Fidelity (22 page)

51

T
HERE WAS
a banging on Kay's door very late one Saturday night—very early Sunday morning—and she was up like a shot. She grabbed her service weapon off the chair next to her bed, slipped it out of its holster almost without thinking, checked to make sure it was loaded even though she knew it was, switched the safety off and sidled stealthily towards the door, crouching low. Another loud knock. The practical side of her mind told Kay that it was nothing: some drunken buffoon visiting a lover who had gotten his doors mixed up, a neighbor locked out and looking to make a phone call. But the other half flashed images of SVR hit men or grim-eyed associates of Rashid Williams who'd come up from Baltimore looking for payback.

When she called out, she was crouched around the corner from the entrance hall. “Who is it?”

A muffled response through the door that she could not make out.

“Speak louder and slower.”

She still couldn't make out what was being said, but she knew the voice, and Kay sighed and went to open the door for her brother.

As a rule, people banging on your door at three a.m. rarely come dressed in a suit and tie, with their shoes freshly shined and
their hair combed back neatly. But even by his usual standards, Christopher looked bad. Christopher looked very bad indeed. He was drunk, first of all, or stoned—Kay couldn't tell with certainty—but his eyes were dark, frightened dots in a sea of red capillaries. He looked very thin, and he had an ugly bruise below his cheek. It was not at all the first time that he had awakened her this way, but she had a sneaking certainty that this would be the worst.

“How did you get in?” Kay asked.

“It's the weekend,” Christopher said, a little trace of his usual devil-may-care attitude slipping out. “Not everyone goes to bed at eleven. I just waited around until someone came in.”

“Why didn't you call?”

“I think I left my phone somewhere.”

“Where?”

“Not in my jacket pocket,” he said. “Are you gonna invite me in, or were you going to shoot me and bury my body?”

Kay looked down at the Glock in her hand as if she were seriously considering the question. Then she moved out from the doorway and waved him inside.

He half collapsed on the sofa in her small living room. Kay went into the kitchen and poured him a glass of water. When he was finished she poured him another. When that was finished she sat down on the chair across from him. “Well?”

“I'm in trouble,” Christopher said.

“Really?” Kay asked. “You didn't just come by for a game of chess?”

“I'm serious, Kay. Something . . . I think I did something really bad.”

Kay was still wearing her sleeping clothes: long flannel underwear and a well-aged T-shirt. A warm evening but she felt the chill all the same, and brought her legs up against her body to
preserve some heat. “Is it bad enough that maybe you shouldn't be telling me the specifics? There's only so much I can look the other way on.”

Christopher righted himself from his slouch, pulled a box of cigarettes out from his jacket. “I think it's pretty bad.”

“Don't smoke in here,” Kay said.

Christopher put the cigarette back into its box and the box back where it came from. “Sorry.”

“I imagine that's not the last time you'll be saying that tonight.”

“Probably not.”

“Is this going to be long?” Kay asked.

“Yeah.”

“I'll make some tea.”

After she had made it, and put it in two cups, and brought one over to Christopher, Kay returned to her perch, took a sip and said, “Well?”

“Bartending doesn't pay all of my bills,” Christopher said.

“No?”

“No.”

“What does?”

“I . . . I moved a little bit of blow.”

Kay put her head in her hands, held them there for a while, as if looking through an old-fashioned viewfinder. “I'll get you a lawyer. I've got some money. But if you're thinking I can just wave my magic FBI wand and make the NYPD disappear, you're in for a rude awakening. It doesn't work like that.”

“It's not the law.”

Kay brought her eyes back up. “Then what?”

But he didn't answer at first, just sat there listening to the loud hum of the air-conditioning, staring down into his tea as if it held some sort of answer. “I was just small-timing it, Kay. Really—
a gram or two behind the bar, just to people I knew, friends from the neighborhood. Hipster kids and slumming yuppies. No one ever would have found out. I'd never have gotten into any trouble.”

“There are a lot of people in jail right now who thought something similar.”

“You're probably right about that.”

“You keep saying ‘was.' ”

“Sorry?”

“You've been talking in the past tense. What changed?”

“A couple of months ago these guys started coming into the bar. Not like our regular clientele: big guys, Russians or some such, tracksuits and open noses. Friendly, though. They seemed like good guys. I mean, not quite tax-paying citizens, but good guys.”

“They sound absolutely charming. And what did these paragons of virtue want with you?”

“Nothing at first. Just came in to drink and to talk. Like I said, they were friendly.”

“And then?”

“At some point they found out about my . . . side business. Told me they had a source for it, could hook me up whenever I wanted. For cheap, real cheap. Like, crazy cheap.”

Kay could feel a lecture gathering steam on her tongue, was preparing to give it full vent, sighed and let it escape out into the air. “And you went through with it.”

Christopher nodded. “They were friendly about it. Said I could pick something up on consignment, no cash up front.”

“Jesus Christ, Christopher.”

“That's not all of it,” Christopher said begrudgingly.

“No? What exactly could you have done that is worse than felony distribution of narcotics?”

“Funny thing is, Kay, I never actually got to that stage. I was holding on to it for a day or two. The truth is . . .” A glimpse of that old smile came back, that foolish, shit-eating grin, that I-know-I-done-wrong-but-I-can't-help-myself look that Kay knew as well as she did the back of her own hand. “The truth is I didn't really even know who to sell it to. I'm not much of a drug dealer. I guess maybe I'm not much of anything.”

“Don't do that,” Kay said sharply. “Don't take shelter in self-pity. You made your decisions: Be man enough to own up to them.”

But this little bit of meanness seemed to have no effect on him, like water poured over barren earth. “It doesn't matter anymore. I got robbed: four guys in masks broke in, grabbed the stash.”

“When?”

“Kicked in the door late last night. Early this morning. Terrified my . . . bedmate, near scared her out of her wits. Didn't do much for me, either.”

“That's where you got that shiner?”

Christopher brushed at the bruise above his eye. “Yeah. Butt of a shotgun. After that, I told them where I'd hid the coke, and they took it and disappeared.”

“How did they know you were holding on to enough drugs to make robbing you worthwhile?”

“I guess word must have got out.”

“From who? You just said you couldn't even figure out who to sell it to.”

“I don't know, Kay. The men who robbed me weren't real forthcoming.”

Kay went silent for a while, looking through the thing in her head, moving it about, checking the undercarriage. Two possibilities had begun to emerge in her mind. The first and most
likely was that Christopher was just very high, higher than he had seemed, and most or much of what he was saying was false. The second possibility was strange and dark and somewhat terrifying.

Kay decided to start with the first. “What are you on right now?”

“I had about a half bottle of vodka after the conversation, but that was six hours ago.”

“Nothing else?”

“Nothing. I swear.”

Kay did not want to believe him but found somehow that she did. “You ever mention me in conversation to anyone? At work or with your . . . friends?”

“No,” he said. “Christ, no.”

“Like it would be the worst thing you've ever done,” Kay mumbled.

“Believe it or not, Kay, the people I spend time with, they wouldn't be all that enthusiastic about discovering I have a relative in law enforcement. It's not something I make a point of mentioning when I'm passing out dime bags.”

Kay sat for a long time with her legs folded up against her chest, staring off at the wall. Christopher reached for his cigarettes, then recalled their earlier conversation and settled his hands in his lap.

“These men who approached you,” Kay asked, “what were they like?”

“Brighton Beach types, like I said. Big guys, Russian or Eastern European.”

“Lots of them out Bushwick way?”

“No,” Christopher said. “Now that you mention it, there aren't. I guess . . . I guess when you put it like that, it sounds a little strange.”

“It sounds more than strange,” Kay said, but quietly, almost to herself.

“Look, Kay, I know you're angry. I'm sorry.” His tongue wagged out of his open mouth, back and forth as he shook his head. “I know I say that a lot, but it's always true and it's twice as true now. I'm sorry, but I don't have anyone to go to: these guys, they're no joke. They're going to kill me. I gotta get out of town. Portland, maybe Seattle. I know some people out there. But I don't have the money,” he said. “Just let me hold on to a thousand or two, just enough to get out to the coast and set myself up for a few months. It's my only way out.”

Kay went silent again, silent for a long time, the tea growing cold on the table beside her, Christopher yawning and wiping at his eyes and yawning again.

“No it isn't,” Kay said finally.

52

K
AY WAS
late to brunch, which was rare verging on unheard of, at least in Justyna's experience. Her goddaughter did not show up tardy, never missed appointments or forgot engagements. She had always been that way, even as a child, stern and perhaps overserious, with a way of staring at you that eight-year-old girls generally did not possess, perhaps more severe than precocious. And of course after Paul and Anne had passed . . .

Justyna was sitting outside, finishing her mimosa, had a good view of the subway station and noticed Kay walk out of it finally. She looked haggard, worn, even from a distance. She had on loose jeans and a drab blouse, and she moved swiftly through the packed crowds of tourists and Sunday brunch–goers, waving once she got close.

“Kay!”

“Auntie.” She leaned in for a kiss, holding herself there, lips against the thin skin of Justyna's cheek, then took the seat across from her.

“Coffee,” Kay said to a passing waiter.

“And another mimosa,” Justyna added.

When he was gone, Kay settled back into her chair, rubbed
at the skin between the bridge of her nose and her bleary, red eyes. “I'm so sorry to have kept you waiting.”

“Think nothing of it, nothing of it. Late mornings in bed with the beau?” Justyna asked hopefully.

“Actually, Andrew had to go back to D.C.”

“Oh,” Justyna said, trying not to let disappointment show on her face. “What does that mean for the two of you?”

Kay didn't answer for a long time; seemed almost to have forgotten the question. When the server came back with her coffee, she brought it swiftly to her lips, then set a half-empty cup back down in the saucer. “I'm not sure,” she said.

And of course Justyna knew better than to push her. Justyna prided herself on her decorum, an old-fashioned sense of etiquette that allowed for the uncomfortable to be swiftly forgotten. And anyway, Kay had never been the sort of person to answer a question she did not want to, or to be bullied into anything generally.

They ordered breakfast, a happy interruption, a useful segue from the awkward beginnings of their conversation. They made small talk for a while. Kay asked about Luis and about her charity work. Justyna avoided asking about Andrew or about Christopher, although they were the only two subjects in which she had much interest. The waitress came and Kay gave a desultory order after a casual glance at the menu, food apparently not on her mind.

“What's wrong, dear?” Justyna asked. “You seem like you've just been put through a wringer.”

“It's been a stressful few weeks,” Kay admitted, with what Justyna suspected was a palpable understatement.

“Work?”

Kay shrugged and stared at the dregs of her coffee. “It's a lot
of things,” she said. “I was thinking of taking a vacation,” she offered awkwardly, as if she had been looking for an opportunity to say it.

“What a wonderful idea!” Justyna said, clapping her hands happily. “You've more than earned it; just the thing to get you out of the doldrums. Where were you thinking? Perhaps something coastal? We have friends on Cape Cod we could put you in touch with. Or perhaps intercontinental? A busy time of year, but then, there's never a bad time to go to Monaco. I'll have to think of who I can put you in touch with.”

“I was considering making a visit farther east. I've never been to Eastern Europe, you know. I was giving some thought to Poland, in fact.”

Justyna made a sound in the back of her throat: melodious, sweet-sounding, having no clear meaning of any sort.

“Do you still know anyone out there?” Kay asked.

“Not . . . so much these days,” Justyna responded neatly. “Besides, the cities in summer are miserable. Much better off on a beach, burning yourself and drinking something slightly sweet and moderately alcoholic.”

“I've heard Kraków is very beautiful.”

“It was once. Then it wasn't. Perhaps it is again,” Justyna said softly. “I'm not sure.”

“You haven't been back? Not since . . . ?”

“No,” Justyna said.

“Even after the Iron Curtain fell? You never wanted to see what had become of everyone?”

“There wasn't anyone left,” Justyna said. “I was an only child, of course, and both my parents died when I was young.”

“And your friends?”

Justyna imitated a person smiling. “I had many friends,” she admitted. “The good ones are lost. The bad ones . . . The bad
ones have their own sins to weigh them down and don't need an old woman reminding them.”

“You never talk about it,” Kay said.

Justyna nodded, forked a bit of watercress between red lips. “No, I never do.”

“Was it so terrible?”

Justyna dabbed at her mouth with the corner of her napkin. “Yes,” she said, as if it hadn't been.

Kay could see the wound clear, raw and red, although it had been decades since it was made. She steeled herself and poured more salt inside. “Why did they take you?”

“Why is this important to you, Kay?”

Kay could not say—or at least she did not say, swallowing an explanation. “It just is. Please?”

Justyna sighed and set the napkin down. For a long time it did not seem as if she was likely to speak, and when she did, it was in a flat and affectless monotone. “Because I was young, and foolish, and righteous, and thought that these alone would be enough to keep me safe from the hands of men. Alas”—she shrugged—“it was not. It never is. At the time I imagined I was fighting for something greater than myself, for my country, for the future. I think it was mostly just innocence. The young have so much energy—far more so than sense.”

“You were a part of some sort of . . . dissident movement?”

“Looking back, it all seems very childish, our pretensions that we might change the system, that we were on the cusp of a new utopia, if only we could reach out to grasp it. Nothing violent, of course, though I suppose after a few glasses of red wine some of our members may have grown rather . . . animated. But it wasn't real: Luis used to call them paper tigers, and laugh at our dreams.”

“And your friends? How did they feel about him?”

“Everyone loved your uncle,” Justyna said, smiling at distant times. “He was charming beyond any measure; any room he walked into he walked out of to a chorus of happy voices. And for us, at the time, America was . . . something like a dream. Americans were an alien species, unmarked by war or struggle. And being in the diplomat corps, he could do small favors for us: a pack of Marlboros now and again, that sort of thing.”

“But he couldn't stop them from taking you?” Kay asked, forcing the words out from her throat.

Justyna set one gloved hand on Kay's, the hand that was missing two digits, and said, “Isn't the answer to that obvious?”

“I suppose it is,” Kay said. “Why did they take you?”

“Because they could, Kay. Because they could do whatever they wanted and no one could stop them. If you mean, was there some reason, some obvious proximate cause . . . ?” She shook her head. “None that I knew. None that I ever learned. I was walking out of my apartment one day—on the way to meet your uncle, in fact—and some men came up on either side of me and walked me to a car, and from that car to a box.”

“You don't need to talk about it,” Kay said suddenly, her face red and miserable.

But Justyna continued over her interruption, spewing forth like a punctured abscess. “They would ask me questions that they must have known I didn't have answers to, my relationship to spy rings, assassination plots which were, which they knew to be, entirely fictitious. It didn't matter. Their aim was only to break you. I think perhaps that might even be giving them too much credit: I think for most of them it was simply something that they had become, the way one begins to think of oneself as a doctor or a lawyer. Can you imagine kissing your children good-bye every morning, then going in to torture a stranger?” Justyna shrugged, shook her head.

Kay found that she could not imagine it. “How long were you inside?”

“A long time,” Justyna said. “A long time.”

“How did you get out?”

“I don't know why I was released,” Justyna said, looking off down Fifth Avenue, at the towering edifices of American civilization and perhaps beyond that, to a past that was not as distant as she might have liked. “I do not know why I escaped those cells, that torment. At the time I was in no position to question the matter. Perhaps they knew they had frightened me enough to leave, that I would never again trouble them, that I was broken. When they took me out of my cell, I was sure it was . . . I was sure it was to kill me. That was the only reason you left: another body to be put in an unmarked grave—‘killed attempting to escape,' they would tell your people, assuming they bothered to tell them anything at all. Anyway, I was too tired to fight then. I think . . . I think I had accepted it. They led me down a long hallway, then into a little holding area, and they removed my cuffs, and left, and the door opened . . .” Justyna smiled, for the first time since she had begun telling her story. “And he was there.”

“Uncle Luis?”

“He saved me,” she said with firm certainty. “He saved me,” she repeated. “We were married shortly after, and moved here, and said good-bye to the whole . . . horrible, sordid business. And I've lived in peace and contentment ever since,” she said with a half-mocking smile. “A happy end to an unhappy story.”

Kay did not say anything for a long time, although Justyna could read the heavy thought in the crinkling up of her eyes. “I'm sorry to have brought this up with you, Auntie.”

“It's fine, Kay,” Justyna said, forcing a smile to her face, although Kay could see that it wasn't fine at all. “It was a long time
ago. It doesn't matter anymore. It doesn't have anything to do with our lives any longer.”

“I'm not sure that that's true,” Kay said quietly, underneath her breath. But after saying it she switched the topic quickly, onto more salubrious grounds: casual chatter, movies she'd seen and restaurants she had been to. But even in the midst of it, and even walking to the subway and even while kissing her good-bye, Justyna noticed that Kay's smile did not quite reach her eyes.