had apprehended was still seated inside, waiting for the Brookline police to cart him off to jail. I tapped Clegg’s shoulder a few times. “I’m all right,” the gesture was intended to say. “Just let me go.” Hoping that allayed his concerns, I started to back away from Clegg slowly.
“Johnny!” Clegg shouted at me.
Turning my back to him now, I began a trot that soon broke into a run, yelling over my shoulder as I accelerated, “I’ll call you!”
Clegg shouted, “Johnny,” again, but I gave him no response. I kept the phone, with Uretsky still on the line, fixed to my ear but didn’t speak until I had turned the corner, a block away from where I had left Clegg standing, his expression unmistakably and understandably confused.
“You still there, John?” I heard Uretsky say.
I slowed my pace, soon coming to a full stop. I couldn’t yet catch my breath, so I had to double over, resting my hands on my knees to increase the airflow. “I’m here,” I said, panting. “I’m here.”
“Good boy,” Uretsky said. “So listen, you’ve obviously lost round one.”
“Why?” I said. My voice sounded constricted, as though Uretsky’s hands magically extended through the phone to choke my windpipe. “Why did you do it? Why did you kill that woman?”
“Because she was there. Isn’t that why you once climbed mountains? Because they were there.”
Uretsky chuckled hauntingly, while I staggered into an alley directly behind a Chinese restaurant and proceeded to vomit up my dinner of chicken wings and beer. The sour stench from my stomach mixed foully with the smells from the kitchen.
“You’re insane,” I yelled before several gagging dry heaves put me on my knees. A cook from the restaurant, draped in white clothes blotched with food stains, flung open the back door to check on the commotion. I shielded my face with the back of my hand and slunk deeper into the alley, away from his prying eyes.
“My mental state is not your concern,” Uretsky said. “Do you know what is?”
I couldn’t answer—the nerves connecting my brain to my mouth seemed severed.
Uretsky answered for me. “Your concern should be that poor woman you let down.”
“I didn’t kill her,” I stammered.
“Of course you did,” Uretsky snapped. “You didn’t even try to steal the scarves.”
“I didn’t think you were serious.”
Uretsky scoffed, a loud “Ha!” “I told you very specifically the penalty for failure. It’s your fault you didn’t believe me, not mine. You lost round one after I gave you every conceivable chance to win. I wish you could have seen what I did to her, John. It would have definitely inspired you to try a little harder. You were at home while I was doing it. In fact, I was right below you.”
“Please . . . don’t . . .”
Then I thought, Right below me. Could it have been our downstairs neighbor, Rhonda?
“She was begging me,” Uretsky continued. “Big, thick tears rolling down her cheeks. I gagged her, of course. I didn’t want her screams bringing anyone to her rescue. You’ve got to think these things through, John. It takes thought to be on the wrong side of the law, but you’ll learn that soon enough. Anyway, I used these pruning shears I bought at Home Depot to cut her fingers. They snapped off just like I was breaking a stubborn branch. Snap. Snap. Snap. I figured she’d pass out by finger four, but it happened right after I cut off the second one.”
“Oh God,” I whimpered.
“God? Really? God?” Uretsky laughed a little. “You know, most criminals don’t find God until they’re in the slammer,” he said. “And you’ve got a long way to go before that happens to you. Now, if you play my game, and this time you try to win, I can assure you, you’ll never find yourself confined to those ugly four walls.”
I couldn’t speak.
“Are you listening, John?”
How to describe my shock? It welled up inside me, all consuming, entirely paralyzing. It was an inescapable blackness, a fast-acting cancer swelling from within, hollowing out my guts, turning my blood to molasses, slowing my heartbeat to a tick and my breathing to a trickle.
“Please . . . stop. . . . I don’t want to hear this. . . .”
“Too late for that,” Uretsky said. “Now, pay attention. Pay very close attention. I’m using a phone that cannot be traced. Don’t even bother to try.” I said nothing, so Uretsky continued. “Also, if the name Uretsky comes up in connection with the investigation into