Annie looks around the bedroom, trying to find the words to make Jack feel better. To make him understand that she did—she does—love and value him, despite her years of deceit. She chooses her words carefully. “He knew the important things.”
“When? When did he know?”
“I don’t know. Long ago. Not so long into our marriage.”
“I see. So, it’s just me, then? The guy who introduced you to his father? The guy you called last week to help you out of this mess? I’m the only one who didn’t know?”
“No, of course not, Jack. No one knew except your father.”
“You have crossed every line.”
“Jack…”
“I offered you friendship! You went on about how that was such an important fucking commodity to you and I gave you that on a platter! And you have betrayed it at every turn! I don’t give a shit what you did! I do care that you were a fraud from the day I met you!”
“I really am sorry.”
There is a very long silence on the line. Annie thinks he may have hung up.
“I don’t see a way forward for us,” he finally says. “As a family. This is just too much. I don’t even know what to call you. I can’t come back with you there. Not in that house. I can’t continue to work with you.”
“I understand.”
“You need a lawyer. A criminal lawyer. I suggest you hire one immediately. You’re on your own on this one. I can’t help you anymore.”
And he hangs up the phone.
Annie bows her head to the receiver as the dial tone rings in her ear. Just then, Helen knocks sharply on the bedroom door.
“Yes?” she calls out.
“Someone is at the door, Mrs. Ford.”
She hoists herself heavily from the bed. Her body feels like it is increasing in density, her molecules becoming sodden and heavy. Waterlogged. She crosses over and opens the door. “Who is it?”
“A Mr. Sammy Fakhouri, ma’am.”
47
Sunday, September 9, 1979
Suburban Detroit
Annie swam deep in a dark ocean. Susan was there too, at a distance. Annie was unable to reach her, no matter how she pumped her legs and arms. She was breathing underwater, though she was not wearing scuba gear. She wondered how she was able to do that. Susan did not wear a tank, either, and appeared to be in trouble. She was not breathing as easily as Annie.
Annie tried to swim like a dolphin, using her torso to propel her, but that worked no better than her extremities. She wished she had a tank of air to give Susan but palpated around her torso and found none.
Sammy swam by and Annie called out to him, asking him to help Susan. He smiled and just kept swimming. Frankie swam by next, with Johnny Buscemi, Danny the Cop, and Vito. They were arguing amongst themselves and paid no attention to Annie.
Suddenly, she was overcome with fear. She examined why she would be afraid of them and could not remember a reason. The point became moot because they were gone from view. Annie looked around to find that Susan was gone, too. Sammy was gone. Frankie was gone. They were all gone.
Annie was alone.
She could not breathe. Whatever magical power she had possessed to enable her to breathe underwater had deserted her. She was gasping, and she was cold. Bone cold. She was far under the surface of this black ocean and she realized that she might not make it to the top. She began to jerk spasmodically.
Then her body metamorphosed into something hard. She couldn’t breathe, but she was no longer gasping. She was a solid mass, sinking through icy water, down to the bottom of the sea. She thought she might be a boat. A boat that had shipwrecked on an expedition; maybe in search of whales. She was made of wood and she was damaged and there was no way of righting her direction and propelling herself to the surface.
She contemplated future generations who might find her, lodged in the seabed, covered with barnacles—sharks and scary, pale deep-sea fish swimming in and out of the holes in her sides. Would they find treasure inside her? Annie’s mind swam in and out of itself, searching for the ephemeral treasure that she knew she would not find.
Sammy swam back to her and called her name. He repeated it over and over again. Though she was looking right at him and answering him, he did not seem to hear. His eyes bored through her, swam in and out of the holes in her head, just like the fish and the sharks.
Annie rested at the bottom now. The underwater currents shifted glacially, dragging sand along in their path. As centuries passed, it covered her. No fish swam in and out of her holes any more. No sharks chased fish around her hull.
Sammy no longer swam by, nor did Frankie. Or Johnny. Annie wondered if Susan was also buried under the sands of the sea. Her eyes no longer worked, so she could not see her. Her voice was not available, so she could not call out for her.
Only her mind continued, thinking, thinking, thinking. There was nothing else for her to do.
48
Thursday, September 13, 1979
Annie opened her eyes. She scanned beige walls and curtains, brown furniture, and wall-to-wall carpeting, and guessed she was in a hotel. She did not remember checking into one and lay there for some time, trying to salvage a memory of where she was and how she’d gotten there. Nothing came to her.
What did come was an overwhelming thirst and a pressing urge to pee. Needing to quickly remedy the latter, she hoisted herself to her elbows and confronted a third sensation—pain. She struggled to pinpoint its source. As she sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed, it became apparent that it emanated from her entire body.
Annie rested that way for a while, waiting for the throbbing and the dizziness that were sweeping over her to subside. She examined the pajamas she wore. They did not look familiar. In due course, she put her feet to the floor. Standing revealed the next surprise, as her legs nearly buckled under her. She leaned over the mattress to calm a recurrence of vertigo that was now accompanied by nausea. She imagined that she must be sick.
The demands of her bladder trumped all others and forced her to continue forward. Running her hands along the walls, as much for moral support as to steady her wobbly walk, she came to a door, which she opened to discover a closet. Oddly, a few articles of clothing—men’s clothes—were hanging inside.
Panic edged into the swirl of emotions overtaking her. She must be in this hotel room with a man. But what man? She had to put that queasy-making thought aside and concentrate on finding a bathroom. The next door proved successful and Annie launched herself onto the toilet.
One bodily function satisfied, the next thing she needed was water. She could use about ten glasses of water. She had not turned on the light in the bathroom before sitting down so, on rising, she moved back to the doorway and felt along the wall for the light switch.
Eureka.
There was the sink, the faucet, and a glass. Annie filled it to the brim, brought it to her lips and cast her eyes up as she began to drink. And there in the mirror, she got her first glimpse of herself, cut, swollen, bruised, and bandaged. Whereupon, she let out a gurgled scream and promptly dropped the glass, shattering it on the bathroom sink and sending shards to the floor.
Seconds after the noise, a man bolted into the room. “Annie?” he said. “Why don’t you come and sit down?”
Gingerly, she turned to face him and experienced another shock, in what she feared might be a never-ending parade of them.
“Sammy?”
“Annie, let’s go over to the bed.” He held out his arms to assist her. She recoiled, and he rephrased. “Come and sit. We can talk. Don’t be afraid. Everything will be all right.”
At his words, she felt her body slacken. Or maybe she was going to faint. Sammy reached out to grab her and glass crunched beneath his shoes as he carried her across the room. He placed her on the bed with care, yet she couldn’t help groaning in pain.
“I’m so sorry,” he said.
Tears leaked out of her swollen eyes. “What happened to me? Di
d Frankie beat me up?”
“You don’t remember what happened?” Sammy looked stunned. “I…I’m sorry. I did not consider that you might not remember. I just…”
“Remember what? You’re scaring me.”
“I’m sorry. Of course, I’ll tell you.” Sammy examined his feet for a while. “All right. First, can I get you anything? Would you like some water? Some ice for—for anywhere that hurts?”
“I’m very thirsty,” she said.
“I’ll be right back,” Sammy left and returned with a full glass of ice water.
He lifted Annie’s head with one hand as he held the glass with the other. As thirsty as she was, she quickly felt nauseated and pushed it away.
“I’ll set it here.” Sammy placed the glass on a nightstand. “Let me know if you want another sip.”
Annie just nodded her head, waiting for him to say something.
“You don’t remember anything?” he tried again.
“I remember driving to Frankie’s house with Susan. I think she was wearing a nightgown.” She saw Sammy wince at that mention. “I was going there to see if Frankie was with someone. A woman.”
“Do you recall anything after that? Do you remember getting to Frankie’s?”
“I remember his car was there. I felt the hood to see if it was hot.” Annie looked up to see Sammy staring at her quizzically. “That’s how I can tell sometimes if he’s lying. If the hood is hot, it means he’s just driven somewhere.”
“Oh.” He paused. “Do you remember anything else? What about going into the house?”
“Oh, God!” Annie gasped. “I do remember the house. The lights were all on. And there were men there. Lots of men. You were there!”
“Yes.”
“What happened there?”
“I…well…how much do you know about Frankie?”
“He’s my boyfriend.”
“No. I mean, his business.”
“The disco? The pizzerias?”
“Look, Annie. There was a meeting that night between the Chaldeans and the Italians. It’s all stupid territorial stuff that they were going to pound out. That’s why I was there. For my cousin. He couldn’t be there. He had to take care of a problem at one of our stores. I try not to get involved. But Jacob asked me to go.”
“What are you talking about?”
“How do you think all those drugs funnel through Frankie’s Disco? The cocaine? It’s all Buscemi and that cop. The Chaldeans want a piece of it and the Italians need us for something else.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Years ago, they walked away from Detroit and we stepped in and bought it. Now gambling is coming.”
“Detroit?” It was the only word she could key in on in this jumble of Sammy’s story.
“It doesn’t really matter. But, that’s what that meeting was about—working out who gets what and where.”
“I…” She struggled to clear her head. “So, what happened?”
“Jesus.” Sammy got up from his seat to pace around the room. He walked over to the window and peeked out of the curtains. He closed them and smoothed them flat. Then, he yanked them open again.
“Sammy. You’re making me nervous. What happened?”
“Oh, Annie.” He turned and stood still, his arms hanging limp, like a little boy’s. “Terrible things have happened.”
She felt that flop of her stomach as it summersaulted upside-down. The drop of your insides that you get on waking, when you’ve managed to fall asleep amidst a shattering loss, and for that instant, you don’t remember. But your stomach remembers for you.
“What?” It came out as a whisper.
As he took his first step toward her, as he said the name, “Frankie,” and then the name, “Susan,” she refused to hear any more.
“Stop.” She held up her hands. “Don’t come near me! Stop! No! No! No! No! No!”
No.
Up through the roof and into infinity went the word. Following Susan. Following Frankie, as they slipped through Annie’s hands like helium balloons—incongruously rising skyward.
In the end, they weighed less than air.
* * *
And, so it was that Sammy Fakhouri, a decent man—a man who barely knew Annie Nelson, who was in love with Susan Bentley, who was on opposite sides in a turf dispute with Frankie Castiglione—had to tell Annie that both were dead.
As Annie sobbed, Sammy recounted events: How he had found Susan in the driveway when he was on his way out. How, with his encouragement, the girls had fled. How he had followed them and flashed his lights to signal them as he flew down the road behind them. He told her how he had arrived seconds after the crash, tried to approach the burning car, tried to grasp its red-hot handle, and finally turned away to pick Annie up from the road. He described how he had called Jacob from a payphone on a burned-out street in Detroit. How Jacob had found them and brought them to this safe house in the middle of a complex in Southfield. He explained how Jacob had called a doctor who made house calls and worked for cash. How the doctor had examined Annie and made the best guesses he could. How, at his instructions, Sammy had kept her hydrated with ice chips and a dampened sponge.
Annie eventually stopped crying and lay with her eyes wide open. Sammy eventually stopped talking and fell asleep on the floor.
And so, the night passed. The first night of Annie’s consciousness of the death and destruction around her. Sammy had known for a week and so she excused him for sleeping.
But, as she stared at the ceiling, as she stared at her own self-serving past, she knew that she had no excuses left.
49
Saturday, September 15, 1979
Annie looked at the ceiling until the sun came up, and she continued after Sammy arose.
“Would you like some coffee?” He popped his head in the room.
“No,” was all she could say.
She gazed at it still, when Sammy returned.
“You have to eat,” he said.
“No,” she said again.
She rose twice to use the bathroom, whose floor Sammy had dutifully mopped of broken glass. But, again, she went back to bed.
Through the next night, she stared at the ceiling.
“Coffee?” he asked the following morning.
“No,” she answered again.
And she regarded the ceiling all day.
But then that evening, Annie’s body, that healthy and powerful animal, took issue with her mind. It let her know it was hungry. It let her know it had needs. It let her know that, in a battle of wills, it had always been the strong one.
Finally, Annie obeyed it.
She sat up and noticed her clothes on a chair, resting neat and folded. Sammy must have washed them. She picked up her jeans and her long-sleeved T-shirt—the things she’d been wearing that night—and discovered them sickeningly torn. And, revealed beneath them, lay the remnants of her worldly goods: one gold question mark necklace—gift from her dead boyfriend, one platinum Longines watch—pinched from her dead friend, and one white envelope—taken from Johnny Buscemi. Her possessions were not even hers. She covered them up with the clothes.
Sammy walked into the room.
“You’re up! Oh, you don’t have to wear those. There are other clothes. I didn’t want to throw those away. I washed them. And you had that envelope.” He actually blushed. “It was…”
“It was stuffed down the front of my jeans.”
“Um. Yes.”
“May I have some toast? And coffee?”
Sammy was visibly relieved that one fewer girl would die. “Oh, thank God! Yes, toast! Coffee!” And he ran out of the room.
* * *
“Where did you get this food?” Annie asked as she ate it.
“Don’t eat too fast. Jacob leaves it downstairs. We have a spot in the basement. He leaves bags of food and newspapers there and I go down and get them.”
“Why are we even here?”
“It just seemed
prudent. Until this thing blows over.”
“Do people know about what happened?”
“Uh, yes. Can you handle watching the news?”
“I don’t know.” She was frightened. If she saw it on television, it would become real.
“It’s no worse than what you’ve already learned.”
“Okay,” she whispered. There was something about Sammy that reassured her.
Sammy clicked the set on and the picture expanded to life. The news was already in progress in the midst of a weather report.
Next, there was an update on the Ayatollah’s new government in Iran. When they showed the map on the screen, Sammy pointed a finger. “That’s where I come from,” he said, moving his finger to the left. “Well. Not so very far from there.”
Annie was about to say something when the story they were waiting for began. The television anchor recapped, for the benefit of anyone who’d been living under a rock—or had been unconscious like Annie—the tale of “The Shootout in Grosse Pointe.”
But tonight there was a new development.
The newscaster made a mental leap, linking a formerly ignored story of a car crash in Detroit with the killings in Grosse Pointe. The identity of the driver of the totaled car was assumed to be Annie Nelson, girlfriend of Frankie Castiglione. The body of Miss Nelson was burned beyond recognition in the ensuing fire.
One dead girl found in same girl’s car. Dead girl’s boyfriend murdered a few miles away. All of this occurring on the very same night. Why would identity be questioned? The reporter did not say this, but the meaning was implied.
And the implication of that changed everything.
When Sammy and Annie heard it, when they learned that only Annie was among the casualties, only Annie was tied to the shootout, and only Annie was presumed dead, it was Sammy who hatched the plan for Annie to become Susan.
50
Monday, August 18, 2014
Watch Hill
Time: 6:20 p.m.
Annie Nelson, who has lived under another name for thirty-five years, stands in the living room of her house in Watch Hill, face-to-face with Sammy Fakhouri. A man she’d last seen in Detroit—at the last moment she’d used her real name. A man she would have bet her fortune on never seeing again.
Finding Mrs. Ford Page 20
