Die For You

stripper with a cheap, dirty kind of beauty. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see her drop into a deep, wide squat, start taking off her clothes. She held me in her gaze for longer than seemed appropriate, then she strode out, all legs and attitude. She’d closed the door behind her.

Exhausted, numb, I allowed myself to slump in the chair and watch through the glass as hard drives were removed, files confiscated, desk drawers emptied of their contents. It was all very rote, once the guns had been holstered. No one seemed overly hurried, everyone clearly with expertise in their assigned task. All the agents avoided looking at me. After a while, the whole situation took on a strange unreality, like something I was watching on television, something I’d turned on too late and didn’t fully understand. I felt the bubbling urge to laugh at my predicament, followed by the urge to scream.

I noticed that none of the other employees arrived for work that morning. I imagined they were being turned away or taken into custody in the hallway downstairs. But I didn’t know.

It occurred to me suddenly that I didn’t have to just sit here and obey like a good little girl. What if Marcus was in FBI custody? I’d asked but hadn’t received an answer. What if that’s why he hadn’t come home or been able to call? I felt a little lift of hope, a blast of adrenaline. Even if that wasn’t exactly an ideal scenario, at least it would mean he was all right. That I could help him. I realized it was time to call in the troops-Linda and Erik, my mother and Fred, Jack. And I needed to get us a lawyer. Fast.

I caught sight of my own reflection in the glass wall of Marc’s office. I looked slouched over, like an old woman, pale and harried. I wore a long black wool skirt and black leather ankle-high boots, a bulky sweater and wrap. My hair, long, past my shoulders, a black mass of unmanageable curls, was more chaotic than usual. I needed to pull myself together and take control of the situation.

I lifted the phone from the receiver and found the line dead. I looked up at the federal agents who were all still engaged in dissecting the office Marcus had worked so hard to build-months of renovation, hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans and our own money. I walked over to the door and found it locked from the outside. My mouth and throat went dry with the debut of panic in my chest as I tried the knob again. They couldn’t do that, could they? Hold me here like that without charge, arrest, without letting me call anyone?

I started pounding on the door, moved over to the glass and started banging on that so that they could see me. But no one even looked up. I started to look at each of the people individually. One man had a deep red scar that ran from the corner of his right eye and disappeared into the collar of his black vest. He was stocky, had longish hair that hung, unwashed, to his collar. Another man had tattoos on his hands. There was a woman with a bright purple streak dyed into her white hair which she’d tried to hide under a stocking cap but which kept snaking out, dropping in front of her eyes.

I had a terrible moment of cold dawning, dread a lump in my abdomen, as I turned to see that the tall blond woman had entered the office. These people were not FBI agents. She had an ugly sneer on her face, held a large gun. It was more like a caricature of a gun, it was so dark and menacing, and yet it almost didn’t register with me. I found myself moving closer to her.

“What’s going on here?” I said, surprised at how steady my voice sounded.

“Marcus is wrong about you,” she said. “You’re going to be trouble, aren’t you?” The words landed like a spit in the face. She wasn’t even trying to hide her accent anymore. I recognized it right away.

“What did you say?” I asked. My voice came out in an incredulous whisper. “Who are you?” Though she was taller than me by about three inches, broader at the shoulders, stronger, I could see, at the legs and hips, I wasn’t afraid of her. In fact, I was overcome by the urge to put my hands on her long, white throat-gun or no gun. She seemed to register this; I saw her eyes widen just slightly. Then she raised her hand quickly and brought the gun across hard on my temple. I didn’t have time to ward off the blow, didn’t even really feel it. I just heard a loud, private thud inside my head. A curtain of red fell before my eyes and the next thing I saw were her thick black boots as the floor rose up fast to greet me, then a blue light. Then black.

4

Someone yelling, Help me! For the love of Christ, please help me! There was the stench of urine, over that a heavy odor of antiseptic. And something else, something sweet and metallic. Blood. The soft sound of busy footfalls racing back and forth. A phone ringing. Harsh white light, too bright. That phone kept ringing, like a lance through my brain. I tried to move and felt bottle rockets of pain behind my brow and down my neck. When I finally adjusted to the light, I saw Linda’s face. My sister. Her eyes were rimmed red, blue moons of fatigue beneath. Behind her, Trevor and Emily were huddled together, leaning against a white wall looking around them, with matching wide, green saucers for eyes. More curious than scared; they’re like that.

“Are you out of your freaking minds? We’ve been here for five hours. She has a head injury.” It was Erik’s voice, I realized, loud and booming with anger.

I was lying on a gurney parked in a busy, grimy hallway off an emergency room. I guessed it was St. Vincent’s in the Village. How I’d gotten here, I had no idea.

There was a measured, deadpan response to Erik’s ranting that I couldn’t quite hear. Something about two strokes and a gunshot wound. “She’s been unconscious for hours,” he said loudly. “You can’t tell me that’s not serious. She’s barely been looked at.”

“Sir, you will get out of my face,” responded a deep female voice, very stern and more loudly. “Sit down right now or you will be asked to leave.”

Erik had a bad temper when it came to things like this. When he felt at the mercy of a bad system, he generally blew a gasket-no doubt he would have exploded into an embarrassing string of expletives had his children not been present. But if he said anything else, I didn’t hear it.

Linda saw my eyes open and leaned in close. “Oh, Izzy, Izzy, Izzy,” she said, putting her hand on my forehead. “Oh my God, what happened?”

Why was she whispering? Then I saw the cop, a uniformed officer sitting in a chair about five feet from Emily and Trevor.

“I don’t know,” I said, gripping her hand and trying to sit up but lying back down. I told her how Marcus didn’t come home, how I went to the office, what happened there. The events of the night before and that morning came back in vivid snapshots; I was firing off frames of memory, my words coming out in a manic tumble. I wasn’t sure how much sense I was making as my sister stared at me intently. She’d always looked at me that way, even when we were girls, even when I was telling her the most trivial things. She listened. I felt my face flush with the powerful brew in my chest-anger, fear, despair.

I saw all of those things on Linda’s face, too. “Oh my God, Izzy. Why didn’t you call me?”

“Linda, where is he?” I asked, a sob escaping me, tears coming in a hot, wet stream. “What’s happening?”

She shook her head, looking as helpless as I was, gripped my hand. “We’ll figure it out,” she said bravely. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

She was always the optimist. Not me. The way I saw it, things could only get worse, but I didn’t say so.

“Can I hold your gun?” Trevor had sidled over to the cop. Ten years old, blond as sunlight like Linda, and honey-sweet.

“Don’t be an idiot, Trevor,” said Emily, with an extravagant eye roll. Thirteen, hair the same inky black as mine but straight as razors, same major attitude problem.

“Emily,” said Linda. “Be nice to your brother. And Trevor, leave that officer alone.”

There was an unusually sharp, tense edge to her voice and both kids turned to stare at us. They were pampered children, treated tenderly at home and at school, rarely hearing an angry tone or unkind word. They both looked as if they’d been slapped. I’d never been sure how good it was for them to be treated so gently, worried that they’d be torn up when they stepped out of Montessori privilege and into the real world. Like right now.

The cop saw then that I was conscious, pulled a heavy black radio from his belt, turned away to talk. Something about the witness.

“Is that me? Am I ‘the witness’?” I asked my sister.