The Exceptions

NINE


The plan materialized later that night, after two full cycles of food consumption, after a few rounds of drinks to ease anxiety and inspire the imagination, after the team had been reduced to seven. The list was created; targets were matched to various members of the crew. I managed to convince everyone to leave Melody to me and me alone, the only person I’d been tapped to tap.

We were dispatched, and within twenty-four hours a few kills were completed, the easy ones, with the intent that it would catch the feds off guard. But the real essence of the plan was this: We knew the hits would subdue the raging tide of other witnesses, create a flurry of doubt that the feds could really protect them the way they had certainly been promised. We were richer in the currency of fear than the feds; we had to abide by far less rules. And as my father and brothers explained, the point could be no better exemplified than through the death of one of their already protected witnesses: Melody Grace McCartney. Do my job, I was told, and the rest of the pieces would fall in place.

And just like that: My hit became the most valuable.

The first witnesses were having their splayed bodies traced with chalk around the time I left for Columbia, a delay required to get things in order with Sylvia; my head chef, Ryan, was slowly becoming the general manager as it was, what with all of my recent random departures to places unknown (but with locales always resolving to suburban Baltimore).

I’d slept little, managed only to squeeze in a shaveless shower before taking to the highways in the predawn darkness. The first opportunity to assemble a plan came as I was exiting the Holland Tunnel. I had four hours to put something together. And as I rode down the New Jersey Turnpike toward I-95, I couldn’t stop looking in my rearview mirror for someone from our crew—or from the federal government.

Whatever plan I’d hoped might surface showed no sign of appearing even as I broke the line of the Keystone State. Then again, what choice did I really have?

“Hi, Melody. Sorry for breaking in but let me explain. Yeah, I’m the guy you’re on the run from, but look, here’s the thing…”

I had to keep reminding myself of the soul of the plan as it first came to my mind: Win her. The actions to match that sentiment did not come as I’d hoped, likely due to my having never considered this option; I’d spent my adult life determined to avoid getting in contact with her, from ever revealing who I was, how I was responsible for the way her life had turned out, for the way her life hadn’t turned out.

As I broke the Delaware line, I started to ponder the solution to the second part of my problem: Assuming I could gain Melody’s trust, what was I to do with her?

Tell her to run? She was doing that already, and other than me, no one was pursuing her. But if someone else put Gardner to work the way I did, she’d be taken out within twelve hours.

Tell her to come with me? Where, exactly, would we be going?

As the exit for Rising Sun, Maryland, came into view, the only thing I could sense rising was rage, a burn in my stomach derived from the ridiculous life I lived, forced into (supposedly) putting a bullet into an innocent woman because of nothing more significant than happenstance. And with the rage came a clouding of ideas, my mind preoccupied and disconnected.

As I drove half the circumference of the Baltimore Beltway, I noticed my heart pounding harder, my seat belt holding it back like a weight belt, could feel the beat of blood through my temples.

I’d started pushing the ideas to the front of my mind with such force that each one arrived broken and disabled. The closer I got to Columbia, at that point seven miles from Melody’s apartment, the less I had in my arsenal of possibilities.

And as I wound through the streets that led me to her building, as the suburb stretched and yawned and came to life, I decided I’d use my last remaining time, the final moments as I staked out her apartment, to draw a conclusion, a final scheme.

Except.

Except I pulled into her complex distracted—distracted by the pair of black Ford Explorers with dark windows and meaty wheels that followed me in. I might as well have waved to them: I dropped under the speed limit, a certain signal I was doing something wrong, my New York license plates as hard to avoid noticing as a chancre sore. The massive vehicles were on my tail for too long, inspired me to turn down a different row of apartment buildings—any direction but toward Melody—and when I did, they kept on going, gunning their engines toward some other destination. My instinct suggested they were rushing to box off the exits; my reaction was to keep drifting along in second gear, pretend I was looking for some other address. I drove in a figure eight around two unconnected buildings.

One minute passed. Nothing.

I poked the nose of the Audi out into the lane of the next apartment building like a cat sniffing the scent of an unrecognized animal.

Two minutes. Nothing.

I pulled out a half car length farther to get a look; everything appeared docile. I let the car slowly float forward, had to tell myself to breathe. I sat on the verge of something: capturing Melody, being arrested, death.

As I reached the end of the row of apartments, I gunned the engine and flew between the two rows like a soldier running from tree to tree to avoid gunfire. And when I got to the other side, I crept around to the corner of Melody’s building, pulled the car out of gear, and glided along in neutral, attempting silence.

And sure enough, the Explorers sat running and idle in front of her building, the vehicles empty but for the drivers.

Three minutes. Nothing.

Then with a burst through the glass door at the bottom of her apartment came three large men, suited and armed: U.S. marshals. And in the center of their triangle walked Melody, cloaked in a bulletproof vest so large it overlapped the waist of her jeans, hung on her like a football jersey, a small garbage bag in her hand that appeared almost empty.

Two of the men pushed Melody into the backseat of the first SUV, flanked her on each side; the other man got into the passenger side of the second SUV. Both engines raced and their exhaust hung in the air as they disappeared out of the complex and onto the road that led to Columbia Pike.

And as I waited ten seconds, then zoomed from the parking lot in an effort to follow them, my heartbeat was hardly as noticeable as the word echoing through my brain: Why?



The three of us—two Explorers and one red sports car—raced down Columbia Pike, onto Maryland Route 32 for a few miles, then onto I-95, heading north toward Baltimore. Whenever I followed Melody it seemed I was always retracing my steps, always going backward. I flipped on my sunglasses and ball cap and punched the accelerator. And as the SUVs briefly separated in an effort to slide over a lane on the interstate, I just barely made out each license plate, the only unique identifiers of these nondescript government vehicles.

J21275

J21263

I didn’t have the time (or concentration) to come up with a foolproof pattern for the tags the way I did with Melody’s parents’ Oldsmobile. My best effort at seventy miles per hour: Both tags started with 212, the original area code for New York. Beyond that, the easiest thing to do was repeat the last two digits of each tag over and over in my head until recalling them became second nature. Sixty-three, seventy-five, sixty-three, seventy-five.

All of my experience shadowing Melody came into full utilization, felt like a series of preseason games in preparation for this championship event. I was tailing the feds now, following the very enemies who waited and watched my family from dark Chevrolets in plain sight, for little other reason than to let us know we were being watched; Pop would occasionally send out a plate of bucatini all’amatriciana for them. And now that they had Melody in their possession, I hated them even more. Neither Melody nor the marshals keeping her had any understanding of how unsafe she really was.

I’d become her only hope of holding on to life.



I’d long since mastered the art of keeping a safe distance—the perfect distance—from the car in my crosshairs. Highways remained easy space to navigate; cities were another story. Traffic lights repeatedly posed a problem, creating potential gaps that could last more than a block. Not to mention the obvious intrusions: other drivers cutting you off, delivery trucks blocking traffic, short stops that had me right on top of Melody’s car.

So as I followed them down into the center of Baltimore, right in the middle of the skyscrapers, my hands began to sweat; I knew if I lost her then, I’d likely lose her. Her life depended on my ability to stay right on the tail of those government vehicles.

Then, the inevitable: We wound down an alley darkened and cooled by a lack of sun, a strip of pavement where natural light had not shone down since those towers were erected. They slowed behind a smaller ten-story building. I waited farther back as they came to a stop at a rear entrance for a gated parking garage. With a swipe of a badge, both SUVs disappeared into the mouth of the garage, and the teeth of the gate quickly closed. Once they were out of sight, I gunned it down the alley, slowed enough to read the small sign identifying the garage as belonging to the Garmatz Federal Courthouse. I suppose one way or another I was destined to be brought to the feet of such a building.

I didn’t move, every sense aware, my car waiting for instructions. I stared at the sign for some answer. What could I do? Go find a parking garage and wander back over to the courthouse and hang out, hope I run into Melody in an elevator?

Had I formulated a plan on my way down from New York, it would have gone dim. Were I not truly hunting her, here is where I would’ve returned home and shrugged, offered up a better luck next time attitude as I plunged a hunk of bread into whatever sauce my father had going in the kitchen. But if I returned home right then, it would have been certain doom for Melody. Gardner would probably get her new locale within a day or less, and the enough is enough attitude would have been paired with a seasoned killer fast on her heels. After all, this was business now, and Melody had shot back to being one of our top priorities.

So I did what any gambler would have done—Gardner would’ve been proud: I played the long shot. I parked my sore thumb of a car between two other red vehicles in a parking lot reserved for the medical center behind the courthouse, in a space reserved for a Dr. Bajkowski, and waited for one or both of those Explorers to emerge from the gated garage adjacent to my parked position. I figured the odds of the marshals moving Melody out of Baltimore in the same vehicle in which they’d brought her in were about the same as them transporting her by way of the same marshal: maybe four to one.



An hour of nothing and I called Gardner, figured I’d milk him for any possible data that might offer some direction. Or hope.

“Give me anything you’ve got on this transition plan,” I said.

He gave me this meld of a grunt and sigh, then said, “Hold on.”

Three minutes passed along with a series of clicks, and when he came back on the line a hum draped his words, as though he was sitting next to an air conditioner. Then, as if I had just said the words, “What do you mean transition plan?”

“She’s on the move.”

“Geez,” he said, loud enough I was certain he was alone, “can’t wait till someone unloads a clip into that stupid scag.”

I tightened my fist around my steering wheel, decided not to remind him her life was the only thing guaranteeing his. “Where is she going?”

“You know I wouldn’t know that yet.”

“What can you tell me? And what is that friggin’ noise?”

“I came down to the server room. I’m using a wall phone and the administrator ID and password, so no one knows who is logging in to the database, so no one could ever track this call to me. And I can’t tell you much. You know that.”

“How about the vehicle transporting her? License plates? Anything?”

“We’ve had this conversation before. Everything here is compartmentalized. I don’t have access to any of that data.”

I stared at the gate, blanked out. “This is a bad time to become useless.”

“What’s the big deal? The information will get updated a few days after she arrives at her new destination.” I could hear him tapping the keyboard, mumbling to himself. “Only thing that might be useful is the name of the marshal assigned to her. Sean Douglas.”

I sat up. “What else? What does he look like? Experience level?”

“No, this is just personnel data. I can tell you he’s thirty-three, birthday is October thirtieth, makes about fifty-three K a year. Lives in Towson, Maryland. Unmarried.”

Randall blathered on with more subpar data, then mentioned something about the Red Sox and coming up short. Something about covering his losses. So the cycle would go for pathetic Randall. I was stuck on the grainy information I had about this marshal, my new foe. An unmarried guy making fiftysomething a year to protect people—certainly a better deal for protection than you might get from my family—could mean only one thing: I was dealing with a true believer.

Yeah, well… so was he.



I remained in that position for eight hours, the car on and ready. I idled through a quarter tank of gas, survived on one bottle of water and two packs of cigarettes, completed all the tasks I could with stuff from my glove compartment: flipped through my CDs, read through my user manual for the Audi, shaved my face with my near-dead electric razor—a decided benefit after looking in my rearview and realizing just how scary and intimidating I looked with a shadow.

Dr. Bajkowski never showed. I kept hoping he or she was buried safely in a kidney or heart transplant.

And over the course of that time, four different black Explorers left that parking garage, windows so dark you’d need X-ray vision to determine the cargo. They could have been simply taking the SUVs out to get serviced; or taking some politicians or federal judges home; or transporting some other witnesses, some other sad sacks who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Or: They could have been taking Melody right out from under me.

More than once I doubted if I should follow any of those Explorers. But like Gardner, I was playing the long shot, and as I’m sure he would’ve counseled me, the only way to win big is to risk big.



The depression set in around the time the evening rush hour came to a close. The flurry of activity around that parking garage as people left at the end of the workday kept my attention. But once the sun set, so did my expectations. I could see through the grate of the gate that the deck was mostly empty. I became increasingly convinced that Melody had left hours earlier in one of the other Explorers. All I had to show for my day was exhaustion and hunger and a cramp in my lower back that wouldn’t find relief until I returned to New York with my head in my hands.

But just after six o’clock, a pair of black Explorers left the garage in tandem, and one of the license plates matched an SUV I’d just tailed hours earlier: J21263. I had two seconds to decide: Wait for the other vehicle to emerge later, since the other one did the leading last time and likely carried the cargo I was after, or follow this pair and hope and pray Melody rode inside. For all I knew, Melody might not be transported for days, might take a long time to regroup and get her ready to relo, but the fact that two Explorers were traveling together—the first time that had recurred since I arrived at the courthouse—coupled with the familiar license plate, I didn’t really need to engage in decision making; instinct had me put the car in gear.

And so I followed them, knowing the chance I was taking was my last.



We wound southward through the city of Baltimore in a manner suggesting they were following some playbook pattern to prevent tailing, weaving through a maze of exit ramps and roads that changed names; thankfully, I made a lot of green lights. Had my car not had the acceleration and handling it did, they might’ve shaken me.

My anxiety dropped as we merged onto the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, then spiked again at the thought we might be headed for Washington, DC, that whatever rode in those SUVs was just being transported from one courthouse to another.

But halfway down the parkway, we returned to Maryland Route 32 and started heading toward Annapolis. Route 32 ended onto I-97, which we followed to its end six miles later, and as the only choices at the end of the interstate were to go east to Annapolis or west to DC, the SUVs split, each going in opposite directions. I wasn’t sure if they were following some procedure for throwing off a tail or if it was just coincidence, but the event put a distinct amount of doubt in my head.

The only choice to be made was the obvious one: I followed J21263.

We exited onto U.S. Route 50 and started driving directly east, right for the Atlantic. Though around the time we reached Salisbury, Maryland, and merged onto U.S. Route 13 on our way down the Delmarva Peninsula, I started picking up a middle-of-nowhere vibe perfectly suited to someone on the run, slapped my hand on the steering wheel at my increasingly likely win; my horse was coming from behind on the final turn.

This location, if not her final stop, should have been added to some future list back at Justice. The Delmarva Peninsula hangs off the mainland of the central Atlantic coast like a clump of hair that has broken free of a barrette, so widely separated by the Chesapeake Bay that it cascades down three states (Delaware, Maryland, Virginia). There is no simple way to get here; you have to go around or over things: to the top of Delaware and down, cross in the middle at Maryland’s Bay Bridge as I had, or up from the very bottom at Virginia’s Bay Bridge-Tunnel outside of Norfolk. That makes it perfect for hiding.

On the other hand, it makes it hard to get out, too. If the feds wanted to choke-point any fleeing villains, they’d only have three points they needed to choke.

Just past ten that night, the lone Explorer pulled into a Sheetz gas station not far past the Virginia state line. I waited until it stopped near the convenience store, then I pulled alongside an eighteen-wheeler at the other end. My un-Bovaroesque car, far more noticeable in a small-town environment, became progressively more troublesome to camouflage.

That stop served as my only opportunity to replenish water, cigs, and something—anything—to eat. I slipped out, still wearing my ball cap, my head tipped down, and stood by the front of the eighteen-wheeler as though I were its pilot. The Explorer remained running and idle, and only after a minute did someone emerge: a single, bulked-up marshal who looked like he could’ve been my law-abiding and law-enforcing twin, right down to a baseball cap and heavy jacket and jeans. His walk, his sway as he surveyed his surroundings without so much as a twist of the neck, the way one hand always seemed semi-balled into a fist, his heavy footsteps, distinguished him from the other patrons. Assessing your adversary is not half the battle; it’s the entire thing. This guy was not Willie, not a toddler, not a hoodlum. Not someone I would take down with a single blow.

I waited a moment, hoping the marshal was merely checking out the convenience store before letting his traveler enter for a bathroom break. I needed to duck in and out as well, arm myself with the necessary objects to satisfy thirst and hunger and a fierce addiction to nicotine.

Through the glass, I watched the marshal turn a corner near the back of the store toward the restroom, where the length of his disappearance suggested he was using the facility rather than checking it out. He went through the store and grabbed several bottles of water and a few small packages of junk food, did so with a speed possible only by knowing their exact locations, as though the facility was more familiar to him than his own office. He rushed to the counter, paid, left.

As I heard the door slam on the Explorer, now certain Melody (or whoever) was not going to surface, I made my quick play for the convenience store, giving myself no more than a thirty-second delay so I could catch them again. I hustled in, grabbed an armful of junk: pretzels, chips, a trio of energy bars, two bottles of water—and rushed back to the front, tossed my items on the counter. But here is where the weight of addiction becomes so heavy you have no choice but to curse it; my speed was only as fast as the clerk opening the cabinet behind him to get my smokes.

The cashier, an older man dressed well enough to suggest he might be the owner, tossed four packs on the counter next to my pretzels, and just as I reached into my pocket for some cash, the marshal returned to the store. I tipped my head down so that my chin touched my jacket, pretended to count money. My twin walked to a specific spot with purpose, as though he’d left something behind. I held my money in my hand, faked peeling off bills while the fed surveyed a display; he was looking for a product, not a person. And as I slid two twenties across the counter, I could hear the marshal mumbling under his breath, complaining. All I understood was this: babysitter.

I nodded when the cashier offered to put all my stuff in a bag, my chin still pressed to my chest, cap down over my forehead, partly covered my face as I pretended to adjust my glasses. And as my purchases were bagged, the marshal made his way up front, the man who could take me down on the spot, legally put a bullet in my head if he judged me to be any threat at all, stood right behind me in line no less than eighteen inches away.

The cashier handed over my bag and change, thanked me; I did not respond, did not want my voice to be heard. I slowly turned around, and the marshal quickly slid up, nearly bumped into me he was in such a hurry to pay. And as I pretended to check the contents of my bag, I tilted my head to catch a glimpse of the lone product in the marshal’s hand.

Hostess Orange CupCakes.

I caught and held my breath like I was about to dive into a pool, and though I bolted from that store, my movements tight and swift, those seconds felt like slow motion. Walking back to my car, I looked over my shoulder at the blackened windows of the Explorer parked no more than a snowball’s throw away, knowing Melody was nearly in my grip.

And as I turned the ignition of the Audi, I empathized with Randall, for there is an undeniable rush that comes from having played the long shot and knowing it’s about to pay off.



I followed them another hour south on U.S. Route 13, rode through enough small towns to feed the Justice Department a decade’s worth of addresses for protected witnesses: Temperanceville, Accomac, Melfa—I couldn’t tell you where they began and ended, if they began and ended. We stopped again just before the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, pulled into a shabby-looking two-story motel that looked like its heyday came and went before I was born, that nothing had been updated since, not the paint, the sign, definitely not the parking lot. The building sat so close to the bay that you could see the water shining in the moonlight, smell the salt and rotting sea life, taste it in the air. The strip of beach at the edge of the property glowed like a bright beige stripe, three abandoned chairs stared out at the water at equidistant points.

The Explorer drove onto the crumbling pavement in front of what might’ve been considered the lobby of the motel, pulled forward next to another SUV that had been waiting for them. This particular vehicle was another Explorer—that must have been some deal Justice had with Ford—but it’d been given more attention: trim running along the doors thick enough to be bars, weird-looking roll bar on top, enormous wheels. Everything the marshals did, every swap of vehicles, seemed planned, all part of some larger operation, some organized chaos developed to transport witnesses. I found it hard not to admire it.

Melody was the pea in the Marshals Service’s shell game.

I tucked my car at the edge of the building adjacent to where the Explorers rested, their engines still running. I reached under the passenger seat and pulled out a pair of binoculars, an item I’d purchased and chucked under there just after I bought the car, reserved for my pursuits of Melody, though never used.

But that night they were required; between the darkness and distance, I’d never make out any usable details. I pulled the lenses apart, removed my glasses, and pressed the binoculars to my sockets.

Two marshals surfaced, one from each SUV. They talked briefly—all business—then returned to their respective vehicles. The driver of the Explorer pulled his vehicle forward and parked in a space in a poorly lit area of the parking lot. A minute later, he turned the car off, got out, walked to the other SUV, and got in the passenger side.

Then they drove away, leaving J21263 by its lonesome.

And my greatest fear surfaced at what might remain under the shell: no pea.



I stared at that Explorer for five minutes, convinced Melody was still in there. I never saw anyone move her. On the other hand, I never saw her in the thing either, had no idea exactly what I was following. And if it weren’t for the orange cupcakes, I might’ve doubted the entire journey.

Then in the sixth minute: The driver’s side rear door opened and out stepped another marshal, one I hadn’t yet seen, a taller and thicker version of the previous marshal, who appeared to have stopped accompanying his partner to the gym a few years earlier, this one’s power being derived more from sheer size than muscle. The guy looked like management. The previous marshal had all the danger and potential of a butterfly knife; this one was simply a butter knife.

He surveyed the area with casual interest, then walked around to the passenger side and opened the rear door.

And Melody emerged.

For those first seconds, I forgot a marshal stood beside her. Her hair ran down the back of her neck, stopped before her collar. She wore clothes that had probably suited her at the start of the day, but now at the end she appeared disheveled. She looked almost alive.

From my distance it seemed either Melody was more petite than I remembered or that the marshal was enormous. It took me a second to assess them both, to determine what it would take to manipulate each of them should it ever come to physical means. While her protector looked around, Melody stared at the ground, and when he walked forward to the motel, she followed him like a child.

As they disappeared out of view along the side of the building, I pulled my car around to the far end of the motel and observed them walking down from the other end. The marshal seemed relatively on guard, looking behind all the hidden crevices of the facility—between vending machines, under the staircases, behind the shrubbery—with the level of interest he might have if he were teaching tactical techniques to a class of new recruits; he possessed all the passion of someone completing a checklist. And the entire time Melody’s eyes were fixed on the Bay Bridge-Tunnel, watched the cars and trucks crossing over with the sustained amazement of a little kid’s first visit to a large city, her head twisted as far as possible before having to turn around and walk backwards.

They moved down the sidewalk next to the doors of the rooms. Without knowing it, they shuffled closer and closer to my position, aimed directly at my grille. I turned off my car before they got any nearer, didn’t want my running engine to catch the marshal’s attention. A few steps farther, they paused in front of a set of rooms at the center of the motel, stood the distance of their rooms apart, each with a hand on the knob to their doors. I read the numbers on the doors of the rooms nearest me and counted up to determine their locations.

Melody: 130.

Marshal: 132.

They remained that way for a too-casual amount of time. I could see Melody’s face, her awkward smile as she made idle chat with him, a breeze making her bangs dance on her forehead as they spoke. She glanced inside a plastic grocery bag the marshal handed her, tipped her head at him like she was waiting for a hug that never came.

Then she opened the door to her room, and two things occurred that really bothered me. First, the marshal did not go in before Melody to scope out the room. It struck me as a significant misjudgment, as though the guy were more aloof than I’d imagined, that at some point he had stopped caring about his job—or this witness. But what bothered me more: Just before Melody stepped inside, she lunged forward and kissed the marshal on the cheek. The whole event seemed weird: the way she looked at him, the hope in her expression like she might finally be safe, his nonbusiness reaction of holding her hand for a moment and returning her glance. I was surprised at how much that scene concerned me. I wanted the other marshal back; despite his clear physical preparedness and attention to the mission at hand, at least I knew who my adversary was. With this guy, I didn’t know what I was getting, with all his hand-holding, his stroking-of-the-fur approach to protection, as though he could seduce her to safety. It annoyed me that he wasn’t paying closer attention. If my family was thinking I might not be up to the task of offing Melody, they could have sent someone else to find and kill her.

I needed the marshal to protect her as much as she did.

They walked into their motel rooms and closed their doors at the same time. I watched and waited, and with each passing minute my adrenaline waned, my heartbeat and breathing slowed. I opened a new pack of cigarettes, lit one, took a victory hit.

And this is how the race ended, my horse having pulled into first, crossed the line at the photo finish. There was only one thing left to do: Go to the winner’s circle and claim my wreath.



In those down moments I tried to consider what I would do with Melody. My instinct was to explain what had led me there, what had brought me to her life at that moment. Talk about a long story. I didn’t even have a fraction of the time required to enlighten her properly.

I progressed to the idea of telling her how the government operation was being jeopardized by an addicted employee, and that no matter where they relocated her, she would be found again within hours. But that would make her pass the information back to the marshal she seemed so enamored of, which would make its way back to Washington and permanently cut off our source, leaving her no safer.

The next option was to just get her out of there, explain that she was far safer on the run without government backing, that the least hazardous thing for her to do was run from everyone at once. But if she had lived in fear before, that lifestyle would have been a nosedive into an abyss of terror. And now that my father wanted her eliminated again, someone somehow would eventually find her; I couldn’t stall things any longer.

My final conclusion—the only remaining option, yet the hardest sell—came by way of a lesson taught to me by my father, by Peter, by Tommy Fingers, repeatedly drilled into my impressionable head as a kid: Confront your aggressors with aggression. But that night as I sat and formulated my plan, the cab of my car filled with smoke and salty air and lonely ideas, I put their advice into play, knowing the only possible way to grant Melody safety was the riskiest: I had to bring her right to my father’s feet, show him how innocent she was, that she could never pose a threat. I understood Pop’s human side like no one else, paid attention in those moments when he was buried in thought and concern, watched him darken as he used violence and revenge as a buckler against betrayal and rejection. My plan was to reach out and play on those emotions, to ask him to imagine seeing me at age five in a room with Melody as she is just learning to walk and speak her first words, ask him to fathom the idea that one day he would ask his little boy to put a bullet into that baby girl. I hoped and prayed he might not be able to betray her. That he might not be able to betray his own son.

Yet again, the fundamentality of Gardner’s life nudged its way into mine: To win big, you’ve got to risk big. And as I longed for a better solution, I knew my plan was her only shot at true freedom. And if it failed, her story would wind up with its original ending anyway.



I sat in my car noshing on an energy bar produced several seasons prior, washing each bite down with water, formulating what I would say when I approached her. I couldn’t exactly walk in and say, “Now listen, don’t yell for the marshal, but my name is Jonathan Bovaro. I’m not going to hurt you.” I couldn’t think of an approach more surely to elicit a scream. The only thing Melody could reasonably expect from me was violence, and I knew gaining her trust would require me to be true to who I was; I’d have to begin with fear, move backward toward apprehension, and hope to somehow land at dependence. I couldn’t allow myself to be distracted from the reason I was there: Remove Melody from false safety and deliver her to permanent freedom and security. I was not there to win her heart or save her soul. She was just a little girl who’d fallen down a well and gotten stuck, and I had come to offer her a hand to finally pull her out.

Yet my greatest weakness that night was my greatest strength: I knew I would have to scare her. Over the span of my thirty-year life, she’d been a distant part of it for twenty, and in all those years she and I had never looked into each other’s eyes and connected, never communicated, never shared a thought or idea between us. When the moment came, unlike at the gas station, there would be no way for her to look through me. And to know that the first time she’d read my eyes and mind would be under the guise of violence broke my heart.



Just past midnight, I slipped on a thin pair of leather gloves and stepped out of the car, carefully made my way to the darkest side of the nearly abandoned motel and walked up to a strip of rooms sheltered by the shadow of the stairwell to the second floor, recalled all those slow summer evenings with Peter and Gino as teenagers, the wagers we would place on who could break into a building the fastest—first our own family’s, then the neighborhood stores; we rarely stole anything, derived more enjoyment from rearranging things (turning all the cans upside down, emptying the refrigeration units, significantly dropping prices) and then relocking the place. Beating Peter was nearly impossible, but the attempts sharpened our skills.

Once I’d selected the vacant room I’d be utilizing for practice, I glanced at the door for a minute, shook my head in amazement that the Marshals Service would use old motels for hiding a witness; a large hotel with doormen and security cameras seemed brighter.

I pushed my weight against the door and could tell I’d be able to open it with a good shove, but force of any degree would not be the solution; when the time came, kicking Melody’s door in would mean a pistol pressed to the back of my neck within seconds. I pulled out my debit card and slid it down three times, each time catching on the lock and jamming. On my fourth attempt my card slid right in—and right behind the door, with it still locked. I whispered a rant of profanity I’ll refrain from repeating; I pressed my knee hard against the door until it snapped open with a metallic clang. I quickly grabbed my card and slid into the crevice of the stairwell, waited five minutes: nothing.

I returned to the practice room, relocked it, and started again. It took me six minutes to finally break in using my card.

The second time it took me one.

By my fifth try, I was getting inside within seconds.

I returned to my car and waited, tried to formulate a plan of action. No script came to mind to acquire her trust. I planned to enter, explain why I was there—then the hard part—explain why she would be safer with me, why my intentions were noble. And then… I would set her free. I would give her the option to run toward me or turn away. I would be the first one, the only one, ever to put her in control of her destiny, and I hoped the taste of freedom would linger and have her longing for a bigger drink. I wasn’t about to throw her in my car and insist the direction I was headed was the safest. It wasn’t. But I wanted her to want to come with me, not be dragged somewhere under duress, the modus operandi of the feds.

The risks on my end, though secondary, remained huge. Should I be captured I would take an enormous fall; tampering with a federal witness is a dark corner. I could only hope my father and our crew would understand my motives, that it might make them rethink things, and that I wouldn’t spend my life in prison mired in regret. But I was willing to take this risk if it meant finally freeing Melody.



I stared through the windshield of my car for a half hour, waiting for the heart of the night to come before taking action, watching the vehicles—mostly eighteen-wheelers at that hour—cross the bridge and pay their tolls, when an unexpected motion caught my attention. I glanced over to the long line of rooms and the marshal appeared, stepped out of his room, pulled out a cell phone, studied it like he was searching for a signal.

I slid down in my seat and watched as he walked toward the beach, his eyes on his phone instead of the ground. He must have connected, because he put the phone to his ear and held it in place by pressing his shoulder to the side of his head, propped his leg up on the bench of a broken picnic table under a cluster of large pine trees, took off his shoes and socks, and rolled up the bottoms of his pants.

He stood there for a few moments, talking, staring at the water of the Chesapeake, taking a few more steps toward it with each passing minute.

Ten minutes later, he’d reached the beach, a few hundred feet from the motel. I sat back up, pulled out my binoculars, and watched him chat, the occasional smile and chuckle denoting a personal conversation, which I interpreted as a call that would last longer than anything Justice-related.

Without realizing my actions I’d slipped the gloves over my hands again, put on my leather jacket—despite that warm May evening—to darken my body; I knew the moment would soon be upon me.

And as the marshal slowly sat down in the sand and gazed upon the moonlit water, phone still pressed to his ear, I tossed the binoculars aside. I slipped out of my car and quietly clasped the door, tightened my jacket around my body, left the car unlocked.

I dashed down the dark corridor to Melody’s room, hunched over and fast in my movements, pulled out my debit card as I got closer. I took a deep breath and held it, placed one hand on the knob, slid my card over the lock with the other, and quietly opened the door, slid in, and pulled it behind me.

Our two worlds, once hurtling toward one another, finally collided.

I stood in the corner and let my eyes adjust to the darkness, and when they finally focused through the grain of black and white, I could see the shape of Melody’s body balled up under the covers, could smell vinegary chemicals lingering in the air, the noise of the ventilator near the window humming loud enough to cover my steps.

Everything about who she was, all the innocence, the flesh and the spirit, was trapped under those blankets, and I hated myself for having to disrupt it, for having to toss her into a swirl of fear even if just for a minute.

I stepped toward the bed like a cat positioning to pounce, and with each footstep I could see more of her, watched as the covers rose and fell with each breath, then her nose move each time she inhaled.

All the risks, all the following, all the worrying, all the wonder, every thought I’d ever had about her collapsed like a black hole, and out the other end churned an energy as sharp and bright as a laser.

I closed my eyes and took the final step forward, close enough to reach down and kiss her on the lips, to smell the powdery scent of her skin. How gently I could have whispered in her ear, “I’m here to save you, Melody. You’ll never have to run again.”

Instead, I reached inside my jacket, pulled out a pen, and pressed the point to her neck with all the strength and intent of killing her.





FINCHÉ C’È VITA,

C’È SPERANZA

(AS LONG AS THERE IS LIFE,

THERE IS HOPE)





ONE


And then her body stops rising and falling, her nose stops moving.

She shivers and says this: “Ow.”

Through all of my years of anger and violence and fist-pounding, I can’t muster it here to save my life. There is no faking it. If only she knew: This is going to hurt me a lot more than it’s going to hurt you. I shake my head in disappointment with myself, quietly mumble, “Oh, sorry,” like I just blew a take on a movie set.

I stand up a little, loosen my grip on her neck, and whisper in her ear, “I’m gonna let you go. Do not scream. Do you understand?”

She shakes her head but I think she meant to nod, and as I release her, her fingers dance around her neck as though she’s expecting to find a small pool of blood. I pull back a few paces, ready to bolt if she begins screaming; I can only hope that capturing her and so quickly freeing her will provide for a temporary form of trust. Or at least confusion.

As I watch her rub her neck through the grain, see her shake and hear her breathe and force back a nervous cry, I can tell she peed herself. And now I know I could never understand the degree of terror and trepidation she must have been living with day after day for two decades. I stand ashamed; through all my years of despicable behavior I have never despised who I am as much as I do right now.

Melody stumbles out of bed, keeps her distance. We face each other in the dark silence, she energized by panic, I dispirited by disgrace.

I reach in my jacket, pull out my keys, and press the button on my keychain flashlight, shine it around the room until I spot the wall switch. I flip on the light and stare at her and hope she can’t tell how hard I’m swallowing. She squints as a yellow hue fills the room, holds her hands to her chest like a praying child. She’s wearing a loose-fitting camisole and pajama bottoms, her hair has been chopped short and is two shades lighter than it was just hours earlier, the bangs that danced above her eyes abbreviated to expose her forehead. Then comes a flurry of details I could’ve never gotten close enough to notice: the exact diamond shape of her jawline, the dark rims of her irises that give her eyes the design of targets, how she actually stands a few inches taller than I’d imagined. The harder part immediately follows, the identifying what never changed, the pieces that verify who she is: the curves of her nose and ears, and the way she is blinking—more like a flicker—she could just as easily be looking up at those skyscrapers again. Today she will not throw her arms in the air. Today she will not spin like a dancer, will not be a little Mary Tyler Moore.

She looks me over, but mostly locks on my face, and I can tell she really did look right past me at that gas station in Kentucky. There is no you look familiar statement on its way.

I take a nonaggressive step in her direction.

“You know who I am?” I ask. She says nothing, does nothing, eyes still flickering, hands still clutched to her chest. I answer my own question: “I’m John Bovaro.”

My words are a potent weapon, slice her as badly as any knife, put a hole in her wider than from a hollow-point bullet. The blood washes from her face—an inverted blush—and now her fingers are dancing on her chest. Worst of all, as she holds back tears, her mouth turns to a casual frown, as though what’s running through her mind is that’s what I was afraid of, like she’s finally being fired from a job where she’d been underperforming.

And then, like she’s already given up, she whisper-yells, “Sean. Sean.”

I laugh a little, not at Melody but at the odd selection the Marshals Service made for her guardian. If the marshal from the Sheetz was next door, I’d have a serious problem. But Sean? This entire event may have been predetermined.

I cast an open hand toward the end of the bed, suggesting she take a seat, and say, “Sean isn’t going to be here anytime soon.”

She doesn’t sit, loses whatever blood had remained in her face, and whisper-yells again, “You killed him?”

I pull out my cigs, flip one to my lips, and light it. “Didn’t need to. He’s out on the beach, walking the shoreline.” I take a record-breaking drag, feel an immediate drop in anxiety, and as I am about to blow out two full lungs of smoke, I catch myself and quickly turn my head away from Melody as the cloud escapes. “He’s got his pants all rolled up like he’s going clam-digging. I gotta tell you, that guy’s a useless fu-huh…”—I catch myself again—“fellow.”

Melody keeps her eyes on mine, reaches down to the bed like a blind person, carefully sits. She stares at me—I am no longer a person she can pass over the way she did in Kentucky—and I have become an image that will never escape her mind, that may even appear in nightmares that knock her awake and breathless in sweat-soaked sheets. I feel compelled to fill the silence.

“You know what that marshal makes?” I can’t remember but I take a guess. “Forty grand. What kind of protection is forty grand going to get you?” Which might matter if the guy worked for organized crime instead of against it.

My words are having no positive impact. I watch her watch me, notice how she can’t stop trembling. Every time I have seen Melody, year after year and through every phase of her young life, she has looked different, either through natural maturation or a change forced by the feds. I’ve never seen her look the same twice, always being modified, preparing for a new role in a new town. She has been an actress, and I her paparazzo. Though every time, I could never deny the natural beauty underneath; you can’t cut, color, or restyle inherent loveliness.

I run my thumb around the filter of my cigarette, slowly bring it to my mouth and finish it off, and with the hit still inside me, say, “I like your hair this way.” I take the butt, snuff it out on the metal edge of the mirror, and put the DNA-laced filter into the pocket of my jacket.

Melody slips her hands under her thighs in what looks like an attempt to get them to stop shaking, but it comes off like a sign of surrender.

“What do you want from me?” she says. She’s not ready for the answer. I pull out my Marlboros, hold the pack in her direction with the offer of one. Her response allows us both to relax: “My parents always told me cigarettes would kill me.” My prior attempts to lower the tension were ineffective, and under the circumstances it’s impressive that she came out the tempered one. She’s a lot stronger than her trembling suggests.

I accept her olive branch and pass her one in return. “The death I can handle. It’s the bad breath and yellow teeth I find troublesome.”

Melody puckers, tries to bring moisture to her mouth. “Why not try the nicotine gum?”

I shake my head and scrunch my nose. “You can’t intimidate people by snuffing out chewed gum on their forearms.”

Indeed, that came off a little dark; I was trying to strike a chord, not a nerve. I force a chuckle, then slide up a blade of the blinds in her room, see the marshal still out on the brightly moonlit sand.

“John Bovaro,” she says, the first thing she has said this loud, the first attempt at trying to get someone’s attention. I walk back in the center of the room and lean on the dresser. “Or, what, you go by Johnny? Little John?”

I slide my glasses up the bridge of my nose. “Actually, if you really want to know, I prefer Jonathan.”

She gives me a look identical to the one Peter did when I told him the same thing; he’d responded with a blank stare, followed by, “Seriously?”

The difference: Melody giggles and says, “You’ve got to be kidding.”

I smile, let her know she can feel free to even the playing field however she sees fit. I walk to the chair next to the window, glance out at the shoreline once more—the marshal is still spellbound on the beach—and reach down to the back of the chair and grab her robe and hand it to her. “Here. If you want to slip into something dry.” She doesn’t immediately take it. I move closer, practically put it in her hands. I read the uncertainty and confusion in her gaze, so I try to cement what I hope she is already thinking. “I’m sorry if I scared you.”

There would be no way for her to understand that this moment might generate nightmares for me, too, how close I am right now to possibly losing her forever. Anything goes wrong—the marshal returns, I lose this margin of trust, one of our crew comes bursting through her door—and the result will be one from a collection of disasters.

She takes the robe.

I walk away and keep my back to her, surprised at how aware I am of the sound of the fabric being pulled from her body, the smooth swish of something being dragged against her skin.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“You may,” she says, my signal to turn back around.

“How’d you know I was on to you back in Maryland?”

“What do you mean?”

I run all of Gardner’s knowledge and accessibilities through my head, try to determine which person in my family was next to receive the very information I used. “In Columbia. How did you know I was following you?”

She licks her lips and shakes her head, squints in confusion like she’s trying to solve two puzzles at once. “I had no idea who you were until a few minutes ago.”

I look down and try to understand what might have happened. “You mean, someone else from my family threatened you?”

“No.”

“Then why are you being relocated?”

The confusion in her eyes suddenly disappears and she looks at me like a child deciding whether to tell her parent the truth or fortify an existing lie. “I, uh… I decided I was bored and needed a change.”

The truth not only sets you free, it occasionally launches you from your prison. “You mean… you made up a threat to get the government to relocate you, to get you a new identity.”

She pauses, then nods. “Yeah, pretty much.”

“Because you were bored.”

She barely grins, seemingly surprised at her talent for manipulation. “Yeah.”

This might be the biggest rush I’ve ever felt with a woman, the closest I might’ve ever come to finding a female so closely aligned to my own way of life. She’s almost a criminal.

“Stickin’ it to the man,” I say as I offer my palm for a high-five, a move I immediately regret, though we both seem taken aback when she weakly slaps my leather-covered hand, more of a wipe of her palm against mine, but it is the very first positive shared physical contact she and I have had, the first time she reached out to touch me. And I imagine she’s thinking the same thing I am: This person is real. For these few seconds, I have disconnected, lost an understanding of time and place—certainly lost a sense of urgency; somewhere out there are marshals and Bovaros and bullets. “You’re all right, girl,” I say, returning myself to the moment.

I need to look out the window again and make sure the marshal is safely distanced, but I can’t stop staring at Melody, the way she is trying to read my eyes, the look on her face that shows a sign of hope that the punishment she’d anticipated will not be forthcoming.

“You’re not going to kill me, are you.”

Her brave statement chops the connection, frees me up. “Please. If I’d come here to kill you, you’d be fighting rigor mortis and I’d be halfway to Brooklyn.” Truth: If anyone else had come here to kill you. “You think that fed they got protecting you is gonna step in and save the day?”

I pull out my cigarettes and stare at them, realize my addiction is out of control; it takes everything I’ve got to shove them back in my jacket.

“Sean’s a good guy,” she says.

“Yeah? Then go have tea and crumpets with him. But don’t trust the man with your life. He’s not a good marshal.” She wipes her eyebrows and forehead. “I think what you really meant is he’s the good guy, the way you see me as the bad guy… but I’m going to convince you that I’m actually the better one.”

She holds her ground, is tougher than anyone I ever had to bang around; I find it really distracting. “I think you’re underestimating the situation you’re in right now,” she says.

I’ve really got to look out the window again, but I’m playing this hand out, willing to take a real risk if it means leaving an impression on Melody.

“Look,” I say, “I’ve watched a lot of feds over the course of my life. They’ve lingered around our homes and neighborhoods like unwanted relatives, like party crashers, and I can tell you this guy they assigned to you is distracted, completely uninvolved in your case.” I hold out my arms to put myself on display. “Obviously.”

“I trust him.”

I walk right up to her. “C’mon, you feel safe right now?”

She looks into my eyes, then drops her head halfway down, then finally all the way to the floor. She shakes her head slowly. “No.”

I let it sink in, allow a moment to pass before I slide toward the door and say, “Get a good night’s rest. I’m coming back for you in the morning. I just wanted to let you know I was here—and that you’ll need to leave with me. I’ll explain tomorrow, but please understand: I’m your only chance.”

One last look out the window—he’s still on the beach, but starting to move—and the doorknob is in my gloved hand.

“Wait!” Melody gets to her feet. “What do you mean?”

“What confused you, Melody?”

She looks at me like she just got unexpected results from a pregnancy test. Her eyes are locked on my face and her lips are moving slowly, like she’s repeating something to herself; it occurs to me that it’s probably been who knows how many years since someone has called her by her real name. It’s like I flipped a switch.

Finally, she says, “Where, uh… where exactly do you think you’re taking me tomorrow?”

I can’t tell if she’s trying to pry information to leak to the marshal. At this point I just want her to consider what I’m offering, to think about why I’m here, why I’m letting her go. To want to know more in the morning, to ask me why I’m her only chance.

“A road trip,” I say. “Melody, listen—I want you to believe me on one important thing, okay? I am not going to hurt you. But you have to come with me in the morning, and we’ll have to move very quickly.”

She catches me off guard with her response. “Ludicrous. What about Sean? What on earth would I tell him?”

“Nothing. Just have breakfast with the guy and tell him everything is fine. Don’t worry. I’ll come and find you. I’ll explain it all later.”

“You seriously don’t think he’ll find out about you? Please.”

I wave her toward the window, flip up a slat of the blinds for her to look out. “Are you telling me that guy is gonna be your hero?” We both watch as he picks up a handful of shells or stones and chucks them into the Chesapeake, one at a time.

The only thing more pathetic than his substandard protection of his witness is Melody’s defense of him: “He probably just misses his wife. Marshals are just as human as anyone. He probably needs some time to chill out.”

“Sure, whatever. But that guy isn’t married.”

“He is, actually.”

“Actually, no.”

“Actually, yes.”

Gardner better be right. “He is absolutely not married, Melody. What, you think only the feds can do research or check someone out before getting involved?”

I leave Melody there, slip out of the room without a single tick of a latch or creak of a hinge. I pull the door behind me as she stares at the marshal, her shoulders now slumped, the realization setting in that she is going to be let down again, that not one person in her life really cares about her safety, really wants her to live, wants her to be happy, wants her to escape.

Until now.



I drop down and creep under the window to her room, to all the rooms, sheltered by a burly hedgerow likely planted during the Carter administration. As soon as I open the door to my car and slide down into the seat, I start stripping: the gloves, the jacket, my outer shirt. Down to a T-shirt and jeans, I can’t stop the sweat, can’t slow my heart, can’t catch my breath.

As I watch the marshal, a mere dot in my field of vision, I realize my body’s reaction to this event has nothing to do with him, is in no way related to having narrowly gotten in and out of Melody’s room, not related to the worry and concern of freeing her from this particular crevice of the country they swept her into. I know this because I can’t stop recalling every word Melody and I just shared, replaying every interaction and dialogue in my head. I have spent the last twenty years gradually getting closer and closer to this woman, like a slow journey across the country beginning with the Atlantic, now finally ending at the shoreline of the Pacific. Yet we will continue the journey west; tomorrow, her hand in mine, we sail.

I turn the ignition of my car, thrilled I traded in my former vehicle. The Mustang would roar, a lion entering and announcing its takeover of new turf; the Audi purrs like a cat, hiding somewhere nearby without your knowledge, a nimble blur that flies by when you turn your head. And as the marshal stands and brushes the sand from his pants, I slink across the parking lot and disappear.

I drive south on Route 13, really the only direction I can go; I don’t want to retrace my steps to the north, within a mile the east becomes an inlet to the ocean’s barrier islands, and I’m currently where the westbound lanes end. The early morning air is thick with salty moisture that my air conditioner works hard to remove. Less than a minute of driving and I hit the tollgate for the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel. I wind over to the only manned booth, see not a single car coming or going. I hand a twenty to an elderly woman who makes no eye contact, grab my change, hit the gas and go.

For seventeen miles I am floating above and drifting below the Chesapeake Bay. I do not see other cars or trucks, I do not see land. I drive alone, fast. The strings of lights in the tunnel sections whiz by, flash like an old movie projector, have the look and sensation of a child’s version of time travel. I can’t help thinking this must be how Melody has lived so many moments of her life, being transported somewhere. Being transported elsewhere.

And sure enough, as I emerge from the second tunnel and rise to the top of the last bridge, I see the other side, the land that lines the bay on the Hampton Roads area of Virginia, and for a moment I wonder if I really did travel across time, unsure of how this urban place can reside so near to one of the most rural parts of this country, separated by nothing more than a twelve-dollar toll. As my wheels touch down on land again, the landscape is draped in homes and businesses and multiple distant skylines. I will drive until I fall right into the middle of one.



Norfolk, Virginia, becomes my destination. I drift through the empty downtown streets, crawl between the unlit skyscrapers, and easily make my way through this nightlifeless city. I descend floor after floor of the parking garage beneath the Waterside Marriott—a building standing twenty-four stories, one of the tallest towers in the city—and park in a distant dark corner.

I take the elevator to the lobby and approach the desk. The lobby is paneled and mirrored and well lit, a double-tiered staircase cascading down from several stories up, too nice a place, really, to provide a hoodlum a few hours of rest before a kidnapping.

Behind the desk, one man and one woman stand at attention, both in their forties, look like they could be siblings or a married couple truly on their way to becoming one, and both stiffly smile as I approach. They wear tags displaying their names—Chad and Melissa—and labeling them both as managers.

Exhaustion is upon me, has me delivering my needs in single words.

“Room,” I say under my breath, like I just walked into a quick pillow.

“Reservation, sir?” Chad says.

“No.”

“Any preference for room type?”

“Eh.”

“We have many rooms available. Would you prefer a higher or lower floor?”

“Whatever.”

“North- or south-facing?”

“You’re killing me, Chad. I just want a bed.”

We go through the usual back-and-forth of their request for a credit card, which I never provide, which they explain is required in case additional charges are incurred, which means I usually fork over a wad of cash to cover it, which embarrasses them and eventually has them give way; this is why the rest of my family crashes in dumps when on an assignment.

“We’d be happy to take your bags up for you,” Melissa says. I look behind me like there might actually be something there. “Right,” she mumbles, handing over the room card. “Enjoy your stay. Elevators are just past the desk on the right.”

I rub my eyes as I walk, press the call button for the elevator, and wait in front of a closed store, a guest facility that carries higher-end clothes for men and women. I stare through the dark window at a headless mannequin wearing a sundress quite similar in style to the one Melody wore in Kentucky the day Willie and his friends pursued her. With a flash, I see Melody in it, and I remember how it fit her adult body, how she could’ve sold the style to the world by doing nothing more than wearing the dress in public.

The elevator bell dings, and as the doors slowly open it occurs to me that Melody has no more baggage with her than I do. I watched her walk into that motel room with a small plastic bag and nothing else—couldn’t have contained much more than a single change of clothes—and some of what she did have were now cold and wet. I recall my memory of her room; I don’t remember seeing clothing sitting out on the bed, the dresser, the floor. Nothing.

The elevator doors close.

I walk back to the desk. “What time does the store open?”

Melissa types something, doesn’t look up. “Nine o’clock.”

“I will have checked out by then.”

Melissa glances over at Chad and he scrunches his nose and nods at the same time. “Just ring it all up here,” he says to her.

I go back and stand at the store window, stare at the sundress while Melissa walks over with the key to open the place. I wait while she slides over the glass door, disables the alarm.

“No time to pack?” she asks.

I walk in and start surveying. “Not for me, for my… girlfriend.”

“Okay, what can I ring up for you?”

I point to the window. “That sundress.”

“What’s her size?”

I bite my lip a little. “Not entirely sure. I don’t know her that well.” Melissa stares at me like I’m wasting her time. “I mean, I don’t know those particular details yet.”

She takes a deep breath, prepared to play twenty questions. “Is she tall or short?”

I stare at the dress, recall the tags of garments she’d shopped for—the sixes, the eights, the occasional ten—drop to the low end assuming a likely loss in her desire to eat.

“Size six,” I guess.

Melissa opens her eyes wider. “Okay,” she says as she reaches for one off the rack. “I’ll ring this up for—”

“Wait a minute.” I walk deeper into the racks. “And a sweater, she’s gonna need a sweater.”

She sighs through her nose, turns to the nearest stack of pullovers, holds up some brown thing with a knit pattern that looks like an eighteen-wheeler left its tire prints down the center. “This is very popular right now.”

I wave her off. “She’d never wear that.” I look around for a second and unfold a green Ralph Lauren sweater and hold it up. “This… is something she would wear,” I say. “Yeah, this is her.”

Melissa laughs quietly. “Okay.”

“And jeans,” I add.

“Okay, trust me when I say that’s going to be a waste of your time. Women like to try on—”

“She’s about five foot six or so, got very proportional legs, you know? I mean, not very muscular, but the kind where you like seeing her wear shorts.” I stare at the pile of jeans on the table. “And the kind of hips for pulling someone close, that, sort of, perfect place for resting your hands.” I drift off a little. “And a full, round…” I look up, open my hands to the air.

She grins with a motherly approval. “Sounds like you know her better than you think.” Melissa starts getting into it. “Okay, so, like, maybe a lower-waist kind of thing?”

“What about undergarments?”

Melissa frowns a little. “Are you serious? Jeans are one thing, but bras and panties? Women really like to have what works for them.”

“You’re gonna have to help me out here.”

“You two seem to have a real packing deficiency.”

“Yeah, well,” I say, as I start playing with the sheer fabric of the sundress, “we’re running away together.”



With two bags in each hand, I slip the card between my knuckles and slide it in the reader to my room, kick the door open and the lights automatically come on. Turns out Chad took advantage of my I don’t care disposition and booked me a suite when all I really needed was a bed and a shower. The room has a king-size poster bed and a separate seating area with a pair of loveseats facing each other near a gas fireplace. The bathroom possesses toiletries for every possible skin type, a jetted tub, and a shower suitable for a small party. From the twenty-first floor, my window overlooks the Norfolk waterfront, a brick version of a boardwalk lined with shopping pavilions and restaurants and boat slips, a city center so inviting and pedestrian-friendly it reeks of planned development, of a calculated design assembled by some architect who rarely visits the city, who doesn’t appreciate the practicality of things like loading zones and alleys.

I stare at the deserted waterfront. In New York dollars, a condo with this view would cost seven figures and carry a thousand-dollar monthly fee, no matter how run-down the building, no matter what street it claimed as its address. Chad probably thought he was doing me a favor by giving me such an elegant and lofty room, but all he did was shellac my already vulnerable and exposed grain of guilt. Such is the nature of Melody’s life, of mine: She suffers tonight in a dank motel room, missing all of the necessities and niceties most women would request, guarded by a half-wit protector; I live in prosperity and comfort, will sleep the next few hours in a bed with a plush mattress and a new down comforter, will have a fresh breakfast delivered to my door as I shower. No two lives should be reversed more than ours.

I walk to the bed and sink into its softness as I sit. I set the alarm on the clock instead of requesting a wake-up call, having learned long ago that technology will always be more reliable than any human being.

I check my cell: three messages from my head chef, zero from my family.

I pull back the comforter, and the sheets are stretched perfect and smooth like a pool yet to be dived into. I strip down to my boxers and take the plunge, and within seconds I drown in sleep.