are you taking my kids?” Michelle asked, frantic. “Stop! Please! Where are my children?”
They paid no attention to her. It was as if her voice was unhearable. “Get McCourt, goddamn it!” the plainclothes policeman yelled. “We should have two women officers. And what the hell are the state guys doing here? This is our jurisdiction.”
“It’s RICO, baby. Everyone wants in. Even the county’s here.”
“Frankie? Jenna?” Michelle called. “Where are you?”
Someone grabbed Michelle roughly by the shoulder and propelled her down the hallway. No! She wouldn’t. Where were her children? What was happening? She heard another howl from Frank. Trying to hold the blanket around her despite the handcuffs, she also clutched at the banister outside Frankie’s room. There were two cops in there and, as Michelle looked, they began to throw action figures, blocks, and Legos off the counter to the floor, pulling the mattress off the bed, throwing open cabinets. Frankie was being ushered out of the room by a woman police officer.
“Mommy!” he yelled, the tears and snot already mingling on his face. “The bad man let Pookie out.”
“Let’s go,” the officer behind Michelle said, and gave her shoulder a push. “McCourt, stick with her. Johnson can take the kid.”
“No!” Michelle said. She held on to the banister but bent forward to her son. “I take care of the kid,” she said, her voice harsh.
“Not now you won’t,” the voice behind her answered and gave her another, harsher push. Her long hair fell into her face. She lost her hold on the railing and fell to her knees. Her son began to wail. “Frankie, it’s all right,” Michelle said, though it had never been less all right, not ever.
“Johnson!” The woman officer—McCourt, or whoever she was—yelled out in a tough voice down the hall stairs. The sound of glass smashing obscured the response. “Johnson!” McCourt yelled again. Behind McCourt, Jenna was being pushed out of her bedroom, still almost sleepwalking.
“They have Pinkie,” she said. The whole group at Michelle’s back was blocked from moving forward because of her. She couldn’t hold the blanket on, conceal the handcuffs from her children, and grab them all at the same time. She didn’t know what to do. She was still on her knees. She had no idea what was going on. It took all of her willpower not to break into sobs louder than Frankie’s.
“They have Pinkie!” Jenna cried again and as Michelle was pushed past Jenna’s door, she saw a policeman tearing off the back of the stuffed animal, pulling out the kapok, and scattering it. “No! No!” Jenna shrieked, lunging for her rabbit. Someone behind him was beginning the destruction of Jenna’s room.
“Get up,” someone behind Michelle commanded, and she felt herself lifted by her hair. Just then another uniformed woman ran up the stairs, took Michelle’s daughter by the shoulder, and moved her around the banister and onto the stairwell.
“Let’s go,” she said. The policewoman looked up at the screaming Frankie, struggling against McCourt. “I’ll take him, too,” she said, and flashed a look at Michelle. It was a look of compassionate concern, the only human thing about this nightmare. “It’ll be all right,” she said. “It’ll be all right. Tell them to go downstairs,” she told Michelle. “We’ll all come downstairs.”
Michelle, on her feet now but still panicked, nodded automatically. “It’s okay,” she said, though she wasn’t sure if Frankie could hear her—or anything. “It’s okay,” she said to Jenna. “Let’s all go downstairs.”
But it wasn’t okay. Not downstairs or outside, not now or anytime soon. The Russo living room had been transformed in moments from a showplace to a scene from hell. There were more than a dozen men tearing books from the bookshelves, pulling the sofa cushions apart, tearing up the carpet. The desecration was so shocking that Michelle herself shrieked.
Somebody put her into a coat, taking the handcuffs off her to do so, but recuffing her afterward. “Frank!” she yelled. “Frank!” Her Lalique vase was smashed, Frank’s flowers tracked across the floor. “Watch out for the glass,” she called out. “Be careful of the children. They’re barefoot.”
“Get some shoes on them,” someone yelled.
“Pookie! Here Pookie!” Frankie was calling out.
“Frank! Frank!” Michelle screamed again. There was a lot of noise going on overhead and then, faster than she could believe possible, Frank’s bloody face moved past her down the stairs and out the door, surrounded by a coven of police.
“It’ll be okay, Michelle. It’s okay,” Frank called. Behind him the cop who had given her the blanket was again issuing orders.
“Get the kids into a car,” he barked to Johnson. “Get them some warm clothes. We’ll take them over to Child Welfare.”
Michelle’s eyes opened wider. “No! Please!” she said. “Please. I don’t know what this is. But please, can’t I leave the children with my neighbor?”
“Sorry. No.” He turned away. “Get her clothes. Put her in my car. Keep her away from Russo.”
“What is going on?” she managed to scream to him as her children were hustled out the door. “This is against the law. What is going on?” A line from some television show came to her. “I demand my rights!” she screamed.
“Oh Christ.” In a tired voice someone began a drone. “You have the right to remain silent. You have the right …”
This was like a bad television show, Michelle thought, as if she were at the movies, or in some kind of daze, watching the news. It couldn’t be real. But Michelle was read her rights, forced into shoes, and walked out into the cold night air. The children were already gone, but other people, neighbors, were standing staring at her. Her neighbors! The Joyces. The Shribers. And strangers! What was happening?
Flashes went off. Who the hell could be taking pictures? She turned her head toward the garage only to see the lawn furniture strewn around. The driveway was filled with unmarked vans and men dressed in black wearing headsets. Six, maybe more, cruisers and troopers cars were pulled up around the house, their lights flashing. Lights were being turned on in houses farther down the street, and more people were gathering. Michelle even thought she saw Jada. She put her hand up to block the lights and get a better view. But before she could call out to her friend, she felt a hand press on the top of her head and force her into the police car waiting at the side of the curb.
Wherein Jada increases her already heavy workload
Jada sat at her desk, the office door closed. That was unusual: when she had to work Saturday mornings, Jada liked to keep an eye on what was happening on the bank floor. But today her own state of mind was unusual. Last night—well, at 2:10 this morning, to be precise—she had opened her eyes and gone to the window to see her friend’s life being destroyed: police two-tones, unmarked cars, ominous gray vans, all with lights flashing and gun racks, had surrounded Michelle’s house. Jada, shocked, had roughly shook Clinton awake and flung on her coat. She was at the Russos’ gate in time to see both Jenna and Frankie being dragged off by a uniformed woman. When she had shouted out to them, Jenna had managed to look up, but Frankie was way beyond noticing a friendly face.
Jada had turned back to the crowd when the car drove the children away. The other faces around her were anything but friendly. Neighbors from the block and even one street over had assembled. If the night was colder, Jada wondered whether they would have rushed out into it so quickly to share Michelle’s tragedy. Such alacrity, when with advance notice you couldn’t get them out for recycling.
But what the hell was going on? Jada overheard a few nasty murmurs and then some even more unpleasant rumors.