Run Away(31)

Protect her. Save her.

The 911 operator told him that help was on its way. Time passed. Simon didn’t know how much. They were alone in this dank, disgusting basement, he and Ingrid. They had first met in a restaurant on Sixty-Ninth Street, only two blocks from where they now lived, when Ingrid was finally back in the country and Yvonne had set them up. He had arrived first and sat nervously waiting at a table by the window, and when she entered, head high, the regal catwalk strut, he’d been blown away. Corny or not—and maybe everyone did this—but whenever Simon was on a first date, he let himself imagine a full life with the person, looking waaaaay ahead of himself, picturing him and this woman married and raising kids and sitting across the kitchen table as they aged and reading in bed, all that. How did he feel when he first saw Ingrid? He thought that she was too gorgeous. That was the first thought. She looked too put together for him, too composed and confident. He’d later learn that it was for show, that Ingrid had the same fears and insecurities that plague all of us, that part of the human condition is that all decent people think they are phonies and don’t belong at some point or another.

Whatever. Their relationship had started at that bright window table on West Sixty-Ninth Street and Columbus Avenue and now it could end in this dank, dark basement in the Bronx.

“Ingrid?”

His voice came out as a pitiful plea.

“Stay with me, okay?”

The police arrived, as did the EMTs. They pulled him away and took over. He sat on the concrete, pulling his knees up to his chest. A cop started asking him questions, but he couldn’t hear, could only stare at his still wife as the EMTs worked on her. An oxygen mask covered the mouth he had kissed so many times, kissed in every single way imaginable, from perfunctory to passionate. He didn’t say anything now, just watched. He didn’t demand to know whether she was still alive, whether they could save her. He was too terrified to disturb them, to break their concentration, as though her lifeline was so fragile that any interruption could snap it like an overused rubber band.

Simon wanted to say that the rest was a blur, but it actually crawled by in slow motion and vivid color—loading Ingrid onto the gurney, rolling her to the ambulance, hopping into the back with her, staring at the IV bag, the rigid expressions on the EMTs’ faces, the paleness of Ingrid’s skin, the screams of the siren, the maddeningly frustrating traffic along the Major Deegan, finally stopping, crashing through the emergency room doors, a nurse firmly but patiently pulling him away and leading him to a yellow molded plastic chair in the waiting room…

He called Yvonne and gave her the broad strokes. When he finished, Yvonne said, “I’ll head straight over to your place and get Anya.”

Simon’s voice sounded weird in his own ears. “Okay.”

“What do you want me to tell her?”

He felt a sob rise up his throat. He stuffed it back down. “Nothing specific, just stay with her.”

“Did you call Sam?” Yvonne asked.

“No. He’s got a biology test. He doesn’t need to know.”

“Simon?”

“What?”

“You’re not thinking straight. Their mother has been shot. She’s in surgery.”

He squeezed his eyes shut.

“I’ll pick up Anya,” she said, “Robert will get Sam. They should be at the hospital.”

Yvonne left off the “me too,” maybe because the kids were more important or maybe because Yvonne and Ingrid were not very close. They were civil to each other, unfailingly polite with no obvious rancor, but Simon was the bridge between the two sisters.

Yvonne spoke again. “Okay, Simon?”

Two cops appeared, doing the room-scan thing. They spotted Simon and swaggered toward him.

“Okay,” he said, and hung up.

At the scene, Simon had given the cops a description of the shooter, but now they wanted more details. He started to tell the cops everything, but it was slow going without full context, without going into Aaron and the other murder and all that. He was also distracted, staring at the door, waiting for a doctor to appear, a god really, to tell him whether his world was over or not.

Fagbenle burst into the waiting room. The two cops moved toward him. The three of them huddled in the corner. Simon took the break to once again head over to the desk and ask about his wife—and once again the receptionist politely told him that she had no new information, that the doctor would come out as soon as there was an update.

When Simon turned back around, Fagbenle was right there. “I don’t understand. Why were you two in the Bronx?”

“We were trying to find our daughter.”

“By visiting a drug den?”

“Our daughter is a drug addict.”

“Did you find her?”

“No, Detective. In case you didn’t hear, my wife was shot.”

“I’m really sorry about that.”

Simon closed his eyes, waved him off.

“I hear you also visited the murder scene.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“That’s where we started.”

“Started what?”

“Looking for our daughter.”

“How did you get from that apartment to the drug house next door?”

Simon knew better than to go there. “What does that matter?”