I dashed up the red and blue benches and reached the wooden ones. There were numbers painted on them, white-stenciled; 2, 4, 6, 8. They were a blur then and they were becoming a blur now.
Renee’s conversation turns from work to clothes to men.
I charged up the steps, past the white smear of numbers, the sun prickly on my back and shoulders. One, two, three. Breathe, girl. There were thirty-one benches in all. Or thirty. I tried to count them but each time it came out different. My conversation with Renee came back to me in bits and pieces, like a radio signal piercing static.
Remember. Think. I reached the top of the steps and stood in the shade, chest heaving, heart thumping. The wind swirled around me. My muscles tingled, my veins swelled with blood. I felt strong, good. I wanted to remember, I had to. I threw my arms out, stretching my fingers to the sky. Willing the memory to me, pulling it out of the blue.
But it won’t sound that way in the telling. To Azzic.
Or to the jury.
17
Marshall’s rowhouse was in a gentrified part of West Philly, not far from Franklin Field, with a gingerbread porch in three different Cape May colors. I knocked at the green-painted front door in my damp tank top and shorts, and the door finally opened. Tiny bells attached to the inside knob made a tinkling sound.
“What do you want?” said the woman who answered. She was a long-haired waif in a long, filmy skirt, who evidently shared Marshall’s politics but not her sweetness.
“You must be one of Marshall’s housemates. I’m-”
“I saw you on the news. You’re Marshall’s boss.”
“Yes. She didn’t come in to work today.”
“I know that.”
“I’d like to speak with her.”
“She’s not here.”
“Where is she?”
Her only reply was a shrug, her shoulder bones protruding in the tie-dyed T-shirt.
“What’s that mean? You don’t know or you’re not telling?”
“Look, what do you want?”
“I want you to give Marshall a message for me, it’s important. Tell her I didn’t do it. And tell her I hope she didn’t either.”
She slammed the door in my face, and the bells jingled madly.
I jogged back toward the office over the South Street bridge, running into the city at a time when everybody was leaving. Traffic snaked toward the Schuylkill Expressway. The sun hung low, burning orange behind my left shoulder. Drivers flipped down their visors as they reached the crest of the bridge.
I was breathing smoothly, thinking about Renee and Marshall. There was nothing I could do about Renee, and unfortunately, the same was true of Marshall. Apparently, she wasn’t in danger, from her housemate’s reaction. That left one possibility. Did Marshall have something to do with Mark’s murder? She was the only one in the office who could navigate the depths of the computer system. Maybe she’d discovered Mark’s hidden files. Or were there other cybersecrets, ones I didn’t know about?
I loped up Lombard, going against the traffic, and turned down Twenty-Second Street, pounding past the Greek pizza place, a video store, and the fancier townhouses. I slowed to a walk when I neared the office, because of the commotion.
Squad cars lined the cross street, their red, white, and blue lights flashing a silent warning. Police sawhorses blocked off traffic, and cops blew whistles to keep the drivers moving. I felt wary, edgy. A crowd was gathering, and I strayed to its fringe, next to an old woman who stood squinting at the scene, her meaty arms folded over a sagging chest.
“What’s going on?” I asked. “An accident?”
“Don’t know ’xactly,” she answered, peering at me through thick Woolworth’s glasses. Her eyes, supermagnified, looked deranged. At her side stood a matted white mutt on a rope leash, with bluish cataracts over his eyes.
“Nice dog,” I said. I like all dogs, even ugly ones.
“Name’s Buster. He’s blind.”
“Blind? Does he bite?”
“No.”
I bent over to scratch the dog’s head, but he lunged at me with the two teeth he had left. “Hey! I thought you said he didn’t bite.”
“He nips, but he doesn’t bite.”
Sometimes I hate the city.
“The cops are lookin’ for somebody,” she said.
“Who?”
“Don’t know. Just heard it myself. It was drugs. That’s what caused the bombing.”
“What bombing?”
“That man, that drug man. They done got him.” She pushed up her glasses. “Put a bomb in his car, on account of the AIDS.”
“The AIDS. It was on the news.”
“When?” Was it the CEO of Furstmann? Was it possible? “How?”
“They’re looking for the lady who done it. That’s what I heard.”
“What lady?” Eileen? The cops already had her address.
“A terrorist done it. Works right down here, right here in Center City. A lady lawyer. They’re gonna arrest her.”
My throat caught. Lady lawyer. Lives and works in Philly. It had to be me. What was going on? I felt stricken. I turned and hustled away from the police cars, my feet carrying me forward almost automatically. Where was I going? I didn’t even know. Away. Out of the city, far from the cops.
I picked up the pace to a jog then accelerated to a nervous sprint. My heart thudded, my pulse raced. It wasn’t exercise anymore, it was flight. I fled the city, away from the business district. Twilight descended as I ran, but I didn’t stop until there were no more police cruisers and I was out of breath. I lurched into a graffitied phone booth with a busted light, panting hard. I slammed the door closed and punched in my credit card number with clumsy fingers.
“Wells,” he said when he picked up.
