“What?”
But he knows. Fuck. Winterbrook Mall. It seems like a thousand centuries ago.
“You lost your job? You got fired? From a Paloma store? Because you couldn’t keep your mouth shut?”
“But-”
“And now it’s all over the Internet?” She waves the BlackBerry in his face again. “On Gawker? ‘Like Father, Like Daughter? Does This Man Need Anger Management Classes?’ Jesus, Frank.”
He wilts.
Frank hadn’t mentioned anything because… why the fuck would he? The focus was on Lizzie, as it should have been. He and Deb were here for her, not to exchange pleasantries or career updates.
But this is being willfully naive, and he knows it. Exposure of some kind was inevitable. In fact, Deb is being naive if she thinks they won’t go after her, too. No one controls this stuff, isn’t that what Ellen Dorsey had said?
“It’s my business, Deb, mine only. I can’t help it if these bastards have no scruples.”
“Well, have you talked to anyone else?”
“What do you mean? I haven’t talked to anyone at all. Certainly not to anyone at Gawker. They’re the ones who probably talked to someone at Paloma, or at the mall. And don’t think they won’t be sniffing around up at Pierson Hackler either.”
Deb’s law firm.
She stares at him, and he sees a crack. “We’ve had a few calls,” she says, “from… the cable news shows, looking for an interview… just something short.” She pauses. “Lloyd thinks we should do it.”
Lloyd.
He’s a lawyer, too, of course.
Then Frank suddenly leans in toward her. “We? You mean us, right?”
Deb falters, and he sees it coming. “No, Frank,” she says, “I don’t. I mean me and Lloyd.”
Lizzie isn’t sure, but she thinks Julian might be dead. Either that or he’s slipped into a convenient coma. He’s over in the corner, on the floor, curled up in a fetal position, not moving or making any sound.
Alex is on the couch, staring blankly at the blank TV screen.
Lizzie is at the table, an open book in front of her that she’s no longer even pretending to read.
Between the three of them they’ve drunk all the coffee in the apartment. They’ve eaten a pack of rice cakes, a bag of sunflower seeds, some cold cuts, a chunk of Swiss cheese, a few apples, and two bananas.
They’ve each used the bathroom at least twice.
They’ve each come close to having full-blown psychotic episodes-though Lizzie sort of felt she was faking hers, that hers was more an attempt to make Alex feel better about his. Julian’s, on the other hand, was the real deal, hysteria uncoiling slowly down to virtual catatonia-and unless something happens soon, they may have to unload him.
On medical grounds.
Which would make things a little easier for her. Relatively speaking. But it’s been nearly eighteen hours already, so surely something will have to happen soon anyway?
The police, the FBI, whoever is in control of operations-they’re clearly playing a long game here. From what they said on the phone earlier, Lizzie understood that they’re waiting for an uncle of Alex and Julian’s to show up from Florida, that they think this guy’s presence will shift the dynamic sufficiently to break the impasse. Though she also got the impression that her taking the call was something of a surprise to them.
Maybe they’d been assuming she was a hostage.
Not anymore.
The thing is, when it came to it, Alex just froze. It was really early, just before five, dawn breaking. The phone rang, and he picked it up, but then he held it out in front of him, as though he didn’t know what it was for. After a few agonizing seconds, Lizzie grabbed it from his hand, simultaneously reaching over to the table to pick up the list of demands they’d compiled.
“Hello?”
There was a pause. Then, “Good morning. Who’s this? Lizzie? Is that Lizzie I’m talking to?”
“Yes.”
“Hi. I’m Special Agent Tom Bale. Listen, Lizzie, is everything alright in there? How are the guys doing? You got enough water? Have you had something to eat?”
Soothing, eminently reasonable, all-things-are-possible negotiator voice.
“We’re all doing fine,” Lizzie said. “Feeling a bit cut off maybe, communications-wise.”
It turned out that they did have electricity in the apartment, but the TV and Internet connections had been blocked.
“Well, you know how it is, Lizzie. These are standard procedures. But let me see what I can do, okay? It’s just that… I mean, the thing is… we’re all naturally a little concerned out here, considering what Alex said and all, at the outset of this thing. He was very clearly distressed, we understand that-but we’re not sure if… you know…”
Never having undergone this process before, Lizzie found it surprising how transparent and predictable it seemed. She knew exactly what Special Agent Bale was up to and didn’t even have to think about how to respond.
“Well,” she whispered, “you heard what he said, the word he used, right? It was pretty unambiguous.”
She left it at that.
It was then that Bale mentioned the uncle who was supposed to be on his way up from Florida. Lizzie didn’t react. Though she did wonder, and not for the first time, about her own folks. Were they here? Standing outside the building? Next to each other? She found that thought a little disquieting and decided to get on with the business at hand.
“We have a list,” she said. “These are the things that we want.”
“Lizzie, that’s great, it is, but I must-”
“Just shut up, okay? And listen.”
Micro beat.
“You got it.”
Then she started reeling them off. Nothing about food here, or tampons, or money, or safe passage out of the building-these were hard-core political demands.
“… end the carried-interest tax break for hedge fund managers… reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act… impose a zero-point-one percent tax on all trades of stocks, bonds, and derivatives…”
And as she read these out-her eyes darting from the page to Alex, then back to the page again-Lizzie felt the peculiar, transgressive thrill of knowing that while she sounded in control here, the truth was she barely understood a word of what she was saying. She had some knowledge of this stuff, from listening to Alex over the months, but she was extremely vague on the specifics.
“… mandate a new separation of the banks into investment and commercial by repealing Gramm-Leach-Bliley…”
So once she got off the phone-having lobbed the ball firmly into the FBI’s court-she decided it was time to get with the program and just bone up on the specifics. Energized, she gathered a few of the books and papers Julian had lying around the apartment, spread them out on the table, and started reading.
This was important.
That’s what she told herself.
There was a whole language here she needed to learn, a language that both she and Alex, when they found themselves caught up-as they soon would, make no mistake-in the flaming crucible of global media attention, could use to…
To what? To what?
Looking back now, a few hours later, she can see that that was the high point-before, during, and immediately after the phone conversation with the FBI guy. It was the high point in terms of energy levels and enthusiasm, the high point in terms of being in love with Alex, of being exquisitely deluded, of being in the throes of a mindless, giddy, tingly, bring-it-on, romantic death wish, whatever… that was the fucking crucible right there.