Day of Reckoning

by John Katzenbach

  “All right. Open the door and take the bucket.”

  He watched the door swing slowly open, revealing the judge, who looked him up and down. Lewis gestured with the barrel toward the bucket. The judge nodded and grasped hold of the handle.

  “Thank you,” the judge said. “We appreciate this.”

  Lewis stared at him.

  “No problem. We want you to be perfectly comfortable through-out your stay.” He rolled all the r’s of the words perfectly. He grinned as the old man nodded.

  “Oh, judge?”

  “Yes?”

  “Mustard or mayonnaise on your sandwiches?”

  “Mayonnaise.”

  Bill Lewis laughed as he locked the door behind the old man. He walked away and did not once remember how scared he’d been in the first moments—which was as great a weakness as the fear itself.

  Olivia Barrow let the silence on the telephone line grow until it seemed to admit the entire night blackness. She could imagine the pasty pallor that had grasped her quarry’s face.

  “Who is this?” she finally heard.

  “Duncan, now, really! You know who it is.”

  She spoke these words like a favorite aunt halfheartedly scolding a beloved child for breaking an ugly antique vase.

  “Must we really play guessing games?” she asked him.

  “No,” he replied.

  “Say my name then,” she demanded. “Say my name.”

  “Olivia. Tanya.”

  “The same.”

  “Well,” she said, “aren’t you going to greet your old comrade in arms? It has been such a long time, I expected a nice warm hello, how are you, how the years been treating you? A kind of class-reunion, old-school-tie kind of hello.”

  “A long time,” he replied.

  “But we do remember, don’t we? We remember everything, even if it has been a long time.”

  “Yes. I do.”

  “Do you, Duncan? Do you remember how you left me to die, you cowardly son of a bitch!”

  “I remember,” he replied.

  “Do you remember how Emily died because you weren’t there for us? Because you left us alone in that street facing all those pig guns like the sniveling scared rat bastard that you are?”

  “I remember.”

  Olivia couldn’t control herself any longer. The phone shook in her hand.

  “Do you know how long I’ve thought of this day?”

  “I can guess.”

  “Every minute of every day for eighteen years.”

  Duncan said nothing.

  Olivia took a deep breath. Then another. She paused, listening to the early night sounds, listening to the anxious breathing on the telephone line. She let the cold air wash over her, clearing her mind.

  “Have you got anything to say?” she asked.

  He paused, wordless.

  “I didn’t think so.”

  She took another deep breath and felt some of the instant rage subside, replaced by the same familiar steady burning that she had known for so long.

  “Well,” she said, “it’s payback time.”

  She let that word hang in the air.

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “It’s a prison word, con language, Duncan, something I know intimately and you don’t, because of me. Because I never told them who you were. It’s the word you use when someone owes you a debt, and you’ve come to collect. That’s why I’m here, Duncan. I’m here to collect.”

  She whispered into the phone:

  “I’ve got them, you rat bastard. I’ve got them and you’re going to pay.”

  “Who? What do you mean? What are you saying?”

  She felt his panic and it warmed her heart.

  “I’ve got them both. I took them from the parking lot at that school and I’ve got them now. You know who I’m talking about.”

  “Please . . .” Duncan started.

  The word infuriated her.

  “Don’t beg! Don’t plead! You coward! You had your chance and you blew it. You should have been there and you weren’t!”

  Again silence dominated the line.

  “What do you want?” Duncan asked, after a few miserable seconds passed.

  She hesitated.

  “Well, Duncan, it seems you’re doing nicely. The years have been kind, profitable. You’ve done pretty damn well for yourself.”

  She took a deep breath and paused. “I’m going to take it all.”

  “Please, don’t hurt them. You can have anything.”

  “That’s right. I can.”

  “Please,” Duncan said again, forgetting her earlier admonition.

  “You want them back, you’re going to have to pay, Duncan.”

  “I will.”

  “I don’t suppose I have to go through all the same silly threats, do I? Like they do on television. Like don’t call the cops. Don’t tell anyone. Just be ready to do what I say. Do I have to tell you this?”

  “No, no, no, whatever, I’m ready, whatever—”

  “Good. We’ll talk again soon.”

  “No—wait! Tommy, my son, where—”

  “He’s okay. So’s the old fascist pig judge. Don’t worry. I haven’t killed them yet. Not like you killed Emily. They still have a chance—”

  “Please, I don’t know—”

  “But I will, Duncan. I will kill them just as easily as you killed Emily and almost killed me. Do you understand that?”

  “Yes, yes, but—”

  “Do you understand that!” she shouted.

  “Yes.” His voice stopped short.

  “All right, Duncan. Now just wait. I’ll be in touch. I was able to wait eighteen years for this. Surely you can wait a few hours.”

  She laughed at him.

  “Have a nice night. Give my very best to your squeeze, mathman.”

  Then she hung up the telephone.

  Olivia Barrow stepped back swiftly from the pay phone as if it were something alive, and stared at the booth like a surveyor measuring a parcel of land. She spotted Ramon, who had pulled the car into a parking place a short way up the street. She waved, and briskly walked over to where he was waiting. He opened the door for her and she seated herself in the vehicle.

  “How did it go?” Ramon asked.

  She was flushed. Olivia clenched her fists and slammed them against the padded dashboard, making a sound like a drumroll.

  “Is something wrong?” Ramon asked worriedly.

  “No,” she replied. “It just feels so good I had to do something.”

  Ramon seemed to relax.

  “Good, good,” he said. “Tell me how it went.”

  “Later, when we get back,” she answered. “I’ll run through it once for you and Bill.”

  “Okay,” he said, still edgy. “He’s gonna come up with the bread? Right?”

  “He’s going to pay. Don’t worry.”

  Ramon smiled. “Okay,” he said. He turned the ignition.

  “Wait,” she commanded.

  “Don’t you want to get out of here now?”

  “No,” she replied. “One more thing to do.”

  “I don’t get it,” he said. But she remained silent, watching out the car window.

  “Shouldn’t be more than another minute or two,” she said.

  She watched the front of the bank. Come on, Duncan, she thought. I want to see your face.

  As she stared at the bank’s front, lights began to switch off inside. There was a second’s delay, then the front door opened. She looked across the street and saw Duncan.

  “Well,” she laughed, “at least he didn’t have a heart attack.”

  Olivia s
aw him drop the keys to the bank on the ground. She saw him stoop and start over to lock the doors. His raincoat was askew on his back, his hands were moving frantically. His briefcase was unclasped and jammed with papers. She could see the panicked hurry in his actions. She noted that he used two sets of keys, and then he unlocked an electrical panel box near the front door. She saw him punch in a sequence of numbers on what she took to be a keyboard. She wondered how steady his hand was.

  “Well, I’ll be,” she said out loud. “The bastard knows how to arm the security system.”

  She watched as Duncan reeled away from the bank’s front, half-running, half-staggering into a small parking lot.

  Ramon grinned nervously at her.

  “Shall we go now?” he asked.

  “Patience, Ramon, patience. We’re learning things.”

  She saw Duncan’s car swing out of the lot and accelerate past where they were parked.

  “Okay, Ramon, nice and easy. Let’s follow the bastard and his nice, new BMW.”

  “Why?”

  “Just do it!”

  He swung out of the parking place and quickly maneuvered onto Duncan’s tail.

  “Suppose he makes you?”

  “What chance is there of that? The poor sod will be lucky if he makes it home without smashing into somebody. But if it makes you feel better, drop back a little ways and just keep him in sight.”

  “Gotcha.”

  Ramon let Duncan pull away before sliding the car forward.

  “Why are we doing this? We know where he lives. We’ve seen it before.”

  “That’s right. I just want to make sure he goes home and not straight to the FBI.”

  “Oh, I get it. Just making sure.”

  “That’s right.” The explanation was something Ramon could iden­tify with. He drove along with more enthusiasm for several minutes. They swiftly passed away from the center of town into tree-lined, quiet streets. She watched Duncan’s car lights maneuver through the neighborhood.

  “He’s turning onto East Street now.”

  “Half a block to go. Give him a minute, and we’ll roll by nice and slow.”

  She turned as they passed the house and caught a glimpse of Megan and Duncan, just as they stood in their doorway, as if frozen by the event that she had brought down on top of them.

  “All right,” she said with utter satisfaction. “Let’s let them think about things for a while. Let’s let all that worry and fear build right up till it boils inside them.”

  Ramon nodded and grinned. “Back to the house?”

  “First I need to get the judge’s car and ditch it in the woods. Then we’ll check on our guests.”

  She thought: This is like preparing a dish of food. Now it is time to let it stand a bit before turning up the heat.

  Megan and Duncan reeled into the living room of their house and sat across from each other, overwhelmed by the flood of questions, unable to ask any. After the initial shock of Duncan’s homecoming, and an instant torrent of tears, the two had settled into a lingering state, someplace on the rim of panic.

  Megan was trying to control herself, unsure whether an hour had passed or only seconds. It was as if she had lost grasp of time, that it suddenly swirled around her out of control. She tried to force herself to remember a few simple things: It is Tuesday. We are home. It is dinnertime.

  But the effort only caused her to dissolve again. I need to grab hold of something, she pleaded to herself. She tossed her glance around the room, picking out familiar objects, forcing herself to recall the history of each: the antique chest purchased at a shop in Hadley, refinished painstakingly by hand; the set of bowls from the craft shop in Mystic; the watercolor of ships at dock done by the friend who’d returned to painting after seeing her children grown. Each of these filled up her life, made her remember who she was that day, who she would be on the next. Yet she felt adrift. There was no comfort in them, and she had been thrust into some different place. This must be what death is like, she thought.

  “I don’t understand,” she said finally.

  “What is it that you don’t understand?” he snapped.

  “All right. This is what I know. Shortly after five P.M., a few minutes after you called me, I got a phone call from Olivia Barrow. She said that she had taken the two Tommys from the schoolyard and that she’s holding them. She said we would have to pay to get them back.”

  “But I thought she was in prison . . .”

  “Apparently not.”

  “Don’t be sarcastic with me!”

  “Well, I don’t see how she got here has any fucking relevance! She’s here! She’s got them! That’s all that counts!”

  Megan jumped out of her chair and leaped across the room, unaware of her actions, driven only by anguish. “You did it! You did it! My Tommy! My dad! It’s all your fault! They were your stupid friends! I didn’t want to have anything to do with them! Play-acting at being a revolutionary! How could you? You bastard!” She swung hard at Duncan, who sat back in surprise. Her first blow missed and he blocked her second. She threw herself at him, arms flailing wildly, moaning. He gripped her tightly, and she finally collapsed into his arms. He cradled her and together they rocked back and forth.

  After a few minutes passed in silence, except for the creaking of the chair as they rocked and her small sobs, she was able to say, “I’m sorry. It just came out. Oh, Duncan.”

  “It’s all right,” he whispered. “I understand.”

  He paused. “We were different then,” he said.

  She looked up at him through her tears. “Duncan, please, you must be reasonable. All my life, ever since we first met, you’ve always been the steady one, please don’t change now. If you aren’t, I don’t know how we can get through it.”

  “I will,” he said quietly. “I’ll try my best.”

  They were quiet. She could feel a gasp forming in her throat. “Oh, my poor baby,” she said. She squeezed his hand, filling her imagination with a hundred varied thoughts, all charging about within her, unchecked. She swallowed hard.

  “What are we going to do?” she asked finally, in an even, flat tone.

  “I don’t know.”

  She nodded and they continued to rock.

  “My baby,” she said. “My father.”

  “Megan, listen to me. They’ll be okay. The judge can handle himself. He’ll take care of Tommy. I know it.”

  She sat up and looked at him.

  “You think so?”

  “Sure. The old guy’s got a lot of moxie left.”

  She smiled.

  “He sure does.”

  Megan put her hand on Duncan’s cheek. “Even if you’re lying, it’s nice to think so, anyway.”

  “Look, the important thing is for us not to panic.”

  “How? Tell me, Duncan, how do we keep from panicking?”

  “I wish I knew.”

  She started to cry again, but was brought sharply to a halt by another voice.

  “Mom? Dad? What’s wrong?” It was Karen, standing in the doorway. Lauren poked her head out from behind her sister.

  “We heard you crying, then we heard you fighting. Where’s Tommy? Where’s Grandfather? Has something happened? Are they okay?” Both girls’ voices were filled with tremors.

  “Oh, God, girls,” Megan said.

  Duncan saw the girls pale. For an instant he couldn’t speak, as he watched fear rush through their faces.

  “Are they hurt?” Karen asked, her voice rising in sudden loss.

  “Where are they? What’s happened?” Lauren asked again. “Mom? Dad?” Both girls started to cry in fear, confusion, and apprehension.

  Duncan took a deep breath.

  “Come here, girls, and sit down. They’re both okay,
as far as we know . . .”

  He watched the two enter the room, moving as always in a sort of unified way, linked invisibly. He could see that they were frightened, hit with something incomprehensible. They sat on a sofa across from their parents.

  “No, come closer,” he said.

  The twins sat on the floor, close to their parents’ feet. They were both crying gently, not yet knowing why, knowing only that something had shattered the family’s equilibrium.

  Duncan just launched ahead:

  “Tommy and Grandfather have been kidnapped,” he said.

  Both girls flushed, eyes wide.

  “Kidnapped! Who?”

  “How?”

  He did not know how to answer. He let silence fill the room. He saw that their tears had been replaced by something other than sadness, different from fear. He could not imagine what was going on in their heads, and it troubled him.

  He held up his hand. “You’ll just have to hang on for a moment.” He felt Megan’s hand on his knee. He turned and saw a different concern in her face.

  “We have to tell them everything,” Duncan said. “They’re a part of this, too. We’re still a family, and we’re all in this equally. They’ll have to know the truth.”

  “What is the truth? How much truth?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  “Duncan, they’re still children!” She reached out and grasped the twins, enveloping them in her arms. They pulled free.

  “We are not! We need to know!”

  “That’s right! Come on, Mom!”

  Duncan paused for an instant. “One other thing, Megan, that just occurred to me: How do we know they’re not in danger, too?”

  Megan collapsed on her chair as if struck.

  “Oh no, do you think so?”

  “I don’t know. We don’t know anything.”

  Megan nodded. She swallowed hard and forced herself to sit up straight.

  “Girls, I want you to go to the kitchen and make a pot of coffee. If you’re hungry, grab something to eat. Leave your father and me alone for a few minutes while we talk this out just a bit, then come back and we’ll fill you in,” Megan said in her best mother-knows-best voice, the tones she used when she needed to limit debate.