CHAPTER 21
I tried to keep my speed down as we crisscrossed Boston’s maddening one-way and dead-end streets. Now, it’s a myth that the winding roads of Boston were originally carved out by aimlessly wandering cows. In truth, it was probably bad planning and topography that determined the haphazard layout.
Despite the dizzying and vexing street design, I somehow managed to avoid making any wrong turns. We didn’t get pulled over by the cops, either. The ski mask and gun were resting on the floor between Ruby’s feet, and I was sure they would have generated more than a question or two.
Ruby, meanwhile, had my cell phone out and was using Google Maps to plan our escape route.
“I could park on Kent Street,” Ruby said, talking fast and in a loud voice. The anxiety came shooting out her throat like an angry swarm of bees.
“Go on,” I said, punching the gas to pass a slow Honda.
“You come out of Giovanni’s, and then you run left,” Ruby said, staring at the display screen. “Kent Street will be the first street you come to. You jump into the car, and I’ll turn left onto Somerville Ave. Then I should be able to take a right on Lowell Street.”
“What about the plates?” I said. “Somebody might see our plates as we’re driving away.”
“What do you want me to do?” Ruby shouted at me. Her hands and arms were shaking. Strawberry-colored splotches—stress marks—marred her face and neck.
I heard an angry horn blast to my right, and I jumped a little, not realizing I had drifted into the wrong lane. I got Ziggy back on course and waved to the irritated driver, who delivered a proper Boston salute.
“It’s okay. It’s okay,” I said to Ruby. My brain kicked into another gear, one honed from years of climbing, which had heightened my ability for impromptu thinking.
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” I said. “You park on Kent Street. You get out of the car. You walk away. You’ll leave the trunk open. Got it? You leave it open.” I glanced over at Ruby, then back to the road. A fender bender would mean a death sentence for Dr. Adams. “Got it?” I asked again, this time more forcibly as I changed lanes.
“Got it,” Ruby said, a stab of disgust to her voice.
“When I get to the car, I’ll climb inside the trunk and close it myself. You wait twenty, thirty minutes, and then get back into the car and drive away. Don’t open the trunk to let me out until we’ve got Ziggy parked in the alley behind the Harvard Street apartment. It’s dark back there. Nobody will see me climbing out.”
Ruby stayed quiet for a moment, showing me her profound displeasure. “Shit, John,” she said. “You know something? You sound like a real criminal.”
I parked Ziggy a few blocks away from Kent Street, and then I checked the time. Ten thirty at night already. The minutes were passing.
“I’ll walk from here,” I said. “You’ll have plenty of time to get Ziggy over to Kent Street. You can hang out at the Arrow Lounge while you’re waiting the twenty or so minutes I need to pull this off. It’s close by.”
Ruby and I had been to the Arrow Lounge before. We both knew this neighborhood well. Hell, I’d bought booze from Giovanni not that long ago. I reached over and picked up the gun from between Ruby’s feet, dropped the clip—this time without fumbling—and emptied the bullets into the palm of my hand.
“What are you doing?” Ruby asked.
The look I gave suggested the intent of my actions should be obvious. “What do you mean, what am I doing? I’m not going in there with a loaded weapon. Did you think I was?”
“John!” she yelled, sounding more frightened than angry. “What if Giovanni is armed?”
I shrugged my hands.
“You’ll have no protection,” she went on.
“I’m not going to shoot Giovanni, no matter what,” I said.
Ruby covered her mouth with her hands. “Maybe we should just forget this,” she said in a muffled voice. “Let’s go to the police right now. Let’s do it.”
I grabbed my phone and showed Ruby Uretsky’s last text message—the one with a picture included. She sucked in a horrified breath, grimaced, and quickly looked away.
“That’s Rhonda Jennings’s blood on those pruning shears,” I said. “Next, it will be Dr. Adams’s. I can’t face the guilt of causing another death. You can’t either, Ruby. She helped save your life. We need to do the same.”
“How would he even know you robbed the store?” Ruby asked.
I threw my hands in the air in a “Beats me” gesture. “Like I said, maybe he thinks it’ll be on the news. I don’t really know. I mean, how did he find out our real identities? How did he know I was talking to Clegg outside O’Brian’s? How?”
Ruby’s expression became contemplative. She turned her head and gazed out Ziggy’s fogged-up window.
“What is it?” I asked her.
“When we got back to the apartment . . . after . . . after what happened to Rhonda, you told me that David arrested somebody right before Uretsky called.”
“Yeah, that’s right,” I said, nodding.
I glanced at the time. Five minutes had ticked past; time kept moving like it was high on speed.
“The guy he arrested was inside Clegg’s car when Uretsky called.”
I nodded again. “So?” I asked, back to watching the time.
“Could you see inside the car, John?” Ruby asked.
I swallowed hard.
“No,” I said.
“I’m just saying—”
I understood right away. “You think that the guy Clegg arrested was Uretsky?” I recalled the man’s face: boyish features, sharp nose, thin frame, buzz-cut hair. Could he be Elliot Uretsky? “But he’d be in jail if that were so,” I said.
“He could have posted bail.”
I nodded. “But that doesn’t explain how he knows so much about us,” I said. “Or how he made a phone call with handcuffs on.”
“Not if . . . not if Clegg . . .”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying, what if Clegg is in on it?”
“You think Uretsky is working with Clegg?”
My incredulousness was evident.
Ruby nodded, and vigorously. “What if David snapped? Survivor’s guilt, or something like that, and he blames you for picking him over Brooks. You said he’s getting divorced, right?”
I nodded.
“Maybe that pushed him over the edge,” Ruby continued. “Some kind of stress-induced insanity. I don’t know. I’m just thinking out loud here.”
I brushed the idea off like it was something crawling up my neck.
“No,” I said. “That’s crazy.”
I wouldn’t admit it—not then, anyway—but Ruby had dug a foothold into my rock of denial, and I’d begun to imagine the impossible. I recalled what Clegg had said to me inside the bar. Here’s your living proof that crime doesn’t pay. Why did he say that?
I glanced again at the time. Ten forty.
“We’ll talk about this later,” I said. “After.” I moved to open the door.
Ruby reached across her seat and grabbed my arm. “John, what if there are other people in the store?”
I gripped her hand. “I’m going for the cash, and then I’m gone.”
“Yeah, well, what if somebody tries to stop you? You know, plays the hero.”
“I’ll wait until the store is empty.”
“What if you can’t?”
“I don’t know, Ruby!” I didn’t mean to shout at her, but my nerves were already frayed and on edge.
“Maybe you can hand him a note?”
“A note?”
“Explaining what’s going on,” Ruby said.
“And then take his hundred fifty dollars?”
“Tell him you just need to pretend to steal the money.”
“He won’t go for it. He’ll think I’m crazy.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I’d think I was crazy.”
“I want to kill him,” Ruby said.
“Me too,” I answered.
I tried to move, but Ruby wouldn’t let go of my arm.
“What if he sees you running toward Kent Street?” she asked.
“Who?”
“Giovanni. What if Giovanni sees you running toward Kent Street?” This made me pause.
“Shit,” I said.
“The police might start searching the cars.”
“Make it an hour,” I said.
“An hour?”
“Leave me in the trunk for an hour. They can’t just pop the trunk without having probable cause. A parked car isn’t probable cause.”
Ruby looked pleased by something. “I don’t know if you’ll even have enough air for an hour. I’m not going to wait that long. There’s a railroad track running perpendicular to Kent Street,” she said, remembering. “I saw it on the Google map. Maybe they’ll think you ran down the tracks.”
“Maybe,” I said.
She clutched my hands and looked intently into my eyes. “Don’t do this, John,” she said.
“I don’t have a choice.”
I took off my shirt and put on the clothes Uretsky had provided for me. Just the feel of the fabric made my skin itch, and the thought that Uretsky might have once worn these clothes made me want to burn them. I decided I’d do just that—each article of clothing I’d incinerate into ash. I got the shirt and jacket on. Next, I pulled the ski mask over my head, just to test it out.
“How do I look?” I asked Ruby.
I watched Ruby gulp down her concern.
“Scary, John,” she said. “You look really, really scary.”