“I guess.”
“You guess?”
“I guess.”
“You’re supposed to do better than that, my older brother. You’re supposed to reassure me.”
“Am I?”
“It’s part of the Older Brother Contract.”
“Good to know.”
“And I gather his legal quicksand is just getting worse.”
At this, Richard felt himself perking up. “Oh?”
“Brandon Fisher’s lawyer called his lawyer again yesterday afternoon. Brandon’s wife checked herself into some clinic.”
“Oh, please.”
“I know. But between the Russians and the lawyers, Spencer is not a happy camper.”
“Well, I’m not either.”
“Would you do me a favor?”
He braced himself. “What?”
“Mom and Dad are kind of bummed about the wedding. They really like Nicole. I’m sure they’ll call you later today or tonight.”
“And?”
“Tell them I really am okay. Reassure them.”
“Yeah, no problem. I can do that.” He took a little pride, unseemly as it was, in the reality that as far as he had fallen, he remained—at least in the eyes of his brother and their parents—on a higher moral ground than Philip. This was, of course, a low bar. But still…
“What’s next?” Philip asked.
“For me? I don’t know. See what the Rorschach on the living room walls and the couch makes me think of this morning.”
“The couch is still there?”
“A rubbish company is picking it up, but they can’t come until Saturday.”
“Have they seen it?”
“No.”
“Well, won’t they be surprised when they do. Me? I’d just drag it outside and burn it.”
“The couch is the least of my problems,” he said, and his brother murmured something not wholly intelligible in assent.
After hanging up, Richard saw a news van driving slowly past the house. He fantasized giving the camera crew the finger if they pulled into his driveway. He sighed: it was almost Halloween. He wondered if they’d get any trick-or-treaters this year, or whether he was such a pariah that no self-respecting parents would allow their children anywhere near the Chapman front door.
Alexandra
Somehow I slept. I did. I slept in a ball with the sheet over my head, but I really did fall into a deep sleep in the hotel room.
It was only when I woke up the next morning that every siren on the street scared me. I was two blocks from Sonja, and that didn’t help. The room was on the third floor and looked out on an air shaft. No fire escape. What worried me? Not fire. I worried because I had nowhere to run if they came for me.
They. The Russians. Police guys. Anybody.
I had made up my mind I would use Kirill’s pistol if the Russians came, but I would surrender if it was police or soldiers at the door. (I don’t know why I expected soldiers, but I did.) I would go to the jail Inga and Yulian had told me about on the Rikers Island, as awful as they had made it sound. But I would shoot the Russians, because this time they were not just going to make me pee in a coffee pot. They were not just going to burn off Sonja’s or my hair. They were going to kill me.
I thought Sonja and I needed to run much farther away. If we were going to Los Angeles, we should go to Los Angeles. We really had not run far away at all. I looked at a subway map and could see the block right where the town house was where we had been living the day before. I counted the blocks. We were only forty-five streets north and ten avenues west.
But Sonja thought this was fine, at least for now. We needed to lay low—not travel right away when everyone was keeping an eye out for us. And they would never look for us right under their noses. Besides, she said, we were not going to be here long.
Still, by daylight this plan seemed crazy. Even if we got to Los Angeles, I was not sure why we would be safe. I lit a cigarette even though I wasn’t supposed to smoke in the hotel room and opened the window to blow out the smoke. Oligarchs like Vasily, I knew, had tentacles like giant squids.
…
I wondered if I would have been brave enough to help the police guy if he had come to me. I couldn’t decide. But I did know this: Crystal may have been into him, but she was taking a chance for all of us. She was thinking of Sonja and me and all the girls they were bringing to America. I knew that in my heart. If she had gotten free, we all would have gotten free. I thought about that as I smoked, and I went from very, very scared to very, very sad.