Stolen (8 page)

“He put two fingers on her lips, one in each ear, then two covering her eyes.”

“What the hell?”

“Get it?” Clegg asked.

“No,” I said.

“See no evil. Hear no evil. Speak no evil.”

“Holy shit,” I said.

“Holy shit is right.”

“Where did this happen?”

“Right down the road,” Clegg said, nodding in the direction where I now lived.

“No. What address? I mean.”

It couldn’t be,
I was thinking.
It couldn’t be.

“Why?” Clegg asked.

“I want to know which way to avoid when I’m heading home.”

“No worries. I’ll drive you.”

“No, I’ve got to meet Ruby.”

“Four-fifty-seven Harvard Avenue,” Clegg said.

I felt the ground give way and had to steady myself using the door handle of Clegg’s car. I found my balance, but the ground below me turned unsteady like the sea. Four-fifty-seven Harvard Avenue was the building where we had rented an apartment as Elliot and Tanya Uretsky. I knew at that moment exactly what Uretsky had meant when he said he was going to kill someone close to us. He didn’t mean close by relationship. He meant close by proximity.

He knew who we were. He knew where we lived. My cell phone rang. I took it out and looked at the caller ID. The number came up as unknown. It rang again.

I answered it.

“H
ello?” I said into my phone. My strangled voice came out shaky, more like a whimper than a word. I moved away from Clegg, turning my back so he couldn’t see me, couldn’t overhear me, either.

“Hello, John,” Uretsky said. His distinct rasp, the resonance of his baritone voice, that unsettling calm were as familiar to me as a Beatles song. “Yes, I know your real name, and no, you can’t know how. I want you to listen very carefully.”

“What have you done?” I said, speaking in a low voice. I took a few more steps away from Clegg. “What the hell have you done?” That came out harsh, a low, growling whisper. My heart was thrumming wildly.

“
Listen
means don’t talk, dumb ass,” Uretsky snapped. “Are you listening?”

“Yes,” I said, breathing out the word in one long hiss.

“Your wife is wearing an olive-green sweater and blue jeans,” Uretsky said, speaking quickly now. “She’s with a girl named Elisa, and I know that they’re at the Deco Bar on Beacon Street. I also know that Ruby has been drinking club soda and lime all night, because alcohol and Verbilifide don’t mix very well. I know that Elisa is a pretty, dark-haired girl who won’t stay pretty for long if you don’t do exactly as I say. Do you understand?”

Clegg surprised me with a tap on my shoulder. I recoiled from his touch, as though his hands were an electric cattle prod. I must have looked like a wild man to him, my eyes flickering, mouth agape, and sweat beading up on my brow.

“Johnny, you all right?” Clegg asked. “You look white as my ass.”

The phone was still pressed to my ear as Uretsky spoke. “Tell that cop friend of yours that it’s Ruby. Tell him she’s not feeling well.”

He knew I was with Clegg?

My head darted about in all directions. I glanced into the glimmering windows of the apartments across the street, into storefronts, crowded restaurants, and bars, which existed aplenty in this section of town. He could see me! Good God in heaven, Uretsky was watching me! I kept looking around, noticing the multitudes of people milling about on this warm spring evening, many with cell phones mounted to their ear.

“Say it, John,” Uretsky urged. “Tell him that Ruby isn’t feeling very well and you need to go.”

“Yo, bro? Are you all right?” Clegg asked.

“Ruby,” I managed.

A flash of concern washed across Clegg’s face, genuine, as though Ruby were family. “What’s going on?” Clegg asked in a voice steeped with worry. “Is everything all right?”

“Tell him she’s fine, but you have to leave,” Uretsky instructed again.

I repeated those exact words, as though in a trance.

“I’ll drive you,” Clegg said.

“He’s got a prisoner to deal with,” Uretsky said into my ear.

“You’ve got your hands full,” I said to Clegg, nodding my head in the direction of his police car. I couldn’t see into the car’s dark interior, but I assumed the man Clegg had apprehended was still seated inside, waiting for the Brookline police to cart him off to jail. I tapped Clegg’s shoulder a few times. “I’m all right,” the gesture was intended to say. “Just let me go.” Hoping that allayed his concerns, I started to back away from Clegg slowly.

“Johnny!” Clegg shouted at me.

Turning my back to him now, I began a trot that soon broke into a run, yelling over my shoulder as I accelerated, “I’ll call you!”

Clegg shouted, “Johnny,” again, but I gave him no response. I kept the phone, with Uretsky still on the line, fixed to my ear but didn’t speak until I had turned the corner, a block away from where I had left Clegg standing, his expression unmistakably and understandably confused.

“You still there, John?” I heard Uretsky say.

I slowed my pace, soon coming to a full stop. I couldn’t yet catch my breath, so I had to double over, resting my hands on my knees to increase the airflow. “I’m here,” I said, panting. “I’m here.”

“Good boy,” Uretsky said. “So listen, you’ve obviously lost round one.”

“Why?” I said. My voice sounded constricted, as though Uretsky’s hands magically extended through the phone to choke my windpipe. “Why did you do it? Why did you kill that woman?”

“Because she was there. Isn’t that why you once climbed mountains? Because they were there.”

Uretsky chuckled hauntingly, while I staggered into an alley directly behind a Chinese restaurant and proceeded to vomit up my dinner of chicken wings and beer. The sour stench from my stomach mixed foully with the smells from the kitchen.

“You’re insane,” I yelled before several gagging dry heaves put me on my knees. A cook from the restaurant, draped in white clothes blotched with food stains, flung open the back door to check on the commotion. I shielded my face with the back of my hand and slunk deeper into the alley, away from his prying eyes.

“My mental state is not your concern,” Uretsky said. “Do you know what is?”

I couldn’t answer—the nerves connecting my brain to my mouth seemed severed.

Uretsky answered for me. “Your concern should be that poor woman you let down.”

“I didn’t kill her,” I stammered.

“Of course you did,” Uretsky snapped. “You didn’t even
try
to steal the scarves.”

“I didn’t think you were serious.”

Uretsky scoffed, a loud “Ha!” “I told you very specifically the penalty for failure. It’s your fault you didn’t believe me, not mine. You lost round one after I gave you every conceivable chance to win. I wish you could have seen what I did to her, John. It would have definitely inspired you to try a little harder. You were at home while I was doing it. In fact, I was right below you.”

“Please . . . don’t . . .”

Then I thought,
Right below me
. Could it have been our downstairs neighbor, Rhonda?

“She was begging me,” Uretsky continued. “Big, thick tears rolling down her cheeks. I gagged her, of course. I didn’t want her screams bringing anyone to her rescue. You’ve got to think these things through, John. It takes thought to be on the wrong side of the law, but you’ll learn that soon enough. Anyway, I used these pruning shears I bought at Home Depot to cut her fingers. They snapped off just like I was breaking a stubborn branch. Snap. Snap. Snap. I figured she’d pass out by finger four, but it happened right after I cut off the second one.”

“Oh God,” I whimpered.

“God? Really? God?” Uretsky laughed a little. “You know, most criminals don’t find God until they’re in the slammer,” he said. “And you’ve got a long way to go before that happens to you. Now, if you play my game, and this time you try to win, I can assure you, you’ll never find yourself confined to those ugly four walls.”

I couldn’t speak.

“Are you listening, John?”

How to describe my shock? It welled up inside me, all consuming, entirely paralyzing. It was an inescapable blackness, a fast-acting cancer swelling from within, hollowing out my guts, turning my blood to molasses, slowing my heartbeat to a tick and my breathing to a trickle.

“Please . . . stop. . . . I don’t want to hear this. . . .”

“Too late for that,” Uretsky said. “Now, pay attention. Pay very close attention. I’m using a phone that cannot be traced. Don’t even bother to try.” I said nothing, so Uretsky continued. “Also, if the name Uretsky comes up in connection with the investigation into the gruesome murder of a youngish woman at four-fifty-seven Harvard Avenue, I’m going to kill again—and it will be someone you know, maybe a friend, a mother, or just a passing acquaintance. Contact with you is all I need to mark them for death. The point is—and this is a promise—someone will die, and die horribly, and their blood will be on your hands. Just so we’re perfectly clear, that means you keep your pal David Clegg in the dark about everything. No mention of me. No mention of our game. Do you understand?”

I tried to answer but still could not find my voice.

“Do you understand?” Uretsky screamed the question with enough force to bloody my eardrums.

“Yes!” I shouted back, crying as I spoke. “Yes! I understand! Damn you, I understand!”

“Good,” Uretsky said, placid again. “Another rule,” he continued. “You can’t move out of the apartment you rented in my name under any circumstance. You’re to remain in the apartment above that poor murdered woman until you either win or lose my game. Is that understood?”

I nodded, dumbly—he couldn’t see me—and numbly.

“Is that understood?” Uretsky asked again.

“Yes,” I squeaked out.

I thought of Ruby, recalling the joy on her face as she was packing our bags to move. What would her look say when I told her that I’d stolen the identity of a raging psychopath, and that he was holding us hostage in an apartment I had rented under false pretenses? What would her reaction be when she learned we had no way out of this nightmare but to do as we were told?

“Good,” Uretsky said. “Because it’s time for you to play round two. The punishment for failure is that you’ll be arrested for insurance fraud and Ruby will lose access to the medication she needs to keep alive. In addition to that, I’ll still kill again, another woman, and it could be anybody who is even remotely connected to you. Sound like high enough stakes to you?”

“What do you want me to do?” I asked.

“Like I said before, a criminal, no matter what the crime, is always a thief of something. You stole the truth the moment you took my identity. Now you must play the part.”

“How? I don’t understand!” I was shouting. “How do I play the part?”

“Oh, you’ll see. It’s no fun if I spoil all the surprises.”

I kept yelling at Uretsky, pleading with him to talk to me. I was on my knees in a wretched alleyway that stunk of rotted garbage, with shards of glass digging painfully into the fabric of my jeans, shaking. “How do I play the part? How do I do it?” Occasionally, a sob would escape my lips, but not enough to stop my continued questions, even though Uretsky’s call had long gone dead.

A
young Brookline police officer, male, close-shaved head, round face, escorted Ruby and me up to our apartment. He informed us that the victim was a thirty-two-year-old dental hygienist named Rhonda Jennings. We knew her as someone about to get engaged to her boyfriend, interested in learning yoga, and who was once kind enough to bring us a frozen pie. Rolls of yellow crime-scene tape cordoned off the landing directly below where we lived. “Don’t touch anything,” we were instructed. “Keep your hands to your sides.” If our police escort knew my real feelings, he might have said instead: “Don’t get sick in the stairwell. Don’t sweat so much. Don’t pass out, even though you look like you’re about to do just that.”

Before we were allowed back in the building, Officer Teddy Walsh—his name, according to the badge he wore—had us answer some questions on the sidewalk.

“Did you know the woman who lived below you?”

“We met her once,” I said.

“How long have you been living here?”

“A few months,” I said.

“Have you seen anybody suspicious hanging around . . . loiterers, somebody who just looked out of place?”

“No.”

Officer Walsh wrote down my answers in a little white notebook. Meanwhile, all around us strobe lights of every color in the rainbow lit up the night sky. More yellow crime-scene tape dangled from banisters and clung to door frames like macabre streamers. The answers I’d given Officer Walsh were all the truth. Could this be my next test? Round two in Uretsky’s twisted game? So far, I didn’t need to lie to the police; I needed only to keep the truth well concealed. Was that playing the part? I wondered.

At that moment, I wanted to tell him everything. Shout out my confessional like he was a faith healer, and I, a man with a broken spirit. I managed to temper my desire, though it boiled inside me.

Hadn’t Uretsky said that, or something close to it? Wouldn’t he be prepared for me to talk to the police—to confess everything? No matter what I did, even if I sacrificed my own freedom to admit to all I had done, Uretsky would still make another kill. And the blood of that kill
would
be on my hands. No question about it. I had to wait this out. Figure out how to “play the part.” For the moment, at least, I was Elliot Uretsky’s hostage, despite my freedom to go where I wanted and do whatever I pleased.

The police officer asked to see our identification, so we showed him our Mass IDs—the ones with the name Uretsky printed on the front. Our names needed to match the labels on the mailbox in the foyer and on the apartment lease. We were Elliot and Tanya Uretsky, at least until the real Uretsky tired of playing his game.

“Are you all right?” Officer Walsh asked Ruby.

Ruby had the dazed look of an accident victim. Her vacant eyes remained downcast, and her answer came out as soft as the flapping of butterfly wings. “Yes . . . I’m fine,” she said. “Just scared and sad for that poor woman.”

“I understand that this is traumatic,” Walsh said. “We have counselors who can help if you need assistance.”

“Thanks,” Ruby said.

I wanted to say, “Nobody can help with what we need.”

Instead, I said nothing.

 

Ruby sat on the futon, head in her hands. I sat beside her, but she recoiled from my touch.

“I don’t want to be near you,” she said. “I can’t be near you right now.”

“We need to stick together on this,” I said.

“Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you tell me exactly what that monster had threatened to do?”

“I didn’t want to upset you.”

“Upset me? Really? That was your reason? John, I think you’ve done a hell of a lot more than upset me!”

Ruby’s face contorted into a sort of animal snarl. How many times had I seen Ruby truly irate? The answer: never. Of course she got mad at me, often deservedly so—sometimes, just because—but on those occasions she’d go quiet, like a stealth submarine running silent, running deep. This time, she stood and crossed the room, her arms folded tightly against her chest and her back turned.

“What should I have done?” I asked.

Ruby pivoted in a fluid motion to face me. “Told the truth, for starters!”

“And then what?” I didn’t want to yell, but it was hard to keep my emotions in check. A woman was dead, and if you traced the blame, it originated with the identity that I stole. “What would we have done differently?”

“Maybe gone to the police,” Ruby said. “Maybe then Rhonda would still be alive.”

“And tell them what, Ruby? What? That we stole an identity and our victim is now terrorizing us?”

“What were you thinking, John?”

“I thought he was trying to just scare us. I didn’t think he would do it. . . . I didn’t think he could! He couldn’t have known who we were. How the hell was he going to kill somebody close to us?”

“How did he find out who we are, John? How? You said there was no way to trace our actual address from the post office box,” Ruby yelled from across the room.

“I don’t know.”

“Well, find out, dammit! You find out!”

Ruby crumpled to the floor like a folded napkin. She wasn’t just crying tears—she was wailing like a woman in mourning. She lay on her side, crying like that, shaking, and struggling to speak. “I’m not strong enough to handle this, John,” she was saying. “I’m not going to be able to make it. I can’t do this. I can’t—”

Her words were halted by another tsunami of tears. I got down on the floor beside Ruby. She wanted me close to her, I could tell, so I tucked her into my arms, spooning her the way I did when it was bedtime, just before sleep found us. I rocked Ruby in my arms in that spooning position, and I knew as the horror sank in that nothing about our relationship would ever be the same.

“I love you, baby. I love you,” I said over and over again.

“We’ve got to tell the police,” Ruby said.

“We can’t,” I said. “He’ll kill again. He’ll do it, and we can’t stop him.”

“You’ve got to make him stop. Please make him stop.”

“I will,” I said. “I promise. All I have to do is play the part. Whatever that means.”

We were still on the floor when the phone rang. Ruby pulled away from me and got into a kneeling position quicker than a cat. The muscles of her jaw tightened; her fingers, knuckles white from the applied force, dug hard against her thighs. I whirled around, glaring at the phone like it was a predator set loose in the apartment.

It rang again.

“Are you going to answer it?”

It rang again.

“What if he hangs up?” she asked. “What if this is our only chance to do what he wants?”

It rang again.

“Answer it, John! Answer it!”

I picked up the phone.

“Hello?”

My voice had the croaky sound of having been roused from a deep slumber.

“Elliot Uretsky?” asked a man.

I didn’t recognize the voice, but I knew it wasn’t the real Elliot Uretsky calling to terrify us again.

“Who is this?” I asked.

The cold bite to my voice was intended to intimidate.

“My name is Henry Dobson,” said the man. “Am I speaking with Elliot Uretsky?”

“You are,” I said, lying.

“Sorry to call so late.”

I closed my eyes and fought to keep down what little was left inside my stomach. I glanced over at Ruby and saw that her hands were covering her mouth, ironically in a gesture not too dissimilar from that of the wise monkey warning against speaking evil. I thought of the woman who lived below us, whose severed fingers were meant to communicate the same.

“What do you want, Mr. Dobson? This isn’t a particularly good time to talk.”

“Then I’ll make it brief,” Dobson said. “I’m a fraud investigator with UniSol Health, and I’m afraid we might have a serious problem with your claim.”