Here She Lies (14 page)

With ex-cons, it was always the same roadblock.

“Your record. But you did your time and the rules are we’re supposed to give you a chance to succeed now.”

“Rules.” He smirked.

“Well, some people follow them.”

Clark smiled.
Back in the slammer,
as he might have said, we used to have these conversations about different kinds of people. In his world you were guilty until proven innocent; in my world it was the opposite. Our debates had been friendly and sometimes fun, but we’d never convinced each other to change our views.

“So what brings you here?” he asked.

“I left the prison. I’ve got a new job here in the city.”

“Get outta
town
.”

I nodded, smiled, stayed in town.

“So what about Mr. Goodman?” Wink wink wink.

“I thought he was some kind of lifer in the joint.”

“He’s still there.”

He nodded heavily, hair bobbing all of a piece. “Too bad. I thought you guys’d last.”

“It’s just a temporary separation, for a year or so, until he earns his pension. We’ll see each other every weekend.”

Clark eyed me as if I were conning him, which of course I was. But I had my privacy to protect.

“You know what they say about long-distance ro-mances.”

“No. What?”

“They’re for the birds.”

I laughed out loud. “
That’s
the truth!”

“So, who left who? I mean, besides you being the one who flew the coop.”

“No one left anyone.”

“That’s such fuckin’ bullshit, if I may say so myself.”

I stared at him. “That was really out of line.”

“It’s just that I always liked both of you. You were both good to me in the clinic, and believe me, that was the only thing kept me sane. Mr. Goodman, he’s the kind of guy’s got his nose to the grindstone, makes a good living, stays straight. I mean, what more do you want from a guy?”

“Fidelity.” It slipped out before I could stop myself and then there seemed no point in holding back. “He cheated on me, Clark. So now you know.”

“Mr. G?”

I nodded.

“You caught him in flagrante, I guess.” I didn’t know whether to laugh or shout or walk away. “No, I didn’t actually catch him in the act, but I did find evidence.” And then before I knew it, I was telling him my story. It poured out in minutes and afterward I felt naked and there was Clark Hazmat, nodding at me sympathetically with the saddest look on his face. I felt so foolish, so
exposed
, and now to make matters worse my eyes started to tear, though I was able to hold myself back from really crying.

He gave my arm a warm squeeze. “Well, I never woulda guessed it of Mr. Goodman. But proof’s proof, right?”

“It’s all right there on paper.” I found a tissue in my purse and wiped my eyes before my mascara had a chance to run. Then I lifted my wrist to somewhat dramatically consult the time. “I really have to get going.

If you ever decide to work in a physical therapy clinic, I’ll be happy to give you a recommendation.” I had to brace myself to avoid visibly cringing when I said that, but I
had
to find a way out of this conversation and my orientation
was
starting in half an hour.

In a flash he handed me a neon orange business card reading CLARK HAZMAT, PRIVATE CITIZEN and his phone number.

“Get it?
‘Private Citizen.’
That’s my personal touch.”

I smiled genuinely, because in some counter-intuitive way I really
did
like Clark. Sort of. He then gave me a pen and another one of his cards, blank side facing up.

“Put your info right here for me. Now that I’m out, I told myself I was going to stay connected to good people.”

What could I do? I wrote down my new cell number.

“Thanks, Miss M. Let’s stay in touch. Everybody needs a few friends—am I right?”

“Absolutely.”

He hugged me and I kind of hugged him back, then made my way to the down escalator. As I zigzagged my way to the first-floor lobby and back onto the street, I felt increasingly disturbed to have revealed myself to Clark. He was a
convicted felon
; he’d done
jail time
for hacking information that was none of his business. What had I been thinking? Walking west, in the direction of the hospital, I dialed Detective Lazare.

“I’m in Manhattan and I just ran into an inmate from the prison: Clark Hazmat. Is he on your list?”

“Hold on. I’ll check.”

In the minutes it took me to walk west on Fifty-eighth Street to Ninth Avenue, where I could see the hospital entrance down the block, the detective was back on the line.

“Yup, he’s on the list and he’s cleared. No connection to Zara Moklas or Thomas Soiffer. Our people talked to him, but don’t worry—he doesn’t know why.” “It’s just that he was right there when I came out of the store—like he was waiting for me.”

“We’ll check him out a little more if you want.”

“Thank you,” I said. And then, “Detective Lazare …

the window … were there fingerprints?”

“Only from the guys who installed it and the people who put in the alarm system. No Thomas Soiffer, or Clark Hazmat, if that puts your mind at rest.”
My mind at rest.
A contradiction in terms.

“Yes,” I answered, “it does.”

“So you’re in Manhattan …”

“The orientation for my new job is today. I told you about it.”

“I remember. It’s just that I thought I saw you in town this morning with your baby.”

As soon as he said it, Julie and Lexy appeared in my mind: walking down Main Street, Lexy with one chubby leg thrown over the side of her poppy red stroller, a plastic shopping bag hanging off one handle.

It made me so happy to see them even if it was only a fantasy.

“That was Julie,” I said. “She’s watching Lexy while I’m here.”

“So, you’re going through with it.”

“Are you married, Detective?”

After a pause, he answered, “Yes.”

“How long?”

“Thirty years.”

“Congratulations. I hope by now you’ve both aired all your secrets.”

“Not everyone has secrets, Annie.”

“I have to go.”

“By the way, speaking of secrets, Clark Hazmat isn’t his real name. It’s Jesus-Ramon Hazamattian.”

“Yikes.”

“At least he didn’t change it to Clark Kent. Hazmat’s not so bad. Probably thought it up after a long road trip with a few bridge and tunnel crossings.” I thought of the ubiquitous highway signs declaring NO HAZMATS.
Hazmat
: hazardous material. It was the perfect name for Clark.

“So will you call me if I
do
need to worry about him?” I asked.

“Yes, I’ll call you.”

“Any news about Thomas Soiffer?”

“Nothing. But Annie, don’t worry about him either.

He’s a person of interest, that’s all.”
Aren’t we all persons of interest?
I wanted to say, but instead chose a simpler good-bye. “Thanks, Detective. I really have to go now.”

I had walked into the hospital’s bustling lobby, where a sign on the wall read: PLEASE TURN OFF ALL

ELECTRONIC DEVICES. He said good-bye and I turned off my cell phone and dropped it into my purse. At the information desk a man listened to my name and reason for visiting, made a phone call, then handed me a stick-on personalized guest badge. I peeled off the backing, which I balled up and tossed into an unused ashtray in the elevator bank. Wearing my green-rimmed name tag, I rode the antiseptic-smelling elevator to the third floor, as instructed. The doors parted with a ding. I stepped into an empty foyer. To my right was a wide glass door through which I saw what had to be my fel-low new employees, about ten of them, also conserva-tively dressed and wearing their names in bold black marker.

“Annie Milliken?”

I looked to my left. A woman with straight brown hair and rectangular glasses smiled at me pleasantly.

She was wearing red slacks and very pointy shoes and stood in front of a wooden door. A laminated identification card hung like a necklace over her white silk blouse.

“We’ve been waiting for you,” she said. “Would you mind coming with me?”

“But I’m here for the orientation. Isn’t it that way?” I pointed to the glass door.

“Please.” Her pleasant smile seemed frozen in a way that made my skin crawl.

“And you are … ?”

“Emily Leary, human resources director.
Please
.” She opened the wooden door and gestured for me to go in. “We don’t want to embarrass you.”

Embarrass
me? What did I have to be embarrassed about, here in this hospital, where I had never before set foot? All my life’s transgressions flashed through my mind as I tried to rationalize being culled from my orientation colleagues. Had my mascara run before when I started to cry, talking with Clark? Or had Kent, Lord of the Evil Fortress, been in touch with Ms. Leary to pave my way with unmerited land mines? That had to be it. The hospital had been going through my paperwork in advance of my orientation, as they’d said they would, and had had the dishonor of a conversation with Lord Kent himself. That man was even viler than I’d thought, but I was sure it was nothing I couldn’t clear up.

“Thank you.” I smiled politely, following Ms. Leary through the door and along a well-lit hallway. Our leather soles smacked arrhythmically against the glossy linoleum floor. We didn’t speak, just smiled and walked until we reached a door with an embossed nameplate reading DIRECTOR OF HUMAN RESOURCES.

She swung open the door and stood back as I walked into a cozy blue-carpeted reception area that buffered her office beyond it. I barely heard her whisper, “I’m sorry,” as she closed the door behind me. She herself stayed out in the hall.

Sorry?
I turned to face the door, wondering
why.

And then from her office into the reception area with its unmanned desk came two New York City police officers. The tall one had apparently been preappointed as the talker.

“Anais Milliken?” He pronounced it
Ann-anus
, and I resisted the urge to correct him (
Anna-ees
).

I held my tongue, answering simply, “Yes.” The chubby one lifted a pair of handcuffs off his heavily laden belt. He averted his eyes from my face and lifted my right wrist, gently, like a prom date about to bestow a corsage. Then he shackled both my wrists together behind my back.

“What is this? Where’s that woman?
What’s going
on here?
”

“Anais Milliken, you are under arrest for grand larceny. You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to counsel. Anything you do or say can be used against you in a court of law …”

The big fenced-in windows of Midtown North were so grimy that hardly any light filtered through and the bright spring morning quickly darkened. Before we could get much beyond the front doors I was directed through a security checkpoint. My stocking feet felt the coldness and hardness of the floor as I walked through the portal to collect my purse and shoes.

Voices clapped and echoed through the vast lobby with its high ceilings and marble floors, leftovers from another era. The place was busy, crowded with a crazy salad of cops, office workers, criminals—and me. My arresting officers jostled me through the flux of people until we reached a baroque wooden counter etched with graffiti:
dogeetdog, 20/2/life, poppa-ratzi
. A large black woman with a gold chain around the neck of her police uniform glared at me and then smirked at my companions.

“Whadygot, boys?”

“Booking.”

“Name?”

“Ann-anus Milliken.”

“
Anna-ees
.” And then I spelled it: “A-n-a-i-s.” If she was writing it down, it had to be right. “
Please
, this is a mistake. I didn’t do anything wrong.” They all three laughed as if they’d
heard it all before
. Unless it was my
please
: white woman in business duds being so polite. Though both my cops were also white, they weren’t white like
me
in my beige suit, my makeup, my done hair, my nice diction. In fact there were plenty of white people around; this was about something else, some huge misunderstanding.

“I’d like to make a phone call,” I said.

Ignoring me, she took a large paper envelope on which she had written my name and the date and inflated it by slapping it against the air. “Phone, keys, jewelry. Empty your pockets. Dump the purse. Put it all in here.”

“What?”

“I said—”

“No, I heard you, but—”

“You heard me? Then
do it
.”

I did it.

“Take her upstairs.”

Officer Williams nodded (he was the tall one; since the shock of my arrest I had taken note of their name tags and removed my own) and P.O. Kiatsis (flabby, pale) tapped my shoulder. I walked between them, weaving past harried clumps of people for whom my presence here was a non-event. Didn’t
anyone
realize that I didn’t belong here? That this was a terrible mistake? I tried to make eye contact with a professional-looking woman in a nice blue suit, but she ignored me, as did a short man with a blond toupee and a kind face, and a young woman with a high ponytail and huge hoop earrings, lugging a stenotype machine.
No one
saw me.
We rumbled up three flights in a battered elevator, they looking anywhere but at me, me searching back and forth between their blank faces. Down a long hall. Through a reinforced-glass door with DETECTIVES

UNIT in black lettering so degraded it was hard to read.

Into a desk-crowded, noise-addled room where again no one paused to notice me. An odor of hamburgers and French fries lingered in the air. Scattered across desks were the remnants of half-eaten early lunches—

splayed paper wrappings, pried-apart plastic salad containers, water bottles, popped soda cans. I felt sick and involuntarily heaved, just slightly, but enough that one of the detectives bothered a glance: a thick-necked young man in a T-shirt with a tiny bicycle on his chest.