Prodigal Son

by Gregg Hurwitz

  Declan’s arm started to shake. His face hardened in the harsh light, a visage carved from stone, all bony points and severe lines of facial hair.

  He took a step forward. A strangled noise escaped him. “Stop,” he said, his voice suddenly less secure, higher-pitched.

  “She knew exactly what was happening to her,” Evan said. “She had time to think about it before she bled out.”

  Declan’s lips peeled back from his teeth, the bared grimace of a wolf. He started for Evan. One more step. And then another.

  His polished loafer set down once more, and a clack sounded from the earth.

  He froze. Looked down.

  Evan said, “Land mine.”

  Declan shook the gun at Evan, his neck corded with rage. “Get your ass over here.”

  “No thanks.”

  “I’ll kill you. I’ll fucking end you right here.”

  Evan realized he was stooped over in pain and with effort drew himself upright. “Naw,” he said. “The recoil from the pistol will set off the charge. Can’t kill me without killing yourself.”

  Declan was quivering now, his whole body shuddering. Evan could see him bearing down, trying to control his muscles. “If I’m gonna die anyway, might as well take you with me.”

  Evan said, “That would require you not being a coward.”

  Declan lined the sights on Evan’s face. For a moment they were perfectly still, regarding each other across a moonlit stretch of scrub. Then Declan screamed, mouth stretched wide, dried spit linking his jaws. It was the purest howl of rage Evan had heard. And terror.

  Evan staggered to the Civic and lowered himself painfully into the driver’s seat. The car was still running, a minor miracle, though the windows were shattered, the bumper missing, and the tire screeched against the well when he turned the wheel.

  He studied the ground before the headlights for more land mines, then let the car crawl forward.

  He drove right past Declan, not even bothering to look over, though in his peripheral vision he could sense the gun swinging to stay aimed at his head.

  The car bounced geriatrically up onto the road.

  He drove away, the Civic wheezing and groaning. He just had to make the meet point and reclaim his truck.

  Blinking through blood and sweat and grime, he tried to steady his hands on the wheel.

  He got about a quarter mile before the boom shook what was left of the rear windshield.

  69

  The Love You Deserve

  After dragging himself to the meet point, switching to his truck, and driving home, Evan slept on and off for thirty-six hours, a blissful block of hibernation in his floating bed.

  Before parting ways with the others at the target range, he’d tasked Joey with contacting Andre and Veronica to inform them that they were safe so he could collapse and begin to heal. He’d tried to thank Candy, but she’d kissed him on the mouth, surprising him with her tongue. Before he could react, she’d climbed into her Jeep and vanished once more. The kiss had left him a bit breathless, but he told himself it was just from his injuries.

  On Tuesday night he roused himself for good.

  Cleaning and stitching himself up took longer than he would have thought, dozens of tiny injuries slowing his progress to an arthritic crawl.

  He made his way downstairs, fortunately dodging any Castle Heights residents, and drove into Westwood Village. He pulled over at a drugstore and wincingly walked the aisles, finding the pet section. A dog bowl decorated with skulls and crossbones caught his eye.

  He paid and exited.

  En route to the truck, he passed through the scents of the college town—French roast and hookah pipes and gyro meat wafting from doorways.

  Halfway up the block, he spotted a young man sitting on a park bench with a college girl lying beside him, her head resting on his thigh, blond hair spilled across his lap.

  He did a double take at the kid.

  Bridger Bickley, aka “Bicks.”

  Evan stopped, facing them, his shadow falling across Bridger’s face.

  Bridger started at the sight of Evan, the girl uncoiling from his lap and rising. Evan wondered if she was Sloane of karaoke-filibuster fame.

  Evan said to her, “Can you please give us a moment?”

  She looked to Bridger, who gazed back at her fearfully. That was enough for Sloane, who rose and hightailed it away, her leather saddlebag knocking against her hip.

  Bridger’s hands lifted, palms exposed. “You gonna threaten me?”

  Evan said, “No.”

  “She was just young,” Bridger said. “Joey. And really smart. It’s hard to date a chick who’s the smartest one in the room, you know. And … I dunno, kinda too tough.”

  Evan said, “Too tough for you.”

  Bickley looked at his hands. “I guess, yeah.”

  “So you disappeared. Never called.”

  “It’s not like we were engaged.”

  “True,” Evan said. “But you took your own insecurity and put it on her. That weakens her. And it weakens you. You treat a young woman like that with respect. If nothing else it’ll teach you about yourself, teach you who you want to be whenever you’re ready to be that person. Understand?”

  Bridger gazed up at him, his face glowing yellow beneath the streetlight. “Yeah,” he said.

  Evan turned to walk off.

  “’Scuse me?” Bridger was on his feet behind Evan. “Uh…” He stood, one sneaker on end, grinding the toe into the sidewalk. “Thanks,” he said. “No one’s ever talked to me like that.”

  Evan gave him a nod and kept on.

  * * *

  Standing in her doorway, Joey stared down at the dog bowl in her hands. “What is this?”

  “I’m trying to buy your affection,” Evan said.

  He waited for her to look up, those emerald eyes glowing through the sweep of her bangs. She bit her lip. “I like the skulls and crossbones.”

  She stepped back from her front door, leaving it ajar, as close to an invitation as he ever got.

  “But I don’t know what’s wrong with the Red Vines bowl,” Joey said. “Dog likes it.”

  Over on his plush bolster bed, the Rhodesian ridgeback lifted his head at the mention of his name.

  She walked past him, set down the bowl, and transferred the water from the Red Vines bucket. “There.”

  Dog wagged his tail. Then rolled onto his side, his head flopping clear of the bed, collar tags clinking against the floor.

  Evan watched her staring down at the dog, her arms crossed. She caught him looking. “What?”

  “You don’t have to pretend you don’t like him.”

  “I don’t like him.”

  “Jack had a joke he used to tell.”

  “Oh, great. The only thing worse than Jack telling a joke is you retelling a joke Jack used to tell. It’s like dad humor on steroids.”

  “If you lock your wife and your dog in the trunk of your car for twenty-four hours, when you open it, which one’s happy to see you?”

  A laugh escaped Joey. She covered her mouth with her fingers. “That’s awful. And, like, super sexist.”

  “Same holds for husbands.”

  “Fair enough.” She stared down at Dog, her expression softening. Then she sprawled out on top of him. At a hundred-plus pounds, the ridgeback was sturdy enough to take her weight. His tail thwacked the floor a few times. Joey rose and fell with his ribs.

  “If you lie on him, he growls real low,” she said. “Like a purr.”

  Wincing against his sore muscles, Evan sat down next to them with his back to the wall and listened.

  Sure enough there it was, the faintest purr accompanying each exhalation.

  For a time he and Joey stayed like that, listening to the big boy growl gently with contentment.

  Finally Joey flopped off Dog and rolled to sit next to Evan. Side by side they stared at her little apartment.

  “That’s why you got him for me?” she said. “So I�
�ll always have someone who’s happy to see me when I come home?”

  “Dogs are feedback loops for positive emotion,” Evan said. “They’re happy to see you, which makes you happy. Then you pet them and they’re even happier, which makes you even happier. They…”

  She cocked her head. “What?”

  “Nothing. It’s stupid.”

  She banged a bony elbow into his sore ribs, and he tried to act like it didn’t hurt. “C’mon, X. Spill the tea.”

  He cleared his throat. “They teach you the love you deserve.”

  Her voice was open and curious now, like that of a girl or a young woman—none of the usual teenage testiness. “Why?” she asked.

  “So maybe you can learn how to give that love back,” Evan said. “I’d like you to learn that. I never did. Not the right way.”

  Joey leaned her head on his shoulder.

  “You do okay,” she said.

  70

  Dark Road

  Evan paused on the quaint footbridge, taking a moment to gather himself.

  Veronica had reached him earlier in the afternoon on his cracked-to-hell RoamZone and told him he’d better get to the Bel Air house. She’d beckoned Andre as well.

  She said she wasn’t sure she had much time.

  Barry the movie producer didn’t come home from location, but he’d had the decency to lend her the house for her final stretch. Matías didn’t make the trek either, but he’d sprung for a hospice nurse, a skeletal Hispanic woman who answered the door now. She offered a warm hand, and they shook. “It’s good you’re here,” she said. “You have to understand how it is moving forward.”

  “How is it moving forward?”

  “Think of it this way. Every day her best day was yesterday.”

  Andre was already there, sitting at the kitchen table, staring at the union of his folded hands and doing his best to ignore the rat dogs sniffing at his shoes. He looked good, well rested even, color returning to his face.

  He seemed relieved to see Evan.

  “She’s having a nap.” Andre nodded at the nurse, who was jotting on a medication schedule on the fridge, and lowered his voice. “I think she thinks I’m here to fix the dishwasher.”

  The nurse turned to them. “I’ll take you back now.” She gave Evan a bright smile before turning a skeptical gaze to Andre.

  Andre shook his head as they padded down the hall to the master.

  The giant suite was bright and airy, with glass sliding doors that accordioned open to let onto a terrace. A garden and a swimming pool unfurled beyond, seeming to stretch to the horizon.

  It was shocking how much more Veronica had deteriorated over the past few days. Oxygen tube beneath her nose, skin a sickly yellow, her collarbones and the points of her elbows pronounced.

  Andre hesitated in the doorway, but Evan led him through. Her suitcase and purse rested on an upholstered bench at the foot of the bed, and it occurred to Evan that this was their final stop. A candle flickered in the bathroom, breathing sandalwood into the room. It smelled expensive. Beneath it the faintest trace of lilac.

  The smell of his mother.

  Veronica tried to lift her head but couldn’t, so she rolled it on the pillow to take them in. “You look like hell,” she said to Evan.

  His swollen cheek had taken on an eggplant hue, and he’d left the stapled wound on his forearm exposed to air it out. “You should talk.”

  She gave a dry laugh. “Look at this. My long-lost sons beckoned to my deathbed. All that’s missing is a soap-opera score. And a gin and tonic.”

  “I hear that,” Andre said.

  She blinked a few times, and each time Evan was unsure if her eyes would open again.

  Finally she spoke. “My whole life I told myself that ducking responsibility meant I was taking care of myself.” She lifted an arm trailing wires and took Andre’s hand. “But it’s precisely the opposite.”

  He dipped his head, gave a nod. They stood over her awkwardly.

  “Sit down,” she said. “You’re making me feel like I’m already in the coffin.”

  Evan retrieved chairs from a bistro set on the terrace and brought them over. They sat bedside dutifully. There was so much to take in that didn’t require words.

  Veronica’s blinks grew longer and longer. At last she said, “You spend your whole damn life proving that you’re different from everyone else. What a great relief at the end to find out that you aren’t.”

  She closed her eyes, her breath taking on a rasp.

  Evan and Andre stayed with her another half hour, and then Andre rose and walked out. As Evan returned the chairs to the terrace, he accidentally knocked Veronica’s purse off its perch.

  He crouched to pick up the spilled contents. Her trifold leather wallet had fallen open, an edge of yellowed newsprint showing in the ID window, peeking out from behind her driver’s license. He fished it out.

  LOCAL RIDER CLAIMS TITLE

  Freedom, OK—November 18, 1978

  Jacob Baridon snared his first bull-riding title on the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association circuit this Saturday. His 94-point effort astride El Diablo, the three-time PRCA Saddle Bronc of the Year, was sufficient for victory.

  A grainy photograph showed a handsome man smiling from beneath a Stetson, the front dip of the brim shading his eyes. Jacob. His own middle name, taken from this man.

  Heat found Evan’s cheek, the gash in his arm, pushing its way through him, searching for exits.

  So she hadn’t been joking. A rodeo cowboy.

  His father.

  He couldn’t decide whether it was an amusing cliché or just fucking absurd.

  He decided on both.

  Pocketing the article, he slipped out.

  * * *

  He was pumping gas into the pickup when he got the call. Through the cracked screen of the RoamZone, he saw the hospice nurse’s number.

  He answered, listened, thanked her, and hung up.

  He stood beneath the overhang by the pumps, his mouth suddenly dry. He leaned against the truck, the metal warm and grounding to the touch.

  The door chimed as he entered the mart and headed to the refrigerated beverages in the back. When he tugged open the glass door, a cool waft slid up his front side, and he realized he was sweating. Light-headedness came on, a reminder of his injuries, but then he sensed the twist in his chest and realized it might be something else.

  Grief.

  Resting a hand on the shelf, he leaned in and breathed the cool, sweet air.

  A well-put-together woman in her sixties came up beside him. “You okay, hon?”

  He half turned. “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.”

  But she was already talking over him, and he realized she was on her Bluetooth, carrying on a conversation. She smiled kindly, embarrassed, and mouthed, My daughter, pointing to the phone.

  Evan stepped aside. She reached past him for a Fiji water and withdrew.

  * * *

  Back in the penthouse, Evan paced circles around the island in the kitchen. The poured-concrete countertops looked smudged, and he wiped them down with wet paper towels. Soil had dribbled beneath the living wall, and he got a mop and worked the floor over, but when he was done, the water had dried unevenly on the island, leaving streaks, so he got more paper towels and wiped it again and again, tight circular motions that strained the staples in his forearm. He switched arms and finished and then noticed that the salt and pepper shakers were uneven, so he pushed them to the wall, but then he saw a crumb in the grouting beneath the cabinet and dug at it with his fingernail but couldn’t get it, he couldn’t get it perfect, and he stopped and sat down right on the floor, because nothing was working, everything was out of order, out of control, and he sensed something on his face and touched his fingertips to his cheeks and rubbed the moisture between his thumb and forefinger and stared at it.

  His RoamZone chimed, alerting him to a new e-mail in the defunct account: the.nwhr.man@gmail.com. Sure enough, a fresh unsent draf
t had miraculously appeared, the same semi-secure comms method he used to employ to get mission directives from Jack.

  No sender. No subject line.

  It said, “Request contact.”

  He knew precisely what that meant.

  * * *

  An hour and twenty-three minutes later, Evan was buried deep in the Angeles National Forest at the western end of the San Gabriels. A recent fire had scorched a swath of earth at the base of Mount Gleason, but he’d tucked into a ribbon of luxuriant pines. The needles and sap overlaid the scent of ash with a bracing freshness that made his lungs tingle. Dusk took the edge off the greens and browns of the mountains, softening the panorama into a sepia haze.

  Not that he saw any of it right now.

  He was zipped inside a dark nylon tent that provided no view of the flora or the topography. His recent brush with drone warfare had amped his paranoia up another notch; for the last few desolate miles, he’d pulled a length of chain-link fence behind his truck to cover his tire tracks. His battered RoamZone accommodated a virgin SIM card, and he’d moved the phone service to a company operating out of Punggol. He’d paired the phone with his laptop, hooked into a Yagi directional antenna, an SMA connector, a small omni stubby antenna, and a Blade RF stick. The makeshift GSM base station was a rogue cell site, allowing him access to the LTE network while evading any authentication between him and the nearest cell tower.

  Untraceable.

  He called the familiar phone number.

  A switchboard operator picked up.

  He said, “Dark Road.”

  Then he punched in Extension 32.

  A click as the call was forwarded, and then the phone rang. It kept ringing. He counted to ten. Then to twenty. Told himself he’d hang up if it reached thirty.

  At twenty-eight, the president of the United States answered. “I’m giving you another number enabled for video feed.”

  She paused, but he said nothing. She named ten digits, and he disconnected.

  Pulling up an encoded videotelephony software program on his laptop, he dialed.