Breaking the Bank (28 page)

“Anyway, they say the third time's the charm. So I'm open, man; I'm wide open and ready. I'm going to find myself another wife. She's out there, I can feel it. I've got, like, a sixth sense about these things.” He paused, drinking the air in that labored way Mia had heard earlier.

“What will she be like, your next wife?” Mia asked. She actually wanted to know.

“She'll be a looker, that's for sure. Eye candy is my candy. But there'll have to be something more than that.”

“What would it be? The something more?”

“She'd have to be the kind of girl I'd feel comfortable with, you know? Like I could tell her anything. Loving her would be a great big mansion where I could visit all the rooms, every single one. There wouldn't be any locked doors in that mansion. Everything would be free and easy. And it would all be mine.”

Mia let Patrick's description of love hover in her mind. She wouldn't have thought this man would have been capable of such a metaphor. But he had surprised her.

“How about you, College Girl? What's your dream date like?” Before she could answer, Mia was distracted by the footsteps that were now coming down the hall. They were getting closer; they were almost here.

Patrick was instantly up and at the bars of the cell. “Have you finally come back for me, you fat fuck?” he called loudly. “It's about fucking time.”

Mia got up, too. Three officers approached Patrick's cell. Two were over six feet, and while the third one was substantially shorter, he was stocky and solid, with the kind of thick neck frequently seen on tomcats,
the hulking, malevolent strays who had never been neutered. The hard gleam of the handcuffs dangled from one meaty paw.

“We're going to try it again,” said the largest of the policemen. “And this time, you'd better behave.”

“I'll behave all right,” said Patrick challengingly. “But the question is, will you?”

“Come on,” said the big one. “Let's go.”

Mia watched as Patrick was yanked from the cell, snapped into the cuffs, and dragged away. She realized only then that he was wearing a white sweatshirt, torn white jeans, and white sneakers without laces. Everything about him was white or light. Everything but his voice, which seemed to break slightly as he called out to her, “Good night, College Girl. Good night and good luck.” The sound of footsteps lingered for a few seconds, then it was quiet.

Being in the cell was even worse when Patrick had gone. She couldn't stop the frantic cycling of her own worry. How was Eden? Was she able to get to sleep? What time was it? Was it still snowing? Where was Cox, anyway? Would she ever get out of here?

To fight the anxiety, Mia recited every scrap of poetry she had ever memorized, tried to recall her childhood phone number and the names, first and last, of all the kids who had endured second grade along with her. When that began to pale, she resorted to counting the white subway tiles on the walls; over the decades, the grout had turned pitch-black, giving the cramped space a dizzying kind of op art look. She also had an urgent need to pee—what had happened to her usual camel-like control?—and thought she just might have to break down and use what passed for a toilet. Though maybe she could have used the sink; it was somewhat cleaner, and who would ever know? Before she had to make the choice, she heard footsteps again and, seconds later, was almost tipsy with relief to see Roy and Choi standing in front of her once more.

“Your lawyer's here,” said Roy, as he unlocked the cell. “He's waiting for you upstairs.”

S
PRUNG
! T
HAT WAS
the word that Mia kept repeating to herself, and each repetition gave her the same exhilarated little zing, as if a small silver pinball was ricocheting around in her head.
Sprung, sprung, sprung!

She tramped through the quiet streets, scuffing her feet through the thick white blanket of snow. Chris Cox, the lawyer, said he would give her a lift back to her apartment, but she had refused. After the last several hours, the front seat of a car felt too confined. She told him she wanted to walk, though she did thank him, sincerely, for the offer. Chris, who was about five one in his shoes and bald as a cue ball, was definitely cool. Yes, he talked nonstop, but clearly, it was talk with a purpose. He handled the detective with the aplomb of a lion tamer flicking a long, well-oiled whip. And when she asked about his fee, he said that there would be no charge, professional courtesy.

“I can't tell her where I got that bill,” Mia had told him when they were allowed, finally, to confer in an empty office adjacent to Costello's.

“Okay, we won't deal with the bill for now,” said Cox. “Tell me about Wedeen. How you met him. What he said. What you said. Everything.”

So Mia told him—there wasn't much to tell—and from her slim story, Cox was able to weave a web of words, convincing Costello that the possibility of Mia's involvement with Wedeen's death was virtually nonexistent.

“My client was nowhere near the deceased at the time of his death; you've got nothing on her—no prints, blood, nothing. Plus, she's got an airtight alibi, which I am positive would stand up in court—if we have to go to court, that is.”

“Maybe she does,” said Costello. “But what if she had taken out a contract on his life? Had him killed?”

“Have you actually
talked
to this client? Gotten a sense of who she is? If you had, you'd be fully aware of her financial circumstances, or, should I say, constraints? A single mother, raising a child all by herself. Ex-husband is God knows where—L.A., Korea, Vietnam. He sends her child support when he deigns to. Meanwhile she's working—two jobs sometimes—just to make ends meet. She's hardworking, she's devoted, and she's trying her level best. She sold that bill to Wedeen for far less than it was worth because she was desperate, don't you see? A woman in need. A woman with her back to the wall. And you mean to tell me that
this
woman, my
client,
is actually going to use one red cent of that money to have someone killed? I don't think so, Detective Costello. I don't think so at all.”

Mia wanted to stand up and cheer when he'd finished. Costello looked less impressed, but she was willing to delay further questioning and release Mia on her own recognizance. But before she did, she handed Mia yet another form.

“DAT,” said Cox succinctly as he ushered Mia from the room. Mia looked puzzled, so he continued. The DAT—desk appearance ticket—demanded her presence in court on January 4. In the intervening weeks, he said he would help her get her story spit-polished and ready to place before the judge. If she decided to bolt or not show, the police would take out a warrant for her arrest.

“But you won't do anything stupid, right?” asked Cox; he was seated behind the wheel of his silver Porsche, and talking to her through the open window. “You don't want any more trouble.”

“Right,” she had said, itchy to get out of there; she didn't even want to be on the same block as the station house. “No more trouble.” Chris promised to call her in the next couple of days, and then, as the engine smoothly purred into life, he was gone.

* * *

M
IA CHECKED HER
cell phone as she walked; she had not checked it recently and there were messages up the wazoo. Her brother, her mother, her sister-in-law. Julie, calling from Key West, to say she would be back in New York after the holidays. Finally! Mia was simultaneously relieved and annoyed. Lloyd—twice. Lloyd's mother, the genteel and wispy-voiced Virginia. Eden, about twenty times. Someone from her present job, calling about a last-minute crisis with the
Power Pastry
manuscript, someone from her old beloved job, calling to talk about the abysmal state of publishing these days, the class mom calling to see if she would contribute money for the teacher's holiday gift. Teacher's gift? How about some coal for her stocking? Dried twigs, anyone? Mia gleefully deleted the message. Not one of these many calls, however, was from Fred. She was trying to decide whether to call him when the phone started vibrating, like a live thing, in her hand.

“Mom? Mom, are you there? It's me, Eden.”

“I'm here, baby,” Mia said. “Mom! Where
are
you? I've been calling and calling! Why didn't you answer?”

“I'm coming home, Eden. I'm coming home right now.” She decided to let the question about her failure to answer slide for the moment.

“You are? For real?” Eden's voice seemed to have slipped into a time warp; she sounded about five years old.

“For real,” Mia said gently. She looked down at her watch; it was six twenty-five. “Is anyone else in Luisa's apartment awake?”

“Not yet. I went into the bathroom to call you. So I wouldn't wake them up.”

“Well, just hold on. I'll be there as soon as I can.”

“I love you, Mommy,” Eden said. Mia couldn't remember the last time her daughter had used the word
Mommy.

“Love you, too,” Mia said before clicking off. The winter light, reflecting off the snow, was pale silver, whitening slowly as the sun rose
higher in the sky. A bodega on Fifth Avenue was just opening its doors, so Mia bought a cup of coffee and a buttered bagel. The coffee—extra light, three sugars—was like nectar. She tore at the bagel with her teeth, buttering her chin in the process. God, but she was hungry. Three weeks. Three scant weeks to get herself out of this mess and her life back on track again. She walked faster, eager to be home. But when she came to the bank, she slowed so she could peer in the window.

There was the machine, looking perfectly ordinary in the morning light. She began walking away, and as she did, she caught what seemed like the aftermath of a pinkish glow. Mia whirled around. There! She
had
seen it—a rosy flickering on the screen that lent a brightness to the surrounding air before it faded away. She waited, ardently hoping to see it again. After her night in jail, she
needed
to see it. But after several minutes, it became clear that the glow would not reappear, and Mia, strangely bereft, moved on.

She was back in her apartment by seven. Although she had been in jail for less than a night, she had the sense that she had been away much longer and that everything had been somehow altered in her absence. The place seemed different to her. Unfamiliar. Had the light from the living room window always hit the wall like that? And what about the pattern of cracks in the ceiling? Hadn't they changed, realigned themselves? Even her most familiar possessions looked different. The spines of her books—and she had so many—were so vivid and various in their colors. A thick blue book that was next to a thin crimson one practically jumped off the shelf. She drank in the contrasts: deep green next to the brown, yellow alongside black. The rug, a relic from her parents' apartment on Ninety-ninth Street, was worn to a whisper; this rug had been present during her childhood, its warp and weft knew her father's tread.

Mia walked through the apartment slowly, marveling at her sense of dislocation. She thought about how she had been living her life, versus the way other people seemed to think she had been living it. Was she a good mother? Or was she guilty of having made poor and irresponsible
choices? She stopped when she reached Eden's room. The bed, with its raucously patterned sheets, was rumpled, and Eden's clothes were scattered all over the place. But the tiny space was rich in color and pattern. Stacks of books—they had never gotten around to shelves—a puppet theater; an arcane selection of stuffed animals that included a walrus, a hippo, and the outsize giraffe Lloyd had bought; a toy castle; binoculars; a doll's house, with most of the furniture missing or broken.

Mia picked up the stuffed hippo—he had an endearing underbite— and stretched out on Eden's bed. Eden was having a hard time of it; that couldn't be denied. Yet in this strangely suspended moment, Mia didn't feel overwhelmed by the usual truckload of guilt. She was hardly a perfect parent. But she didn't yell—at least not often—and she never, ever hit. She talked to her, read to her, listened to her, loved her more than she had ever loved anyone. And she had always tried—oh, how she had tried!—to protect and cherish her. She would keep trying, too. That had to count for something. She got up, put the hippo back, made the bed, and folded the clothes. Then she went upstairs to fetch her daughter.

FOR THE REST of the weekend, Eden would not let Mia out of her sight. She declined all invitations, including one to go skating with Caitlin and another to a birthday party that featured a live DJ. She insisted on sleeping in Mia's bed and camped out by the bathroom door when Mia was inside. She wanted physical contact with Mia all the time, too—holding her hand, kissing her cheek, sitting in her lap. Mia understood, deeply, that she needed to indulge her. Eden was worried; Eden was frightened; Eden needed to be reassured. If sleeping in Mia's bed, liberal doses of candy—she refused to eat virtually anything else—and a brand-new stuffed animal, a reindeer made of luscious, deep brown velveteen, were what Eden needed, Mia wasn't going to argue. By Sunday afternoon, she had decided to buy Eden a cell phone of her own; otherwise, she didn't think she would be able to leave her at school the next morning.

Eden treated the new phone like a fetish, talking both into it and to it, nuzzling its sleek, metallic blue surface. “Can I call Daddy on it? Please?” Mia nodded, watching while Eden punched in the numbers with a light and practiced touch. Then she trotted off to the bath-room—door smartly closed behind her—to talk to Lloyd.

Mia didn't want the temptation of eavesdropping, so she went into the kitchen and started doing the dishes. There were always dishes in her sink. She was about halfway through this particular sinkful when Eden appeared, holding out the phone.

“Here,” she said. “He says he wants to talk to you.”