“What the fuck is that thing?” Dirk asked.
Sam regarded the soft toy. “It’s… I think it’s a hippo.”
“Looks more like an elephant. Maybe an anteater,” said Stella, peering at it over the rim of her glasses.
“Isn’t it that keyboard player from Return of the Jedi?” asked one of the guys whose name Sam didn’t know. “From Jabba’s palace?”
“I don’t give a shit what it is,” Dirk snapped.
Sam lowered the toy. “Oh. It’s just… you did ask.”
“Jesus, Sammy, we spoke about this contract,” Dirk insisted. “First you tell me Stella can’t do it, and now you’re giving me this shit with the elephant, or whatever it is.”
“Hippo,” Sam said.
“Or whatever it is,” Dirk reiterated. “You’ve got me over a barrel here. What do you want me to do?”
Sam slipped the plushie back into his pocket. “It’s just… It’s my weekend.”
Dirk sighed and shot Sam a look that was perfectly balanced on the knife edge between disappointment and contempt. “Fine. Fine. Kara can do it. But you owe her one.”
“Wait, what?” asked Kara, looking up from her terminal.
“He’ll work your next two weekends for you,” Dirk said, pointing to Sam. He shrugged. “Best I can do.”
Sam squirmed in his seat. “Next two? How is that…? I don’t see how…”
Kara glared along the row at him, then tutted. “Fine.”
“Attagirl,” said Dirk, winking at her over the rim of his mug.
“Hold on a minute,” Sam croaked.
“Say ‘thank you’ to Kara,” Dirk told him.
“What? But I didn’t…”
“Jesus, Sammy, is it so hard to just say ‘thanks’ to your fucking colleague?” He held up a hand in apology. “I mean, pardon my language, I just happen to think that manners matter.”
Sam felt everyone else watching him over their screens. He wasn’t quite sure how the conversation had taken him to this point and was struggling to see a route back. “No, I mean… thanks, Carol, obviously. Kara. I meant Kara. Sorry. It’s just, I don’t really see why it should be down to me to…”
His voice trailed away into an awkward silence under the weight of all those gazes. He cleared his throat and shuffled in his chair again. He could use the overtime, anyway.
Yeah, that’s what he’d tell himself.
“No, it’s fine. Of course. No problem.”
“Good boy, Sammy,” said Dirk. He clapped him on the shoulder with one of the fleshy slabs he called hands. “Glad we got all that sorted.”
Dirk was halfway to his office when he clicked his fingers again. There was more bristling and holding of breath, but the others all relaxed when Dirk fixed his gaze on Sam once more.
“But you can give me an extra hour tonight, yeah?”
“Well, I’m supposed to be at the house to pick up my…” He felt the wind go out of his sails. “One hour?”
“One hour. That’s all,” Dirk promised. He brought his mug to his lips. “Ish.”
Chapter Two
“You’re two hours late.”
Sam conceded the point with a spell of awkward nodding. “Yes. I know. It was a work thing. I tried to call.”
Laura, his ex-wife, uncrossed her arms long enough to check her phone screen. “You didn’t.”
“I called the landline,” Sam said.
“We don’t have a landline.”
Sam blinked. “You don’t? Since when?”
“Since Brian pointed out we don’t use it,” Laura said.
Sam glanced past her into the apartment. “Right. Brian. He’s really… He’s really making the changes, isn’t he?”
“We both are,” Laura said. There was a lot of meaning in those three words, Sam knew. He just couldn’t quite figure out what it was.
“So, uh, has he had dinner?”
Laura frowned. “Who, Brian?”
“No, Corey.”
“Oh. Yes, he was hungry, so we had to make him something.”
Sam shuffled on the spot. “Right. Just, I’d kind of promised we’d get a Five Guys.”
Laura shrugged. “What do you want me to say, Sam? You’re two hours late. He was hungry. We had to make him something. And anyway, we don’t like those places. You know that.”
He flinched but hid it with a half-hearted smile. There was that word again. She’d used it a lot recently. ‘We.’ We had to make him something. We don’t like those places. It was as if her new boyfriend hadn’t just moved into the apartment, but had somehow bonded with her to such an extent they now formed a single entity.
“We had our first date at one of ‘those places,’” Sam reminded her.
“Yeah, and look how that worked out,” Laura replied. “We’d just rather keep him off the junk food.”
“Was that Brian’s idea?”
“Don’t be a dick about this, Sam.”
Sam sighed and held up his hands in surrender. “OK. OK, that’s fair, I guess. I’m sorry.”
Laura crossed her arms again. “Thank you,” she said, a little sarcastically. Before Sam could say anything more, she half-turned into the apartment. “Core? Your dad’s here!” She lowered her voice before adding, “At last.”
Sam heard his son’s giggle and the day’s worries melted away. The heart-swelling sense of euphoria was short-lived, though. It crashed to a halt when Brian appeared in the hallway behind Laura, the giggling Corey dangling upside-down over one of his impressively broad shoulders.
“Hey, you guys seen Core around here anywhere?” Brian asked, turning to look in all directions.
“I’m here! I’m right here!” Corey laughed, his arms flailing as Brian spun in search of the voice.
“Who said that?” Brian demanded. “Corey? Is that you, pal? Where are you?”
“I’m right here!” Corey wheezed, barely able to speak for laughing.
Sam cleared his throat. “So, uh, anyway. We should get going. There’s a bus in…” He checked his watch. “…soon. If we move quickly we can catch it.”
Brian stopped spinning, and Corey’s giggling gradually faded.
“You’re right, Sam. Sorry, just messing around,” said Brian. “Hold on…” He flipped Corey over his shoulder and deposited him on the ground. “There you are!”
“I was there the whole time!” Corey laughed.
Brian jabbed a thumb at his shoulder. “Seriously? The whole time? Babe, did you see him up there?”
“Nope, I did not,” Laura smiled.
“Sam?” asked Brian. “How about you?”
“Ahaha. No. Didn’t see you, buddy,” Sam said, tousling his son’s hair.
“Hey, Dad!” Corey chirped. “Look.”
He pushed up a lip and pointed to a spot where a tooth had been. “See it?”
“Awesome! It came out,” Sam said. “Did you bring it so we can put it under your pillow for the Tooth Fairy?”
“It fell out on Tuesday,” said Laura. “Tooth Fairy’s been and gone.”
“Oh.” Sam blinked as he processed this. “Well, we should really get going,” he said at last. “The bus.”
“I’ll go get my bag!” Corey said, darting past Laura and Brian and disappearing into his bedroom.
The three adults stood in uncomfortable silence, waiting for him to return. Sam tried not to notice Brian’s hand on Laura’s back or the way she leaned her weight into it.
Corey was taking longer than expected, and the sheer density of the silence was starting to feel smothering. Sam rifled through his brain, trying to find something to talk about. Just some amusing little detail about his day he could share to break the tension and, ideally, make him look interesting.
Just one. That was all.
Just one interesting thing.
Just one.
…
…
Fuck.
“So, uh, either of you see the game?” he asked.
Laura frown
ed. Without him even being able to see this, Brian’s expression mirrored hers with remarkable accuracy. Maybe they really were becoming the same person.
“What game?” Laura asked.
Sam’s shirt stuck to the sweaty pool of his lower back. His lips moved silently, trying to formulate a response that felt just out of reach.
“You know, the…” He gestured vaguely, then leaned into the doorway a little and called past them. “You nearly ready there, buddy? Don’t want to miss the bus!”
To Sam’s relief—and probably everyone else’s, too—Corey emerged from his room, an Oscar the Grouch backpack slung over his shoulders.
“There he is!” Sam announced. “You all ready, sport?”
“Nearly!”
Corey hugged his mom. Sam found himself glancing away when the boy hugged Brian, too.
“See you Sunday, honey,” Laura told him. “Be good.”
“I will, mom,” Corey promised. “I’m always good.”
Brian emitted a loud bzzzzzt noise that made Sam jump.
“BS Alert! BS Alert!”
Laura nudged him playfully with her elbow and he stopped.
“I mean, suuuure you are. Totally,” Brian said. He winked and tapped the side of his nose, which set Corey off giggling again.
Pulling his backpack higher on his shoulders, Corey stepped out into the corridor and took his dad’s hand. Sam felt the sticky warmth of the boy’s much smaller palm against his own, and suddenly everything was alright.
“Ready, Dad,” said Corey, showing off the gap in his teeth again.
“OK, then.” Sam smiled down at him. “Let’s go have some fun!”
Sam hurried through the rain, head down, jacket held open to shelter the boy at his side. They’d made it to the bus stop in the nick of time, but there had been a lot of gang colors sitting in the back, and Sam had decided not to risk it.
The next bus was a forty minute wait, unless they took a crisscrossed network of other routes that Sam could never remember the numbers of.
The tube was out of the question. At best it was a panic attack waiting to happen. At worst, it was…
Actually, he didn’t want to think about the worst that could happen in the underground system.
The elevated train that ran through and around the city wasn’t much better. It was a little safer, sure, with an onboard AI that could lock down individual carriages and summon the police when necessary. But it was also more expensive, and Sam wasn’t sure the trade-off was worth it, even if the artificially intelligent seats did politely thank you for sitting on them.
He’d tried to make a game out of them walking the eight blocks to Sam’s apartment, but the rain and the growing darkness had turned it into a feat of endurance.
“Dad, I’m cold,” Corey said, shouting to be heard over the roaring of the city traffic, and the thundering of the El Train on the tracks overhead. “Can’t we get a cab?”
“The cabs are all busy, buddy,” Sam lied. The truth was, if he wanted the lights to stay on that month, a cab was out of the question. He’d had to budget tightly to afford the Five Guys visit, and while that had been canceled for tonight, he was planning on surprising Corey with it tomorrow.
“What about that one? That has its light on,” said Corey, pointing ahead to where a yellow taxi was prowling for business.
“Which one?” asked Sam.
“There!”
Sam stared blankly in the direction his son had pointed, pretending to only spot the cab when it was too late to flag it down.
“Ack! Sorry. Good spot, though,” Sam said. “It’s not far now.”
Corey groaned. “Is there at least an umbrella store?”
Sam smiled at that. “Maybe!” he said, pulling the boy closer to him and weaving them both through a throng of pedestrians coming in the opposite direction. “You keep a look-out for one, OK?”
“OK, Dad!”
They trudged on for a while longer, through puddles and pools of light that seeped from the windows and open doors of the late-night stores, bars, and restaurants that lined the street.
“We should’ve asked Brian to drive us. He has a car,” Corey said.
“Does he?”
“It’s awesome. It’s red,” Corey gushed. “He chose it because red’s my favorite color.”
Sam frowned down at him. “I thought blue was your favorite color?”
“It used to be, but now it’s red,” Corey explained, with a grave sincerity that suggested this change of opinion had required a significant amount of thought and introspection.
“Well, that’s good to know,” Sam said, feeling the weight of the bright blue cuddly hippo in his jacket pocket. “I’ll keep it in mind.”
Corey stopped so suddenly Sam almost tripped over him.
“What? What’s wrong?” Sam asked, his eyes darting around for danger.
Corey stood sniffing the air, a wistful look on his face. “Mmm. Hot dogs.”
Sam searched around again, this time looking less for danger and more for sausage-shaped pork products. The smell came wafting out of a convenience store that appeared to be just on the right side of skanky not to be closed down for public health violations.
“You want one?” Sam asked.
The torment was written all over Corey’s face as he reluctantly shook his head. “Brian says I shouldn’t eat that stuff. He says it’s all eyeballs and asunes.”
Sam’s lips moved as he figured this out. “Do you mean anuses?”
“Oh. Yeah. Eyeballs and anuses. That’s it,” Corey said. He gazed up at Sam with wide-eyed sincerity. “So, I probably shouldn’t, should I?”
Sam hesitated, but only for a moment. “Brian isn’t here,” he pointed out. “And anyway, I’m your dad, so I outrank him. You want a hot dog? Let’s get a hot dog.”
“Alright!” Corey whooped, and Sam felt like he was walking on clouds as he led the boy into the store.
Inside was pretty much what he’d expected. Two surly-looking clerks stood behind a long counter that was laden with candy, pre-packaged cakes, and other junk food. The hot dogs were shriveling under heat lamps, displayed behind glass like some weird alien specimens.
The rest of the store was the usual mix of overpriced groceries and slushy machines, with everything worth stealing—cigarettes, alcohol, and anything even remotely resembling medication—kept in a locked cage behind the counter.
A couple of dead-eyed customers shuffled along the narrow aisles, their faces washed out by the stark fluorescent light strips on the uneven ceiling.
“Can I help you?” groaned an overweight white woman behind the counter, clearly grudging every word. Her nostrils were flared like someone had taken a dump on her top lip and her nose was doing its best to get away.
“Uh, yeah. We’d like a hot dog, please,” Sam said.
The woman’s over-plucked eyebrows raised briefly in surprise and horror, then she shrugged and reached for a bag of buns. “Just one?”
“Aren’t you going to have one, Dad?” asked Sam.
Sam thought of the contents of his wallet and the looming Five Guys bill.
Mind you, they had saved on bus fare…
“Sure. Make that two hot dogs,” he told the woman.
The clerk’s eyes went all the way wide this time. “Oh, shit!”
“Is that a problem?” asked Sam.
“Open the register and put the money in the bag,” barked a voice from behind him. The world ground into slow-motion when Sam heard the unmistakable clack of a bullet entering a chamber.
“Oh no. Oh God, no,” he whispered, pulling Corey in tight against him.
“Dad?”
“You listening to me? Open the register or I will shoot you in your fat fucking face!”
“It’s OK, Corey, it’s OK,” Sam assured the boy, not daring to turn. He shuffled them sideways until a hissed command from the robber stopped him.
“You! Don’t move. Stay right where you are while this tubby bi
tch gets me my money.”
Sam raised one hand while keeping the other around Corey’s shaking shoulders. Neither of the clerks had made a move to open their registers yet. Idiots.
“Just do what he says,” Sam pleaded. “Just give him the money.”
“What was that, man?” the robber demanded. He caught Sam by the shoulder and turned him. Sam caught a glimpse of gang colors and wide, frantic eyes before diverting his attention fully to the gun that was now pointed at his face. “You getting all up in my business?”
“N-no,” Sam said. “I was just… I was trying to help.”
“I look like I need your help?”
“No. No, you don’t. Sorry. I’m sorry,” Sam said.
“Maybe I’ll blow your brains out. Maybe that’ll make Tons o’ Fun here move her lardy ass,” the gunman sneered. He couldn’t be much older than seventeen, Sam thought. The gun trembled in his hand through fear, or adrenaline, or whatever new designer drug was doing the rounds.
“Please, I just wanted to buy my son a hot dog,” Sam said.
“From this place?” the gunman sneered. “You’re the worst father in the world. You know what goes into those things?”
He kept the gun on Sam, but twisted his head to the clerks. “I don’t hear those fucking registers opening! You want me to shoot this guy?”
Sam felt a hollow void opening in his chest as the gun swung down to point at Corey.
“You want me to kill this little kid?”
“Jesus, Clarice, open the register,” the second clerk said. “You’ve got the code.”
“Dad!” Corey whimpered.
“Stop it! Stop pointing that gun at my son!” said Sam, the words ejecting from him as a series of throaty sobs.
“I’m not fat, OK?” said the doughy-faced woman behind the counter. “It’s genetic.”
“I don’t give a shit! Open the register!”
“Point it at me!” Sam pleaded. “At me, not at him.”
The gunman eyeballed him, his voice like cold gravel. “I’ll point it where I fucking choose to point it,” he warned, bringing the muzzle closer to Corey’s forehead.
“Cops are on the way,” said Clarice. “You should run.”
The Sidekicks Initiative Page 2
