was that 'what's up?' It was not her kind of phrase, the lightness in it too forced. In those words, he heard the strain of speaking to a man whom she had loved and who had rejected her.
'I need to see you very soon. You know I wouldn't trouble you like this unless it was very important. And this is very important. I think it's a matter of life and death.'
He swallowed on that last word and he knew TO had heard him.
'Is something wrong with your mom? Is she OK?'
'It's Beth. I know-' He could not complete that sentence: he was not sure what came next. 'I need to see you right away.'
She did not ask any more questions. She just gave him her address. Not her home, but her work: a complex of artists' studios in Chelsea. She said it would be nearer, but Will suspected there was another motive. Maybe she was with someone else; perhaps she was ashamed still to be alone; or maybe she just could not face the intimacy of having Will in her apartment.
Artists' studios. Even in that nugget of information, there was a whole story. It meant she had made good her promise: she had dreamed of being an artist, they talked about it through those long, bed afternoons. But he, and even she, had wondered whether she had the nerve to go through with it. He was glad she had done it. More than glad; proud.
Less than an hour later he found himself stepping out of a service elevator, an old-style one complete with concertina iron gate. He suspected this was not a mechanical necessity, but a bohemian affectation: the artists' colony in their converted factory. He emerged on the fourth floor, silent and dark. He could just make out a corner reserved for a sculptress who seemed to specialize in female bellies. He turned past what looked like a metal workshop, but was in fact the workspace of a man who created installations using neon.
Finally he saw a photocopied notice: TO. Just those two letters, no first or last name. Smart branding, Will thought as he knocked lightly on the partition door to announce his arrival.
Instinctively he had decided that male, English politeness would be his defence against her female, all- American fury.
He had only a second or two to take it all in: walls covered with paintings, three more on easels, yet more covered in bubble-wrap, leaned up against the walls. A plain, battered table covered with clutter. On a counter that ran the length of the back wall, artists' materials — bottles of white spirit; oil paints in bent, metal toothpaste tubes; glue; knives; various rusty scrapers; string and, unaccountably, a cookery book which seemed to have lost all its pages.
Towards the back of the room, on a threadbare red velvet couch, TO. She was smaller than he remembered but nothing else was diminished: she was still a woman who made you stare. Her hair was now shoulder length, where once it had been punkily short. Most of it was a natural brown but for that trademark streak of blue, still there. Taking in her flimsy, vaguely vintage shirt, above tight jeans, torn at the knees, he could see the shape that had once made him weak. In the semi-dark he spotted a glint of metal: the navel ring, still in place.
This had been the moment he was most uncertain of: should he hug her, kiss her on the cheek, shake hands or do nothing? But she made the decision for him, standing up and opening her arms as if welcoming back a prodigal son.
He fell into a hug and tried, through the positioning of his arms and hands, to make it somehow — what was the word — fraternal.
'What's the problem, Will?'
He told her as methodically and briefly as he could: the email, Tom's tracing of it to Crown Heights, Will's visit, the interrogation, the trial by mikve.
'You've got to be kidding,' she said when that last detail dropped, her face giving a smirk that was either disbelief, nervous tension, schadenfreude or a little bit of all three. The semi-smile vanished when she saw Will's reaction. She could see this was deadly serious. 'Will, I feel for you, I really do.
And my heart goes out to Beth's family.' Beth. He had never heard TO say her name before. 'But what exactly do you need from me?'
'I need to know what you know. I need you to explain to me what I heard. I need you to translate for me.'
She responded with a small, wan smile that somehow made her look older. At that moment, Will realized ageing was not chiefly about lines or wrinkles, though those things played their part. The years really showed in expressions like the one he had just seen. Suddenly TO's was a face of years; of knowledge.
'OK. Very slowly and with as much detail as you can remember, you have to tell me everything that happened.
Every street you walked, every person you met, every word they used. I'll put some coffee on.'
Will fell back in the wicker chair TO had pulled up for him.
For the first time in sixteen hours, he let his muscles relax.
He was so relieved: TO was on side. He was filled with a sentiment he had never had when they were together; he felt that TO was going to look after him.
She was, Will soon realized, a skilful interviewer, patient but methodical, demanding that he be precise about each detail, going back over episodes to ensure he had not missed anything. She pointed out contradictions too, in that old forensic way of hers. 'Hold on, you said there was only you and two others in the room. Who is this new person?' 'What did he say exactly? Did he say, 'I will' or 'I might'?'
Her precision exhausted him. By way of a break, he let his eyes wander towards her work, scattered around the room.
Large canvasses depicting classic Americana — naturalistic paintings of a yellow cab or a vintage diner — and, much as he admired their technical skill, he found himself wondering if TO was not in the wrong line of work. She had too clear a mind, too linear and logical, to be an artist. Surely with a brain like hers she should be a scholar or a lawyer or, on current form, a police officer? Wisely, he thought, Will did not say any of this.
By the time he had got to the end, he realized TO had so far explained nothing. Each time she had opened her mouth, it was only to seek clarification from him or to ask supplementary questions. He knew no more now than he had when he left Crown Heights. He began to feel impatient. But he did not dare voice his frustration; he had to keep TO as an ally. Besides, he was nearly faint with fatigue; his words were starting to slur.
He woke when his elbow slipped off the chair arm. He could tell from the taste in his mouth that he had fallen into a brief but deep sleep. He had dreamed of chants and dances, with Beth at the centre, surrounded, like a tribal queen, by men in white shirts and black suits.
Will looked at his watch; two-thirty am. So this was not a nightmare, just a terrifying long day and night that seemed never to end. It had begun when he powered up his BlackBerry some eighteen hours ago. And now, incredibly, he was half-asleep in TO's wicker chair and it was still going on.
'Hi, you're back,' she said, suddenly looking up from an artist's sketch pad that rested on her knees. Her forehead was crinkled in a way, Will remembered, that meant she had been concentrating hard. 'Here's what we've got. The first fact is they say Beth is safe — so long as you back off. Second, they seem to admit that she's done nothing wrong and maybe even nothing at all, but they cannot let her go. They acknowledge that this seems baffling now but, they promise, it will all become clear. We know from their emailed notes to you that they don't want money. They just want you to go away.
That's it.
'What this adds up to is one very weird kind of kidnapping.
It's like they somehow want to borrow her for some unspecified time and some unspecified reason — and they expect you just to take it. We need to work out why.' Will found that we comforting, even if the rest of the puzzle — and the fact that TO had not instantly cracked it — was anything but.
'So what do we have on motive? A clue is surely that they feared you were a fed. The charitable explanation for that is that they feared the feds were coming after them simply because of the kidnapping. The uncharitable view is that their fear was separate from the kidnapping, that they are involved in some other criminal activity and had long worried that the authorities were onto them. Kind of like those weirdo cults who lie in wait for the feds to come and take their guns away.'
Will had a flash of memory back to Montana, Pat Baxter and his chums. Christ, that was only a few days ago; it felt like years.
