Rubbed Out (26 page)

“I don't know what you're talking about,” she insisted.

“I think you do.” George raised an eyebrow and clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “Ninety years old, and you don't look a day over fifty. How about that. I'm sure there are lots of people who'd love to hear your secret.”

Bonnie Gilbert absentmindedly picked up the poodle that had been dancing around her feet and cradled it in her arms.

“Who are you?”

“People that have developed an interest in you,” I replied.

As I watched her, I couldn't help thinking that whatever her age, she hadn't led an easy life. She wasn't wearing any makeup. A rectangular patch of sunlight from one of the windows was playing across her cheeks, exposing every line and pore and age spot in her face. Her brown hair was dull and brittle and looked as if someone had hacked at it with a dull scissors.

The clothes she was wearing—jeans, a man's flannel shirt, and a down vest—had been washed so many times, the colors were a memory of what they'd been. Bonnie Gilbert looked as bleached out as her clothes.

“Listen,” George went on. “We don't care who you really are or what you've done.”

“You have no cause to talk that way to me,” Bonnie Gilbert protested in a cracking voice.

“Sure I do,” George said.

I stepped forward. “We want the package Janet Wilcox sent you.”

Bonnie Gilbert widened her eyes in a pantomime of innocence. “What package?”

“This package.” And I held out the UPS receipt.

Bonnie Gilbert put the poodle down and took the slip from me. Her lips moved as she read it. While she did, a large, long-haired, black-and-gray cat skirted the edge of the room, jumped up on one of the windows, and fixed us with a baleful glance.

“They must have delivered it to someplace else,” she said. “See.” She pointed to the bottom. “I never signed for it.”

“Really.” George rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet as he stared at Bonnie Gilbert. After a few seconds she began to fidget. “You like history, Bonnie?”

“History?” She sounded confused. Unsure of where George was heading.

“I do. I make my living teaching it. Maybe I like it because it's like a gigantic puzzle. You get certain pieces together, and suddenly everything becomes clear. You're in your fifties, aren't you?”

Bonnie licked her lips. “Why?”

George ignored her question and kept on going. “That would put you in your late teens or early twenties in the seventies. A time of great upheaval in this country, what with the war and all.”

“So?”

“There were all these people running around then, thinking they were going to save the world. Robbing banks to get money to help finance their causes. Setting off explosives. Sometimes people got killed.”

Bonnie didn't say anything.

“The FBI never caught all the radicals. Some of them went to Canada, and others of them got birth certificates and Social Security numbers of people who had died and constructed whole new lives for themselves.”

“What does that have to do with me?” Bonnie Gilbert whispered.

“Nothing. I'm just talking about history.” George scratched his cheek and gave her a speculative look. “I hear the FBI is still offering rewards for information leading to the capture of those fugitives. But I'm sure you know that.”

“Why would I?”

“You tell me.”

Bonnie Gilbert hugged herself, ignoring her poodle, who was standing on her hind legs, scratching at her jeans.

“What happened in the past isn't our concern,” George continued. “But we'll make it our business if you don't hand over the package you got from Janet Wilcox.”

Bonnie Gilbert looked close to tears as she scurried out of the room. A few seconds later she was back.

“Here.” She put the package in George's hand.

He unwrapped it. The money was there.

“It was supposed to be for Janet's and my old age,” she told me. I guess she thought I was the nicer one. “We were going to buy a house in Florida.”

“Unfortunately, I don't think that Janet will be joining you,” I said.

She gave me a blank look.

“She stepped out in front of a bus in New York City.”

“I don't believe you.”

“Believe it. It's true.”

Bonnie Gilbert swallowed a couple of times. She looked dazed.

“Can I ask you why Janet sent you the money?”

She shook her head and stared out the window. The cat did the same. A blue jay perched on the branch of one of the cedars for a few seconds, then flew away. I repeated my question. Bonnie Gilbert acted as if I hadn't spoken and continued looking out the window.

“I need to get that apple tree cut down come spring. It's half dead,” she mused. Her voice was flat. “Maybe I'll get me one of those Japanese maples. I always liked those, though they do tend to be kinda fussy. I'll ask Kent. He'll know.”

“The package,” I said. “Why did you get it?”

She finally looked at me.

“I thought you'd know. You seem to know everything else.”

“I don't.”

“I'm Janet's half-sister.”

“I didn't think she had any siblings.”

“Just me.” Bonnie Gilbert began playing with the zipper on her down vest. “Same father. Different mothers. Mine moved out to Seattle. We lost touch. When I came back from Canada, I took a chance and called her. We were the only one each of us had. Even if we couldn't tell anyone.”

When George and I left the house, Bonnie Gilbert was sitting in the living room staring at the wall, while her poodle jumped off and on her lap.

“Tell me,” I asked George as we headed for his car. “How did you know?”

“I didn't. I took a guess.”

“Based on what?”

“Her age. The fact that she assumed someone else's identity. It was the only explanation that made sense.”

George and I got into his car.

“What do you think she did?” I asked as we pulled away from the curb.

“I don't know. Maybe robbed a bank. Set off explosives. Possibly killed someone in the commission of a crime.”

“Are you going to tell anyone about her?”

George shook his head. “Living up here. You ask me, it's worse than being in prison.”

“The FBI wouldn't agree.”

“I'm aware of that.”

I leaned over and kissed George on the check. “You're a nice man.”

“That's what I keep trying to tell you.”

“I know.”

Suddenly I was overcome with the need to sleep. I leaned my head on George's arm and closed my eyes. The week had finally caught up with me.

W
hen my cell went off, George and Phil stopped talking and focused their attention on me. I grabbed it off the coffee table.

“Hello,” I said.

It was the call I'd been waiting for. I nodded to Phil and George. They sat down on the sofa next to me, one on each side.

“You have our possession?” the Russian asked.

“Yes.”

“Good. We will arrange a transfer.”

“I want proof of life first.”

“Proof of life?” he scoffed. “What you think this is? A movie?”

“Hey, quid pro quo. I don't get what I want, you don't get what you want.” I pressed the off button and let out the breath I didn't know I'd been holding.

“You did good,” Phil said to me.

He was so sure of himself. At least he acted the part. Closely shaved. Impeccably dressed, with a knife pleat in his pants and shoes shined to a high gloss. I wondered what he was like when he was home alone.

“What if he doesn't call back?” I said.

I realized my hands were shaking. I wiped my palms on my jeans. They were slick with sweat.

“He will,” Phil said. “He has to.” And he picked up the remote and went back to clicking channels. “You gotta have some balls.”

“Fuck you.”

He laughed and settled in to watch something on the History Channel. Half an hour later, my cell rang again. It was Manuel.

“Robin,” he said.

The connection was poor. He sounded as if he was underwater.

“Oh, my God. How are you? Where are you?”

But he didn't answer.

“Manuel?”

“This is what you wanted?” the Russian asked.

“Yes,” I whispered as Zsa Zsa climbed up in my lap. She began to whine.

Outside, my neighbor began using his snowblower on the sidewalk in front of his house. The noise made it hard to hear. I ducked my head and covered my left ear with my hand.

“Good. We will call you tomorrow at two o'clock and tell you where to meet us.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “That's not acceptable.”

“Tomorrow. Two o'clock.” And the Russian hung up.

“Shit.” Phil got up from his chair and started pacing.

“This makes it a little more complicated,” he said as I placed my cell back on the coffee table. “But nothing we can't handle.” He tapped his fingers on his thigh and paced some more. “These guys are strictly small time. They're gonna be a piece of cake.”

I shook my head. “I don't know. They don't seem so small time to me.”

“Trust me. They are.” He reached into his pocket, pulled out his phone, pressed a number, and talked into it. “We're on,” he said.

“You think the Russians know about Phil?” I asked George after he left.

“I don't see how they could. I think they want to run you around. Give you another night to stew about things. The crazier you get, the easier it is for them.”

I reached for my cigarettes. “I think they're succeeding.”

He patted my shoulder. “I've got to go. Natalie wants me to help her with some stuff. I'll come back when I'm done if you want.”

“Don't bother. I'll be fine.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really,” I lied.

Fuck him, fuck the Russians, fuck everybody.

 

 

After George left, I went into the kitchen and got a glass and some ice cubes. Then I got the bottle of Scotch and sat back down on the sofa and filled the glass half full and took a gulp. But it didn't silence the small, persistent voice in my head that kept saying I'd just made the biggest mistake of my life. Or rather of Manuel's. That no matter what Phil said, no matter how smooth he talked, in the end his buddies would get what they wanted and I'd leave without Manuel.

The problem was, I couldn't go to the hand-off alone. No matter which way I figured it, it came down to the same thing. I needed someone watching my back, someone with firepower. Preferably a lot of someones.

Truth was, there was no reason for the Russians to keep me alive once they had the money. In fact, they had every reason not to. First they'd kill me and then they'd kill Manuel. Unless they saw I wasn't alone. Then they'd kill Manuel. Just to be pissy. Because that's the way they did things. God. I realized Zsa Zsa was butting my hand with her head.

“I know,” I said. “I'm not paying you any attention.”

I scratched underneath her chin while I sipped my Scotch. I was just thinking that it was going to be a very long night when Zsa Zsa started barking. I heard a key in the lock. A minute later Bethany walked into the living room. She'd been out visiting a friend. I told her what was happening as she dropped her backpack on the armchair.

Her face crumbled. She burst into tears. Not the reaction I would have expected.

“I can't stand this anymore,” she sobbed. “All the waiting. I just can't.”

I didn't want to hear it, especially because she was saying what I was feeling, but I bit my tongue, got up, and hugged her instead. This is what people must mean when they talk about being mature. Her jacket felt cold from being outside.

“It'll be fine,” I said.

“What if it isn't?”

“Don't say that.”

She raised her face to me. Her eyeliner was smudged. She had black circles around her eyes. “Why?”

“It'll bring bad luck.”

“You don't mean that.”

“Of course not.” But part of me did.

I'd just gotten Bethany settled on the sofa when the doorbell rang. Bethany and I looked at each other.

“I'm not expecting anyone,” she said.

“Me either.” I took a peak out the window. George's car was in the driveway.”

“It's okay.”

Bethany nodded. I went to get the door.

“I was scared you were the Russians.”

“Phil has a couple of guys stationed down the block.”

“You could have told us.”

“Sorry,” George said stepping inside.

He had a pizza box in one hand and a liter of soda in the other. “I figured you and Bethany might be hungry,” he explained.

“But what about Natalie?” I asked as he put the boxes on the coffee table in front of us.

“Nothing. She wanted me to go shopping with her. I told her I had other things to do.”

“She must have been pissed.”

George shrugged. “She'll live.” He handed me a soda. “Time to switch off the Scotch. You don't want a hangover tomorrow.”

“You're right. I don't.” While Bethany went into the kitchen to get some napkins, I twisted the top off the soda bottle and poured some into my glass.

“You realize,” George said, “there are people out there that see you doing what you just did, they'd kill you on principle.”

“You mean you're not supposed to drink Coke and twenty-year-old single-malt Scotch together?”

“'Course you are. It says it in my guide to fine wines and spirits.”

I took another sip and put my glass down. “God, I wish this was over.”

George slipped off his shoes. “Me too.”

 

 

The Russians called at two o'clock on the dot the next day.

“At least you have to give them credit for being punctual,” George observed.

“Yeah. It makes murder and kidnapping seem almost okay.”

They instructed me to drive up Route 11 to Oneida Shores, which is forty to fifty minutes from where I live. At first I was surprised by their choice of site. I thought the Russians would have picked someplace closer. But when I thought about it some more, I could see why they'd done what they had.

Oneida Shores is a county park set on Oneida Lake. I'd been up there maybe three or four times in all the time I'd lived in Syracuse. Once to run Zsa Zsa, and the other times to visit someone who had a camp on the shore.

The topography was flat. There weren't a whole lot of things to hide behind up there. Most of the flora consisted of scrub with some maples and an occasional willow tree thrown in.

Phil and his buddies would be pretending to be ice fishermen and snowmobilers, which are the two major groups using the park in the winter. Oneida is known for the fishing both in the summer and the winter. In the summer all the camps on the shoreline are in use. They're stacked so closely together that you can look into someone else's kitchen and see what that person is making for dinner, but in the winter things are quieter.

It suddenly occurred to me that it would be hard for Phil to pick out the Russians, but then the Russians would have the same problem with Phil because everyone out on the ice looks the same. They're all wearing parkas with their hoods up. They're all wearing pac boots. They're all sitting on upturned twenty-gallon buckets with their backs to the wind.

And if that wasn't bad enough, the weather forecaster was predicting a lake-effect storm moving into the area. Lake effect is something that's peculiar to the Upstate area. One of those storms can drop three feet in a day. It can snow so hard, you can't see in front of you. Literally. You could be driving along and not know where the road is. And then it's over. Just like that.

My instructions were to go down to the shore right by the left parking lot and wait. Someone would come, and we would make the exchange. The money for Manuel. They saw anyone, they'd leave and it would be adios, Manuel.

According to Phil, his people would move in once I had Manuel.

Easy. Not to worry. So why was I chain-smoking one cigarette after another?

The drive up to Oneida Shores took longer than I expected.

It was snowing when I left Syracuse and it got worse as I headed up north. The plan was that George would follow me up. I concentrated on the road in front of me and tried not to think about what was waiting for me ahead.

Even though there wasn't much traffic on Route 11, what there was was crawling along. Once I got out of the Village of North Syracuse, I picked up a little more speed because there were fewer cars on the road, but I was still going below the speed limit.

Now there were car dealerships and places that sold tractors and mobile homes. An abandoned drive-in stood off to the right. Motels with names like the Bel-Air and Fisherman's Paradise stood empty, waiting for the summer. As I got closer, there were a couple of places selling boats. At the last place, the owner had placed a nineteen-foot runabout in front of his yard. It looked marooned in the snow. By now the snow was coming down harder and my window wipers were working overtime.

I turned on my cell to call George. Which was when I got my first jolt. The light on it was flashing. The battery was running low and I'd forgotten to charge it. Even worse, I didn't have the thing you plug into the cigarette lighter. I wanted to kick myself.

“I'm almost there,” I said to him.

“I know,” he said. “I can see you. Phil called to tell me his guys should be pulling into the park in five minutes or so.”

“Why the hell aren't they there already?”

They'd taken 1-81—which was faster.

“There was a five-car pile-up.”

“That sucks.”

“Don't worry. They'll be there. And in the meantime you still got me.”

“I thought Natalie did.”

I could hear the intake of George's breath. Then he said, “Where'd you put the gun I gave you?”

“Not touching that one, are you?”

“The gun, Robin.”

“In the trunk.”

“Seriously.”

“Seriously. Listen, my battery is running out. I gotta get off.”

“Robin, you . . .”

“Don't say anything.” And I clicked off.

Five minutes later, I made the turn into the park. The entrance kiosk was deserted and the gate was up. In the winter entrance is free. Snow half covered the slide and the jungle gym in the children's playground. It drifted up against the side of a gnarled willow tree. I could see deer tracks and the trails left by cross-country skiers. A little farther off were deep ruts left by snowmobiles.

I wondered where George was as I headed over to the boat ramp. He hadn't made the turn in. Maybe he was waiting outside the park for Phil. Maybe there was another way in I didn't know about. I lit a cigarette as I looked over the parking lot. Except for a handful of trucks and SUVs, it was deserted.

The vehicles probably belonged to the ice fishermen who had parked there and off-loaded their equipment onto the ice—except, of course, for the vehicles that belonged to the Russians. I figured there had to be at least two of those. But all the vehicles were empty. No one was sitting in any of them.

I wondered if the Russians had arrived as I scanned the lake. It was one vast sheet of ice. The ice was different shades of white—lighter in some places, darker in others, almost blue in some. Little shacks cobbled together out of odds and ends were set down on it here and there. Occasionally, through the snowflakes, I caught a glimpse of a dark shape moving around. An ice fishermen, I assumed. In the background I could hear the roar of someone's snowmobile. A faint odor of gasoline hung in the air.

Then out of nowhere it started snowing very hard. Everything became white. The sky. The ground. The lake. They were all one color. My phone rang again. I picked it up.

“Where are you?” I said, expecting it to be George.

“Where should I be?”

It was the Russian.

“Listen carefully,” he said when I didn't reply. “I want you to get out of your car and walk straight out on the lake and we'll meet you.”