Stolen (7 page)

M
y voice got stuck in my throat, but eventually, I was able to ask, “What kind of game do you want to play?”

I heard him take in a readying breath, one that seemed to suck the air right out of my lungs. “It’s a game I’ve made up,” Uretsky said.

“You inspired it, in fact. It’s called
Criminal.
Want to know how to play?”

“You know what? I think this conversation is over,” I said.

“You hang up on me,” Uretsky said quickly, his tone flush with hatred, “and I’ll make sure that bitch wife of yours dies of cancer.”

He essentially spit out the words
dies of cancer.
A knot built up in my chest. Ruby, who must have heard some or all of Uretsky’s admonition, covered her mouth with her hands. She closed her eyes tightly, perhaps to will this nightmare into nothingness. When she opened them, those blue eyes I loved so dearly were ringed with red. Her lower lip quivered, and I could feel Ruby’s anxiety start to build.

“Do you want to know how to play
Criminal?
” Uretsky asked again. The calm had returned to his voice. The old Elliot was back. “The answer, by the way, is yes. Yes, Elliot. I’d love to know how to play
Criminal.
Please, tell me all about it.” Uretsky paused, long enough to let me know that he was awaiting my reply. “Go ahead. Now you say it.”

He was goading me along—take a little drag, walk on the train tracks, make the jump, live on the wild side. “How . . .” I gulped before I could continue. “How do you play . . .
Criminal?
”

“Well, I’m glad you asked,” Uretsky said, ebullient. “I think the best games are the ones where you improve yourself. Get better, you know? The more experienced you are, the better you do. So my game is all about making you a better criminal. That’s where I got the name. Do you see?”

“Please . . . whatever you want.”

“I want you to play my game,” Uretsky said, the harsh edge to his voice returning. “Now then, at this particular moment in time, I’d say you’re a pretty crappy criminal. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“I don’t . . . I don’t know how to respond to that.”

“The correct response is yes,” Uretsky said. “I mean, I caught you. And it was damn easy, too. So, let’s
both
agree that you’re pretty bad at being a thief and get on with it, shall we?” Uretsky’s breathy voice again raised the hairs on my neck. “So here’s the game in a nutshell. You’ve got to prove to me that you’re worthy of being labeled a real criminal.”

“Okay, this has gone far enough,” I said, a touch of anger in my voice.

“Oh, we haven’t even begun to dance.”

“If this is your way of scaring us—”

“Let me tell you how to play round one.”

“It’s not going to work.”

“Do you know the Giorgio Armani store on Newbury Street?”

“Yes,” I said, exasperated. “What does that have to do with anything? What do you want from us, Elliot?”

“I want you and your wife to go to that store, and I want each of you to shoplift a scarf valued at greater than a hundred dollars.”

“What?”

“I want you to steal two scarves.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Why?” he repeated, as though the answer should be obvious to me. “Because a criminal is a thief, no matter what the crime—a stealer of identities, a taker of lives, a remover of objects. To advance in my game, you must each steal one scarf with a value greater than one hundred dollars.”

“I’ll do no such thing,” I said, sounding indignant. This had to be a prank, some trick intended to scare us. A tick of relief swept over me, as I believed with increasing conviction that this was true. Uretsky wanted to mess with us for what I’d done to him, and I fell for it, hook, line, and stinking sinker. It made sense. He was an avid gamer, maybe even a hacker type, someone who preferred that justice be served outside the usual lines.

I covered the phone with my hand and said to Ruby, “It’s okay, baby. This is a prank. I’ll take care of it.” To Uretsky: “Tell me, Elliot, since you don’t know who we are, how would you even know that we stole the scarves?”

“Good one,” Uretsky said. “You’re thinking. That’s what a smart criminal must always do. I thought of that as well, so I went ahead and marked the price tag of two scarves on display, both of which have the requisite dollar value, with the initials E.U. and T.U. That’s for Elliot Uretsky and my wife, Tanya, your doppelgängers. Those are the scarves you are to steal. Now, I’ve placed a hidden camera in the store, so I’ll know when they’ve been stolen.”

“Sounds logical,” I said, humoring him.

“You have forty-eight hours from this very moment. Forty-eight hours starting right now.”

“Okay. Sounds good. We’re on it.”

Could he pick up on my sarcasm?

I was shaking my head. I wasn’t sure what else I could do to get him off the line.

“I haven’t told you what happens if you lose,” Uretsky said.

I was growing tired of him wasting my time. The tone I took was intended to communicate that. “Why don’t you tell me?” I said.

“If either of you fails in your attempt to steal the scarves,” Uretsky said, “if you get caught trying, or don’t even bother giving it a go, I’m going to murder somebody close to you.”

A shock of electric fear ripped through my body, but I soon recovered.
He’s a hacker. He’s a gamer. He’s a prankster.
Still, I remembered the growl in his voice when he called my wife a bitch and told me he’d let her die of cancer.
Could he be for real?

“Who?” I said, my voice betraying a slight waver.

“Somebody close to you,” Uretsky repeated.

He had just tipped his hand. That’s when I knew this guy wasn’t for real; it was a scare tactic only.

“Nice work trying to freak us out, but you don’t even know who we are.”

“Forty-eight hours,” Uretsky said.

“Or you’re going to go to the police.”

“I told you,” Uretsky said. “I’m not going to report you to the police—no matter what. If you don’t follow through, I’m going to kill somebody close to you. Game on.”

“You’re a sick person. You know that?”

“Game on,” he said again.

I slammed the receiver down and waited, but the phone didn’t ring again.

Ruby hoisted up her hands. The confusion on her face begged for any clarity. “What was that all about?” she asked.

“That was about nothing,” I said, with an edge to my voice. “He’s just pissed off and trying to freak us out. That’s all. Everything’s fine.”

At the time, I believed this to be true.

S
eventy-two hours later, twenty-four hours past Uretsky’s twisted deadline, I was starting to think about Plan C. Climbing had taught me to value contingency planning like a drink in the desert. Plan B involved my stealing another identity and starting our unfortunate, albeit necessary, scam all over again. My worry was that it might push Ruby over the edge, which was why Plan C required an altogether different approach for getting her medication. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any idea what approach to use. Obviously, the Uretsky identity was something that had to be shed like a worn-out snakeskin.

On the good news front, Uretsky hadn’t called back, and it went without saying that nobody close to us had been killed. Not that I warned anybody close to us to be extra vigilant. That wasn’t a willy-nilly decision on my part. Uretsky, my logic went, couldn’t know who to target without first reporting our crime to the police. Since no police had come, I assumed no report had been made. I was therefore left to conclude that my first assumption had been correct—Elliot Uretsky enjoyed dishing out his own special brand of punishment. The game he had invented was his twisted little way of saying: “Look, I’m not going to turn you in, because I do feel bad for you, but I’m going to scare the living daylights out of you so that you’ll find a new identity to steal, chump.”

Another thing I didn’t do was to share with Ruby all the gory details of my conversation with Uretsky. Hadn’t I already put her through enough? She didn’t need to be privy to his threat. So I didn’t warn anybody close to us—no family, no friends. And of course, nobody died.

What I did do was sulk around the apartment for most of those anxious days, thinking of other possible moves we could make—i.e., Plan C—while half expecting the police to show up at some point to cart me off in handcuffs. When they didn’t come around, I figured we’d dodged a bullet fired by a deranged man.

Meanwhile, Ruby had less than a two-week supply of Verbilifide left, plus the specter of major surgery on the horizon, and all I needed to do—assuming I was through playing the identity theft game—was come up with a few hundred thousand dollars in that time frame.

“I’m glad he caught us,” Ruby said.

“I’m not. How are we going to get your medication?”

“I’ll take something different, something Atrium will cover. When the generic becomes available, I’ll start taking that.”

“You have to take the best drug for you, not just any drug.”

“Then we’re going to have to go into debt or get on
The Today Show.
Maybe we could start a Kickstarter campaign or use INeed-CashNow. com.”

“Is that really a Web site?” I asked.

Ruby smiled. “Yeah, I looked it up.”

“Assuming that we don’t get a windfall payout from INeedCash-Now. com, how many credit cards do you think I can get? We’ll never get out from under.”

“We can do anything we set our mind to,” Ruby said, kissing me on the lips en route to the bathroom with her make-up kit in hand. “You need to have faith.”

“I’m not big on faith.”

“Well, get big,” Ruby said.

She was already packing to leave and downright giddy about abandoning my plan—Plan A—not that I could blame her.

“Did you call the Realtor?” Ruby asked, her voice echoing from the bathroom.

Ginger could be seen pacing the room as well, equally eager for a return trip home, it seemed.

“Yeah. I can break the lease and forfeit our security deposit. The couple renting our place is willing to relocate for a little ‘sorry for the inconvenience’ cash. But we’ve got to stay in this place until the end of the month, regardless. You know, we could stay a while longer—”

From the kitchen, through the bedroom, I could see Ruby poke her head out the bathroom door.

“That was a joke, right?”

“Joke,” I said. “That was very much a joke.”

“I’ve hated every second we’ve been here, John,” Ruby said, returning to her packing.

“We’re together, and you’re alive,” I said.

Ruby’s head poked out from the bathroom door again. “Don’t try to guilt me with the gratitude thing,” Ruby said. “That’s not fair. You know what I mean. This hasn’t been my favorite experience.”

My hands went into the air in a show of surrender.

My cell phone rang. Thanks to Uretsky, the sound of any phone made me jumpy. I checked the caller ID and saw it was David Clegg calling. I let the call go to voice mail. A few seconds later, Clegg texted me.

John, I need to talk with you. Can we meet? Call me.

“Crap,” I said to myself.

“What’s up?”

Ruby came out of the bathroom, holding a cardboard box of things she had packed, and saw that my expression had darkened. “What’s up?” she asked again, now pointing to my cell phone.

“It’s Clegg,” I said. “He wants to meet up with me.”

A look of concern crossed Ruby’s face. “Maybe he wants to meet you because he knows something,” Ruby said. She spoke in a whispered voice, as if Clegg could somehow hear her.

“Knows what?” I whispered back. Why was I whispering?

“That we stole someone’s identity.” Ruby made a “Duh-uh” expression and lowered her gaze in disbelief of my ignorance. “He’s a cop, John. Think about it.”

My throat closed with the first sputter of nerves. I unlocked my phone and called back Clegg. He answered on the first ring.

“What time do you want to meet?” I asked.

I
saw David Clegg a few times each year, but never on the anniversary of Brooks Hall’s death. Clegg would disappear on that day, and nobody knew where he went or what he did. He’d just up and vanish, and then return a day later, never telling anybody where he’d gone, his wife and kids included. I never asked Clegg how he marked the somber occasion, though he knew I spent it writing a letter to Hall’s widow, Amanda.

On the first anniversary of the accident, I got a call from Amanda’s attorney, requesting that I write to her. I was asked to provide a general update on my life. Apparently, Amanda wanted to know how I was feeling, coping, and adjusting in the aftermath of that tragic day. I suppose it was her way of staying connected to Brooks. It wasn’t an easy letter to write by any means. Half of it was a rambling apology, while the other half was apologizing for apologizing.

The following year I sent Amanda another letter, unprompted this time, and the attorney didn’t contact me to complain. I was more open about my feelings and better able to express myself, conveying the real bone-gnawing guilt that sabotaged my sleep and clung to me like an angry shadow. It became a tradition after that. I didn’t expect Amanda to respond to my letters, and she never did. Still, I kept those letters coming, thinking that if she didn’t want to hear from me, she’d let me know. Maybe I was helping her—that was my hope, anyway. I later found out, through other sources, that she had remarried and now has two kids, twins, one named Brooks. The Internet gives up a wealth of information if you know how to look. But not everything can be known via a clever Google search. I took precautions to make certain Amanda never found out that I was the guy who set up an online fund-raiser for a children’s charity that both Brooks and Amanda supported. I didn’t want her knowing I was involved, thinking the donations shouldn’t be tainted with the memory of what I’d done.

Clegg and I usually meet up at Chaps Sports Bar in Kenmore Square. Even though Clegg lives in Hingham, he works in Boston, so it makes for a good meeting spot to grab a drink. This time, however, I insisted we meet at O’Brian’s Sports Bar, which was a couple of blocks from our Brookline apartment. I didn’t want to travel very far in case Ruby needed me for something. In truth, I wished Ruby had come along with me, but she insisted I go alone.

“He might not want to talk with me around,” she had said.

I relented, but only after Ruby had made plans of her own, drinks—well, Diet Cokes—with her friend Elisa at the Deco Bar, a short distance away from O’Brian’s on Beacon Street. Ruby needed to get out, it seemed to me, enjoy some fresh air, so I encouraged her.

At six o’clock in the afternoon O’Brian’s would be sparsely occupied or packed to the edges, depending on the Red Sox schedule. The Sox were playing Tampa Bay in Tampa, so there were plenty of open seats at the long oak bar. Clegg used to dress in his police officer blues, which made him easy to spot and usually kept the stools next to him unoccupied, but that was before his promotion to detective. Clegg’s new uniform was a tweed blazer and khaki slacks. Of course, he also carried a holstered firearm, pepper spray, and handcuffs, but those items weren’t on display when I showed up.

Clegg raised a half full glass of Sam Adams, signaling the bartender to bring me the same while getting one on deck for himself to drink. He stood, and we exchanged bro hugs, basically light taps on each other’s backs while we clinched in a weak embrace. It was both difficult and comforting for Clegg and me to hang together. In a way, we were cursed, because neither of us wanted to relive the past, while at the same time we didn’t want to forget it, either.

Reading people was something better left to Ruby, but still, I appraised Clegg carefully, looking for behaviors that were directly antithetical to his usual mannerisms. I could tell
something
was wrong: clouds in the eyes, an atypically weighty demeanor, but I didn’t get the sense that it had anything to do with me. I wished I could have told him about Uretsky, because that guy, for all his ghoulish antics, still lingered front and center in my mind.

Clegg might have been several years older than me, but his unwrinkled face and full head of dark hair would win him a prize at any carnival’s “guess your age” booth. His nose was slightly crooked, set that way from years of youth hockey, which, when combined with his icy blue eyes brimming with street smarts, tinted his every expression with a hint of menace. Clegg could be smiling, and you’d still think,
This guy wants to kick my ass or arrest me.
Fit and trim because he continued to climb, Clegg was the closest thing the Boston PD had to a detective who looked like an actor playing a cop.

“You’re late,” Clegg said, not bothering to check his watch for the time. Cops like Clegg just knew.

“Sorry. Unexpected delay.”

The unexpected delay was that I didn’t want him to see me leaving an apartment that I shouldn’t have been leaving. I looked him over again, searching for any reason I should be nervous, or more nervous than usual. Clegg had a way of setting people slightly on edge. Four of his past partners had asked to be transferred within a month of their assignment, and though Clegg has received numerous commendations from the BPD, he’s also been a regular visitor to Internal Affairs. A self-described amalgam of “Dirty” Harry Callahan and the narcotics sergeant Martin Riggs from the
Lethal Weapon
franchise, Clegg relished life on the edge, which explained his passion for climbing and his penchant for pissing off his superiors.

I loved the guy like a brother.

“So what’s been going on?” Clegg asked.

“Nothing much,” I said.

“Nothing much,” Clegg repeated, acknowledging the ridiculousness of my response while taking a swig of his beer as I did the same with mine. “How ’bout I get more specific? How’s Ruby?”

“She’s hanging in there,” I said. “We won’t know for a few more weeks if her medication is working or not, but we’ve got reason to stay positive.”

“Well, at least
you’ve
got each other.”

I nodded quickly, because it was true. Then paused because it was odd the way Clegg had phrased it. He emphasized
you’ve
as if to imply that he didn’t have someone, which I knew not to be true, because he was married to Violet. I got a sinking feeling that another casualty of that day on the Labuche Kang was Clegg’s marriage to his high school sweetheart.

“I swung by your place the other day,” Clegg said, “but you weren’t home.”

Because I don’t live there anymore,
I wanted to say.

“Yeah? What day was that?”

“Tuesday.”

“Tuesday?” I said, musing. “Tuesday . . . not sure where I was. Probably a doctor’s appointment with Ruby. What were you doing in Somerville, anyway?”

“Looking for an apartment.”

“Oh, no,” I said, groaning. “What happened, man?”

“She wants a divorce,” Clegg said.

Funny how Clegg’s divorce bombshell felt like a relief compared to what I thought we might be here to discuss.

“Why?” My voice carried a harsh edge, like it was Violet’s fault.

“She says I’m depressed. Hates that I still climb.”

I did, too, but only because I was envious that he could still do it.

“Are you depressed?” I asked.

“My therapist seems to think so,” Clegg said and chuckled.

“I’m really sorry. What are you going to do?”

“What can I do?” Clegg shrugged. “Look, I don’t blame her. I haven’t been a lot of fun to be around. To be honest with you, I can’t believe we lasted as long as we did.”

People carry guilt in different ways. Mine kept me from going up an escalator. From what I gathered, Clegg could tune his out with Johnnie Walker and a few chips of ice.

“What about your kids?” I asked.

Sammy and Tate were four when I spared their father’s life. Now they were going on eight, prime years for parenting.

“It’s going to be hardest on them.”

“Is it really over? Can you salvage it?”

“Resentment is its own form of cancer, Johnny. And that’s the cold, hard truth.”

“So what happens now?”

“What happens is I move out. The kids broke down crying when I told ’em. That’s when Violet begged me to look for an apartment or small house closer to Hingham. Thinking it means she’ll agree to joint custody, but who knows. Look, I’m sorry to drag you away from Ruby to cry on your shoulder, but I needed someone to help me drown my sorrows.”

“Fellow cops don’t do the trick?” I asked.

“Divorce is as common as a cold in my precinct.”

“What are you? A glutton for punishment? I’m a married man. Wouldn’t you
rather
hang out with divorced guys?”

“Nah, they’d tell me that they’re happier now,” Clegg said. “That would just make me feel worse.”

“Well, it’s good to know you have feelings,” I said.

“Cut me and I still bleed,” Clegg said dramatically. “Of course, I’ll also stomp on your face and then fill your mouth with pepper spray.”

“Have I ever asked if you’re a registered loose cannon?” I said to him, smiling.

“If that registry exits,” Clegg said, “then my name is most certainly on it.”

Clegg ordered us some hot wings as the bar began filling up with more of the after-work crowd. We had been talking for an hour or so when a woman with platinum blond hair, dressed in a business suit, sat down on the stool beside me. She hung her purse on the back of the stool and ordered a drink.

“How goes your game?” Clegg asked me.

“It’s growing and going,” I said.

“It was a real lifesaver,” I wanted to say. Well, before Uretsky called, that is.

From the corner of my eye, I caught sight of a guy around my age, thin, hood over his head, sunglasses on indoors. He bumped clumsily up against the blond woman’s stool. He wasn’t that quick or that skilled in his fumbling attempt to snatch her purse. The purse got caught on the back of the stool, but he pulled on the strap hard enough to snap it.

“Hey!” the surprised woman shouted. The commotion turned heads, but shock and surprise kept every patron firmly rooted in place. The thief accelerated as he raced past my bar stool. Clegg, still holding his sticky chicken wing, nonchalantly reached behind with his free hand to grab hold of the fleeing man’s sweatshirt. With startling quickness, Clegg yanked the man to the floor and at the same instant leapt up from his stool. The man fell with a hard thud, and I heard the air rush out of his lungs. Before he could wiggle away, Clegg was kneeling on his back, wrenching his arms behind him to snap his silver bracelets in place.

“Yo, clown town,” Clegg said, his voice calm and his breathing even. “Looks like you picked the wrong bar to snatch from.”

Applause filled the room as I handed the woman back her purse and Clegg hoisted the handcuffed man to his feet. I motioned to Clegg, because I’d obviously played no real part in his apprehension. Still, the victim thanked us both profusely.

“This job would be great if it weren’t for all the criminals,” Clegg said to me as he took out the handcuffed man’s wallet to check his ID. Next, Clegg got out his cell phone, presumably to call for backup. “Here’s your living proof that crime doesn’t pay, Johnny,” Clegg said, turning the thief to face me. The man looked remorseful only because he’d been captured.

Why did Clegg just say that to me? I wondered.
Here’s your living proof that crime doesn’t pay.
Could he know?

Clegg cupped his cell phone’s receiver and then, turning to me, said, “Brookline dispatch. I’m on hold.” The crowd kept still and hushed, watching the spectacle of a plainclothes police officer pressing a handcuffed man up against their neighborhood bar.

A minute or so ticked by with Clegg holding his phone tight to his ear. His expression revealed a growing frustration. He kept nodding and occasionally would say into the phone, “Yeah . . . all right . . . okay . . . What’s going on?” He listened awhile, then something about Clegg’s expression changed—he got a disgusted look, but not one that conveyed any agitation. “Really? No shit,” he said. “Really? That’s all sorts of messed up. . . . No, don’t worry. . . . Yeah, I’m sure . . . I’ll keep him occupied.” Clegg ended the call, then said to the guy he nabbed, “Hey, buddy, looks like you’re going to have to wait awhile in my car until we get some Brookline PD here to take you to the station for booking. Promise me you’re not going to mess up my backseat?”

The guy said nothing; he just looked away.

“Want to walk with me, John?” Clegg asked.

“Sure,” I said.

The bartender comped our tab, brushing us outside, as though worried we might attempt to fight his goodwill gesture. There were cheers and a rousing round of applause as we vacated the premises. Clegg held up his hand, acknowledging the patrons’ appreciation with a slight wave, the way a baseball player might try to appease the crowd after a game-turning home run. We walked half a block with people on the street staring at the three of us, speculating as to the circumstance.

It didn’t take long for Clegg to get the handcuffed perp settled into the backseat of his unmarked police car. “No messing up my ride,” he instructed again.

The guy didn’t reply.

“What’s the delay getting the police here?” I asked.

“Some big blowup just down the road has almost every cop in Brookline tied up,” Clegg said. “It won’t be too much longer.”

“What kind of blowup?” I asked.

“Oh, some dude came home to find his girlfriend murdered.”

“Yikes,” I said.

“Yikes is right,” Clegg said. “You don’t know the half of it.”

“I’m assuming you do.”

“I’m close with the dispatcher, so I got the skinny. Looks like the guy who did it cut off the girl’s fingers.”

“Shit.”