by Ben Sanders
He slid the chain on and felt his way through to the kitchen, good smells drawing him in. He patted around for the switch and turned on the light. It took a few blinks to wake up. Grey water in the sink and a big pile of dishes drip-drying. Someone’s schoolbag piggybacked on a chair. The little scene mirrored in the windows above the counter and Perry framed there in the door, still with a hand raised.
He went to the stove and lifted the lid on the saucepan, just a peep, like checking a trap. Spaghetti bolognese. She liked to mix it all in, noodles too. He put the gas on low to heat it up, stood stirring with a fork, a full ten minutes looking down at those shifting whorls. Like some kind of horoscope, not that he could see much in there. Looked the same as always, so maybe that meant bad news.
His throat was still sore from the guy’s grip, but his shoulder was coming right. Not especially big, that Marshall guy, but he had some moves.
He didn’t bother with a plate. He held the pot up under his chin, pacing the kitchen slowly as he ate, beginning to feel better about things. Food in his stomach and the gun in his pocket. When he was done he placed the pot in the sink, the thing still submerging as he turned off the light.
It was quiet upstairs. He put his head in the kids’ room, not seeing them in the dark, just going on habit. Back down the hall and Marie was on her side, facing away from him, a vague hump under the quilt. He closed the door so the tongue just touched the latch, not wanting to wake her. He did a little tightrope step to get his boots off, pulled his jeans off too. Then he shrugged out of the jacket and eased in beside her, teeth clenched like it might keep the springs quiet.
Marie said, ‘How’d it go?’ Alert, not a trace of fog. She always just said stuff in a flat tone, like she knew what he was up to even if he’d told her nothing.
He said, ‘Shoulda said you’re awake, wouldn’t have to prowl around like a rapist.’
‘Pere, Jeez.’ She rolled on her back, rubbing her eyes.
He reached up behind him and found his headphones hooked over the bedpost. He put them on and felt for the iPod on the dresser and pushed play. More white noise, a ten-minute track he’d set to loop. It’d help him drift off. He heard things in the crackle sometimes, voices telling him it’s all OK.
Not tonight: he felt her lift one speaker off his ear and lean close. ‘Where’ve you been?’
His brow all furrowed up and his eyes closed. Right on the brink of saying something vicious, but she’d always had a knack for pushing without sending him over the edge.
He said, ‘Nowhere.’
‘Long time to spend at nowhere doing nothing.’ Propped up on an elbow, still holding the headset.
‘Never said I did nothing. Just went nowhere to do it.’
She said, ‘Why’ve you been not right lately?’
He didn’t answer, didn’t want to go there right now.
She poked him. ‘Pere. What’s up? Come on.’
He pulled the headset off, prospect of a listen seeming pretty slim. ‘’Cause I worry.’
She kept watching him, Perry avoiding her eyes as he looked up at the ceiling in the dark, light from the iPod showing the roughness of the plaster. It was a good way to stay chilled, counting the peaks in the texture.
She said, ‘Well. Last time you started worrying, you ended up doing two years for it. So I’d say if you’ve got problems, you’re best doing nothing at all. Rather than try to fix them.’
She laid an arm across his chest. ‘You think how many wives are telling that to their man. OK to do nothing. Probably count them on one hand.’
He didn’t answer.
She said, ‘Plus when you disappear it makes me worry. Get two people’s anxiousness out of the one guy.’
Perry pinched his nose, hearing the Marshall feller’s voice. Sounding pleasant when he told Perry he’d kill him if they ever met again. So real in his head Marie could probably hear it too, close as she was. He tried to roll over but she wouldn’t let him.
‘Perry, c’mon.’
He said, ‘I worry about money. I worry we’re gonna lose the house.’
‘Pere. We’re not losing the house.’ She thrummed a little ditty on his chest. ‘Jeez, today, we cleaned up this place down on Bedford, so much powder around, the Hoover must be worth ten grand now.’
Perry didn’t answer.
She laughed. ‘Or could’ve put it on reverse, got a pretty good hit.’
He didn’t answer, suddenly remembering the phone, wondering if it could be used to trace him here. Growing cold with that thought, and then he realised there was no need, because the guy had seen his driver’s licence, ‘Humboldt’ written there plain as day. Even lying down he started going dizzy.
She said, ‘Your heart’s doing a crazy beat thing.’
But the guy wouldn’t come looking for him. He’d said it himself: he didn’t want to see Perry again.
He swallowed, making sure he still had his voice. He said, ‘Bit of stress speeds it up.’
‘So forget about money, seriously. It’s under control.’
She’d always had it under control, money and everything. Her cleaning business did OK, but it was a bigger score that got her the house. Back in ’91 she’d worked for a congressman in Arkansas, campaign-trail stuff, manning phones and handing out buttons. The sort of job that needed a nice voice and a pretty face, perfect for Marie, especially back then, barely old enough to vote.
Her boss had been a popular guy, fairly liberal even by Democrat standards, but the issue was he had fairly liberal hands, too, and they tended to wander when women were in range. She’d quit after a late-night incident at the photocopier, the photocopier itself not actually the problem, more the fact she’d been forced up against it with Mr. Congressman’s hand down her underwear.
She took the story to Fox, and they told her she wasn’t the first woman to come forward. They taped an interview, and she sent a copy to Mr. Congressman, followed up with a phone call, using her sweetest survey voice. She told him Fox had only half the story, but for an easy one-off payment she might be persuaded to forget the rest of it.
He said, ‘You’re lying, there is no rest of it. That’s fucking blackmail.’
Still with her sugar tone, actually smiling to him down the line, she said, ‘It’s a hard life being a rapist.’
And he paid her.
Twenty-five years ago now, that money long gone. It felt like a lot at the time, but all told she had fifty grand to her name, and it didn’t last. A down payment on the house, and she never told Perry how she blew the rest. She’d moved to New York in ’92, and they met at work a year later: Perry pouring drinks, Marie up on stage not wearing very much. It seemed like it was meant to be: his parents had met at a bar, so this was like refining the tradition.
They got hitched in ’94. It was fine until ’08, but then the cost of two kids and a house just stretched things too far. He picked up extra work to get by, but he had a job go bad in 2012, and got hit with two years for his trouble. The judge commended his attitude, providing for his family and all that, it was just the nature of the work that was the problem. The upside was Marie didn’t leave him, never even threatened it. Jail? Just a two-year bump in the road. He couldn’t believe it. She even visited on weekends, and when he got out there she was, ready to take up where they’d left off, like nothing had happened. He had a nice fresh-start vibe for a while, rode it eighteen months or so, but now it felt like ’08 again, money tight, Perry doing the same work that got him jailed the first time.
She was in his underwear now, not having much luck, other things being on Perry’s mind. He pushed her hand clear and rolled over and sat on the edge of the bed. Elbows on his knees and his head bent.
The Marshall guy had his phone. One call could land him in the shit. The fuckup tolerance would be nonexistent. And they wouldn’t just draw a line at him. Marie. The kids. Make it a family deal. Christ, that’s not even funny.
He rubbed his face, scratchy with regrowth, Marie’s
hand trailing off his back as he stood up.
‘What are you doing? Come on.’
He found his trousers and got a leg through, hopped a little circle in the dark until he got the other one home. When he picked up the jacket the gun hit the floor with a thud.
‘The hell is that?’
‘Nothing, just go to sleep.’ Jesus, imagine if it went off.
‘Sounded like a fucking paperweight.’
‘It’s a good-luck charm.’
She said, ‘I hope you just got it, otherwise it’s broken.’
He thought about that, standing there in the dark, fixing the gun in his belt.
‘Pere, come on, what’re you doing? For God sake.’
‘I need to go see Tolson.’
Only half the story, really: he needed Tolson to kill a guy.
‘Perry, it’s one A.M.’
He picked up his shoes and went out, careful with the door again.
FIVE
Marshall
He was back in New York City by midnight, and he reached LaGuardia Airport by 12:15. Airports had remained something of a novelty to him. He’d never been on a plane. In his youth the cost had been prohibitive, and now it was security that barred his chances of flying. Any activity that required ID was to be avoided, so cars and buses were the optimal mode of transport, still pleasingly anonymous. Altitude-wise, he preferred ground level as well: there was something intuitively risky about a pressurised metal tube at thirty thousand feet.
He drove through the perpetual rush hour in front of the terminals and dropped the Ford at the Avis rental lot, walked back across to the Marine Air building, and found a courtesy phone.
Almost 12:30 in New York meant almost 10:30 in Santa Fe. He dialled Lucas Cohen. Seven rings, and the deputy picked up sounding groggy. ‘Yeah?’
Marshall said, ‘It’s me.’
‘Twice in two weeks. I’m a lucky man.’
Marshall had called him from California when he learned about the kidnapping, spent most of the call listening to Cohen tell him not to get involved.
Marshall said, ‘Just checking no one’s grabbed you again.’
‘No, nothing yet. They might want someone easier. Think I was kind of a handful.’
‘’Cause of all your remarks?’
‘Yeah. That’ll be it. They don’t want to be thinking of quick rejoinders all the time. Too much stress.’
Marshall said, ‘Anything new?’
‘Mmm, not a lot. Got an ID on the feller I shot. Name’s Terrence Arceneaux, born Louisiana, been living with his father down in Albuquerque. Only a young’un, twenty-eight years old. Terrence, I mean.’
‘What’d dad have to say?’
‘Nothing useful. He’s in the hospital, with some lung condition apparently, so they haven’t got anything out of him. But I don’t know if it’s ’cause he’s got nothing to give or he’s just not the sharing type. No one’s saying who put them up to it.’
Marshall said, ‘I don’t think there’s any mystery there. I’d bet limbs on it being one of the Asaros. Dad or the daughter. The son hanged himself in prison, God bless.’
‘How’d you know that?’
Marshall didn’t answer.
Cohen said, ‘Tony’s in federal. FBI’s talked to him, but he hasn’t been that forthcoming, as you can imagine. But nobody knows where the daughter is. Chloe.’
‘So she’s looking pretty good for it. Unless Tony’s running something from inside.’
‘You don’t seem too cut up about it.’
‘What?’
‘I dunno. I thought this was the great undercover romance, you and Chloe Asaro. And now she’s probably trying to kill you.’
Marshall didn’t answer. He would have called it ‘love’ rather than ‘romance,’ but he didn’t want to talk about it. He’d rather seem emotionally deficient than have a heart-to-heart with Cohen. He said, ‘What about the car? Your kidnap wagon.’
‘Well, it wasn’t theirs, of course. Lab people kept pulling all these hairs out of the seats, thought there could be a DNA angle, but then we found they stole it off a beagle breeder, so I guess we’ve got a whole lot of dog fluff. Prints haven’t turned up anything yet, either.’
Marshall said, ‘You decided if this Tommy Lee Warren was in on it?’
‘Well, I don’t know. Guys who took me knew where they were going, so maybe they grabbed Tommy, left him doped up in Los Alamos, knew I’d have to go get him. No one’s put it to him yet, though—still got a tube down his throat. Where are you now, anyway?’
‘New York.’
Cohen didn’t answer. Then he said, ‘I figure I probably need to tell you a few more times not to get involved.’
Marshall twisted the handset cord around his finger. One of those benign habits cell phones were slowly curbing. He toyed briefly with the notion of telling Cohen about Henry Lee, how the man had sold him out to that character Perry Rhodes. But then he figured he wasn’t too far in, and maybe there was some good digging to be had. There was a line to be found, connecting this evening to whichever Asaro was gunning for him. If he had to cut odds, he’d say it was Chloe. Not that it mattered in the long run—the dead are all the same. But for now he could go see Perry or Henry, or maybe he’d get a call on that confiscated phone. Quite a potent thrill, the prospect of fixing things unaided. Doing it quietly, on his own terms. He could give it two days, and then reassess. Make another phone call as and when required.
Cohen seemed to hear something in the dead air. He said, ‘You got something you’re mulling on, now’d be a good time to share.’
‘It’s all quiet in here. I’m not mulling on anything.’
‘Right. So now you’re just going to take it easy for a while, catch up on your introspection?’
‘Yeah, maybe. Might go back to MoMA, I don’t know.’
Cohen said, ‘What’s MoMA?’
‘Museum of Modern Art. Was reading this Don DeLillo book on the bus over, Point Omega? Guy goes there in the first chapter. I checked it out, actually pretty slick.’
‘Sure.’
Marshall said, ‘I’ll call you in a couple of days.’
He went to hang up.
Cohen said, ‘Oh, hold on, wait. Someone called for you.’
Marshall put the phone back to his ear. ‘Who?’
‘Yeah . . . what was her name. Hang on.’
Marshall said, ‘Lana, maybe?’ His voice going up at the end, sounding hopeful in a way that surprised him.
Cohen said, ‘Yeah, that’s it, Lana. All she said was, “Tell Marshall to call again.”’
Marshall waited, watching the late-night arrivals wander past, bleary-eyed people tugging trolley bags. He said, ‘That’s cryptic, isn’t it?’
‘Who is she?’
Marshall didn’t answer.
‘You’re allowed to say stuff when I ask questions.’
Marshall said, ‘I called her from Eureka, but she didn’t pick up. So I left a message.’
‘Right. I thought you might say, Oh, she’s so-and-so from such-and-such, insert backstory here. But whatever.’
Marshall didn’t answer.
Cohen said, ‘You can’t go using the United States Marshals as a private message service, either. Get your own phone, or give out someone else’s number. We’re not your secretary.’
Marshall said, ‘I’ll call you in a couple of days.’
Cohen
He went back into the bedroom and sat on the edge of the mattress, elbows to knees, looking at the phone as if it showed a transcript of what they’d said. He needed the unspoken bits more than anything, the truth between Marshall’s lines. Put them together and you’d have a map of what’s coming next.
Loretta said, ‘You sit like that you’ll freeze solid. About twenty degrees out there.’
‘Yeah. Have to thaw me out with the hair dryer.’ He had to think before he said it. He wasn’t used to putting effort into brevity, having to work at being himself.
�
�What are you doing?’
‘Just pondering.’
‘I think you need to give it a rest.’
He made his voice rich, like saying Shakespeare: ‘A mind of this power is never idle, my love.’
He heard her trying to cover up a laugh, a short breath out her nose. ‘Who was that on the phone?’
‘Just a man likes to give me headaches.’
She touched his arm, ran it up the bicep. He flexed a little. He could never help it.
She said, ‘Just lie down and forget about it.’
He lay down, but he knew there’d be no forgetting. He put the phone on the bedside table, facedown so the glow was hidden if he got a message.
She tugged the quilt up and rolled over, laid her arm across him. Breath and eyelashes on his cheek. ‘You OK?’
‘Yeah. I’m OK.’
He’d had dreams the last couple weeks, nightmares that had him stretching for the gun. He could never see it, and he could never quite touch it, no contortion sufficient. The agony of being not quite there. It got him dizzy, thinking of the implications, if he just hadn’t reached it. The whole course of the rest of his life, built on the fact he’d leaned that little further. Anything he did from then on, he could trace it back and see its root in that one frame. Not that he bought into anything metaphysical, but he figured if he ever did meet the creator, that’s one thing he’d ask. How often people’s lives are beholden to one instant. Probably always, if you think about it.
‘What’s on your mind?’ She had a radar for grim thoughts.
‘Nothing. Just silly things.’
He folded the covers back and her hand slid gently off him as he sat up on the edge of the mattress.
‘Gonna get some water.’
‘OK.’
He crossed the room and closed the door very gently against his finger as he slipped out. The girls were still asleep when he put his head in their room. He leaned on the frame with his arms folded and one leg crossed.
