is like putting a message in a bottle and throwing it overboard, but something—not just Jenny—urges me to try. After all, sometimes one of those bottles washes up on shore, and someone reads the message inside.
I have refused the operation. You really are my last hope. I know how thin that hope is, and probably foolish, but the Bible says, “With faith, all things are possible.” I will wait to hear . . . or not. Either way, may God bless and keep you.
Yours in hope,
Astrid Soderberg
17 Morgan Pitch Road
Mt. Desert Island, Maine 04660
(207) 555-6454
• • •
Astrid. Dear God.
Astrid again, after all these years. I closed my eyes and saw her standing beneath the fire escape, her face young and beautiful, framed in the hood of her parka.
I opened my eyes and read the note Jacobs had added below her address.
I have seen her charts and latest scans. You may trust me on this; as I said in my covering letter, I have my methods. Radiation and chemotherapy shrank the tumor in her left lung, but did not eradicate it, and more spots have shown up on her right lung. Her condition is grave, but I can save her. You may trust me on this, too, but such cancers are like a fire in dry brush—they move fast. Her time is short, and you must decide at once.
If it’s so goddam short, I wondered, why didn’t you call, or at least send your devil’s bargain by Express Mail?
But I knew. He wanted time to be short, because it wasn’t Astrid he cared about. Astrid was a pawn. I, on the other hand, was one of the pieces in the back row. I had no idea why, but I knew it was so.
The letter shook in my hand as I read the last lines.
If you agree to assist me while I finish my work this coming summer, your old friend (and, perhaps, your lover) will be saved, the cancer expelled from her body. If you refuse, I will let her die. Of course this sounds cruel to you, even monstrous, but if you knew the tremendous import of my work, you would feel differently. Yes, even you! My numbers, both landline and cell, are below. Beside me as I write this is Miss Soderberg’s number. If you call me—with a favorable answer, of course—I will call her.
The choice is yours, Jamie.
I sat on the stairs for two minutes, taking deep breaths and willing my heart to slow. I kept thinking of her hips tilted against mine, my cock throbbing and as hard as a length of rebar, one of her hands caressing the nape of my neck as she blew cigarette smoke into my mouth.
At last I got up and climbed to my apartment, the two letters dangling from my hand. The stairs weren’t long or steep, and I was in good shape from all the bike-riding, but I still had to stop and rest twice to catch my breath before I got to the top, and my hand was shaking so badly I had to steady it with the other before I could get my key into the slot.
The day was dark and my apartment was full of shadows, but I didn’t bother to turn on any lights. What I had to do was best done quickly. I took my phone off my belt, dropped onto the couch, and dialed Jacobs’s cell. It rang a single time.
“Hello, Jamie,” he said.
“You bastard,” I said. “You fucking bastard.”
“Glad to hear from you, too. What’s your decision?”
How much did he know about us? Had I ever told him anything? Had Astrid? If not, how much had he dug up? I didn’t know and it didn’t matter. I could tell from the tone of his voice that he was only asking for form’s sake.
I told him I’d be there ASAP.
“If you want to come, of course. Delighted to have you, although I don’t actually need you until July. If you’d rather not see her . . . as she is now, I mean—”
“I’ll be on a plane as soon as the weather clears. If you can do your thing before I get there . . . fix her . . . heal her . . . then go ahead. But you will not let her leave wherever you are until I see her. No matter what.”
“You don’t trust me, do you?” He sounded as if this made him terribly sad, but I didn’t put