challenge a little more seriously.”
“You’re insane!” I screamed into the phone. “Do you know that? You are a monster! A sick freak!” I was spitting all over my iPhone, shaking with an incredible rush that boiled up inside me. A wave of hatred so deeply rooted and profound took over and for a moment I felt like a rabid animal on the loose. I didn’t want to just kill Uretsky—I wanted to take out his eyes with a fork while I slowly crushed his windpipe and sliced his flesh with the heel of one of my crampon climbing shoes.
“Are you through?” Uretsky said when I finally stopped shouting.
Ruby’s eyes were locked on the computer screen, watching poor Lisa pointlessly try to break free. If her cancer cells could talk, they would be saying, “We didn’t know there was anything worse than us.”
“Let her go,” I said.
“I will,” Uretsky said. “And that’s a promise. But only if you win.”
“The liquor store,” I said.
“That’s right, John. The liquor store.”
“I can’t do this.”
“I think you owe Dr. Lisa Adams at least a college try. She’s a real person, John. This woman’s got feelings.”
He said the word feelings like it was a joke to him.
“How come you won’t show yourself? Are you a coward?”
Uretsky laughed. I amused him, or so his laugh implied. “Is this the reverse psychology part of our conversation? Do you think you can goad me into doing something by making me kowtow to my ego? Is that it, John?”
“Let her go. Don’t make me do this,” I said.
“You’re in the middle of a game,” Uretsky said. “You don’t make up the rules. I decide. And I say if you walk away from this game, then Lisa here dies. Snip, snip, snip go the fingers, just like Rhonda. Got it?”
“Give me a minute,” I said. “I’ve got to think. Got to think.”
“Let me ask you something, John,” Uretsky said. “How well do you know yourself?”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Your strengths, your weaknesses. How well do you know them?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Let me ask you something else,” Uretsky continued.
“I’m going to hang up now,” I said. “I can’t speak to you.”
“If you do, gone go Lisa’s little fingers. So don’t hang up.”
I paused. “Okay,” I said. “You win. What do you want to ask?”
The more I talked to him, the calmer I felt. Was that his intention? I wanted to know what he wanted from me, even though I was afraid to find out.
Uretsky said, “Do you think there is a chasm between good and evil? Do you think a good man can be pushed by circumstance into committing evil acts?”
“I think you’re evil,” I said.
“And are you good?” he asked. “Were you good and virtuous when you cut the rope that sent Brooks Hall plummeting to his death? Were you being a good boy when you stole my identity?”
“I had good intentions,” I said. “I didn’t see another way out. There wasn’t another viable option. I’m sorry for what I’ve done, but what choice did I have?” Why was I justifying myself to him? Because he had struck a painful nerve, that was why. He was questioning things about me that I questioned about myself.
“You had other choices,” Uretsky said. “But you were driven by fear. Weren’t you? You were driven by the fear of death and the fear of losing your beloved Ruby to cancer, to be specific. You acted out of fear, not rational thought.”
“You don’t know me. You have no right to pass judgment.”
He was right, of course.
“I suppose that’s true,” Uretsky said, almost with a sigh. “I don’t know you. Not fully, that is. But I want to know you. I want to know you so much better. How far can you be pushed? That’s the burning question here. I want to see with my own eyes how far you’ll bend before you break. That’s the game we’re playing, John, and there’s no way out. Think about poor Lisa, here. Is there really anything worse than having your fingers snipped off by a rusty pair of pruning shears, your life force drained from you, your windpipe crushed by the constricting power of two hands squeezing tighter and tighter? I think not. I think that’s a gruesome death.”
“I don’t know,” I said, my voice shaky. “I don’t know.” I started to cry, small tears pricking at the corners of my eyes. I was listening to the ranting of a madman and watching the agony of a