Box Nine

by Jack O'Connell

  “For Christ sake,” Ike heaves.

  Eva has her hand plastered over her mouth, but as air comes into her lungs and seconds go by, she begins to smile and shake her head.

  Ephraim rushes into the kitchen, finds them in the aisle, and just stares, eyes bulging a bit and lips pulled in.

  Ike lets out a long, heavy breath, slowly reshelves the crime book, nods to both of them, and says, “I’m sorry, sorry, really. God. I didn’t hear Eva come in and when I looked through to the next aisle, I don’t know, I just …” He shrugs the rest of his explanation.

  “I’m sorry I startled you, Ike,” Eva says. “Your message said to come over here and the door was open and no one was at the front desk out there so I …” and she repeats his shrug.

  Ephraim, seeming a little offended that the tranquillity of his shop has been even temporarily broken, frowns at both of them. “This is a friend of yours, Ike?” he asks.

  “I’m sorry,” Ike says again, and before he can make any introductions, Eva grabs Ephraim’s hand and pumps it and says, “Eva Barnes, very nice to meet you. I work with Ike. Very nice place you have here. I’ve always intended to come in.”

  Ephraim stares at Ike and says, “Very nice to meet you, Ms. Barnes.”

  There’s a beat of edgy silence between the three of them until Ephraim says, “If you two will excuse me, I’ve got some things to tend to at my desk,” and leaves.

  They both watch him walk back to the living room, then they look at each other and Eva says, “Are you all right, Ike? I’m sorry, again, I didn’t mean to startle you like that …”

  “I’m sorry I yelled,” Ike says. “It’s just when I looked through and saw your face on the other side of the stacks, I just …” and again he shrugs.

  “I got home and heard your message on my answering machine,” Eva says. “I came right down here.”

  “Yeah, I appreciate that. That’s really nice of you …”

  “It’s not a problem, but what is it you needed to speak to me about? And why here?”

  At the opposite end of the kitchen are two old rocking chairs, overstuffed and low to the ground, the backs covered with Ephraim’s grandmother’s handmade quilts. Ike leads Eva, by the hand, to the two rockers, settles down into one, and indicates with a hand gesture that she should do the same.

  Eva sits and sinks deep into the chair, finds it, surprisingly, just as comfortable as it had looked.

  “I come down here,” Ike says, “when things are bothering me. I come down here to hang out. Think, read. Drink a little with Ephraim. It’s just a great place to be, you know? Some people go to bars, right?”

  “So I’m told,” Eva says.

  “My sister has this weird old diner she hangs out at, you know? She’s never offered to take me there and I’ve never asked to go. It’s her place. Place to think. I just think everyone should have some certain place, some designated area.”

  “It would be nice.”

  “You have any place like mat, Eva?”

  “Nothing that comes to mind right away. Why did you ask me to come down here, Ike?”

  “I’m really sorry to bother you like this. I really shouldn’t have called, I guess. Those machines. Those answering machines. I think you hear this machine and you think, okay, it’s like this middleman between you and the person you’re calling and you can say things that …”

  “What am I doing here, Ike?”

  “I’m really sorry about this, Eva. I think it was that fish today, seeing that fish, and nobody claiming box nine. I’m feeling a little over the edge, if you know what I mean.”

  Eva comes forward in the rocker, leans the top part of her body over her lap, holds her chin up with clasped hands, and stares at Ike.

  “This will sound, you know, not only dumb,” he says, “but, I guess, sort of childish.”

  She stares.

  “I was wondering if you could tell me, talk to me, tell me why the others hate me so much?”

  “The others?”

  “The other carriers, the others at the station.”

  “Rourke?”

  “Rourke, Wilson, Bromberg, even Jacobi. I swear I never did a thing to them. I’ve always tried to be friendly, even help out, you know. I’m union, I pay the dues. I don’t shirk the bad routes. I’m not some loud, insulting guy.”

  “They hate me too, Ike.”

  “Yeah,” he says sheepishly, “but, forgive me and all, but you’re the supervisor, okay? You’re the authority. You’re the boss. There’s a whole tradition there. This is what I mean. If I were in your position, which, by the way, I wouldn’t want, not in a million years, but if I were in your position, I’d be able to understand it. I probably wouldn’t even give it a lot of thought. It’d be—bang, okay, I’m the boss and they hate the boss. But I’m not the boss, I’m just another carrier, and it’s starting to drive me nuts. Why?”

  “I think you’re looking at this the wrong way, Ike.”

  “I think what I want is, like, what’s the word? An overview. Am I using the right word? I want an overview of my personality. I mean, let me come out and say it, I think you’re one of the most intelligent people I know”—Ike smiles—“and don’t let Ephraim hear me say this, right? I’m asking for some help. I’m asking you to identify the problems for me.”

  “The problems?”

  “With the way I act or speak or move. Or whatever. That’s got to be the first step in changing things.”

  Eva sits back in the rocker and it makes a loud creaking noise.

  “I was very pleased when I heard your message, Ike. I took it as a sign, as a good omen, a signal that I wasn’t alone. On my way home from the station I had been thinking about calling you.”

  “Calling me?”

  “Is there any other reason you asked me here today, Ike? Let’s face it, we’re both in that pretty awful position of not knowing how many cards to play.”

  “You’ve lost me.”

  “My guess would be that we’re both operating completely on instinct at this point. We both have information that we’re anxious to share, we’re dying to share, but we don’t know who to trust.”

  “Information about what?”

  “We’re dying to trust someone, and I think that we’ve both got a hunch that at some point, if this thing continues, there’ll come that moment, that leap, that cutting of all nets, when we have to trust someone, it’s an imperative, there’s no alternative.”

  “What thing?”

  “All right, take this moment, right now. My brain has a few avenues it can go down. A: everything is as it seems and you know nothing and you called me to discuss some inferiority problem. B: you’re so scared and confused and justifiably paranoid about what you do, in fact, know, that you’re hesitating over sharing your information with me until you can confirm that I’m on your side or, at the very least, unaware and innocent and not on their side. And then there’s C, which, if it’s the true avenue, I’ve made the big mistake right here in the beginning and the whole thing is over. C Avenue says you, Ike Thomas, are in on it, are part of their group, and you’ve been positioned as an apparent outsider to see how much I know, if anything.”

  Ike squints at her and says, “I don’t get it. I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

  “That doesn’t tell me anything, does it?”

  “I guess I’ve made a mistake here …”

  “You ever been to the Bach Room, Ike?”

  He starts to breathe heavily again. He wants to call Ephraim. He says, “I’m sorry to have bothered you.”

  “What’s the story on the back room at the Bach Room, Ike?”

  “I think maybe you’d better go, Ms. Barnes …”

  “Ms. Barnes,” Eva says, her voice going high and loud. “Oh, please, can we at least address each other properly. Ms. Barnes?”

  “I’ll show you to the door now.”

  “What’s the story, Ike? You call Rourke now? You tell him there’s a new p
roblem?”

  “I’m not feeling too well, really …”

  “You’re going a little green in the face there, Ike. How good an actor are you?”

  “I don’t, I don’t, I have to …”

  He bolts out of his rocker and runs across the room to the stacks. He darts into a random aisle and starts to hyperventilate.

  Eva comes after him slowly and when she finds him, her voice is like that of an older, calmer doctor, reassuring, soothing, a wife’s voice of hope and control and protection.

  “It’s all right, Ike,” she begins, measured, unrushed, slightly above a whisper. “Just sit on the floor here. That’s it, down on the floor, okay, good, now lower your head a little, to your knees, just like that, fine, you’re okay, you’re fine, slow down now, let the air come in, there you go.”

  She ends up on her knees, holding his head against her breast, stroking his damp forehead, pushing back the hair, creating a rhythm with the calm sweep of her palm against his skull. His breath begins to come normally and after a few more minutes, he raises his head from her chest and mouths the word “sorry.”

  They both lean back and sit, cross-legged, campfire style, facing each other in the quiet of the narrow aisleway.

  “Something’s happened,” Ike says.

  Eva just nods.

  “I don’t know anything. I swear to you. But I can’t think of any way to prove that to you.”

  “Neither can I,” Eva says.

  Ike reaches across the space between them and takes her hand. He holds it lightly, lets his thumb run over the skin, the ridges of the knuckles.

  “Tell me anyway,” he says.

  The thing I hate most,” Lenore says, “is when I start breaking my own rules. And that’s what’s happening here. I vowed I wasn’t going to start having conversations with you, okay? I don’t want us to get to know each other. I’m going to get very tense if this continues.”

  Woo gives the same smile she’s seen on his face too many times already. It never varies and it’s one of the most prominent items on the list of reasons she dislikes him.

  They’re back in Bangkok Park, back inside the confines of the Barracuda, and though that’s exactly where Lenore wants to be, it also makes her uneasy. Standard procedure after a shooting would be for her to be relieved at once of any and all field work and start filing endless forms concerning her every move, submitting to hours of internal-affairs interviews, probably having to do ten hours or more with the department shrink for the relief of post-shooting trauma.

  In fact, she feels no trauma at all. She has replayed her actions and decided she acted correctly. Zarelli was in the line of fire. Vicky had to be disarmed. She accomplished her objective. It proved to be a fatal shoot. There’s little control over these things. Though she didn’t ask, Woo has said that the odds are the dosage of Lingo running through Vicky’s body would have proved lethal anyway. If additional consolation is needed, she knows she can consider the fact that, given Vicky’s current life-style and environment, her life expectancy couldn’t have been gauged any higher than another year or so. Eighteen months tops.

  Ten minutes after Vicky’s body is loaded into the ambulance and hauled off for autopsy, Dennison is on the radio with Mayor Welby, of all people. Then Miskewitz gets on the horn and, as Dennison raises his eyebrows so high they could tear, the lieutenant tells Lenore to “proceed with the investigation.”

  So she and Woo end up back in the Park, staring out at the rear of the Hotel Penumbra from her favorite alley, waiting, as long as is necessary, for Mingo Bouza to show his face.

  “Very simply,” says Woo through his smile, “all I’m attempting to ask you is if you’ve given thought to the consequences of your actions.”

  Lenore slouches in her seat, her eyes glued to the Penumbra’s garage. “There’s something about you that’s not right,” she says to Woo. “You just witnessed me blow away a seventeen-year-old girl …”

  “Yes.”

  “ … and you want to know, your big question is, if I’ve thought about what I’m doing bribing Little Max the snitch with some drawings by some local cartoonist. This is what you’re asking me?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Jesus Christ, you are a goddamn idiot.”

  “You are so hostile.”

  “That’s right, that’s correct, and you shouldn’t taunt a hostile person. The danger is enormous.”

  “I’m not trying to taunt you. I’m curious if you’ve carried your actions to their logical ends.”

  “My actions concerning Max and the drawings?”

  “That’s right. I’m looking for an insight into the police mind …”

  “Oh, what is this shit? ‘Police mind’ …”

  “I’m sure this will sound trite to you, but, in fact, didn’t your enticing Max with the artwork constitute a corruption of innocence, something you hate Mr. Cortez for?”

  Lenore can’t believe what she’s hearing. She shakes her head and turns to him. “Woo, I have to know this, you’re thought of as a bright guy, right? You’re a freaking expert in your field, correct? But I sit here and I listen to you and, for Christ sake, to me you’re as dumb as mud. Really. This isn’t just a way of insulting you. This is how I feel.”

  Woo isn’t upset at all. “Continue,” he says.

  “First off, who said I hated Cortez? Did someone hear that come out of my mouth? Mr. Expert on Language? Did you hear those words? Did I fall asleep behind the wheel here and say this and I’m not aware of it? No, sorry, never said it. You’ve made a huge assumption—Lenore hates Cortez—enormous goddamn assumption. Now, beyond that, you, of all people, again, Mr. Freaking Language, Dr. Language, right, you say I’m a corrupter of innocence. Listen, excuse me, I’ve got to say this—Mr. Asshole, okay, Little Max may be young, I’d say he’s fifteen or so, which, I’ll grant you, is traditionally thought of as relatively young here in Quinsigamond. But where does it say youth and innocence are the same thing? You’re Mr. Language, right? Youth. Innocence. Two very different words as far as I can tell. Yep, I bribed a young kid. I manipulated him beautifully, I’m great at that. But I had no dealings with any innocence. Little Max has been a stranger to innocence for quite some time.”

  Woo nods his head, tries to indicate that he’s impressed with what she’s said. “Very good,” he says. “Point well taken. But beyond this, you did use him as an informer. We can agree on this small, simple fact.”

  “We can agree. He’s an informer. I received information from him. I do it every week. I’ll continue to do it. It’s how the job is done.”

  “I’m just wondering how you feel about informers in general.”

  “In general, I think that they’re pieces of garbage that can’t be trusted and are wrong as often as they’re right. I know what you’re looking for here. How do I morally perceive them? That’s what’s underneath your question. Don’t bother to answer. I think they’re contemptible. In general. But I like Max. I would exclude Max from that answer. At the moment.”

  “At the moment?”

  “Things change.”

  “I’m having trouble placing you, Lenore. On the political compass.”

  “You’ve got a hunch I’m sort of this paranoid, McCarthyist creep, a loaded gun. Ticking bomb. Fascist hypocrite. Nut-case libertarian …”

  “I honestly don’t know quite what you are.”

  “Well, let’s leave it that way for the time being. So much more romantic.”

  “Do you use drugs, Lenore?”

  “Of course not. Narcotics officer, remember?”

  “I was wondering what percentage of the enforcers, the policers, were guilty of the crime themselves.”

  “No idea. I don’t know of any. You could probably find a study somewhere.”

  “No doubt. Why have you never married?”

  Lenore can’t help but laugh. Her face crumbles into a huge smile, then she dissolves, laughter coming full from the mouth, shoulders and stomach actually shak
ing. She pulls her noise into a closing whine and says, “Oh, Freddy, Freddy. I think you have a real attraction to violence. You just push and push.”

  Woo loves the reaction he’s gotten out of her. He folds his arms across his chest, pleased, a little proud of himself, she thinks.

  “You’re being wasted in academia. You should be one of those all-night radio guys. Syndicated. Open lines to all of America. Get them on the line and open them up. An audio incision from head to toe. Push and push and get every twisted insomniac to confess all their sins and crimes to the public. What entertainment. You’d be a phenomenon. Ratings history.”

  “I will admit, I’ve always had a strong love of radio.”

  “That would have been my guess. You’re a radio guy if I’ve ever seen one.”

  “You are quite a package of contradictions, Lenore. I suppose it’s no secret at this point that you fascinate me.”

  “I’m trying to picture that sentence coming out of anyone else’s mouth. Can’t do it.”

  “Could we admit a mutual attraction here? Could we both extend ourselves to risk and vent these hazardous feelings?”

  Lenore goes quiet and just stares at him. She opens and then closes her mouth. Then she opens it again and says, “You’re either the most pathetic guy I’ve ever met or you’re over the top, you’re tooling with me and I don’t even know it, you’ve got capacities that I’m just blind to.”

  “And aren’t you curious to know which it is, Lenore?”

  She wishes she had some perfect, hateful line. Instead she says, with little conviction, “You tell me.”

  “Like you said before—things change. I think that’s the bottom line, really. I think everything is in constant flux. I think that nothing in this world is stable. I think maybe the difference between being pathetic and being overwhelmingly in control is a difference of perspective. And that perspective, like a pendulum, will swing from one extreme to the other.”

  He reaches across to her and just barely touches the skin on the back of her neck. He runs a finger lightly down a cord of knotted muscle. If it were Zarelli doing this, a man she’s spent the past several months sleeping with, she’d be driving an elbow into his chest and curing his stupidity. Now, shocked at herself, she comes up with a weak, heartless “Don’t.”