Afterburn

Christina turned to Mrs. Bertoli. 'I can just walk out?'

'Apparently.'

'How often does this happen?'

'Never.'

'But they have the power to do it?'

'Yes,' said Mrs. Bertoli.

'Nobody ever hears about that.'

'The D.A.'s Office doesn't tell people a lot of things.'

'Did you know this was going to happen?'

'Not a clue.'

'They sent you a piece of paper?'

'I highly doubt it,' she said. 'It's a very embarrassing matter. They kept this quick and quiet.'

Christina noticed Peck standing at the back of the room, rocking on his heels. He could be the one to worry about, she thought, but I'm not sure. 'What if I think there are people following me?'

The lawyer looked around. 'Who?'

'I don't know.' Christina leaned close. 'Well, I-' Better not to say it. 'I'm just worried about people following me.'

Mrs. Bertoli nodded.

'Would you walk out with me?' Christina asked.

The lawyer looked at her watch. 'I have a hearing in another courtroom.'

'You won't walk me out of the building?'

The lawyer's eyes were dead, unconcerned. 'Miss Welles, you're free to come and go as you please. I'm not going to charge you for this morning's work.'

Now the detective was gone. But someone else could be watching, any of the men and women outside the courtroom up and down the hall. She could, she supposed, tie her hair up or get a pair of sunglasses or put on a different sweater, but that was not going to work. Not really. Plus she had her ridiculous and humiliating garbage bag as an identifying characteristic. She sat down in the back of the courtroom, hunched over in self-protection. I'm going to think this out, she told herself, not move until I know what I'm doing. She assumed she would be followed right on out of the courthouse. Maybe she was crazy, but she had to believe something was going on. The detective had lied blatantly. Suppose someone working for Tony Verducci was watching, suppose he wanted to talk to her?

She stood up and walked out of the courtroom, down the hall. Keep your feet moving, don't look around, don't look back. You're not free yet. She passed sullen black boys accompanied by their mothers, overweight and exhausted by it all; young blades who smoked too much and had seen the inside of three or four methadone clinics; shuffling court officers with stomachs so prodigious as to apparently require a concealed superstructure of support; private defense attorneys whose eyes were lost in folds of flesh, although their watches were very good indeed; policemen trying to remember testimony they swore they had memorized; families of the victims, moving in clusters of righteous solidarity, their faces suspicious of anyone who might deprive them of a chance to see justice done, and the more harshly, the better. Don't look at me, don't see me, she thought, hurrying with her head down.

She entered an elevator, standing uncomfortably among three police officers and two attorneys, none of whom said anything. Another man stepped on, eyed her once. I don't like his haircut, she thought, he could be following me. The door opened at the seventh floor and she followed the attorneys out. The floor contained the District Attorney's offices. She lingered indecisively. The man with the bad haircut stepped out of the elevator and waited. Don't look at him, she told herself. She got back on the elevator and took it up to the thirteenth floor. The man had not followed her, but that didn't mean anything. The court building constituted an immense maze. She took the elevator down to the first floor. If Tony Verducci wanted something with her, he'd have to wait until she was outside the court building. She retreated to a bathroom, hoping to hide a moment.

A fleshy woman in a tight white dress and pumps stood at the mirror, fixing her hair. She gave Christina a once-over, looked back at the mirror.

Just then another woman poked her head in the bathroom. 'Mona, Bobby's in the car!'

'Did Jeanette get out yet?' answered the woman at the mirror.

'Yeah, she did. That's why Bobby says hurry up.' The woman disappeared.

Hookers. Bail. Pimp. Christina watched the woman touch up her makeup. 'Least your guy showed up,' she said, standing at the other sink.

'They're all assholes.'

'Yeah, but you got a ride.'

The woman turned around, frowned. 'They picked you up with that bag?'

'I had a bunch of stuff with me.'

'Oh, you was just getting off.'

The door opened again and the woman cried, 'Mona, Bobby's pissed at us.'

'I'm coming in just a minute!' Mona turned to Christina. 'Excuse me.' She went into a stall with a small aerosol can and closed the door. 'Never touch nothing in these places, girl, that's all I got to say. Don't touch the toilet, don't touch the handle, don't touch the sink.' There was a rustle of paper. 'I never touch nothing. Matter of fact, I'm just squatting right now. I don't even like using the toilet paper.'

'Your guy good?' Christina called toward the stall. Mona's shoes were set a foot apart.

'He takes care of us. You need somebody? He's always looking for girls.'

Christina heard the spray can inside the stall. 'He's not going to want to talk to me.'

'Why not?'

'I'm not dressed.'

More spraying. 'He can tell if you look good.'

'I don't know,' Christina said, a sweetish perfume reaching her nose now.

'He picks you up for some work, then you'll tip me out the first week, right?'

'Of course.'

The shoes under the stall stepped forward. 'I mean like two hundred bucks.'

'Okay.'

'Two hundred bucks exactly.'

'Sure.'

The shoes twisted left together, like a dance step. 'No matter if you have a bad week.'

'Yes,' Christina said.

The toilet flushed, the shoes twisted right, and Mona emerged. 'You come with me. We'll go talk to Bobby.'

They joined the third woman and walked like cheap movie stars right down the hall, ignoring the knowing looks from the cops and court-birds. Outside the doors a large Mercedes sedan sat at the curb with a fourth woman in the back. The front passenger window slid down and a white man with a soul-patch under his lip shook his head in disgust. 'Hey, fucking keeping me waiting.'

'Yo, Bobby,' said Mona, 'we didn't ask to be picked up.'

He nodded tiredly, a businessman chasing imaginary profits. 'All you get time served?'

Mona and the other woman nodded. The driver, a fat man in sunglasses, paid no attention.

'Who are you?' Bobby asked Christina.

'She's with me,' Mona said. 'I like her.'

'I said who are you.'

'Bettina,' Christina said. 'What's your name?'

'Bobby B Good. You want to work?'

'First I want a ride uptown.'

He groaned and looked at Mona. 'Oh, man, now I'm running a taxi service.'

'You going to give me a ride uptown?' Christina asked.

'You going to give me a reason to give you a ride?'

'Not that reason.'

'Why you in there?'