by Mike McCrary
“This poor me bullshit ain’t okay,” she barks. “I want pie. You promised me pie, ya dickhole.”
Murphy’s eyes drift to hers.
There’s unexplainable warmth behind her stare. A kindness that perhaps only he can see. One that doesn’t match her words. Maybe one he’s never noticed before.
Mother silently mouths the word, stop.
Murphy blinks.
Shakes his head hard. He blocks a left hook coming in. Lands a left to the fighter’s ribs. The crunch of bone echoes across the gym floor. Murphy steps in, throwing a sledgehammer right that backs the fighter into the ropes. A blitz of jabs and hooks snaps the fighter’s face left, then right. The fighter’s knees go weak as he slips down, falling between the ropes. The older man rushes into the ring, tries to pull Murphy back. A useless gesture. A switch has flipped inside Murphy. He keeps pounding away until the fighter slides completely out of the ring and down onto the cold concrete floor.
“Enough,” Mother calls out.
Murphy stops. Pulls back with gloves raised.
He yanks the gloves from his pulsing hands, letting them bounce off the mat. Pulling a couple of hundreds out from his pocket, he folds them with an apologetic grin, then lays them next to his blood-slick gloves.
Mother holds open the ropes for her son.
“You know,” Murphy says, slipping past her, “eighth-best slice of blueberry is a few short miles away.”
Chapter 8
They fought like hell about it, but ultimately, they agreed on a motel that didn’t suck too much.
Mother didn’t want anything too nice.
No fancy-ass bullshit.
Murphy wanted something nice as hell. His days as a highly paid CIA problem solver have refined his tastes. He enjoys the spoils of life, and although he grew up with next to nothing, he’s grown accustomed to a certain standard of living life. A standard that removing lives from the planet has afforded him. The Mr. Nice Guy side tends to tilt toward Mother’s perspective. All he ever needed was a place to lay his head. However, if Mr. Nice Guy was being honest, the fancy-ass hotels are growing on him.
The blueberry pie they had with dinner was pretty good.
Hard to split hairs on something as subjective as this. Extremely difficult to label one pie eighth best, then clearly define what makes another pie seventh best. Good pie is good pie, but ranking things brings in clicks and eyeballs. And what causes people to stare and tap at screens is king. Regulations passed a few years ago attempted to tighten up the wild, wild west of the world wide web. There were half-hearted attempts to clean up the political crap that plagued social media. The removal of some over-the-top conspiracy rants took years. Regardless of all that, the need to promote and gain visibility in order to generate advertising revenue still rules all.
Top ten ways to lose those unwanted pounds. The eight funniest puppy fails of all time. Top twenty child stars and what they look like now. All eyeball cocaine that feeds the addiction of touching glass in search of whatever is missing. Needy eyeballs are what makes the world turn and turn. The Cash Clash may have brought attention to the great divide between rich and poor, but it will fall way short of solving a damn thing.
To Murphy, that’s the real tragedy in what Brubaker did.
A lot of bloodshed and pain with zero upside.
Maybe some good will happen at the margins. The subject will be on the tips of everyone’s tongues for a while. It will simmer, perhaps boil, then it will fade as things always do. Once things normalize, the world will land somewhere close to how things were before. Maybe slightly closer to the middle. Incremental change, with signs of a gentle erosion perhaps. Maybe. But if history is any guide, things will move at a glacial pace when the people who can actually crank up change aren’t motivated to do so.
That part Brubaker had right.
Problem was, her motivations weren’t purely about helping the downtrodden. In Murphy’s experience, motivations are rarely pure. She wanted her girls back. Her children. Their children. The two daughters that part of Brubaker and part of Murphy shared together.
Murphy stopped her.
He knows he had to. She had lost control. She was going to cause great harm to a great number of people, but that rationalization doesn’t stop Murphy’s mind from grinding.
The fighter’s punches felt good. That fact he cannot, nor will he try to, deny.
Each pounding fist beat away chunks of his guilt. He betrayed her. His wife. His best friend and the mother of his girls. He knows he did what had to be done, but he hates that he did it.
The motel room door explodes.
A jarring crack. Tiny spikes of wood splinter and fly. Smoke drifts out from the doorway forming dark, stretching fingers scratching at the air. A kill squad wearing gunmetal gray tactical gear storms in with neon green laser lines tracking from assault rifles. Murphy rolls out from his bed, launching himself at them as his feet touch the carpet. The first one’s neck snaps with a dull pop. Murphy puts another one on the floor with a flat-hand chop to an unguarded throat. Jams another man’s knee in an unnatural direction.
A knife is plunged into Murphy’s stomach.
Blood spills between his fingers as he holds the blade. He drops down to the floor. A masked woman all in black stands over him. She leans down inches from his face. She cocks her head birdlike. As if studying him. Looking for something. Murphy’s bloody fingers fumble as he raises them up toward her face. He pulls away her mask.
Mr. Nice Guy’s wife stares back at him. The kind, decent side of Brubaker.
Her name sticks at the back of Murphy’s throat. Unable to release.
“Say it.” She taps the tip of his nose with a bloody finger.
He forces out her name. “Kate.”
She nods, then drifts into the smoke.
“Wake up.”
Murphy jolts awake. He’s on the floor. Mother is shaking him back and forth.
“Wake the hell up,” Mother calls out, slapping him.
“Okay. Okay.” Murphy holds up his hands. “I’m fine.”
“Fine? Fairly fucking far from fine.”
Murphy pulls himself up off the floor. “Go back to sleep.”
“You said her name last night too.” Mother can’t hide her concern. “You know that?”
“Who?”
“Kate. Is that Mr. Nice Guy’s wife? I mean, sorry, is that your wife’s name?”
Murphy goes to the bathroom. Splashes some water on his face.
“You can lie to me all you want to. Been doing it most your life. But this thing? This thing you’re working through? It ain’t done. Not by a damn sight.”
“Stop.”
“You sneak off here and there. Hell, a few days ago, you were gone hours without explaining where you went.”
Murphy waves her off, dismissing the words she’s saying.
“Then you go all shit-ass crazy in your sleep. What am I supposed to think?”
“I told you. It’s over. I’m done with it.” Murphy wipes his face. Tossing the towel to the floor, he winces from the cuts and bruises he got from the boxing ring. He forces a smile, hoping to shift the subject. “Now, tomorrow we’ve got the third-best apple and—”
“It ain’t done with you.” Mother crawls back into her bed and turns over away from him, facing the wall. “That’s all I’m saying.”
Murphy stands in the dark, letting the silence fill the room.
He rubs the scar on his stomach.
Doesn’t realize he’s even doing it.
“There’s something I want to show you,” he says, barely above a whisper.
“What?”
“Tomorrow.” Murphy sits on the bed. “Tomorrow there’s something you should see.”
Chapter 9
“You only get a second or two.”
Murphy says this to Mother as he climbs out of the candy apple red Porsche 911.
“To do what?”
“Just follow me and you’ll see.”
; “We’ve been driving all damn day.” She crosses her arms. “You won’t tell me a damn thing about where we’re going. What the hell, man? What in God’s name are we doing out in this—”
“I will show you. Please get out of the car, Mother.”
“Nope.”
“You said you wanted to take a walk in the park.”
“No.”
“Get your ass out of the damn car.”
Murphy slams the car door shut and points to a neighborhood park across the street.
Mother turns, looking to the patch of green nestled near a pond. An outline of New York City lays out along the edges of her vision. She’d been so pissed at her son for not telling her what he wanted her to see that she didn’t really process much around her. They are parked in what looks like some random suburb. A place for young families with so-so money but up-and-coming hopes and dreams.
The park is alive with activity.
The sun shines bright with only a kiss of a cool breeze. Kids dangle their bodies and legs while swaying back and forth in new-looking swings. Moms and dads stand around chatting with other moms and dads, clinging to their coffee. Dogs’ tongues wag while running on leashes with joggers weaving in and out of all of it.
“Picnic?” She opens the car door, snuffing out her cigarette in the street. “Odd choice, but okay.”
Murphy’s attention is focused on the park. He waves her on to hurry the hell up. Mother plays along, trotting up to him, giving a wise-ass salute as she reaches his side.
“Try not to make eye contact.” His stare is dead ahead.
“With who?”
“Like I said, you only get a second or two, but it’s what we have to work with.”
“I need you to tell me what in the sweet hell is going—”
“About thirty yards away. Headed toward us.” Murphy talks fast, his voice and head low. “Two adults. One male. One female. Woman in a light-blue yoga outfit. Man in a navy-blue hoodie.”
“Yeah, I got ’em. Again, what in the sweet hell—”
“Each are pushing a stroller.” His voice cracks. His heart pounds.
Mother’s expression softens.
“Okay.” Her voice is barely above a whisper. “Is that…?”
Murphy nods.
These are the girls.
She and Murphy will be passing by them in mere seconds. Mother fixes her hair. Murphy does the same. He walks a little taller. So does she. The man and woman pay them no mind, all their attention squarely on the babies.
Good, Murphy thinks.
Murphy knows this man and woman extremely well, although they have never met.
His exhaustive background check, along with breaking into their home to try and find any uncovered dirt, gave him confidence in this couple. Enough confidence to choose them to care for the girls.
The strollers have shades pulled up halfway to shield the babies from the sun. Murphy and Mother are facing the man and woman pushing the strollers and moving toward them fast. They will need to pass the strollers and then turn back if they want to steal a quick glance.
“Remember,” Murphy speaks into her ear, “look without being seen.”
She nods. She holds her breath. So does Murphy.
As they pass the smiling, attractive couple, Murphy and Mother look away. They whip their heads back around a little too fast to be considered playing it cool. As they turn, the babies laugh and smile. Couldn’t ask for a better single frame vision. An image that will burn its way into your mind in the best kind of way. This is what they’ve driven so far to see.
It was beyond worth it.
Murphy freezes. Feet seemingly sink into the sidewalk as if he stumbled into a three-foot-deep pool of mud. He can’t move. He can’t help it. Mother stops next to him.
The faces of the little girls are so bright.
Smiling.
Eyes full of life and wonder.
Murphy wants to believe they saw him. He knows they have no idea who he is. He’s a man they’ve never seen before, but inside of him is their father. Murphy’s heart fills, pushing beyond capacity, then breaks in two. His eyes lock. In the girls’ little hands are tiny purple rubber ducks.
Murphy pumps his fist in triumph.
They got them. He wasn’t sure they’d get them.
Mother covers her mouth, looking to her son. Taking in his joy. Maybe someone else would know what to say to him. A better mother would know the right thing to tell him. She doesn’t. Still, it doesn’t stop the tears from swelling in her eyes.
“Okay,” Murphy says.
“Okay.” She wipes her eyes one at a time.
“You got the list?”
“List?”
“The pies.”
“Of course I do.” Mother clears her throat. “Looks like we’re not far from a not-too-horrible slice of apple.”
“Not too horrible it is, then.”
Murphy and Mother turn, moving toward the Porsche. They both know they will not talk much during the drive, and that’s fine. Murphy steals one more look at the strollers as they move farther and farther away from him.
Chapter 10
Mr. Madness scrubs the blood from his forearms.
The soaps foams into a bright shade of pink as he rubs faster and harder.
He did what the time-bomb message had asked him to do before it faded off into digital oblivion.
He killed them all.
The two men in suits are dead. One died from a gunshot wound to the head. A peaceful shot between the eyes. The second one chose to be beaten to death. Both were trying to get in a car after leaving some sort of meeting. At least that’s what it looked like to Mr. Madness. There was a light rain, providing a misty element to the events. Mr. Madness couldn’t help but think how cinematic it all was. The lights along the street cutting cones of pale yellow into the night. The gentle rain dusting the pavement as if he was cast in some old spy film.
No idea who they were. He can guess, but that’s not his role in the world.
He only knows that she asked him to do what he did.
Brubaker sent him a message. He can feel it. Feel her through the digital words. Words that contained orders to do what she needed to be done. She trusted he would act without question, that he would execute orders without need for further explanation. She knew he was the one to ask, that he’s moving more toward something special that maybe only she can see. Transforming into something new and wonderful.
Correction.
Changed into what he always wanted to be but was never strong enough to accept until now.
Looking in the mirror, Mr. Madness inspects a small cut on his cheek. Must have come from his tussle with the second one. Scrappy little bastard. Wiry with misleading looks, but he was a fighter. Until he wasn’t.
Mr. Madness fixes his hair.
Blood begins to stream down from his right eye. Then a line rolls from his left. With a smile, he wipes them away with the fatty part of the back of his hand. The slick crimson smears give him the appearance of a deranged clown. Mr. Madness likes it—likes it a lot—but he knows this look will not play out in the civilized world. Civilized is not a world Mr. Madness finds any interest in. Not one he would choose to roam.
The meeting at the safe house is coming soon.
Soon, he’ll see her again.
Excitement vibrates his entire body.
Hiro threw the man off the balcony.
Not the way Tinker would have gone with this, but what does he care.
The message said to kill this guy at the hotel.
Tinker is glad they got to the room while the man was having dinner. The room service cart still sits by the bed with the silver dome covering whatever meal the man currently falling to his death will never enjoy. A bottle of red wine sits next to it. The man had a little weight on him, so Tinker is guessing whatever is here is pretty good. Smells tasty at least.
Hiro adjusts his jacket while walking over from the balcony. His large frame blocks t
he moonlight as he moves toward Tinker with curtains rippling in the wind behind him.
Hiro extends his arms, shrugging his shoulders.
“No idea,” Tinker says, lifting the silver dome lid. His eyes light up seeing the plate. “Oh, hell yes.”
Score.
A massive bacon cheeseburger with what looks like garlic fries spilling over from the plate. Tinker sits on the bed, rolling the cart in position in front of him. Hiro sits on the bed next to him.
“Brubaker?” The first thing Hiro has said in days.
“Maybe. Who the hell else would it be?” Tinker cuts the burger in half, placing half on a napkin for Hiro.
Hiro nods a thanks, then tilts him a look with his eyebrows raised.
“I do know we need go into this safe house tomorrow with eyes open wide.” Tinker opens the bottle of red. “Enter with some extreme caution present.”
Hiro nods again, takes a massive bite from the burger half.
Tinker fills up the lone wine glass and hands it to Hiro. Hiro picks up a glass, tosses the water out on the floor, then hands it to Tinker so he can pour himself some wine. They chew their burgers and sip their wine in silence.
“You know?” Tinker says with mouth full. “Won’t take long to figure out what room that fat ass flew out of.”
Hiro nods, sips his wine.
Tinker chews.
“Yeah.” Tinker picks up his plate. “Should really take this to-go.”
Chapter 11
Darby’s office is intimidating as hell.
Peyton is certain this is the desired effect.
There’s a hint of something in the air. A faint scent that hangs just out of reach from identification. Perhaps like a doctor’s office, if Peyton had to label it. A clinical feel to a workspace that is kept in a lab-like spotless condition. Peyton thinks about the care that went into designing the wave room. A room Darby was in charge of creating.
The room where were the conversation with Brubaker went so wrong.
The walls of Margo Darby’s office are the color of gunmetal steel, with two pops of color in the form of hanging art displaying shapes and blobs in various shades of blues. Both by an Atlanta artist, if Peyton’s memory serves. Circular lights pepper the ceiling above a long, polished, dark wood desk with two chairs positioned in front. Peyton is seated in one of them, shifting, adjusting her jacket that feels ridiculously tight at the moment.
