Interference

by Danielle Girard

  Desantis ignored Penn, but Patrick told him to wait up. “Keys,” Patrick said when Desantis hesitated. The young cop gave Patrick the handcuff keys and Patrick undid Penn’s cuffs, redid them in front and loosened the wrist bracelets. Desantis looked disappointed, but he was smart enough to keep his mouth shut.

  Voices called out from the street and the white metal gate swung open. Ryaan froze until O’Shea and Kong clamored through the gate, making the noise of a group twice as large. There was back slapping and fist-bumping. She remained in the shadow. Beside the cars, she could go unnoticed until it died down. She was never going to feel like one of the guys. No use starting now.

  Desantis took Karl Penn back out to the street, and Ryaan felt her phone buzz in her pocket.

  “Berry,” Patrick shouted. “You coming?”

  “On my way.” She pulled her phone out of her pocket and saw a text from Mei Ling. She sensed movement. Glanced back and saw a shadow duck between the cars. Ryaan crouched down and drew her weapon. Slowly, she scanned the vehicles, which seemed darker after looking at the bright phone screen.

  “Berry,” Patrick called out.

  Ryaan looked back among the cars. There was probably a family of cats living out there. Slowly, she stood again. She glanced away long enough to holster her weapon when he came at her. She dodged away from the cars. Not fast enough. His arm wrapped around her neck, tightened. Young and fast, he moved like someone used to being in the dark. Light-haired in a dark jacket and cap.

  She had hesitated, hadn’t anticipated a fight. She knew better. They’d caught their suspect. The man who had hold of her was much more frightening. She could just barely make out the shape of an automatic in his hand, but she smelled it. “Don’t move,” he hissed. She guessed he was in his early twenties. The shape of his wool cap, the speed with which he moved made her think military.

  “You make a move for your gun and I’ll shoot.” His gun was close. She could smell the wet metal. The same scent covered her hands after playing on the bars in elementary school. Every recess in third and fourth and fifth grade, she spent learning to perfect some new maneuver and in the process, she’d learned to love that metallic smell. The smell of something all her own, the feel of the bars in between her hands or under the backs of her knees. A safe place, she worked the bars until her hands were permanently the shade of rust and the soft pads under her fingers were the hard gray of old women’s feet.

  “Where the hell is she?” O’Shea asked.

  Ryaan was dizzy at the thought that they’d leave.

  More talking. Someone asking if she’d walked past. Then, Kong’s voice, words she couldn’t hear.

  The beam of a flashlight illuminated his eyes. Light brown, hazel. Flecks of yellow and tired. Very tired. “Who are you?” she whispered.

  Then, she felt the men moving in. Sensed it in the tightening of his shoulders, the narrowing of his gaze.

  “Back off or she dies,” he shouted. His spittle sprayed her cheeks. His breath was sour like he had gone too long without eating, the smell of stomach acids. She closed her eyes, fought against nausea and panic.

  He yanked her to him and shifted the barrel to the base of her skull. With the metal jammed against her, he removed her gun out of her holster and, for a moment, he seemed to fumble with his jacket. She focused on what she could control, what she knew. Her gun was in his left pocket. “Turn around very slowly and keep your hands where I can see them.”

  Ryaan did as he said.

  Patrick whispered in her ear. “Who the fuck is that?”

  She shook her head.

  “Don’t hurt her,” Patrick yelled. “Just tell us what you want.”

  The gunman gestured with his free hand and she waited for the barrel to break contact with her skull. “Bring him back. The man you just arrested.”

  “Go get Penn,” Patrick shouted. Desantis went running.

  “Is Karl Penn your friend?” Patrick shouted. “Is that it? You want us to let him go?”

  “Karl Penn,” the man behind her whispered. “Penn.” The name seemed to mean nothing to him.

  She gave a quick shake to her head, wondering if Patrick could even see it, if he would possibly understand what she was saying.

  The gate creaked open. Penn stepped back into the yard, pushed by Desantis.

  “What the fuck?” Penn shouted.

  “Now, let him walk forward on his own,” the man shouted.

  Desantis pushed Penn forward, but Penn shouted. “No fucking way,” he said, backing up against Desantis who struggled to hold him forward. “I’m not going near that guy.”

  Kong spoke to Penn. “You don’t know him?”

  “Crazy white man with a gun? Hell, no, I don’t know him.”

  Patrick was ignoring Penn, but Ryaan had heard him and Kong, and she knew the man behind her had, too. They were too loud.

  “If we send Karl Penn over there, how do we know you’ll let the officer go?”

  “You don’t.”

  There was more rustling.

  Ryaan wanted to sit. A tremor had started in her legs, like the one she got from doing wall sits for too long back in the day when she’d spent more time in the gym. “I can help you if you tell me what you need,” she said.

  “I need that guy.”

  “Okay,” Ryaan said. “Does he have something you need?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Can one of the officers get it from him?”

  Ryaan started to edge her face toward him. It was harder to shoot someone who was facing you. Make a personal connection. Engage him. “Seems like you’re having a rough time—”

  His jaw was held tight, the muscle like a gear on either side of his face that he worked while he stood there.

  Keeping her right hand still, Ryaan slowly moved her left hand toward the radio button clipped to the collar of her jacket. “You want to tell me your name?”

  He looked at her, his gaze hard and angry. “Why should I?”

  She pushed the button and hoped Patrick hadn’t pulled his piece out. “Because maybe I can help you.”

  The gun was steady as he glanced up to check on the men. “I don’t need your help. I should just fucking shoot all of you.”

  Patrick’s breath was audible in her ear. Her own caught in her throat.

  He was controlling the situation well. Too well.

  Ryaan kept silent.

  He jammed the gun hard, and Ryaan let out an inadvertent yelp. “What the fuck do I need you for?”

  Patrick separated from the group, cupping his hand over his mouth like he was blowing on them to keep warm. “Keep talking, Berry,” Patrick whispered. “Just talk, nice and soft.”

  Ryaan took a shaky breath. “The way I see it, if you shoot me then those guys over there are going to shoot you, and you’ll never get to Karl Penn.”

  The man wiped the back of his hand across his forehead. For a part of a second, the gun wasn’t pointed at her head.

  “Good girl,” Patrick urged.

  “That’s what you want, right? To talk to Karl Penn?”

  The jaw gears were working again.

  “My name’s Ryaan. Ryaan Berry.”

  He glanced at her then back over her head. His jagged Adam’s apple moved down his throat as though it might slice straight through the youthful skin.

  “Justin Sawicki.”

  “Sawicki,” Ryaan repeated. The name was familiar, but she couldn’t place it.

  Then Patrick’s voice said, “Sawicki is the guy who shot up the department.”

  In that moment, Karl Penn’s girlfriend came around the corner of the apartment building and saw Sawicki with the gun to Ryaan’s head. She let out a scream that Ryaan could feel in her toes.

  Chapter 28

  Mei met up with Julie and her cousin, Sabrina, at the
wine bar Friday night. Though they’d only had time for one glass, Mei really enjoyed Sabrina. She looked like Julie but was easily three or four inches taller and less fine-boned than Julie. Not so stereotypically Asian in appearance. Mei knew that Julie’s mom and Sabrina’s mom were sisters but wondered if Sabrina’s father might be Caucasian. When she asked, Julie made a crack that Sabrina’s father was a Chinese giant.

  “He’s from Shandong,” Sabrina explained. “I guess they’re known for being tall.”

  As they left, Sabrina invited Mei to go look at apartments the next morning. Mei was tempted. The timing certainly wasn’t right to move out of Ayi’s but she would have liked to see what was available. And she really enjoyed Sabrina’s company.

  When Sabrina went to the bathroom, Julie leaned into Mei and whispered, “I knew you two would get along. You are exactly her type.”

  Mei couldn’t bring herself to ask Julie why she thought Mei was gay, but she had to admit the comment was pleasing. She was drawn to Sabrina, too. In the end, Mei accepted the invitation to look at apartments.

  Saturday morning, Sabrina picked her up at Ayi’s and the two visited four different apartments. Any of them would have been fine. The idea of living alone was so appealing Mei would have agreed to live inside a windowless box. The first two places they saw weren’t much better than that, but the third place felt absolutely perfect. A studio in Bernal Heights, the apartment was on the top floor in a building with no elevator. That might have been a drawback for most people, but it was a perk for Mei.

  She appreciated the building’s old charm and its quiet halls. She liked the ancient, miniature refrigerator and the oven that fit perfectly between the door and the sink and could not have measured wider than twenty inches. The appliances worked. She and Sabrina had spent almost half an hour in the tiny kitchen, debating if it would be possible to have two people in there at once and, if so, where each would stand. Sabrina had suggested that one could sit on top of the refrigerator if there were a step stool available, but then she’d realized there was literally no place to store a step ladder. The more they made fun of it, the more Mei fell for its Lilliputian charm.

  Located on Bronte Street, which Sabrina and Mei agreed was both stupidly cheesy and also kind of charming, the apartment was only a few blocks from the 101 freeway but the distant humming of eighteen-wheelers and the occasional blaring of a horn were nothing compared to the noise that had leaked into the Chicago apartment where Mei had grown up. There, Mei told Sabrina, the downstairs neighbors had kept a rooster for all the years of her youth.

  Sabrina even thought Mei had a decent shot of getting the place and was contacting the renting agent.

  “You can always change your mind,” Sabrina told her. “We might as well try for it.”

  On the car ride home, Mei felt lighter than she had in weeks. When Sabrina asked about Mei’s plans for Saturday night, she surprised even herself by inviting Sabrina to join the group Sophie was putting together to go to a club called Blue.

  “Fun,” Sabrina said quickly.

  Mei actually laughed.

  “I haven’t been to a club in years,” Sabrina said.

  Mei turned in her seat. “I’ve never been to a club in my entire life.”

  Sabrina looked shocked. “You’re kidding.”

  Mei made an “O” with her fingers.

  “God, now we have to go,” Sabrina said.

  They arrived at Ayi’s a few minutes later and Sabrina wrote her cell phone on the back of a business card. “Text me and I’ll meet you guys there.”

  Mei took the card and thanked Sabrina. She cracked the door and turned back. “God, what am I going to wear?”

  Sabrina laughed. “You can never go wrong with the LBD.”

  Mei shook her head. “LBD?”

  “Little black dress.”

  Mei jogged up the stairs to Ayi’s front door, feeling good. A lead on a perfect apartment, a fun night out where she could be who she was. Maybe things were turning around. Just the idea of two whole days off in front of her was appealing. She wanted to visit the gym she’d joined and been to twice and maybe sit down with the New York Times. Not the electronic version but the real one. All three pounds of downed forest on a quiet, corner table with hours to waste and a hot apple cider that burned the tongue. That would be her entire plan for tomorrow.

  Ayi arrived home a little past five, her arms lined with small pink grocery sacks and dim sum leftovers for Mei. Shrimp dumplings. Food Mei had loved as a child. Ayi was in a good mood, putting away her food and chattering about the market and who she’d seen. None were people Mei knew, but she listened patiently and helped unwrap fresh bok choy and white radishes, tung ho, and shui qua, all things Mei had grown up eating but never cooked herself.

  Hui had gone to visit her son so Ayi was back sleeping at home. Mei didn’t pry but Ayi seemed comfortable. Mei offered to stay home with her on her first night back, but Ayi insisted she go out. In fact, her aunt seemed pleased that Mei had plans and oddly not inquisitive about where or with whom. Since the shooting, in fact, Ayi seemed distant but also oddly mellowed. Mei had spent only a short time debating her lack of a LBD before deciding on jeans and a button-down silk blouse in deep purple. She was not, nor had she ever been, a dress girl.

  Sophie and two friends picked Mei up at seven thirty. They stopped for a drink at the wine bar where Sabrina met them before heading over to the club. Mei was thankful for the glass of wine before the club. When they arrived at Blue, the beat of the music was so loud it seemed to vibrate her organs. Without the mild buzz of the wine, Mei was sure she’d have turned around to go home.

  Sabrina took her arm. “You ready for this?”

  Mei shook her head. “No.”

  Sophie led, followed by Jordan and Kendra and finally Mei and Sabrina. Sabrina bought a round of shots—something sweet and lemon—and then Mei bought beers. The group spent much of the next two hours on the dance floor. The music was something called electronica, heavily techno, that made Mei feel like she was at her first rave.

  “Can I buy you a drink?”

  Mei turned to the woman beside her, an attractive redhead, and raised her beer bottle. “All set.”

  The redhead nodded and signaled for the bartender’s attention. That was the third offer for a drink she’d had. Purple really was her color.

  From her perch at the bar, Mei saw Sophie dancing with her friends Kendra and Jordan, and Sabrina talking to a woman she knew from the real estate world. Mei was happy to lean against the bar and take it all in. She was so often in the position of guessing the sexual orientation of the women around her. Over the years, she had developed a fairly adept “gay-dar” as it was often called, but she was still wrong on occasion.

  It was no wonder that women came to a club like Blue. Here, there was no question that they weren’t interested in being hit on by men. At least not tonight. Here, they were understood. Perhaps not fully but at least in some very essential way. It wasn’t Mei’s scene. She was not a dancer, and she rarely had more than a couple of glasses of wine, but she was glad she’d come.

  Sophie appeared at her side and set her empty beer bottle on the bar before shrugging out of the thin blouse she wore over a white camisole. “It’s so hot,” she shouted over the music.

  Mei nodded, setting her bottle beside Sophie’s.

  Sophie pulled a twenty out of her pocket. “I have to go to the bathroom. If the bartender comes over, will you order me another one?”

  Mei pushed the money aside. “Sure. I got it.”

  Sophie pressed the bill into Mei’s hand and closed her first on it. The bass grew loud, and Sophie covered her ears for a moment.

  Mei cringed.

  “Get one for you, too,” Sophie shouted then turned for the bathroom.

  Mei waved down the bartender and pointed to the empties in front of her
in lieu of making an order that would have been impossible to hear.

  The bartender returned with the beers, and Mei paid, setting Sophie’s change under her bottle. Sophie returned quickly. “It was a miracle. No line.”

  “The only women’s bathroom with enough stalls.”

  Sophie laughed and, for a few minutes, the two watched the crowd. Soon, Jordan joined them, then Sabrina returned.

  “Who was that?” Sophie asked Sabrina.

  “A realtor. We did a deal together a while ago. Her client was this total nut with like seventeen cats. She was just telling me the story of finding this woman a place to live.”

  “No worries. Do you want a drink?”

  Sabrina nodded. “I’ll get something.”

  Mei turned away from the bar to look at the crowd of women. She hadn’t thought she would fit in, but the truth was, none of them did. Every end of the spectrum was represented. Women in jeans and steel-toed boots and women in miniskirts so short they might have been long tank tops. Many were dancing but others were standing around the edges, wall flowers even in a gay bar. Mei glanced at the ones who stood alone. That took guts. Along the back wall was one such girl, trying to make herself invisible. Her straight brown hair hung over her face, which was buried in her iPhone. Mei felt like she’d seen her before. A blonde approached her, trying to make conversation. Mei watched them. The shy woman shaking her head, begging off the attention of the blonde. And then she looked up. Mei recognized the face. She was stunned. Why would she be in a gay bar?

  Mei took a step back to the bar and lost her footing. The floor was no longer level. In a single step, it had dropped six inches. Or maybe her leg had buckled. She pitched forward and caught herself against an empty table.

  The redhead from earlier was back again. She touched Mei’s arm but the touch felt distant as though it was water pushing against her rather than a person. “Are you okay?”

  Mei nodded. “Thanks.” The word felt like a large bite of something sweet and sticky. Her tongue was too big; it filled her mouth and made her want to gag.