Emily Kimelman - Sydney Rye 04 - Strings of Glass (11 page)

Anita
slammed the van door closed. “I’ll take my parents’ scooter.”

“Okay,
go,” I said to Dan. He nodded and then backed the van out of the dead end
and turned into traffic.

“Let’s
go,” Anita said, climbing back onto her scooter.

“I’ll
follow,” I said. Her eyes narrowed as I walked over to the driver, still
sitting on the ground and hauled him to his feet. He cried out in pain.

“What
are you doing?” she asked.

“If
you think I’m going to let that motherfucker up there live,
then you don’t know me yet.”

I pushed
the driver ahead of me using him as a shield as I went back into the brothel.
“Wait!” Anita called.

“Get
out of here,” I yelled over my shoulder as I muscled the road-burned
man up the steps. The sirens got louder as we slowly climbed back up to the top
floor. The driver started crying about halfway up. “I’m not going to kill
you,” I said. This did not console him.

When we
got to the top floor, it was as I’d left it. The door
closed. Pushing the driver in front of me I got right up to the door and then
knocked. The wooden door exploded with gunfire,
shattering the boards and peppering the man I held in front of me. He leapt and
jerked with the impact. I held him up by the tatters of his jacket and hunched
behind him listening to the sickening splat of bullets thunking into him.

As soon
as they stopped I threw him to the side and kicked the door hard enough to take
what was left of it off its hinges. A man of medium build stood in front of me
his attention drawn away from reloading his weapon. I shot him between the eyes,
giving him a morbid bindi. The sirens were blaring close now. I heard yelling
from downstairs and the sound of feet pounding up the steps. Crossing the room
I tucked my gun back into my pants and threw open one of the windows climbing
out onto the slanted roof.

It
angled down to the house next to it and I skittered off it, leaping onto the
building. I ran, headed toward the main road. At the end of the block I looked
back and saw two cop cars and several men standing around them in front of the
brothel. Looking at the window I had jumped out of,
I saw a man’s face appear. I flattened myself to the roof and belly-crawled
along the edge, looking for a way down. Nothing but flat wall greeted me.

I
spotted a skylight in the center of the roof and scooted over to it. Looking
through its grimy glass I saw an empty kitchen, the
dining table right under me. I heard footsteps and yells as the cops climbed
out the window after me. With no other choice I stood up and fired three rounds
into the glass, shattering it. A deep breath and I jumped. Landing with bent
knees,
I stumbled forward catching myself with my hands. I felt a prick as one of the
shards of glass bit into my skin. No one came running so I assumed the
apartment was empty.

Moving
quickly I found the exit and ran down the stairs. An apartment door opened as I
passed and an older woman looked out at me. She started to yell, but then
noticed the blood splatter, the gun, and the speed at which I was traveling and
closed her mouth. Stopping in front of the door to the street I took a deep
breath and looked out the peep hole. Nothing. “You only live once,” I
said to myself and then opened the door slowly and glanced down the block.

“Hey.”
I turned my head and Anita was on the corner. “Come on,” she said. I
grinned at her and ran the few steps to hop onto the back of her scooter. The
bike jumped forward and we blended into the traffic.

T
here
was no light on in Chloe’s window when we pulled up in front of the Better
Indian Children’s Fund offices. Climbing off the back of the scooter I waited
for Anita while she pulled the bike onto its kickstand. Dan wasn’t there yet
but that didn’t worry me. Traffic was a lot easier on a scooter than
in a big van.

We
knocked on the tinted glass doors. When no one answered I tapped with the butt
of my gun, making a louder noise, but still nothing. “We should go to the
church,” I said.

Anita
agreed, so we got back on the scooter and drove the few blocks to the church.
The gardens were dark but there was light inside the building. It shone through
the gabled windows casting triangles of light onto the grass. The street was
quiet at this hour when most people were home eating dinner or watching TV.
Anita parked the bike right next to the gate.

I zipped
up my jacket, covering the blood splattered on my shirt. “Here,”
Anita said, pulling the seat of the scooter up and
reaching in for a rag. She spit on it and then rubbed at my face. The towel
smelled of gasoline. “There,” she said, standing back. “You’d
hardly notice now.” She reached forward and swiped at my jacket, nodding
to herself.

“Thanks,”
I said. Her face paled as she looked down at the bloodstained rag. I put my
hand on her shoulder. “Keep it together. We’ve got more work to do
tonight.” She looked up at me, making eye contact. The swelling on her
face was gone, but there was still visible bruising around her eyes and the cut
on her lip held onto its scab.

“I
know,” she said. “I’m OK. I just didn’t think…”
She looked back down at the towel. “I didn’t think so many people would
die.”

I bit my
lip. “Sorry,” I said.

She
looked back up at me. “Don’t apologize. I think you did the right thing. I
just never would have…” Her
voice caught and I saw tears well in her eyes. “I just couldn’t do
it.”

“Let’s
hope you never have to.”

She
sniffled and wiped at her eyes. “I just hope that I’d have the
strength.”

I
squeezed her shoulder. “You could. We all have a switch that gets turned
on when we need it. If the time came, yours would click.” She nodded,
but didn’t look like she believed me. “Trust me,” I said.

A truck
rumbled by and Anita turned to watch it. “Let’s go,” she said.

I opened
the gate and we passed through. Anita pulled the big wooden doors open and we
saw that a service was happening inside. Agapito stood in the sanctuary above
the pews, only a quarter full at best. He was speaking in Gujarati and wearing
the long black dress of a priest with the white spot on his throat.

Heads
turned at the sound of our entrance and I stood behind Anita, trying to disappear.
Most of the faces turned back to their charismatic Father ,but I spotted Chloe
in one of the front pews staring at me. I waved her over and she rose, hurrying
down the aisle toward us. She wore a blue dress with cap sleeves. Tall and
slim, Chloe would have been pretty if she didn’t look as if she carried a large
weight across her shoulders that dragged her toward the ground. I opened the
door and stepped back out into the night. Chloe followed into the darkness.

“What
are you doing here?” she asked.

“There
is a long explanation for that,” I said. “We should probably go back
to your offices.”

“What?”

“We
don’t have much time. We need your help.”

“Are
you in danger?”

“No,
but Dan is on his way right now with a van full of people who are.”

“But,
we are not ready,” she said.

“Chloe,”
I said,
grabbing her elbow and pulling her close to me. “I don’t have time for
your shit right now. There are lives at stake. Now I will march back into that
church and pull Agapito out from behind that podium and get him to help me or
you can keep this shit a little more subtle.”

She
nodded, her eyes scanning my face. “Is that blood?” she asked.

“Yes,
let’s go.”

She
followed me toward the scooter, “Anita, you ride, we’ll walk,” I
said.

Chloe
came easily, even hurrying along the broken pavement to her offices. She
fumbled with her keys once the building was in sight.
Her fingers shook and she dropped them. I swooped down and picked them up.
“I’ll do it,” I said.

She
didn’t protest and we climbed the stairs to her tinted doors. Anita waited at
the top of the steps. I unlocked the doors then looked up and down the street
before stepping inside. Dan still wasn’t there. A worry started to turn in the
pit of my stomach.

Chloe
hit the light switches and fluorescent tubes
in the ceiling flickered to life, casting a blue light down on us. “My
God,” she said, seeing me in the light for the first time. “Whose
blood is that?” I sighed. “What are you doing here?” she asked,
fear edging her voice higher.

“I’m
not going to hurt you,” I said, but she
backed away from me. “Look,” I said, “we
just rescued the boys Kalpesh ‘released,’”
I held my fingers up like bunny ears, “and some prostitutes at a
brothel.” It was hot in the hallway and I unzipped my jacket.

Chloe’s
mouth dropped open. “Why are you covered in blood?” she squeaked out.

Anita
spoke up. “She did what she had to do.”

Chloe
looked over at Anita. “What?!”

I sighed
again, feeling the weight of this explanation. “I had to kill a bunch of
men. They were going to kill those boys and I couldn’t let that happen,” I
said. “Can I use your restroom?” I asked,
feeling the itch of blood drying on my skin, tightening on it, feeling like a
mask. Without waiting for an answer I turned to Anita. “Call Dan, will
you? Get his ETA.”

“Sure,”
Anita pulled out her phone and I turned back to Chloe.

“The
bathroom?”

She
pointed down the hallway, her eyes wide and mouth forming
into a little ‘o’ of
surprise. The door was marked with a pictogram of a toilet. It was a single
stall with white tile walls and floor, a streaked mirror, and a western toilet.
Locking the door I went to the sink, turning on the warm water and then looked
up at myself in the mirror.

Anita
had done a pretty good job on my face. There was just one line of blood that
ran down my left side, close to the hairline, and a sprinkling across my cheek.
My T-shirt looked like a Rorschach test;
I saw two bunnies fighting viciously. Taking off my jacket I hung it on a hook
on the door and turned back to the full sink. I splashed the warm water on my
face, rubbing it into my hair. Pulling reams of paper towels
out of the dispenser, I rubbed at my cheeks and hair until my skin was pink and
clean.

I
shrugged out of my T-shirt feeling the strain in my shoulders from all the
kicking of fired guns. Putting it in the sink to soak, I wet more paper towels
and went at my leather jacket, cleaning off the blood and bits of flesh stuck
to it. My stomach churned for a moment, but I pushed it all down into my gut
and kept cleaning. This was no time to get squeamish.

Pulling
my T-shirt out of the pink water, I saw
it was hopeless and dropped it into the trash. Once I’d done all I could for
myself and my clothing, I reached into the lining of my leather jacket, past
the lead pipe, to where I’d stashed cash. I pulled out five thousand dollars in
hundreds, everything
I had in there. I put $500 back in the lining and jammed the rest in the back
pocket of my jeans. If I couldn’t reach Chloe through her conscience,
I hoped to entice her with cash.

I put my
jacket back on over my bra and zipped it up. I found Anita and Chloe in Chloe’s
office, drinking Old Monk rum. They both looked pale and in shock. “God,
I’ll take a drink,” I said. Chloe gestured toward the bottle,
pushing a plastic cup toward me.

“Dan
had to pull over to check his phone for directions and one of the boys ran for
it,” Anita told me.

I
clenched my jaw in frustration. At least he was alive, I thought, as I poured
myself two fingers of rum. “Is everyone else OK?” I asked.

Anita
nodded and drank deeply from her glass. I turned to Chloe. “Did Anita
explain who’s coming?”

Chloe
nodded and removed her glasses, squeezing at her eyes with her free hand. I
pulled the money out of my pocket and when she opened her eyes I held it out to
her. “This is to help with them. I’ll get you more.”

“We
don’t usually work with adults,” she said as much to herself as me.

“I
know, but you must know someone you can trust who can help these girls. Several
of them are going to need medical attention. Do you have any doctors you can
trust?”

Chloe
nodded. “Yes, I think so.” She picked up her phone and then put it
down again. “You realize that anyone I call will be in grave danger?
You’ve put us all in the line of fire.”

“Would
you prefer I let those boys get killed? Or
leave those women as sex  slaves? Where exactly did I go wrong?” I asked.
She stared up at me through her clear eyelashes and I downed the rest of my
rum, feeling the heat travel down my throat and land in my empty stomach,
reaching out its tendrils of comfort. “Maybe it’s time you were in the
fucking line of fire, you cowardly bitch.” I
dropped the money on the desk and turned, grabbing the bottle of Old Monk and
taking it with me.

I
stepped out into the hall and walked over to the tinted glass, staring out into
the street. Traffic flowed by - rickshaws, scooters,
cars, but no vans. I put down the bottle of Old Monk on the industrial grey
carpeting and sat next to it. I heard footsteps behind me and was surprised to
see Chloe settle on the floor beside me, pulling up her skirt to sit cross-legged.
“I got into this work because I cared. God, I cared so God damn
much.” She took off her glasses and placed them on the floor, then swiped
at her eyes, brushing away tears. I picked up the bottle of Old Monk and
refilled her glass. She went on, “Caring alone won’t save them,
though.”

I
nodded. “I’m counting on you.”

She
nodded and drank deeply from her glass, emptying it in one go. “I’ll
try,” she said.

“Trying’s
not enough,” I said. “Just fucking do it.”

That’s
when I saw the van turn the corner and my heart leapt, knowing Dan was here and
safe. Jumping to my feet I pulled the first door open, but the second was
locked. Chloe pulled out her keys and opened it as the van pulled to a stop in
front of the building. Chloe started to follow me out. “Don’t you have
phone calls to make?” I asked.
“Doctor?”

She
nodded. “Yes, you’re right, I do. But, what will we do with them?”

“I
think we should take them to the church.”

Chloe
glanced at her watch; it was thin and gold, delicate like the wrist it wrapped
around. “The service should be over. Agapito will be there. I’ll call and
let him know you’re coming.”

“Good.”
I wet my lips. “I’m sorry about what I said.”

Chloe
nodded and a soft smile curled her lips. “I’m sorry I was being such a cowardly
bitch.”

Dan was
out of the van, going around to open the door for his passengers when I reached
him. His tan skin looked yellow in the street lights; dark circles under his
eyes made him look almost sickly. The light that flowed from his pale green
eyes felt like a fever. “The boy just ran,” he said.

“It’s
OK, you saved his life.”

He shook
his head and then pulled open the sliding door. The two boys still clung to
each other and the women seemed to all have linked arms. Every one of them
seemed intertwined with another. And yet, none of them seemed comforted by the
others. Maybe there was no comfort here. What could I do to help them,
I wondered. My heart felt like it was getting tugged out of my chest.

Anita
joined us and in a gentle tone spoke to them in Hindi and then in Gujarati.

“We’re
going to take them to the church,” I told Dan. “Are you OK
to drive?”

He
frowned. “Of course.” Dan reached out and brushed a hair off my
cheek. “Don’t worry about me, Sydney.
I’m good.”

I just
nodded and climbed into the passenger seat. A spray of blood arched across it
and I leaned forward to avoid touching it. The interior stank of sweat, the
iron scent of drying blood, and a spicy aroma I couldn’t identify. An orange
figure of Ganesh, the elephant god, was glued to the
dash, his expression serene. Dan pulled out and I opened my window, letting the
smoky scent of the city blow my hair from my face and fill my nostrils. I
stared at the light that passed through the bullet holes. I looked over at
Dan’s set jaw and wild eyes. This isn’t what I wanted for him.

The ride
was only a couple of minutes. Anita parked right behind us. Agapito was waiting
for us by the gate. He came forward and opened my door for me. “Are you OK?”
he asked. Then looking behind me at the women and children who cowered there,
he gasped.

“Chloe
didn’t tell you?” I asked.

“She
was unclear.”

Anita
opened the side door and reached in to help the youngest boy out. He retreated
from her and the other boy kept a protective arm around him. “Where should
we take them?” I asked as I climbed out.

Agapito
stared at the boys, not answering.
“Father,” I said softly. He turned to me. “Where should we take
them? Several are injured, the women.”

He
nodded. “Yes, sorry. Of course.” He
looked down at his hands for a moment and then glanced up and down the street,
his eyes filling with urgency. “We must hurry. The infirmary.”

“Lead
the way,” I said.

Anita
gave up trying to get the boys out and turned to the women who flowed out of
the van, keeping a physical connection. They looked like a group of school
children keeping track of their buddies, but
with less clothing and more bruises. They’d already gotten lost. Maybe Agapito
could help them find their way back. Esha and her sister were the last off.
They’d found a blanket to cover the abused girl. Her eyes were glassy and she
looked as if the weight of her head might drag her to the ground.