Housebroken

by The Behrg

  Jenna sniffed, a tear skirting down her cheek.

  Blake wrapped his arm around her, not caring whether she wanted him to or not. Right now it was what he wanted to do. Some apologies weren’t meant to be voiced, would in fact lessen their value by being put into words. So he held her instead, telling her how sorry he was for so much gone wrong without ever opening his mouth.

  From a distance, their heads leaning in and bodies close, they looked like a couple without a care in the world who longed to do nothing more than be together. A couple in love.

  “Someone’s at the door,” Adam called from the back door. The mirage shattered.

  “Pizza man,” Joje announced loudly. “Go ahead and sign it.”

  The spell was broken, a subtle reminder that they weren’t just a couple sitting out in their yard, watching the sunset.

  “You smell awful,” Jenna said, a laugh escaping.

  Blake couldn’t help but join her. “I think I’ll burn these clothes with the towels.”

  “No more talk of burning,” she said, her smile disappearing.

  Without letting her see, he stole a glance at her mutilated legs, stoking the flames within him. They looked as coarse as a leather glove left out in the sun for months.

  God, how did this happen to us? he thought.

  God didn’t answer, but Adam did, his words equally as revelatory. “It’s not the pizza man,” he called. “It’s the police.”

  3

  Adam’s words were like pulling a fire alarm at a school assembly. Chaos erupted. Jenna bent forward to get to her feet, momentarily forgetting her plight and crying out in a short jagged burst. Drew knocked Adam through the doorway, putting him in a headlock with his massive arm, the sword held tightly against his side. Jenna fell from the bench, pebbles kicking up, Blake scrambling beneath to support her, lift her, keep her from falling, all the while tracking the movements of his captors, their distance, the seconds he had to act, think.

  Joje hadn’t even risen from his stool. “Stay calm.”

  His words had a way of slowing time down.

  “Bwake, take off your shirt, in the pool then out, rinse that smell off you. Jenna, you’re staying here. One word and I let Dwew finish what he started, and Dwew? Anyone comes out those doors before me, you put that little knife to good use.”

  “What about me?” Adam asked.

  “Help keep your mom quiet.”

  There was a moment of stillness, even the swell of waves seemed to pause and reflect, and then Blake was removing his shirt. He set Jenna back against the bench, stepping over brush and flowers to get to the pool. His jeans, he realized, looked like tomatoes had been thrown at him, their dried drippings extending to the end of the leg.

  “Yeah, pants too,” Joje said.

  Blake unfastened the buttons, pulling the jeans off. Drew moved past him with Adam.

  “Blake, help us,” Jenna said, her words both imploring and questioning at the same time.

  “I am,” he said, then dove into the pool in his silk boxers, swimming across to the other side. Joje met him there with a towel, which he wrapped around his waist.

  “I don’t have to warn you, do I?” Joje asked.

  Blake looked across at Adam, who sat beside Jenna on the bench. Drew stood behind them, the katana slipping free of its sheath. “No, you don’t.”

  They moved from the kitchen through the living room, stepping up from the white carpet to the hardwood tile of the foyer. The front door was open; Adam must have hoped they would hear something, put them on alert. Officer Randall stood squinting, one hand raised to shield his eyes, the setting sun glaring through the top window in the back of the entryway. His partner wisely wore shades, though the shiny reflective lenses were a model at least a decade out of style. He stood a good foot and a half taller than Randall, one stud earring in his left ear with a thin goatee just beginning to show gray.

  “Sorry,” Blake said, “we were in the pool.”

  “Hell, it’s where I’d be if roles were reversed,” Randall said with a grin. “It was Blake, right? This is Deputy McClellan I was telling you about. We were hoping to take you up on that offer.”

  McClellan didn’t offer a hand or greeting, just continued chewing a wad of gum. In comparison to Randall, McClellan looked like a slob, his shirt too large for his lanky frame, bulging in awkward places and clearly unpressed. He was just along for the ride.

  “Now’s a, uh, bad time,” Blake said, Joje leaning against the door beside him.

  “I never caught your name last we met,” Randall said, eyebrows raising.

  “Biw,” Joje said, following McClellan’s lead by keeping his hands at his side. “Bwake’s wife’s bwahtho.”

  “We won’t stay long,” Randall said.

  “Another night might be better,” Blake said. “Next week maybe.”

  Randall glanced at his partner. “Well, it’s not purely a social call.”

  “What do you mean?” Blake asked.

  “Have a few questions for you, that’s all, won’t take but a minute.”

  “Okay if we talk outside? Wife has a migraine,” Blake said.

  They stepped aside to give Blake space. Joje stayed in the open doorway, arms folded, looking as uncasual as possible. Blake wobbled forward, all too aware of how weak he felt.

  “Whoa, you all right?” Randall asked.

  “Yeah, fine,” Blake said.

  “You were in an accident, right? The bruising on your face? Was that a car accident?” Randall asked.

  Blake nodded, unsure if this was small talk or if the questioning had begun.

  “When did you say that occurred, and do you recall the location?”

  Definitely being questioned.

  “I’m sorry, you said you were here on business?” Blake asked.

  “That’s right,” Randall said. “Where was that accident at?”

  “Am I in trouble here?”

  “Not at all,” Randall said, his words as unconvincing as his stance. He was apparently still waiting for Blake to answer.

  “Uh, it was just a stupid accident—no one else was involved, I . . .” Blake laughed awkwardly. “I sort of ran off the road late at night. Hit into a tree.”

  “You file a police report?”

  “No, no, the car wasn’t worth much. I was picking it up for my son, to start practicing.”

  “How old’s your son?” Randall asked.

  “Fourteen,” Blake said.

  “Is it in a shop? The car?” McClellan asked. His words were clipped, enunciated to a T. Blake wasn’t sure if that was how he always spoke or if it was in response to his own babbling and Joje’s speech impediment. Blake nodded. “We’d like to see the paperwork on it, if you don’t mind.”

  “I can, yeah, I can certainly get that to you,” Blake said.

  “You wouldn’t mind if Deputy McClellan snapped a few pictures of your bruising now, would you?” Randall asked.

  Blake blinked, realizing for the first time the gangly cop held a small digital camera by the drawstrings at his side. “Is that normal protocol for an accident where no one’s hurt? I’m not sure I understand what this is all about.”

  “Call your lawyer,” Joje said. “Don’t put up with this bullshit.”

  I can’t afford my lawyer, Blake thought. Not anymore.

  “No, no, he’s not under arrest. We’re just ruling out possibilities,” Randall said.

  “For what?” Blake asked.

  “You’ve seen the squad cars across the street all day?” Randall asked.

  “I’ve been inside mostly.” Blake couldn’t see any police cars.

  “Just a few doors down and across the street,” Randall said, pointing. And suddenly Blake knew—Tom Jones. His face, he realized too late, had probably given away much more than he should have. A change occurred in both officers’ stance, though they hadn’t moved. It was more an awareness, their muscles and bodies tensing, preparing for the unexpected. Blake wondered if he led
them to the trunk in his garage how prepared they’d really be.

  “When’s the last time you saw your neighbor?” McClellan asked. So he would play the role of bad cop.

  “We don’t see anyone here. Neighborhood’s like a ghost town,” Blake said.

  “Thomas Jones,” McClellan continued as if Blake hadn’t spoken. “Twenty-three Vanilla Banks. You two haven’t met?”

  Blake felt his face flush. Water dripped from his hair into his eyes. Or was that sweat? “No, I don’t—I don’t think so.”

  “You don’t think so?” McClellan asked.

  Blake glanced back inside his house, Joje standing silently in the doorway. “No, I haven’t met any of the neighbors.”

  “Call your lawyer, Bwake, trust me on this one.” Joje shifted his weight to the other side of the doorway.

  McClellan turned to look at his partner. “Well, I’m a little confused.”

  Randall came to his partner’s rescue. “We have a video of you and Mr. Jones having an . . . altercation . . . just outside his property. I believe you gave him the bird after he drove off?”

  Of course they had that on video. Joje had said the attorney’s surveillance was par none. Convenient editing on Joje’s part.

  “Oh, was that his name?” Blake asked. “And he lives on this street? I just, I thought he was visiting someone here, but yeah, we did meet, though I certainly wouldn’t call the conversation heated.”

  “That’s not how the driver remembered it,” McClellan said.

  “Is it against the law to flip someone off in Malibu?” Blake said, plastering a smile onto his face.

  “No, of course not,” Randall said. “Thomas Jones has gone missing.”

  This was the moment they had been waiting for, the crescendo of a rising classical piece of music, all of the dancing back and forth leading to one second, to get Blake’s reaction.

  While he knew they were watching him, looking for a tell that would give him away, Blake had absolutely no idea what reaction they’d perceive as being guilty. Shock? Indifference? Even without a reaction, Blake realized how guilty their entire conversation had made him appear.

  A blue Ford Focus pulled to the curb of the house, a sign like a taxi driver’s stuck to the top with “Delivery” on it in yellow.

  Be grateful for small miracles, Blake thought. The screaming and double bass thump of death metal tumbling from the car distracted even the two officers.

  “About time,” Joje said loudly as the driver approached. He was husky, tattoos of topless girls lying with dragons on both of his sleeveless arms. His walk slowed significantly when he noticed the cops.

  “Sixty-seven nineteen,” he said. Joje took the two flat boxes from him. Dark patches of grease had soaked through the bottom box.

  Joje scribbled on the receipt copy, and the kid quickly turned to leave. Halfway down the path he glanced back. “Nice tip. Thanks, man.”

  The interruption had clearly destroyed the momentum of the officers’ rehearsed interrogation. Blake picked up where they had left off, hoping to bring it to a quick end. “Look, I don’t know where my neighbor is. I don’t know where he works, where he goes in his free time, or who he spends it with. Like I said, we barely spoke. He almost hit my dog, was a complete asshole, I flipped him off, will even plead guilty to doing so, but I haven’t seen him since.”

  They waited on the porch as if trying to recall what their next lines were supposed to be. “Couldn’t he have just gone on vacation?” Joje asked.

  “Most people don’t bleed out four to five liters of blood before going on vacation,” McClellan said.

  “Sorry to disturb you. Clearly you’ve got dinner waiting. Here’s my card,” Randall said, “in case you lost the first. You remember anything from the past few days, give us a buzz.”

  He started down the stone path with his partner. Almost as an afterthought he turned back, but Blake knew it was no afterthought. “How was that, uh, doctor I referred to you?”

  “We never called him,” Blake said.

  Randall nodded slowly. “Strange, he had you on his books yesterday. His office assistant’s a good friend. Guess I’ll have drinks and a conversation with her a little later.”

  Blake nodded; not much else he could do. If Malibu was like the Old West as Randall had intoned on their first meeting, then Blake and his family were the unwelcome newcomers about to be driven out by the local sheriff and deputy. The more frightening realization was that should his family survive the week, by the time the police were ready to issue a warrant, Joje and his accomplice would be gone.

  4

  The pizza was cold and dripping with grease. There was only one parlor in the Palisades that would deliver this far out. For the price it should have tasted much better than it did.

  The house had a peculiar stink to it now, an odor that sat heavy like a cloud about to burst that went much further than the gore the Ukrainian doctor had left behind. Plates of discarded food and open containers fell from the full sink onto the counters. Drew was surprisingly an okay cook; a housecleaner he was not, and whatever he opened or pulled from the fridge stayed there, growing interesting shades of mold. Even the fruit on the metal rack on the kitchen island was beginning to go bad. Add to that the smell of Jenna’s legs, which equally stunk of rot, and the stench of Drew and Joje, which could have rivaled the most ostentatious homeless couple. Blake wasn’t aware of either of them showering since their arrival, the pimples bubbling beneath Drew’s oily face a sickly sight.

  “Can I be excused?” Adam asked.

  “Sure,” Joje said before Blake could reply.

  Adam skirted away from the table, his chair scraping against the floor. His plate with the five uneaten pizza crusts remained on the table. “I’m going upstairs,” he called back.

  “Take Dwew,” Joje said. Drew grabbed the remaining slice in the box and left through the living room. “We wouldn’t want another mess to clean up like the good doctor.” He smiled conspiratorially.

  Blake did not smile back.

  “I’m joking, Bwake. If Adam really wanted to off himself, trust me, he’d be dead. He’s a lot smarter than you give him credit for. Now while you were on your cleaning spree, I made a few calls in preparation for tonight.”

  “You’re going through with this?” Jenna asked. She looked like a child sitting at the grown-ups’ table, her wheelchair so much lower than the other chairs.

  “I don’t have a choice,” Blake said.

  “Just like you had no choice but to let the police leave while our kidnappers have free rein of the house?”

  “You know what would have happened, Jenn, if I had tipped them off.”

  “But you don’t know what’s going to happen from you keeping your mouth shut,” she said. Angry tears were forming at the corners of her eyes. “Sometimes I wonder whose side you’re really on.”

  “Come on, that’s ridiculous!” Blake couldn’t keep his voice from rising. “I’m doing everything I can to keep you and Adam from getting hurt. Worse than you already are. It’s not worth the risk.”

  “I guess I’m old-fashioned. I had always hoped our family was worth the risk. Any risk.” Jenna pushed away from the table, her hands guiding the chair back.

  “Jenna . . . ,” Blake said, but she continued wheeling herself into the family room. He stood, chair knocking backward and ringing off the hardwood floor. He wasn’t going to lose this fight, not this time, not by letting her walk away.

  “What do you want me to do?” he yelled. “Not help get these files? Until Drew starts using that sword of his, hacking off fingers and limbs from you, me, our son? You and I both know that eventually I’d end up helping anyway. I’d have no choice. And say I had told the police, what do you think would’ve happened then? A gunfight in our living room? And let’s just say one of those cops were sharper than they looked and shot Joje before he could respond, they come storming outside, and guess what. That blade, that decorative sword you and Deb hung on our
wall, would be slipping against yours and Adam’s throat before they’d have a chance to get off another shot. So tell me, Jenna, what am I doing wrong here? How am I not protecting my family by doing things I don’t want to do? Tell me!”

  He could hear her sobs, her chair facing away from him, toward their garage.

  “What do you want me to do?” he asked, trying to soften his voice and failing.

  “I want you to leave,” she said. “Do whatever they want, just . . . if we get through this, the next few days, and they go like they said? If that happens, I want you to leave.”

  Blake had always wondered when their arguments would culminate in a request for divorce. He found the fight had gone out of him, words unable to repair the damage done. He stood behind her for some time, wanting to reach out, hold her, tell her he was trying—God, how he was trying. Instead he left her there in the family room. In that small way he could give her what she wanted.

  Joje’s smile was more pronounced than ever, a black spec between his front teeth from the pizza. “Thank you for opening yourselves up like that. That was fun to watch.”

  Blake pulled a beer from the pantry, knocking its top free on the rough-edged kitchen counter. He had always liked his beer warm. “You were saying? About tonight?”

  “Right, we’re gonna need some supwise.”

  “Surprise?

  “No, supwise . . . spehshowized equipment.”

  Supplies. Great.

  “I know a guy,” Joje continued, “but he only takes cash, so we need your money.”

  Blake waited for the punch line to the joke. “You have all my money.”

  “Cash, Bwake. The three grand you had stashed away? I don’t know if it’s enough, but it’s worth a shot.”

  Blake couldn’t remember telling Joje about any cash.

  “You tried to buy me off, Bwake, remember? After you hit me with your car?”

  “You hit me,” Blake said.

  Joje just smiled. “Let’s go see that safe you told me about.”

  5

  Blake rolled his desk chair toward the closet, climbing atop and balancing as the seat spun beneath him. Reaching up to the dial, he felt like he was having an out-of-body experience, that he was looking down on himself, ashamed at his own actions. This safe, it was the last part of his life Joje had yet to stick his filthy hands into. And now Blake was granting him access. Maybe Jenna wasn’t so far off from the truth.