Groggy, Clydene opened her eyes a slit, squinting at an unfinished plywood wall. In the center of it, large, metal hinges fastened a make-shift door of thick plywood. Mismatched cardboard boxes lay stacked in irregular piles on the plain concrete floor. A dingy, yellow light alone illuminated the space, clearly a basement storage room of some sort.
She asked “Where am I?” but heavy, sticky tape held her mouth shut, and all that came out was “Hmmm hm hmm.” Now she noticed heavy duct tape binding her hands to the chair in which she was sitting. And she couldn’t move her legs, because something—probably the same heavy, sticky tape—also bound her ankles to the legs of the chair.
Something touched her cheek from behind, brushed her hair back. She whipped her head around to see, and there he stood, towering, hanging over her, wearing a jack-o-lantern grin, flames of titian hair lapping the space above his head, a grotesque scar mutilating his left cheek.
“You finally woke up. You had a nice, long nap, honeeee.”
He ran his finger, lightly, down her neck. Clyde felt its touch deep within her, poking nausea into her gut. She did not move, but she felt her teeth fight to gnash under the heavy, cloth tape. He continued down, across her clavicle, and over her white blouse. He stopped to hover at her right breast. Clyde froze.
“I felt it,” the man continued. “There was a connection between us. It was spiritual. You felt it too, right?”
Clyde said nothing, just stared. But inside, she wanted to get out of there. She wanted Ted to storm through that door, bust it off its hinges, put this psychopath in his place. But if Ted had been with her, none of this would have happened.
“Oh, silly me.” The psychopath giggled. “You can’t talk with this, can you?” And in one motion he grabbed the tape and ripped it from her face, leaving a stinging on her cheek, and a feeling as though Clyde’s upper lip had been pulled apart. She ignored the feeling, stared at her attacker, as though by the sheer power of her glare she could do what her absentee husband had not been available to accomplish.
The man knelt down next to her and petted her cheek and forehead, running his fingers through her hair.
Clyde shuddered. No, she thought. I will not give him the satisfaction. I will not give in, and I will not cry. No matter what he does, I will not cry… She gritted her teeth.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “It will be our little secret. No one will find out how we feel about each other.”
All at once, without thinking, Clyde lashed out with the only part of her body that was unbound, her teeth. She grabbed onto his hand or forearm, she wasn’t sure which, and she sunk into his flesh as though she were biting into a juicy, red apple. But the texture was chewy, and the juice was salty. Still the feeling was just as sweet. She grabbed onto him with the tenacity of a pit bull. She thrashed her head from side to side, like a shark hungry for a snack.
He may have cried out in pain. She wasn’t listening. He may have begged her to stop, may have even threatened her. But Clyde’s ears were closed.
Suddenly, something whacked her her on the right side of her head. Then again. Clyde released her hold on her prey.
“Bitch!” he screamed at her. He examined his right arm where Clyde had bit him. Blood trickled from the wound.
She couldn’t tell how deep it was, but it was bleeding pretty profusely. Clyde felt a twinge of malevolent satisfaction, and she grinned slightly.
“Why did you do that?” the man asked.
Clyde saw that he looked sincerely sad, and she began to think that maybe his psychological problems were more complicated. Clyde couldn’t believe it herself, but she actually felt a little sorry for the guy.
“Should have that looked into,” she said. Maybe she was sorry, just a little, for hurting him. After all, he hadn’t physically harmed her, but it looked like he might need stitches. Or maybe she just wanted to find some way to connect with him, maybe get him talking about himself, find out what makes him tick, figure out some way to convince him to let her go.
He glared at her. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he demanded.
His tone did not set Clyde at ease. On the contrary, she felt apprehensive about saying anything. Clearly, whatever this guy’s problems were, they were too much for Clyde to understand or to handle.
“I just meant that if you don’t have it treated, you’ll end up with another scar.”
Clyde immediately felt as if she had said something wrong, although she didn’t know what, how, or why.
He snarled, “You’re one of those, aren’t you?”
Clyde was on the verge of panic.
His demeanor became suddenly calm, almost Zen-like. “No one ever mentions my scar unless they’re making fun of me. To normal people, it’s invisible. That’s only polite, after all.” He shook his head. “I thought you were nicer than that.”
Without another word, he lumbered over to the door, pulled it open, and left. He had left the light on, and Clyde heard a clacking through the door that could have been a padlock being latched shut. Clyde worked at her bonds, but the tape was firmly wound around her wrists and ankles, and she made only modest gains. She thought heard people walking on a wooden floor nearby. Maybe she was in a public building. Clyde shouted as loudly as she could, hoping someone would hear her and come to her rescue, but all she accomplished was to make her throat hoarse.
Innumerable minutes or hours passed, and Clyde heard another clacking at the storage room door. The man entered, a white bandage wrapped around his arm. He closed the door and latched it. In all that time, Clyde had only slightly loosened her bonds. Her arms felt tired from struggling, and her wrists felt raw from rubbing against the duct tape.
Without preamble, he said, “Let’s start with something simple. What’s your name?”
Clyde said nothing, not wanting to cooperate. If he couldn’t remember the name of his victim, she wasn’t going to help.
He peered at her. “Did you understand the question?”
Clyde stared at her interrogator, not knowing what would come next, but knowing now more than ever that she should never have felt sorry for him. And that she must never give him the satisfaction of thinking that she ever did.
“Okay,” he said. “Let’s try again.” He strode over to her, and for the first time, she noticed that he decidedly did not walk with a limp. Without warning he raised his hand and brought it down across her face, hard.
Clyde felt the sting of his handprint across her cheek. She flinched. Then she glared back at her attacker.
He calmly strolled to the other side of the room and began to remove his belt. Clyde only half imagined what this meant, but she refused to let herself be intimidated.
“Let me show you,” he said, “what will happen if I don’t get the right answer.” He folded the belt in half. Holding the ends in one hand, the fold in the other, he pulled his hands rapidly apart, causing the belt to let out a sharp snap. The interrogator walked up to Clyde and snapped the belt again, this time right in front of her face.
The sound rang in her ears, and she blinked. She hissed, “You can’t intimidate me.”
“We’ll see,” he said. Then he enunciated each word: “What is your name?”
Ted stared at the linoleum of the kitchen floor. He followed a line in the tiled pattern up, over to the right, then diagonally until it met its mirror image, over some more, and up, another diagonal jaunt, and the journey started all over again.
“Ted, I need to you focus,” a diminutive, balding man said. He wore a white polo shirt and blue jeans, and he spoke with a thin drawl that made him sound like he had something to hide.
“Hrm,” Ted grunted. He desperately needed to distract himself, from the interrogation in which he was currently engaged, from the numerous investigators stomping through the house, from the fear and fury building within his gut.
“Do you know where he might have taken her?”
Ted felt his blood pressure rising. “If I knew that, don’t you think I would be there right now?” He suddenly realized he was shouting.
“Okay,” the man said, “you don’t need to bite my head off.”
Ted grunted again. “Nothing else seems to work,” he muttered.
The little man either didn’t hear or didn’t care. He said, “I hope you aren’t trying to protect your client, because you know you can break privilege for this.”
“Only if I have actual or constructive knowledge that he intends to harm someone.” Ted immersed himself in legal jargon, because it allowed him to distance himself from the situation he was in.
“We found fingerprints. We have the rag. How much more ‘constructive’ do you want?”
Rage took Ted’s words and turned them into inarticulate sounds. With great effort, he unclenched his teeth. “Brian, I called you, because you know his habits better than I do. Until tonight, I didn’t even know…” Ted rubbed his eyes with the fingers and thumb of one hand. “You’re the expert. You tell me where he is.”
“Okay.” Brian stood up and began to head toward the next room, where investigators were still scouring the house for trace evidence.
“And then I want you to take me to him,” Ted added.
“I don’t think—“
“I want to be there,” Ted repeated.
Brian simply sighed.
“Hey,” said a familiar voice.
Ted looked up to see Michael entering the room.
“This better be good,” Michael continued, clearly annoyed.
Brian interjected before exiting, “Oh, I think it is. You see if you can do anything with him.”
“What are you doing here?” Ted spoke with an edginess that reflected his anger, anger first at the situation, and anger now at the fact that someone had brought Michael into it.
Michael began. “I was in the middle of the best date of my life—“
“Every date is the best date of your life,” Ted scoffed. “Brunette or blonde?”
“Redhead, with freckles. And some guy with a pole up his butt and a starched shirt so stiff I could hear it ruffling on the other end of the phone calls me and says I need to get myself down here as fast as I can before you get yourself arrested.”
Ted breathed. “Let me get you some coffee.” He rose and marched to the other side of the kitchen, where the coffee maker sat on a counter. If only he kept busy, he could distract himself.
“Where’s Clyde?” Michael asked.
“She’s not home right now.” Ted gritted his teeth, breathed again, removed the carafe from the machine, brought it to the sink, and began to rinse it out.
“Well, maybe we should call her?” Michael said tentatively.
Ted suddenly, involuntarily, brought the carafe smashing into the bottom of the sink. It boomed and crashed, as shards of tempered glass went flying.
“Okay, that’s enough,” Michael intoned firmly. “You are going to sit down and tell me what’s going on.”
Ted didn’t move. In an uncharacteristic moment, he neither moved nor thought. He saw the fragments of glass in the sink, on the counter. He knew some lay on the floor, too. He didn’t care. His conscious mind had shut down.
“Do it now,” Michael instructed. “Walk to the table, and sit. Or else.” He left the thought unfinished.
Ted complied, sat in the chair next to the window. As he sat, Michael took the carafe handle from his hand. Ted hadn’t even realized he was still holding it.
Michael sat across from him. “Where’s Clyde?” he asked, his voice remaining firm.
“I don’t know.”
“Okay, what do you know?”
“She’s…” Ted couldn’t make himself say the word.
“Go on,” Michael urged.
Ted breathed again, and he forced his mouth to move. “… kidnapped.”
Michael didn’t even seem to blink. “Why do I get the idea that you know who the kidnapper is?”
Ted nodded and swallowed. He breathed again, refusing himself the right to worry. “A client of mine— former client.”
“Where does he hang out? Who does he know?”
Ted shook his head and swallowed again. He refused to feel sad. He looked into Michael’s captivating eyes, and it suddenly struck him how very blue those eyes were. “I don’t know anything about him,” Ted replied. “Only the case.”
Michael regarded Ted for a moment. Then he nodded. “Okay, maybe something will occur to you. I want you to sit here and try to remember people or places he might have mentioned, who might know where he is. Can you do that?”
Ted’s conscious mind shut down again. He just stared at his friend.
“Can you do that?” Michael repeated.
Ted nodded slowly. “Yes,” he said.
At the sound of the doorbell, Clyde glanced at the clock.
“Oh no,” she said.
“What’s the matter,” Mira asked.
“I didn’t realize the time. It’s getting late.” Her whole face felt tight.
“I’m sorry,” Mira said.
Clyde relaxed her expression. “Don’t apologize,” she said sweetly. “You did nothing wrong.”
The doorbell sounded again. After a moment’s pause, Mira said, “Maybe you should get that.”
“Right,” Clyde said. She strode to the front door and pulled it open.
Michael entered. “Oh,” he said noticing Mira sitting in the living room.
“Yeah,” Clyde said. “We were just chatting about Ike.” Mira glared at her. She immediately regretted mentioning Ike.
Michael rolled his eyes and sang, “He’s baaaack.”
Mira shook her head. “Okay, whatever. I have to get back to work.” She grabbed her coat, and Clyde chased her out the door.
“I’m sorry, Mira. I didn’t mean—“
“It’s okay, Clyde. I’m not mad at you. I promise.”
“You know he’s only that way because—“
“Because I refuse to be one of his bimbos.”
“That’s not fair,” Clyde said.
Mira spoke sharply. “Clydene, when it comes to relationships, Michael lives a life Aristippus would have envied.”
Clyde didn’t know what that meant.
Mira closed her eyes a moment. “In other words, he’s a self-centered, hedonist.”
“Oh.”
“Don’t you ever wonder why he’s still a bachelor, at his age?”
“You’re almost the same age,” Clyde reminded her.
“Okay, but at least I’m trying to do something about it.”
Suddenly, Clyde saw it in her friends eyes. “You are in love.”
Mira didn’t answer.
“Just find out how he feels,” Clyde reiterated.
Mira grunted and marched off without looking back.
Back inside, Clyde found Michael browsing the books on the coffee table, and she tore into him. “‘He’s back’?! What were you thinking?”
“That guy is trouble. And he always gets Mira into trouble.”
“So you came over here to make some trouble of your own?”
“No, I came over because you asked me to.”
Clyde didn’t feel like talking anymore, but she needed to. She breathed deeply and exhaled slowly. “You said I could tell you if I got another tip about Baedes, and you might be able to help?”
“You’ve heard something?”
Clyde nodded. “Baedes is holding back evidence in one of Ted’s cases.”
“What do you mean?” Michael looked confused.
“I mean, he has a forensics report the D.A. doesn’t know exists. He’s keeping it a secret, and it would exonerate one of Ted’s clients.”
Clyde added, “Baedes is after us.”
“Okay. This is not news.”
“No, I mean, he’s been interrogating suspects, fishing for leads on Ted and Mira, corrupting the process to make life difficult for them and anyone connected with them.”
Michael smirked. “More ammunition for the publicity machine.”
That remark horrified Clyde. “No, I don’t think you understand. He only started doing this after I leaked information that got Mira out, last Fall.”
Michael regarded her. “You were the source of the leak?”
“Yes.”
“So you have an inside contact.”
“No,” Clyde said. She waited a moment, because part of her didn’t want to go on, but she was already committed, so she might as well reveal all. “I cracked into their computer systems.”
Michael nodded. “Brilliant,” he said.
Clyde continued, “Baedes keeps notes on everything he does. He’s a compulsive note-taker. I get copies. He’s been looking for me, and blaming everyone else…” Clyde felt the corners of her mouth turn involuntarily downward.
Michael said, “And how do you feel about that?”
Clydene held back the flood of tears she felt pressing from inside of her eyes. She didn’t really know where it came from.
“I don’t know,” she said. “How should I feel? Angry? Guilty? Sorry?— I don’t know how to feel.” Then she asked, “How should I feel?” She heard her voice distorted by her facial muscles, involuntarily contorting.
“Beady-eyes is not the first bully I’ve had to face,” Michael said. “And there’s only one way to deal with a bully. You have to make him believe that you can beat him up, and that you will if you need to. No wonder the jerk is freaked. You’ve made him vulnerable. So how should you feel? You should feel like you’re making a difference. He tramples everyone, and will continue to, no matter what you do. But you have it within your hands to give the innocent a chance.”
Something about these words touched Clyde deep within, and sudden wailing tears mapped rivers on her cheeks. Michael sidled up next to her, wrapped his arm around her shoulders. She rested her cheek against the rough fabric of his denim jacket, and for a few minutes drenched it with her tears. She convulsed in irregular bursts of sorrow she herself didn’t completely understand, a flood of pure emotion pent up, agitated, like a can of seltzer, then finally released, and now it was spewing everywhere. She finally got out the words, “I just don’t know what to do.”
“Here’s what you do,” Michael said. “You keep an eye on what’s happening. You do what you can without getting caught. And you never let anyone else know what you’re up to. Does Ted know?”
Clyde shook her head. She was still sniffling, but paying attention to every word Michael uttered.
“Then don’t tell him. He doesn’t need to know, so keep him out of it. We don’t want to make him complicit, because that would just compromise him.
“Besides,” Michael added, “you know how he feels about following the rules.”
Clyde nodded.
“Unfortunately, in this case, the rules are useless. Get any information you can. I’ll make a few inquiries— I can’t go into details—and neither should you, unless you actually need to—but I’ll find out what I can. Whatever we uncover, maybe we can get it to Ted. But the first rule has to be secrecy. Don’t tell anyone what you’re up to. Only reveal information on a need-to-know basis, okay?”
Clyde nodded quietly. Her head was floating in fluid, but for some reason, she felt better.
“How are you at making up cover stories on the fly?”
Clyde was no good at thinking up lies, especially not under pressure. She was as transparent as a piece of glass.
Michael seemed to know the answer to his question. “You should always have a cover story prepared, in case you’re discovered doing something you’re not supposed to. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It usually only has to be good enough to confuse the person you’re talking to until you can escape or change the subject.”
With the word escape, the enormity of what Clyde had gotten herself into hit her.
At that moment, the front door opened, and Ted, staring at Clydene and Michael, Michael’s arm still wrapped around her shoulder.
Michael looked over and said, “Hey, Ted. Good that you’re here.” He patted Clyde on the back and stood.
“What’s going on?” Ted asked.
“I dropped by to see you,” Michael explained. “But Clyde and I got to talking.” He continued, “You should talk to her.”
“Why? What’s this about?”
Michael ignored the question. “What I wanted to talk to about can wait. So I should let you guys talk.” He began walking toward the door.
“What made you think I would be here?” Ted asked.
“I called your office, and they said you were out.”
“So what? That doesn’t mean I would be home.”
“Where else would you be?” Michael said.
“I had a meeting,” Ted explained.
“Oh. Well, I guess I assumed you’d be home.” Michael eyed him carefully before they said their final goodbyes.
During all this, Clyde was desperately trying to think up a story that would jibe with Michael’s and would explain why her eyes were puffy and read and why she had been obviously crying on Michael’s shoulder.
After Michael had left, Ted turned to his wife. His voice was suddenly concerned, as if he had just noticed she had been crying. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
“I think I’m pregnant,” Clyde heard herself say.
