The Washington Decree

by Jussi Adler-Olsen

  She found a tin plate mounted next to the front door, covered with layers of generations of taped-on names, including Rosalie Lee’s. A rancid odor clung to the stairway, and she could feel the building tremble with the presence of so much pent-up humanity. It was like treading into the dragon’s cave—fascinating, repellent, and inescapable.

  Rosalie’s face had never looked so bleak, thought Doggie, as they greeted each other. Her wide mouth and full, bloodred lips and the dimples centered so deliciously in her cheeks—everything was dried out. Doggie received her hugs and words and tears, giving her all the time she needed. No, Rosalie was not doing well.

  After listening to an account that was broken by pauses and trembling lips, Doggie gave her friend $5,000 and asked if Rosalie wanted company at the police station, but Rosalie preferred to go alone. Doggie should just make herself at home—whatever was Rosalie’s was hers. She started feeling a little better. Now she could bail out her two boys, and she had the money for Frank’s coffin.

  “Listen, Rosalie, before you go, do you have anything I can dye my hair with?” Doggie asked.

  Rosalie gave her a look of mock haughtiness. “Is it so obvious?” she asked, carefully patting her frizzy curls.

  Doggie just smiled. “And a pair of scissors?”

  * * *

  —

  As Rosalie’s steps faded down the hall, Doggie found her way to the kitchen, where she was greeted by an orgy of light and electricity. Three or four strings of Christmas lights cast drops of color over snuffling spaghetti sauce pots on the stove, a steaming coffee maker, an iron and ironing board that were ready for action, a half-open fridge, a radio with humming jazz music, and a silent, flickering TV the size of a shoebox. All indications of Rosalie’s distracted state.

  She checked out what was edible in the refrigerator, then went out to the bathroom and took stock of her light brown hairdo that no longer looked like the fortune it had cost a month ago. She heaved a sigh as she picked up the scissors. It was the first time in her life she was cutting her own hair, and the first time it would be so short.

  A half hour later she studied the result with a mixture of horror and dismay. Decked out in the clothes of Ollie Boyce Henson’s woman, with muddy-black, short hair that looked like it had been attacked by a lawn mower, plus a complexion totally devoid of makeup, any silly adolescent girl’s dream that Wesley Barefoot would one day sweep her off her feet seemed light-years away. At most, she might look tasty to some punk reject or heavy metal nerd from Minnesota. Just as she intended.

  Pretty upset by the sight in the mirror and feeling longing and loneliness like never before, she made her way back to the kitchen, shut off half the appliances, and turned up the TV.

  It read 4 P.M.: SPECIAL WHITE HOUSE PRESS CONFERENCE in the corner of the screen. Her mouth stuffed with food, Doggie watched Wesley loom into the picture, saying that British prime minister Terry Watts would be paying his first visit to the White House in more than four years. Wesley tried to make the world believe that the prime minister and President Jansen were holding a series of cordial discussions whose purpose was to help normalize impressions abroad of the president’s current reforms.

  Afterwards he cleverly wove in a homey anecdote about how Watts’s dog had chewed up half the carpet in the sitting room at 10 Downing Street, but Doggie could see he wasn’t enjoying it. His smile sat wrong on his face, and the pores under his sideburns were gradually filling with sweat. She stopped chewing, completely engrossed by the sight of him.

  Then he turned to the nearest of the chosen journalists, pursed his lips for a moment, and regained his winning, trademark smile.

  “Since the Secure Future campaign began,” he said, “more than twenty thousand drug abusers have been let out into society under a kind of big brother arrangement, where they’re watched over by ex–drug users who help keep them clean. In a mere matter of weeks it has been possible to achieve what decades of misguided drug abuse policies never could. The system works. Our statistics show that only twelve hundred of the twenty thousand have re-offended and that for each day, the rest are adapting better and better to their new working roles. An infected boil on American society has been punctured.”

  Next there was a stream of praise for the president’s agenda, then a short “documentary” clip that followed the daily life of a drug abuser during his first three weeks under the big brother program. And the results did appear miraculous. The pathetic, strung-out, mentally unbalanced, asocial loser they’d plucked out of San Quentin had been transformed into the attentive and engaging man who now stood with his arm around the shoulder of his “big brother” and a broad, confident smile. It was all more than a little hard to believe.

  As she swallowed the last of her food, she saw flickering blue lights accompanied by a siren as a patrol car barreled down the street. Anxiously and cautiously she peered out over the kitchen windowsill that was overflowing with a collection of “antique” coffee cans, but saw only a bunch of noisy, posturing kids. One of them looked up at the window and made a suggestive motion with his hips.

  She turned around in time to see her own face filling the TV screen—a neat, attractive blonde. A reward had been posted for information that would lead to the apprehension of this “dangerous, mentally deranged” person. Then a police officer held up a Fendi bag just like hers, calling her “an enemy of the United States.”

  It felt like the sandwich she’d just eaten was about to come back up.

  Then a series of photos and descriptions of other wanted persons rolled across the screen, many of whom she knew. There was former vice president Michael K. Lerner and other well-respected politicians who had gone underground, as well as several big-business types and many, many others. The accusations were serious, and if they were caught—which wasn’t unlikely with such substantial rewards—their futures looked grim. Just like her own.

  She knew most of what they were accused of was false. Not all, but most of it. There she sat, in this moment of reflection, hundreds of miles from the convincing manipulations of the White House, like someone shipwrecked on an island surrounded by sharks. If T. Perkins didn’t help her—and she had no way of knowing if he would—there was nothing left to hope for. She felt stranded, isolated, and impotent, far, far away from the sterile cell where her father awaited his fate.

  “Time hasn’t run out yet, so pull yourself together, girl,” Doggie admonished herself, noticing that it was becoming increasingly difficult to think straight. She knew there were many incongruities in her father’s case, including the chain of events surrounding the assassination, her father’s unshakable plea of innocence, the cocksure attitude of the technical experts, and the jury’s anger. The question was: What should she do about it? There was no media to which she could turn in order to win sympathy, for the simple reasons that there were no independent media left, no public authority that wouldn’t immediately turn her in, and no lawyer willing to risk their career or possessing the ability to break down the imposing wall of injustice and apathy. Only her friends were left, and there weren’t many of them.

  She dug Ollie’s battered cell phone out of her bag and tried the Highland County Sheriff’s Office again.

  A switchboard lady of few words asked with whom she was speaking. She said her name was Doggie. No, unfortunately she couldn’t speak to the sheriff due to the fact that he’d taken the next couple of days off, and no, she couldn’t reach him on his cell phone since it had recently been put out of commission in the line of duty.

  Doggie frowned. So T’s cell phone was no longer functioning. No wonder they couldn’t communicate.

  Then the switchboard lady asked if there was a number Sheriff Perkins could reach her at if he happened to call in, and Doggie was just about to say yes but didn’t. If this woman was as empty-minded as she sounded, she would forget the connection between the cell phone and her call within a matter of mi
nutes. Why should she give them another chance to track her?

  So she said no, her heart full of doubt.

  * * *

  —

  The two sons came through the door shortly before their mom, showing none of the signs of propriety or humility one might expect from a couple of reprieved sinners whose freedom they owed to the survival instinct of their mother’s battle against all odds. Suddenly they were there in the living room, checking her out with gaping eyes and disdainful lips, the one with a backward baseball cap and the other with a tight headscarf and pants so voluminous, they looked like a floor-length denim skirt.

  And they didn’t take their eyes off Doggie’s breasts and her skin-tight jeans until their mother came blustering into the room.

  “Doggie, Doggie, oh, my Lord. This’s some bad news, honey.” Rosalie Lee threw her handbag on the kitchen table and plopped herself down on a plastic-covered stool, out of breath. “Every police station in New York has your picture hanging on the wall with the country’s most wanted! There’s a twenty-five-thousand-dollar reward on your head!” She fanned her sweaty face. “Oh, Doggie, that kind of money ain’t small change around here, you better believe it. Did anyone see you when you came? Think real hard.”

  Did anyone see her? “Yeah, they sure did.”

  Rosalie turned to her boys. “You boys are going to fix this, you hear? Doggie’s just paid your bail, so you make sure they cool it on the street, okay? Go!”

  The two boys looked at their mother like she’d just given them a potentially fatal disease. She had to stare them down before they shuffled off.

  “What about the guy who drove you here?” Rosalie asked, dabbing her face.

  “No, I don’t think he’ll tell the police. Plus he doesn’t know where I am. I had him let me off a ways from here.”

  “But he knows you’re in the Bronx, doesn’t he?”

  Doggie nodded.

  “Listen, baby, I give you two hours at the most before the heat is here. These are new times, Doggie. In the old days, there was a code of honor. The cops lived their lives in Cop-land and we had no business there and folks didn’t talk. It’s not like that now. We’ve got to get you out of here, fast as possible. When the boys come back, we’ll find you a vehicle. They both drive good enough. A little fast, maybe, that’s all. Do you know someone you can visit?” She took a look at Doggie’s handbag and dumped the contents on the kitchen table. “You can’t be running around with this fancy thing, girl, they know you’ve got it, so . . .” Her eyes fell on the Buddha figurine that had rolled around before coming to rest between lipsticks, Tampax, and a $7,500-wad of bills.

  “Goodness gracious, do you still have that?” Rosalie took the statuette carefully in her big, soft hands and stood completely still, as though the past had put her in a momentary trance.

  Doggie no longer had the same fond memories as Rosalie. The only feeling she really had right now was one of thorough exhaustion.

  “So where can you go?” was her next question.

  These few words suddenly brought the relative importance of the components of Doggie’s life into perspective. One spends one’s whole life building relationships into a kind of safety net, weaving new ones in all the time, until the mesh is so fine, one can no longer see through it and distinguish—or even clearly remember—one’s roots. And now, here she stood, balanced unsteadily on this impenetrable, jiggling net, needing to find a way through to something solid, but too tired to try. She would so much like to be able to say to Rosalie that, yes, there was someone she knew who she was sure would take her in—that Wesley had a remote cabin where he’d hide her and protect her till the end of time—but a wave of loneliness struck her speechless. “I don’t know, Rosalie . . .” she finally said, her voice unsteady. “Only you and my mother come to mind, and my mother’s out of the question. That’s the first place they’ll look.”

  She felt Rosalie’s warm hands on her face, so unexpected yet appropriate. This was as close as she could come to feeling safe. This was her haven. And it was all she had.

  Rosalie dried Doggie’s cheeks; she knew more than enough about tears. “But tell me: What’s this about?” She nodded towards the Buddha.

  “I tried to get through to Jansen, but I didn’t succeed. It’s been a hell of a long time since he’s been the man who gave it to me.”

  “No, it’s not Jansen I’m talking about. What about that little note John Bugatti stuck inside it? Have you looked?”

  Doggie smiled. “Do you really remember that?”

  “I’ve got one good memory, remember?”

  “Then I’m sorry to disappoint you. He didn’t put any note inside, Rosalie, he was just being friendly.”

  The buxom woman sat up straight on her stool. “Oh, yes, he did. He put it in. I saw it, I promise you.”

  She picked up the figurine and tried to look inside its tiny, open mouth.

  “I’ve done that hundreds of times, Rosalie. You can’t see anything because there isn’t anything.”

  Rosalie shook her head and stood up. “Never mind, then! You know what? You can go to my sister’s. She needn’t know ahead of time. She lives in Five Forks, southwest of Richmond. It’s a little house, but it’s big enough.”

  Doggie bit the inside of her cheek. South of Richmond—so close to her father. Almost too close. She looked out in the hallway where twenty pair of worn-down Nike footwear were lined up, and suddenly she knew the moment had arrived, the moment where you realize you only have yourself left, and that everything else merely reflects your impotence. The shoes would still be standing there tomorrow and the day after. Their owners would continue living their own lives; it had nothing to do with her. Even if they wanted to help her, she was still trapped in her own situation. She had nowhere to go, her father was about to die, she’d gotten a stranger to drive her to New York, and now another stranger was going to drive her away again.

  Altogether, it was painful to think about.

  A door slammed and they both looked up. The boys were back.

  “How come you’re already home?” asked their mother. “You couldn’t have given the word to very many.”

  “Cool it, Mama. We’re borrowing J. Firebird’s fucking Ford,” said the one Doggie judged to be the younger. “It’s the kind of wheels you never notice. Let’s go.”

  “What happened, Dennis?”

  “The whole street knows that lady’s here.” The boy turned to Doggie. “You’ve got a cell phone. Let me have it.”

  “Why?”

  “Hey, lady, you got it off a dude named Ollie, am I right?”

  Doggie could feel how her T-shirt was beginning to stick to her skin. “How did you know that?”

  “Yo! There’s a fucking twenty-five-thousand-dollar reward for turning you in; they just said it on TV.”

  Rosalie made the sign of the cross while Dennis eyed the stack of bills that were still lying on the table. “Listen. An hour ago every motherfucker on the block knew which direction you came from, and fifty minutes ago they knew where you were dropped off and by who. Dig?”

  Doggie looked over at the other silent brother. He nodded in agreement.

  Rosalie’s eyes narrowed. “How did you know Doggie has that guy Ollie’s cell phone? And in God’s name, tell me what it means.”

  “Hey, this here is black man’s territory, bongo-bongo land. Can’t you hear how they’re motivating down on the street? The jungle drums in Throgs Neck do their thing—you know that!” Dennis cocked his head to the side, and his body broke up momentarily in a break-dance. “That-dumb-cocksucker-Ollie, he-was-comin’-on-to-his-cousin, ’bout-his-new-slick-cell-that-cost-a-shitload,” he rapped, “and-then-the-nigger-turn-the-damn-thing-on. Need I say more? They track his ass in one minute, flat. Ten fucking pigs, all over him. How long do you think he’ll keep his fucking mouth shut down at the station? ‘S
pecially when they wave the twenty-five grand in his sad-ass face.”

  Doggie ought to have known. She should have given Ollie Boyce Henson an extra five hundred and just got rid of her cell phone.

  “Listen, lady, I know what you’re thinking: ‘Fucking Ollie Boyce Henson,’” crowed Dennis. “But if you’d gone with a cheaper damn cell phone to begin with, this never would’ve been happening, would it?”

  She nodded grudgingly and began collecting her things on the table.

  “So what should she do now?” asked Rosalie.

  Dennis adjusted his headscarf under his baseball cap and gave his mother a languid look. “First of all, she gives me her fucking cell phone.” He turned to Doggie and extended his palm. “You can’t use it, anyway. The cops’ll track it in no time, maybe they already have. You never know with those pigs. It all depends on if Ollie’s already been singing. Here, you get my brother Frank’s instead. He doesn’t have much use for it anymore. He never really used it anyway; he was too fucking dumb at that shit.” He gave his mother an apologetic glance and handed Doggie a phone that at least looked a step up from Ollie’s. “The number and PIN code are on the back. Not too fucking bright, but that was our Frank, okay?” He pointed at some numbers scratched into the surface.

  “What about my phone numbers in the address book? I don’t know them all by heart.”

  He sighed and pulled the brim of his cap further down his neck. “Okay, lady. I’ll punch in a couple of the most important numbers into Frank’s phone for you. You only get a minute, then you turn it off. Got it?” He looked at his wrist with an exaggerated gesture, as though he were counting the seconds, even though he wasn’t wearing a watch.

  She opened Ollie’s phone number memory and chose the numbers that were relevant. There weren’t many.