Fifty Mice: A Novel (26 page)

“Jay?” Ginger interrupts sharply, “Put it down, Jay.” In more high weeds and cattails, on the edge of the tidal basin, she has a gun, too—Jay looks to her and thinks,
Jesus, what movie am I in?
because her gun is aimed at Jay, unfaltering, two-handed
,
a real marshal. And like she means it. There are tears in her eyes. Mouthing the words,
“
Put the gun down,” as Public shouts the exact same words at Jay from his position, his voice hedged toward impatience.

Bait,
Jay remembers. And suddenly he knows that if he just had a little more time, if he could just think a little harder, longer, he will understand the change he’s felt in her as they hurtled to this moment.

But he’s still convinced she won’t shoot him. So he pivots, back to his right, and aims his gun at Public, who’s drifted down knee-deep into the swamp water among the Mexican rush. Close. Public’s gun is aimed back at Jay. So. Stalemate.

“Shoot him,” Dunn says to Jay, meaning Public.

Ginger’s voice is calm. “Jay? No.”

“SHOOT HIM!”

“Don’t . . .”

Public begins, “A man got killed . . .”

Jay shakes his head. “A girl.”

“All right . . .”

Dunn says, “He’s gonna kill us both.”

“. . . a girl got killed, and you saw who pulled the trigger.”

“Did I?”

The helicopter cyclones, twisting bright light bending.

“Shut UP!” Dunn screams at Public.

“—WELL,” Public is shouting, too, over the din of the rotors, “SOMEBODY SAW SOMETHING.”

Jay says, “I saw a girl die.”

“Put the gun down,” Ginger says to him, steel beneath silk, “put it down and walk away.”

“HE’S ROGUE, MAN!” Dunn is drifting wide, dividing Jay’s already divided attention. “I’M FBI, THIS GUY’S A BAD MARSHAL—we were ONTO HIM and—”

“—Jay?”

“THE DEAD MAN . . .” Public holds forth like he’s giving a deposition, the Official Version of Something. “. . . WAS A FEDERAL WITNESS WHO CERTAIN COMPROMISED GOVERNMENT INDIVIDUALS WANTED SILENCED—”

“Derp derp derp,” Dunn jeers.

Or is it just a new story Public is trying out?

“He’s lying.”

Jay looks at Ginger, her gun aimed right at him, and he frowns, resigned, confounded.
Which part of which life is this?
He lets his gun fall to his side.

“—YOU SAW THE SHOOTER—”

Jay smiles oddly. Time slows, pulsing with the helicopter’s whorple-roar: Public, right, almost behind him now, moving in slow motion, and Dunn, left, different time plane, natural, equal and opposite, putting Jay between himself and—

“—Do you love me?” Ginger, immobile, asks in a whisper that Jay knows he can’t possibly hear.

I don’t even know her name.

“YOU SAW THE SHOOTING OF A DEPUTY U.S. MARSHAL BY A DISGRACED FEDERAL LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENT WHO WAS UNDER SUSPICION OF SELLING SECRETS . . .”

“LIES!” Dunn screams.

“. . . And they murdered you to cover it up,” Public concludes simply, with every intention of squeezing the trigger of his gun and killing Jay, but across the tidal swamp Ginger fires hers twice, first.

Golden Roman candle tracers slash the sky.

Laws of physics warp:

The first of Ginger’s nine-millimeter slugs spins toward Public; chased by the sound of its discharge, the second rips through Jay’s shoulder, berserking precisely the soft gap between humerus and scapula, and, though slowed by this leg of its adventure, is still humming along at nearly 1,100 feet per second when it punches into the chest and then heart of Sam Dunn, lifting him up off his feet, onto his back, mortally wounded, bleeding out.

Jay’s body spasms when Ginger’s bullet goes through him, and her other Dopplers past his ear, flashes silvery through the searchlight beam, to enter through an eye socket of the unfortunate skull of John Q. Public as he finally squeezes the trigger of his own gun, way too late.

Falling, Jay meets Public’s disappointed gaze as life leaves him and his gun discharges harmlessly and Jay’s sentience spirals in on itself, all a-shambles:
garbled voices, vibrant colors, swirl of black water, smell of Scotch, perfume, longing—frat boys clotted at the club’s entrance—a flower girl’s smile and the thump of blown speakers—

—and Jay is front row, mesmerized by the gentle slur of pale naiad flesh across curving glass as a parade of suits passes, drawing his attention into the back reaches of the bar, behind the tank, where a wiry, restless seller at a table argues with a second man, a buyer, in jeans and a leather jacket, looming over him, this second man’s face canted obscure, just turning away, like a door closing. Briefcase between them; the seller is closing it, nodding, putting it down beside his chair and leaving, on the table, a tiny flash drive which the buyer starts to cover with his hand as the shadows of the men in suits cross
the room of shadows, surrounding the seller’s table; the buyer steps back like he’s making room for them, and starts to turn his face to the light.

Then chaos.

The room erupts.

Through a parting of the churning crowd, a glimpse of the seated seller rising, intending to flee, but violently thrown back across the table by the impact of a gunshot from a shooter farther back in the shadows—

—and this time everything goes very quiet—

—except for the dull pock as the bullet punctures the tank, the entire bar in soundless motion, suits, girls, leather jacket, crowd surging scattering in every direction and—

—half-risen, hand outstretched to the rupturing glass and the tank’s startled denizen, but to any witness or witnesses later asked, in fact staring past her into the darkness behind her with something resembling recognition, or cognizance, staring into that lightless back bar blackness where a gun spat fire, staring at the exit door, staring, moonlight splashing in, a shadow passing through it, eclipsed when the door swings shut again. Staring.

The tank explodes. Water. Glass. Mermaid. Limp body tossed out at
Jay staggering shoulder-shot along the muddy banks of Two Harbors’ tidal swamp to the muddy berm where John Q. Public has sunk to his knees as if penitent, and folds forward into the dark water.

Dead.

Dunn on his back in the grass. Hands fussing with his chest. Gasping for air that will not save him.

Jay somehow keeps his feet, arm pressed tight against his side, and, look of bewilderment, finds Ginger as she lowers her gun, slowly, hands steady.

Bait.
He thinks he says it aloud.

“Nobody saw anything,” Ginger says.

Doe’s helicopter circles like God’s unsparing judgment overhead.

Dreamy: the tidal swamp rotates like a turntable in the magic trick of the searchlight’s movement. The tumult of the helicopter rotor is so overwhelming it ceases to be noise and becomes one with Jay’s shock. He angles his head back into the bright light and stares, dizzy, up, his face washed out and ghostly.

Doe, leaning out of the searchlight’s halation, looking down at him.

Ginger, lifting Helen up out of the reeds.

The sparkling brittle sawtooth of wind-whipped water blasted white.

Jay surrenders to vertigo, and sinks, cross-legged, heavy.

Church campers break into the bright perimeter of light, stumbling across Vaughn’s body first and crying out and kneeling to tend to him. One woman listening for a heartbeat, ripping the duct tape off, while another starts the chest compressions of CPR.

Time skips.

Someone drapes a blanket over Jay’s shoulders and says things he can’t hear.

Time skips.

A circle of men and children, heads bowed, praying. Doe’s helicopter has been sucked into the night. Not even a distant sound of it remains. The swamp is filled with an exhilarating rush of wind through grass, soughing of surf, the low, fretful murmuring of the women working on Vaughn, and the mad ululation of crickets.

“There’s no cell signal,” one of the men from the church group cries out, and the CPR woman yells at him to run up the fucking hill until he finds one.

Jay wants to laugh, but lies back in the grass, played out.
Was it worth it? Yeah,
he tells himself.
But was it worth it?
No, he decides bitterly. Better not to have a life, than to have one and lose it. He feels light-headed. He feels dumb. Another fail.

Another fail.

Jay looks but can’t find Ginger or Helen.

But, “Yes
,”
he says, then, stubbornly, fiercely, into the wind, trying it out: “Yeah, it was worth it.
”
He says it like he believes it. He can believe it. He’s earned at least that.

A wave of shock nausea. His eyes close.

And the veil falls away—

—strip bar, that singular moment of the shooting, frozen in time, and Jay floats through it, unmoored. Glides past himself, past the half-fractured, near-bursting mermaid’s tank and the pale, shocked underwater stripper with threads of blood beginning to leak from her chest.

As if illusory, in distinct relief from the motionless moil of the strip bar, a reflection stares back at him, distorted, caught for this timeless instant in the polished stainless steel of a structural support.

A woman. A grown girl.

Riot of hair pulled back, no makeup, straight-line mouth set hard.

It’s Ginger.

She moves among the motionless, slides her spent gun back into the holster on her hip, palms the flash drive from the table, tucks it under her coat, and slips away. The back exit opens, splashing one hopeful measure of moonlight into the darkness as—

HE LOOKS UP.

There: the mazelike grid of cracks in the white plaster ceiling. Dull thrum of an old air conditioner. All that white noise, kicking on.

Cheerless light seeps down from the translucent windows, still no wall decorations, just the bed, containing Jay, the stainless-steel sideboard, and the one metal chair.

He remembers this part all too well; it’s one of those glib pulp endings where the story circles back where it began and, for a moment, you wonder if the whole thing was a dream.

“How’re you feeling?” Jane Doe is bedside. She’s got her “HELLO My Name Is” sticker plastered to the lapel of her jacket but she’s left the fill-in space blank. Jay turns his head in slow motion and the world crawls reluctantly with him.

Doe even says Public’s line: “Sometimes that tranquilizer really kicks your ass,” and waits, deadpan.

Jay smiles, languid in the anesthetic’s wake, and lets his eyes stray
back to the map of cracks in the ceiling. Déjà vu. Okay. Sure. Maybe he imagined the whole thing.

“Gee, where am I, I wonder?” he says drily.

“Witness protection. You’re in witness protection, Jay.” She sits down. She’s flushed with color, like someone who’s just come from running a 5K: playful, jacked with endorphins, oddly upbeat, after all that’s happened.

“I remember,” he says.

“What a shitstorm, huh? Empty out one can of worms,” Doe quips, “and open up another.”

“I’m in the program,” Jay offers.

“Back. You’re back in the program, yes.”

“Vaughn?”

“Safe.”

“Safe. Everybody’s safe. That’s how you roll.”

Doe shrugs. “Don’t give me shit about it, either.”

Jay’s wrist lifts away from the bedrail. At least he’s not handcuffed, this time. But there’s an IV shunt stuck in the vein in his arm, tubes snaking up to a clear bag on a tall stand. They have what they needed from him. He’s not a captive. Just . . . what?

Doe hesitates, frowns. “Question? Something you want to ask me?”

“Dunn?”

“The man was not in a good place, morally or ethically.”

“Undercover?”

Doe shakes her head. This is not something Jay should waste much time thinking through, she tells him. “It’s not a black-and-white world,” she adds. “We do bad things to get good results, we do good things that go horribly wrong. We’re human, you know? Not perfect. We do the best we can.”

“Why did you bring me back here?”

Doe doesn’t answer right away. The skinny jeans and faded black Chuck Taylors make her look like somebody’s Melrose Avenue hipster mom. Jay wonders if she’s older than he thinks. “Dunn wasn’t the shooter,” she says.

“I know,” Jay says. “But he was buying the list.”

“Buying, trading, brokering. He was a middleman.”

“And the end buyer?”

Doe smiles sardonically, says nothing.
Still out there,
is the unspoken answer.

“So you pretended to believe me, and I became the bait?”

Doe won’t confirm or deny it.

“And the one guy who can isn’t talking.”

“Ever,” Doe agrees. “RIP John Q. It’s not optimal, but what can you do?” She tugs at the ends of her hair. Her nails are ragged again from where she’s been biting them. Polish chipping off.

Jay has to ask, “Are you protecting me, or protecting yourselves from me?”

Doe looks at him candidly and tells him that he’s free to leave, whenever he wants. It’s not a bluff.

This is what he remembers:

A small girl he unlocked.

A duplicitous woman who unlocked him.

An invented island life.

Weight lifting from his heart.

“I need to use the bathroom.” He doesn’t, but has to say it.

Doe gives no knowing reaction, though; she’s playing this awfully straight. She takes up and triggers the remote, and the whole bed changes shape, lifting him to another level of muzziness and pain. He discovers that his other arm is taped and strapped to his chest, immobilizing that side of him. And just as well: it feels like somebody
has pounded a spike through his shoulder, impaling him on the mattress.

“You could, you know . . . bedpan.”

“No,” Jay says. He wants to ask about Ginger and Helen, but he’s afraid of the answer.

“Okay. I’ll send someone in to help you,” Doe says. She stands and starts to walk out. Her shoes scuff tile, “Oh—” she adds, slowing, but not completely turning around, “you’re gonna need to let us know if you want your family with you.” And then she’s gone.

Jay thinks, aloud, “Family?”

“Okay, well, I was watching?” Mouse squeak of sneakers and the rustle of a cotton jumper, and a small voice, coming from under the bed. “And they were filling you with all that intervenious water and stuff? And I thought maybe you’d puff up like a water balloon and pop . . .”

Jay shifts his body in stages, the stabbing pain coursing along his side from his neck to his hip; leans over the bedrail and looks down to where Helen is on her back, on the floor, just her head exposed, peeking up at him with the gravity of all her eight years.

“. . . so I crawled under here, in case. Hello.” She wriggles out. “And fell asleep.” Helen stands up and looks at Jay soberly. And as his eyes rise to meet hers, he sees, behind her, in the open doorway to his empty hospital room, Ginger, hair in rebellion and still mascara-challenged, approximating the awkward posture of an eighth-grade girl at her first all-school dance.

“Well, not exactly asleep, though,” Helen is saying. “Just sort of like with my eyes closed and resting?” She thinks about it. “But there were some dreams.”

Ginger crosses from the doorway to the bed, all business, avoiding Jay’s gaze. She lowers the bedrail for him to hold on to as he sits up and slides his legs off the edge.

“Marshal Doe said you needed some help.”

“Helen was on the list,” Jay says.

Ginger tugs at Helen’s jumper, straightening it, as if she isn’t listening.

“I’m talking about the list of names your husband was going to sell to Dunn.”

Now she looks at him. Her eyes asking:
Where does this go?
And it’s funny, because Jay is wondering the same thing. Helen is up on her feet, arms out, spinning. “Mommy said her old husband went away with a mermaid. She cried a lot.”

Ginger allows that she did, but adds, pointedly, to Jay, “For the mermaid.”

Jay reaches out, but Ginger leans away. Nothing is certain yet. Needing more from him.

Helen puts her hands over her face. “Go ahead. I’m not watching.”

Common knowledge among behavioral biology fanboys like Vaughn, according to Vaughn: in a wide range of mammals, including monkeys, bears, cats, dogs, and, yes, mice, mothers are incredibly protective when their offspring are young and vulnerable. As part of this behavior, female mice will attack any threat against their offspring in what is variously called maternal aggression or maternal defense, depending on the researcher and the experiment.

Jay says, “It was you.”

A mother mouse will even kill the intruder to her nest if she thinks her pups are in danger.

Ginger says nothing. Her eyes search his.

“They wanted me to remember you,” he says.

Almost imperceptibly, Ginger nods. “Did you?”

Jay takes a moment before answering, mostly for show. The
weight is gone. He remembers all that matters: his sister’s viral giggles, his brother’s sly wit, his father’s sure hands, his mother’s grace.

And the rest?

“I’ve never seen you before in my life,” Jay says.

Ginger’s smile is
everything.