Normally, being bullied and threatened doesn't make me fuzzy with fear, but I wasn't myself. I was barely up to the challenges of breathing and mobility and I was in a situation that called for a level of skill and adroitness few people other than professional negotiators possessed. "Why do you want me and where are you taking me?" I asked, rising slowly to my feet. He didn't answer, only signaled for his men to move closer. Then he pulled a photograph out of his pocket and slapped it down on the table. I didn't have to look. It was what I'd been dreading—a newspaper photo of me, looking like death warmed over, coming out of an emergency room, leaning on Andre's arm. Beside it, he placed another—me in my underwear and spiffy red high tops, standing in a bleak, wet field. Of course, the picture was black and white, so only I knew the shoes were red, that my lips had been blue, that other parts of me were both black and blue. And that then, too, I had been battered by life, faced terrible odds, and was struggling to go on.
