if you find them, which you won’t. So don’t waste the petrol.” Ray stood. He was too emotional to be sitting down. He needed to move.
“Okay, if you say so,” Jerry sighed and sat back down. “So what the hell does this guy want? He must want something? What’s the point of kidnapping your family?”
“He doesn’t want anything,” Ray said. “No money, no nothing. Just…” As he paced back and forth, what the kidnapper had said rolled around in his head.
“Just what?” Jerry asked, craning his neck so he could look at Ray.
“I did ask him what he wanted. I told him I would do anything. Give him anything. He just laughed and said all he wanted was to have fun.”
“Jesus,” Jerry said, turning back and shaking his head.
Ray kicked his old card table that sat to one side of the room, dirty from years of cigarette ashes and beer stains. He sent it crashing into the wall. One of its legs snapped off. “Fuck!” he roared. “How could this happen? How could some stranger just come into my house and take my wife and child?”
“God I wish we knew where he was,” Jerry said. “I’ve got my shotgun in the van.”
Ray continued wearing out the carpet between the TV and the entrance to the kitchen. “Okay, let me think this through,” Ray said.
“Think what through?”
“What do you reckon? Who I’m going to choose.”
Jerry made a face. “You’re not really going to decide are you? Shit. You can’t, Ray.”
“I have to. I have to pick one to save the other.”
“But…come on.”
“What do you suggest, huh?” Ray barked, stopping and gazing at Jerry. “My wife and kid are out there somewhere, trapped by this psycho mother-fucker, and if I don’t pick one of them to die, then he’ll torture them both. And do you know what he told me? That he has a boot full of tools – pliers, hacksaw, hammer, nails... Fuck man. I don’t wanna even think about what he has in mind.” Ray took a much-needed breath. He felt faint. He could really do with a beer. “We haven’t a clue where they are, and I’ve only got…” He looked down to Jerry’s watch.
“Fourteen minutes,” Jerry said.
“Fourteen damn minutes before he rings back and wants an answer.” Ray continued pacing. “Okay. Let’s make a list.”
“A list?”
“You know, one of them pro and con lists.”
“You’re not doing your fucking shopping, Ray. This is your wife and kid’s lives we’re talking about.”
“I know that,” Ray said. “but this is the easiest way I can think of to decide. You got any better suggestions? What if it was Carol and Brad who were kidnapped and you had to decide which one to kill? How would you decide?”
“That’s easy. Brad’s a loser. A drugged up fucker. I’d choose him.”
Ray let out a quick, demented laugh. “Bad example.”
“Anyway, it’s different with you. You’ve got a great daughter and a great wife.”
“That’s why I’m making this list,” Ray said. He bolted into the kitchen and grabbed a pad and pencil. He brought them back to the lounge. He sat down on the couch and drew up a rough graph. Four columns – a pro and a con for Kim and the same for Rebecca. “Let’s start with Kim,” he said. “Okay. Pro – I love her.”
“You love both of ‘em.”
“Well it’s a start. Jesus. Okay, how about this. I’ve known her for longer, therefore I’ll miss her more.” He scribbled it down.
“Fair enough,” Jerry said. “But look at it this way. Since you’ve known her for longer, you’ve spent more time with her. That’s a con.”
Reluctantly, Ray wrote it down.
“Also, she’s had a longer life. She’s seen more things and done more.”
He wrote it in the con column. “Okay, another pro. She’s my soul mate. I can’t kill my soul mate.”
Jerry nodded.
Ray added it to the pro column.
“Sex, you’ll miss the sex.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” Ray said. “A big pro.”
“But you can always re-marry.”
“I can always