I step forward between them. Facing the officer.
"I am responsible for this operation." My voice is steady and measured. "I organized this. I planned it. These people came here because I asked them to. They were acting under my direction and had no knowledge that it was not authorized." I look at the officer directly. "If there's a charge to be made, it should be made against me."
The officer looks at me. Then at Emilio. Then back at me.
"You'll need to come to the station."
"That's fine." I don't turn around. "Rosa, guys. Go back to the van."
"No way." Emilio's voice, close behind me. "Bullshit. They can't just—"
"Emilio." I stop him. The anger in his face is real and I understand every part of it. "I need you and Dev to take my truck," I say. "Both of you. Can I trust you to do that?"
He looks past me at the cop. One full second.
Then he looks at me.
He nods.
I hand him the keys.
I turn back toward the officer.
They walk me to the nearest police car. One officer on each side, the practiced neutral of routine. They tell me what's happening. I track the words at a distance, the formal language of legal procedure, rights and station and process.
I know these words. I've heard them before.
They tell me to put my hands behind my back.
I put my hands behind my back.
The metal comes first, the specific touch of it, cold and deliberate against my wrists. The ratchet sound. The tightening. The weight.
My breathing speeds up.
The sound of the parking lot starts to thin, to move slightly away from me, the sirens, the voices and the crunch of gravel all pulling back a degree like someone has turned a dial.
The pressure on my wrists.
My body knows this. My body knows this in a way that lives below thought, below language, below any decision I could make about it.
It was ten years ago and it is right now.
I am put in the back seat. The door closes. The sounds outside go muffled.
I breathe. Shallow. Quiet.
Almost ten years later, the metal closes around my wrists, and the past comes with it.
16
ADRIAN
The ocean is loud tonight. I can hear it from my balcony.
I've had two fingers of Macallan and I'm thinking about pouring a third. The jazz from inside is low enough that it blends with the waves. Miles Davis, something from the Kind of Blue era.
On a normal Friday night I wouldn't be home.
