1
Todd Martinique spent sixteen years planted behind a desk. There was nothing about being behind that desk, sitting on the terrible flat wooden chair, which he did not know. He had gotten the job as a young man, with gelled brown hair and a body that he felt some justifiable pride in, having devoted much of his spare time to the gym. They warned him during the interview that the position was a dead end, a clerking job rather than a security position; a day spent checking badges against names on a list, watching pixilated security camera footage, and making a handful of routine reports via email, with no hope for advancement. He hadn’t been concerned at the time, because he hadn’t planned on staying; he intended this job to be a stopgap measure, a small step on the road on his way to better things elsewhere.
It did not turn out that way. Instead, he stayed and read the same names off the same cheap, thin printouts that spooled out of the fax fresh every morning, watched his belly grow and everything else sag and spread out, and felt a tolerable level of malaise. If it wasn’t for the fringe benefits, he might not have stayed.
Todd was doing what he usually did, around three o’clock, when the afternoon stretched out endlessly toward the close of business. Todd was occupied with the feed for camera six, the one that was supposed to focus on, of all things, the employee parking lot. It was almost two years ago that one of the techs had cut in a satellite feed, and now camera six’s monitor never showed anything except muted ESPN. Normally, there were no visitors if there were no names listed, and today, there were no names; so Todd was watching some feature about the US Open, bored out of his mind when the security door opened.
If visitors were rare, then civilians were an abnormality of the highest degree. Yet every inch of this woman, from her faded blue jeans to the chestnut hair that fell haphazardly onto the shoulders of her grey sweatshirt imprinted with the halo of the Anaheim Angel’s logo, screamed civilian. Todd had to admit that she looked all right, even through a half-inch of bulletproof glass. She had warm brown eyes, and when she smiled, he was bizarrely reminded of Mrs. Franklin, a young teacher that he had nursed a crush on all the way through junior high. He did not feel good about the circumstances, though, as she definitely was not on the list, because no one at all was.
“Can I help you, ma’am?”
Todd straightened up quickly, put down his clipboard and did his best to look officious.
“I bet you can,” the woman responded cheerfully, leaning her elbows on the little platform that jutted out in front of the security station. “I need to know if you’re holding someone here.”
“Uh, I’m sorry, ma’am, but can I see your identification, please? This is a secure area…”
“My name is Rebecca Levy,” she said ingratiatingly, “and I don’t have identification, but you don’t need to worry about that.”
Todd felt tremendous relief on hearing this. He had already been envisioning some kind of bureaucratic slipup, and the tiresome paperwork it would generate. It was not how he had planned to spend his evening, and he was happy to avoid the trouble. That this woman, Rebecca, did not need ID made his whole day a lot easier, and he appreciated it. He resolved himself to help her in any way that he could. He felt strongly that it was the least he could do.
“Right,” Todd said, giving the woman his best smile in return. “What can I do for you today, ma’am?”
“I need to know if you’re holding a prisoner here that I’m supposed to collect. A tall woman with black hair; big tattoo with a tree and a Hebrew script all around it on her back. She may have been injured when she arrived, or unconscious, or in an amnesiac state. Sound like anyone you have here?”
Todd started nodding before she even finished her sentence. He had seen what she did to Miguel’s arm, after all, before they carted him off to the hospital, and that hadn’t been easy to forget.
“8B.”
Rebecca frowned shortly.
“Excuse me,” she said, leaning forward, her forehead pressed against the glass so she could see his nametag, “Mr. Martinique.”
“Todd,” he cut-in.
“Todd,” she said, smiling broadly. “Of course. What is ‘8B’?”
“The prisoner you mentioned. The woman with the tree tattoo. We don’t have a name for her, so we use the cell ID number. Let me call the back, and I will have them send you an escort…”
Rebecca shook her head, and Todd’s hand froze on the phone’s keypad.
“That’s okay. I’d really prefer if you took me there yourself.”
Something in the firmness in her tone, the confidence in her sparkling brown eyes, tore him between his eagerness to please and the nagging feeling that something about this was entirely wrong. Technically, he wasn’t allowed in the back, though after a few years smoking cigarettes on break with the guys who worked back there, they had invited him down, strictly off the clock. They would certainly go ape-shit if they saw him back there on shift, and obviously, he couldn’t leave the desk unmanned; beside that, since when did they send civilians to pick up prisoners?
“Ma’am, I’m afraid that’s impossible. Now, if you’ll let me call…”
“Todd,” the woman said, a palm pressed against the bulletproof plastic. “Why don’t you come around and open the door for me? We can’t talk through the glass like this.”
He hesitated for a moment, then her brown eyes caught him, and he couldn’t remember why he had been troubled. What was there to worry about? It was hard to talk through the glass. He could trust Rebecca, and anyway, he knew what he was doing. There was no one who knew more about being behind that desk than Todd did. This meant opening the door so that Rebecca could explain the situation. He felt the utmost confidence that they would be able to work things out face-to-face.
The magnetic locks gave way with their usual reluctance, snapping to the side and allowing him to swing the steel reinforced door open. Rebecca gave him an appreciative nod and then walked in, looking around the little cubby that was his station with a vague air of distaste, before eventually settling herself on the edge of his rather precarious desk.
“Do you smoke, Todd?”
Todd nodded in the affirmative.
“Good,” she said, pulling a pack from her sweatshirt pocket, along with a red plastic lighter. “You don’t mind, right?”
Todd shook his head, not reaching for his own cigarettes because, of course, it was against the rules to smoke. They had fired one of the other security guys, one who worked the parking lots, for sneaking off to a bathroom for a cigarette. However, he was sure that it was okay for Rebecca.
She lit up, inhaled, and then breathed out with a sigh of relief. Then she made a face and urged him to step closer.
“Come here, Todd. Come over so I can reach you.”
Todd almost fell over himself in his attempt to cross the tiny room, to stand in front of the woman with his hands twitching. She was beautiful, he had decided, with those bewitching brown eyes, and he wanted her with the same urgency that he wanted Mrs. Franklin, back in junior high; he was desperate for her to touch him…
“Ew,” she said, frowning. “Tone it down a little there, big guy.”
His desire disintegrated like smoke in the wind, here and then gone, leaving behind only a small, confused memory. He still adored Rebecca, but now there was something almost familial about it, like she was his mother, or his sister. When she reached for his forehead he closed his eyes automatically, instantly soothed by the feel of her cool hand on his brow.
“Okay. Here’s how it’s going to go. I want to go back to cell 8B, Todd, and you want to take me there. Now, now — don’t get worried. If anybody stops us, I’ll explain things to them, and then they’ll understand. Like you understand me. Okay?”
Todd nodded his agreement, pleased that Rebecca would take responsibility for the situation. He always felt better when somebody else was holding the bag.
“This is important, Todd. This is a big deal to you. On the way, I might need you to do things. I also have some questions for you, and I want you to answer them quickly and honestly. Can you do that for me?”
Again, Todd nodded, as content as a clam in its shell, his eyes closed, waiting for instructions. The part of his mind that was still thinking wondered when he had last felt this secure or confident.
“Alright, then. Lean the way, Todd.”
