Eleven Hours

by Paullina Simons

  “No,” Didi said, her voice barely audible even to herself. “Why?”

  “Because no one gives a shit! No one cares. Because sometimes bad things happen to good people and no one cares to make that wrong right.”

  Crouching on her knees, Didi felt vulnerable on the ground, two feet tall to his eleven. At least she was off her legs. She became dizzy with another pain that squeezed so hard even the terror inside her heart subsided for a minute. She was grateful for that, but the minute was soon over.

  When she wasn’t watching, dusk had turned to dark.

  Didi leaned to the ground. With blood caking one eye and the other throbbing, she could barely see, but she searched for a rock or a stick, anything.

  There was nothing, just dirt and some pebbles. She scooped up a handful of dust.

  When Lyle came up to her, Didi tried to get up. A little at a time, the dust sifted through her fingers and fell.

  “Why are you on the ground, Didi?” he said quietly. “Are you praying for my wife?”

  She tried to get up. “No, Lyle,” she said. “No more. I’m praying for me now.”

  He crouched down in front of her. “No one can hear you, Didi,” he said, almost tenderly, she thought. “Don’t feel so bad. No one heard me either. No one heard my wife. No one heard my baby.”

  They were facing each other, she on her knees, unable to get up without his help. He crouched a few feet in front of her, looking into her face. She lifted her eyes off the ground, still clutching what was left of the dirt and stared into his face. His eyes were clear and sad. His mouth was slightly open and his breathing was shallow.

  It was a steaming night. The lights from the car made it seem hotter.

  Didi threw the dirt at him underhand, hampered by the handcuffs. Lyle spit out the dirt she had flung at him.

  He crawled to Didi on his knees, leaned over, grabbed her face, and kissed her very hard on the mouth. She leaned away from him as far as she could—she would have fallen backward if he had let go of her—but couldn’t move her face away.

  At last Lyle pulled slightly away from Didi, remaining inches from her face. Looking up at the starlit, moonlit sky, he whispered, “Where’s God, Didi? Here we are, in the open field, in the open cemetery. Scream, shout for Him. Where is He? If He’s not here among the dead, then where is He?”

  “I don’t need God to help me, Lyle. I need you to help me. I need you to lift me up off my knees and put me in the car and drive to the nearest highway, and leave me on the side of the road—”

  “Dead or alive, Didi?” Lyle interrupted with a smile.

  “Alive, Lyle, alive! I need you to consider me one of the living. I need you to see me as a human being and stop hurting me.” He didn’t interrupt, so she continued. Her voice rose with intensity, until she was groaning, moaning, clutching her hands to the Belly. Didi was having pain she didn’t want Lyle to see. “I never did one thing to you, Lyle, not one thing. I didn’t turn away from you when you needed me, I didn’t hurt your wife, I didn’t hurt your baby—”

  “You were hurting yours, though,” he said, “by carrying all those damn bags.”

  “I wasn’t hurting the baby!” she yelled, hurting herself.

  Then the contraction was over. She spoke softer. “I wasn’t hurting the baby. No more than if I were walking or jogging. I wasn’t carrying bricks, I was carrying toys for my kids. I was fine, Lyle, and my baby was fine.” She paused. “We were fine until you came along.”

  “You weren’t fine, Didi,” Lyle said. “You thought you were fine, and one second you were, but the next you weren’t, and that’s the thing about life and fate. They’re unpredictable things, aren’t they?”

  “Lyle, they’re not the unpredictable things. You are. If you hadn’t come into my life, I would have had a good day.”

  “But I did come into your life,” he said. “I came into your life and you came into mine with your big belly.” He paused as he tried to get control of his breaking voice. “Death came into my life. I didn’t invite it in, I didn’t ask for it to come. My wife always tried to make Sunday service—”

  What, when she wasn’t hung over from the night before? thought Didi.

  “She would give her last piece of bread to a homeless bum in Abilene. She never begrudged me anything, yet death came into her life and into mine.” He was crying openly now.

  Despite herself—maybe because of herself—Didi again felt something for Lyle. Something rose in her throat, a bubble, and burst into an echo of sympathy.

  He collapsed in front of her. She raised herself from a crouching position to kneeling. This man was weeping in front of her, broken down, broken-hearted, grieving. He seemed so alone, so non-threatening, so lost.

  Reaching down, she gently touched his head with her manacled hands. “It’s all right, Lyle,” she whispered. “You’ll be all right.” Then, on her knees, she backed away from him. He is a soul before God. He’s a soul in darkness.

  “Lyle,” Didi said softly. “You don’t think I know how you feel?”

  He looked up at her. “No, I don’t think you do, pretty Didi. You’ve never lost anything in your life.”

  “But that’s not true, Lyle,” she said, lying. She really never had lost anything in her life that was as dear to her as a spouse and a child.

  He shook his head. “It’s true, Didi. I could tell just by the look of you. You were just so happy waddling into the mall, shifting around, gazing at the stores without a care in the world, smiling at the pretzel man, talking to the cashiers. You were so happy. And your husband too. He’s happy, isn’t he?”

  “Not now,” said Didi.

  And Lyle said, “Never again.”

  If Didi hadn’t been gritting her teeth through another contraction, she would have railed at his words. How could she have touched him when he was down?

  “If you…” Didi fought to get the words out. “If you ask … God … for forgiveness, you will have eternal life.”

  The pain was great. Didi started to cry. It seemed to take longer than sixty seconds for it to pass.

  “It’s God who should be asking my forgiveness,” Lyle said coldly, getting up.

  “Help me off the ground, please,” Didi said. “My legs are falling asleep.”

  He didn’t offer her a hand. “Help yourself.”

  She reached out her hand to him. My belly is too big, she wanted to say. I have thirty pounds of life pulling me to the ground. I need your hand. And then she thought, I’m asking the devil for help. If he extends his hand, I’ve invited him in, and once in, there is no driving him out, me with my vanished strength. I have no will to drive the devil out. Didi’s hand lowered.

  She struggled to her feet. At last she was up. Much better. She stared at Lyle. He looked much too strong for a pregnant Didi.

  A pregnant Didi in labor. She had another contraction while she watched him walk over to his wife’s grave. He lay down and kissed the stone. “Good-bye, Mel. I won’t be back. You’ll understand. It’s all going to work out, though. I have a good feeling about it.”

  In a few moments, Lyle got up and said, “Let’s go, Didi. Back to the car.”

  She walked slowly, pretending to study the ground. “Could you open the door for me?” she asked.

  He opened the door and shoved her inside.

  If I don’t have a drink now, I will die. I am poured out like water, my mouth is dried out like a clay pot, my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth, and you have laid me in the dust of the grave.

  As if that’s the most of my problems.

  Didi flung her head back and closed her eyes.

  She heard Lyle start the car, felt it pull away.

  And then he said to her, “Have you ever had an abortion, Didi?”

  “What?” she quietly asked, and all of a sudden—

  That was enough for her.

  Didi raised her hands, flung herself at him, and hit him as hard as she could over the head with the metal edges of her hand
cuffs.

  Didi thought she broke skin. He yelped in a way that satisfied her. She stayed long enough to hit him again, harder.

  He thrust his right arm at her to stop her, but she hit his arm away, grabbed the door handle, opened the car, and threw herself out on her side.

  Her ribs exploded. The car had been going slowly, but the ground was hard. Didi realized that only intellectually. She immediately picked herself up, got onto her feet, and began running away from the car. She heard Lyle scream, “Didi!” She didn’t turn around. She ran into the darkness and gravestones and the trees. Unable to see, she collided with a stone that cut her across the knees. In pain, she went around the stone and kept running, her hands out in front to protect her against a branch or a tree. She couldn’t hear Lyle behind her, couldn’t hear his footsteps, couldn’t even hear her own.

  In the moonlight she saw the shape of a tree, then of a number of trees. She ran toward them. She knew she was running slowly. With the tension in her belly, her feet were barely moving. Come on, come on, she whispered to herself. She dropped to the ground and crawled until she found a small ditch behind a tree. She fell into it, rolled to one side, and tried not to breathe.

  9:00 P.M.

  The helicopter landed at the intersection of a suburban street, a block away from the Lufts’ house in Abilene. Three black vans waited. The back doors to the vans were open and the “special agents,” as Scott called them, sat with their feet hanging over the edge, waiting for instructions. They were dressed like Scott, though few were wearing black bandannas. Farther down the block, Rich saw at least ten cop cars, no sirens, but lights flashing.

  Scott popped out of the helicopter, his H&K in hand, walked over to the men in the van, and said, “Did you guys bring the map of the neighborhood I asked for?”

  One of the men brought out the map from inside the van. Scott studied it briefly. “We probably won’t need gas masks, but bring the light mounts for the rifles, because we don’t know how long before this guy shows up. Hell, bring the smoke, too. If he’s in the house, we’ll smoke him out.”

  “And then we’ll kill him,” Rich whispered.

  “Shhhh,” Scott said, and then added, “Here, don’t forget the vest, will you? Make sure it’s zipped all the way up on the side. I know you’re hot, but zip it up right, okay?”

  Rich shook his head. This could not be his life. He could not be standing in the middle of a quiet, tree-lined street zipping up his safety vest.

  “Can I have a gun too?” asked Rich.

  “Shh,” said Scott, glancing at the men sitting in the black van. “I can’t give you a gun. It’s against protocol.”

  “Fuck protocol.”

  “If I gave you a gun and anyone found out, my ass would be grass.”

  “So the answer to my question would be no? I can handle a gun. My father and I hunted when I was little,” Rich said.

  “Ah, blood sports,” said Scott. “That’s good. This is almost the same. Thankfully, you won’t be the one doing the hunting.”

  “Too bad,” said Rich, looking behind Scott at the SWAT men. “Do we really need them?” he asked.

  “Yes, we really do. We’re not Butch and Sundance, for God’s sake. We can’t go in alone. What would we do without them? Talk sense into him?”

  “What do you guys have in there, anyway?”

  “I don’t know. Usual stuff. Tear gas, rifles, bombs.”

  “Oh.”

  “What were you expecting? We don’t have, like, a howitzer in there.”

  “Why not?” Rich asked, staring into Scott’s sweating face. “I mean, why can’t we go to the Luft house by ourselves? We’re just going for information. You don’t think Lyle Luft brought my wife to meet his parents, do you?”

  Scott glanced at Rich and then away.

  Rich was too numb for fear. “What?” he said tiredly. “You think he already killed her and came over to his mom’s house for a little Monday-night steak? I don’t think so.”

  “You’re right, of course,” said Scott, prodding Rich along down the street, and then motioning the men to come with them. “All right,” he said to them, walking backward as he spoke. “Listen to me, and listen carefully. We may have a man inside who is holding a pregnant hostage and is trigger-happy—armed with at least two powerful guns. Use all possible caution and common sense when approaching. I want at least one man for each window and door in the house. The Abilene cops know to close off the area, right? I don’t want our friend Lyle driving off in his Honda with this man’s wife while we’re adjusting our crotch straps. Now, then, come with me, and then disperse. I want to walk up to the house alone. But I need two men to cover me. Rich, you stay here.”

  Shaking his head, Rich said, “Absolutely not.”

  Scott looked surprised. The SWAT guys shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot.

  “My wife could be in there,” Rich said firmly, not allowing any argument. “I’m coming in too.”

  Scott sighed deeply. “And two more men to cover Rich. Got it?”

  “We can never be too careful,” Scott said to Rich as they started walking. Scott had given his H&K to another SWAT team member to carry. The bandanna was not much good at keeping sweat off Scott’s face.

  “I don’t know how you can walk with all that shit strapped on you,” said Rich.

  “I’ll admit I’m a little warm,” Scott said. “And I’d rather be wearing my suit and tie when I come to knock on people’s doors. It always seems more civil—”

  “What? To blow their brains out in a suit and tie seems more civil?”

  “Exactly right.”

  “I see.”

  The SWAT men with their high-powered rifles spread out between the houses. Some ran ahead of Rich and Scott, disappearing into the trees. Some trailed behind them. Four men flanked them.

  Before they turned the corner to Washington Street, Scott said to his group, “Do you think we could be more conspicuous?”

  The men stared.

  “Okey-dokey, I meant less conspicuous,” explained Scott. “Listen, just stay close, but don’t crowd me, okay? If he’s in here, we don’t want him opening fire.”

  Rich looked around him as the SWAT men took their positions. Rich felt better that they were here for him. He opened up his shirt a button and kept walking. His undershirt was damp with sweat, and his short hair was wet at the roots. Then he looked over at Scott and was ashamed at himself for being hot. “Man, that stuff on you is heavy, isn’t it?” he said.

  “All in all it weighs thirty-seven pounds. That’s with the light mount. But hey, I don’t have my machine gun, so really it’s only twenty-seven pounds.”

  Pulling out his Glock 17, Scott made sure it was loaded, felt in his load-bearing vest for more clips, and then said, “Cover me if I get into trouble, man.”

  “Are you talking to me?” asked Rich.

  “No,” Scott said, nodding in the direction of an armed officer.

  “Oh,” said Rich, walking fast beside him. “Because I could sell you a really nice counter display that holds twelve inspirational titles. That’s about all I can do.”

  This was an old, well-kept neighborhood. The small houses were mostly one-story, surrounded by mature trees. It was late, and there were only a few people on their porches, sitting in their lawn chairs looking out onto the street with passively alarmed faces. The rest had gone back inside; Rich could see them through the open windows, watching TV in their living rooms.

  Husbands and wives watching TV in their living rooms.

  All Rich could do was keep walking.

  Scott was unsmiling and focused.

  “We’re not going to fuck it up, are we, Scott?”

  Without slowing down, Scott put a heavy hand on Rich’s back. “Let’s go and talk to mister and missus.”

  The Luft house was a small brown bungalow with a long porch. Scott didn’t like the length of the porch, and Rich knew why. If Lyle was in the house, he could easily point a gun out
of one of the front windows and shoot Scott dead as he stood at the door.

  “Your men will cover you, right?” Rich asked.

  Scott nodded. “After he shoots me from the far end of this porch, my soldiers will cover me up and take me away before I’m cold.”

  He asked if they were ready before he mounted the porch. Turning around, he made sure his men were in their places. “Let’s go.”

  He pounded hard on the door with the butt of his Glock.

  Rich said, “No time for niceties.”

  “None,” said Scott.

  The door was opened by a thin, bald man.

  “You must have the wrong house,” he said immediately. “I seen you guys outside. You’re making a mistake.”

  “FBI,” said Scott. “May we come in?”

  “Not without a warrant—”

  Scott burst the door wide open and pummeled through past Mr. Luft. “Leave that for the movies, Mr. Luft, and for celebrity defendants. We’re investigating a felony kidnapping. We think the kidnapper may be in your house. We don’t need a warrant to find him. We have exigent circumstances. However, since you asked so nicely, I’ll tell you that we do have a warrant for your son’s arrest. Now, where is he?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Mr. Luft. “You get out of my house—”

  But he was stopped as three of Scott’s men kicked down his back door and pushed into the living room, a gray-haired woman in front of them. “Doris?” said Mr. Luft.

  “What do they want, Lyle?” Doris said shrilly.

  “We want your son, Mrs. Luft,” said Scott. “Lyle Luft. We want him.”

  “Well, he’s not here!” she said defensively. “What’s he done?”

  “Kidnapped this man’s wife,” Scott said. Rich watched speechlessly. In a matter of ten seconds, ten SWAT men stormed through the house, flooding every room with their rifles and their black uniforms. The small living area was dwarfed by their presence. Rich heard their footsteps and shouts. They ransacked the whole house in half a minute. “He’s not here,” said one of the men as he came out of the hall bathroom.