my hands deeper and deeper into the oily mess, until my fingers brushed up against what felt like a plastic bag.
Bingo.
I hauled up the bag, spilling the discarded contents resting above it onto the floor. I was cleaning up the droppings and putting them back in the wastebasket when the bathroom door opened and somebody came inside and caught me, literally, holding the bag—a thirteen-gallon white kitchen garbage bag, to be precise.
“People have no respect for public places,” I said to the man as he squeaked past me to get to his chosen urinal.
He didn’t say anything in reply. I wouldn’t have said anything to me, either.
I left the bathroom, returning to the carpeted hallway of the Cineplex. Ruby saw me with the bag.
“No,” Ruby said. She pointed to the bag. “Is that it?” she asked.
I hefted up the bag to show Ruby that it had weight, and said, “I haven’t looked yet, but I assume so.”
“Uretsky put it there?”
I nodded.
“John, what are we going to do?” Ruby’s voice pierced my heart with the sound of pure desperation.
“We’re going to get out of this,” I said. “You’ve got to trust me.” We walked in silence back to the car, a bright red Ford Fusion that Ruby referred to as Ziggy, in honor of the David Bowie CD of the same name, which always seemed to be in the CD player whenever we went for a drive. We parked in the garage, away from other cars, but I still looked around to make sure we were far from prying eyes when I finally opened the bag.
I showed Ruby the first item, a black ski mask with red stitching around the eye and mouth holes. Ruby had to look away. Next, I pulled out a white T-shirt and green army jacket. Uretsky had pinned a note to the jacket. His penmanship was impeccable.
Sometimes games provide instructions to help you along the way, read Uretsky’s note. Here’s my instruction for you. Wear these clothes when you commit the robbery, and change back into your clothes afterward. That’s what a real criminal would do. I’ll text you with your next steps.
There was something else in the plastic bag. I reached inside and took the object out. I held it in my hand, surveying its weight, and though I knew steel felt cool, it still burned like a hot coal against my skin.
“Do you have to use it?” Ruby asked.
“That’s his rule.”
“How will he know if you don’t?”
“It’ll be on the news,” I said. “At least, I imagine it will be.”
“Not it, John, you. You’ll be on the news.”
“I don’t know what kind it is,” I said. “I don’t know anything about these things.”
“Is it loaded?” Ruby asked.
I raised the gun, careful to point the barrel out the car window in case of an accidental discharge. It took a bit of fumbling, but eventually I figured out how to drop the clip. Sure enough, it was fully loaded.
“What now?” Ruby asked.
I showed Ruby the note Uretsky pinned to the olive-green army jacket that had been stuffed inside the white plastic kitchen garbage bag. She was still reading—or probably rereading—the note when my iPhone buzzed. I looked at my phone’s display: Uretsky, who had sent me a text message. He had my phone number, but I knew his would be untraceable. Either he was using a disposable phone or he’d sent it using one of the many text-messaging services that provide the sender with absolute anonymity.
Uretsky’s text read: It’s now ten o’clock. Giovanni’s Liquors on Kent Street in Somerville will close in exactly one hour. You have that amount of time to rob the proprietor at gunpoint of one hundred fifty dollars cash.
Uretsky sent Giovanni’s exact street address, but I already knew the store well and could get there without GPS guidance. The liquor store was just a few blocks from where we lived before I became Elliot Uretsky. I’m sure that was intentional. The next text from Uretsky made me fire up Ziggy’s four-cylinder engine and burn rubber peeling out of the parking garage.
He had sent me a picture of blood-stained pruning shears.
CHAPTER 21
I tried to keep my speed down as we crisscrossed Boston’s maddening one-way and dead-end streets. Now, it’s a myth that the winding roads of Boston were originally carved out by aimlessly wandering cows. In truth, it was probably bad planning and topography that determined the haphazard layout.