“But that’s good, isn’t it? Use the internet!” I whisper to myself. I’ve searched all the rooms and Roman’s nowhere in sight. “You want to go back; you’re a prisoner. Don’t you want to escape? Of course you do! You want to get the hell out of here! You want nothing to do with this madman!” But then I remember the guns, so many guns, and the cleared-out hospital wing, and the twitching ginger-haired man.
I spend the first few days cleaning the house. I turn on the TV, crank it up loud: cartoons, the news, sitcoms, whatever’s on. I find an old vacuum cleaner under the stairs and some dusters and cleaning spray which looks like it was left here ten years ago, but is still usable. Roman is always gone before I wake up, but he returns around six o’clock and we have dinner together on the dining table, takeout containers laid all around us. Pizza, Chinese, Indian curry, all kinds of treats. The takeout food does wonders for my nausea. Boy or girl, my baby’s going to have an appetite. We don’t say much over dinner, not for the first few days, but Roman brings me little treats. Each day he brings me a red rose, which I add to an ornate glass vase I’ve filled with water. At some point I mention to him that I love chocolate-covered raisins. The next day he brings me a huge bag.
One night, I am cleaning up the table, Roman sitting back in his chair with his eyes closed (muttering to himself so I know he’s going over his day’s work, whatever that is), when a sudden urge comes over me. He just looks so manly sitting there as I clean the table. I’ve never been one of those desperate-for-a-home women, one of those ooh-let-me-get-that-for-you-dear women, but in this instance, I feel it. He sits there, arms behind his head, muscles tight, chest heaving, as I clear away the dishes. It’s almost like we’re a couple. So I drop the dishes and walk around the table. He opens his eyes, looks up at me: turns two glinting blue pearls up at me. Then I drop into his lap with a squeal, rub my ass cheeks against his groin. He moans, brings one hand to my back and grips my thigh with the other. But before it can go anywhere, I jump to my feet, and we go on like nothing happened.
Sometimes I want him so bad I think I might scream. As the next week wears on, I’ll often sit in the front room with one of the paperbacks I found in the cellar, propped up on the armchair and looking out of the window. I know that I’m technically a prisoner—that Roman said he will come after me if I leave—but as I sit here, half lost in a world of fiction and half lost in a world of waiting, I do not feel captive: captivated, perhaps, but not captive. He’ll pull up in the car, climb out, and walk to the house. A simple series of movements, but a series of movements which become thrilling to me. Arms spread, hands hanging dangerously at his sides, jaw clenched, body tight, yin-and-yang tattoo shifting with the pulsing of his muscle, pacing toward the house with his broad shoulders swaggering from side to side. I imagine myself throwing myself at him when he comes through the door, I see myself naked, I see him taking me all over again.
But then my hand comes to rest on my belly and I remember how he rushed to tell me he was never going to be a good father figure. The lust dies. By the time he has walked through the door, I have turned back to the book. He’ll poke his head in to tell me he’s going to shower and then go to one of the takeout places down the street. I’ll nod, and we’ll go on with our lives: our strange caricatures of suburban drudgery, I should say.
I often wonder about where he is, what he is doing. I ask him several times what his exact job is, but he won’t say. I know it’s something dangerous, something which most likely involves violence. I lean toward government at first, because he has that military look about him, close-cropped hair, square jaw, but then I begin to wonder why a military man would be out here on his own, chasing up leads on his own, without any sign of backup. Why I would be here, and not at some government safe house. So a criminal, then? But what kind of criminal? We get criminals sometimes, in the hospital. None of them are even remotely similar to Roman. Roman is too well-behaved, too disciplined. I wake early some mornings and come downstairs to see him doing his exercises: push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups in the doorframe, shirtless, sweat dripping down his muscles . . . And once, I even creep back upstairs to touch myself, hormones going into overdrive at that oh-so-temping sight.
One night, about three weeks after the hospital, I am feeling angry for no particular reason. I snap at him across the takeout-container-covered table: “So you want nothing to do with our child. Why even bother with me, then?” I honestly can’t explain where this outburst comes from. The question is fair, I think, but the way I say it—my voice harsh and accusing—comes as such a surprise that Roman sits up in his chair, eyebrows shooting up.
“Eh?” he mutters.
If I was picking a fight for no reason, now I have a reason. Eh? Eh? Is that really how he wants to respond to a question like that? A voice in my mind whispers: “Perhaps your pregnancy hormones are flaring and you are angry and now you—” I quiet the voice in my head with my real voice: “You clearly don’t give a damn about me or this baby—you made that quite clear back at the hotel—so why are you keeping us here? What’s the point? I don’t understand. I know; I could leave. But every time I say that, you say you’ll come after me.”
“I will,” Roman says, laying his food aside. “I’d have to. I couldn’t let anything happen to you.”
“So you want to protect our child when it’s in my belly but once it pops out you want nothing to do with it!” I growl, the anger real now, even if its origins were contrived.
“I said I’d provide for that child, Lily.”
“The child needs a father, not a bucket of fucking cash!” On the last two words, I leap to my feet and slam my fist down on the table. Plastic knives and forks fly to the floor. “Do you know what happens to men without a father figure, Roman? They go fuckin’ insane. They either get way too tough for their own good or way too scared. They never know who they are. They never have any clue. And do you know what happens to girls? Well, I never had a father figure, and let me tell you. They start throwing themselves at any man they can find. That’s right! When she was a teenager, the mother of your child was a whore! ” I hardly know what I am saying, the pent-up hormones and confinement storming out of me. “I had a wild stage back then, Roman, because I never had a dad and I just needed someone to latch onto! Oh, I grew out of, but not all girls do!”
“I don’t need to hear this,” Roman mutters.
“Why?” I feign a sarcastic smile, but my lips tremble too much for the sarcasm to be believable. “It’s not like you give a fuck.”
“Of course I give a fuck!” Roman snarls.
I jump back, his voice so loud it cuts through the room, shakes the walls. He jumps to his feet and leaps across the room, at the door, and then punches the wall. His hand disappears into the plasterboard up to his wrist. He stays like that, shaking his head, growling, muttering, and then slowly removes his plasterboard- and blood-covered hand.
“Of course I give a fuck,” he repeats.
Eyes averted, he leaves the room.
I gaze at the wall for several minutes, listening to the sound of Roman stomping up the stairs and throwing himself on his bed, the springs of the mattress and the creak of the floorboards. I gaze at the blood sliding down the wall. And then I wonder . . . What the hell came over me? Why do I care if he cares? Why did I start that? I begin to wonder if I really care for this man, if I care for him so much and so suddenly that I can’t help but want him to care for me with the same intensity.
“No,” I tell myself, turning away from the wall and starting to collect the dishes. “Just hormones. That’s all.”
Chapter Eleven
Roman
“The last time I saw him, I didn’t even really see him. I swear it. We were talking in a dark warehouse, much like this one, actually, yes, yes, much like this one—oh, please, man. I swear to it. We were talking in here about some drug deal I was trying to push. He wasn’t interested. He was wearing a hat pulled down low over his face, and a scarf pulled up high over his fa
ce, so only his eyes were visible.”
The man, some half-life scumbag drug dealer named Christopher, is tied to a chair. I’ve zip-tied his wrists behind him, and his ankles to the chair legs. When he moves, as if to shrink away from me, the chair moves with him. He’s forced to stay still unless he wants to topple over. The warehouse is abandoned and cave-like, a stretching cavern of utter darkness. Far away, something drips, echoing endlessly in the high rafters. The smell is of old metal, disused machinery, and dust. I’ve spent the whole damn day searching for Christopher, having heard from Boss that he might have some leads. Boss is getting impatient, but he also understands that Darius is a hard fuckin’ man to find, so he’s helping out a little.
Christopher’s eyes are wide. He looks more like a little boy than a hardened criminal, even with his tribal tattoos and his silver chains and his flat cap, his bushy survivalist’s beard, his chop sideburns. It’s all in the eyes, and in his eyes I see terror. Good.
Far back in my mind, I think of Lily. That’s happening more and more lately. She’s always there, running on one set of tracks whilst reality runs on another. My knuckles still burn from where I punched the wall. Don’t hardly remember doing that. All I remember is that I couldn’t stand the idea of her thinking that I don’t care, ’cause I do damn care. I care a lot. I just . . . fuck, man, how am I supposed to go about making her see that? It’s not like I’ve had much practice.
“Why are you just staring at me?” Christopher asks, his tone that of a desperate beggar.
“I’m waiting for you to tell me something interesting,” I say, reaching into my pocket barehanded and taking it out with a knuckle-duster cradled around my knuckles.
Christopher’s eyes go even wider. “You think Darius deals with a man like me on the fuckin’ regular? Jesus Christ! I met the man a couple of times back in the day—”
“And once four months ago,” I say. “I have that on damn good authority.”
“I’ve told you about that!”
“You met him in a warehouse in the dark. Yeah, I know. And you expect me to believe that a clearly intelligent man like yourself noticed not one thing about him that might be of use to me? Think back. Details, Christopher. I need details.”
“I don’t know any fucking details! I swear to God, man, you’re lucky I’m in this chair! You’re lucky I’m in this chair! You’re lucky I’m in this goddamn chair—”
I take a knife from my boot. Christopher starts to scream, a high-pitched, pathetic noise, but I don’t cut him; I cut his zip-ties, three quick cuts. Then I stand up, drop my knuckle-duster and knife, and grin at him. “You’re not in the chair anymore, tough man.”
To his credit, he doesn’t fuck around. He’s a big guy, a head taller than me, and packed with muscle and fat. He charges at me, arms wide. Furious, committed, a fuckin’ rookie. I take a step back, aim, jab him in the nose. He reels, swings blindly. I step aside and jab him again. He coughs, blood dripping down his face, his chin, his neck. He swings, big over-arm bearlike swipes. I dodge, and then go to work on his belly, a series of quick, thudding jabs which cause him to slump like a boneless lump of jelly to the floor. I kneel next to him, picking up my knife, and hold it to his throat.
“Details.” I lean down, growling. “I want the fucking details. Don’t think I don’t know about you, Christopher. I know all about the men I interrogate. You see, my boss has got resources, and he’s used those resources to employ some hacker types to take a look at your computer.”
Christopher’s eyes almost pop out of his bloody face. “No, no, no,” he mumbles.
“Yes, yes, yes,” I reply. “They found some pretty disgusting shit on there, Christopher. Eight years old, seven years old . . . even one who was barely out of fucking diapers! ” I punch him, hard, in the side with the knuckle-duster. Too hard. I’m angry, I realize. I never get angry during interrogations. Nothing good can ever come of it. “I’m going to be a father soon,” I go on, as Christopher moans in pain. “Never asked for it, but I’m going to do the right thing. I’m going to protect the kid. Don’t know if I’ll be much good as a father, truth be told, but I’ll tell you something, I’d beat a thousand sick fucks like you to death before I let anything happen to my kid. So tell me now. Give me something.”
“I—don’t—know—” He wheezes, his chest a weak rattle. “I—never—touched—a—single—one—”
“Don’t lie to me. You have four separate complaints in four separate States. You’re a goddamn pedophile. I usually give ten seconds to come up with something, but I don’t really want to have to spend that long with you, so I’ll give you three.”
“Wait!”
“Three . . .”
“I don’t know—”
“Two . . .”
“I swear to God—”
“One . . .”
I press the knife into his throat, about to slit him open, when he screeches: “Missing finger! Yes, yes! He had a—a—missing finger!” He coughs violently, spluttering blood particles into the air. I lean back, but keep the knife pressed into him.
“Which finger?” I ask.
“His little finger,” Christopher says, voice low, falling into unconsciousness.
“What hand?”
“Um . . . um . . . I don’t know!”
How much of it is missing? First knuckle? Second? All of it?”
“Like—half—”
“Alright, alright.”
I stand up.
Christopher summons enough energy to smile with relief. “You’re letting me go?”
I make something between a laughing and snarling noise. “Fuck no,” I say, taking my second pistol from the back of my jeans. “You raped four fuckin’ kids, and you had kiddie porn on your computer. Do you think I’d let you go?”
I pull the trigger. He dies. One less scumbag in the world.
When the clean-up is done—when my clothes are burnt, the warehouse is cleaned, and the body buried—I sit in the car in my fresh clothes, wondering why I did that. He deserved to die, but it was also an unnecessary risk. But the thought of a man like that, a pervert, out and free in a world that one day is going to have my kid in it . . . I just couldn’t handle that. I start the engine and make my way through the night back toward the house.
I think about Lily, curled up on the armchair with a paperback in her hand. I’m her captor, if you want to get technical about it, but she hasn’t made any move to get away from me yet. Maybe that’s ’cause she knows I’d come after her. I’d like to think it has more to do with knowing that she’s safer with me, but maybe that’s just wishful thinking. The night is dark, late, lonely, as I drive quietly through suburbia, passing the houses of families. I glance at the homes. Some of them have their curtains open. I catch snapshots of family life: a mother and her daughter curled up on a couch under a blanket, watching TV; a father and a son playing videogames; two siblings fighting. Could a man like me ever live a life like that? Could a man like me ever be on the inside, instead of out here, where I’ve been most of my life?
I don’t think I could, despite how much Lily clearly wants me to: despite how she clearly wants me to transform into a man who can suddenly say, “Yes, dear, I’ll be the best darned-and-tootin’ father figure you’ve ever seen. Yes, dear, I’ll be the suburban superhero, barbeque tongs in one and paint-roller in another.” When you’ve lived your life as a lone wolf, spending most of your days hunting and some of them relaxing on your own, the idea of being a family man seems about as alien as my life would seem to most family men. Maybe that’s why I punched the wall; maybe that’s why I’m thinking of Lily all the damn time now.
I care about her, I really think I do, but I can’t miraculously become the man she wants me to be.
I stop the car in the driveway and just sit awhile. It’s later than usual, so Lily isn’t sitting at the window. I’ve brought in some basic groceries over the past weeks, so she should’ve eaten, at least. I chuckle to myself. “She should’ve eaten,�
� I mutter. I have never, never cared about if a woman I’ve been seeing has eaten or not. It has never even occurred to me to think something like that. It’s the baby. It’s knowing that there’s a life inside of her, my life, an imprint of me.
I climb from the car. I can’t put this off forever. I open and close my hand, knuckles aching, grazed from last night. I’ll need to see her at some point. Apologize, I reckon, and that’ll be another first. I have never apologized to a woman, either. But I have to swallow my pride and just do it. Even if I’m not going to be some incredible father figure, I should at least still try and be a decent human being around the mother of my child. Even if the mother of my child ain’t my lover, even if she does send me mixed signals, even if this is all a big confusing mess.
When I enter the house, the first thing I hear is the TV, turned up loud onto a news station. The second is Lily’s weeping. I’m frozen for a second, listening to that weeping. It’s almost animal, the whine of a lioness who’s lost her cub. It hits me that she might’ve lost the child. All at once I’m more scared than any gunfight has made me
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