Twisted: The Collected Stories by Jeffery Deaver Read Free Book Online Page A

out.
    “Like he’s looking at us, waiting for you to make a decision. Oh, don’t think it was just you, though. Maybe the purpose was to affect everybody’s life there. That customer at the counter your friend shot? Maybe it was just his time to go—fast, you know, before he got cancer or had a stroke. Maybe that girl, the clerk, had to get shot in the leg so she’d get her life together, maybe get off drugs or give up drinking.”
    “And you? What about you?”
    “Well, I’ll tell you about me. Maybe you’re the good deed in my life. I’ve spent years thinking only about making money. Take a look at my wallet. There. In the back.”
    I pulled it open. There were a half dozen of these little cards, like certificates. Randall Weller—Salesman of the Year. Exceeded Target Two Years Straight. Best Salesman of 1992.
    Weller kept going. “There are plenty of others back in my office. And trophies too. And in order for me to win those I’ve had to neglect people. My family and friends. People who could maybe use my help. And that’s not right. Maybe you kidnapping me, it’s one of those signs to make me turn my life around.”
    The funny thing was, this made sense. Oh, it was hard to imagine not doing heists. And I couldn’t see myself, if it came down to a fight, not going for my Buck or my Smitty to take the other guy out. That turning the other cheek stuff, that’s only for losers. But maybe I could see a day when my life’d be just straight time. Living with some woman, maybe a wife, and not treating her the way I’d treated Sandra, living in a house. Doing what my father and mother, whatever she was like, never did.
    “If I was to let you go,” I said, “you’d have to tell ’em something.”
    He shrugged. “I’ll say you locked me in the trunk and then tossed me out somewhere near here. I wandered around, looking for a house or something, and got lost. It could take me a day to find somebody. That’s believable.”
    “Or you could flag down a car in an hour.”
    “I could. But I won’t.”
    “You keep saying that. But how do I know ?”
    “That’s the faith part. You don’t know. No guarantees.”
    “Well, I guess I don’t have any faith.”
    “Then I’m dead. And your life’s never gonna change. End of story.” He sat back and shrugged.
    That silence again but it was like it was really this roar all around us. “You just want . . . What do you want?”
    He drank more scotch. “Here’s a proposal. Let me walk outside.”
    “Oh, right. Just let you stroll out for some fresh air or something?”
    “Let me walk outside and I promise you I’ll walk right back in again.”
    “Like a test?”
    He thought about this for a second. “Yeah. A test.”
    “Where’s this faith you’re talking about? You walk outside, you try to run and I’d shoot you in the back.”
    “No, what you do is you put the gun someplace in the house. The kitchen or someplace. Somewhere you couldn’t get it if I ran. You stand at the window, where we can see each other. And I’ll tell you up front I can run like the wind. I was lettered track and field in college and I still jog every day of the year.”
    “You know if you run and bring the cops back it’s all gonna get bloody. I’ll kill the first five troopers come through that door. Nothing’ll stop me and that blood’ll be on your hands.”
    “Of course I know that,” he said. “But if this’s going to work you can’t think that way. You’ve got to assume the worst is going to happen. That if I run I’ll tell the cops everything. Where you are and that there’re no hostages here and that you’ve only gotone or two guns. And they’re going to come in and blow you to hell. And you’re not going to take a single one down with you. You’re going to die and die painfully ’cause of a few lousy bucks. But, but, but . . .” He held up his hands and stopped me from saying anything. “You gotta understand, faith means