Page 27 of Dear Wife

“Look up, lady. Look up look up look up,” I say into my empty car. No way she can hear me, but still. I say it loud and with authority, like anyone who’s ever taken a self-defense class would know to do. Straight punch to the throat, knee-kick to the groin, elbow in the nose. Basic moves, simple techniques every woman should have in her arsenal, both potent and effective.

But this woman doesn’t look up, doesn’t even glance at the car. Las Tortas Locas is apparently a hotbed for criminal activity, and she might as well have hung a sign over her head, advertising herself as easy prey.

“Shit, lady. Comeon.”

The car is completely stopped now, and I spot two shadowed figures behind the opaque windows who are not here for the taco special. I know it with everything inside me—my queasy stomach, my itchy skin, a cell-deep awareness that something is about to happen.

Something bad.

My fingers wander to my steering wheel, the heel of my hand hovering over the horn, while my brain shuffles through the scenarios. Leaning on the horn might scare off the bad guys and save the woman’s jewels, but it might also get me noticed. It would mean her asking my name, noting my license plate, looking at me as a hero or worse: a witness. Beth Murphy’s life would be over before it even began. This lady needs saving, but dammit, so do I.

The passenger’s door swings open, and a man steps out. Pale skin, slouchy jeans, faded and ripped gray sweatshirt. No, not a man, a kid, tall and lanky, all shiny face and silly-putty limbs, probably no more than fourteen. He leaves the door open, and if that’s not a getaway move, I don’t know what is.

He stalks straight at her, and I scream into my car, “Put down the stupid phone!”

But as hard as I try, I can’t make my hand press on the horn.

And so I sit, watching from fifty feet away while the kid whips out a gun and mugs her in broad daylight. Purse, phone, diamonds, watch, bracelets—she hands over everything with frantic, shaking hands. He forces her to the ground, his body language commanding her to hurry. She sputters and sobs but she obeys, lying flat with both hands shielding the back of her head. Behind him, the car’s tires squeal and smoke, and the kid lunges with his loot through the still-open door. The entire episode takes all of sixty seconds.

As soon as the parking lot is quiet again, the woman clambers to her feet. “Help! Somebody help me. Help!”

I tell myself it’s fine, thatshe’sfine. Scared and shaken, maybe, her white jeans smudged where they made contact with the dirty asphalt. But otherwise, everybody is fine. Everybody but me, trapped here in this lot. The woman is standing between me and the only exit.

A gaggle of sorority types push out the restaurant’s double doors, talking and laughing. They hear the woman’s cries and stop on the concrete, their happy expressions falling into surprise.

“I was robbed!” the woman screams at them. “He pointed a gun at my head and he took my wedding ring. He tookeverything. Oh my God, don’t just stand there. Somebody call the police!”

A tall blonde pulls out a cell phone, and I eyeball the curb height to the street, trying to judge if it’s too high for the Buick to plow over without blowing out a tire. Would the women even notice? Would they jot down my license plate and hand it to the cops as a potential witness?

And what if I don’t leave, then what? What will I say when the police find me sitting here, hiding in my car? I glance at the clock on the dash. Less than ten minutes until I’m supposed to meet Jorge. Even if I ditched my car and ran, I’d never make it on time.

The women are all babbling now, gesturing and talking over each other, their expressions tight with the near miss, and guilt pushes up from somewhere deep inside me. All my life, I’ve believed in karma, in the universal principle of cause and effect. Do good, and good comes to you. Do bad, and... Well, you better watch your back.

And today I stood by and watched a woman get mugged.

What does the universe have in store for me now?

The women storm inside, and I start the car and drive as fast as I dare, squealing into the strip mall Jorge directed me to a full six minutes late. I pray Jorge’s not a punctual guy, the type who doesn’t tolerate clients who show up later than promised. Then again, I am the client, and I’m guessing the black market ID business must by definition remain fluid. In the grand scope of things, six minutes isn’t all that long.

I step out of my car and scan the half dozen storefronts. Jorge didn’t give me anything other than an address, so which one? Discount stores andcarnicerías, a cell phone shop, a smashed window covered in butcher paper. And then at the far end, I spot a single word:fotográfico. I slam the door and hurry to the store.

Inside, the place is tiny—a shoebox of a room with a camera on a tripod, a register counter and not much else. Jorge is waiting for me by the register, beside a man he introduces as Emmanuel, no last name. Emmanuel demands six dollars in cash, then points me to a grubby white wall. “Stand there. No smile.”

Emmanuel is a man of few words, but he gets the job done. There’s a blinding flash, and by the time the spots have cleared from my vision, two passport-size pictures are rolling out of his printer.

While Emmanuel cuts them into tiny squares, Jorge hands me a piece of paper and a pen. “Write down name, birth date, height, weight and address. You can use fake ones if you want.”

“Do your customers ever use real ones?”

He shrugs his linebacker shoulders. “Don’t know. Don’t care.”

I write Beth’s full name across the top of the paper, dredging up a middle name on the spot—Louise, a character from some book I just read. I give Beth two extra years, born on February 20, 1983. She’s my height, five foot eight, but I tack on a few pounds. The best way to hide in plain sight, I’ve decided, is to put some more meat on my bones with a strict pizza, doughnut, hamburger and french fry diet. Her address is the one for Morgan House.

I hand the paper back to Jorge, and he holds out a meaty palm.

“Three-fifty, right?”

He grunts. “Funny.”

---