I gawked at her. Forgetting how to operate my tongue or jaw.
“Shall I call downstairs?” said the nurse. “She may still be there.”
I could just about bob my head. Every thought extinguished except: she’s dead.
I watched the nurse dial the phone, talking into it, as if I’d never seen such a thing before. She’s dead she’s dead. The mouth was moving as the hand hung up the phone.
“—up shortly, it took a while to pump her and she’s in the recovery unit now.”
She seemed to be smiling again.
“Wait in the TV lounge down the hall?” she said. “I can let you know when—”
I followed her arm as it pointed. “Yes, thanks,” I garbled.
In the deserted lounge, we tried to behave normally. We stared at the TV. It was the last time I’d see American television for a long while, but I didn’t think about that then. I could only think about M.
I HAVE NO DATA ON THIS, BUT I WILL ASSUME THAT THE AVERAGE MAN spends little time reflecting upon redemption. In this respect, then, I am not an average man. In this respect, I occupy a spot on the higher end of the bell curve.
I smacked Zach Fehler hard, and that was a bitter betrayal. I’d asked him to trust, then sent him reeling. His little face turned scarlet, his little legs splayed on the floor.
But Zachary wasn’t the first small being I misused.
Because before Zach, I’ll have to count Baby Zero. The quintessential child. A tyke I’d betrayed from day one, more or less. Since the day he was birthed in my dad’s testing lab, amid gaily colored wooden puzzles and knobbed building toys.
I’d been in charge of that bright baby’s fate. And I’d forsaken him. I let him wander in the wilderness for thirty years, give or take, then descend to an underworld, the basement of a prison.
So, yes, redemption had been a growing concern of mine for some time.
When M first entered that basement office and reentered my life—this person, this womanish incarnation of my teenage dream, fallen to the wolves, gone to the devil—I understood. M was my remedy. Through her, I would set it all right. Here, at last, I could rise up and do true good. Change a human life for the better, in the most unmistakable terms.
A MAN WAS INFORMATIONALLY SETTING CAR WAX ALIGHT WHEN THE reception nurse came to fetch us. I folded my fingertips into my palms so she couldn’t see my nails, bloody from nervous picking. “Your client is resting in 403. She’s groggy, in and out. Took a whopping dose, guess she really wanted to get the job done.”
I attempted a little grin. As soon as the sound of her footsteps trailed off, I stood and wheeled Clyde around. “No bright ideas,” I whispered.
“Aye-aye,” he muttered.
No bright ideas were needed, I have to say. The plan flowed like a dream, as if God himself had written the screenplay. The CO on duty turned out to be a wan-faced rookie, name tag Jenni O’Dell, a slip of a girl who had pulled the night shift because (as she told us, whimpering at the point of my unloaded gun) it was only her second week on the job. I wheeled Clyde into the room and flashed my prison ID. “The superintendent notified me. She’s been under my care for a while.”
O’Dell nodded. “Gotcha, sir.”
“And this is Clyde, my brother.” Clyde lolled his head.
“Gotcha.” She eyed him. “Well, I hear she’ll make it. Don’t know why anybody’d do such a thing. Guess you do, though, Doc, guess that’s your job.” She flashed a smile, pleased at her own wit. She locked the door behind us, then returned to the chair by the window and her word-search puzzle book.
M. Her arms looked limp and translucent as raw shrimp, resting atop the snowy bedding, locked at either wrist to the bed rails. Her eyes slit, a lock of her hair plastered near her lips with spittle.
I called her name. Her eyes moved toward me, but didn’t seem to see me.
Unzipped my jacket pocket, gripped the gun. I think I uttered a small prayer. My palms were exuding a kind of grease, and chilly sweat tickled the nape of my neck. “Jenni,” I said, tugging the gun loose from its hiding place. “Please don’t move. I have to take this woman now.”
The guard looked up from her puzzle, confused. She stared at my gun, and this didn’t seem to faze her, but when Clyde leapt up from the wheelchair beside her, she let out a little yelp. She dropped the book. “I’ve got a toddler,” she said.
“No fear, Jenni,” said Clyde. “We’re nice guys. We’ll need your belt, though.” He began to remove his pants. Jenni O’Dell began to whimper, but undid her duty belt with scrabbling hands and laid it on the bed, her eyes on me and my gun. Clyde removed the belt’s metal cuffs and ratcheted them around the guard’s wrists.
“Really,” I said soothingly. “Now sit.” She did as she was told. “This is going to be harmless.”
Clyde was finished taking off his clothes, revealing the second pair of pants and T-shirt he’d worn beneath (LIFE IS GOOD, a dancing stick figure assured us). The baggy pants and denim shirt hung over the end of the bed. He stuffed Jenni’s duty pistol and radio into my roomy cargo pockets. I took her ring of keys, handed him the Russian gun. This made Jenni cry. Clyde smiled at her. “It’s really okay,” he insisted.
“Which key is it, Jenni,” I said.
“The ovalish one,” she said in a quavering voice.
I leaned over M, brushed that spit-stiffened lock of hair from her expressionless lips, unlocked the restraints from her arms. “You’re alive and you’re almost free,” I whispered. Then I pulled down the blanket. White hospital gown sprinkled with dark blue dots, pale skinny legs. I slid Clyde’s cast-off pants onto her legs, tucked the gown in around the waistband, but when I tried to slide her arms into the sleeves of the overshirt, she seemed to moan. I kept at it, whispering to her. I pushed the wheelchair over to the bedside; Clyde and I lifted her into it, her limp warmth reminding me of when I’d ease poor Truffle out of my favorite spot on the couch.
I pulled the rain hat low over her face. “Beautiful,” murmured Clyde. “Now her,” he said, motioning to Jenni, “and we’re out.”
“Oh, God,” whispered the guard.
“Shhh,” I took her elbow and urged her into the bathroom, sat her down on the closed toilet seat. I taped her legs to the base of the toilet. I comforted her as I began sealing her mouth with the duct tape. “Now the worst part of this whole thing will probably be when they take this off. But it’ll only last a second.” She regarded me with untrammeled panic. I felt a pang of deep, scouring guilt. “You’re supposed to sit here and count to one hundred.” I turned to shut the door. Her eyes pleaded. “I told you this wouldn’t be so bad. Thanks for your cooperative attitude.” I wedged a chair under the knob.
“Are we ready?” I said to Clyde.
“Yup yup,” he nodded.
Peeked into the hallway, which stretched empty in both directions, faraway laughter from the TV in the lounge, trilling telephone around the corner at reception. I gestured to Clyde to get going. “See you down there, buddy,” he said.
“Don’t run,” I whispered.
He headed left out the door and walked down about fifty feet to the hall’s dead end, where a stairwell led down to the first floor. From there, he was just a quick trot through the lobby to the parking lot. I gripped M’s chariot, pulled the rain hat a bit lower over her face, and wheeled her out toward reception and the elevators.
The nurse was bent over some paperwork as we rounded the corner, her long dark braid swinging over one shoulder. I pressed the button, angled M’s chair to face the lift doors, and as we waited for the elevator, the nurse looked up.
“Have a good night, Doctor,” she said, and focused again on her work.
The lobby, with its clusters of relatives lounging around and the hum of a floor polisher pushed by an aged janitor, seemed a wider expanse than before but in a moment the glass doors were sliding open like the gates to someplace miraculous and I was pushing across the glistening parking lot, through cones of orange light.
Clyde had the car’s motor already running. “You’re doing great, you are superb,” I said to M as we lifted her into the back seat.
Elation, the elation one feels when one is suddenly aware of being in the midst of a very pleasant dream, overcame me as I folded the wheelchair in the trunk. I was grinning like a fool when I heard a voice behind me just as the latch closed.
“Frank, they called you already about this?”
I turned. Charlie Polkinghorne, his face half shadow, half tangerine glow. Trench coat held closed with one hand and an umbrella aloft in the other. I remembered the rain was still coming down, that I was getting soaked again. I stared at him.
“She did it again. Terrible.”
“Yes, yes.” I thought about the gun—the loaded one, Jenni’s gun—in my pocket.
He looked at me and up at the sky. “You don’t believe in rain gear?”
“Just—rushing, you know—” I glanced over my shoulder, I could see Clyde craning his neck back at us.
“Come out of the rain,” said Charlie, pulling me under his umbrella, close enough so I could count the individual hairs of his scanty brows. “Look, don’t be too upset about this client of yours. You’re too hard on yourself. She’s clearly determined to leave us behind, you can’t stop someone when they’re that determined, right?”
“Right. Thanks, Charlie.” I fumbled for his hand, pumped it a few times. “Now I’ve really got to run.”
He clutched my hand, a surprisingly powerful grip. “Sheila’s kicked me out.”
“Oh, God, I’m sorry,” I said.
“Could I bunk with you for a few days, do you think, Frank?”
“Sure, can we talk tomorrow? I’ll come by your office.” I wriggled my hand away, backing toward the car. I turned and dashed, climbed in behind the wheel. I backed out of the space, Polkinghorne still standing there, a gray specter in the rain. We slid off into the waterlogged darkness. The black, soaked, delicious night.
20
December 1999
Curled up in the back seat of the car. Noting every little divot in the road, cradled in the aroma of new leatherette upholstery. Lights above the highway swooping past, telephone poles, leafy boughs slithery with drops.
“Nothing means anything anymore, you’re saying?”
“Come on.”
“You’re worse than he is. He’s evil. You’re spineless. I’d rather have evil.”
“Evil? Jesus Christ, Barb. A tad melodramatic, don’t you think? When’re you going to stop busting my balls.”
“You must be mistaken, Edward. You bartered those off to the Nigerians in that oil lobby deal.” Imitating him now. “Oh, no, they’re not dictators, honey. They were duly elected!”
The jolt of the brakes. “I’m getting out. Go torment Karsten Brunner.”
“Murdered your daughter, then lied about it. But so what? You can’t live without him. His goddamn lunches at the White House. Upstairs in the private quarters. The private quarters! How could you be so shallow. You weren’t like that when I met you.”
“I was nineteen and stupid when I met you, dear. And you were exactly the same. Which is why it was a beautiful match.”
The ignition off. The door opening.
“You’re not getting out here. What are you doing?”
“Tell your daughter I said good-bye. Hope she’s still asleep. Nobody should have to listen to this bullshit.”
The door slamming. The rain clicking like a diligent typist on the rear windscreen. The hiss of cars speeding past.
MIRANDA BOLTED UP. THE PAIN CAME A MOMENT LATER, MADE HER gasp. “Where’s he going?” she cried.
“No, no, you’re not up.” Frank Lundquist’s voice, many miles away. “That’s my brother, Clyde. Don’t worry, you’re asleep.”
Miranda watched the long-legged man springing up a flight of stairs. A suburban rail station, an empty parking lot. The car began to move again.
Oh. She was dreaming. The night-saturated world flowed outside the window, Frank Lundquist turned a steering wheel this way and that, she was slumping in a roomy back seat. She felt that dream-drowned sensation wrap her, the dark curtain, the leaden limbs. She oozed back down to feel cool vinyl against her cheek.
A few minutes later: My face is wet, I’m crying.
She marveled at these sleep-conjured tears.
Later, the dream car ceased its mumbling and she rose up again to see the man who seemed to be Frank Lundquist gathering up a gun, a handheld walkie-talkie, a circle of keys—of course, so familiar, the tools of the CO’s trade, that’s what had stirred her drowsing attention, the chiming sound of the keys. Milford Basin, that sound. April. Lu.
He opened the car door and stepped out, then flung the gun then the radio then the keys then somehow a second gun into a stretch of black water bounded by fencing and concrete barriers. Must be as many guns as stones in the waters of this country, she thought, and then she felt all the world crumbling away from her again, abandoning her, consigning her once again to nothingness. As she slumped, slid rapidly into the hole, pulled by whatever hole-dwelling force so coveted her, she got one final glimpse: the white flower on the black water, then waiting on the cool car bumper, the car stopped on the bridge across the Oshandaga. The police cars scattered blue light across the river as they approached.
“FOR A JUNKIE, HE DID GOOD, YOUR BROTHER.”
“And this is the lady.”
“Yes, this is the lady.”
“Look, her eyes, is she out or not?” This voice was deeper, words jammed up with strange accents. Through thick screening—eyelashes—brooms and pails and shelves of boxes. In the corner, a heavyset woman looking up from her knitting.
A hand on her face. Frank Lundquist’s voice: “No, yes, I have more to give her.”
“Don’t,” she whispered. Her throat was paper cut.
He shushed her. Don’t you dare shush me, she thought.
“Leave it,” the deeper voice. “We will do the photo, we need eyes open anyhow. Ani hhhow”—he said it a bit like Lu, she thought.
“Miranda, you’re safe now.” His hand on her face, his face in her vision.
You did this, she thought. What did he do, though? She could not pinpoint it.
He turned his Frank Lundquist face away. Music making a winding circuit of her ears. Standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona, such a fine sight to see.
A pale young man made a little bow before her. “Don’t worry now,” he said. “We make the picture, we make the passport, no problem. Look here,” he said, pointing to a little picture of a white-washed village nailed in the center of a wall stud. Flash stabbed her barely there eyes.
He drugged me. He stole me. He stole me! She tried to say this out loud. Did anyone hear?
“I’m giving you some water,” he murmured. “Don’t try to talk, your throat, gastric lavage, the pump, is hard on it. Shhh.”
Don’t you dare shush me, she thought. But she did drink, because her throat burned and her thirst suddenly controlled her.
Another face came close, with dark stubble, lush jowls, a gray tooth front and center in the mouth as it spoke.
“Miss, you are out of the joint, so be happy. Be quiet. Me included, some people have put out necks and nuts for you.”
The eyes in this face, remarkable. Darkest she’d ever seen.
“You will be happy and quiet. What this Frank Lundquist has done for you, you will thank him every day you have left on this Earth.”
“Jimmy,” she heard Frank say.
“She needs to know. Lady, this is a done deal. No smart thinking from you, just be happy and glad, because he has fixed it so you can live free.” The face started to fade but still it was her death in his eyes so she looked. “You start thinking too smart, it’s over for you, because I don’t give shits for you. You get this.”
“Okay, Jimmy, okay. She’s got it.” Frank Lundquist swam into her view; she closed her eyes tightly, only felt his warmth now, head on his toasty bone-and
-meat shoulder. The world was going down again. But before it collapsed entirely, she saw the girl, flying. Straight across the center of sight, just behind her shut-tight eyes. She saw and she understood.
21
If Ethical Responsibilities Conflict with Law or Governing Legal Authority, Take Reasonable Steps to Resolve the Conflict
(Standard 1.02)
If you study the history of the Macedonians—as I am doing now, via bug-gnawed books, helped along by my rapidly disintegrating translation dictionary—you’ll soon learn that, above all, they are deeply antiauthoritarian. Thousands of years of overlords—Byzantine, Bulgarian, Ottoman Turks, Serbs, Soviets—have given them a boundless appetite for rebellion. They like to form underground armies with long, fierce names—Macedonian Youth Secret Revolutionary Organization—for carrying out acts of guerrilla warfare, sabotage, and just generally as a way to organize around their shared disdain for whatever authorities happen to be in charge.
Given this tendency, it’s not at all surprising that the citizens of the Republic of Macedonia scorn the NATO nations—who, not even nine months ago, rained Tomahawk missiles on their cousins in Kosovo—as well as Interpol, a nonstop meddler in the locals’ most lucrative import-export ventures. Out in the stony-walled, bleached, and hunkered hamlets piled in the valleys of the farthest, highest hinterlands, they are not particularly impressed by the federal polizi from the urban centers of Skopje and Bitola, either. They fend for themselves, fight their own battles, and follow their own code.
In other words, Jimmy’s ancestral village turned out to be the ideal spot to hide a pair of American fugitives. A disorderly huddle of perhaps two dozen homes, it clung to the lower slopes of Mount Ulsec like a burr in the folds of an old woman’s skirts. It was populated almost entirely by Jimmy’s relatives. Village life revolved around sheep, potash, a thirteenth-century church, and small-arms smuggling. In most of the homes, a photo of Jimmy, wearing aviator shades and gold chains, hung right next to a reproduction of the Mother of God of Sorrows from Saint Sophia at Ohrid.
The Captives Page 21
