He looked about himself, his eyes traveling across the attic confines: This is truth, he thought. It’s nothing at all like the stately, removed reconstructions of the courtroom. He shook his head. All those years, I heard all those people talk of all those horrors, and I never really knew what it was like. He remembered the wave of fear that had swept over him as Olivia raised her gun and fired it at Tommy’s back. Guilt flooded into the pit of his stomach: I should have jumped on her before she shot. I should have thrown myself in the bullet’s path. His heart shook with the thought of how close he’d stepped to the abyss of failure. He steeled himself.
I will be ready next time.
I have been seduced, he thought. I have grown accustomed to my little prison, to thinking that someone will magically appear and free us. What has come over me? Tommy was right from the start. We are soldiers, they are the enemy.
He looked over at Tommy. You’re completely right. We must save ourselves.
The judge picked his head up suddenly. He heard footsteps approaching the attic door, and turned toward Tommy. But the child was already moving swiftly to cover up the signs of digging.
Together they returned to a bunk and awaited their visitor.
Megan drove quickly through the outskirts of town, her mind awash with barely contained anger: We’ve done it. Now, where the hell are they? Why don’t they call?
She tightened her grip on the steering wheel and muscled the car through an S-curve, accelerating on the exit, letting her anxiety flow directly into the car’s engine, fueling it with a speed to which she was unaccustomed. She gritted her teeth and listened to the car’s tires squeal as she negotiated another sharp turn. She pictured Duncan’s pale face, when he’d come home the night before, and remembered her momentary fear that he’d failed, then the subsequent, equal fear that he’d succeeded. He had placed the briefcase with the money on the kitchen table and slowly counted out the proceeds of the robbery. “It’s done,” he’d said.
“No, it’s not,” she’d replied. “Nothing is done until we get the two Tommys back.”
He had nodded and said, “Well, at least we’ve started.”
Then she had told him of the violation of the house and the shambles made of the twins’ room. They had spent most of the previous evening straightening it up while waiting for Duncan’s return.
He had hugged the girls, who were past the point where they needed comforting, and said, “We must get this over with.”
Megan agreed. She simply doubted it would happen.
She could think only of Olivia, her imagination a minefield of conflicted emotions; she knew Olivia had sent her henchman to ransack the twins’ room. It was part of Olivia’s design: disrupt and disorder the routine, and then destroy our complacency, make us think we are completely vulnerable, at any moment, at any time. That was the political thrust behind the bank job in Lodi. She pictured Olivia standing in the house before they set off to the disaster, arrogantly and confidently lecturing her troops.
Megan smiled despite herself: I heard that speech too many times, bitch. I heard it every morning, noon, and night, at every clandestine gathering, every public meeting. You haven’t even had the sense to change your tune.
Megan almost missed the entrance to the town dump. She had to turn the car sharply and for an instant she thought she might lose control as it fishtailed in the loose gravel drive. Then Megan straightened it out and headed toward the dump. There was a little shack, with an elderly man sitting inside. He was smoking a cigarette and reading a copy of the National Enquirer. He waved Megan through when he saw she had the proper sticker in the corner of her car window. He paid little attention to her, which was good. She drove as far as she could toward the trash area. The stench seemed to hang in the solid cold air. She breathed through her mouth when she stopped the car and stepped out.
She had three green plastic bags in the trunk. One contained the clothing and paraphernalia Duncan had used during the robbery. The next held all the items of clothes that the twins had found on the floor of their room. Megan had instantly agreed with their request to throw out anything touched by the invader. The third bag was filled with regular garbage; she had gone through it carefully to make sure that there was nothing, an envelope or mailbox handout, that might connect them to the other bags.
She took each bag, double-checked to make certain it was sealed tightly, and then flung them, one after the other, as far as she could into the mass of garbage. The exertion made her breathe hard; she was satisfied with the distance she’d obtained with each. They seemed swallowed up by hundreds of similar stinking bags.
All right, she said to herself. She brushed her hands against her coat. Now let’s go home and wait on Olivia.
She had not told Duncan or the twins of her research. She was not sure of it herself; she knew only that the hours spent poring over the rental listings of a few months earlier, and then matching them against those still active, had produced a dozen potential homesites. She had located each of them on a detailed map of the area, but she was not certain what she was going to do with her list now that she had it. She refused to let any of the possibilities enter into her mind. She forced herself to believe that Olivia would arrange to get the money and the Tommys would be returned and that would be that. But the harder she forced herself to think it, the less she thought it would happen.
Duncan met her at the front door. He answered her question before she had a chance to ask it:
“No, nothing yet. Not a word.”
“Damn,” Megan replied. “What do you think they’re waiting for?” She looked down at her watch, then out at the afternoon. “It’s after three-thirty. It’s almost four. There won’t be much light left soon. Do you think they’d try to make the switch at night?”
“I don’t know. Probably she just wants to screw around with us some more. She’s a sadist and she thinks all this waiting is funny.”
“Dammit to hell.”
“I know.”
Megan had an awkward thought: “Do you think she knows? I mean, how does she know you’ve got the money? How does she know we’re ready?”
“She said she would know. Maybe she staked out the bank and saw me come out last night. Maybe she’s just guessing. It makes no difference; today is the deadline she set. We’ve met it.”
Duncan paced about. Megan watched him.
“Do you think—” she started.
“I don’t know.”
“I mean, she’s got—”
“What?” said Duncan. “Who can tell what she’s got in mind? All I know is that she’ll arrange some way to get the money, and I’ll demand she exchange the Tommys at the same time. That’s it. That’s the extent of my current planning! Robbing my own bank took some thinking,” he said sarcastically. “But now that I’ve done it, what can I do? We wait!”
Duncan stomped into the kitchen where he peered about uncomfortably. Megan trailed after him.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
He clenched his fists, then unwound slightly.
“Nothing,” he said. “No fault. I’m sorry.”
She nodded.
“What have we done?” she asked abruptly.
Duncan looked surprised.
“What do you mean?”
“What have we done? Have we lost everything?”
He nodded. “And nothing.” He looked at her and then laughed. “It’s only money.”
“What do you—”
“That’s it. Just money. We’ll repay it, or maybe I’ll go to prison or something, but it’s only money. That’s the one thing Olivia has had wrong from the start; she thinks this still is important to us.”
Duncan smiled wryly and continued:
“. . . But let’s let her think that all we are is money and cars and vacation properties and s
tocks and mutual funds and whatever. It makes things a bit simpler, really. Let’s just get the Tommys back. Then go on from there.”
Megan nodded.
“It’s all changed, anyway,” Duncan said. “I realized that walking out of the bank. We are no longer what we were in sixty-eight, nor what we are in eighty-six. We’re something different. If we just get the family back together, well, I think things will be fine.”
Megan nodded again.
Duncan looked at her.
“You don’t believe me?” he asked.
She shook her head.
He smiled.
“It’s okay. I don’t believe me either.”
They sat down at the kitchen table.
“Isn’t it funny how you can make some completely crazy speech and it both makes you feel better and worse at the same time?” For an instant Duncan dropped his face in his hands, as if hiding, and Megan remembered how he would hide behind his hands and play peek-a-boo first with the twins, then with Tommy, patiently, for hours it seemed. She bit back a sudden flood of tears.
Duncan lifted his head.
“It seemed like a dream last night. Alone in the bank. Stuffing the cash in the briefcase.”
He leaned back in the chair, letting his eyes search skyward.
“I feel like something has broken inside of me. Broken in two.”
He was silent for a moment, as if thinking about what he’d said. Then he added:
“I feel like I should make a speech about sacrifice and change and duty and love and all that crap. But I can’t. I just want the phone to ring.”
Megan didn’t respond. The two sat wordlessly, watching the telephone, occasionally staring out at the quickly fleeing daylight, as if with the passing of the slate-gray sky, their hopes were darkening.
Olivia Barrow looked down at Judge Pearson and his grandson and said, “I would apologize and say I was sorry for having to do it this way, but I know you wouldn’t believe me, so I won’t.”
Judge Pearson simply glared at Olivia. His hands were tied in front of him, knotted securely to a second loop that had been tightened around his ankles. He could feel his muscles and joints stiffening quickly. Tommy was similarly trussed beside him.
Olivia held up a roll of white masking tape.
“This could go over your mouth, judge.”
“It’s not necessary,” he said quickly, perhaps a bit too quickly. He instantly wished he had the words back.
Olivia pulled a six-inch strip from the roll and tore it off. She held it up so that they could see it. She placed it over her own mouth, an inch away from making contact. She made a face. “Smelly,” she said. “Unpleasantly sticky.”
“It’s not necessary. We’ll wait quietly.”
Olivia grinned. “No? I have your word as a judge on that?”
He nodded.
“How about you, Tommy? Scout’s honor?”
Tommy nodded, but shrank against his grandfather.
“All right,” she said. “See? I’m not such an ogre after all.” She rolled the strip up into a ball and tossed it away in the corner. “I wouldn’t want one of you to gag and choke. Come back here and find one of you dead. And so close to the end, as well. It would be a shame to have made it this far and then blow it, wouldn’t it, judge?”
He grunted in agreement.
“You especially, Tommy. Don’t think I’ve forgotten about those quick little feet of yours. In prison there were always a few people who had rabbit in them. It’s a good expression. Kind of captures the essence of the desire to escape.”
She looked at Tommy. “No more rabbit in you, is there?”
“No,” he said. “I promise.”
She smiled.
“And I don’t believe you for an instant.”
Olivia continued to grin. “Well, don’t blow it. Think about it. You’re almost home free.”
“You’re saying you’re going to get your damn money and we can go home?”
“More or less, judge. Just got to put old Duncan through a few more hoops and then we’ll be closing down this little show. Make you feel a little better? Tommy?”
“I want to go home,” he said.
Her false smile faded. “You little bastard, you’ve made that abundantly clear.”
Tommy shivered, but Olivia returned to her mocking self, glancing down at her watch as she said: “Well, time to go. Now you boys stay nice and quiet and safe and we’ll be back in a little while to say our farewells, huh?”
The judge didn’t reply. Tommy merely looked at Olivia. She means none of it, he thought abruptly. The force of his recognition almost startled him. His eyes widened and bore down on Olivia. She locked in on him, and he saw that she was taken aback by the strength of his gaze, if only for an instant.
Olivia turned away. She marched down the stairs and slammed the attic door shut. She locked and then checked the lock twice. For a brief moment she allowed herself to fill with a disquieting rage. She thought about the look of hope that had scorched across the judge’s face. He’s been mine, almost from the start, she thought. I’ve always known what he would say, what he would do. But the boy sees through my every lie. All that innocence is extremely dangerous.
She picked up a small hand-duffel bag from the floor and unzipped it. She checked the contents: a revolver, a pair of binoculars fitted with night-vision lenses, a compass. She slid the roll of tape inside.
Olivia looked over at the two men.
“Armed and dangerous,” she said.
They smiled and she led them out into the quickening cold.
“It’s showtime,” she said. They fell in behind her.
When the phone rang, it was as if an electric charge ran through both of them. They reached for the receiver simultaneously, but Megan pulled her hand back abruptly and let Duncan answer the call.
He put the phone to his ear and said, “Yes?”
“Hello, Duncan,” said Olivia.
“Hello, Olivia,” he replied.
“Have you got the money?”
“Yes.”
“Does anyone know?”
“No.”
“You haven’t been dumb and called the cops, have you?”
“You know the answer to that question.”
“Good. Good going, Duncan. We’re ready to go on to the next step. A higher level, so to speak.” She made a small laugh.
“Look, dammit, Olivia. I have the money. A lot of money. Now I want my boy back. And the judge. I’ll hand over the money when I see they’re safe.”
Olivia was quiet for an instant. She was standing in a Burger King restaurant on the edge of the same shopping mall that Duncan had visited the day before. Ramon and Bill sat at a nearby table, nursing cups of coffee. Bill had the remains of a hamburger on the table in front of him.
“Don’t give me orders, Duncan. You do what I say, you get them back. Assuming you’ve come up with enough long green.”
“Listen, it’s more than—”
Olivia interrupted. “Let it be a surprise.”
“I’m tired of these games, Olivia.”
“Really? But I’m not and I’m the only person whose vote counts.”
“I’m warning you, Olivia. You’ve pushed things a bit too far!” As soon as he spoke, he realized how hollow and clichéd his words were. He felt adrift and stupid. Olivia responded with a short laugh.
“Tough words. But I don’t think so. Anyway, in this game, Duncan, I hold the aces.”
They were both silent for an instant. Duncan finally broke through, exasperation clouding his voice, filling his head and fogging his reason.
“All right. What next?” he asked.
“Good. That’s a bit better attitude. Look at your watch,
Duncan.”
“It’s a little before four.”
“Better be more careful.”
He looked again.
“It’s three minutes of four.”
“Good,” she said. “Now for the excitement. Do you know the telephone booths outside of Smith’s Drugs on East Pleasant Street? You ought to, that’s where you get your prescriptions filled.”
Duncan thought, then replied: “Yes, I guess so.”
“Great. This is just like they do it on television. Third booth from the wall. You’ve got to be there by four-oh-five. And all by your little lonesome, remember. Bye, bye.”
“What!”
“Better hurry, you son of a bitch. Better do what you’re told. Exactly what you’re told, Duncan, or else it all ends. Prematurely. Do I need to spell things out any clearer?”
“No.”
“Good going, Duncan. You’ve wasted thirty seconds already.”
Olivia hung up the telephone. She turned to the two men at the table. “Here we go,” she said. “He’s off.”
Duncan threw down the telephone and grabbed the briefcase with the money. Megan looked frightened: “What is it?”
“I’ve got five minutes to get to a phone booth in town.”
Karen and Lauren had entered the room as the telephone had rung. “We’ll come with you,” Karen said. She inadvertently stood in the doorway and Duncan barreled past her.
“No, no, no,” he insisted.
He grabbed his coat from the hall rack.
“Someone should come with you—” Megan started, but he cut her off, struggling to get his arms into the sleeves.
Day of Reckoning Page 29
