Erica Orloff - Invisible Girl

“I’ve been laying off the betting. Nothing. I got a bad feeling as soon as they walked in, and I started to walk toward the desk, where I keep a gun in the top drawer. One of them, a huge cement wall of a guy, blocked my way.”

Maggie winced. “Christ, I know where this is going.”

“Exactly. They locked the door and beat the living shit out of me. I put up a fight. Smashed a chair on somebody’s head. But three guys, Mags. I didn’t stand a chance.”

“And did they tell you what they wanted?”

“No. They just kept saying I knew what they wanted, which I didn’t. They flipped the warehouse from end to end. Went through my lockbox. They didn’t take the cash or find what they were looking for, either. They left me half-dead on the floor and said they’d let me think about it, and that they’d be back. I barely remember getting up and driving here.”

Maggie’s teeth started chattering from nerves and she pulled her knees close to her chest as she sat on the floor. “You have no idea who they were?”

“No. But they mentioned Dad. And from how they looked…you know the type.”

“Christ, what is he into this time?”

“I have no idea, and if we don’t figure it out, I’m a dead man. And frankly, I’m not too sure you’re safe, either.”

Bobby Gonzalez’s deep voice called out from the bedroom doorway behind them. “What do you mean Maggie’s not safe?”

Maggie startled and whipped her head around, and then she turned back and exchanged a look with Danny.

“Listen, if you two are in trouble, I can help.”

“Maggie told me you’re a cop. And cops, in general, don’t help the kind of trouble we’re in,” Danny said.

“And what kind of trouble is that?”

Danny glanced at Maggie. “It has to do with our father.”

“So ask him. Whatever these guys wanted, find out what it is and give it to them.”

“We can’t ask Dad.” Maggie didn’t look directly at Bobby. “We don’t know where he is. He took off over a year ago. He wouldn’t say why. Said it would be safer if we didn’t know where he was. We didn’t ask questions.”

“What kind of father leaves his kids in danger like that?”

“We’re not kids. We can take care of ourselves,” Maggie snapped.

“As evidenced by you having to stitch your brother up last night? Look, if you don’t want to report this, fine, but I hope you have a better plan than sitting here waiting to be killed for whatever it is these jerks wanted last night. What’d these guys look like anyway?”

Maggie saw the answer in Danny’s eyes before he even said anything.

“Feds,” he whispered.

“What was that?” Bobby came closer to the two of them. Instinctively, Maggie touched Danny, as if he were a talisman of reassurance. She fingered his shirtsleeve, almost absentmindedly.

“Feds,” Danny said again, louder this time.

“I don’t get it. What are feds doing beating the crap out of you?”

“Whatever our father did in Laos,” Maggie said, “he had friends in high places.” She paused. “And enemies in even higher places.”

“So we put out feelers. I can find someone to trust in the bureau. We can get to the bottom of this discreetly, put you into protective custody if we have to.”

“You don’t get it, pretty boy,” Danny said, shutting his eyes. “You won’t find our father anywhere in the bureau, or anywhere, period. He doesn’t exist.”

Bobby looked at Maggie, who nodded in agreement. “You could reach out all you want, Bobby. He doesn’t exist. He’s a phantom, and by birthright, so are we.”

Maggie watched as Bobby’s eyes revealed a struggle to understand. He paced back and forth a few times before he turned back to them. “I don’t accept that you’re just going to stay here and wait for them. You have to be able to do something.”

“We can call Uncle Con,” Maggie suggested.

“Who’s he?”

“Our father’s best friend,” Danny replied.

“And he’ll know where your father is?”

“Maybe. We have another uncle, Dad’s brother. He lives in Boston. But Con is more likely to know where he is.”

“What’s Con short for? Conrad?”

“No. Con artist.”

“This just gets better and better.”

Maggie got up to go make Danny some toast. As she neared the kitchen, Bobby approached her. “Can we talk in private?” he asked.

She followed him into the bedroom and shut the door.

“Are you out of your mind?” he asked her.

“No.”

“What’s going on?”

“I don’t know.”

“You have no idea?”

She sat on the bed. “From time to time, men would come to the Twilight. They looked like CIA. Feds. I didn’t ask questions. Then maybe two or three years ago, things started to seem dangerous. I can’t put my finger on it, but my father changed. He began moving things to safety deposit boxes. Became paranoid, which wasn’t like him. Maybe paranoid isn’t the right word…just very secretive.”

“Sounds like the guy was already pretty damn secretive.”

“This was worse. Then he took off.”

“Just like that?”

“In a way, yes.” She looked up at Bobby, aware for the thousandth time since their first night together that he was good in a way the shadowy world of her father would never be.

“I don’t know what to say, Maggie. Let’s call this uncle Con of yours and see what he thinks.”

Maggie went to the phone, then thought better of it, not wanting to use her land line. “Can I use your cell?”

Bobby picked up the phone, which was next to his wallet on the dresser. He handed it to her.

Maggie dialed the number, praying Con would answer even if he didn’t recognize Bobby’s number on caller ID.

“Yeah.” His voice came over the line in the vaguely hostile way he had of answering the telephone.

“Con, it’s Maggie.”

“Oh, bright eyes, I’m so sorry.”

“You heard about Danny?”

“Danny? No. Don’t tell me those fucking bastards got to him, too?”

“Too?”

“Is he dead or alive?”

“Alive, but just barely. What are you talking about Con?” Fear seeped into her voice and around the edges of her brain. Bobby came and stood behind her, pulling her backward against his chest and wrapping his arms around her.

“Your father, Maggie. I thought you knew.”

“Knew what?” she asked, but felt the answer down in her stomach, in the way it tightened.

“He’s dead. The bastards finally got him.”

Somewhere near the seventeenth parallel, North Vietnam, July 1972

Our Father who art in heaven…

Jimmy Malone was surprised at how quickly the words leaped to his tongue. The short one, the one with the bad teeth, kept poking at Jimmy’s broken arm. Tears of pain filled his eyes. The short one poked harder, his finger touching bone through the deep gash that ran from Jimmy’s elbow to his shoulder. The short one said something unintelligible to the taller one with the lazy left eye, and without even knowing their language, Jimmy could tell they were angry.

Bile rose in his throat. Six months ago, out of shame or politeness, he would have turned his head. Now, sweating in the jungle, insects swarming around his eyes, making blinking a necessity to ward off insanity, he merely leaned forward and retched from the pain. He felt his own vomit warm the front of his shirt.

Hallowed be thy name…

The prayer was there. On the edge of his consciousness. He repeated it over and over in his mind. A mental salve on the open sore of being twenty-two and hopelessly bent and broken in a jungle farther from New York’s west side than he had ever imagined he might go. Farther than he’d ever wanted to go.