Unhinged

by Barbra Leslie

  He moved behind the bar, and I took off the light hoodie I was wearing and draped it over Patrick’s shoulders and head.

  “Patrick had,” I said. “I was just getting started.” I took a stool, further away from the side of the bar where Smith and Fred were. As I sat, I realized it was the same stool I’d occupied the first night I’d come in to Helen of Troy. The night I’d had my face-off with the frat boys. I kept focus on Smith, just keeping Fred in my peripheral vision. I couldn’t look at him directly and keep my composure.

  Plus, I had to rethink my plan, and quickly. Fred being here meant the boys could be in jeopardy, depending on how the next hour or so of our lives played out.

  Smith was saying something about the crappy wine selection, and I tuned him out. I rubbed my lower back tentatively, as though it was causing me pain.

  “Do you mind if I indulge in one of my old habits?” I said to Smith. He had moved down the bar and put a glass of what I think he said was a Pinot Noir in front of me. I pulled the little plastic bag of coke out of my pocket before Smith could reach into his and shoot me with my own gun. I shook the white powder down. “I’m sure Fred has told you that I’ve been clean,” I said. “But some days just call out for a bit of indulgence in one’s old vices.”

  “Smoke ’em if you got ’em, my dear,” Smith said. He appeared to be looking for clean glasses. “That’s my motto.”

  I cut myself two generous lines and snorted them both easily. I refrained from dabbing wine into my nostrils, though. Smith looked as though he was savoring his wine so much he might actually shoot me for being so gauche.

  “So why did you call this little meeting, Danny?” Smith said. “Not that I’m not happy to see you! I am, very much. I’ve been saying to Fred here, ‘Fred, when are we going to bring Danny back into the fold?’ But Fred seemed fairly sure that you wouldn’t be amenable to that. Didn’t you, Fred?”

  “I did,” Fred said. “And correct me if I’m wrong, but she was never in the fold.” He was still standing to attention, holding onto the Taser as though it might save his life.

  Not if I had anything to say about it, it wouldn’t.

  “There’s a point,” Smith conceded.

  “Here’s another one,” I said, taking a dainty sip of my wine. He was right; it was very good. “I didn’t really call a meeting, as such. At least not with you. I was testing my friend Dave, you see. After the events at the bakery, it seemed apparent that he might have conflicting loyalties. If you showed up, I’d know for sure.”

  “And now you do,” Smith said joyously. “Dave’s out of town on business, as I think you know, but he passed on your message to us.”

  I nodded, outwardly calm. It had not, however, occurred to me that if Smith were to show up Dave wouldn’t be with him. If Dave had anything to do with Smith and The Family, I thought he would also be lying about the Florida trip. That they could both be true hadn’t figured into my planning.

  “Why are we here, Danny?” Fred said. He was trying for nonchalance, but it wasn’t working. I didn’t know if it was conscience or fear, but he looked as though he’d rather be anywhere else.

  “Michael,” I said, “if it’s all the same to you, I’ll address you and only you. The business I have is between us.”

  “Fred is not your favorite person at the moment,” Smith said. “I understand that. This must be a shock to you.” I nodded and even managed a small smile. I took a larger sip of wine.

  I wanted my gun back. My trigger finger was actually itching, I wanted so badly to shoot Smith where he stood. Preferably starting with the ankles and working my way up. If I thought it would end all this and make the boys safe, I would have. But I knew the satisfaction would be fleeting. None of us would be safe, and I would have ruined my best play on selfish gratification.

  Besides, even if I was able to take out Smith and Fred somehow, Dave was out there somewhere. I had to end it.

  I was toying with the stem of my wine glass, and grabbed Patrick’s corkscrew off the bar to give myself something to do with my hands.

  I suddenly remembered the moment back in Maine when Fred had surprised me – and definitely Michael and his foster daughter – by plunging the business end of a corkscrew into Michael’s eye. I’d never known Fred had it in him. I’d been impressed.

  I looked at Michael’s face, at his eyes. He was watching me, and he obligingly took off his glasses and leaned over a bit so I could see them more clearly. He winked. I tried not to vomit.

  “Either that is the best ocular prosthetic known to man, or…” I started.

  “Or Fred didn’t really gouge out my eye with that corkscrew,” Smith finished for me. He put his glasses back on. “Danny. Did you really think that Fred would have the stomach for something like that?”

  I looked at Fred, who looked quite comfortable now, sitting at the other end of the bar. He shrugged and grinned. Somehow, I managed to stay seated, and not take a running leap at Fred’s head.

  “We had some stuff mixed up…” Fred said, and Smith interrupted him.

  “Ketchup and soy sauce, with a little mayo mixed in,” he said. “I was never happy with the color. Or the consistency. But you were flying high on crack. We didn’t think you’d be able to get very close.”

  “Yeah,” Fred said. “He was going to squirt some on his face and go running out. You had the broken ankle.”

  “And as it turned out, I was otherwise occupied,” I said. I shook my head, as if impressed at their wiliness.

  “Oh boy, were you ever!” Smith said. He shook his head, as though remembering great old times. “You made very short work of Jeanette. Not that I saw the whole thing, of course.”

  “Not short enough,” I said. I remembered her falling into the gigantic fireplace after I’d plunged a titanium crack pipe into her eye and shot her with an AK-47. “And then you, what, faked that asthma attack?” I said to Fred.

  He nodded. “Stopped me from having to pretend to run into the snow to look for him.”

  “Nice one, boys,” I said. “You got me good.” I felt sweat breaking out along my hairline, and it wasn’t just from the cocaine. “So your alliance, then…”

  “Oh my goodness. How long would it be now, Fred?” Smith leaned his elbows on the bar. He looked like a happy, relaxed man, recounting his salad days.

  “Since we moved to California,” Fred said. “Soon thereafter, at any rate.”

  They looked at each other and burst out laughing at some private joke. It didn’t matter. I knew all I needed to, at least for now.

  “So, Danny, you see, we really are a family. We are one already. Your brother-in-law. Your boyfriend. Someday soon, your nephews, and hopefully all the other Clearys.” Smith laughed. “There are so many of you, you could franchise out!”

  “Sort of like a pyramid scheme,” I said. Oh, for my gun. My kingdom for my gun.

  “That’s actually a pretty good analogy,” Fred said. He was earnest now, leaning forward, using his business voice. “Danny, you’re special. You’re essential to those boys. Essential,” he repeated.

  I opened my mouth but no words came out. For once, I was without speech.

  “I know I’m not the world’s best dad,” Fred said. “That’s one of the reasons I went along with this whole converted-bakery thing.”

  “It takes a village,” Smith said, with no irony.

  I had officially stepped into The Twilight Zone.

  I nearly asked where Ginger had fit, or not fit, into their grand plans. She had no wealth or income other than Fred’s, so there was nothing she could give to them that way. And Fred would never have been able to tell her about any of this; Ginger would have packed up the boys and taken them to the nearest police station. Easier to encourage her to get hooked on drugs and end her.

  I had to put Ginger out of my head, and I had to put Dave out of my head. I had to get what I needed, change my plan on the fly, and make sure that these two crazy, evil fucks never got their hands on Matthew
and Luke.

  I drained my glass of wine, and pushed my glass a bit toward Smith. “Just half a glass, please,” I said, as though I was a lady out for lunch. “I might as well tell you both what I was going to tell Dave. Get him to pass on to you, if he showed up.”

  They both looked at me with vaguely expectant looks.

  “Uncle,” I said out loud.

  “Pardon me?” Smith swallowed the wine he’d been swishing around in his mouth.

  “Uncle,” I repeated. “I give up. You win. That’s why I wanted to meet.”

  “My, my,” he said. He looked surprised. “There’s one for the books. I never thought I’d see the day, Danny, I truly didn’t. This makes me very happy.”

  “Well, we aim to please.” I should have done this a long time ago. Why hadn’t I?

  “And what, exactly, have I won?”

  “What you always wanted,” I said. “Money. All of Jack’s money. I will freely transfer everything to you, or to whatever organization you like. Right now.” I spun the corkscrew around on the bar. I needed to keep my hands busy, so I wouldn’t launch myself over the bar and bite his face off. “I have a few conditions, of course.”

  “Of course,” Smith said. He looked amused.

  I looked at Fred. “You leave the rest of my family alone. And that includes the boys.” Fred started to interrupt, but Smith held up his hand.

  “Let her continue, Fred,” he said. “I’m sure Danny has a plan.”

  “If the boys want to become part of your Family when they’re twenty-one, well then, so be it. But I owe it to my sister to give those boys a few years of normalcy, at least. You can still be in their lives to some extent,” I said to Fred. I hoped I was being convincing, because if I had my way, Fred would never get to clap eyes on his sons ever again. “We can discuss that. But you leave my family alone,” I said, looking at each of them. “All of them. My brothers, my nephews, my household and my friends. Michael, you disappear to wherever it is you’ve been living until you flew into Canada. I will never tell any law enforcement that I’ve seen you.”

  “Go on,” Smith said. “Something tells me you’ve got more up your sleeve, Danny. You always were a wily one.”

  “You answer some questions for me,” I said. I nodded at the bar. “I’ve got all the time in the world, and we have privacy here. We can sit and have a civilized drink, answer some questions for each other, take care of whatever banking details need to be sorted, and we can part as… well, I can’t say friends.”

  “That’s a pity,” Smith said, and the batshit crazy fucker sounded sincere. I’d forgotten that about him, how oddly likeable he could be, in his murderous insanity.

  “We can shake hands and go our separate ways. I concede defeat. And in turn you, as a man of honor, can humor me by filling in a few blanks for me.”

  “It would be the gracious thing to do,” Smith said. I knew he’d like that. In some ways, he seemed to want to think of himself as fair, even generous. But I could tell that he wasn’t buying it. He wanted the money, and I believed that he’d answer questions for me. He’d probably even tell me the truth. But the price of having Michael Vernon Smith out of our lives was going to be steeper than that. I could see it.

  “Do we have a deal, Mr. Smith?”

  “Oh, Danny, don’t fall back to formalities at this stage! I much preferred you calling me Michael.”

  “Fair enough, Michael. What do you say?” I took a sip of wine. My hand wasn’t shaking. Good.

  I nodded. It was what I’d been expecting. In some ways, I even welcomed it.

  “Me,” I said. I looked at him, openly and honestly. “You can have my life. You can take my life, Michael. You can make me suffer, if that would please you. You can somehow try and pin all of these crimes on me. Whatever you need to do. As long as you answer my questions first, and as long as I believe that I’m buying my family’s freedom. Before we leave here tonight – whoever leaves here,” I added, “we’ll make a conference call to Darren, telling him this. He needs to know not to trust you, Fred, and he needs to get a head start on getting the boys away. If I think you’re lying to me, I won’t let you take anything. And if that’s the case, I’ll take your life. And I’ll spend the rest of mine hunting down and killing each and every one of the people who follow you.”

  Big words, from a woman who had no weapons on her.

  Smith was pacing again, still with the thoughtful smile on his face. He was quiet.

  “I should add,” I said, “that in case you’re debating just killing me and going after my family anyway – you know, for fun,” I added, smiling, as if this would never have occurred to him, “I’ve changed my will. If anything happens to me now before I transfer money, the entirety of my estate will go to a few select charities. With a small stipend for my funeral costs, of course.”

  Fred slammed something on the bar. I wasn’t looking at him, though.

  “Clever girl,” Smith said. He was nodding. “An unpleasant shock to your family, though, I’d think.”

  “No, my brothers know about this. They helped me choose the charities. You see, in my family, love doesn’t come with dollar signs attached.” I couldn’t resist. This was, after all, the man who’d pimped out his foster children and let them keep ten percent of what they earned. “I have no heirs, Michael. This ends with me.” I took another sip of my wine, and in a moment I was going to have to pull out my eight-ball again. “Of course, if you don’t take the deal – if you decide just to kill me now, or try, not only will you not get a cent from us, but you will spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder.”

  “Oh? How so?”

  “My nephews have been in training to kill you since you killed their mother,” I said. “They’re still young, granted. But kill their mother and their auntie?” I shook my head. “They’re already six feet tall, and they’re not yet thirteen. And they have what you might call the Cleary sense of justice. Wouldn’t you say, Fred?”

  This was all exaggerated, of course. We’d worked hard not to instill our anger and bitterness into the boys. But from previous experience with Smith, I knew that he admired our family’s dogged loyalty. It was close to what he’d tried to achieve with his own twisted version of family.

  I opened my mouth to say more, but clapped it shut again. Coke can make one a bit too verbose, and Smith’s silence was starting to worry me. This was a man who liked the sound of his own voice.

  “Do you mind if I sit down?” Smith said. He gestured at a bar stool, not too close to mine. “These old bones,” he said. “Not as young as I was.”

  “I don’t know about that,” I said. “You look like you’ve been drinking the blood of virgins or something.” Smith settled himself in and sighed dramatically. The motherfucking bastard was loving this. “You haven’t aged a day.” He looked trim and fit, and more than ever like a former Eastern bloc gymnast.

  What was he waiting for? My previous experience with the man had proven him to have a bigger mouth than I did.

  “My other option,” I said, cutting myself a couple of lines on the bar, “is to leave here and walk into traffic. Or run at you and attack you so that you have no choice but to shoot me. That way, you and yours will get nothing.” I rolled up a twenty and quickly snorted both lines. I didn’t want to have my head down and vulnerable for any longer than necessary. I stuck my finger in my drink and dabbed my fingers at my nostrils. I wasn’t worrying about etiquette any longer.

  “Oh, and one more thing,” I added, smiling at Smith. “It would go a long way toward cementing trust between us if you would agree.”

  “I’m all ears, my dear.”

  “I would like the chance to hit Fred. Just once. No weapons, and I’m happy for him to hit me back if he needs to. I think that being lied to for all these years – not to mention… everything else,” I added, “gives me the right.” I twirled the corkscrew around on the bar. “And you have my word of honor that it will be one blow. Nothing fatal or debilitat
ing.”

  Smith looked over at Fred, who was getting red with anger.

  “You’re not actually considering this,” he said to Smith. His voice squeaked. I smiled.

  “The young lady does have a point,” Smith said. “You were a lousy husband to her sister.” I nearly choked on my wine. Of all Fred’s transgressions, that’s what he was focusing on.

  “You’ve got the Taser, Fred,” I said to him. “I’m unarmed. If you’re worried I’ll keep hitting you or whatever, you can put me out of commission.”

  Smith nodded in Fred’s direction, as if conceding a good point.

  “Remember, if you decide you want to kill me, I won’t resist you. But I won’t transfer the money to you until after we all talk to Darren. And before that happens, I need a few questions answered.”

  Smith looked at the clock over the bar. “All right, Danny,” he said. “Let’s chat. And while we do, I’ll decide whether I want to take your deal. Either deal.”

  I nodded. We had to move more quickly now. If I was going to be tortured to death, I’d rather it happened while I was on a nice coke buzz. I could focus, now, on what was in front of me, and when the ghost of Dave threatened to saunter into my brain I could punch him down.

  I was edgy, but with some small sense of relief. I was ending this, once and for all. I had put my rage about Ginger and Jack behind me. I had to, if I wanted to save the boys and the rest of the people I cared about. There was no price that was too high for that.

  And how much could I value my own life, when I’d been so ready to end it myself?

  “Ann,” I said. Smith nodded wearily. “Why?”

  “Why, indeed,” Smith said. “Fred? Why did we need to end the life of poor young Ann?”

  “Or Moira, as your son knew her,” I said. “You know. Luke’s girlfriend?”

  Fred looked at Smith. “Do we really need to do this?”

  “It was the one thing she asked for,” Smith said. “And I’m still holding out hope that Danny will change her mind about us. Join us,” he said.