Gone for Good

56

Nora called Squares on his cell phone. She gave him an abbreviated version of the events surrounding her disappearance. Squares listened without interruption, driving toward her all the way. They met up in front of the Metropolitan Life building on Park Avenue.

She hopped into the van and hugged him. It felt nice to be back in the outreach van.

"We can't call the police," Squares said.

She nodded. "Will was firm on that one."

"So what the hell can we do?"

"I don't know. But I'm scared, Squares. Will's brother told me about these people. They'll kill him, for sure."

Squares mulled it over. "How do you and Ken communicate?"

"Via a computer newsgroup."

"Let's get him a message. Maybe he'll have an idea."

The Ghost kept his distance.

Time was growing short. I stayed alert. If there was an opening, any opening, I was going to risk it. I palmed the broken bottle and studied his neck. I rehearsed in my mind how it might go. I tried to calculate what defensive move the Ghost might make and how I could counter it. Where, I wondered, were his arteries located? Where was he most vulnerable, his flesh the softest?

I glanced at Katy. She was holding up well. I thought again about what Pistillo had said, how adamant he had been that I leave Katy Miller out of this. He was right. This was my fault. When she first asked to help, I should have refused. I had put her at risk. The fact that I was indeed trying to help her, that I understood better than most how much she craved closure, did little to ease my guilt.

I had to find a way to save her.

I looked back at the Ghost. He stared at me. I did not blink.

"Let her go," I said.

He faked a yawn.

"Her sister was good to you."

"So?"

"There's no reason to hurt her."

The Ghost raised his palms and in that hushed lisp, he said, "Who needs a reason?"

Katy closed her eyes. I stopped then. I was just making it worse. I checked the clock. Two hours to go. "The yard," a spot where pot smokers used to gather after a fun-filled day at Heritage Middle School, was no more than three miles from here. I knew why the Ghost had picked it. The site was easy to control. It was secluded, especially in the summer months. And once in, there would be little chance of getting out alive.

The Ghost's cell phone rang. He looked down at it as if he'd never heard the sound before. For the first time, I saw something that might have been confusion cross his face. I tensed, though I did not dare reach for the broken glass. Not yet. But I was ready.

He flicked on the cell and put it to his ear. "Go," he said.

He listened. I studied his colorless face. His expression remained calm, but something was happening here. He blinked more. He checked his watch. He did not speak for nearly two full minutes. Then he said, "I'm on my way."

He rose and walked toward me. He lowered his mouth toward my ear. "If you move from this chair," he said, "you'll beg me to kill her. Do you understand?"

I nodded.

The Ghost left, closing the door behind me. The room was dark. The light was starting to fade, shafts breaking through the leaves. There were no windows in the front, so I had no way of knowing what they were doing.

"What's going on?" Katy whispered.

I put a finger to my lips and listened. An engine turned over. A car started up. I thought about his warning. Do not leave this seat. The Ghost was someone you wanted to obey, but then again, he was going to kill us anyway. I bent at the waist and dropped off the chair. It was not the smoothest move. Rather spastic, in fact.

I looked over at Katy. Our eyes met and again I signaled her to remain silent. She nodded.

I stayed as low as possible and crawled carefully toward the door. I would have gone to my belly and done it commando-style, but the small shards of glass would have ripped right through me. I moved slowly, trying not to cut myself.

When I reached the door, I put my head against the floorboard and peeked through the crack at the bottom. I saw the car drive off. I tried to get a better angle, but it was tough. I sat up and pressed my eye against the side crack. It was harder to see here. The opening was barely a slit. I rose a little and bang, there he was.

The driver.

But where was the Ghost?

I did the quick calculation. Two men, one car. One car drives off. I am not much with math, but that meant that only one man could be left. I turned to Katy. "He's gone," I whispered.

"What?"

"The driver is still here. The Ghost drove off."

I moved back toward my chair and picked up the large piece of broken glass. Stepping as gently as possible, fearing that even the slightest weight change could shake the structure, I made my way back behind Katy's chair. I sawed at the rope.

"What are we going to do?" she whispered.

"You know a way out of here," I said. "We'll make a run for it."

"It's getting dark."

"That's why we do it now."

"The other guy," she said. "He could be armed."

"He probably is, but would you rather wait for the Ghost to come back?"

She shook her head. "How do you know he's not coming back right now?"

"I don't." The rope cut through. She was free. She rubbed her wrists as I said, "You with me?"

She looked at me and I thought maybe it was the same way I used to look at Ken, that mixture of hope and awe and confidence. I tried to look brave, but I've never been the hero type. She nodded.

There was one window in the back. My plan, as it were, was to open it, climb out, and crawl through the woods. We would try to keep quiet as possible, but if he heard us, we would break into a run. I was counting on the fact that the driver was either unarmed or not supposed to wound us too seriously. They'd have to figure that Ken would be careful. They'd want to keep us alive well, me anyway to bait their trap.

Or maybe not.

The window was stuck. I pulled and pushed against the frame. Nothing. It had been painted over a million years ago. No chance of opening it.

"Now what?" she asked.

Cornered. The feeling of a cornered rat. I looked at Katy. I thought about what the Ghost had said, how I had somehow not protected Julie. I would not let that happen again. Not to Katy.

"Only one way out of here," I said. I looked at the door.

"He'll see us."

"Maybe not."

I pressed my eye against the crack. The sunlight was fading. The shadows had picked up strength. I saw the driver. He sat on a tree stump. I saw the ember from the end of his cigarette, a steady marker in the dark.

His back was turned.

I put the broken-glass shiv in my pocket. I signaled with a lowering palm for Katy to bend down. I reached for the knob. It turned easily. The door creaked when it opened. I stopped and looked out. The driver was still not looking. I had to risk it. I pushed the door open more. The squeak quieted. I stopped the door after only a foot. Enough to squeeze through.

Katy looked up at me. I nodded. She crawled through the door. I bent down and followed. We were both outside now. We lay flat on the platform. Totally exposed. I closed the door.

He still had not turned around.

Okay, next step: how to get off the platform. We couldn't use the ladder. It was too out in the open. I gestured for Katy to follow me. We slid on our bellies toward the side. The platform was aluminum. That made it easier. No friction or splinters.

We reached the side of the shack. But when I turned the corner, I heard a noise not unlike a groan. And then something fell. I froze. A beam under the platform had given way. The whole structure swayed.

The driver said, "What the hell…?"

We ducked low. I pulled Katy toward me, so that she was on the side of the shack too. He couldn't see us now. He'd heard the noise. He looked. He saw the door closed and the platform seemingly empty.

He shouted, "What the hell are you two doing in there?"

We both held our breath. I heard the crunch of leaves. I'd been prepared for this. I already had something of a plan in mind. I braced myself. And then he yelled again.

"What the hell are you two?"

"Nothing," I shouted, pressing my mouth against the side of the shack, hoping my voice sounded muffled, as if it were coming from the inside. I had to risk this. If I didn't answer, he would definitely check it out. "This shack is a piece of crap," I said. "It keeps shifting on us."

Silence.

We both held our breaths. Katy pressed herself against me. I could feel her shivering. I patted her back. It would be all right. Sure, we were just fine. I strained my ears and tried to pick up the sound of his footsteps. But I heard nothing. I looked at her, urging her to crawl toward the back with my eyes. She hesitated but not for long.

My new plan, as it were, was to shimmy down the pole in the back corner. She would go first. If he heard her, a seemingly likely event, well, I had a plan of sorts for that too.

I pointed the way. She nodded, clear-eyed now, and moved toward the pole. She slid off and held on to the pole, firefighter-style. The platform lurched again. I stared helplessly as the platform wobbled some more. There was the groaning noise again, louder now. I saw a screw come loose.

"Whatthe…"

But this time, the driver did not bother calling out. I could hear him moving toward us. Still holding on, Katy looked up at me.

"Jump down and run!" I shouted.

She let go and fell to the ground. The fall was not that far. After she landed, she looked back at me, waiting.

"Run!" I shouted again.

The man now: "Don't move or I'll shoot."

"Run, Katy!"

I threw my legs over the side and let go. My fall was somewhat longer. I landed hard. I remembered reading somewhere that you're supposed to land with knees bent and roll. I did that. I rolled into a tree. When I stood, I saw the man coming at us. He was maybe fifteen yards away. His face was twisted in rage.

"You don't stop, you're dead." But he didn't have a gun in his hand. "Run!" I shouted to Katy again. "But " she said.

"I'm right behind you! Go!"

She knew I was lying. I had accepted this as part of the plan. My job now was to slow down our adversary slow him down enough so that Katy could escape. She hesitated, not liking the idea of my sacrifice.

He was almost on us.

"You can get help," I urged. "Go!"

She finally obeyed, leaping over the roots and high grass. I was already reaching into my pocket when the man leveled me with a tackle. The blow was bone-jarring, but I still managed to wrap my arms around him. We tumbled down together. This, too, I had learned someplace. Almost every fight ends up on the ground. In the movies, fighters punch and go down. In real life, people lower their heads and grab their opponents and end up in a grapple. I rolled with him, taking some hits, concentrating on the shiv in my hand.

I gave him a bear hug, squeezing him as tight as I could, though I knew I was not really hurting him. Didn't matter. It would slow him down. Every second counted. Katy would need the lead. I held on tight. He struggled. I would not let go.

That was when he landed the head butt.

He reared back and struck my face with his forehead. I have never been head-butted before, but it hurts like nothing else. It felt as though a wrecking ball had smashed into my face. My eyes watered up. My grip went slack. I fell away. He wound up for another blow, but something instinctive made me turn away, curl into a ball. He rose to his feet. He aimed a kick at my ribs.

But it was my turn now.

I prepared myself. I let the kick land and quickly trapped his foot against my stomach with one hand. With the other, I held the broken glass. I jammed it into the fat of his calf. He screamed as the glass sliced deep into his flesh. The sound echoed. Birds scattered. I pulled it out and stabbed again, this time in the hamstring area. I felt the warm gush of blood.

The man dropped and began to flail, fish-on-the-hook-style.

I was about to strike again when he said, "Please. Just go."

I looked at him. His leg hung useless. He would not be a threat to us. Not now anyway. I was not a killer. Not yet. And I was losing time. The Ghost might be back soon. We needed to get away before that.

So I turned and ran.

After twenty or thirty yards I looked behind me. The man was not pursuing me. He was struggling to a crawl. I started running again when I heard Katy's voice call, "Will, over here!"

I turned and spotted her.

"This way," she said.

We ran the rest of the way. Branches whipped our face. We stumbled on roots, but we never fell. Katy was good to her word. Fifteen minutes later, we headed out of the woods and onto Hobart Gap Road.

When Will and Katy emerged from the woods, the Ghost was there.

He watched from a distance. Then he smiled and stepped back into his car. He drove back and began the cleanup. There was blood. He had not expected that. Will Klein continued to surprise and, yes, impress him.

That was a good thing.

When he was done, the Ghost drove down South Livingston Avenue. There was no sign of Will or Katy. That was okay. He stopped at the mailbox on Northfield Avenue. He hesitated before dropping the package through the slot.

It was done.

The Ghost took Northfield Avenue to Route 280 and then the Garden State Parkway north. It would not be long now. He thought about how this had all begun, and how it should end. He thought about McGuane and Will and Katy and Julie and Ken.

But most of all, he thought about his vow and why he had come back in the first place.