Victims: A Novel by Uhnak Dorothy

Author:Uhnak, Dorothy [Uhnak, Dorothy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Itzy, Kickass.to
ISBN: 9781453291078
Amazon: B00AMSXJ2G
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2013-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

19

ELLIOT WASSERMAN’S SHAKY VOICE was the second call on Mike Stein’s answering machine. He played it back twice:

“I have to be assured, Mr. Stein, that this will be a confidential meeting, between just you and me and off the record.”

The kid was a student at N.Y.U., and he claimed to have something of great value not only to Mike Stein but to other people in the media. He was going to Mike Stein first for reasons he would be willing to discuss at their meeting.

Mike picked the time and location: 10 P.M., his office. Official enough to appear slightly awesome to someone who was a little nervous to begin with, and private enough, once he closed his office door, so that he could control whatever followed. This sounded like a very nervous guy.

He was not, physically, what Mike had expected. He had pictured a runty little nerd of a kid with all kinds of tics and mannerisms. A good-looking, well-developed, muscled body-builder presented himself. The kind of guy who would casually admit, Yeah, I work out a little, when what he meant was he spent x number of hours every day, including weekends and holidays, doing a preset number of routines on machines and devices that to Mike resembled medieval torture equipment.

There was something missing between the physical specimen and the actuality of this kid: his handshake was as damp and loose as when he was probably a ninety-pound neighborhood punching bag.

“I’m very appreciative of your time, Mr. Stein. I know how busy you are and all.”

His name was Elliot Wasserman and he was a twenty-three-year-old graduate student at N.Y.U. He was majoring in photojournalism.

“Okay, Elliot. What’s this all about?”

“You said you had a VHS? When we talked on the phone? Oh, yeah, I see it. Good. Okay. So first I guess we talk, right?”

“So talk.”

Mike was deliberately playing cop. In the presence of a nervous witness, nothing more than an occasional prod is necessary.

“Well, okay, let me set up the background first, right? Okay. So I’m a grad student. And I have a room down in the Village. But for the last week or so I’ve been on field trips, throughout the city, you know. Shooting this and that and the other thing.”

As he spoke, Elliot kept flexing his shoulder and arm muscles. He didn’t seem to be aware that he was doing it. If he kept it up much longer, his massive shoulders would begin to sink his somewhat short-legged body into his ankles. Elliot was all out of proportion.

Elliot Wasserman’s family lived on Barclay Street in Forest Hills. A nice front apartment; two bedrooms faced the courtyard toward the street. His parents were on a trip and Elliot was staying home to feed his mother’s two cats. And water the plants. The plants the two cats hadn’t already eaten, that is.

“All right, Elliot. Is this it? You got shots of cats eating plants you want to show me? What?”

Elliot had a baby face, a smooth, frightened, damp blank face set on his thick neck.

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