by C. S. Starr
Connor’s nostrils flared. “I didn’t have to tell her anything.”
It was all Tal could do to retain his calm facade and remember that it wasn’t smart to go to war without a plan.
Nothing was said for the next twenty minutes as both men seethed.
“I won’t again, with her,” Connor muttered. “Since it obviously bothers you.”
“You’re fucking right, you won’t,” Tal muttered.
“Do you remember when we were kids and we used to play Lego in your basement?” Connor asked thoughtfully. “And everything you made was perfect and orderly with the right colored blocks, and everything I made was so tall it almost fell over?”
Tal nodded.
“It’s why we’re a good pair. Vision and order.”
“I certainly wouldn’t be arming the Nevada border.”
“What would you do?”
Tal thought about it. “I’d see what they wanted.”
“And if it wasn’t what you wanted?”
“I’d try and understand why, and learn something from it.”
“And that’s why you’re not the vision guy.”
“Vision will only take you so far—”
“It’s taken us both very far,” Connor boasted as he pulled into the empty theatre parking lot. “Things could have turned out very differently.”
They both knew exactly what he was getting at. It had been the reason Tal had put aside his feelings for a long time. The reason he felt indebted to a man who he was sure his friendship would have otherwise naturally run its course with way before they made it out of junior high school. Connor had saved his life; literally pulled him off the ledge. Tal had paid his debt, however, through the unnecessary blood he’d spilled in Missouri, and a hundred times before that.
“But they didn’t.”
“No,” Connor shook his head and gave him a knowing look. “They didn’t.”
Fixing the projector took about an hour. Wordlessly, the two boys worked together to clean each piece before reassembling it, and doing a quick test run with the closest reel they could find.
Gladiator.
“This was a kickass movie,” Connor noted. “Epic.”
Tal nodded in agreement. “Yep. We’ve never made anything that good.”
“Yet, my friend,” Connor said, with a determined grin. “We’re not even twenty-five and we’ve made what? Two hundred movies? That’s pretty impressive.”
“We’ve got the market cornered,” Tal agreed.
“No one’s even tried to compete.”
Connor dropped Tal off around three and he spent the afternoon stretched out on the couch in his dad’s old office, trying to decide what his next steps were. He knew he wanted to call Lucy. He wasn’t sure it was the best plan of action for any number of reasons, the most important being how she’d react to what he’d figured out the night before. He didn’t have any proof though, he realized. Instead of calling her right away, he decided to head upstairs to take a nap, in the hopes of waking up with a little clarity.
Clarity was not what he got when he woke up with Leah curled up beside him on top of the blankets.
“Are you going to forgive me?” she asked when he opened his eyes. “You’ve been avoiding me all day.”
“I’m not mad at you, exactly. I’m disappointed,” he grumbled, moving away from her. “You made things more complicated.”
Her lip wobbled and she swallowed hard. “I…that week, I wasn’t myself. I’d take it all back, if I could.”
“Well, you can’t. What’s done is done,” he said, more gently than before. “And we move on.”
He wanted to trust Leah. He wanted to think that everything they’d struggled through together necessitated that very basic truth. But he wasn’t sure he could. There was no way she knew that Connor had plotted his kidnapping, but he wasn’t sure if it came down to risking it all for Tal or saving herself who she’d choose.
She’d have to prove herself, he just wasn’t sure how.
“Do you want dinner?” she asked carefully, giving him his space on the bed. “I’ll make something.”
It was too early to go, but he didn’t want to stay and say something he’d regret, and he wanted the walk to clear his head. “I’m going over to Juan’s house. I’m going to take them something.” He sat up. “I’ll be back later.”
“Is that where you went last night?”
“Yep,” he replied, wishing desperately that he could trust this person he’d gone through everything with. “She’s a nice girl.”
“Oh,” she said curtly, her expression blank. “Well, have a nice night, I guess.”
When Tal arrived with pizza from the place in the old farmer’s market, he was surprised to see that he wasn’t Rika’s only visitor. Her driveway was packed with five classic cars and a few motorcycles.
Once he saw the type of cars in the driveway, he wasn’t surprised to see who was inside. He’d met a few of Juan’s cousins over the years, usually when they were trying to shake him and Connor down for free movies to play at one of their theatres. Most of them had gotten very rich off their backs.
“It’s the Jew,” a big kid said, flashing an artificial smile Tal’s way from the couch. “You got taller.”
“Cutty, shut up,” Rika hissed, glaring at him, before smiling at Tal. “I wasn’t expecting you for a while. It’s poker night here, and you’re welcome because you have pizza and that just happens to be the cost of admission. Our standards are very low.”
Tal’s attention was drawn to the table set up in the middle of the living room where the rest of her guests sat. “Oh.”
“Juan wouldn’t have wanted us to stop playing because he wasn’t here. Wherever he is, he’s probably happy he’s not able to lose his grocery money anymore,” a smaller kid, maybe about fifteen said, sadness behind his eyes. “You play?”
Tal had no idea how to play. Still, in the interests of fitting in where he didn’t, he took a seat.
“Sure. I’ll play,” he said, settling into a folding chair to Rika’s right.
He hadn’t meant to wipe the floor with the extended Vargas family, but to everyone’s surprise, most of all Tal’s, he had a natural affinity for poker. When he handed Rika the proceeds, his stock rose considerably.
“Did you tell them?” he asked her when they were alone in the kitchen on a beer run.
She shook her head thoughtfully. “The fallout from that might not be the desired effect I’d like to see quite yet.”
“We may need them.”
She nodded. “And we’ll have them if we do. They don’t need to know the details of when we figured it out. My people are better.”
“You’ve worked something out?”
She nodded, a sly smile on her face. “We’ll talk after they leave.”
Somewhere between the time Tal arrived and the time a rather slovenly crew of drunk Mexicans sauntered out of her house, Rika managed to successfully put her seven- and two-year-old children to bed, sort the Vargas cousins into cars with drivers that weren’t as drunk as their passengers, and dispose of all the garbage from their evening. Her command over her household duties was indicative of her impressive overall abilities, Tal determined. He decided it was wise that he’d opted to tie his fate to hers, even though he hadn’t seen other parts of her skill set yet.
She sat on the couch and lit up a cigarette. “I only smoke two a day. One in the morning and one in the evening.”
“Why?”
“Because my parents would hate it. Did Juan ever tell you about how I got pregnant with kid number one?”
Tal shook his head, fairly certain there was only one way that happened. “No.”
“It was my first time. Our first time. We waited a while; longer than most. I insisted, because, well, I didn’t want to get pregnant, and then I got pregnant.”
He remembered when Juan had told him he was going to be a father. He’d dented Connor’s SUV with his foot. “Oh.”
&
nbsp; “The point is, you can wait until something’s perfect, but chances are whenever it happens, you’ll be able to make the best of it. I think we go to Vegas.”
Tal scoffed at her suggestion. “What would we do with Vegas? Those kids are assholes.”
“If they know they have support here, they won’t back down. While he’s dealing with their shit, we gather support here, and by the time he’s aware it’ll be too late for him to do anything about it. I have friends that can kill phones and cut power to the city and make it seem like his fault—so people turn against him. Then we step in, turn the power back on and we’re the shit.” She smiled and exhaled. “Then, I will kill him.”
He had to admit, it wasn’t a bad plan to start. “You will kill him?”
“I’m a twenty-one-year-old widow with two kids. I’m angry about this. I think it would make me feel better.” She swished her wine. “Or you can kill him, but I want a say in how it goes down.”
“I have to call Campbell and tell them. They’re going to war with East thinking they grabbed Lucy. She could have died. If it’s not on East, they shouldn’t be warring with them. They wouldn’t be.”
“Call them then. Don’t let them tell you what to do though.”
“Okay?” He looked at her curiously.
“You’re in love with her. The Campbell girl.” She smiled mischievously. “I know that look. It’s the ‘what the fuck am I thinking, but yeah, I’m in love with her’ look. When I was an awkward bony thirteen year old with an affinity for acid and a bob that grew out to look like a too-long mushroom cut, Juan used to live with that look on his face. Don’t let her manipulate you.”
He shook his head and frowned. “I don’t really know her.”
Her eyes twinkled. “Sometimes, you know just enough. Anyway, I hear she’s gay, so you probably don’t have a shot, but don’t let how you feel be your weakness, that’s all. I’m not going to let you get in the way of me getting my revenge.”
“How do you know about her?”
“I don’t live under a rock. I’ve got cousins in Vancouver. Everyone knows about her.” She reached over the arm of the couch and grabbed an old rotary phone. “Go ahead. Call.”
“What do I say?”
“Whatever’s not going to end with them showing up here with a misfit army from the north. They’re not much of a military force, are they? More resources?”
“I have no idea,” Tal admitted. “We didn’t do our research.”
“I bet Connor did,” she muttered. “He’s smarter than he looks.”
Tal felt the blood drain from his face. He’d assumed they were naive about Campbell together.
It was time for him to stop making assumptions.
The number at Lucy’s house rang and rang, and finally, as Tal was about to hang up, a breathy voice answered.
“Yeah?”
Zoey. Tal tried not to imagine what he’d interrupted.
“Is Lucy there?”
The voice on the other end exhaled loudly. “She’s not taking calls—”
“Zoey, I need to talk to her,” Tal said firmly. “It’s important.”
Rika gave him the thumbs up.
“Talk to Bull,” she muttered, handing the phone over.
“Who’s this?” was the not so friendly response Tal got.
“Tal Bau—”
“Tal is enough,” he muttered. “Listen, we’ve kind of got our hands full here at the moment—”
“I…we have a theory. My…friend and I.”
“What do you want? A fucking prize? Bauman, we’re—”
A female voice in the distance told Bull to fuck off. If Tal had to guess, it was his sister. Bull sighed, and a door closed behind him. “Go.”
“Why do you have your hands full?”
“Why don’t you tell me what I need to know first.” A chair creaked. “Seriously. Tell me so I can get back.”
“Where’s Lucy?”
“Didn’t you call to tell me something?” Bull grumbled.
“I called to tell Lucy something—“
“She’s unavailable.”
“What does that—”
“Her brother is dead. And not in that nice, dying in your sleep sort of way we all aspire to. What do you need to say?”
Tal felt nauseous as his words sunk in. “What? He’s—”
“Yeah. He is. No body, but pictures. Pictures she never should have seen. What do you want?”
“I think Connor was responsible for having us kidnapped.”
Bull paused. “You think or you know?”
Tal sighed. “How would I ever know?”
“Andrew Campbell just burned down half of Washington and the White House this morning. Unless you know, we’re balls deep into a war here, and we can’t really go on assumptions,” he said, his tone low. “Call back when you know—”
“How will I know?”
Bull sighed and the line went quiet. “Jesus. That’s a pretty heavy accusation to make without proof.”
“He has everything to gain from you at war with East. He’s in trouble.”
More silence. “I’m planning to come down and finalize Seattle with the kids there. Can we meet?” Bull asked.
“When? Where?” Tal asked. “Can you come here?”
“Next Friday is the earliest. Gather any evidence you have. We’ve already started with East. We don’t have the resources for two—”
“I’ve got resources,” Tal said confidently. “You’ll come here?”
That got him another thumbs up from Rika.
“Yeah,” he grumbled. “What’s your address?”
Tal quickly gave it to him and hung up. “I guess he’s coming, but he says we need evidence.”
“Who?”
“Lucy’s second, Bull. Her brother is dead.” Tal exhaled and rubbed his forehead. He hadn’t known Cole well, but as his mind processed what he’d learned minutes earlier, he felt awful. Losing his own brothers had affected him greatly, but he couldn’t imagine having it happen in such a jarring, awful way. He thought about what Lucy was doing and he had a hard time wrapping his head around what her reaction might have been. He wasn’t sure if it would break her or make her even angrier. “I guess East was tired of waiting for them to disband.”
“That was their demand? For one person, give up everything? That’s a little unrealistic.”
It was, Tal thought to himself. “They burned Washington, or something,” he muttered. “Her other brother is crazy.”
“It’s on now, I guess,” Rika said. “Shame it came to that.”
“You’ve heard what East is like. They don’t exactly negotiate.”
Everyone knew the stories of East’s barbaric behavior. Tal had always thought West above that until faced with the reality of his best friend Benedict Arnold-ing him.
Tal decided that Bull’s visit was a good chance to test Leah’s loyalty, since he had no intentions of telling Connor about the visit. He waited a few days, while he carefully monitored her before he told her that someone from Campbell was coming, and much to his relief, she was enthused at the prospect of helping out however she could once he revealed parts of his plan with Rika to her.
He talked with Lucy’s second when he was in Seattle and agreed that Bull would drive down, but park up the road and walk in to escape detection. He would stay with Leah and Tal while they met and finalized the terms of their alliance. It was all very covert and well organized.
As was the trend in Tal’s life, nothing went according to plan.
Chapter 20
December 2002
Calgary, Campbell
Lucy pulled her coat around her and leaned against Cole in an attempt to hide from the wind, as Bull’s cousins tossed the barely thawed dirt over tiny Ruben’s body. Cara clutched Chloe, a year and a half, to her chest to Lucy’s left.
He’d been fine one day, with just a little cough. Two weeks later, he was dead. Three was too young to die.
Lucy squee
zed her eyes shut to keep from weeping, as a girl she didn’t know sang Amazing Grace with a lot of the wrong words.
Cole wrapped his arm tightly around her shoulders. “You know how lucky we are?” he whispered in her ear as they headed into the church near the house Bull grew up in. “That we didn’t have anyone to lose?”
“And we didn’t lose each other?” Lucy whispered back. “I think about that a lot.”
“Sometimes, I think it’s Mom,” he whispered. “I think Mom did all of this.”
“So we could start again?” Lucy loved that so often their thoughts fit together perfectly. “Me too.”
When they were in Calgary, they stayed in a house across the street from the house Bull had taken over. It was a new build, barely lived in before its double-income, no-kids owners had kicked it over a year earlier.
Andrew left hours after they arrived, headed north to meet up with some girl he’d met in Edmonton earlier in the year. Lucy’s feelings about her older brother had been conflicted since his return. In a lot of ways, he was the same as he’d been before they’d been sent to live with their grandfather, but in others, he was a different person entirely. He was colder, more ruthless, and that, combined with his existing giving-no fucks-attitude, scared Lucy and Cole at times.
“How long is he gone—”
“Couple of weeks, hopefully,” Lucy whispered to her brother.
“Good,” he nodded, exhaling loudly.
They talked about Andrew a lot, her and Cole, whispering late into the night when he’d fight someone on their porch, or a girl would leave their house, wide-eye and afraid. Neither twin was quite sure how to handle him, because their irritation with him was juxtaposed with gratitude for what he’d done for them in their earlier lives. The twins knew that the more they progressed, the harder it was going to be to control him. Andrew liked power. Still though, he was their brother and Lucy knew he’d kill for her, and that meant something.
Dinner was at Bull’s that night; a feast prepared by Paul and a couple of Bull’s schoolmates from a buck they’d brought down a few nights earlier.
Lucy had just tucked into a piece of Cara’s apple cake in the kitchen when she overheard a conversation in the living room that set the hair on her arms on end.
