The Divide (40 page)

“Listen, I don’t have long. We need to talk about the money.”

“Abbie, you need help.”

“What I fucking well need is money!”

Josh sighed. She looked nervously around her then started walking again and he followed and fell into step beside her.

“Do I ask Mom? Do I tell her I saw you?”

“I don’t know. You tell me.”

“I don’t know. Anyway, they’ve got tabs on all our accounts.”

“Then sell something.”

“
Sell
something?”

“Or talk to Grandpa. He knows about money. Probably launders it for his fat-cat clients all the time.”

He asked her how much she needed and nearly choked when she said twenty thousand dollars. She wouldn’t tell him what it was for and got angry again and strode off ahead when he tried to press her.

By now they had reached Central Park West and she led him across and into the streets beyond. Josh realized they were on some sort of mission and asked her where they were headed and she told him they were going to RadioShack, where he would buy himself a prepaid cell phone so that she could contact him. She wasn’t going to come into the store, she said, so he would have to make sure he got the right kind, one that could be activated without having to give any kind of ID or address. It would cost around a hundred dollars, she said, and he should pay cash, so there would be no record.

When Josh complained that after their taxi ride he didn’t have that kind of money on him, she told him—sarcastically, as if he was an idiot—that this was why they were going first to an ATM, where, while he was at it, he could get out some extra cash for her. Josh had a lifetime of practice being bossed around by his big sister, but there was something about this fractious, half-crazed stranger with her calculated list of instructions that made him want to grab hold of her and shake her to her senses. But he didn’t.

Abbie probably wouldn’t have paid any attention anyway. All the earlier emotional rawness seemed to have vanished. This was clearly the business she had come to do and she seemed to have it all figured out. The prepaid phone was to be used only for her to leave messages, she went on. No one but the two of them must know the number or even that he had the phone at all, not even their mom. Once it was activated, he should keep it switched off, except once each morning and evening to check his voice mail. However, he must never,
never,
do this at home where calls of every kind were obviously being scanned.

They found an ATM on Broadway and he took out two hundred and forty dollars and gave her a hundred. Then they walked a few blocks to RadioShack and while she waited in a coffee shop Josh went in and bought a prepaid phone for a hundred and twenty dollars with thirty minutes of talk included, no questions asked.

When he went to find Abbie in the coffee shop she was getting edgy and said she had better be going. She made a note of his new phone number then handed him a sheet of yellow paper on which she had written two columns of letters and figures. In a voice so quiet he had to lean in close, she told him this was the code she would use. It shouldn’t be disclosed to anyone. Every number from zero to nine was randomly allocated a letter of the alphabet. When she needed to speak to Josh, she would call his new cell phone and leave a message of two words; the first would be a coded phone number and the second would give him the date and time he should call it. If it didn’t work out, he should try again an hour later, then an hour later and so on. He should never, she said, use anything but a pay phone and always be totally sure he wasn’t being watched. Josh’s head by now was whizzing with too much information. But he still couldn’t resist asking if all this James Bond stuff came from Rolf. In response he got only an irritated sigh.

The coming Wednesday she would leave him a message with a number he should call at one o’clock the following afternoon. This should give their mom enough time to sort out the money.

“She’ll want to talk with you herself,” Josh said.

Abbie looked away and thought about this for a moment.

“Please,” he said. “Just let her hear your voice.”

She nodded.

“Okay. Let her make the call. But only from a pay phone at the time I tell you. And somewhere safe where she’s certain she’s not being watched. Make sure she understands how careful she’s got to be. And tell her if she starts giving me a hard time, I’ll hang up, okay?”

Jesus, Josh thought. Give
her
a hard time? And all this
be careful
shit. Didn’t she think by now he might have gotten the message? But he said nothing, just nodded.

Now she was on her feet and walking out and for a moment he thought she was going to leave him just like that without even saying good-bye. But she turned and waited for him and, as he came up to her, gave him a sad little smile in which he thought he glimpsed the sister he once knew.

“Thanks, Joshie.”

“It’s okay. I just wish . . .”

“I know.”

She kissed him on the cheek and turned and quickly walked away. There was a subway station at the end of the block and he stood watching while she wove her way through the crowd like a frail black ghost toward it. He thought she might look back but she never did. The sidewalk was sunlit but the entrance to the subway lay in the sharply angled shadow of a tall building. And he watched her cross the threshold of the shadow and start to go down the steps until at last the darkness devoured her.

S
arah’s father had been on the goddamn running machine for about ten minutes now, and however he might be feeling, she didn’t think she could take much more. His eyes were fixed on the mirrored image of himself on the wall in front of him, though why, she had no idea, for it wasn’t anyone’s idea of a pretty sight. The sweat was streaming off him, his breasts under the sodden T-shirt wobbling with every stride, while his cheeks puffed in and out like a cantankerous blowfish.

It was her own fault for coming down here. His morning workout was sacrosanct. And this, the Sunday-morning version, doubly so. He had said no twice already, last night when she arrived and again this morning. But before driving home, she had to give it one more go.

“Dad, couldn’t you just—”

“Sarah, I’ve told you. It’s out of the question.”

“Please, just listen to me for a minute.”

“I’ve listened. I’ve heard. And the answer’s still no.”

“Stop!”

If she had thought about it, she wouldn’t have dared do it. But in the same moment that she hollered, she whacked the off button of the running machine and her father lurched forward and had to grab the rails to stop himself from falling.

“What the hell’s the matter with you?”

“Goddamn it, Dad! I need your attention here.”

She didn’t speak to her father like that and she almost apologized. But it seemed, for a moment at least, to have done the trick.

“Sarah, we’ve already gone through it ten times over.”

“This is your granddaughter, for heaven’s sake!”

He stepped off the machine and snatched up a towel from the chair.

“It’s not just Abbie,” he said, patting himself dry. “You’ve
all
gone crazy. How many times do I have to say it? What you’re asking is illegal, Sarah. Illegal.”

“So when has that bothered you before?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Oh, come on, Dad. Don’t give me that. Don’t tell me you’ve always played it by the book. What about all those shady bond deals, all that offshore stuff, those trips to the Cayman Islands. I’m not a complete idiot.”

“How dare you.”

He picked up his robe and headed for the stairs up to the kitchen. She was more shocked by what she’d just said than he was. It was as if some protective, mother-animal override had clicked in. But seeing as it had, she wasn’t about to stop. She was following him up the stairs now and into the kitchen. Her mother was sitting at the breakfast counter, pretending to read the newspaper. From the arched eyebrow and the delicate tilting of the glass as she sipped her orange juice, Sarah knew she must have heard what had been said down in the gym. This was new territory and her mother was interested. Her father was at the refrigerator, pouring himself a glass of water.

“Dad, talk to me.”

“I’ve said all I have to say. And you’ve said more than enough.”

“Listen, I could have told you it was for me.”

“Well, maybe you should have. What’s she going to use it for? Making bombs? Killing more people or what?”

“You know Abbie wouldn’t do that. What happened was an accident.”

“Then she should give herself up and tell the truth.”

“Well, maybe she will. If we can just establish some kind of contact.”

He drank his water and poured some more. He wouldn’t look at her.

“Dad?”

“What?”

“If it was me out there, scared to death and starving . . .” She bit the inside of her lip. Damn it, she wasn’t going to cry. “Would you do it for me?”

Her mother, still pretending to read her newspaper, muttered something. Sarah’s father turned and glared.

“What was that?”

“I said, of course, you would.”

He drained a second glass and put it down on the counter with a clunk, then mopped his face and neck again with the towel.

“I’ll give you ten thousand.”

“Fifteen.”

“All right, fifteen. But that’s it. I don’t want to hear anything more about it. It’s for you and what you do with it is entirely up to you.”

Sarah walked over to him and put her arms around him.

“Daddy, thank you.”

“I must be out of my mind.”

Sarah had imagined it might take him a day or two to sort things out, but after he’d showered and dressed he went quietly to his safe in the den and within the hour she was driving home with the money bundled up in a yellow plastic bag in the trunk.

By now she had gotten used to keeping a constant eye on the rearview mirror to see if she was being tailed and not once had she seen anything even vaguely suspicious. Today, however, everyone was suspect. And it wasn’t just cops she was worried about, it was robbers too. Every pedestrian waiting at the lights was suddenly a potential mugger or carjacker. It was just how Josh said it had been for him on his way to meet Abbie.

Sarah knew something serious had happened the moment the boy walked through the door yesterday evening, after his mysterious—and utterly implausible—“shopping trip” into the city. He had taken her outside onto the deck and told her quietly what had happened. And as soon as Sarah felt she had gotten as much out of him as she was going to get (for he was such a poor liar and she was sure there was more he hadn’t told her), she had packed an overnight bag, gotten into the car, and driven directly to Bedford. She’d wanted Josh to come too, thinking his eyewitness account of meeting Abbie might sway things with her father, but Josh made some lame excuse about having promised to see Freddie. The poor kid was clearly still fazed by seeing his sister, so Sarah hadn’t pressed him. Though now, on her way home, besieged by phantom cops and carjackers, she wished she had.

Only then did it occur to her that they ought to tell Benjamin about Josh seeing Abbie. He had a right to know, though she didn’t much relish the prospect of calling him. The last time they had talked it had been little short of catastrophic. After that night before the press conference when they had made love, she had stupidly managed to persuade herself that things would somehow change. That the shock of what had happened with Abbie would chase away his madness and bring him back. He loved her, she knew he loved her. The way it had been that night, it was obvious. Men couldn’t fake those things.

But after a few days, off he’d gone. Back to Santa Fe. And, as the weeks and then the months went by, she knew she had deluded herself. Nothing had changed. Except that the loneliness and sorrow seemed somehow immeasurably deeper. And she felt so stupid, so goddamn stupid, for letting it happen that night. And how could he make love to her like that, so tenderly, so penitently, when he didn’t mean it, when he clearly didn’t have the slightest intention of coming home, how
could
he?

But if she felt foolish then, it was nothing compared to how she made herself feel last month when she came home to an empty house after a week in Pittsburgh with Iris. The weather had suddenly gone wintry again and the furnace had given up the ghost so there was neither heat nor hot water. Josh was out partying and so, it seemed, was everybody else she called—Martin and Beth, Jeffrey and his boyfriend, Brian. She put on two sweaters and a coat and lit a fire in the living room and drank a whole bottle of Chianti, then opened another and did what she had vowed never to do again: the late-night drink-and-dial thing.

Benjamin answered the phone with his mouth full, clearly having some cozy, candlelit dinner
à deux
with The Catalyst. And Sarah launched into him like a volley of tomahawks, accusing him of everything she could think of, even things she knew he hadn’t done and never would do. How he had never loved her, never loved any of them, how all he’d ever cared about was his work and his goddamn ego. And how he had ruined and wasted her life, stolen all those precious years when she could have been doing so many better, more worthwhile things, had a proper, fulfilling career, instead of making all those sacrifices only to get it all thrown back in her face.

She could tell from the background sound that he must have walked off to another room, somewhere more private, to spare The Catalyst’s blushes. After a while his attempts to get a word in edgewise grew more assertive.

“Sarah, listen. Listen a moment. Please. I’m going to hang up now.”

“Yeah, why don’t you? Go and fuck the bitch, like you did me that night. And fuck yourself too while you’re at it.”

It must have been quite a shock for all those FBI phone-tappers, playing their endless late-night game of poker or whatever it was they did to while away the hours.