He stepped out into the dark of the hallway in his socks. Beneath the bathroom door was a thin crack of light, and the pry bar was fixed across the casings as if the room behind it had been condemned. Lester stood there a few minutes and listened. At first he thought Mrs. Behrani was crying again, because her voice seemed to waver, but then her words came spitting out, a barrage of throat-clearing vowels and consonants the colonel was talking calmly right through, his voice coming from someplace central inside him, as if he were right at home, leading his wife and son on an expedition through familar terrain.
Lester stepped back and kicked the door hard with the sole of his foot. The silence was instant. Something fell in the sink, maybe a vial from the medicine cabinet, he didn’t know, though he did know this: this rich prick was not taking him seriously and that would have to change starting now. He pulled out his service pistol and drew back the steel slide, ejecting the live round onto the carpet before he let another slide loudly into place. He tapped the barrel lightly against the door, then paused, the silence on the other side like something he could reach out and squeeze between his fingers. His heart was beating fast and he pressed his nose to the door, smelling wood and paint. “Get some rest in there, Colonel, because tomorrow you’re selling this place back to the county. Do you understand me?”
On the other side of the door, the colonel started to clear his throat but then stopped and said nothing.
“I asked you a question, Behrani.” Lester imagined the little family crouched in various corners of the small room and his heart felt nudged by a dull stick; it would be better if the woman and teenager weren’t a part of this but it was too late to back away, to let down his guard, expose his throat to any of these people, the boy and wife included. “Tell me, Colonel,what are you going to do first thing tomorrow?”
Again, there was no answer, not even the panicked whispers from Mrs. Behrani. Now Lester pictured himself talking to an empty room, the high shower window somehow dismantled and larger than he’d thought, the Iranian family running barefoot through the fog for help. And for a moment he felt almost nauseated at the thought of everything getting away from him, everything finally coming down on him.
Then the colonel spoke, his voice dry with fatigue. “I do not know. Perhaps you will tell to me what I must do tomorrow.”
“Don’t you patronize me.” Lester pressed the side of his face to the door, the iron pry bar against his hip. “Tomorrow you are going to call the county tax office and accept their offer to give you your money back for this house. Then, while they’re cutting you a nice big check, you and your family are going to pack up your things and leave. It’s that simple. Understand?”
But was it that simple? What would happen after that? Did he just expect them to drive away and do nothing? For a brief moment Lester calculated how he might pull back from all this now, just let the family out of the bathroom, carry Kathy out to his or her car, and drive away. But they would have to leave a car behind, and Behrani would surely call the department. Then there would be new charges against Lester, far more serious: Brandishing a Weapon, Assault with a Deadly Weapon, and now that they’re all locked up in the bathroom, False Imprisonment. Charges that could be corroborated by the son and wife, charges that would not only get him terminated but arrested and jailed as well, a cop among perpetrators, and Lester felt a hot flash of recognition and dread spread out inside him, and he kicked the door hard with his bare foot, an ache flaring through his sole and shin. “Answer me, you son of a bitch.”
The colonel still did not speak, but his wife was whispering again. This time her voice was less harsh, more pleading, Lester thought. He closed his eyes, rubbed his forehead, and took a deep breath through his nose, his anger leaving him like something precious he wasn’t sure he’d be able to get back again when he needed it. And now he felt queasy with exhaustion, the remorse beginning to move in on him like a cool fog. He told himself it wasn’t smart to push the colonel for an answer right now; the ex-officer’s pride and manhood were being tested enough as it was. The night had taken on a turn that, for better or worse, Lester had to commit himself to in order to get back on track; it was like riding a bicycle fast off smooth asphalt onto a sandy shoulder: if you panicked and put on the brakes or jerked the steering, then you went down. But keep up your speed and direction, he told himself, hold your nerve, and you’d make it back on the road unscathed.
“Sleep on it, Colonel.” Lester put his service pistol on double safety, then squatted for the bullet on the floor. “You hear me? Sleep on it.” He heard the boy’s voice, high and full of questions, fear even. And that sound could have come from Lester’s own body, which felt to him suddenly thin and inconsequential, his fingers shaking as he picked up the round. This was a familiar feeling, the fear that always followed his remorse, but this time there was no arrest or booking procedure to flush his prisoners neatly and safely away. What was he planning to do in the morning if the colonel still refused to cooperate? Forcehim to do it? And what was his strategy if Behrani agreed to sell the house back to the county? Just hope he and his family would then disappear? He didn’t know. Right now all he could do was hope the colonel would agree to sell the house back. That would at least start to feel like progress, and he would just have to come up with something later to carry them both safely to the next step.
Esmail stopped asking questions and Lester walked back down the hall. He imagined Nate asleep now in his bed on his stomach, his face turned to the side, his bottom up in the air. And Bethany had probably gone to their room, the way she did sometimes after a dream that scared her, that left her feeling torn from the world she understood to be hers. She was probably snuggled up to Carol right now, his daughter’s small body only beginning to fill the empty space that was his.
I T IS THREE HOURS SINCE BURDON MADE HIS THREATS THROUGH THEdoor. The washroom is now dark, but a soft light enters from the panjare above, for Burdon has not extinguished the exterior lamps over the automobiles in the drive. Esmail has grown more quiet than ever. He lies upon a bed of towels in the heavy bath, his feet resting upon the tiles above the faucet. I sit against the wall, my left arm on the porcelain edge so my face is only centimeters from my son’s, but his is turned and I do not know if he sleeps or not. On the floor his mother lies curled upon two towels. The air is cool and smells slightly of the sea and of Kathy Nicolo’s sickness. Nadereh appears cold and I would like to cover her, but all the towels have gone beneath her and our son.
Before Burdon came to our door and affixed some sort of lock, Nadereh was telling to me in her panicked whispering to give back the woman’s bungalow, what is the matter for you? We find another. But after Burdon’s last threat, Esmail, who was already quite shaken, looked from his mother to me, then at his mother, then to me once again, his eyes no longer shining with adventure, but dulled by the suck of bowels that is true fear. I reached for him but he twisted his shoulder away. His eyes grew wet, and in Farsi that has not developed as well as his English he asked his father, “What are you going to do, Bawbaw?”