Oh, Jesus, he thought.
Iris and Mary Ann had Mindy pinned to the floor and she was sobbing.
Patrick ran into the living room. The TV had fallen from its stand and burst. Glass vases and cut flowers littered the floor and several of Iris’s new electric candles bravely continued to beam in the wet debris. Salimony and Messina had Marcos backed into a bookcase, blows and books and photographs and knickknacks all raining down on him. Patrick shouldered in, kicked Marcos squarely in the groin, and showered him with his fists and elbows. When Marcos fell, the three men dragged him, groaning, outside to the porch, then down the steps and dropped him into the planter. Iris and her two friends lugged unstruggling Mindy down the porch steps, her wedge shoes clunking down each craftsman plank, then launched her on to the grass. “Get out of here and don’t ever come back!” Iris screamed. Her face was a grimace and her fury sent a sobering jolt through Patrick. What should he have done? “And you bastards get out of here too and don’t you ever come back. And you, Patrick, Patrick Norris? You never come back here again or I’ll call the cops and file charges. I swear to God I will!”
Patrick watched Natalie and Mary Ann squeeze through the front door and into the house. Iris gave him one last furious look before she slammed the door and drove the deadbolt home.
Grier had pulled Marcos to his feet and they staggered toward a white Camaro parked at the curb.
“Sorry, Pat,” said Salimony. His new shirt was torn and splattered with blood.
“Yeah, Pat, sorry,” said Messina, who had bloodshot eyes and a jaggedly split lip. “We gotta help fix it. We gotta.”
“You heard her,” said Patrick. “Get the hell out of here. Go.”
Patrick waited until the Camaro and Messina’s Mustang had both disappeared down the hill. He listened for sirens and was surprised to hear only silence. Neighbors left, right, and across the street stood on their lit porches and neat lawns, looking at him, their voices riding softly on the damp night air.
He strode back onto the porch and knocked on Iris’s front door, then knocked again harder. Natalie called through the wood, “You better go, Pat. You better go like now.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Evelyn looked up from her desk at Anders Wealth Management to find Ted Norris standing in the doorway of her office. She flinched. The morning light coming through her windows illuminated him. “Ted?”
“Yes?”
“Are you okay?
“I’m good as new.”
“Can I help you?”
“I want to get a few things off my chest.”
“I’ll let Brian know you’re here.”
“But I don’t want to talk to Brian.”
“You’re not here looking for trouble, are you?”
“No. Not in any way.”
Brian appeared in the middle distance behind Ted, glancing up from his tablet. He gave Ted an interrogatory stare. Ted sensed him without turning. “Don’t worry, Mr. Anders. I come in peace.”
“I’m sorry for what happened,” said Brian. “I saw it on the Village View Web site.”
“I lost eighty dollars but saved my life by fighting hand to hand.”
“The sheriffs are going to step up the downtown patrol,” said Brian. “Not everyone can do what you did.”
“I’m not a hero and I don’t want to be.” Ted folded his hands together at his waist. He was wearing another baggy Hawaiian shirt and loose jeans and his huge therapeutic shoes. The shirt hung oddly distended on his right side.
“Come in and take a seat then,” said Evelyn. “I have an appointment in half an hour.”
Ted stepped in and put a hand on the doorknob.
“Leave it open.”
“I was going to.”
Brian circled his index finger around his ear then made the “call me” sign with his free hand and walked toward his office. A spark of fear flickered inside her and she wished that Brian had done something more. But what? Call security? The landlord had terminated the service months ago, and the tenants couldn’t afford security on their own. She’d put PATROLLED BY FALLBROOK SECURITY stickers on the windows and a larger sign by the mailboxes in the ground-floor entry, but any bad guy with half a brain would figure them for what they were—bogus.
Ted sat heavily in one of the chairs in front of her desk. “I’m not drawing any more cartoons of you.”
“Thank you, Ted. Good decision.”
“Patrick ordered me not to.”
“Then I thank both of you.”
Ted adjusted himself on the chair, as if something was physically bothering him. “I disagree with almost everything you’ve done as my mayor.”
Evelyn felt instantly crushed, but the feeling disappeared quickly. Four years in elected office had made her skin much thicker. Still, there was pain in disagreement: democracy hurt. “I’m sorry to hear that. But I was elected for what I believe. And I’m expected to act on those beliefs, for the good of Fallbrook.”
“I’ll probably have to vote for Walt Rood.”
“That’s your right.”
“I like your campaign posters. Your picture is nice.”
“You should vote your … I’d like to have your heart, Ted.”
“Have my heart? You really would?”
“I meant your vote. I was going to say, you should vote your heart—but then I tried to say something else and it came out mixed up.”
“I do that all the time. The big important words in your thoughts, they come out, but some of the other ones don’t. So what you say isn’t complete. It isn’t what you tried to say.”
Evelyn smiled. Ted really did have a good heart in there. “No, things come out wrong all the time. I’d still love your vote, though.”
Ted looked at her with an unreadable expression. He half-stood, reached under his shirt. Before Evelyn fully registered what he was doing, Ted drew a plastic sandwich box and held it up toward her. “I brought this for you,” he said. Something thick and slow moved inside the opaque container. “It’s a tarantula.”
“Oh! Well, I’m really not a big tarantula fan, Ted. Incredible as that may seem.”
“This one is a female. The males are skinny and die. These females are plump and live a long, long time. She eats crickets you can buy at the pet store.”
“I’m … can you keep it for me? Or can I let it go in the nature preserve or somewhere?”
“Let her go?”
“Just asking.”
Ted reached out and set the container on Evelyn’s desk. She watched the thing feeling its away around. “When I was young I fell in love with you,” he said.
Evelyn felt her face change color but she wasn’t sure what color—discomfort pink or creeped-out white? “Oh?”
“When you babysat me. And after.”
“I remember that. And I remember the card you made me.”
“I wanted something back from you but instead I got nothing.”
“The card had a frog on it.”
“It was a Pacific tree frog. They’re all over Fallbrook but they only come out when it rains.”
“I hear them in the creek by my house. Is there something specific you came here to talk about?”
“The concert by Cruzela Storm. I want you to cancel it.”
“That’s a terrible thing to say, Ted.”
“It’s my honest opinion and I vote. You are not my mother or my nanny.”
“The concert is to help pay for two lighted crosswalks, Ted. George Hernandez lost his life right there on Mission for no reason. No reason at all! You should be asking to help, not to hinder.”
“To help you?”
“Help Fallbrook.”
“Are the lighted crosswalks big and meaningful?”
“Yes. They’re big and meaningful and affordable. If we have the concert, that is.”
Ted looked around as if considering. “I’d like to join your re-election staff.”
“But, Ted, you and I disagree on almost every issue
. Besides, the campaign work is mostly done. It’s just a matter of taking down the posters after the vote.”
“Then I would like to show Cruzela Storm around Fallbrook after the show. A tour of our city, in my taxi. For free.”
Evelyn’s scalp cooled and tightened. “That’s sweet of you. But she’ll have lots of security.”
“They can come, too. My cab has room for four adult passengers. So—me, you, Cruzela, and two security guards. It’s clean and comfortable.”
“She’s a very private and in-demand person, Ted.”
“Will you at least ask her?”
“No. I won’t.”
“You are everything I don’t like about government and women,” said Ted. “All you say is no, no, no, and no. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
“Sometimes I am ashamed, when I can’t do enough. I’m trying here, Ted, with the crosswalks I’m trying to say yes to something good.” Evelyn’s phone chimed and she listened and rang off. “My nine o’clocks just got here.” She looked past Ted’s shoulder at Brian, standing out in the hallway, phone in hand. She could hear footsteps coming up the old wooden stairs, their echoes climbing the stairwell and spilling into the lobby. God bless the LaPointes!
“I also don’t like that you’ve lost all Mom and Dad’s money,” said Ted. “They’re losing everything, because of you.”
Evelyn stood. “I have not lost all their money. And I won’t discuss anything more with you.”
“No, you won’t. Because you’re government and a woman, and a thief and a liar.”
“Leave now.”
Ted grabbed the tarantula off the desk and looked at Evelyn as he worked the sandwich box back into the waistband of his pants. “I’ll do something big and important. I don’t need you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Ted clomped down the stairs, through the lobby and onto Main Street. His stab wounds hurt. His vision had constricted and he was short of breath. When he got to his truck, the dome-headed man he’d seen lurking around Fallbrook was sitting on a sidewalk bench in the late morning shadow of the buildings. As before, he wore a suit, this time olive. His complexion was pale and he had open, expressive eyes and a small neat mustache. He held up a badge holder then slipped it back into his jacket pocket. “Hello, Ted. I’m Homeland Security Department, Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent Max Knechtl.”
Ted stopped and looked down the long rifled tunnel at the end of which sat the agent. He didn’t think Anders would get him that riled up. My government, he thought, working for me. Now more of it. “I’m Theodore Archibald Norris. Citizen.”
“What’s that under your shirt?”
“A tarantula for the mayor. She didn’t like it.”
“That’s an unusual gift.”
“You must be the arson expert. Your boss was on the news but they didn’t show you.”
“Yes, I am that expert.”
“I didn’t set the fire.”
“Sit down and talk to me. Take a load off those feet and those stitches in your side.”
Ted reached under his shirt. Knechtl’s hand was already on a gun holstered within his suit coat, and his expression had gone blank. Utterly. His face was nothing but two eyes with sunlight coming into them. Ted could see dark blue steel twinkling behind the olive lapel. “The tarantula,” said Ted, slowing extending the sandwich box for Knechtl to see. “She’s a female.”
“Nice one. I’m relieved. Sit, Ted.” Knechtl smiled but left his hand inside his coat for a moment. Then he crossed his hands over his knees but he still had an empty look on his face. Ted took the opposite side of the bench and set the sandwich box next to him. “Tell me about the fire.”
“I just told you I didn’t set it.”
“I know you didn’t set it. But someone did. And I think you’re a smart man. You know every inch of this little town and the people in it. You know its streets. I see from your political cartooning that you’re a student of current affairs and a man of clear and strong beliefs. Talk to me about this town and the man who set this fire, Ted. Educate me.”
A sheriff’s patrol car went by, driven by the black deputy who’d given him the nystagmus test for all of Fallbrook to see. The deputy nodded behind his sunglasses and Ted nodded back, then noted that Knechtl nodded back also. Ted felt suffocated by government: the mayor—formerly his own babysitter with whom he had once been in serious love—spinning financial webs upstairs in her lair; domed Knechtl ambushing him on Main Street; and of course the cursed black sheriff’s deputy on scene, always on scene like a character in a repeating dream. Ted yearned to be in his cab, for motion and protection, to be watching the world through heavy glass. “I was driving the taxi when the fire broke out. You can check my Friendly Village Taxi time card.”
“Oh, I’ve done that. And your call-in log, too. You had five fares that morning.”
“I was too busy that day to set a fire.”
“If you say so.” Ted’s vision began to reassemble and he took a deep breath. It was beginning to seem possible that Knechtl was not here to arrest him for anything. Across the street, Mary Gulliver stood outside Gulliver’s Travels, sipping a mug of something, getting some of the morning sunshine on her pretty face. Yes, she was twice his age but who cared? “Oh, there’s Mary,” said Knechtl. “I’ve talked to her about you. And I’ve talked to Dora Newell and Evelyn Anders and Lucinda Smith about you, too.”
Ted felt as if he was naked now, sitting on a bench on Main Street, with everybody able to see his naked, pale, flabby body, his shy little penis, and his open, unprotected soul. God he could use some protective glass. He reached into his pocket for his sunglasses but had left them somewhere. “I hope they said good things, Agent Knechtl.”
“It’s special agent. How do you like the Glock?”
“It’s legal. It’s for self-defense. I was robbed at gunpoint not long ago.”
“And at knifepoint just two nights ago.”
“I passed the background check for the gun. I’ve never been convicted of a crime. I had a high D average at college until they kicked me out.”
Knechtl took a cell phone off his belt, checked something, put it back. “You had a C-plus going in the media and politics class.”
“I loved that class.”
“And I saw that almost every book you checked out of the library was about current events, recent trends, our nation.”
“I read books because I don’t trust the media. There’s always more than they’re telling us. The truth is always on the back page but TVs don’t have pages. I don’t like you knowing what books I check out and what my grades are. It doesn’t seem American.”
Knechtl nodded and uncrossed his legs. He picked up the plastic box and tilted it up and down. “I can assure you it is. You’re defensive, Ted. Is there a reason?”
“Because I’m innocent.”
“Of what?”
“Everything.”
“Then why be defensive?”
“I don’t like being followed by you. You’re a pit bull of the nanny state. It doesn’t matter how nice a guy you are, Max. I didn’t do anything wrong. Nothing. Except, well, a few days ago I painted some of the burned trees without triple-washing the sprayer. Then I stripped off the bark when I was trying to get the poison paint off. Killed about thirty trees in less than a day. Talk about making your dad mad.”
Knechtl set the container back on the bench. “Why did you go to the Inspire magazine Web site?”
Ted was suddenly amazed that the DHS could have found out about that digital visit. But just as quickly he realized that he’d read somewhere, or maybe heard on TV, that every single e-mail, cell call, and Web site visit in America is recorded. “I researched Inspire because it was on the news. I’d never heard of it. I wanted to see if it really was trying to get people to set wildfires in the United States.” He looked across Main Street to the pedestrians walking by and he could feel Knechtl staring at him.
“Did you read t
he instructions on how make a firebomb with a timer?”
“I’m not interested in things like that.”
“But you saw them, the instructions?”
“Because they were part of the site.”
“The timer on the Fallbrook device was similar to the one described in Inspire.”
“But I went on the Inspire Web site after the fire, not before.” Ted turned and faced Knechtl, saw the strange neutrality on his face, like when the special agent had put his hand on his firearm.
“I’m not accusing you, Ted.”
“Sounds like you are.”
“I’m trying to let you help me. Domestic terrorism is our number one threat. Tell me about Ibrahim Sadal down at the GasPro Station.”
“Ibrahim? I don’t know him.”
“You’ve spoken to him many times, Ted. And yes, he’s spoken to me about you.”
“He’s a good gas station manager. He always fixes the carwash when it breaks, and the window-washing water is always clean and he never runs out of paper towels. He’s always a few pennies a gallon higher than the Arco across the street, but I think his station is better.”
“He came to this country from a violent Muslim nation. His family has ties to militant mullahs.”
“I thought Saddam killed them all.”
“Maybe we should have let him.”
Ted picked up the sandwich box and lifted off the plastic lid and gently spilled the big spider onto his lap. She methodically started creeping up his aloha shirt.
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