The Kidnapping

I'm on my way to somewhere I shouldn't be going, when the limo pulls alongside me slowly, its shiny black sides catching my eye just enough like a shark catches a deep-sea diver's as it swishes past. Limos are not scarce here, but ones thatstop for me are. The tinted window lowers, and I know it's Lisa instantly. Her hair red like Georgia mud, with a gleaming part in the direct center. Those eyes deep and dead like a doll's and the two front teeth that peek out just below her lips which she has painted the usual oxblood red. I am about to say "Ahoy" when she shouts out: "Get in quick! Quick!" The urgency in her voice is powerful and I find myself sliding in next to her when she opens the door, even though I will be late to my appointment which I ought not to have made. She has a padded envelope in her hand that has already been stamped and addressed. She wears a very short cotton dress, black, with the corseted middle and a halter top. Each her stockings are patterned with running stags. She is barefoot and wearing no jewelry, which is unusual. Her white chest stands out between the straps of her dress like a blank screen. Sweat has gathered in the crease between her breasts, and on her forehead. I start to ask her how she is, where she's going, what she's up to, when she demands, "Give me your phone." I begin to think there's some emergency, that some dire situation has driven her to flagged me down and not any desire or particular affection for me, but I still hesitate. Not the message from the person I am meeting but my wife's texts are what I'm ashamed to hand her. But I do anyway. I feel suddenly that I want her to see the code. 6 0 5 6 6 9 means come now or else. 6 0 5 5 2 8 3 means the phone calls to my wife start. I've been not avoiding her anger, but letting it crystallize and form shards. I want to tell Lisa what the code means. I want to hear her read the numbers aloud in a stern voice. But when she takes the phone, she doesn't even look at it. She stuffs it into the envelope with wads of bubble wrap and seals the opening. "I certainly hope that's addressed to the Department of Homeland Security," I say, "because it contains a detailed terrorist plot by a cell I've been tracking." I like to tell people I am CIA. I like to say the scar on my lip is from the kickback of a colt 45 and not from my having bit myself after coming off a bender and having a seizure. But I know Lisa does the same thing. She says she is a double agent for the anti-Zionist front, for the Communists in Korea, for Al Qaeda, for the Russians. She even fakes very convincingly that she can speak Chinese. Sometimes when a phone rings she pretends it is a signal that places her under remote control. Must kill executive producer Goldberg. Must kill codename BART. Must kill whoever's in the god damn room at the time. But she's terrified of guns.
"It's addressed to your house," Lisa says.
We come up to a mailbox, and she slides it in. Flip. Clunk.
"How dare you. Do you even know what you've done? Do you know what's on that phone?"
"You said you misplaced your wife's mailbox key, so who cares? Have I taken away your porn baby? Have I deposited your very soul in that mailbox? Can't you check the scores elsewhere? Can you not live without your tweets?"
"You're certifiable."