CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Mary regained consciousness only slowly, then forced herself to wake up. Something inside was telling her she had to stay awake. She couldn’t give in yet. She couldn’t sleep. She couldn’t give in to hopelessness. If she gave up she would die. She had heard what they said. She was somewhere, and the two men would kill her. She started to wake up more and heard them talking in the other room. There were still two men, Ray and not-Ray.
“Why didn’t you get the password?” one man asked. It was Ray.
“She wouldn’t give it to me.”
“You couldn’t get her to give it to you?”
“She wouldn’t.”
“So smack her around.”
“I did. She wouldn’t give it up.”
“But she told you the cops know everything? She said she sent the email to the cops?”
“Yes and she said they told Simon. Simon knows too.”
“You’re so stupid.”
“Why am I stupid?”
“She told you she sent the email. So why wouldn’t she give you the password then?”
“I don’t understand.”
“The reason she wouldn’t give you the password is because you would find out that she didn’t send the email.”
Mary tried to make sense of what they were saying, but she couldn’t. They were talking about an email of some sort. Whether it was sent to the police. She had no idea what they meant. She didn’t know who the she was they were talking about. It must’ve been the bigger one. The woman she was with. She couldn’t remember who that was. It was strange. If she was with another woman, they must have been friends. Why couldn’t she remember? What was wrong with her brain? What have they done to her? She tried to keep listening to the men. They sounded angrier than before.
“Maybe she just didn’t want to give me the password.”
“No. That bitch lied to you. She didn’t send the email. The cops don’t know anything. They arrested Simon. It was already on the news.”
“Simon knows. She told Simon.”
Mary’s head turned at the name Simon, as if her body knew something that her brain didn’t. Simon was a name she should know. Simon was somebody she knew. She tried to think who. But she knew it was somebody. It came to her then, a little boy’s face. Then a man’s. It was Simon. She had known him when he was little. Simon was an old friend of hers.
“And so what?”
“Simon’s going to tell the cops.”
“And what are they going to do about it?”
“They’re going to investigate it. They have to, don’t they?”
“Of course they don’t. They’re not going to believe him. He won’t have any proof. They know he’s under arrest and he’ll say anything. And anyway, he doesn’t even have his lawyer anymore. Even if he gets a new lawyer, the lawyer’s going to tell him not to talk to the cops. So he’s not going to tell the cops anything.”
“The new lawyer can tell the cops. They’ll investigate it, they have to.”
Ray scoffed. “No they don’t. They’re cops. They have their boy. They’re not gonna look at anybody else. They think Simon did it. We set him up perfectly. It was a great plan and it worked.”
Mary felt a tingling as she listened. The men were talking about Simon and about lawyers. Suddenly she realized that she was a lawyer. Simon was a friend. She was Simon’s lawyer. She couldn’t figure out which man was talking. They were talking so fast she couldn’t follow. Or she just couldn’t follow because they were saying so much. She couldn’t process the information even though she understood the words. It was like a flood of words and back-and-forth that she couldn’t understand all at once.
“They figured it out. It didn’t work that great.”
“It was just a fluke that they figured it out. It was a fluke that Simon went to the lawyer and a fluke that bitch acted like she was working for us when she was working against us. You should’ve seen her at the meeting, full of herself, bossing everybody around. She loves it. I can’t stand bitches like that. Todd hated her too. She worked him over. I have half a mind to go in there and beat the shit out of her.”
“So why don’t you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why don’t you go in? Why do you send me in?”
“You know the answer to that. Because she knows who I am.”
“So what’s the difference if she knows who you are?” Not-Ray sounded angry again. “We’re going to kill her anyway. That’s what you said. You said I’m going to kill her anyway. And she figured out who I am.”
“No she didn’t.”
“Yes she did. She knows my name.”
“How?”
“She took a guess.”
“She knows about me?”
Mary thought Ray said that. She was losing track of who was talking when. She tried to think of something to do to save herself. It hurt too much to move. She couldn’t even string a thought together. Her face felt wet and stickier than before. She was bleeding into the blindfold. The cloth stuck to her eyes as the blood dried. She blinked and blinked but more blood ran in. The thought nauseated her.
“I don’t know,” not-Ray said. “We didn’t talk about you. She knows it’s me.”
“Whatever. Why are you getting so paranoid lately?”
“I’m not paranoid.”
“Yes you are. You’re griping. You on your period?”
“It’s just that with Todd we had a plan. We had it planned out. This isn’t planned out. And now we get two new people. Women.”
“Stop with that. They’re lawyers.” Ray was getting testy, too.
“She’s a famous lawyer, isn’t she? She’s famous?”
“What are you talking about?”
“She’s famous.”
“She’s not that famous if you didn’t know who she was.”
Not-Ray fell silent, and Mary could hear some walking around. She remembered they were in a cabin. The floor must be made of wood. But the cabin seemed small. They were right outside her door. They weren’t worried about her hearing because they were going to kill her. She was going to die in some horrible way. She began to feel the emotion she hadn’t before. Stark, cold terror.
“Did she tell you she was famous?” Ray asked. “Were you talking to her?”
“No.”
“You were gone awhile. You were talking to her, weren’t you? What did she tell you? That she’s rich and famous? Did she offer you money?”
“Yeah, she offered me money.”
“How much?”
“She didn’t say. She just said that she’d pay if we let her go. Her and her partner.”
“She said that?”
“Yes.”
“Anything else?”
“She wanted to know how the partner was. She doesn’t want us to hurt her.”
Mary heard it clearly, more clearly than before. Wherever they had walked to was closer than it was before. They had said her partner. The other woman, the bigger woman, must’ve been Mary’s partner. Mary remembered in a flash. Her partner was named Bennie Rosato. An image materialized instantly in her brain, an image attached to the name. Tall, blonde, athletic. Bennie Rosato was her partner. She knew Bennie Rosato. She had known her a long time. Not as long as Simon but she knew her.
“She asked about her partner? That’s touching. She’s probably gay for her.”
“Why you gotta say that?”
“Say what?”