Start Shooting

by Charlie Newton

  The PA buzzes: “TESTING, ONE, TWO. TESTING.”

  My guy’s not as close as he should be. Dr. Ota is stage center, but back several feet. Someone will introduce him to the crowd; that’s when Ruben said to throw the test tube. The test tube and Dr. Ota have to be connected, questioned, wondered about. If I can cause that, Ruben will let me go. Uh-huh, Ruben says he’ll let me go, but he won’t. There’ll be another meeting, probably at seven or so when the Japanese women call my phone. By then I’ll have Streetcar; I’ll be able to go to Toddy Pete, tell him Ruben is sabotaging his Olympics.

  “TESTING, ONE, TWO. TESTING.”

  I can threaten Ruben with Toddy Pete—tell Ruben he can have his blackmail money if he leaves me alone and pays all the people he says he’ll pay. If Ruben won’t leave me alone, Toddy Pete gets a full report on Ruben and Furukawa. That could work; it could. I’ll have Streetcar. Ruben will either have his money or he’ll have Toddy Pete and all the muscle in this city at his throat.

  My stomach cramps. I blot out other outcomes. Plan B will work. I’ll make it work.

  “LADIES AND GENTLEMEN … YOUR ATTENTION, PLEASE.”

  Toddy Pete, Dr. Ota, and the mayor meet behind a grinning announcer holding the mic like a 1940s crooner in one hand, a red starter pistol in the other. Behind them, the reviewing stand is jammed with Chicago sports legends, politicians, black reverends, business titans, and every TV/film/stage actor and actress who claims Chicago as home. My man is up front, mixed in the crowd with other revelers, security men, and police.

  “LET ME INTRODUCE DR. HITOSHI OTA, CEO OF FURUKAWA INDUSTRIES, OUR WONDERFUL SPONSOR …”

  My man looks at me. Theater, Arleen, that’s all the test tube is. I wave the umbrella. The crowd raises their arms to applaud. My man turns as Dr. Ota accepts the mic and starter pistol. The test tube arcs high and slow toward the stage, glinting as it reaches the top of its arc. Necks bend to watch. The test tube lands at Dr. Ota’s feet and shatters. Dr. Ota lurches backward into his aides. One covers his mouth and points into the crowd. Security men rush toward the center. Toddy Pete grabs the red starter pistol, raises it, and fires. The runners behind me surge forward and I jump into the Mardi Gras river. Police shout at the reviewing stand. I’m crammed in with the runners, barely moving. The crowd at the reviewing stand surges back; police yell into radios. My man is grabbed—he’s pointing, blurting my description. I try to run faster but can’t. Shoulders and hips bump me. I forgot to put on the scarf.

  I duck and fight left to filter toward the curb. We’re moving so slow the police could walk faster on the sides. Lots of police on the corners, on the sidewalks, radios to their faces—

  It takes two blocks to filter eight lanes of Michigan Avenue to the curb. At the first break in the bystanders I jump through, head down, and walk past two cops, reach an alley, and run halfway in to a Dumpster. The cops don’t follow. Behind the Dumpster, I shed the muumuu, lose the wig and sunglasses, then watch the Mardi Gras throng passing the alley. Sirens wail. No cops in my alley; no Furukawa. I pat myself together, deep breath, and emerge a civilian in the Blanche dress and scarf.

  Walking west, I act innocent, no idea how bad it’s gotten at the reviewing stand. Theater, that’s all it was. I call Sarah. No answer. Maybe they’re all still at the Shubert, still deciding. It could happen like that. More sirens. It could. A squad car, lights flashing, roars up Madison at me. The test tube was empty, wasn’t it? The cop’s face in the driver’s window cuts to me.

  Ruben calls; Sarah doesn’t.

  I keep walking, scanning doorways for Japanese women, for Korean gangsters, for crooked cops, for Santa Monica. Stop it, this plan will work; feels like it won’t; lot of amendments, but it will. Because it has to. It’s what I have. I wait for the new plan’s mild euphoria and get a huge rush of fight-or-flee. My phone vibrates. More sirens. Sprint. Away. To the Shubert! Run the last block to the Shubert; curl up out front; hug my knees; make a grown-up tell me my future. RUBEN vibrates on my phone. Pulse pounds in my head. This isn’t a plan, it’s a suicide attempt. I start to throw the phone—

  It is a plan. Don’t panic. Can’t go to the Shubert; Ruben would figure the Shubert. I look east so fast I stumble, then west, then east, then west again. Breathe. Exercise control. We do not panic. We have self-esteem. Deep breath, then another.

  YOU HAVE A PLAN.

  Arleen the Poised takes another breath, then walks, not runs, west, away from the Shubert. I keep walking, head down, till I cross Wacker Drive, repeating the mantra: I have a plan. No more panic attacks. Not now, can’t have them, won’t have them.

  At the river I quit concentrating on no panic and realize I’ve walked to the Furukawa Building. Ruben calls again. Be elsewhere; get a drink, drugs, something. Call Bobby? Sun glares off the river. Like the lightning did on the Santa Monica pier. I fumble my phone back into my purse, then pull it back out and read Bobby’s text message wishing me luck for Streetcar. I put my phone on ring, won’t have to read Ruben’s name.

  We do not panic. We have self-esteem.

  I call Bobby and walk north, too jumpy to stay put anywhere. His phone rings. What do I say? Tickets to Farawayland? Make the Shubert call me? Your brother’s a gangster who won’t leave me alone? Can’t we all just get along? Bobby’s phone goes to voice mail.

  We do not panic.

  Drink, drugs, something. Coogan’s Riverside is up ahead, but not far enough away from Furukawa. Coogan’s is a neighborhood saloon that Sarah and many of the theater and opera crowd frequent. If Sarah’s in Coogan’s, I lost. My phone rings Sarah’s ringtone. I squeeze my eyes shut. The phone keeps ringing. Please, God. Please. I’m too scared to answer.

  Eyes shut, my thumb pushes the button … Sarah says, “They haven’t decided. They want to see us tonight, eight o’clock at the theater.”

  Eyes open. “I didn’t lose?” My back flattens on Coogan’s door. “Sarah?”

  “We’re still in.” Pause. “Great chance we win.”

  On my left, police lights flash onto South Wacker. Eight lanes of runners gush into the turn. “Why? Why ‘great’?”

  Silence on Sarah’s end.

  I turn my back to the police cars leading the runners. “Are you okay? Sarah?”

  “Fine. Tharien may have a conflict—”

  “Meaning they want her?”

  “Arleen, I don’t know. But I know Jude Law wants you. And Anne Johns wants Jude.”

  My entire life flashes in surround sound. “Oh, God. Should I go over?” The 10K front-runners charge at me, the huge pack bulging behind.

  “No. No. You know better. I realize this is torture, but they’ll decide when they decide. Trust me, I’ll stay with it minute by minute. Just … keep the faith. It’s your turn.” Sarah clicks off. The river of runners floods into the gap. The Shubert marquee demands I fight through. Swim the river, kiss the dirty pavement. Maybe Toddy Pete is hosting an Olympic party in his office. I could go over there, beg, quick blow job, clean the furniture, help with the sushi canapés … Or if Dr. Ota didn’t have a heart attack, I could tell him about Ruben. Then tell Toddy Pete about his son—

  Don’t even think that. We do not panic. We … we … I don’t know what we do, but don’t panic. Thousands of runners surge between me and my Shubert marquee. The grandly decorated Furukawa Building towers above us. I’m trapped; a new force of nature to contend with, to circumvent, to accommodate. A rush of anger bubbles in my stomach and throat. I focus hard on the runners, but the anger keeps coming. My eyes drift up to the Furukawa Building and the western skyline. The anger builds, flexing into my hands and back. Big phallic imposing monuments to the big phallic owners of all the stages in all the world … and if a girl aspires to be on one of those stages, she never stops chasing the stage owners’ validation. Never stops hoping the stage owners will love you, won’t hurt you … with their Big Swingin’ Dicks.

  Anger, good. Panic, bad.

  Hard to be that stupid and out on your own. And y
et, here you are. I stare at Furukawa, then down Monroe to the Shubert. The runners between us blur. Sarah’s tone nags at me. Coogan’s door opens into my back and I slide north along the wall. A bartender looks out. No, Sarah’s fine, Streetcar is fine. I’m just exhausted, too adrenaline-fried to think straight. Get a drink or three, put the last forty-eight hours back in the bag. Be a good girl, like Da used to say.

  I choke on my father and have to look up to swallow the bile. Furukawa is the skyline. Way out of your league, Arleen, dancing with the giants who never take you home, just out to the car. I turn away, but behind me is the river, my da’s river. Always the giants. A river I ran from. Right to Hollywood’s river, expecting it to be different. But they never are if you set yourself up as less than an equal. And now I’ve put Arleen in Ruben’s river, and Furukawa’s, and Toddy Pete Steffen’s.

  Ah, okay, maybe anger and history aren’t the best answer to panic. Maybe stay closer to the now, keep the faith four more hours and—

  Why? Why will these giants treat me different this time? Because I’m finally the lead in their drama, their future? The Furukawa Building covers the green water with its reflection, waiting for an answer. My phone rings in my hand. Ruben Vargas. I don’t have to answer to hear Ruben threaten me with the Korean mafia, or hear Dr. Ota and Toddy Pete Steffen say, C’mon, Arleen, you’ve been working for tips your whole life, the kindness of strangers.

  The phone quits ringing with me staring at the river. Then rings again.

  Say it, Arleen: Please let me audition for your family. Please pay me for serving your meals. Please fuck me in the backseat of your rental car.

  Eyes shut. Deep breath. You’re tired, baby. Do not come apart. Imagine good things. Imagine playing once on level ground. Make that your future. Sit down with a boy like Bobby, gaze across a table, a lawn, a bed; talk about … anything. Touch his hands. Plan that future. One that doesn’t require the grace of a theater or studio, the forgiveness of a multinational megacorporation, the head-pat of a critic after he came in your mouth, or the veracity of a crooked cop and his crooked police partners.

  Actress. Actress. Actress. Winning actress.

  My hand throbs, crushing the phone. Both eyes jam shut. Arleen’s always hoping, always reaching, always … Since we were little, Coleen and I’ve been fighting to own our lives—they stole hers and I’ve always given mine away, hanging it on a silver thread and “the kindness of strangers.” My right hand calls Bobby before the left hand can shove him back behind the giants. I hope he answers. My father’s river says he won’t.

  OFFICER BOBBY VARGAS

  SUNDAY, 5:00 PM

  Cristo Rey’s uniformed security guard is large, mid-sixties, and working a second or third part-time job instead of being retired. He limps on a trick knee back to his post at the far, far end of the dark hallway, satisfied that Tania Hahn and I are the police. The blond back of Hahn’s head is visible through the glass wall of the principal’s office. She’s talking to a white-haired woman. My phone rings, Arleen’s name and number on the screen. I duck into a recessed doorway. “Hi. Hello, Arleen?”

  Silence, then: “My knight in shining armor.”

  “Call me Lancelot. Did you get the part?”

  “Not yet. Want to have that picnic anyway?”

  “For real? You’re … okay … with all the stuff they’re saying?”

  “We’ve all sinned, Bobby. Those aren’t yours. And screw ’em anyway, you know? Been a tough weekend for all of us.”

  She sounds beat, like a prizefighter in the late rounds. “Absolutely—”

  Hahn steps up, eyes narrow, and chins at my phone. “Who?”

  I turn a shoulder. “Arleen.”

  “I’m here. Who was that? If you’re busy—”

  “No. Not busy. Someone I work with.”

  Hahn mouths, Arleen Brennan? I nod, holding my hand up and turn away. Hahn grabs my arm hard and shakes her head. “We have to find Ruben.”

  Arleen’s voice adds pitch. “Bobby? Is Ruben there? With you?”

  “No. That was the girl I work with. She’s looking for him.”

  “Why?”

  Odd question. I start to ask why Arleen cares, but don’t. “Long story, and not particularly good.”

  Silence. Hahn fish-eyeing me and the phone.

  “Arleen?”

  “Yeah. Maybe we better not—”

  “The stuff they’re saying isn’t true. None of it.”

  “What about Ruben?”

  Blink. “What about him? Why does Ruben matter?”

  Hahn grabs my arm again; puts a finger to her mouth.

  Arleen says, “Who’s the girl with you?”

  Hahn nods, okay. I say, “Tania Hahn. She works for the CIA. Sort of.”

  “Sort of?”

  Hahn grabs my phone. “This is Tania.” She hits Speaker so I can hear. “If you know where Ruben is, it’ll help a whole lot of people if you tell me.”

  “Put Bobby on.”

  I reach. “Gimme my phone.”

  Hahn bats my hand away. “Arleen, if you’re in with Ruben, Robbie, and Lý, now is the time to come over with us. An hour or two from now there may not be a right side.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Put Bobby on.”

  “Yeah, you do.” Hahn’s voice ramps. “Was the vial empty? I have to know.”

  Click.

  Hahn hits Redial. I grab the phone back. Arleen doesn’t answer. I glare Hahn back two steps, then text Arleen: “Please call me.”

  Hahn points at my phone. “Bingo.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Hahn nods big like she’s reciting scripture. “Ruben wouldn’t do Furukawa in person. Lý wouldn’t, either. She tried that once and Dr. Ota’s girls almost killed her. Someone has to do the exchange and Robbie’s in the hospital.”

  Hahn floats her eyes like any cop would agree. I don’t.

  She holds up the photo of the nun we took from White Flower’s apartment and points at the office behind her. “Sister Mary Margaret Fey just had a chat. She resurrected a Carmelite orphanage in Saigon during the war and ran it on her own. Taught math at St. Dom’s until it closed and teaches math here at Cristo Rey. Degree from Cornell, two hearing aids, two knee surgeries, likes Fannie Mae candy, and is due to retire this year.”

  “So it’s the nun, Sister Mary Margaret fronting the blackmail, not Arleen.”

  “The nun’s crippled, Bobby. Can’t walk. Guess who brings her Fannie May candy on her birthday? Arleen Brennan.”

  I scowl at my phone that’s not ringing. The door to the office opens and a white-haired woman struggles out using a walker.

  Hahn introduces us. “Sister Mary Margaret—Bobby Vargas, Chicago Police Department.”

  The nun smiles. “I remember you. From the neighborhood.”

  “Sorry. I don’t remember …”

  She smiles again. “Our habits; we all looked alike.”

  I point at Hahn. “She thinks Arleen Brennan is involved in a blackmail plot with my older brother Ruben. You remember Ruben, too?”

  The smile fades. “Yes. The Four Corners was quite tough then, a premonition of what it is now.”

  Hahn taps her watch. “Sister, could you tell him what you told me.”

  Sister Mary Margaret straightens in the walker. “In 1975, Bob Anderson helped me escape Saigon. I had been young, impetuous, and political, and at odds with my order. We reconciled, the church and I, and sadly, I agreed to suppress my political activism in exchange for inner-city missions. Over the years, Bob assisted me in various government inquiries by forgetting my name.”

  “Hahn told you who we’re hunting?”

  “Lý Thi Loan. In 1982, Bob helped me bring her over from Vietnam. I had schooled her in the orphanage before the Korean mafia lured her away. Very bright, beautiful—thought to be the illegitimate daughter of a French missionary. Lý was my favorite. Bob knew her from the Caravelle Hotel and the Continental Palace as a pros
titute with highranking customers on both sides of the war.”

  “Lý Thi Loan is White Flower Lý?”

  “Yes. When White Flower arrived in the States there were issues with her documents.” Sister Mary Margaret adjusts her weight in the walker. “White Flower was … unstable, damaged badly by her life in Vietnam since I had last seen her. Bob and I falsified her remaining paperwork and I gained her admittance to the convent at St. Dom’s as a postulant. Almost immediately she had difficulty adjusting; there were arguments with students at the school. White Flower was expelled from the program and disappeared.”

  Hahn says, “She threatened you and St. Dom’s.”

  “White Flower was quite angry. Understandable”—the nun focuses on me—“given the conditions at the time.”

  “What conditions?” I lean closer. “The Terry Rourke stuff?”

  “The argument that resulted in White Flower’s final expulsion was with the Brennan sisters.”

  “Brennan sisters” echoes in the dark hallway.

  “White Flower was accused by the Brennans’ father—a violent, frightening man—of physically threatening his twin daughters. Rumored as a former child prostitute and being from Vietnam exacerbated White Flower’s guilt and the father’s demands. He threatened the school with an investigation into White Flower’s legitimate right to be in the United States. And, sadly again, we felt it best for all that White Flower leave the postulant program.”

  “And she did?”

  “Yes.”

  I look at Hahn, then the nun. “What’s that got to do with Ruben, other than we were all in the same neighborhood at the same time?”

  The nun stares.

  “What?”

  “White Flower and Ruben were both questioned in the Coleen Brennan murder.”

  “So was I. So was everybody I knew.”

  Nod. “White Flower and Ruben were each other’s alibi. They were together, sexually, specifically forbidden in the postulant program. White Flower had been admonished for a previous transgression with Ruben. St. Dom’s saw the alibi as validation of her expulsion and that ended our association with her. I have not seen her since.”