Twisted: The Collected Short Stories of Jeffery Deaver

''I don't care,' I told her.' Manko lifted an eyebrow. 'Not exactly true, Frankie boy, I gotta say. I was scared shitless. But Allison said she didn't want me to get hurt. And if I left, the guy wouldn't hurt her. That made sense but I wasn't going just yet. I turned back and held her hard. 'Do you love me? Tell me! I have to know. Say it!'

'And she did. She whispered, 'I love you.' I could hardly hear it but it was enough for me. I knew everything would be fine. Whatever else, we had each other.

'I got back into the routine of life. Working, playing softball on the plant team. But all the time I kept writing her poetry, sending her articles and letters, you know. I'd put fake return addresses on the envelopes so her father wouldn't guess it was me writing. I even hid letters in Publishers Clearing House envelopes addressed to her! How's that for thinking?

'Once in a while I'd see her in person. I found her in a drugstore by herself and snuck up to her. I bought her a cup of coffee. She said how happy she was to see me but also was nervous as hell and I could see why. The goons were outside. We talked for about two minutes is all then one of 'em saw us and I had to vanish. I kicked my way out the back door. After that I began to notice these dark cars driving past my apartment or following me down the street. They said 'MCP' on the side. Morgan Chemical Products. They were keeping an eye on me.

'One day this guy came up to me in the hallway of my apartment and said Morgan'd pay me five thousand to leave town. I laughed at him. Then he said if I didn't stay away from Allison there'd be trouble.

'Suddenly I just snapped. I grabbed him and pulled his gun out of his holster and threw it on the floor then I shoved him against the wall and said, 'You go back and tell Morgan to leave us alone or he's the one's gonna be in trouble. You got me?'

'Then I kicked him down the stairs and threw his gun after him. I gotta say I was pretty shook up. I was seeing just how powerful this guy was.'

'Money is power,' I offered.

'Yeah, you're right there. Money's power. And Thomas Morgan was going to use all of his to keep us apart. You know why? 'Cause I was a threat. Fathers are jealous. Turn on any talk show. Oprah. Sally Jesse. Fathers hate their daughters' boyfriends. It's like an Oedipus thing. Especially — what I was saying before — with Allison being an only child. Here I was, a rebel, a drifter, making thirteen bucks an hour. It was like a slap in his face, Allison loving me so completely. She was rejecting him and everything he stood for.' Manko's face shone with pride for Allison's courage.

Then the smile vanished. 'But Morgan was always one step ahead of us. One day I ditched work and snuck into the hospital. I waited for an hour but Allison never showed up. I asked where she was. They told me she wasn't working there anymore. Nobody'd give me a straight answer but finally I found this young nurse who told me her father'd called and told 'em that Allison was taking a leave of absence. Period. No explanation. She didn't even clean out her locker. Jesus. All her plans to travel, all her plans with me — gone, just like that. I called the house to get a message to her but he'd changed the number and had it, you know, unlisted. I mean, this guy was incredible.

'And he didn't stop there. Next, he comes after me. I go in to work and the foreman tells me I'm fired. Too many unexcused absences. That was bullshit — I didn't have more than most of the guys. But Morgan must've been a friend of the Kroegers. I was still new so the union wouldn't go to bat for me. I was out. Just like that.

'Well, I couldn't beat him at his game so I decided to play by my rules.' Manko grinned and scooted forward. Our knees touched and I felt all the energy that was in him pulse against my skin. 'Oh, I wasn't worried for me. But Allison, she's so…' As he searched for a word his hands made a curious gesture, as if stretching thread between them, a miniature cat's cradle.

I suggested, 'Fragile.'

The snap of his fingers startled me. He sat up. 'Exactly. Fragile. She didn't have any defense against her father. I had to do something fast. I went to the police. I wanted 'em to go to the house and see if she was okay. But also it'd be a sign to her father that I wasn't going to take any crap from him.' Manko whistled. 'Mistake, Frankie. Bad mistake. Morgan was one step ahead of me. This sergeant, some big guy, pushed me into a corner and said if I didn't stay away from Morgan's daughter, the family'd get a restraining order. I'd end up in a cell. Then he looked me over and said something about did I know all sorts of accidents could happen to prisoners. It was a risky place, jail. Man, was I stupid. I should've known the cops'd be on Morgan's payroll too.

'By then I was going crazy. I hadn't seen Allison for weeks. Jesus, had he sent her off to a convent or something?'

Serenity returned to his face. 'Then she gave me a signal. I was hiding in the bushes in a little park across the street, watching the house with binoculars. I just wanted to see her is all. I wanted to know she was all right. She must've seen me because she lifted the shade all the way up. Oh, man, there she was! The light was behind her and it made her hair glow. Like those things, you know, gurus see.'

'Auras.'

'Right, right. She was in a nightgown, and I could just see the outline of her body beneath it. She looked like an angel. I was like I was gonna have a heart attack, it was such an incredible thing. There she was, telling me she was all right and she missed me. Then the shade went down and she shut the light out.

'I spent the next week planning. I was running out of money. Thanks again to Thomas Morgan. He'd put out the word to all the factories in town and nobody'd hire me. I added up what I had and it wasn't much. Maybe twelve hundred bucks. I figured it'd get us to Florida. Give me a chance to find work with a printer and Allison could get a job in a hospital.'

Then Manko laughed. He studied me critically. 'I can be honest with you, Frank. I feel I'm close to you.'

So I was no longer Frankie boy. I'd graduated. My pulse quickened and I was moved.

'Fact is, I look tough. Am I right? But I get scared. Real scared. I never saw any action. Grenada, Panama, Desert Storm. I missed 'em all, you know what I'm saying? I was never tested. I always wondered what I'd do under fire. Well, this was my chance. I was going to rescue Allison. I was going up against the old man himself.

'I called his company and told his secretary I was a reporter from Ohio Business magazine. I wanted to do an interview with Mr. Morgan. We tried to find a time he could see me. I couldn't believe it — she bought the whole story. She told me he'd be in Mexico on business from the twentieth through the twenty-second of July. I made an appointment for August 1, then hung up fast. I was worried somebody was tracing the call.

'On July twentieth I staked out the house all day. Sure enough, Morgan left with his suitcase at ten in the morning and didn't come back that night. There was a security car parked in the driveway and I figured one of the goons was inside the house. But I'd planned on that. At ten it started to rain. Just like now.' He nodded toward the window. 'I remember hiding in the bushes, real glad about the overcast. I had about a hundred feet of exposed yard to cover and the security boys would've spotted me for sure in the moonlight. I managed to get to the house without anybody seeing me and hide beneath this holly tree while I caught my breath.

'Then it was dues time, Frank. I leaned against the side of the house, listening to the rain and wondering if I'd have the guts to go through with it.'

'But you did.'

Manko grinned boyishly and did a decent Pacino gangster impersonation. 'I broke in through the basement, snuck up to her room and busted her out of the joint.

'We didn't take a suitcase or anything. We just got out of there fast as we could. Nobody heard us. The security guy was in the living room but he'd fallen asleep watching the Tonight Show. Allison and I, we got into my car and we hit the highway. Man, Easy Rider. We were free! On the road, just her and me. We'd escaped. We were on that adventure Allison'd always wanted. At last, we were both happy.

'I headed for the interstate, driving sixty-two, right on the button, because they don't arrest you if you're doing just seven miles over the limit. It's a state police rule, I heard somewhere. I stayed in the right lane and pointed that old Dodge east-southeast. Didn't stop for anything. Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina. Once we started crossing borders, I felt better. Her father was sure to come home from his trip right away and call the local cops but whether they'd get the highway patrol in, I had my doubts. I mean, he'd have some explaining to do — about how he kept his daughter a prisoner and everything.' Manko shook his head. 'But you know what I did?'