by Davis Bunn
That was when Foster caught up with Wayne. “You’re not supposed to be here yet.”
Hilda exclaimed, “Look at what I’m finding here. Germs I’m finding. Accidents waiting to happen. You’re going to bring that nice young lady back to this?”
“That’s enough, Hilda.”
Wayne asked, “What are they doing?”
“Saying thanks,” Foster replied.
“And just what will that nice young lady think of you, she sees this mess of a house?” Hilda shook her wire brush at him. “What will she think of us, letting you live like a rat in his hole?”
Wayne made a mess of expressing his gratitude. He finally slipped into the back room, shut the door, sat down on the bed, pried off his shoes, lay down, and fell asleep to the sound of others working on his home.
SIXTEEN
In the dark predawn hour, the dream came to Wayne, striking for the first time since he had last traveled to Lantern Island alone. He awoke in the standard manner, clawing for air, heart hammering, sweat pouring from his skin. Only the hour was different. By the time he toweled dry and dressed and emerged on his front porch, the eastern sky was tinted grey. Normally the dream struck in the dead of night. If he left now it would be full daylight by the time he made it across the state. Full daylight meant danger and the risk that the family would already be off doing whatever rich families did.
He was going anyway. He knew that before he stepped through the door. His gut was gripped like always, a raging vacuum that went way beyond hunger, even further than lust. More like rage with the destructive force all focused on himself. He had never thought of it so clearly before. Not that it mattered. He was still going.
Until he turned to go back inside and spotted the figure hulking on the steps of the house down the lane. He whispered, “Julio?”
The kid unwrapped his arms from his legs and stood, a lumpish creature rising from its chrysalis. He crossed the lane, stopped by Wayne’s bottom stair, and whispered, “It’s so quiet here, man.”
“Why didn’t you go back with Tatyana?”
“Miss Victoria, she said I could stay.”
“Victoria let you spend the night?”
“No, man, the summer.” But Julio was scarcely paying attention to his own words. He was scouting the low-lying mist, the trees scarcely separated from the dawn, the ghostly structures. “I never thought quiet could be like this. It’s spooky.”
“I don’t get it. Victoria is letting you spend the summer with her?”
“She made me a cot on the porch. Fixed me dinner and everything. Said she’d try and find me a job.”
“What about your grandmother?”
“Miss Victoria, she made me call. But my grandma, she doesn’t care. She comes and goes.” Julio glanced not at him, but at the porch to his right. “You gonna make me leave?”
Wayne felt the tense craving collapse into a fume of burnt cinders. Whatever else came from this, he was not making the trip to Lantern Island that day. “No.”
“So what are you doing up, man? The quiet get you too?”
Wayne slipped back inside. “I’m going for a run. You too. Go find some shoes.”
Wayne had to take it very easy for the kid. Julio fought the road. Before they reached the end of the drive, his feet had started splaying slightly. He lumbered and he sweated and he groaned. But he kept on. Wayne let Julio set the pace, something between a walk and a slow trot, and stopped when they had gone a little over a mile. “You did good.”
Julio propped his hands on his thighs and puffed.
“I know you like basketball. I bet you can shoot. Are you a shooter, Julio?”
Julio gulped enough air to reply, “The best.”
“On the court, a big guy like you, he can just stand and wait until somebody hits him with the ball.” Wayne heard himself talking, like he was prepping a green recruit. “But even the biggest guys in the pros, they’ve still got to run. Look at the Shaq. Big as he is, that guy floats up and down the court, light as a feather.”
Julio pushed himself back upright. The front of his T-shirt was black with sweat. “Okay, man. I’m ready.”
“No, that’s enough for day one. You wait until you’re cooled off, then jog back home. Don’t sprint even if you feel like it. Hold it steady and give your muscles time to get used to this new routine.”
“I can go farther.”
“I know you can.” No question, this kid had grit. Wayne patted his drenched shoulder. “Jog on back, and hang loose till I return. I’ll show you some stretches. We’ll go again tomorrow.”
But Julio was still waiting there on the side of the road when Wayne returned an hour later. Wayne usually raced the final half mile or so, using the straight avenue running through the last orange trees as a perfumed wind sprint. But today he slowed to a foot-dragging trot, letting Julio set the pace and the footwork. Entering the community together, both of them on their last leg.
Tatyana was seated on the porch next to Foster when they came into view of Wayne’s cottage. He pulled up early, not wanting to have Jerry come down on the kid while Julio was still winded. If Jerry was there. They plopped onto the grass together and took their time stretching, until Foster and the lady stepped down off the porch and approached.
Wayne said to Tatyana, “You could have given me directions and let me come meet you.”
Today’s outfit was a midnight blue so dark it appeared only a half shade off black. Matching silk camisole. No jewelry except for a lady’s gold Rolex. Hair pulled back. Severe and reserved and dressed for big game. “Not this morning.”
He said to Julio, “Try to keep your shoulders level when you bend. Don’t jerk toward your toe. Lean until you feel your hamstrings go tight, then release. Easy motions. You’ve got weeks to get it right. Years.” He said to Tatyana, “I’m not ready to speak with Mr. Grey again.”
“You want to see the company books and you need to speak to an accountant.” Even when speaking in the precise manner of reading off a sheet, Tatyana’s voice stirred a shiver in his gut. “I need to be with you the first go.”
Foster said worriedly, “Jerry’s in with Holly.”
Wayne was instantly on his feet. “Since when?”
“She came and got him while we were making coffee. The lady’s upset. The way she looked, I’m thinking she spent the night distilling yesterday into another major league worry.”
Tatyana said, “We need to—”
But Wayne was already running for the community center. “Five minutes.”
Holly’s stone expression matched Jerry’s when Wayne knocked and pushed open the door. Jerry said, “Oh, look. Formal wear.”
Wayne brushed off the grass clinging to his legs and shorts. “Everything okay?”
Jerry returned his attention to the woman behind the desk. “Everything is just swell.”
“I want to know,” Holly said.
Wayne did not risk a look at Jerry. “We weren’t there. We had nothing to do with anything—”
She gripped the air between them, the cords in her arm as taut as her expression. “My work here might seem small to a lot of people. Insignificant. Petty. But it is my life. It is my life. This is all I have.”
Jerry’s voice went soft. “I don’t class your work as insignificant, Holly. Not at all. And neither does Wayne.”
“I have given twelve and a half years trying to make this community run smoothly. Keeping it alive. Fostering an environment where people with very little can make a true home. We are a village. We care for one another.” She glared at Wayne. “Do you have any idea what I’m talking about?”
He nodded slowly. “Belonging.”
Jerry said, “Holly, the man risked his life to bring back the money to keep this place going. What more do you want from him?”
She wavered, but held on to Wayne’s gaze. “I need to ask you something.”
“Holly, please. This isn’t—”
She raised her voice. “Are you a threat
to this community? Will you put my people and this place at risk?”
“I don’t want to.”
“You don’t want.” She huffed, thoroughly dissatisfied. “You don’t want.”
Jerry said, “The guy has given you everything he can, Holly. He’s asked for nothing in return.”
Wayne had a jerking sensation, like the community chief’s stare had the force to pull the earth out from under him. And she was tempted. Wayne could see the words shaped in her head. Telling him to leave. But what she said was, “You have absolutely nothing in common with us or this community.”
There was one thing. Wayne added in a voice he did not recognize, “This is the only home I have.”
“He cares for us, Holly,” Jerry added. Soft as Wayne. “He’s one of our own.”
Wayne left the community center and made his way back to the cottage. He had been wounded before, and not just the one time he caught the edge of the blast that took out his two best friends. Every soldier wore armor down deep, protecting the core of their being from all the stuff nobody should ever have to face. Even when they knew the armor was a lie and they were still vulnerable, such as after his ex had stabbed through the invisible chink, and now Holly. A soldier wore his armor. Sometimes it was all he had.
Wayne listened to two strains in his head, like his antennae had become tuned to two different sound tracks. One spewed out the tirade he had heard voiced by other guys trying to rebuild their armor after an attack. How these women weren’t to be trusted, how they were enemies, and if they didn’t consider themselves that, it was their problem. An enemy by any other name was nothing but a target. He didn’t need them and he didn’t need this rat hole of a place. He could be packed and out the front gates in three heartbeats, and he would never look back.
Like that.
The other internal voice just wept.
One mistake piled on another, that was how he felt. A lifetime of getting things wrong. Holly’s face floated in the harsh sunlight, wavering like heat rising from the oyster shells scrunching beneath his feet. She had not been angry with him. She had been afraid. Afraid of him and afraid for her community. Afraid he would be responsible for bringing them down.
Victoria stood where the bougainvillea was so thick it formed a natural wall reaching from her home to the lane. Julio stood beside her. The maintenance guy switched his focus from her to Julio and back again. Victoria’s natural stoop made the two men seem like giants, behemoths from another world. The maintenance guy was smiling. As was Julio. And not from mirth. They shared a taste of whatever it was that emanated from Victoria.
Victoria gave him a little wave as he passed. “Come join us.”
Wayne pointed with his chin to where Tatyana and Foster stood on his porch. “I think I’m wanted.”
“A man with great responsibilities.” She turned the words into the finest of compliments.
Tatyana came down the steps. “Can we get started now?”
“Fine. Sure.”
Foster asked, “What’s keeping Jerry?”
“He’s still talking with Holly.”
Tatyana said, “I am assuming you do not own a proper corporate outfit.”
Wayne looked up at his house. Somebody had applied a new coat of varnish to his front door. It gleamed like congealed honey. Hilda had scraped the front porch down to the nubs. He could smell the disinfectant from where he stood.
Tatyana said, “I am talking to you.”
“No. No monkey suit.”
Foster said, “Two of the ladies came by and left you dinner. Pot roast and potatoes and vegetables. I put the dishes in your fridge.”
Wayne reached up and massaged the area above his aching heart.
SEVENTEEN
Pulling up in front of Vero Beach’s most exclusive men’s store with a beautiful woman at the wheel of a Ferrari caused no more uproar than a Brazilian soccer riot. The manager himself bustled out to bow and scrape them into the shop.
Tatyana said, “I need a full makeover.”
The manager’s double-breasted jacket bore gold buttons with crests. A sky-blue handkerchief peeked from his pocket. He wore a thin gold chain over his tie, and another around the wrist that also bore an oversized gold watch. “Is madame seeking to go butch or is she referring to her gentleman gardener?”
“I want him ready for the boardroom.”
The manager’s hair was shellacked into a helmet that shivered with the rest of him. “Who did your hair, sir. Lawnmower man?”
“The army.”
“Oh, this really is too much. Derek, phone next door and tell Mimi she has to cancel whatever comes next.” To Tatyana, “Your Samson has the shoulders of an ox and no waist at all. We can either fit him with suspenders or do some serious tailoring.”
Wayne said, “No suspenders.”
“Excuse me. Who is the payee here?”
“That would be me,” Tatyana said.
“Then the gentleman will kindly permit his betters to sort out his future. Pretend you’re Eliza and dream in silence.”
“Who?”
Derek hung up the phone. “Mimi says for you, she’s ready.”
“Excellent.” The manager plied his tape measure. “Did madame have anything special in mind? Navy serge, pinstripe, desert camouflage?”
“Expensive. Something with a label that will flash across the conference table.”
The manager sighed with genuine pleasure. “I do so love a customer who knows why they invented the platinum card.”
By the time they reached downtown Orlando, the sky had gone leaden, the day’s humidity so great it coalesced overhead. Wayne redirected the Ferrari’s AC away from his face and down where the suit jacket and tie and fancy striped shirt congealed around his chest. Tatyana pulled into a multistory parking garage, ignoring the bearded attendant who stepped from his guardhouse to grin and wave her through. She rumbled into a slot with her name, the engine a thunderous roar in the concrete cave.
Tatyana cut off the motor and said, “I can trust you to act like a true professional inside the company.”
“Sure.”
“No comments about anything we have discussed.” Tatyana spoke like she already knew the answer, but being a lawyer, she needed to say it anyway. “Everything must remain totally confidential.”
Wayne asked, “How many others are there?”
“Others?”
“If I was in your position, I’d have a couple of in-house dudes set up to run the same check. Allies who might know at least a part of what’s happened. Not the bit about an angel. But that the boss might be under attack from within or without.”
She just turned and looked at him, her cat’s eyes unblinking and unreadable.
“I assume that means they don’t know about me.”
In response, Tatyana opened her door and climbed out.
Wayne followed her across the lot to the elevators. “I need to know anything they discover.”
“Clip this to your jacket pocket.” She handed him a guest badge, then used a mini-card attached to her key ring to signal the elevator. When the doors shut she said, “From now on, you must assume everything you say can be overheard.”
The garage elevator opened in the corner of the main lobby. The lobby was marble and five stories tall. The building was full of tense people rushing around on self-absorbing duties. A crystal sign the size of an SUV hung above the guard station. The sign was etched with one word, Grey. They joined the polite push into the next elevator that opened. Tatyana said, “Twenty-seven, please.”
When Tatyana’s floor pinged, Wayne followed her through an open-plan office of ringing phones and quiet urgency. She led him into a corner conference room. A laptop was open by the front chair. Bound computer-generated ledgers were stacked along the sides like two leather-bound arms. Yellow legal pads and pens sat before three of the empty chairs.
Tatyana scouted the empty room, checked her watch, and said, “I told him twelve o’clock.”
“Looks like I’ve got enough here to make a start.”
“Do you want me to walk you through it?”
“Let me have a look.”
She watched him settle into the chair at the head of the table. Tatyana stood in the doorway as he turned on the laptop. Wayne saw that the user had already logged in and thus opened the door to the company’s books. He slid the computer to one side and opened the closest ledger. As expected, it contained the latest overview and summary of everything to be found stacked on either side. Wayne looked up then and said, “I’m good to go. Why don’t you go find your guy, I’ll try and make myself useful.”
She remained where she was for a moment, then said, “That is what I like about you, Wayne Grusza. You speak to me only about what is required, and do so with a respect for our time and the value of words.”
Wayne sat as he was for a while after she had left and shut the door. Tasting the aftereffects of a compliment from the ice queen.
Numbers had a language all their own. Rules of grammar and speech and strength and resonance. These rules had to be mastered before the language could be understood. A student needed to learn how to tell lies from truth and the makers of both. Wayne’s sister had said it all that day in his cottage. He had always had a gift with numbers and guns. It was people who gave him an itch.
An hour later, he rose from his chair and stretched. Beyond the inward facing glass wall, life swept past him but he remained utterly isolated. The place was so soundproofed he might as well have been inside an air-conditioned crypt. He returned to the table, took a deep breath, and dove back in.
The next time he rose, his watch read half past four. The numbers he had been examining swarmed before his eyes. Wayne took a slow turn around the table, gradually digesting what he had found, wondering what had happened to Tatyana. But not sorry she had left him alone. The hunger pangs he had been sensing for the past couple of hours were stronger now. But Wayne had years of experience pushing discomfort to one side. In fact, moments like now he could use the internal friction to hunker down, focus more tightly, almost like using anger as a fuel. Staring out at the afternoon vista and seeing numbers race by in a crystal-clear stream.
