Boston, MA
Mr. Hayes said I should look for a woman with thick brown hair. Someone in her early thirties, about five-and-a-half-feet tall.
She’s got a trim figure, he told me, but she’s athletic looking. Strong. Not flabby or frail at all. She’ll probably be wearing a look on her face that perpetually seems to say, “Don’t mess with me.” But if I’m lucky, he said, if I play my cards right, I might also see a smile that says maybe it’s worth the risk anyway.
Mr. Hayes said Trudi Coffey would stand out in a crowd, that if I didn’t recognize her when I first saw her, then I didn’t deserve to recognize her. As usual, Mr. Hayes was right.
She is unmistakable once you know what you’re looking for.
I didn’t expect to see her yet. The basketball game is still going on upstairs, up in the TD Garden arena, and I figured she’d be the kind to stay until the end. I have been here on this bench, almost dozing, in North Station, eyeballing the escalator and waiting for the rush of people to start pouring through when the Celtics are done with the Atlanta Hawks. But there she is, suddenly appearing, all by herself, stepping off the escalator and heading toward the west elevator that goes down to the underground parking garage.
It was a freezing cold walk to get here, but I’ve been inside North Station for a while now and all my extremities have blood tingling happily through them again. In my left coat pocket, I can still feel the revolver hanging limply beside me. I’m watching Trudi Coffey, but I can only think about one thing.
Will I have to use the gun?
Trudi Coffey breezes past the oversized bench where I’m sitting. It’s shaped like a giant wooden boulder, all one piece, carved and sanded into an oblong sculpture with a tapered top that flares down to form a little ledge-like bench encircling the whole structure. I almost feel like I’m sitting on the brim of a partially flattened top hat made for an enormous stick-figure man.
My thick, suede coat is nearly the same color of tan as the bench, and when Trudi walks by, I freeze like a cottontail trying to hide in plain sight. It’s just a reflex, I guess. After all, I’m supposed to be hunting her, not vice versa.
She doesn’t even see me.
After she’s passed, it registers with me that she has beautiful eyes.
“Hazel,” I whisper to myself. “Just like Mamá.”
I’m tempted to keep that moment, to savor it, but I realize quickly that if I keep holed up on this bench, I will lose her. All my waiting, all Mr. Hayes’s planning, will amount to nothing. My heart jumps into overdrive even before I start running to catch up. Like a little rabbit, I think, and the irony makes me almost smile.
She walks fast, like she knows where she wants to go and nothing or no one is going to stop her from getting there. I close the gap between us just before we get to the west elevator and am careful to slow down early so she doesn’t think I’m chasing her down, even though that’s exactly what I’m doing. Then our world goes still, like North Station is holding its breath, waiting to see what’ll happen next. I’m standing almost next to her, to the left and just a step behind her, as we both wait for the elevator to arrive.
It strikes me that Trudi and I are going to be the only ones riding the elevator down to the garage.
Now? I ask myself. Do I do it now? Or stick with the plan and wait until she’s beside her rental car?
I get that rabbit feeling again, almost as an instinct. She’s looking at me, studying me. Her eyes linger for a second on my coat pocket.
Am I standing too close? Have I crossed the invisible line into her personal space? Mr. Hayes is right. Even though her mouth never opens, her face says very clearly, “Don’t mess with me.” I mumble and take a step backward. “Excuse me,” I say. She lets one more second pass before returning her attention to the elevator. I feel myself sigh in relief.
The doors open. We both step inside, and she selects the parking garage level from the button panel. She looks at me and asks, “That where you’re going?” I nod, wishing that my top lip wasn’t sweating, already betraying the fear growing inside me. I smell a hint of leftover perfume, I think, something that once might have been jasmine and orange blossom. And the doors close.
I’m still worrying about whether I should make my move now or wait until we’re in the garage, when I realize my left hand has made the decision for me. Even so, my head won’t let my hand point the revolver at her. I think I should say something, but no words come. She’s staring at me now, waiting, but I’ve obviously missed my cue and now she’s just watching a five-foot-two man wave his little gun at the elevator’s button panel in silent mystery. This might be funny, I tell myself, if I wasn’t so scared.
“Smith & Wesson, huh?” she says at last. “I prefer Beretta myself.”
I nod. Now I’m sweating behind my ears too. She’s very patient while I try to tell myself what to do next. The elevator slips into place on the garage level and the doors open again. Neither of us moves.
“What do you think?” she says. I think she might be grinning. “You want to take this outside or stay here in the elevator?”
I nod and motion for her to lead the way out of the elevator, and she does. The garage is cavernous, filled with cars but empty of people. Still, I know we can’t stand here for long before somebody takes that same elevator down to where we are.
Follow the plan, I tell myself. Mr. Hayes gave you a plan! And now, at just the wrong moment, it happens again. My mind goes completely blank. I can barely remember my own name, let alone Mr. Hayes’s plan. Think, Dream, think!
I’ve found Trudi Coffey, and I have a gun.
“I have a gun,” I say, my voice thin and soft.
“I noticed,” she says.
What was supposed to come next?
“Don’t be afraid,” I say.
“I’m not.” Now she’s definitely grinning.
Bits of the plan are leaking back into my memory, but it’s taking too long and she’s getting impatient.
“All right,” she says. “You have a gun, and I’m not afraid. Is there anything else? Or should we just call it a night and head our separate ways?”
“No.” It’s coming back to me now. I can’t let Trudi Coffey leave Boston, not without me. “I need your help, Trudi.” The grin on her face disappears so suddenly that I take a step backward. Her expression says, “Don’t mess with me.”
“Now you’ve got my attention, Little Man. How do you know my name?”
“Mr. Hayes said, he said . . .”
“Who’s Mr. Hayes? Is that who you work for?”
“No, he’s, I mean . . .” I’m losing what little control I had up to this point. “It doesn’t matter. What matters is that I need your help. Will you help me?”
“No, of course not,” she says. “You’re holding a gun on me. Why would I help anyone who threatens me with a gun?”
“I, but, I mean—”
“Besides, I’m leaving Boston in the morning. If you need a detective, you’re going to have to hire somebody local. But leave the gun at home. We don’t often feel helpful toward clients who hold us at gunpoint.”
“No, I—”
“Now, tell me who Mr. Hayes is and why he sent you to find me. That could be important.” Her right foot taps impatiently as a new idea seems to appear in her mind. “Wait a minute. Does this have anything to do with The Dream?”
Now I’m the one who’s stunned. How does she know my name? How does she know that and not know who I am? I see her thinking. She thinks faster than I do, maybe even faster than I did before the, before . . . well, she thinks faster than me.
“Mr. Hayes,” she says, and her eyes narrow. “Are you talking about Darrent Hayes? From Atlanta?”
“Yes.”
What else am I supposed to say? Mr. Hayes never told me what to do if she asked me that question. She rolls her eyes and starts walking slowly in a circle around me, still thinking.
“How’d you get mixed up with that guy, Little Man? You know he’s a terrorist, right? Tried to blow up half a hotel when I was in it. Not a nice guy.”
Now she’s staring hard at me, and I’m surprised by the intensity in her eyes. The color seems to shift from soft brown to light green and back to brown again. The pigment is pure and gemlike, like tiger’s eye infused with emerald slivers, or quality diamonds that sparkle in bright light. I can see why Samuel Hill fell for her.
“How about you?” she says to me. “Are you a terrorist too?”
“No, no!”
She nods, and I’m wondering where I lost control of this encounter. Even though I’m holding the gun, she’s interrogating me.
“I believe you,” she says, and that seems to settle it for her. “Look, I— What’s your name? No, never mind. It’s better if I don’t know. I don’t want to know, because I’m never going to see you again anyway. So listen to me. You need to get away from Darrent Hayes. Run as fast as you can and never look back. Trust me on this. Once you’re safely away, call the police and tell them where he’s hiding. There’s probably a reward waiting for the guy who turns him in, so be sure to claim that after he’s locked up in prison. Got it?”
I nod. I don’t know what else to do.
“Good. Now, I’ve got to go. I’ve got problems of my own to deal with back in Atlanta, so put that gun back into your left jacket pocket and run away and hide. And call the police.” She claps me on the shoulder. “I wish you the best.”
She turns and starts to walk away. In a mild panic, I grab her arm. Then my left hand finally gets its nerve and before I know it, the barrel of the Smith & Wesson 686 is pointed at her ribs.
“Trudi, I can’t let you go. I need your help.”
I feel her muscles cord beneath my fingers.
“You don’t know this about me yet,” she advises through a tight jaw, “but I really don’t like it when people touch me without permission.”
I quickly drop her arm and step backward again. Part of me wants to wet myself, but I know I’ve got to retake control of this situation—and fast. I muster my nerve and try a bluff.
“Look,” I say, waving the gun in what I hope is a threatening way, “no more talk. You’re coming with me. Now. You’re going to help me. And that’s just the way it is, got it?”
Silence swells the air between us. She looks at the gun, then stares at my face. She can see I mean business, I think. She knows I’m serious about this.
“I see,” she says, nodding at last. “I get it. But let me just ask you one question.”
“What is it?”
“What’s the hardest you’ve ever been kicked?”