Talion Justice

by Rick Bosworth

O’Neill turned to face me. His eyes were cold. The toothpick danced in his mouth.

  “I told our boy Ryan that I’d be taking that wad of cash in his pocket from tonight’s take, and he got all squirmy and said he needed that money for spring break. Said he was going to the Bahamas.”

  O’Neill changed lanes and checked the rearview mirror.

  “I’ve never been to the fucking Bahamas—you?”

  “Nope.” I pictured Ryan on a tropical beach, strutting around like he owned the island.

  “So I busted the kid up some more and took his stash and his roll.” O’Neill withdrew both from his jacket pocket and tossed them at me.

  “He’s going to break up with Anna, right?”

  “Oh, yeah. Don’t worry about that. He’ll tell her as soon as he’s—feeling better.”

  I did not like the look of the smile on O’Neill’s face. So I asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I was thinking about what we were talking about earlier tonight, Frank. What was it? Tralion justice?”

  “Talion. It’s talion justice.”

  “Yeah, that’s it. Eye for an eye. Code of the streets. So I’m looking at this sack of fuck Ryan, slinging these pills, getting all these kids addicted to this shit. And I’m thinking, that’s no way for these kids to start a life, you know? I mean, in my day we drank, smoked some weed, maybe did a little coke, but this oxy shit will ruin you. And Ryan’s attitude about it all. How he was so much better than all these kids he got hooked. So I thought—”

  “Finn, what’d you do?”

  “Well, like I said, I took his pills.” O’Neill chuckled. “And so did he.”

  “What?”

  “I jammed a handful of his oxys down his throat. Don’t know how many. Don’t care. He was tripping balls when I left him.”

  “Damn it, Finn! That wasn’t part of the plan.” I ran my hand through my hair, scratched the back of my neck.

  “Eye for an eye, Frank. Just like you said.”

  “Is he going to be all right?” I asked. “He’s not going to OD, is he? We’ve already had one tonight.”

  “I don’t know,” O’Neill said, rubbing his stubbled chin. “Don’t think so.” He paused. “I liked the kid better when he was tripping, though,” he said with a smirk.

  And so Ryan Young had his first opiate trip that night at O’Neill’s hand. More followed. By the time he graduated high school, he was hopelessly addicted to opioids like millions of other American kids. Ryan got sloppy. Got behind with his supplier and couldn’t pay his frontage back. The supplier sent muscle after Ryan to collect his debt. Ryan fled Virginia. No one ever heard from him again. Rumor was he graduated to shooting heroin and was shot and killed in a pissant street-level drug dispute somewhere in Florida before he was old enough to legally buy a beer.

  Chapter Thirty

  November 7, 2016

  Kingstowne Lake

  Kingstowne, VA

  I looked at my watch for the third time in five minutes.

  “She’ll be here,” Sarah said.

  Sarah and I sat on a bench at the perimeter of Kingstowne Lake, situated off South Van Dorn Street and Kingstowne Village Parkway just across from Kingstowne Towne Center. The three-quarter-mile path that ran around the lake was popular with local joggers and elderly residents who liked to amble and feed the ducks.

  Sarah asked me how I was feeling, which was code for cancer talk. I told her I felt fine, which at the moment was true. She gave me a quick update on her and Jill Everett’s efforts to find me a treatment facility. The VA was dragging its feet, as was the public health resource in the District. Sarah told me not to worry, they’d find something.

  I wasn’t worried either way. We had agreed that I would seek treatment as soon we wrapped our talion project up. Sarah had made me promise I’d start treatment early in the new year. I’d agreed to go as soon as my benefits were restored, with Nicole and Teddy as beneficiaries. Sarah didn’t like this but came around to it.

  A cancer diagnosis is a funny thing. Like living in a haunted house. Every ache or twinge an ominous noise in the dark. Was that a ghost, or just the house creaking? Just another nosebleed, or the onset of my leukemia? I kept these thoughts to myself.

  We were waiting on this bench for Anna’s mother, Linda Webb. It’d been two days since the clock fell back to standard time, which meant it got dark an hour earlier. It was 5:15 p.m. now, and dusk was settling in. We figured it was best to meet Webb in shadow.

  Anna and Sarah had bonded two nights ago. Sarah and Everett had covered for her at the ER, and her mother Linda had no idea she’d OD’d on oxy. Anna said her mother knew Ryan got her high sometimes, but had no idea how deep her addiction was, and that she would go ballistic if she found out.

  Anna told Sarah that her mother was a duplicitous woman. She snooped in Anna’s room and interrogated her girlfriends. Anna explained that her mother drank on occasion, and the vodka made her mean and violent. These were the nights Anna packed an overnight bag and slept at a girlfriend’s house. Anna said her mother hadn’t always been this way, but had only become a bitch after her father left them.

  “I don’t know, Sarah,” I said. “I don’t feel good about you being here. Quinn and I wanted to keep you out of this.”

  “I’m already in it, Frank.” Sarah patted my leg. “Besides, I’m the one who talked to Anna most of the night before Linda showed up. And the way Anna described her mother, she would never have agreed to meet with a man she didn’t know about something that couldn’t be discussed over the phone.”

  “I don’t know. I can be very persuasive sometimes.”

  Sarah shook her head. “Trust me, this was the only way to get her here.”

  Sarah had called Webb this morning at work and told her she was the one who had found Anna and taken her to the hospital. The cover story Sarah and Anna had agreed to was that she and Ryan had gotten into a car accident, that Anna had briefly lost consciousness and that she had a broken nose and mild concussion but was otherwise okay. Sarah was the good Samaritan who had happened upon the accident and rushed Anna to the hospital. Webb never asked about Ryan.

  Sarah told Webb she had to speak with her tonight about her daughter, that it was important. Webb had got belligerent, demanding Sarah tell her what she had to say over the phone now. Sarah had resisted, and Webb had reluctantly agreed to stop by the lake on her way home. The Webbs’ townhouse was less than a mile away.

  We sat in silence. I watched the ducks gliding around the lake. Sarah fiddled with her phone.

  A squat woman approached us, cigarette hanging from her lips. She walked heavy-footed, stamping her feet against the cement path with the clop-clop of horse trot. Her shoulder-length hair, a mixture of bottle blonde and wiry gray, framed a plump, fleshy face. She wore a pinched expression, like a rat on its hind legs.

  “That’s gotta be her, right?”

  “Yup.” Sarah sighed. “It’s her.”

  Sarah had told Webb at which bench they would meet. She’d failed to tell her about me.

  Webb stopped in front of us. Took a wide stance. Sarah greeted her politely, thanked her for coming. Webb took a long look at Sarah, then at me, then back to Sarah. She took a long final drag off her cigarette, exhaled a plume of smoke, then flicked the butt in a long, wide arc past my head and to the woods beyond.

  Webb pointed a crooked finger at me. “Who’s this?”

  Sarah introduced me as a friend.

  “What he’s doing here?” Webb asked with a sneer. “Did he do something to my daughter?”

  Sarah laughed and said no, but that I had something important to tell her, and that she ought to listen very carefully to what I was about to say.

  Webb squinted at me, then took a step backward.

  “Hello, Linda,” I said with a smile meant to put her at ease. “My name’s Frank.”

  Webb ignored my smile and addressed Sarah. “You lied to me—you bitch! This isn’t about Anna. What the h
ell do you want?”

  I stood. Sarah silently followed my lead.

  “C’mon, Linda, let’s all take a walk.” I gestured towards the walking path.

  It was getting darker and a chill had come into the air.

  “I’m not going anywhere with you.” Webb turned to Sarah. “And fuck you.” Webb began to leave.

  “What’d you spend the money on, Linda?” I called after her.

  Webb spun back around. “What?”

  “The money you embezzled from ODYSSEUS. What did you spend it all on?”

  The color drained from Webb’s face. She blinked rapidly, her squinty eyes widened. Dark eyes swimming in rash pink sclera.

  “You want to take that walk with us now, Linda?” I asked, serving her up the same smile she had refused a moment ago.

  I took a few steps down the path, then looked over my shoulder, still smiling. I waved at her to join me. Webb stood frozen, then slowly shuffled forward. Sarah flanked her. I waited for them to catch up, and we began our sojourn around the lake three abreast.

  I waited her out. Listened to Webb’s breathing increase and become labored. She wheezed under the exertion and stress.

  Webb finally broke the silence. “Who are you? How do you know who I am?”

  “You strike me as a no-nonsense kind of woman, Linda,” I said, ignoring her question. “So let me get right to it. I’ve already done you a great service, and now I simply ask that you return the favor.”

  “What the hell have you done for me?”

  “Has Ryan been in contact with Anna since the night she went to the hospital?”

  Webb stopped in her tracks. She started to speak as a jogger approached. Sarah stood aside to give him room to pass.

  “How do you…” Webb stared at me, incredulous. She took a moment to regroup. “No, as a matter of fact, he hasn’t. He’s not returning any of her calls, either. Ghosting her, she says,” Webb responded in a thin voice.

  Webb pulled out another cigarette, lit up, took a big draw. She held the smoke in her lungs as long as she could, then exhaled. With that done, we started walking again.

  Webb spoke again. “I hate that fucker Ryan! Thinks he’s a little gangster or something. Got my Anna on the wrong path.”

  “Ryan won’t be bothering Anna again,” I said. “He’ll break up with her, and she’ll never see him again. I promise you that.”

  Webb faced me, her mouth agape. I thought her cigarette would fall out. Confusion all over her rat face.

  “I know about your animosity towards Ryan, that you wanted him out of Anna’s life forever,” I continued. “I’ve done that for you.” I looked at Sarah and corrected myself. “We’ve done that. Our favor to you.”

  “Anna’s a great kid,” Sarah interjected. “She’s got a good shot to get her life back on track. But she’s still a teenager, and this is her first major heartbreak. She needs support right now. Do you understand?”

  Webb nodded. She kept on stomping doggedly along the path, her flat sensible shoes slapping the pavement in contrast to Sarah’s graceful, gliding steps.

  “It’s your turn, Linda,” I said. “I need you to tell me all you know about Prisha Baari and Project ODYSSEUS.”

  Webb stopped cold. I motioned for her to keep walking, and she stumbled forward again, more slowly this time. She began to tremble, and took another deep drag on her cigarette before she cleared her throat and began to speak. Her voice wavered, the words coming with difficulty. At first, she wouldn’t even admit she worked for the CIA. Then she took a long look at my face.

  “Wait a minute,” Webb said. She fell silent, squinting. Suddenly, she jabbed a finger at me. “Don’t I know you? Didn’t you used to—”

  “Work at the CIA?” I finished her sentence. “Yeah, I did. I got fired for no good reason. Remember me now, Linda?”

  That cut through some of her bullshit. I had not known her in my relatively short stint with the Agency, but she clearly knew me.

  “What are you doing?” Webb stammered. “What do you want?”

  “Just information, Linda,” I said. “I helped you, you help me. Quid pro quo.” I leaned into her, taking away her personal space. “If you don’t want to help me, Linda, that’s okay. But I’ll make sure Anna patches things up with Ryan, and that the CIA learns all about your embezzlement.”

  Webb’s eyes darted between me and Sarah. I thought she might try and make a run for it.

  “You’re a smart woman, Linda,” I said. “You know what the right play is here. What do you say?”

  Webb looked like she had just seen a ghost. And in a way she had. If Prisha was the one responsible for my demise, as Doug Mitchell claimed, and Webb was one of her lieutenants, which she was, then Webb likely knew something about my firing and defrocking. She had clearly never expected to see me again. Had not thought of me once in the past five years.

  I didn’t like Linda Webb. I did, however, like Anna, and would never endanger her by bringing Ryan back into her life. But if Webb didn’t see fit to return our favor, I sure as hell would make sure her embezzlement came to light. I had no problem doing that.

  We continued our walk. Webb clung to her claim that she knew nothing about Prisha Baari or any project called ODYSSEUS. There were many statements and denials, thrusts and parries, during that first lap around the lake. Webb was not a stupid woman, not even close. The more we talked, the more lies I caught her in. I told her things about herself she couldn’t refute. The color drained from her face. I kept at her. Sarah joined in. It was like landing a marlin or other big game fish. Give her enough line, be patient, let her tire herself out.

  It wasn’t until the end of the second lap around the lake that Webb finally showed signs of surrender. We took one more lap before she finally broke. We finished up on a bench, a different one on the opposite side of the lake. Webb couldn’t walk anymore. Her face was flushed, and she was sweating despite the chill night air. Webb sat between Sarah and me. We each gave her space, leaning away from her.

  We sat on that bench for the next forty minutes. Webb chain-smoked and answered our questions. She admitted her role as project administrator for ODYSSEUS. She said it was some secret government project having something to do with sound waves or something, but feigned ignorance about any further details. Webb had no problem, however, giving us three people who she claimed knew much more than her. She said these three were much closer to Prisha than she was, and that they, not her, were the ones we should be after.

  The first name was Khabir Ahmad, the Arab computer whiz who handled all of the project technology. Webb said she thought Ahmad stored ODYSSEUS data offsite somewhere. She said she didn’t know where.

  Webb told us Prisha had a private security guy called the Viking. She said she didn’t know his name or what he looked like, but that he was dangerous. He was an off-the-books guy, not officially affiliated with ODYSSEUS. He never came to the office.

  The last name she gave us was Charles Hewitt. Webb was adamant that this was Prisha’s number two, her closest associate. He was an older white guy, a big shot at CIA. She said Hewitt’s close connection to Prisha was not widely known, that he had been a benefactor to her at some point. Webb said she wouldn’t be surprised if Prisha had screwed Hewitt to get her job as deputy. Said Prisha was a sociopath. I thought of Prisha and our shared night on her office couch and winced. It felt worse to relive this memory in Sarah’s company.

  Webb’s mood lightened as she spoke. She had snitched out her colleagues in an attempt to put us off her scent. Minimized what she claimed to know while pointing us elsewhere. Treachery came easily to her, it turned out. A slithering snake.

  It was late. Webb had smoked the last of her cigarettes and was getting fidgety, almost manic. We were all exhausted. I looked past Webb to Sarah on the far side of our bench. She nodded. We had gotten everything we could out of Webb tonight. I had hoped to press her on the details of my firing but knew this would go nowhere right now. Webb had given us three go
od leads—Ahmad, Hewitt, and the Viking—and we would run those to ground. I decided to give Webb a few days before I took another crack at her. Besides, Hewitt felt like a good next step on our talion ladder.

  I told Webb to go home, that Sarah or I would be in touch. Sarah told her to take care of Anna, be good to her. Webb just sighed, rose off the bench, and slumped off towards the parking lot. We both watched her disappear into the darkness. A chill wind blew some fallen leaves over our feet. Sarah wrapped her arms around her chest.

  We sat on that bench in the dark for a while, saying nothing. The space between us still smelled of cigarettes and noxious perfume. We held our mutual silence, each of us deep in our own thoughts. Neither one of us made any move to close the space between us. We sat there for what felt like a long time.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  November 10, 2016

  Parkview Market

  Petworth, NW WDC

  “Hey, Frankie, what do you think Emily would say about this?” Doyle asked. “You and me, out here in the streets, working?”

  I chuckled at the thought of that.

  “How is your mother, anyway?”

  “Good,” I responded tentatively.

  I’d been up to see her several times in the three months since I resurfaced. She still lived in Maryland, less than a mile from the Silver Spring neighborhood we moved to when I was a kid. My second act had stirred a multitude of emotions in my mother. Shock and relief had morphed into a low-grade anger and resentment. I couldn’t blame her. She was part of my mea culpa tour, my road to redemption. My disappearing act had wounded her and others I cared about. Including the man seated next to me in this beat-up Chevy. No one’s fault but my own. I hoped to earn their forgiveness. One step at a time.

  “You tell Emily I was in town?” Doyle asked.

  I shook my head no.

  “Probably for the best,” he said. “She blames me for your father’s death… Has carried a grudge ever since.” Doyle sighed. “Shame, really.”