Crying Wolf

by Peter Abrahams

  “Happened to her? Nothing happened to her. She’s out in California, leading the good life. Why would anything happen to her?”

  “No reason.”

  He heard that warm breeze breath again, slow and long.

  “Been to California?” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “Whereabouts?”

  “Heavenly Valley.”

  “What the hell’s that?”

  No answer.

  “Been all over the fucking state, from Tijuana to LA. Never heard of it.”

  “It’s a ski place.”

  “A ski place?”

  No answer.

  “A ski place, I said.”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s what you do in California? You ski?”

  “I did.”

  “The college kid go with you?”

  No answer.

  “I asked you a question. The college kid, you know who I’m talking about, who the two of you are so hot for-what’s his name, again?”

  No answer.

  “That was another question.”

  Nothing, zip. Couldn’t allow that. But what to do? All he could think of was kissing those lips of hers again. Weird: what kind of reprimand was that? No explaining some things. But it was what he wanted to do, and he started to do it, rolling over, lowering his face to hers.

  “Nat,” she said.

  He paused. “Huh?”

  “His name is Nat.”

  The answer to his question, but not what he wanted to think about right now. “Don’t tell me. He owns a condo out there.”

  “No.”

  “But he’s got money to burn. I know the type. Never worked a day in his life.”

  That got her angry. Was it possible? “He works right now.” Another long slow breath. “And in the summer he works in a mill.”

  “What kind of mill?”

  No answer.

  “His old man probably owns it.”

  “His old man’s not around.”

  Freedy felt another twinge, more than a twinge, but he’d call it a twinge, in his shoulder. He rolled over, lay on his back. They lay there, breathing together. Shadows made jittery motions on the ceiling. Water dripped. Sleeping would be a bad idea.

  Blackness.

  “You awake?”

  Candle out.

  “Babe?”

  He had a horrible thought-she’d escaped somehow-and as he had the thought his good arm lashed out. Struck something sort of soft. She screamed, like in agony. He jumped a mile.

  “Hey,” he said. “That wasn’t even a hit.”

  She was already quiet. Then she took one of those breaths. “I need a doctor,” she said.

  “Me too.”

  They lay there. Freedy tested his bad arm. Hey! Felt better, a lot better. What a little sleep would do, especially when you were a fuckin’ animal. “Me too,” he said, “but you don’t hear me complaining.”

  He relit what was left of the candle, had a look at her. Nothing wrong that he could see, beside the obvious, that eye, one or two other things. “That was a nice little siesta.” Comprendo, siesta- he was on a roll. “Now we’re feeling refreshed, how about we get back to brainstorming?”

  No answer, just that warm breezing breath.

  “You know that word, siesta?” he said.

  Zip.

  “It’s a spic-Spanish-word for, like, sacking out.” He thought: a cool million, the girl, siestas in the Florida sun, maybe by the rooftop pool of Agua Group HQ. “You like pools?” he said.

  No answer.

  “Swimming pools.”

  Zip.

  “I asked you a question.”

  No reply. Maybe she was going to say something, but before she could, Freedy heard a little scratching sound. It came, it went, a rat probably, or something like that, not important. But it got him thinking.

  “We got to think,” he said.

  Silence.

  “Say ‘About what, Freedy?’ ”.

  “For God’s sake,” she said.

  He liked that. Breaking in a horse: he’d seen it in the movies. “We got to think about our plan. There’s…” He wasn’t sure exactly how to put it, about those problems slouching in his mind.

  Time passed while he thought. At last, she said: “What is the plan?”

  “Like I said, there’s you, there’s the million.”

  Another long breath. “Do they know?”

  “Now they do. They saw the note.”

  “What does it say?”

  “The exact words? Can’t give you the exact words. Something about the money, where to leave it and such.”

  “Where?”

  “In the room down there.”

  “When?”

  “Tonight.”

  “What time is it now?”

  “Don’t have a watch.”

  “I do.”

  He rolled over, held the candle near her wrist. Her watch was all smashed up.

  “No you don’t,” he said.

  The gold eye watched him. “And if the money doesn’t come?”

  “Like, worst-case scenario? That’s what we say in business.” He waited for her to speak. When she didn’t, he said: “No need to talk about that. It’ll come. The cops is what I’m-not worried-more like, you know.”

  “What makes you think they’ll be involved?”

  “Hey. Exactly right. I wrote it in plain English, what would happen.”

  “Which was?”

  “That’d be a deal breaker.”

  The gold eye watched him.

  He watched her back, let her get a good look at him. “Ever seen a man like me?” he said.

  The eye closed. “No.”

  Freedy smiled, his first smile in a long time. There was pressure, oh yes, but he could handle it. Pressure was part of the big time, one thing they didn’t mention on the infomercials. “Babe?” he said.

  No answer.

  Breaking a horse, but a valuable one, and a horse he liked. He reached over, put a hand on her tit. The gold eye opened. She tried to move away, but couldn’t, of course.

  “The plan needs work,” she said, real quiet.

  He stopped what he was doing. “Yeah?” he said. “Like what?”

  She-that eye of hers-watched him.

  “I asked you a question.”

  “Why should I help with the plan?”

  “I’m asking the questions here.”

  Silence. He had an idea. “You know why you should help?” he said.

  She watched him.

  “Because we’re in this together,” Freedy said.

  She laughed. Cut off real quick, with a gasp like she was in pain or something, but still: an actual laugh.

  “What’s funny?” he said.

  “Nothing.”

  “You laughed.”

  No answer.

  “Come on,” Freedy said. “I’ve got a sense of humor.”

  “I know you do.”

  He liked that. He looked at her, so close. Soul mates. Only potential right now, but the potential was there. Couldn’t he just see it: the two of them walking out of his HQ, his beautiful blue HQ down in Florida, at the end of a working day, climbing into the coolest car in the world, peeling off to somewhere. “What time do you think it is?” he said, real relaxed, real intimate, like man and wife.

  “No idea.”

  She had a great voice. Had he noticed that before? She was worth a million bucks. Should he say that? Why not, since she knew he had a sense of humor, had just finished saying so? The hero gets the money and the girl, and everyone else stands around like assholes. That was what he found himself saying, instead of the joke: “You know the way the hero gets the money and the girl and everyone stands around like assholes?” he said.

  The gold eye closed, opened, watched him. “The plan needs work,” she said.

  “You already said that.”

  “The money and the… hostage can’t be in the same place.”

&nbs
p; “Huh?”

  “They can’t be in the same physical place.”

  “How come?”

  “You can’t figure it out?”

  He couldn’t believe he’d heard that. “What did you say?”

  “Nothing.”

  Nothing? He was back on top of her, not as quick as usual, but still quick enough that she hadn’t finished saying nothing. She made that gasping noise again, this time ending with a high-pitched little note. He felt her breath, warm on his face. “Think I’m a loser?” he said.

  “No.”

  “Then don’t talk down your fucking nose.”

  “I need…” She didn’t finish it.

  He felt her tits under him, saw those lips, undamaged so far, inches away. They were perfect. His own lips parted. This would be a good time.

  “You don’t have any control unless the money’s in a separate place,” she said.

  He paused. “I don’t?”

  “If you’re with the hostage,” she said, “that makes you a hostage too.”

  Had he ever heard anything as smart in his life?

  “Especially in a place like here,” she added, nailing it down.

  “How do you know all this?” he said.

  She watched him, watched with the gold eye. The other eye, the closed one, had some kind of liquid seeping out.

  He rolled off her, sat up. She took one of those long slow breaths, making that gentle breeze sound.

  “But I already wrote where to bring the money,” Freedy said, seeing a problem right away.

  “You’ll have to change it.”

  “How?”

  “By calling them.”

  “Who?”

  “My sister. Nat. I’ll give you the numbers.”

  Freedy didn’t like it. “What if no one answers?”

  The gold eye watched him. He got the feeling the next thing she said was going to piss him off. But it didn’t. “Leave a message,” she said.

  “Saying what?”

  “Where to leave the money.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “This is your territory, isn’t it?”

  Freedy thought. His mother’s: no. Ronnie’s: no. The high-school parking lot: no. “What kind of place?” he said.

  “The woods.”

  “With all this snow?”

  “A vacant lot, then. An empty building.”

  “I don’t know anywhere like…” But he did.

  She watched him. “You’ve thought of something.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Where?”

  “Tell you later. Just give me the numbers.”

  She did. Pen, yes, paper, no; he wrote them on his hand.

  “Now,” he said, “what about you?”

  “You have to leave me here. Especially if it’s still daytime.”

  “Do you think it is?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll have to keep you taped up to the pipe.”

  “I know.”

  “And gag you again.”

  She was silent.

  And what else? There was something else, something important. “There’s something else,” he said, hoping she’d tell him what it was.

  She watched him.

  “Oh yeah,” he said. “What if someone comes down while I’m gone?”

  “I’ll be tied up and gagged.”

  “But-” This was the point: “What about the head-banging thing?”

  “Why would I do it?” The gold eye closed, opened. “They didn’t hear.”

  “Still,” Freedy said.

  Still. Which was why he had to do something. He checked out the way she was, the tape job, the pipe. Going to need some adjustments.

  “Babe?” he said.

  No answer.

  “Have to untape your hand for a sec.” He tore at the tape, unwound it. Her arm, one arm, came free. She sort of groaned. The rest of her, legs and the other arm, remained taped tight to the utility pipe. “Have to lean your head a little this way,” he said. He was looking at the pipe, reaching in his pocket for a roll of tape, not really watching, not really noticing that her arm, her free arm, was feeling around under her. “Let’s have that arm,” he said.

  The arm came up, came up with something glinting in it, came up quick, even by his time scale. A sharp thing, goddamn piece of glass from that fucking aquarium, stabbed him right in the neck. Not in the neck, exactly, because he was even quicker, but in his shoulder, the one just starting to feel better, deep. Had she known it was under her, that piece of glass, even brought it somehow, waiting for a chance? That hurt most of all. Why? Because of the money and the girl thing, the hero’s reward, now gone and wrecked.

  He let her have it. Let her have it but good, as they said, and Freedy knew why: because of how good you felt, doing it.

  Freedy taped her arm, now limp, back up to the pipe, taped her head to it too, to prevent that head-banging shit. He popped the last andro, tweaked the last of the meth, stopped the bleeding; his bleeding. New plan. Action central.

  Peter Abrahams

  Crying Wolf

  29

  Which of the following was not written by Nietzsche? (a) It is our future that lays down the law of our today. (b) The sick are the greatest danger to the healthy. (c) Money is the root of nothing.

  — Multiple-choice question two, final exam, Philosophy 322

  The ransom note.

  It defied Nat’s understanding, like a superficially simple poem packed with allusions he didn’t even know were there. He was sure of only one thing: it wasn’t Grace’s writing. Nat still believed Grace might have wrecked the two rooms in their cave; could even imagine Lorenzo dying in the fray; but could not accept that she’d written that note on the back of the centaur painting. A milion sounds nice. Right here soon say by dark. Call the cops and she die$. Not her. Could she have disguised her written self to persuade her father and Andy Ling that a kidnapping had really taken place? Maybe, Nat thought, but not like this. The longer he stared at the note, the stranger it got-didn’t even read like a ransom note, left out all those points Wags had made; and the middle sentence almost didn’t make sense. Something else about the note bothered him even more, something he couldn’t identify.

  So when Izzie said, “I suppose you’re going to say that’s her own writing,” he said, “No.”

  On the way out, Izzie went by Lorenzo’s body without a glance.

  Grace and Izzie’s room. Even with what he’d just seen, Nat still wouldn’t have been surprised to see Grace there. She wasn’t. Izzie snatched up the phone.

  “Calling your father?” Nat said.

  “Who else?”

  “To say what?”

  “To say what? That my sister’s been kidnapped.”

  “We already told him that.”

  “So? Now it’s true.”

  “But-”

  “But what?”

  “He didn’t believe it.”

  “The room, the note-that changes everything.”

  “Will he think so?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Odd, to have to explain her own father to her. “We need more facts,” he said.

  “What kind of facts?”

  “I don’t know. We have to think. Who could have done this?”

  “Kidnappers, for God’s sake. Do you expect them to identify themselves?”

  “Have there been any other attempts?”

  “Other attempts?”

  “In the past-threats against your family.”

  “From whom?”

  “Workers with a grievance, business rivals-you’d know better than me.”

  Izzie, punching out the numbers, gave him a quick look. “All you’re doing is complicating this. It’s simple. We need that money and we need it now.”

  She reached someone, spoke a word or two into the phone, hung up. It rang within the minute.

  “Dad?” She pressed the speaker button.

  “Yes?” said Mr. Zo
rn. Nat heard traffic noises-he was back in the city-and impatience in his tone.

  Izzie told him about their place in the tunnels and what had happened to it, told him about the ransom note, told him they needed the money and needed it now, told him that this time it was real.

  Silence, followed by a muffled conversation; Nat thought he heard Andy Ling’s voice. Mr. Zorn came back on the line.

  “What did the note say?”

  “The exact words?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t remember the exact words, but-”

  “I do,” Nat said.

  “Ah,” said Mr. Zorn. “Nat. Let’s hear them.”

  Nat quoted the ransom demand verbatim.

  Pause. “Would you repeat that, please?”

  Nat repeated it.

  Another pause. Then Mr. Zorn laughed. In the background, Andy said, “A million sounds nice,” and started laughing too, a low, pleasant laugh of real amusement, different from Mr. Zorn’s, Nat couldn’t help realizing even at that moment: Mr. Zorn’s laugh had an edge, almost like a weapon.

  “Is something funny?” Izzie said.

  “Kids,” said Mr. Zorn: “It’s enough now.”

  Click.

  Izzie paled, then went red. He’d never seen her face like that; she was almost a different person. For a moment, he thought she was going to throw the phone across the room. Grace probably would have. The color faded slowly from her face. She turned to him and said, “Doesn’t anyone understand what’s happening here? She’s going to die. I can feel it.”

  “What about trying Professor Uzig now?” Nat said.

  “Stop calling him that,” Izzie said. “He’s just Leo. What about him?”

  “Maybe he can persuade your father.”

  “He didn’t come through for you.”

  “This is different.”

  They brought Professor Uzig down to the cave. He shone the flashlight they’d given him here and there; not lingering, Nat noticed, on the wreckage, Lorenzo, or even the ransom note; but more on the undamaged parts: the gilded molding, the velvet chairs and couches, the fine old rugs. “My God,” he said. “This couldn’t be better.” Izzie shone her light at him. He shielded his eyes. “Did you say there were candles?” he said.

  Nat and Izzie lit some. Professor Uzig gazed at the high ceiling, with its coffered woodwork, carved with leaves, flowers, grapes, horns of plenty. “Metaphorically, historically, culturally-it’s perfect, perfect in so many ways.”