Chapter 18
The condo lobby walls were decorated in medals, some under glass, some strung off hooks. There were photos of Millicent, captured coming out of the pool, or standing on the dais, glossy testaments, the athlete arrested in a moment of glory. The procession of achievement interrupted on one side by a window looking out on the street below.
The sunlight made the pine floors glow like the wood had only today been slathered in an oil-based sealant. Two stair steps led up to the main loft. A living room on the left, as big a flat screen TV physics allowed mounted on the wall. Across from the lobby doorway a bunch of windows allowed a view to a hill, and past a free standing wall standing guard to some sort of fountain burbling atop slabs of granite, a combination kitchen and dining area.
The way the Old Man remembered it, Connie’s mom had this big nose, this troubled way of breathing, and it’d passed to the kid. Connie looking a little like Ichabod Crane, from the Disney cartoon version of Sleepy Hollow, at least according to the Old Man, when he was less than enthusiastic about his legacy. Caveat to that being anyone in the organization caught calling Connie ‘Ichabod’ or ‘Sleepy Hollow’ would lose their job and their life in short order.
Connie had a beer bottle in hand, standing, his back to a kitchen counter. The way Zeke had described him once, it was like a woman could have too much tit or too much ass, and the gods hadn’t stopped working on Connie until it was too late. His chin, his nose, his forehead, if you cropped ‘em all just a bit, he’d be movie star handsome, and it wasn’t like he was ugly like Zeke or Sipe, but there was something a little off.
Connie’s eyes switched back and forth between Mama, Bijou in her arms, and Sipe, back and forth like something here was off, if only he could figure out what. The electric cord powering the smile got kicked out of its outlet and Connie’s shoulders fell, like it was a given last night’s events had a half-life, expiration date: now.
Millicent shut a cabinet door. Several liquor bottles and glasses stood ready on the kitchen island. A cutting board occupied by a knife, ice cube trays, and a sliced lemon and a sliced lime.
“I’m sorry, Millie,” said Mama.
“What?” Millicent dropped a lemon into a glass.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?” Millicent licked juice off fingers and plucked a lime slice from the cutting board and dropped it into a glass already half full of ice and yellow and pink liquid.
“Millicent,” said Connie. When she looked at him, he motioned with the beer hand.
The thing Sipe had, according to Zeke, was an absence for overdoing it. He was a minimalist. A master of deadpan. A lot of guys in a situation like this would call Millie any number of insulting things, or would indicate the bruise on their face, the simple fact that maybe these dipshits ought to have just finished the job last night.
Sipe looked at Millicent. He was as stone. He could have been looking at his own reflection, an elk carcass roiling in maggots, the increasing silhouette of the meteor due to eradicate the west coast five minutes from now.
The Olympian’s smile evaporated. The spot between eyebrows dented, she showed some teeth, and she grabbed the knife from the cutting board.
Even before Sipe reached inside his jacket, Connie stepped away from the counter and grabbed Millicent’s wrist.
“He has a gun,” said Connie.
“Fuck. You fuck. You fucking fuck.”
“Millie. Millie! We didn’t take his gun, remember? Hey. Baby. Come on. Look at me. Look at me. There you are. Remember?”
Her tan super-ceded by a boiling red like some invisible attendant had flipped the lid on her skull and was pumping in a limitless amount of agitation.
“You dumb fuck.” Spit flew. “I told you. I told you to take it. Toss it. Jesus.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I couldn’t…I just couldn’t. But you gotta put the knife down. You gotta. He’ll kill you. He’ll kill your mom.”
“I told you to take it. I did. But you had to be a faggot, didn’t you? You stupid fucking faggot. I knew you were a faggot.”
Bijou barked. Mama cried out. She tried to cover the little hairballs muzzle. She must’ve pressed too hard. The dog nipped her. Mama cried out. Bijou squirted out from Mama’s arms and landed and scuttled across the kitchen floor and behind the island.
“Bijou,” called Mama, clutching her wounded hand. “Bijou,” like the little dog had escaped outside and it was a given no one would ever see him again.
Right after everyone sat down at the dining room table, Millicent stood.
“I have to piss.”
Sipe sat in the chair across from her at the other end of the table. He sat back from the table edge, at an angle, just in case he had to bolt. Resting on table edge, right in front of him, Millicent’s stun gun. He’d asked Connie to get it for him. Having it here, out in front of everyone, it acted as a subtle threat. The elephant in the room.
He looked across the table at Millicent.
“Sit down,” he said.
Millicent laughed.
“I have to piss. You want me to piss my pants?”
“If you leave this table to go to the bathroom, when you come back, your mom will still be sitting in her chair, but her head is gonna be in her lap.”
Mama didn’t react. Reclaimed from the brief escape, Bijou sat in his owner’s lap, panting, tongue exposed, black beady eyes aimed somewhere near Sipe.
Connie stood and actually had to touch Millicent. She jerked like static electricity had discharged.
“What does that mean? What he said. He’s gonna cut her head off?”
Connie whispered at her, touched her, guided her back down into her chair. Millicent glanced at Mama like she was imagining the exposed neck stump, a swatch of tissue and gristle like marble dipped in borscht.
“You mind if I stand?” asked Connie, implying it might be better here on out if he held Millie down.
“Fine,” said Sipe.
Connie bent at the waist, kissed the top of Millicent’s head, kept his hands on her shoulders.
“How’d you find us?” asked Connie.
“Not that hard.”
“She wanted to hit the road right away. I didn’t. Whoops.”
“Who is this? Who are you? Are you with the commission?” asked Mama. “You know, Millie’s been doing well. No drugs. She’s been just like the doctor said she could be, ‘placid’, I think is what he said. It’s when you people come around-“
“Mom.”
“It’s true,” said Mama. “They have it out for you. Now. Young man. If you have someone you report back to-“
“Mom. Mom! He isn’t with the commission.”
“Well, they’ll be back. It’s like they have nothing better to do. Just pick on one athlete, over and over.”
“He isn’t with the commission.”
“All right. You don’t have to yell. I’m not deaf.” Bijou licked Mama’s fingers. She murmured, scratched the dog’s ear.
Connie kept massaging Millicent’s shoulders. So sun bronzed, when the kid took his hands away, they’d smell like he’d held a fist full of pennies.
“They sent someone,” said Sipe. “A closer. I called.”
“Oh man,” said Connie. “Why’d you do that?”
“Protocol.”
“Man. That was dumb.” Connie sighed. “No. Sorry. It’s not. It’s what you’re supposed to do, isn’t it?”
“It’s the Wub. He’s on his way. Plane probably already landed. Walla Walla, probably. I don’t know. This place got an airport?”
“I don’t know. Millie?”
Too busy dismantling Sipe with her eyes.
“I had to call from a landline,” said Sipe. “So he’s gonna go check on that. Go to the house I made the call from. If he does that, some people that don’t need to g
et hurt might get hurt. You know how he is. Once he gets going, he kind of loses it.”
“Where’d you call from?”
“The town.”
“Little Creek?”
Sipe nodded.
“I can call back home. I can call my dad.”
“That doesn’t work,” said Sipe.
“Jesus H., what do you mean? We can even, take video, Skype it, upload it, show him I’m all right. Call off the hounds of Hell before they lay waste to some shitty little town.”
“They’ll think you might be doing it under duress.”
“Come on!”
“It’s happened before. Guys like me, sometimes they get grand aspirations. They go rogue. They see a pot of gold, think they got the key to ride the rainbow. It happens once, people in charge, they won’t take a chance.”
Connie snapped his fingers, trying to spark something inside his skull.
“Susan! Call her. She’s not a dummy. Call her. I’ll call her. Sipe, man, even my dad listens to her.”
Bijou barked. Stirred by Connie’s passion. Mama wrapped the little dog up even tighter and whispered in the fluff ball’s ear.
Sipe said, “You seen them face huggers, in those movies, the ones with that tall broad? Right. No one, not even their makers I bet, can talk a face hugger out of doing its job. It’s gonna lay its eggs. That’s what it does. You try to pull it off a face, remember?, that little tail just winds around the person’s neck tighter. I’ve closed before, Connie. Like the Wub is right now. I’ve kept an open mind. Shit gets called off, sure. I get a call from the right number, I’d believe it. Thing is, I don’t have to. I’m a closer? I get a call? I don’t have to take it. Orders are orders are orders. Someone told the Wub, ‘drop an egg down a throat’. That’s what he’s gonna do. Me, you, Susan, anyone, tries to pull him off, tell him to save the fuckin’ egg for later, the tail is just gonna wind around the neck tighter.”
“Yeah, but what about my dad?”
“What about him?”
“I call him. I tell him to call the Wub.”
“He wouldn’t call the Wub.”
“Not even if I talked to him? Told him everything. Had Millie talk to him?”
Sipe looked at Millie. Imagined the Old Man meeting her for the first time. Sipe had seen a cartoon once. Bambi Meets Godzilla. You saw Bambi sniffing flowers. Then – boom! – down comes Godzilla’s foot, flattening Bambi. It’d be like that.
All Sipe said to Connie, he said, “No.”
“Well, after we make him stop, if we did,” said Connie, “stop the Wub, send him home, what do I do?”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t want to go back. You get that, right?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m done. I don’t even want to start. I know I’m supposed to take over. I’ve told him I don’t want to. I thought that’s what having me go to school out of state was all about, him finally realizing I meant it.”
“You wanted to go to cooking school. He sent you to the best.”
“No, he sent me to an expensive one in the states. The best is in France. He wanted to send me to the best that’s where he would’ve sent me. But I know, France, right? Kind of far away. The tentacles reach far, but only reach so far.”
“You don’t want to be a cook?”
“He’s a chef, dumbfuck,” said Millicent. “There’s a difference.”
“Thanks, baby,” said Connie. ”I’m a chef, ok? I’ve got the tools now. I don’t want to though. I figured that out. Some of those people…They’re intense, and I just don’t own that passion. And I’m not dumb. I know the Old Man just sent me off to shut me up for a little while. I know what he wants. What I’m supposed to do once he can’t run things like he does. Just drop everything, anything I’ve worked for, and put his crown on my head.” Connie laughed. “I look like her, like my mom, here and there, so he thinks I’m dumb like she was. Hand me some stupid bauble and I’ll suck on it, just shut up.”
“What do you want to do?”
“Her.” He put his hands on Millicent’s shoulders. She reached up and covered his hands with her own.
“’Her’ isn’t really an answer.”
“This Wub guy,” said Millicent, “he’ll have to kill me to get to Connor.” Connie tilted forward and smooched the top of Millicent’s head.
Sipe nodded. He worked his tongue around the inside of his mouth and it made a wet little noise when he pulled his tongue back. He stood.
“Ok. Sooner we get to Little Creek and all, sooner we can figure out what you do when it’s done.”
“You promise?” asked Connor. “You swear? Pinkie swear?”
Connie stuck his pinkie in the air. As a little guy, Connie had forced pinkie swears on a lot of people. Zeke. Susan. Simon. Sipe could imagine Tiffany adhering to a pinkie swear. Remembering it forever.
“We’ll do what we can,” said Sipe.
It was a contrast, the hope on his face. The bloodless gaze Millie directed at Sipe, and kept directing at Sipe while Connie smooched the top of her head.
While they hugged and kissed, Millicent started sobbing. She loved Connie so much, so very much. Mama sat, her lap a flat surface affording Bijou the luxury of maximizing his butt and balls maintenance.
Connie walked out ahead of Sipe. Most the way, careful, considering previous experience given the company, and even with the stun gun now in his possession, Sipe backed out. When he turned to follow Connie down the steps to the lobby, Millicent called out.
“Bela Yalbo.”
Connie stopped. Sipe stopped. He started reaching for his suit jacket pocket, new home to the stun gun.
“Little man, I’m talking to you,” said Millicent. “You know who I’m talking about? You should. When I was 8, I knew I was meant to swim. I knew it. I took to it. I was part fish. I still am part fish. When I started winning swim meets, my mom and dad wanted me to have the best. They asked me if I wanted the best and I said I want the best. Bela Yalbo was the best. Craigmont, Jensen, all these swimmers, Bela Yalbo’s swimmers, they went to the Olympics. Colorado, we went all the way to Colorado. We were ready to move there, but Bela Yalbo, he told them, he told me, ‘little girl, you’re shaped like a log, not like a fish, you’re solid where you should flex’. I was winning all those swim meets, but he told my parents no. He told me no. He took something away from me. Telling me that, it was like he raped me. He could’ve raped me it wouldn’t have been half as bad.
“But do you know what? Every time, every time, every time, I swam against someone coached by Bela Yalbo, I beat them. Look it up. Go ahead, look it up. Everyone knows it. Bela Yalbo. His queers, his faggots, his little stupid flexible cunts, I took them down. All of them.”
Millicent pointed at Sipe. She trembled.
“You’re taking my Connor away from me. Until I get him back, you’re Bela Yalbo. You’re my new Bela Yalbo, you got it? You’re Bela Yalbo. And I beat Bela Yalbo. I beat Bela Yalbo. I beat Bela Yalbo.”
On and on and on like they were being serenaded out of the lobotomy prep ward. All the bronze plates fastened to the awards boards, it was possible the raised lettering on every last one of them read nothing else but ‘I beat Bela Yalbo’.
Outside, Connie pressed the fob and unlocked the Lexus trunk. Sipe opened the trunk, shoved luggage, eyeballed the inside, felt panic rise, but finally made out the shape of a slender black briefcase. He detached it from the brace at the rear of the trunk, slid it out, and closed the trunk.
“We’ll lead,” said Sipe. “Tan Honda. One of them fish on the trunk.”
“Darwin fish?”
“Yeah.”
“Ok.” Connie snapped his fingers. “Your phone. I forgot. Sipe, man, sorry, but she chucked it. Last night, I don’t even remember where, but we were driving and she all of a s
udden threw it out the window.”
“It’s just a phone.”
“Yeah. I know. Still, kind of rude. She does that. Impulsive you know?”
Sipe started walking out of the condo parking and stopped. He turned. Connie had the Lexus driver side door open.
Sipe asked, “She really beat all those swimmers, all the ones coached by that guy?”
Connie nodded.
“He knew he’d fucked up. He told the press she was ‘the one that got away’.”
“Like a fish?”
“Like a fish,” said Connie. “He’s dead. Bela Yalbo.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Sipe looked up towards Millie’s condo. No one in the windows.
“How’d he go?”
“You think she killed him?” Connie laughed.
“Just curious.”
“Naw. She didn’t. He suffered a heart attack lifting weights. Probably left a void in her life though. It’s why she freaked out. Attacked that other swimmer, got her butt bounced off her team. She needed to have someone out there she could hate as much as she hated Bela.”
Sipe took in Connie’s enigmatic smile.
“What?”
“Nothing. We better go before she’s drawn down here. Take on the newly christened Bela Yalbo.”
Sipe walked down the slope towards the Honda parked on the street. He could hear the Lexus start up behind him. Sipe kept saying Bela Yalbo to himself like he was practicing before ordering a meal at a restaurant.
The Lipless Gods Page 19
