Weeping Justice

by Jennifer Froelich

  Good News?

  “My friend I told you about? She said God is Good with a capital G.”

  “Then I think I’d like her.”

  I nod. Everyone liked her. Everyone but Kino.

  Jonah coughs for a while so we stop talking. Later I hear him whispering to himself. Maybe it’s another prayer and I shouldn’t interrupt, but it sounds sad. Desperate. I am afraid he’s slipping into the grips of his pain.

  “Tell me your story, Jonah,” I say. “Then later, I’ll let you tell me your Good News.”

  Jonah and I talk long into the night. He tells me about the small band of rebels he worked with in the southwest, operating a kind of Underground Railroad to help people escape south of the border or onto refugee barges.

  “Refugee barge?”

  “There are a few in operation off the Western Sand,” he says. “Camouflaged as garbage barges, overseas transports—that type of thing.”

  “Where do they take people?”

  “Out to sea where they meet other boats ferrying refugees to safe havens across the globe. Refugees end up in Alaska, a few Pacific islands, and more than a few places in the Andes and Tierra del Fuego. I’ve heard of a few new places in the Congo and Zanzibar, on the fringes of the African Union, but don’t know if they’re truly safe.”

  “And people live freely in these places?”

  “No.” Jonah coughs again. “They survive there. Not much more.”

  “How did you get caught?”

  For a minute, I don’t think Jonah hears me. Then he sighs.

  “The people on my team, we all started out with the same goal. There was just a dozen of us, and we all wanted to help people—had a system in place that worked. We were getting people out of the UDR without getting caught. A few years passed. Then, we started taking more people in. Extended family, people we encountered along the way who believed in our cause and wanted to help. Our numbers grew, but things were still working. Even better, maybe, with a core group holding down the fort while we went out on missions.

  “But the secret service was starting to take notice of our actions. One of our favorite spots for jumping Trump was shored up with more Sentribots, even more live patrols. Even our hiding places were compromised, and we had to pick up and move, splitting up into two camps for a time before we found a place big enough for all of us. But that meant laying low. Fewer trips, fewer raids…”

  “Fewer people across the border?” I ask.

  “Yeah.”

  I hear Jonah shifting, trying to find a more comfortable position, knowing there isn’t one. Finally he settles again. I wait for his breath to return to normal.

  “So I bet not everyone was happy,” I say.

  “Nobody was happy.” Jonah laughs, which turns into a cough. “Some wanted to split into two: a small team committed to our original work and another camp just for those in hiding. Others wanted to kick the others out completely—you had to be part of our cause or a refugee we were transporting across the borders. No room for anyone else. Others thought if we had stricter rules for who we accepted into our ranks and who we excluded, maybe we’d survive. Meanwhile our food stores were running low.”

  “Nobody’s in a conciliatory mood when they’re hungry.”

  “Exactly. And by then we were kind of pinned down, hiding in a desert mountain range in a series of caves, our little ones growing weaker every day. It would have been a good time to get some kind of break. Some kind of help. Instead…”

  He stops talking. I wait until I can’t stand it anymore.

  “Instead?”

  Jonah sighs again. “Instead, a group of thirty new refugees showed up at one of our rendezvous spots. We can’t get them across the border. We can’t get them to a barge. We either have to take them in or send them away.”

  “But your people are starving.”

  “Yes. And these people are starving too. And that’s the big argument among our team. What’s the right thing to do?”

  “What did you think?”

  “I thought what I still think. It’s complicated.” He shifts again, wincing. “If you’re part of our team and your little girl is crying every night because there’s not enough food to eat, you’ve got a compelling argument for turning away more mouths to feed. But, if you’re part of the refugees and your little girl is crying because she’s starving too but has also been crawling across the desert with you, looking for someone to help. Looking for salvation—for grace…”

  “Yeah, I see what you mean. So did you decide to turn them away or let them stay?”

  “Both. Neither.” His laugh turns into another coughing fit. I fidget until he can continue. “I couldn’t stand either outcome, so I proposed a third. I asked for volunteers to help me go out on another raid, looking for food. Two days. That’s what I asked for.”

  “Did you get help?”

  “Yes. A couple of people volunteered. But some of the other leaders, well, they had been slowly turning our people against me. I was mean and hateful, they said. I didn’t care about them or their kids. Some of the refugees hated me too—same reason. How could I keep them out on the edge of camp when their kids needed help now? Eventually, I left with just two others. We made our way to the train tracks, hopped a cargo car headed east, and got out near some warehouses the UDR uses for storing food for soldiers. We were inside with food stuffed in our bags when the place was surrounded by Secret Service, soldiers, and city police. We were pinned behind these shelves, trying to figure out our next move, when a member of my team stands up, kisses me on the cheek, then holds a gun to my head while the Secret Service surrounds us.”

  “He kissed you?”

  “No, she kissed me.”

  “And you were arrested and brought here.”

  Jonah’s silence is answer enough.

  “Was she your…I mean, were you two…?”

  “I thought so.” Jonah’s voice softens. “Maybe someday, anyway. When life got normal again. Whatever normal is. I had a wife, Oliver. A wife and a daughter who both died of Contagion twelve years ago.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I thought this woman…that she and I might be a new beginning. She was a hard worker, committed to the cause, all that. I don’t know what changed.”

  “She betrayed you.”

  “Yes, but she wasn’t the only one. Before we left for the raid, the others in our group had a secret vote in the middle of the night and voted in new leaders.”

  “Were you even there to defend yourself?”

  He laughed. “No. For once I was sleeping. We were heading out on the raid the next morning. I had a plan that was going to put food into our babies’ mouths, so I felt pretty good about myself. But they had another plan. A plan I knew nothing about until she had her gun to my head.”

  “Stupid plan,” I say. “None of them would be safe after you were interrogated and revealed their location.”

  “Then I guess it’s good I didn’t.”

  “Didn’t what?”

  “I haven’t told anyone where they are, Oliver. Where they were, I mean. Hopefully they’ve had time to leave by now. To find someplace safe with enough food for all of them.”

  “You protected them? Even though half of them turned on you?”

  “Yeah, well. They didn’t know what they were doing,” Jonah says.

  I sleep hard tonight. Better than I ever have on the floor of my cell. In the morning I wake early, eat quickly, then spend too long running my fingers over my jawline.

  How skinny do I look? How scruffy, with haircuts and shaving privileges that only come around before inspections?

  No way to know. I haven’t looked in a mirror in…months? Has it been months?

  I blink at the blank walls. Huh. Blink, blank. Blank, blink…blunk, blonk.

  Where was I?

  The walls. Shoulda marked them. Like prisoners do in the movies, marking their days.

  How many days?

  That’s the point. I don�
��t know.

  Knowing might be worse than guessing, my friend.

  Are we back to that again?

  Click, clack. Click, clack.

  The sound of Kino’s high heels jolts me out of madness, back to involuntary fear, piercing my chest. Breakfast revolts, threatening to come back up. I choke it down and scramble toward the grate in the wall.

  “Jonah. Jonah!”

  “Yeah, Oliver.” His voice is groggy, still thick with pain. “I’m here, son. What is it?”

  My door unlocks.

  “Pray for me,” I whisper.

  30

  Reed

  “You saw Lexie?” Riley’s eyes widen.

  “Yes.”

  Another sob erupts from her throat, just like earlier when she was telling me about her attack in the alley. She presses her knuckles against her mouth, trying to muffle it, but she looks so small—more fragile than I have ever seen her. Hope mingles with fear in her wet eyes. This time I don’t stop myself. I rush across the room and crush her to my chest.

  I never thought happiness could come from having my shirt wet with her tears, but that’s what I feel. Happy. Happy to give her good news and happy she escaped from those traffickers. But even the thought of her attack tempers my joy and, I swear, I’m blinking back my own tears as she pulls away, rubbing her wet eyes. “Tell me everything.”

  But I can’t. Not everything.

  Bussing tables is monotonous work, but apparently, I’m good at it. I heard Seth telling Mr. Longino I’m the fastest busser he’s got, so hopefully that’s job security. Since replacing the guy with the sprained arm, I am in the salon every night now, clearing tables and carrying heavy tubs of dirty dishes back to the dishwasher where a new boy is drenched in steam and suffering from noodle arms while mine have grown hard and strong.

  Still, while I’ve learned to keep my head down as much as possible, my ears are open. Mr. Longino manages the salon and the kitchen, but the escorts are managed by another man named Mr. Bell who makes my skin crawl from all the way across the vast dining space. It’s not his size, the way he dresses, or even how he carries himself. If I passed him on the street, I wouldn’t even notice him—that’s how average he is. The thing about Mr. Bell that creeps me out is the way the escorts change when he is around. It’s as if they are all suddenly tethered to him as soon as he walks in the room. Their voices tremble more, their hands shake. Any mistake or rejection washes over them in visible terror and their eyes dart to his. He always notices. I’ve never seen him respond with more than a slight frown or shake of the head, but clearly these are just hints of punishments to come.

  Tonight, a dozen soldiers came through the door at a quarter to midnight, and a fresh group of escorts was sent over from the dormitories to work their charms. Most escorts rely on a script when approaching new customers, one that always includes their names. I have listened for Lexie’s name, but never heard it. I was just clearing my last table when someone smelling of perfume brushed past me and leaned on one of the tables.

  “Hey stranger. I’m Alessandra. What’s your name?”

  I would like to say I noticed her then, that I recognized her voice, or that I quickly put together that Lexie and Alessandra have the same root name. I didn’t. It was the soldier’s voice that stopped me in my tracks. His voice is one I would recognize across a crowded room.

  “My name is Captain Ogas. But you, my sweet, may call me…” He laughed. “Well, how about Captain Ogas? We’ll start there and see where this goes.”

  My heart was pounding. I finished clearing my table and dared a glance over my shoulder. While all the other soldiers were sitting in the center of the salon, Captain Ogas had chosen a single table on the edge of the room. A tall man with dark hair and a full mustache, Ogas was already leaning toward the escort who had approached him. I had barely gotten over the shock of hearing the voice of the man who hit Claire in her kitchen when something about the escort struck me as familiar. I lifted my bin and circled the table, daring a second look. For a brief moment, Alessandra looked up and her eyes met mine.

  Lexie.

  She turned back to her customer, running her hand over his shoulder and through his hair. By then I was moving on, carrying my bin of dirty dishes to the kitchen on autopilot. For the rest of the night I watched her out of the corner of my eye. When Ogas called his soldiers away at closing time, they all left the escorts behind, which made me feel stupidly relieved. Most of the girls headed back to the dormitories in small groups. As they did, I heard bits of gossip, but nothing relevant. Anyway, I lost track of Lexie in the crowd. Soon I was the only busser left in the salon, clearing tables close to the stage. That’s when I saw Lexie and the piano player sitting in one of the private booths, their heads together as they talked. I couldn’t hear what they were saying. The next time I came back from the kitchen, they were both gone.

  Tonight I tell Riley most of this, but hedge when she asks me how Lexie looked. I can’t tell her how her sister’s face has aged or how dark circles frame her red-rimmed eyes.

  “She looks sad,” I say. “And tired.”

  “No more than I would expect,” Riley says. “Do you think she recognized you?”

  I shake my head. Our eyes met for only a moment, but Lexie’s flat expression told me I was just another busser. Not anyone she used to know. Not anyone responsible for putting her there.

  “We need to figure out a way for you to make contact with her,” Riley says. “Not just a glance across the room, but a meaningful clue she can’t help but notice.”

  I have no ideas. Happily, Riley comes up with something the next day.

  We are walking around the junk shop on the corner, talking about our dilemma while we browse. First, we dig through comic book bins, pausing now and again to imagine Sam’s reaction to a particular issue, then we start picking up weird kitchen utensils and speculate about their use.

  “This one?” I hold up something I couldn’t even describe.

  “Uh…I think it separates eggs.”

  “Why?”

  Riley just shrugs and lifts a rolling pin that looks as deadly as the scarred baseball bat we found around the corner.

  “Maybe you should buy that,” I say. “Carry it with you when you go out alone.”

  Riley just smiles tightly and puts it back down.

  Well that went over about as well as when I suggested she dress like a boy, I tell myself.

  We wander in silence for the next several minutes, digging through baskets and browsing glass cases until we circle back to a jewelry cabinet near the front of the store. Riley barely glances at it then gasps, pressing her nose to the case.

  “What do you see?”

  “There.” She taps the glass. “That pin with the cat on it. See? With the blue background? My mother had one like it in her jewelry chest. Lexie and I used to dig it out and fight over who got to wear it.” She smiles. “Usually our arguing made Mama so angry, she’d take it away from both of us and say, ‘as long as you act like wild cats yourself, the pin stays with me!’”

  A quiet vendor slips behind the case while Riley reminisces. “You like?” she asks, pulling out the tray of pins so we can get a better look.

  “How much?” I ask, touching the cat pin.

  The vendor names a sum that, while not extraordinary, still seems like a lot for a tarnished pin. Riley’s response is immediate. “We can’t,” she says, turning away.

  “You buy for pretty girl.” The vendor points her gnarled finger at me, and I hesitate, reluctant to leave it. Riley might have protested, but her eyes glistened too. The pin reminded her of her mother, and I want her to have it.

  “Let me get it for you,” I say.

  “No,” Riley says firmly. “That’s the cost of a meal, Reed.”

  She turns toward the old books, leaving me no choice but to follow. For another ten minutes, we walk aimlessly through shelves covered in tattered romance novels, chipped dishes, and rusting tools. Suddenly Riley stop
s in the middle of the aisle. I almost trip on her ankles.

  “Ow! Riley—”

  “Shh. I’m thinking.”

  So I stand there for a ridiculously long minute, watching her think. Finally, she nods her head, deciding something without letting me in on it, and turns back toward the jewelry counter. The vendor sees us coming and meets us there with a smile.

  “You decide to buy?”

  Riley lays four coins on the counter. “That’s how much I’ll pay.”

  For the next thirty seconds, they alternate between bartering and staring holes in each other while I bite my fingernails, watching them. Finally the vendor nods and scoops up the coins.

  “Deal.”

  She hands Riley the pin and we leave the shop.

  “You want to tell me what that was about?” I ask. I am more than a little hurt she wouldn’t let me buy her the pin, but then went back and bought it for herself.

  Stupid? Yeah, I know. What can I say? I’m a stupid guy sometimes.

  Riley pauses in front of a laundromat and opens her palm, showing me the pin.

  “This,” she says, “is how you’re going to get Lexie to talk to you.”

  Three days later, I’m biting my nails again as I head to work. Riley and I have been staying up late every night to talk about her plan. It’s pretty basic: I find the perfect moment to show Lexie the pin, she recognizes it, then seeks me out to ask what it means. That’s when I pull out my Luke Skywalker line and we figure out our next steps to get her out of there.

  “You’re sure she’ll recognize the pin?” I asked at least a dozen times.

  “Yes!” Riley said. “She has to.”

  I’m still not sure if that was confidence or stubbornness, but since I don’t have a better idea, I agreed to try.

  But will the opportunity come tonight?