Number 8

by Anna Fienberg

  “No! Mom would have a fit. I couldn’t do it. Anyway it’s over now. I haven’t seen the car again. Look, I just want to go home, I’ve got to get home and check things out for myself. I promise, if I find anything I’ll tell the police. Are you coming with me?”

  Asim is biting the inside of his cheek. I can see one side is all sucked in. He’s hovering there, standing on one foot then the other. “I don’t know, I don’t know,” he whispers.

  “Come on. If we just keep to the fence and walk behind those trees we can get out the school gates without anyone knowing.”

  “But that’s against the law!” he bursts out. “It’s called truancy! What if the principal finds out?”

  I turn around to face him. “Look, it’s just one day. No one can put you in jail for that! Kids do it all the time.” I look at my watch. “There’s a bus that goes back our way in five minutes. They go every half hour.”

  Asim’s face looks all crumpled like a paper bag. He’s sucking his cheek so badly I’m scared he’ll bite right through it. A pang of sadness goes through me. He’s panicking. Mom had a panic attack once and she looked just like that. White as a sheet. Sometimes I forget. It’s too much for him.

  “Listen, you’re right,” I say quickly. “It’s best if you stay here. Probably better if I just go myself. It won’t look so obvious, no teacher’s even seen me. It’s true you don’t want to attract any attention like this. I understand, it’s okay.” I pick up my bag. “I’ll let you know if I find anything.”

  I’m heading toward the trees, crouching down low when I feel a hand pulling my shirt. I whip around. Asim’s white face is close to mine.

  “I’m coming, too,” he whispers.

  “Are you sure?”

  Asim draws his lips in tight. “Positive.”

  We squat down and inch forward with our knees bent like commando raiders. Asim doesn’t make a sound.

  On the bus we’re both quiet. I wink twice at the red light. I wonder what Asim is thinking. I sneak a glance at him. He’s still pale and he’s hunched down in his seat with his shirt collar pulled up as far up as it can go. I feel pretty tense myself. My heart is still going at about 60 miles an hour. Hasn’t slowed since I first heard Esmerelda’s name an hour ago. I wonder if you can have a heart attack at thirteen.

  As soon as we reach my place, Asim walks in the gate and drops his bag near the garbage cans. He starts at the maple tree. He peers at the trunk of the tree, rubbing his hands all over it, then up into the little house. I decide to check out the other end of the garden.

  “Can you see anything?” I call after a while.

  He puts his finger to his lips.

  “A couple of round furry shapes,” he says walking toward me. “And a pair of eyes, blinking. They must really like it in there, do you think?”

  We smile at each other. It feels good to smile.

  Then Asim drops to his knees again and starts looking at the grass. He runs his hand over the ground and points to an area shaped like a bean bag where the grass is flattened and a bit mashed. Patches of dirt show through. “This makes me think a scuffle took place,” says Asim. “Like a body or two might have struggled on the ground.”

  “What? Esmerelda with him? Ugh!”

  “So where did you say you found the Thunder?”

  “Around here, more or less. On the path there beside the lawn.”

  Asim works his way along the path, clearing leaves away with his hands.

  “Oh, look, here are the scorch marks! Was this the spot exactly?”

  “Yes! The Thunder was lying on the concrete. That’s why I saw it. If it’d been buried in the grass here I might not have noticed it.”

  But Asim is moving off now, scuttling across the garden like a beetle. His face is close to the ground. All he needs is a pair of feelers coming out of his head.

  I watch him work his way up the garden. I’m checking out the area, too, but I’m a bit in awe of his methodical approach. It’s as if he was born to it—this detective work.

  “What are you looking for now?”

  He doesn’t answer for a moment. Then he goes to the gate and opens it. I find him on the other side, down on his knees. I crouch down too.

  “See this dirt here, in the dip where the grass does not grow?”

  “Yeah. Too many feet tramping on it. It fills up with mud when it rains. Mom’s talked about putting paving stones there—”

  “Look closely.”

  I look. “There’s some shoe prints. A big one.”

  “Yes.”

  “Badman’s got pretty big feet.”

  “Yes, but are they that big?”

  I nod. “I think so. His fists are big, too, I remember the feel of them on my ear.”

  “Hmm.” Asim is digging into the longer grass near the retaining wall. He’s so focused, his fingers parting the thick tall weeds, his face disappearing into the green. He moves a few inches along the wall every few seconds. He’s working with the concentration of those forensic detectives on TV.

  I’m thinking how different he looks, right now. How different everything seems. I’m used to him falling apart, of having to be so careful of his feelings. It’s like trying not to joggle a valuable package marked “fragile.” I guess I’ve been thinking I have to look after him. But now, well, it seems like he’s in charge. He knows what he’s doing. Even if we find nothing, it’s so good to be here together.

  “Jackson.”

  Asim stands up. He’s holding something in his hand but I can’t see because his fingers are closed tightly around it. I know from his face that the world is about to change. He looks so calm. Pale, but calm.

  Slowly he unfurls his fingers. The cold dammed up dread inside me opens like a sea.

  “The Blue M,” says Asim. He’s reading the logo on the book of matches lying in his palm. There is a smudge of dirt over the last word but when he wets his finger and wipes it, everything is perfectly clear.

  “The Blue Moon,” Asim says quietly. “That’s the casino where your mother worked, isn’t it? The place you told me about, with the bad men?”

  All I can do is nod. The dread is like ice water gushing through my head. Numbing my brain.

  “Someone from the Blue Moon was here, Jackson.” Asim speaks slowly. It’s as if he’s dealing with a person who’s been in an accident and he’s being very kind. Somewhere at the bottom of all the cold I feel grateful.

  “Why do you think that is?”

  I shake my head. I try to clear it, to climb my way out of this dark, drowning feeling.

  “You better sit down,” says Asim suddenly. “You look like you might faint.”

  We sit on the grass.

  “I have to tell you this, Jackson, but I have been worried about that Mustang ever since we first saw it. I know you do not want to hear this. But now, when it has hit you—”

  “What’s that got to do with it?” I feel angry suddenly, trapped, as if I can’t breathe. “I was in the wrong place, I told you, standing there like some idiot in the middle of the road and anyway even old Bill said there are delinquents everywhere around here.”

  Asim takes my hand. A part of me is thinking we must look so weird sitting here on the lawn at ten o’clock in the morning holding hands. But mostly I just feel like I’m drowning.

  Asim goes on patting my hand. “It’s called surveillance, Jackson. I have seen it before. In Iraq, if Saddam Hussein suspected you of plotting against him, or even just being disloyal, he sent his men to watch you. They followed you in cars, or on foot, always waiting there like your shadow, watching. This is supposed to scare you, warn you, make so you can’t think straight anymore. Then they start to threaten you. They hurt you, hurt your family.” Asim takes a deep breath. His hand is trembling now. “Many, many people just disappeared in my country. Went missing.”

  I drop his hand as if it’s burning. “This isn’t Iraq! You’re crazy, that doesn’t happen here. Your trouble is you just can’t forget what happen
ed to you!”

  Asim sighs. He suddenly looks so old, as if he’s seen everything before and he knows exactly what I’m going to say and how this will all finish. I sit there watching him sighing sadly, looking so wise, and it seems as if he’s done all the steps of this dance before and he’s just waiting for me to catch up.

  “Look at it this way,” he says patiently. “It’s like adding up fractions. You have to find a common denominator before you can see the whole picture.”

  “I know that.”

  “Well, what are our fractions? What are the pieces? What do they have in common?”

  He waits for a moment, then puts the Blue Moon matches in the space between us.

  “The casino is our common denominator,” he says. “The Mustang is one piece, the phone calls are another—”

  “The phone calls were from Badman. Everyone knows that!”

  Asim shakes his head. “Not me. I know Badman does bad things, but he does not like silence. It is not his style. He puts his name to things. He is very loud and very angry. He is not, what is the word? Subtle.”

  There’s a pause between us.

  “Did you get a better look at the license plate of the Mustang?” Asim keeps on. “I know we saw the 777, but what about the letters?”

  I stare out at the street. “I was too busy jumping out of the way,” I mumble.

  Asim waits.

  “I remember RO, is all.”

  “What was the manager’s name? The one who threatened Valerie?”

  “Tony.”

  “Oh.”

  I feel almost glad he’s disappointed. What did he expect, another perfect piece of evidence? But those letters flash up again behind my eyes. It’s like a scene from a dream, a memory you keep carefully trying to bury under real life.

  “Tony employed a security guard.” I give this to him with an effort. “He was there the night Valerie discovered the drug money.”

  “What was his name?”

  “Rocky. Sometimes they called him The Rock.”

  “R-O-C,” he spells out. “Do you think it could be that? Could it be a C?”

  A wave of sickness floods me. “Or a K.”

  “I think it is this Rocky who drives the Mustang.” Asim sits up on his haunches. “Rocky has been watching you and Valerie, showing you his boss has not forgotten. Valerie must not have given them what they wanted. So they hurt the thing most close to her. You. Maybe he came here to … to take you away.”

  I stare at Asim. There is a sinking feeling in my chest, as I swallow something I can’t digest. Slowly, as if wading through wet sand, I see that if this is true, they will have known all our habits. That Mom works nights.

  “They came when they thought I would be home alone.”

  “But Badman was here—”

  “And Esmerelda. Remember we said—”

  “Yes, I remember. And that’s the whole picture.”

  We’re both standing at the gate, looking at all the different pieces in our minds. I don’t like this common denominator. I realize I’ve been trying not to find it for weeks. I remember Mom’s strained face, her weariness, the look of fear every time the phone rings. The way she bear-hugged me last night because she couldn’t find me for three seconds. She’s been living with this common denominator ever since we moved here. She’s been hoping it would go away.

  “We have to tell the police,” Asim says. “We can go back to school. I bet they are still interviewing. We can show them the matches.”

  “No!” My voice comes out in a shout. Asim jumps. “You don’t understand. Mom has a phobia about the police. She’d die if we did that. You don’t know what it’s like. See, her friend Bev went through this last year. Tony blackmailed her, threatened he’d hurt her mother—she’s old and sick. So Bev gave in and did what they told her. I think she took part in some deal at the casino, and they gave her a ‘bonus’ as a reward, to pay for a nursing home for her mother. So then they could say she was involved in their dirty work, see?”

  “But the police could fix that! Here it is different from my country—”

  “No, Mom did go to the police to help Bev. Well, the guy she saw was an ex-cop. He used to visit the casino. He acted like her friend and so she asked him for help but all he did was rat her out to Tony!”

  “But that was only one cop. Not all police are like that.”

  “You try telling Mom that. She thinks the Blue Moon has an advance warning system about police raids. She could be right. If we tell the cops and Tony hears about it, he might—he might get rid of them.”

  We sit in silence. Asim starts zipping and unzipping his jacket. It makes a horrible grating noise.

  Suddenly I know exactly what I have to do. The dread is still pounding through me but with every second I feel more sure. It’s as if I’ve been trying to hold back the sea. We’ve been running, Mom and I, running like people trying to outrun a tidal wave or an avalanche. You keep pretending you can’t hear it behind you, see it. But some things are so big you can’t escape. Sometimes you just have to turn around and face them. Maybe you’ll get swallowed up, but at least you’ll see what you’re afraid of. The shape of it. The truth. And just maybe, even if the odd numbers are against you, you might strike lucky and come out even.

  I’m suddenly dying to tell Mom this, make her see it’s the only thing to do.

  I can’t now, but I’m going to do the next best thing.

  “We’re going to the casino,” I tell Asim. “I know exactly where Tony will be hiding Esmerelda. We’re going to rescue them.”

  Asim does this weird thing. He laughs out loud. It’s the loudest laugh I’ve ever heard him give. “Now you are the one who is crazy,” he says. “Even if we do find them, how are we supposed to fight off Rocky the strong man? Or Tony?”

  “Well, it’s like this. We’ll get Mom’s cell phone, it’s probably still on the kitchen table with the shopping list she always forgets to take. We’ll bring it with us and call the police on 911 just as we get there. We’ll tell them it’s an emergency. That way they’ll come right away, no delay, no advance warning, and I can take them to Esmerelda.”

  “How are we going to get there? By bus? It’ll take forever!”

  “I have my month’s paper route money. We’ll get a cab. We’ll travel in style.”

  Asim has turned as pale as his shirt.

  I cuff him on the shoulder like some cowboy in a movie. Maybe I have gone crazy. But I’m so full of energy I feel like I’m hooked up to a power plant and electricity is running through my veins. “I’m going to bust that casino wide open,” I yell, “and save Esmerelda. Are you coming?”

  Asim picks up his bag and sighs. “I cannot let you go alone.”

  14. Esmerelda

  Daniel waves at me through the window. He’s holding something in his hand. It’s a teddy bear, with only one eye.

  I try to lift up the glass but the window is locked. Now Jackson appears behind Daniel. He’s waving a teddy, too.

  I fiddle with the lock, trying to heave up the glass but it’s stuck fast. Panic is rising in me. I press my hands against the glass. I’m shouting, telling them I can’t get out but they just keep smiling and waving their teddies. I start to bash the window with my fists, and suddenly there is a loud crack…

  My eyes snap open. I look around the room at the filing cabinets and the woman with the eye in her forehead. There’s no window. No Jackson. Then I see Badman in the corner. He’s just smashed his fist against the drawer of guns.

  “Do you think it’s morning yet?” I ask.

  He whips around. “Yep. You’ve been asleep.” He walks over to the table. “Must be daylight out there, but we can’t see with these damn fluorescents. You know, sometimes in casinos there’s no natural light at all because they don’t want people to know how long they’ve been playing.”

  I shudder. The memory of a window, a way out, is shrinking fast. “Did you sleep?”

  He shrugs. “Probably a few minute
s.” He sits down. “I’ve been trying to think, think how to get out of here. I can’t believe we’re still trapped, like…”

  “Bugs in a jar.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, everyone must know we’re missing by now. And Jackson’ll be racking his brains—”

  “That’ll take a while—he’s got so many. Pity you’re not in here with him.”

  I ignore that. “Look, there’s nothing we can do here. But I know Jackson will figure it out. He’s probably telling the police right now. He’ll work out exactly where we are—he told me all about this place: the office, the trapdoor … As long as Tony keeps us here, I figure we’re safe. Jackson will find us and bring the cops.”

  “Your faith is very touching, Ez.” He doesn’t look “touched.” He looks scared. “Never thought I’d be pleased to see the cops,” he adds, getting up.

  I watch him pacing the length of the room. It doesn’t take long. The cellar seems even smaller when he does that. “Can you stop it?” I ask.

  “I gotta keep moving.”

  “We just have to wait it out,” I say. “Try to distract ourselves … Are there any more drinks?”

  “No. I tried to open the fridge door but that’s locked, too. Stingy as well.”

  “I’m so thirsty.”

  “Same. There’s a tap in the bathroom but the water tastes strange. It’s sort of brown.”

  “At least it’s water.”

  When I come back I ask Badman if he’s thought anymore about our song.

  “No.” He clicks his tongue with annoyance. “How can you think about that now?”

  “Well, I think it’s what we need to do. Valerie says when she’s in a bad situation it helps her to write about it. Songs are mostly about bad situations aren’t they? The blues and all.”

  Badman shakes his head. “You’re crazy. The tragedy stuff in music is about love, not being trapped in a gangster’s cellar.”

  “It can be about anything you want it to be.”

  Badman stands with his hands in his pockets. He’s fidgeting with his lighter and firecrackers. I know he’s dying to pace.