lit like a concert hall, all lights aimed at me. She is with me for one reason only: I can give her the ultimate truth of her life.
I take a few bites of my risotto, which has cooled and coagulated and lost its intensity. Then, like she’s checking to make sure she got the better deal, Melody asks, “Why am I safer with you?”
I gulp down the risotto and answer, “My family will kill you if they find you alone. My family will not kill you if they find you with me. And if you’re with a fed or anyone else?” I shrug.
“But why? Why do they want me dead? You know how many times I sat in my bedroom and imagined that all my running was for nothing, that you guys had forgotten who I even was? I mean, what damage could I possibly do to your family? The government lost all the cases that involved my parents’ testimony.”
I take a drink of wine. “Yes, but therein lies the problem. Your parents testified—not you. It’s a long story, but there’s a big storm brewing, and—I don’t mean this to sound casual—my family doesn’t want any loose ends. Your testimony could end up being useful, even critical. It’s just easier if you’re gone.”
She closes her eyes and drops her head. “Just like that, huh?”
I put my fork on my plate and take her hand again, but this time it’s limp and cold like the palm of the corpse I’m trying to prevent her from becoming.
“I will protect you, Melody. Trust me.”
She looks up, glances in my general direction like I’m the one invisible thing she can’t see. And as she glares right through me, I realize I’ve become one of them; I just made her the same promise the feds have been making her whole life, and I’m no more certain I can keep it than they were. And Melody’s too experienced to assume otherwise.
We finish our meal with a pair of espressos, sit in a silence that does not feel awkward, a quiet space more common to couples who have lived a full life together, where just being next to each other is its own form of companionship.
And as I predicted, ’Tone never brings us a check, just stops by to see if we need anything else and wishes us well in our day. It shames me.
As I start playing with the key to the Audi, Melody asks, “What’re you planning to do with me once we get to New York?”
“I, uh… I want to take you back to my family and introduce you to them.”
She flops back in her chair, waits for me to laugh at my own joke. “You’re kidding, right? This is your plan?”
“Hear me out, okay?”
“I might as well jam this knife in my gut right now.”
“Hear me out.”
“Know what might be less painful? Tie me to the bumper of your car and drag me around the beltway.”
“Melody, just wa—”
“Oh, better, can you do that thing where you wrap the wire around my neck and strangulate me?”
“A garrote. And no, no one is—”
“This trip is a death sentence!”
I wave my hands in front of her. “Melody! Nobody is killing anybody, okay? Like I’ve explained, if you are with me, you’re safe.”
She wipes her eyes, then her entire face. “Let’s hear this brilliant scheme.”
I clear my throat like I’m preparing to step up to the microphone for a presentation. “I’m going to show my family what a nice woman you are”—Melody smirks, wipes her nose—“how you’re no threat to them, how you’re a person.”
“I’m no threat to them if I’m a dead person.”
“I’m going to show them you are not some file of incriminating evidence they’re trying to erase or a rat spilling his guts to the cops, but a real human being with feelings and emotions and something worth—”
“Are you stupid?”
“What?”
“Take drugs or something?”
“Of course not.”
“Suffer from any mental disease or deficiency?”
Debatable.
“Because,” she says, “I can’t figure out what could possibly be running through your mind, what might make you think I stand the slightest chance of survival if you bring me to your home. It’s like introducing a deer to the patrons of a hunting lodge.”
I stand, motion for her to get up as well. I offer my hand to help her out of her chair. She stares at it, but eventually takes it. We lumber to the front of the restaurant and exit, meander down the nylon green walkway and pause when we