There would be no way for her to understand that this moment might generate nightmares for me, too, how close I am right now to possibly losing her forever. Anything goes wrong—the marshal returns, I lose this margin of trust, one of our crew comes bursting through her door—and the result will be one from a collection of disasters.
She takes the robe.
I walk away and keep my back to her, surprised at how aware I am of the sound of the fabric being pulled from her body, the smooth swish of something being dragged against her skin.
“Can I ask you a question?”
“You may,” she says, my signal to turn back around.
“How’d you know I was on to you back in Maryland?”
“What do you mean?”
I run all of Gardner’s knowledge and accessibilities through my head, try to determine which person in my family was next to receive the very information I used. “In Columbia. How did you know I was following you?”
She licks her lips and shakes her head, squints in confusion like she’s trying to solve two puzzles at once. “I had no idea who you were until a few minutes ago.”
I look down and try to understand what might have happened. “You mean, someone else from my family threatened you?”
“No.”
“Then why are you being relocated?”
The confusion in her eyes suddenly disappears and she looks at me like a child deciding whether to tell her parent the truth or fortify an existing lie. “I, uh… I decided I was bored and needed a change.”
The truth not only sets you free, it occasionally launches you from your prison. “You mean… you made up a threat to get the government to relocate you, to get you a new identity.”
She pauses, then nods. “Yeah, pretty much.”
“Because you were bored.”
She barely grins, seemingly surprised at her talent for manipulation. “Yeah.”
This might be the biggest rush I’ve ever felt with a woman, the closest I might’ve ever come to finding a female so closely aligned to my own way of life. She’s almost a criminal.
“Stickin’ it to the man,” I say as I offer my palm for a high-five, a move I immediately regret, though we both seem taken aback when she weakly slaps my leather-covered hand, more of a wipe of her palm against mine, but it is the very first positive shared physical contact she and I have had, the first time she reached out to touch me. And I imagine she’s thinking the same thing I am: This person is real. For these few seconds, I have disconnected, lost an understanding of time and place—certainly lost a sense of urgency; somewhere out there are marshals and Bovaros and bullets. “You’re all right, girl,” I say, returning myself to the moment.
I need to look out the window again and make sure the marshal is safely distanced, but I can’t stop staring at Melody, the way she is trying to read my eyes, the look on her face that shows a sign of hope that the punishment she’d anticipated will not be forthcoming.
“You’re not going to kill me, are you.”
Her brave statement chops the connection, frees me up. “Please. If I’d come here to kill you, you’d be fighting rigor mortis and I’d be halfway to Brooklyn.” Truth: If anyone else had come here to kill you. “You think that fed they got protecting you is gonna step in and save the day?”
I pull out my cigarettes and stare at them, realize my addiction is out of control; it takes everything I’ve got to shove them back in my jacket.
“Sean’s a good guy,” she says.
“Yeah? Then go have tea and crumpets with him. But don’t trust the man with your life. He’s not a good marshal.” She wipes her eyebrows and forehead. “I think what you really meant is he’s the good guy, the way you see me as the bad guy… but I’m going to convince you that I’m actually the better one.”
She holds her ground, is tougher than anyone I ever had to bang around; I find it really distracting. “I think you’re underestimating the situation you’re in right now,” she says.
I’ve really got to look out the window again, but I’m playing this hand out, willing to take a real risk if it means leaving an impression on Melody.
“Look,” I say, “I’ve watched a lot of feds over the course of my life. They’ve lingered around our homes and neighborhoods like unwanted relatives, like party crashers, and I can tell you this guy they assigned to you is distracted, completely uninvolved in your case.” I hold out my arms to put myself on display. “Obviously.”
“I trust him.”
I walk right up to her. “C’mon, you feel safe right now?”
She looks into my eyes, then drops her head halfway down, then finally all the way to the floor. She shakes her head slowly. “No.”
I let it sink in, allow a moment to pass before I slide toward the door and say, “Get a good night’s rest. I’m coming back for you in the morning. I just wanted to let you know I was here—and that you’ll need to leave with me. I’ll explain tomorrow, but please understand: I’m your only chance.”
One last look out the window—he’s still on the beach, but starting to move—and the doorknob is in my gloved hand.
“Wait!” Melody gets to her feet. “What do you mean?”
“What confused you, Melody?”
She looks at me like she just got unexpected results from a pregnancy test. Her eyes are locked on my face and her lips are moving slowly, like she’s repeating something to herself; it occurs to me that it’s probably been who knows how many years since someone has called her by her real name. It’s like I flipped a switch.
Finally, she says, “Where, uh… where exactly do you think you’re taking me tomorrow?”
I can’t tell if she’s trying to pry information to leak to the marshal. At this point I just want her to consider what I’m offering, to think about why I’m here, why I’m letting her go. To want to know more in the morning, to ask me why I’m her only chance.
“A road trip,” I say. “Melody, listen—I want you to believe me on one important thing, okay? I am not going to hurt you. But you have to come with me in the morning, and we’ll have to move very quickly.”
She catches me off guard with her response. “Ludicrous. What about Sean? What on earth would I tell him?”
“Nothing. Just have breakfast with the guy and tell him everything is fine. Don’t worry. I’ll come and find you. I’ll explain it all later.”
“You seriously don’t think he’ll find out about you? Please.”
I wave her toward the window, flip up a slat of the blinds for her to look out. “Are you telling me that guy is gonna be your hero?” We both watch as he picks up a handful of shells or stones and chucks them into the Chesapeake, one at a time.
The only thing more pathetic than his substandard protection of his witness is Melody’s defense of him: “He probably just misses his wife. Marshals are just as human as anyone. He probably needs some time to chill out.”
“Sure, whatever. But that guy isn’t married.”
“He is, actually.”
“Actually, no.”
“Actually, yes.”
Gardner better be right. “He is absolutely not married, Melody. What, you think only the feds can do research or check someone out before getting involved?”
I leave Melody there, slip out of the room without a single tick of a latch or creak of a hinge. I pull the door behind me as she stares at the marshal, her shoulders now slumped, the realization setting in that she is going to be let down again, that not one person in her life really cares about her safety, really wants her to live, wants her to be happy, wants her to escape.
Until now.
I drop down and creep under the window to her room, to all the rooms, sheltered by a burly hedgerow likely planted during the Carter administration. As soon as I open the door to my car and slide down into the seat, I start stripping: the gloves, the jacket, my outer shirt. Down to a T-shirt and jeans, I can’t stop the sweat, can’t slow my heart, can’t catch my breath.
&
nbsp; As I watch the marshal, a mere dot in my field of vision, I realize my body’s reaction to this event has nothing to do with him, is in no way related to having narrowly gotten in and out of Melody’s room, not related to the worry and concern of freeing her from this particular crevice of the country they swept her into. I know this because I can’t stop recalling every word Melody and I just shared, replaying every interaction and dialogue in my head. I have spent the last twenty years gradually getting closer and closer to this woman, like a slow journey across the country beginning with the Atlantic, now finally ending at the shoreline of the Pacific. Yet we will continue the journey west; tomorrow, her hand in mine, we sail.
I turn the ignition of my car, thrilled I traded in my former vehicle. The Mustang would roar, a lion entering and announcing its takeover of new turf; the Audi purrs like a cat, hiding somewhere nearby without your knowledge, a nimble blur that flies by when you turn your head. And as the marshal stands and brushes the sand from his pants, I slink across the parking lot and disappear.
I drive south on Route 13, really the only direction I can go; I don’t want to retrace my steps to the north, within a mile the east becomes an inlet to the ocean’s barrier islands, and I’m currently where the westbound lanes end. The early morning air is thick with salty moisture that my air conditioner works hard to remove. Less than a minute of driving and I hit the tollgate for the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel. I wind over to the only manned booth, see not a single car coming or going. I hand a twenty to an elderly woman who makes no eye contact, grab my change, hit the gas and go.
For seventeen miles I am floating above and drifting below the Chesapeake Bay. I do not see other cars or trucks, I do not see land. I drive alone, fast. The strings of lights in the tunnel sections whiz by, flash like an old movie projector, have the look and sensation of a child’s version of time travel. I can’t help thinking this must be how Melody has lived so many moments of her life, being transported somewhere. Being transported elsewhere.
And sure enough, as I emerge from the second tunnel and rise to the top of the last bridge, I see the other side, the land that lines the bay on the Hampton Roads area of Virginia, and for a moment I wonder if I really did travel across time, unsure of how this urban place can reside so near to one of the most rural parts of this country, separated by nothing more than a twelve-dollar toll. As my wheels touch down on land again, the landscape is draped in homes and businesses and multiple distant skylines. I will drive until I fall right into the middle of one.
Norfolk, Virginia, becomes my destination. I drift through the empty downtown streets, crawl between the unlit skyscrapers, and easily make my way through this nightlifeless city. I descend floor after floor of the parking garage beneath the Waterside Marriott—a building standing twenty-four stories, one of the tallest towers in the city—and park in a distant dark corner.
I take the elevator to the lobby and approach the desk. The lobby is paneled and mirrored and well lit, a double-tiered staircase cascading down from several stories up, too nice a place, really, to provide a hoodlum a few hours of rest before a kidnapping.
Behind the desk, one man and one woman stand at attention, both in their forties, look like they could be siblings or a married couple truly on their way to becoming one, and both stiffly smile as I approach. They wear tags displaying their names—Chad and Melissa—and labeling them both as managers.
Exhaustion is upon me, has me delivering my needs in single words.
“Room,” I say under my breath, like I just walked into a quick pillow.
“Reservation, sir?” Chad says.
“No.”
“Any preference for room type?”
“Eh.”
“We have many rooms available. Would you prefer a higher or lower floor?”
“Whatever.”
“North- or south-facing?”
“You’re killing me, Chad. I just want a bed.”
We go through the usual back-and-forth of their request for a credit card, which I never provide, which they explain is required in case additional charges are incurred, which means I usually fork over a wad of cash to cover it, which embarrasses them and eventually has them give way; this is why the rest of my family crashes in dumps when on an assignment.
“We’d be happy to take your bags up for you,” Melissa says. I look behind me like there might actually be something there. “Right,” she mumbles, handing over the room card. “Enjoy your stay. Elevators are just past the desk on the right.”
I rub my eyes as I walk, press the call button for the elevator, and wait in front of a closed store, a guest facility that carries higher-end clothes for men and women. I stare through the dark window at a headless mannequin wearing a sundress quite similar in style to the one Melody wore in Kentucky the day Willie and his friends pursued her. With a flash, I see Melody in it, and I remember how it fit her adult body, how she could’ve sold the style to the world by doing nothing more than wearing the dress in public.
The elevator bell dings, and as the doors slowly open it occurs to me that Melody has no more baggage with her than I do. I watched her walk into that motel room with a small plastic bag and nothing else—couldn’t have contained much more than a single change of clothes—and some of what she did have were now cold and wet. I recall my memory of her room; I don’t remember seeing clothing sitting out on the bed, the dresser, the floor. Nothing.
The elevator doors close.
I walk back to the desk. “What time does the store open?”
Melissa types something, doesn’t look up. “Nine o’clock.”
“I will have checked out by then.”
Melissa glances over at Chad and he scrunches his nose and nods at the same time. “Just ring it all up here,” he says to her.
I go back and stand at the store window, stare at the sundress while Melissa walks over with the key to open the place. I wait while she slides over the glass door, disables the alarm.
“No time to pack?” she asks.
I walk in and start surveying. “Not for me, for my… girlfriend.”
“Okay, what can I ring up for you?”
I point to the window. “That sundress.”
“What’s her size?”
I bite my lip a little. “Not entirely sure. I don’t know her that well.” Melissa stares at me like I’m wasting her time. “I mean, I don’t know those particular details yet.”
She takes a deep breath, prepared to play twenty questions. “Is she tall or short?”
I stare at the dress, recall the tags of garments she’d shopped for—the sixes, the eights, the occasional ten—drop to the low end assuming a likely loss in her desire to eat.
“Size six,” I guess.
Melissa opens her eyes wider. “Okay,” she says as she reaches for one off the rack. “I’ll ring this up for—”
“Wait a minute.” I walk deeper into the racks. “And a sweater, she’s gonna need a sweater.”
She sighs through her nose, turns to the nearest stack of pullovers, holds up some brown thing with a knit pattern that looks like an eighteen-wheeler left its tire prints down the center. “This is very popular right now.”
I wave her off. “She’d never wear that.” I look around for a second and unfold a green Ralph Lauren sweater and hold it up. “This… is something she would wear,” I say. “Yeah, this is her.”
Melissa laughs quietly. “Okay.”
“And jeans,” I add.
“Okay, trust me when I say that’s going to be a waste of your time. Women like to try on—”
“She’s about five foot six or so, got very proportional legs, you know? I mean, not very muscular, but the kind where you like seeing her wear shorts.” I stare at the pile of jeans on the table. “And the kind of hips for pulling someone close, that, sort of, perfect place for resting your hands.” I drift off a little. “And a full, round…” I look up, open my hands to the air.
She grins with a motherly approv
al. “Sounds like you know her better than you think.” Melissa starts getting into it. “Okay, so, like, maybe a lower-waist kind of thing?”
“What about undergarments?”
Melissa frowns a little. “Are you serious? Jeans are one thing, but bras and panties? Women really like to have what works for them.”
“You’re gonna have to help me out here.”
“You two seem to have a real packing deficiency.”
“Yeah, well,” I say, as I start playing with the sheer fabric of the sundress, “we’re running away together.”
With two bags in each hand, I slip the card between my knuckles and slide it in the reader to my room, kick the door open and the lights automatically come on. Turns out Chad took advantage of my I don’t care disposition and booked me a suite when all I really needed was a bed and a shower. The room has a king-size poster bed and a separate seating area with a pair of loveseats facing each other near a gas fireplace. The bathroom possesses toiletries for every possible skin type, a jetted tub, and a shower suitable for a small party. From the twenty-first floor, my window overlooks the Norfolk waterfront, a brick version of a boardwalk lined with shopping pavilions and restaurants and boat slips, a city center so inviting and pedestrian-friendly it reeks of planned development, of a calculated design assembled by some architect who rarely visits the city, who doesn’t appreciate the practicality of things like loading zones and alleys.
I stare at the deserted waterfront. In New York dollars, a condo with this view would cost seven figures and carry a thousand-dollar monthly fee, no matter how run-down the building, no matter what street it claimed as its address. Chad probably thought he was doing me a favor by giving me such an elegant and lofty room, but all he did was shellac my already vulnerable and exposed grain of guilt. Such is the nature of Melody’s life, of mine: She suffers tonight in a dank motel room, missing all of the necessities and niceties most women would request, guarded by a half-wit protector; I live in prosperity and comfort, will sleep the next few hours in a bed with a plush mattress and a new down comforter, will have a fresh breakfast delivered to my door as I shower. No two lives should be reversed more than ours.
The Exceptions Page 15
