by Lisa Unger
“What?”
LUNCHTIME AT Five Roses Pizza in the East Village is a bustle of students and cops and other East Village dwellers looking for the best slice of pizza in the city. Those of you who have been with me from the beginning know that this is where it all started, that it was out in front of this pizzeria, the ground floor of the building where I lived at the time, that I leapt into traffic to save a little boy.
I walked in the front door and barely heard the little bell that announced my arrival over the din of diners eating meatball Parmesan heros, calzones dripping with sauce and cheese, and Zelda’s special Sicilian slices. The aromas of garlic and warm crust and tomatoes made my stomach growl.
Zelda, the cranky owner of the place, manned the counter, moving with grace and speed between the huge ovens and the old cash register. She’d helped me once before. In all the years I’d lived there, we’d never had a conversation that didn’t involve my rent or my order of two slices and a soda. Then one day when I was in a desperate situation, she helped me escape the police. I wouldn’t be surprised now if she threw me out of the place when she saw me. I wouldn’t be surprised if she helped me again.
When it was my turn, she regarded me without interest, as if she still saw me every day.
“TwoslicesandaCoke?” she said, her heavily accented words all running together into one unintelligible mumble.
“No, Zelda.”
She wiped her hands on her apron and placed them on her hips. She gave me a look that made me think of my mother. “You in trouble again?”
I’m not sure how she knew that. But she actually seemed as if she might care for half a second. I heard someone behind me sigh and start to grumble about the holdup.
“Because I don’t want no trouble. You know that.”
I leaned into her and lowered my voice. “I just want to use the bathroom.”
She looked at me skeptically, then gave me a quick nod. We both knew I didn’t have to use the bathroom, but she leaned over and lifted up the counter for me to go behind.
“Thanks, Zelda,” I said as I moved past her, over the rubber-mesh grating on the floor and through the kitchen, where huge vats of sauce simmered on the stove tops and a legion of stromboli baked in an oven. I really wished I had time for lunch.
“You know where it is,” she called to me, following me with her eyes.
I waved to tell her I did. She shook her head as I exited into the hallway and went out into the courtyard. Zelda’s three dogs greeted me noisily, jumping enthusiastically, and I smelled the aroma of pastry wafting out from the ventilation system of Veniero’s on Eleventh Street. I moved toward the doors in the ground and pulled one of them open, walked down the stairs that led to the basement, and closed the door behind me, leaving the dogs baying mournfully in my wake. I was in the storage space where Zelda kept all of her supplies—olive oil, crates of garlic, flour—lining shelves that seemed to go on forever. It was dark and I didn’t bother to flip on the light. I felt my way along the wall until I found what I was looking for. It was a doorway that led to a tunnel. This tunnel ran behind the buildings to the north of Five Roses and let out onto Eleventh Street. I unbolted the door and paused at the yawning darkness before me. I remembered it was a long tunnel, dark and cold. I felt along the wall for a light switch and instead found a flashlight on a hook. I took it and turned it on, shone it into the darkness. The beam was dim and weak, flickering in a threat to go dark just seconds after I turned it on. It was so quiet.
I took the cell phone Jake had given me and dropped it on the floor. Dylan suspected that it had some kind of tracking device they could use to follow my movements around the city. I was hoping they’d think I was just having a long, leisurely lunch at Five Roses, and that by the time they’d figured it out, it would be too late.
Why did I do this? I’d made a deal with the CIA and good sense would have dictated that I keep it. At the time, I probably couldn’t have told you why I didn’t. I have more insight into my actions now. But that afternoon, I was just overcome with the feeling that if I didn’t get away from them, I’d never be able to find Max. He’d know they were watching me. He’d know to stay away. I knew him well enough to know that he wouldn’t walk into an obvious trap. Alone, I might have a chance to find him. What would happen then, I didn’t know.
I hesitated at the mouth of the tunnel. The looming blackness got the better of me for a second and the air felt electric with bad possibilities. I thought about turning around and going back the way I’d come in, rather than face that pitch black, but I finally steeled myself and ran, the low light of the flashlight illuminating only a foot or two in front and around me. I breathed easier when the beam fell on the metal door at the end of the tunnel. I reached for the bolt and found it stuck. My breathing started to become labored as I tried and failed to unlock it. I felt the blackness of the tunnel closing in on me, and for a second I thought of screaming, unable to face the tunnel again to return to the basement. Finally it gave way and I burst onto the street.
I was disoriented by the bright light of the outdoors. A woman looked at me strangely as she moved quickly past on Rollerblades. I let the door shut behind me and turned back to look at it. There was no knob or handle on the outside. I wouldn’t have been able to open it again if I wanted to. I felt a twist of guilt and fear in my belly at what I’d just done, at what I was about to do.
I MET DYLAN at the Union Square subway station at the bottom of the Food Emporium entrance on Fourteenth Street. We took the train to Max’s apartment building. Dutch let us up with his eternal cool and impartial gaze. What must he think of me? I wondered, not for the first time, as we stepped into the elevator and he gave me a nod. What did he think I did in Max’s apartment? But his face, as always, was a mask. I would have more luck figuring out the gargoyles that loomed above the entryway to the building.
Inside Max’s apartment, I turned and looked at Dylan, blocking his entry with a palm to his chest.
“Before we go any further, I have to know what your agenda is when it comes to this. Why are you helping me?”
He shrugged, gave a slow shake of his head. “I have no secrets from you, Ridley. I’ve always been honest about what I want from Max. I just want him to answer for the things he’s done, same as you. I told you: I don’t want revenge. And I want to protect you, make sure you don’t get hurt. That’s it. I promise you.”
He reached for my hand and I remembered a time when I’d held Jake’s hand like that. I felt my stomach clench at the memory. I nodded. I believed him. But we all know that doesn’t mean anything.
WE WALKED DOWN the hallway, which was lined with framed photographs of my family and me. Jake was the one who pointed out to me that the whole apartment was more or less a shrine to me, that I was the center of all the photographs. I saw Dylan scanning the walls and remembered he’d said the same thing. I was embarrassed now by what seemed to me a gallery of lies—pretty pictures featuring the smiling faces of people whose foundation was rotten and on the verge of buckling. My mother and father were liars; my brother was a drug addict returned to the streets once again (I hadn’t even had time to think about this yet); my uncle was really my father. And he was a murderer and a criminal so terrible that he was being pursued by law enforcement agencies around the world. And yet there we were, attractive people laughing, having birthday parties, dance recitals, trips to the zoo. There I was on Max’s shoulders, in Ben’s arms, being fed by my mother, trying to make myself invisible behind a tree while Ace looked for me in a game of hide-and-seek. All my beautiful lies.
I said as much to Dylan.
“No,” he said as we moved into Max’s bedroom. “Not all lies. There’s as much truth there as there is deceit.”
It made me think of what my father said about Max, that the man we knew was as true as his dark side. I wasn’t sure I was buying it.
“I didn’t know who my parents really were until after they were dead,” he said in my silence. “It di
dn’t make them any less of who they were to me.”
“They lied about their jobs, probably because they had to, probably to protect you. It’s different.”
“I know it is. But it’s the same, too. Lies are lies. Your parents probably thought they had to lie to protect you, too. They made a lot of mistakes, but they loved you.”
I nodded. I wasn’t sure I’d heard anyone defend my parents before. I was grateful to him for doing it, even though he was probably just trying to make me feel better. I flipped on the lights in Max’s bedroom and walked over to the shelves. The little piece of pottery I’d made for him a lifetime ago sat where I’d left it. I lifted it, and for a split second I thought I’d hallucinated the keyhole I’d seen there. But there it was. I pulled the key from my pocket and slid it in, gave it a turn.
The whole shelf lifted slowly about six inches, revealing a drawer. I stood and looked at it. Inside there was a thick manila envelope. I took a second to observe the irony of it, since all of this began with a similar package. I reached for it, then hesitated, weighing my options. Every nerve ending in my body tingled; every instinct told me to walk away. But you know me better than that.
“What are you waiting for?”
I thought Dylan’s voice sounded strange, so I turned to look at him. He wasn’t looking at me. He was looking at something behind me and reaching for my arm. I spun around to see two dark forms standing in the bedroom doorway. I looked back at Dylan and expected to see him draw his weapon; instead he grabbed me and pulled me close, then stepped in front of me.
“They took my gun,” he whispered. I deduced that the FBI had taken his weapon when they’d fired him. Bad news.
“Well, Miss Jones, what are you waiting for?”
When the first man stepped into the light, I took a step back in surprise. It was Dutch, the doorman. He’d lost his spiffy outfit and stood before me clad in black, a nasty-looking gun in his hand. I didn’t recognize the man he was with, but he didn’t look like a very nice person, with a thick, heavy brow, deep-set dark eyes, and a nasty scar that ran from his ear to his mouth. He also held a gun. It didn’t seem fair. I was starting to wish I hadn’t been so quick to dump the CIA. I was betting that they had plenty of guns.
“Dutch, I don’t understand,” I said lamely.
“Of course you don’t,” he answered, not unkindly.
It was hard to be afraid of him. I’d known him since I was a child. I remembered being down in the basement one day as a teenager looking through Max’s storage space for an old skate-board of Ace’s (I’d later break my wrist on the sidewalk in front of Max’s building, getting both of us in big trouble with my parents). It was late-ish, maybe around ten or something, and I bumped into Dutch down there; there was a locker and changing room where the doormen could shower and change into their street clothes. He was all dressed up in a silver lamé shirt and black slacks, his hair slicked back. I think he was getting ready to go clubbing. I was shocked to see him as a person with a life outside the building, since I’d never seen him anywhere else. I remember that he looked a little embarrassed. It must have been the shiny disco shirt—but it was the eighties, after all.
“Good night, Miss Jones,” he’d said with his usual light bow in my direction.
“Good night, Dutch,” I’d answered, biting the inside of my cheek hard so that I wouldn’t laugh. He left the basement quickly.
Back in the apartment, I told Max all about it, dissolving into childish giggles.
“There’s more to everyone than meets the eye,” he said with a small smile. “Remember that, kid.”
Now his words seemed ominous, almost prophetic.
“Miss Jones, you and your friend will need to put your hands where I can see them.”
He was so polite, even now. There was still that practiced kindness in his face, like a lace shroud over metal. My chest started to feel tight and my arms tingled with adrenaline. Dylan’s face was as still as granite.
“And turn around please,” he said as we complied.
“I have to say,” he went on as he bound our hands with some type of thick plastic cinch, “you made this easier than it might have been by losing your entourage.”
“Dutch,” I said, hating the shake I heard in my voice. “What are you doing?”
“Never mind,” he said softly. There was an explosion of white pain. And then there was nothing.
I WOKE UP on my belly, my arms bound behind me, my cheekbone being knocked repeatedly against the corrugated metal floor of a moving vehicle. Dylan was beside me in a similar situation but he still seemed to be unconscious. A thin line of blood trailed from a nasty cut in his lip. It looked as if it would need several stitches—that is, if we didn’t both die tonight.
I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that my head felt as if it was on the business end of a jackhammer. I wondered how much abuse a body could endure before it just gave out. For someone who’d never been touched in anger, never even been spanked as a child, I’d certainly had a rude introduction to violence in recent years.
I could see the back of Dutch’s head in the passenger seat. The other man was driving. I was scared, yes. Of course. But I was suddenly really, really angry, too. I started struggling against the binding on my hands and found out too late that it only made them tighter. Very painful.
“Dutch,” I said loudly, “what are you doing?” I couldn’t come up with a better question.
He didn’t answer me, didn’t even turn around. This made me even angrier.
“Help!” I started screaming when the van paused at a light. “Help us!”
It was pointless, I knew. No one was going to hear me. But I figured it was worth a try. I kept screaming.
“Miss Jones,” said Dutch calmly, turning around after a few minutes of this and putting his gun to Dylan’s head. “Please shut the fuck up. You’re giving me a headache.”
Seeing Dylan so helpless, I shut up immediately.
“I thought you worked for Max,” I said weakly.
“Once upon a time, yes,” he said. “Since his demise, the pay hasn’t been as good. Others are offering more.”
“You sold him out,” I said, trying to sound indignant.
He gave me a pitying look. “Haven’t we all?”
“I haven’t sold out anyone,” I said.
He just smiled at me and for a split second I saw him for what he was: a stone-cold killer. I wondered what this man had been for Max. Bodyguard? Hired gun? Maybe both. I asked him. The fact that he answered me didn’t bode well for my future.
“I cleaned up his messes. It was ugly work, I’ll tell you. Your father didn’t like to get his hands dirty. Not that way.”
I looked over at Dylan. His eyes were open now and he was watching me. He shook his head at me, the best he could.
“No more questions,” he whispered. I saw the wisdom in his warning but we were far beyond that. Unless the CIA was able to figure out what had happened to me, I had a feeling things were going to end badly.
“That’s good advice from your friend,” said Dutch.
“I’m sorry,” I said to Dylan.
“It’s not your fault,” he said.
But it was.
THE VAN PULLED into a large, cavernous space; a heavy metal door shut behind us. We were assisted from the back of the van and walked up a flight of metal stairs, through a thick door and into what appeared to be some kind of abandoned factory or warehouse floor. The space was dark around the edges, boxes piled high, graffiti on the walls. Some light filtered in through high windows so filthy they were nearly blacked out by grime. Our footfalls echoed, bouncing off the walls and high ceilings. There was a strong odor of mold and dust. I felt my sinuses start to swell.
I tried to think of where we could be. There were old sweatshops in the East Village, in Tribeca (though most of those had been converted into trendy lofts). The Meatpacking District was a possibility. I couldn’t be sure; I was totally disoriented. I wasn’t even su
re how long we’d been driving. I figured we couldn’t be farther than the outer boroughs or possibly Jersey. The space seemed so solid, so remote, it felt as if we might as well be on the moon. I listened for street noise and heard only silence. If we died here, I wondered, how long would it be before they found our bodies? The thought made me feel sick for Ben and the words he’d left me with. I imagined what it would be like for him if I disappeared and was never found. Or if my body turned up in the East River. I felt more guilty than I did afraid for my own life at that moment. And I realized that Dylan had been right. My parents made terrible mistakes but they did love me. That counted for something. It counted for more than I’d realized.
We were made uncomfortable in twin metal chairs against the far wall of the space. I hated that they hadn’t bothered to conceal their identities in any way. It was really such a bad sign. Dylan and I locked eyes as they bound our legs to the chairs. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking, but he didn’t look scared. He looked…patient.
“What are you doing, Dutch? What do you want?” I asked as his associate finished lashing me to the chair with, I thought, unnecessary roughness.
He looked at me coolly. “I want what everyone wants, Miss Jones. I want Max Smiley.”
I issued a sigh. “Well, I’ll tell you what I tell everyone else. I don’t know where he is.”
He walked over closer to me and held up his slim mobile phone, not unlike the one issued to me by the CIA. He used the camera in his phone to take what I’m sure was a very unflattering picture of me. He handed the phone to the other man, who proceeded to set up a laptop on a makeshift table, a plank resting across two plastic crates. He used an old paint bucket to make a seat for himself.
“It was you,” I said. “You put that matchbook there. You made the apartment smell like him. You ran the shower.”
“As per my instructions,” he said with a deferential nod.
“Your instructions from whom?”
“From Max,” he said, as though he was stating the obvious.