Widows-in-Law

by Michele W. Miller

  “You all right?” Jessica asked.

  “I feel like we’re in hell. Can we wake up now?”

  ***

  It was dark, and Carl was exhausted by the time he arrived at the sports bar to prepare CB. Arena had quadrupled security at the bar. Carl’s nervous energy spiked as he passed so many of Arena’s armed men. Carl followed CB down the back hallway to his office. Alone, CB leaned against a mirrored wall.

  “Listen, CB, it’s real simple. We’ve got your phone’s identity code and can track it even when it’s off. No one will be able to tell we’re following you. So there’s no chance we’ll be spotted.”

  CB’s face knotted. “I’ve done everything you asked. This is too much. You can’t guarantee my safety. You wear bulletproof vests and jackets with FBI in block letters across your backs. But not me.”

  “All the agents have seen your picture.”

  “I’m relieved.” CB started pacing. “But I’m not fucking doing it. Fuck it.” CB stopped and thrust his two hands out in front of him. “Cuff me. I’m not doing it.”

  Carl sighed. He hated playing hardball and felt guilty about putting the poor guy in the crossfire, but Jorge Arena trusted CB and they couldn’t have the entire bust depend on tracking Lucho’s phone. These guys usually kept their personal phones with them even if they used a burner phone for a deal. Criminals were as addicted to their phones as everyone else. But with the amount of money and jail time at stake, Lucho could be smart enough to leave it home.

  Carl leaned back on the edge of the desk. If Carl were in CB’s position, he wouldn’t want to go along with the plan either. But if Carl had been a criminal, he would have gone quietly to jail in the first place. Only a lowlife caused others to do the time for him when he was the one caught. That was what snitching came down to in Carl’s mind. He’d never had much sympathy for informants. Still, Carl didn’t want to see CB get hurt. He felt responsible for him and kind of liked the guy.

  Carl’s stomach burned as he spoke. “Listen, CB, if you refuse to do it, you’re not only going to do the time for the kilo we caught you with, but when we bust the Arenas, you’ll be charged with their conspiracy, too. Coconspirators do the time for all the crimes committed by their pals.” Watching CB’s face melt, Carl wished he sold cars for a living. “If you back out now, the US Attorney will charge you with conspiring to aid a terrorist organization. Word is that the African buyers have ties with ISIS. You’ll end up in Super Max. A lifetime of solitary confinement. You’ll never see the DR again, you’ll never see your mother except through plexiglass, and the whore you had last week will be the last woman you’ll ever touch. Plus, I can’t vouch for my partner. One word on the street about you ratting, and you won’t even be safe in prison.”

  “Shit,” CB said, surrendering to becoming the rabbit in a dog race. “Cabrones.”

  “Don’t worry, there will be a hundred agents on this tomorrow.”

  CB exhaled loudly. “That’s one of the top things I’m worried about.”

  CHAPTER 36

  Friday, November 8

  Lauren managed to catch a few hours of rest in her apartment. She was so exhausted from cumulative sleep deprivation that even her shot nerves couldn’t keep her awake. Still, she’d been up for hours when Jessica appeared in the kitchen just after 8:00 a.m. Jessica wore new running tights, sneakers, and a sweater Lauren had ordered on Prime Now, which had arrived at 10:00 p.m. last night. Lauren had to dress more conservatively. She wore a pinstriped pantsuit and flats.

  “Everything fit?” Lauren asked Jessica.

  “Yes. It’s amazing how grateful I am for things I never noticed before—like clean clothes and a shower. But I almost wish I were as listless and suicidal as I was last week. Maybe then I wouldn’t feel so scared.”

  Lauren took a mug from an overhead cupboard, thinking how maybe Jessica’s feeling suicidal was all about being scared. “Coffee?”

  “Definitely. I’m addicted, although I probably don’t need any nerve stimulation. Do you have any toast? I’ve been craving carbs as if I’m preparing for a marathon.”

  Lauren opened a loaf of bread, smelled it, and took out a few slices. “We’re in luck.”

  Standing side by side at the counter, they were quietly spreading jam on toast when Jessica put down her knife. “I was raped in college … three fraternity guys.” Jessica’s eyes gleamed, and she pinched their inside corners with her thumb and index finger to stanch the moisture gathering there. “I never talk about it.”

  Lauren turned to Jessica and leaned against the counter, surprised by the turn in conversation.

  “I was drunk, probably roofied. I was stupid. It was only my second week at college. I was just two years older than Emily. I didn’t think about myself as only a kid. But when you look back, you realize. Do you know what I mean?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Maybe I would have given myself a break if I had. I never forgave myself for being stupid enough to put myself in that position. I’d always done the right things before that. I was probably the only virgin on campus.”

  “I’m really sorry, Jess.”

  “When I reported it, I was hated—by the girls, too. It was before campus rape became a trending topic. Nobody thought it was rape. Who was to blame? They said I was drunk. I never even told my parents.”

  “God.”

  “I needed to say it out loud now. I haven’t said it out loud for nearly fourteen years. I tried to put it behind me. I thought if I never talked about it, if I didn’t even know any people who knew me then, it would be as if it never happened. That’s why I don’t have a Facebook page. The last thing I wanted was to know people who knew about it.

  “But I never really left it behind. I stopped eating almost completely for months because I was afraid of losing control and getting fat. The connection between that and what happened to me is so obvious in retrospect. I can see now how I made sure I was always in control. It was so much easier not dating too. For a long time, that was my story. When I did start dating, I specialized in unavailable guys. They were ‘my type,’ and I didn’t want a commitment. It took me by surprise when I spun out on Brian. I was all about being in control, but once it went the other way, I basically lost my mind. There was no halfway mark for me. It isn’t Emily who needs therapy, it’s me.”

  “Funny how I always imagined you walked with angels your whole life,” Lauren said, “never going through any adversity like I did.”

  “I worked hard to make people think that … and believe me, I know what happened to me is nothing compared to what you went through.”

  “I don’t know. It’s all hard,” Lauren said. “And we both thought we could dust off our past and leave it behind.”

  Jessica’s face hardened. “I swore after those guys raped me—and I still say it—I am never letting anyone do that to me again. Never.”

  Lauren sighed and leaned back against the counter, afraid. “The money has to protect us.”

  “People must do deals with Arena all the time and survive, right?” Jessica said. “Or he’d have no business.”

  Lauren felt a flash of dread about how things could really go. Words slipped out before she could stop them, “You haven’t met Lucho.”

  “Fuck Lucho!”

  Lauren looked at Jessica and, out of nowhere, found herself laughing. “If anyone had told us … that we would be standing in my kitchen and you would be saying ‘Fuck Lucho’ … about a murdering deviant gang member—would we have believed it?”

  “Hell no.” Jessica laughed, a deep laugh.

  Tears of laughter, oddly coexisting with Lauren’s dread, came to her eyes. “God, we’re in the twilight zone.” She took one of Jessica’s hands. Her nail polish had chipped and peeled. “And look at your nails.”

  Jessica laughed even harder. “Shit, I can’t go now, Lauren. I can’t meet anyone
. What kind of impression would I make?”

  Emily stood in the doorway, her face scrunched, still adjusting to the morning light. “What’s so funny?”

  Jessica held up the back of her hand.

  Emily looked from Jessica to Lauren, mystified. “You want to go to a nail salon?”

  ***

  Jessica peered from the vestibule of Lauren’s building, their laughter a distant memory.

  Lauren looked at her. “We just have to go—no way to tell whether anyone’s out there.”

  “We’re still within deadline,” Jessica said, trying to convince herself. Lauren had said that the longer they had the bonds, the more danger they were in. How many people knew they had them by now?

  “There could be a lot of people beside Arena who would want twelve million unguarded dollars.” Lauren spoke Jessica’s thoughts, putting an arm protectively around Emily. “But Arena knows that and wouldn’t have broadcast it. We just have to go.”

  Jessica saw Lauren checking behind them periodically as they walked toward their car. A harsh wind pushed at their backs, the morning sky scaled with deep gray clouds. Inside the car, Lauren flipped down her sun visor and looked through its vanity mirror. “Someone’s getting in a parked car across the street. Emily, please stay low.”

  Emily slumped down in the back seat, tensely silent since they left the apartment.

  Jessica turned on the ignition, resisting the impulse to slump low herself, thinking of how suddenly they’d killed Jordan Connors. She pulled out, glancing in the rearview mirror, unsure whether any of the cars that lined up behind them at the red light were following.

  “That blue Honda has been with us for two blocks already,” Lauren said. “Turn right.”

  They saw the cement wings of the George Washington Bus Terminal ahead. “Is he following?”

  “I think so. Emily, don’t look back,” Lauren said, quickly. “Jessica, when you get close to the traffic light before the bus terminal, slow down and make the light when it’s about to turn red. Turn right, onto the bridge.”

  “We’re going to Jersey?”

  “No.”

  At 179th Street, where cars entered the bridge, Jessica crawled toward a yellow light and took off as it turned red. She eased left onto the entrance to the bridge, no one behind her able to follow.

  “Wait for it,” Lauren said. “When I say, turn.”

  After the on-ramp, there was a left turn Jessica had never noticed. Always intent on merging into traffic to enter the bridge, Jessica thought she must have passed that unobtrusive left turn dozens of times without noticing it was there.

  “Take the left, now,” Lauren commanded.

  Jessica took the turn with a screech.

  Lauren pointed. “Make a U. Up the ramp.”

  They stopped on top of the George Washington Bridge bus station, hidden on the far side of a parked New Jersey Transit jitney. The red light they’d originally run was probably only now changing to green. They’d lost the car.

  Lauren peered around. “Okay, let’s give it two minutes, then we can pull back out and take the highway downtown.”

  “Now we’ve had the car chase,” Emily said from the back. Despite her attempt to make a joke of it, she looked terrified.

  ***

  They stopped at an ATM for cash, confident they weren’t followed. On East Fifty-Seventh Street, Lauren left Jessica and Emily in the car. From there, it was smooth going. Just like Florida. In the lobby of an office building, down three or four marble steps, Lauren entered a glassed-in establishment. A receptionist greeted her. Lauren counted out five hundred dollars and followed a man to her new safe-deposit box. Then they stopped at a store on Lexington Avenue and Fifty-Fifth Street where she bought three burner phones. Lauren handed them to Emily in the back seat, who occupied herself with adding airtime to the phones and putting each other’s phone numbers into each of their contacts. Lauren was glad she didn’t have to deal with figuring out how to add the airtime now, even though it was apparently an easy enough task for even the least-educated drug dealer on the planet to complete.

  “Here, Mom,” Emily handed over the first phone.

  “I can talk to them this time,” Jessica offered.

  Lauren spoke calmly but her stomach cramped with nerves. “I’m your lawyer, remember?”

  Lauren took out her personal iPhone and went into the lined-yellow notes app where she’d put Lucho’s number. She dialed on the burner phone and put her iPhone back in her coat pocket.

  “Bueno,” Lucho said when he picked up.

  “It’s Lauren.”

  “Ah.” He was pleased. “Are you ready?”

  “Yes.”

  “You know the sports bar. You meet me there.”

  “Can’t we meet downtown? At a Starbucks near my job? It won’t take a minute.”

  “Don’t be stupid, gringa,” he said with exasperation. “This is our business and this is a busy day. You do it like we say. No time for coffee. I will be at the bar in half hour and will take you to Jorge.”

  “An hour in case there’s traffic.”

  “Okay.”

  Lauren hung up the phone, her chest aching with anxiety. She turned to Jessica. “Everything’s set.”

  Moments later, Jessica pulled the car to the curb on Leonard Street, alongside the Family Court. Lauren heard the car doors lock behind them as she and Emily walked away from the car toward the courthouse entrance. Lauren had left her attaché in the car’s passenger-side foot well. It struck her as insane, six million dollars just lying there with only unarmed Jessica to safeguard it. How many normal passersby would have become criminals if they’d known what was there?

  ***

  Emily tried to relax. She followed Lauren past a line of families waiting to get through the Family Court metal detectors. The families were putting their pocketbooks and diaper bags on a conveyor belt to be X-rayed and walking through a metal detector, the line as slow as airport security. But there was a separate, shorter line for courthouse staff and attorneys.

  The court officer stationed at the staff entrance recognized Lauren. “Good morning, Counselor.”

  “Hi.” Lauren showed her ID and put her arm around Emily. “She’s with me.”

  “No problem.”

  Emily wished her mother had kept her arm around her forever. She led Emily with a hand on her back through the staff entryway.

  A packed elevator opened onto the fifth floor. When the doors opened, families, lawyers, and social workers got off with Emily and Lauren. Family Court was as crazy as Lauren had always told her, packed like Grand Central Station when the trains were delayed. Harried parents, loud children, angry couples, and lawyers; it seemed like everyone was in noisy motion while they waited for their cases to be called. Emily could see why her mother said she wouldn’t stand out here. Nobody would stand out.

  Lauren brought Emily to a long wooden bench where a woman and a bunch of her kids took up three quarters of it. The oldest kids were herding twin toddlers, who shrieked and tried to evade them. A middle child sat next to the overweight mother. He worked peacefully on a fried egg on a roll, which smelled of grease and ketchup. Emily felt a sad nostalgia for similar breakfasts she used to buy at the corner bodega near her old school in Manhattan, back when things had been normal.

  Outside the nearest courtroom entrance, an armed court officer marked off names of people who waited in a line to report for their cases. Lauren had told Emily that once the families checked in, they sometimes waited all morning and afternoon for their cases to be called.

  Emily spoke softly to her mother, “You’re bringing them half the bonds?”

  Lauren nodded, not looking at Emily. Lauren was scanning the room as if she were checking to see if anything was out of whack, like armed gunmen. Sicarios they called them on television. Under different cir
cumstances, Emily might have made a remark about her mom’s paranoia. Emily had always thought her mother overreacted to stuff, if Emily had the flu, if there was a string of burglaries in the neighborhood, if they heard sirens nearby. Her mother would get all protective and worried. Emily knew it had to do with things that had happened to her when she was young. Under normal circumstances, Emily might have asked sarcastically whether her mother was scanning the room for zombies. That would have hit Emily’s brain as funny, but her mother didn’t look in a laughing mood, and neither was Emily.

  “I’ll be waiting for you here,” Emily said, gripping her burner phone within her jacket pocket.

  “When I call and say everything’s okay, someone will come, and you’ll give him the key to the safe-deposit box.”

  “Okay.”

  “You can sit here all day. No one will notice you. Any sign of trouble, if anyone comes and I didn’t call or if they try to get you to leave, you scream. Remember, they can’t have a gun or knife even if they say they do. If you shout, the court officers will come running. They’re always ready for trouble because of all the domestic violence cases here.”

  Emily knew her mother had to be upset, but she wasn’t showing any sign of it. She had an expression on her face that Emily had never seen on her before, like a character out of Mortal Kombat: fierce—that was the word for it. Fierce and love. Emily forced herself not to think about the love part because her eyes were starting to well up. She couldn’t let herself cry, not now. “What if no one comes and you don’t call?”

  “You go to Gary, the court officer from Judge Quiñones’ Part.” Lauren pointed discretely at a courtroom entrance at the far side of the waiting area. “You see him? Gary. He’s over there.”

  A tall, skinny officer stood near the entrance to a courtroom, talking with the first person on a long line. He was smiling at the person. He looked nice.