And West Is West (25 page)

CHAPTER 55

Seminole City

Dear Jessica,

Was it wrong for Hector to write you? Did you even understand the letter we sent? I hardly did because as you can guess this Hector is smart but a character. In fact it was his idea for me to reply to your letter the cockeyed way we did. I figured it low risk since Hector dont take chances. And neither will I anymore. Not when it comes to your freedom. So from here on I will be writing you only through unsent letters like this one. At least I get to write my OWN words.

If you could not figure out Hectors lingo then let me tell you about the feds who came asking where you were. A lot of good it did them. And me. Like I said in my last unsent letter I got my battery charged from it with a stun gun is all. Now those boys want a do-over. Hector says this is good news since it means you are still free. He also told me that getting zapped is torture and a legit excuse to pass up on their invite.

The feds have not been my only callers. Just now a man called Winter came. He is all right except that he has stirred up memories. What I must tell you Jessica is that you had a half sister. I only knew her as a baby. As Zozo. After her mother died and her grandparents adopted her I never got to see her again. And now this Ethan Winter filled me in that Zozo grew up knowing nothing about her blood parents.

Well. The grandfolks keeping quiet about me I get. Denying your granddaughter knowledge of her true mother I dont. You can imagine what kind of household your sister grew up in. But who am I to talk? Anyway two weeks ago a lady detective from New York called to say that Zo died and that except for a confused aunt I am her last living relative. But what could I have done about that in here?

Winter took care of the funeral. Though he would not last a day behind bars he is a man who I think knows how to operate on the outside. If he ever comes back to see me I might tell him about you. Maybe he can help.

Stay safe child and forgive me for keeping your sister a secret.

Your loving father,

Don

CHAPTER 56

Pompano Beach

Jessica is leaving for work when Kelso, watering his hibiscus, intercepts her. “Me and your pup have a date tonight?”

It takes her a second to recall her landlord's offer to sit Skittles. “No,” Jessica says soundlessly.

“Pardon?” Kelso says. “Are you all right?”

“I have to go,” Jessica says and hurries off.

Hitching a ride on Federal Highway she makes up some time, but she still arrives at the diner a half hour late for her training shift. She should have called.

“Didn't think you were going to show,” says the night manager. His eyes are icy and unwavering.

“It won't happen again, sir,” Jessica says, not lowering her gaze from his.

“Next time will be the last,” the man says casually. “Now let's see what you can do.”

The man takes Jessica to her instructor, Beth, a woman in her forties who smells of menthol gum. Beth tells her the names of the cook and busboy and has her write her own on a badge that Jessica pins to her blouse. She then tags along after Beth like a little sister, but because the job is not flight mechanics Jessica quickly masters the register and credit card machines, and, by the time the early-bird diners arrive, she's waiting tables solo . . . and feeling a numb déjà vu. It's as if she'd never left Florida or done any but this kind of work. It's as if her five-year escape into the Air Force was a dream.

The night crawls forward and every so often Jessica reawakens to the sting of her new reality. Although she feels hollow inside, she tries to smile at the customers. But the tipping remains miserable. By her nine-thirty break she's collected only enough to pay for one of the early-bird specials.

A half hour later the night manager takes Jessica aside. “Your smirk is giving me indigestion. The customers, too. There's a Denny's down the road. People can as easily eat there.”

“I'm not smirking,” Jessica says. In fact, the night manager is the one with the smirk.

“The boss will shorten the night shift if we don't make our numbers. That what you want? Or maybe you think you're too good for this job?”

“No.”

“I'm going to keep my eye on you.”

Midnight, closing time, arrives. After wiping down the tables Jessica stops in the washroom to study herself in the gray light. Her face appears to her drawn, ratlike. Has she lost even more weight? She brushes at her bangs and unlooses her hair, which she had gathered into a tortoiseshell claw. She tries to smile at the streaked mirror, but the mirror grimaces back. Here is someone who has let down her family, her country, everything and everyone who relied on her. Even strangers. Jessica thinks of those two girls in burkas, their momentary images ever present to her.

“You aren't a person,” she tells the reflection. “You're nothing.”

CHAPTER 57

South Beach, Seminole City, Pompano Beach

Just before nine, when the car rental around the corner opens, Ethan goes downstairs to check out of his room.

“Sorry,” the desk agent says, returning his rejected MasterCard. He gives her a Visa.

“Great,” she replies, too brightly.

Great
, Ethan's brain echoes—not in the agent's peppy voice but in his father's ironic one. A decade ago, when Ethan had told him that he was switching majors at Columbia, Robert Winter had commented, “For God's sake, go seek your fortune in Silicon Valley. Do anything with your ability but banking.” His father was worried then about Ethan's moral insolvency, not his financial bankruptcy. Yet now Ethan is near to achieving both.

He has no one but himself to blame. A happy childhood and successful siblings further incriminate him—a brother working as a civil engineer, a brilliant sister who's writing a textbook on non-Euclidean geometry. That his father teaches physics and astronomy at Rutgers and his mother raises money for the arts means that, except for Ethan, his family uses their facility with numbers to good purpose.

But just wait
, Ethan had thought back then, as a callow student, after his mother had called him out for choosing a “shell game” profession.
Wait
,
Mom
.
Wait five or six years and I will endow your museum with a wing
.

“Your receipt,” the desk agent says. He passes through the hotel's fern- filled lobby.

Around the block, the rent-a-car will accept his credit-challenged Visa if he downgrades to a Hyundai and insures it against flood, famine, and theft. Too bad he's lost his Zipcar membership. He'd always heard that the poor pay more, but experiencing it is new.

Hunched behind the wheel of his Korean subcompact, Ethan pulls onto Collins Avenue and a Ferrari dodges his fender. Driving west, attempting to summit the bridge leaving South Beach, he stomps the gas and the little car groans. As he accelerates on the downhill, a Lexus hybrid silently zips past.

TODAY AT SEMINOLE
City Correctional the guest lot is all but full. It is Saturday, a regular visitation day. But Ethan's visit is unscheduled and so once more he must go to the main office. Ann—after reaching Warden Wagner at home, making a few calls, and then finally getting a callback from Wagner—prepares the paperwork Ethan will need to see Don today. The effort seems like bureaucratic overkill, but it's certainly not Ann's fault.

“Looks like the warden wouldn't be able to run this place without you,” Ethan says, signing one of her forms. “Thanks for getting me in today.”

“It's no problem.”

“Next time,” Ethan tells her, though he doubts there will be a next time, “I'll plan my visit in advance.”

Ann stops her paper sorting to give Ethan a concerned look. “Don Aldridge is not getting you involved in anything, is he, Mr. Winter?”

“Not that I know of. Why?”

Ann averts her gaze. “No reason. Can you find your way to the visitation center?”

The waiting area is filled today, with people Ethan would normally only rub shoulders with while renewing his driver's license. What seemed, yesterday, while empty, a good-size space has become close quarters. Ethan stations himself by a pillar in the middle of the room. A small boy with a shaved head crawls up to him.

“Barack Hussein!” a woman calls. “You don't know that man!”

Then the public address squawks what sounds like a warning. Ethan studies the box speaker and determines, after a few more crackles, that it is announcing the inmate being brought up and that his visitors are to proceed either to the room of booths or out to the yard. Through a caged window Ethan can see family contact visits happening among picnic benches.

The indecipherable announcements come every ten or so minutes. And when a person or party goes to the check-in desk, Ethan can deduce that a name other than Aldridge has been called.

After an hour the PA blurts, “Kalkrich, konald kalan. Kindor kisit.” Since no one else in the room budges Ethan chances a trip to the guard and shows him his documents.

“Booth six,” the guard says, a man other than yesterday's Todd.

“Funny, that's the same booth Todd gave me yesterday,” Ethan says.

“Saved it special for you,” the guard says indifferently.

At his booth, Aldridge sits behind the glass wall with his arms folded onto his belly as if Ethan has been keeping him waiting. Aldridge nods and then picks up his handset. Ethan does the same.

“Decent of you to come back, Winter,” Aldridge says.

“You have something to tell me?” Ethan says, already anxious to leave.

Aldridge smiles. “Have a seat, amigo.”

This is for Zoe
, Ethan tells himself, and sits. “Well?”

Aldridge leans forward. “Hold on. Before we talk I got a mystery to put to you. First off, and don't take this wrong, but you're just a nobody citizen, right? You're not my lawyer. You ain't law enforcement. So the riddle is, how are you able to get same-day prisoner visits? Visits like this have to be set up weeks beforehand.”

“I assume the warden's letting me see you because of Zoe,” Ethan says.

“Wrong,” Aldridge says. “They don't hold your hand around here. You get your bad news and you deal with it. That means these visits of yours don't add up. There's a reason you're here that you don't even know about, Mr. Ethan Winter.”

“Oh?” Ethan says. The hairs on his arms stiffen. What was it that Ann mentioned about Aldridge getting him caught up in something? Ethan can feel it happening now. It's like a slow-motion crash.

“What's going on is,” says Aldridge, “they're letting you see me because they think I might tell you where to find someone.”

“Look,” Ethan says, “why would you even tell me anything like that in the first place?”

“Because you're a decent guy. And because you might be interested that Zozo had a sister.”

This news does strike Ethan. “A sister . . . Look, Mr. Aldridge . . . Don”—where Ethan got the confidence to call this man by his first name he doesn't know—“if you
did
tell me something in confidence, I wouldn't repeat it. But this is none of my business.”

“You wouldn't have to repeat it,” Aldridge says. “There's ears on us right now.”

Ethan nods because they are talking through wires. “So there's not much that we can do here.”

“But that ain't good enough. She's in trouble,” Aldridge says. “Zozo's sister. Half sister. Still, I bet if Zozo was alive and knew about Jessica
she'd
try to help her.”

Ethan's desire to avoid involvement grows weaker. “What kind of trouble?” he asks before growing wary again. This Jessica probably has money problems or a meth addiction.

Don Aldridge studies Ethan for a long second. “Ah, forget it,” the prisoner says.

This may just be a tactic to pull him in. But it works. “Listen, Don. If there's something I can do before I head north,” Ethan says, marking out the limits of his cooperation.
This is for Zoe
, he tells himself again. It's a half lie because his curiosity about this sister is growing. Does she have Zoe's eyes, her nose, her smile?

“What I need is for someone I trust to make sure she's okay. Only thing is, I can't tell you where she's at.”

Ethan feels himself nodding, confirmed in his prejudice that anyone close to Don must have major issues with reality. “That'll make it hard for me to check up on her, won't it?”

Don's chin sandpapers against his handset's mouthpiece. “Yeah. Anyway, let me ask you something crazy. You're a banker, right. How's your memory for numbers? Address numbers say?”

“I imagine it's pretty good.”

“Better than average?”

“Probably.”

“Me. Sometimes I lose a person's name ten seconds after I hear it. And phone numbers, no way they stick.”

“Maybe you aren't paying attention.”

Don's eyes become slits. “That's the key, man. You got to pay attention.”

Don raises his left fist and leans closer to the glass dividing them like he's going to punch through it. Ethan then realizes that Don had been clenching that fist throughout their meeting. But now the fist is opening, like a blooming flower caught by time-lapse photography. A line of scrawl unfolds on the palm and it presses the glass.

An instant later Don withdraws the palm and spits into it. Rubbing both hands furiously together until they are ink smeared, the prisoner obliterates the address Ethan had glimpsed. When Don looks up again, his eyes question Ethan's.

Ethan blinks an affirmation. He's got it. Apparently he's a faster study in this prison visitation business than he would have guessed. He feels a little proud of himself.

“I knew you were okay,” Don Aldridge says. “You find out anything, write me. And remember, there could be eyes on you. Jessica flew drones for the Air Force. She was in on some big operation that went south. This ain't no game, Ethan.”

A guard appears behind Don and hangs up his phone. The visit is over.

BECAUSE THE ADDRESS
scribbled on Don's palm was not one of the Florida Keys, Ethan heads north out of Seminole City, the very bottom of landlocked America. To the east is the ocean. To the west, the Everglades. Logically, then, north it must be. A map on his phone tells him the Pompano Beach exit is seventy miles away.

The drive is mostly through suburban housing developments and an occasional remnant of grassland. There is nothing to fend off highway hypnosis, not even a billboard, and when Ethan's phone snaps him awake, by sounding its mystery-caller ringtone, Ethan sees that he's drifting, crowding a black pickup passing in the center lane. Its driver, through the open window, takes aim at him with a hand—or is he actually pointing a small pistol? Ethan jams the brakes, swerves behind a flatbed carrying port-a-potties, and takes his call.

“Yes?” he asks, breathing hard.

“Mr. Winter? Are you okay?” The voice is whispery, southern, female. He can almost identify it.

“Who's this?”

“It's Ann. You know, from the warden's office at Seminole City.”

“Ann? Hi. Was I supposed to sign out or something?”

“No, Mr. Winter, it's nothing like that, no. And I am not supposed to be talking to you either, but you seem like good people.” Ann is talking quickly. “I just had to tell you there might be folks following you because of Don Aldridge.”

“What?” Ethan says.

“FBI men. I've got to go now. Watch out for yourself.”

“Ann? Hello?”

Ethan tosses the phone onto the passenger's seat and speeds around the porta-potty truck. Then he slows down until the truck catches up and shields Ethan's vehicle from the cars directly behind him. After a few minutes the only thing Ethan notices in the rearview is a persistent red dot far back in the center lane. But even he knows that FBI don't drive red cars. And here's his exit. He merges with the easterly-bound traffic.

Yet, heeding Ann, he plays a little trick on his potential pursuers. He slips into the left lane and doubles back through a break in the median. Then he pulls into a Taco Bell's parking lot. He takes his time parking the Hyundai and watches as a car, a red car, makes the same U-turn he did. Driving toward Ethan, into the afternoon sun, the vehicle glints blindingly. Only when it passes can Ethan see who's inside—two men. They stare straight ahead and the car keeps going.

“BURRITO, CHIPS, STRAWBERRY
Frutista Freeze,” Ethan tells the cashier while drying his washroom-damp hands inside his pockets.

When Ethan's number is called he hustles his tray to a booth and tears into his burrito like a jackal into a wildebeest carcass. He chases the mash with a gulp of freeze . . . but the paste stops at his windpipe and he hardly notices the man sitting down opposite him, not until the mouthful in his throat starts down again and he can inhale.

“Now
there's
a diet that will kill you,” says the man. “I should know. I've eaten this kind of junk almost every day for twenty years. Name's Daugherty. Federal Bureau of Investigation.” He offers Ethan his hand across the table.

Daugherty's grip, though firm, is clammy. His eyes, weary and circled with shadows, match the tint of dark coffee. Silently Ethan retracts his hand.

“And this is my partner, Agent Pyle.” Daugherty nods toward the man sliding in next to Ethan in the booth. He's blocking Ethan's exit.

Ethan remembers this man. “You were in my hotel lobby the other night. And . . . in the men's room at the prison.”

Pyle studies Ethan the way a scientist might regard a microbe on a specimen slide.

“Then I guess you know why we're here,” says Daugherty.

Ethan shakes his head, plays dumb, for all the good he knows this will do.

“Jessica Aldridge,” Daugherty says.

Pyle breaks in. “We listened in on your talk with her father today. And yesterday, too, pal.”

Though Ann had warned him there might be eavesdropping, the fact of being monitored still rankles Ethan—it's like completing an internet search and then discovering ads in your browser for everything you looked up. “Did you put the transcript on your blog?” Ethan says to Pyle.

“Don't be a smartass,” Pyle says. He is a big man with deep, close-set eyes and a block jaw. Pyle is probably fit enough to rip the table off its floor bolts. “Convicts have no privacy rights. And neither do you when you talk to one,” Pyle adds.

“Guilt by association?” Ethan says.

“We haven't accused you of anything yet, mother fu—”

“Stand down,” Daugherty, leaning forward, intervenes, “both of you.” The older agent sits back, his eyes radiating their coffee warmth. Though Ethan knows this man is playing him, he doesn't dislike Daugherty, the good cop. Ethan, in fact, does believe in Daugherty's implicit message — that only he can save Ethan from his partner. “Sorry for the hassle, Mr. Winter,” Daugherty says. “We're just doing our job.”