Crying Wolf

by Peter Abrahams

  “What do you mean?”

  “You must know, if you’ve been coming here. What shall I call it? A time capsule, and planted with the same sort of deliberation. Can you read that?” He pointed to the Greek writing on the wall. “From the Republic,” he said, reading it in Greek and then translating: “Let early education be a sort of amusement.”

  Didn’t Plato have a cave? This can be Nietzsche’s. Izzie had said that, when they were naming this place.

  “There were social clubs at Inverness in the nineteenth century,” Professor Uzig was saying. “Not fraternities-more in the Oxford-Cambridge style. They had a powerful influence, almost independent of the college. The board of trustees outlawed them after World War One, bought up their houses, Goodrich Hall being one. There must be a direct route into Goodrich, sealed off.”

  “There is,” Nat said.

  Professor Uzig nodded. “Sealed off by the club members, of course, in order to preserve this secret space. A kind of defiance, do you see, an underground resistance forever in opposition to whatever modernizing forces they despised. Metaphorically, historically, culturally perfect, as I said.” He eyed them. “And motivationally,” he added.

  “Motivationally?” said Izzie.

  Nat felt it coming.

  “There couldn’t be a more seductive setting for dreaming up little schemes like yours,” said Professor Uzig. “A place like this can almost be said to dream them up by itself. And the consequent destruction in light of the failure of the scheme makes perfect sense.”

  “Mr. Zorn called you?” Nat said.

  “I was hanging up when you knocked on my door.”

  “You’re saying you don’t believe us?” Izzie said. “What about the goddamn note?” She took him by the front of his tweed jacket-seized him, really-and yanked him toward it. Professor Uzig, barrel-chested, fit for his age, didn’t like being yanked, resisted, but not successfully.

  “Yes,” he said, smoothing his jacket when Izzie had released him, “I heard about this note.” He looked it over. All texts, as Nat recalled, were transparent to him. “Don’t you realize you’re starting to embarrass yourselves?”

  “What’s wrong with everybody?” Izzie said. “We didn’t write it.”

  “Your father doesn’t doubt that. He knows it was Grace.”

  Izzie turned on him. “When I say we, Grace is included.”

  Professor Uzig took a step back. “Who else could have written it, then?”

  “I thought you were the one who knew how to think. Some real kidnapper, of course.”

  Professor Uzig’s voice rose, but only slightly. “This is not the note of a real kidnapper. And what real kidnapper would know about this place? For that matter, have you told anyone else about it?”

  “No,” Nat said. “But…” An idea was starting to form in his mind.

  “But what?” said Professor Uzig.

  “There’s a thief on campus.”

  “There are always thieves on campus, almost invariably your fellow students.”

  “But this one knows about the tunnels,” Izzie said.

  “Why do you say that?” said Professor Uzig.

  Nat told Professor Uzig about the theft of Wags’s TV, how he’d followed the thief until he’d disappeared in the Plessey basement.

  “That doesn’t mean he knows about the tunnels.”

  “There was nowhere else he could have gone.”

  Professor Uzig didn’t looked convinced. “Could you identify this person?”

  “I only saw him from behind,” Nat said. “Big, with a ponytail.”

  A strange expression crossed Professor’s Uzig’s face. Nat’s mom would have said he looked a little green; as though he’d eaten something bad or was seasick. “It won’t work,” he said.

  “What won’t work?” Izzie said.

  “Whatever you kids are up to,” said Professor Uzig. He turned to Nat. “Time for you to go home. Worse things have happened.”

  “Worse things are happening now,” Nat said. A milion sounds nice. Whatever was bothering him was in that sentence. A milion sounds nice. And it wasn’t the spelling. He walked along the walls of the room, tapping here and there, listening for hollow sounds, although not sure why. They sounded hollow everywhere.

  “You’re not going to talk to him?” Izzie said.

  Professor Uzig shook his head. “You’ve given me nothing to talk about.”

  “Nicely put,” said Izzie, “as usual. But would you be saying that if he wasn’t dangling this endowed chair in front of your nose?”

  There was no persuading Professor Uzig after that. He didn’t say another word. They went upstairs in silence.

  “What about calling the police?” Nat said to Izzie when they were alone; not because he thought it was a good idea, more because it seemed the kind of thing people said at a time like this.

  “Brilliant,” Izzie said. “If we forget about what the note says, and about what will happen when the police call my father and ask when the money’s coming.”

  “Izzie,” he said; not because she was wrong, but because of how she’d spoken to him. She was acting so strange.

  “What?”

  She was acting so strange, but he’d already said that.

  Izzie took a deep breath. He could almost feel her getting hold of herself, slowing down.

  “Sorry,” she said. She gave him a kiss, soft and quick, on the cheek. “Better?”

  That left the bowling jacket. Saul’s Collision. Nat knew a bit about bowling-his mom had been in the Tuesday league for years, always fixing chicken pot pie that night, so he could warm it for himself when he got home from basketball-and had noticed lanes at the bottom of College Hill, not far from the tracks. All-Star Bowling, or something like that. He looked them up in the phone book, called the number.

  “Does a team from Saul’s Collision bowl there?” he said.

  “Sure does.”

  “Because one of them lost his jacket. I’d like to return it.”

  “We’re open till ten.”

  “I meant personally.”

  “Personally?”

  “I’m looking to join a team.”

  “You could do better than Saul’s, you’re any kind of bowler at all.”

  “But I like their jacket.”

  “I hear you. Tell you what. Where you calling from?”

  “Here-in Inverness.”

  “There’s only one team member lives in town. That would be Ronnie Medeiros, over on River Street. He’s in the book.”

  The wind was blowing off the river, driving the snowfall in waves that seemed to bound through the air. Tracks, back and forth between Ronnie Medeiros’s house and the street, were disappearing fast. Nat ignored the buzzer dangling loose on its wires, knocked on the door. No answer. He knocked again, louder. They listened, heard the wind, the snow hissing through bare trees, a plow grinding along some nearby street. Izzie turned the knob. The door opened.

  They went into a living room that had space for a big TV and not much else. On the TV sat a framed photograph of a referee posing with a girls’ basketball team.

  “Hello?” Nat said.

  No answer.

  They went into a hall, opened a door. A bedroom: in no way like their cave rooms under the campus except that it too was a shambles. Only the bed was undamaged. The basketball referee was sleeping in it. Nat knocked on the doorjamb.

  The sleeper’s eyes opened.

  “Ronnie Medeiros?” Nat said.

  “Who’dja expect in my bed, for Christ sake?” His eyes went to Izzie, back to Nat. “You the guys Saul sent?” he said.

  They didn’t answer.

  He got impatient. “To help me clean up. My fuckin’-my freakin’ head is killing me.”

  “What happened here?” Nat said.

  “Saul didn’t tell you?”

  “No.”

  “Just a little party, you could call it. Got out of hand. He promised me that if I kept my-that he’d send some
one to clean it up.”

  “You’re talking about Saul of Saul’s Collision?” Nat said.

  “Huh?”

  Nat held up the bowling jacket.

  “Where’d you get that?” He sat up with a groan. “Lemme see.” Nat handed him the jacket. He ran his hands over it, as though it bore a message in Braille, then squinted up at Nat. “You cops?” He lowered his head gently to the pillow. “Fuckin’ A. That was quick. I told him there’s no way to keep something like this a…” He paused, his eyes again shifting to Izzie and back. “You don’t look like cops,” he said. “Least not cops from around here.” His gaze went to Izzie. “Unless you’re FBI,” he said. “There’s girl FBI agents on TV and they always look like you.” His eyes narrowed. “I get it now-that fuckin’ Freedy.”

  “Freedy?” Nat said.

  “Sure. Crossing state lines.”

  “Who’s Freedy?” Nat said.

  “Think I’m stupid? Not sayin’ another word till I speak to my lawyer. That’s my right, and no one ever accused Ronnie Medeiros of not sticking up for his rights.”

  “We’re not from the FBI,” Nat said, “not police at all.”

  “Expect me to believe that?”

  “Whose jacket is this?” Nat said.

  Ronnie clamped his mouth shut, sucked both lips into his mouth like a child, raising the little growth of hair under his lower lip into prominence. Izzie made a disgusted sound and left the room.

  “Is it yours?” Nat said.

  Ronnie, mouth still clamped shut, shook his head.

  “How do you spell million? ” Nat said.

  Ronnie looked interested. His mouth relaxed. “Million?” he said.

  “Spell it.”

  “M-i-l-l-i-o-n.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “ ’Course I’m sure. I graduated high school. And billion ’s the same, just with a b.”

  Izzie came back. She had a laptop in her hands. “The laptop,” she said.

  “How do you know?”

  “It’s not working, but…” Izzie flipped open the protective flap at the back. Nat read the label inside: Property of Zorn Telecommunications.

  She stood over Ronnie, about to do almost anything. “Where did you get this?”

  “Don’t,” he said.

  “Don’t what?”

  “I already been clobbered with that thing once.”

  “By who?” Nat said.

  Ronnie looked at him, at Izzie, at the laptop. He licked his lips. “I’m ready to make a deal,” he said.

  “Let’s hear it,” Nat said; he felt Izzie’s glance.

  “First I want immunity. Not the bullshit kind, the other one.”

  “You got it,” Nat said.

  “Guaranteed?”

  “Guaranteed.”

  Ronnie nodded. “The thing you gotta understand, I didn’t have nothin’ to do with any stealing. All I did was tell Freedy about my Uncle Saul. Whatever happened after that was all them.”

  “What happened after that?”

  “The stuff Freedy… acquired, must have got bought by Uncle Saul.”

  “So Uncle Saul is a fence and Freedy’s a thief.”

  “If you want to put it that way.”

  “Describe Freedy.”

  “Describe him?”

  “What he looks like.”

  “He’s a fuckin’ animal.” Ronnie Medeiros glanced around the room. “Big, like. Buff. Works out like you wouldn’t believe. Has this scary smile.” He shrugged. “That’s about it.”

  “You left out the ponytail,” Nat said.

  Ronnie gazed at him. “For a minute there I thought maybe you looked a bit too young to be FBI. Just goes to show.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Who?”

  “Freedy.”

  “Haven’t got a clue.”

  “Where does he live?”

  “That I can tell you,” said Ronnie.

  30

  The true Nietzschean teacher values his own worth only in relation to his students. True or false?

  — True/false section, final exam, Philosophy 322

  Freshmen couldn’t have cars. Following Ronnie Medeiros’s directions, Nat and Izzie walked the mile to the house where Freedy lived. A plow passed them, spraying sand out the sides, sand covered almost at once by blowing snow; the streetlights came on, triggered by the growing darkness although it was still long before night. Nat thought of a poem, not a poem he had read, but for the first time a poem he might write. Why now? Almost shameful, when all his resources should have been devoted to getting Grace back, to undoing what they’d done, but there it was, a poem about clocks, all the clocks in life, everything a clock, measuring time in different ways: the stars moving across the sky, the spinning earth, the tilting earth, light and dark, snakes shedding their skin, Izzie’s heart beating beside him, his own heart.

  Izzie took his arm. “I’m changing my mind about you,” she said.

  “In what way?”

  “A good way. You were great back there, with that sleazeball. I never knew you were so strong inside.” He felt her gaze. “We’re a good match, don’t you think?” she said.

  Nat, who’d thought she already liked him, didn’t understand in what way she’d changed her mind. He looked at her in confusion. She misinterpreted the expression on his face.

  “Is everything going to be all right?” she said.

  “We’ll find her.”

  “That’s not what I asked.”

  Nat didn’t understand that either, but there was no time to go into it. They were at the house where Freedy lived. A woman answered their knock.

  Nat recognized her at once: the woman he’d seen through the grate in the lobby of Goodrich Hall, taking a hundred-dollar bill from Professor Uzig. She wasn’t wearing her Birkenstocks now: her feet were bare and she had on a striped Moroccan robe. There were a few drops of what looked like blood, not quite dried, on the front, although she didn’t seem to be bleeding. Her eyes were open much too wide.

  “We’re looking for Freedy,” Nat said.

  “He’s not here.”

  Over her shoulder, Nat could see the kitchen. Another wrecked room: even the fridge was tipped over, spilling food over the floor, and smashed pottery lay everywhere. A ceramic shard that might have been a cup handle was lodged in her frizzy graying hair. Nat thought: Grace is here. He even felt her presence, the kind of paranormal thing that wasn’t him at all. He pushed his way past the woman, inside.

  “Grace?” he called. “Grace?”

  He went through the kitchen, jerked open a closet door, then into a hall, another bedroom, wrecked, and another one, also wrecked. This last bedroom had strange wall paintings of mushrooms, elves, rainbows; a deformed lion held up a poem on a scroll, an inept, unpleasant poem called “Little Boy.”

  “Grace? Grace?”

  Not under the beds, not in the closets, not behind the upside-down chairs and couches; but still he felt her presence. He strode back into the kitchen.

  “You’re Freedy’s mother,” he said to the woman.

  “Yes.”

  “Where is Grace?”

  “Grace?”

  Maybe there was no reaction because Freedy’s mother hadn’t heard the name. “Her twin,” he said, indicating Izzie, “but with lighter hair. Where is she?”

  Freedy’s mother looked at Izzie. Nat saw no sign of recognition, and knew in that moment that Grace wasn’t there, that this woman had never seen her. He knew that, but the paranormal feeling lingered.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Freedy’s mother said.

  “He may have given you some other name for her,” Izzie said.

  “Who?” said Freedy’s mother. “I’m not getting any of this.”

  Izzie grabbed her robe, right at the throat. “Where is she, you stupid cow?”

  Nat reached out to pull Izzie’s hand away, but before he could, Freedy’s mother started crying, a horrible cawing cry with tears and
snot, her face all cubist. Izzie let go, backed away. Freedy’s mother’s legs folded under her; she sat on the floor, hard. “Are you going to rape me too?” she said.

  “Someone raped you?” Nat said.

  She covered her face with her hands, red hands with cracked knuckles and bitten nails.

  “Did this just happen?” Nat said.

  Freedy’s mother nodded, face still hidden.

  “Who did it?”

  She made another cawing sound. “They came looking for Freedy.” And another. “Just like you.”

  “Who did?”

  “I’m so afraid.”

  “Of what?”

  “That Freedy’s done something terrible.”

  Izzie stood over her. “To my sister?”

  Freedy’s mother shook her head. “I don’t know anything about anyone’s sister.”

  “Then what terrible thing did he do?” Nat said.

  She lowered her hands. “What if he hurt one of them, very badly?”

  “One of who?”

  “S-S-”

  “Who?”

  “S-Saul M-M-Medeiros’s people.”

  “That’s who came here?”

  She nodded.

  “And they raped you?”

  She shook her head.

  “What’s going on?” Izzie said. “Does this have anything do with us?”

  “One of them raped you, is that it?” Nat said.

  She nodded. “S-Saul Medeiros raped me. His-his nose was all squashed up. He bled all over my face.” She cried out again, and covered it, covered where Saul Medeiros had bled, with her hands. Her bare feet were turned inward and the toes curled under, like twins, Nat thought, in the fetal position. His mind paused right there, on the verge of something. Was it the answer to whatever was bothering him about the first line of the ransom note, or something else? Whatever it was didn’t come.

  A photograph lay on the floor, a framed picture, the glass cracked, of a kid in a muddy football uniform, posing unsmilingly after a game, helmet in hand. He picked it up. “Freedy?” he said.

  Freedy’s mother peered through her fingers, nodded.

  “The ponytail came later?”