20

Pino finds the steel chair chafing to sit on. Its rust-tinged edges jab into her thighs. The shrill ringing of a telephone punctuates the soundscape of typewritten records - Pino sees the two detectives pass her by, and the thought of her parents in jail makes her long for comfort, for home.

"I'm hungry.." Pino goes. "I want to see my mama.."

The big, burly man snags a box of timbits off the fat, snoring clerk's desk and smacks it down by the tableside near her. Suddenly, Pino isn't in any mood to eat..

The fan's blades hover over the table. Lil's gaze is fixated on the rotational gleam the fan makes from the reflection, like the axles of a train. Gazing out the window at the sunset offers her little comfort as she still hears the driver's gutteral moans – the honking which echoes into the night. Her hand was forced.. would she have been comfortable just hiding her family in the shadows and praying for a miracle? Waiting for another car, while leaving her Pino at the mercy of the night's coldness?

She never meant to kill him. But intentions – though they drive you to action, when it all goes to shit, no one will care how you only meant for the best.

Lil retreats to that perch within her mind where she'd once served as inspector. Going by experience, if the detectives have any agenda at all, they're not going to care about understanding her situation. (She's guilty of this herself, having prematurely accused people in her early investigations.)

What should she tell them when they start asking her questions? That the driver was working for Antonioni? It would be opening up a can of worms, as she'd have to reveal the whole story about being targeted by an old enemy.

It might be better to stay quiet..

With the door's creak, the two detectives emerge. One is Paola. She has a soft face, but her microbladed eyebrows accentuate the stern intensity her eyes radiate. The other is Carmen – the middle-aged fellow with his stocky frame and thin-framed glasses. They take seats on opposite sides of Lil.

"¿Así que tienes una familia?" Paola goes.

Lil raises an eyebrow.

"What my colleague means is, your daughter --" Carmen pops a cigar into his mouth, slicing the cap off in automatic motion. "Pino. We passed her by on the way. She's growing quite unhappy."

Lil winces. Pino.. they're using her to pressure me! How dare they!

"We can make things go by in a pinch," Carmen goes. "This won't take more than five minutes if you answer honestly."

"About what?" Lil goes, her eyes shifting. "Where's my lawyer?"

Paola talks with Carmen in hasty Spanish, like Lil isn't even here.

"Lillián Mayer, right?" Carmen pulls out his file folder to double-check, and Lil, letting her curiosity get the better of her, leans over to glimpse what they've put on her record. She catches an apocyphal mention of a bludgeoned butler.

When Carmen looks up at her, she says "Yeah. Lil." They haven't brought up why I'm being interrogated. Maybe they're trying to see what I'm willing to say before the subject is officially broached?

"Lil. We can get you a lawyer – just it will take time to find a court-appointed public defender. Possibly tomorrow even. We'll put your entire family in a cell overnight if it takes that long.. we might even ask your daughter about what's happened.."

Lil grates her teeth.

"Carmen," Paola says, "esta perra está empezando a perder la compostura--"

"HEY!" Lil goes, slamming the table. "You think you can get away with talking crap cause I don't know a lick of Spanish, but I know enough that whatever you're trying in this shantytown hellhole, you're not going to be making any headway with me."

"Lil.. Lil.. don't yell, please." Carmen tucks the folder away like a doting principal. "You want us to get to business – the undeniable fact is, you and your family are in a sticky situation. But we're not accusing you of anything.. yet. For all we know, you might have hitchhiked in the wrong car that night--"

"That dude was planning to kidnap us," Lil says, finally feeling the pent-up tension break after saying so. "It was his car we rode in, and I overheard him talking on the radio about a reward.."

"Listen, why don't you start from the top? We're already lost here - give us a tale we can work with.. why were you on the go to begin with?"

Lil sees the befuddled look from their faces, and a part of her is tempted to just sigh and keep silent. But the ball is already rolling, so might as well – she re-tells what's happened since Nowe arrived with his warning.

"El mafia?" Paola goes. She mutters something into Carmen's ear.

"Go on."

"This driver was the one who picked us up. He was rude, and came across as weird.. Pino had to go for a bathroom break, and it was there from the shadows I overheard him talking on the radio. He said something about paying for his mother's chemo-therapy, haggling for more money on delivery or else. So," Lil struggles with putting this next part to words, feeling the guilt rise from her stomach, "we.. knocked him out."

"By 'we knocked him out,' what do you mean exactly?"

Lil closes her eyes. She recalls Pino striking that blow.. no, she isn't going to put her daughter in harm's way.

"Vincent held the driver from behind, and I hit him with the beer bottles.. hit him until he was knocked out. He was going to chew through Vincent's wrists— it was all my plan—"

"Well, congrats. You have a dead driver." Carmen's tone is solemn. "He died of brain hemorrhaging just a few hours ago. If only we've gotten to him sooner, surgery could have saved him, and you won't have murder charges on your hands."

And then it sinks into Lil that she's responsible for someone's murder.. no, it's self-defense, right? Just like how that crazed butler was self-defense.. She finds the room's full-frame interrogation mirror, reflecting herself, alone among an infinite regress of light and shadows, with that enroaching darkness in its abyssal depths.. it's all closing in around her..

"What the hell do you want from me?" Lil goes.

The door opens, and there is Antonioni who carries a frightened Pino in his arms.

"Nothing but your full cooperation."

Vincent would never have thought he'd find comfort in cigarettes, but his nerves are shot from a night spent without sleep. Thankful for the pack of Fortunas left on the table, he coughs from just the first puff. The nicotine is already working its magic in his virginal lungs, a wake-up call in his nerves, and he coughs the vapours out in spurts, tasting for the first time that familiar musky aroma – inhaled so many times from the bustling cafe. Cigarettes will kill you, but it's something to worry about later.

Suddenly, with a loud thud, Vincent is blinded. He squints from the sudden blast of lighting, barely catching the faint afterimage of (you it's you) before the door erupts.

Paola slams a chair down behind Vincent, while Carmen thumps his rugged butt on the table's edge. It noticably sags. For a moment, Vincent wonders how the table doesn't just collapse under that guy's weight.

"Vincent!" Carmen goes. "The five-time winning poker maestro. I'd bet my life savings on you every time! You never disappoint."

"Gee, thanks," Vincent scoffs. "Why are you still here?"

"Still not enough to keep me off my day job, sonnyjim. Nothing like the satisfaction of seeing the truth pop out under pressure. Lil told us you killed the two sons-of-bitches."

"Whaat?"

"Not only that poor driver – that butler too from those years ago. Looks like a good start to a streak of violence, bud."

Vincent collects himself. He stares down Carmen whose grey irises betray no sign of fibbing, and almost does he doubt his own memory. "Don't bullshit me," he says.

Then Carmen – he breaks out into hearty laughter, and it's like hearing Santa Claus if he were laughing at someone put on the naughty list. He gets off the table and paces around, and it's only there that Vincent notices how he has violet dress shoes on, almost like a bad joke. "Glad to see you've still got your wits about you, Vince. I was worried you might’ve lost your card-playing instincts."

He steals the cigarette from Vincent and takes a long puff, burning the roll right to the filter. With the exhale, the smoke out his nose and mouth balloons through the room, an overbearing presence impossible to escape from. Vincent hacks his lungs out while Carmen stands there in smug satisfaction.

"Now, if you want a chance to go scot-free and live with your family. There’s a special guest I need to introduce you to – two, actually. Paola?”

Paola heads over to the one-way mirror, where she raps the glass. The mirror melts, and beyond the glass, to Vincent’s shock.. he sees Nowe in handcuffs, with Antonioni behind him, his face wreathed in shadow yet you can make out a repressed smile.

“You didn’t think you’d be free from your debt to him that easily, do you?” Carmen says. “You’re going to play a game for us, Vincent. Something not your forte this time.”

Vincent’s mouth is held agape. Then he cries out from sheer terror.

“Scream all you want,” Carmen goes. “Our department is going to have a field day betting who’s the lucky winner.”

Vincent is hauled by the arms, blindfolded and handcuffed. His heart rises in an unending tension, growing in proportion to an unseen crowd, whose cheering heralds a doom which lies beyond his capacity to imagine.

He can hear Nowe's cries beside him, like those of a yelping animal, and the incoming cheers of some numerous hounding voices.

"Please.. won't you let me go," Vincent says to his captors. "I'll settle that debt for Antonioni any way he wants. Just not like this.."

There's no answer. Their blindfolds are yanked away, and Vincent sees the coffee cups strewn over the floor beside the numerous black shoes - it's the basement of the police headquarters!

In their midst, a table.

A guard thrusts Vincent onto a seat, hammering him in place with a rifle. Nowe too is also put down, seated opposite of Vincent.

"Silence!" the referee goes, raising his arms. "Here, I hold one revolver, with one bullet." He slides the bullet into the revolver's chamber, rotating it

---

Vincent sees the mirrors' infinite reflections, imagining the thought of Lil behind bars, of Pino alone. But a voice whispers to him that he's found the upper hand on these cops. In the depths of the mirror.. where the spotlight finally shines upon his face, illuminating his state of ignorance while the blue curtains, glimmering as they undulate, pull back to reveal the tall woman who's lurked beneath his awareness.

Amidst the morass of velvet flowers and vines, she waters the dried patches, holding her palm out and bringing a renewed order to the network of neural connections.

- It was you who was guiding me!

- What? I merely prodded you along to where you needed to be. It could have happened a thousand different ways over, the way your life unfolded, and yet, here you are. You have Lil, and you have Pino. And you're still alive, at least, for now.

- Why am I here, though?

- Because I willed it. Out of one chance encounter, when you had nowhere else to turn to for resources, I've kept you safe, in here.

The lady points to her head, while her other hand hovers over her heart.

- All this is my reality, and you are treading though my dreams. Softly, or however crudely you choose, you're always here.

- .. is there anything beyond this?

Vincent has only a faint inkling of the life he's had before. He knows this out of pure instinct. But trying to remember is like recalling a word – or a name – which is beyond the tongue's grasp. Even trying to talk with her has the efficacy of a fever-pitched clarity.

- Nothing of any value. You want to return to your family, to Lil and Pino, don't you? Let me tell you a secret..

Vincent ventures forward, enticed by what the lady promises. He feels the softness of the flowers under his feet, a cushion which caresses the skin with nectar.