I didn’t want to dwell on how I was because nothing good could come of that. “I’m eager to be through with this meeting. I’m eager to get on with things.”
“Good,” Mr. Kipling said. “Let’s go in.”
We gave our names at the desk, then took the elevator to the tenth floor. We gave our names again, then waited for what felt like forever in a nondescript lobby. Finally, an assistant escorted us into the office.
Bertha Sinclair was alone. She was in her late forties and shorter than me. She had metal braces on her legs and they squeaked as she maneuvered across the room to shake my hand. “Anya Balanchine, fugitive—welcome,” she greeted me. “And you must be the persistent Mr. Kipling. Please, friends, have a seat.”
She returned to her chair. Her knees didn’t bend very well, so she had to fall backward into it. I wondered what had happened to Bertha Sinclair.
“So, prodigal daughter, your sister’s nanny is dead, your brother has disappeared, and you have returned to the Isle of Mannahatta and laid yourself at my door. Whatever shall I do with you? Your lawyer thinks you should be given probation and time served. What do you think, Anya? Wouldn’t that be a touch soft for a girl who shot someone and executed a jailbreak?”
“In my opinion,” Mr. Kipling said, “Charles Delacroix had no right to return Anya to Liberty when he did. He was thinking of his campaign, not of what was in the public’s best interest. Although Anya was wrong to escape, she escaped from a situation that was essentially unjust.”
Bertha Sinclair massaged her knee. “Yes,” she said. “I can’t say I disagree with you if what you’re essentially saying is that Charles Delacroix is an ambitious, arrogant prick.
“Really,” Bertha Sinclair continued, “I should thank you, Anya. The luck of you being on that bus! My campaign staff and I beat that Anya-and-the-DA’s-son story until it was dead, dead, dead. The irony is, I doubt the public cared nearly as much as Charles Delacroix thought they cared. And, in my opinion, it wasn’t you but his misjudgment that cost him the election. Or, to put it another way, handed it to me.” Bertha Sinclair laughed. “So, here’s how I see it, friends. I don’t care about chocolate. I don’t care about Anya. I certainly don’t care about Charles Delacroix’s son.”
“What do you care about?” I asked.
“Good question. The child doesn’t speak much, but she does speak well. I care about my people and about doing what’s right for them.”
That seemed terribly broad to me.
“I care about getting reelected. And getting reelected takes many resources, Mr. Kipling.”
Mr. Kipling nodded.
“The Balanchines were good friends of this office once. And I imagine that they could be again.” At that moment, Bertha Sinclair took a tiny notepad out of her desk and scribbled something on it. She handed the note to Mr. Kipling. He looked at the paper. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that it was a number with at least four zeros, maybe more.
“And what does this number buy us?” Mr. Kipling asked.
“Friendship, Mr. Kipling.”
“Specifically?”
“Friends have to trust each other, don’t they?” She began writing another note on a sheet of paper. “I never understood why paper fell out of fashion. It’s so convenient to destroy. Put something down digitally and it’s viewable by everyone and exists forever. Or at least it has the illusion of forever, but it’s always potentially mutable. People had so much more freedom when there was paper. But that’s neither here nor there.” She set her pen on her desk and handed the second note to me:
8 ds Liberty
30 ds house arrest
1 yr probation
1 yr surrender passport
I folded the paper in half before nodding my consent. Even if we were paying for it, this still seemed more than reasonable. I’d need to go to Japan at some point but I imagined that could be worked out later.
“After you’re released from Liberty, I will give a press conference where I say that I am prepared to let bygones be bygones. I will ridicule the way Charles Delacroix handled your situation—let me tell you, I’ll enjoy that part very much. And then, as far as I’m concerned, that will be the end of it. You’ll have your life back. And we’ll all be friends for life unless you do something to irritate me.”
I looked into Bertha Sinclair’s eyes. They were so brown they were almost black. It was tempting to say that her eyes were as black as her heart or some such nonsense, but I don’t believe that eye color is anything more than genetics. Still, there was no denying that the woman was corrupt. Daddy used to say that corrupt people were easy to deal with because they were consistent—you could, at the very least, count on them to be corrupt.
“I’ll have someone arrange with Mr. Kipling when you’ll return to Liberty,” Bertha Sinclair said as we stood to leave.
“I’d like to go now,” I heard myself say.
Mr. Kipling stopped. “Anya, are you sure?”
“Yes, Mr. Kipling.” I had not been afraid of Liberty. I had been afraid of being left there indefinitely. The sooner I went back, the sooner I could get on with sorting the rest of my life out, and I had quite a bit of sorting to do. “If I go back now, I’ll be out in time for Imogen’s funeral.”
“I think that’s admirable,” Bertha Sinclair said. “I’ll escort you to Liberty myself if you’d like.”
“The press will pick up the story if District Attorney Sinclair accompanies you,” Mr. Kipling warned me.
“Yes, that’s the idea,” Bertha Sinclair said, rolling her dark, dark eyes. “Anya Balanchine has surrendered herself to me and, a week later, I show her leniency. It’s a big, beautiful show, Mr. Kipling, and quite the coup de théâtre for my office, no?” She turned to me. “We’ll go from here.”
Mr. Kipling and I went to the lobby. When Bertha Sinclair was out of sight, I handed him my machete, which had still been attached to my (Simon Green’s) belt.
“You brought this to the DA’s office?” Mr. Kipling was incredulous. “It’s lucky the city is too broke to fix those old metal detectors.”
“I forgot I had it,” I assured him. “Take care of it. It’s my favorite souvenir of Mexico.”
“Do you mind my asking if you’ve had opportunity to use this … Is it a machete?” He held it with two fingers, like it was a fouled diaper, before slipping it into his valise.
“Yes, Mr. Kipling. In Mexico, it’s what they use to remove the cacao pods from the trees.”
“That’s all you used it for?”
“Mainly,” I told him. “Yes.”
“Anya Balanchine! Anya! Look over here! Anya, Anya, where have you been?” The crowd of paps waited to pounce on us at the Liberty Island Ferry.
I had been instructed by Bertha Sinclair not to say anything, but I couldn’t help turning my head. I was relieved to hear my name again. I was hustled into the boat, and Bertha Sinclair stopped to talk to the media.
Although she was a woman, Bertha Sinclair’s voice carried every bit as much as Charles Delacroix’s had, and from the boat, I could still hear her. “This afternoon, Anya Balanchine surrendered herself to me. I want it on the record that Ms. Balanchine’s surrender was completely voluntary. She’ll be detained at Liberty until we figure out what the best course of action is,” Bertha Sinclair boomed. “I’ll have an update for you all soon.”
It was my fourth time at Liberty in less than a year and a half. Mrs. Cobrawick was gone, replaced by Miss Harkness, who wore athletic shorts all day long and in all weathers it seemed. Miss Harkness had no interest in celebrity, by which I mean my infamy. This made her an improvement over Mrs. Cobrawick. Mouse had also left—I wondered if she had ever gone to see Simon Green—so I had a bunk to myself and no one to eat with in the cafeteria. The length of my stay was too short to bother with making new friends.