to speak to your neighbors with me,” he explains, parking the car at the curb and cutting the engine.
“I can’t.” I shake my head. Doesn’t he get it? “I need to go home.” I fumble with the seat belt, then realize that this isn’t likely to lead anywhere.
Little looks at me. Strokes the steering wheel. “How are we going to do this?” he asks, himself more than me.
I don’t care. I don’t care. I want to go home. You can bring them to my house. Cram them all in. Throw a fucking block party. But take me home now. Please.
He’s still eyeing me, and I realize I’ve spoken to him again. I huddle into myself.
A rap on the glass, quick and crisp. I look up; it’s a woman, sharp-nosed, olive-skinned, in a turtleneck and long coat. “Hold on,” says Little. He starts to lower my window, but I cringe, I whine, and he rolls it back up before unpacking himself from the driver’s seat and stepping into the street, shutting the door gently behind him.
He and the woman speak to each other across the roof of the car. My ears sieve their words—stabbing, confused, doctor—as I sink underwater, close my eyes, nestle into the crook of the passenger seat; the air goes calm and still. Shoals flicker past—psychologist, house, family, alone—and I drift away. With one hand I idly stroke the other sleeve; my fingers swim into my robe, pinch a roll of skin bulging from my stomach.
I’m trapped in a police car fondling my fat. This is a new low.
After a minute—or is it an hour?—the voices subside. I crack one eye open, see the woman gazing down at me, glaring down at me. I screw my eye shut again.
The crunch of the driver’s door as Little opens it. Cool air wafts in, licks my legs, wanders around the cabin, makes itself at home.
“Detective Norelli is my partner,” I hear him tell me, a little flint in that dark-soil voice of his. “I’ve told her what’s happening with you. She’s going to bring some people into your house. That okay?”
I dip my chin, lift it.
“Okay.” The car gasps as he settles into his seat. I wonder how much he weighs. I wonder how much I weigh.
“You want to open your eyes?” he suggests. “Or are you good?”
I dip my chin again.
The door clacks shut and he revives the engine, knocks the gearshift into reverse, backs up—back, back, back—the vehicle catching its breath as it rolls over a seam in the pavement, until we brake. I hear Little switch the ignition again.
“Here we are,” he announces as I open my eyes, peek out the window.
Here we are. The house towers above me, the black mouth of the front door, the front steps like a tongue unspooled; the cornices form even brows above the windows. Olivia always speaks of brownstones as though they have faces, and from this angle, I see why.
“Nice place,” Little comments. “Big place. Four stories? Is that a basement?”
I incline my head.
“So five stories.” A pause. A leaf throws itself against my window, skitters away. “And you’re all alone in there?”
“Tenant,” I say.
“Where does he live? Basement or on top?”
“Basement.”
“Is your tenant here?”
I shift my shoulders into a shrug. “Sometimes.”
Silence. Little’s fingers tap-dance on the dash. I turn to him. He catches me looking, grins.
“That’s where they picked you up,” he reminds me, jutting his jaw toward the park.
“I know,” I mumble.
“Nice little park.”
“I guess.”
“Nice street.”
“Yes. All nice.”
He grins again. “Okay,” he says, then looks past me, past my shoulder, into the eyes of the house. “Does this work for the front door, or just the door the EMTs came in last night?” He dangles my house key from one finger, the key ring noosed at his knuckle.
“Both,” I tell him.
“Okay, then.” He whirls the key around his finger. “You need me to carry you?”
39
He doesn’t carry me, but he does hoist me out of the car, usher me through the gate, propel me up the stairs, my arm flung across his football-field back, my feet half dragged behind me, the crook of the umbrella jaunting over one wrist, as if we’re out for a stroll. A drugged-stupid stroll.
The sun nearly caves in my eyelids. At the landing Little slides the key into the lock, pushes; the door sails wide, slamming so hard that the glass shivers.
I wonder if the neighbors are watching. I wonder if Mrs. Wasserman has just seen an economy-size black man drag me