Molly got up from the couch. “I only ask one favor.”
“Anything.”
“Please don’t shoot my man when he comes home from work.”
“I’ll ask questions first,” Maureen said, “and shoot second.”
“Good enough,” Molly said. “Good night. I’ll try not to wake you when I leave for work in the morning. Stay as long as you like after I’m gone.”
She turned off the lights and headed for the stairs.
“Hey, Mol,” Maureen said.
Molly stopped on the third step. Moonlight through the living room window paled her cheeks, settled in her eyes like chips of ice. To Maureen, she looked like a ghost.
“Thanks. For letting me stay, for the wine, for talking. For everything.”
“You’re welcome,” Molly said. “If you leave the house tomorrow, take the gun with you.”
Hours after Molly had gone to bed, Maureen lay awake facedown on the couch. Only a few minutes ago, John had come home.
She’d traced his sounds from the Galaxie pulling up and parking out front, to his boots on the slate, to his key in the front door. As he’d crossed through the living room and headed upstairs, Maureen had kept her breathing deep and steady, her eyes shut tight, doing her best impersonation of being asleep. She felt a strange relief when she heard John close Molly’s bedroom door. Weird, she thought. All this running around and here I am again, asleep one floor beneath Molly and John. The more things change…
Except for the occasional creak of the bed, someone rolling over in sleep and nothing more, the house was silent. In fact, the whole block was quiet enough to keep Maureen wide awake.
Molly’s street wasn’t like Maureen’s block, where buses rumbled and hissed on her corner throughout the night, where ships passing into the harbor sounded their horns, where yard dogs howled at sirens and cars rolled by with the bass pumping at grille-rattling volume. And where, some nights, Maureen heard the pop-pop-pop of gunfire in the streets. It was funny, Maureen thought, how gunfire sounded without warning: no screams, no profane threats or warnings like on TV. A bus, then nothing, then a tanker, then pop-pop-pop. Sometimes followed by sirens a few minutes later, sometimes not.
Maureen wished Molly hadn’t given her the gun. She wished Molly hadn’t reminded them why Maureen was there, crushing the warm sleep-over feeling that Maureen had been stoking in her imagination. And now Molly’s upstairs with a warm body beside her, she thought, and I’m waiting down here with a loaner .38. Waiting for what, morning? Sebastian’s evil minions? A call from Waters that he’s solved my problems and I don’t need a babysitter anymore? Ridiculous.
Maureen sat up. She rubbed the hem of her borrowed boxers between her fingertips. She looked down at her own clothes, folded in a pile on the floor. She reached under the couch and found the gun. She held it in both hands, savoring the pistol’s weight. What Molly said was true; there was only so much idling Maureen could tolerate, but did toting a gun around really give her more freedom? She looked up at the ceiling. Or was Molly trying to put ideas in her head? Maybe there was something specific Maureen was supposed to do with that gun. Maybe the gun was the signal that she needed to take matters, literally, into her own hands.
On a rack by the front door hung the keys to John’s Galaxie and Molly’s Accord. Maureen knew she’d have to take the Accord. The Galaxie was a classic, and therefore conspicuous as well as noisy. Molly had given her the .38. Surely she wouldn’t mind Maureen borrowing the Honda. Unless, of course, I’m totally wrong about everything, Maureen thought. She chewed her bottom lip, staring out at the cold night through the black square of Molly’s living room window.
On the other hand, even if she was wrong about Molly’s intentions, a trip to the Narrows looking for Vic wouldn’t take that long. She’d be back before Molly was awake, never mind ready to leave for work. What had her father always told her, when she’d cautioned him against tossing popcorn to the monkeys at the zoo?
Forgiveness is always easier gained than permission.
She got dressed. She got as far as the front door, Molly’s car keys in her hand, the gun in her coat pocket.
After a few long minutes in the doorway, she hung the keys back on the rack and returned to the couch, slipping the gun back into its cave. Too many people had taken risks for her. She’d made too many promises. She could sit still for one night. Constant motion hadn’t accomplished a whole lot so far. And what if she was wrong and Molly found her out and never forgave her for taking—no, stealing—the car? What if she felt betrayed?
Climbing back under the blankets, still dressed, clutching the ladybug to her chest, Maureen’s father’s words came back to her again, but this time he wasn’t speaking to a worshipful and naïve ten-year-old. That was the problem with remembering her father. He stayed the same and she got older. Because forgiveness was easier gained in theory, she told him, that didn’t mean getting it was guaranteed.
I want to hang on to Molly, Maureen told her father. I’m not like you. I want to stick around. At least until dawn.
18
Just after first light the next morning, Maureen parked Molly’s car on Forest Avenue. Turning off the ignition, she pocketed the keys and reached across the car, setting her hand on the lumpy brown paper bag in the passenger seat. It was warm beneath her palm. This stop would take five minutes, less even, not even enough time for the bagels she’d promised Molly to get cold. She rotated in the driver’s seat, searching the street for meter maids. If she did get a ticket, she’d pay it off, hopefully without Molly ever knowing. Or maybe she’d get Waters to fix it for her. She shook off a chill; already it was cold inside the car. If she thought about her mother, if she kept Amber’s face in her mind, what she’d come to do would be easy. She reached into her bag for her knife and slipped it into her coat pocket. She’d left the gun at Molly’s. Too final, she’d decided, at least for this negotiation. A gun left no wiggle room. She wanted them both walking away from this. She hid her handbag under the driver’s seat before stepping out of the car.
Clarence’s gym sat centered in a run-down cluster of storefronts facing Forest. The off-hours entrance was around back, facing the chained-off parking lot. Maureen headed down the cracked concrete steps leading to the lot, her fingertips sliding along the cold metal handrails on either side. She held her head high, her eyes flashing in every direction. She was counting on her arrival being surprise enough to protect her. Well, that and the threat of Clarence. Maureen had once seen him carry a drunk up the Narrows steps with one hand, use him to shove the door open, and then launch him arcing over a parked Volkswagen. The drunk cleared the car by two feet and landed facedown in the middle of Dock Street. Even Sebastian was smart enough not to mess around in Clarence’s place, not when Clarence might walk into it at any minute.
Maureen waved her membership card over the electronic eye by the door. With a faint beep the tiny lightbulb changed from red to green, like the warning lamp at a railroad crossing. The lock clicked open. Maureen reached for the door.
Inside the gym, her face flushed in the thick, warm air. Dull fluorescents flickered in rows along the ceiling. Deserted and silent, the gym was a depressing place, actually. Maureen wrinkled her nose, a familiar tang tickling her nostrils. Sweat. Heavy and male. The place smelled not unlike the zoo, she thought. Not quite the monkey house, but not too far removed from the elephants. Strange that she hadn’t made that connection when she’d been in here signing up. Maybe the guttural grunting coming from around a corner at the back of the gym sparked the idea.
More groans sparked another, even less pleasant idea.
No way, Maureen thought, recalling Sebastian’s pre-orgasmic groans from the Narrows, no way I’ve walked in on this shit again. Considering the time of day, it was nearly the same hour in the gym as it had been in the bar. Did the man ever sleep?
After another groan, Maureen heard the broken-church-bell clang of heavy metal plates slamming against one another, the s
ound of a barbell dropped home into its rack. Relieved, she slipped her hand in her coat pocket, crossing the gym floor in quick, light steps. The hard rubber flooring didn’t give under her boots. She didn’t weigh enough. She turned the corner to the back room.
Sebastian, who hadn’t noticed her arrival, lay flat on his back on the weight bench, shirtless and shoeless in suit pants, pressing a barbell so heavy with plates on each end that it bowed in his hands with each repetition. As each rep peaked, Sebastian ejected a loud breath like a surfacing whale. White hair ran like a trail of snow from his belt buckle to his chest, where it bloomed into a cloud of smoke. He had enormous boxy muscles, as if he’d been built out of bricks and cinder blocks. While Maureen watched him, Sebastian just kept breathing, lifting and lowering the barbell in a steady, relaxed rhythm, like a machine.
Maureen slid the knife out of her pocket. The weight bench next to Sebastian’s was empty. She flicked open the blade, moving toward the empty bench.
“I see you,” Sebastian said as she moved beside him. “Kind of early for you, isn’t it? On your way home from another stellar night at the office?” He didn’t look at her. He pushed the barbell into the air above his forehead. He may have noticed her approach, but by not really paying attention to her, he’d missed the knife.
Maureen lowered the blade, settling the point on Sebastian’s left cheek, two inches below his eye. The eye quivered in its socket, refusing to roll in her direction. Maureen sat on the empty bench, holding the knife in place. “Seeing me gets a lot harder unless everything stays right where it is.”
Sebastian grinned and his eyes sparkled, with humor or hatred Maureen couldn’t tell, but his nostrils flared bloodless and white with the effort of holding the weight in the air. Supporting it without relief was starting to tax him. “Agreed.”
“You know what I’m here for.”
“This is the part,” Sebastian said, “where you tell me to leave you and your mother alone or you’ll take my eye out or something nasty like that. And then I agree. And then I say I’ve met my match. And then I go out and do whatever I want anyway. You’re wasting my time here. I have a schedule. And a car coming. And I have two more sets after this one.”
Maureen put pressure on the knife and broke the skin, a tiny puncture at the tip of the blade. Sebastian tried not to, but he flinched. A small bead of blood formed on his cheek. Then it slipped down his face, breaking and spreading into his sweat like a tiny red oil slick. Sebastian swallowed hard. Maureen watched his white-whiskered Adam’s apple rise and fall. The slightest tremor ran down his arms. He was supporting close to three times her weight. There was no telling how many times he’d already lifted it. Maureen would never let on that she’d noticed, but Sebastian’s physical strength was massive and terrifying.
“How can you possibly think that this little stunt will help you?” he said. “What tragic hormonal misfire makes you think that?”
Maureen squatted on her haunches, closer to him, turning the knife slightly from side to side, coaxing the thinnest rivulet of Sebastian’s blood down the blade. The movement hid the shaking that had crept down her arm and into her hand. Fear shakes? Maybe, but adrenaline, too, no denying it.
“You do whatever you want,” she said, “because you’re so big no one can stop you. I get that. And I’m nobody, nothing, invisible. The dull background music to everyone else’s exciting life. Fine. You know what that means? That no one’s paying any attention to me. I’m as free and mobile as you are. So here I am, one flick of the wrist away from making you the most famous one-eyed politician in New York. My old Shakespeare professor would call that ironic. I call it something worth remembering.”
She stood, wiping the knife blade on her jeans. She walked to the head of the bench that Sebastian lay on. Standing there, she looked down into his upside-down face. Thick veins bulged at his temples. Maureen spread her feet wide and reached out, wrapping her hands around the barbell, catching it before Sebastian could settle it in the rack. She leaned forward, putting her weight on the barbell, pushing it down. Her hair fell into her face. Sebastian’s arms quivered. He pushed back. Maureen resisted. Their eyes locked. The barbell didn’t move. She watched his massive chest rise and fall, laboring now. Blood continued running down his cheek. He tried not to show it, but her strength surprised him.
“Sometimes size doesn’t matter, see?” Maureen said.
“Maureen?” She looked up at Clarence coming around the corner, arriving for the day. His gym bag hung from one huge hand. He held a cup of coffee in the other. His jaw hung loose in disbelief. “What are you doing?”
Maureen kept her weight on the barbell, her pulse heavy in the backs of her hands. “Mr. Sebastian was finishing a set. He needed a spotter. I was here. Lucky for him.” She looked down into Sebastian’s face. “Almost didn’t make that last one. Got it under control?” She released the barbell and backed away from the bench, flexing her fingers.
Sebastian settled the barbell in the rack. His eyes stayed fixed on the ceiling. He lay prone on the bench for a few breaths, rolling and rubbing his wrists. “There’s a special place for people like you, Maureen. It’s dark there. And it’s cold.” The bench creaked under his weight as he sat up and turned to face her. “But don’t worry, you have friends there. Waiting.”
“Frank?” Clarence asked. “You know your cheek is bleeding?”
Sebastian glanced at Maureen and then looked back at Clarence. Maureen knew it was time to motor, but she had to stay put for Sebastian’s answer. What would he admit to?
“Shaving cut,” Sebastian said, touching his cheek. He rubbed the blood between his forefinger and thumb. “First time in a while I’ve been this careless.” He held his finger up for Maureen to see. “Doesn’t take much, does it, Maureen? One little slip.”
“If you say so,” Maureen said, trying and failing to force a smart-ass grin. “How should I know?” She hated it, but Sebastian’s preternatural calm unnerved her. Now it was time to bail. She got a few steps toward the door before she heard Clarence’s bag hit the floor and his heavy steps coming up behind her.
“Maureen,” he whispered, overloud. “I need to talk to you.”
Without breaking stride, Maureen spun to face Clarence, raising her hands in supplication and shaking her head. She had nothing to say and she wasn’t about to stick around for a scolding. She’d explain everything later, or maybe never.
“It’s important,” Clarence said. He waved her back to him but had stopped pursuing her. “I mean it. This shit is serious.”
Maureen dropped her shoulder into the door and shoved it open with both hands, bursting out into the cold daylight. In the wind, her hair exploded in every direction. At least she’d tried, she thought, taking the steps two at a time on her way back to the car. At least she’d gone down to the gym and done something.
Drawn first blood, she thought. That’s what she’d done.
19
Back at Molly’s, she parked behind Waters’s Crown Vic. His presence was a bad sign. Nobody shows up at seven bearing good news. It had taken forty minutes to drive from the gym to Molly’s place. Enough time for Clarence to call Waters. They had exchanged numbers over Dennis’s death. She needed to walk in tight-lipped but with her head up. No feeling guilty or foolish or embarrassed over standing up for herself; she wouldn’t let Waters or Clarence or anyone else do that to her. But she wasn’t into making any big confessions, either. If Waters had questions about where she’d been, the bag of bagels under her arm would be all the answer she had to give.
Maureen paused a moment at Molly’s gate, studying the house in daylight: the peaked slate-shingled roof and the brick chimney, the white shutters. This house, Maureen thought, belongs under a Christmas tree, with an electric Lionel locomotive chugging past the front door. Less than a month till Christmas. She could picture John on a stepladder, hanging strings of tiny white lights from rusty nails in the eaves. She could see Molly in the tiny kitchen making Irish coffe
es. She could see them together as old people, pictures of the grandkids on the mantel and glowing in the firelight. A gray-haired Jimmy and a white-haired Rose would be there, too, sitting on the couch, telling stories about the good ol’ days.
And where am I gonna be? Maureen wondered.
Lost in the weeds again, working another dark room where the colored lights over the bar burn year-round. And when I get too old for that, when my ass sags and my knees give out, I’ll be waddling along a short track behind a diner counter, pouring hot cocoa refills and handing out broken candy canes with the takeout change. Deck the friggin’ halls.
Approaching Molly’s front door, Maureen saw the black door of the Narrows in her mind. Was that where she really belonged? In there, that vault, with those people? No. Couldn’t be. She wasn’t a lifer, like Dennis had said. But then again she certainly didn’t belong in Molly’s house, did she? She couldn’t see Molly wielding a switchblade at the neighborhood gym. So which of the two doors was really the rabbit hole? Which one led into the real world? No White Rabbit was coming to show her the way.
Before Maureen could knock, Molly opened the door, her Aran sweater hanging loose over her pajamas. Her face was tense and pale. Her hair was wild. Not the picture of a woman getting ready for work. Molly took the brown bag from Maureen’s arms.
“Sorry they’re cold,” Maureen said.
“I guess you saw that Waters is here.”
“I did.” Maureen stepped into the hall, slipping off her coat. “Where is he?”
“In the dining room. John’s asleep. Hopefully, he’ll stay that way.”
“Why is that?” John asked from the stairs, squinting like a one-eyed pirate. “What’s going on? What the fuck time is it?”
“Waters is here,” Molly said.
John swayed on his feet like an old wino woken up in a doorway, straining to recall both where here was and who this Waters person could be. There seemed to be some question about Maureen, too. Please God, Maureen thought, don’t let that be what I look like first thing in the morning. Molly must really love this guy.
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