Fifty

Jael and I walked down Salem Street, the bricks doing their best to catch my limoncello-addled feet. When we reached the end of the street, we crossed into the park that bisected the city. I let Jael lead the way. We turned at the park, turned again at Hanover Street, and continued on toward Government Center. I thought we were heading for the train station at Haymarket, but Jael had planned a detour.

Just before we reached Congress Street, Jael turned and led me into the ghostly, smoking chimneys of the New England Holocaust Memorial. The chimneys, square towers of glass etched with six million numbers, towered above us. I followed Jael, craning my neck to see the top of the each chimney. She stopped and stood in a chimney marked as Auschwitz-Birkenau.

I yearned to lean against the glass, but the feeling that I’d be stepping on the dead kept me standing. “Why are we here?”

Jael stood on a grate by the first tower. An unpleasant steam wafted up, enveloping us. “I come here when I am upset.”

“Why are you upset?” I asked. “I mean, beyond the obvious.”

“I wish you would not improvise.”

“Improvise?”

A tourist pushed past on the way to examine other death towers. Streetlights pushed through the etched glass, making Jael’s eyes glitter. “Do you have the notebooks? You’ve never mentioned a shed.”

I looked beneath the grate. Warm steam and an LED star field confronted me. I looked away. Toward the end of the Memorial a woman crouched in the path, touching the small stones that edged it. Limoncello and fatigue bore down.

“No. I don’t have the notebooks.”

“Then you were improvising at dinner.”

“Yes.”

“I wish you would not do that. It is impossible to predict what will happen.”

“No, it’s not. It will get a rise out of whoever who killed my mother.”

“It will get you killed. Someone may try to take the notebooks. They will not accept ‘I made it up’ as an answer when they torture you for them.”

“I was hoping you would help me avoid that.”

“I will help you, but I may not succeed. I could also be killed.”

The thought jolted me. I had always though of Jael as a force of nature, permanent and invincible. But that was foolishness. She could die because of me. I was okay with exposing myself to danger in this plan, but I had compromised her. My cheeks reddened as shame trumped fatigue.

I said, “I’m sorry. You’re right. It was a stupid thing to do.”

“Yes,” said Jael. “It was.”

“What do I do now? Go back and tell them I was lying?”

“No. The pillow has been torn and the feathers are scattered. There is no way to get them back. We must move forward.”

“How?”

“You must cast the net farther. There is another who must hear your claim.”

“Who?”

“Your friend, Lucy.”

“Lucy?”

“She has been involved with this situation since the start.”

“How could Lucy be a spy? She has had nothing to do with this.”

“Lucy was with you when JT was shot. She may have been providing a diversion.”

“That was a coincidence.”

“Also, she was with you when you were beaten.”

“That’s just silly.”

“If I were spying on you, that is exactly what you would say about me.” Jael’s eyes took on a perky twinkle. She batted her lashes and said, in a perfect Southern accent, “Why Mr. Tucker, you flatter me with your attention.”

I stared at the transformation. “My God. Who are you?”

Jael’s eyes returned to normal. “I am your friend.”

My Droid played the Boston Bruins theme song. Bobby.

“Give me those fucking notebooks, you moron,” said Bobby.

I watched Jael touching the numbers on the glass column and said, “I don’t have them. I made it up.”

“Christ, Tucker. I wish you wouldn’t improvise.”