Conrad approached her, his hands out. “Elizabeth, it’s all right. Please …”
But she backed away from him, shaking her head, edging toward the window. “No. Oh no, oh God, oh God.”
“Please, Elizabeth, if you’ll just listen to me …”
The metal grating shook as her back hit the window. She looked to the right, to the left, as if searching for a way to escape him, a way out. Her hands went up in front of her to ward him off.
Conrad took another step toward her.
And she spoke again—and his heart went cold. The sound of her voice—it was distant and tremulous. Her eyes flickered about the air as if she were searching for an unseen face.
“No, he’s not,” she rasped, drawing out the words. “He’s good. He’s good. Really.”
She was talking to the Secret Friend.
Oh, thought Conrad. He stopped in his tracks. He stared at her. Oh, I am so, so badly fucked.
Elizabeth started whispering now, babbling in a whisper. “Oh no, oh God, leave him, oh don’t, please …” She seemed pinned to the window behind her. She was shaking her head back and forth rapidly. White froth bubbled at the edge of her lips. It flew off as she shook her head. “Oh, God, please don’t, I just, God, no … one of them … stay away … stay away … You’re all … all one of them. They all are. They all are, you’re right. I know.” Her head swung back. Her eyes rolled. She grunted.
Conrad looked over his shoulder …
One time, she beat the living shit out of a Dutch sailor. Broke both his arms and stomped one of his testicles to pudding. And she’s just a little thing …
He figured he was four strides away from the door. And he’d have to unlock it once he got there.
Elizabeth shrieked, “All of you! All of you! You’re all in it!”
She came off the wall. Her eyes burned into him. The froth burbled over her lower lip, dripped to the floor.
Conrad backed away from her. He held up his hands. “Uh … please. You’ve got to listen.”
“Please. You’ve got to listen.” Elizabeth echoed him in an eerie whisper. She looked to the left and the right. She waved her hands in front of her wildly. “Got to listen. Dr. Conrad, he’ll help me. He’s going to help …” But then she was snarling, stalking him, her hands curled like claws. “No. No. No. He’s like the other one. Just like the other one. What is the number? First they pretend, first they say, ‘Yes, Elizabeth, talk to the doctor,’ then they ask you, they ask you … They’re all in on it.”
She came toward him slowly. Conrad took another step back. He glanced back at the door again. Another step—maybe two—and he could reach it—maybe jam his key in. He reached into his pocket. “Elizabeth,” he said quickly. “I do want to help you. I’m trying to …” Then he faltered. He slowed. He faced her.
“The other one?” he said. How did she know? How did she know I was coming?
“Just like the other one,” Elizabeth echoed. She came closer to him, her hands raised. Her eyes were flat and hard.
“The other doctor?” Conrad asked her. She got dressed up for me. How did she know?
“They say they’re doctors,” she said. Her voice broke with pain and sorrow. “Oh, they say they’re nice. They say, they say they’re good. Then they ask you. They ask you.”
“Another doctor asked you about the number,” said Conrad.
“What is the number?” She stepped closer to him, growling the words. He could smell her. He could feel the heat of her breath. “‘What is the number?’ he asked me.”
Conrad halted, a step from the door. “The other doctor,” he said. “Dr. Sachs. Jerry Sachs?”
“Sachs. Yes,” she said. “What is the number?”
“He asked you that? He did, didn’t he? That’s why you went wild. That’s why you wouldn’t talk at first. My God, you were right. Sachs is one of them.”
And Elizabeth began shrieking again: “I’m going to kill you! I’m going to kill you!”
Conrad took another step backward—and hit the door. His back was pressed to it. Elizabeth moved in on him.
“I hate you for this,” she screamed. “I hate you, hate you for this!”
“Elizabeth, no, damn it!”
But she wouldn’t stop. She was almost on him. She thrust her hands out at his throat.
“Elizabeth!” He threw his hands out desperately. He grabbed the front of her shift. “Please! For God’s sake!” he shouted. “Help me! Help me! They’ve got my daughter!”
She had him now. She had her hands on his neck. He could feel the hot fingers tightening on him. The nails digging into his flesh. He tried to hold her back. He shook her, his face against hers. Tears were in his eyes.
“For God’s sake, for God’s sake, please!” he shouted. “Please help me!”
Elizabeth blinked. She stared at him.
“They’ve got my little girl,” said Conrad. “You have to understand. Please. You have to. They took my daughter.”
Elizabeth stood still, her head lolling, her eyes vague. Her lips worked silently in confusion. She reached up and put her hand roughly against Conrad’s mouth.
“Please,” he said. He tasted her fingers.
“Your daughter?” said Elizabeth.
“Please. I need your help.”
“My help?”
“Yes.”
“Because of them. Because of the bad men?”
“Yes.”
She stumbled back from him. “You mean … They’re real?” She put her hands to the sides of her head as if to hold it together. “I don’t … I don’t … They’re real, you mean?”
Breathless, Conrad staggered forward. He leaned weakly against the edge of the table. “Yes,” he said. It was barely a whisper. “Please. You’ve got to tell me who they are. You’ve got to tell me what they want.”
Elizabeth shuddered. She hugged herself. “I don’t understand this. I don’t understand what’s going on now. At all. At all.”
“My little girl … ,” said Conrad. He looked at his watch. It was eight twenty-six. “Oh, Jesus. My little girl.”
He looked up at her. She stared at him, hugging herself, shaking her head. She had to understand, he thought. There had to be time, more time to make her understand.
All at once, there was a heavy pounding at the door. A voice called into them.
“Hey, Nate? Nate? Everything all right in there?”
Conrad spun around. He saw Sachs’s huge egg of a face pressed against the door’s thin window.
He closed his eyes.
And the next moment, he heard the doorknob rattle as Sachs’s key slid into the lock.
D’Annunzio
Agatha lay on the couch. She stared at the ceiling. It was a white ceiling. There was a long, Y-shaped crack in the paint just above her.
Agatha lay with her right arm draped over her forehead. Her left arm lay across her stomach. The old teddy bear, White Snow, was tucked into the crook of her left arm. She stared at the ceiling, imagining the police.
It was half an hour since Billy Price had left. Since she had told him to call the police. Since she had shoved him out and shut the door on his blank, stupid face. It was half an hour since she had stood in the nursery closet, clutching the gray bear; since she had heard the phone ringing and ringing in the other room.
She had heard the phone and she had tasted her fear. A coppery spurt of it had come up from her throat onto her tongue. She had been certain—she had known—that she had lost everything. There were microphones. They could hear her. They had heard her—they had heard what she’d said to Billy Price.
Now they were calling to tell her they had killed her daughter. They were calling to make her listen to Jessie scream as she died.
She had time to think about that as she went to the phone. She had time to think about more than that. That trip, those several steps, from one room into the other—it seemed to take her forever. The phone kept ringing and ringing. Aggie walked toward it.
She clutched the teddy bear under her arm. She thought about how she would hear Jessie scream.
Why had she thought there were no microphones? Because that man—that terrible, vicious man Nathan had called Sport—because he had not heard Billy Price’s name? For Christ’s sweet sake. Was that all? Was that everything? Why hadn’t she realized: Billy Price could’ve been one of them? They could’ve been testing her. Or there could’ve been a malfunction in their listening equipment. There were so many other reasonable deductions she could have made. How had she decided in the space of a few seconds to risk her daughter’s life—to lose her baby’s life—on a guess, on a bet, on a stupid gamble?
The phone rang again and Aggie stepped toward it. And then her hand was on it. And then she was lifting it to her ear. She could hear Jessie crying out to her—Mommy! She could hear her muffled wail as they closed their hands around her. She could hear it all clearly in her mind.
Then she pressed the phone to her ear.
“Yes,” she whispered.
It was the same voice as before. The kidnapper’s voice. But it was softer now. The rage was gone. It was composed and smooth, almost friendly.
“Well done, Mrs. Conrad,” it said.
Agatha did not answer. She did not breathe.
“You did that just right,” said the man.
“Yes,” Aggie whispered. “I did just what you told me.”
“That’s right. That’s just right. And your daughter’s glad you did, Mrs. Conrad. Believe me. She’s very, very glad you did.”
“Oh …” The small sob of relief broke from her. She bit it off. No microphones. She had been right. No god-damned microphones.
“Now you just keep playing straight with me, baby, and everything’s going to be all right, understand?”
“Yes,” said Agatha. “Yes.”
“Who knows—if you’re real good, maybe I’ll even come over there myself and pay you a little visit. How would that be? You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
The man gave a wicked little laugh—and Aggie thought crazily: like a movie, like a villain in a movie. Like he’s playing a part …
Then the line went dead again.
Aggie set the phone down slowly. Oh. Oh, boy, she thought. It was then that she had moved to the couch. That she had lain on it, one arm over her brow. She had stared up at the ceiling. The white ceiling with the Y-shaped crack.
She had begun to imagine the police.
She kept replaying the scene in her mind. Nathan was there. He was standing on the rooftop of a high-rise apartment. The kidnapper and his faceless accomplices were holding Jessie out over the edge. They were threatening to drop her. Suddenly, shouting curses, the police burst through the rooftop door. Nathan rushed forward. Heroically, he snatched the child out of the kidnapper’s hands. And then—and then the police opened fire.
She couldn’t stop thinking about it. She kept imagining the police opening fire. She imagined how the kidnappers would stagger back. How the impact of the bullets would make them dance. Blood and bits of flesh would fly from them. There would be pain in their eyes—pain and this searing, ceaseless, unbearable terror. They would fall, screaming, over the edge of the roof. It would take a long time for them to die.
Aggie lay on the couch and imagined it. When she was done, she went back to the beginning and went through it again. She went through it slowly. She built slowly up to the part about the police and the gunfire. About the kidnappers’ spattering blood and their pain—and the terrible fear that would be like her fear now.
Aggie lay on the couch and stared at the ceiling. She imagined the police and the gunfire. And she smiled thinly.
And then someone unlocked the front door. The door swung open. A man walked in.
Aggie gasped and sat up. She began to say, “Nathan?” But the word died on her lips. She looked over the back of the couch and saw the man enter. He closed the door behind him.
He was a young man, maybe thirty, maybe even less. He was dressed in green overalls. He was carrying a toolbox in one hand.
When Aggie sat up, he turned and saw her. He stopped, startled.
“Oh—jeez, I’m … sorry,” he said. “I … Roger, the super, he said no one was up here. He gave me the key. I’m … I’m the plumber.”
Aggie stared at him, her mouth open.
“The Coleman apartment downstairs …,” he went on. “They got a leak in their bathroom. It could be coming through your walls. I wanted to check. You mind? Roger said the apartment would be empty.”
Aggie stared at him another moment. She turned and stared at the phone. She looked at the phone a long time. But the phone didn’t ring.
“Uh … you mind?” the plumber said again. He gestured toward the hall with his thumb.
Aggie raised her eyes to him. She gazed at his face, dumb. It’s not a plumber’s face, she thought vaguely. He had a rough, working-man’s voice, but it was not, she thought, a working-man’s face. The young man’s face was round and smooth and boyish. He was handsome, with a mop of brown hair that tumbled into his eyes. And those eyes: they were intelligent, watchful, witty. Not a plumber’s eyes. Something else …
She looked at the phone again. It did not ring. She opened her mouth. “I … I don’t …”
“It’ll take me just a minute,” the young man said. And he started walking down the hallway.
A second too late, Agatha called after him, “They didn’t ring me. Usually they ring up. The doormen.”
“What’s that?”
Agatha stood off the couch. The teddy bear lay where she had been. Agatha crossed her arms under her breasts. She looked at the phone.
“It’s … it’s so late,” she called. She glanced at her watch. “It’s after eight.”
“What’s that?” the plumber called back again. A loud hammering sound—metal on metal—started to come from the bathroom.
Aggie moved across the room. She moved to the end of the hallway. She stood there staring down the hall toward where the bathroom was. She saw the light shining out through the open door. She heard the metallic hammering. She ran her hand up through her hair. She glanced back at the phone. Why didn’t it ring? Why didn’t he call?
The hammering stopped. Agatha’s breath caught. She put her hand to her breast and stared down the hallway.
“Mrs. Conrad?” the plumber called.
Agatha didn’t answer.
“Excuse me.” He called louder: “Mrs. Conrad?”
“Uh … yes.” Agatha’s voice quavered. “Yes, what is it?”
“You think you could come here for a second, Mrs. Conrad?”
Agatha stood where she was. She shook her head: no. She wiped the sweat from around her lips. “I … I don’t … They didn’t call up,” she said weakly. “Usually they ring before anyone …”
Her voice trailed off. There was a pause, a silence. Then the plumber said, “Mrs. Conrad. I really think you better come here.”
There was no mistaking the tone of this. It was a command. A cold, undeniable order. As Aggie stood there, conscious of every breath, a strange snatch of memory floated across her mind. Her social studies teacher—Mrs. Lindsay—the seventh grade, Great Neck North Junior High: an aging spinster with a froggy face and dyed-red hair. She was standing before an enlarged replica of the United States Constitution. It was pinned to a bulletin board and she was pointing back at it. She was gazing froggily at the class. And she was proclaiming tartly, “Freedom is harder than slavery. No-choice is the easy choice.”
Agatha nearly laughed at the memory. She let out a shaky breath. She put her hand to her mouth to stifle the miserable little noise it made. No-choice is the easy choice, she thought again. She walked down the hall to the bathroom.
She came into the doorway and she could see him. He was on his knees by the side of the bathtub. His back was toward her. She could see he had a wrench in his hand. He was knocking it against the inner rim of the drain.
She stood there, looking at hi
m, saying nothing. Then her eyes lowered to his toolbox.
The toolbox was sitting on the white-tiled floor, just by his feet. It was open. It was empty. There were no other tools in it. Not a screwdriver, not even one of those “snakes” she’d seen plumbers use to unclog drains. There was nothing.
“Oh …” Aggie covered her mouth again. She looked at the man. He continued to tap, tap, tap.
A moment later, he turned to look at her over his shoulder. He noticed her eyes flick back to the open toolbox. He smiled at her. It was a charming smile. It seemed almost to sparkle.
“You’re right,” he said. “I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.” He turned back to the drain. “The thing is,” he said, “I’m not really a plumber.” He tapped the wrench against the drain uselessly. “My name is Doug D’Annunzio,” he went on. “Detective D’Annunzio, Midtown South. I’d show you my shield, but your neighbor, Billy Price, he says the bad guys are watching. Is that right?”
Agatha didn’t answer. She shook her head slightly. She looked down the hall. The phone did not ring. She looked at the man kneeling on the floor. It was not the same voice, she thought; it was not the kidnapper’s voice. And why should he pretend to be a police officer? The kidnappers could come over here anytime they wanted. They could do anything they wanted. They had her daughter. Why should they pretend?
“You’re the police?” she finally asked him. “You’re … ?” She stopped. Somehow, all at once, this did make sense to her. It fit the man. The worker’s voice, the intelligent, witty, and watchful eyes. Not a plumber’s face. A cop’s.
The man kept tapping at the drain. “You want me to show you the shield or not?”
“No,” she said quickly. “No, no. You can’t.”
D’Annunzio grunted, shifting his position on the floor. “Christ. What’d they do? Rig the place with cameras?”
Agatha nodded at his back. “Yes. Cameras. They told us there are cameras.” She raised her eyes to the bathroom ceiling. She could not see the cameras. “They can see us,” she said. She looked down at him again. She massaged her forehead with her fingers. “You shouldn’t have done this. You shouldn’t have come here like this.”