Emily Kimelman - Sydney Rye 04 - Strings of Glass (12 page)

Agapito’s
eyes sprung with tears when he saw her, his head
shaking back and forth with regret. “Show them to the infirmary,” I
said.

“What
about the children?” he asked,
gesturing to the two boys who cowered in the front row.

“I’ll
try and get them out,” I said. “Hurry.”

Agapito
nodded and then walked quickly down the stone path toward the church, his black
frock making him disappear in the darkness. The women, in their tatters of
dirty white robes and dresses,
snaked behind him like a tail. 

I turned
to the boys in the van and crouched down. They stared at me with wide and
frightened eyes that glinted in the darkness. Anita and Dan stood beside me.
“Maybe we need to give them some more space,” I said.

“I’m
really worried about the van getting spotted,” Anita said.

“Think
there is parking around the back?” Dan asked.

I just
watched the boys while they watched me. “Do you think they are afraid of
me?”

“Probably,”
Anita said. “They did just watch you kill what? Like three people?”

“Tell
them they are under my protection,” I said.

Anita
translated and the boys kept their eyes on me.

“Tell
them that I will never let anyone hurt them again. That they can trust
me.”

I
listened to Anita’s translation and watched the boys. The braver of the two
nodded his understanding and then lacing his fingers with the other boy came
forward. I put a hand on his narrow shoulder and felt a surge of protectiveness
that rushed adrenaline into my system. In that moment I wanted to fly over to
Kalpesh Shah’s house and shoot him so many times that his own uncle
wouldn’t recognize him when they met in hell.

The boy
looked up at me and I smiled. “You’re safe now,” I said. He took my
hand and together we walked down the path to the church, leaving Anita and Dan
to deal with the van.

The door
was still open and we stepped into the nave. The judgmental depiction of St.
Nicholas was dark, but candles burned in sconces, lighting the pews and casting
dancing shadows into the corners. The boys stopped in the door, hesitant to
enter the strange space. I smiled. “I know,” I said. “Totally
weird, right?”

They
didn’t answer. I pulled on the braver boy’s hand leading him down the aisle as
his companion followed. Turning at the altar,
I looked up at the plastic Jesus above the exit. The more fearful boy started
crying and I turned to him, crouching down, and wiped
his tears away. I felt my own chin wobble watching him struggle to understand
what was happening, fear ripping him apart. “What’s your name?” I
asked. Pointing to myself, I said,
“Sydney.”

The
braver boy pointed at his chest and answered,
“Raju.” When the smaller boy didn’t answer he pointed at him and said,
“Yash.”

“Thank
you,
Raju,” I said. “Yash…” I pursed my lips, knowing there was
nothing I could say in any language that would stop his tears. Instead I
reached out and picked the boy up. He wrapped his arms around me and cried onto
my shoulder. I took Raju’s hand and said,
“Come on, boys. You’re going to be OK. I
promise.” We passed under the mournful Jesus into the school.

Hearing
voices I followed the sounds to an open door. I looked into the room and saw
Agapito standing at a sink. The women were spread out over several beds, many
still holding hands. The smell of antiseptic stung my nose. The priest looked
up from the sink and, seeing me, nodded. “A doctor is on the way,” he
said. Agapito was holding a wet cloth, pink with diluted blood. Esha sat closest
to him, her arm wrapped around her sister. She whispered softly to the girl.

“Perhaps
you should help her,” Agapito said. “I do not think she needs any
more men touching her.”

“Sure.
I left Anita and Dan with the van. Is there somewhere they can park it out of sight?”

“Yes,
yes,” he nodded. “I’ll show them.”

I patted
Yash’s back and then placed him on the floor; he looked up at me, still crying.
Raju took his hand. The boys stayed close to me as I crossed the room and took
the cloth from Agapito. Esha smiled at me and said something to her sister that
made the injured woman looked up at me. A small smile appeared on her cracked
and swollen lips.

I
reached out tentatively and touched the wet cloth to a patch of dried blood on
the girl’s face. She winced at my touch and I clucked the way my mother used to
when she bandaged my booboos. “You’ll be OK,” I said. As I cleaned
the woman’s face, wiping away the dirt and pus, I
thought that I’d been doing a little too much
of this. At least I could rest easy in the fact that the people who did this
would never hurt anyone else. But I also knew that didn’t mean this girl would
be OK or that there was any security for any of the victims in this room.

Chloe
arrived with a man in his late fifties, he had
Henna-tinted
white hair and carried an old fashioned doctor’s bag.
The man had gentle eyes and moved to Esha’s side speaking softly. She nodded at
his questions. I stepped back and dropped the cloth into the sink. Agapito
waited in the hall and motioned for me to join him. Yash and Raju followed me,
slipping their hands into mine.

Agapito
looked down at them and smiled, then turned his gaze to
me, his eyes darkening. “Sydney, there is a lot of blood in the van.”

“I
know, we’ve got to clean it up soon or it will only get harder.”

He
frowned. “What happened?”

“Not
sure you want to know, Father.”

He
pursed his lips and looked down at the boys. “I’m glad that they are
safe.”

“Good,
let’s leave it at that.”

Agapito
looked back up at me. “I cannot condone violence, no matter who it is
against.”

I looked
up at the ceiling composing myself. “Got it. Look,” I breathed deeply
calming my tone so as not to frighten the boys. “I told you our methods
differed. I’m not turning the other cheek.”

“Yes,
but Sydney. Murder?”

“Murder?
I guess that’s one way of looking at it. I think of it as defending the
innocent. It’s not like I just went out and shot some random people on the
street.” Agapito opened his mouth to speak, but I cut him off.
“You’ve tried for years to save the kids Kalpesh has been abusing.” I
shook my head. “And you failed because you’re not willing to get your
hands dirty.”

“Yes,
Sydney, that’s right. You are dirtying yourself. Lowering yourself to his
level.”

“No,”
I heard my voice rising and felt Raju squeeze my hand. I paused and looked down
at him,
smiling. “It’s OK,” I said and nodded.
Turning back to Agapito I continued, keeping
my voice even. “I am not lowering myself to any level. I am helping.
You’re the one who is hiding in this church, afraid to do anything that might
actually make a difference.”

Agapito’s
face reddened. “We make a difference here.”

“Not
enough of one,” I spat at him, sick to
death of this conversation. “Stop moralizing at me. It’s because of my
actions that these boys are alive and those women are free.”

Chloe
spoke behind me. “Yes, but how long will they stay alive? Kalpesh will
come for them, for all of us.”

I turned
to her. “Not if I get to him first.”

“Will
you?” Agapito asked. “And what will you do then? Murder him?”

I shook
my head. “I told you my plans for him.”

“I
guess you’ve left us no choice,” Chloe said, looking
over her shoulder at the women in the infirmary.

“You
can throw us all out,” I said.

Agapito
put his hands up. “Let’s just drop this. We have come too
far to go back now. I pray that you are right,
Sydney.”

“I
am,” I said, holding his gaze.

He laid
his hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “Your faith is admirable.”

“As
is yours,
Father.”

“Come,”
he said to the boys.  Crouching
down to them, he pulled several colored pencils
from within his robes. “Shall we go draw?” He mimicked the action of
sketching.

“I
think they are Nepalese,” Chloe said. “Many of them are.” I let
go of their hands and pushed them toward the priest who led them down the hall
toward the art room.

“We’ve
got to keep moving,” I said to Chloe. “The van needs to be cleaned
and hidden.”

“You
can leave it here,” she said.

“Perfect,
we can use it when we rescue the rest of the kids.”

She
nodded and then silently led me out into the play yard past the still swings
and empty slide to a door in the wall. It led to a small parking area concealed
from the road by bushes. Not the most secure spot in the world but it would
have to do, I figured.

Dan and
Anita waited by the van. “We need sponges and stuff,” Dan said.

Chloe
nodded. “Come with me.” Anita started for the church and Dan went to
follow, but I grabbed his hand, holding him back. He
turned to look at me and I reached up touching his cheek. “I know this
isn’t what you signed up for,” I said.

He shook
his head. “This is exactly what I signed up for;
I told you I’d go anywhere with you and I wasn’t lying.” The devotion in
his eyes took my breath away in a wash of emotions. Fear and pride rolled over
me.

“Come
on.” He held onto my hand as we headed inside. Chloe gave us a bucket of
soapy water and several sponges. Looking over at Dan and Anita as we opened the
van door and got to work, I felt a pang of uncertainty. I
didn’t want either of them to know what it was like to clean blood out of seat
cushions, but here they were learning it. Anita threw up, running across the
pavement and making it to the bushes before retching up yellow bile, the only
thing left in her stomach. But Dan just clenched his jaw tighter and scrubbed
with me until we’d done all we could. We’d never get the smell out, but it was
better.

Exhausted
and disgusted, I went back into the church and looked into
the art room. Agapito sat with the boys, paper and pencils around them. I
leaned against the doorjamb and smiled, feeling that
if nothing else these boys were having this moment. Maybe they would grow up to
be men like Agapito, doing as much good as they knew how. What more could we
ask for in this world?

We took
two rickshaws back to Anita’s place, getting dropped off blocks away and then
trudging the final distance. The moon was setting and the stars were gone. Two
cows slept next to Anita’s door, a mother with
her calf curled up beside her. The tender way in which they lay made my breath
catch in my throat.

W
hen I
woke up the next morning, I felt like I had a terrible hangover. My whole body
ached and my head pounded. Blue whined and licked my face. I pushed him away
and groaned. Dan was awake, staring up at the ceiling.

My teeth
felt like they were wearing socks. I needed a run. Reaching for the ceiling I
stretched my back. Blue wagged his tail and then with a yowl stretched his back
too, pushing his tail high into the air.

I pulled
on my jogging shorts, sports bra, and a
T-shirt.
Dan watched me, wrapping himself around the blanket. He plucked at a pillow.
“You OK?” I asked, looking up from tying my
running shoes.

He
smiled at me. “Sure.”

“Want
to come for a run?”

He
laughed. “I think I’ll just smoke a joint instead.”

I
smiled. “Sounds good.”

Blue
followed me down the steps. We found Anita in the kitchen.  She was wearing a
light cotton bathrobe, block printed with a pattern of green dragons, heads
arched back, tongues extended. Her hair was wet and her eyes still puffy from
sleep. “Sydney,” she said, looking
up from her phone, “they’re
moving the children.”

“What?”

“The
kids, Kalpesh is moving them again.”

She
refilled her coffee cup, gesturing toward the pot, asking if I wanted a cup.
“After my run,” I said.

“I
don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

My body
felt tight and I knew that I’d think a lot better if I got the chance to run it
loose. And Blue might just explode if I didn’t get him some exercise. Blue
understood that he’d missed some serious action last night and it made him
antsy. “I really need a run,” I said.

“Sydney,
after what happened last night?” she shook her head. “It’s not as if
you blend in around here.”

“I’ll
take my chances.”

Her eyes
narrowed. “It’s not just
your chances
that you’re taking.
They’re
mine,
too, and Dan’s.”

I pursed
my lips, hating the reminder. At least I didn’t have to worry about Anita
writing this story anymore. It was a good thing she felt that we were
intertwined. Anita poured another cup of coffee and placed it on the table.
“We need to strategize. Our position has become much more precarious, not
to mention Chloe’s and Agapito’s.”

I sat
down at the table and Blue looked at me like I was a traitor. “I at least
need to take him for a pee,” I said.

“Fine,”
Anita turned back to her phone.

Blue
pranced next to me as I pulled open the ancient door. The street was empty, the
cows from the night before gone. I walked slowly down the alley letting Blue
sniff. He did his business and I started back toward the house. Looking up and
down the empty block one more time, I picked up my pace, then digging my toes
in, I sprinted past the door. Blue flew next to me, his long legs extending.
Reaching the end of the block I skidded and turned,
racing back the other way. Blue jumped up and touched his nose to my elbow
letting me know how much fun he thought this was. Five more sprints and my
lungs threatened to give out. Blue panted heavily as we reentered the house and
sweat spotted my T-shirt.

Dan sat
at the kitchen table, a joint in one hand, a cup of coffee in the other. He
smiled at me and I smiled back. Dan looked OK, tired, but not devastated. The
rich smell of hash filled the room. Anita came down the steps dressed in linen
pants and a button-down white shirt. She took in my
sweaty appearance and frowned.

“I
just ran up and down the street for a minute. No one saw me,” I said. Blue
went over to his bowl of water and lapped at it thirstily.

Anita
pulled out her phone and sat at the table. “We have a bunch to go
over.” Dan offered her the joint and she shook her head. “I don’t
understand you two,” she said, her voice rising. “Why aren’t you
freaking out!”

Dan and
I made eye contact and then turned to Anita. “We’ve done this
before,” I said.

“You
just seem so goddamn calm.”

“I’m
not that calm,” Dan said, taking another drag off
the joint.

I was
calm. Utterly calm. The best way to be in a situation like this. The only time
I felt so at peace.

“We
don’t even have a plan,” Anita said,
throwing up her hands. “We are so lucky that last night turned out the way
it did. We all could have died. And those kids…”

“Yes,
we all could have died,” I said, putting
food in a bowl for Blue. He sat before I asked and then flopped into the down
position. “But we didn’t, so that feels good, right?”

Anita
stared at me as I put Blue through a couple of commands before telling him to
eat,
which he did with gusto. I looked back over at Anita.
“What do we know about his security?”

Anita
squeezed her eyes shut and didn’t answer. “From the research I’ve
done,” Dan said, opening his laptop,
“he’s
not that high tech. I found a basic alarm system and some video,
but not enough. If I was setting up this guy’s
system, I’d be a lot more into surveillance.” He put the joint out into
his empty coffee cup with a sizzle.

“Are
we still thinking of taking him at the Kite Festival?” I asked. “That’s
in two days.”

“Any
chance we can get into his place before that?” Dan asked. “I’d love
to place a couple of cameras. That would make our attack a lot easier. I could
basically be in the van letting you know where his people were. How many guards
does he have again?” Dan asked, turning
to Anita.

“What
about the fact that we don’t actually know where the kids are,” Anita held
up one finger, “he has fifteen guards,” another finger popped up,
“and the entire city is on his side?”

I shook
my head. “First of all, I don’t think the city is really on his side.
They’re just not doing anything to stop him. That’s out of fear or greed, not
because they agree with what he is doing. Secondly, can’t your source tell us
where the kids are? And the guards, I’d say that’s a real honest-to-God
problem. You’ve got me there. Dan, any ideas?”

He
pursed his lips thinking.

Anita
flicked at her phone. “My source can probably locate the children.”

“I’d
like to talk to him or at least know who he
is at this point.”

“I’ve
asked if he’d be willing to speak with you, but not
yet.”

“We’ve
got two days,” I said.

“There
is a party tonight, it’s invitation only but we can get in. My source will
decide then if he trusts you.”

I filled
a glass with water and sat down at the table. “Fine,” I said.
“But I still think taking him at the Kite Festival makes sense because he
has to let us in to his big open-house celebration.  And there
will be a lot of people around, so it’s easy to blend.”

“But
I think we need to get the kids out before we take him,” Dan said.
“Because otherwise they are basically dead.”

“I
agree.”

“We
should go to the kite market tonight,” Anita said.

I
shrugged. “Why?”

“We
will run into Shah and then he’ll have to invite me to his party
afterwards.”

“Really?
Even though his henchmen tried to rape and kill you?”

“I’ve
known him my whole life. If he didn’t invite me it would be a clear indication
that it was his men, that he was behind the attack. Shah must pretend like
everything is normal. That’s what this game is all about, don’t you see? If we
don’t expose him, it will be as if none of this ever happened.”

“If
you’re going to the kite market I’ll go pick up some surveillance
cameras,” Dan said. “That way we can put some around, at least in the
public areas.”

“Sounds
like a plan,” I said, standing up and heading for a
shower.