First, Last, and in Between

by Jamie Bennett

  “This is it,” I told the cat after I secured all the locks. “This is where I live.” I looked around at the room, seeing again how blank it was. Not expensively, modernly spare like the Tollman house—it was just bare and ugly. Anyone could have lived here, hanging her clothes in a closet too shallow for real hangers and sleeping on the couch with the spring that dug into your ribs or your back, no matter how far you tried to roll away from it. It didn’t look like me, but I wasn’t sure what that would look like, anyway.

  I frowned at it all. “It’s clean,” I defended myself, talking to the cat like it could get me. “There aren’t piles of trash and liquor bottles for you to hurt yourself. There’s heat in the winter, and water, and everything I need. And no one in this apartment has to worry about where she’s going to get dinner, including you,” I mentioned, and put her down to start hunting something up that a cat would eat. I checked my phone as I did, texting Jade again and calling her, too. The texts went unanswered and the calls went straight to voicemail, which I had set up for her, but which she never checked. The mailbox was full and I put down the phone, frustrated. Where was she?

  I sat in the one chair to eat the meatloaf that Rella had made and I watched the little kitten nibble at her dish of food and delicately lap some water. I took the phone again and called the police back to see if anything had changed. Then I gave into the temptation I’d had all night and called Rory. He didn’t answer, either, but I didn’t leave him a message.

  “Just you and me,” I told the cat. She watched me for a few seconds and then curled into a ball in the towel I’d put on the floor, and squeezed her little eyes closed as she fell asleep.

  I carried her into the kennel and made up the sofa bed for myself. I tried to read some of the books that I’d borrowed from Rory but nothing seemed to catch my interest, and then, when it got late enough for me to sleep, I couldn’t. I was scared, I admitted to myself. I was scared that something had happened to Jade and I was scared of Kash. Maybe it had been better when I wasn’t standing up to him. At least I had known what to expect then. I curved my arms around my ribs, remembering the feeling of his fists hitting me there. Yes, that was what I had expected. I didn’t know what was worse, the fists or living in the fear of them.

  I reached into the sheets to find my phone. I was afraid that Kash was going to write to me, to threaten and scare me, and I didn’t want to see that, but I was also afraid to miss a warning of what he was going to do next. And really, I had to admit, I was waiting to see if anyone else would send a message, too.

  But what was I waiting for? I could write to him. I didn’t need him to help me, but I could say hello. I did that, and then held the phone and watched the screen.

  “On my way to your building,” Rory wrote back. But he must have been outside when he sent it, because a second later, someone pounded on the door. I was glad I had been expecting him because otherwise I would have thought it was Kash, and the only way out my apartment was the window.

  I opened the door and grabbed Rory’s shirt, pulling him inside. “Hi,” I said, and I didn’t let go of him.

  “Hi,” he answered. “I’ve been thinking about you all night.” Then he lowered his head and kissed me softly on the lips.

  Chapter 11

  Rory

  I looked down at Isobel, how she’d placed her fingers on her mouth where I’d kissed her, and she looked up at me with big eyes. She didn’t seem upset with me, though, and I hadn’t been able to stop myself. I really had been thinking about her for the whole night, first at the warehouse then standing next to Leopold’s table as he had a very quiet conference at the restaurant with his friend Bernard Tollman. It wasn’t like Leopold to be so subdued, and Bernie had looked nervous and uncomfortable the whole time. I had stood there next to them, vaguely listening, forgetting that my back was exposed because most of my mind was on Isobel rather than protecting myself.

  Then, on the way home to Leopold’s compound, I hadn’t even noticed the car trailing us until Ronnie pointed it out. We had lost them, and the gates had closed behind us without any more problems. And still, I had thought about Isobel, wondering if she was all right, and not trusting the message that Rella had left for me. “Rory? Is that you?” she’d asked my voicemail, and then went on to tell me that Isobel was fine.

  “What happened in your ex-boyfriend’s apartment?” I asked her now.

  Her eyes got even bigger. “How did you know I was there?” she responded, and followed it immediately with, “Rella told you where I went? Are you mad?”

  “Why did you go there?”

  “I—I wanted to see him. No, I didn’t want to. I felt like I had to. I’m used to responding when he calls.” Her lips turned down. “Like a dog, right? He calls, and I come running.”

  “Did he try anything on you today?”

  Her hand left her mouth and went to her head, rubbing slightly with her fingers. “No,” she lied. “Nothing. He’s all beat up, he couldn’t catch me.”

  So he’d come after her, then, but she’d gotten away. “Good. What happened?”

  Isobel drew in a big breath. “I told him that I wasn’t going to see him anymore.”

  “Did you?” I felt my own eyes widen.

  “I mean, pretty much. He wanted me to…but I said no, and I ran—I mean, I left. And I’m not going to see him again.” She looked around her apartment. “I keep thinking he’s coming here. I keep thinking every noise is him getting in.”

  “He couldn’t get in, not past your locks.”

  “You did,” she accused me, and that was true.

  “You’re right. You shouldn’t stay here. Grab your stuff,” I told her. “What do you need?”

  “My stuff? What?”

  I picked up her old purse and her keys off her kitchen counter and walked to her closet. “Do you have a bag for your clothes?”

  “Where do you think I’m going?” she asked me, staring as I picked out an armful of shirts and sweaters.

  “You can’t stay here if you’re scared. I don’t want you to be alone.” I had been planning for her to come to my place, anyway, and now was as good a time as any. “What would you do if he did come?”

  Her eyes got huge in fear.

  “Nothing’s going to happen with me here.” I held out the clothes. “Do you have a bag or should I carry this?”

  She got a bag but stood there holding it instead of giving it to me. “I don’t know. I don’t know if this is a good idea.”

  “Why would it be a bad one?” I waited, but she just kept biting her lip until I reached to touch her cheek. “It’s a great idea. It’s a safe idea.” She didn’t say that she agreed but she did pass me the bag and went to get a few things from her bathroom. She also put the cat carrier at the door.

  “You think we’re going to catch some strays?”

  “I found another animal at Jade’s apartment,” she said, frowning.

  I picked up her arms and pushed up her sleeves. “Did it scratch you?”

  “No, look.” Isobel pulled away from my hands to open the carrier and reach inside. “See?” She held out a tiny scrap of fur.

  “What is that? A rabbit’s foot?” But then it yawned, and I saw miniscule white teeth and the inside of a pink mouth. “A cat? Your mom has more cats?”

  She cuddled it against herself. “She only had this one. But it was the only thing in the apartment, because I don’t know where Jade is. She hasn’t been at home in a while and she’s not answering me.”

  I zipped the bag closed. “We’ll go to my apartment first and then we’ll find Jade. Let me see that cat.” She passed it carefully to me and it sat in my palm, a warm, furry lump about the size of a tennis ball. “This cat reminds me of my brother. You should name him Jory.”

  “It’s a girl,” she said. “I think. Why does it remind you of you of your brother? Isn’t he a giant football player? And a boy?”

  “This cat has some balls. Look at the way it’s staring at me, like it d
oesn’t give one single shit,” I explained. “That’s how Jory looks, because he doesn’t, either.”

  Isobel started smiling. “It reminded me of the way you look, too. Maybe I should name it Rory.”

  “You don’t want to have too many of us in your life.”

  “You think that you’re going to be in my life?” she asked. I watched her swallow. “Are you sure about that?”

  “Where do you think I’m going?” I answered her.

  “Well…what if you have to go back to jail?”

  “I would have to do something to be sent there, and I’m not.”

  “What if something happens to you? You got so hurt before.”

  I wasn’t going to mention the car that had followed us again today before Ronnie lost them. Maybe it was for Leopold, but maybe it was for me. “I’m not going to get hurt again. No matter what, I’m right here.” I watched as she mulled that over, considering if she believed me. I’d show her, though. “I paid back some of the money already,” I offered.

  “How? Did you take it from your boss?”

  “Take it?” I repeated. “No. He gave me a big bonus because he thought I did a good job on something.” That something was saving him from the drive-by, but I wasn’t going to tell her about that, either. “Now that Janko knows I’m good for the money, I’m better alive rather than not.”

  “What do you mean by ‘rather than not?’” she asked, eyes enormous.

  “It’s a figure of speech. Take Jory.” I handed back the cat scrap and put her bag over my shoulder. “Anything else you need?” She was coming to stay, so I looked at what was left in her closet, unzipped the bag, and put the rest of her clothes into it.

  “Why do I need all that for one night?” Jory meowed as she placed him in the carrier. “Won’t your brother be mad that we named this animal after him?”

  “Hell, no. He has a namesake dog already and he talks about it like he won an award.” I took the carrier, waited until she got her coat, and put my other arm around her. “I’ll tell Rella what’s happening tomorrow when I come over for tea.”

  “Tea with Rella, again?”

  “We have a weekly date set up,” I explained. I looked around the apartment, thinking how empty it looked. Without the clothes in the closet, it didn’t look like anyone lived there. “Let’s go.”

  I followed Isobel’s tin can in my car to my building, watching in my headlights as she turned look over her shoulder at reds and stop signs, checking if I was still there. That lasted for a few blocks until she seemed assured that I wasn’t going anywhere. But once we were in my apartment, she stared around, all nervous again. “Where should I sleep? I’ll take the couch,” she quickly answered herself.

  I was already carrying her bag into my bedroom. “You’ll sleep in here. It’s better. Safer,” I explained, but she didn’t follow me. I stopped and looked back at where she stood biting her lip. “I’m not going to try anything on you, Isobel. I’ll sleep on top of the blanket and you can sleep underneath.”

  “That bed is really big, I guess. But I can sleep on top,” she conceded, stepping in the direction of the bedroom. No, because then she’d be cold. I pulled back the blanket and since she was already wearing stuff that looked like pajamas, she crawled in.

  “Is the kitty ok?” she asked, laying herself stiffly on the mattress.

  I looked in the kennel at the tiny pile of fluff. “Looks good to me.” I stripped down to my boxer briefs and lay next to her. The bed was big, yeah, except that so was I. I took up a lot of it. I reached and flicked off the lamp on the table and Isobel sat up.

  “You like it really dark?” she asked.

  “Yeah, but we can leave some light if you want.” I flicked it back on.

  “I don’t care if you want to turn it off,” Isobel told me, and she slowly settled back against the pillow, looking at the lamp. She was quiet for a moment, twisting and twitching around. “Why do you like it so dark?” she finally asked.

  “Because there were always lights on in prison. It never got dark and it never got quiet. I never felt like I really slept in there.”

  “Oh. Then you should turn it off. I really don’t need it,” she said, and turned on her side away from me. I turned it off again and listened as she turned onto her stomach, then her other side, then to her back again, completing the circle. Then I heard a slight movement across the sheets, and I felt a whisper of a touch on my arm. Isobel traced down to find my hand and then she curled her fingers around mine.

  I felt something weird inside my chest, like something tightened. She trusted me. No, not just that—she wanted to hold onto me, like she needed me. I held her hand and stroked my thumb over her knuckles until her breathing changed and I knew she was asleep. Even then, I didn’t let go.

  “Rory? Rory!”

  It was three something in the morning and she was sitting up in bed again, sounding frantic. “It’s ok. Isobel! I’m here, it’s ok.” I reached for her and she lay down across my chest, hugging me tightly. “What happened?”

  “I—I don’t know,” she mumbled, and clutched at me. I held her too, and whispered that she could sleep now. It only took her a minute to fall back into it. I stayed awake, though, playing with her long hair, humming a lullaby that I remembered my mom singing to my brother and me when we had refused to sleep. We had been little devils, but our mom had been a saint. I was awake for a long time, thinking and humming, holding her carefully.

  But sometime in the early morning, I fell asleep again, and when I woke up for the second time, she was gone.

  ∞

  “Are you listening to me?” Ronnie asked.

  I turned my head to stare at the driver. No, I hadn’t heard a word of what Ronnie had just said. I had been thinking of Isobel again, remembering her in my arms, remembering how she’d held on so tightly to me, and then how she’d been gone. I wondered what she was thinking right now, if her mind was on me, too. Or her mother, or Kash, or her new cat, which had also been gone this morning along with its carrier. I was thinking about what Rella Ross and I had discussed as we’d taken tea, as she termed it. I hadn’t been able to drink it as she talked and I had bent a spoon double in my fist without realizing it.

  “Yeah, I heard you,” I said to Ronnie.

  He shook his head angrily. “No, you didn’t, so I’ll repeat myself. I said, I’m not going to sit here and wait for that asshole.”

  “Go,” I told him. I’ll call you when he’s…done.”

  “Right, when he’d done,” Ronnie muttered. “Son of a bitch.” He stared at the house, looking like he wanted to rip someone’s head off—and that someone was our boss. Leopold had no idea how close it had been to Ronnie beating the shit out of him this afternoon. The problems had started when I’d arrived at his compound after a morning at the woodshop and tea with Rella, and Leopold had announced a change of plans.

  He’d actually rubbed his hands together in anticipation. “We’re going to take a little trip rather than going to the warehouse. Ready, boys?” And then he’d directed Ronnie over to this POS house on the West Side, and he’d started to leap out before the car had even stopped moving.

  “Leopold! Who’s here in this house? What are you doing?” I’d barked out, and he’d taken his hand away from the door.

  “I set Jourdan up in this place,” he’d explained, and Ronnie had jerked the wheel so hard that the tires had hit the curb. Jourdan was the girlfriend that Leopold wasn’t supposed to be seeing anymore. Jourdan was also, very obviously, the girl who meant something to Ronnie.

  I mentioned part of that to our boss as I watched the driver across the front seat from me. Ronnie had his hands wrapped around the wheel like maybe he was thinking of Leopold’s neck. “I thought you two were done. I thought Deanna had told on you to your dad and he made you stop stepping out,” I’d said.

  Leopold ignored that I’d basically called him a child under his father’s control. “What they don’t know won’t hurt them.” He’d gr
inned and leaned around me to look at himself in the rearview mirror to fix his hair. “You’ve seen her. How could I give up a piece of ass like that?” he’d asked us, and I put out my hand to grab some of Ronnie’s shirt before he went into the back seat. And while I saved him from a broken nose, I hadn’t been able to stop Leopold from getting out of the SUV and rushing up to this run-down love shack, and Ronnie and I had both seen Jourdan in her underwear when she’d opened the door.

  “Go, it’s fine,” I repeated to Ronnie now. It was better than him trying to kill Leopold when he came out after screwing the woman that Ronnie clearly wanted for himself. He didn’t look back at the house and he left a patch on the cracked pavement as he pulled out down the street.

  I checked my phone again but Isobel still hadn’t responded to my message and the minutes were dragging past as I stood there wasting time instead of finding her, finding her mother, or finding Memphis. Goddamn Leopold. Usually he didn’t last that long with Jourdan, but not today. I automatically felt over my pocket for my cigarettes before I remembered that I had quit smoking. Goddamn it! I looked down the street, thinking and planning my next moves. There were a few that I had to make.

  It was just a tiny sound that caught my attention and pulled my mind back to the present. It could have been nothing, but before I knew I was doing it, I was swinging around and leaning left as I did. Because of that, the shot went over my shoulder instead of into my head.

  I knocked the gun into the scraggly bushes to the side of the door and had the guy by the throat and against the house. He was a kid, not any older than I was when I first started up that same bullshit. “What the fuck are you doing?” I asked, shaking him. “You’re shooting at me? Who the hell are you?”

  The door to the house opened and Leopold, naked and holding a pillow in front of his crotch, sprang out of it. “What happened?” he asked. “Did I hear a shot?”