Page 171 of Two Marlboros

I hadn’t had a chance to get a good look at it when they had taken it away, caught up as I was in the excitement and eagerness of the moment. It was a black cell phone, with a flap and antenna, and a somewhat familiar look. I had seen it before but could not remember where. The next moment, I thought back again to Alan and what had happened at my house a few days earlier.

No, my guess was not plausible. Why would Alan have hidden that phone under my couch? It couldn’t be.

“Do you recognize this cell phone?” asked Church.

I thought about it for a moment. “It rings a bell, I think I’ve seen it before, but I can’t remember where.”

“Could you tell us who this phone belongs to and why it was in your residence?”

I shrugged, because I didn’t know. I tried to strain, but it just wouldn’t come to me. I scrutinized its shape, the brand, tried to make some mental associations with the color... but nothing. And it stymied me that I couldn’t remember, because as long as I didn’t point the finger at someone, others would point it at me.

“I don’t know. It’s not mine and I don’t know why it was in my house.”

Ash sighed. I looked up at him and found him with his legs spread and arms folded, his expression annoyed. Church, on the other hand, had his usual irritating grin on his face, like a cheat rubbing his hands together at the start of a foregone game. I wondered if my fate had already been written or if there was any hope, for me, of making it out alive.

“If it’s not yours, how did it get under your couch?”

“Maybe someone put it there. I certainly didn’t. Like I said, I didn’t know there was a phone under my couch.”

Ashton began drumming the fingers of one hand on his forearm. The gesture made no sound, yet I seemed to hear that tapping rumbling in my ears, like a crazy clock above my head beating time.

“Then why would someone hide it in your domicile?”

I was tempted to answer sarcastically, but I restrained myself. If I had known, I certainly wouldn’t have let myself get into that mess, because that phone was just the cherry on top of my mess. I shrugged.

“I don’t know. Maybe I’ve made some enemies, though I don’t really see why.”

Oh God, actually maybe a measly reason was there. I thought back to my trips to McDonald’s and the fact that likely someone had not liked my presence in there, but from there to wanting to put what looked like a compromising object in my house was a long way off.

Church stared at me with tight lips, like a professor too annoyed by the excuses of a student who didn’t know the subject. He clicked his tongue and sighed.

“Alright. Wanting to follow your thread for a moment, Mr. Hayworth, could you tell us who were the last people who came to your house?”

More shrugs on my part. I looked again at the faces that had crossed the threshold of the house. I immediately crossed outthe communist guy’s, because there was just no way he could have put it there, besides the fact that he would have no reason to; Alan’s was in first place, because he had been the person I had hung out with the most during that time, but there was also Harvey, whom I had not seen or heard from in forever.

Bringing up Alan seemed dangerous at the time. Perhaps I was afraid of putting him on the spot, or perhaps he exerted a power over me that I should not have felt, but it was there. I bit my lip, in a fit of conscience, and cowardice got the better of me.

“Well, for example, Harvey Walker, the guy I was dating, I haven’t heard from him in a while, though. But he’s the only one who’s come home in the last while, so I don’t see many other hypotheses.”

“Could you quantify how long you haven’t heard from him?”

I took a deep breath. Our last meeting had humiliated me enough for me not to forget.

“It will be about a month or so.”

Church sighed. I let myself fall back in my chair, my mind tired. I shifted my gaze to Alan, still behind the glass, but looking away, at the two colleagues.

Meanwhile, the question of the day kept running through my head: who had put that phone there? It looked like an important object, perhaps related to the robbery. The police hadn’t wanted to unbutton what it represented, and I didn’t think they would.

Church crossed his hands and placed them on the desk. My pulse returned and my head began to ache.

“Well, Mr. Hayworth. Could you tell us where you were on August 11, between 7:00 and 8:30 in the evening?”

“What?”

August the 11th? It had already been more than a month! How could I remember where I was? More importantly, what was the phone to do with it? Of course, they couldn’t tell me, butthe feeling of being caught in the middle began to rise up my throat and take on more and more concrete features.

My breath shortened. My eyes began to wander frantically here and there in the room, as if searching for an answer that could not be there. They lingered on Alan and our gazes met almost miraculously, but he too seemed as lost as I was.

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