Forgive Me

by Joshua Corin

  To complicate matters, though, neither Henry Hoyt nor his wife showed up.

  Maybe Hoyt had spotted one of the cameras. Maybe he simply had the good sense to remember his browsing history, acknowledge that his browsing history would be searched, and thus he had acted accordingly. Or maybe—and this is what the detectives in the van posited around sunrise—Hoyt had played them. He knew his browsing history would be searched and so he had planted a false clue. Either way, the most promising lead in the case was a no-show, and, as the rain dwindled to a few spare droplets and the infant sun punched mightily through the clouds, painting the apartment complex an innocent orange, none of the sleepless detectives in the van were pleased.

  No one inside the apartment was pleased either. Em was asleep in the bed, but her face had taken on a schoolmarm’s scowl. Maybe she was dreaming about hoodlums ransacking her bookstore. Or maybe she wasn’t dreaming at all. Maybe she had fallen asleep with a scowl on her face and the expression had stuck. It was so unusual to see such dissatisfaction broadcast by such an easygoing woman, but Xana, who was standing in the doorway to the bedroom, understood it very well. It had taken a few months, but she had finally poisoned Em’s spirit. Hurrah for consistency.

  Xana wanted nothing more than to curl up alongside her Em, hold her, apologize to her, but to do so would have violated a request—a plea, really—which Em had quietly given upon bedtime.

  “You’re on the couch.”

  And now, as dawn bled through the apartment’s glass eyes, Xana returned to the couch. Officer Reeves sat nearby. He squinted up from his mug of instant coffee. Xana lay down on the couch. She couldn’t stretch out. There wasn’t enough room. And so life imitated metaphors, etc., etc.

  At least Hayley would be here soon. She was scheduled to arrive at eight. First stop on their whirlwind tour of Xana’s past offenses would be Yuri’s pawnshop. The All Apologies Tour of Xanadu Marx.

  Another list containing her present offenses would have to wait.

  Shortly before seven, the protective detail changed shifts. Xana recognized the two new officers as the ones who had dropped her off at Book Em the other night. Officer Vance, whom she had tempted with a nonexistent piece of nicotine gum, replaced Officer Reeves in the chair.

  Xana found a pack of spearmint-flavored nicotine gum in a drawer in the kitchen.

  “Hey,” she said, and tossed it to him. “Peace offering.”

  Officer Vance, who had a sloth-like laziness about him, caught the pack. He didn’t smile, but he did grunt out a noise of appreciation.

  And Xana returned once again to her couch. Soon Em would be awake. Soon she would come into the living room for her morning aerobics. Soon they would have to talk. And if their conversation didn’t go well, eight A.M. and Hayley were just around the corner.

  Except Hayley called at 7:16 to say she wasn’t coming.

  “I have a good excuse.” Hayley sounded evasive. “I’ll tell you later.”

  Xana projected her irritation toward the wall. “Or you could tell me now.”

  “It’s…”

  But fortunately, Xana’s better angels took control and stopped her tongue before she could flap it in a tirade. She shut her eyes and clenched the phone tightly in her hands and marveled at how boundless her own selfishness really could be.

  “Hayley,” she said, softly, “how are you feeling?”

  Pause.

  Damn it.

  Then: “I’m OK. I am. I’m OK.”

  That hadn’t been hesitancy before. That had been fatigue.

  “Hayley, are you at the hospital?”

  Pause.

  “It’s just a precaution. My blood pressure got a bit low and they want to keep me under observation. But I’m fine.”

  “You’re at Piedmont?”

  “You don’t have to come.”

  “Which room?”

  “You have more important things to do.”

  “Which room, Hayley?”

  “You got three people to see this morning. Yuri, Martinelle, and Edmonds. You don’t need me. Take a taxi. Call Uber. Get Em to drive you. That’s actually a good idea.”

  “That’s actually a bad idea.”

  “If you still want to come by after you see Yuri, Martinelle, and Edmonds, I’d love to hear how it went. I just wish I could be there when you get down on your knees and apologize to them.”

  “Nobody said anything about knees.”

  “I’ll see you later.”

  Hayley hung up.

  Xana stared at her phone. She could call a taxi. Absolutely. She could call a taxi and have it bring her straight to Piedmont Hospital. She could…but she wasn’t going to do so. Hayley had asked her to stay away. Just like Em had asked her to stay away.

  And speaking of Em, here she came, her night-blue yoga pants accentuating her lithe lower half, her loose green T-shirt with its Mark Twain quote accentuating nothing at all. Her flat expression was its own accentuation. She strode past Xana, introduced herself to Officer Vance with a handshake, asked if he needed anything, and then turned on her workout game. As it loaded on the TV screen, she unrolled her yoga mat and performed a perfunctory full-body stretch.

  “Sleep well?” she asked.

  Xana glanced over at Officer Vance, and then realized the question was intended for her.

  “Sure,” she lied. “You?”

  “No.”

  Em rolled her neck. The videogame greeted her. A warm, feminine voice. Loving. Before long, it had her bent over, head at her ankles, all the while reminding her in maternal tones to breathe.

  Xana, who had never possessed maternal tones in her life, said, “Want to hear something funny?”

  “No.”

  “Come on. Everybody enjoys hearing something funny.”

  “I’m not everybody,” replied Em.

  On the TV screen, an avatar of Em appeared. The avatar sat like a Buddha on its mat. Em sat like a Buddha on hers.

  “Hey, Officer Vance,” said Xana, “want to hear something funny?”

  Officer Vance, who had unrolled the daily edition of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution from his back pocket, peered up from its front page and mumbled, “Whatever your drama is, you don’t put me in the middle of it.”

  The videogame instructed Em to inhale red and exhale blue.

  “Look, Em, can we talk?”

  “No.”

  “We can’t talk?”

  “Apparently not.”

  Xana balled her fists and punched the couch cushions. “Would it help if I said I was sorry?”

  “It would help if you didn’t have to ask if it helped if you said you were sorry.”

  “That’s some passive-aggressive judo.”

  Em lowered her forehead to the mat and raised her shapely rump toward the ceiling. Xana knew this was intentional, knew she was being tempted to make a lascivious comment, but she wouldn’t. She was stronger than that. Who did Em think she was, believing she could manipulate Xanadu Marx with a gesture as base and paltry as—

  “Someone deserves a spanking,” said Xana, and Officer Vance sighed in disappointment, and Em sighed in disappointment, and Xana sighed in disappointment, and she went into the bedroom and then the master bath to shower away her baseness, her paltriness, her shamefulness. To succumb to allure was one thing, but to spout something so trite!

  The bad night had reduced her to something less than herself.

  And so it was to her real surprise that, halfway through her soaping, ten minutes into a litany of mental recriminations, the shower door swung open and Em stepped in, and finished soaping Xana’s back and shoulders.

  “You don’t deserve me,” whispered Em, and she hopped to her tippy-toes and kissed the bulbous summit of Xana’s long spine.

  “No,” replied Xana, caught between the water and the wonderful, “I really don’t.”

  Chapter 27

  Since there was no way in hell that Xana would be bringing Em along on her Memory Lane walkabout, especial
ly now that they’d mended the frayed threads of their relationship, there still existed the question of transportation. What a clever punishment the courts had given her. Judge Frye must have possessed the insight of Solomon to perceive so quickly and accurately that the most burdensome and onerous penalty he could deliver would be to rob this woman of her independence.

  In one day, it would be a year. In one day, she would have to appear before Judge Frye and then a determination would be made whether she could have her driver’s license reinstated.

  She already had her eyes on a ’57 silver Rambler Rebel that was gathering dust in the driveway of Merrin Lorenza, an obese exotic dancer and frequent attendee at Em’s late-night AA meetings. It had belonged to her son. Her son was dead. Car bomb in Baghdad. He hadn’t even been on duty that day. He had adored that car. If Merrin was going to sell it, it would have to go to an owner who deserved it. As to what criteria she had used to determine that Xana was worthy of her son’s prized possession…sometimes it was best not to ask questions and just say thank you.

  One day until freedom.

  If she survived probable doom awaiting her in the meantime.

  Fortunately, shortly after Em and Xana egressed from their shared shower and changed into their day clothes, their apartment received a visitor.

  “Detective Konquist, tell me you’re here to say you’ve closed the case.”

  He very much was not there to say anything of the kind. Instead, after an exchange of pleasantries with Em, he asked if he could speak with Xana in private. They adjourned to the courtyard in the middle of the apartment complex. The patches of grass were moist. The brick walkways were moist The detective and the ex-FBI agent found a backless stone bench and sat.

  “Do you know anyone at the…what’s it called…the DCRI?” he asked.

  “French intelligence? Why?”

  He told her about the McCormicks having gone to Paris. He told her about the phone call. He told her about Jorge Samorrasa.

  “And you think it’s a red herring,” said Xana.

  “I think it’s convenient, which is nice, but with this case? No. We don’t get convenient with this case. With this case we get a pair of witnesses who get disappeared by a fugitive cop who may or may not be working with another pair of witnesses who also disappear, although not before stealing a piece of valuable evidence which may or may not be the key to connecting a long series of crimes which may or may not help bring down a well-respected national charity. Did I forget anything? Oh yes. The Haitian priest.”

  “What have you learned about him?”

  “Ah, you’d have to ask your ex-friends at your ex-job. They’re running the circus now. They’ve got me and Detective Chau trying to track down a Hitchcock blonde who appears for three seconds in a piece of security tape from the hotel.”

  He elaborated about the Volkswagen and everything they had learned about the Van Dykes, the sum total being that what they knew was that they didn’t know jack squat. He then summarized his interrogation of Phillip Wilkerson’s best pal, Ross Berman, who was either hiding something or on the autism spectrum.

  “That’s where Chau is right now, actually,” Konquist explained. “Following Ross Berman. But we figured it didn’t take two people to do that, and so I came here.”

  “To ask if I had any contacts in French intelligence.”

  “I really do think the McCormicks are in danger. And with your former vocation, I figured you must know some people over there.”

  Xana thought for a moment. Then she took out her phone. She dialed thirteen numbers. She then spoke for a minute with whoever was on the other line. She spoke in French. Detective Konquist, whose mastery of foreign languages extended to a few Spanish curses, used the time to watch the breeze bend the wet-beaded grass. The sun was out, but so was autumn. Even in Georgia. Sure, the thermometer would continue to peak, now and then, in the seventies, but those days would become fewer as the days themselves became shorter and everything chilled and shrank and chilled and shrank and Christ almighty, Detective Konquist hated winter, and those young-blooded civilians like Scott and Crystal McCormick who probably could walk around in January and February without needing a coat or a scarf? That really ticked him off. He wasn’t mad at the people. He was mad at the circumstance. He was going to be sixty in January. He had been receiving mail from AARP for years now. Old people on the cover of the magazine. His peers. He was mad about that.

  And he really, really hated this case.

  “OK,” said Xana, pocketing her phone. “So here’s the thing. I used to be excellent friends with a woman over there named…well, let’s call her Jeanette. Really smart. Worked counter-terrorism in a country where murders committed by religious extremists get a dedicated segment in the nightly news.”

  “Sounds like the perfect candidate to—”

  “She’s dead.”

  “Oh.”

  “However, I also used to be acquainted with another operative whom I am going to call Paul.”

  “Is there a reason you’re not using their real names?”

  Xana ignored him and continued, “Paul isn’t what I would call a friend, but he always seemed to have a keen sense of priorities. He worked in a department called Violent Subversion. I like France. Never boring. That was Paul I spoke with. I originally was going to ask him for Jeanette’s number because of course I have his number, which is next to useless, but not her number, which I actually should have but don’t because that’s me, and when he told me that Jeanette was dead, I asked if maybe he was free to do a favor and he said he’d be happy to as soon as he returns from skiing in the Swiss Alps.”

  “Oh.”

  “There is a third possibility.”

  “Oh?”

  “His name is Michel.”

  “As in that’s the name you’re going to call him for the sake of this discussion?”

  “As in that’s his actual name. Michel Jardet. Paul assured me that not only is Michel currently in Paris but he would be willing to do this favor and keep it quiet.”

  “That’s great.”

  “For a price.”

  “That’s less great.”

  “I know him from reputation,” said Xana. “He’s a good operative. And Paul gave me his number.”

  Konquist pictured Scott and Crystal McCormick in his mind’s eye. Dangling off a girder high up the Eiffel Tower. Standing on the girder were the Van Dykes, their lips curled back in malevolent sneers. Friedrich Van Dyke raised a booted foot above Crystal’s fingers, while Alice Van Dyke hee-hee-hee’d.

  Subtle? No. Plausible. Very no. Effective? Yes.

  “Call him,” he told Xana, and she did, and she left him a minute-long message in French.

  “Now,” she told Konquist, “we wait.”

  Waiting. Detective Konquist nodded. Waiting was the job.

  Although they did not have to wait in the courtyard, especially not with Em alchemizing breakfast in the apartment, so the two of them took the elevator up, riding alongside a ten-year-old dog walker and her ten-year-old dog. Breakfast, as it turned out, was farm-fresh scrambled eggs, turkey bacon, and bottomless instant coffee.

  Officer Vance declined to join them. Not while he was on duty, he said. Detective Konquist had no such compunctions and so enjoyed the home-cooked meal with the two women. Much of the conversation was carried by Em, who respectfully prodded the detective about his job and family and life, and by the detective, who, like any good detective, dexterously turned each question back on Em.

  Xana simply ate.

  Eventually her quietude must have been conspicuous, because Em found the need to explain it.

  “Her friend is sick. Hayley. Have you met her? She’s remarkable. Nineteen years old. So smart. And courageous—oh you have no idea. She’s been fighting cancer for years. Rare form of lung cancer. She has to walk around with her own oxygen or she’d die. Anyway, last night her blood pressure plummeted, so now she’s at the hospital for observation. And I’m taking yo
u there, Xana, as soon as we’re through. I already called Marjorie. She’ll open up the store.”

  To which Xana broke her silence and said, “Actually, Detective Konquist and I need to go to the station. He thinks maybe if I look over some of my past cases, we’ll find who might be wanting to harm me. After that he’s going to take me to the hospital to visit Hayley. Isn’t that what you said, Detective?”

  And Konquist, who had said nothing of the sort, nodded in agreement. Frankly, it sounded like a good idea, and this would also allow him to be nearby when Michel Jardet returned Xana’s phone call. The McCormicks were in danger. Of this he was certain. One didn’t have to be dangling from the Eiffel Tower to be at risk of death. Jardet, if he was quite good, might even be able to apprehend those involved, get them to talk, and tie these loose ends up into a happy bow. Jardet, if he was merely mediocre, might by his presence alone tip off those involved and get Scott and Crystal executed.

  Too many innocent people remained at risk.

  Including Xana. In one day, someone was going to come for her scalp.

  No. Less than one day.

  Less than one day to unravel the biggest knot he’d ever found or Xanadu Marx would become the latest person to drown in this river of madness.

  Chapter 28

  Here, on the main drag of Peachtree Street, could be found the fabulous Fox Theatre, where dozens of films from Hollywood’s golden age had premiered on its big screen. A few blocks up the road: the Temple, site of a bombing in 1958. A few blocks up from there, plus a left turn, plus another sharp left down a one-way side street, and now one could find, on the southeast corner, a modest-sized pawnshop that boasted, on its leafy awning, a modest-sized lie. The establishment had not been in operation since 1972 but instead had been set up rather quickly in 1987 to situate a recent defector from the Soviet Union whom Xana referred to, because of his FBI code name “Cosmonaut,” as “Yuri,” although Yuri was not his real name.