The List

by Alice Ward

  I didn’t pull out, but rolled her with me to our sides, her legs still wrapped around my waist. I pulled her more tightly against me as I naturally softened and eventually left her. It was a small thing, but important between us. She never felt abandoned; she felt completed. I turned her over so I could spoon her, tucking the blankets around us so we were cocooned. I heard the golden words just before she dropped off to sleep.

  “You’re all I need,” she sighed, and I nodded and kissed the top of her head, smelling the sunshine in her hair.

  “You too,” I answered and leaned over to kiss her cheek.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Hawk

  It was a strange feeling to be back home. A home where I didn’t belong. No one recognized me and had apparently forgotten I ever existed. I knew I couldn’t cross swords with the law. It wouldn’t take much to uncover my forgeries, and it was even possible there was a judge out there somewhere waiting with warrants bearing my real name. I really had no idea what would happen, but there didn’t seem to be any good reason to find out. For the time being, I’d just content myself with living anonymously next to my family. Like the hawk, I would soar just out of reach and bide my time, watching for the perfect time to strike.

  I’d sold my peda-cab company, and while I had enough to buy my farm and live for a while, I knew I needed to find something more to do. Working for someone else was out of the question. It wasn’t in my personality, and there was always that hovering risk of being discovered. I needed to find something that kept me based on the farm. Something lucrative and yet unconnected to the county.

  You can’t live in Southern California long without getting caught up in the tech world, and that’s where I turned my attention. I’d accumulated a computer science and business degree and decided those would be the tools of my trade. I set about building a computer lab in my house. The house itself was more than fifty years old, although it was upgraded when I moved in. Even so, it wasn’t adequate for my needs, and I set about adding a new addition; except it was subterranean and attracted no attention.

  Electrical was the first consideration. I brought in an electrician from Cincinnati to add a new box and install a backup generator in case of power failures. Internet access was permitted through a dedicated T1 line, and I knew that would suffice. Again, the idea was to not call attention to myself in any way. Most companies doing what I was preparing to do would use a co-hosting company and access their servers for the load. I needed more privacy than that.

  All the lighting was artificial; no windows were installed. The floor was anti-static and raised so wiring could run the length of the room beneath panels that could be lifted at will. Workbench desks were installed at the appropriate height for me, and I ordered several of the best computer chairs on the market, one per system.

  I set up two Macs, two UNIX and two Windows boxes, each a backup to the other. They were maxed out with memory and video cards. A bank of networked twenty terabyte drives were stacked in a static-proof cabinet. For the aesthetics, I installed a state of the art sound system embedded in the walls and a ninety-inch flat screen monitor on the wall the computers faced. The large screen also served to create ambient slideshows that brought a sense of the outdoor world into the room. It was a setup many times beyond that of the home computer user.

  Once everything was running, I began coding. I developed a series of proprietary apps. These could be licensed to companies to allow their employees to access their intranets — all of which I hosted. Business professionals had become accustomed to being their own staff with the aid of their laptop or smart device. I made this possible. While there was nothing particularly innovative about my services, they were gateways into successful businesses and that information held immense value to certain parties. It was a world of corporate espionage — the Star Trek version of sending out secret shoppers or temp employees to your competition. My office was built like a high tech bunker.

  I didn’t consider this as any particularly intellectual or egotistical challenge. It was simply a way to bring in a substantial income without questions or visibility. It worked perfectly for me.

  When I got out, I frequented the southern end of Louisville where there was less risk of running into anyone who might know me. Although it would be extremely unlikely they’d recognize me due to the heavy scarring, sunglasses, and hair, it was a risk. Risks needed leveraging.

  Actually, I was a bit more at home in that world. These were low-income people who never quite made it to the next paycheck and resorted to less savory ways of making up the difference. They weren’t the least superficial. In fact, they didn’t give a damn about anyone but themselves.

  My family’s world of Derby barbecues and coming out parties may as well have been on the moon as far as they were concerned. The only connection they had to the world I’d come from was horses. This was the backside of Churchill Downs, land of small shotgun row houses. Ironically, in a world where people were able to shake hands from their bedroom windows, they kept to themselves and knew nothing about one another’s business. It was like cellmates who subliminally built a wall dividing their cell at an attempt at privacy. By comparison, my family’s world of thousand-acre estates knew what went on in the most intimate areas of one another’s lives.

  I suppose every man needed a watering hole he could call his own. Mine was Murphy’s Bar. They all seem to be named after somebody. In this case, it was likely an Irish immigrant who had been drawn to horses and opened it in one of the abandoned shotgun houses. He’d never expected it to go beyond the neighborhood hangout, and it never did. I harbored a sort of admiration for people who had a level of contentment. They’d started a little business and were happier to keep it small. They weren’t entrepreneurial. They had nothing to prove. They simply wanted to work for themselves. The world was full of them and sometimes I wished I were one. Unfortunately, whether it was in my genes or my family’s expectation, I had been raised to never settle, but to vanquish the competition. As many successful men throughout history had pointed out at one time or another, you are what you believe. The LaVieres believed themselves above the rest. Like it or not, I was one of them.

  Maybe that’s why Murphy’s held such an appeal. There I was anonymous. No one asked questions, and no one cared. Oh, they might rally behind a Cardinal’s basketball game, or certainly behind races during the season but never interfered with one another’s lives. It was simpler. You never felt less than, you never felt greater than. There was plenty of world out there to levy that sort of judgment without looking for it close to home.

  Murphy’s façade was that of a normal house, except it was painted bluegrass green. The only other giveaways were the neon signs in the shaded windows. One read “Open” and the other read “Beer & Wine.” That pretty much said it all. What they didn’t advertise, however, was their small kitchen in the back. It turned out the best corned beef and cabbage during the winter months, and equally delicious barbecued ribs during spring and summer. No one advertised it. It wasn’t listed in any culinary magazines, and no television crew pounced and splashed it over their Saturday morning talk show. Again, it was a place for privacy, and anyone who went through the doors picked up on that instantly. They liked it that way.

  The current “Murphy” went by that name just because it was simpler. Once I’d heard a frowsy-haired woman I supposed to be his wife, shout out “Orville” from the kitchen. When he didn’t answer, she filled the doorway with her glowering, pocked presence. His face had inflamed, but he’d gone in to see what she wanted. No one blamed the sonofabitch for going by “Murphy,” so we let it lie.

  He was at the bar now, pouring me a beer from the tap. Years of practice had taught him how much to pour; just enough to let the foam make you think your glass was full but not so much as to slosh over the rim when he skated it down the bar to you. Murphy’s operated on a purely cash basis. There were no tabs, and you paid as soon as you were served. It kept things clean and impersonal
.

  The old nineteen-inch tube television mounted on the wall was always tuned to sports. If you didn’t like sports, you just didn’t look up at it. The only time Murphy touched it was to crank up the volume when a race was being run down the street at Churchill. Otherwise, the volume was off. The old sets didn’t have closed-captioning, so a good deal of the entertainment centered on what the hell was going on. There was a sort of ongoing betting pool as the guys wagered on whether a certain commercial was for feminine hygiene or keeping your dick hard when you got old. Mrs. Murphy was the ref.

  The bar smelled like a glass of beer floating a dead cigarette. The glasses were scratched and not always too clean, but nobody cared. After all, what was more sterile than alcohol? A few of the regulars would engage in arguments from time to time. It usually had to do with politics or sports. There was little else in their world to separate them from one another but their opinion on both.

  A guy who identified himself as Kenny struck up a tentative conversation with me one evening. He was a fighter, a wannabe Muhammad Ali. Kenny was from one of those unpronounceable countries in Africa. He’d worked his way over to the States on a freighter and never left. He earned enough for existence by cleaning the gym where he trained, and I suspected Mrs. Murphy gave him food in return for other services rendered. He was an athletic specimen, to be sure.

  Kenny asked me if I was local, to which I automatically replied, “No.”

  I didn’t elaborate, and he didn’t ask me to. Maybe he was looking for another way to pick up some bucks. I’ll never know because he didn’t bring it up again. He seemed to be uneducated, but I knew he could read. I watched him slide over a paper someone finished. He went directly to the sports section, and I saw then where his dreams lay. I hoped for his sake that Kenny was one of those people who was happy with settling for less.

  As for his part, I think Kenny sized me up before the first time we spoke. Breeding has a way of showing itself. You can’t put a sheet over a million-dollar Thoroughbred and expect it to look like a broken-down nag. He understood and said nothing. That’s why Kenny and I became friends. I’ve always found I sort of liked non-Americans better. There was an un-programmed innocence about them. They hadn’t been corrupted by the greed and the artifice. They understood core values and lived for the purpose of survival. That resonated with me.

  On a couple of occasions, I stopped by to see Kenny at his gym. We sparred a bit, and I liked the exercise, but more so, the confrontation. It tapped in to something deep inside. I couldn’t afford the luxury of proving myself in a brawl. Some days I felt as sheltered as a little girl. Staying ahead of the law in a world where you had no roots did that to you.

  In the gym, he taught me some moves and how to defend my face. He’d kick me hard in the shins to correct my footwork. I was a fast learner and even though he was physically more muscular, I learned to become a worthy opponent. In return, I pushed some bucks toward him from time to time. I called it tips for my trainer. We both recognized the brethren of being untraceable. I wondered how he would handle it if he ever did become worth a damn. He was an illegal. Maybe I could figure something out if that time came.

  As it turned out, Kenny was the one who changed my life for the better. Just like his left hook, I never knew what hit me. Never saw it coming.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Hawk

  After a string of sixteen-hour days at the keyboard, I took a weekend off. Driving into town, I checked in at the gym for Kenny, only to be told he was at the Y. It turned out that Kenny volunteered to teach some of the boys at a YMCA how to defend themselves — with their fists instead of guns. They let me in on a guest pass, and I found him in a corner of a gym with two youths in gloves swinging at one another. Kenny was barking orders and pulling them apart when anger got in the way of self-discipline.

  Just as he’d taught me, a boxer was only as good as his self-discipline. Losing your temper cost you concentration. Without that, the fight was already over.

  I tossed him a wave of my hand, and he nodded. At one point, he pulled the boys apart and motioned me over, handing me a pair of gloves. “Here, give me a hand, Hawk. Let’s show these boys the difference between learning and brawling.”

  Shrugging, I pulled on the gloves while the kids moved back, sitting on the gym bleachers. I was in socks since my street shoes couldn’t go on the gym’s wooden floor. Kenny and I fell into our routine, and it was hell to stay upright. I peeled off my socks, but it didn’t help much. I lost my focus and didn’t protect my face. Kenny got a punch in, and I went down.

  I heard the boys cursing and realized there was blood on the wooden floor. Kenny peeled off his t-shirt and held it up to my face. The boys watched as the gladiators left the stadium, the blond one bloody and embarrassed.

  Kenny walked me to the front desk. “Hey, Liane, get me the kit, would you?” he asked the girl behind the desk. She nodded and soon materialized with a blue metal box that contained medical supplies. Kenny worked on my bleeding nose with gauze and a makeshift bandage to stop the bleeding. “Jesus, sorry, man,” he said, his face filled with concern.

  “Hey, no problem. It was my fault,” I said and heard a voice behind us. One of the boys had brought my street shoes.

  I leaned against the counter to slip them on and looked up to find Liane watching me, her face filled with sympathy. “Are you alright?” she asked, her voice tinged with a British accent. “Shall I call someone for you?” she prompted me.

  “No, no one. I’m fine. Just a little red,” I answered, looking into the deepest brown eyes I’d ever seen. They seemed almost molten, like spheres of compassion that drew you in without even being aware of it.

  “Yes, indeed, red you are,” she laughed and covered her mouth quickly as though she’d been rude.

  Her brown eyes were framed by voluminous chestnut hair that glowed with good health. It reminded me of a colt’s coat, well-brushed and yet to see its first molting. Someone tapped my hip, and I turned to see the other boy, holding out my sunglasses. I’d left them with my shoes. I grabbed them and slid them on quickly so that I might study her from the safe side of my subliminal wall.

  Liane was smiling at me, and I looked at Kenny, who picked up on it. “Liane, this is Hawk. Don’t ask me his last name, we never got that far,” he said and then cocked his head as he realized the truth of his statement.

  “Sansabri,” I provided. “Hawk Sansabri.”

  “How do you do, Mr. Hawk Sansabri? I’m Liane Coventry. Pleased to make your acquaintance.” She offered her hand, which I took, if only to feel the texture of her pale skin. She was as delicate as crystal, and there was a musical lilt to her voice that was more than her accent. It sounded like tinkling chimes in the breeze of a spring morning. It made me almost giddy.

  “Sansabri… without a home in French,” she commented, and I knew she was as intelligent as she was beautiful. Her full lips were pursed in concentration. “I don’t believe I’ve ever met anyone with that name before.”

  “You’re British?” I countered, unwilling to waste the opportunity to learn more about her.

  “Well, in a manner of speaking — forgive the pun,” she laughed. “My dad is a vicar; a pastor of a local Methodist church and his accent is much stronger. I was born here, but naturally picked up some of his accent,” she explained, smiling and winking a bit wickedly.

  I was enchanted. That may be the first time I’ve ever used the word enchanted. I’m standing here, fucking bleeding all over myself and using the word enchanted. What’s the matter with me?

  “You work here?” I asked, trying to establish some sense of where I might find her again when I pulled my shit together.

  “Volunteer,” she offered.

  “Liane is great,” Kenny chimed in. “She volunteers here a couple of days every week to help the kids in the neighborhood. They all think she’s straight out of Harry Potter because of the way she talks.”

  “She is something special,” I agreed a
nd grinned at her.

  “C’mon, man, let’s get you back to the gym.” Kenny patted me on the shoulder. “I’ve got the right stuff there to fix you up.”

  I nodded and looked to Liane. She gave a small wave and a sweet, sweet smile. “Until next time,” she said, and I nearly floated out of the building into the bright sunlight.

  “Jesus!” I said, and Kenny laughed.

  “I’d say somebody’s got a crush.” I turned to look at him in surprise.

  “Damn! You may be right,” I agreed and would say nothing further. I looked like a fucking ass in there.

  Kenny read my mind. “Forget it, man. She’s not like the others. She’s real. She’s at the desk on Wednesdays and Saturdays, in case you’re interested.”

  I nodded, and we got into my car and headed for the gym, his shirt still held against my nose.

  ***

  I was back at work the next day, but all I could think about were those sweet, full lips and that glorious hair. It was driving me mad. My nose was swollen, and I had two black eyes so I contented myself with a ride on Diablo to get some exercise and perspective. I rode close to Carlos Acres and could see people moving around. I carried a small binocular and used it to watch from behind the leaves of a tree.

  I had done my research. Carlos Acres was a training and breeding facility my mother built. It was made up of a central breeding barn and indoor show ring. There was a training barn that included a pool and a number of ten-acre hobby farms where owners could come and stay. Her clients were wealthy individuals who liked the idea of owning a Thoroughbred but lacked the knowledge and work to care for them. My mother’s staff took care of that for them, and they just dropped in when it sounded like fun — primarily at Derby time.