“Still,” Freedy said.
Still. Which was why he had to do something. He checked out the way she was, the tape job, the pipe. Going to need some adjustments.
“Babe?” he said.
No answer.
“Have to untape your hand for a sec.” He tore at the tape, unwound it. Her arm, one arm, came free. She sort of groaned. The rest of her, legs and the other arm, remained taped tight to the utility pipe. “Have to lean your head a little this way,” he said. He was looking at the pipe, reaching in his pocket for a roll of tape, not really watching, not really noticing that her arm, her free arm, was feeling around under her. “Let’s have that arm,” he said.
The arm came up, came up with something glinting in it, came up quick, even by his time scale. A sharp thing, goddamn piece of glass from that fucking aquarium, stabbed him right in the neck. Not in the neck, exactly, because he was even quicker, but in his shoulder, the one just starting to feel better, deep. Had she known it was under her, that piece of glass, even brought it somehow, waiting for a chance? That hurt most of all. Why? Because of the money and the girl thing, the hero’s reward, now gone and wrecked.
He let her have it. Let her have it but good, as they said, and Freedy knew why: because of how good you felt, doing it.
Freedy taped her arm, now limp, back up to the pipe, taped her head to it too, to prevent that head-banging shit. He popped the last andro, tweaked the last of the meth, stopped the bleeding; his bleeding. New plan. Action central.
Peter Abrahams
Crying Wolf
29
Which of the following was not written by Nietzsche? (a) It is our future that lays down the law of our today. (b) The sick are the greatest danger to the healthy. (c) Money is the root of nothing.
The ransom note.
It defied Nat’s understanding, like a superficially simple poem packed with allusions he didn’t even know were there. He was sure of only one thing: it wasn’t Grace’s writing. Nat still believed Grace might have wrecked the two rooms in their cave; could even imagine Lorenzo dying in the fray; but could not accept that she’d written that note on the back of the centaur painting. A milion sounds nice. Right here soon say by dark. Call the cops and she die$. Not her. Could she have disguised her written self to persuade her father and Andy Ling that a kidnapping had really taken place? Maybe, Nat thought, but not like this. The longer he stared at the note, the stranger it got-didn’t even read like a ransom note, left out all those points Wags had made; and the middle sentence almost didn’t make sense. Something else about the note bothered him even more, something he couldn’t identify.
So when Izzie said, “I suppose you’re going to say that’s her own writing,” he said, “No.”
On the way out, Izzie went by Lorenzo’s body without a glance.
Grace and Izzie’s room. Even with what he’d just seen, Nat still wouldn’t have been surprised to see Grace there. She wasn’t. Izzie snatched up the phone.
“Calling your father?” Nat said.
“Who else?”
“To say what?”
“To say what? That my sister’s been kidnapped.”
“We already told him that.”
“So? Now it’s true.”
“But-”
“But what?”
“He didn’t believe it.”
“The room, the note-that changes everything.”
“Will he think so?”
“What are you talking about?”
Odd, to have to explain her own father to her. “We need more facts,” he said.
“What kind of facts?”
“I don’t know. We have to think. Who could have done this?”
“Kidnappers, for God’s sake. Do you expect them to identify themselves?”
“Have there been any other attempts?”
“Other attempts?”
“In the past-threats against your family.”
“From whom?”
“Workers with a grievance, business rivals-you’d know better than me.”
Izzie, punching out the numbers, gave him a quick look. “All you’re doing is complicating this. It’s simple. We need that money and we need it now.”
She reached someone, spoke a word or two into the phone, hung up. It rang within the minute.
“Dad?” She pressed the speaker button.
“Yes?” said Mr. Zorn. Nat heard traffic noises-he was back in the city-and impatience in his tone.
Izzie told him about their place in the tunnels and what had happened to it, told him about the ransom note, told him they needed the money and needed it now, told him that this time it was real.
Silence, followed by a muffled conversation; Nat thought he heard Andy Ling’s voice. Mr. Zorn came back on the line.
“What did the note say?”
“The exact words?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t remember the exact words, but-”
“I do,” Nat said.
“Ah,” said Mr. Zorn. “Nat. Let’s hear them.”
Nat quoted the ransom demand verbatim.
Pause. “Would you repeat that, please?”
Nat repeated it.
Another pause. Then Mr. Zorn laughed. In the background, Andy said, “A million sounds nice,” and started laughing too, a low, pleasant laugh of real amusement, different from Mr. Zorn’s, Nat couldn’t help realizing even at that moment: Mr. Zorn’s laugh had an edge, almost like a weapon.
“Is something funny?” Izzie said.
“Kids,” said Mr. Zorn: “It’s enough now.”
Click.
Izzie paled, then went red. He’d never seen her face like that; she was almost a different person. For a moment, he thought she was going to throw the phone across the room. Grace probably would have. The color faded slowly from her face. She turned to him and said, “Doesn’t anyone understand what’s happening here? She’s going to die. I can feel it.”
“What about trying Professor Uzig now?” Nat said.
“Stop calling him that,” Izzie said. “He’s just Leo. What about him?”
“Maybe he can persuade your father.”
“He didn’t come through for you.”
