Although not given to introspection, I do understand that my exercises contain an element not purely intellectual. That is, the intellectual portion is *reduction* of risk. But were I able to eliminate *all* risk, my art would be truly completed and any repetition thereof utterly banal and meaningless. Were I ever to achieve perfection, I would cease at the apex.
Downstairs again, I found the child wearing some sort of coveralls, busily engaged in cleaning the kitchen area.
“Did you call them?” she asked by way of greeting.
“I did.”
“Did they say anything?”
“I would have no way of knowing, child. It was a one-way conversation. Remember? I explained how it worked.”
“Oh. I didn’t know you did that for all the. . . phone calls. Just maybe for the first one.”
“No. In fact, I will never actually speak to. . . the people.”
“What people?”
“Whoever your parents designate to act for them. Sometimes, the parents have. . . difficulty in dealing with the emotional stress of the situation, and they have others act for them.”
“Like the police?”
“That is the most likely.”
“My father won’t do that,” the child said. Not smugly, but with clear assurance.
I did not pursue the matter. Although the child seemed far too clever to be deceived about her father’s actual occupation—he is listed as the owner of a waste-removal firm in the business directory—there was no point in providing her with the information known to me.
“Do you want to help me make a film, Zoë?” I asked instead.
“Like a movie?”
“Somewhat. Actually, it’s a videotape. You see that equipment over there? In the corner?”
“Yes. I saw it before. We have that too.”
“In your house?”
“Yes.”
“For surveillance?”
“I don’t know. What’s. . . surveillance?”
“Like the cameras they have in banks. To watch people who come on the premises.”
“Oh. I don’t know if we have those. My father has a camera. In the basement, just like this.”
“Like this basement?”
“No. Never mind.”
As this was a time when maximum participation was required, I again bowed to the child’s “Never mind” trademark. “What we have to do is make a short tape, Zoë. So everyone can see you are alive and well. Do you want to help?”
“Sure!”
“All right. But we’re going to have to play a trick on. . . the people who see the tape. Are you willing to help with that too?”
“What kind of trick?”
“Well, the only way to get the tape to them is to mail it. That takes two or three days. But it will take almost a whole day for me to go away and mail it. If I mailed it from around here, they would know we are close by.”
“And we don’t want that?”
“No. Certainly not. The further away they believe us to be, the better. And if the date is. . . advanced. . . they will believe it was mailed immediately after it was made, do you understand?”
“You mean, like, pretend it’s already tomorrow?”
“Precisely. Can you do that?”
“That’s easy. What else do I have to do?”
“Just say hello. Tell them you’re fine, and nobody has harmed you. That you want to come home, and to please do whatever ‘they’ say.”
“ ‘They’?”
“Yes, Zoë. It is much safer for me if the. . . if your parents and whoever is helping them believe there is more than one person involved in. . . this.”
“Okay. I get it.”
“There’s nothing to be nervous about, child. We can try it as many times as you like until we get it just right.”
“I’ll get it right the first time,” she said confidently.
As it developed, her confidence was neither misplaced nor overstated. At the first take, the child looked directly into the camera and said:
“Hi! It’s me, Angelique. I’m fine. Everybody is being very nice to me here. It’s Saturday morning and I just watched my show. You have to do everything they say, okay? Bye!”
“That was excellent!” I complimented her. “Now we must prepare the package.”
“How do we do that?”
“Well, the most important thing is to leave no forensic traces.”
“What’s ‘forensic’?”
“Something that could be used as evidence. Say, a fingerprint, or a drop of perspiration. . . That’s why I always work under absolutely sterile conditions,” I told her, holding up my surgical-glove-covered hands for emphasis. “But an equally important part of presentation is misdirection. Do you know what that is, Zoë?”
“Like magic tricks?”
Again, I was brought up short by the child’s fund of knowledge. Or was I making unwarranted assumptions? “What do you mean?” I asked her, in order to determine.
“Well, like with the rabbit in the hat, right? They make you look at something else, so you don’t see what they’re doing.”
“Yes. That is called ‘legerdemain.’ ”
“Leger. . .”
“. . . demain. It means, sleight of hand.”
“Oh. Anyway, how can you do that with this. . . stuff?”
“Do you see this little mark?” I asked her, holding the cardboard sheath for the videocassette at an angle for her inspection.
“It’s a little. . . I can’t see. . . . Oh! It’s a little piece of paper with a. . . number on it.”
“That’s correct. Actually, it’s a tiny portion of a price code which was affixed at the point of origin—where the cassette was originally purchased. That was in Chicago. I also have this,” I said, showing her a postage-meter tape which displayed the next day’s date, “Chicago IL,” and a perfectly legitimate meter number. “I am going to fly to Chicago with the tape we just made and mail it from there.”