66
Is it quicker to travel to Africa from Florida or from Maine? Are our perceptions a tool or an obstacle?
Rusty is wearing bright yellow pants, a tight polo, and brand-new boat shoes. In his right hand, he holds a Ruger SR9. Eleven rounds if he bought it in California. He uses the gun to wave me into the room. The heat in here is a shock after the cold of the ocean, the wind.
“Come in, darling, come in. I love the wet suit. Nice costume, very authentic.”
I step through the door and into the cabin and see the source of the heat—two space heaters, one on either side of the chair. Rusty’s face is slick with sweat. On a table to his left sits a mug of coffee.
My heart jumps: there is Rory’s backpack on the counter next to a maritime chart. Beside the backpack is Rory’s iPhone and the Samsung in the orange Giants case.
“Where’s my son?”
Rusty gives me a disappointed look, the barrel of his gun trained on me. “Don’t rush me. You promised the third act would be the best. I hate to break it to you, honey, but I’m the one directing this production.”
“Is he here?” I feel the cold of my gun against my back.
“Yes, the boy is indeed here.” A pause, an evil flicker in his eyes, “Oh, he’s fine, mama, I’m no monster.” He thinks for a second. “Or am I?” His hand never leaves the Ruger. “I forgot to mention, last time we met, how absolutely beautiful that girl’s skull is. Gave me the shivers when I shaved her head. Strong personality, that one. A fighter. Do you believe in phrenology?”
“No.” I feel the rage simmering, but I must remain calm, focused.
The boat drifts, pulling against the anchor. “But I digress. Really, we’re here for one reason. I need to teach myself a lesson once and for all. The lesson is this, Lina: If you want something done right, do it yourself. It’s hardly rocket science. The more people involved, the more it will get fucked up.”
He catches my eyes. “Yes, Lina, I did my homework. L-i-n-a.”
I don’t respond.
“I’m not saying it was easy. A lesser man might’ve failed. The internet barely knows your name. You are one off-the-grid retro-chic woman. But I did a deep, deep dive, eventually learned quite a bit about you,” Rusty smiles, clearly impressed with himself. “I had to go to the microfiche. I found a ‘hometown-girl-makes-good’ story about some award you won. Cute little picture of you and W in the Rose Garden. You might be able to clean the interweb, but once something makes the local press it’s there for good. And once Rusty finds a little bone, he never lets it go!”
I nod, acknowledging Rusty’s professionalism. It seems important to him.
“Anyway,” he says. “Where was I? Oh yeah, rule number one: no moving parts. No. Moving. Parts.” He shakes his head, droplets of saliva stick to his lips. His calm demeanor has vanished. He’s more dangerous this way but also more vulnerable. More likely to make a mistake.
I glance again to the left, where Rory’s backpack and the phones lie on the counter. When Rusty notices, he smiles. “I told Rory to bring his Apple and an Android. I wanted to cover all my bases, make it easy on you. When you showed up at that spot in Guerneville where I lost my phone, I figured out your trick. Surely you know there were cameras there? Hindsight may be twenty-twenty, but true vision is digital. The miracle of technology, of course, is that all of them are watching us. Not the gubment, but the corporations. You may be my problem, darling, but you and your set are no longer the problem.”
“True.”
“When I dropped in at the school this morning and persuaded your son to come with me, I was delighted to see those phones, just sitting there for the taking. To be honest, I hadn’t worked out precisely how I would lure you out to the boat for act three, but the universe smiled on me.”
I’m watching Rusty, waiting for him to look away, waiting for him to take his hand off the Ruger. He doesn’t. He’s enjoying his moment in the director’s chair.
“If you’re wondering, Lina, Rory didn’t seem too compliant, looked like he was about to cause a fuss, until I showed him my friend here”—he wiggles the Ruger—“and told him I don’t have any qualms about shooting up a school.”
“I don’t think you’d go that far.” I’m stalling for time, listening for Rory. “If that’s who you were, you wouldn’t have sent the other kids back.”
“You’re right. Not my style. What would I get out of that? School shootings are so last Tuesday. And I genuinely wanted to see you again.” He raises his eyebrows. “We have unfinished business. I hate unfinished business. So, we took the phones and waited. It wouldn’t be a party without you.”
The boat is drifting sideways. When a swell hits, Rusty has to steady himself with his other hand. “The phones were clever. The rest of it was a bit Nancy Drew. The boy on the beach leads back to that dunce John Murphy, obviously. The moment I saw him on the dock, I knew I should’ve done it myself, like I did with the twins. In our line of work, is it not the golden rule?”
“It is.”
“Murphy led back to the tweaker, Travis.” Rusty looks at me, almost as if he’s trying to see if I’m impressed by his crafty detective work. The fact that he hasn’t mentioned Ivy improves my opinion of both Travis and Murphy. They didn’t give up her name.
“Which one of them do you think cried the most?” he asks.
I’m scanning the room for clues, for additional weapons, for some sign of Rory, some sign he left for me. But the boat is immaculate, nothing out of place.
“Which one of them cried the most?” Rusty demands again. “Murphy, the tweaker, or Kenny?”
“You tell me.”
“Come on, Lina!” Rusty is getting impatient now. “It’s act three, snap the fuck out of it. Read your lines, play your fucking part.”
In my head, I’m calculating the odds of a hundred different scenarios.
He’s getting more impatient. He speaks loudly, one word at a time. “Who. Do. You. Think. Cried. The. Most. Yesterday. When I killed them. Kenny, Travis, or Murphy?” He slams his free hand down on the table, and his coffee cup crashes to the floor. “I’m going to hold you responsible for that, Lina. You went and made me angry, and now I’ve soiled my newly mopped floor. I hate messes.”
I’m calculating how to answer. Rusty is complicated. He took four kids before today, but he kept them all alive. But now he claims to have killed three people in a single day. Is it possible? Yes. But is it true? Is he bluffing, or has he become increasingly unhinged, increasingly unpredictable?
I look in his eyes, and I know. Yes, he is capable. What does that say about the range of possible endings for our interaction?
I have to get to Rory.
“Lina, it’s not a difficult question. I even made it multiple choice.”
“Kenny,” I respond. “Obviously.”
Rusty pauses for a second, a little caught off guard. “Correct. How did you guess?”
“Clearly it wasn’t Murphy. He’d been expecting this day for a year. Kenny is a bit of a whiner. With Travis, I suppose it depends on where you found him.”
“Santa Cruz,” he blurts out. “No lie, Travis was on the shitter in a beautiful little cottage by the sea, didn’t hear me coming.” Rusty is smiling, totally dialed in, relishing our conversation. It occurs to me that he sees me as an equal. He’s a classic narcissist, someone who thinks he’s smarter than most everyone he meets, and he’s excited to be able to finally have a discussion with an opponent he deems worthy. “Unfortunately, I ruined some lovely tile work.”
“Santa Cruz? Really? I thought Travis was smarter than that.”
Rusty smiles. “He may have been a little hazy. Does that make my feat less impressive?”
“Little bit.”
“Don’t be petty. It was a good kill. Efficient too. More importantly, it was the most lucrative.”
“Lucrative how?”
“Product, my dear. I couldn’t just leave all those nice little white packets there. I had to make five trips to and from the car. Crazy. That kind of good fortune will pay the property taxes on the ranch for years. Now, I can finish the barn conversion, more rooms, more money. Vrbo is a godsend, darling. Do you know how hard it is to make a living?”
“As a matter of fact, I do.”
“I suppose you would. Nobody goes into the civil service for the money, am I right? Anyway, I did them all a favor. Pathetic, the three of them. The charm of that Westlake Doelger was completely lost on Kenny. Did you see what he’d done with the kitchen? Ripped out the original counters, covered those gorgeous hardwood floors. And Murphy? He was eating a Hot Pocket when I showed up. I’m not a psychic, Lina, but if a grown man eating a Hot Pocket doesn’t scream ‘please kill me,’ then I don’t know what does.”
“Where is my son?”
Rusty ignores my question. “I’ve lived on my compound for many years now,” he says, leaning back in his chair, casually retraining the gun on me. “Every time I peek my head out into the world, every time I’m forced to do an unofficial job to keep my little utopia alive, I see a slightly different world. So much ugliness, so much despair. And it’s getting worse. Mother, mother, mother, mother, it is definitely getting worse.”
“Where is my son?”
“I admit I may not be helping the situation. Some of the things I’ve done haven’t exactly made the world a better place, but I think you will agree with me, Lina. The world will not miss Kenny or Travis or even Murphy. Cleansing the human race one piece of shit at a time.”
Rusty shifts in his chair, uncrossing his legs and lifting his arm. Something stops me cold: there are several small dots of blood on the cuff of his otherwise meticulous pants. Another small line of blood spatter runs diagonally along the back of his left sleeve.
Is it Rory’s blood? Please, don’t let it be Rory’s blood.
“Rusty, there’s blood on your shirt.”
“What?” He seems genuinely surprised, as if emerging from a trance. “Blood?”
I point to his shirtsleeve, his pant cuff.
He looks down. “God dammit.”
“Occupational hazard,” I say. “Been there. I once ruined a nice Lanvin sweater with the blood of a Latin King.”
His hand is still on the Ruger, but his eyes keep looking down to the bloody spots. “You’re a smart man, Rusty. And we’re not so different, are we? Neither of us is getting past the pearly gates.”
Rusty smiles. Maybe I’ve broken through the top layer.
“You need to give me Rory. Professional courtesy. SWAT is on their way. If you let me get off this boat with Rory right now, you may yet be able to get out of this alive.”
Rusty stares straight at me, assessing. He looks, for a moment, as though he likes me. “I don’t believe you about the feds,” he sighs. “That is not who you are, Lina. I knew the moment you showed up with Near Bear, you like to do things your own way. Nice try, though.”
He’s staring at me, trying to read my face. I keep my expression blank. He tilts his head, steely eyes focused on me. And then he lets out a whoop. “I am right! Cowgirl Lina came out here all by herself! No backup. She was not interested in going by the books. This one was too personal. Like I said, if you want something done right, do it yourself. My motto too. Boy, I do respect you!”
I remain silent. My skin itches where the gun nestles up to my spine.
“Anyhoo, the boy’s downstairs. He’s actually fine, scout’s honor. He must be terrified, but he didn’t even show it. You trained him well.” He glances at the spatter of blood on his cuff. “Not his blood, honest to Betsy. Children ain’t my thing. Not at all. He’s down in the bunk room. He did what he needed to do. He played his part. This isn’t really about him, but you know that.” Rusty’s voice has turned soft, almost childlike.
“You can still save yourself,” I say. “Kenny? Travis? Murphy? All lowlifes. I’m not concerned about them, and police around here don’t get too worked up about dead drug dealers. What I do know is that all four of those kids you took came home. No reason to get in over your head now. Just let Rory go.” I lock eyes with him.
Rusty looks away for a split second, but then his eyes come back to me. I hold his gaze, trying to try to pull him in to my way of thinking. He seems to be momentarily lost, confused. But then he snaps back to himself, shaking his head like a dog coming out of the water. “Darling, were you trying to hypnotize me? Were you,” he repeats, his voice getting louder, angrier, “trying to hypnotize me? Hard stop.”
I blade my body away from him, making myself a smaller target. “I was just—”
“I know exactly what you were doing. I’ve read your background. I read the book, Blue Squared, not too hard to tie it back to you. I know all about your profiling, all about your bag of tricks, about how persuasive they say you are. Personally, I’m not seeing it, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Anyway, what about Chekhov? You did promise me a complete production, the full three acts. And, honey, the pistol is still on the wall.”
I remain silent, muscles tensed.
“Come on, you know the line. A rifle hung on the wall in the first act must go off by the third. And honey child, here we are.”
Rusty is more agitated now. His face is red, his chest pushed out.
“You know the next line?” I ask.
Rusty cocks his head. “Pray tell?”
“Don’t make any promises you don’t intend to keep.”
“Oh, I keep my promises, darling. We must give the audience a show.” He sweeps his left hand to indicate some imaginary theater. His right hand fidgets with the Ruger. “We have to tell a story, even if we’re only telling it to ourselves. It’s what separates us from the lower primates.”
Rusty’s shifting back and forth in his chair, growing more twitchy and agitated, his skin splotchy, his hand shaky. Sweat dapples his forehead and soaks the underarms of his Fred Perry shirt. Every time I move, the neoprene of my wet suit squeaks. Rays of sun poke through the ominous clouds. The boat has drifted into a better position, taking the swells head-on, rather than rolling side to side.
After we crest a swell, for a split second, it is calm. In the quiet, from down below, I hear Rory’s voice, calling out. “Mom?”
And that’s it. My son. It clarifies everything. He is down there, waiting for me.
“Rory has nothing to do with this,” I say. “You don’t have to hurt him.”
Rusty waves his left hand in the air. “You are correct, Lina. I’m not going to kill him at all.” He pauses long enough for hope to unfurl in my brain, a whiff of possibility. But then, in a delighted tone: “No, darling. You are! Don’t you want to hear my ingenious plan?”
A swell lifts the boat, and the phones slide off of the countertop, clattering onto the floor. As he glances at them, I reach for the zipper cord dangling at my waist, grab the clasp, and pull, bringing the gun within reach.
“So, get this,” he says. “I’ve got this body bag. Bought it online from China, Alibaba, cheap but still decent quality. I’m gonna shoot you, just not badly enough to kill you. Apologies for that, Miss Lina. And then I’m gonna slide your little body into the bag, zip it up, fix the whole thing up with that chain and fifty-pound kettlebell I have out there, attach it to that manly little son of yours, and then push the two of you overboard. Body bag, six-foot chain, and a kettlebell. You would not believe how cheap it all was. Seriously, guess how much?”
Rusty giggles for a second, like a guilty child, and I know he means to carry out his plan. That’s when I know for sure that at least one person will die on this boat. It won’t be Rory.
“Alibaba is changing the world, Lina. Death has never been so cheap! They even do two-for-ones. Love me a good deal!” Rusty waves his hand around and takes a deep breath. “Where was I? Oh yeah. I don’t kill kids, Lina. You know that. You never should’ve suggested otherwise. You, on the other hand, today, can’t say the same. Your body will drag that boy down so fast he won’t even be able to enjoy his last breath. And, the beauty of it all is this: It won’t even be my fault. It will be your fault.”
“You don’t want to do it, Rusty.” I arch my back and feel the gun slide down my wet suit, closer to my waist.
“I don’t want to, but you made me.”
The boat tilts violently. I think I hear Rory calling for me, but the ocean is too loud to know for sure.