Scarlet
I make myself a massive cup of coffee and sit in my living room, which even after years of living here is still hotel-like, with clean, bare walls, a clean floor, and a clean, neat everything. I have a cleaner who keeps the place looking like this, which is good, since if I had to do it it’d be a mess. But it also has the unintended consequence of making me feel like I don’t belong here. The only personal touches are my gun and badge resting on the coffee table and my FBI certificate on the plain wall.
I take my cup of coffee to the window and look down upon the city, which is covered in a fine layer of ice. Ice creeps up the window and in the street below I see an old woman hobbling over the ice, picking her steps carefully. I drain my cup of coffee and try not to think about Cor. It seems every day lately has been spent trying not to think about Cor. I have loads to occupy my mind that isn’t Cor-related, and yet I still drift to him, unable to stop myself, unable to keep from wondering where he is and what he’s doing.
I drive to the FBI offices, scanning the sidewalk and imagining that I see Cor’s face in every random passerby. A man huddling under a doorway who looks nothing like Cor miraculously becomes him. A man helping his daughter across the street has Cor’s eyes. The guy who lets me into the parking lot is Cor’s twin. I park my car and tell myself to stop this, but I can’t. Those two weeks with Cor were the most transformative weeks of my life. Not even my time at the academy affected me so profoundly. The more I think about it, the more certain I am that I fell in some kind of love with Cor: a quick, sexual, violent kind of love. Being on the run with him, pulling a gun on him, and then spending a few days at Moira’s ... it shouldn’t be enough, and yet with the weight of our years of working together behind it, it’s more than enough to make me crazy. I swallow, forcing those feelings down. I have work to do.
My first order of business is a meeting with Max Smithson to update him on the progress of my investigation into Mickey’s mob, which has now established itself in prostitution, hard drugs, and murder. Dad and I decided over a month ago, based on what evidence dad was able to pick up—eye witnesses who’d seen Max and Mickey together and agents in Cali who’d had suspicions for some time—that Max Smithson was working for Mickey. But we haven’t got enough to bring him in, and anyway, it might not even be to our benefit. All it would do is tip Mickey off.
Walking through the office and telling myself to stop being stupid when I see Cor in the face of every agent, young or old, I make my way toward his office.
When I knock, I hear him shuffling around some papers, drawers opening and closing. Part of me wants to barge in to see what he’s hiding, but that’d ruin everything. I have to pretend to be Agent O’Bannon, the woman who was missing for a week because she was conducting an independent investigation into the mob and the woman who is now leading an additional investigation. It makes my skin crawl to know that the only reason Smithson is allowing this investigation to continue is so he can report to his boss. I wonder how it would feel to break the man’s jaw. Then he clears his throat and calls, “Come in.”
His jowls have grown larger this autumn, and he drums his fingers on the desk with more anger, but otherwise he’s the same big, dark-eyed man sitting in an oversized chair. He waves for me to sit in the chair opposite, leaning back and looking like an oil man or a business man, but not an FBI agent. I half expect him to ask me about the markets when he opens his mouth.
“So, Agent O’Bannon, my files tell me you have been conducting this investigation from late summer. It is almost winter—Christmas is in a few weeks. I know this because my wife won’t stop prattling on about it. You know how women can get—it is almost winter, and you haven’t turned up any substantial leads or made any arrests.”
Of course I haven’t, I want to scream at him. If I had, you’d have me fired or killed. “I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t hear a question.” I make sure my veil of professionalism is impenetrable. He’s searching me with his eyes, as he always does when he calls me in for these meetings, but I won’t give him anything. Max Smithson is the only man who doesn’t remind me, at all, of Cor. I’m glad for that.
“A question.” He chuckles throatily. “Here’s a question, Agent O’Bannon. What is the progress of your investigation? Do you have any leads?”
“We are following several different lines of—”
“Don’t feed me that FBI horseshit!” Max Smithson’s face gets red and he slams his fist down on the table. A superior has every right to be frustrated when those under him don’t deliver, but reacting like this, with this much open rage, is bizarre. At least it would be, if I didn’t know he was scared of Mickey. The coward. “I want to know who you plan on arresting, where, and when!”
“Sir,” I say, my tone of voice reminding me of a customer service representative dealing with a problematic customer. “I’m afraid I can’t go into specifics, as I would only be wasting your time. The details are constantly shifting. The parameters of the investigation are constantly moving.” I hardly listen to the exact words. All I’m trying to do is get out of the office. I can’t trust my boss; I’m not even sure which of my co-workers I can trust. All I know is that, one day soon, this needs to end, so that Cor can come out of hiding and so that I can see him again. I won’t arrest you, I want to tell him. I want you.
“Agent O’Bannon.” He leans forward, scowling at me as though I’m a slug he’s just found blocking his drainpipe—as though I’m the lowest of the low. “You are being deliberately obstructive.”
“I apologize if you feel that way, sir,” I say, showing no sign that I acknowledge his anger. “But I can only repeat what I have said before. We are following several different lines of inquiry.”
“I think you should leave now, Scarlet.” He spits my name, his jowls shaking.
I want to spit something back at him, to tell him he’s just a worm and a scumbag who’s working for a man who hits children and sells women. But any anger I feel stays in my bones, far away from my face. I nod, smile, and stand up. “Thank you, sir,” I say in my politest voice.
I go to my desk and get on with some paperwork, looking around the office and wondering which of these men and women can be trusted. Any one of them could be watching me and reporting back to Mickey. I wonder about Mickey, too—about how he’s evaded us for this long. We’ve had tips and reports on him, but every time we get there, he’s gone. It might be time to enact our other plan soon.
At lunchtime I check my cell and see that I’ve got two texts from Moira, although her name isn’t Moira in my phone. The first text from Inner City Dry Cleaning is asking me if I’m still coming over for lunch. The second is demanding that I still come over for lunch.
When Moira and her congressman boyfriend broke up, dad and I decided that it would be for the best if we took her out of college for a semester and put her up in witness protection housing. It would come in handy if we ever needed to enact our plan, which was looking more and more likely, but also it meant that she would be safe from Mickey. Without her boyfriend’s private army, she was more vulnerable than ever. I leave the office and go to my car, but I don’t drive straight to the apartment we’ve secured for her. I drive a course around the city, watching my rear and looking for anybody who might be tailing me. When I’m convinced I’m not being followed, I drive out to Hell’s Kitchen, stop my car a few blocks down the street, and duck into an alleyway. Maybe these precautions are over the top, but when you’re dealing with somebody who will hurt children, you can’t take any chances on what he’ll do to adults.
Finally, around an hour after I left the office, I’m riding the elevator to the top floor. I keep telling myself that I’m taking such pains with Moira because one day she might come in useful, but I know that’s only half of it. The other half is the dead girl in my dreams with maggots in her eyes. The other half is redemption. When I knock on the door—a secret knock only dad and I know—Moira throws it open, a book in her hand, as there often is, and her other hand raised for a hug.
We embrace, then she leads me across the room. She’s been here for only a couple of months, yet it has more character than my place: books scattered everywhere, a poster of the original cover for The Great Gatsby, and a gaming console with games scattered over the table.
She leads me to the couch, and we sit side by side near a miniature space radiator that blows air onto our legs. Sitting there, watching her with her feet tucked under her bum and her hands worrying at her blanket, I feel a pang, like I always do when I visit her. It’s not fair, I know, to keep seeing Tess when I look at her. But, then, it’s not fair to keep seeing Cor everywhere I go. I’m starting to learn that my mind doesn’t care about what’s fair or not.
“Any news?” she asks, as she does every time.
I shake my head. “I’ve got feelers out for him, but he hasn’t been spotted. New York’s a big place, especially when nobody will talk. I’ve had a few mob members asked, but of course they’ve said nothing. He could be in New York, he could be in Texas, or he could be in Uganda for all I know.”
“Or he could be dead. That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it? Thinking, but not saying because it will upset me.”
The word dead sends chills through my body. I think of Cor lying there, covered in blood and never knowing how much I truly cared for him. “Don’t say that, Moira. He’s alive. Nothing could kill Cor.”
“My dad used to hold me over his head when I was little. He’d hold me in the sky, and I would hold my arms at my sides, like this.” She drops her blanket to demonstrate. “And for the longest time I believed I was really flying. I always thought that nothing could hurt this man—not if he could make me fly. How could anything hurt a man who knew how to fly, you know?” She grows quiet, dropping her arms. “But it did. Cor is tough. I know that. Everybody knows that. But just because he’s tough, doesn’t mean he’s invincible.”
“I know,” I say quietly. “I tell you what. I’ll call dad when I leave. Maybe he’ll have some news.”
I don’t hold out much hope for that, but what else can I tell her? And maybe, just maybe, dad might have something for me today. He’s been coordinating with agents he says he trusts, so perhaps he might really have something soon.
“Do you miss him?” Moira asks.
“Of course I do.” The strength of my words surprises me. I think about telling her about the dream, but I don’t. Some things are best kept private. “I think about him every day,” I say instead, which is true, without cutting too close to the bone.
“I bet he thinks about you, too,” Moira says. “Wherever he is and whatever he’s doing, I bet he thinks about you all the time.”
“He’s angry with me,” I mutter, looking down at my hands because looking into Moira’s face is like looking into the face of my past. “I want to find him so I can let him know I’d never hurt him. He has to know that.”
“He will. We’ll see him again.”
“I hope so.”
Out in the street, walking toward my car, I call dad. He answers with a terse, “Yes?”
“Any news on the Irishman?” I ask. We can’t use names, just in case somebody is listening.
“Yes,” Dad says. “Meet me at the place with the green bench.”
I drive to a corner near my apartment building, where a red bench sits opposite a park. Sitting there with a book in my hand that I hardly even look at, I wait for dad. He drops into the seat next to me with a sigh, turns to me without smiling, and tells me, “He was seen near at a bar a few blocks over from the docks. Might be he’s staying at the docks. Might be he was just passing through. Could be worth checking into, though.”
“Okay. I’ll do that.”
We watch each other for a moment. I think of my dream and of his cutting words. For years after that scene in the car, I couldn’t be around dad without feeling horribly guilty. I would think of his question and the disbelief in his voice. The word ‘shore’ still makes me flinch.
“Get to it, then,” he says. He’s halfway to his car when he stops, stands still for a few seconds, and then turns around. Standing over me, he says, “You’re doing a good job, Scarlet.”
With that, he leaves.
It’s not much, but it’s something.