Remember Me, Irene

I shuddered. Two Toes leaned his cheek against the top of my head, moved the arm around my waist to pat my back. Childlike.

Childlike. The thought that Andre’s daughter might be just as manipulative and ruthless as her father was one I didn’t like to face. The apple never falls too far from the tree, Jerry Selman had quoted to me. I had been looking at the wrong apple.

Lisa. Why?Why?

Was she so angry with Andre ignoring her that she’d try to frame him for murder? Was that why she had come to me? To make me a party to the accusations? Get the newspaper reporter to say it, so that she didn’t have to? No wonder she was upset when I defended him in any way.

And now she had Ben’s calendar pages, Ivy’s faxes, the copy of Jeff McCutchen’s suicide note. How ironic that she didn’t need to frame Andre-he had probably already committed a murder.

The footsteps in the hallway were cautious, but steadily approaching. Two Toes seemed to notice that I wasn’t trying to struggle. He relaxed his grip. I wanted to communicate my trust to him somehow, but didn’t dare to even whisper. I couldn’t see his face, he couldn’t see the change in mine. He eased away slightly. I reached for his hand, gently squeezed it. He squeezed mine back, just as gently. He stood back a little more, dropped his arms, no longer covering my mouth or holding me to him.

A moment later, any remaining doubts I may have held on to, the slim, denying hope that said no one that I had cared for so much could have killed Lucas, vanished when I heard a sharp bang against the door to the hallway. It quickly banged again as it hit against a wall, sounding as if it had been kicked open.

“I’ve got a gun,” Lisa’s voice said from a slight distance. “Bring Irene out now.”

Two Toes reached for my face, found my mouth, and patted his fingers on my lips. I nodded as he held them there lightly. He then turned around slightly, his back to me.

I wondered if she really had a gun. We had heard her footsteps overhead, in the bar. Her knapsack. Had she gone back to retrieve a weapon?

“Do you hear me? I said to bring her out now!”

The air inside the closet seemed to be gone.

When we didn’t emerge, she called out, “I have magic, Mr. Jones. I’ll trade you my magic for Irene.”

Mr. Jones. She had learned Two Toes’ name, but not his street name. From Roberta, perhaps? Two Toes had been to the shelter. Was she hunting him, too?

Two Toes wasn’t quite as gullible as she hoped, it seems. He didn’t move.

“Irene?” Her voice was less cocky now. “Irene, try to make some sound. It’s the only way I can save you.”

Listening to her lie brought a bitter taste to my mouth.

I heard her walk cautiously into the room, her shoes making the same sound I had heard upstairs, as if she had something sticky on the soles of her ru

The light of the flashlight played near the closet door. The footsteps were hesitant, unsure.

Suddenly there was a piercing noise-I barely registered what it was before gunfire rang out. The echo of the shot had hardly faded before I realized what the first noise was: my beeper, going off in the old iron, claw-foot bathtub.

The acrid smell of gunpowder filled the small room.

The beeper stopped.

“Now,” she said shakily, “you know I wasn’t lying about the gun.”

The beeper went off again.

“Shut that thing off!” she shouted.

It continued.

She fired again; I heard the sound of something shattering, probably the bathroom mirror. The gun seemed to be fired near us. She had to be standing to one side of the bathroom door, firing through it, into the bathroom.

The beeper stopped for a moment, started up again.

“Come out of that bathroom, or I’m coming in!” she shouted, her voice not far from the closet.

The beeper stopped.

It occurred to me that with the flashlight in one hand and the gun in the other, she didn’t have a hand free. Her steps moved nearer the bathroom door.

“Do it!” she shouted. “Do it now!”

As if obeying her order, Two Toes burst out of the closet like a berserker, screaming as he launched himself into the room. I followed, staying low.

Lisa had turned at the sound, the flashlight beam spi

He grunted as he tackled her to the floor, grabbing her right wrist, tearing the gun from her hand and sending it across the room. I grabbed the left hand, prying the flashlight from her fingers as she tried to hit Two Toes with it. She struggled against him, but he overpowered her. I used the flashlight to find the gun, turned to see her flailing her fists against Two Toes in impotent fury.

He backhanded her hard against the face. She lay stu

“No,” I said. “Two Toes, no!”

He paused, looked up at me.

“Get off me, you filthy cocksucker!” Lisa shouted.

He smacked her again.

She started crying.

He was raising his hand.

“Please don’t,” I said.

“She needs to be punished,” he said simply.

“Not by you,” I said, trying to think of a way through to him. “You’re my guardian angel.”

She laughed. “What? Did he tell you he used to be a bodyguard? I thought Roberta made that up.”

He smacked her another time. “I’m guarding her. You hurt people. You hurt me.”

For all the anger and disappointment I felt in her, I couldn’t stand idle, letting Two Toes beat her senseless right before my eyes. “Guardian angels don’t hurt anyone,” I said. “They take care of people. You take care of me.”

He paused, but seemed undecided.

One of the first prayers I ever learned, one I probably knew by heart before I was five, came back to me. I said it to him in the same singsong way I had said it as a child:

Angel of God,

My guardian dear,

To whom God’s love,

Entrusts me here,

Ever this day,

Be at my side,

To light, to guard,

To rule and guide.

He smiled. “Say it again.”

I repeated it.

“My side hurts,” he said, and reached a hand down to the ribs on his righthand side, opposite of where I sat with the flashlight. When he brought the hand up again, it was covered with blood. “See?”

“Oh, Christ,” I said, and moved so that I could see his other side. A dark stain was slowly spreading on his jacket.

“No, just an angel,” he said seriously.

“We’d better tie her up,” I said. “Then I’ll try to help you. Do you have a knife?”

He nodded, reached into his jacket, and tossed a pocket knife to me. I used it to cut the straps off Lisa’s knapsack. I tied her hands tightly.

“I don’t understand you,” I said to her.

She didn’t say a word.

As I tied her ankles, I saw that the bottoms of her ru

I untied her shoes and pulled them off.

“Hurry,” Two Toes said.

I convinced him to prop himself up against a wall. I set the gun down. He eyed it.

“Forget it,” I said.

He let me open his jacket, allowed me to unbutton his shirt.

He had a sly smile on his face.

“Forget that, too. Keep an eye on Lisa.”

I pulled the shirt away and found another. Three layers down, I found the wound.