wouldn’t be surprised if he had a serious drug problem.”
“Why do you say that?”
“His perceptions get a bit wobbly. At one point he thought I was his grandmother. Although it could have been because I fixed him a slap-up breakfast, just like the nicest granny in the world. You young people aren’t hungry too, by any chance?”
“We have to search your house,” Nat said.
“How exciting,” said Helen. “But you won’t find Leo.”
“We’re looking for Freedy,” Nat said.
“You won’t find him either.”
“What about Grace?”
“Grace?”
“My sister,” said Izzie.
“Ah,” said Helen, turning to her, “the beautiful twins. How Leo does go on and on. Which beautiful twin are you?”
“Izzie,” said Izzie.
“So many z ’s in my life. Well, Izzie, your beautiful twin isn’t here either, except in the sense that you are.”
“I don’t follow you,” Izzie said.
“What’s so hard? Being identical, of course, you’re always in both places. But no one’s here today, not even the birds.”
Nat and Izzie searched the house. No sign of Grace, no sign of Freedy, no sign of Leo, except three plastic wrappers on his bed, the kind dry cleaners use for shirts.
They tried the garage last. It contained gardening supplies and an old Mercedes convertible under a drop cloth. The keys were in the ignition.
“We may need this,” Izzie said, getting behind the wheel. Nat opened the garage door. She drove out. Nat closed the door, hopped in the rolling car. Helen Uzig watched them from a front window.
They couldn’t figure out how to put the top up. Snow had been falling when Grace and Izzie drove Nat to New York for Christmas in the Rolls-Royce and the top had been down then, too. But it hadn’t been snowing hard like this, and the feeling he’d had then, of being inside a protective bubble, was gone.
There were two banks on campus. They identified the one where Grace and Izzie had their account, entered just before closing, withdrew all the money in cash-$13,362. More money than Nat had ever had in his hands, ever seen, but still almost useless. They went back to Grace and Izzie’s room to find some clever way of making it look like a million; their only idea. The message light was blinking. Izzie hit the button.
An intake of breath; Nat knew who it had to be before the voice spoke. “Little change of… can’t think of it, starts with v. Call it a change of plan. What with the snow and all. Know the Glass Onion? Bring the package to the back door. Six o’clock. Sharp. Any questions?”
“Thank God,” Izzie said.
“What do you mean?” said Nat. It was 4:45.
“Because this will change everything, of course.” She was already calling her father to play him the message. Nat watched her face, said nothing.
An operator at some Zorn number said he would call back. Izzie tried again, every fifteen minutes, every ten, every five, using expressions like life and death. She tried her stepmother, Andy Ling, Albert, even Anton. She reached none of them. No one called back. The bone structure of her face grew more and more apparent.
At 5:50, Nat got to his feet. His heart started racing, lightly at first, then harder and harder but just as fast. Izzie raised her eyebrow, her left eyebrow. “Is it going to be all right?” she said. Or something like that; Nat was aware of little more than his heartbeat. She took his hand as they went out the door. Hers felt like ice.
Peter Abrahams
Crying Wolf
31
Identify: “When you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you.”
Freedy felt pretty good. He kind of liked the way things were going down. Sure, the arm wasn’t tip-top, his right arm, almost like another person, ready to go to war for him at the drop of a hat. And he was all out of andro, all out of crystal meth. But funny: he didn’t even need them anymore. Had he ever felt stronger? No, not even close. He could knock down brick walls, lift cars right off the ground, smash things to smithereens, whatever smithereens were. Had to be momentum. Momentum was on his side at last. Everything was easy now. Take just walking down College Hill in the darkness, right in the middle of the deserted street, snow swirling around him and he didn’t even feel it. Didn’t feel the cold. Momentum: all he had to do was let it take him.
Soon, very soon, he would be a millionaire. A millionaire! Was that the most beautiful word in the language or what? A millionaire, and out of this goddamn town forever. Tomorrow-a matter of hours-he would be in Florida. The beach. The biggest cigar in the world. One of those drinks with an umbrella. Cool shades, the very best, like Revos, not ripped off somebody’s towel, but store-bought, legitimate. He pictured it all, saw it as clear as life, or clearer. A picture in his mind tonight; tomorrow: reality. He was an entrepreneur, a risk-taker, one of the daring few, who, as they said on all the infomercials, made things happen. The kid from the flats makes good. At that moment, reaching the bottom of College Hill and trudging through knee-deep snow in the alley that led to the back of the Glass Onion, Freedy felt not just pretty good, but better than he’d ever felt in his life.
Only one problem. Not a problem, really, just something he hadn’t made up his mind about. The girl. Would he ever find another girl like that, a girl so right for him? She was something: a girl who’d given him more trouble than Saul and his big boys. Remembering what had happened to Saul’s nose, he smiled to himself in the darkness. He’d taken Saul down a peg or two, but good. I got you last-a game he’d played at recess as a kid. Freedy always won, had now won again. Florida tomorrow. He’d finished with Saul Medeiros forever, would never even think of him again, had got him last.
Much more fun to think about the girl. An amazing girl. She’d actually helped him- if you’re with the hostage, that makes you a hostage too. She’d even suggested this place, in a way; a vacant lot, she’d said, or an empty building. The Glass Onion was perfect. Freedy saw just how perfect when he moved behind it.
The alley made an L-shaped turn back of the Glass Onion and ended there. On one side was the loading dock of the old hardware store, also boarded up; at the end of the alley, a Dumpster; before him, the service entrance of the Glass Onion, the door padlocked, the bulkhead buried in snow. He was happy about the snow, another sign of the momentum on his side. Supposing they had been stupid enough to call the cops, didn’t it stand to reason that the cops would already have checked this place out? But they hadn’t: he could see, dark as it was, that there were no footprints except his in the snow. He crouched under the loading dock, giving himself a good view back up the alley, all the way to the street. The alley was dark, but the entrance glowed orange from a street-light; the blowing snow came and went as black streaks. Freedy pulled an old pallet from the shadows under the loading dock, upended it in front of him, waited.
Out on the street the storm was making noise, but it was quiet in the closed-in space behind the Glass Onion. The Glass Onion had been boarded up for almost as long as Freedy could remember. He had to say almost because the truth was he’d been inside once. Must have been very young, but he had a clear memory of a guitar- playing singer with a long beard up on a stage, a yellow drink with a straw, a dish of noodles or some shit in a sauce the same color-ginger, was that the word? — as the singer’s beard. The beard and the noodles and that yellow drink had got all mixed up in his mind and he’d ended up puking on his mother’s lap. She’d been wearing one of those striped Arab robes. The stripes, the noodles, the beard, the puke-all the same ginger color. She’d never taken him to the Glass Onion again, so it worked out fine.
