Peter Abrahams - Crying Wolf

“What’s wrong with everybody?” Izzie said. “We didn’t write it.”

“Your father doesn’t doubt that. He knows it was Grace.”

Izzie turned on him. “When I say we, Grace is included.”

Professor Uzig took a step back. “Who else could have written it, then?”

“I thought you were the one who knew how to think. Some real kidnapper, of course.”

Professor Uzig’s voice rose, but only slightly. “This is not the note of a real kidnapper. And what real kidnapper would know about this place? For that matter, have you told anyone else about it?”

“No,” Nat said. “But…” An idea was starting to form in his mind.

“But what?” said Professor Uzig.

“There’s a thief on campus.”

“There are always thieves on campus, almost invariably your fellow students.”

“But this one knows about the tunnels,” Izzie said.

“Why do you say that?” said Professor Uzig.

Nat told Professor Uzig about the theft of Wags’s TV, how he’d followed the thief until he’d disappeared in the Plessey basement.

“That doesn’t mean he knows about the tunnels.”

“There was nowhere else he could have gone.”

Professor Uzig didn’t looked convinced. “Could you identify this person?”

“I only saw him from behind,” Nat said. “Big, with a ponytail.”

A strange expression crossed Professor’s Uzig’s face. Nat’s mom would have said he looked a little green; as though he’d eaten something bad or was seasick. “It won’t work,” he said.

“What won’t work?” Izzie said.

“Whatever you kids are up to,” said Professor Uzig. He turned to Nat. “Time for you to go home. Worse things have happened.”

“Worse things are happening now,” Nat said. A milion sounds nice. Whatever was bothering him was in that sentence. A milion sounds nice. And it wasn’t the spelling. He walked along the walls of the room, tapping here and there, listening for hollow sounds, although not sure why. They sounded hollow everywhere.

“You’re not going to talk to him?” Izzie said.

Professor Uzig shook his head. “You’ve given me nothing to talk about.”

“Nicely put,” said Izzie, “as usual. But would you be saying that if he wasn’t dangling this endowed chair in front of your nose?”

There was no persuading Professor Uzig after that. He didn’t say another word. They went upstairs in silence.

“What about calling the police?” Nat said to Izzie when they were alone; not because he thought it was a good idea, more because it seemed the kind of thing people said at a time like this.

“Brilliant,” Izzie said. “If we forget about what the note says, and about what will happen when the police call my father and ask when the money’s coming.”

“Izzie,” he said; not because she was wrong, but because of how she’d spoken to him. She was acting so strange.

“What?”

She was acting so strange, but he’d already said that.

Izzie took a deep breath. He could almost feel her getting hold of herself, slowing down.

“Sorry,” she said. She gave him a kiss, soft and quick, on the cheek. “Better?”

That left the bowling jacket. Saul’s Collision. Nat knew a bit about bowling-his mom had been in the Tuesday league for years, always fixing chicken pot pie that night, so he could warm it for himself when he got home from basketball-and had noticed lanes at the bottom of College Hill, not far from the tracks. All-Star Bowling, or something like that. He looked them up in the phone book, called the number.

“Does a team from Saul’s Collision bowl there?” he said.

“Sure does.”

“Because one of them lost his jacket. I’d like to return it.”

“We’re open till ten.”

“I meant personally.”

“Personally?”

“I’m looking to join a team.”

“You could do better than Saul’s, you’re any kind of bowler at all.”

“But I like their jacket.”

“I hear you. Tell you what. Where you calling from?”

“Here-in Inverness.”

“There’s only one team member lives in town. That would be Ronnie Medeiros, over on River Street. He’s in the book.”

The wind was blowing off the river, driving the snowfall in waves that seemed to bound through the air. Tracks, back and forth between Ronnie Medeiros’s house and the street, were disappearing fast. Nat ignored the buzzer dangling loose on its wires, knocked on the door. No answer. He knocked again, louder. They listened, heard the wind, the snow hissing through bare trees, a plow grinding along some nearby street. Izzie turned the knob. The door opened.

They went into a living room that had space for a big TV and not much else. On the TV sat a framed photograph of a referee posing with a girls’ basketball team.

“Hello?” Nat said.

No answer.

They went into a hall, opened a door. A bedroom: in no way like their cave rooms under the campus except that it too was a shambles. Only the bed was undamaged. The basketball referee was sleeping in it. Nat knocked on the doorjamb.

The sleeper’s eyes opened.

“Ronnie Medeiros?” Nat said.

“Who’dja expect in my bed, for Christ sake?” His eyes went to Izzie, back to Nat. “You the guys Saul sent?” he said.

They didn’t answer.

He got impatient. “To help me clean up. My fuckin’-my freakin’ head is killing me.”

“What happened here?” Nat said.

“Saul didn’t tell you?”

“No.”

“Just a little party, you could call it. Got out of hand. He promised me that if I kept my-that he’d send someone to clean it up.”

“You’re talking about Saul of Saul’s Collision?” Nat said.

“Huh?”

Nat held up the bowling jacket.

“Where’d you get that?” He sat up with a groan. “Lemme see.” Nat handed him the jacket. He ran his hands over it, as though it bore a message in Braille, then squinted up at Nat. “You cops?” He lowered his head gently to the pillow. “Fuckin’ A. That was quick. I told him there’s no way to keep something like this a…” He paused, his eyes again shifting to Izzie and back. “You don’t look like cops,” he said. “Least not cops from around here.” His gaze went to Izzie. “Unless you’re FBI,” he said. “There’s girl FBI agents on TV and they always look like you.” His eyes narrowed. “I get it now-that fuckin’ Freedy.”

“Freedy?” Nat said.

“Sure. Crossing state lines.”

“Who’s Freedy?” Nat said.

“Think I’m stupid? Not sayin’ another word till I speak to my lawyer. That’s my right, and no one ever accused Ronnie Medeiros of not sticking up for his rights.”

“We’re not from the FBI,” Nat said, “not police at all.”

“Expect me to believe that?”

“Whose jacket is this?” Nat said.

Ronnie clamped his mouth shut, sucked both lips into his mouth like a child, raising the little growth of hair under his lower lip into prominence. Izzie made a disgusted sound and left the room.

“Is it yours?” Nat said.

Ronnie, mouth still clamped shut, shook his head.

“How do you spell million? ” Nat said.

Ronnie looked interested. His mouth relaxed. “Million?” he said.

“Spell it.”

“M-i-l-l-i-o-n.”

“Are you sure?”

“ ’Course I’m sure. I graduated high school. And billion ’s the same, just with a b.”

Izzie came back. She had a laptop in her hands. “The laptop,” she said.

“How do you know?”

“It’s not working, but…” Izzie flipped open the protective flap at the back. Nat read the label inside: Property of Zorn Telecommunications.

She stood over Ronnie, about to do almost anything. “Where did you get this?”