Hahn guns it through the red light at Ashland. “I’m here for the money and the plague. Your sainted brother is all yours.”
My phone rings. “Arleen!” Thunder cracks in my ear, followed by crowd noise and static. “Hello? Arleen?”
Over the crowd noise Jason Cowin says, “Little Paul came in, recanted. So did the two debs who ID’d you. Everyone says Danny V made ’em.”
Hahn brakes hard, bounces me into the door, and passes on the right. “And his mom, she alive?”
“Changed her story, too. ASA charged her and put the kid in Child Services. The Irish broad in your building hasn’t folded yet, but we’re all betting she will. When she does, maybe we talk to the Mrs Baird’s driver and he changes his mind—nobody places you at Danny’s death scene, no murder weapon, all is forgiven.”
Something akin to relief pumps into the adrenaline. If I don’t die in the next ten minutes, I’ll only have to explain I’m innocent to half the people I meet. I don’t tell Jason how I feel about being “forgiven,” hit Disconnect, and re-brace into the dash. “Little Paul saw the light.”
Hahn slips lanes doing ninety, loops across the center line into oncoming headlights, slides back in, and cuts off a van slowing to turn right. “I told you I took care of it.” The van lays on his horn. Lightning cracks sideways across the sky.
I tell myself and the windshield, “Arleen and Ruben could be alive. White Flower’s gotta have her show first, before she lets the plague go.”
Hahn tells the traffic coming at us, “Show’s already started.”
ARLEEN BRENNAN
SUNDAY, 7:50 PM
Leaves and shadows brush at my ankles, then disappear into the dark of a long-dead playground. Above me, all around me, looms the Gothic roofline of St. Dom’s. Sporadic lightning flashes the spire, painting the playground in stark, ominous shadows. Coleen and I played here as little girls. I see us in the harsh black-and-white flashes, our simple uniforms, the lies only partially hidden on our faces.
A dog barks twice. I blink, then stare out to St. Dominick’s fence. Beyond the fence are the ruptured sidewalks and dented cars that fill the shadows. And out there, beyond the shadows, is the real horror of this place. I breathe short, taste the inner city and decay, and will Bobby to come here where we started.
A car approaches without headlights. Ruben, not Bobby, stops at the gate my bumper pushed open a moment ago. Ruben doesn’t turn in. His phone rings in my hand. “Niña, take the box in the lunchroom door. The chain’s cut.”
I turn to the lunchroom doors. Doors I used till I was thirteen. Beyond them, the nuns ran a world very different from the one Coleen and I lived in a block away. Why pick this place of all the places?
“Niña, take the box inside. We’re done and you can go.”
My palms are sweating. My feet don’t move.
“Now, chica. Or be late for the Shubert.”
I stare at the red bricks around the doors, the old wood windows; a school, a convent with more ambition than money. More ambition than talent. I hold my breath, grab the box of plague, and walk to the doors. At the doors, I lower the box to the pavement, prop open the door with my foot, take another breath, slowly two-hand the box to my chest, and walk in.
Dark. Dusty. Mildew. Silent. My eyes slowly adjust. Lightning flashes the windows behind me and silhouetted shapes at a table at the far side of the lunchroom. I shuffle through the dark with my box of mass murder, careful not to bump or stumble. More lightning.
Up close, my favorite nun, Sister Mary Margaret Fey, is wide-eyed and gagged in her chair. She’s wearing the Sisters of Providence habit she hasn’t worn in twenty years. Down the table, the Japanese woman driver sits next to the male scientist from the Escalade—both wear Tyvek suits, gloves, and helmets that I don’t. I place the box in front of them and wince at Sister Mary Margaret. “What … Why’re you here?”
The Corvair mental-patient voice echoes from the dark. “You will sit.”
“Can’t.” I back up toward the playground doors. “Have to go.”
The man in the Tyvek suit lights a penlight and opens the box.
Behind me: “We are not done.” The mental-patient voice blocks the playground doors. “Go back.”
“No. I did my part—”
Ruben’s voice barks, “Sit the fuck down.”
I’m shoved forward by an unseen hand. Then shoved again and stumble to the table. The Japanese man steadies the box, glaring at me to stabilize. I sit across from Sister Mary Margaret. Her eyes are trying to explain, cutting toward the mental-patient voice.
Ruben’s voice: “Inspect the package. Get on with it.”
The Japanese man extracts the metal box I saw in the Corvair, sets the box on the table, steadies himself, then proceeds with his examination. When complete, he reexamines four vials, speaks Japanese to the woman in the Tyvek suit, and replaces the lid to the box.
The woman places both hands on the table. “We are pleased this is the Hokkaido package. We are not pleased that four vials are missing.”
Ruben’s voice: “Show us the money.”
“We must have the vials first.”
Ruben: “Guess we don’t have a deal. White Flower goes to the Herald. Could stop by the concert along the way. With luck, Dr. Ota will escape, use the same pals bin Laden’s family did.”
The woman says, “This is a great sum of money to not have.”
Ruben: “If I was lookin’ at it, I’d believe you.”
“Your gunmen are here.” She gestures at the dark. “This is your place of choice.”
A cloud of oleander makes me cough and the mental patient from the Corvair glides out of the dark. She places three vials on the metal box, hesitates, looking at Sister Mary Margaret, then me, then steps back into the dark. Sister Mary Margaret’s eyes are full and desperate.
The Japanese man examines the three vials with great care, then the seals, then places the vials inside the metal container with the others. He tests the air at the table, then speaks Japanese to the woman, who in turn speaks Japanese to a phone she holds outside her helmet speaker. She lowers the phone and says, “All but three million will be brought in. When we have the last vial, you will have your last three million.”
Four minutes pass. I pat Sister Mary Margaret’s hands, try to read her eyes but can’t. Hinges creak somewhere in the distant dark. A baggage trolley materializes stacked with six large suitcases. A smallish figure in a wrinkled Tyvek suit pushes the trolley to the table and stops. The Tyvek suit speaks Japanese, probably the other Furukawa woman from the Escalade.
The seated woman says, “Three million per case. Please produce the last vial.”
Ruben steps to the trolley, hip-checks the Tyvek suit away, and pulls on the heavy trolley. The smallish Tyvek suit jams a machine pistol in Ruben’s ribs. Ruben stops. The woman at the table says, “The last vial, please.”
Ruben says, “After I look at the money.”
The woman speaks Japanese. The Tyvek suit with the machine pistol in Ruben’s ribs lowers the gun. Ruben flattens one case atop the others, opens it, and shines a flashlight on stacks of hundred-dollar bills. Ruben uses a pen to mark bills in several stacks, closes the case, then repeats the process on another. Satisfied he says, “I have five machine guns pointed at you. I have two more at the door the money came through. Tell your associate next to me to go get my other three million and I’ll ask White Flower to give you the last vial.”
“The vial first.”
“No, the money first, then the vial. That’s how White Flower wants it, that’s how it has to be.”
The seated woman speaks Japanese. The smallish Tyvek suit next to Ruben disappears into the dark. We sit silent. I hold Sister Mary Margaret’s hands. They’re trembling but squeeze mine. I don’t know a kinder woman. Streetcar was going to be my big surprise to her: limousine, front row, opening night.
Ruben glances his watch.
The Japanese woman and man sit motionless with th
eir fourteen vials of plague.
Ruben speaks Spanish to the dark. I hear movement I can’t see.
A moment passes. The second Japanese woman in the Tyvek suit reappears with another case. Except—blink, lightning flash—she’s bent, rolling the case, but seems taller? Her Tyvek suit no longer has the wrinkles at the knees. Squint. And her gun’s different? Following behind her is a Hispanic gangster, the Twenty-Trey muscled-up driver of the Marquis.
Ruben waits until the Twenty-Trey steps between him and the Tyvek suit, then flattens the case, opens it, and test marks the money. Satisfied, Ruben says, “Okay. Let’s give ’em the last vial. Move on down the road.”
Oleander sours the air. Ruben’s partner steps out of the dark and stops at my end of the table. Her left hand is clamped around a green topped vial; her right hand holds the pistol with the long silencer I saw in the garage. She taps the silencer in front of Sister Mary Margaret and speaks Vietnamese. Sister Mary Margaret shakes her head an inch, eyes wide at the woman, then me. The woman leans in to me, the cheap oleander overpowering. Her mental-patient voice cracks on my name. “Arleen Brennan. But you do not know me? I do not matter, even now.”
Blink. Stare. She’s Asian, fifties, Vietnamese accent …
She says, “White Flower Lý? Lý Thi Loan? Tracy Moens knows. She search for me after Dupree lawsuit is filed.”
The cheap oleander, the drinking fountain, Coleen—I push back in my chair, try to see better. Lightning flashes the windows. The face is the bad makeup from the garage, but smeared into—
Oh my God. White Flower. The winter of eighth grade, February 1982. White Flower had only been there a week. She and Coleen had an argument at the drinking fountain—White Flower was a postulant, no vows yet, but “living in the community,” living at the convent to see if she wanted to become a novice. Like all the other girls, Coleen and I could become postulants, too, when we were older. My head begins to throb. It always throbbed when I thought about that year. So I stopped.
I see Sister Mary Margaret, then White Flower. It’s 1982, we’re all back together again.
Coleen and White Flower are at the drinking fountain, arguing, bitter, bitter. Sister Mary Margaret separates them, White Flower goes silent, but Coleen won’t stop. White Flower’s eyes are scary. Sister Mark, our principal, steps into the hall and silences everyone. She calls us to her office; I don’t want to go; Coleen doesn’t want to go; we’ll be in trouble with our da. We avoid trouble with our da at all costs. In the principal’s office, Coleen accuses White Flower of things … things the girl didn’t do. White Flower is very mad. Sister Mark is very mad—mad at White Flower, mad at Sister Mary Margaret. I know Coleen is lying but I stay quiet.
My head throbs. I shut my eyes. Coleen was sorry she lied, but she just didn’t want our father to be mad, to be … involved. But he was.
Coleen and I sit as small as possible in our uniforms. Our da is on his way to St. Dominick’s. Da will miss work on the river and be soooo mad. We wait a silent hour, holding each other’s hands, knowing we will wet our pants when he begins to yell. He spanks us hard when we wet our pants. His work boots echo in the hall before he bursts through Sister Mark’s door, the whole school can hear him yelling, “Hoorin’ git Viet Communist messin’ with my girls! And this being God’s house, ain’t that a damn lie!”
In the hall, Sister Mary Margaret leads White Flower past the door. Da leaps to the doorway screaming, “Aye, deport the hoor, ya should. Thievin’ hoors got no business in a saint’s school.”
Coleen wets her pants and hides into my shoulder. Our parish priest appears at the door, “Francis Patrick Brennan, that’ll be enough.”
Da pays Father Crosby no mind. “Both you get home. It’s a job and the belt you’re needin’, not a hoor’s school.”
Father Crosby steps between us and Da. “Your girls will be in the church, praying Hail Marys. I’ll see ’em home when it’s time.”
“The hell you say.” Da gives us the glare; we run all the way home.
Coleen and I never saw White Flower again. After Coleen died, I asked Sister Mary Margaret about White Flower. She shook her head, eyes on her hands, and said, “A sorrowful, sorrowful thing.” Sometimes I thought it was me who was in the argument with White Flower, but I can’t remember. Didn’t want to remember.
Cold metal taps my cheek. My eyes jolt open. White Flower says, “Do you see? How all things end at the beginning? Same week as Moens began to search for me, Dr. Ota appeared on TV for the new Olympic bid. I’ve not see him since Saigon.” White Flower raises the barrel at Sister Mary Margaret. “And while I watch Dr. Ota, now rich and powerful, forty years later, I knew what to do.” White Flower shoots Sister Mary Margaret in the face. My nun catapults backward. Her knees hit the bottom of the table; she jerks back and slams face-first into the tabletop.
I jolt out of my chair, catch a foot, and splatter on the floor. Ruben mumbles, “Chingada madre,” and jumps behind the cases of money. I roll to stand, choking on blood mist and roar.
White Flower motions with her gun. “To the table. Everyone at the table.”
None of me moves.
Lý aims at my chest. “Or I must kill you.”
Nobody speaks. Blood drips off the table. Cordite mixes with copper air and adrenaline rushes. I climb into the chair, scrape it sideways but not closer to the table.
White Flower stares. “The Brennans age well.” She taps the table with her vial.
“No. No.” I shrink from the vial. “Don’t do that.”
Behind me, Ruben says, “Yeah, don’t do that.” His voice is sharp, parental. “Give the vial to our friends and let’s be on our way.”
White Flower looks past me to Ruben. “Do you wish to tell her?”
Silence, then Ruben says, “No kiddin’ now; give the vial to the nice Japanese people and quit jerking around. This isn’t the nail salon. You’re rich. Act like it.”
“I will tell her then.” White Flower points her gun at my face. “Your sister died because of you, because you and she lied about me. Because your father fucked you, you afraid. You lied about me, and my life in America is over before it starts.”
Ruben barks, “That’s enough. Give them the vial.”
Lý uses two fingertips to hold the vial four feet above the floor. “I will give them the vial. I give it to everyone.”
Ruben: “Don’t do that—”
“Then you must tell. Make pretty Arleen Brennan happy like she made me.”
Silence. Ruben says, “Dupree may have raped your sister but he didn’t kill her.”
I turn my head to Ruben’s voice. White Flower says, “Yes, Dupree raped her, or tried—he and his friend. But he did not kill Coleen. She was alive when we scared them off. We tell her we can help her. She was very scared. Very scared. Like you now.”
I turn back to Lý’s mental-patient voice. She’s still dangling the vial, still aiming the pistol at my face. “You killed Coleen?”
Lý smiles the smeary Baby Jane paste-on smile.
“Did you?”
Ruben’s voice: “If you’re gonna shoot her, shoot her.”
“I helped pretty Coleen into a better purpose. Where she can make apology for her lies. Ruben assist me. Remember? Ruben and I are alibi for each other. We stayed with Coleen until winter freeze and her wounds kill her—she was very, very hurt; very, very scared—then Ruben took credit with the Twenty-Treys. He is initiated. All good for everyone.”
I lunge for the vial. White Flower fires. The bullet twists me sideways and the vial flutters between us. I land on the floor. Ruben fires across me and White Flower jolts off her feet. Ruben steps over me and shoots White Flower again. I palm the vial off my stomach and roll fetal.
Hurts bad to breathe. My ribs burn; blood soaks my dress; pumps on my arms. Ruben straddles my hips and aims at my head.
“Sorry, niña. Nothing personal, but … no Shubert after all.”
The Tyvek suit to Ruben’s right yells a muff
led, “No!” I roll away from Ruben’s gun; he fires. Concrete explodes by my head. The Tyvek shoots Ruben twice, spins, jams the pistol into the Twenty-Trey behind Ruben and fires twice. Machine guns roar. I crawl over Ruben and past White Flower. Starburst flames light up the dark. The vial is slippery in my hand. At the playground doors, I reach to push one open. The door and glass shatter above me. I push hard, wedge through at the bottom, and crawl out into pounding thunder.
Lightning rips through the black. Alone in the sky, St. Dom’s Gothic spire is backlit in the storm and towers above me. I jolt away. Lightning and thunder pound again. The Chevrolet’s front bumper flashes twenty feet ahead. The Shubert. I can still make the Shubert. Hurry.
I stagger to standing, lurch to the Chevrolet’s fender, land hard but don’t break the vial. My blood helps my hip slide fender to the door. I fight the driver’s door open and crawl into the seat. The windows of St. Dom’s are flash and roar. My key twists in the ignition. The spire’s jagged shadow swallows the car. No! I can get to my audition. Coleen and I will be stars; we’ll be the girls who made it out of the Four Corners.
OFFICER BOBBY VARGAS
SUNDAY, 7:55 PM
Machine-gun bullets rip linoleum and plaster. My brother and his banger are sprawled at my feet. Hahn fires at a flame signature on my left; the Japanese woman fires at it from the table. Her man covers the package with his chest. One machine gun is down, another sprays the lunchroom until his clip empties. Hahn arcs left toward the shooter; I arc right, both of us invisible without the muzzle flashes. No other machine guns fire. On the playground side, Hahn stumbles or falls. The machine gun fires at her. I empty my pistol twelve-inches right of the flame. The flame jerks up into the ceiling and quits.
I rip off the Tyvek helmet, still can’t hear, then creep darkness one hand in front, toward where the last flame signature was. Lightning cracks outside and flashes the floor thirty feet in front of me. A shape is prone, not moving. My pistol’s empty. I extend it anyway, wait for a lightning flash, see the machine gun, kick it away, jump on the figure and smash his head with my forearm. He’s short, Hispanic, and dead.
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