Day of Reckoning

by John Katzenbach

  “Why her? I’ll come alone.”

  “The two of you!” Olivia whispered with sudden force.

  “But—”

  “Both of you where I can see you!”

  “I don’t see—”

  “Dammit, you don’t have to see why. You just have to do it. Can’t you understand that? Or maybe you’d prefer the alternative.”

  Duncan’s head spun in the silence that stretched over the telephone line.

  “All right,” he said quietly. “Whatever you say.”

  “Right.” Olivia breathed out harshly. “Got it now? Don’t screw up.”

  “Yes. I understand. I understand completely.”

  Olivia laughed. “That way you’ll have enough time to get changed and get over to the bank before it opens up for business. And won’t that be an exciting time, Duncan? Think you can handle it? Cold blood running in your veins, Duncan? No quiver to the hands? How’s the old pokerface?”

  For an instant she listened to the silence on the line, delighting in it. She felt the spider’s satisfaction as it spins the final strands of its web.

  Then she hung up the telephone.

  Duncan replaced the receiver on the hook.

  “What is it?” Karen asked. Both twins were standing up, watching their father for some sign.

  “Are they okay? Are they going to give them up?”

  “I don’t know,” Duncan replied. He exhaled slowly, as if coming up for air.

  “She’s mad, you know. Crazy with hatred.” He said it in a matter-of-fact tone that contradicted the terror of their situation.

  “They’re awful,” Lauren said.

  Karen shook her head. “The worst.”

  Duncan felt a hardening within him, as if all the seas of his emo­tions had iced over from a great winter wind. He stared at his two daughters, his eyes narrowing with his own immense anger. And I’m crazed, too, he thought.

  “Well, there’s one answer to that,” he said.

  “What?” asked Karen.

  “To be worse than them.”

  Megan, electric, drove hard and fast through the darkness, pushing the car through the variegated shadows of the back roads, then through the settling night in town. She traveled in a vacuum, shutting out everything but the image of the white clapboard farmhouse rising through the evening shadows in front of her. She was oblivious to her surroundings, to the other cars and the few people walking on the sidewalks, their coats pulled tight against a freshening wind. She hurried against the encroaching night, her decision made, her needs blistering her heart. She made an illegal U-turn to get onto the highway from a side street and accelerated until she saw the glowing lights of the mall parking areas. She arrived fifteen minutes before closing time.

  For an instant she said a small, hypocritical prayer of thanks for the mall. Duncan’s mall. When it was built she had teased him endlessly, with a touch of malice, singing: “. . . They paved paradise and put up a parking lot . . .” Now, the bright lights beckoned to her.

  She had made up her mind in the first moments of retreat from the farmhouse. She had been bothered that she couldn’t telephone Duncan and tell him what she had found and what she was going to do. She knew that delay would be impossible. He would under­stand when she presented him with the results.

  Megan left her car and ran across the macadam. She pushed her way through the wide entrance doors, dodging the last few shoppers straggling out into the parking lot and quick-marched through the corridors, hearing her shoes click insistently against the polished floor. She was breathing hard, like a swimmer fighting against the waves. The lights from the shops—a never-ending variety of bou­tiques and clothes stores—glared at her, as if spotlighting her panic and desperation. I must control myself, she admonished. But a voice inside her recognized that she should be keening a dirge for her lost soul. What I am going to do is not wrong, she told herself. She saw the eyes of the store window dummies, fixed and wooden, staring out at her as she half-ran past, and she wondered whether that was what dead eyes looked like. She swept the thought from her mind and hurried on.

  When she walked into the sporting goods store, she was relieved to see that she was alone, but for a solitary clerk totaling up receipts behind a register.

  He was a young man, and he glanced at Megan, then the clock on the wall—saw that it was a dozen minutes before closing time—and then turned back to Megan. He walked out from behind the register and Megan saw that he was wearing blue jeans, a white shirt, and tie, and that he sported an earring. He did not look like the outdoors type.

  Then, she acknowledged ruefully, neither did she.

  “Hi,” the young man said, pleasantly enough. “Just got in under the wire. How can I help you?”

  “I’d like to see your hunting equipment,” Megan replied, trying not to let anxiety slide into her voice.

  The clerk nodded. “No problem,” he said. He led Megan to the rear of the store, where one wall was devoted to an array of weaponry: wildly curved bows and brightly colored arrows that seemed like crazily futuristic weapons, and an arrangement of shotguns, rifles, handguns, and crossbows. The racks on the floor carried parkas and hunting pants in contradictory fluorescent orange or muted camouflage colors. The countertop was glass, and the display shelves were lined with an assortment of hunting knives—serrated, gleaming, wicked-looking things. There were a few magazines displayed as well: Field and Stream, Guns and Ammo, and Soldier of Fortune. For a moment, Megan felt utterly lost and foolish as her eyes traveled over the available arsenal. But then the thought was replaced by the reality of her mission, and she settled her mind on the task at hand.

  “So, exactly what sort of hunting gear were you looking for?” she heard the clerk ask. “Are these gifts or for your own use?”

  She took a deep breath. “For my family,” she replied.

  “Gifts, then. So what do you have in mind?”

  “Hunting,” she replied abruptly.

  “Well, what will you be hunting for?” the clerk asked. He was patient and seemed mildly amused.

  “Beasts,” she replied under her voice.

  “I beg your pardon?” The clerk eyed her oddly.

  She ignored his stares and tossed her mind back to the house in Lodi. She remembered sitting around in the murky living room, thick with smoke and enthusiasm, listening to Olivia discuss weapons with Kwanzi and Sundiata. The two black men had had a ghetto appreciation of guns: Saturday-night specials and sawed-off shotguns. Olivia’s knowledge had been more sophisticated; she spoke about firing velocity and range, and dropped brands and calibers easily into her conversation, showing off. Megan pictured Emily joining the group, showing them all how she planned to hold her shotgun under her long raincoat; she pictured the shotgun in Emily’s arms. She could see the black barrel and brown wooden stock. Megan lifted her gaze up to the rack of weapons in front of her.

  “Like that,” she said to the clerk, pointing.

  “That’s not really much of a hunting gun,” the clerk replied, turning to the shelves and examining the weapon she indicated. “That’s a twelve-gauge riot pump. It’s the sort of weapon that police­men carry about in their cars. Farmers use them for shooting wood­chucks and other varmints. You see, the barrel is shorter, much shorter, which reduces accuracy at distance. Some people use them for home protection, though—”

  “May I see it, please?”

  The salesman shrugged. “Sure. But most hunters usually want something a bit more—”

  He stopped himself, frozen by the look in Megan’s eyes.

  “Let me get it down for you.” He took a key and unlocked a bolt that secured the weapons. He grasped the gun and handed it to Megan.

  For a moment she held the shotgun at port arms, wondering what she was supposed to do. She tried to recall all th
e lessons they’d had, after dark, shades drawn, in the house in Lodi. She seized the pump action beneath the barrel and tugged back hard, listening to the shotgun’s arming mechanism click soundly.

  “That’s right,” the salesman said. “But a little more gently. You don’t need to slam it quite so hard.” He took the weapon from her and pointed it toward the rear of the store. Then he dry-fired the gun. “Watch,” he said. “One, two, three, four, five, six. Then you have to reload—here.” He pointed at the slot in the side of the gun’s magazine.

  Megan took the weapon and mimicked the salesman. The heft of the piece was satisfying. It wasn’t nearly as heavy as she thought it would be. The sensation of the wooden stock against her shoulder was almost seductive. But she recognized the deception. When it fired, it would be a leaping, twisting, wild thing, and she wondered whether she could handle it.

  She breathed out hard and thought, We’ll just have to.

  “Fine,” she said, putting the gun down on the counter. “I’ll take that one and another one just like it.”

  “You want two—” the clerk started, surprised. Then he stopped and shrugged. “Sure, ma’am. Whatever you say.” He reached up and grabbed an identical weapon from the rack. “Ammunition?”

  Megan again searched through her memory. She remembered ­Olivia’s lecture: “You must always use what the pigs use, or better. Never be outgunned.”

  The recollection forced a bitter smile to her lips.

  In as friendly a voice as she could muster, she said, “And a couple of boxes of double-ought buckshot, please.”

  The salesman’s eyes widened slightly and he shook his head briefly. “Ma’am, I hope you’re hunting for elephants or rhinos or whales.” He reached beneath the counter and came up with two boxes of shells. “Please, ma’am, these things will blow a hole through double-thick sheet metal. They’d knock down a wall in your house. Take them out to the firing range and give them a try, please, just so you know what you’re getting into.”

  Megan nodded and smiled. She looked back up onto the shelf and saw another weapon, one that seemed familiar from a hundred nightly newscasts. “What’s that?” she asked.

  The clerk turned slowly, and again examined what she was pointing at.

  “Ma’am, that’s a Colt AR-Sixteen. It’s a semiautomatic rifle and it fires an extremely powerful slug. It’s the nonmilitary version of the rifle the army uses. It’s not really a hunting weapon, either. You know, I just sold one the other day to a couple who were planning to sail their boat around the Caribbean this winter. It’s a good weapon to have down there, on board ship.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Well, it’s very accurate at distances up to a thousand yards and it will blow a hole in something a mile away. It fires very rapidly and it comes with an optional twenty-one-shot clip of bullets.”

  “Why the Caribbean?”

  “A lot of smugglers and hijackers still operate down there. They sometimes like to grab a luxury yacht and use it for a single drug run. An AR-Sixteen can go a long ways towards dissuading someone from approaching you in a hostile manner. You see, with a shotgun or a handgun, you have to wait until your trouble gets too close. Not with this weapon.”

  He held the rifle up and demonstrated the firing technique.

  “This is how it works. Not much kick, either.”

  He looked down at Megan, still holding the rifle to his shoulder.

  “I guess you want this one, as well?”

  “That’s right,” she nodded. “No one wants their trouble to get too close.”

  “For hunting, right?”

  “Correct.”

  “Okay.” He shrugged again. “Whatever you say. Anything else?”

  “Ammunition.”

  “Of course.”

  “An extra clip.”

  “Got it.”

  “A box of forty-five caliber bullets for a pistol.”

  He looked at Megan and smiled.

  “Right here.”

  “An extra clip.”

  “I should have guessed.”

  Megan spun around and eyed the racks.

  “Do those camouflage suits come in men’s and ladies’ sizes?”

  “They do.”

  “One man’s large. Three women’s mediums, please.”

  The clerk went to the rack and picked through it swiftly. “These are real good quality,” he said. “Gore-Tex and Thinsulate. Keep you warm under any circumstances, back of any duck blind. Hats, gloves, boots?”

  “No, I think we’re set on those.”

  “Hand grenades? Mortars? Flamethrowers?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Just joking.”

  Megan didn’t return the man’s smile. “Wrap it up,” she said. “Oh, and one of those, too, please.” She pointed into the display case.

  The salesman reached down for a black-handled hunting knife. “Very sharp,” he said. “Carbon steel blade. You could stick it right through the hood of a car, no trouble—”

  He shook his head slightly. “—but you’re not hunting for cars, right?”

  “Right. We’re not.”

  The salesclerk started to total up the items. When he reached the end, Megan handed him her American Express Gold Card.

  “You want to use a credit card?” the clerk asked, surprise tingeing his voice.

  “Yes. Is something wrong?”

  “No, no,” he said, grinning and shaking his head once again. “It’s just that, well, when people buy the, uh, selections you have in bulk, they generally pay cash.”

  “Why is that?” Megan asked, trying to sound equally jocular.

  “More difficult to trace.”

  “Oh,” Megan said. “I suppose that makes sense.” She felt em­barrassed for an instant. Then she shook her head. She didn’t care. She thrust the card forward. “I suspect that stores like this are generally discreet?”

  “You bet,” he replied. “And we’re a big chain. The sales all get sort of lumped together into the computers. But discretion doesn’t really help when you see a court order in some detective’s hand.”

  Megan nodded. “You shouldn’t concern yourself,” she said. “This is all for recreational use.”

  “Sure,” the clerk said, with a small, snorting laugh. “Recreational use in Nicaragua or Afghanistan.”

  He took the card and ran it through the electronic verification machine. Then he started putting the clothes and ammunition in one bag. “The guns should really be in cases,” he said.

  “That’s all right,” Megan said. “Just wrap them up.”

  “Please,” the salesclerk said quietly. “Please, lady. I know it’s none of my business, but whatever you’re hunting for, please be careful.”

  Megan offered a thin-lipped smile.

  “You’ve been very helpful,” she said. “This will take me two trips to the car.”

  “Can I give you a hand?”

  She shook her head. He smiled. “I didn’t think so,” he said.

  Tommy heard the lock turning in the door and hurried over to his grandfather’s side. “Maybe this is it?” he whispered, a half-question.

  “I don’t know,” Judge Pearson replied. “Don’t get your hopes up.”

  He knew the kidnappers had received the money from Duncan; their self-congratulatory laughter had seeped through the old wooden floors. Then Bill Lewis had told them that it was almost over, that they were going to arrange for the exchange. Then hours had passed without anything happening, except having their hopes soar and plummet with each passing minute.

  Judge Pearson had racked his imagination for some plausible, non-terrifying explanation for this delay, but had come up with nothing. He knew, though, that Olivia was still using th
e two of them to get something. Which meant that even though the money had been paid, a debt was still owed.

  In the few seconds that Olivia took to climb the stairway, he felt more unsettled than at any moment since the start. He worried that his hand might shake, his voice quaver—and that any of these little things would tumble his grandson into a panic. As much as anything, he hated the way she made him feel old and infirm.

  “Hello, boys,” Olivia said warmly.

  “What’s the delay?” he asked.

  “Just straightening out a final piece of business,” she answered. “Tying up a few loose ends, that’s all.”

  “Do you really think you’re going to get away with all this?” the judge demanded. The force of his words surprised him.

  But Olivia laughed. “We already have, judge. We were always meant to get away with this. I’m surprised at you. You know that most crimes go unsolved. This one’s not exactly ‘unsolved,’ of course. Maybe ‘unresolved’ is a better word.”

  She walked over and cupped her hand around Tommy’s chin. She spoke to the judge, but stared into the boy’s eyes, as if searching for something.

  “The best crimes, judge, are the crimes that have no end. Where threats and possibilities continue to exist. The crimes sort of take on a life of their own. They take over people’s lives completely. That’s what’s happening here.”

  “You’re crazy,” he said.

  She laughed again. “Maybe, judge. A lot of the women in prison went crazy—from confinement, from boredom, from tension, from hatred. Maybe I did, too. But you better get used to it. I’m going to be part of the family from now on. What do you think, Tommy? Like some eccentric spinster aunt, perhaps. You know—childless, a little mean, a little weird. The type that always gets invited to all the family functions, but everyone hopes won’t show up.”

  Tommy didn’t respond and she dropped his chin and moved away.

  “You haven’t seen anything up here. Think about what has happened: I’ve put you in one prison, put them in another. What did you think, that I was going to let everyone out on parole after one little week? That’s not how the system works, judge. They’re in for some hard time.”