by TJ Martinell
We kept walking through the building and chatted with the vendors who knew us well. I kept looking around to see if Griggs would be there, as he enjoyed checking out the latest weapons. His new duties were consuming all his time. Few days passed without a phone call from him griping about how miserable his life was now and how he wished he had stayed in Shoreline. A hiccup or two usually accompanied his rants. If the smell could carry over the lines it would definitely reek of whiskey.
“What made you quit?” she asked.
“I didn’t want to do it anymore.”
“And why?”
“I just didn’t want to do it.”
“I always used to tell when you were lying, Roy. That part of me hasn’t changed.”
I wasn’t in the mood to talk. At the same time, I didn’t want to smack down the olive branch she was extending.
“We can talk tonight,” I said. “At the library. Six o’ clock. How does that sound?”
“Why then?”
“I have to take care of business beforehand.”
Jean looked over at her stool, where people searched for her in hopes of hearing her play again. She sighed and said she would meet me there. I was leaving and felt her hand touching mine. I looked over my shoulder. She was smiling to herself as she walked back to the vendor to retrieve her case.
***
It felt strange to be inside the library without my usual glass of brandy in front of me. The new waiter was a portly man who gave me a funny look when I declined any drink. I requested a glass of milk and he stared at me humorlessly. I reassured him that I was quite serious and that he could ask the bartender and find a bottle they kept in the refrigerator underneath the bar counter on the right side. He finally believed me and went back to the counter, coming back with a small glass bottle.
Jamal meandered by my booth. I called him over.
“There’s a girl you ought to take a chance with,” I said to him. “Her name’s Jean. You’ve seen her before.”
“That short little thing? She’s caused trouble before.”
“Yeah, but she’s been good for a long time.”
“What can she do?”
“She plays the balalaika.”
“Balalaika? The hell is that?”
“It’s good for keeping these bastards calm. She played at Pike Place today if you want to find out more, but I’m telling you she’ll pack the place.”
Jamal patted me on the back and laughed. “If you say she’s good, I guess she’s worth a shot. When can I talk to her?”
We both looked at the entrance. Jean was standing there with her coat and fedora in her hand. The white rose pedal was still in her hair. She ignored the sarcastic wolf whistles thrown at her by men at the bar counter.
“Just remember,” I ordered Jamal. “Pretend it was your idea. You heard about it from somebody else.”
He winked at me before putting on a convincing act for Jean. He hurried over to her and inquired as to how she was. Before she could say much, he asked her if she could play an instrument.
“Why yes, the balalaika.”
“Perfecto! Just what we need to spruce up this joint. Tell you what; bring it here next Monday night. We’ll do a little test run and see if the boys like it.”
If she was excited, she didn’t show it.
“I’d be delighted.”
She came over to me and stood in front of the booth with her hat and coat in hand. She only seemed half-angry.
“I don’t want any favors,” she said.
“Who said you did?”
“You, when you talked to Jamal.”
“Did he tell you that?”
She rolled her eyes. “I know Jamal better than you. He’s ambitious but not imaginative.”
I shrugged. “I don’t see the harm. I also don’t see why it should upset you.”
The anger dissipated as she pointed at my milk. “Is that a new drink?”
“Not unless you think milk is new.”
“Why? No brandy in the joint?”
“I’m not drinking brandy. Not for the moment, anyways.”
Her eyes drifted down to the empty ashtray. Her eyebrows rose slightly as she leaned forward and sniffed at my jacket.
“I can see you’ve sworn off cigarettes, too,” she said.
“Any tobacco.”
“How has that been?”
“Hell. But I manage.”
She sat down. When the waiter came for her order she asked for an empty glass and filled it with some of my milk. She took a long sip and then set it down. I suddenly noticed her once gaunt face had filled out. Along with her figure.
“How did you find out my father died?” I asked. “They didn’t put his obit in the newspaper. I didn’t want it in there.”
“Word got around, as it always does. You can’t control it. You should know that.”
She clutched her glass with both hands, her eyes moving up from the table and at me.
“Roy, the last time we talked I said a lot of harsh things to you...”
“If you’re going to apologize, don’t. You don’t need to give one to me.”
Jean put a hand to her chin as she lowered her head. “I’m still sorry. It was wrong of me. I think you know why I did it, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Roy...I heard something else about your father.”
“What?”
“Please don’t be angry with me, but I heard about your friend…”
I nodded my head.
Tears instantly filled her eyes. She wiped them and breathed deeply.
“I went to kill him” I said. “I was in his house. I had the gun to his head. I could have done it.”
“Why didn’t you?”
I couldn’t say. All I knew was that there was more going on than what Casey had been willing to say. Looking at him that night, I could sense there was more to the story than what I knew. Whatever it was, Casey knew telling me the whole thing would only bring him further shame.
I drank my milk and leaned to catch a bit from an old man on the stage with his guitar strumming a bittersweet tune. The timing wasn’t coincidental; he was scheduled for that part of the evening when customers were drunk and the solemnity helped hasten their sadness. It was guaranteed to bring another call for more ales and shots of whiskey. With nothing but milk between my hands and a sharp mind intact, I realized the man had played many times before, yet never when anyone paid attention.
“What are you doing now?” Jean asked.
I told her about Owens and my planned meetup with Ronnie in Bellevue.
“Won’t he get caught afterwards?” she asked.
“He’s coming with me. To live here.”
My tone was stern. She could tell the tacit rebuke wasn’t intended for her.
“Does that upset you?”
“No. I wish Casey had had that courage. Years ago, I asked him to come with me here. He said no, of course. But I had to try.”
Jean took out a pack of cigarettes and placed it on the table. She was reaching for her lighter when she paused. Smiling sheepishly, she asked if it was alright if she could smoke. I was fine with it. More than the familiar smell of smoke, I appreciated the newly found ease in her demeanor.
“So where does this end?” she asked.
“What end?”
She waved her cigarette in a circular motion. “This, the newspaper, the world, everything. How long will this go on? Do you even want it to end?”
“I used to think if we got the right stories out, people would change. Or they would demand change. But I think that’s not the problem. Everybody knows the truth to a certain point. It’s not going to change until enough people disobey. You know where it starts? With the individual. It starts from the bottom up. We’ll never change it from the top down. We’re in for the long war.”
“Will things ever change?”
“Maybe. But not an
ytime soon. It won’t change until people realize that trying to control others causes them to do terrible things. Perhaps then we can make progress. When you boil it all down, people still believe that right makes might. It’s how they determine the legitimate source of the law.”
“So, what does might do?”
“Might makes might. That’s it. What’s the point of trying to be right if the people who are wrong have the ability to force themselves on you?”
“Did your father think like that?”
I smiled weakly. “Thinking about it now, it amazes me to think how he survived working for the ISA as he did for so long. He was a stronger man than I.”
“That isn’t for you to decide.”
The evening winded down. The guitarist left the stage without as much as a whimper of clapping except for Jean and I. Our applause was muffled by the cackles and drunken roars from the bar counter. I paid the waiter and breathed in the mildly sweet tobacco aroma swirling in the air coming from Jean as she reached over me for her coat.
“So, will you take that gig?” I asked with a grin.
“I’ll consider it,” she said playfully.
We walked together across the room to the entrance where Jamal was secretly sipping on his own moonshine. He was half-inebriated when Jean informed him that she had decided to play for him. I stopped Jamal before he could assume his normal flirtatious routine with Jean as he did with any girl after he had had too many drinks.
Outside the air was warm and the gentle breeze did nothing to alleviate the heat. I took off my coat and hung it over my arm. I escorted her to my car and drove her around based on directions she gave. After a while it was obvious she was either trying to confuse me or had no idea what she was doing. Or both.
“You trying to get us lost?” I asked.
“Sure.”
“Just wanted to make sure before we do it.”
***
We didn’t make it back to my place. It was dark when I finally parked off some road after she had run out of directions to give. I looked at her big emerald green eyes lit up brilliantly in the darkness. Her trembling hand pressing against the side of the door. Feeling pulled toward her, I grabbed her and kissed her. Initially she seemed indignant. Then she kissed me in return.
We fumbled into the back. Something primal took over me as I ran my hand over her clothes. Everything was hazy after that.
Eventually I found myself lying across the back seat, my head propped up against the side door. Jean was sitting astride me. As she smoked she pulled her skirt down across her knees. She then re-buttoned her blouse and giggled when she did same with my shirt. She offered me the last part of her cigarette. Refusing at first, I decided a short drag on it was warranted.
We looked out the front of the car. In a quiet voice, she told me although she didn’t want me to go to Bellevue she knew why I had to.
The last ray of sunlight disappeared, leaving the glow of the nearby buildings to sparkle like fireflies in the darkness. At some point, we drove back to the old train car. When we went into her bedroom. She had already arranged everything once again.
“You knew,” I said.
“I hoped.”
I tried to sleep. Despite the cold night air outside and the opened window, the car was too warm. At some unknown hour in the night Jean’s soft voice filled my ear.
“Am I your friend?”
“No.”
“Something better?”
“Something different.”
I felt her lips brushing against my ear.
“Roy?”
“Yes?”
“I love you.”
“I figured.”
She gently pressed her hand against my chest.
“Tell me you do, too,” she pleaded.
“Me too. Just not the same way you do.”
“Will it ever be the same way?”
“No. And it’s not supposed to be. It’s the only way it can work.”
Chapter Twenty One
The people on Bellevue’s streets seemed to move faster than usual that morning. The scene resembled a swarm of bees, hundreds of people in a chaotic scene yet still conveying a sense of structure and hierarchy. Each knew their role in the grand scheme even if they didn’t realize it.
Or maybe I was just anxious.
Growing up, I always felt a natural cadence. It had taken years without a Prizm for me to notice it.
I was parked outside of some mom and pop store. It was on the first floor of hundred story skyscraper. The store had been there prior, but rather than leave it had managed to secure a lease for the retail space. Ronnie had chosen it as the rendezvous point. I wasn’t sure if it was for sentimental reasons or nostalgia or mere practicality.
Back at the newspaper Griggs was working on the dummies for the news section. My story just needed to be written and combined with the material we had gathered on Mr. Novak. Unable to sleep the night prior I had tired myself out reading up on him and his career. Thinking it would bore me I instead read well past midnight before passing out from exhaustion.
Dozens of stories on him. Yet they all conveyed the same narrative. It couldn’t have been more different from the one Casey had heard about him growing up. It was like comparing a mythological hero to the historical person upon which the tales were inspired. Many of the stories were true. However, many of the relevant facts had been conveniently omitted.
Far from a gentleman and crime fighter, he had first started out as a criminal himself. Growing up in a dysfunctional household he had escaped convictions for assault and manslaughter. His entry into the ISA had been followed with a barrage of complaints claiming brutality and cruelty. His superiors had tolerated it because his tactics produced results in the field. Other task forces stumbled in their investigations and bore no fruit. He employed mass arrests, then harsh interrogations. Few men endured without confessing. The tactics brought in a half a dozen stringer and two editors within a month.
I looked over at the mom and pop store again. I glanced at my watch, only to remember I had taken it off. I had a fake Prizm on, though purely for aesthetic reasons. If a police officer happened to pull me over it would transmit a fake account.
The door to the grocery store opened. A woman with three children came out, and as the door swung back.
Ronnie appeared behind them with a plain-looking briefcase in his hand. He was dressed like he was heading for a job interview.
Scanning the sidewalk first, he approached the car. I casually got out and greeted him and helped him with the briefcase as I opened the trunk and slid it inside. I secured the trunk and then had Ronnie get inside.
Something looked wrong. His face was dripping with sweat as the safety belt secured around him. I feared at first he had slipped up. Then I realized the magnitude of what he was doing. He had to thinking of what would happen if we were caught.
I handed him a handkerchief and told him to take long but reserved breaths as I turned on the electric motor and drove toward the freeway. Once we were there I could switch to gas.
Just then a police officer pulled up alongside us at the intersection. Ronnie’s face instantly perspired again. Wearing a grey suit, I didn’t strike the officer as odd when he glanced at me. But he couldn’t help note Ronnie’s sweating. Eventually he looked away.
“Get a hold of yourself,” I ordered to Ronnie.
“I’m terrified!”
“Welcome to the club.”
I opened the glove compartment and took out a cigarette and my lighter.
“Enjoy,” I said as I handed them to him.
He shrieked like they were poisonous snakes. “What am I supposed to do with them?
“Umm, smoke it?”
“But they’ll kill you!”
“There are worse ways to die.”
He struggled getting the lighter to burn. When he did he held the cigarette out with his fingers over the flame and watch
ed it ignite the tip. I told him to puff on it while he had it lit. Annoyed, I snatched it from his hands and did the honors myself.
“It tastes terrible,” he said, puckering his lips.
“It’s not supposed to taste like chocolate.”
A minute later he added, “I guess it’s calming, though.”
We reached the corner of the street. A woman moved through the crosswalk, arguing aloud with someone on the other end of her phone conversation.
“Everything taken care of?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“No problems with security?”
“I created a program that will switch the security code back to the original in twenty minutes. No one is scheduled to access the vault until then.”
I looked at the side of his head. “And your Prizm?”
“Left it inside my desk attached to a device designed by a friend of mine that sends out electrical signals into the Prizm and tricks it into thinking it is still attached to my head. No one will notice for a while until they use the GPS to locate it in my desk.”
I reached into the glove compartment again and gave him another fake Prizm I had purchased. He put it on and inhaled more smoke.
“Did you get a good look at the documents?” I asked.
He kept looking ahead abstractly and took a long drag on the cigarette.
“I’d rather you read them yourself.”
“Why? What’s in the documents?”
“Names. Dates. Locations.”
“Of what?”
Smoke shrouded Ronnie’s face as he turned to me. His voice was low and soft.
“Of where they buried the bodies.”
“Bodies?”
He was taciturn. “They killed a lot of people.”
“How many?”
“You wouldn’t believe me.”
“Try me.”
“Thousands. Tens of thousands. Maybe hundreds of thousands.”
He gestured back towards the trunk where the documents sat inside the backpack. “The names are in small, fine print. You’d need a magnifying glass to read them all.”
My mouth was open. I looked down at my hands. I had to ask the question even though I already knew the answer.
“Why were they shot?” I asked.
“Training for interns. They’d take them to the camps to train them. Sometimes they’d order a few of them to kill prisoners to prove they were willing to follow orders. It was a loyalty test.”