The Fall of Saints (9 page)

“It’s okay. It suits me fine. Plus, I get my compensation when I perform abroad. I am off to Rio, and then a few days later—guess what, Mugure?—I have a big gig coming up in Kenya. A performance at a festival, a kind of African or Kenyan version of a street carnival. They call it the Festival of Rags.”

“That is wonderful, Melinda,” I said, really happy for her. “I wish I could come with you, though I have never heard about the festival.”

“It celebrates life’s journey,” Melinda said, “modeled, I assume, on the medieval Feast of Fools or the Belfast Festival of Fools. I don’t care, I just want a chance to perform in Nairobi and Kisumu and Mombasa afterward.”

“Congratulations, girl, you are moving on up,” Zack said.

“Damn sure,” she joked.

It was great that these two had remained friends with mutual respect, I thought. I was in high spirits. It was as if their going away to different parts of the world would remove them from the scene of my recent doubts and, in doing so, give me the space to erase the doubts and heal. Hand in hand, Zack and I stepped out of Shamrock as if readying for a new beginning.

I rejoiced too soon.

The suited gunman was waiting at the door. He held the barrel of his gun to Zack’s ribs. I took a step back and let out a whimper.

“You scream again, I silence you.”

“Leave her out of this,” Zack appealed. “We can settle this between us. What do you want?”

It was eerie, we three standing in the middle of Forty-Second Street, the neon lights all around us, cars passing, humans, too, and yet none of the dwellers in the city that never sleeps cast a glance in our direction.

“Message from the Priest. Nothing in his vaults lately. Must have the
original
document. You have proved unworthy of keeping it. From the moment you land in Estonia and onward, his eyes are on you. Last warning.”

Again, just like that, the suited gunman vanished among the passing crowds. Relieved despite my shaking, I turned to Zack. He was frantically ferreting in his pockets, particularly the inside of the coat. He bent down and did the same inside his socks. I felt he was looking at all the places he could have hidden a gun. This time he was clearly shaken, if unsuccessfully trying to control himself. “Don’t worry,” he told me, trying to reassert his wounded pride. “You can sum up a lawyer’s life in four words: clients, courts, money, and documents.”

“Who is the Priest?” I asked, as if I had not noted the murderous rage and Zack’s desperate search for a gun he did not have.

“Obviously, his code for a generic client,” he said. “It’s a case of mistaken identity.”

“Twice the man has held a gun to your head. A misunderstanding, maybe, but mistaken, I don’t know,” I said with as much calm as I could muster.

“I will look into it. But I am sure he has his messages mixed up.”

“Let’s report it to the police.”

“We don’t have anything concrete to report. And I am leaving tomorrow morning. After my trip, I will crack the case,” he said.

I did not want a fight on the eve of his departure. The gun thing worried me, but I assumed it must worry him more. It was another burden on top of the detention of David West.

8

I
drove Zack to Kennedy airport. Normally, he took a cab. Today I was not taking chances. I was determined not to leave the area until I was sure the plane had taken off safely. I had forgotten that this was post-9/11 and I could not follow him beyond the departure gate. So I walked back slowly and ordered a cup of mocha at a Starbucks and sat in a corner with my eyes glued to the huge screen that showed departures and arrivals.

“May I join you, sister?”

I turned around, tensed up. I let out a sigh of relief. “Ben, what are you doing here? You don’t have to ask.”

He sat opposite me; he’d ordered a mocha, too, as if in unspoken solidarity. He was in his dashiki, looking every inch the casual traveler. “I happened to be out here, and I said to myself, What a coincidence. I had been thinking of coming to see you.”

“About what?” I said.

“You! To see how you are!”

“I am fine. I feel fine. My would-be killer is dead, you told me.”

“Mugure, it turns out the man, whoever he was, is not dead. He is still out there. There was a car crash on the New Jersey Turnpike, but it had nothing to do with your accident.”

“What are you talking about? You or your officers confirmed the death to Zack.”

“Although we believed your story, we had to fool them. So we put out a false story to make them believe the police had been fooled.”

“They? Who are they?”

“How well do you know Zack’s friends?” he asked, making me wonder if those friends were part of “they.” Zack’s circle of friends was small. There was Mark. There was David. There were Joe and Melinda.

“I won’t say I do,” I said vaguely, noncommital. “What about the ones you were trying to fool?”

“I don’t know if it’s one or more, frankly, but we are trying to figure that out. And the motive. It’s obvious that the man had seen us together. He must have thought you gave information to the police. Information they did not want given. We have not yet found the motive, but be assured, we shall not rest until we apprehend the man.”

“Ben, you told me I had nothing to worry about. Meanwhile, a man after my life is still out there. And you? What are you doing at the airport? Following me? Tell me the truth, am I in danger?” I asked getting agitated.

“You will have to tell me.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know if you remember, but I once told you that I do detective work on the remains of 9/11. It’s my belief that the whole truth about the non-Caucasians who perished has not been told.” At that point, I lost track of Ben. He didn’t even acknowledge my baffled look as he continued explaining. “I have been tracking down somebody who I believe has information that might help me. I have reason to believe that you know the man.”

“You are crazy. I have nothing to do with 9/11. I have never visited the site, even. Is that why you are following me?” I wondered if Ben had finally lost it. What were all these theories? What was he talking about?

“Calm down, Mugure. I was following the man.”

“The man who tried to kill me?”

“No, the man who accosted you and your husband outside Shamrock. Last night.”

“The suited gunman?”

“That fits the description, yes. Please, Mugure, tell me what happened.”

The whole thing sounded eerie, bizarre. I controlled my trembling with difficulty. I had nothing to hide. I told him everything about the two altercations with the suited gunman.

“The document. The Priest. Deposits? That’s all?”

“Except that last night he upped the threat. He said he would keep an eye on Zack in Estonia. He seemed to know something about Zack, but Zack did not seem to know anything about the gunman. You said you were following the man. Where is he?”

Ben let out a sigh. His gaze never left me. It was as if he wanted to read my every expression and gesture. “The suited gunman, as you call him, just boarded the flight to Estonia.”

“No!” I almost screamed. “He is going to kill my husband.”

“Listen, Mugure. We have our eyes everywhere. I will give you my number, my very private number. Memorize it. Promise that if you see or sense anything suspicious, you’ll call me. But please be careful. Be wary of the circle of friends. Do this! Don’t act as if you know and trust everything about them,” he cautioned, and left.

I called Melinda, hoping that she had not left. I wanted to meet so I could share my fear. She had not left, she said. Then I changed my mind and simply told her that Zack had left and I was once again a single parent. She was leaving the following day, she bubbled with happiness. “Let’s get together for girl talk,” she said. No, I did not want to interfere with her preparations. “Have a nice trip to Rio,” I said. “And Nairobi,” she reminded me. Festival of Rags.

•  •  •

I drove slowly, turning over Ben’s revelations in my mind. The man who had tried to hit me was alive and well and roaming the streets of New York. The suited gunman was on the flight with Zack. I wasn’t sure whether to believe Ben’s version of events—his conspiracy theories. If the suited gunman had gone after Zack, why didn’t Ben seem all that worried? Then I recalled David in custody. I should have asked Ben why he had been detained and whether it had anything to do with Zack.

The traffic on the Van Wyck from Kennedy was extremely heavy and slow, which suited my present mood. I went straight to school and collected Kobi. As it usually did, his smile cheered me. He was the best thing to happen in my life. The day’s issue of the
City News
was at the door, along with an envelope. Kobi took the newspaper and handed me the envelope, addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Zack Sivonen. It must have been hand-delivered, for there were no postal marks. There was a poorly scribbled “Enjoy!” on the envelope, which held a DVD. In the lounge, I slid the disk into the player. Some fuzzy bits came up and then a shadowy figure. My heart skipped a beat. Wait a minute, that was me, walking toward the door of the curio shop, the site of the ghostly Kasla. More fuzzy bits came up, and then I was sitting at Starbucks, waiting for Ben on the day of the accident.

Blood rushed to my head. I felt prickly heat under my arms. Whoever dropped off this DVD must have seen Zack and me go to the airport. He or she must have been prowling around our house. I looked about. Then I felt a presence. I swung around only to find Kobi staring at me.

“Mommy, what are you doing in the video?”

“Video? What video?”

“The one we have been watching. Who took it? They should take one of me going to school or playing soccer.”

“I don’t know,” I murmured.

I felt trapped with indecision. Zack was on the plane. Melinda was going away. I had to do something. My enemies were following my every move. Could it be Mark, now angry that Zack had rejected his shady schemes? And he would know that Zack was going to Estonia, Melinda was away, and I was home alone. Or maybe it was the gunman. But he was somewhere in the sky. I thought of the hotline to Ben. Once again, something had happened soon after I met with him. He was a suspect. And he knew that Zack was out of town.

I was no longer undecided: Kobi and I had to get out of the house. I ran upstairs to my room and grabbed our passports—the essentials, as I called them—then ran to his room, shoved some of his games, toys, and clothes in a duffel bag, and ran back downstairs.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing, dear, let’s go to the car,” I said, hardly able to calm my voice.

I was not sure exactly where to go. All I knew and felt was that I had to get out of the Bronx, be anywhere but the Bronx. I drove in a hypnotic state.

“Where are we going, Mommy?”

I glanced at the clock in the car. I had been driving in a dazed state for some time.

“Belle Haven,” Kobi read out, his way of trying to figure out where I was taking us. He was good at directions; he liked reading signposts out loud. It was then that I realized we were on Interstate 95 and I had been driving toward Joe’s house.

“To Uncle Joe’s,” I told Kobi, as if that had been my intended destination all along.

“Okay,” he said with doubt, and went back to his Game Boy.

I drove up to the iron gates and rang the bell, hoping Joe was not out on a date. I was grateful when the gates started opening but even more so when I drove up the hill and saw Joe’s red sports car parked outside the house.

Kobi and I made our way through the marble pillars on either side of the door to the mansion. It was so good to see him standing at the door. “What are my favorite people doing here?” he said as he hugged me.

“We came up to check on you.”

“Come in, come in,” he said.

As we stepped on the ceramic tile floor, I marveled at the high ceiling. We walked by two spiral staircases to the second floor and into his gourmet kitchen.

“How come you are home?” I asked.

“Believe it or not, I do spend some time alone,” he said, pointing at something cooking on the stove. We laughed.

Later on, after Kobi had run off to the game room, I told Joe a slightly edited but largely true account of my recent adventures, including the DVD scare. I left out Ben and the shadow of the gunman. A shocked Joe continued staring even after I had finished.

“You mean to tell me someone has been stalking you? “

“Obviously,” I replied, digging into my bag and waving the DVD.

He took the DVD, looked at it, and then gave it back. “Was there anything else in the envelope?”

“No.”

“And what is this Alaska?” he asked me.

“Mark’s company, probably, the one he talked about on the night of the wedding. I am sure that Mark blames me for Zack’s refusal to join him in the venture, as he did for his divorce with Melinda. He bears me a grudge.”

“Mark’s a nice guy, he is just edgy, what with all the illegal Hispanics he employs,” he said. “I don’t think he and adoption centers would go hand in hand.”

“He suggested the Kasla agency.”

“Yes, I remember you trying to thank him and Mark refusing the honor.”

“Almost as if he did not want a public acknowledgment.”

“I don’t know, people have many sides. I cannot vouch for anybody a hundred percent. Even Zack,” he said, looking at me as if the last part had just come out.

“I can vouch for Zack,” I shot back.

“I’m sorry. It’s just my hunch about Mark. But I cannot swear for him in a court of law,” Joe said.

Strange, but his words echoed the advice Ben had given me at the airport. Are they in communication? I thought.

“I am not here to talk about Mark or Zack or anybody,” I said. “I am on the run from whoever placed this on our doorstep. I need a place for Kobi and me to shelter before I figure out the next step. I have many questions I need to sort out. But mostly, I want to know why they are afraid of me.”

He said we were welcome to stay in his place until Zack returned. The two of them would follow up and make sure everything was okay. Even hire a private investigator if necessary.