"And who gave you the seeds?"

"It was some friends of my mom's," he said.

"How many seeds?"

"Little bag. Maybe six or seven."

"Can I see them? The seeds?"

"That's the only one that growed."

"You planted them all."

"Well, yeah."

"You should see where he lives," Charlie said with pride, putting her hand on the kid's shoulder, like he was her own. "He's got plants growing everywhere, in every corner of this s.h.i.+tty little apartment. His mother's hardly ever home, from what I could tell. He's got two older brothers, and who knows what they're up to, so he's almost on his own there. Dad, you can't believe what he's gotten to grow in those rooms with no light, no fresh air-he's a miracle worker."

"I'm impressed already." Len nodded, smiling, at the kid. "Now, these seeds. Where were they from? Did they come from Africa?"

"That's what they said."

"And why did they give them to you?"

"I don't know. It was one guy, my mom knows him. He saw I liked plants."

Len tore his attention away from the plant to look at the kid, who was now looking at the ground, completely overwhelmed with shame. It wasn't a stretch for anyone in that room to know he was lying.

Charlie crouched down next to him, keeping her arm around him. She looked up at Len. "Some friend of his mother's took their welfare check. He told Benny he would trade the seeds for the check. Benny got into a lot of trouble for it, even though it wasn't his fault."

"And how old were the seeds-did he tell you?" Len asked, not giving a rat's a.s.s about how much trouble Benny got into for letting this friend of his mom's con him out of their welfare check.

"He said they were magic," Benny admitted. "I wanted to see if I could make them grow."

His eyes filled with tears at the admission of his own gullibility. Len turned back to the plant. He didn't give a s.h.i.+t about Benny's gullibility either.

"But he didn't tell you how old the seeds were or where, exactly, they came from?"

"No sir."

"And you didn't save even one? You planted them all? Did you plant them all like this, in separate trays?"

"You mean the cups?"

"Yeah, the cups, you planted each one in a separate cup, yes? Did any of the others come up at all?"

Benny nodded, still miserable, but regaining his equilibrium now that they were back on the subject of plants and seeds. "Two sprouted but never flourished, they just turned yellow and got some brown spots, then they shriveled up and that was it. The other ones never even sprouted."

"Did you save the unsprouted seeds?"

I didn't think this was the least bit likely, and neither did Len. There was a sort of hopeless moment of expectant disappointment, as we waited for the kid to tell us he had just tossed the unsprouted seeds. But really, you never know what's going to happen, you just never know. Benny reached into his pocket and took out a rolled-up paper towel. "Yeah, sure. I dug 'em up to see how far they gestated."

Len looked up, startled, and caught Charlie smirking at him. She knew all along that the kid had the other seeds, and she knew that Len would underestimate him.

Len didn't waste any time. He turned back to the kid and held out his bony, greedy hand. "Good for you, Benny. You saved the seeds to see how far they gestated. That was the smart thing to do. May I see them?" Benny handed him the rolled-up paper towel, and with the meticulous care of a jeweler revealing a trove of uncut diamonds, Len opened the towel to consider the second half of this apparently unheard-of treasure.

"I see, I see," he said. He reached over, plucked a pair of tweezers out of a pencil tin hidden somewhere in the mess on the phone table, and delicately picked up something that looked like a fossilized raisin. "Wonderful," Len whispered. He set the raisin back down and turned his attention back to the tiny plant, which looked a little like a cross between a tiny cactus and an orange African violet. "Wonderful," he said again.

"What is it?" I asked.

It was a mistake; I can see that now. In the extreme excitement surrounding the kid's extraordinary plant, they had completely forgotten I was even in the room, which was the only reason I had been allowed to stay. Announcing my presence with a completely boneheaded question more or less shattered the spell.

"What are you doing here, Tina?" Len said. He had utterly forgotten why I had come up to the greenhouse with him.

"Well, we were-you were down at my place checking in on the moss, Len," I reminded him.

"What moss?" asked Charlie.

"She's just a neighbor I was doing a favor for. We will have to talk about that later, Tina." Len held up his hand to silence me, then swiftly went over to the desk, turned his back so we couldn't see what he was doing, and retraced his steps to the door, which he opened. "This I think covers it," he said, shoving some folded bills into my hand. "Thanks for the help."

"What's going on?" I said to Len under my breath. "What's with the plant?"

"You're quite welcome," he said, coldly polite, as if he barely knew me. He took my arm, pushed me gently out the door, and closed it.

That was it, I was not one of them. I just stood there and looked at his closed door for a full minute as I tried to get up the nerve to knock with some excuse that would persuade them to let me back in. But nothing came to me. Grabbing that extra two hundred from Len seemed embarra.s.sing and trashy, just as Lucy always said I was. I couldn't pretend that Len and I were friends now, that I was someone he might include in the cool secret surrounding that plant. Because you don't extort your friends, do you?

I was so depressed by my own horrible behavior, I spent the next week contemplating personal improvement. Not much immediately came to mind aside from absolutely everything. Then, one afternoon, when I returned home from a minor shopping spree-a tube of toothpaste-I found myself considering the old boring landing. The floor needed a serious scrubbing, and the plastic plants didn't just need to be dusted; they needed to be tossed and replaced with something you could actually water. The blinds covering the one dirty window needed to be replaced as well. At which point my rather gloomy mood lifted into something resembling hope. I can do this, I thought. I used to clean houses for a living, out there at the Delaware Water Gap: a bucket of water, some Lysol, new blinds, and thirty bucks' worth of plants would make all the difference. I could make the landing a better place and then see if that made me a better person. It was a far-fetched idea, but not that far-fetched. A lot of people think cleaning things up is the first step to moral improvement. Why shouldn't that be true? It was at least something I could accomplish. So I was actually contemplating the possibility of this when I heard a door creak behind me. Not my door, the other one. I looked over and saw that it was open, just a few inches, and someone was watching me.

"Mrs. Westmoreland?" I said. "Hi, I'm Tina Finn, I'm living in 8A."

The door stayed cracked, it didn't close, but it didn't open any farther either. I could see just a little of the entryway; the marble floor was polished within an inch of its life. Farther in, I could see the end of a couch in the living room, with a perfectly folded throw in gold and orange hanging off one side. It didn't look anything like my crazy apartment, but I stepped forward with determination. "My mother was Olivia, she was married to Bill? Anyway, I, uh, I'm living in the apartment until we can get everything sorted out with the wills. I wanted to introduce myself." I was talking way too slow and too loud, like I thought maybe she was a r.e.t.a.r.ded deaf person. "Anyway, I was thinking I might clean up our landing, get rid of the plastic plants, get some new blinds, would that be okay with you? You wouldn't have to do anything. I just think it might make the place look a lot nicer if I took a scrub brush to everything ..."

"You got to go."

"What?" I asked, moving closer. Mrs. Westmoreland had finally answered, but her voice was so soft I could barely hear her. I leaned in to listen.

"You've got to get out of here. The police are here," she whispered. "The police?" I said. Her door shut quickly, just as the one behind me opened. I turned, not knowing quite what to expect, but I was beginning to get a clue. A uniformed officer stood in my doorway. He was young and buff and kind of mean-looking. I'd seen his type before.

"You Tina Finn?" he asked.

"Who's asking?" I gave him back.

"This your stuff in here?" He held up my backpack and a pair of underwear.

"Is that my 'stuff'? You mean is that my underwear? Yeah, that's my underwear. You got a reason for breaking into my apartment and going through my underwear, Officer?" Look, I knew that you're supposed to shut up and just do what you're told when they come at you like that; believe me, I had been warned. But sadly, I always seemed to forget.

"Could you come in here, please?"

"Yeah, you bet, whatever you say, Officer. I'm sure your reasons for pawing through my underwear are excellent." The sarcastic tone is also not a good idea when talking to police officers. What can I say? I walked to the doorway and looked at him with what can only be called disgraceful disregard, considering that we both knew what was coming.

"You're going to have to step aside," I said. "You're so big and strong and scary, I just can't squeeze by you."

"You think you're helping yourself here, Miss Finn?" the guy asked.

"Would that even be possible, Officer?" I asked. Behind him were two more uniforms waiting for me.

"I don't think so," he said.

"Then could you step back, please?" He did, and I stepped into the apartment.

"You're under arrest," he said.

"I'm stunned to hear it," I replied.

11.

WHEN OFFICER MACDOWELL READ THE CHARGES, IT TURNED OUT that an injunction had in fact been issued by some court and had been subsequently received by one Ira Grossman, Esquire, who was acting on behalf of Alison and Daniel Lindemann, Lucille Finn, and Christina Finn of a lot of different addresses. The injunction stated in no uncertain terms that we were not permitted to trespa.s.s on the premises of cooperative apartment number 8A in the Edgewood Building, address 819 Central Park West. Service having been accepted on my behalf by Ira Grossman, the legal system a.s.sumed that I had been duly informed that further trespa.s.s upon the premises would be treated as an unlawful act and I would be persecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

So that's what happened. The arresting officer informed me that I had violated the injunction and that he was hauling me down to the precinct. So I smirked and said "yes, sir," like I thought he was a complete idiot, so he asked me if I had a problem and I said, no, Officer, you're so big and strong and mean I'm just terrified is all, which as usual was not the right thing to say. One of the other officers said, "Phil ..." like a warning, because you could see Officer MacMean go seriously red around the corners of his face, like he had a spectacularly s.h.i.+tty temper, which anybody could see just by looking at him. He paused for a few beats, said he was fine, grabbed me by the arm, and shoved me through the doorway with significantly more force than necessary, considering that he weighed probably 240 pounds and I come in under 115. He didn't insist on handcuffs because he couldn't-I wasn't technically resisting arrest; I was just tossing around att.i.tude-but he did make sure he hurt my arm.

I didn't know which precinct they took me to, but since it was the Upper West Side, it was actually not too bad as precincts go. It was alarmingly ugly, with fluorescent lights, linoleum floors, and weird green plasterboard walls, and it had venetian blinds on the inside office windows, which made the place look like a third-rate medical clinic. But trust me, the fact that there wasn't a layer of grime on every conceivable surface put it in a whole different league from the other precincts where I'd landed after being arrested. The mean cop was still being a little too rough, so one of the other two cops kind of stepped between us in a very casual way, like all he meant to do was show me where I needed to go to get processed. He didn't give me any eye contact, just leaned over and said, "You're going to have to leave your valuables at the window," but then he stayed where he was while he traded greetings with the guy at the front desk, and that effectively stopped MacMean from shoving me around anymore. I waited for the lady cop to show up, because they always pa.s.s you off to a female officer, who takes your valuables, puts them in an envelope, gives them to the guy behind the window, and then leads you to the back for your interview. Then, if they decide to hold you, someone comes and takes you off to the holding tank for girls. In my experience, the procedure is pretty straightforward and consistent, precinct to precinct.

This time, though, they didn't take me to the little room for the interview; the lady cop walked me down a depressing hallway straight to the holding tank.

"Don't I get an interview?" I asked.

"What are you going to tell them, that you weren't there?" she said.

"There might be extenuating circ.u.mstances," I suggested as she unbolted the barred door.

"I'm sure your lawyer will make that clear," she said. And then she shut the door and threw the bolts back in place. Which, in spite of the notable differences in procedure up to this point, had an unfortunately familiar ring to it.

But the holding tank was not bad as these things go. Except for the bars on one side, it could easily have pa.s.sed for a hospital waiting room, with rows of blue plastic chairs bolted to the walls. Apparently it was a slow night for crime on the Upper West Side, because only one other woman was in there, a sorry-looking teenager with black hair and a lot of tattoos. She wore a ripped T-s.h.i.+rt and a kilt, which is a look that honestly works for no one, but what can you do, some trends take forever to die. She glanced up at me with tired eyes, and I could see that earlier in the day they had been lined with the blackest eyeliner out there, but an unknown number of hours in a police tank had taken its toll, and now she just looked like an eighteen-year-old kid who had done something dumb that landed her in a holding cell.

"I'll be back in a second so you can make your call," the lady officer informed me.

"Hey, can I have another call? I need to make another call, can I have another one?" the kid said. "Please?"

"You only get one call," the police lady said.

"I need to make another call! I called my friend and she's not coming, I need to call somebody, I need to call my mom!" The police lady didn't even seem to hear her. She disappeared down the icky hallway, so bored that you could see it in her walk. Goth Girl leaned up against the bars, squeezing her eyes shut in a concocted rage that she clearly hoped would keep her from crying.

"Is this your first time?" I heard myself saying. I didn't mean to sound like some jaded old creep; it honestly just slipped out. Goth Girl tipped her head back and looked at the ceiling with her mouth open, as if she could not believe she was stuck in this holding tank with such a colossal idiot.

"So you're like an old hand at this," she said.

"Not an old hand. But it's not like I've never been arrested before."

"Good for you," she mumbled, staring off through the bars, dismissing me entirely. The phone, a huge old industrial model that looked like it had been designed by the Army Corps of Engineers, hung on the painted cinder-block wall three feet away. "This is so f.u.c.ked," she told herself. "I have to get home. This is just f.u.c.ked. I am so f.u.c.ked." There was no way to reach the telephone from where we were, but she could barely stop herself from shoving her arm through the bars and uselessly trying to grab it.

"When the public defender shows up, he can call people for you," I offered, leaning against the bars. I had no idea how long I would be stuck there, so I had no interest in sitting down just yet. Plus those chairs looked fiendishly uncomfortable. You know they put in separate seats like that just so people can't lie down.

"I've been waiting for four hours for the f.u.c.king public defender! When's the f.u.c.king public defender supposed to f.u.c.king show up?" She was fraying at the seams.

"Sometimes it takes a while," I said.

"This is so f.u.c.ked," the girl repeated, glancing down the hallway. The lady cop was coming back now with her slow, bored walk. I couldn't figure out why she had left in the first place-probably she had to go to the bathroom.

"So who are we calling?" she said as she handed me the receiver through the bars. This was the usual drill; they give you the receiver, you tell them the number you want to dial, they dial it for you, and you talk. I thought for a second about calling my so-called lawyer, Ira Grossman, whom I had never met. I thought about calling Lucy. Then I thought about calling Alison and Daniel, who would just call Lucy, who would then call the lawyer. And then I'd have to go home with one of them, because I wasn't allowed to stay in the apartment anymore. If it was Lucy, I'd have to listen to her b.i.t.c.h at me all night, even though this clearly wasn't my fault. If it was Alison and Daniel, I'd have to listen to them hanging out in their tiny kitchen, whispering about my sleeping on their crummy couch, and whether Lucy would be able to put me up, and wasn't there anyone else Tina could stay with, and why doesn't Tina ever have any money or seem to be able to hold down a job. I had lived through this delightful conversation more than once, truth be told, and I was not looking forward to hearing it again. The thought made my head hurt.

"Hey, Kilt Girl," I said. "What's your mom's phone number?"

"What?"

"Is that who you want to call?"

"She's not allowed another call until the PD shows up," the lady cop informed me, irritated.

"Yeah, but I get a phone call," I said.

"You want to call my mom?" the kid asked.

"Isn't that who you want to talk to?"

"Yeah, but ..."

"So what's her number?"

The girl looked at me. The cop looked at me too. She was moving out of irritated and more firmly into p.i.s.sed off. "Look, this isn't up to you," she told me again. "She's not getting another phone call."

"It's not her call, it's my call," I said.

"You aren't getting another call. You call this kid's mother? That's your call."

"I know that's my call."

"You call her, you're stuck here," she said again, like I wasn't getting it.

"What's your mother's phone number, kid?" I asked.

"And she's not allowed to talk to her."

"She's not going to talk to her; I'm going to talk to her. Kid, what's the number?"