There is a metal hoop affixed to the table. “Hands,” Maurie says.
I place my hands on the table. Maurie threads handcuffs through the hoop and then clicks them tightly onto my wrists. Gordon pulls a red folder out of his briefcase and opens it. It’s stuffed with papers. Are all of those about me?
“Is there anything you want to talk about before we get started?” he asks.
Before Alice showed me the newspaper article, I’d planned to just lay it all out in the open, tell them the truth, 100 percent, and take whatever came my way. Now I’m not sure.
I shouldn’t ask the next question, but I do. Because I have to know. “Is JoAnne okay?”
“I’m very surprised that you would ask that.” Gordon frowns. “Why are you so concerned about JoAnne? Have you learned nothing?” He glances at Maurie. “He’s apparently learned nothing.”
Maurie grins.
“I ask,” I say, “because last time I saw her, you had her trapped, naked, in a shrinking chamber.”
“We did,” Gordon says amiably, “didn’t we?”
He flips through the file, then leans forward, so that his face is inches from mine. “So, I understand you want to make a confession.”
I don’t respond.
“This might jar your memory.” He slides a photograph across the table. Maurie leans up against the door, bored. The photo is black and white, grainy, yet it is impossible to deny what I’m seeing.
“Let me ask you again,” Gordon says, “something I asked you the last time we met. Do you recall meeting with JoAnne in the food court at the Hillsdale mall?”
I look down at the photo. It appears to have been taken from a CCTV security video. I nod.
“Okay,” he says. “Now we’re getting somewhere. Could you characterize your relationship with JoAnne?”
“We met in college. We worked together. For a very brief time, we were lovers. After graduation, I didn’t see her until my wife, Alice, and I attended our first quarterly dinner with The Pact in Hillsborough, California.”
“And then?”
“I saw her at our second Pact party, in Woodside, California. A week later, at my request, we met for lunch at the food court in the Hillsdale mall in San Mateo. We ate hot dogs on a stick and drank lemonade. We talked.”
“About what?”
“The Pact.”
“And what did JoAnne say about The Pact?”
“I was having some concerns about whether it was a good fit for my wife and me. JoAnne reassured me. She said it had been very good for her marriage.” I’ve rehearsed this line in my head a hundred times, yet when I say it, it sounds forced.
“What else?”
“We agreed to meet a second time, but she didn’t show.”
“And then?”
“And then, as you know, I saw her here.” I try to rein in the impatience in my tone. I remind myself Gordon holds all the power here.
“Did you tell your wife about these meetings?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know.”
“Because you intended to sleep with JoAnne?”
“No.” I say it emphatically.
“You were just meeting her to talk about old times? To enjoy the delicacy known as hot dogs on a stick? For the incredible ambience at the Hillsdale mall food court? Did you not try to seduce her?”
“No!”
Gordon pushes his chair back and stands, hands on the table. Maurie is beginning to look a little more interested in the conversation. “Did you not suggest that you should rekindle your relationship?”
“Of course I didn’t.”
“Did you suggest a meeting at the Hyatt hotel?”
“What the fuck? No!”
He comes to stand beside me and places a hand on my shoulder, like we’re buddies again. “Here’s the difficulty I’m having with you right now, Jake. You have this little story you want to tell. You’re determined to stick with it. I get that. Self-preservation and all. But our sources have confirmed that you had sex with JoAnne Charles in the Hyatt hotel in Burlingame, California, on March first.”
“What source? That’s insanity!”
Gordon sighs. “We were making such nice progress, Jake. I had high hopes. I thought we could be out of here by lunchtime.” He sits down again.
“I did not sleep with JoAnne Charles.” As the words come out of my mouth, I realize that it sounds wrong.
“But you did. You’ve already confessed!”
“Seventeen years ago! Not recently. The thought hasn’t even crossed my mind.” Of course, that isn’t true. The thought has definitely crossed my mind. Fuck. JoAnne, naked, spreading her legs, that weird defiant smile on her lips. How could the thought not cross my mind? But is that a crime? I never would have acted on it. Never.
“Who can know a man’s thoughts?” Gordon asks. The timing is uncanny. Yet I know it’s just a tactic. The Pact wants me to think they’re inside my head. But they can’t be inside my head. Can they?
“Jake,” Gordon says, almost crooning my name. “I’m going to ask you something extremely important. I want you to think about it. I don’t want you to answer right away. Would you agree to testify against JoAnne in order to make this all go away?”
I already know the answer, but I delay just to make it appear that I’m considering his offer.
Finally, I simply say, “No.”
Gordon blinks as if I’ve just slapped him. “All right then, Jake. I don’t understand it, given our information, the source of our information, but I respect your decision. If down the road, you have a change of heart, just let them know that you want to talk to me.”
What the hell does he mean, given the source? He’s implying that JoAnne was the one who said we had sex at the Hyatt. But what reason would JoAnne have for saying that? She could only have said it under terrible duress. I think of the shrinking cage. Torture may elicit answers, but it rarely elicits the truth.
“I won’t have a change of heart. I met JoAnne Charles one time in a mall food court. The rest of what you are saying is a lie.”
Gordon gives me a dismissive look. Then he stands and exits the room. Maurie follows.
I sit with my hands chained to the table. I can hear air hissing through the vent overhead. The room grows steadily colder. I’m so tired, so hungry, so cold, I can’t even think. I wish I could talk to Alice. I put my head down on the table, and immediately the light switches off. I lift my head, and it goes on again. I try it several more times. Every time, the same thing. Is there a sensor somewhere, or is someone fucking with me? Finally, I lay my head down and sleep.
Later, I wake to utter darkness. How much time has passed? An hour? Five? I lift my head from the table and the light comes on. The room is cold. The handcuffs have begun to dig into my skin. There are a few dried drops of blood on the metal table. There’s a mossy taste in my mouth. It’s possible that I’ve been asleep for a long time. Was I drugged?