The Night Remembers (25 page)

"Good," Sunny said approvingly. "I knew I could count on you."

* * *

"Now I know why you're so good at fund raising," Daphne said, sitting beside Sunny in the yellow Mercedes as they drove to the research center. "Nobody would dare say no to you."

Sunny grinned unrepentantly. "Persistence has its uses."

"Intimidation, you mean."

"Who,
moi?"
Sunny's hand fanned out over her lush bosom as she gave Daphne a coy look.

"Yes, you," Daphne said as they pulled to a stop across the street from the research center. "You ought to be ashamed of your strong-arm tactics."

"Why?" Sunny slammed the door and locked it. "They work don't they?" She grinned across the roof of the car. "You're here, aren't you?"

"Against my better judgment," Daphne admitted, following her friend across the street to the group marching in a tight circle in front of the center.

She recognized a few faces from the day before but there seemed to be more young people, more high school and college students, than there had been yesterday. Probably because it was a Saturday, Daphne thought. The mood was different, too. More unsettled and rambunctious, more... rebellious. But that, too, was to be expected, she decided philosophically. Teenagers were more excitable than young mothers with children.

Someone handed Daphne a sign and she took it automatically, holding her arm away from her body as Sunny tied a black armband around her biceps.

The protesters were chanting loudly, thrusting their placards into the air with youthful zeal. As she took her place in line and began marching, Daphne noticed a squad car parked halfway down the street. There were two uniformed policemen sitting inside, silently watching the proceedings, just as they had been yesterday.

"Stop vivisection now!" the protesters chanted. "Vivisection is murdering our pets!"

Daphne marched halfheartedly, head down as she mumbled the words of the chant, and wondered how soon she could slip away without incurring Sunny's wrath. Giving in to Sunny's expert manipulations, she decided, had been a rotten, cowardly idea. She should have stayed home and watched cartoons.

The protesters continued to march, becoming louder and more rowdy with each passing minute. They began to jostle each other in their zeal. Daphne looked up from her morose contemplation of the cracks in the sidewalk. There was real anger in some of the faces around her; several pairs of eyes glowed with an idealistic fervor. This protest was more than just something to do on a Saturday afternoon for most of these people, Daphne realized, her eyes on the faces of those closest to her. To many of the young protesters this was obviously a sacred crusade.

A twinge of uneasiness curled in her stomach and she glanced toward the parked police car. It was still there. One of the officers had gotten out of the car and was standing by the open door, radio in hand. Somewhat relieved by their reassuring presence, Daphne nevertheless scanned the crowd of angry protesters for Sunny. Police or not, she wanted to go home.

Suddenly, someone hurled a brick through the front window of the research center. Glass went flying in every direction. Several people fell to the ground, protecting their heads with crossed arms. A woman screamed. Protest signs clattered to the sidewalk. A police siren blared.

Daphne's first instinct was to run. To drop her sign and join the scattering crowd as it fled for safety. But she couldn't move. She just stood there, frozen, feeling for a moment as if she had slipped back in time. Another brick sailed through the half-shattered window, flinging more glass, breaking the spell that held her captive. She started to turn away, looking for Sunny, when someone grabbed her wrist. The hold was not ungentle but not careful, either. She jerked away, startled, and dropped her sign.

"Come on now, lady. You don't want to add resisting arrest to the rest of it, do you?"

Cold steel clamped around her wrist and Daphne looked up into the eyes of a uniformed policeman.

"But I didn't... I wasn't..." Her free hand gestured wildly as she tried to explain that she wasn't really involved. The policeman reached out, capturing it in his hand, turning her expertly, cuffed her hands behind her back. "Now wait just a minute," she said, becoming frightened and, thus, angry. "I don't have anything to do with this. I was just—"

He gave her a little shove, urging her toward the police paddy wagon that had appeared on the scene. Another policeman stood by the open rear door, helping handcuffed protesters into the back.

"But I wasn't doing anything," she said plaintively, looking up at him with wide frightened eyes as he took her elbow to assist her into the paddy wagon.

"Tell it to the judge," he said unsympathetically, turning away to assist the next prisoner.

Daphne fell back onto the hard bench seat, looking down at the floorboards in frightened bewilderment.
This can't be happening,
she thought wildly. She was all grown up now, an adult with a responsible, successful career. Things like this didn't happen to people like her.

Someone jostled her and she glanced up as Sunny, her hands cuffed behind her back, stumbled into the seat across from her.

The panic in her eyes receded. "This is all your fault," she hissed, fury in their golden depths.

"My fault?" Somehow, handcuffs and all, Sunny managed to look indignant. "I didn't throw that brick." She grinned suddenly. "But I'd sure like to thank whoever did."

"What!"

"I said I'd like to thank whoever did," she repeated.

Daphne couldn't believe her ears. "Why, for God's sake?"

"Just think of all the publicity," Sunny said gleefully. "And I didn't have to do a thing."

"Except get us both arrested," Daphne said nastily.

The door to the paddy wagon clanged shut and Daphne closed her eyes, head back against the cold metal side as she tried to digest the fact that she had actually been arrested. Her body jerked forward, bumping the person next to her, and then back again as the paddy wagon started to move. Daphne's eyes flew open. "Oh, my God! The publicity!"

"What? What is it?" Sunny leaned forward, alarmed at the look on her friend's face.

"This is going to make the papers, isn't it? And the evening news?"

"I sure hope so."

A hysterical little laugh escaped her. "Adam is going to bust a gut," she said.

Chapter 13

The handcuffs were removed as soon as they got to the police station. Daphne rubbed her wrists, surprised there were no bruises, and looked around her with wide eyes.

She had only been in a police station once before, that time when she had tried to hit that TV cameraman over the head with her protest sign. She hadn't liked it then. She didn't like it now. The place was drab and depressing and frightening. It was crowded and too hot and it smelled from the press of too many bodies in too small a space.

Uniformed police officers moved through the throng of people, doing their jobs as efficiently as possible. Men and women in street clothes sat on the hard wooden benches smoking or drinking coffee or staring into space, looking scared or defiant or bored, depending on their temperament—and their reason for being there. A young woman in a too-short blue dress stood in front of the sergeant's desk, crying as she tried to explain something. And the newly arrived protesters milled around in a sort of helpless confusion, waiting to be told what to do.

"Hey, man, when do I get my phone call?" someone wanted to know.

"Just as soon as you've been booked."

"Yeah?" The questioner was a young man, intent on showing everybody just how scared he wasn't. "And when will that be?"

"Just as soon as we can get around to it," the policeman said, bored. "Now, all of you, find yourselves a seat over there somewhere and sit down. It's going to be a long day."

Daphne did as she was told, sitting down between Sunny and a little old man in a red beret who appeared to be sound asleep.

"God, this brings back memories, doesn't it?" Sunny said in her ear. Her tone was halfway between disgust and nostalgia.

"Ones I'd just as soon forget," Daphne said dryly.

"Yeah, now that you mention it..." Sunny's voice was confiding. "Me, too."

"How long do you think we'll be here?"

"I don't know. Hours probably." Sunny gestured with one hand, her dark red nails gleaming. "All these bodies to process through the system."

And it was hours. One by one, they were booked, searched, fingerprinted and photographed like common criminals. Daphne, standing stock-still as brisk, impersonal hands ran up and down her body, had never been so humiliated in her life. The charges, they were informed by the arresting officer, were disorderly conduct and criminal mischief, both misdemeanors. Then, finally, a judge arraigned them, setting bail at two hundred dollars apiece, payable they were told, in cash. No checks, no credit cards. Neither Daphne nor Sunny had that much on them.

"Now what happens?" Daphne asked hesitantly.

"You can call someone to come down with the money," an officer told her. "A family member or friend, if you've got one. Or you can call a bail bondsman. There's a phone book by the telephone there."

"And in the meantime?"

"In the meantime you wait in the tank."

The tank was segregated by sex, one for men, one for women. It was the worst place Daphne had ever been in her life. She hadn't experienced it during her one other brush with the law. That time, because it was her first offence and she had no record, the bail had been lower, and the organizers of the protest had been right there to pay it.

This time Daphne was made to suffer the indignity of having her valuables taken from her before she went into the tank. Her gold chains, her earrings, her watch and the contents of her pockets—a total of fifteen dollars and eighteen cents—were surrendered to the bored-looking officer behind the desk and sealed into little plastic bags that could be reclaimed, she was told, when she left the station. And then, finally, the two women were allowed their phone call.

"I got hold of Brian," Sunny said. She sat down on the bench next to Daphne, huddling close as she looked around at the other occupants of the tank. "God, will you look at these women," she whispered, her brown eyes big as saucers. "Have you ever seen such a sorry-looking bunch of losers in your life?"

"Was he mad?"

"Who? Brian?" Sunny shuddered dramatically. "Are you kidding? I could feel the steam coming right through the telephone wire."

"But he's coming to get us, isn't he?" Daphne asked hopefully.

"He said he ought to let us stew for a while but, yes, he's coming to get us." She patted Daphne's hand comfortingly. "Are you sure you don't want to call Adam? You still have your one phone call."

Daphne shook her head. "I don't want to bother him at the hospital."

"He's probably not at the hospital anymore, Daphne. We've been in this hellhole since eleven-thirty this morning. That's—" she glanced down, forgetting that her watch had been surrendered to the desk sergeant"—well, several hours, anyway. He's probably home by now, and worried sick. You know what a worrier he is. Maybe you'd better take your one phone call and let him at least know where you are."

"I left a note taped to the refrigerator telling him I'd gone out with you for a little while."

"Oh,
that'll
put his mind at ease."

Brian arrived at the station forty minutes later. He wasn't nearly so angry as Sunny had indicated. In fact, he seemed to have cooled off enough to see the funny side of things. Adam, however, apparently didn't see anything funny in the situation at all.

"I didn't tell Brian to call him," Sunny whispered as the two women were led out of the holding tank. "Honest. Brian must have thought of it all by himself."

"Well, well, if it isn't the two little jailbirds," Brian said teasingly. But he took his wife in his arms and hugged her hard. "Are you all right?" he said against her hair.

"Fine, now that you're here," Sunny replied. Her voice was just the tiniest bit shaky as she clung to Brian, hiding her face in his shoulder for a moment.