All of Us (ARC)
Page 20
to repeat myself three times before Ortega understands. I
expect him to argue, to beg me to wait until the swelling
goes down, until I’m beautiful again, as beautiful as Eleni, but he doesn’t. He fetches my purse from a patient’s locker, rummages through until he finds a small compact, opens
it, places the glass before my single functioning eye. I’m as expected, one side of my swollen face as smooth and round
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as an overstretched balloon, the skin red turning blue, nose covered with gauze, a line of stitches running across the
right side of my forehead. I’ve seen this face before, cour-
tesy of our dead daddy, though he never let his daughter get within a thousand yards of a hospital, she left to heal on our own. Or not.
“They want to keep you here overnight,” Ortega tells me.
“Possible concussion. The rest of it”—he shrugs—“the rest
of it will heal in time.”
He stares at me for a long moment, his eyes flicking
between emotions I can’t name, then pulls a chair close to
the bed, sits down and takes my hand. “It never ends for you, does it?” He leans forward to kiss me, the touch of his lips a passing of feathers across my brow, and I know he loves us.
“Rest now, Serena. I’ll stay with you as long as I can.”
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CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
VICTORIA
It’s ten o’clock in the morning. We’re about to be discharged from Kings County Hospital although our body’s in no
shape, our mind either after an interview by a psychologist
named Lynch, she from the looney ward in another part of
the hospital. Did we do this to ourselves? Oh, not literally, but does something in our bizarre affect draw male violence
to us? More importantly, is Carolyn Grand’s current
environment insufficiently protective?
I tell her to call our lawyer, tell her three times before
my swollen mouth forms the words precisely enough to be
understood. Then she backs off.
Five minutes later a nurse informs me that I’m to be dis-
charged as soon as the paperwork’s completed.
“You’ll be just fine, dear. No lasting damage.”
I hobble to the patient’s locker on the other side of the
room, no escape from the pain now. My lower back is on fire.
The clothing I discover in a plastic bag, Serena’s clothes
are soaking wet, yet I’m to somehow put the garments on
my body, bra and panties, skirt and blouse, wet socks, wet
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shoes. Then I’m to take my fastidious self home via public
transportation.
There’s a mirror on the inside of the door. My face is the
color of an eggplant and hideously swollen, the right side
especially. My nose, with the bandages removed, is thick and cut on the side. The upper and lower lids of my right eye are so swollen they meet. Like a pair of lips.
I touch the line of stitches on my forehead, thinking, Oh, yeah, why leave Frankenstein out.
“Hey . . .”
I turn to find the cop, Ortega, standing inside the door, a
tote bag in his left hand, a set of car keys dangling from the fingers of his right.
“I brought some dry clothes from your apartment.”
He steps forward, lays the tote bag on the bed, looks back
at me. Only then do I remember that I’m wearing a hospital
gown that stops north of midthigh. And nothing else.
“I’ll wait outside,” he says. “But tell me . . .” He hesitates, his smile apologetic. “Well, who am I talking to? With your
face the way it is, you all look alike.”
I can’t help myself. I return his smile as best I can. “Victoria. Now, get out.”
“The first thing I want to know is how you got into the
apartment.”
It sounds like I’m speaking through a gag, every word
muffled, but after a short pause, he answers.
“Serena gave me the key. Last night.” He pulls the car into
traffic, straightens out. “By the way, I met your neighbor,
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ALL OF US
Marshal, the one who reeks of marijuana. He knew about
the attack because we had the building canvassed for wit-
nesses. Several other buildings, too. Unfortunately, it was
raining so hard nobody saw anything. The security cam-
eras were also useless. It doesn’t matter now that you’ve
identified—”
“Not me.”
It’s drizzling and I watch the spots accumulate on the
windshield. I have a million questions, but there’s no getting the words out, the effort to speak past my injuries too great.
Still, that I’m in a car, traveling in private and not on a bus trying to shield my face seems almost miraculous.
“Right, not you. Serena’s identification. O’Neill’s still on the run, by the way, so you’ll have to be careful. Very, very careful. But think about the consequences. O’Neill will be
remanded without bail as a parole violator the minute he’s
taken into custody. You don’t get a lawyer when you’re on
parole, or a trial. You get a hearing, a short one at that, and if the hearing officers don’t like what they hear, you’re sent back to serve your original sentence. Plus, the new charges
don’t go away and the years keep piling up.”
I wait until Ortega works his way around the back end
of a double-parked taxi, then say, “What do they call you?”
It comes out: “Wha day ca ruuuuuu.”
Ever the lady, I repeat myself. This time my speech bears
a close enough resemblance to the English language to be
understood.
“The name on my birth certificate is Roberto. But I’m
Bobby to my friends.”
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“Are you our friend? Are you here in your capacity as a
friend?”
He turns from Clarkson Avenue onto Flatbush, staring
straight ahead for several blocks until we’re again stopped by a light. Then he says, “I read Hank Grand’s file. I know what he did to you.”
“Fine, so you pity us. But I asked if you’re a friend.” I have to repeat myself, but not because he doesn’t understand. I’m thinking he can’t answer the question for himself. In the
end, though, he doesn’t have a choice.
“If Eleni were only Eleni, the answer would be obvious.
But she’s not.” He looks at me for a moment, eyes fixed on my injuries. “If wanting to help you means I’m your friend, then I’m your friend. Except that I can’t help you. I can only watch.”
Ortega’s foot slides to the brake as a cyclist veers into his path. “Okay, let me explain how it works. As detectives, me
and Greco gather evidence. We can make an arrest anytime,
but unless the suspect is likely to flee, we don’t decide on our own. We take our evidence to the squad commander,
Lieutenant Ford. She’ll either authorize the arrest or ask us to dig up more evidence. But even if she okays the arrest,
the issue’s not settled. There’s a unit in the district attorney’s office that liaisons with precinct detectives, especially on major cases. Keep in mind
, cops only need probable cause
before making an arrest, but prosecutors have to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. So, the DA’s office may refuse
to arraign a suspect until we produce more evidence. In
your case, if you’re indicted, your defense will be handled
by a special division inside Legal Aid devoted to major
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prosecutions. That alone makes ADAs cautious. Remember,
cops advance their careers by making arrests, prosecutors by securing convictions or guilty pleas.”
I don’t protest when Ortega—I can’t bring myself to call him Bobby, not yet—parks the car and walks me to our apartment. Nor when he runs out to the store and returns with
groceries. But I’m feeling—things, sensations, deep dark
desires?—maybe for the first time, despite the pain, despite a fear I’ve carried for all of my life. I know the others, especially Martha, think I’m attracted to women—I thought so
myself—but in truth I’ve been little more than a spayed cat.
What other choice did I have? Eleni’s promiscuity? Which
still threatens us with catastrophic consequences? Better to remain the asexual child Carolyn Grand might have been.
I watch Ortega put the groceries away, watch his eyes
as he comes back into the living room. I’m on the couch,
lying down, the better side of my face on a throw pillow.
Despite the pain, I lurch into a sitting position and motion him over. He looks down at me, his eyes as searching as my
own. What, exactly, are we, Bobby and I, looking at? Who’s
on the other end of the line? I take his hand, and I mumble,
“Flank uuuu.”
Ortega lays the back of his hand against the side of my
face. “I have to get going,” he tells me. “We’ve got two other cases working and I’m the lead on both. Luck of the draw.”
The irony doesn’t escape me as I watch him head for the
door, a testosterone-oozing cop with a heart of gold.
“I want to hear your story,” I tell him. “It’s only fair.”
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I have to repeat myself before he gets it. Then he laughs,
and his hand rises to his chest as I imagine it rising to Eleni’s breast.
“Next time, Victoria, assuming you want to see my ugly
face again. Oh, by the way, I asked Marshal to stay with you, at least for tonight. He’ll come over about seven. Until then, jam a chair under the knob and keep something, a knife,
close to you.”
“Do you mean the knife you confiscated?”
I’m expecting a laugh, but Ortega bites at his lower lip,
then squats. He lifts the cuff on his right pantleg and withdraws a small revolver from a holster fastened to his ankle.
He lays the revolver on top of the memos on our table.
“O’Neill’s breaking down,” he explains. “He’s spent most
of his life in a cage for extremely violent crimes and now he knows he’s going back. Somebody has to pay, Victoria. And
that somebody, right now, is you.”
“And I’m supposed to just shoot him?”
“Actually, you do have an alternative. You can give O’Neill
what he wants. You can confess to killing your father. Not a strategy I’d recommend, by the way. But neither is letting
O’Neill beat you to death. Don’t underestimate the threat.”
He pauses, waiting, perhaps, for me to laugh. When I don’t,
he continues, his tone now sober. “What I think is that
Detective Greco, if he can’t put the murder on someone else, is gonna take a shot at you. He’s gonna put you in a little
room, apply pressure and see what pops out. It’s not that he thinks you’re guilty. It’s that you might be and he has nothing to lose.”
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CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
MARTHA
Z enia,How many times have you warned me against unrestrained arrogance? How many times urged me to resist embracing my bottom-line narcissism? How many times have you pressed me to accept the occasional defeat? If not with good grace, at least with resignation.
What, you’ve run out of fingers and toes? You’re now working with grains of sand?
I can’t beat them. I admit that to you, put it in writing, cannot take it back. The collection of identities calling itself Carolyn Grand will not be manipulated by Dr. Laurence Halberstam. The only confession in the offing is my own. I’ve failed.
Between Carolyn’s many years in therapy and her sharp, neatly-concealed intelligence, her identities have become emotionally self-sufficient. One imagines them a family on the frontier, mountain people who keep to themselves, who reflexively fear the outsider.
Given the lives they’ve been forced to live, one can hardly blame them.
But I will never reach them. They parry each thrust with some tidbit, an anecdote, a memory, real, imagined, or entirely fictional.
And the identity you wish to speak with is never there.
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I didn’t exist. I didn’t exist. I didn’t exist.
Admit defeat, face your failures, cut your losses. That’s always been your advice—it’s why you settled the lawsuit—and I’m ready to take it. In any event, I’ll be telling no lie when I inform the review board that Carolyn Grand’s therapy has gone nowhere, that I hold no hope for the future and that I must, therefore, conclude our professional relationship.
What then?
That’s up to the board, of course. They may choose to leave Carolyn Grand at home until they locate another therapist. Or they may choose to confine her. Confining her is the safest course and the one they wish to take, but Carolyn’s attorney is unusually zealous, so . . .
You asked about Patricia, my little chubby, the idiot I told to lose a hundred pounds if she wished to free herself from the delu-sions that torment her existence. My apologies, Zenia, I’ve been so obsessed with my little multi that I’ve lost perspective. In any event, Patricia accepted the challenge. She’s dropped fifty pounds and taken to wearing tiny thongs that cause her buttocks to literally undulate. I need only snap my fingers and . . . and I believe I will.
I’m going to leave it there for the time being. I’m dining with Marilyn and Bill this evening and I need to prepare myself. My sister is beyond tedious and her husband is even worse. So sincere, so mediocre, so ultimately boring.
Zenia, I’ll be thinking of you as I shovel Marilyn’s breaded pork chops into my mouth, comparing your conversation with hers, all 224
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those forbidden rooms through which only the great may pass. Perhaps that will see me through. Let us hope so.
Always yours, Laurence
We gathered within seconds, all except Tina. Though we
read the email over and over, the message never eluded us.
Despite the bullshit, Halberstam wasn’t resigned to his failure. The scumbag was out for revenge.
What to do about it? How much risk were we prepared to
accept? The cop was there, Ortega. Eleni’s madly in love with him, though she won’t admit it. Talk about risk. I like the
cop. We all do. But trust him? Give me a fucking break. For
all I know, the freak named Carolyn Grand might amount to
no more than a notch on Ortega’s belt. Eleni is blind to the threat, and there’s not one of us who wants to bring her back to Earth. She’s positively glowing, as if she’s sh
ed a decade. If anything, we’re jealous.
At his insistence, the cop’s driving me to Halberstam’s
office. O’Neill’s still out there he claims, growing more desperate and more dangerous by the day. So, we definitely
need protection. I like to think I can take care of myself, but after checking my face in the mirror, my resistance fades.
“You want me to go up with you?” he asks. We’re parked
twenty yards from Halberstam’s door.
“To do what? Shoot him?”
He only smiles as he turns on the radio. “Good luck,
Martha.”
I take my seat, Halberstam’s office now so familiar I might
as well be standing on a subway platform. I’m holding a
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manila envelope in my lap and the doctor’s eyes go to it after a quick survey of our injuries. Injuries in which, apparently, he has no interest.
“Ah, the memos at last.”
“’Fraid not, Doctor.”
Halberstam’s chin jerks up. Whatever’s about to come,
it won’t be good. My tone is too cold even to be confronta-
tional. No more dancing around the ring. Toe-to-toe.
“I have something you need to see,” I explain. “But I’m
going to tell you a story first. Just so you fully understand our position. Not my position, Doctor. Our position.”
“Is that so?” Halberstam’s eyes withdraw. If he’s angry,
he’s not showing it. “I have news for you as well. But we’ll save that for later on. Proceed.”
“You age out of foster care on your eighteenth birthday. So
long, goodbye, adios. You know nothing of the real world,
even if you’re sane. But if your fragmented psyche grows
more fragmented every day, you are well and truly fucked.
Carolyn Grand was first sent to a shelter where she was
raped on her second day. She then took to the streets, sleeping in the subway or on a park bench when it was warm
enough. Chaos swirled around her. No, I should say that
chaos swirled around them because there were so many little Carolyns that it was all-but-impossible to keep track.
“Carolyn’s memory became a series of discrete patches
separated by empty black holes. Fall asleep in Manhattan,
wake up in Brooklyn. And that guy you traded sex for shel-