Breaking the Bank

by Yona Zeldis McDonough

She sat down, carefully, on the wooden bench. Sleep would be impossible in this place, but at least she didn’t have to stand all night. She looked at the dirty toilet and was supremely grateful for her greater-than-average bladder control; there was no way she was going to sit or even crouch over that. She tried to focus on something concrete—the crabbed graffiti scratched into the wall, the pattern of the bench’s peeling paint, which seemed to resemble a mountain range—when she heard a voice.

  “College Girl,” it said. “College Girl, you there?”

  Mia actually felt herself flinch. Who was that? And who was “College Girl”? Then she put it together. The blond guy in the next cell. He was talking to her.

  “I’m here,” she said tentatively. What to do? She had heard this guy screaming and cursing; she had seen him scuffling with the police officers. That had been quite enough contact for her; she had no desire to talk to him now. But she also didn’t want to anger him and spend the next God-knew-how-many hours listening to him scream at her. Maybe it would be better to placate him. “Why are you calling me College Girl?”

  “You went to college, didn’t you?”

  “Well, yes, but that was quite a while ago.”

  “Still. It shows. The minute I saw you, I said to myself, ‘She went to college. She’s a college girl.’ And I was right.” Mia said nothing to this, and he added, “So what was it like?”

  “College? I liked college. I had a lot of fun in college.” A lot of fun in college? She was so nervous, and God, but she could babble like an idiot when she was nervous.

  “Yeah? You party a lot? You had a boyfriend? A pretty lady like you, I bet you had lots of boyfriends.”

  This comment seemed like it was leading somewhere Mia did not want to go, so she didn’t answer.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked; she heard the belligerence snaking into his tone. “Did I say something wrong?”

  Mia remained silent, but her anxiety started to mount again. Why had she even started by talking to him in the first place? He was a psycho, he was deranged, and he was in jail, for Christ’s sake. But then again, so was she.

  “Hey, I’m sorry if I was out of line, College Girl.” His tone was softer. When she still didn’t answer, he said, “Come on. I said I was sorry. It’s just that I’m so steamed over those asshole cops I don’t know what I’m saying.”

  “It’s okay,” Mia said finally. Her butt hurt from the unyielding wood, and she shifted slightly, trying to get more comfortable. It didn’t work.

  “Good,” he said. “That’s good. You don’t hold a grudge. I hate people who hold grudges, you know?”

  “Uh-huh,” she said. She hoped she wouldn’t have to hear about what else he hated in people. Or what he did to the people who had aroused his hatred.

  “So, like, what are you in for?”

  Despite everything, Mia laughed—a great, surprised hoot. When had she ever in her life heard that line? Only in a movie, uttered by Jimmy Cagney. Or Edward G. Robinson. When she didn’t reply, he added, “Nah. Let’s not even go there. Forget I mentioned it. But let’s keep talking, okay? You’ll still talk to me, College Girl?”

  “Sure,” she said. “We can keep talking.” He had made her laugh, here in a jail cell. She had to like him for that alone.

  “I never went to college,” he said. “Too fucked up by the system from way back. Those nuns I had for teachers . . . they were fierce. Whacking my knuckles or my open palms with a ruler; you ever been hit with a ruler? That metal edge may be thin, but let me tell you, it can really do damage. And when that didn’t work, they hauled down my pants and whacked me raw. Man, it seemed like I was always getting whacked for something or other.”

  “They do sound fierce,” she agreed. She had a sudden image of him as a little blond boy, hands outstretched and trembling as they waited for the stinging blows. The image hurt; why hadn’t he been protected? “What about your parents? Didn’t they do anything?” Her own parents would have demolished anyone who had actually dared to raise a hand against her.

  “Hey, if I told my old man, he’d whack me again for getting in trouble.” He snorted. “How about you? You like school when you were a kid?”

  “Sometimes,” Mia said truthfully. “But not always. My second-grade teacher was a horror.” She hadn’t thought about the teacher, Miss Cyril, with her pale, taffy-colored hair and narrow, pink-rimmed eyes, for years, but now here she was, risen from the past and practically breathing fire. “She used to yell a lot, and she made us tie her shoes for her—she wore orthopedic shoes that laced all the way up her foot, practically to her bony old ankle. She’d lean over you while you were tying them, to make sure you did it right.” The details rushed back. “Spit collected at the corners of her mouth when she talked, and she used to tuck a tissue right down the front of her dress. Even after she used it, she’d put it back in there. I think I had a stomachache every day of second grade.”

  The blond guy made that snorting sound again; Mia realized it was laughter.

  “Teachers really can suck, can’t they? Almost as bad as cops.” He paused, and Mia could hear his breathing, loud and labored. He suddenly sounded winded, even old.

  “You okay?” she ventured. “You want to know if I’m okay, College Girl?”

  “It sounded like you were having trouble breathing.”

  “Nah. I’m all right. Those boys in blue get me tense, that’s all. And when I’m tense, everything tightens up. But I’m fine.” He waited a beat. “Thanks for asking.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “What’s your name, anyway?”

  “My name?” She hesitated. Should she tell him? What if he had some way to find her when they both got out of here? He could hunt her down, hurt her, hurt Eden.

  “You don’t have to tell me. But I’ll tell you mine. It’s Patrick. Patrick Fitzpatrick.”

  “I guess that’s easy to remember,” said Mia, trying to be diplomatic. Pity his parents had been so uninspired.

  “I’m the youngest of seven. I guess they just ran out of steam by the time I came along. They couldn’t come up with anything better. “

  “You must have gotten teased about that,” she said. “Hell, yeah,” he said, almost with relish. “But I could give back as good as I got, you know? Fuck with me, and I would fuck with you. Only harder.”

  “Do you have a middle name?” asked Mia. It was time to redirect the conversation again; it was most definitely that time.

  “Xavier. All the boys in my family got Xavier as a middle name. The girls all got Bernadette.”

  “I’m Mia,” she said. She could have lied, made up something, but she didn’t want to. And anyway, it was probably safe enough just to give him her first name. “No middle name though. Just Mia.”

  “Mia . . .” he said, as if road-testing it. “Mia-bia fo-fia, banana-fana-fo-fia. Mi-my-mo-mia. Mia.” Then he made the snorting sound that for him was laughter. “So, Mia,” he said. “You married?”

  “I was.”

  “So you’re, like, separated?”

  “Divorced,” she corrected. “Ah, divorce sucks. Lose-lose proposition. Anyway, why’d you divorce him?”

  “I didn’t. He divorced me.”

  “Who,” he said softly, almost caressingly, “would divorce you, College Girl? Was he a homo or something?”

  “No,” Mia said. “It wasn’t a guy he was after. It was a girl. A different girl.”

  “Scumbag,” said Patrick, as if that settled it. “Kids?”

  “A daughter.”

  “Nice,” he said. “Kids are good. Wish I had one. Maybe two. Not seven though—seven’s too many.”

  “Seven would be a lot,” Mia agreed. And then she asked, “What about you? Are you married?”

  “Twice.”

  “And . . . ?”

  “They both up and died on me.”

  “Really?” said Mia. He seemed very young to have had two dead wives. Then she had an appalling thought: maybe he had killed one�
��or both—of them. Maybe she had been talking to a murderer all this time. There was a sour churning in her stomach, and she had to bite the fleshy part of her thumb to keep from throwing up again.

  “First one went in a car accident. Gory as World War Two; I’ll spare you the details. But it was closed casket, if you get my drift. Second one died of an overdose. She was using, you know? I used to fight with her about it all the time. I told her to drink if she wanted to get wasted. Drinking is a nice, clean vice. A safe vice. A shot of bourbon is a shot of bourbon, no matter where you drink it: New York, L.A., Denver, Nashville, Anchorage, Honolulu. But that rat poison you snort or inject; who the fuck knows what’s in it? And don’t get me started on the cocksuckers who sell it.”

  “That’s so sad.” Mia abandoned the idea that he was a murderer. Not that he couldn’t have been lying, but something told her that he wasn’t, and she decided to believe that something, whatever it was.

  “Yeah, ripped me in fucking pieces, that’s for sure. But the guy who sold it to her is history now. Ancient history.”

  Mia found herself praying that Patrick had had nothing to do with the nameless dealer’s untimely and possibly violent end. Drug dealers were frequently killed. Occupational hazard. Weed was a perfect case in point.

  “Anyway, they say the third time’s the charm. So I’m open, man; I’m wide open and ready. I’m going to find myself another wife. She’s out there, I can feel it. I’ve got, like, a sixth sense about these things.” He paused, drinking the air in that labored way Mia had heard earlier.

  “What will she be like, your next wife?” Mia asked. She actually wanted to know.

  “She’ll be a looker, that’s for sure. Eye candy is my candy. But there’ll have to be something more than that.”

  “What would it be? The something more?”

  “She’d have to be the kind of girl I’d feel comfortable with, you know? Like I could tell her anything. Loving her would be a great big mansion where I could visit all the rooms, every single one. There wouldn’t be any locked doors in that mansion. Everything would be free and easy. And it would all be mine.”

  Mia let Patrick’s description of love hover in her mind. She wouldn’t have thought this man would have been capable of such a metaphor. But he had surprised her.

  “How about you, College Girl? What’s your dream date like?” Before she could answer, Mia was distracted by the footsteps that were now coming down the hall. They were getting closer; they were almost here.

  Patrick was instantly up and at the bars of the cell. “Have you finally come back for me, you fat fuck?” he called loudly. “It’s about fucking time.”

  Mia got up, too. Three officers approached Patrick’s cell. Two were over six feet, and while the third one was substantially shorter, he was stocky and solid, with the kind of thick neck frequently seen on tomcats, the hulking, malevolent strays who had never been neutered. The hard gleam of the handcuffs dangled from one meaty paw.

  “We’re going to try it again,” said the largest of the policemen. “And this time, you’d better behave.”

  “I’ll behave all right,” said Patrick challengingly. “But the question is, will you?”

  “Come on,” said the big one. “Let’s go.”

  Mia watched as Patrick was yanked from the cell, snapped into the cuffs, and dragged away. She realized only then that he was wearing a white sweatshirt, torn white jeans, and white sneakers without laces. Everything about him was white or light. Everything but his voice, which seemed to break slightly as he called out to her, “Good night, College Girl. Good night and good luck.” The sound of footsteps lingered for a few seconds, then it was quiet.

  Being in the cell was even worse when Patrick had gone. She couldn’t stop the frantic cycling of her own worry. How was Eden? Was she able to get to sleep? What time was it? Was it still snowing? Where was Cox, anyway? Would she ever get out of here?

  To fight the anxiety, Mia recited every scrap of poetry she had ever memorized, tried to recall her childhood phone number and the names, first and last, of all the kids who had endured second grade along with her. When that began to pale, she resorted to counting the white subway tiles on the walls; over the decades, the grout had turned pitch-black, giving the cramped space a dizzying kind of op art look. She also had an urgent need to pee—what had happened to her usual camel-like control?—and thought she just might have to break down and use what passed for a toilet. Though maybe she could have used the sink; it was somewhat cleaner, and who would ever know? Before she had to make the choice, she heard footsteps again and, seconds later, was almost tipsy with relief to see Roy and Choi standing in front of her once more.

  “Your lawyer’s here,” said Roy, as he unlocked the cell. “He’s waiting for you upstairs.”

  EIGHTEEN

  SPRUNG! THAT WAS the word that Mia kept repeating to herself, and each repetition gave her the same exhilarated little zing, as if a small silver pinball was ricocheting around in her head. Sprung, sprung, sprung!

  She tramped through the quiet streets, scuffing her feet through the thick white blanket of snow. Chris Cox, the lawyer, said he would give her a lift back to her apartment, but she had refused. After the last several hours, the front seat of a car felt too confined. She told him she wanted to walk, though she did thank him, sincerely, for the offer. Chris, who was about five one in his shoes and bald as a cue ball, was definitely cool. Yes, he talked nonstop, but clearly, it was talk with a purpose. He handled the detective with the aplomb of a lion tamer flicking a long, well-oiled whip. And when she asked about his fee, he said that there would be no charge, professional courtesy.

  “I can’t tell her where I got that bill,” Mia had told him when they were allowed, finally, to confer in an empty office adjacent to Costello’s.

  “Okay, we won’t deal with the bill for now,” said Cox. “Tell me about Wedeen. How you met him. What he said. What you said. Everything.”

  So Mia told him—there wasn’t much to tell—and from her slim story, Cox was able to weave a web of words, convincing Costello that the possibility of Mia’s involvement with Wedeen’s death was virtually nonexistent.

  “My client was nowhere near the deceased at the time of his death; you’ve got nothing on her—no prints, blood, nothing. Plus, she’s got an airtight alibi, which I am positive would stand up in court—if we have to go to court, that is.”

  “Maybe she does,” said Costello. “But what if she had taken out a contract on his life? Had him killed?”

  “Have you actually talked to this client? Gotten a sense of who she is? If you had, you’d be fully aware of her financial circumstances, or, should I say, constraints? A single mother, raising a child all by herself. Ex-husband is God knows where—L.A., Korea, Vietnam. He sends her child support when he deigns to. Meanwhile she’s working—two jobs sometimes—just to make ends meet. She’s hardworking, she’s devoted, and she’s trying her level best. She sold that bill to Wedeen for far less than it was worth because she was desperate, don’t you see? A woman in need. A woman with her back to the wall. And you mean to tell me that this woman, my client, is actually going to use one red cent of that money to have someone killed? I don’t think so, Detective Costello. I don’t think so at all.”

  Mia wanted to stand up and cheer when he’d finished. Costello looked less impressed, but she was willing to delay further questioning and release Mia on her own recognizance. But before she did, she handed Mia yet another form.

  “DAT,” said Cox succinctly as he ushered Mia from the room. Mia looked puzzled, so he continued. The DAT—desk appearance ticket—demanded her presence in court on January 4. In the intervening weeks, he said he would help her get her story spit-polished and ready to place before the judge. If she decided to bolt or not show, the police would take out a warrant for her arrest.

  “But you won’t do anything stupid, right?” asked Cox; he was seated behind the wheel of his silver Porsche, and talking to her through t
he open window. “You don’t want any more trouble.”

  “Right,” she had said, itchy to get out of there; she didn’t even want to be on the same block as the station house. “No more trouble.” Chris promised to call her in the next couple of days, and then, as the engine smoothly purred into life, he was gone.

  * * *

  MIA CHECKED HER cell phone as she walked; she had not checked it recently and there were messages up the wazoo. Her brother, her mother, her sister-in-law. Julie, calling from Key West, to say she would be back in New York after the holidays. Finally! Mia was simultaneously relieved and annoyed. Lloyd—twice. Lloyd’s mother, the genteel and wispy-voiced Virginia. Eden, about twenty times. Someone from her present job, calling about a last-minute crisis with the Power Pastry manuscript, someone from her old beloved job, calling to talk about the abysmal state of publishing these days, the class mom calling to see if she would contribute money for the teacher’s holiday gift. Teacher’s gift? How about some coal for her stocking? Dried twigs, anyone? Mia gleefully deleted the message. Not one of these many calls, however, was from Fred. She was trying to decide whether to call him when the phone started vibrating, like a live thing, in her hand.

  “Mom? Mom, are you there? It’s me, Eden.”

  “I’m here, baby,” Mia said. “Mom! Where are you? I’ve been calling and calling! Why didn’t you answer?”

  “I’m coming home, Eden. I’m coming home right now.” She decided to let the question about her failure to answer slide for the moment.

  “You are? For real?” Eden’s voice seemed to have slipped into a time warp; she sounded about five years old.

  “For real,” Mia said gently. She looked down at her watch; it was six twenty-five. “Is anyone else in Luisa’s apartment awake?”

  “Not yet. I went into the bathroom to call you. So I wouldn’t wake them up.”

  “Well, just hold on. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  “I love you, Mommy,” Eden said. Mia couldn’t remember the last time her daughter had used the word Mommy.