The Tenth Song

by Ragen, Naomi

  Ten more minutes, she thought, feeling a knot grow and expand in her stomach. If he’s not here by then, and I still can’t get through, I’ll start calling his parents, his friends, the police. I’ll walk over to his house. Because thirty-five minutes would mean that some of the world’s unpredictability had finally caught up with them.

  3

  “Seth, come look at this . . .”

  “In a minute, Medgar,” he said without raising his head. “I’m in the middle of memorizing a casemap for Civil Procedures, and I’ve got at least another ninety pages of reading for my contract class. On top of that, I’ve got to meet Kayla in fifteen minutes. So, if it can wait . . .”

  “It can’t,” his roommate answered decisively, tapping him insistently on the shoulder, then pushing a laptop into his face. Seth reeled back in surprise. “What the hell . . . !”

  Medgar, a black honor student from Brooklyn College who had been rooming with him for fourteen months, was levelheaded and quiet, a person who studied hard and respected boundaries. This was totally out of character.

  “Just look at it,” he insisted quietly.

  Seth stared, grabbing the computer with white-knuckled fists. “It’s got to be some kind of mistake!” His eyes pored over the screen, taking in the images and the words in growing disbelief. “My God!”

  “Too bad A. J. Hurling is involved. He’s practically an icon. You know the story: a street hood who rose up from his prison background, founded a successful software company, becoming a role model, a contributor to urban charities. . . . People are going to be outraged that Mr. Samuels involved him in a dirty scheme to fund terror networks who are killing American soldiers . . .”

  It was a nightmare. “People are innocent until proven guilty . . . icon or no. It could just be yellow journalism,” Seth protested weakly.

  “For sure. But once the press gets hold of you . . .” Medgar shrugged, gently prying away his laptop and closing it, erasing the offensive images. “Did Kayla mention anything?”

  Seth shook his head. “I . . . Nothing. She hasn’t said anything . . .” At least not to me, he thought bitterly. He reached for the phone to call her, but it was already ringing. “Father. No, no. I didn’t. I don’t know anything. She didn’t mention . . . I’m just about to meet her. I’m sure she would have told me if . . .” He pressed his lips together furiously. “What is that supposed to mean? She wouldn’t do that. She would never hide something like this, not from me!”

  Even as he said the words, a small doubt crept into his heart. “No, I don’t agree. I don’t think postponing the party is a good idea. It’s not up to Mom! It’s up to us. Look, I’m late for an appointment. I’ll call you later. Yes . . . yes, I’ll think about it. Good-bye.”

  He hung up and immediately began to dial Kayla’s number, but something stopped him. He put down the phone. How was it possible she hadn’t known? Surely her father had warned the family he was in trouble. But it would be better to discuss this face-to-face, he thought, putting on his shoes, his jaw flexing in fury.

  His phone buzzed. He glanced at the screen, his eyes rolling as he considered his options. If he switched it off, she’d just call back.

  “Mother.” He closed his eyes, pressing the phone to his ear. “Look, I’ll know more when I talk to Kayla. Yes, I’m just about to see her. . . . What do you mean? That’s ridiculous! There aren’t going to be any reporters lurking behind the bushes on Harvard’s campus! Why would you say that? She’s my fiancée, and he’s her father! You’re being hysterical.” He fell silent, listening intently for a long time. He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. “Don’t cry. I said I’d think about it! Good-bye.” He turned his cell phone off, then slammed it shut.

  Medgar squeezed his shoulder sympathetically. “Hey, man, whatever I can do . . .”

  “Yeah, thanks.”

  “And Seth?”

  “Yes?”

  “She’s worth it.”

  He shrugged. “Yeah. I know.”

  “See you later, bro.”

  With relief, Seth watched the door close behind him.

  He needed to be alone. He needed peace and quiet and time to make up his own mind and decide what it was he thought and what he was going to do about it. His mother was beyond hysterical. She was talking about calling off the engagement altogether, not just postponing the party. She felt tricked, betrayed.

  “You can’t get involved in this. It will ruin you, Seth,” was what she had said.

  He grabbed one knee to his chest, resting his chin on it, in shock. How could this have happened so quickly, from one moment to the next? What was needed was a cold-blooded damage assessment, he told himself, steadying his nerves.

  There was Brad Atkinson, of Atkinson, Marciano and Lowe, the top law firm in Chicago, who was flying him out for an interview in three days. There was no reason for anyone there to connect him to Adam Samuels. They weren’t married yet. They weren’t even officially engaged—nothing had appeared in the social columns of the papers. In fact, the subject of an official engagement announcement had only just come up. Mostly his mother’s idea; Kayla couldn’t have cared less. And once they were married, she’d have his name.

  The biggest problem, as far as he could see, was all those callback interviews Kayla had set up for herself in New York. She had done so well on the initial interviews . . . Damn! With a swift and brutal motion, he swept his arm across his desk, sending everything smashing to the floor. They’d been counting on two incomes, to pay off their (his, he reminded himself) school loan debt and have a reasonably comfortable lifestyle. Was it cowardly for a person to want to protect everything he’d worked so hard to achieve?

  From his parents he had received amazingly little. Although they lived in a very expensive house in the most expensive neighborhood in Boston, and went on extravagant vacations twice a year, they never bothered to have their children’s teeth regularly checked by a dentist, something he and his sister had paid for dearly once they got into college. His father was a member of several country clubs, and always bid for the highest honors in the synagogue, but refused to give his children a penny toward their college tuition. It would take years to pay off Seth’s loans if he did it alone while supporting a family.

  He was already twenty-five minutes late. She’d be furious or worried. His gut told him to run to her as fast as he could. But something else was in charge of him, he realized. Some powerful tenacious force had wrapped its tentacles around his heart like a python, squeezing out all feeling except self-preservation.

  4

  There was only one other explanation, Adam Samuels thought as he looked at the men who had invaded his office: that he was in the middle of a nightmare. Sometimes they seemed so real: that sinking feel you got when it all turned too horribly complicated to unravel; the feeling of fighting your way to the surface, the blessed realization that all you had to do to unravel it all was simply open your eyes. The problem was, he felt as if his eyes were already open.

  He had been at his desk only fifteen minutes that morning when he heard the voices rising in his outer office. He pressed the intercom: “Is everything all right, Ida?”

  The heavy oak door to his office opened.

  “Mr. Samuels . . .”

  She came in, half-turned around, facing the three strangers who surrounded her like basketball players trying to prevent a pass.

  “Mr. Samuels, I told them they couldn’t just . . . but they insisted . . .”

  “It’s all right, Ida.” He looked at them and smiled, rising from his chair. They looked like colleagues, fellow accountants, in their dark suits, white shirts, and ties. “Can I help you gentlemen?”

  The impassive hardness of their faces betrayed nothing.

  “Are you Mr. Adam Samuels?” one asked politely. He was a muscular man with a large frame that seemed unnaturally confined inside his grey business suit, his belt straining against his large gut.

  “Yes, I am. How can I help you?” he r
epeated, confused now.

  “Mr. Samuels. We are agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and you are under arrest,” the second one said. He was smaller but seemed somehow more menacing, his pale face as waxy as a root vegetable, his small eyes as dark and hard as river stones.

  The secretary made a strangled sound, clutching her mouth with her hand.

  Adam’s head swam. “What?” Then he suddenly relaxed, looking up over their shoulders to the corners of the room, searching for the hidden cameras. “You’re friends of my son Josh, right? From out in Hollywood?” They would show the film at his birthday party. Everyone would be falling out of their chairs in hysterics. He winked.

  The men lifted their eyebrows at each other.

  His heart began to race. “This is some kind of prank, isn’t it?”

  “I’m afraid not, Mr. Samuels,” said the muscular one without expression. “We’re here to take you into custody. We hope for your own sake, you’ll cooperate.”

  “Mr. Samuels!” his secretary said, her voice rising hysterically.

  “Please tell your secretary to go back to her desk and not to interfere, or she’ll be charged with obstruction of justice and arrested.”

  “Ida, please, do as they say!”

  “All right, if you’re sure, Mr. Samuels . . .” Her hands shaking, she closed the door reluctantly behind her.

  “What do you think I’ve done, for God’s sake? Please, can’t you at least tell me that?” he begged.

  “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law . . .” they continued, ignoring him.

  How many times had he watched scenes like this on television dramas? It was impossible to imagine yourself part of it, he thought. All the worries that keep a person from sleeping at night, that fill him with fear and apprehension, never include these things. They are too outlandish and theatrical. Or, perhaps, he thought, there was some kind of self-preservation mechanism that prevented people from envisioning catastrophes on such a scale.

  Adam sat down, barricading himself behind his desk. “Okay then. I’d like to see your warrant please, and some kind of identification.”

  The menacing one took out a piece of paper from the inside pocket of his jacket, placing it on the desk, while the others reached into their pockets, extracting badges with identification. Adam grabbed the paper frantically. A federal warrant for his arrest! And the badges and the IDs looked real enough, but how could you know?

  “Mr. Samuels, don’t make this harder on yourself than you have to,” warned the muscular one, who looked as if he was capable of making it a lot harder.

  “I want to call my lawyer.”

  “You can call your lawyer when we reach our headquarters.”

  Something white-hot and electric spread through him. He felt a fury that filled him with adrenaline. “NO! NOW YOU LOOK!” he screamed. “I don’t know who you think you are, but you can’t do things like this! I’m a U.S. citizen. I’ve got some rights!” He slammed his fists against the smooth wood of his desktop.

  That, he realized too late, was a huge mistake. The muscular one moved quickly around the desk, pulling him out of his chair. Levering his body, he pushed Adam’s head against the wall, pulling his arms backward as he snapped on handcuffs.

  The cold metal burned against Adam’s skin. He struggled to free his wrists, shocked. “You can’t just come barging into a man’s office with absolutely no warning, threatening him. . . .”

  “Yes,” the third man finally spoke, selecting every word with care, “we can.” He was tall and slender, more like a college student than a cop, with reddish hair and blue eyes. He seemed reasonable, not like the others. “We are authorized to do exactly that by the FBI’s Terrorist Financing Operations Section, which was created by the Patriot Act. You and your client have been under surveillance for almost two years for transferring money to support terrorist organizations that are responsible for the death of dozens of American soldiers.”

  “American soldiers? Terrorist organizations?” Adam went limp. He felt breathless, his expression changing from outrage, to confusion, then finally to terror. “This is a horrible mistake, gentlemen,” he pleaded helplessly, his voice lowering from a shout to a whisper. “I don’t have any clients who would be involved with terrorists, who would—God forbid!—want to hurt our soldiers! I’m just an accountant. I’m Jewish. I wouldn’t help terrorists! I’m a Jew! I support Israel! I’m even in favor of the Patriot Act!”

  Not a muscle moved in their passive faces, Adam realized in despair. There was an invisible shield between them. Nothing he could say would penetrate it.

  “At least let me tell my wife what’s going on! I can’t just disappear!” he appealed to the one with red hair, while the others put their arms through his. He felt his feet digging long ridges through the new carpeting as they dragged him to the door.

  “Once more, as my fellow officers explained, we are authorized to discuss all these things with you at headquarters, sir,” the redhead said politely, opening the office door.

  Coffee, recently swallowed, rose back up into Adam’s throat. Suddenly, horribly, he felt his bowels loosen. “Please, can I use the bathroom?”

  They looked at him, expressionless. “Where is it?”

  He nodded toward a door, glad now he had insisted on putting one in his office and would not have to be taken down the hall to the public toilet where everyone on the floor might see him.

  “Just leave the door open.”

  He nodded. “Could you take off the cuffs, please? Just for a moment?”

  The menacing one began to shake his head at the others, but the redhead nodded, unlocking him.

  “Thank you,” he said hoarsely.

  He sat down on the toilet, embarrassed by the explosive sounds coming out of his body. When he was finished, he washed his hands, staring into his own eyes. Who are you? he thought. What do they see when they look at you?

  When he came out, they held out the cuffs.

  “Please, are the cuffs really necessary? I’m not dangerous.”

  “It’s just procedure, Mr. Samuels. Nothing personal,” said the muscular one.

  “Well, at least cuff them in front of me then, not in back.”

  “It’s against regulations.” The menacing one shook his head.

  “But if my nose runs, or my face itches . . . please,” he begged.

  “Cuff him in front,” the redhead told the others.

  He held out his hands gratefully, already behaving like a prisoner, used to the rules, sinking into the new landscape of his life. It swallowed him like quicksand.

  Was this real?

  If it was a dream, it had not all been a nightmare.

  He remembered the part where he had pressed his lips warmly against Abigail’s forehead as she slept before leaving the bedroom that morning; the scent of damp fall leaves crushed underfoot as he walked down the driveway to his car; the chill of the cool leather seats; and the rhythm of the windshield wipers sweeping away the dew. He remembered standing on line in Starbucks, ordering a caramel macchiato for his secretary and his own latte, and how the combined aromas had made the office a momentarily festive place.

  But if it was all real, then how could the universe have participated so fully in keeping his fate from him? There should have been some omen: a razor nick that brought blood, a shattered glass nudged off the kitchen counter, something to presage what was coming. It was the same complaint, he knew, that Holocaust survivors had voiced against the sun, which continued to rise and set, unaffected and indifferent to gas chambers and crematoria.

  He leaned his head against the hard, polished wood of his office door, gathering strength for the ordeal of being dragged out in front of his secretary. Her horrified face and tear-filled eyes made him feel like a murderer fleeing the scene of his crime. Choking on a wad of phlegm, he coughed until his eyes filled with tears.

  “Ida, call Abby!” he called back
to her, as they hurried him out of the office.

  He saw his young associates lean out of their cubicles. Mark, the newest hire, a Stanford honor student, wooed from a dozen other companies, had a look of frozen disbelief. Phillip, who had been with him longest, kindly turned away, hiding himself as quickly as he could. They were young people who had trusted him, putting their bright futures into his hands. Now those futures were tarnished, he thought, wiping away tears of shame. They hurried him into the elevator.

  Any illusion of fighting for his good name was suffocated in an avalanche of howling reporters and photographers who ambushed him just as he left the building.

  “Where did they come from?” he heard the redhead mutter under his breath.

  “Who in our office has a girlfriend that works at the Herald?” the muscular one answered cynically.

  Instinctively, Adam flung his arms across his eyes, shielding them from the harsh flashing lights, the hostile stares of strangers.

  The newspaper editors would choose that one, he thought as he sat in the back of a car with tinted windows, pressed between the thighs of two beefy strangers. The wire services would pick it up. Unless his lawyers could find some way to stop it, by tomorrow morning—or sooner—it would be everywhere, along with heartbreaking photos of dead American soldiers killed by terrorists, illustrating the screaming headlines:

  BOSTON C.P.A. ARRESTED FOR FUNDING

  TERROR AGAINST AMERICAN SOLDIERS

  He imagined his children, his relatives, his clients, his friends in synagogue . . . his rabbi, picking up the paper.

  He imagined Abigail.

  It was inexcusable he’d left that phone call to his secretary. But what other choice did he have? He was under arrest.

  Under arrest.

  His phone vibrated, dancing with festive lights, buzzing away. He knew it must be her. Where was she calling from? he wondered. The florist? The caterer? He imagined her voice, that breathless tone she got when she was busy and joyful with some urgent question about salmon versus mushroom crepes, or whether the flowers should be local or imported. She was so happy about Kayla and the upcoming festivities. He didn’t take this for granted.