made sense. He was an avid gamer, maybe even a hacker type, someone who preferred that justice be served outside the usual lines.
I covered the phone with my hand and said to Ruby, “It’s okay, baby. This is a prank. I’ll take care of it.” To Uretsky: “Tell me, Elliot, since you don’t know who we are, how would you even know that we stole the scarves?”
“Good one,” Uretsky said. “You’re thinking. That’s what a smart criminal must always do. I thought of that as well, so I went ahead and marked the price tag of two scarves on display, both of which have the requisite dollar value, with the initials E.U. and T.U. That’s for Elliot Uretsky and my wife, Tanya, your doppelgängers. Those are the scarves you are to steal. Now, I’ve placed a hidden camera in the store, so I’ll know when they’ve been stolen.”
“Sounds logical,” I said, humoring him.
“You have forty-eight hours from this very moment. Forty-eight hours starting right now.”
“Okay. Sounds good. We’re on it.”
Could he pick up on my sarcasm?
I was shaking my head. I wasn’t sure what else I could do to get him off the line.
“I haven’t told you what happens if you lose,” Uretsky said.
I was growing tired of him wasting my time. The tone I took was intended to communicate that. “Why don’t you tell me?” I said.
“If either of you fails in your attempt to steal the scarves,” Uretsky said, “if you get caught trying, or don’t even bother giving it a go, I’m going to murder somebody close to you.”
A shock of electric fear ripped through my body, but I soon recovered. He’s a hacker. He’s a gamer. He’s a prankster. Still, I remembered the growl in his voice when he called my wife a bitch and told me he’d let her die of cancer. Could he be for real?
“Who?” I said, my voice betraying a slight waver.
“Somebody close to you,” Uretsky repeated.
He had just tipped his hand. That’s when I knew this guy wasn’t for real; it was a scare tactic only.
“Nice work trying to freak us out, but you don’t even know who we are.”
“Forty-eight hours,” Uretsky said.
“Or you’re going to go to the police.”
“I told you,” Uretsky said. “I’m not going to report you to the police—no matter what. If you don’t follow through, I’m going to kill somebody close to you. Game on.”
“You’re a sick person. You know that?”
“Game on,” he said again.
I slammed the receiver down and waited, but the phone didn’t ring again.
Ruby hoisted up her hands. The confusion on her face begged for any clarity. “What was that all about?” she asked.
“That was about nothing,” I said, with an edge to my voice. “He’s just pissed off and trying to freak us out. That’s all. Everything’s fine.”
At the time, I believed this to be true.
CHAPTER 13
Seventy-two hours later, twenty-four hours past Uretsky’s twisted deadline, I was starting to think about Plan C. Climbing had taught me to value contingency planning like a drink in the desert. Plan B involved my stealing another identity and starting our unfortunate, albeit necessary, scam all over again. My worry was that it might push Ruby over the edge, which was why Plan C required an altogether different approach for getting her medication. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any idea what approach to use. Obviously, the Uretsky identity was something that had to be shed like a worn-out snakeskin.
On the good news front, Uretsky hadn’t called back, and it went without saying that nobody close to us had been killed. Not that I warned anybody close to us to be extra vigilant. That wasn’t a willy-nilly decision on my part. Uretsky, my logic went, couldn’t know who to target without first reporting our crime to the police. Since no police had come, I assumed no report had been made. I was therefore left to conclude that my first assumption had been correct—Elliot Uretsky enjoyed dishing out his own special brand of punishment. The game he had invented was his twisted little way of saying: “Look, I’m not going to turn you in, because I do feel bad for you, but I’m going to scare the living daylights out of you so that you’ll find a new identity to steal, chump.”
Another thing I didn’t do was to share with Ruby all the gory details of my conversation with Uretsky. Hadn’t I already put her through enough? She didn’t need to be privy to his threat. So I didn’t