Because It Is My Blood

XI I LEARN THE COST OF FRIENDSHIP; MONEY STILL MAKES THE WORLD GO ’ROUND

THE PLANE WAS BARELY larger than a bucket, and the ride was bumpy. Though I hadn’t slept for over twenty-four hours, my mind would not rest. I couldn’t stop thinking of Leo and every time he’d ever asked to come with me and I’d refused him. I’d been the one to send him to Japan. Had that been a mistake? Why had I ever trusted Yuji Ono? How could Leo be dead when we hadn’t spoken in almost ten months? None of this seemed possible.

My eyelids would begin to flutter shut, and it would seem as if unconsciousness might temporarily absolve my guilty conscience. That was when I’d start thinking of Imogen. When Nana had died, I had accused Imogen of unspeakable acts. Imogen, who’d done nothing but take care of Nana and Natty and me. And now Imogen was dead. Dead because of us.

I’d think of Theo. They’d said he was stable, but he could still die. What would they do on that farm without him? Theo ran that place, and because of me, he wouldn’t be able to do that for a very long time. And then my thoughts would return to my brother. I began to feel as if I would never sleep again.

The plane touched down on Long Island around four in the morning. I looked out the window. The tarmac was reassuringly desolate. As I walked down the steps, I got my first whiff of New York air—filthy and sweet. Though I had loved Mexico and though I wished I were returning under better circumstances, I was happy to be restored to my city. It was freezing, by the way. I was still wearing the clothes I’d worn to visit the factories in Oaxaca, where it had been 72°.

A solitary car, black with tinted windows, was parked in the lot. On the driver’s side, the window was rolled down about three inches, and I could see Simon Green sleeping. I tapped on the glass, and Simon started. “Annie, come in, come in,” he said as he popped the locks.

“No cops,” I pointed out once I was inside.

“We were lucky.” He put the key in the ignition. “I thought I’d take you back to my apartment in Brooklyn. Imogen’s murder has attracted a fair amount of attention as I’m sure you can imagine, and there are too many people around Mr. Kipling’s apartment and yours.”

“I need to see Natty tonight,” I insisted. “If she’s at Mr. Kipling’s, that’s where I need to be.”

“I’m not sure that’s such a great idea, Annie. Like I said—”

I interrupted him. “Leo’s dead, Simon, and I don’t want my sister to have to hear it from anyone but me.”

For a moment, Simon was speechless. “I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.” He cleared his throat. “I honestly don’t know what to say.” Simon shook his head. “Do you think Yuji Ono was involved?”

“I don’t know. He said he wasn’t but … It doesn’t matter right now. I need to get to Natty.”

“Listen, Annie, you’ve experienced a very great loss. You’re tired and you’re overwhelmed, for completely understandable reasons, so please take my advice here. It will be much better for you and for Natty if you aren’t apprehended by the police tonight. We should negotiate your surrender if that’s something deemed necessary. Let me take you back to my apartment—no one will look for you there—and I promise to bring Natty to you as soon as it can safely be arranged. I don’t want to compromise either of you.”

I nodded my consent.

We didn’t speak for the rest of the drive though I could tell Simon Green wanted to. “There’s blood on you,” he commented as we drove into Brooklyn. I looked at my sleeve: the blood was either Theo’s or the masked man’s. It had been that kind of day.

Simon’s apartment was on the sixth floor of a walk-up with squeaky, steep stairs. After three flights, I wanted to give up. Sometimes, it’s these little acts that seem the most unbearable. “I’ll sleep on the landing,” I told him.

“Come on, Anya.” Simon pushed me onward.

Finally, we were in his apartment. It was large for a city place, the lone residence on the floor, but there was only one room. The ceilings were vaulted as the room was just below the roof. Simon Green lived in an attic. He told me that I could have his bed, and he would sleep on the sofa.

“Annie, I’m going to drive back to Mr. Kipling’s now. Can I get you anything?” He stifled a yawn, then he took off his glasses and wiped them.

“No, Simon, I’m fine. I’m—”

(I told you that I would never cry again, and while I certainly believed that at the time, it turned out this was overly optimistic on my part.)

I fell to my knees and I could feel them bruise as they hit the wooden floor. “Leo,” I sobbed. “Leo, Leo, Leo. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry…”

Simon Green put his hand awkwardly on my shoulder. It was not a particularly comforting gesture yet I felt grateful for the weight of him.

I had started to hyperventilate and I felt like I might choke. Simon helped me out of my bloody clothes like I was a toddler, and then he loaned me a T-shirt and helped me into bed.

I told him that I wanted to die.

“No, you don’t.”

“Everywhere I go, there is violence. And I can’t escape because I bring violence with me. And I don’t want to live in a world where my brother is dead.”

“There are other people who love you and count on you, Anya. Think of Natty.”

“I do think of her. All the time. And what I think is that maybe she’d be better off without me.”

Simon Green put his arms around me. I had never been so close to him before, and he smelled of peppermints. He shook his head. “She wouldn’t. Trust me, she wouldn’t. Natty only gets to be Natty because you have to be Anya.” Simon gently extricated himself from me. “Get some sleep. By the time I’m back, I’ll have Natty with me, okay?”

I heard the door close and lock twice, and then I did fall asleep.

When I awoke, a white cat with a black spot on its side was looking at me. The cat was in my sister’s arms. “Did you know that Simon has a cat?” Natty asked.

I had been too distracted to notice, though now that she mentioned it, his place did smell faintly of litter.

“She’s a fighter,” Simon Green reported. “She likes to go out during the night.”

I looked at Natty. Her eyes were red from crying, and she looked even older and taller than the last time I had seen her. Natty set the cat down, and I stood and fiercely pulled my sister toward me. Her head banged against mine. That head was higher than I was used to it being.

“I knew you’d come,” Natty said. “I knew it.”

In order to give us some privacy, Simon Green said he was going on a walk.

“It was awful, Annie. We were on the street outside the apartment, and a man in a mask came out of nowhere, and Imogen tried to give him her purse. ‘Take it,’ she said. ‘Just take it. I only have twenty-two dollars.’ He grabbed the purse, and for a second, we thought he was going to leave, but then he threw it to the ground. All of Imogen’s things spilled out—her books and her diary and everything! I remember thinking that it would be impossible to get everything back in the bag. The man started to point his gun at my head, but Imogen jumped in front of me. And this was when she got shot, but I didn’t know where. It was weird because the shot was so close I didn’t know if I’d been shot and I fell to the ground, too. I guess it was the sound of the bullet.”

“You were smart to do that,” I told her. “They thought they’d gotten you and so they left.”

“What do you mean ‘gotten me’?”

She didn’t know that the attacks had been meant to kill the three of us. She didn’t know about Leo. I told her what had happened to me in Mexico and then I told her about Leo.

She did not cry. She stayed completely still.

“Natty?” I moved to touch her arm, but she pulled away.

I looked at her face. She seemed thoughtful, not devastated. “If you don’t trust Yuji Ono, how do you know for sure that Leo’s dead?” she asked.

“I know, Natty. Yuji Ono would have no reason to tell us that Leo was dead if he wasn’t.”

“I don’t believe it! If you haven’t seen the body, you can’t know that someone’s dead for sure!” The pitch of Natty’s voice had grown impossibly high. She sounded squeaky, hysterical. “I want to go to Japan. I want to see for myself!”

Simon Green returned from his walk. It had begun to rain, and his hair was damp. “Think about it, Natty,” he said gently. “You and Anya were both attacked on the same night. You and Anya were both lucky to escape. Your brother wasn’t.”

Natty turned to me. “This is your fault! You sent him to Japan. If he was here, he might be in jail but at least he would be alive. He would be alive!”

Natty ran into Simon Green’s bathroom and slammed the door behind her.

“It doesn’t lock,” Simon Green whispered to me.

I went in after her. She was standing in the tub with her back to me. “I feel stupid,” she said tearfully. “But I didn’t know where else to go.”

“Natty, I did send Leo to Japan. It’s true. If that was a mistake, it was also the best I could do at the time. We will go to Japan to bury Leo but we can’t go right now. It’s too dangerous and I have things to arrange here.”

Slowly, Natty turned to me. Her eyes were furious and red, but dry. She opened her mouth to speak and that was when the tears started. “He’s dead, Annie. Leo’s dead. Leo’s really dead.” She took the wooden lion statue out of her pocket. “What will we do? No Imogen. No Leo. No Nana. No Mom and no Daddy. We have no one, Anya. We truly are orphans now.”

I wanted to tell her that we had each other, but it felt too corny to say. Instead, I drew her closer to me and let her cry.

Simon Green knocked on the door. “Anya, I have to take Natty back to Mr. Kipling’s now. He doesn’t want to compromise my house as a safe place for you.”

I took Natty’s face in my hands and kissed her on the forehead, and then she was gone.

I sat down on Simon Green’s bed, and the cat jumped onto my lap. I considered the cat, and she considered me with gray eyes that reminded me of my mother’s. She wanted to be scratched so I obliged her. There were so many things I couldn’t solve, but this cat’s itch I could relieve.

I tried to imagine what advice Daddy would have given me for the situation I was in.

What would Daddy say?

Daddy, what would you do if your brother was dead because of decisions you made?

I came up with nothing. Daddy’s advice only went so far.

The room got darker and darker, but I didn’t bother to turn on the light.

Imogen’s memorial service was two Saturdays away, and I felt Natty and I both needed to go to pay our respects. The problem was that I was still a fugitive, and so I decided it was time for me to resolve that situation. I couldn’t very well spend the rest of my life holed up in Simon Green’s attic studio. The six days I’d already passed there had been long enough.

The only person I was allowed to call from the apartment was Mr. Kipling.

“Three things,” I told Mr. Kipling and Simon, who were at the office. “I want to go to Imogen’s service. I want to surrender myself to the state. I want to arrange for Natty to go to a boarding school, preferably one in another state or abroad.”

“Okay,” Mr. Kipling said. “Let’s take these one at a time. The boarding school is easy enough. I’ll begin talking to that teacher of Natty’s she likes so much.”

“You mean Miss Bellevoir.”

“Yes, exactly. And I agree that this is a good plan, though potentially one we won’t be able to put into motion until next school year. Moving on. I fear that if you attend Imogen Goodfellow’s service, you’ll be arrested, which means that we have to arrange the terms of your surrender before that time.”

“Even before the events of last Friday, I’d been talking to the new district attorney’s office,” Simon Green interjected.

“You do remember that Bertha Sinclair’s staff people made the contribution to Trinity, don’t you?” I asked.

“That was just politics,” Mr. Kipling said. “It was nothing against you, and it’s actually an advantage to us that Charles Delacroix lost because the Sinclair regime can basically disavow all the actions of the predecessor. The Sinclair people sounded amenable to arranging something with you. A short stay at Liberty and then probation, maybe. People are more sympathetic to you than you would think.” Mr. Kipling said that he had planned to meet with Bertha Sinclair on Wednesday, but would try to get the meeting pushed up.

I asked if they had any leads on who had orchestrated the hits on my family.

“We’ve been discussing it. It was so complex,” Simon Green began. “Three countries. Three hit men. It could only have been someone with the ability to arrange a multifaceted operation.”

“And yet the mission was also 66 percent a failure,” Mr. Kipling added.

“Maybe the person wanted to fail?” Simon Green suggested. “You said you didn’t think it was Yuji Ono but when I think of the other obvious options, it doesn’t seem like it could be anyone else. Jacks is in jail. Mickey doesn’t have the skill set. If not Yuji Ono, the only person I can think of is Fats. He comes from the other side of the family but some people think he’s making moves to overthrow Mickey. It would be to his advantage to have all the direct descendants of Leonyd Balanchine out of the picture.”

I didn’t think Fats would want to kill me. “But what if it was Mickey? He knew where I was and I’m pretty sure he knew where Leo was, too. What if after I lost favor with Yuji Ono, Mickey decided to avenge his father’s shooting? Yuri Balanchine has been ailing a very long time, and it hasn’t been a pretty decline.”

“Lost favor with Yuji Ono?” Mr. Kipling asked.

“After he proposed marriage and she refused him,” Simon Green explained.

“Marriage?” Mr. Kipling asked. “What’s this? Anya’s too young to marry anyone.”

“I never told you about that,” I accused Simon Green.

Simon Green paused. “When I gave Yuji Ono the letters, he informed me of his plans. I didn’t know for sure that you had refused him. I just guessed that was what had happened.”

“Simon,” Mr. Kipling said in a hard voice. “If you knew that this proposal was going to happen, you should have told me. Maybe we could have arranged to get Leo out of Kyoto!”

“I apologize if I made a gaffe.”

“Mr. Green, this is far more than a gaffe.”

Mr. Kipling certainly had a point, but I decided to defend Simon Green. He had been kind to me since my return, and I knew that I had not been the easiest houseguest. (Although I’ve chosen not to dwell on it in this account, I had been depressed and unable to sleep since my return.) “Mr. Kipling, as of December twenty-sixth, I, too, knew about the proposal. I could have called you but I didn’t think there was any need to move Leo. I honestly didn’t think that what had happened with Yuji Ono was serious enough to merit a change. It is my fault much more than Mr. Green’s.”

“I appreciate you saying that,” Mr. Kipling said. “But it is my and Mr. Green’s job to advise you. It is our job to anticipate the worst-case scenario. We have been negligent in this duty once again. Simon and I will discuss this later.” Mr. Kipling closed by saying they would call me once they had spoken to Bertha Sinclair’s office.

I hung up with my counsel and looked at the clock. It was nine in the morning. The day stretched out ahead of me, everlasting and awful. I missed having the cacao farm to tend or a school to go to or friends. I was tired of Simon Green’s apartment, which had begun to reek of cat litter. I was tired of not even being able to go for a walk.

I looked out the window. There was a park but no one was in it. I didn’t even know what part of town I was in. (Brooklyn, yes, but, readers, there are many parts of Brooklyn.) Where did Simon Green live? I’d been staying there almost a week and I hadn’t bothered to ask.

I needed to go out. I borrowed a puffy coat from my host’s closet, making sure to pull the hood up. Since I didn’t have a key, I couldn’t lock the door, but what difference did it make? No one was going to rob a sixth-floor apartment. And even if they did, there was nothing worth taking. Simon Green’s apartment was notable if only for its curious lack of personal effects.

I made my way down the flights of stairs.

Outside it was even colder than when I had landed. The sky was gray and it looked like it might snow.

I walked for maybe a half mile, up a hill and past bodegas and schoolchildren and vintage clothing stores and churches. No one noticed me. Finally, I arrived at the gates of a cemetery. Walk long enough in any direction and you’ll usually find one.

The name on the gates was Green-Wood Cemetery, and though I hadn’t been there since Daddy’s funeral, I remembered that this was where the family plot was. My mother was buried here, too, and Nana, whose grave I still hadn’t visited. (Aside: This also solved the mystery of what part of Brooklyn Simon Green lived in—he lived in Sunset Park, where many of the Balanchines had lived before moving to the Upper East Side.)

I made my way through the cemetery. I thought I remembered the general direction of the family plot, but I still had to backtrack a couple of times. Eventually, I realized I had no idea where I was going so I went to the information center. I typed Balanchine into the ancient computer and out popped a location on a map. I set out again. It was getting colder and grayer by the minute, and I didn’t have gloves and I wondered why I had even come.

The plot was on the outer edge of the cemetery: five headstones and room for several more. Soon, my brother would join them here.

Nana’s grave was the freshest. The stone was small and simple, and the inscription read BELOVED MOTHER, WIFE, AND GRANDMOTHER. I wondered who had written that. I kneeled, crossed myself, and then kissed the stone. Though the custom of leaving flowers at gravesides had fallen out of fashion, I’d seen pictures of it and I wished I’d brought some. Even a couple of Nana’s loathsome carnations. How else to say I was here? How else to say I am still thinking of you?

My mother’s grave was next to Nana’s. Her stone was heart-shaped and read I AM MY BELOVED, AND MY BELOVED IS MINE. No mention of the children she had left behind. How little I had known her, and how little she had known me. Some weeds were growing around the edges of her grave. I took my machete out of its sheath and sliced them away.

Daddy was behind my mother: ALWAYS LOOK ON THE BRIGHT SIDE. Atop his headstone, someone had set three green sprigs of what looked like an herb. The sprigs, weighted by a small rock, were fresh and had obviously been placed there recently. I bent down to smell them. It was mint. I wondered what the mint meant and who had placed it there. Probably one of the men who had worked for Daddy.

You might think me heartless, but I didn’t feel all that much at the sight of these graves. Tears were not forthcoming. Leo’s death, Imogen’s death, Theo’s shooting—I was wrung dry. The dead were the dead, and you could cry as much as you wanted, but they weren’t coming back. I closed my eyes and mumbled the halfhearted prayer of a fledgling cynic.

When I got back to Simon Green’s place, he was waiting for me. “I thought you’d been killed,” he said.

I shrugged. “I needed to get out.”

“Did you go to see Win?”

“Of course not. I took a walk.”

“Well, we have to go,” Simon Green said. “We have a meeting with Bertha Sinclair, but we have to be downtown in twenty minutes. She’ll only talk to you in person.”

I was wearing Simon Green’s coat and also his pants and his shirt, but there wasn’t time for me to change.

We raced down the stairs and then we were in a car. At reasonably great expense, Simon Green had borrowed one in the wake of the shootings so that Natty and I could avoid public transportation.

“Do you think there’ll be paparazzi?” I asked him.

He said he hoped not but he wasn’t sure.

“Do you think I’ll be sent immediately to Liberty?”

“No. Mr. Kipling arranged with the Sinclair people for you to be under house arrest at least until Imogen’s funeral.”

“Okay.” I leaned back in the seat.

Simon Green patted me on the knee. “Don’t be scared, Annie.”

I wasn’t. I felt a certain sense of relief knowing that I wouldn’t have to hide anymore.

The DA’s office was in a part of downtown that I and everyone else in my family avoided—the whole area was dedicated to law enforcement. There weren’t any press on the steps, but a legalize-cacao rally was going on in front of the district attorney’s office. It was only about twelve people, but they were noisy enough.

“There’ve been a lot of these lately,” Simon Green commented as he pulled up to the curb in front of Hogan Place. “I’ll drop you here. Mr. Kipling’s waiting for you in the lobby.”

I pulled up the hood of Simon Green’s coat. “Why have there been a lot of pro-cacao rallies lately?”

Simon Green shrugged. “Times change. And people are tired of chocolate being so scarce. Your cousin Mickey isn’t doing his job right. His dad’s sick, and he’s distracted. Good luck in there, Anya.” Simon Green reached over me to open the car door, and I got out.

I pushed my way through the rally. “Take one,” said a girl with braids. She handed me a pamphlet. “Did you know that cacao has health benefits? The real reason it was banned was because of the cost of production.”

I told her I had heard something about that.

“If we didn’t have to rely on unscrupulous mobsters to supply us with chocolate, there would be no risks at all!”

“Cacao now. Cacao now. Cacao now,” the throng chanted, and pumped their fists.

I, the spawn of the unscrupulous mobsters, pushed my way through the madding crowd and into the lobby where Mr. Kipling was indeed waiting for me.

“Quite a scene out there,” he said. He pulled down my hood, then kissed me on the forehead. We hadn’t seen each other since Liberty. “Annie, how are you, my dear?”

I didn’t want to dwell on how I was because nothing good could come of that. “I’m eager to be through with this meeting. I’m eager to get on with things.”

“Good,” Mr. Kipling said. “Let’s go in.”

We gave our names at the desk, then took the elevator to the tenth floor. We gave our names again, then waited for what felt like forever in a nondescript lobby. Finally, an assistant escorted us into the office.

Bertha Sinclair was alone. She was in her late forties and shorter than me. She had metal braces on her legs and they squeaked as she maneuvered across the room to shake my hand. “Anya Balanchine, fugitive—welcome,” she greeted me. “And you must be the persistent Mr. Kipling. Please, friends, have a seat.”

She returned to her chair. Her knees didn’t bend very well, so she had to fall backward into it. I wondered what had happened to Bertha Sinclair.

“So, prodigal daughter, your sister’s nanny is dead, your brother has disappeared, and you have returned to the Isle of Mannahatta and laid yourself at my door. Whatever shall I do with you? Your lawyer thinks you should be given probation and time served. What do you think, Anya? Wouldn’t that be a touch soft for a girl who shot someone and executed a jailbreak?”

“In my opinion,” Mr. Kipling said, “Charles Delacroix had no right to return Anya to Liberty when he did. He was thinking of his campaign, not of what was in the public’s best interest. Although Anya was wrong to escape, she escaped from a situation that was essentially unjust.”

Bertha Sinclair massaged her knee. “Yes,” she said. “I can’t say I disagree with you if what you’re essentially saying is that Charles Delacroix is an ambitious, arrogant prick.

“Really,” Bertha Sinclair continued, “I should thank you, Anya. The luck of you being on that bus! My campaign staff and I beat that Anya-and-the-DA’s-son story until it was dead, dead, dead. The irony is, I doubt the public cared nearly as much as Charles Delacroix thought they cared. And, in my opinion, it wasn’t you but his misjudgment that cost him the election. Or, to put it another way, handed it to me.” Bertha Sinclair laughed. “So, here’s how I see it, friends. I don’t care about chocolate. I don’t care about Anya. I certainly don’t care about Charles Delacroix’s son.”

“What do you care about?” I asked.

“Good question. The child doesn’t speak much, but she does speak well. I care about my people and about doing what’s right for them.”

That seemed terribly broad to me.

“I care about getting reelected. And getting reelected takes many resources, Mr. Kipling.”

Mr. Kipling nodded.

“The Balanchines were good friends of this office once. And I imagine that they could be again.” At that moment, Bertha Sinclair took a tiny notepad out of her desk and scribbled something on it. She handed the note to Mr. Kipling. He looked at the paper. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that it was a number with at least four zeros, maybe more.

“And what does this number buy us?” Mr. Kipling asked.

“Friendship, Mr. Kipling.”

“Specifically?”

“Friends have to trust each other, don’t they?” She began writing another note on a sheet of paper. “I never understood why paper fell out of fashion. It’s so convenient to destroy. Put something down digitally and it’s viewable by everyone and exists forever. Or at least it has the illusion of forever, but it’s always potentially mutable. People had so much more freedom when there was paper. But that’s neither here nor there.” She set her pen on her desk and handed the second note to me:

8 ds Liberty

30 ds house arrest

1 yr probation

1 yr surrender passport

I folded the paper in half before nodding my consent. Even if we were paying for it, this still seemed more than reasonable. I’d need to go to Japan at some point but I imagined that could be worked out later.

“After you’re released from Liberty, I will give a press conference where I say that I am prepared to let bygones be bygones. I will ridicule the way Charles Delacroix handled your situation—let me tell you, I’ll enjoy that part very much. And then, as far as I’m concerned, that will be the end of it. You’ll have your life back. And we’ll all be friends for life unless you do something to irritate me.”

I looked into Bertha Sinclair’s eyes. They were so brown they were almost black. It was tempting to say that her eyes were as black as her heart or some such nonsense, but I don’t believe that eye color is anything more than genetics. Still, there was no denying that the woman was corrupt. Daddy used to say that corrupt people were easy to deal with because they were consistent—you could, at the very least, count on them to be corrupt.

“I’ll have someone arrange with Mr. Kipling when you’ll return to Liberty,” Bertha Sinclair said as we stood to leave.

“I’d like to go now,” I heard myself say.

Mr. Kipling stopped. “Anya, are you sure?”

“Yes, Mr. Kipling.” I had not been afraid of Liberty. I had been afraid of being left there indefinitely. The sooner I went back, the sooner I could get on with sorting the rest of my life out, and I had quite a bit of sorting to do. “If I go back now, I’ll be out in time for Imogen’s funeral.”

“I think that’s admirable,” Bertha Sinclair said. “I’ll escort you to Liberty myself if you’d like.”

“The press will pick up the story if District Attorney Sinclair accompanies you,” Mr. Kipling warned me.

“Yes, that’s the idea,” Bertha Sinclair said, rolling her dark, dark eyes. “Anya Balanchine has surrendered herself to me and, a week later, I show her leniency. It’s a big, beautiful show, Mr. Kipling, and quite the coup de théâtre for my office, no?” She turned to me. “We’ll go from here.”

Mr. Kipling and I went to the lobby. When Bertha Sinclair was out of sight, I handed him my machete, which had still been attached to my (Simon Green’s) belt.

“You brought this to the DA’s office?” Mr. Kipling was incredulous. “It’s lucky the city is too broke to fix those old metal detectors.”

“I forgot I had it,” I assured him. “Take care of it. It’s my favorite souvenir of Mexico.”

“Do you mind my asking if you’ve had opportunity to use this … Is it a machete?” He held it with two fingers, like it was a fouled diaper, before slipping it into his valise.

“Yes, Mr. Kipling. In Mexico, it’s what they use to remove the cacao pods from the trees.”

“That’s all you used it for?”

“Mainly,” I told him. “Yes.”

“Anya Balanchine! Anya! Look over here! Anya, Anya, where have you been?” The crowd of paps waited to pounce on us at the Liberty Island Ferry.

I had been instructed by Bertha Sinclair not to say anything, but I couldn’t help turning my head. I was relieved to hear my name again. I was hustled into the boat, and Bertha Sinclair stopped to talk to the media.

Although she was a woman, Bertha Sinclair’s voice carried every bit as much as Charles Delacroix’s had, and from the boat, I could still hear her. “This afternoon, Anya Balanchine surrendered herself to me. I want it on the record that Ms. Balanchine’s surrender was completely voluntary. She’ll be detained at Liberty until we figure out what the best course of action is,” Bertha Sinclair boomed. “I’ll have an update for you all soon.”

It was my fourth time at Liberty in less than a year and a half. Mrs. Cobrawick was gone, replaced by Miss Harkness, who wore athletic shorts all day long and in all weathers it seemed. Miss Harkness had no interest in celebrity, by which I mean my infamy. This made her an improvement over Mrs. Cobrawick. Mouse had also left—I wondered if she had ever gone to see Simon Green—so I had a bunk to myself and no one to eat with in the cafeteria. The length of my stay was too short to bother with making new friends.

The Thursday before my scheduled release, I was sitting at a half-empty table in the back of the cafeteria when Rinko sat down across from me. Rinko was alone, and sans henchwomen, she looked smaller somehow.

“Anya Balanchine,” Rinko greeted me. “Mind if I join you?”

I shrugged, and she set her tray down.

“Clover and Pelham both left just before you came. I’m outta here next month.”

“What did you do anyway?”

Rinko shrugged. “Nothing worse than you. I got in a fight with some dumb beyotch at my school. She started it, but I beat her until she was in a coma. So, like, whatever. I defended myself. I didn’t know she’d end up in a coma.” She paused. “You know, we’re not that different.” She flipped her shiny black hair over her shoulders.

We were different. I had never beaten anyone into unconsciousness. “How so?”

She lowered her voice. “I’m from coffee people.”

“Oh.”

“Makes you tough,” she continued. “If someone crosses me, I’m gonna defend myself. You’re the same way.”

“I don’t think so.”

“You shot your cousin, didn’t you?” Rinko asked.

“I had to.”

“And I had to do what I had to do.” She leaned across the table and lowered her voice. “You look all sweet and innocent, but I know it’s just a front. Rumor has it you sliced off someone’s hand with a machete.”

I tried to keep my face neutral. No one in the States knew what had happened in Mexico. “Who told you that?”

Rinko ate a scoop of mashed potatoes. “I know people.”

“What you heard … It isn’t true,” I lied. Part of me wanted to ask who exactly she knew, but I didn’t want to give myself away to a person I had never particularly liked or found trustworthy.

Rinko shrugged. “I’m not gonna tell anyone, if that’s what you’re worried about. Not my business.”

“Why did you sit here today?”

“I’ve always believed that you and I should be friends. Someday, you might want to know someone who knows something about coffee. And someday, I might want to know someone who knows a thing or two about chocolate.” She waved her hand around the cafeteria. “The rest of these kids … They’ll go home, and maybe they’ll be all reformed and crap. But you and me, we’re stuck in it. We were born in it, and we’re in it for life.”

A bell rang, which meant it was time for us to return to afternoon exercises.

I was about to pick up my tray to put on the conveyor belt when Rinko intercepted it. “I’m going that way anyway,” she said. “Be seeing you, Anya.”

On Saturday morning, I was released. I had worried that something would happen to make our deal go bad, but Mr. Kipling made the campaign contribution and the corrupt Bertha Sinclair kept her word. I took the boat back from Liberty, and Mr. Kipling was waiting for me at the dock. “So you’re prepared, there’s quite a crowd wanting to hear from Bertha Sinclair,” Mr. Kipling informed me.

“Will I need to say anything?”

“Just smile at the appropriate times.”

I took a deep breath and approached Bertha Sinclair, who shook my hand. “Good morning, Anya.” She turned to face the press who had gathered. “As you know, Anya Balanchine surrendered herself to me a week ago. I’ve had these past eight days to reflect on the matter and”—she paused as if she hadn’t known exactly what she would do the whole time—“I don’t wish to cast aspersions on my predecessor but I think the way he handled Ms. Balanchine’s situation was atrocious. Whether the initial sentence she received was just or unjust, my predecessor had no business returning Anya Balanchine to Liberty last fall. That move was politics, pure and simple, and in my opinion, everything that happened after should be forgiven. Unlike my predecessor, I think there is law and then there is justice. I want you to know that your district attorney is more interested in justice. A new administration is a good time for new beginnings. This is why I’ve decided to release Anya Balanchine, this daughter of Mannahatta, from Liberty, time served.”

Bertha Sinclair turned to me and gave me a hug. “Good luck to you, Anya Balanchine. Good luck to you, my friend.” She squeezed my shoulder with a hand that felt like a claw.