A Certain Justice

46

Melanie had left Kevin alone upstairs and this made her nervous. She didn't like leaving him, felt that he needed her, that without her he wouldn't make it.

So there was a sense of urgency in her work. Her hands were shaking, and not only from the cold. She was half-hidden behind a large car in the darkened shadows of the parking garage under Wes Farrell's building. Whenever the light would change at the corner, there would be a rush of traffic out on the avenue and she'd stop and wait, looking to the garage's gated entrance. Wes had opened it up for them when they had first gotten here – it had gotten her recognizable GEO Metro off the streets.

People were starting to get home from work. She couldn't be too careful. The problem was that she could barely see the grooves in the screws to unfasten the license plate, and then, with the tremor in her hands, the screwdriver kept slipping out. Well, there was only one more screw and it should come loose.

After that, of course, she would have to attach it to her car – take her own plate off and put this one on. She'd do it. She had to do it. They had to get out of here, at least for a while – until they were sure Wes hadn't been followed home.

He had gone downtown to negotiate with the police. And she and Kevin, left alone with their fears, had remembered the unmarked police car parked at the street in front of Melanie's own apartment, their narrow escape less than twenty-four hours ago. It wasn't unreasonable to consider the possibility that someone might follow Wes back home.

They didn't want to risk a cab, even a limo, although Kevin thought that might work – with the tinted windows no one could recognize him. But, she had argued, there would be a pick-up and drop address, a paper trail for the credit card.

So she had come up with the idea of exchanging the plates from one of the cars parked in the garage downstairs with her GEO's. It shouldn't take her more than ten minutes – it already felt like an hour.

They would go to the apartment of another of her friends. A

Finally, finally, the last screw began to turn easily. Another line of traffic passed the garage entrance. No one was coming in. Watching the door, she kept turning the screw – and the license plate came off, falling with a clang onto the concrete. She froze. 'I hate this,' she whispered to herself.

Crossing to where she had parked her GEO, she squatted down again and began loosening the screws that held her own plates on.

She heard the grind of the gate before she had any chance to react. A car had turned out of traffic, waiting as the gate slowly opened. It drove past her down the length of the garage and parked in the last stall on the opposite side.

Holding her breath, she waited, praying he wouldn't look her way.

The man wore a business suit. He got out of his Camry and activated the security system – bu-BEEP. At the internal door, without thinking about it, he kicked away the block of wood Melanie had positioned to keep the door propped open and then, perhaps realizing that this was unusual, he stopped and let his eyes roam around the floor.

Hunched behind her tiny GEO, Melanie was certain the man, even all the way over where he was, could hear the blood pounding in her ears. But his gaze passed over where she hid and evidently saw nothing as he pocketed his keys and went inside. The internal door – the only one she could use to get back inside the apartment building – closed behind him with a sickening click.

The license plates were changed. There was an inside button that would open the garage gate and let her out to the street, but once that closed behind her she would be outside taking her chances, getting around to the front door of the apartment building where she could buzz upstairs.

Of course, being who she was, she had cautioned Kevin not to answer a buzz for any reason. Remember (she had reminded him) Wes had his own key – he'd let himself in when he got back from downtown. There was no reason to open the door for anyone else…

God, sometimes she hated herself. Whenever was she going to learn?

She rang the bell. It was her only chance to get back inside before Wes returned, possibly tailed by policemen. What else was she going to do, hang out in the garage all day? She knew it would probably be futile but she rang anyway. Maybe if she kept it up, kept ringing it constantly for five minutes, maybe tapped out an SOS in Morse code or something, then Kevin might be tempted to…

Obviously, he wasn't.

She buzzed again. No answer. More time passed. The evening wind had come up, cold-and-fog-laden and swirling her hair in front of her face. She hadn't worn a jacket, either. She pushed the buzzer again, held it, yelled into the speaker. 'Goddamn it, Kevin!'

No response. Nothing.

Stomping her foot, she stared at the speaker, her eyes filling with tears.

Then his voice, finally, a whisper from the speaker: 'Melanie?'

'God, Kevin. Yes.'

And the blessed sound of the buzzer.

A black Mercedes-Benz 130D was parked in front of Melanie's GEO, blocking it, and by its open driver-side door stood a tall woman in a business suit, her arms crossed, impatience and anger etched on her face.

Kevin and Melanie came from inside the building through the internal door to the garage and saw her. She wasted no time. 'Is this your car?' The tones were clipped. 'In my space?'

'Yes, it is. I'm sorry,' Melanie began. 'We'll just-'

'You know, I'm so tired of this,' the woman said. 'I get home from work and then I wait around for whoever has decided on that day to take the place that I pay for.'

'Well, we'll just-'

'You don't even live here, do you? Who said you could park here? Who let you in?'

Kevin stepped forward. 'We're really sorry, ma'am. We've got a friend in the apartment and he said-'

'Who?'

The two fugitives looked at each other. 'That doesn't matter. It's-'

The woman pointed a finger. 'You know what? It does matter. I've rung the manager and he's coming down and we're going to talk about this. This is the sixth time this month somebody's been in my spot and I am at my limit. So we'll just wait.'

Melanie: 'Um, we can't. We're expected… we've got a meeting.'

The internal door opened again and a balding man, mid-forties, in a mouse-colored sweater and khakis, no socks and some decade-old topsiders, was moving toward them. 'What's the problem, Maggie?'

'Someone told these people they could park here, Frank, and I want to find out who, and then I want something done about this. It's got to stop.'

Melanie spoke to the manager. 'Listen,' she said. 'Frank. We were told we could park here and now we're leaving. It won't happen again, I promise. But we've got to be somewhere right now.' She turned to the Maggie person. 'We're sorry about the five other times, but that wasn't us.'

Maggie was not listening. Life in the city often hinged on finding a parking place, and a lot of other things that were as seemingly trivial and just as difficult. 'I'm not paying for this place,' she said to Frank. 'Not this month.'

Now Frank seemed to focus on Kevin for the first time. 'Don't I know you?'

'Are you going to do something, Frank, or not?'

Kevin said he might have seen him in the hallway once or twice. He was a friend of Wes Farrell's.