5. Zoe
5
ZOE
“Look, before you bitch me out—I had to,” Gallagher says the moment we’re alone. “You heard him. You’ve heard too much. Seen too much. I had to vouch for you or shit would’ve got real hardcore real fast. Maybe we can fake break up by the time July rolls around?—”
“You’re stuck with me, Gallagher,” I interrupt sharply, finally finding my voice. I’ve been silent from the moment Boone and his goons cornered me in this alley, but I’m so livid I’m shaking. “You’re stuck with me now, and I’m stuck with you. I’m not giving up my investigation, and it sounds like you’re knee deep in some shit, owing him money?—”
“I don’t owe him money?—”
“According to Boone?—”
“You know nothing about the situation,” he interrupts yet again. “And do you ever let a guy speak without jumping down his fucking throat? Fuck, you must have a real thick stick jammed all the way up your ass! You’re insufferable!”
A scoff leaves me, my arms folding. “I’m insufferable because I want nothing to do with you, Gallagher? You forced your way into my situation, and now it seems like we’re in this fucked up arrangement together. You play your role. I’ll play mine. Is that clear?”
“You’re not in charge of me, fed. You get that, right? I don’t do authority. Not even when it’s some hard-ass chick pretending to run shit.”
“We’ll see about that,” I counter, stepping into his face. My insides quiver, whether out of anger or some other emotion I’m not sure. But no one’s ever made me this frustrated. “You are officially part of a federal investigation, which means you are my operative. So, yes, Gallagher, I do run shit. Let’s get that straight right now. I’ll be in touch.”
I spin on my heel, the long, wavy locks from my bubblegum-pink wig whipping him in the chest. I stride off, trying to appear as commanding and unapologetic as possible, yet on the inside I couldn’t feel more differently.
My stomach quakes. My pulse races. I’m dizzy and foggy-brained.
Shaken by Oswald Gallagher and the way he gets under my skin at every opportunity.
In total disbelief that now we really are stuck together. If I want to bring down Boone and his underground operation, Gallagher’s become the in to do it.
A month and a half later…
Duchovny puts me on unpaid admin leave the moment I return from Houston. It’s surprisingly the best of the worst case scenarios, so I can’t even put up a fight. I’m getting off easy if my only punishment is a couple weeks on admin leave.
Dipping into my savings a little is hardly as bad as being terminated or knocked down a grade.
I use the time off to travel to Southern California and check on my parents. They’ve been experiencing the usual marital problems that have plagued their relationship for decades at this point.
My dad’s a gambling addict and my mom’s an enabler. They’re both on and off drugs and alcohol. I’ve spent most of my life trying to get them clean. Even as a young girl, I took on the household responsibilities. I raised Zani while they were off battling their demons.
It was me who cooked and cleaned the house when Mom couldn’t even make it off the couch most evenings. I answered when the loan sharks came to bang their fists on our door and demand the money Dad owed them.
Nothing changed in the time I had been gone.
I came home to my dad smelling of liquor on his tattered and sunken La-Z-Boy he bought at a yard sale years ago. Before I ever graduated from college. He was wearing an undershirt marked by grease stains from pizza and dried spots of beer, his reading glasses low on his round nose.
I had to let myself in using the key under the mat because my knocks weren’t enough.
“Dad?” I asked, reaching for his shoulder. “Dad? Dad!”
He woke with a flailing start, kicking his legs out and knocking over the bag of pork rinds he’d been snacking on. The bag landed next to the crushed beer cans on the floor. He wrenched his glasses off his face, squeezing shut his eyes as if dizzy and choking back the snore he’d been in the middle of.
“Wha… what’s going on?” he mumbled, smacking his lips.
I slanted my head to the side, sighing exasperatedly. “It’s me, Dad. Remember, your daughter? The one who told you she’d be flying in this afternoon.”
“Huh? Oh… yeah… hey, Zozo baby… was that today?”
“Yes, Dad. I called you yesterday when I was packing.”
“That was yesterday?” His mouth gaped open for a deep yawn that cut off the last of his words. “These days been flying by.”
I gave up on him and went to seek out Mom. The velvety croons of Al Green floated from down the hall. They grew louder as I stepped toward the bedroom and tapped my knuckles twice.
Mom’s dreamy slur answered, “Mmm… yes?”
“I just got in,” I said, and then I added with a sigh, “It’s me, Zoe. I was coming to visit?”
“Door’s unlocked.”
I stepped into the room to find a haze of pot smoke thick in the air and my mother swaying to Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together.”
It was her favorite song—the song she blasted endlessly through the house for hours. The song she listened to when things went bad with Dad so she could disappear into the lyrics of the crooning R&B classic.
She hardly noticed I was in the room as she swayed with a satisfied smile on her face and a smoky blunt in her hand.
I folded my arms and called out to her. “Mom? Hello?”
“Zoe sweetie! There you are! Gimme a hug!” Mom rushed at me, throwing her arms out for a tight hug.
I had to turn my head to the side to avoid the lit end of her blunt. “Mom… Mom! You’re going to set my hair on fire.”
“Whoops. My bad. Sorry. Let me put it out.” She scurried over to the dresser where her ashtray was.
I was more than a head taller than Mom with a physique more like Dad—slim, lanky, and athletic. In contrast, Mom was short and chubby-cheeked, drowning in the thick fabric of the house coat she wore around. She grabbed my hand and led me into the kitchen to get started on dinner.
“I bought all the things to make your favorite, baby. Meatloaf and mashed potatoes. Oh, damn. Where did I put the garlic?”
My mom stood in front of the open refrigerator, scratching her head while I hung back by the kitchen counter. It was sticky, making me wonder when was the last time one of them had wiped it clean. There were piles of mail stacked along the counter, a collection of envelopes dating as far back as my last visit home.
My brows connected and I scanned the number of bright red stamps reading things like, “PAST DUE” and “COLLECTIONS NOTICE”.
I picked up the top one, which happened to be a three months past due electricity bill. “Mom, why haven’t you paid the light bill?”
“Hmm? What was that sweetie? Where is this damn garlic?!”
“I gave you money for this,” I snapped. “I gave you and Dad money to cover all the bills. What did you do with it?”
Mom found it funny enough to giggle. She still pretended like she couldn’t hear me all the way and kept asking about the garlic.
I gave up when I glanced in the living room and found Dad snoring again. I grabbed the stack of past due bills and took care of them. After that, I cleaned the house and took out the trash. Two days later, I was on a redeye back to D.C.
If I didn’t lose myself in something else, I was going to go crazy. My parents were as lost to their vices as ever and I was funding their bad habits. Mom wasn’t the only enabler—I was an enabler too. I was giving them money they splurged on who knows what and then paying off the rest of their debts anyway.
Again and again I picked up the slack. I would be the one bailing them out of jail or whatever other bind they’d find themselves in.
The burden was so much weight to bear. It was a responsibility that intertwined with my self-worth, making me feel like I was a failure if I didn’t save everyone.
It was up to me and me alone.
So I sought distraction. I found it in the Boone investigation I had opened a file on. Duchovny told me when he suspended me that he expected I drop any future work on the Boone case. He wanted for it to be the end of the matter.
Too bad I wasn’t about to let it go.
The Boone case was everything. It was my first real—and possibly only—chance to get justice in Zani’s honor.
I wasn’t giving up no matter what Duchovny said.
But I was going to try my damnedest to convince him otherwise. I spent many insomniac nights staying up ’til sunrise, glued to my laptop screen as I read articles upon articles of Boone’s criminal history. I typed up a thorough thirty-four page brief for Duchovny and the rest of leadership detailing everything I’d found on Asa Boone and how it all tied into my current day undercover investigation of him.
I was manic about it, obsessively waiting for his response.
He called me late one Friday evening when I was getting out the shower and taking my medications. “Strauss, you need to understand that this doesn’t give you permission to go fucking haywire. This is an official federal investigation and it will be treated as such. You’ll do everything we say. No questions or deviations. Is that understood?”
I grit my teeth, screwing the cap onto a pill bottle. Yet my tone’s sugary as I answer him. “Understood, boss!”
“Don’t be a smartass. You should be happy I went to bat for you when no one else would. You know nobody else would’ve pushed for you to keep your badge with your situation. Salgado was pushing termination! Humble yourself, Strauss. I mean it.”
I had to really check myself to keep from mouthing off at the last second. I kept it cute and wished him a good night.
Then I jumped up and down in excitement once we’d hung up. I dug out my favorite photo of Zani, a candid taken of her in our backyard as she sat and did her homework. She smiled at the camera, her cheeks round, her eyes lit up. It’s the epitome of everything she was: a smart, bright, sweet girl who lost her life for no other reason than she became a pawn by sick men like Boone.
This was for her.