“Jesus.” He exhaled through his nose. “Look, man. I get it. I really do. I know what you’re trying to do, and hell, Irespectit. You know how I feel. That’s why you’re here. But you’re on thin ice.”
Thin ice. As if I didn’t know. As if I didn’t feel it cracking beneath me every second of every day.
I feigned a nonchalant shrug. “Flamm was a greedy, sadistic little prick. He deserved to get played.”
“You were one step away from gettingyourselfplayed, Monsieur Pomerleau.”
At that, I just smiled and tipped back my glass. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”
Manny groaned, rubbing a hand down his face. “Goddamn it, man. Didn’t you learnanythingin training? It’s dangerous to let your personal experiences affect your decisions in the field.”
“Look, I know we can’t free her,” I admitted. “We can’t free any of them. But that job Nanette found for her in the federal budget office is cushy as fuck, and she can feed us intel whileshe’s there. She’s really smart,” he added. “And you have to admit, onmypart, it was a good save.”
“A better save than when the congressman’s daughter caught you hacking into her dad’s computer and you told her it just broke your heart to think of her using a network without a properly-installed firewall,” said Manny, grabbing two more pints of Guinness from the bartender and handing one to me. I’d recently discovered that a stout—though it didn’t compare to bourbon—was a good social drink. Which I’d never needed, since I’d never beenallowedto socialize over anything except a bowl of gruel in however much time I’d been allotted to eat it.
“Hey, identity theftisheartbreaking.”
“What aboutmyheartbreak when Lindeman strangles you to death and I have no consultant? Ever think of that?” He paused. “Look, I’m not trying to imply this transition has been easy for you, but?—”
“Fucking hell, Manny, you think it’s about easy? I wouldn’t even know what todowith easy.” I took a breath, trying to steady myself. “Look, we’ll still find the heiress,” I promised. “There’s still a particular lead I want to follow, the one we got from that freed guy in New York.” I didn’t mention that after tomorrow, the only leads I might be following were my own. “In the meantime, you know there are plenty of girlsandboys who deserve to be saved just as much as she does.”
“Of course. You know how I feel, man. And Lindeman was impressed with what you did for those kids last month in Baltimore. Actually, I think he’s impressed with you in general when he doesn’t want to toss you out a tenth-story window. And remember, this is a guy who used to be the head of an entiredivisionset up to find abolitionist fugitives.”
Around us, the bar was starting to fill up with our colleagues and friends, who greeted us before finding seats. Manny raisedhis voice. “But the bottom line is that we’re a law enforcement agency, not a shelter for abused slaves.”
“Wait, we aren’t?” I asked with a wry sip. “Then how do you explain me?”
Manny laughed. “Dude, Ican’texplain you. Nobody told me working with a slave would be like this. For some reason, I pictured a lot more bowing and scraping and less, well, going rogue.”
I set my glass down incredulously. “Dude, did you doanyhomework on me at all?”
“Clearly, not enough. At this point, I’d be happy just to get you to respond to your goddamn name at leastonce,” he said. “All in all, I think I’ve had better luck getting you to answer to Sébastien Pomerleau.”
I couldn’t help but laugh because he was right. I’d finally coughed up the name—her name—myname—because they’d threatened to send me back if I didn’t, but the fact was, I had always found it far easier to be Sébastien or Corey or Starling or Lucky Sevens or Rocket Boy or even boy or kid or man or mutt or whatever anybody else deigned to call me, than take on an actual identity. Myownidentity, one that couldn’t be ignored, brushed off, or shed in an instant. One I would answer to and answer for. One I could keep.
As absurd as it was, I wasn’t ready for that yet. And I didn’t yet know what the last step might be on the journey. Although I knew thefirststep had been hearing it from the right mouth. And I could only hope that that mouth would still care to say it.
I stared down into my glass, then looked up again to see that Manny’s face had turned serious.
“Bruh, you’re lucky and you’re good, and that gets you ninety percent of the way. But your problem, the way I see it, is that you still don’t know how to be a person. And most of the time, I don’t think you evenwantto.”
Well, ouch. I turned my glass in circles on the table. “I-I think you’re right. I don’t. Or maybe I still don’t know the person I want to be.”
“Well, I hate to break this to you, man, but you’re gonna have to bite the bullet, like every other human being on the planet, and figure it out. Because I know youdowant your freedom, and I don’t want to see you put it in jeopardy.”
Freedom, which, as I had been frequently informed, wasn’t free. Look, I wasn’tthathumble, but I was humble enough to know that the world was far from finished teaching me that lesson. Maybe it never would be.
And my stomach swooped as I thought about the burner phone I’d bought that morning and the call I’d made up my mind—right this second—to make that very night.
Because yes, I did want my freedom. Not with half of me anymore. With all of me. And despite it all, I wanted to be a person, too. I really did. But I also knew that it wasn’t freedom—at least, notjustfreedom—that was going to make me one.
A few more of our colleagues grabbed seats at the bar then—one of them being Daniela, one of the other slave consultants, a leggy brunette whose suffocatingly tight pencil skirt drew the eye to the pillowy space between said legs, one of which she hooked around my wooden swivel chair, propping her chin in her hand with goopy anticipation as she asked about my day. Over her head, Manny raised his eyebrows, but I just ran a hand through my hair before hastily executing my escape from the air-conditioned pub and into the sultry heart of a southeastern night in late August, into the empty, moonless streets of a world where nobody knew or cared what my name was, or if I had one at all. A world that, as a kid, was all the promise freedom ever held. A world with a million more Danielas waiting for me, who would pulse and moan and call me anything I told them to call me, butnever by my name. A world that in the end would just be another cage.
I had a phone call to make.
By the time I got to work the next morning, I had five missed calls from Manny already. He met me just inside the door to our department, and for a moment, he just stood there frozen, his face as ashen as when he failed at something. Federal agents weren’t used to failing.
“Lindeman’s office,” he said, pointing. “I’m sorry.”
