I assure you there is. Please, do as I say. Clasp your hands in front of you. Back up, three steps only. Turn your head to the side—no more than that! And you should see him. The big blond fellow out there is working for me.”
I couldn’t see much. But I could see a very large form, a man, waiting by the side of the porch.
He seemed as big as a house. It looked like he might be the size of a Temple.
“Step back this way again, please. Keep your hands in front of you, where I can see them.”
“We call your friend,” I said. “And you don’t shoot me.” I tried to imply that I still failed to see anything so bad about this.
“We don’t call him yet,” Tony said. “You are amazingly stupid sometimes.”
And there was that change in his voice again…he was frustrated. The knife…I had almost had the chance to use one on him that night at the Point. My kitchen knife reminded him…and now it reminded me.
That was something…something I could use. “When do we call him, Tony?”
“We call him when Brian comes home. My friend out there is very talented. He claims to have worked for the government at one point, but I think that’s a lie. Still, you never know. His talents are hard to come by—at least in conjunction with his remarkable ability and peculiar lack of conscience—and I can’t imagine anyone in a position to need them would be very picky about his other disquieting traits.”
“Yeah, whatever,” I said, as deliberately insolent as I could manage. This was the test.
“You’ll be laughing out the other side of your mouth in an hour, and for a long time after that!” There was that note again, the one that said that Tony didn’t believe he would be challenged. Couldn’t conceive it. It was when he felt least in control, that his voice changed. That control had very little to do with the gun. He had gone way off the deep end.
“You might have…interrupted me, once, but that was a fluke, a situation that had to do more with your luck than my plan.” He caught himself, tried to settle down. “And still, for all of that I got away, and have been watching you ever since.”
I couldn’t help myself: I shivered.
He nodded then, faintly satisfied. “We’ll listen on the phone. I’ll be very interested to see what you’ll try to do to stop Brian’s screams.”
I felt the world swimming in front of my eyes and felt my stomach clench.
“What will you do, what won’t you do, eventually, to let Brian die? Imagine a place where that would be the very best you could offer him. I believe you’ll find the edge of your sanity and leap, to save him.”
He let me think about it. God help me, I found myself imagining things unthinkable.
“My friend is a thug, but he has a delicate subtlety when the conditions are right. It could be weeks. Months, even.”
My mouth was so dry I could barely form the words. “What’s…why?”
“You’re much more limited than you might think, and I’m going to show you that. You might have gotten inflated ideas about yourself, having interrupted me before—and it was no more than an interruption. No more than that, and if I’d taken a bit more time, tempered my enthusiasm for the project just a little, even that wouldn’t have happened.
“Your mind, your will, your body. Not much at all. You’ve got luck, perhaps a kind of…cunning…that has a sort of virtue to it, so I won’t believe you easily. I’ll have to be very sure, know that you’re not just faking the knowledge to stop the lesson. I think I’ll be able to tell when you’ve truly learned. And then we’ll be done. Then you’ll know that I’ve won.”
“You’ve won already, Tony.” I didn’t know if I could convince him, but I had to try. “Brian and I…we’re having troubles. My friends are hurt, one close to death. I can’t sleep, I can’t eat, I can’t concentrate—the people at the college think I’m losing my mind. I don’t know what more proof you want. You got away, with the gold. You avoided the international authorities. You came back, and still didn’t get caught, even after all you’ve done. And at every turn, you’ve bested me. I don’t know how better to let you know: You’ve truly won.”
He spoke sadly. “Emma, there’s a difference between knowing something, and owning it.