Frank turns to his left. Ellen Dorsey has her phone out.
“Wait,” she says to him. She then obviously sees the panic in his eyes and takes him by the arm. “Just wait a second, I’m going to call someone, okay?”
He waits, standing there, staring ahead.
“Val? Ellen. We’re here. Anyone there you can talk to?”
The next ten or fifteen minutes float by in a headachy haze, as they are met by men in dark suits and uniforms. They are then guided forward-cameras clicking and whirring behind them-through the barriers and on to a second set of barriers just before the next intersection. At one point it takes Frank a few seconds to realize that he is standing beside Deb. She looks just as shell-shocked as he feels, and it takes them another few seconds to acknowledge each other, to react, to embrace.
Interviews follow-interrogations, really-with representatives from different law enforcement agencies. These take place in the back of a large van, or maybe it’s a trailer, Frank isn’t sure of anything that’s happening. He answers whatever he’s asked, but doesn’t feel that any of the questions make sense. He asks several questions of his own-though they’re all the same question, really-but no one will give him a straight answer.
More time passes.
Then Frank finds himself back outside, standing next to Deb again, looking from behind a barrier at a long, deserted section of the street-no people, no cars, not even parked ones. It stretches all the way to a corresponding barrier just beyond Stanton Street. And there appears to be another one beyond that again, on East Houston.
What worries Frank is that no one here seems to know what’s going on, or is even prepared to say what they think is going on.
He looks around.
Almost without him noticing it, night has fallen. It’s dark now, city dark, an orange wash from the streetlights suffusing everything. There is an eerie silence, too, with a muffled backdrop of normal sounds-distant traffic, distant sirens.
Then something occurs to him. Where’s Ellen Dorsey? He hasn’t seen her for a while and doesn’t see her anywhere now.
He looks at Deb. They don’t know what to say to each other. But they’re here, and they’re together, and they’re waiting.
It’s not just them, though.
Everyone is waiting.
Lizzie is drowsy. She’s been drifting in and out of sleep for some time now, in and out of actual dreams, too… little narrative passages that for all their weirdness and anxiety-laden expansiveness have been a welcome respite from-she opens her eyes-from this, the silent, musty, horrible, box-like, coffin-like little apartment they are trapped inside of.
She is sitting on the floor in the kitchen, leaning back against the wall, under the window, in the tiny space between the table and the cupboards, and she’s been here… since this started.
Forever, it feels like.
Though still, it must be what, nearly five hours already?
What time is it?
She doesn’t have a watch, and her cell phone is out in the other room.
There’s no clock in here.
What gets her is the silence, the virtual silence anyway. She can hear traffic, and the occasional siren, but she can’t hear any of the regular building sounds, no flushing toilets, no muffled voices, or creaking floorboards from upstairs.
But she knows why. It’s because they’ve evacuated the building, isn’t it? Probably the whole street, and the buildings behind as well.
It was that one word Alex used, explosives. Otherwise, she’s sure they would have stormed in by now, with tear gas or stun grenades or whatever the hell it is they use in these situations.
But the thing is, Lizzie doesn’t know if Alex and Julian actually have any explosives. Alex grabbed that backpack from the table pretty fast. Was it just to get his gun? Or was there something else in it? Does Julian have anything stashed in his bedroom?
Lizzie didn’t make a decision to stay in the kitchen like this, on the floor-not consciously, anyway. It just came about. For the initial twenty minutes, or half an hour, she stood a couple of inches inside the kitchen door and didn’t move a muscle, barely even took a breath. Neither did Alex or Julian; they just stood where they were, frozen, waiting for something to happen, for someone to make a move.
Then the phone rang, the landline.
Julian and Alex flinched. Alex gestured for Lizzie to move, to get back, as though the phone itself were about to explode.
Lizzie did move back, into the position she’s in now.
She sat there, trembling, and listened, as first Julian, and then Alex, tried their hand at… negotiation? Is that what it was? She couldn’t make out everything they were saying, but she heard enough to know that either they didn’t know what they were doing or they didn’t care.
A few more quick phone calls followed, and then… nothing at all. Obviously some sort of a waiting game. For her part, Lizzie waited where she was, thinking Alex might come in and tell her something, try to comfort her-she wanted him to, and was prepared to wait for him-but it’s as if she wasn’t even there.
Through the kitchen door, over the next couple of hours, she could hear them whispering, conspiring, strategizing, or so she imagined. But there were also moments when the exchanges sounded harsh, as if Julian and Alex were bickering or snapping at each other. Occasionally, she could see shadows and some movement, but not a lot, and then for the longest time all she could make out was Julian’s boots, positioned horizontally-so she took it that he was sitting on the floor, too, legs outstretched, leaning against the section of wall next to the living room window.
No sign of Alex.
After that, time just passed. She considered crawling over to the door, or whispering something out, but the more the hours drifted by, the harder it became for her to imagine doing anything at all, even moving. It got dark as well, and no one turned on any lights, or tried to turn on the TV. Was this because the electricity supply into the apartment had been cut? Maybe. She didn’t know. Though if it was the case, it probably meant that cell phone and Internet connections had also been blocked.
Eventually, the drowsiness came, and Lizzie started letting her head slump.
Now she’s in a weird in-between state.
“Lizzie.”
She focuses. It’s Alex. He’s in front of her, crouched down, but with one hand holding on to the table, for balance. In the dim light, his face is only partially visible.
“Alex,” she whispers, leaning forward suddenly, reaching a hand out to touch him, as though they haven’t seen each other for months.
“Listen,” he says, leaning sideways, avoiding her hand. “We need coffee, if we’re going to stay awake. So make some, will you? But keep as quiet as you can.”
Lizzie stares at him. “Alex, what’s happening? Talk to me.” Her eyes fill up with tears. “What are we going to do?”
She puts so much effort into saying this last word that it’s like a release. And now that she’s finally asked the question, she can’t help feeling that an answer-full, satisfactory, game-changing-will come spilling out of him. But all he says is “I don’t know. I don’t know.”
“You must know.”
“Look, this wasn’t part of the plan, okay?” He says the words slowly, his tone very deliberate. “Now. Will you please make the coffee.”
Lizzie feels sick all of a sudden. She doesn’t know what’s going on here. It seemed like they were almost in tune back there, before this started, in the other room, like they had a chance of connecting again-but only for all of, what was it, five or six seconds? And that was it? Now she’s supposed to just make coffee? In normal circumstances, Julian wouldn’t let her touch anything in his precious kitchen, now she’s the fucking maid?