The Masked Family

by Robert T. Jeschonek

  "I've got news for you, son," said Max. "The only way to help other people is to hurt yourself."

  *****

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Puerto Peñasco, Mexico, 2006

  The flaming clothesline pole looked like a burning cross in the back yard of the seaside cottage.

  Cary didn't notice the resemblance until he'd set the fire and hidden well clear of it behind a sand dune. The pole, with its crosspiece three quarters of the way up, looked like something the KKK might have lit on a hilltop in the deep South.

  The image gave Cary a guilty shiver, but he wasn't about to undo what he'd done. Finally, after the thousands of miles of travel and all the planning and waiting, he was on the verge of getting his kids back. The plan was in motion.

  Step One: Create a diversion.

  Now, if he could just keep El Yucatango from screwing everything up. At that very moment, instead of holding his position on the opposite side of the yard like he was supposed to, the luchador super-hero scrambled over and threw himself down right beside Cary.

  "What's the attack signal again?" El Yucatango wore a black pillowcase mask and bedsheet cape now instead of the usual white ones. Cary wondered if he'd just painted his white mask and cape black, or if he kept spare black ones handy for night operations.

  Cary sighed. It was no use berating the hair-horned wonder at this stage of the game. Criticism ran right off him like glass cleaner squeegeed off a windshield.

  "The signal is 'Go,'" said Cary.

  "Good job." El Yucatango tousled Cary's racing-striped red hair with his thick, sausage-like fingers. "I was just testing to see if you remembered it."

  "Thanks." Cary glanced over the lip of the dune, checking to see if anyone had come out of the cottage yet. No one had. It was three thirty in the morning now, and he hadn't seen anyone go in or come out since Drill had stumbled home drunk or stoned or both an hour ago.

  While Cary watched the house, El Yucatango continued to lie beside him. A long moment passed, and then Cary finally turned and tapped him on the shoulder.

  "Are you going to take up your position?" said Cary. "The one you'll attack from?" He nodded toward the chosen hiding place on the far side of the yard.

  Before Cary could stop him, El Yucatango reached for his face, grabbed a handful of cheek, and pinched it hard. "You passed another test! Way to go!"

  Then, black bedsheet cape fluttering behind him, El Yucatango leaped up and bounded off across the sand toward his designated hiding place.

  Rubbing the Starbeam Ring on his pinky, Cary hoped that El Yucatango's lunacy would work to his advantage and not get them both killed. Lunacy plus wrestling skills plus obesity made him a real secret weapon...as long as he didn't go completely off the deep end.

  The truth was, Cary could never have tried this operation without him. Going up against hardass Drill alone would have been suicide, and Crystal was no pushover, either. Without an unpredictable, delusional powerhouse on his side, Cary probably still would have been watching from afar, trying to figure out how to sneak away the kids without getting killed.

  Now, if everything would just work out the way it was supposed to.

  Time passed, and still no one came out of the cottage. Red and yellow flames continued to consume the clothesline pole, chugging smoke up toward the full moon. The flames burned halfway across the clothesline itself before the line broke and fell to the ground.

  Still, there wasn't a peep from indoors.

  Cary's nervousness rose like the smoke. The longer he had to wait for Drill and Crystal, the greater the chance that a neighbor or passerby would enter the picture. That was the exact opposite of what Cary was prepared to deal with tonight.

  It was time, he decided, to move things along.

  Cary grabbed a smooth stone, about the size of his ear, from a scattering of pebbles in the sand. As he got to his feet to throw it, he noticed El Yucatango jumping up, too, and he waved him down.

  Then, Cary cranked his arm back, took aim, and pitched the stone at the cottage. As it crashed through one of the windows, he dropped back down behind the dune.

  Finally, he heard voices from inside the cottage, streaming loud and clear through the broken window.

  First, he heard Drill. "What the fuck?"

  Then, Crystal. "What's goin' on?"

  "Somethin' fuckin' hit me," said Drill. "Smashed through the fuckin' window and...what the fuck?"

  "What're you...oh my God," said Crystal.

  They stopped talking after that.

  Thirty seconds later, the back door of the cottage swung open.

  Finally. This is it.

  Heart hammering, adrenaline sizzling through his arteries, Cary tensed on his hands and knees and got ready to spring from his hiding place.

  Through the golden nimbus of flames rippling around the clothesline cross, he saw someone emerging from the shadows inside the cottage.

  Get ready. Get set.

  *****

  Chapter Thirty

  Johnstown, Pennsylvania, 2006

  When Celeste turned the corner of the house, she saw her father, E.Q., feeding a fire in the fire ring at the far end of the yard.

  Dressed in a red flannel shirt and faded bluejeans, he raked leaves out of a wheelbarrow into the big cement ring. The flames crackled and danced when the dry leaves hit, and more smoke billowed out. There was quite a cloud of smoke already, spilling out around front and over into the neighbors' yards. There was so much smoke that when Celeste and her brother and sister had first pulled up, they'd wondered briefly if the house was on fire.

  For a moment, Celeste felt like she'd slipped back in time. The smell of the burning leaves, the sight of her father feeding the flames, the sound of the crackling fire and the rake scraping the wheelbarrow were the same as they'd been thirty years ago. She almost expected to see her mother on her knees in the flower bed, tending the bobbing marigolds.

  Celeste shivered like a dandelion puff snagged for an instant on the cuff of a sweater, about to sway free on a breeze and float away.

  Then, a breeze caught her and pulled her back from the past as she'd always known it would.

  In this case, the breeze that broke the moment was Pretzel. "BAROOO!" The dog loped past her on his mangled paws and twisted legs and headed straight for E.Q.

  E.Q. turned in time to see the oncoming dog and swung out the rake to greet him. Pretzel stopped short, then crept forward to sniff the tines of the rake. E.Q. bounced it a little, making Pretzel shrink back and let loose with a howl.

  At that point, E.Q. caught sight of Celeste. Even from a distance, she could see his face brighten.

  "Celeste!" His curly hair was whiter, his build slighter, his face more weathered...but otherwise, he was the same old Dad. "This is your friend, I take it?"

  "He's with me," Baron said as he and Paisley walked around the corner. "Dad, meet Pretzel."

  E.Q.'s expression changed to a worried frown. "Baron? Paisley? To what do I owe the honor?"

  "We have to talk to you about something, Dad." Celeste started across the yard toward the fire ring.

  "Is Cary here, too?" E.Q. adjusted his black-framed glasses and looked around.

  "That's what we have to talk to you about," said Celeste.

  E.Q. looked from one of his children to the next and back again. "Has something happened to him?"

  "He's missing, Dad. We can't find him." Celeste felt self-conscious as she said it, as if she were describing something that had gone wrong while Mom and Dad were out and she was babysitting. "We were hoping you might know something."

  E.Q. stopped teasing Pretzel with the rake and stood it up straight with its fan in the air. "I haven't talked to him in months."

  "There's a lot of that going around." Paisley stepped out from behind Baron and gave E.Q. a peck on the cheek.

  It was then, when E.Q. saw Paisley up close and unobstructed, that his eyes went straight to her distended belly. "Oh my God." His expression chan
ged from a frown to a look of amazement to a smile and back to a frown. "I didn't know you were...when are you...why didn't you...oh my God."

  "I know, I've put on weight." Paisley winced. "Please don't make a big deal about it, okay?"

  "Congratulations," said E.Q.

  "Hey, congratulate him." Paisley waved at Baron. "It's all his."

  E.Q.'s eyes shot wide open. "The baby's his?" He pointed at Baron.

  Paisley nodded. "Baron Junior if it's a boy. Baroness if it's a..."

  Baron cut her off. "What Paisley means is, she wants to give me the baby after she has it. Not that I'm going to take it."

  Paisley put her hands on her stomach and lowered her head as if she were listening to something inside. "Baron Junior says he woves his daddy, Baron."

  "Cut it out, all right?" Baron glared at her.

  Celeste stepped between them. "Don't you think we can talk about this later? We're here because of Cary, remember?"

  E.Q. stared at Baron and Paisley for a moment as if they were nuts. Then, he peeled his gaze away from them and returned his attention to Celeste.

  "I don't understand why you're here," said E.Q. "You could've just called."

  "Cary left a trail." Celeste slid the Secret Plan notebook from between the waist of her jeans and the small of her back. "Each clue leads to the person who can solve the next one." She handed the notebook to E.Q., who started leafing through it. "Mary Anne Filigree led us to you."

  E.Q. looked up with a puzzled, crooked smile. "You went to see Mary Anne Filigree?"

  "Yes, Dad," said Paisley. "She told us about your cross-dressing adventures and transsexual affairs, so all that's out in the open now."

  E.Q. ignored her. "How's she doing, anyway?" he asked Celeste.

  "Were you ever a fireman, Dad?" said Paisley.

  "Why do you want to know?" E.Q. narrowed his eyes at her.

  Paisley clasped her hands behind her back and swung her shoulders from side to side. "So what's this about you protecting some magic castle from fire-breathing dragons?"

  E.Q. stared at her without saying a word.

  Celeste sighed. The family reunion was getting off to a rocky start. "Okay, okay," she said. "Let's get back to business here. Cary, remember?"

  Paisley fairly glowed with an expression of exaggerated innocence. "But I just wanna know if the dragons were transsexuals, too."

  "Enough!" Celeste glared at her. Paisley scowled and stuck out her tongue, then rolled her eyes and sighed like a disgruntled teenager.

  "BAROOO!" said Pretzel.

  Celeste moved over to stand beside E.Q. Reaching over his shoulder, she leafed through the notebook to the next clue. "Could you see if this rings any bells, Dad?"

  E.Q.'s frown deepened as he read the page. He looked up, gazing into the distance as if deep in thought, then turned to Celeste. "Nothing," he said, shaking his head. "I'm sorry."

  "Are you sure, Dad?" said Baron.

  E.Q. sighed and nodded. "It doesn't even make any sense to me." He handed the notebook over to Celeste.

  It wasn't the reaction Celeste had expected. So far, each person who'd read a clue had grasped it immediately. "How about if you think about it some more?" she said.

  "I doubt it'll make any difference, but okay." E.Q. smoothed his white mustache with the side of an index finger.

  "While you do that, could we look through Cary's things?" said Celeste. "Maybe we'll turn something up."

  "Sure." E.Q. smiled and dropped the rake in the wheelbarrow. "I'll just finish up out here."

  "I could keep you company," said Paisley. "Wanna hear about my fear of childbirth?"

  Celeste hooked elbows with Paisley and swung her around toward the house. "What's that, Paise? You want to help me search Cary's things? Well, right this way."

  Paisley yelled over her shoulder as Celeste propelled her through the back door. "My asshole husband held me prisoner for the last eight-and-a-half months to force me to have Baron Junior!"

  *****

  Of the Beacon brothers and sisters, Cary had left behind the most stuff in the family home.

  In fact, he was the only one of them who still had a room there. He was the only one who'd really needed it, given the instability of his adult life. Between failed jobs and relationships, he'd retreated there to get back on his feet and get ready for each new round of failures.

  But not this time. This time, he'd gone somewhere else.

  As Celeste pushed open the door to Cary's room and walked inside, she felt a brief rush of disappointment. A tiny part of her had half-expected to see Cary hiding out in there, even though the rest of her had known better. That tiny part had half-expected Cary to be there ever since Mary Anne Filigree had pointed Celeste in the direction of E.Q. and the family home.

  Right after the disappointment, Celeste felt a surge of nostalgia. She'd known that room so well in younger days, and she hadn't been back in ages. The house had been rebuilt after the fire, so this wasn't one of the original rooms of her early childhood, but it still overflowed with memories.

  And it hadn't changed much from the way she remembered it. Layers of super-hero posters on the dark brown wood-grain paneling. Cartons of comic books stacked on the floor. Shelves littered with action figures and ray guns. A Marvel Comics bedspread over DC Comics sheets on the wood-framed twin bed.

  The funny thing was, Celeste knew she couldn't be sure that all the toys and comics and posters had been there since Cary was a kid. She recognized lots of them, but others must have been added over the years by the brother who'd never really grown up.

  As she thought of that, Celeste missed Cary all the more intensely. She took a deep breath and got to work.

  Paisley went right for the bed and lay down. "I feel an attack coming on," she said. "That thing in my stomach's moving around again."

  Celeste sighed as she opened the closet door. "So scream into a pillow or something."

  "Maybe it'll pass." Paisley sounded sick, like she was about to throw up. "So what're you looking for?"

  "I don't know." Celeste pulled a cigar box from the high shelf in the closet. When she lifted the lid and saw the box was full of super-hero trading cards, she closed it and put it back on the shelf. "Just something to make sense of that clue."

  "What was it again?"

  Celeste had gone over it so many times, she had it memorized. "'Dead men tell no tales, but the man who didn't die knows all the lies.'"

  "You know what I think?" said Paisley. "I think little brother got himself some good weed."

  "Cary doesn't do drugs."

  "That you know of," said Paisley, and then she groaned. "Speaking of which, let me know if you find some in there. I could use a little right now myself."

  Celeste shook her head and pulled a shoebox off the shelf. The box was full of costumes and loose parts from super-hero dolls--heads and hands and torsos and legs and feet. She put the box back and moved on to another.

  The next box held nothing but super-hero stickers and candy wrappers. The box after that was stuffed with comic strips clipped out of newspapers.

  On the floor of the closet, she found boxes full of toys and books. Under the bed, there were dusty plastic tubs containing old super-hero-themed video games and board games and vinyl record albums.

  None of it provided a clue to anything but Cary's packrat nature and obsession with comic books and super-heroes.

  "End of the road, huh?" said Paisley.

  "If only I had someone to help me right now, we might find something." Celeste turned slowly in a circle and stared at the room around her. Cary loved secret hiding places, so there had to be one somewhere within those four walls.

  If Spellerina were here, she'd give all the hiding places voices, and the best one would sing out the loudest.

  "Just because I'm not screaming my head off, that doesn't mean I'm not having an attack right now." Paisley rolled over on her side so she was facing away from Celeste.

  Give me strength.
>
  Celeste was about to start a second pass around the room when an image jumped into her mind. It was something she'd seen but hadn't processed the first time around.

  Something in a corner of the ceiling.

  Celeste crossed the room for a closer look. Sure enough, a little white triangle stuck out from between two of the ceiling tiles.

  Bingo.

  Celeste took hold of the triangle, which was made of some kind of paper. She pushed one of the tiles up and tugged the triangle down.

  A white envelope dropped out of the ceiling. The triangle was the envelope's corner.

  It was a standard business envelope, addressed and stamped. The stamp was cancelled, and the words "Return to Sender" were scrawled in blue ink near the bottom edge. The return address--for the very house in which Celeste now stood--was under Cary's name.

  The envelope was still sealed. It felt as if it contained no more than one or two pages.

  What fascinated Celeste, though, was the mailing address on the front...specifically, the name of the addressee. It was a name she hadn't seen for quite a while.

  Celeste looked at the postmark on the envelope. It read, "October 23 2005."

  A year ago. The envelope had been mailed and returned a year ago.

  It had been mailed to someone who had been long dead by then.

  "Oh my God." Celeste couldn't stop staring at the envelope. "This can't be."

  The clue from Cary's Secret Plan came back to her, and she finally understood. It was impossible, completely impossible, but she understood.

  Dead men tell no tales, but the man who didn't die knows all the lies.

  Paisley rolled over and sat up on the bed. "What is it?" she said. "You look like I did when I found out I was pregnant."

  "He's alive," said Celeste.

  Paisley tousled her wild black hair with both hands and scowled. "What the hell're you talking about, girlfreak?"