Metropolis, p.21
Metropolis, page 21
Diamond takes his plate off the bench and puts it underneath. She lays a crumpled-up newspaper between them, smooths it down. “Look!” she orders.
He looks but doesn’t see anything but a bunch of scribbles and a photograph of a castle. Diamond never takes his plate away, especially not when there’s still food on it because she’s always screaming that he doesn’t eat enough. So this must be important.
He looks again, blinks. He knows it isn’t scribbles. He’s not an idiot. It’s words. They’re sentences that will explain why Diamond took his plate away. He doesn’t really care why she took it away, but it’s sort of interesting that she did.
There’s not that much interesting in his days anymore. He sits with Diamond and sometimes the others on the grass, except that it’s all brown now and sometimes there aren’t enough chairs and there’s snow—so you can’t sit without getting wet but he sits anyway. He likes it better when it’s just the two of them. He also likes it if he can lie under the bench, but if Diamond sees him doing that she screams some more, so he only gets to do it when she’s not around.
When it’s dark Diamond takes him to where he slides his tray and people put food on it. It doesn’t taste too bad. Sometimes he sleeps there but most of the time he doesn’t. He likes to eat there but not to sleep there. Too bright. Too noisy. Too many people who talk too much. Lots of them yell just like Diamond.
She punches her finger at the picture of the castle. “Metropolis Storage Warehouse! Remember? You said you lived there!”
He thinks about this, but he’s pretty sure he never lived in a castle. “I never lived in a castle.”
Diamond throws her hands in the air. “It’s not a fucking castle! It’s a storage place, and you were living inside one of the storage units!”
“There are turrets.”
“Scarecrow! It’s just a building!”
He thinks about this and puts his head on the bench again. Now she’s talking in lots of exclamation points and it makes him not want to talk to her anymore. But he says, “I never lived there either.”
“You told me you did! A guy fell down the elevator shaft! Can you believe it? Fucking A. A real rich bastard too. What a way to go. I’d rather freeze to death or drown or anything else, but smashing two stories into concrete! Fucking A.”
“I never lived anywhere where there was an elevator.”
“You did! You told me you did!” She presses her face close to his and her breath smells like coffee and maybe a kind of rot. “Were you lying to me?”
“I don’t lie, but sometimes I forget,” he admits.
42
Liddy
It’s been two months since the accident, and Liddy no longer runs mental replays of “the good Garrett” or harbors illusions that he’ll emerge from his trauma a kinder and gentler man. Suing the owner of Metropolis is one thing, informing ICE about Marta’s whereabouts, although not unexpected, is quite another. Yet Liddy wrestles with guilt and a detached pity for the man. Her dreams resurrect that night in fractured and tilted ways that leave her confused and sweating. Her conflicting memories and even more conflicting emotions hollow out her soul.
Garrett is still in the metal halo, still strapped to the bed, and although the cast is off his arm, the two on his legs remain. It appears that he’ll regain movement above his waist, and the swelling and bruising on his face are almost gone. But half his scalp remains heavily bandaged, and the rest is covered with a multitude of angry scars. The worst is the stillness of his lower body, his legs lifeless on the bed.
She visits him every other day, a task she detests but considers part of her penance. “You botched it, and I’m still alive,” he hissed at her the last time she went, the raw fury in his eyes forcing her to step back. “I was there, and I remember, and I’m going to make sure you pay for what you did to me. Big-time.”
•••
Liddy and Marta are on the couch at Jason’s apartment. “I’m so sorry Garrett did this to you, and I keep kicking myself for ever marrying such an ass,” Liddy says.
“You were young and very much in love. This is not a good recipe for seeing clearly.”
The truth is that Liddy had known but had deliberately chosen not to see—or, more precisely, had chosen to see only one side of the two-faced Janus she’d married. He’d been so crazy in love with her, probably still is in his demented, controlling way, and being adored is a drug that blurs your vision. It’s also a tough drug to walk away from.
Marta interrupts Liddy’s ruminations. “There is no point in worrying yourself with these questions. He may have tried to do a spiteful and cruel thing to me, but he did not succeed. I am fortunate that both you and Jason insisted I not move back to Metropolis, so I wasn’t there for ICE to find.”
Liddy gives Marta a light kiss, tries to take her advice. “What would we do without Jason?”
“I am concerned that there is—how do you say?—something going off with him.”
“Because he’s got the hots for you,” Liddy teases.
“I believe it has to do with his old job. There was trouble there, and this is why a lawyer of his caliber is in an office at Metropolis and living in this tiny apartment. I think he might move away.”
“He said that?” Liddy is surprised at how upsetting she finds this.
“He has not, but I am still concerned.”
“His family is all here, and they’re very close. He wouldn’t leave them,” Liddy says, then notices the expression on Marta’s face. “Is this one of your premonitions?” She’s not sure she believes in Marta’s una hija abilities; it’s an absurd notion. But Marta never lies, and she does seem to have a sense about things.
“I am not certain, but I feel trouble is around Jason. It is how I felt trouble around you the night Garrett came. I have tried to encourage him to talk, but this is not his way.”
Before Liddy can answer, her phone rings. It’s Jason. “Hey, you. Speak of the devil. I’m at your apartment. If you’re coming home in time for dinner, I’ll run out and pick us up some Mexican.” Jason loves Mexican.
“Listen, Liddy, we need to talk.”
She clutches the phone.
“I got a call from Garrett’s lawyer, Gene Blalock. I told him I wasn’t representing you, and that I didn’t know who was, but he insisted I give you this message anyway.”
Liddy throws Marta a desperate look and puts the phone on speaker.
“They’re planning to tell the police you intentionally pushed him and that you knew the elevator was broken,” Jason says.
Liddy’s ears ring, and dots of black threaten to blot out her vision. “How, how could he even think of such a thing?” But she knows exactly how he could think of such a thing.
“Blalock insinuated there’s evidence it was tampered with, that you messed with the elevator and plotted to kill him. They’re going to claim it was premeditated.”
Stay calm. Think. Think. Breathe. No one knows she discovered Garrett’s PI. No one knows that she knew about the Red Sox elevator incident. No one but Marta knows she knew the elevator door was off its hinge, and Marta will never tell. “I was hiding from him,” she finally says. “If I thought he was going to show up, why didn’t I just leave? Why set up some inane trap?”
“You can make all the logical arguments you want about your state of mind, but if they go to the police, who already have their eye on you, the cops could believe there’s enough evidence to—”
“But there isn’t!” Liddy cries. “No evidence I pushed him. No evidence I was trying to kill him! What do I know about elevators?”
“True, but they maintain anyone standing in front of the elevator would have been able to see it was broken. Garrett is the injured party here, the sympathetic party, and he’s ready to put everything he’s got behind it. Which is why you have to get yourself a top-notch criminal lawyer. ASAP.”
Liddy clutches Marta’s hand more tightly. Panic closes her throat.
“The evidence shows there was a scuffle,” Jason continues. “And even though you said you stepped aside when he lunged at you, they have medical proof he hit the door with his back, which they contend could only have happened if he were pushed. I’m sorry, Liddy, but this makes your statement suspect. Along with your credibility.”
Liddy groans and crumples into herself. The twins. The police. A trial. The media. Marta.
“Liddy?” Jason asks. “Are you there? Are you okay? Put Marta on.”
“No,” Liddy says. “I mean, yes—yes, I’m here.”
“Garrett is offering a deal.”
A way out. A way out. A way out.
“He wants you to leave Marta, agree to never be involved with anyone else, man or woman, and move back in with him. To be a couple again.”
“No.”
“If you do this, he’ll drop the suit, won’t tell the kids that you tried to kill him, and won’t pursue Marta. But if you don’t, Garrett plans to take his evidence to the police, find Marta, and have her deported.”
It’s as if the whole room has disappeared: no couch, no table, no Marta. Just white. Pure-terror white.
“He’s willing to give you a short waiting period to consider this before he goes to the police,” Jason adds when Liddy doesn’t respond.
Liddy blinks. The world returns, and she wishes it hadn’t.
“This is a tough one.” Jason pauses. “Blalock said Garrett wants you to know he loves you more than ever and that he wants to spend the rest of his life with you.”
Despite her anguish, or maybe because of it, Liddy bursts out laughing. “He thinks I tried to kill him, and he wants to spend the rest of his life with me? He loves me so much he’s blackmailing me in order to keep me?” What she doesn’t say is that it isn’t love; it’s revenge.
“There’s something else.”
“Of course there is.” Liddy’s laugher becomes louder, raw, and Marta holds her tighter.
“I’m serious. Liddy, listen to me. You have to leave my apartment. Right now.”
Her laughing ceases as rapidly as it started. “Why?”
“Think about it. If he’s playing this kind of game, looking for ways to hurt you, it’s logical to assume he’s already in the process of finding Marta. He discovered where you both were before, and it’s pretty easy pickings for him to follow you to her now.”
Liddy gets a burner so her calls to Marta can’t be traced, and although they talk to each other multiple times a day, it’s a far cry from being together. When Marta first moved to Jason’s, they attempted to reinstate their practice of not interfering with each other’s work schedule. But Liddy hasn’t been able to write since the accident, and Marta is such a workaholic she needs to be encouraged to take breaks. So the charade has been dropped, and although it’s two in the afternoon and Liddy knows she’ll be interrupting Marta, she calls anyway.
“Did you speak with the attorney Jason suggested to you?” Marta asks without saying hello.
“Dawn Kenner. Yeah, she’s as tough as he said. Maybe too tough.”
“Why is this?”
“She wants to play Garrett’s game right back at him. Accuse him of tampering with the elevator and trying to kill me.”
Marta doesn’t respond immediately. “This is a reasonable legal tactic?”
“She seems to think so. Said if they try to use the rigged-elevator argument, even though they haven’t provided any proof yet that it was tampered with, we can take this and turn it back on him. Which I have no intention of doing.” Liddy doesn’t tell her that Dawn was concerned about the evidence that Garrett hit the elevator door with his back. There’s no reason to worry Marta more than she already has.
“There is some poetry in her idea.”
“I get it, but if I follow her strategy, it’ll kick off a media circus that will drag the kids in. Their parents accusing each other of attempted murder? Given Garrett’s prominence and the gruesomeness of the accident, it’s sure to be a huge story. I can’t do that to them. I won’t.”
“It is a difficult position, but is it not—how do you say?—telling his bluff? And then nothing will come of it.”
Liddy laughs. It’s astonishing how just talking to Marta makes her feel better. “Calling his bluff.”
“So it is possible this attorney has a better idea than you believe.”
“Perhaps,” Liddy says, to make Marta think she’s considering it. But she knows that in this kind of situation, Garrett doesn’t bluff. I was there, and I remember, and I’m going to make sure you pay for what you did to me. Big-time.
Marta hesitates. “There is something else we must discuss.”
Liddy presses her fingers to her temple. “Something I’m not going to like?”
“It is true I have made a decision you may not like. But I believe it is the right one.”
Liddy feels the same way she did when Jason told her they needed to talk. “What kind of decision?”
“I plan to move forward with my asylum appeal. I will go before a judge.”
“It’s too dangerous,” Liddy cries. “This is no simple asylum case. You’re in violation of a deportation order! It’s not possible. You’ll get arrested. No. I won’t let you do it.” She recognizes she has no right to interfere with Marta’s decision, but this doesn’t stop her. “There are too many things that could go wrong. You can’t. Please don’t do this!”
Marta waits patiently and, when Liddy is done, says, “Jason thinks I can win, and there is no other choice, which I know you understand. I cannot remain in hiding. I cannot be a burden to Jason. I want to live a normal life, to work, to be with you. It is the only way this can happen.”
43
Rose
Rose worked the 6:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. shift, and she comes home exhausted and stinking of grease. Of all the things she hates about this job, the grease is the worst. It sticks to her for hours after she’s punched out and makes her feel like the place never leaves her. Grease in her hair and in her skin and in her clothes.
Vince is watching television from his chair when she walks in the door. He doesn’t turn, but she says hello on her way to the shower. He’s still mad at her, and even if he has the right to be, he also doesn’t have the right to be. But all she can think about now is getting rid of the grease that reminds her of the job she now has and the better one she had before.
She started sending out résumés the day after Garrett Haines fell, even though Zach didn’t fire her until the next day. She knew it was coming, and what with Vince and all, she had to get a jump on things. She applied for administrative assistant jobs everywhere, from an accountant around the corner to an engineering company in Cambridge to big corporations through Monster.com. Even a couple of staffing agencies. She got lots more interviews than she thought she would, but when her references were over ten years old and she had none from her last position, the employers lost interest real fast. So she took the job at Taco Bell.
She stands under the shower and tries not to get mad at Vince but she does anyway. He still isn’t working and when she confessed everything to him about Metropolis he threw a fit. He got all furious over the money she took from Serge, Marta, and Liddy, and especially about her letting Serge into other units to take pictures. Vince said it was immoral and she was immoral and that she’d broken the law. He insisted she go to confession that very day.
But when she came home from church, he was still on the warpath and started in on her about how she had broken the law just so Michael could be on the football team that didn’t do anything to stop him from screwing up. Vince claimed he was so deeply disappointed in her that he didn’t want to even look at her. That’s a laugh. How about how deeply disappointed she is in him—always being in his chair with his drink, and his dirty hair that’s no picnic to look at or to smell.
And “immoral” is the wrong word anyways. She didn’t hurt anyone and actually helped them by giving them a place to live when they didn’t have anywhere else to go. She wasn’t blackmailing anyone or threatening them, and they were all happy to pay her. Grateful even. She isn’t saying that what she did wasn’t wrong because Zach could have gotten into trouble if she got caught, but it wasn’t immoral. And it isn’t even why Zach is in trouble now. She didn’t say any of this to Vince and just listened to him carry on. She doesn’t like to argue and didn’t want to start a fight that would upset the girls.
After her shower she starts dinner. They’ve been eating a lot of pasta since she got fired, which is what she’s making when the doorbell rings. Vince doesn’t move so she wipes her hands and goes down to the first floor. The young girl who’s standing on the other side of the glass has skin the color of Marta’s and is nicely dressed. Rose opens the door. “Can I help you?”
“I’m looking for Ms. Rose Gentilini,” the girl says with a weak smile. When Rose says that’s her, the girl pulls an envelope from her oversized bag and offers it to Rose. “This is for you.”
Rose takes it from her. “What is it?”
“You’ve been served.” She nods and walks back to the sidewalk.
Rose turns the envelope over and back. Very official-looking. She rips it open. A subpoena ordering her to appear at the law offices of Bernkopf Goodman on March 22, to be deposed in the personal injury lawsuit of W. Garrett Haines III, of Boston, Massachusetts, vs. Metropolis Storage Warehouse, of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Dear Jesus.
“I’m, I mean, I was, I was the office manager there,” Rose answers Mr. Blalock, Garrett Haines’s lawyer. Ms. Rubin, Zach’s lawyer, told her to give short answers because if she kept talking she might admit to some important thing by mistake.
“Ms. Gentilini, could you please tell us exactly what your duties were at the Metropolis Storage Warehouse?”
Rose is nervous enough and being called Ms. Gentilini when she always thinks of herself as Mrs. Gentilini is making it worse. She also doesn’t like how they keep saying Metropolis Storage Warehouse instead of just Metropolis. She tries to answer Mr. Blalock’s question, but she stumbles and stutters and is sure she’s repeating herself and leaving things out. She didn’t know a deposition was so much like a trial and all official like this. She thought a lawyer was just going to ask her questions in his office.
