Never Look Away: A Thriller

by Linwood Barclay

  “He’s not going to pay anything for stones that are worthless,” Jan said. Even as she said it, she could hardly believe it. All the time invested, the waiting …

  Dwayne’s face was darkening again. The anger was returning. Jan knew what was going on. He was so close to the money he could taste it. He didn’t want anyone ruining his dream.

  “If they’re worthless, then why didn’t he tell us that when he first saw them?” Dwayne said. “Why put us through all this, make us come back at two?”

  “I don’t know,” Jan said.

  “I’ll tell you why,” Dwayne said. “Because it’s not safe to keep that kind of cash around. He probably had to go someplace to get it. Or have some courier come by with it. Maybe he’s got a safe-deposit box, too, and he had to go get the cash out of it. That’s what’s going on.”

  Suddenly, Dwayne veered the truck over to the curb.

  “Give me a diamond,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Any diamond. Just give me one.”

  Jan reached into the bag in her purse, picked out one small stone, and handed it to Dwayne. He closed his palm on it, got out of the truck, and went around to the sidewalk, just beyond Jan’s window. He bent over, placed the stone on the sidewalk, stood upright, then stomped on the stone with the heel of his shoe. When he lifted his foot, the stone was gone.

  “Shit,” he said. “Where the fuck did it go?”

  Then he examined the bottom of his shoe, and found the stone embedded in the rubber sole. Bracing himself with one hand on the truck, he dug the stone out with his finger and held it up to Jan’s nose.

  “There, look,” he said. “It’s perfectly fine.”

  Jan knew the test didn’t prove a damn thing, but she knew Dwayne was beyond convincing at this point.

  He handed her the stone before going around the truck and getting back in behind the wheel.

  He said to her, “When I get my boat, I’m using you for a fucking anchor.”

  FORTY-TWO

  For Oscar Fine, it was about rehabilitating his image.

  Of course, it was about respect. Self-respect, and keeping the respect of others.

  No question, it was about revenge.

  But more than anything, it was about redemption. He needed to redeem himself. He had to set things right, restore some personal order, and the only way he could do that, no matter how long it took, was to find the woman who took his hand.

  It was more than an injury, more than a physical disfigurement. It was a humiliation. Oscar Fine had always been the best. When you wanted something done, he was the man you called. He was a fixer. He took care of things.

  He didn’t screw up.

  But then he did. Big-time.

  The thing was, he knew something might be up. That was the whole point of toting a briefcase full of bogus jewels. They were worried about a leak, that maybe their system for moving jewels into the country, and then to their various markets, had been compromised.

  It had been Oscar Fine’s idea. Do a decoy delivery, he said. Let me do the regular run, he said, but bring the real stuff in some other way, a route that hasn’t been done before. If someone makes a move on me, if the jewels are taken, or if the shipment is somehow damaged—Oscar Fine had imagined a scenario where he might have to send someone, briefcase and all, down to the bottom of the Boston Inner Harbor—we’re not out merchandise.

  For theatrical effect, he hooked himself to the briefcase with the handcuff. Any other time, he transported goods in a gym bag. A handcuff, it was like carrying a big sign that said “Rob me.”

  The gems were inside several cloth bags. One of them had a GPS transmitter stitched into the lining. Say someone got the drop on him. He’d give up the combination so they could open the briefcase, take the bags. Then he’d just see where they went, using the cell phone–sized receiver in his pocket.

  His bosses weren’t so sure. “What if they just kill you?”

  “They need me for the combination. I plan on being obliging. They got nothing to gain by killing me.”

  Oscar Fine knew right away something was up when the limo arrived and the driver did not get out to open his door. Let him do it himself.

  Okay, he thought, I can play along. That’s the whole point of this, after all.

  So he opened the back door on his own, and there she was. This woman with red hair, sitting on the far side, not bad looking, all lipstick and low-cut top and a skirt up to here and sheer black stockings and hooker heels, and right away he knew this was not right, this was a trap, this was all bullshit, and it almost made him grin, how amateur hour it all was.

  She said, “They said you deserved a bonus.”

  Yeah, fuck, like that would happen. But he could play along with this. Let them think they’re pulling a fast one. Pretty soon a gun will come out, he gives up the code and the briefcase, lets them drop him off somewhere.

  Too bad about the dart.

  It came from where the driver was sitting. Caught him below the right nipple, went through his jacket, pricked the skin.

  Son of a bitch.

  The effect was almost instantaneous. As he began to weave, the woman lurched toward him, grabbed the briefcase, yanked. Since he was attached to it by the wrist, he stumbled forward and into the back of the car.

  Not good, he told himself. Not good at all. His arms and legs started going numb. Couldn’t even reach out to break his fall. But the leather upholstery gave him a soft landing.

  He started to say “What the fuck” but all that came out was “Wawawa.”

  How did he fail to anticipate something like this? While the dart had numbed and dizzied him, made it difficult to speak, it hadn’t totally slowed his thought process. No one’s supposed to get the drop on me, he thought. Suddenly, I’m an amateur again.

  He started wondering how this was going to work. They were going to want the briefcase, no doubt about that. And he was more than happy to let them have every piece of cubic zirconium that it held. But if he couldn’t talk, how the hell was he going to tell them the combination? The case had a lock on its side, next to the handle. A series of five numbers that had to be lined up for it to open. There was no key.

  He couldn’t see the driver, but the woman, he’d gotten a good look at her.

  The two of them, once they couldn’t open the case or release it from the handcuff that attached it to his wrist, started yelling at each other. First, he heard metallic clinking. They’d brought tools. Several of them, on the car floor. His wrist, being grabbed, examined, thrown down, picked up again. A search of his pockets, the inside of his jacket. The woman found his phone, the GPS receiver, pocketed both.

  Then she found the gun strapped to his ankle. “Jesus,” she said. She took it as well.

  Then they were both shouting at him, asking for the combination. He tried to say something, but the words would not come. He continued to be aware of what was happening around him, even if he couldn’t talk or move.

  He thought he felt some tingling in his fingers, like maybe his feeling was coming back. Maybe whatever was in that dart wasn’t all that powerful.

  He’s really out of it, the woman said.

  Look for a key, said the driver.

  I told you, I’ve been through his pockets. There’s no goddamn handcuff key, said the woman.

  What about the combination? Maybe he wrote it down somewhere, put it in his wallet or something, said the driver.

  The woman: What, you think he’s a moron? He’s going to write down the combination and keep it on him?

  So cut the chain, the driver said. We take the case, we figure out how to open it later.

  It looks way stronger than I thought, the woman said. It’ll take me an hour to cut through.

  The driver: You can’t get the cuff over his hand?

  The woman: How many times do I have to tell you? I’m gonna have to cut it off.

  I thought you said it would take forever to cut the cuff, the driver said.


  The woman: I’m not talking about the cuff.

  Oscar Fine tried to will some feeling back into his arms. He had a pretty good idea now what they were going to do.

  He was a bit surprised when he realized it was the woman who was going to do it.

  He tried to form the word “Wait.” If they could hold off long enough for the tranquilizer to wear off, if only slightly. Not to the point where he’d be any threat to them, but enough that he could articulate the words, the numbers they needed to open the briefcase.

  Then maybe they’d decide against the amputation.

  “Wu,” he said.

  “What?” said the woman.

  “Dwer,” he said.

  She shook her head and looked down at him. A change seemed to come across her face, like a mask. He would never forget that face, not if he lived through this.

  “Sorry,” she said.

  And then she began to cut.

  The injury was so horrendous, so traumatic, that while it might normally have caused Oscar Fine to pass out, it also had the effect of rousing him from the effects of the mild tranquilizer.

  Once the woman and the driver had bolted with the case, he managed to summon enough strength to slip off his necktie and, with his remaining hand, wrap it a couple of inches above the ragged stump. A memory flashed through his brain, something he’d seen on one of the morning news shows, about that kid who’d gone exploring in a canyon, got trapped when a rock fell on his hand. How he went days without being found, and eventually had to cut the hand off with his penknife.

  I can be that kid, Oscar Fine thought. Shit, half the work’s been done for me. The woman had done the hard part. All he had to do was stanch the blood flow.

  With what little reserves of will he had left, he started twisting the ends of the tie, tightening it on his wrist, attempting to stop the rate at which his blood was flowing out of him.

  It wasn’t enough. The blood was still coming.

  He was going to die.

  If he’d still had his phone, he’d have called for help. But the woman had taken it. He didn’t have the strength to open the door, get to his feet, try to flag someone down.

  This was it.

  “Would you step out of the car, please?”

  Huh?

  Banging on the window. “Hello? Police! You can’t park your limo here. Would you step out of the car, please? I’m not going to ask again.”

  He wasn’t able to offer the cops much help.

  Didn’t see them, he said.

  Never mentioned the briefcase.

  Said he had no idea why they cut off his hand.

  His guess? Mistaken identity. No one would have any reason to do such a thing to me, he said. They must have thought I was someone else.

  The cops didn’t buy it for a second.

  And Oscar Fine knew it. So fuck ‘em.

  The hell of it was, someone hit the other courier, the one with the real diamonds. And that courier didn’t fuck things up. He shot the guy, and before he died, learned he’d been tipped by someone from inside.

  The hit on Oscar Fine, it appeared, came out of left field.

  His employers said not to worry, we’ll look after you.

  They covered his medical expenses, even when he said no. Why should they be on the hook for this, he said, when he was the one who screwed up? But they insisted. His recovery took several months. Even though the paramedics had found the hand right there on the car floor, the doctors had been unsuccessful in reattaching it.

  Sure, Oscar Fine felt pain. But mostly, he felt shame.

  He’d fucked up a job. He’d been outwitted. He’d allowed others to cover his health costs.

  I can still do this, he said. I’m not asking to get out. They said don’t worry about it. When we need you for something, we’ll be in touch, pay the going rate.

  He knew they’d never call. You couldn’t trust a guy who couldn’t hang on to all his body parts.

  So he said, the next five jobs are free. Just tell me what you need. And his employers thought, what the hell, let’s see if the guy can get back on the horse.

  And he did.

  In many ways, even minus a hand, he was better at this than he’d ever been before. Less cocky, more cautious.

  Less forgiving. Not that he’d ever been a softy. But sometimes, he used to actually listen when someone pleaded for his life. Not that it was going to change anything, but Oscar Fine thought maybe it made them feel better. Gave them, if only for a few seconds, a glimmer of hope.

  Now he just did the job.

  And there was never a moment, not in the last six years, when he wasn’t looking for her. Watching faces, scanning crowds, searching the Net. He only had one real lead. A name: Constance Tattinger. He’d gotten it from that crazy bitch Alanna, the one who’d gone snooping in his gym bag when he’d left her in the car for only a few minutes. She was the only one he could think of—other than those who employed him—who had any inkling of what he did.

  He needed to know who she might have talked to. And before she died, Alanna came up with that one name.

  The only Constance Tattinger he was able to find any record of was born in Rochester, but her parents moved when she was a little girl after some incident in which a playmate got run over by a car backing out of a driveway. From there they moved to Tennessee, then Oregon, then Texas. The girl had left home when she was sixteen or seventeen, and her parents, speaking to Oscar Fine in the kitchen of their El Paso home, had told him that they’d never heard from her again.

  He was pretty sure they were telling him the truth, considering the mother and father were bound to kitchen chairs at the time, and Oscar Fine was holding a knife to the woman’s neck. It was too bad they didn’t have any useful information for him.

  He slit both their throats.

  Oscar Fine figured she’d been going by other names since his encounter with her. That made it difficult, but he’d never given up. He was pretty sure she and her accomplice had never tried to unload the fake diamonds. Oscar Fine and the rest of the organization he worked for had put the word out to everyone they knew to be on the lookout for them. That many diamonds—real or not—had a way of attracting attention.

  And years had gone by without anyone trying to turn them into cash.

  Maybe they knew they were fake, Oscar Fine thought. But even if they figured that out, he guessed they’d still try to unload them to someone who didn’t know any better.

  Something must have gone wrong. A change in plan. He could imagine any number of scenarios. But he never gave up hope that—someday—they’d try.

  When he saw the face of Jan Harwood—all scrubbed up and wholesome—on television, he just knew.

  It was her.

  Constance Tattinger.

  And knowing the kind of person she was, what she was capable of, he was betting she was fit as a fiddle. This was a girl who knew how to look out for herself. Oscar Fine was betting she was going to be needing some cash.

  That was when Oscar Fine started making some calls.

  “I really appreciate this,” Oscar Fine said to Banura, sitting in his basement workshop.

  “No problem, my friend,” Banura said. “Fucker called me Banny Boy.”

  “That’s just rude,” Oscar Fine said.

  “No shit.”

  “You’re sure this is the stuff I’ve been looking for?”

  “No question.”

  “And they’re expecting how much?”

  “Six.”

  Oscar Fine smiled. “I’ll bet he got a hard-on when he heard that.” Banura nodded. “Oh yeah. The girl, though, she looked a bit, I don’t know.”

  “Dubious?”

  “Yeah, dubious. I was thinking, maybe I oversold it.”

  “Not to worry.” Oscar Fine looked at his watch. “Almost two.”

  Banura grinned. “Showtime.”

  FORTY-THREE

  The phone in the kitchen rang. I’d been sitting on the stairs for
some time, feeling sorry for myself, not knowing what to do next now that I’d torn the house to pieces and found nothing.

  I got up and, stepping carefully around the boards I’d pried up here and there, went into the kitchen.

  “Hello,” I said. I glanced down at the phone screen, but the caller’s name and number were blocked.

  “You should rot in hell,” a woman said.

  “Who’s this?”

  “We don’t like having wife killers in the neighborhood, so you better watch your back.”

  “Thanks for your support. I’ll bet you thought when you made this call your number wouldn’t show. Now you’ll have to watch your back, too.”

  “What?” Then, a hurried hang-up.

  Give her something to think about.

  I’d barely hung up the phone when it rang again. Perhaps she’d figured out I was bluffing. But this time, there was a number showing, if not an actual name, so I picked up.

  “Mr. Harwood?”

  “Speaking,” I said.

  “This is Annette Kitchner. I’m a producer with Good Morning Albany. We’d very much like to have you on our program. You wouldn’t have to come to the studio, we’d be more than happy to come to you to talk about your current situation, and give you a chance to tell your side.”

  “What side would that be?” I asked.

  “It would be an opportunity for you to refute allegations that you had a role in your wife’s disappearance.”

  “Unless you know something I don’t,” I said, “I haven’t been charged with anything.”

  In the back of my mind, I heard Natalie Bondurant saying, Hang up, you idiot.

  So I hung up.

  I took another slow walk through the house, stepping over the ripped-off planks, the dislodged baseboards, the tossed cushions, and wondered what the hell had gotten into me. I’d lost my mind for the better part of an hour.

  I heard someone trying the front door, which I had locked behind me when I’d come home. I made my way to it.

  “David?” It was my father, shouting through the door.

  I turned back the deadbolt and opened the door. His eyes went wide when he saw the damage.