by G M Eppers
Butte had watched my exploration with a mystified expression on his face. “This is what?”
I smiled at him. “This is where I decked you.”
“Seriously?” He grabbed my hand and led me away. “Got news for you. I’m not Leo and you’re not Kate, and Heathrow is about as far from the Titanic as you can get.” I hadn’t really expected he would get my thickly veiled reference to the dopiest scene in cinematic history. Aside from the fact that there was no Rose and no Jack and no diamond, it wasn’t even a good romance. No one would get sentimental about a piece of decking that is about to slip under water with them still on it.
“Not really,” I found myself saying. Ex-history teacher, you know. “The wreckage was found in the North Atlantic only about two thousand miles from London. And artifacts from the ship have toured London at least a couple of times.”
“I think I remember why we parted company.” He kept hold of my hand so I couldn’t stop walking again, but he didn’t try to rush me through the airport. He took shorter steps to keep pace with my relative lack of stride.
“Because I kicked your apathetic butt out on the street,” I replied, keeping my tone as light as possible to soften the insult, as we exited through a revolving door near the baggage claim carousels to find a limo waiting for us. “Seriously?” I asked.
“I called for a car while we were on the plane. How are we supposed to get to South Bank?”
“This isn’t a car, it’s a limousine.”
“Would you believe it’s all they had available?”
“No.” He probably wasn’t going to mention that it was because he called a limo company and not a car rental place. Most likely he had it on speed dial on his phone, too.
We slid into the rear seats, he used a car phone with a coiled cord to speak to the driver, and we were on our way. “Besides, even with what I pay them, it’s cheaper than a cab, which would get us there via Scotland and we don’t have time for that.” It was nearly full dark already. I wasn’t expecting to actually get on the Eye at this hour, and was kind of looking forward to the look of failure on Butte’s face. I was so used to being disappointed trying to ride The Eye that there was no real expectation left. The way he seemed able to get everything he wanted was a bit upsetting. Did he have no obstacles in his life anymore?
As it turned out, he apparently didn’t. He walked up to the ticket window and spoke to the attendant as if he was an old friend. “Sam, you ready for us?” I’m not sure if it was the same attendant that had rolled down the shade on us before, but it could have been. Perhaps if I’d known his name was Sam, we would have had different results.
“Car 20 is on the way down, sir.” Behind us a small queue had formed. There was a Latin American family already loaded down with bulky souvenirs. The father was wearing a replica of a palace guard bearskin hat. The hats, originally genuine bearskin, had recently been replaced with faux fur in the interest of conservation, making his replica a faux faux fur hat. A teenage son was carrying a badly made stuffed Big Ben nearly as tall as himself, and a younger son clutched a Union Jack. The top of the short pole seemed a little too pointy for his age range, and I feared for his brother’s eyeballs. The plump mother had both hands around the handles of a large paper shopping bag that crinkled every time she shifted her weight. They all had goofy smiles and jabbered away in rapid Spanish. Behind them was a gaggle of teenage girls, all blonde, carrying open beer bottles and swaying into each other while standing still. I didn’t care. I was going to finally ride the Eye and it didn’t matter to me if I had to do it with Charlie Manson and Ted Bundy.
The Eye doesn’t actually stop. Its movement is so slow that there is plenty of time for passengers to disembark at one end of the platform and new ones to board on the other. It was about a five minute wait for car 20 and we watched as about a dozen people got out of it. We walked in as it came toward us and it felt surreal. I was walking onto the London Eye! The cabin was very large, with an oval wooden bench in the middle, and panes of crystal clear glass all around the front and sides framed by gently curving silver muntins. The door closed behind us and we were alone in the car. “Oh my God, Butte. A private car?”
“My expense account is very generous. All I have to say is that you are still considering the offer of joining WHEY. So, tell me you’re still thinking about it.” He shrugged. “Just to make it official. You don’t even have to mean it.”
“Okay. I guess. I’m still thinking about it.” Of course, I wasn’t. Not at all. But if it prevented Butte from getting in trouble with his accountants, I was perfectly willing to say otherwise. I may not agree with everything Butte did, but that didn’t mean I wanted him fined, or arrested, or whatever they did to people who abused their expense account privileges. He’s an experienced protester, after all. He just might protest against their protesting about his going over budget.
He sat on the bench, watching me, softly singing ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ to give my experience a soundtrack. It was a capella, without anyone to sing harmony, but still nicely done. He knew it was one of my favorite songs. Stepping over the threshold had felt surreal. Walking the perimeter of the large oval, looking out at all angles as slowly, slowly, the ground fell away felt even moreso. I was so used to flying, in which the ground rushed away and the separation between the Earth and me took only a minute. This was different. This was like living in slow motion. My heart was pounding as London in all its lighted glory was laid out below me, one street at a time. I smooshed my face against the glass like a kid in a candy store. I couldn’t help myself. The Thames flowed quietly and darkly under the Jubilee Bridges and Westminster Bridge. I could see Big Ben, but not well enough to see the time. And just beyond that, Westminster Abbey. Walking to the other side, I could see the distinctive shape of the Gherkin, and St. Paul’s Cathedral. But that was about it for the London landmarks I could recognize by name, especially in the dark. I continued looking anyway. As amazing as London at night was, I already wanted to come back in the daytime. But without Master Butte to get me on board, did I have the slightest chance? I think it comes from being on the short side, this fascination with heights. I remembered sitting on about five phone books to eat dinner, and having to use booster seats in restaurants and movie theaters, always feeling like I was missing something. But here, well over 400 feet above the surface of the Earth, what could I possibly be missing?
As we neared the top, I finally joined Butte on the central bench. The view was breathtaking, and I was getting light-headed. “Thank you, Butte. This is magnificent. I could stay up here for the rest of my life.”
“No you couldn’t.”
“I absolutely could!”
“No restrooms, sweetheart. Besides, the ride’s only half an hour.”
“Spoil sport.”
“Listen, let’s be honest,” he said. “I know you aren’t really considering joining me. But something isn’t right here. It’s been two days now and you haven’t been in touch with Miss Chiff or your team. You don’t even seem worried about supposedly missing your flight, if you ever had one. I know they can’t fire you again, but it’s not like you to not report in, even if it’s just a formality for termination. You’re AWOL. I haven’t seen you rebel like this since our wedding night.”
I stared at him. Not like me? How would he know? We’d barely spoken in the several years between the divorce and our recent meeting on The Mall in Washington D.C. Maybe he was guessing. Extrapolating from what he remembered about me. But me as a teacher and me as a coordinator for CURDS, to me, seemed like two different people. Or could it be that while he’d been silent, he actually had been watching my career? No. Not Butte. The only thing he had watched during our marriage was ESPN.
The entire wedding, day and night, burst into my head at the sound of his statement and I found myself inching closer to Butte to speak confidentially as if we were in a crowded room instead of alone in a Ferris wheel car 443 feet in the air. “Hey, not only did your best ma
n catch the bouquet, he also misspelled the car banner. We drove all the way to the airport with people thinking we were ‘Just Marred!’” We had thought the cars were honking at us in celebration. We waved out the window as people passed us with big grins on their faces. It was only after we got the luggage out of the trunk that I noticed the error. And what was even worse was that it was memorialized in the wedding video as we drove away from the church. Except that, come to think of it, I didn’t exactly remember where the DVD was right then. Probably in a box in my closet. I should probably find it one of these days and snap it in half.
“Was that a good reason to tell the bellboy that I was your brother? He knew we had the Honeymoon Suite. He assumed we had to be from Alabama and had the chef send up complimentary collard greens and grits. And instead of champagne we got a jug of moonshine whiskey.” He inched a little away from me in disgust. “Worst meal I’ve ever had.”
I leaned in. “You didn’t have to have seconds.”
We looked each other in the eye and broke out laughing. I laughed until my cheeks hurt. “Oh, that poor bellboy,” Butte said. “You went and told him your ‘Daddy was a-comin’ with a shotgun to rescue his little girl.’ He was terrified! He almost called the police, you remember.”
“Well, as I recall, we gave him a huge tip.”
“We did. What we should have given him was an apology. I think we forgot to explain”
Somehow, at that point, our faces had gotten very close together. I could smell his Spanish Leather aftershave and it was now associated with the night in Prague. Even though the aftershave had come after the sex, sometimes association gives up on chronology and I found myself reacting again. It must have been mutual, because Butte was puckering up. In my mind, I was even toying with the idea of getting back together with him. I’d kicked him out for apathy, but he now appeared to care about Billings and me more than ever. All that was left was the WHEY, and was that so impossible to overcome? Republicans have married Democrats, Green Bay Packer fans have married Chicago Bears fans, and Christians have married Jews. Were CURDS and WHEY all that different? But just as Butte was about to kiss me, I pulled back. “That’s not what I’m here for,” I told myself. Unfortunately, I forgot not to say it out loud.
“It’s not? What ARE you here for?” He straightened, the mood broken. “You weren’t actually fired, were you? Out with it, Helena. Enough is enough.”
That was when his phone rang. He lifted it from his shirt pocket. “We’re not done,” he said with a pointed look at me. He tapped the screen. “Butte here.” He listened. “What? Are you--? Meet us at the Eye. Now.” He broke the connection and dialed another number. “Sam, get us down from here, ASAP.”
“Sorry, Butte. This thing doesn’t have a fast forward button. You got about ten minutes.”
“I called my car. If it’s not there when we get down, I’ll have your head on a spike.” He ended the call and put the phone back in his shirt pocket, staring straight ahead and taking deep breaths.
“Butte! What is it?” He was scaring me.
It was hard to believe we’d been laughing hysterically only a moment ago. His expression had gone dark, just like Billings’ had when he had returned from the meeting at Starbucks. Smoldering. Vengeful. He didn’t look at me as he spoke. “Billings is missing.”
Chapter Five
Butte’s sentence had been really short. Only three words. But by the time he’d finished it I had my phone out and turned on, without even a second thought to Miss Chiff’s warnings. I had twenty-four missed calls and sixteen texts. My team had been trying to call me like mad for hours and hours. I ignored the texts for now and tapped on the first call, which had been from Sylvia. The first ring hadn’t even finished before she answered. It was an hour later there, making it nearly ten o’clock in Kutna Hora. Butte was watching me as I spoke and I punched the speaker button. “Sylvia, I know Billings is missing. What can you tell me?”
“Where the hell have you been? We’ve been trying to call you for almost six hours!” I could hear the others in the background. Their voices faded in and out. She was pacing. “Don’t you ever turn off your phone on us.”
I could have admonished her for daring to give me an order, but I didn’t. I could tell she was upset and it wasn’t important. “I was ordered to,” I said, but I don’t think she heard me. “Consider me on my way to you, but tell me what happened. By the book, Sylvia.”
There was a pause. “By the book?”
“Yes.”
Butte was literally on the edge of the seat and I was still standing. We’d be jumping out of the car the second the door opened, even if we were ten feet off the ground. If I’d been Butte’s size, I’d be at the door now trying to pry it open. I was glad I was talking to Sylvia. She was the most level-headed of the group and would be able to give me a coherent report. But before Sylvia could answer, another voice came on the line. “Billings was kidnapped!” shouted Avis, who had evidently grabbed the phone away from Sylvia. She was almost hysterical and in tears.
Sylvia grabbed it back immediately. “Let me do the talking. You’re distraught. She doesn’t need hysterics right now.”
“We have to DO something!”
“We WILL!” said Sylvia. “Helena, you still there?”
“Yes. I’m gluing this thing to my ear as we speak. Now talk to me.”
“Nitro finished his paint-by-number project.” Butte gave me a confused expression and I could tell he wanted to grab the phone out of my hand. I backed away from him and shook my head, listening intently. “It was a picture of the Old North Church. A lot of brown, which was number eleven. And the twins played Bingo in the common room last night. They won four corners with B1, B14, O64 and O73. And this morning, Sir Haughty found a wonderful program about butterflies on channel 9.” She paused. “Did you get all that?”
“I think so. Sit tight. I’ll get there as soon as I can.” I broke the call, but left the phone on, Miss Chiff’s orders or not. She could ping me if she wanted. She could fire me if she wanted. I wasn’t going on radio silence anymore.
“What was that?”
I was a bit calmer now. Sylvia had just given me a wealth of information. I was still afraid for Billings, but at least now I knew what they knew. “Communications are compromised. Billings was taken, which means his cell phone was taken. So no uncoded messages over an open network.”
“That was some code.”
I wasn’t allowed to share the code with him, of course. It involved historical connections and a numerological translation. Instead, I simply told him what I’d gotten out of it. “Billings disappeared about three o’clock this afternoon. There’s been no communication with the kidnappers and no demands as of yet. He was last seen from the lobby of the hotel by the desk clerk who witnessed him being forced into the back of a brown panel truck. She was unable to see the license plate, and surveillance cameras in the area were compromised, so there’s not much to go on.”
“Okay, I can see where you got some of that, but not all of it.”
“It’s not what you think.” For example, I didn’t get the brown panel truck from the color brown in the paint-by-number. The code for that was in the Bingo numbers. The color brown in the paint-by-number meant something else entirely. Put a red herring in your code now and then and it stays usable much longer. It’s a pain in the butt to keep changing codes. “And I have a confession to make.” I hadn’t planned on telling him, but this was a unique situation. “I wasn’t actually fired.”
“I was beginning to suspect that. I—“
I interrupted him. I needed to finish before the car hit ground level. It seemed like it would be eons, but I knew that was only an illusion. “Miss Chiff sent me. I was supposed to find out about WHEY and about your job, and try to determine if you or someone in WHEY could be the Meatball Bomber. But I’ve learned everything I need to know. The fact that they took Billings clears you. Clears WHEY. They know he’s your son. No self-respecting member
of a terrorist organization would endanger a close relative of their superiors.”
“Terrorist organization!?” Butte responded, obviously offended.
“Calm down. I just said that’s not what you are.”
“But you thought we could be. That’s insane.”
“In any case, treating your son like this would have been like screwing with the Mafia. I’m sorry, Butte. I’ve been lying to you this whole time…well, not the WHOLE time,” I corrected myself, remembering the night in Prague. That wasn’t a lie. That was the alcohol. “It’s all been a waste of my time and now Billings might –“ I couldn’t say it. I let the sentence end there.
Butte looked up at me. “I have a confession, too.”
The words came at me from my emotional fog and I turned my attention to Butte. I don’t know what I expected to hear. Whatever it was, I probably couldn’t absorb it. Butte stood. The doorway would be cycling open in less than a couple of minutes. My gaze went from down to up, following him like a hypnosis patient follows the metallic pen.
“I was also sent to be with you. My bosses gave me the expense account and told me to do whatever it took. The sky’s the limit, they said. Find out if CURDS was behind the bombings.”
“So you thought WE were a terrorist organization. This is just beautiful.”
“Yes, I guess you’re right about that. And we know about the other bombings. We just don’t know why. They were speculating that CURDS was going for a little self-fulfillment. Creating their own business. I was supposed to find out if you were the Meatball Bomber. I had my choice, actually. I could try wooing you or Miss Chiff to find out. I chose you.”
