set and its rays are casting a soft red light over the buildings. I’m in very good spirits.
“Hey, didn’t you say you could take us wherever we wanted?” I say to the short-haired man at the wheel.
He glances at me in the mirror. “That is so, sir. But I suggest we go to your hotel so you can freshen up first.”
I look at the woman by my side and laugh. “Oh, we’re fresh enough. Why don’t you take us to one of those rough places? I want to see the real Washington.”
My companion shakes her head and leans forward. “Don’t listen to him. He likes to think he’s an expert on crime.”
I laugh again. “And you’re not? Come on, let’s live dangerously. Let’s go to Anacostia. That’s where the drug dealers are in charge, isn’t it?”
The driver nods. “Yeah, it’s one of the places that’s theirs. I really don’t think-”
“Don’t worry, we’ll take full responsibility,” I say, getting a frown from the woman. “Anyway, you’ve got a radio to call for help, haven’t you?”
He twitches his head but then does as I say, turning to the right and crossing a bridge shortly afterward. The buildings change from stone to clapboard, and there are young black men on every street corner. They give the large car glances that combine interest with disdain.
“Seen enough?” the driver asks, after a few minutes.
“No,” I say. “We want to get out and take the air.”
“Speak for yourself,” my companion says in a low voice.
I smile and kiss her on the lips. “Stop at the next junction,” I tell the chauffeur.
“I really don’t recommend this, sir,” he says, but he complies.
“Coming?” I ask, as I open the door.
“Oh, all right,” the woman says. “Idiot.” She slides awkwardly across the seat and takes my hand. I feel her weight.
I lean down before I close the door. “Turn right and wait for us.”
The driver gives me a disapproving look and then drives on.
We’re on our own. For under a minute. The first boy-he couldn’t have been over twelve-turns his bicycle toward us, pedals hard and then stops a finger-length from me.
“Watcha got in the bag, lady?” he asks with a wide smile, but I notice his eyes have narrowed.
My companion holds her shoulder bag against her abdomen. “Oh, just girly stuff,” she says.
Another boy on a bike skids up. “Girly stuff?” he says, displaying gleaming white teeth. “We likes girly stuff.” He looks at me aggressively. “How about you, mister? You like that shit?”
Over his head I see a fleet of medium-size bodies on bikes approaching.
“Give us a break, guys,” I say. “We’re just taking the air.”
“Oh, yeah?” says another boy, wearing a baseball cap like the rest, but with sunglasses shielding his eyes. “How about we takes the bag, then? And everythin’ you got in your pockets, big man?”
I puff out my chest and step toward him. “How about you guys go home to your mothers?”
The teenagers pull their bikes back and I grin triumphantly. Then I hear a deeper voice from behind me.
“You dissin’ the youth, whitey?”
I turn to confront a tall, heavily built young man, his hair in cornrows and his tracksuit top open to display a large silver pistol in his waistband. I hear the woman beside me inhale sharply. Before I react, she hands her bag to the armed man and clamps her hand on my arm.
“There’s our car,” she says, pulling me toward the corner.
The limousine has appeared silently, the driver standing on the curb with a radio handset at the side of his head.
The boys pedal away, cheering, while the young man saunters away. He drops my companion’s bag on the pavement. I go over and pick it up.
“Anything missing?” I ask, as I hand it over.
She checks. “Just my purse, with all the cash I brought,” she says. “And my passport.”
“Shit,” I say.
“Yeah, right,” says the driver. He holds the door open for my companion.
As we move off, I turn to her. “Sorry,” I say, in a low voice.
“Sorry don’t get you nowhere in this town, buster,” she says, in an accent like the driver’s.
I try to laugh, but I feel about two feet tall…
The scene stopped suddenly. I tried to bring it back, but there was nothing. I couldn’t remember anything else. Who was the woman? I was obviously close to her. Where was she now? Where was I? I blinked and then banged my forehead against the wall. The pain was intense, but strangely I felt better for it.
Sometime later, there was a crash at the door and a tray appeared at floor level. I went over quickly, but the narrow hatch was instantly slammed back down.
“Hey!” I shouted. “Let me out of here!”
There was no response. I couldn’t even hear any footsteps.
I examined the food on the tray. There was a cup of dirty-looking water, which I drank half of before I could stop myself. A hunk of discolored white bread and a piece of hard yellow cheese was all there was to eat. I wolfed them down, taking a small sip of water to soften each bite of the bread. When I’d finished, my stomach wasn’t even half-full and my throat was as rough as it had been before. And the temperature in the room seemed to have gone up to scalding.
I went back to the slanted bed and lay down. I tried to go back to Washington or to anywhere else that wasn’t as confined as the grave, but my mind remained blank.
Then the music started-ear-shredding, grinding rock at terminal volume. Pressing my hands to my ears did little to shut it out. The light on the ceiling started to flash irregularly. I turned my head to the wall, but it seemed to be shaking to the thunderous beat.
I had no idea how long that went on. Soon after the noise finally stopped, there was another crash at the door. This time, a round hole appeared at waist level. Before I could move, the muzzle of a hose sprayed freezing water in at high pressure, soaking me instantly. The jets of water stung my skin and I was forced to crouch at the far end of the bed, not that it gave much cover. I cupped a hand and swallowed, but had to spit immediately. The water tasted like something had died in it. Quickly, the level rose to my calves and the soiled blanket started to move towards the door. I grabbed it and tried to rinse the vomit from it. Then the spray stopped as suddenly as it had started and the water flowed away under the door.
I soon noticed that the heat had been turned off. I began to shiver violently.
Draping the sodden blanket over me did little to help. Then, without warning, the light went out.
I sat in the total darkness, my head in my hands. Why was this happening to me? What had I done to deserve treatment like this? I tried to conjure up the woman I’d seen again, tried to find anyone from my past. Nobody came. Maybe the scenes in Washington, wherever the hell that was, had just been the fruits of my imagination. Maybe nothing meant anything and I couldn’t even trust my own mind.
I fell away into an abyss, my breath rapid and my limbs locked by the chill.
The only thing I could hope was that I had died. Did that mean there was an afterlife? The idea was attractive. Perhaps I was in the underworld. Or in limbo. Or even purgatory.
Then the cold bit into me again and I was back in hell. It was obvious that whoever was doing this to me had a deep knowledge of cruelty and evil.
I had the feeling that I’d met more than one person like that in my unreachable past.
Two
I cowered in the dark for what seemed like an eternity. The cold grew even worse and I couldn’t control my shivering. I tried to sit without the damp blanket, but soon found that I needed the meager insulation it offered. At least the music stayed off, though the silence became almost as disturbing.
Finally, the scene in the place called Washington came back to me. At least I had some memory function. I still couldn’t remember who the woman was, or what we were doing there. What did the episode tell me about myself? That I was supposedly some sort of expert in crime. A policeman? A criminologist? In any case, I couldn’t
