ID was in his back pocket and he swiped in through the turnstiles inside the dorm. Almost everyone waiting for the elevators up was soaking wet, too. No one said a word.
He peeled off his clothes and got straight into bed. He was sober but the room spun when he shut his eyes. Trevor imagined the bat and phone traveling beneath the city, twirling inside enormous municipal pipes. Would the water destroy the phone? Should he have smashed it first? Would the bat get stuck somewhere? Would it cause a clog that backed up and up until the pressure exploded and blew open a manhole cover, or part of a sidewalk? Or would it run all the way out to the ocean? Would it float past the Statue of Liberty, like he and Claudia had? Would it wash up at Coney Island? He heard voices outside his bedroom door. What would he do if he had to talk to Boyd or one of his other roommates? Would he even be able to move his mouth? He pulled out the phone Claudia bought for him and texted Boyd: i’ve got a cold. in for the night.
A few seconds later Boyd texted back with two emojis: a thumbs-up and a mask.
When he woke up the next morning, there was an NYU Safety Alert in his email. But this time, it wasn’t about the Subway Slasher:
POLICE INVESTIGATION IN WASHINGTON MEWS
Last night the NYU Department of Safety received a report that an NYU student was found unconscious outside the French Institute at approximately 9pm. Paramedics took the student to Bellevue, where he was admitted and is in critical condition with what the hospital described as “head injuries.”
A report was made to the NYPD.
The NYPD. His eyes went blurry, and black spots of fear erupted inside of him, bubbling poison in a cauldron. He stood up and realized he could feel last night in his muscles. He could feel the shape of the bat in his hands. His neck hurt. His stomach. How could he have been so stupid?
Boyd was lying on the sofa when Trevor came out of his bedroom.
“You didn’t have to sleep out here,” said Trevor.
“Stay away,” said Boyd. “I’ve got dress rehearsals next week and I cannot get sick.”
“Got it,” said Trevor. He went into the bathroom and shut the door. He peed and washed his hands and kept his eyes out of the mirror.
“Sorry, was that rude?” said Boyd when he came out. “Obviously it was rude. Can I get you something? Tea? Sudafed?”
“I’m good,” said Trevor.
“Well, you look like shit.”
Before he could say thank you, someone knocked at the door. Trevor opened it and found a man his father’s age, sweating and red-faced.
“Is Sumit here?”
Sumit was one of their suitemates. He was from Queens and spent a lot of weekends at home.
“I don’t think so,” said Trevor. He turned to Boyd.
“Is everything okay?” asked Boyd.
“Jeremy’s roommate said that Sumit might have his laptop.” The man was breathing as if he’d been running. “We’re looking for his laptop.”
“Whose laptop?”
“Jeremy’s!”
“Are you okay? Why don’t you ask Jeremy?”
“Because he’s in a coma!”
Boyd did not expect this. “Oh my God, really?”
“Yes, really. I’m his father and I need his laptop. His laptop is where all his music is. Everything he’s composed since…” The man started coughing. No, crying. Trevor wanted to run. To his bed, out the door. Anywhere but here in the nucleus of what he’d done.
Boyd knocked on the door of the bedroom Sumit shared with their other suitemate, Corey. No answer; Boyd pushed the door open and disappeared inside. Jeremy’s father wiped his face with the sleeve of his jacket.
; “I’m sorry,” he said, sighing heavily. He took his glasses off and rubbed his eyes. “It’s an Apple. Silver, I think. It was his graduation present. I can’t believe this. He was supposed to come help me with the gutters. I just thought he’d missed the train. And then I get a call in the middle of the night from the hospital.”
Boyd returned. “Sumit’s not in his bed, and I don’t see a laptop.”
“Do you know Jeremy?” asked the man.
“Not well,” said Boyd. Trevor let his answer be for both of them.
“He’s been meeting a lot of new people since the contest. Music industry people. I don’t know any of them. I know that’s normal. My dad didn’t know all my friends when I was his age. Jeremy always had different groups of friends. The jocks and the punks, you know. He liked everybody. He didn’t discriminate.”
The man trembled as he spoke and Trevor understood that attacking Jeremy wasn’t just attacking Jeremy. When police had thrown Mike and Trevor into cells in Canton, they’d locked the boys’ parents up, too. What had Trevor’s mom and dad said to their church friends after both their sons were arrested for selling drugs? When the other parents glared at them? When the cops interviewed them? Were Mike and Trevor part of a gang? Did they own firearms? His mom and dad had been walking with their heads down ever since. But Trevor had escaped. The essay that got him into NYU was about deciding to become a lawyer after a “cousin” went to prison. He’d written that he saw how “unjust the justice system was” to people without connections and wealth. He didn’t like to think of it this way but, in a sense, Mike getting locked up gave Trevor a new life. And this is what he’d done with it. What was he going to tell his parents? Why had he thought this would help anything? Claudia didn’t need this. She didn’t need a lackey; she needed a friend. If he really cared about her, he had to stop her.
RIDLEY
The moment after his son showed him that stupid video, Ridley Drake began collecting evidence. If Claudia cried rape, her name alone would get her a meeting with an ADA. And once an ADA saw it—well, a certain kind of ADA; a woman—the video was a big problem. Chad was the perfect target. No one would feel sorry for his son. The tabloids would make him into a mini-Weinstein: the prep school predator. Like the Stanford swimmer but so evil that he’d recorded the whole thing. Chad would become a symbol of all that was wrong in America. Ridley had to get his hands on every copy and he had to destroy them. But he couldn’t find Claudia. So he started with the boyfriend: Trevor Barber of fucking Canton, Ohio. The sister, Edie, was slumming it, too. Knocked up by some kid from Poughkeepsie. Married at twenty-three. They took after their father, he guessed.
Men like Gabe Castro were among Ridley’s least favorite. So-called artists. Boot strappers. Resentful and entitled. Fifty-year-old men who wore T-shirts to board meetings. Who were they trying to kid? Michelle finally seemed to have tired of it. He’d been genuinely surprised when she flirted with him the summer before at the club, but the more he thought about it the more it made sense. Michelle Whitehouse had run the rock and roll rebel dream all the way out, and it was time to come home. Too late to play mom, he guessed, but not too late to have a second act in the world she’d rejected as a teenager.
Ridley scrolled through the names and faces on the Ohio Bar Association website and found a young woman who looked like she might be willing to do some digging. He emailed her, so she’d have time to Google and find all the handsome photos of him at microphones, celebrating with clients, leading meetings, accepting awards. Soon enough the phone rang and he spun the tale of the boy who was dating his “very naïve” niece.
“Her mother thinks she is giving him money,” he said. “If you could just lift the hood a little, see if there’s anything I should know about. I’d certainly owe you a night on the town. Are you ever in New York?”
The lady lawyer laughed and said she might have to plan a trip. The next day she called back with the news that Trevor Barber had a sealed juvenile record, a brother who’d served time in prison for drugs, and parents with an underwater mortgage. Twenty thousand should have been more than enough but apparently Claudia had Trevor under her spell, too. Having Eric grab the phone was risky—it upped the ante—but he’d had to make a quick decision. The boy was stupid to have turned down the money.
If he could have avoided Jeremy Cahill he would have, but Ridley needed to know if the kid from Long Island was going to be a problem. After he procured Trevor’s phone, Ridley went back downtown and found Jeremy outside the dorm. He invited him into the car, and when he showed the boy the video the poor kid’s face went white. After a long silence Jeremy said quietly: “That’s not how I remember it.”
“Well,” said Ridley, “I assume there was a good bit of alcohol involved. Perhaps other substances?”
Jeremy nodded and Ridley explained that what was on the video was a crime Jeremy could do time in prison for, and that it would be best for everyone—including Claudia, because who wants to be seen like that?—if all copies were destroyed.
“I’ll give you thirty thousand dollars cash if you can bring me Claudia’s phone,” he said.
“You can’t get it?”
“I’m working on it,” said Ridley, taking care not to sound irritated that he hadn’t been able to track down a nineteen-year-old girl whose mother he was fucking. Though that was over now, of course.
Ridley opened his briefcase and took out an envelope.
“This is a thousand dollars,” he said to Jeremy. “Take it. If you get the phone, call the number on the card inside.”
He supposed he hadn’t really expected the kid to deliver but neither had he expected the call he got a few mornings later from Chad, saying that Jeremy was in the hospital.
“He got jumped or something last night,” said his son over the phone.
In the car on the way to Bellevue, Ridley called a friend at the NYPD.
“My son and his friends are concerned,” he said. “Do you think it was random? Targeted?”
“The surveillance cameras in the Mews weren’t functional, so we don’t know much,” said the friend, a lieutenant. “Kid’s got a fractured skull and a ruptured eardrum. Blunt object probably but we haven’t found anything. Guy took his phone but not his wallet. If I had to guess I’d say some homeless off his meds or high. We’ve had a few muggings this semester. Nothing this bad, though.”
At the information desk Ridley was told that Jeremy was on the second floor in intensive care. Ridley despised hospitals. Every molecule coated with sickness. If he could have donned a hazmat suit without looking like a lunatic, he would’ve. He let someone else press “2” then held his hands beneath a hand sanitizer station in the hall, rubbed the slimy bubbles over his skin, and elbowed open the swinging doors to the unoccupied nurse’s station. Room 211 was at the end of a hall, the door slightly open. He knocked.
“Come in,” croaked a male voice.
Jeremy lay in the bed, his head wrapped in a helmet of white gauze. The man sitting in the chair looked mid-twenties. A brother, perhaps? He wore khaki pants and a red polo shirt, indicating a job at Verizon. Both knees popped like asynchronous pistons.
“I’m sorry to disturb you,” said Ridley. “My son is friends with Jeremy. He said everyone in the dorm is really worried. I’m an attorney and I thought I could be of service.”
“I’m Jeremy’s brother, Lars.”
“Do you know what happened?” asked Ridley.
Lars shook his head. “The police are useless.”
It was a hell of a coincidence: The other boy in the video gets attacked and Claudia is suddenly MIA. He knew from Michelle that she’d missed the birth of Edie’s baby. Where was she? He couldn’t imagine her actually wielding whatever weapon had dropped this kid, but he could imagine her paying someone to. Maybe she didn’t even need to pay. Chad was committing felonies for her pussy for free.
“We’ll probably sue the school,” said Lars. “It was on their property. You that kind of lawyer?”
“I am.”
“My brother was about to get a record deal. We’re talking future earnings in the millions, okay? Tens of millions. Maybe more. And now doctors say he’ll never hear out of his right ear. And that’s just the damage they know about now. His brain is swollen. Where was campus security? Where were the fucking cameras?”
“I’d say you definitely have a case.”
Ridley gave the young man his card and the next day Lars called.
“My brother woke up,” Lars told him. “He told me who you and your son are. I want to talk.”
Lars said to meet him at the southeast corner of Bryant Park that evening. There was a Verizon store two blocks away. Ridley pulled up thirty minutes before their appointed time, and when Lars came pushing through the glass doors, Ridley rolled down the window and called his name.
“Why don’t we talk in my car?” said Ridley.
Lars leaned in and looked at Ridley’s driver: “I don’t know that guy.”
“It’s not a problem,” said Ridley.
Lars stepped back, shook his head.
“Son, I have something to show you.”
“I’m not your son,” said Lars. “And I know all about the video. Jeremy woke up and told me everything.”
“Please, get in the car. It doesn’t make sense to discuss this in public.” The sidewalks were two lanes of bodies and backpacks and briefcases.
“I know a place in the park that’s quiet,” said Lars.
“I don’t have a lot of time.”
Lars relented and climbed inside. “Jeremy said you offered him forty thousand dollars for Claudia Castro’s phone.”
Ridley decided not to correct him. He wondered which brother added the ten grand.
“Why can’t you find her yourself?” asked Lars.
“I’m working on it. Having an NYU ID gave your brother an advantage.”
“Is that what you think? I wouldn’t call him very advantaged right now.”