Die Again to Save the World

by Ramy Vance

  Reuben couldn’t believe what he just heard. “Sorry, the Canadian?” That was the guy Mike Fury had asked him to research today.

  Martha narrowed her eyes at Reuben. “Yeah, I know. Terrible alias. What ever happened to names like ‘the Butcher’ or ‘the Finisher?’”

  “I know, right?” Reuben agreed, his mind racing. How did she know about the Canadian? Could their two cases be linked? Could he tell her that he knew about this guy too without blowing his cover?

  To that end, did his cover even matter, given what was at stake?

  “An unassuming name for a dangerous criminal,” Martha commented.

  Reuben nodded, thinking back to his own case files. “Because he’s super polite,” he muttered.

  Martha raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, that’s right. How did you know that?”

  “Ah…umm, because it’s the typical Canadian schtick. To be super nice?” Nice recovery, Reuben thought.

  “Still…that’s a pretty big leap in logic for you to make.” She was eyeing him that way she had when they were kids and he was hiding something like the last lollipop or piece of candy.

  Not that great a recovery. “Lucky guess?” he offered.

  “Or intuition, maybe?” Martha said.

  “Intuition?” Marshall scoffed. “This guy has the intuition of a doormat. Where did you learn Canadians were polite? College?”

  “Yep,” Reuben shot back. “From that damn Columbia education, remember?”

  “Smart ass.” Marshall continued to sort papers. “Good for you. Four years and all that tuition money, and you learned how to stereotype Canadians and tinker around with circuit boards.”

  Reuben shook his head. “You have no idea what I do, do you?”

  Marshall sighed. “Yeah, of course, I do. Some yada-yada with government pencil-pushing and bureaucratic bumbling. Look, it’s all well and good if that’s what gets ya paid. But nothing compares to being out there in the nitty-gritty, wrestling criminals to the ground, getting feces thrown at you, getting shot at.”

  Marshall lifted up his shirt, and Reuben groaned. He knew where this was going.

  “See?” Marshall pointed to a couple of tiny red scars on his chest and back. “I’ve been shot twelve times.”

  “I know, Dad,” Reuben told him as he lowered his shirt. “You’ve shown me. Probably both of us.”

  Marshall wagged his finger at Martha. “That’s what’s in a good day’s work. Don’t you forget that. When you can come home and know you helped make the world a better place.”

  “Please ignore our dysfunctional family politics,” Reuben apologized to Martha.

  “I have for twenty years.” She laughed graciously. “I find them endearing now.”

  “Endearing?” Reuben leaned back on the couch with a long chuckle. “Well, that’s a new one. We should tell that one to the neighbors. What do you think, Dad? Are we endearing?”

  “The neighbors.” Marshall slapped a sticky note on a pile of papers. “Couple of lesbo dykes with sticks up their asses. That’s what happens to women when they don’t get regular meat injections—"

  “OK, Dad. Let’s cut this rant short before you say something really insensitive,” Reuben interjected as Martha stifled a laugh.

  “Sorry, excuse my French.” Marshall placed his hand over his heart and cleared his throat.

  She laughed and rolled her eyes. “Please, I’m a fucking cop. Or don’t you remember?”

  “A damned good one at that. Tell Reuben what you’ve been telling me. Listen.” He pointed at Reuben. “Just listen to this story. You gotta hear this.”

  Reuben cleared his throat, not particularly interested in whatever Marshall might think he “had” to hear.

  “OK, so I’ve had this sense about this Canadian character,” she started.

  Reuben raised an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

  “I knew he was part of something big, but I couldn't figure it out. So I followed this dry cleaning van, really for no reason other than intuition.”

  Marshall grinned at her. “Intuition is the backbone of a good cop. That’s why this guy over here will never make it. No instincts. No intuition.”

  “Fuck,” Reuben whispered and started to his room.

  “Where ya goin’?” Marshall’s voice chased him. “Did I say something that hurt sissy pants’ feelings?”

  Reuben wasn’t sure what had snapped. Maybe it was dying a few times and always getting a reset and repeat to try again. But repeats wouldn’t work here. He could repeat it a million times, and his dad would feel exactly the same about him.

  But dying gave one a new perspective, and the perspective Reuben had was a simple one. His dad was a grade-A asshole. For the first time in Reuben’s life, he decided to fight asshole with asshole. “Tell me, where was your ‘intuition’ when mom left?”

  Dead, tense silence took over the small living room and sucked the life out of it.

  Marshall faced Reuben, staring at him with a burning intensity.

  Reuben, perhaps for the first time in his life, held his dad’s eyes. Locked them in, refusing to waver.

  After what felt like a lifetime, Marshall slammed his fist on the table. “You don’t know shit about what happened between your mother and me.”

  “I know she left and never looked back.” Too far. Reuben was beyond giving a fuck. “Why was that? What would make a wife run off and leave her husband and ten-year-old kid without so much as a whisper? Huh? What might have happened?”

  Martha set the investigation documents gently down on the coffee table. “I’m going to—”

  “You snot-nosed little prick,” Marshall yelled at Reuben. “I seem to remember your mom packing while I was saving your ass. Both your asses,” he pointed at Martha, “from that psycho. And what was your saint of a mother doing? Fucking sneaking out the back door.”

  “Taking the best chance she had to get away from you,” Reuben shot back.

  “Reuben, that’s not fair,” Martha said, but both Reuben and Marshall glared at her. Martha raised her hands in surrender.

  Marshall turned his hate back on Reuben. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Yeah, she left because raising a family was hard. Raising you was hard.”

  “And yet millions of families manage, but not the great Marshall." Reuben was filled with rage at this point. “He couldn’t muster what it takes.”

  ”You think you know what it takes?” Marshall shot back. “You think you know what it’s like to have kids? To do what’s best for them day in, day out? Earning a steady paycheck so your kid can take karate, and piano and God only knows what else? No, you don’t know shit about the day in, day out of being a parent or, God knows, being a husband. You think you’re an expert now? Is that what you think? ’Cause you went off and played house with what’s her name…Rebecca?”

  “Rachel.” Reuben narrowed his eyes at Marshall while he thought back to Rachel and their short-lived romance. They'd bonded over their love of ballroom dancing. Had even competed together in some local competitions. And what had she done? Left him for a better dancer.

  Needless to say, Reuben had never told his dad that part of the story.

  Marshall muttered something under his breath. “Yeah, whatever. Your mother and I lived together for thirteen years. You couldn’t even make it to the altar. You shacked up with her for what, six months? Then when it got hard, guess what? Oh, where’s Reuben? He ran like hell.”

  Reuben clenched his hands into fists. “That was not what happened, you old fuck.”

  “Wasn’t it, though?” Marshall yelled. “Marriage isn’t easy, son. It takes work and dedication, and it takes sacrifice. Don’t you dare say you knew what went on in ours because I guarantee you, you didn’t.”

  Martha was backing away from the two of them, seriously considering calling in backup.

  “Whatever,” Reuben mumbled as he headed to his room. “I’m going to find some maple syrup.”

  “Wait.” Martha‘s eyes widened
. “What did you say?” she muttered as Reuben slammed his bedroom door.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Reuben—Thursday, February 9, 8:01 p.m.

  Reuben paced in his bedroom and replayed his fight with Marshall. God. What the fuck was wrong with him? He knew better than to engage his dad.

  But the whole cop thing with Martha just annoyed him. He worked for the goddamned CIA. He wasn’t flipping burgers or cleaning toilets. Of course, according to CIA protocol, his dad thought Marshall worked at the “State Department.” So did Martha. The only person who knew was Buzz, and technically he wasn't supposed to know.

  But Marshall… He couldn’t know. At least his father knew he had a good job and was a decent, law-abiding citizen.

  Whatever was changing in Reuben made Marshall’s constant bullshit wear on his nerves. It was funny when it was Red Foreman on That 70s Show. But in real life, Marshall was getting to be unbearable.

  He hadn’t meant to push his buttons about his mom. Carolyn had left when he was ten, and he knew it was a sore topic with Marshall. He didn’t even know why he did it. Maybe it was all Marshall's holier than thou, nitty-gritty criminal crap. Maybe it was the time warp thing. Maybe it was the Mike-Fury-freaking-out-on-everyone thing. Whatever the reason, Marshall had really gotten under his skin.

  But it was more than that. Martha knew about the Canadian. She might have a lead. Something that would help him crack the case. He’d have to call her later and figure out a way to subtly pick her brain on what she knew and—

  There was a knock on his bedroom door.

  “Go the fuck away,” Reuben yelled.

  “OK, sorry,” Martha answered from the other side.

  Shit. It wasn’t her fault.

  “Hey.” He opened the door. “Sorry, I thought it was Marshall.”

  “Yeah.” She entered the room. “You two sure can go at it.”

  “That was a mild one.” He chuckled, shutting the door behind her.

  Martha pensively walked into the room and fingered the old lamps and dusty desk. “This room hasn’t changed much since we were kids.”

  Reuben scoffed. “Yeah, well, excuse me. I’ll have to add ‘call a decorator’ to my list right after ‘get over failed engagement.’ You of all people should know about that.”

  “Sorry, I just meant we have a lot of history together, you and me.”

  Reuben cocked his head but didn’t respond. He leaned against the desk and drummed his fingertips against it. “Martha, if you’re here to make peace, I’m not really in the mood.”

  She looked a little hurt, and he felt a twinge of guilt. She wasn’t Marshall. “No, nothing like that. I’m just…” she started but shook her head before finishing. “Do you ever think about her?”

  “Who? Rachel?”

  She shook her head. “No, your mom.”

  Reuben pursed his lips. “Sometimes.”

  “I remember her.” Martha got a faraway look in her eyes. “She was so pretty. Way out of Marshall’s league, even back then. I remember this one time we were playing in the street, and I fell and skinned my knee. She rushed out to help me. I tried so hard not to cry in front of her because I didn’t want to distort my face in front of someone so pretty, if that makes any sense?”

  Reuben cracked a smile. “Little-kid logic. And yeah, she was pretty. What the hell she wanted with Marshall, I’ll never know.”

  Martha chuckled. “You think that’s why she left? Because Marshall was too hard to live with?”

  “I don’t know. He only changed after she left.”

  “What happened?” she prodded softly.

  “Well, it was all tied up with the whole…incident.”

  “Right.” She nodded slowly. “God, that changed everything.”

  “Yeah.”

  The incident. Reuben was in fifth grade. The day had started innocently enough. He’d woken up and dressed for school. He remembered his mom fussing over his homework. He was supposed to write an essay on George Washington, but he had waited until the last minute. Mom hadn’t been happy with the rushed and finished product.

  “This is not the quality of work that gets you into places like NYU or Columbia,” she’d chided as she peered over the two pages of pencil-smudged, wide-ruled paper. “If you want to be a computer engineer, you’ve got to have good grades. This is not how you do it. You’ve got to start planning your homework better.”

  “The bus is going to be here any minute, Mom. I have to go.”

  “Have a great day, sweetie.” She’d pecked him on the cheek and held him just a little too long. “And remember, whatever happens, I love you more than anything in the world.”

  “OK, Mom,” he’d mumbled through the fabric of her shirt.

  “You know that, right?” She’d seemed desperate.

  “Yeah.” The school bus horn honked outside.

  “Bye, honey.” She’d given him one last squeeze before he broke away and ran toward the school bus.

  He remembered thinking that moms were weird sometimes—little-kid thoughts.

  He also remembered thinking that if he had known this would be the last time he would ever see her, he would have held on a little bit longer.

  It was 8:32 when he boarded the bus that morning. He knew that because that’s what the psycho had said when he attacked.

  Reuben had sat with his usual group of neighborhood boys near the front of the bus behind the driver. At the stop on the next street over, they picked up Martha and her sister. When Martha saw that her usual seat was taken, she sat next to Reuben. All in all, it was an unremarkable Tuesday morning. A forgettable day of fifth grade.

  Until it wasn’t.

  The last stop on the bus route was out of the way. They had to pick up Bobby Grenshaw. On this day, as Bobby stepped onto the bus, suddenly standing behind him was…someone else.

  “Get down!” yelled the tall, wild-eyed man with tattered clothes. The bus driver tried to shut the door around him, but he pushed his way in. He waved a gun around the bus. “Everybody get down on the ground.”

  Reuben remembered the hysteria, especially among the little kids. Some of the younger ones began to wail for their mothers, and the wild man fired his gun out the window.

  “I said shut up! All of you, not a word! 8:32. 8:32, that’s when you got on. That’s when it starts. That’s when it ends.”

  Reuben and the others crouched low on the school bus floor, pressing their faces against the ridged rubber walkway. Reuben remembered the smell of dirt from the collective shoes and tried to concentrate on a piece of gum under the seat.

  The wild man continued to yell, ranting about how if anyone moved, he would kill them all.

  “What do you want?” the bus driver had stammered from the floor.

  “I want you to get off the floor and drive this bus,” he’d told him. “It’s all about time. I need time.”

  The wild man squealed with laughter, and Reuben remembered thinking it was not at all like the powerful villains on television. His laugh had a disturbing, grating quality to it. The only thing he could compare it to was his childish idea of a mental patient, but not the maniacal ones. At least those were intriguing. He was like the creepy ones who ate plastic grapes and rambled nonsensical rhymes to no one.

  This guy was more like that. But with a gun.

  The next couple of hours were a blur to him. The bus driver had been ordered to drive the bus into a certain building about an hour outside of the city. The kidnapper had given the police instructions that they were to get Hopper, whoever the fuck that was, to Grand Central Station before the bus got to the building.

  “I need her. Otherwise, everyone dies!” the wild man had squealed into the CB.

  What was this about? A girlfriend? A breakup? Some fucked-up stalker?

  Reuben remembered Martha crouched next to him, looking terrified. He’d remembered what his dad had told him, that a good man always protects others even when they’re scared themselves. Protecting othe
rs, he always said, was not being afraid even when you were. Reuben had seen her little trembling hand with glittery pink nail polish lying next to him, and he’d reached over and grabbed it. She’d looked up, and they had locked gazes. He’d never forgotten the mixture of fear and relief that passed between them.

  He’d squeezed her hand and hadn’t let go.

  Meanwhile, NYPD, including Marshall Peet, had gone on full alert. Years later, Reuben would hear from Marshall’s partners that his dad had realized very quickly from the dispatch that it was Reuben’s school bus and hadn’t even asked permission to take the call.

  He’d just jumped in a car and rushed full throttle, lights flashing. There was even a report that he had said, “Protocol be damned. I’m saving my kid.”

  Of course, Marshall himself never admitted as much to Reuben. He always said he was assigned the call and did his duty for all the kids on the bus. Just once, Dad, Reuben had thought. Could you say you loved me?

  Whatever the reason, Marshall Peet had been on the scene, along with half a dozen other cops and a chopper. Reuben remembered the bus racing down the highway with police sirens following them.

  A police car had come up alongside the bus, and Reuben had heard the unmistakable blare of a megaphone.

  “Mr. Thorne,” it blared, “there’s no escape. You got a dozen squad cars following you and even more on their way to cut you off. Surrender now.”

  So the guy’s name was Thorne?

  “You know my name?” Thorne yelled out the window. “Good. That means you’ve spoken to Hopper. Bring her to me, and this will all be over. Don’t bring her to me, and they all die.”

  The statement, even in rhetorical form, had made Reuben shiver with fear. Martha had squeezed his hand tighter, and he’d tried to push away the fear. Protecting others is not being afraid even when you are, he’d told himself.

  “It’s going to be OK,” he’d whispered to her, and everyone who could hear him. “There are policemen everywhere. They’re going to help us.”

  “It’s going to be OK,” Martha had whispered to her younger sister, who was curled beside her. “There’s policemen everywhere.”