This is Mr Potter, I began. Can I have my lover?
Chapter Eighty-Five
I waited for the Wolf to answer Potter’s insane question. We all did.
No response came. Shit. What had I done wrong? I’d gone too far, hadn’t I? He was clever. Somehow, he knew what we were up to. But how?
‘I’ll stay on for a while,’ I said as I looked around the room. ‘I want what he has to offer. He knows it. I’m supposed to be horny.’
This is Potter, I typed again, a few minutes later.
Suddenly words began to appear on my screen.
I read: Wolf: That’s redundant, Potter. I know who you are.
I typed some more words in Taylor’s strident ‘voice’. UR rude to make me wait like this. U know how I feel, what I’m going through.
Wolf: How could I? You’re the scary freak, Potter, not me.
I typed: Not so. UR the real freak. The cruellest of all.
Wolf: Why do you say that? You think I take hostages like you?
My heart raced. What did he mean by that? Did the Wolf have a hostage? Maybe more than one? Could Elizabeth Connelly still be alive after all this time? Or some other hostage? Maybe one we didn’t even know about?
Wolf: So tell me something, faggot. Prove yourself to me.
Prove myself? How? I waited for more instruction to come. But it didn’t.
I typed: What do U want to know? UR right – I’m horny. No, not really. I’m in love.
Wolf: What happened to Worcester? You were in love with him too.
The chat was heading into uncharted waters. I was guessing – hoping I could maintain continuity with things Homer Taylor might have shared before. The other question made me edgy: was this really the Wolf I was speaking to?
I typed, Francis was incapable of love. He made me very angry. He’s gone now, never to be heard from again.
Wolf: And there will be no repercussions?
I’m careful. Like U. I like my life; I don’t want to be caught. And I won’t be!!!
Wolf: Does that mean Worcester rests in pieces?
I wasn’t sure how to answer. With a cruel joke of my own? Something like that, I typed: UR funny.
Wolf: Be more specific. Give me the bloody details, Potter. Give!
Is this a test? I don’t need this shit.
Wolf: You know it is.
I typed: The septic tank. I told you that.
No response came from the Wolf. He was rubbing my nerves raw.
So when do I get my new boy? I typed.
A pause of several seconds.
Wolf: You have the money?
Of course I do.
Wolf: How much do you have?
I felt I knew the correct answer to that, but I couldn’t be sure. A week earlier, Taylor had taken one hundred twenty-five thousand dollars from his account with a money manager at Lehman in New York.
One hundred twenty-five thousand. The money isn’t a problem. It’s burning a hole in my pocket.
No response from Wolf.
I typed: U told me not to be redundant.
Wolf: All right then, maybe we’ll get you the boy. Be careful! There might not be another!
I typed: Then there won’t be another hundred twenty-five thousand!!!
Wolf: I’m not worried. There are lots of freaks like you. You’d be amazed.
So. U didn’t answer my question before. How is your hostage?
Wolf: I have to go back to work… one more question, Potter. Just to be safe. Where did you get your name?
I looked around the room. Oh Christ. It was something I hadn’t thought to ask Taylor.
A voice whispered close to my ear. Monnie’s. ‘The young adult books? They call Harry “Mr Potter” at the Hogwarts School. Maybe? I don’t know?’
Was that it? I needed to type something; it had to be the right answer. Was the name from the Harry Potter books? Because he liked young boys? Then something from Taylor’s office in the farmhouse flashed in my brain.
My fingers went to the keys. Paused for a second. Then I typed my answer.
This is absurd. The name is from the Jamaica Kinkaid novel – Mr Potter. Fuck U!
I waited for a response. So did everyone else in the room. Finally, it came.
Wolf: I’ll get you the boy, Mr Potter.
Chapter Eighty-Six
We were in business again, and I was back working the streets, the way I liked it, the way it used to be.
I had been in Boston several times before, loved the city enough to consider moving there, and was comfortable. For the next two days we shadowed a student named Paul Xavier from his apartment on Beacon Hill, to his classes at Harvard, to the Ritz-Carlton where he was a waiter, to popular clubs like No Borders and Rebuke.
Xavier was the ‘bait’ we had set out for the Wolf and his kidnapping crew.
Actually, Xavier was being impersonated by a thirty-year-old agent from our field office in Springfield, Massachusetts. The agent’s real name was Paul Gautier. Boyishly handsome, tall and slender, with fluffy, light brown hair, he looked like someone in his early twenties. He was armed, but also being closely watched by a minimum of six agents at all times of the day and night. We had no idea how or when the Wolf’s team might try to grab him, only that they would.
For twelve hours each day, I was one of the agents watching and protecting Gautier. I had spoken about the dangers of using ‘bait’ to try and catch the kidnappers, but nobody had paid attention.
On the second night of surveillance, and according to plan, Paul Gautier went to ‘the Fens’ along the Muddy River near Park Drive and Boylston Street. Actually called the BackBay Fens it had been imagined by Frederick Law Olmsted who’d also designed the Boston Common and Central Park in New York. In the evening hours after the clubs closed the real Paul Xavier often cruised the Fens looking for sexual encounters, which was why we had sent our agent there.
It was dangerous work for all of us, but especially for Agent Gautier. The area was dark and there were no streetlights. The tall reeds along the river were thick and provided cover for pickups and liaisons and kidnappings.
Agent Peggy Katz and I were on the edge of the reeds, which resembled elephant grass. During the past half hour, she had admitted that she wasn’t really interested in sports, but had learned about basketball and football because she wanted to be able to talk with her male counterparts about something.
‘Men talk about other things,’ I said as I scouted the Fens through night-glasses.
‘I know that. I can talk about money and cars too. But I refuse to talk to you horny bastards about sex.’
I coughed out a laugh. Katz could deliver her lines. She was often wry, with a twinkle, and she seemed to be laughing with you, even if you happened to be the butt of her jokes. But I also knew that she was very tough, a real hardliner.
‘Why did you join the Bureau?’ she asked as we continued to wait for Agent Gautier to appear. ‘You were doing well with the Washington P.D., right?’