The taxi stopped. I swung the door open and shoved Joel inside. He took up all the space. I got into the front instead and said, “Bad night.”
“No kidding.” The cab driver was Somali, and he was on the gas as soon as my door closed. He didn’t need to know what it had all been about back there. He had a job to do and a family to go home to.
I looked in the rearview. Joel had gone fetal in the backseat. My first impression was that his cough was his laugh, but then the coughing got worse, and suddenly he was most definitely laughing.
I turned to him. “What’s so funny?
He cleared his throat, spit on the cab floor. “That guy. Said ‘dude looks like a lady’.”
That made him laugh even more. Cough even more. The driver looked as if he’d made a mistake.
I told him where we were going.
Joel piped up again, this time so softly, I barely heard him: “Like a lady. Dude. Idiot.”
I leaned my cheek against the window, fogged it up, and wondered if that idiot had it right after all.
9
I would’ve had the cab drop us off at my mom’s building if not for the three squad cars lined up along the curb, cops wandering around them, leaning on them. Familiar colors. I’d been driving one for a few years. These were Duluth squads. There was no reason in heaven or hell they should be down here in Minneapolis. Except, well, except if someone annoys the former Chief of Duluth police. Turn the corner, a couple more cars, unmarked but obviously squads. I mean, obviously.
So we rolled on past them and got out a few blocks further down the road, Joel still a little tender. “My ribs,” he said with a smile. “Damn, that’ll wake you up.”
We took a left, hoping to come up behind the building. But why, I didn’t know. We didn’t have anywhere else to go, I guess. Two cops should’ve been able to figure out a better plan, but we weren’t that good at being cops. If we had been, maybe I wouldn’t have been standing there with torn stockings and folded arms, cursing the wind. Joel wouldn’t have been nursing a set of bruised ribs. Sure, a few graver ills might never have occurred either, like all those shootings, but it’s the simple joys you miss first.
Joel called Robin. I leaned in and listened. Lots of rings. Until, “Mm hm?”
“Can you talk?”
“Um, no.”
“They’re here?”
“Mm hm.”
I really needed to pee. I really needed to hold it. “Ask her if they’re, like, tracing us?”
He did.
“No, no.” She spoke flat and low. “Duluth cops, shouldn’t even be there.”
I butted in again. “Are they watching you as well?”
“Yeah, but my phone vibrated, so I went out to the hall before they could see me. They’re talking to your Mom and Marcia. Making threats. Hold on—”
She muffled the phone. A long time. Then, “Where are you?”
“Back of the building.”
“Hold on, I’ll come to you.”
She hung up. Duluth cops threatening the women we loved? Not even on their own turf? That was the thing about paranoia — sometimes you’re not wrong.
I wondered if we should get rid of our phones, like they do in movies. Drug dealers with ‘burners’, secret agents treating phones like they were radioactive. I thought of taking out the battery, or the card, or stomping it to bits, but that’s fantasy. The reality, there’s too much of our lives on these damned things for us to chuck them so easily. They’re our private bank vaults, except much lighter and easies to break into. How many times in real life do the cops not find the baddie’s phone? Think about it.
In the end, I decided to hold on to it. After all the struggles of finding and then fighting for my identity, there was one thing that scared me more than getting caught. Anonymity.
I held the phone tight in one fist, crossed my arms, and squeezed my knees together. “I’ve got to pee.”
“Hold it.”
“Like I’ve got a choice?”
Joel pointed towards the dumpster. “You wouldn’t be the first. Go for it.”
I shut my eyes tight, so tight. Then I opened them and looked around, desperate for a more dignified alternative. But I really had to go. So I ducked behind the dumpster in as much shadow as I could find, pulled down my pantyhose, and strained to keep an eye on the backdoor. My bladder was shy. Little squirts, painful squirts.
Mumbled to myself, “Come on, come on.” The smell of the garbage, sour and sickly. I tried not to breathe through my nose, failed. But breathing through my mouth wasn’t helping either. I was tight down there. Tight and cold.
How many people on the floors above me just happened to look out their windows right at that moment? How many people driving past just so happened to turn at the right moment and see me, finally getting a half-decent stream out? How many people would stress about a simple pee as much as I was stressing that night?
I got enough of it going to relax and start breathing again. I glanced back towards the building, a different angle than where Joel and I had been standing. The hallway leading to the door. I watched Robin, I think — shadows, right? — round a corner.
Followed by two people, one in a suit but no tie, and the other, a woman in jeans and a leather jacket. And goddamn if I didn’t know both of them. My own Loot, ‘Pop’ Mauer, and that bitch Chelsea Tischer, the detective who warned me off in the first place.
Tischer was carrying something. A yellow gun. A Taser?
My stream dribbled to nothing and I tucked myself back in quickly. “Joel!” Through my teeth, a hiss. “JOEL!”
He turned his head, but then Robin was at the door, opening it, and that was that. He started for her. I raised my voice. “No, no, no, wait!”
Even Robin held up her hands, waist-level, as though signaling ‘Slow down, Marine’.
I stayed put, nearly hugging the dumpster, hovering over my puddle of piss, watching, hoping he would get the picture. And then … he stopped. Tischer pushed past Robin, two-handing the Taser, right at Joel’s chest. “Stop, you asshole! Stop! Don’t move!”
Advancing one step after another.
Joel, moving back one at a time, hands up.
Tischer, the plastic stun gun steady, no qualms about letting it go, but …
… too far away for a shot.
“Stay put! Not another step or I will taze you! One more step!”
Then Robin, bless her heart, grabbed Tischer’s arms and shoved them straight to the ground.
“Run! They’ll hurt you! Run!”
Jesus, to be in Joel’s shoes right then. This bitch cop fighting Robin, giving us a little bit of a chance to get the hell out of there. But look! She was elbowing Robin, stomping her feet. Loot Mauer trying to pull his own pistol, one he probably hadn’t fired in ten years or more. Joel stood his ground, fists tightening. Oh no, wrong move.
Especially when Tischer finally freed the Taser and lit up Robin, who squeaked and went rigid as a board. Mauer finally had his gun out, waving it around. “Give it up! No one needs to get hurt! C’mon, guys, for fuck’s sake!”
My mom. Marcia. Up there, held captive.
Robin, pissing herself after getting zapped with fifty thousand volts.
I had to make up Joel’s mind for him.
I bolted out from behind the dumpster and just took off. Fast as I could, yelling behind me, “Joel, now! You can’t help her if you’re dead!” Mauer was still yelling, but it was lost on the wind, while Tischer had given up on electrocuting Robin, who was on all fours anyway, puking her guts out. Joel was behind me, closing. I could feel him there. He caught up. I shouted, “The lake! Bike path!”
We shot out into traffic, nearly clipped by a cab, braking hard, and then a couple others who stopped just in time, my hand trailing across their hoods. We hopped the curb and pumped on through the slush and mud and finally hit the concrete and just flat-out fucking ran.
We were fugitives.
We’d been railroaded.
<
br /> We’d got the rawest of the raw.
And the women we loved, fuck knows what was going to happen to them, all because of us. My heart barely able to take it. I couldn’t imagine what Joel was feeling, watching Robin take a hit like that.
So run we did, motherfuckers. Run we did.
The sirens wove in and out of each other’s rhythm. They would overtake us. They would cut us off. We were fucked.
I was running out of breath much faster than Joel, who’d taken the lead. I had shin splints. My lungs were woefully unprepared, my feet felt like bags of smashed glass. On one side, the lake, a thin line of trees lining it. Across the street, up a steep hill, multi-million dollar homes with spectacular views.
(Obviously, I can only add these scenic observations in retrospect. Didn’t have much of an eye for them while running for my life.)
Joel ducked into the treeline and dropped to his knees. I followed. The slush was a wake-up call.
He leaned close. “They’ll get us up ahead.”
Breathless. “I know, I know.”
“If we double back—”
“They’ll catch us there, too.”
“Listen.”
“I’m telling you, it’s like a net. They’re drawing us in from both sides. We can’t swim for it, for fuck’s sake.”
Joel bowed his head. Hands on his thighs. “Oh god, oh Robin, fuck, fuck, fuck!”
We were done. Maybe a handful of minutes, even less if we tried to run either way.
I looked at my phone, hand shaking badly. I could call Minneapolis police. I could call 911 and tell them I just saw a woman get tazed, not mentioning that a cop had done it. I could say there were people terrorizing my mom. A house invasion. I pressed 9 and 1 and the phone beeped, flashed a message telling me I was out of juice.
Shit.
I was breathless. “We’ve got to, we’ve got to, to, to call the police. The real police.”
Joel seethed. “Those were our people back there! Our lieutenant!”
“They’ve got my mom. Marcia. They’re not our people anymore.”
Joel was shaking. I didn’t expect that. A trained soldier, yeah, but not used to the pressure of being under fire, or seeing a loved one taken down. I mean, neither was I, but I’d already had a wild enough few days, a gnawing in my stomach telling me the end would happen when it happened, no use rushing it. Until now. End of the road. All it would take was standing up, walking out into the street, and holding up our hands. I wondered if they would even bother with an ‘arrest’ at this point. A couple of shots and we’d be out of their hair. Then again, they didn’t know what we knew, and they desperately wanted that knowledge. And full disclosure of who else knew, too.
I laid my hand on Joel’s shoulder, got him to be still. He looked up at me.
“We’re both going to break. It’s okay.”
“What are you talking about?”
“We’re going to tell them what we know. We’ll tell the same story. We’ll hand over the flash drive.”
“We do that … I don’t know, man. That’s what Neudecker wants, right? Squeeze us dry, then two in the head?”
“Our best bet is to do it out in the open, make them think we’re a bigger threat than we are. We need to think of my mother and sister. Of Robin.”
“Lots of bad things can happen once they cuff us. Look at you. What do you think’s going to happen to you, looking like that?”
Shit.
“Got a better idea?”
He laughed a little, but it wasn’t funny at all. “We swim for it.”
The water temp this time of year would’ve killed us. Our bodies would’ve shut down, one organ at a time, trying to protect us but really just making it worse, until our brains were fogged and lost and slipping away and the rest of us just, you know … sank.
If you thought about it long enough, it wasn’t a bad way after all, because by the time it was over, you would’ve already stopped thinking about it and not have felt a thing.
Sirens, moving fast, passing us. Then, footsteps on the path. We ducked behind a tree and just hoped the cop was in too much of a hurry to look this way or sweep a flashlight over us.
Footsteps. Heavy. Closer.
I looked over my shoulder towards the lake, full of crunched ice floes, small dark waves lapping over them. Wondering if this was something I was willing to kill myself for.
Like the accident. The fire. I was so twisted up inside back then that, yeah, I would’ve let it kill me if my family hadn’t saved me.
But this? Who was going to save us now?
Footsteps. Closer still. A small but bright LED flashlight, sweeping over us, making me blink. Then back again.
I was ready to run. I grabbed Joel’s sleeve. Ready to dive into the lake and go until I was done. But then the voice behind the light said, “Hannah!”
The light fell to the ground. Once the red echo on my cornea faded, there he was, a familiar face. Sheridan, the transman bartender, no boat paddle this time.
He swiveled his head left and right, left and right. Crouched down, waved like he was trying to scoop us up. “Come on, hurry, come on!”
So the choice was either him or the cops or the lake … damn, sometimes you just reacted. Instinct, right?
We got up and followed.
Sheridan stayed crouched, and so did we, dripping slush and muck as we approached a silver Kia minivan. Our unlikely savior opened the passenger door just as the side door slid open.
The van was mostly packed, but there, filling the doorway, was an even more familiar face.
Paula.
“Get in. Stay down.”
My blood froze. Why her? What sort of sick revenge did she have planned for me?
“Hurry!”
It was Paula or the cops. I was seriously reconsidering the cops. But Joel gave me a shove and into the van we went.
The others inside made room for us to crawl towards the back. Joel was bigger than me, and we were crunched in tight among a tangle of legs, lots of fancy boots covered with snow. I got a glimpse of Titus driving. Paula slammed the door and turned to us.
“If we’re stopped, shut up. Pretend you’re invisible.”
I nodded, Joel nodded, and then I realized that everyone in the van, man or woman or trans, was decked out like they were going to a New Year’s Eve party — feathery boas, fancy hats, sparkly shirts and sequined dresses. Paula’s scarf was like a cloud hovering under her face, and on top of her head, a party hat, held in place by a rubber band.
We started up again. The quiet took hold for a long moment before Sheridan told Titus, “Alright, pump it.”
The radio suddenly unleashed a bass that rattled my teeth and a synth melody that made my ears ring. Everyone in the van, except for Joel and me, started grooving. I thought I was going to get stomped to death.
Paula led a chant. “Who are we?”
“We’re Viral!”
“What are we?”
“We’re Viral!”
On and on. A couple of people waved glow sticks around, green and pink. It was a nightmare. My family, god knows what those cops were telling them. Threats, lies, blackmail, all to cover one bad man’s bad decisions? I hope the uniformed cops who drove them down got overtime-and-a-half for this.
I curled as far into myself as possible and quietly panicked. Hid my face. I felt the people on the back bench drape purses, boas, jackets over Joel and me.
The passengers chattered away. Chatter, chatter, chatter. Conversations mixing together.
“Have you tried Hola Arepa yet?”
“Excellent, delicious!”
“Soon as we get back, girl, I mean, I want the whole bottle of moscato.”
“You turned off Tickle Torture! I love Tickle Torture!”
“Seriously, try Hola Arepa. I wouldn’t steer you wrong.”
“Need to bump soon, man. Bump with me.”
“Did I pad this bra enough? I don’t think so. I don’t know.”
/> All while Joel and I remained balled up underfoot, barely breathing, aching all over, knowing all we’d done was delay being fucked by a few more hours.
Surprisingly, Joel was first to crack. “Shut the fuck up! It’s our fucking lives at stake here!”
A hand tapped my shoulder. “You’re cool now, sweetie.”
I lifted my head, and there was Joel’s face, like a bull ready to charge. We were not so cool, I guess.
Paula rolled out of her captain’s chair, one she was sharing with another queen of the night, and joined us on the floor. A little banged up from our meeting earlier, but definitely less pale this time. A big smile. I wanted to yank her teeth out with pliers.
“You two are really difficult to save, you know that?”
“Last we met, I didn’t think you were keen on saving me.”
She shrugged. “Call it kidnapping, then. We thought you wanted to turn us in. Sheridan watched those cops pick you up, the pair that’s been following us around. So we followed you. But, sweetie, it looks like someone wants you worse than they want us. Someone like, I don’t know, your former Chief?”
I let out a breath. “Kidnapping, then?”
“Just a little bit.”
And on we drove, the party van.
We were Viral … whatever the hell that meant.
10
So hard to keep track of where we were going. A glimpse through the windows above didn’t tell us anything. Just streetlights, flaring past one by one. Buildings, tall, stone, old.
The party atmosphere had died down to silence, good ol’ sober silence. Not a lot of talk, except Paula apologizing for Titus back at the bar, what he’d tried. Promising they knew whose side I was on now. I gave them the back of my hand — not literally, but, I was like, “Prove it” and She was like, “Bitch, you’re in my van, now, aren’t you?”
“Kidnapped,” I said.
“How many times do I have to—” A big huff, then: “I got Minneapolis cops on my ass, and you’ve got Duluth cops on yours. If that’s not making us work together, I don’t know what will.”
Castle Danger--Woman on Ice Page 24
