“Get up,” a voice says.
Through gritty eyes there’s House Cat two feet from his face, smiling down at him in the darkness. He’s seated on the bed holding a gun and smoking a cigarette. Close enough that Dale can smell his sour breath.
For a moment he thinks the gun’s current direction is an indication of his visitor’s carelessness with firearms but a quick check of House Cat’s expression brings home the point: that gun is meant to be aimed at him. This realization makes Dale exceedingly uncomfortable. He blinks, has the thought that he should reach for the ten-inch knife under his pillow, the one with the serrated edge.
Clears his throat, mumbles, “What’re you doing here?”
“Came to get paid, Dale. The second half.”
“Said you’d get paid when the job got done.” Collecting himself, Dale is awake now and not happy. Propped up on his elbow, he says, “Fuck, man, you broke into my house? And lose the gun.”
House Cat keeps it pointed at him. “Job’s done.”
“Where’s the girl?”
“She’s with Jesus, Dale.”
“What do you mean she’s with Jesus?”
“Shit got a little crazy and Odin shot her.”
The oxygen in the room seems to vanish, because Dale suddenly has trouble breathing. His head tilts back and he closes his eyes. For a moment, he is consumed with the fear that he is going to have a seizure. He knows they can be brought on by stress. Dale waits in silence for the telltale signs, the stiffening of muscles, the narrowing of vision. House Cat stares at him.
“You still owe us the money.”
“You weren’t supposed to kill her!”
“I know that Dale but no use crying over spilt milk. Odin took some incoming, too.”
“I told you to put the fuckin gun away.”
House Cat clears his throat and thrusts the pistol into his waistband, having made his point. Dale leans over and turns on the bedside lamp. Sees blood on House Cat’s jeans. “We need the second half of the money,” House Cat says, this time more insistently.
“What happened?”
“Odin nearly got his head blown off is what happened.”
“To the girl!”
“Fuck the girl! And if you think my buddy’s got health insurance, you’re wrong.”
“I don’t have the money yet,” he says. House Cat’s face growls. “I’m getting it as soon as I tell the guy the job got done. Then he pays me and I pay you.”
“We’re gonna be wanting a little bonus to pay for Odin’s medical, you understand.”
“I’ll try. Fuck! You didn’t have to kill her.”
“How’s ten grand sound?”
“On top of what you got coming? Where am I supposed to get that?”
“The fuck should I know?”
“Let me talk to my guy.”
“You talk to your guy all you want, Dale. But you don’t come across with it, man.” House Cat shakes his head. He doesn’t need to finish the threat.
At this point, Dale wouldn’t mind having a seizure. As hugely unpleasant as they are, it would be an improvement over the conversation with his sub-contractor.
“At least give me until after the election.”
“What election? What’s that have to do with this?”
“Nothing. I’m doing some work for my brother is all.”
“This have something to do with your brother?”
“No.”
“Dale, tell Daddy the truth.” House Cat sticks the muzzle of the gun against Dale’s neck. The cold of the metal pricks him like a needle.
“The election’s Tuesday.”
“Tell you what. Since I’m a patriot, you got til Election Day.”
Given that a moment ago Dale had thought he was about to be killed in his own bed, this seems like a fair compromise. House Cat rises, places his hands on Dale’s motorized wheelchair. Although he’s only had the chair for a couple of days, Dale has already created a bond with it, the kind of bond you can have with an inanimate object such as a car or a piece of jewelry. He doesn’t understand this, but nonetheless feels it deeply.
“I like this gizmo, Dale. You could take it out on the freeway.”
“It’s a good one, yeah.”
House Cat sits in the chair, settles into the seat. He asks Dale how to turn it on and Dale tells him. The engine hums to life and House Cat rides the chair out of the room. Dale stares after him in alarm, not believing House Cat’s move. From the living room comes House Cat’s voice: “I’m taking it as collateral.”
“The fuck you are!”
“Just want to make sure we get paid,” Dale hears him say. “You’ll get it back. And if you don’t come up with the money in two days, it’s going on e-Bay.”
“Motherfucker!”
“Don’t take it personally,” House Cat says. He’s standing in the doorway now. “I support handicapped rights and shit. I’ll tell Odin you asked how he was doing.” House Cat winks and then he’s gone.
Marooned in bed with no wheelchair, Dale is overcome with an all-encompassing sense of futility. He hears the front door of his apartment open and close.
Dale had planned on presenting Nadine’s kidnapping as a fait accompli. He’d instructed the men to hold her until after Election Day and then turn her loose. With the problem addressed so boldly, he believed that Maxon would be happy to pay the rest of the money he had guaranteed House Cat. The new situation was considerably more problematic.
Briefly, he considers calling Randall. But what could his brother do now? Better to get this sorted out without his knowledge. It isn’t like Randall doesn’t have enough on his mind. He picks up his phone. Maxon answers on the third ring.
“Dude, we got a serious problem.”
Awakened in the middle of the night, it takes Maxon a moment to realize who has called him. And when he does, he has no idea what Dale is talking about. The elliptical explanation Dale offers is cut short when what has occurred becomes clear. During the gap in the conversation, Dale yearns for a magical way out but he fears the only solution to this problem may be a time machine. When Maxon finally speaks it is to inform him that any further communication should not be held on the telephone. Then he hangs up.
In the ensuing silence Dale contemplates what he has wrought. All he had wanted was to prove his worth to his brother. This is all he has wanted for his entire life. He had seen the look of forbearance in Randall’s eyes on his infrequent visits to the prison. How Randall had pitied him. How Randall had wished he had made better choices. Dale knows he will have to make this right but has absolutely no idea how.
Lying in his prison bed Dale would spend nights fantasizing about how he could get back on a motorcycle. He would dream of scientific breakthroughs that would once again allow him the use of his legs. He so desperately wanted to prove his worth but that did not seem within the realm of possibility so he lived in frivolous daydreams. That the opportunity to do something for Randall would ever arrive seemed hopeless. And yet it had. And catastrophe ensued. It is unbearable.
His notebook is on the night table next to his bed. Reaching for a pen, he opens it and begins to write:
Randall, Randall, I’m a burning candle, fame and shame will be my game . . .
http://WWW.DESERT-MACHIAVELLI.COM
11.2 – 10:21 P.M.
When disaster occurs in politics or in life, you have to be light on your feet. Well-laid plans can go seriously awry, but what separates the survivors from the whiny bitches is the ability to turn a setback to an advantage. It is a little known piece of information that before the Flight Attendant was serving drinks on the Gulfstream jet of her future husband and benefactor, before she became a baby factory and political candidate, she was a student sportscaster at one of the many institutions of higher learning she attended. This school—which I don’t want to name but is a public institution in Arizona—has a fine football program. While she was slutting around the sidelines in a short skirt, filing in-depth r
eports and shaking her bodalicious booty for the school’s student-run cable channel rumor has it she attracted the attention of a certain wide receiver named LaMarcus Abdul-Rahim. They “dated” for a while and the Machiavelli hears that she got herself in the family way. Being a right-to-lifer, she dropped out of school and had the baby who was then put up for adoption. The Stewardess is nothing if not highly attractive and a quick Internet search will tell you that LaMarcus Abdul-Rahim is a fine hunk of dark meat, so there is one good-looking bi-racial teenager out there somewhere. At least that’s the rumor. So if this starts to unfold, who knows what it would do to her electoral chances. The bi-racial aspect is nothing these days and we as Americans are all grateful for that. But the out-of-wedlock birth is still a bad career move for someone who claims to walk the godly path as she aspires to elective office.
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 3
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
There is a right way to break bad news and a wrong way. He knows the wrong way: come right out and say it. And what good has that ever done? The brutal truth leads to shock, keening, rending of garments. As for the right way, he isn’t even sure what that looks like. But he’s going to have to tell Kendra about Nadine.
Randall had been standing in his kitchen dressed in his pajamas drinking coffee just after seven in the morning when Maxon called to tell him to look at the web site of the Desert News. Randall had seen the item about the carnage at the convenience store and after a chasm of silence and dread managed to croak the following words: “Don’t tell me this was your solution.”
“I mentioned our predicament to Dale.”
“To my brother? Why, Maxon?”
“Because you were reaming me out and I was frustrated.”
“Dale’s in a wheelchair. How’s he supposed to be involved in this rat’s nest?”
“The boy has friends, Randall. Serious bad guys.”
There is another silence during which Randall tries to determine the most efficient course of action. His mind ratchets to the first time he had to disarm a live explosive device on his own. Not for a moment did he believe anything would go wrong. He knows how to perform under the kind of pressure that transforms a grain of sand into a pearl.
“Have you talked to him today?”
“Hell no. You want me to call him?”
“Leave it. Just hold tight.”
A few minutes have passed. Randall is extraordinarily displeased with Maxon, but cannot deliver the dressing down he deserves until after the election. And he is frustrated with himself for having brought the problem to Maxon in the first place. He has no intention of telling Kendra until he knows exactly what to say but when she staggers in from the bedroom hollow-eyed and clutching her own handheld device, it is clear she already knows.
Barely choking the words out, she says something that sounds like oh my god but he can’t be sure because it could also be I’m going to die. Kendra is wearing a flimsy white cotton nightgown with a red and blue fleur de lys pattern she had purchased when accompanying Randall on a junket to Paris and her form seems to deflate as he envelops her in his arms. He squeezes her close and strokes her hair, still flat and tangled from sleep. She heaves and sobs until she is unable to catch her breath. Then she chokes, wheezes and subsides into a whimper.
Brittany is standing in the kitchen in a tiny tee shirt and plaid short-shorts. It is the kind of ensemble with which she could make a tidy living selling used to Japanese businessmen on the Internet.
“What’s wrong with Mom?”
“She just heard some upsetting news.”
Brittany places an uncertain hand on her mother’s back and rubs it with the passion of a gay man handling a female breast.
“Mom, do you have cancer or something?”
Kendra manages to discharge “No,” before lapsing back into convulsive sobs. Brittany looks at her father who shakes his head and shrugs, as if to say one day you’ll understand.
Brittany nods and goes to the refrigerator where she takes out the non-fat milk and pours a glass for herself.
Over his wife’s quaking back, Randall addresses their daughter: “Your mom’s going to be okay.”
Randall isn’t sure what Kendra says as she runs out of the room but thinks it sounds like no I won’t. Brittany drains the milk, tells her father she’s going to her boyfriend’s house for the day and scampers off to get dressed. Her discomfort at having been exposed to this frightening world of adult emotion escapes Randall whose mind is elsewhere.
Maxon did not offer any details over the phone but Randall assumes whatever the plan was, a grisly bloodbath in a convenience store was not the intended outcome. Draining the rest of his coffee, he sits at the kitchen table. The morning sun shines like a joyful invitation. A full day of campaigning awaits, stops at shopping centers, a church fair, and a grip-and-grin is scheduled for the middle of the afternoon in the heart of the downtown Palm Springs business district. Kendra had said she would accompany him. The election is less than seventy-two hours away and every waking moment is supposed to be spent campaigning. In twenty minutes, he will be late for his first event of the day, a stroll through the clubhouse of a golf course in Palm Desert.
How had this happened? How had she gone from a Congressman’s wife to an accomplice to what had somehow become a double homicide? Kendra lays under the covers curled in a fetal position, a pale green, six hundred-thread count Egyptian cotton sheet clutched in both hands and pulled over her stinging eyes. Thoughts careen through her mind at a pace so breakneck she can’t parse them.
In high school she only wanted to lead the band on to the football field at halftime, her baton arcing through the western sky all the way to the University of Southern California where she remembers herself dressed in spangles, boots and a tall hat in front of crowds at football games each one of her four undergraduate years. And then she’s standing in front of a microphone, and a fleeting image of the singing career she pursued upon graduation provides a second of relief, before marriage and motherhood plant their stake, and she takes brief refuge in the solid means of identity all of this had provided until a few minutes ago.
Now everything has come crashing down like the contents of a poisoned piñata. The last she could recall, before her mind had taken leave of its moorings, was that Randall had said he would take care of it. She had assumed that to mean that someone would have a word with—Kendra doesn’t even want to think of the name, but it bursts through the still permeable wall of denial—NADINE! Good Lord! Dead!
Someone was going to talk to her. They were going to talk to her and take care of it. Did that not work? Had that not happened? Whose idea was this, this epic blunder, this abomination, this tragedy that had occurred a short distance from Kendra’s home while she had slept and for which she believes herself responsible. Will it be possible for her to ever again be anything other than a fraud, that as far as pretending to be an ordinary human is concerned she will forever be an imposter since now, at her essence, she is a murderess.
Murderess? She’s no murderess! She is a baton twirler. And a singer. Whose karaoke version of “Dancing Queen”, belted out at an early Duke fundraiser, will be forever cherished by the desert’s gay legion.
Through the black fog of her confusion, regret, terror, and incipient grief—yes, grief, because no matter how irate Nadine’s behavior made her, she had never denied the woman’s essential humanity—Kendra knows that in the annals of overreaction this massacre will vie for a blue ribbon. Snot and tears stain the sheet. Her breathing is ragged. A massive headache blooms, it’s iron tendrils extending from the crown of her head toward her temples, squeezing. This is misery so profound it cannot be quantified. Then she feels a hand on her shoulder and nearly jumps out of the bed.
Randall’s voice: “Are you all right?”
“Nooohhh.” The sound comes from an uncharted place somewhere deep within her viscera. She can feel him sit next to her. His proximity causes her to curl into a tighter ball.
“Kendy, look,” she can hear him say. It is warm under the sheet and she can feel perspiration begin to collect in her armpits and under her breasts. It’s suddenly too warm. Isn’t the air conditioning on high? The back of her neck begins to itch.
Randall rubs her arm. She wishes he would stop. She wishes he would get out of the bedroom, the house, her life. She wishes she had never met him, married him, or had a family. She is seized with the desire to run out of the house, get into her car, drive to the police station and throw herself on the mercy of the law because everyone will instantly know who is responsible for the carnage so what is the point of resisting the inevitable and prolonging the torture of her guilt? That brain hemorrhage of a thought passes in a nanosecond and she thinks about swallowing a bottle of pills and the sweet oblivion that would bring, and that thought vanishes and she is back to contemplating the bleak futility of their situation.
Randall’s voice: “Do you want to talk about it?”
She thrusts the sheet away and from her fetal position stares at him. By his reaction, she can only imagine what her face looks like. She’s going to have to avoid mirrors for the rest of her life.
She manages to say, “What is there to talk about?”
“It obviously got out of hand.”
“Was this someone’s plan?”
“We didn’t have anything to do with it.”
“Don’t tell me what happened. I don’t want to know.”
“Maxon talked to her. That was all.”
“I told you not to tell me!”
“Everything will be okay.”
Angry Buddhist (9781609458867) Page 20
