by Babs Carryer
They walk me towards the building. When we arrive, they hustle me inside. One of them grabs my hands behind me; another one pushes me up the stairs. Three flights of stairs. I was right. They shove me into the front apartment where I noticed the person in the window.
I am in a disheveled living room. To my left, I see a small kitchen with take-out boxes and garbage on the floor. There are flies. Someone slams a couple of doors behind me, to bedrooms, I assume. I don’t want to imagine what happens next. I concentrate on memorizing my surroundings. I see cracks in the dust colored wall. The window is dirty. I am pushed into a chair. I look around, hoping to see Yahya. But he is not there.
“What are you doing?” a voice growls at me from behind. “Why are you following us for two days?”
Shoot, they know. I am terrified. Why did I come? I wish I was back in Pittsburgh. What an idiot I am, pretending that I can solve a murder. I try to speak, but I can’t find my voice.
“Answer!” the voice commands.
I stutter and spit out, “I’m, I’m looking for Yahya. I work with him.”
“Yahya!” they exclaim. A few exclamations in Arabic. “He is not here. Why do you care? Why would you come to New York, and he has no idea you here?”
The man has his hand raised. Is he going to hit me? Am I going to be tortured? “I don’t know anything,” I manage to squeak.
“We will see what you know,” the man promises.
I hear voices outside the front door of the apartment; I hear shouting in Arabic. Then I hear the door burst open, and the sound of feet, hard soles, like boots, on the scuffed hardwood floor. “Who is this?” someone asks harshly. “Why did you bring her here?”
Someone shouts something, but I don’t understand it. I don’t even know if it was in English or Arabic. Then I see Yahya come into my vision. He looks at me and his mouth drops open. He grabs my hat and yanks it off. “Brie? What is this?” He glances at his compatriots and then scowls at me. “Brie, what you doing here?”
“You knows her?” someone inquires loudly.
“What she doing here? Why here now? Who she is?” someone else asks with heavily accented English.
I realize that I better speak, and quickly. I am trying not to cry, but I know that my voice is trembling. My whole body is shaking, but someone has their hands on my shoulders, and I can’t rise out of the chair. “Yahya, I am so sorry, I don’t know,” I take a deep breath, “You told me and the…” I didn’t want to say the word “detective.” I hurriedly continue, “Mr. Henrik, remember, that that you were going to New York. You told me that you were taking the Megabus to the city, and I thought maybe there was some connection, something that I would see, that I would learn. About, you know,” I took a quick breath, “about Errol.”
“About Errol?” Yahya asks me.
“Yes,” I manage to mumble. “We think, we don’t know, Amy is sure, we think it wasn’t an accident. That’s why I came to the lab. To ask you, to find out if you…”
Yahya stares at me.
“I read Errol’s lab book. I know about DeathX.”
Yahya mutters a string of words that I don’t understand. A bunch of the others all start talking, loudly, gesticulating. I see what look like threatening gestures, but I have no idea what is being discussed, only that it involves me and possibly my life.
Then I see something that I wish I had never seen. Yahya takes a pistol out of his jacket and points it at me. I’m going to die, here in New York, and no one will know. My family. Neal. My dad will surely die now. And I will never get to say goodbye.
I start to cry, and make no effort to stop. “Yahya, I don’t know why you did it, but please stop. Don’t make it any worse now. One murder is enough… I saw the news. It’s terrible.” I leave off because I am blubbering and I am speaking gibberish that I can’t understand myself.
“Brie!” Yahya says sharply. “Stop. Now.”
I don’t want to look at him. When I do, I see that the gun is not pointed at me. It is pointed above my head, at the guy behind me I guess. Then Yahya swings around and levels the pistol at each one as he circles. It is a full 360 degree circle that he makes, arms outstretched, the pistol level with his wrists. What is he doing? I vaguely wonder through a thick fog? My mind can’t take this in. I feel like I am on another planet looking down on me in this room on this chair.
I realize thickly that Yahya is threatening everyone else. He is protecting me. I start to cry again. I can feel the tears on my face, but I cannot hear anything except a dull roar in my ears. The Arabic swearing starts like a wave that crescendos over me like a blanket. I don’t faint, I don’t feel the slightest like fainting, which surprises me. But I am holding my breath, for a really long time. I exhale and hold it again. I feel like minutes pass. Then I hear someone say “OK.” A bunch more exchanges, and I hear doors, lots of doors. They have vanished, into the bedrooms, out the front door of the apartment, I don’t know. Maybe they all crowd into the bathroom? But they are gone.
Yahya pulls a chair in front of me. We are alone. “Brie,” he says gruffly. But I detect a gentleness in his tone. He does not touch me.
……..
He tells me to wait right there. He looks at me for a long moment. “You not move, right?” he asks. “Please do not. You will be safe, but I have to get you out. I be back, OK? Stay put,” he emphasizes this last command with his hand. Like Errol used to do to Luna, telling her to stay. Yahya’s dark eyes burn. I feel guilty. I have made him do something difficult. I hear voices, but I do not glance their way. I am doing as I was told. Like Luna.
I don’t want to see what is going on. I have no idea who Yahya is or what he is up to. Why is he being nice to me? Did he kill Errol? If he did, why is he acting like he is going to walk me right out of here? It doesn’t add up. I’m not thinking rationally, I realize.
Yahya returns. He has his bag. And my phone. “No calls, OK?” he tells me more than asks. “We go now.” He helps me up, and I need it because I am a bit wobbly. I don’t remember going down the stairs but I remember the sound of Yahya breathing behind me. I want to run but I know I can’t. It will only be worse if I do, I suspect. I hear a very strange sound and look up as we approach the front door to exit the building. It’s a lilting, haunting sound. With a shock I realize that it is coming from Yahya. He is whistling. I don’t recognize the tune. It’s not a happy sound; it’s mournful, but sweet and quite pretty. I glance back once we are outside. He hands me my floppy hat. He smiles at me, and I realize that I never noticed how white and straight his teeth are. These are the most words I have had with him, I realize, and he just tried to kill me. Or, I correct myself, maybe he stopped them from killing me. I don’t know why, but suddenly I trust him. If he killed Errol, or if one of those fellows did, why would he be whistling, and why would we be walking away from the building?
“We go uptown?” Yahya asks me. Why is he asking me? Is he taking me somewhere? “You stay at hotel?”
I don’t say anything. I can’t process this. Why does he care where I am staying in New York City?
“OK,” he says, “no worry. We walk for a while, no? Yes?” he finishes. He smiles at the contradiction. Perfectly straight white teeth. And his eyes, they seem to smile too.
We walk for a block, maybe more, I have no idea. It’s the middle of the afternoon. It’s not even night. Are these the actions of a killer?
He hails a cab.
Chapter 28
March 24
Buzz! I awake with a start. I had set my alarm for 6 a.m. I want to check out early and get on the road. I have a lot to process. The first thing I did when Yahya said goodbye to me at the hotel yesterday was to call my mother to say that I had taken a spontaneous visit to New York City to visit Suzanne, that I had wanted a weekend away from work, email, and the pressures. I told her I was sorry that I missed her calls, but I had dropped my phone in the toilet. She has known forever how clumsy I am; she believed me.
She doesn’t know about
Errol. She doesn’t really know who Errol is, except from hearing about him from me. She knew that the chief scientist behind our drug was a guy who got his PhD from UMass around the corner. She knew that Errol was dead, but she has no idea that the death might be murder, that her daughter was playing amateur sleuth. She doesn’t know the agony that I have gone through trying to get my dad into the clinical trials. All failed efforts. She knows only that I was not successful. She doesn’t know about the clinical trial being stopped by NGX. That even if he was in the trial it would be a moot point now. She might have found out on her own about NGX stopping the trial, but I doubt it. She would have asked me about it. I can’t tell her, dash her hopes of a cure – not yet. Errol had something intended for me, for my dad. I just have to find it. That’s why I came to New York. She doesn’t need to know any of this.
I also texted Jim last night. That I was OK. That Yahya was here, that he was not the killer, that he needn’t worry. Everything was fine, and I was going to stay an extra night in NYC. I would be back in Pittsburgh Monday night.
Next, I called Neal. “Babe, where are you? No one seems to know. Should I know something?”
I sighed. “Neal, I’m not hiding anything from you, not really. I’m just very involved in what happened with Errol. You know that I’ve been talking with Amy. And this detective, Stra…” I caught myself. “Henrik, Detective Henrik,” I corrected.
“Yea, well you’re sure not telling me much about anything.” I could see that he was annoyed. He’d be far more than annoyed if I told him I had just survived a kidnapping. That I almost died. That I was with terrorists. I’ll have to level with him. But tomorrow, not tonight.
I yawned. “Look, Neal. There’s nothing going on. And I’m not playing games. Really. But there are some things that I have to do. I have to help solve this murder.”
I heard a slow uptake of breath. “Brie, do you know that it was murder?”
“Yes, Neal, I’m sure.” I paused. “You see, there was a second person in the boat.”
“Shit, Brie.”
“I know, Neal. It’s bizarre.” I ended the call by promising to tell him the whole thing, tomorrow. He would meet me Monday night at my apartment. He promised to cook. “Mmm, Indian food, please?”
He laughed, “Sure thing. Whatever you want.” I hear him breathe. “I love you, Brie. Please come home – safely.”
Lastly, I called Straler. He picked up the call before the first ring sounded. “Brie, we’ve been so worried. Jim told me you were in New York. Where are you?”
“I’m fine, thanks, detective.”
“Hey, what’s with the detective?”
“Sure, Straler. I know. I’m just tired. You know why I came. I thought I could find something out, you know. It was so weird that Yahya was coming to New York. But it didn’t seem like anything definite. I didn’t know what I was looking for. Just that I was looking. That’s why I didn’t tell you.”
“I get that,” Straler said, sounding miffed. “But it was dangerous of you to go on your own. You could have at least let me know.”
He’s jealous! I saw some action, and he’s a young detective dying to see some action. “You didn’t miss much,” I said. “Really. I ran into Yahya, well, kind of ran into him. He recognized me, and after a shock, we talked. He has an explanation. I’ll tell you the whole thing, promise. But not now. I’m tired. I had some late nights here in the City – with friends. Yahya’s driving home with me tomorrow. We’ll be back mid-afternoon. He’s happy to answer any questions that you might have.”
“Great, what time would you like me to pick you up?”
“Straler, I’m in New York City.”
“So am I.”
“Really, Straler, you’re in New York?”
“Yup.” I heard a tinkling laugh. “Brie, you might be one step ahead of me, but you are not going to hog all of the fun, are you? What hotel are you staying at? I’ll pick you up at 7 in the morning. We’re partners, remember?”
Wow, partners.
I ordered room service and crashed. When I wake, the television is still on. There is a story on of a terrorist cell bust in New York City. The sound is turned down, but I am jolted fully awake when they show the front door of the building on 10th Avenue that I WAS JUST IN. I think I screamed out loud because I notice that my hand is over my mouth. I grope for the remote and turn up the sound. But I can’t take it all in. Something about a terrorist plot, I hear the word “Syria,” and also “rebel,” and I see a bunch of people being led out of the building and into a police van.
Oh my goodness, I think. Where is Yahya in all of this? Is one of them him? I get a text message just then. I don’t recognize the number, but I certainly welcome the message: “Brie, Yahya here. Please do not reply to text. Like we talk, you are safe. I am OK. We leave for Pittsburgh, now? Meet me Starbucks 6th and 23rd.”
I glanced at my phone, 6:30 a.m. I just have time to get ready. I look forward to ordering a double latte at Starbucks. I will need it. It is a long drive home. Straler is waiting for me in the lobby when I step off the elevator. He has an Uber driver waiting for him. I tell him that Yahya is waiting for me. When we get to the coffee shop, I go in first to explain Straler’s presence. Yahya looks terrible. He has the saddest eyes I have ever seen.
The Uber driver takes us to pick up my car. On the way back to Pittsburgh, Straler driving, and Yahya slumped in the back seat, I recounted what had happened to me. I told Straler what I had seen on the television. I told him that I saw Yahya’s brother being hauled away. We drove in silence for a long time. I turned around and looked at Yahya.
Yahya told us about his brother. The story was a sad one. As we knew, Yahya and his family are from Syria. The current war didn’t start as a war, but, rather, as a rebellion against the repressive government. Yahya told us that he escaped through his education. He was ecstatic at being accepted into Centre for his PhD. When he landed at Centre, he thought he’d reached a place where his past couldn’t touch him. Where he could be literally free. He followed the rebellion, and he was convinced that it would be a peaceful uprising. But Yahya’s brother chose a different path. He’s 14 months younger than Yahya, and had fallen in with a difficult crowd in the Syrian equivalent of high school.
The situation only got worse in university, where the brother spent one year before dropping out. For a long time Yahya didn’t know the extent of his brother’s involvement in the political world, the violence, the incidents, the terrorism that he embraced even before the revolution started. Yahya was already in the States. Relations became strained with his family and with his brother. His mother called him numerous times asking him to help his younger brother, but Yahya didn’t know what to do, and he didn’t want to leave the U.S. and his education.
Then, a few months ago, he got a call from a New York number. It was his brother, Hasad. He was in New York City. Hasad tried to get Yahya to come to NYC, and, once there, tried to convert him to the cause. Yahya didn’t buy into the violence, but he kept going to and from NYC in the hopes that he could extract his brother. But Hasad hated America and hated anything American. “I love America,” Yahya confessed to us. “I thought I could convince him of a better way.” There was nothing we could say or do to ease his pain.
Yahya will not be making any more trips to New York City. He spent a lot of the trip looking out the window. A couple of times he wiped his face, and I could see that the back of his hand was wet.
…….
Tuesday, March 25
Straler insisted on meeting me early on Tuesday morning. I had chosen Ritter’s – again. I might gain weight I reasoned, but at least I am consistent. Once seated, I take a sip of my coffee. Straler, who had been writing notes, pauses, pen in the air. “You did good, Brie. You really did.”
I smile at him.
“Now we know it’s not Yahya. Cross him off of your list. In your notebook,” he indicates my notebook with his pen.
How did he know that I was kee
ping tabs on the investigation through my notes?
“I peeked, while you were in the ladies room, last time we were here,” he admits sheepishly.
I laugh, “You’re such a detective!”
“Can we move on?” Straler asks me next. “To the next on the list? What about Patrick? And, what do you know about NeuroGenex?” he queries. “Jim told me Errol was dead set against that deal.” He winces at the remark.
“Yes, I know something about NGX,” I reply. “Let me get it all together and get back to you. Might as well give you all the relevant information at one time. Give me a few days.”
“Sure, of course. Good. Thanks. Really, thanks, Brie.” Straler rises to go.
I stare into my coffee cup. I wonder if I will ever feel rested again.
Chapter 29
March 28
The tension at Quixotic is unbearable. Matt snaps at me constantly, asking me questions, wondering what I’m working on. He seems distracted. Gigi is as demanding as ever. She’s asked for help on some financial reporting that we owe to shareholders. For me, it’s a lot of staring at an Excel spreadsheet with loads of numbers. I’m not very good at it. Gigi keeps harassing me to do it over and over again. Stan is always at his desk, working on something that I don’t understand. The lab is quiet and folks come and go. I don’t know what they are working on either. Only Jim seems unfazed, and he stops in my office with a kind smile.
“You OK, Brie?” he asks.
I don’t answer, but he accepts my nod. “I know that it’s tough around here right now.”
I nod again.
“Look, Brie, I know what you are going through. With your dad and all this? I know that it’s very hard on you. Believe me, I sympathize.”
He has aged, I see, from the deep creases in his face. “Thanks, Jim. That means a lot.”
He looks like he wants to say something else but then seems to change his mind. “Just don’t let any of this get to you. This will pass, I promise. Things have a way of working out.”