Peter Abrahams - Crying Wolf

Pause, even longer this time. “Right there,” said Wags, “that’s why I don’t like you.”

Nat picked up the hospital bracelet. The name of the place was on it, and a phone number.

Wags watched him. “You’re pissed about Sidney,” he said.

“Sidney?”

“Sidney Greenstreet. The snowman, if that’s how you want to think of him. He was supposed to be a sumo wrestler, but he ended up like Sidney Greenstreet.”

“Who’s he?”

“Who’s Sidney Greenstreet? Is that what you’re asking? Who’s Sidney Greenstreet? I despair. I give up. I just give up, completely and utterly.” Tears welled up in Wags’s eyes, spilled over onto his cheeks, kept coming.

Nat glanced down at the hospital bracelet in his hand.

“I’m on leave,” Wags said; there were still tears but his voice sounded normal, a combination Nat had never witnessed before. “Paid leave, or maybe administrative leave. Semiauthorized. It’s the medication, Nat-they have all these studies, but they’re clueless about what it feels like inside your head.”

“They let you carry your own pills around?”

Wags gave him a long look. “Still in there pitching,” he said again, but without animosity this time. “No, they don’t let you carry your own pills around. Not officially. But I’ll make a deal with you. I’ll defenestrate Sidney.”

It took Nat a moment or two to figure that one out. “And then?” he said.

“And then we’ll be even.”

Wags got up. They went into the outer room, Wags moving stiffly, as though he’d just returned from football practice. They gazed at the snowman. Footsteps sounded in the hall.

“Gestapo,” Wags whispered. His fingers dug into Nat’s arm.

The door opened. Grace came in, then Izzie. Wags let go.

“We couldn’t sleep-we were so-” They saw Wags, broke off.

“Sight for sore eyes,” Wags said. “To the second power.”

“Back already?” Grace said.

“And raring to go. Remember all the defenestrating we used to do at Choate?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Or maybe it was the next year, when I was… wherever I was. Doesn’t matter. The point is we’re going to defenestrate old Sidney.” He extended his hand toward the snowman, as though presenting a friend.

“Sidney?” said Grace.

Wags’s eyes narrowed. For a moment he looked almost dangerous. “Greenstreet,” he said.

“Looks more like Burl Ives to me,” said Izzie.

“Burl Ives? You know about Burl Ives?” Wags’s eyes went to Izzie, to the snowman, back to Izzie. “You may be right,” he said.

Grace walked over to the snowman, removed one of its green teeth, examined it. “I’m glad you’re here,” she said, sticking it back on the snowman, but in the middle of its forehead.

Wags bit his lip. “You are?”

“I want to pick your brain.”

Wags went to the snowman, replaced the green tooth where it belonged. He turned to Grace. “Pick away.”

“Still into movies?” she said.

“More than ever. They’ve got HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, plus a decent video library. Why do you ask?”

“I’m writing an essay.”

“On movies?” said Wags. “What course is that?”

“Independent study,” Grace said. “It’s on plot construction.”

Wags nodded.

“In kidnapping movies specifically,” Grace said.

“Right,” said Wags. “You’ve got to focus.”

“Seen any?” said Grace.

“Name one I haven’t.”

“Any ransom demand scenes that come to mind?”

“Ransom demand scenes? Like how they go about it?”

“That kind of thing.”

“Excellent subject.” Wags rubbed his hands together. “Can I read it when you’re done?”

“Why not?”

“This is so much fun,” Wags said. “What college should be all about.” He paused. “We’re just dealing with ransom-type kidnappings, now, not the sicko or political kinds? Or kidnapping by accident or kidnapping to make a nice little family group?”

“Ransom,” said Grace.

“ Ruthless People, of course. Pretty recent. Judge Reinhold demands five hundred thousand dollars, unmarked and sequentially numbered one-hundred-dollar bills. On the phone. No notifying the cops, of course, that’s pretty standard. There’s High and Low, also on the phone.” Wags smacked his forehead, much too hard. “And my God,” he said. “Kurosawa. Japanese. Patterns, patterns, patterns.” He turned to Izzie. “I may be taking a job in the Ginza district.”

“Lucky you,” Grace said. “What’s High and Low?”

“Haven’t seen High and Low? Where they kidnap the chauffeur’s kid by mistake?” A tiny spray of spittle flew from Wags’s mouth when he sounded the s in mistake. “Thirty million yen, as I recall-going to have to find out what that is in dollars-same nonsequential thing, same specifying the denomination. Speaking of chauffeurs, there’s After Dark My Sweet. Patterns and more patterns. Bruce Dern sends a ransom note. But the kid’s got diabetes and Jason Patric’s escaped from an… asylum.” He fell silent, looked down.

“What does it say in the ransom note?” Grace asked.

No answer. Wags kept looking down, hanging his head, bent like one of those old people who can’t straighten. His eyes got silvery. Nat waved Grace and Izzie away. They backed out of the room, Izzie first, then Grace.

“Maybe you should lie down,” Nat said.

Wags looked up, didn’t seem to notice that the girls had gone, maybe because his eyes were overflowing again. “Don’t you want to hear about Night of the Following Day?”

“Later.” But Nat didn’t want to hear it at all. At that moment, looking at Wags in his misery, Nat knew that the kidnapping thing was out. He didn’t understand the connection, but he knew. “First you’re going to lie down,” he said.

Wags stared at him. “Good idea,” he said at last. “Your very best.” Wags started moving in that stiff way, but not toward his old bedroom. Instead, he went to the snowman, gouged all the pills out of his face in one swipe, threw the window open wide, flung them out. The cold wind blew his hair straight back, as though he were going very fast. Then he had his head out in the night and one foot up on the sill.

Nat grabbed him, pulled him back into the room. Who would have imagined that a skinny kid like Wags would be so strong?

“Jason Patric dies at the end, you asshole,” Wags said, wriggling free. Nat went to grab him again. Wags threw a punch. No one had ever thrown a punch at Nat before. He saw it coming, had time to block it or duck, or at least turn his head and not get hit flush on the nose. But no one had thrown a punch at him before, and this one did hit him flush on the nose. His eyes stung, he saw stars and, stepping back to recover, slipped in the snowman’s puddle and went down.

Wags stood over him in fury. “You’re just like all the others,” Wags said, “only worse.” Then Wags’s foot swung into view and Nat started to roll; the foot with the rubber boot, not the Timberland, thank God — Nat’s last thought for a while.

When he opened his eyes, dawn was breaking on a dark day, hardly lighter than night, and his room was cold. The window was open. His head hurt.

He got up, went to the window, looked out. No sign of Wags, no sign that he’d jumped and been carried off or jumped and walked away. Nothing down there but the baseball cap. Nat turned back to the room. The snowman was gone, the floor where he’d stood almost dry. He closed the window.

What next? His head hurt; he felt slow and stupid. Next would be the hospital bracelet, the phone number, a call. Where had he last seen it? Couldn’t remember. He searched the outer room, searched Wags’s old bedroom, didn’t find the bracelet. Wouldn’t need the bracelet if he could remember the name of the place. But he couldn’t. Or he could call Wags’s mom and get the name of the place from her. Rather than that, he went down on his hands and knees to try again. The door opened.