It’s all very annoying, her posture, her tone. And the three days of not knowing whether it’s night or day and sleeping in ten-minute increments must be catching up to me. I look over at the grandfather clock in the corner. It’s 1:17. I tell myself I’ll answer their questions until exactly 1:30, then demand some rest.
I begin with the morning of the auction: the deal for the RPGs, shooting Emil, blowing up the truck, the rescue, the pudgy guard, my dad’s wound. It shocks me how much I can remember. I tell her every detail, all of it coming back to me with incredible lucidity as if my memories were an exhibit in a museum I could walk through and describe to a blind companion.
“And tell me about when you left him. Who picked him up, Gwendolyn?”
I describe the City Tours van, the guy named Sam and what he looked like, the two medics and what they looked like. Jesus, how is my memory this good? I tighten the robe and sink deeper into the couch. It’s really very cozy here, and maybe I was wrong about this Dr. Simon. She’s starting to grow on me. Friendly without being overbearing.
“So, this Sam fellow,” she says. “What did he tell you about where they were taking your dad?”
I shake my head. “Nothing at all.”
“Nothing? Surely he said something.”
“No. I ran away before he had a chance to.”
“Did Sam have an accent of any kind?” she says.
“American,” I say.
“Interesting,” she says.
She follows with questions about what happened later that night. About the poison I used. How I got it. How I slipped it to the men. How I felt about watching them all just collapse and die right there before my eyes. I tell her everything matter-of-factly, describing it as if I were back in the room at the casino, picking my way through the bodies to the exit. When I look up, she’s leaning forward, eyebrows arched with concern, a box of tissues in her hand.
I wonder why she’s doing this until I feel the tears drying cool on my cheeks and neck. How long have I been crying? I’m embarrassed about weeping in front of her, but only a little. Dr. Simon doesn’t seem to mind. She’s seen it all before, and she gets it. I can tell.
“Let’s go back a little further, Gwendolyn. To New York. Do you remember New York?”
I’m so sleepy. I settle back in the couch. Wriggle down into its corner. Close my eyes.
“Not yet, Gwendolyn,” Dr. Simon says. “Just a few more questions, okay?”
“Okay, Dr. Simon.”
“We found out about the storage locker in Queens. You went there, didn’t you? It’s okay. You’re not in trouble.”
“Yes. I broke a window.”
“And what did you find there? In the storage locker?”
My throat feels raw, as if I’ve been speaking for a long time. Too much to get into. The book cipher. Terrance. “A list of account numbers,” I say. “Can I have some water?”
There is a pause, a break in the cadence of the questions as Carlisle slips from sight. He returns a moment later with a glass of water and sets it in front of me.
“And where are those account numbers now, Gwendolyn?” she says as I drink. The water is delicious. Clean and cleansing.
“Destroyed,” I say. “Burned.”
“Why did you destroy them, Gwendolyn?”
Yael’s words from Paris as we watched the paper burning in the wastebasket. Remember this always: Anyone who asks for these account numbers is your enemy.
“I—I can’t remember. I’m sorry.”
“That’s all right, Gwendolyn,” she says. “Were they the only copy?”
I open my mouth to tell her the answer, to flesh out the story a little. About the copy of 1984. About the code. How it’s no problem to get the account numbers again. But I don’t. I don’t because I can’t. Something won’t let the words form. I reach under my robe and scratch at the sore spot on my arm where she gave me the tuberculosis shot. From across the room I see the grandfather clock: 5:58.
I look down, focusing on the fabric of my robe. What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I answer her? But my mind can focus on nothing but the time on the grandfather clock. There was something I was going to do at a certain time. Some deadline I had set for myself. Now it’s passed. Now it’s too late.
Then it comes to me. It’s almost four and a half hours after I told myself I’d stop answering their questions. Four and a half hours? Jesus Christ, where did the time go? It just disappeared as if I’d fallen asleep. I scratch again at the sore spot on my arm.
I know I should be angry that Dr. Simon betrayed my trust by lying to me. Intellectually, I want to stand up and break her neck. But let’s not be rash. Let’s not jump to conclusions about her intentions. She’ll tell me the truth, Dr. Simon will, all I have to do is ask. She’s cool like that. She has the kind of face someone can trust.
“Dr. Simon?” I ask. “That wasn’t a TB vaccine you gave me, was it?”
“It was something to help you relax, darling,” she says. “And to help you remember.”
I retreat back into my head and wonder where the anger is. “Mr. Carlisle?” I say calmly, still not able to muster the anger I know should be there. “It’s not true about Joey Diaz, is it?”
Carlisle rises from his seat on the couch and adjusts his pants. Then he steps around the coffee table so he’s standing directly in front of me. “Come again?” he asks.
“It wasn’t Joey Diaz who betrayed my dad,” I say. “It was you.”
There’s a flash of motion as Carlisle seizes my wrists, but my senses are slow and sloppy, and by the time I realize what’s happening, Dr. Simon has another needle in my arm. The sensation of being injected with cool water once again spreads through my body.
Thirty
There are rough hands on my limbs and the sensation of cold night air on my skin. There is the smell of leather and old coffee. There is the sound of distant voices and a motor, big and American, clearing its throat with a chortle as it starts up. Someone buckles me into place with a seat belt, and we begin to move.
There is an emergency of some sort happening, a conclusion my narcotized mind draws from a vague and formless collection of indicators—the way I’m handled, the timbre of men’s speech, the tone of the engine. Everything is rushed, urgent. My transport somewhere is to be accomplished quickly, this moment, right now. I try to focus my mind and dissect the collection of indicators, but it’s pleasant and warm here in my semiconscious world and something tells me I don’t really want to know the answers anyway.
I’m aware of Carlisle sitting next to me. I can tell it’s him from the smell. Oaky, rummy cologne, the kind gentlemen with money wear, and the tinge of a certain kind of greedy sweat, the kind that makes dogs growl. He’s conversing with someone else, a driver maybe, and I hear the words “wheels-up in forty-five.”