Eleven Hours

by Paullina Simons

  baby pains

  She moved her right thumb deep into her palm to make her hand narrower—narrow enough to slide through the cuff. Without letting go of the bottle neck, she tried to move the right cuff off her wrist with her left hand. It wasn’t working. When she almost dropped the broken glass, she stopped attempting to get the handcuffs off. Without the bottle, she was unarmed. She might free her hands, but she’d be unarmed.

  They walked a little deeper into the stand of trees.

  “Let’s sit here, Lyle,” said Didi when she saw the outlines of another picnic table. “Let’s sit here and talk a bit. Want to do that? How would that be?”

  Lyle’s shadowy face smiled at her. “Sure, Desdemona.”

  She gratefully sat down on the bench several feet away from him. “Sit closer to me, Didi. We’ve been through a lot together.”

  “That we have,” she said, moving closer to him. She didn’t want him to see her fiercely trying to free her right hand while the left hand hung on to the beer bottle.

  Lyle looked into her face. “I can see you were once beautiful.”

  “Thank you,” she said softly, thinking, bastard, bastard, bastard. Get off my hands, get off my hands, she thought to the handcuffs. But they wouldn’t come off and then

  baby pain

  She closed her eyes and began to count. She forgot about the cuffs for sixty seconds. The middle thirty seconds were the worst. She tried not to move, and only her bitten and bloody lip spoke of the baby’s desire to leave her.

  Lyle didn’t look at her until the contraction was over.

  “What do you want to know about me, Lyle?” Didi asked in a weak voice.

  “About you?” he repeated, sounding surprised. “Nothing. I know about you already. I asked you about Desdemona. Did she have a hard life?”

  Didi nodded. She figured she had about three minutes before the next contraction to tell him about Desdemona. “Desdemona was Othello’s wife.”

  “Did he love her?”

  “Very much,” said Didi, wanting to cry again. No time for crying. Only minutes before baby pain. “He adored her. Then he found out that she might have cheated on him—”

  “How did he find out?”

  “Iago told him.”

  “Was Iago telling the truth?”

  “No, of course he wasn’t. Desdemona was a faithful wife.”

  Lyle smirked. “Like you, Desdemona?”

  Nodding, she said, “Like me, Lyle.”

  “And then?”

  “Then Othello went crazy and killed Desdemona.”

  “How did he kill her?”

  “He smothered her.”

  “And the story was over?”

  “No,” replied Didi. “Othello found out Iago had been lying, so he killed himself.”

  Lyle studied her face. “He did?” Shrugging, he asked, “And Iago? He went scot-free?” Lyle asked with hope.

  “No,” said Desdemona. “He was found out and sentenced to be tortured to death for his crime.”

  “Ahhh,” said Lyle. “A just punishment.”

  They were silent.

  Turning to Didi, Lyle asked, “What punishment would be fitting for me, Desdemona?”

  “None,” she said instantly, “if you let me go.”

  “I see,” he said, half smiling. “And if I don’t?”

  “Death by torture would be okay, then,” Didi said, failing in a half smile of her own.

  “Didi, I’m sorry,” he drew out, “but you know I can’t let you go now.”

  Didi mustered enough fortitude to ask, “So is that what you want? You want me to come to Mazatlán with you?”

  “Well, no, you see,” said Lyle softly, “that would be a bit like always keeping a wolf at the door, now wouldn’t it? A pretty wolf, but a wolf nonetheless.”

  “I don’t understand—” She closed her mouth to hide a moan of pain. He glanced over at her and said nothing. He must have thought she was reacting to him.

  “Wouldn’t it, Didi?” Lyle repeated. Didi was having trouble keeping her eyes open. The pain was becoming measurably stronger. The baby pain was here. There was no return to the state of her pregnancy where every once in a while Didi would feel the Belly benignly contract in a Braxton Hicks. There was only one way to go, and that was out of the pregnancy, and she was headed into that unknown now, and she was headed there with a beast. She and the beast together would enter the tunnel, and she would close her eyes and hope for the best, and pray for some good luck, even some mediocre luck, any luck, as long as it wasn’t the terrible god-awful luck she’d been having lately. She’d close her eyes much as she did now and pray for ice to fall into her throat. When she would open her eyes again, she would have a baby and not be pregnant anymore.

  But she might be dead. The baby might be dead.

  No.

  No.

  9:45 P.M.

  Using the landing lights, the pilot set the helicopter down on Wyona Road, right in front of the Blecks’ house. Scott and Rich were the first to arrive, followed quickly by the four SWAT cars, followed by six more. By the time they got Scott’s gear out of the helicopter, there were four black vans and a posse of sheriff’s cars, nineteen cars in all on Wyona Road.

  Scott asked the policemen to turn off their lights. Then he asked the sheriff of Eden for the map of the area that Scott had called him about earlier.

  The sheriff, a portly, sweating man, finally admitted he didn’t have one in his possession. Apparently the city hall office had one, but it was closed. Short of breaking in, there was no way to get it.

  The Blecks’ house was dark, except for the porch light and the single light in what was probably the living room. It looked as if the Blecks weren’t home.

  “They’re not home?” said Rich incredulously. “How can they not be home?”

  “I don’t know, man. It makes no sense,” said Scott.

  “What about this day does?” said Rich.

  Scott wasn’t fooling around. He had his Glock in hand and his Heckler & Koch by his side, and he didn’t take his eyes off the house. He called in for more reinforcements from San Angelo. Scott said they were not leaving Eden without Lyle Luft, dead or alive.

  Rich thought it was ironic that they had been in San Angelo over two hours ago, so close to Eden, and yet so far. But even in Eden, what did they have? As they sat, Didi’s life hung in the balance somewhere.

  “Maybe there’s nothing here,” said Rich. “Maybe it’s just another dead end.”

  “Nothing’s been a dead end, Rich,” Scott said. “Every single thing has led us to him, and I’m telling you, he’s here. His Honda is here. He thinks we don’t know about his car, but he won’t be able to drive it anywhere, not in Texas, not in New Mexico, nowhere.”

  “Where is the Honda?”

  “I don’t know. Most likely parked somewhere. I thought he might be stupid enough to park it in front of the in-laws’ house, but he’s obviously not such a moron. He’s parked it where there are a bunch of other cars, like a garage, repair shop, gas station, someplace like that.”

  “Well, this place’s so small. How many gas stations can there be?”

  “I’m on it, all right?” Scott said. “Me and you are waiting here for the Blecks. My boys and the sheriff’s men will look for the Honda.”

  Rich said, “You know, he could have taken it already. Dumped the cop car, taken his Honda, and driven out of town.”

  Scott shook his head. “I’m pretty certain it didn’t happen. He was only a few steps ahead of us. He’s got business here, and we’re going to find out what it is. If he just wanted to put Didi into his Honda and drive off, he could have parked it in a million different places in Dallas. It’s very easy to park a car there. But in a city of a thousand people? Fifteen hundred? It’s much harder to stash, but worth the risk for Lyle to leave it here. My guess is, he’s hiding out right now, waiting to get it later. He doesn’t want the abandoned cop car to alert the police. He’ll wait, swap car
s, and then head on out in the middle of the night. If we find the Honda, we’re in like Flint.”

  Rich sighed. “Nice speech,” he said, “but where’s my wife?”

  “The Blecks will tell us,” Scott said. He paused. “Listen, don’t look at this as failure, all right? But I’m afraid you’ve driven me to this.” Opening his wallet, Scott pulled out a crumpled cigarette.

  Rich sighed. “The day has gotten to you.”

  “Yes.” He smiled. “I picked the wrong day to give up smoking.”

  “Do you have a light?”

  “Do I have a light?” Scott chuckled, reaching into his load-bearing vest. “How do you think we set off all those bombs?”

  He took a deep drag on his cigarette and looked measurably calmer. “God, that’s good. I blame you,” he said. “You came into my life, and look at me.”

  Rich said, “You can’t have just one, they say.”

  “Don’t I know it,” said Scott, pulling out a pack of Marlboros from his load-bearing vest.

  Rich smiled. “Some quitter,” he said.

  “Don’t let anyone say I’m a quitter,” said Scott, jumping off the car to pick up a photo that had fallen out of his vest.

  “What’s this?” Rich asked.

  “My son.” Scott showed Rich the laminated picture. “I don’t want to be shot in the middle of boondock, Texas, and have the last face I see before I croak to be that of a total stranger. I want to look at someone close to me.”

  “What’d you have it laminated for? Don’t want to bleed all over your kid?”

  “Exactly right,” said Scott.

  Rich was quiet. “The last face you’ll see will be mine,” he said at last.

  “Hey, I could do a lot worse,” said Scott.

  They waited.

  Scott said, “Maybe, after this is over, we can play a round or two of golf?”

  “I don’t think so,” said Rich, and saw Scott sink into himself a little bit. “After this is over, we’re going to need a drink.”

  They waited.

  “Why did you go into the FBI, Scott?” Rich asked.

  “You know why I went in?” Scott replied, rubbing the machine gun. “Because there are bullies in this world, and I knew a bunch of them. Take you, you look like a nice man, a good man. Your wife is a good woman, and yet someone out there wants to do her harm—hurt her, maybe kill her. And I want him to know that I represent a force equal to or greater than him. I’m here to stop him. And I take my job very seriously. I don’t like bullies—hurting helpless people. I don’t like being helpless myself. I come prepared for him. I’m here to protect your wife against the bullies.”

  * * *

  Neighborhood people came out to inquire about the commotion. Scott politely told them to go back inside, there was nothing going on, the police just wanted to talk to the Blecks. Yes, everything was fine, no, there was nothing anyone else could do. Except maybe tell them where the Blecks were. But no one knew.

  “How can no one know? What kind of nosy neighbors are these?” Rich whispered to Scott as he sat back down on the hood. “Where we live, our neighbors from across the street have nothing better to do but to look out of their kitchen windows and see how many times the UPS truck comes to our house.”

  Scott was quiet. Then he asked, “Does it come often, man?”

  Rich nodded. “Come to think of it, my wife is on a first-name basis with the UPS man,” said Rich. “She calls him Benji.”

  “That’s really special,” said Scott, smiling.

  “Every time she buys something for herself or the house or the kids, she buys something for me, too. That makes it okay.”

  “Of course it does.”

  Rich smiled. I love my wife, he thought. I don’t care if she buys out the entire fucking Spiegel catalog as long as I get her back.

  10:00 P.M.

  “I have a story to tell you, Lyle,” Didi said. “Are you listening?”

  “I’m listening, Didi.” He seemed morose. “We don’t have a lot of time,” he said.

  Didi’s throat became dryer. “Don’t we?”

  Shaking his head, Lyle said, “No, uh-uh. We don’t.”

  Didi was quiet. She had managed to move the cuff off her wrist and now it was firmly lodged on the bone at the base of her thumb.

  Water. If only she had a little water. And a tiny bit of soap.

  “Tell me your story, Didi.”

  There was no time. Her baby pain was in her belly again. Through this pain Didi tried to move the cuff farther down her hand; there was no feeling anywhere in her body except in her belly. She could have cut off her hand and not felt it.

  The cuff stayed put, and when the baby pain was over, Didi felt liquid pain in her hand. She must have cut her wrist with the cuffs.

  She watched him carefully. He had his left hand on the cop’s revolver, and his right on the Colt with which he’d shot the officer. The dead officer’s uniform looked awkwardly and unevenly pasted to his body. He sat still.

  “Once,” Didi said haltingly, “there lived an old woman who hadn’t done anything nice in her life for anyone.”

  “Is this someone you know?” Lyle asked.

  “No,” said Didi, fingering the broken glass, holding it tighter to make sure she didn’t drop it. “When the old lady died, she headed straight to hell—”

  “Naturally.”

  “But the archangel Gabriel wanted to spare her an eternity of damnation, so he went to God and pleaded for the old woman’s life. And God said to him, ‘If you can find one good thing that she’s done, then I will spare her and let her ascend to heaven.’”

  “God is so charitable.”

  Didi squeezed her right wrist between the handcuffs, but the wrist hurt and wouldn’t move any farther. She continued quickly, “So Gabriel searched through the old hag’s life and finally found one kindness: the old woman had given an onion out of her garden to a hungry man. And God said to Gabriel, ‘Take that onion and hold it out to the old woman. If it’s strong enough to pull her out of hell, then she shall rise to heaven.’” Didi felt the rumblings of a tightening stomach. She held herself together. “Lowering himself into the firepit, Gabriel extended the onion to the old woman and said, ‘Hold on, and I’ll pull you out.’ She grabbed the onion, and he started pulling. However, when the other sinners saw one of their own being saved by Gabriel, they grabbed on to the old hag’s skirts and arms and legs, hoping the onion would pull them out too.”

  Lyle laughed. “That’s exactly what I would do,” he said. “Wouldn’t you?”

  Didi moaned and went on, “The onion was strong and the onion would have pulled them all out. Except the old hag started cursing at the other sinners, prying their fingers off her and shrieking, ‘It’s my onion, it’s my onion, let go, vermin, it’s my onion.’”

  “She is so selfish,” Lyle commented.

  “That’s when the onion broke, and Gabriel, with great pity, watched the old woman and the other sinners fall back into hell for eternity.”

  Didi couldn’t hear Lyle respond, as she panted heavily, trying to work her way through baby pain, through the tunnel.

  Then Didi heard Lyle laugh softly. “Did you hear me, Didi?”

  “No, Lyle, I’m sorry. What did you say?”

  “The park is so quiet. No one but me is talking. How could you not hear me?” His voice sounded petulant.

  “I was trying to swallow. My throat is hurting. I really need a drink. Sorry. Could you say it again, please?” You bastard.

  “I said,” Lyle repeated impatiently, “that I don’t see how that story relates to me. Unless you’re talking about yourself as the old woman. Which I don’t think you are. Am I right?”

  “You’re right. I’m not.”

  “Didn’t think so. Well, I’ve done plenty of good things in my life. See, that’s the whole problem. I’ve been a good person all my life. I don’t see why God had to punish me.”

  “I don’t see why you have to punish
me.”

  “I’m not punishing you. God is.”

  “God is too busy to be punishing me. And I don’t deserve to be punished,” said Didi, shifting on the bench. Her legs were falling asleep from sitting in one position.

  “I didn’t deserve to be punished, either,” said Lyle.

  “But you weren’t punished by me, Lyle,” Didi exclaimed. “What did I ever do to you?”

  “Nothing. That’s my point. What did I ever do to God? I wasn’t that old woman.”

  Oddly, that had been precisely what Didi had been thinking. What did I ever do to God? Then she felt—resigned? No, but a feeling of failure began to wash over her, and failing a discovery of meaning in these old woods, Didi, struggling to believe in something, began to believe in her own death.

  “And Didi, don’t fool yourself. God led you into my hands. It wasn’t a coincidence that it was you I found today. It was fate. It was divine providence, yours and mine, that our lives became tangled. Why didn’t I find another pregnant woman—”

  “What does being pregnant have to do with anything?” Didi said, desperation in her voice.

  “Don’t interrupt!” Lyle shouted, and she fell quiet immediately. They were unevenly matched—she pregnant and handcuffed, and he with two guns, a knife, and an agenda.

  “Why did I go to the NorthPark Mall, the richest of all the malls, and why was the first thing I spied with my little eye as I got out of my car your belly in the yellow dress? I saw you and I said to myself, bingo. Bingo. Why didn’t I find another pregnant woman?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Because God wasn’t looking after me.”

  “Damn right. Because it was your fate. When our fate comes calling, the only thing we can do is follow limply along.”

  “Well, Lyle, isn’t it so convenient for you to be so fatalistic when it comes to my bad fortune and so rebellious when it comes to your own?” Didi said sarcastically.

  He was quiet a second and then said, “What are you talking about?”

  “Why do you think it’s my fate to have met you but not your fate to have your wife and child die?”

  “Because that was not fate. That was God’s way of saying ‘Screw you.’”