Save yourself, if you still can.
With his recent ugly confessions worming their way through her brain, she finds, beyond all hope, that she can. And in the small way she is still able, she does. She says nothing.
I do not remember shooting Gray. This memory has, thankfully, never returned to me. In fact, I don’t remember Texas at all. But I do remember the next time I saw Briggs, even though I didn’t know his name at the time.
Another awful hotel, off another highway, still in New Mexico. I emerged from the shower and found him sitting on the edge of the bed, smoking a cigar. Marlowe had left over an hour before; where he went and how long he’d be gone, I had no way of knowing. But I’d wait for him. He knew that.
“You didn’t tell him about the note,” the man said, releasing a series of noxious gray circles from the O of his mouth. “I’m surprised. And pleased.”
I stood in the doorway, trying to decide whether he was real or not. I’d had “visits” prior to this from my mother, my father, and one of the girls Marlowe had killed. The girl had a barrette with tiny silk roses glued along its length; you could tell she really liked it, the way she kept lifting her hand to touch its surface, hoping to draw your eye. But I was distracted by the gaping red wound in her throat. She asked me, as she bled upon the bed, how I could let him do this to her. But when I closed my eyes and opened them again, she was gone. Since then I had stopped trusting my eyes and ears when it came to people appearing in my motel room.
“Someone has paid me a lot of money to find Geary before the police do,” he said, looking at the wall in front of him. “And they’re going to pay me a whole lot more when I hand him over.”
He turned and looked at me. His brow was heavy, his eyes deeply set, like two caves beneath a canopy of rock. His nose was a broken crag of flesh and cartilage. He had thick, full, candy-colored lips and girlishly long lashes. I wanted to look away, but I was fascinated by the pocked landscape of his face.
“The thing is, I need him alive. And I’ll be honest, I’m a lover, not a fighter. I need a clean catch, no blood or mess. He’s a big guy, stronger than me, in better shape,” he said, patting his huge gut and giving a little cough for emphasis. “I’ll have to surprise him or take him while he sleeps. This is where you come in, if you decide to help me. And I’ll make the decision easy for you.”
He took out a big gun and rested it tenderly on his lap. “You help me and I help you. I’ll give you a cut of my earnings, and I’ll help you run. You don’t help me?” he said with a shrug and a quick cock of his head. “I’ll still get Geary. And I’ll turn you over to the police. You’ll spend the rest of your life in prison.”
He blew a big cloud of smoke my way, then seemed to really examine me for the first time.
“What are you doing with yourself, anyway, huh?” he went on. “Are you crazy or what? You don’t look like you’re all there, Ophelia. That’s why I’m willing to help you. No one wants you to get hurt-any worse than you’ve been hurt already.”
I tightened the towel around myself, edged closer to the wall. I couldn’t think of how to respond.
“I’ll be waiting, watching,” he said, and got up with a groan from the bed and took the DO NOT DISTURB sign from the door and laid it on the table. “All I need you to do is unlock the door and hang this sign outside when he falls asleep. Then go in the bathroom and lie down in the tub. I’ll knock when it’s safe to come out.” With his free hand, he took a thick packet of cash from his pocket. “I’ll give you this, and I’ll drop you off at a bus station.”
“What makes you think I’ll do any of this?” I asked him finally. “What keeps me from telling him and then leaving that sign on the door, having
“She speaks,” he said with a slow smile. He took a big drag on his cigar. “Because you
I felt a shudder move through me.
“Or the police are going to catch up with you at some point, some hotel clerk who’s not high on methamphetamine is going to recognize you and make a call. And there’s someone else tailing you, too.”
“Who?”
“I have no idea, but there’s someone else out there looking for you. I don’t know who he is or what he wants. It doesn’t matter. What I’m saying is, time’s up. You don’t help me, the next person to walk through that door or one just like it may not give you a choice at all.”
My whole body was shivering now.
“Put on some clothes,” he told me, moving toward the door. “You’ll catch a cold.” Before he left, he looked back and said, “Christ, kid, where are your
“She’s going to be okay,” my father says, bringing me back to the present. There was something grave about his tone, something off.
I turn to look at him. He is driving fast on the Long Island Expressway, headed for a small private airport where he says he has a friend with a plane who owes him a favor. He made a quick call at some point back at the shop that I didn’t hear, and the next thing I knew, we were on our way. I didn’t even know he had a car. Unbelievably, it’s a rather nice late-model Lincoln Town Car. There’s a lot I don’t know about my father, I guess.
“A guy I know, we used to ride together when we were kids,” he explained as we got ready to leave. “He went straight, got a job. Now he’s this big-time real-estate developer. He said anytime I need the plane day or night, it’s mine.”
“That’s a pretty big favor,” I said, skeptically.
“Trust me, it’s nothing compared to what I did for him.”
“Spare me the details.” I’m not in the mood for one of my father’s crazy stories. I don’t even know if there will be a plane waiting for us when we get to this supposed airport on Long Island. But I have no choice. My stomach is an acid brew; the image of my daughter bound and gagged is seared in my mind.
I look over at my father now. I can see he’s itching to tell me his story, but he manages to keep his mouth shut. I lean my head against the window and watch the trees whip past us. I wonder about the other cars on the road, envy them their mundane journeys-to a late shift or home from one, back from a party or a date. I never got to live a life like that, not really. Even my normal life as Annie was undercut by all my lies. You can hide from the things you’ve done, tamp them down, make them disappear from your day-to-day, but they’re always with you. I know that now, too late. You cannot cage the demons-they just rattle and scream and thrash until you can’t ignore them any longer. You must face them eventually. They demand it.
We pull off the highway and drive along a dark, empty access road. I see a field of hangars with small planes parked in neat rows. Off in the distance, there’s a small tower, then a line of lights that I imagine is a runway. I am relieved that there’s really an airport.
“He said that one of the gates would be open,” my father says, slowing down.
And so it is.
“How did you know I wasn’t really dead?” I ask my father as he turns off the road and drives through the open gate. I’m not sure why the question comes to me at the moment. Seems like there are other things to discuss. I can see lights up ahead, the figure of a man moving back and forth between a small craft and a hangar.
“Gray sent someone to let me know. Some kid. He gave me a note, explained everything that’s been happening. I guess he didn’t want me hearing about it some other way.”
It’s like Gray to cover all the bases that way. I wish he were here now, but at the same time it’s right that I’m on my own. My father comes to a stop, and we sit for a minute in the dark. The man by the plane quits what he’s doing to look at us.
My father stares straight ahead for a second, then lowers his head and releases a long, slow breath. We both know he’s not coming with me. I don’t know the reasons, but I know he’s not capable of going any further. He has always done only what he was able to do. Maybe that’s true of all of us. Maybe it’s just that when it’s your parents, their shortfalls are so much more heartbreaking.
“Look, kid,” he says, and then stops. I hope he’s not going to launch into some monologue about how he’s failed as a father and how sorry he is. I don’t have time, and I don’t want to hear it. We sit in silence while he seems to be striking up the courage to say something.
“It doesn’t have to be like this, you know?” he says finally. “How about we just call the cops?”
