CHAPTER 35
I closed the laptop and dropped to my knees. The bar stool fell sideways at the same time Ruby lost her balance reaching for me. She toppled out of her seat and landed right on top of me, cushioning her fall with my body. I clambered back to my feet, straining to reach the laptop—pawing for it—but Ruby had the better position and got there first.
“Don’t look at it!” I shouted at her. “You don’t want to see!”
“Mom!” Ruby cried out, fumbling to flip open the top cover.
I guess Ruby thought it was a picture of her mother that had made me scream and fall to the floor. I wasn’t trying to be protective of Ruby when I told her not to look. I was speaking the truth. A lifetime ago—at least that was how it seemed—I had created a mental picture of what Rhonda Jennings looked like when the police found her body, but that image paled entirely when compared to seeing the real flesh and blood thing.
The blood.
It was everywhere, but it didn’t cover the purple bruise marks on Jenna’s throat where Uretsky had choked the life out of her. Jenna’s face, moonlight white, was marked with bloody crimson streaks that appeared painted on, and with crude brushstrokes. Her cloudy eyes, open and lifeless, were partially covered by one of her severed fingers. The finger’s ragged flesh, lumpy and torn at the knuckle, appeared to have been ripped off her hand, not sheared. Two of Jenna’s fingers jutted out from her ears like heinous, bloody antennae. Another two, those a pulpy mess as well, had been set upon her pale blue lips in a purposeful manner.
See no evil.
Hear no evil.
Speak no evil.
Ruby stared blankly at the screen. A baleful scream, low at first but rising in pitch, escaped from her tremulous mouth. She threw the computer against the wall with enough force to break it open on impact. Chunks of flying metal and glass spread out like shrapnel, with a few pieces nicking me in the face and neck. Ruby grabbed hold of the apartment phone, which I had let drop in front of the kitchen island.
“Damn you!” Ruby screamed into the phone. “You monster! Let my mother go! Let her go!”
I couldn’t hear Uretsky’s reply, but Ruby let the phone fall from her grasp as though it had become too hot to hold. I watched it swing back and forth in front of the kitchen island, moving slowly like the pendulum of a grandfather clock. Ruby dropped to the floor, huddled into a protective ball. I picked up the phone, put it to my ear, and heard Uretsky’s singsong voice to the tune of “Camptown Races” saying, “Put John on, or your mother dies. Put John on, or your mother dies. Put John on, or your mother dies.”
“I’m here!” I shouted. “It’s me! It’s John.”
Uretsky stopped his singing.
“Johnny!” he exclaimed, sounding excited to hear from me, as though we were old friends newly reunited. “You hanging in there, Johnny?”
“Please . . . ,” I said, tears again stinging my eyes. “You didn’t have to do that. She didn’t do anything to you.”
“You did this to her, not me. You tried to pull a fast one on me, didn’t you? Rules are rules, and you broke ’em. Now, there’s a price to pay when you don’t follow the rules.”
“Just let Winnie go,” I said. “What can I do?”
“Not that easy. You’ve got to play a penalty round.”
“I’ll do anything.”
“I think you’re going to come to regret that statement,” Uretsky said.
“Tell . . . me . . . how,” I said, my shaky voice barely audible.
“You sure you want to keep playing? You can say, ‘Game over.’ That’s always an option. Of course, I’ll kill Winnie if you don’t play along, and I’ll probably come after Ruby next.”
“Tell me what to do to free Winnie,” I said in a low voice.
“Okay. You made the choice, so it’s game on! Thatta boy, Johnny! Now, listen to me, and listen close, because I’m not going to repeat myself.” Uretsky’s voice had dipped in volume, a return to the serious business of the game. “There’s a warehouse in South Boston, on the corner of West Third and B Street. It’s in a part of town that doesn’t see a lot of foot traffic. Across from that warehouse is a single-story brick building with a Dumpster in the back parking lot. You’re going to go Dumpster diving. Inside that Dumpster, you’ll find three five-gallon canisters of gasoline buried beneath the rubbish. You’re going to take those gas cans over to the warehouse and enter through the green door, which I’ve left unlocked for your convenience.”
I could feel my insides shriveling up into nothing. “Then what?” I asked.
“Then I want you to use the accelerant to soak a pile of wood pallets on the first floor. I suggest you save some gas to make a trail to the door. You don’t want to be close to those pallets when they go up in flames.”
“You want me to start a fire inside the warehouse?” I said.
“That’s exactly what you’re going to do. Strike a match and start a fire. I have a scanner, so I’ll know when the fire department gets the call. I have other ways of knowing you’ve followed my instructions to the letter.”
Cameras. He’s got cameras in there. No way to fake it. No way out. Do what he says.
“Escape without getting caught,” Uretsky continued, “and I’ll let Winnie go. If you fail in any way, Winnie will look a lot like Jenna, maybe even worse. That’s the deal, and it’s nonnegotiable.”
“Let her go first and I’ll do it,” I said.
“Nonnegotiable,” Uretsky repeated. “You have one hour from this very moment to become an arsonist. Best of luck.”