The Empty Place at the Table

by Jode Jurgensen John Ellsworth

  "It was a perfect hit except the bullets fired into our woman didn't kill her. Before she could be shot one last time, her ex-husband raised his arm and managed to squeeze off a shot at the killer on her side. Killed him dead instantly. We don't think that's how it's going to happen next time. But we're going to try to make it happen that way."

  "How are we going to do that and what's our role?" Sergeant Haley asked.

  "Trojan Horse."

  The three uniformed officers nodded. Trojan Horse was a good tactic. It involved drawing the enemy in and then using overwhelming and unexpected force to kill him. They approved.

  "So what's our role in this?"

  "You three men will stay behind in our target's house. This is just in case he smells a rat and tries to outthink us."

  "How would that happen?"

  "I can see him sniffing us out and then let us go while he circles back and hits the house where our target has actually remained. In other words, we send two officers in her car made-up to look like her and her daughter. He follows them and attacks their car at a light. That's what we're hoping for. But what if he sees through this and instead circles back and tries to enter her house? That's going to be your job, the three of you. Protection at the house. Any questions?"

  "Are we it? Are there other officers left behind?"

  "No, we think that carries too much risk of tipping him off."

  "Could be," said Sergeant Haley. "So where's the target during all this?"

  "The smallest girl will be home from school. She'll be with the two older girls and the target inside the target's upstairs bedroom."

  "Are they armed? I don't want to be shot accidentally," said a uniformed officer.

  "She is armed. She has a shotgun and will shoot anyone who comes through the bedroom door without identifying themselves. So here are the ID words we'll use to let her know we're friendlies."

  McMann then gave out the challenge-and-response words they would use. She explained that Melissa already had these and would be ready to use them.

  "Questions?"

  None.

  "Okay, we're done here. You, gentlemen, find an empty conference room and lay out your defense. You'll come on duty in this house tonight, eighteen hundred hours. I'll already be there."

  40

  My head was spinning.

  "Melissa," said McMann when she called me, "I need to meet with you. Be at the Cine-14 at the Mayfair Mall at two o'clock. Theater four. I'll find you."

  “Isn’t that dangerous to leave here?”

  “I have four cars surrounding you. It’s safe.

  "What's up?"

  "You're in danger. Two p.m."

  Nothing more than that, just meet her.

  We'd been warned this might happen, that Velasquez would send someone after me. We'd been warned there would be repercussions over my trip to Mexico and my killing of Javier. Now it was happening.

  It was a jolt back to reality after I'd been spending so much time with my two older girls. We'd been sorting out their lives and were pretty much agreed on a plan. I'd located a GED course in Chicago where Susannah and Lisa would obtain their GED's. Then we would find a junior college. I was thinking of the one in Palatine as it was known for offering remedial summer classes for students who'd been out of high school for a long time. That seemed to fit what my girls needed just right.

  So when the call came from McMann, it shook me up. I was going full-steam with my new family and found myself jangled after hearing there might be trouble again. I wasn't ready for trouble; I was ready for living. Lisa, I had loved since forever. She was a done deal, and I was lavishing time and attention on her like no mother before me. But with Susannah, it was a little different. She wasn't my daughter--at least not at first. But then a funny thing happened: she opened up to me. She responded and began calling me "Mom," and following me around the house like a puppy. The three of us would spend time with mani-pedi parties with the Chinese sisters who made house calls. We all got involved in cooking dinner every night. And we had movie time every weekend where we'd pig out on finger food and British mysteries on PBS. Through all this, they got to know me and my likes, and I got to know them.

  James was fantastic through it all. He was still unhappy with me that I'd insisted on going to Mexico after my grand baby, but then a cool thing happened. Elena took to climbing up on James' lap in the evenings when he was watching the news and dragging her blanket behind her so she could curl up on his lap and doze while he watched TV. Then Gladys would want to be up there too. He floated off into Happy Land and all anger at me just dissipated. My Mexico trip was forgiven, and he was more of a caregiver for our granddaughter and Gladys than anyone else. They had every conceivable toy and doll and dollhouse. But he also got her involved with Gladys riding sidewalk cars and scooters in the driveway whenever he was home. He took them to the Shedd Aquarium. He took them to Disney on Ice. Sometimes Lisa went along, sometimes it was only James and Elena and Gladys. Like I said, the twosome had so enhanced his life it was beautiful to watch. He even asked me if I'd like another child. He reminded me I wasn't too old, and I told him I'd think about it. The truth was, I felt like I already had my hands full, but I also wasn't kidding myself. The two older girls would be out the door and going to college and dating for the first time in their lives, and they would grow away from me. But another child--that sounded very attractive. Especially if this time it was a boy. I would name him James Mark Sellars. And I would call him James Mark.

  Anyway, McMann called me Thursday morning and said she needed to meet me in the Cine-14 at the Mayfair Mall. I was to come inside alone. My bodyguards were to bring me in one of their cars.

  At two o'clock I was in Theater 4 as instructed when McMann came in and sat down beside me. "Let's head for the exit up front. We can talk in there."

  We snuck out the exit and found ourselves in the area behind the screen where cleaning and food supplies were kept in two rooms.

  McMann drew near and spoke in very low tones.

  "There's going to be an attempt on you and Lisa. We think in the next twenty-four hours."

  Oh, my God, I first thought, please spare me from this. But there you were: she went on to explain exactly what they'd learned from Hermione and what they believed it meant. There was a counter-play the CPD would be running jointly with the GPD to intercept and take into custody Ishmael Montague.

  "Custody?" I said. "Seriously?"

  "That's the goal. If he gets shot and killed in the process, it will be a justified homicide. I'll make sure of that."

  I took it all in. But I wondered how ready they were for this. So I asked.

  "Did you follow me here today?"

  "Me personally? No. But there were four cars running a grid on you the whole way. Heavily armed police officers and two SWATs in each car. We were ready."

  That made me feel better.

  "What about my house? What's in place there?"

  "Well, you have your people inside and out, and I have mine on the streets. He can't get within two blocks that we don't know it."

  "So what's our plan over the next twenty-four hours?"

  "There's an official plan and an unofficial one. The official version is we take him into custody, put him on trial for Mark's murder, and lock him up for life plus one-hundred years. That's the official plan. The unofficial plan--"

  "Wait. I think I already know the unofficial plan."

  She smiled for the first time.

  "I think you do, too. I think you do, too."

  When I left there I was convinced of one thing: I was done with all this. All of the fear, the worry, the anticipation of an attack on me or my family—I couldn’t walk another step with all that hanging over me.

  So I began making calls. XFBI was at the top of my list. My contact there, Klamath, told me to come to their office, where we’d make our own plan. The other unofficial plan.

  So I did. I went there and we discussed where Velasquez and his people w
ere their weakest. We discussed the man coming to kill me.

  I could hardly stand to say it. Kill me? Kill Lisa?

  It wasn’t going to happen.

  41

  Thursday night, James and I went to our bedroom early and closed the doors. We felt confident that with the police presence that our home was safe.

  I switched on the big screen and undressed, hopping into bed with only a T-shirt that said LAURA! James crawled in beside me and pulled me next to him. We watched a movie, and toward the end, I knew James wanted to make love. He rolled up onto an elbow when the movie had ended.

  "Tell me how you're holding up," he said.

  I came up on my elbows. "Wow. We need to talk. I've been thinking about all this."

  Then we were sitting in bed side-by-side, holding hands.

  "Let me tell you what I need. Listen carefully, please. First of all, I need you to make love to me. Then I'll tell you my plan."

  The first part was easy. James kissed my face, my chest, teased my breasts and moved his mouth between my legs. For what seemed like hours I belonged to him and to no one. I was free in my own ecstasy and floating across the universe. Then it would pass and then start building again. A half-hour later I was one big orgasmic burnout, I swear. I pushed him away and drew him up onto me. He was very excited. Moving against me and filling me with his penis I could inhale the James I had fallen in love with: the man whose breath and mouth smelled of me, the man whose semen would travel with me even as I went out that night to end this thing. I became his and his alone. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with that gentle soul and with our children--all of them because even Susannah now belonged to us. Then we were finished, exhausted, and we lay there recovering from our spent bodies for a long time.

  I came back to reality, realizing I was staring at the same clouds, in the same full sky I'd had painted on our ceiling after we moved into this house. But for the first time, I looked beyond them, beyond them to the black that appears after we leave the blue behind when we die. Inexorably I felt myself being drawn there, up through the clouds, into the blackness, hoping against hope there would come a light to draw me along.

  Moments later, I was out of bed, dressing.

  "Listen to me," I said to James as he lay sleeping. "I'm going out. You're not. You're staying here with the girls. I could be gone several hours, but I will be back, I promise."

  His eyes opened, and he lifted his head. "What on God's green earth are you talking about, Melissa?"

  I went over and touched the side of his face with the back of my hand.

  "After Mexico, I came home to you, yes?"

  "What on earth, Mel?"

  "After tonight I will come home to you too. Probably before dawn. So please wait here. Say a prayer for me. Say a prayer for yourself and for the girls. Send me positive energy."

  "Where are you going?"

  "I'm going to buy peace. I'm going to put an end to our drama with the Tijuana Cartel and with Ignacio Velasquez. Trust me on this."

  "Mel--"

  He knew better. He knew better than to try and stop me. At the hall closet downstairs, I stuck my hand in and retrieved my bag. It was heavier than I remembered. It was the overnighter that said "Captain's Club" on its side. Something from some airline in some airport somewhere--I didn't remember or care.

  "Evening Ms. Sellars," said Sam Antonio, the burly watchdog of the front door. "Is it time?"

  "It's time, Sam. Are you ready?"

  "I am."

  We opened the front door and went to his truck in the circle drive in front of our home. It was a relatively new RAM with roof lights. It looked like it could handle just about anything we threw at it. So we climbed inside and fastened our belts.

  Sam pulled on through the drive, and the security man at the gate rolled it open electronically. Then we were on the street and speeding up to the T-intersection just east of us. Without stopping at the stop sign, Sam hung a sharp left and floored it. We saw the unmarked car's lights come up on our tail. We were still accelerating. I was watching side streets out of the side windows, looking for the unmarked cars that would be following on either side of our road.

  The pace cars were still with us when we came to the Kennedy Expressway. We blasted westbound a good ten minutes and then finally took the off-ramp to Palatine. At the bottom of the ramp, just before the stop sign, Sam suddenly stopped, backed up, and pulled lengthwise across the ramp, blocking it off. At just that same moment, a dark sedan pulled up just beyond us and stopped. I jumped out and ran for the sedan. As I was jumping in, here came the unmarked cars up to Sam's truck. They turned on their red-and-blue lights and began angrily broadcasting over their loudspeakers for Sam to move his vehicle By then, my new driver and I were across the interchange and heading back eastbound down the on-ramp.

  "Klamath," I said, "it's working."

  "Sure it's working, Melissa. Just like I told you it would. XFBI at your service."

  They were one of the best secret security agencies in the world. XFBI had contacts all across the U.S. And Interpol and Scotland Yard and into France and Germany. They also had an office in Buenos Aires. Klamath, my new driver, had been an FBI agent working counterterrorism until his retirement just two years ago. He still knew everyone, and his contacts could find a needle in any haystack in the world.

  Which is exactly what he had done with Mr. Ishmael Montague. He had found him; he had talked with him; he had held a big gun to his head, and he had made a friend out of a sworn enemy.

  Well, maybe not exactly a friend, but a man who knew what it would take to go on living. That was close enough.

  When we hit the downtown Loop's turnoffs, we zipped off the freeway and headed north. Up six blocks and down into underground parking, then a long elevator ride up to the seventy-eighth floor. I knew the way myself. I had been there after my meeting with McMann that afternoon when something inside me had snapped. Some people call it the last straw, some people call it something else. But what it meant for me—after McMann told me about Montague's enlistment of Hermione in a plan to murder us—it meant that I was done running. I was done with all the killing. Besides, if McMann did manage to kill Montague as she had suggested she might, that would stop nothing. Velasquez would just send someone else after me and keep sending more until I was dead. Maybe he'd even go after the rest of my family; who could say?

  How do you stop a crazy man? You go after the thing that matters most to him. Which is exactly what I did.

  There is a universal currency that men fight to obtain. It's a currency that gets them happy families, gorgeous mistresses, golf club memberships, shiny black cars from Germany and Italy. It's a currency that no man can ever have enough of, that no man can ever stop pursuing. It's built into the male psyche, I'm convinced, and it can open any door in the world. As we rode the elevator skyward, I studied the Captain's Club bag on the elevator floor. This special currency was secured inside.

  At last, the elevator stopped, and we stepped through the doors.

  There, straight ahead, was the simple brass sign beside a simple steel door: XFBI.

  Klamath and I went inside after he had entered a series of numbers into the keypad.

  42

  I was told by Klamath that Montague was being held in a back office. But I would get to look him in the eye before we were done there that night. That was my demand of the agents I'd hired.

  Then the work of creating a crime scene began.

  I was stretched out on the floor, and a forensic tech appeared overhead. Looking up, I thought his eyes looked familiar, but the rest of his face was covered by a surgeon's mask. So I shut my eyes and let him begin. I felt his brush smearing the liquid on my chest and on the side of my face, smelled the sickly smell of the chicken blood as it was applied. Then I was told to open my mouth, which I did. A smear of oatmeal was put there, leaking down the side of my face.

  "Don't move now," said the man in charge.

  The makeup artist then
fixed to my forehead the bullet entry wound he had modeled out of paraffin and acrylic paint. There was no blood around the wound; entry wounds rarely bleed upward when a victim is on their back.

  The forensic tech then arranged my arms and legs and looped a purse around my wrist. Clasped to my chest by my free arm were several file folders that looked like I had just turned away from a filing cabinet when shot. Sure enough, at my head, not a foot away was a filing cabinet. Now the scene was set.

  My eyes were closed. My mouth looked like it was vomiting. A bullet hole sprouted up and out of my forehead. There was no doubt to anyone at the scene: I was dead.

  Photography then ensued. Close-ups of my face, shots of the whole of me against the floor, shots from every angle but the same light that never changed. Which was when they brought Montague into the room and told him to sit down next to me. He did. Using Montague's own phone the forensic tech leaned in and snapped a selfie of Montague with me.

  Then we were done, and Montague was lifted to his feet by two agents.

  Next, I was cleaned up and told to change shirts. All remnants of my murder were wiped, removed, and scrubbed clean.

  Which was when they took me into Montague's room. I had my Captain's Club bag with me containing the currency that no man could ever resist. Especially Latin men.

  They sat me at a desk across from Montague. He was a small man, much younger than I had imagined, with thick black hair combed back from his forehead, full lips below a brushy mustache, and hands that forever rubbed back and forth as he sought some kind of inner peace to ease their restlessness. Immediately I knew him for what he was: a paid killer. There was no light in his eyes, no sign of fear, and neither was there a bemused expression like some men will put on when they're cornered and know the end is near.

  I swung the bag up onto the desk and said to him, "Look inside."

  He did as he was told. Looking inside, he saw something else and looked at it.

  Then he turned as pale as a sheet of copy paper, I swear it. Immediately his face was covered in sweat, and his mouth opened and closed soundlessly.