North of Boston (35 page)

I drop into a deep squat between the parked cars, hug my knees tightly to my chest, and hold my breath as the Camry slowly rolls by. I wait through a good many beats of my rapidly beating heart before I stand up again. When I finally do, the Camry is several blocks away, still traveling slowly, but well past the concrete kiosk that marks the Heath Street stop.

I jog to the station and insert myself into the middle of a small crowd of people waiting on the curb. The trolley that stops a few minutes later looks completely full, but that doesn't stop all ten of us from clambering single-file up the steps, paying our fares, and streaming down the crowded center aisle of the attached cars, somehow finding places among the blank-faced inbound passengers.

I get to the last car, lean into a pole, and wrap my arm around it, stare out at the street as the trolley starts up with a jerk. I've got my eye peeled for the blue Camry, but it's nowhere in sight. We stop at Back of the Hill Station. Still no Camry. I may have given him the slip. At the intersection of South Huntington and Huntington Ave, the trolley stops again, letting more people off and on, then waiting for the light to change. As I look out the window, the blue Camry pulls up and stops right next to me, fourth or fifth in a line of cars also waiting at the light. Before I can lean away, Max glances up, apparently as sensitive to being watched as I had been, and our eyes lock as the trolley lurches forward. The Camry is quickly left behind, but it doesn't take a genius to know that Max will get through the light only a few moments after we do. Then he'll simply follow the trolley until he sees me get off. In the meantime, he'll call Johnny with my whereabouts, if he hasn't done that already.

The trolley shrieks mechanically in the curve, then rumbles along Huntington Ave at its usual slow pace. Pizza joints and coin-op laundries slide by the grimy window. My own face, distorted in the inside glare, is superimposed on the storefronts. I'm a sitting duck on this trolley. I've got to get out soon. A couple of stops go by—Mission Park, Fernwood. I squeeze through passengers and get next to one of the doors. As soon as they open at Brigham Circle, I'm off.

I sprint up to the first trolley car, cross in front of it, scoot across the outbound track, dodge oncoming cars in the lanes of outbound traffic, and run down Francis Street toward the heart of the medical area. I figure Max will have to make a U-turn to follow me, which will take several minutes at least. I'm looking for a side street to lose myself on, but the only ones are dead ends, and I don't want to become trapped. So I keep up a steady jog until I reach Brigham and Women's Hospital. I look over my shoulder to be sure I wasn't followed and see Max weaving through the people on the sidewalk. He must have simply abandoned his car on Huntington Ave and gotten across the tracks in time to see which way I went. It only takes a glance to see that he's a fit, fast runner and that he's got his eye on me.

I
dart through the hospital's drop-off area, clogged with double-parked cars and old people tottering on canes, and race to the main entrance of Brigham and Women's Hospital. I stumble my way through a revolving door into a bright, crowded atrium, randomly choose one of several corridors and sprint down it until I come to a bank of elevators with one door just closing. I stick my hand in; it opens, and I pile inside, turn around, and become just another blank, anonymous face going up.

I get off at the seventh floor, walk at a normal pace down a gleaming white corridor, find a waiting room bathed in soothing neutral tones, and collapse into a chair. I breathe, and breathe again. I know I've lost him now. I'm sure he saw me enter the hospital. But he wouldn't have seen which way I left the atrium, and he definitely wasn't with me on the elevator. He has no way of knowing that I'm sitting in a seventh-floor waiting room with a nice view of the Joslin Diabetes Center and a stack of
People
magazines to help me while away the time.

All I want to do is cry.

Which is exactly what the woman sitting across from me is doing. Her sobs heave from deep within her chest; she tries to stifle them by pressing a wad of tissues to her mouth, which only distorts them to a strangled bark. The damp tissues being clearly inadequate to the job, she raises her right forearm, snags the cuff of her sweater with her left index finger, and sops up her tears with that. In the process, her glasses are dislodged. They fall. I pick them up and hand them to her.

“I'm very sorry,” I say.

“Thank you,” she gasps.

A short man comes in bearing two coffees in small paper cups. He hands one to her. She takes it and tries to steady her trembling lip on the rim.

“They didn't have Splenda, so I used Sweet'N Low,” he says.

“Thank you.” She gasps again, her eyes closed.

We're the only three people in the room. I want to give them space, but I also have to make a call, so I move to a seat in the corner, pull out my phone, and speed-dial Parnell. When I look up, the man is glaring at me. I end the call, feeling like a real shit.

I move into the hallway, looking for another place to sit, but there isn't one, so I hop into the next elevator that opens up, which turns out to be an express to the first floor. In the bright, busy, street-level corridor, I glance nervously in both directions, expecting Max to appear. A sign in front of me says Chapel
with an arrow pointing down the hall. I scoot in that direction, pull open a strangely heavy door to a room of subdued lighting and blessed silence. Thank God there are no worshipers. On a handsome blue patterned rug, rows of chairs face a modest lectern and a table graced by a half-melted candle and a potted chrysanthemum. A few panels of nondenominational stained glass are backlit by electric bulbs.

I sink into a seat in the last row and mutter, “Fuck.”

“You shouldn't say that in a church. Some of us are praying,” a voice says.

I turn to see a teenage girl in goth regalia sitting in the shadowy corner of the room in a comfortable armchair probably intended for older, feebler folks. Her nasal septum is pierced by a fat silver ring, and her spiked black hair is streaked with metallic blue. She's got an iPad on her lap, fingerless black lace gloves poised above the screen.

“Really. Is there an app for praying?” I ask her.

She looks pensive. “Not that I know of. I could google it.”

“Please don't.”

She shows me pained, black-rimmed eyes and a tender, purple-painted mouth. “FYI: I play Angry Birds when I pray.”

“Oh. Is that the trick? No wonder I never got the hang of praying.”

Her eyes roll heavenward. “There's no trick to praying. You can do it however you want. I play Angry Birds because it helps me focus.”

“Maybe if you weren't doing two things at once, you wouldn't need the help.”

“You're very hostile. I can tell you're not comfortable with technology.”

“Of course I am. Watch how fast I text.”

I pull up my phone's keypad and type:
Where r u? Urgent. Call me pls.

A few minutes of comatose meditation pass until my phone emits a cheerful tweet.

His message reads:
Where r u?

But that's what I asked him. I reply:
U first
.

There's a long delay before I get his answer.
My apt.

Why?!

Come over.

I stare at the screen angrily. He promised he wouldn't go there. He knows it's dangerous. So why is he asking me to join him there? Something's not right.

I call. It rings and rings. Something's definitely wrong.

I text:
Call me
. I place the phone on the seat next to me, as if it needed its own space in which to be a phone. I wait, look at it, wait, look at it. It doesn't make a sound. I can't believe he's not texting back. I check the screen, go to Notifications. Everything's working. “Jesus Christ,” I say.

“That's a little better, but not much,” the girl says.

“I really don't need the commentary,” I say drily without turning around.

“I don't need to hear your disrespect.”

I sigh. “You're right. I'm sorry. I'm just a little tense.”

“Why?”

I glance over my shoulder. “
Why
? Are you asking me
why
?”

“It's not such a strange question, is it?” She has silver sparkles along her cheekbones.

“I'm having a hard day.”

“Around here, you're not having a hard day unless you're in the ICU.”

“Yup. Good point. Right again. BTW, how old are you? Fifteen?”

“Fourteen.”

“Well, you're very wise for someone barely out of childhood.”

She regards me with alienated pity. “You really should do something about your hostility.” Then she bends her head over the tablet on her lap.

It dawns on me that someone in her family is probably sick. “What's your name?” I ask.

“Sabrina.”

“Mine's Pirio.”

This gets a flicker of smile. “I like it.”

“I like yours, too.”

The phone rings. Thank God. I grab it. “Where are you?” I ask Parnell.

“Pirio—” His voice is small, tight.

“What's going on?”

There's fumbling, static, then his rushed cry: “Don't go there! Stay away!”

A loud thud, a sharp moan, more static and fumbling, and a husky voice slides into my ear. “Hey there, crazy girl. Your boyfriend wants to see you, bad.”

“Johnny.”

“Don't want to hurt him. But you know how I can get.”

My stomach clenches. “If anything happens to him, I'll kill you, Johnny. I swear I will.”

“Love your spirit, girl. I used to so enjoy fucking your brains out. Remember that?” He pauses; a muffled conversation takes place, and he gets back on the line. “I'm really dying to see you.”

I break into a sweat.

“What? Not interested? You think you're too good for me, don't you? Too upper-crust. Or maybe you've just gotten old and lost your nerve. Maybe you need some motivation.”

There's dead air for a few moments. Low voices. Then, not too far from the phone, a piercing male scream. Parnell.

“Johnny!” I yell into the phone.

“Yes, darlin'?”

“I'll be there.”

“Better hurry. We're gonna keep hurting him till you get here.”

“Leave him alone. I said I'd be there, didn't I?”

“That's my girl. Go out the main entrance and wait by the door. Max will pick you up. I want you to stay on this phone, having a nice conversation with me, right up until the moment you get in his car. 'Cause I don't want you calling anyone else. Fact, if any little detail I don't like happens between now and then, there'll be one less liberal journalist in this world. I know a lot of people who'd thank me for that.”

“All right, take it easy. I'm on my way. What do you want to talk about?”

“Why don't you sing ‘The Star-Spangled Banner'? I always liked that song.”

“Funny. I thought you were more of an Allman Brothers guy.”

“Start walking and talking, Pirio. Don't be embarrassed if people give you funny looks.”

“You know I don't give a shit what people think.”

“Let me hear it, then.”

“O! say can you see . . .”

I look over at Sabrina. Her eyes are round and frightened. She's sitting close enough that she would have heard Parnell's scream, and she's certainly heard my half of the conversation.

“By the dawn's early light . . .”

I hold my fist about an inch below my chin, and give her an urgent glare.

She doesn't get it, is about to speak.

I firmly press my index finger to my lips.

“What so proudly we hailed . . .”

What?
she mouths back, shaking her head slightly.

I try the fist in front of my mouth again.

She still doesn't get it.

I point to my phone, tug my ear dramatically, make the fist again, bring it up to my lips, and sing “At the twilight's last gleaming . . .” into my rolled thumb.

Sabrina's eyes light up. She gets it.

I wave her over.

“Whose broad stripes and bright stars . . .”

She leaves her pew and slides in next to me. Gets the microphone icon on her screen, presses the red light for
record
, and holds the tablet steady on her lap.

“I should be hearing people. It's too quiet,” Johnny says.

“I'm in a quiet part of the hospital. The basement. I'm looking for the stairs.”

“So keep singing.”

“Do you remember what line comes next?”

“Start at the beginning.”

I press speakerphone. “O! say can you see . . .”

“What's that? It sounds like speakerphone.”

“It's not. I'm in a stairwell. It's echoey.”

“Keep singing.”

“By the dawn's early light . . . what so proudly set sail . . . Hold on; that's not the line. What did I say before? You remember, Johnny?”

“It doesn't matter. Say anything. Give me the fucking alphabet.”

“No, I
want
to sing ‘The Star-Spangled Banner.' It being your favorite song and all. And I like it, too.”

“This is crap, Pirio. You want to hear him scream?”

“No! I'm going to sing ‘The Star-Spangled Banner' like you told me to. But I don't see why we can't be honest with each other for one minute before I do. I mean, we
know
each other, Johnny. Why should we be playing this cheesy cat-and-mouse game when we both know exactly what's going on? I know for a fact that Hall and his boys were planning to murder me in Makkovik, which was your idea, apparently, and I also know that you killed Mrs. Smith, so what I can't help wondering right now is, what's to stop me from ending up like her the minute I walk out the door?”

“Don't be crazy. No one's going to run you over outside a hospital.”

“You'll kill me later, I guess. Parnell, too. How many murders will that make?”

A pause. “Don't fuck with me, Pirio.”

I let my voice go quiet. “What happened to you, Johnny? You didn't used to be a killer. Was it for money? A Lexus in the driveway? Orthodontist bills?”

“I said don't fuck with me.”

“And when I'm gone . . . after you've tossed my body into the harbor . . . how many birdhouses are you going to have to make to forget about me?”

“You just start singing and get into that car. Unless you want to hear a sound you won't ever forget.” His voice is tight and slow.

“At least I'd know he was alive.”

“Oh, he is, barely. Here's proof.”

I fairly leap out of the pew. “No, Johnny, don't—”

Parnell's protracted scream reverberates through the chapel. Sabrina looks at me in horror. The iPad almost slides out of her trembling hands.

“OK, Johnny. Take it easy! I'm on my way. Johnny! Johnny!” I yell into the phone until the scream subsides. I turn speakerphone off and go back to singing “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

I sign for Sabrina to shut off her microphone, and mime
write
by scrolling through the air with an invisible pen.

She nods, puts the tablet down quietly, slides out of the pew, returns a moment later with a Hot Topic shopping bag, from which she pulls a school notebook with a pen stuffed into the wire spiral. I write my e-mail on a page of the notebook, then Milosa's for good measure, and watch as she sends the audio recording to both addresses. By the time she's done, I'm on
the land of the free and the home of the brave
.

“Where are you now? Why don't I hear anything?” Johnny says.

“Sick people don't make a lot of noise.”

I slip out of the pew, with a grateful nod to Sabrina. The look on her face says that she wants to come with me, but she also seems unwilling to move.