Lisa Unger - Die For You

“Well,” he said, “go a little crazy with me, then. A public place, somewhere crowded.” His smile broadened. I could see that he was laughing at himself inside, at the situation. I found myself smiling, too, at his boldness, at his allure.

“When’s the last time you took a chance?” he asked, undaunted by my silence, by the way I must have been staring at him.

I might have just walked away, hopped a cab, and headed home. This is what I wanted to do, even started to move to the curb. But I had a rare moment of self-clarity: My sister was right about me. She’d said: You’re not willing to bend or shift anything to let someone into your life . Or something like that. I suddenly, passionately, wanted to prove her wrong.

I looked at him with fresh eyes; he was still waiting, still smiling. Most men would have already walked away, embarrassed, angry. But not Marcus. What he wanted, he got. He’d wait, if that’s what it took. Even then.

“Seriously,” he started, and it was in that word that I first heard the lilt of his very slight accent. “If I wanted to kill you, I would have done it already.”

I found myself laughing with him at that, and the next thing I knew, we were in a cab together, racing through the wet, cold night.

WE WOUND UP at Café Orlin, a dark and cozy spot, one of my favorite East Village haunts, and stayed there until the early hours, losing our sense of time and any self-consciousness either of us had, exploring the landscapes of each other’s past, talking about books-mine, mostly (his interest and knowledge were beyond flattering)-and art, and travel. It was effortless, comfortable. When we finally left, workdays looming, the snow had stopped and the frigid night lay out before us slick and crystalline as he walked me home. He reached for my hand and I let him take it. His skin was smooth and dry, his grip so hard and strong it felt as though his bones were made from metal. Heat flooded my body as our fingers entwined.

At the door to my building, I turned to face him. I’ll call you , I expected him to say. Or, Thanks for a nice evening . Something vague, something that left it all up in the air, something that later would have me wondering if the night had really been as special as I thought.

“Can I see you tonight?” he said. What? There were games to be played, protective walls to be erected, nonchalance to be feigned. He’d clearly misplaced his rulebook.

He must have registered my surprise. “Honestly, Isabel, I don’t have time for games.” Did he sound weary, in spite of his kind eyes, his gentle hand on my arm? “If you don’t want to see me again, in your heart you already know that. So just say it now. No hard feelings. But if you do-just say yes.”

I had to laugh. “Yes,” I said. “I want to see you again. Tonight.” I had plans-just dinner with Jack. I’d cancel them. I would bend and shift and let this man into my life. Why not?

“I’ll pick you up at eight,” he said, taking my hand and pressing it to his mouth. “I can’t wait.”

He left me swooning in the soft glow of street lamps as he walked quickly up my street and then turned the corner without looking back. I halfway didn’t expect to see him again. As I entered my building, I was already steeling myself for the disappointment that surely lay ahead.

RICK HAD BEEN taken into an inner office in handcuffs; he hadn’t even turned to look at me. He hadn’t even said one word, though I’d yelled after him, desperate, pathetic.

“Rick, please tell me what’s going on!” I watched until he’d passed through the doorway with two agents and was gone.

“We have questions, Mrs. Raine,” said the female agent. “So you will need you to wait here.” She took me firmly by the arm and led me back to Marcus’s desk.

I think it’s fair to say I lost it a little. I ranted, demanded answers, raged about Marcus’s disappearance. All the while, the tall blonde just looked at me like I was the most pitiable sight she’d ever seen. I eventually wound down, ran out of juice.

“Just have a seat, Mrs. Raine. There’s a lot to talk about,” she’d said, long on condescension, short on illumination. There was something strange about her. And she didn’t seem quite official. She seemed more like a stripper with a cheap, dirty kind of beauty. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see her drop into a deep, wide squat, start taking off her clothes. She held me in her gaze for longer than seemed appropriate, then she strode out, all legs and attitude. She’d closed the door behind her.

Exhausted, numb, I allowed myself to slump in the chair and watch through the glass as hard drives were removed, files confiscated, desk drawers emptied of their contents. It was all very rote, once the guns had been holstered. No one seemed overly hurried, everyone clearly with expertise in their assigned task. All the agents avoided looking at me. After a while, the whole situation took on a strange unreality, like something I was watching on television, something I’d turned on too late and didn’t fully understand. I felt the bubbling urge to laugh at my predicament, followed by the urge to scream.

I noticed that none of the other employees arrived for work that morning. I imagined they were being turned away or taken into custody in the hallway downstairs. But I didn’t know.

It occurred to me suddenly that I didn’t have to just sit here and obey like a good little girl. What if Marcus was in FBI custody? I’d asked but hadn’t received an answer. What if that’s why he hadn’t come home or been able to call? I felt a little lift of hope, a blast of adrenaline. Even if that wasn’t exactly an ideal scenario, at least it would mean he was all right. That I could help him. I realized it was time to call in the troops-Linda and Erik, my mother and Fred, Jack. And I needed to get us a lawyer. Fast.

I caught sight of my own reflection in the glass wall of Marc’s office. I looked slouched over, like an old woman, pale and harried. I wore a long black wool skirt and black leather ankle-high boots, a bulky sweater and wrap. My hair, long, past my shoulders, a black mass of unmanageable curls, was more chaotic than usual. I needed to pull myself together and take control of the situation.

I lifted the phone from the receiver and found the line dead. I looked up at the federal agents who were all still engaged in dissecting the office Marcus had worked so hard to build-months of renovation, hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans and our own money. I walked over to the door and found it locked from the outside. My mouth and throat went dry with the debut of panic in my chest as I tried the knob again. They couldn’t do that, could they? Hold me here like that without charge, arrest, without letting me call anyone?

I started pounding on the door, moved over to the glass and started banging on that so that they could see me. But no one even looked up. I started to look at each of the people individually. One man had a deep red scar that ran from the corner of his right eye and disappeared into the collar of his black vest. He was stocky, had longish hair that hung, unwashed, to his collar. Another man had tattoos on his hands. There was a woman with a bright purple streak dyed into her white hair which she’d tried to hide under a stocking cap but which kept snaking out, dropping in front of her eyes.

I had a terrible moment of cold dawning, dread a lump in my abdomen, as I turned to see that the tall blond woman had entered the office. These people were not FBI agents. She had an ugly sneer on her face, held a large gun. It was more like a caricature of a gun, it was so dark and menacing, and yet it almost didn’t register with me. I found myself moving closer to her.