The Bubble Gum Thief (32 page)

Dagny looked into the camera and said, “Good-bye.” She kicked off the bed and swung from the ceiling. The belt pressed against her windpipe, cutting off all air. Instinctively, her hands went to the belt, trying to create some space between it and her neck. It wasn’t much help—as light as she was, she still was too heavy a force on the noose.

And then, as she’d hoped, the man burst through the door and ran down the steps, flying through the light. She tried to watch him, but it was impossible to focus; she was suffocating. He jumped onto the bed and raised a serrated knife to the belt, chopping through it in three strokes. Dagny fell to the ground and tore off the noose, wheezed for a second, and then ran toward the man.

Diving at him, she knocked him onto the floor and then kicked him in the back. She hurtled over him and toward the stairs, but he grabbed her leg and pulled her to the ground. The knife fell from his hands and just a few feet from Dagny. She stretched, trying to reach it, but he pulled her further away. The full weight of his body fell on top of hers. His hands held her arms. Quick, heavy breaths warmed her ear.

“You know, Dagny, if things had gone differently, you and I would have been great friends.”

She twisted her right wrist and slipped it out of his hold, reached forward, and grabbed the knife. Swinging her arm, she drove the knife into his thigh. He screamed, and she rolled out from under him, then threw herself at the steps. His heavy hand slapped down on her shoulder, then shoved her into the wall. Dagny felt the corner of a brick slice into her shoulder. Blood was dripping from her forehead—somehow she’d scraped that, too. Leading with his shoulder, he barreled into her, knocking her head against the wall. She dropped the knife and fell to the ground. Everything blurred for a second. When her eyes found focus, he was standing on the bottom step, holding the knife. She
watched as his brown leather shoes tapped their way up the metal steps. In the scuffle, she never managed to see his face.

Dagny pushed herself off of the ground. When she coughed, blood shot from her mouth. Her shoulder ached. She was dizzy and tired and weak, and mostly mad at herself. This had been her one chance, and she had failed. Now people were going to die.

She crawled toward the bed and leaned against it. It slid out from under her, and she fell back to the floor. The blood from her forehead was dripping down into her eye again. She removed her shirt and tore off the right sleeve and wrapped it around her forehead to stop the bleeding, then tore off her left sleeve and wrapped it around her shoulder.

It took all of her energy to stand and push the cot back against the wall, before falling onto the bed into sleep.

When she awoke, she shouted questions at him. Finally, one provoked a response. “How is a bank robbery bigger than a rape?”

A pause, and then, “Sit on the bed.”

She complied. The lights went dark, and the clink of his heels fell down to the bottom step. “I didn’t rape her,” he said calmly.

“Your card was in her vagina.”

“I just used my hand.” This was less calm, defensive.

“That’s still rape.” No response. She tried again. “How is a bank robbery bigger than a rape?”

“You tell me, Dagny. You tell me.”

“I can’t.”

He sighed. “The average rapist spends sixty-five months in prison. Under the federal guidelines, a bank robber who discharges a weapon must be sentenced to between eighty-seven and a hundred and eight months! I’m not the one who says it’s bigger. You are.”

“I don’t make the law.”

“You
are
the law.” A minute passed. Maybe more. “Can’t you see that I like you? Can’t you see that I’m helping you?”

She stared at the darkness that was his voice. “No.”

“What do you want, Dagny?”

Only one thing, really. “I want to kill you.”

“That’s fair.” The clink of his heel meant he’d gone up a step. And then he said, “Mr. Waxton spent quite a bit for that baseball, and nothing on security for his bank.” Another clink. “Why do you think that ball was more important to him than his bank, Dagny?”

“I don’t know.”

“Sometimes there’s no explanation for the things we love, I suppose.”
Clink, clink
. “But he loves that baseball. So here’s a little advice.” Three more clinks. “At the end of the day, you won’t be able to bring back the Silverses, or Michael Brodsky, or the children I’m going to kill tomorrow. Or even that dog in California. But you can still get Mr. Waxton’s baseball back to him. I really hope that you do.”

The pain of hearing him say “Michael Brodsky” was quickly eclipsed by the word “children.” Dagny tried to speak, but her voice failed her. She spent the night awake, staring into black, thinking about the children, and wondering if he would kill six or eight, or if the Professor was right, and he would kill sixteen.

April 15

The Temptations jarred Dagny from her sleep. She was sitting, blindfolded, and her head was pulled to her right. Whatever held her head in place tugged at the skin of her forehead. She guessed it was electrical or duct tape. There was something stuck in her mouth—maybe a rag—held in place by more tape, which tore at her skin when she tried to move the muscles in her cheeks. She took deep, slow breaths through her nose, trying to squelch her gag reflex. Her arms were tied behind the seat by twine or rope that scraped at her skin. Her feet were bound together. When she tried to kick them forward, she heard a metal clang. She guessed that she had been handcuffed to the base of the seat.

And then the seat jumped.

A bump in the road. She was in a car. More likely the bucket seat of a van. A cool, steady breeze tickled the left side of her face. Air conditioning. She was in the front passenger seat. He was sitting to her left. She knew this because he was singing along with David Ruffin, acknowledging that she wanted to leave him, but refusing to let her go.

Every minute or two the van would stop. Traffic lights meant traffic. She wondered whether anyone could see her. No, surely the windows were tinted. She felt a lingering, piercing pain in her right shoulder, and figured that he had shot her that morning with another tranquilizer dart.

He lowered the volume of the radio. “Dagny? Shake your arms if you’re awake.” She ignored his request. “Fine, be that way. I know you’re awake. I saw you squirming around. We don’t have to talk. I just thought you might like coming with me. A field trip, so to speak. Remember field trips?” He paused for a moment. “When I was seven, we went to a farm. We were given pieces of chalk and asked to draw on the cows, labeling the different cuts of meat. Rump. Round. Loin. It was bizarre, really. Meeting these really cool cows, and then drawing on them precisely how they were to be slaughtered. I hope they don’t have kids do that anymore. That wasn’t a fun field trip. Of course, this one isn’t really much fun either.” He raised the volume of the radio. First Herman’s Hermits. Then Tommy James and the Shondells, followed by Paul Revere and the Raiders, and then the Lovin’ Spoonful. She kept a count of the songs to keep track of the time, and distance. Finally, she felt the car shift into reverse. He was parking, and then turning off the engine. The music stopped.

“Well, we’re here,” he announced.

She heard him open the door and jump down to the ground, and then she heard the rear side door slide open. He grabbed something, then opened the front door and climbed back up to the driver’s seat. Dagny felt him lean toward her. His breath was warm on her neck as he spoke. “I guess I’ll let you peek for just a second.” She felt his fingers graze her forehead, and then he peeled down the top of the blindfold. Even though the window was tinted, the light hurt Dagny’s eyes. Then he lowered her window. At first she saw only a blinding flash of sunlight. As her
eyes adjusted, a building appeared as a blur, then slowly came in focus. Dagny struggled to make out the white recessed letters on the wood sign just a few feet away:
HAYSWORTH ELEMENTARY SCHOOL.

“So I’m sorry about this, but...” Dagny felt a sharp prick in her arm. “We haven’t been together very long, Dagny. I’d like to think you’ve gained a few pounds, and that you’re sufficiently motivated to stay on the right course. I’m putting my trust in you, and I hope it isn’t misplaced. I expect to see you again, and next time, you’ll have the upper hand. I can’t wait to see what you do with it.” He paused, and then added, “Oh, in case you were wondering...it will be sixteen.”

April 15—Nashville, Tennessee

She sat on the swing, gripping the chain links with her hands, struggling to tap the dirt below with her feet. Most of the boys were playing tag; the girls were standing around on the blacktop, talking, laughing. Maybe laughing at her. Cassie was alone, always alone.

A man came around the corner of the school and started walking to the back of the lot, toward Cassie. He was wearing grey overalls and work gloves; a duffel bag hung off his shoulder. A janitor, she guessed, though she’d never seen this one before. When he got closer, he smiled. Cassie smiled back. He seemed nice.

“Mind if I join you?”

She shook her head and he sat on the swing next to her.

“All by yourself over here, I guess?”

She nodded.

“What about the teacher? Doesn’t a teacher usually monitor recess?” Cassie pointed over toward the far corner of the playground, where Ms. Jenkins was sitting on the curb, reading a book and smoking a cigarette. He nodded. “She really shouldn’t
be smoking.” The man kicked his legs just a little and started a slow swing. “Nice day.”

She watched his eyes survey the playground, scanning back and forth.

“Where’s Danny Deardrop today?

She shrugged.

“Is he here today?”

She shrugged again. Danny wasn’t in her class. She’d seen him before, but not today.

“Well, that’s a real kick in the pants, isn’t it?” he laughed.

She laughed, too. It was a pretty funny expression.

“What are you? I’d guess you’re about eight years old, right?”

She nodded.

He pointed over to the girls on the blacktop. “I guess those girls think they’re too cool for you? I know what that’s like. I’ve been shut out before, too.” He shook his head back and forth a bunch of times, then looked down at his watch. “I guess I’m procrastinating. You know how sometimes you have to do something, but you don’t really want to, so you just wait a little while longer, hoping it will go away.”

She did know this feeling—like when her mom wanted her to clean her room.

“Well, I guess I can’t wait any longer.” He hopped off the swing and opened his duffel bag, then reached in and pulled out a small white card. “Honey, I need you to do me a favor. I need you to take this card and run back to the woods on the side of the school. And I need you to stay there for a long time...maybe count all the way to five hundred. Can you do that?”

She nodded. Five hundred was easy.

“And when you come out, I want you to give this card to an adult. A teacher or the principal or a policeman...just any adult. This is really important. Will you do that for me?”

She nodded. Finally, someone wanted to play with her.

He handed her the card. “Now go,” he said, patting her bottom as she ran toward the woods.

When she got to the end of the playground, she turned around and he waved for her to keep going. She continued into the woods.
One, two, three, four
...five hundred was going to take a long time, but she could do it.
Eleven, twelve, thirteen
...he didn’t say she couldn’t look at the card.
Nineteen, twenty, twenty-one
...

THIS IS MY EIGHTH CRIME.
MY NEXT WILL BE BIGGER.

Cassie heard the shots and the screams, but she stayed in the woods, counting to five hundred, standing alone. Always alone.