On the far side of the cage, I could see the bowed, graying head of Aleda Weston.
I felt a sudden rush of emotion when I recognized her, equal parts nostalgic tingle and elation for having pulled this off. I gently punched Flint’s padded shoulder. “We’re in.”
“Getting into a lockup is never the problem,” he said. “It’s getting out again.”
“I’ll worry about that later. That’s Aleda. How close can we get to her?”
“You can just walk up and talk to her.”
“Really?”
“Try it.”
We were being watched, the newcomers. It was too late and too damp outside for anyone to look freshly starched, but I was certainly a contrast to the suits and ties that characterized the group. I didn’t want to stand out, have all ears on me when I got my chance at Aleda. I stayed close to Flint, using his respect-able mien as cover as we walked toward the end of the passageway.
“Maggot?” A primly suited woman with wide hips and a frizzy perm detached from the knot closest to the cage and bustled toward us. “Maggot, is that you, honey?”
It took me a moment, but I recognized her: Fay Cohen, one of Emily’s lawyers from the old days. Fay had been the last word in fire-eating radical attorneys during the sixties. A Red Diaper, Emily labeled her, the offspring of Depression-era Leftist labor organizers. She had sucked in the tenets of violent protest at her mother’s breast.
I had seen the scope of her fury in court, in defense of Emily and Emily’s ex-husband. I had once, as a kid, literally trembled with fear in her presence. Now she appeared merely grandmotherly, a soft, postmenopausal woman whose feet seemed to hurt.
I walked ahead to meet her. Fay reeked of cigarettes and coffee and failed deodorant.
“I knew I’d be seeing you soon,” she said. “But I didn’t expect it to be here.”
“I came to talk to Aleda,” I said.
“Impossible.”
“You’ve tried?”
She smirked. “I represent Aleda. No one talks to her.”
“Until when?”
“Until I say so.”
“You know about Emily?” I asked.
“Of course. I’m sorry, honey. It’s a tough break.”
“I need Aleda’s help.”
“Help for you maybe, but not for Aleda. Aleda has been as good as off the planet for twenty-two years. What do you have to talk about?”
“The good old days.”
“Fat chance, baby girl. Aleda is here on a twenty-two-year-old fugitive warrant, and the charge is manslaughter. The last thing I’m going to let her talk about is the old days. Not to you, not to anybody.”
She was holding my arm so tightly it hurt. I tried to shake her free, but she was very tenacious. Flint was beside me, running interference with people who surged around us trying to get Fay’s ear, or mine, or to fill their own. I didn’t know who they all were.
“What a zoo,” Flint said.
“But the maneaters are all locked up for the night.” The voice came from close behind me and I wheeled on it. My stomach sank when I saw who was there: Lester Rowland, FBI. “Maggie, how you doin’?”
“I’ve been better,” I said.
Lester was J. Edgar Hoover-era FBI, one of the boss’s pets-a shark with a political agenda. For years he had tailed Emily, tapped her telephones, bugged her bedroom, rifled her files, and otherwise harassed her. Getting her and her colleagues behind bars had been his mission, his obsession. Again and again, Emily and Fay had foiled him, though, using his own infractions against the laws of due process to scuttle his evidence. In my parents’ house, Lester Rowland had been the anti-Christ.
“What are you doing here?” I asked. “You must be retired by now.”
“This is my show,” Rowland said. “I brought Aleda in.”
“Pissant,” Fay spat.
“Nice way to talk, Fay.” Lester feigned offense. “You going to let our Maggie talk to Aleda? See if she needs anything?”
“Aleda has everything she needs,” Fay fumed. “No one talks to her. That means you, Herr Rowland. I know your tactics. You even look at Aleda when I’m not present and I’ll have your hairy Gestapo balls for breakfast.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Rowland laughed.
“Fuck you.” Fay stomped away, swearing under her breath.
“Same old Fay, huh, Maggie?” I didn’t like the way Rowland kept looking at me, or his making familiar. This was the first time I had personally spoken to him. It was an experience I could have made it through the rest of my life without. Lucas had talked about the taint of radicalism clinging to Rod. Lester carried a different stain, one of backroom beatings, blackmail, and ugly covert manipulations-all under the color of authority. I saw in his face something dark and vaguely obscene. Certainly the way he looked at me, a visual strip search, gave a certain weight to that impression.
Lester’s grin showed a lot of good dental work. “You still swimmin’, Maggie?”
“When I get a chance.”
“You sure were cute. Bet you don’t remember when I came to watch you swim.”
I remembered Emily with an FBI escort at my high school swim meet. I had only had eyes for Emily that day, and hadn’t paid much attention to the two feds sitting behind her. Now I felt squeamish just thinking of this big, leering man watching me then, seeing me as a young teenager in my little Speedo swimsuit.
He made me think about the story Flint had told the desk officers, about young Senora Magdalena. Even if Flint had made it all up, their wiseass laughter and their assumptions about the woman had been real enough. Okay, so I had laughed, too. It still made me feel very uncomfortable. The smug look that crossed Rowland’s face when he said I was “cute” told volumes. I knew he and his partner had had nasty things to say about my adolescent body. I felt violated in retrospect.
“Don’t you remember me, Maggie?” Rowland asked again.
I shrugged. “You all looked the same to me.”
A guard inside with Aleda looked out at the crowd. “Say good-night, Gracie,” he said loudly as he began to roll a steel shutter over the cage opening.
“What’s he doing?” I asked Flint.
“Aleda’s being booked. She wants a little privacy when they take her clothes away.”
We were six feet from the cage and I called out, “Aleda!”
She looked up, confused at first. I did stand out from the suits, so she spotted me quickly. A smile lifted the deep creases in her face. I had always been the pesty little sister Emily’s friends barely tolerated. For that reason, I didn’t expect Aleda to be particularly happy to see me. But she obviously was. She moved to the metal grid and laced her fingers through it to block the shutter.
“Excuse me,” the guard said and tried to move her aside. “Maggot,” Aleda cried. “Thank God, you’ve come.”
Flint held Fay back and I ran. I reached for the grid and put my fingers over Aleda’s.
Aleda’s face pressed close. “Is Emily okay?”
“No,” I said. “Who would do that to her?”
“Any of them.”
“Tell me.”
The guard had managed to pry her hands away.
“Give us a minute,” I begged him.
“Sorry, lady, but that’s it for now. Wave bye-bye.”
A second guard held Aleda by the waist. She struggled against him and pleaded with me: “Be careful, Maggot.” I saw tears running down her face. “For Marc.”
The shutter slid over the cage and locked into place. Fay was beside me, looking defeated.
“You heard her,” I said. “She wants to talk to me.”
“I heard her,” Fay sighed. “Please. Wait until tomorrow. Aleda hasn’t had any sleep for seventy-two hours. She hasn’t been well and she’s exhausted. I need her rested for the arraignment tomorrow. You can see her in court at two. Go away now, and I promise, I’ll get you together after the hearing. Fair enough?”