Bill was buried in a pile of Corner paperwork when the call came. He hated doing the books, but he was adamant that the Punk not return to work anytime soon. She yelled a while, told him to bring the shit home, but he simply ignored it in the stone-faced way he had, and she’d finally quiet down and read a book.
“Goddamnit, Pratt. Get the phone. I’m busy in here.”
It was a good two hours before opening time, and Elmore was stocking behind the bar. The boy knew Bill hated phones, even though it seemed he never went anywhere without one, but sometimes he found it amusing to let the older man yell awhile.
“’s fer you, Billy.”
Grumbling, he snatched up the receiver.
“Strannix.”
“Bill. They’ve made the call.”
At that very moment, the world halted. To anyone watching, there wouldn’t have been any indication that there was anything wrong. The only thing wrong would have been their assumption.
The voice was familiar. Andrew Stochanski, former CIA operative and close friend. Even so, he said nothing else. There was a click, then the sound of dead line on the other end.
Bill placed the receiver back onto the cradle and stared at it, his mind a million miles away, clicking away, deep into the dark places of his mind. He’d buried it all for years now, building a life he knew he could never live, making promises that could never be kept, telling himself that the time would never come, they’d put him aside, stamped ‘retired’ on the folder and shelved him with the others who’d lost their usefulness.
A woman, almost a wife… a child—hell, face it man, children—a houseful of apes, a brother… not to mention a family four hundred miles away. A real life.
All bets were off. Not that it was anything he hadn’t done before. But…
He shoved it back in his mind, made a few mental calculations.
“Elmore!”
Elmore stuck his head in the door.
“What’cha want now, old man? Want me t’dial th’ phone for ya?”
“Gotta talk. Sit your ass down and shut that door.”
A moment later, he continued.
“I have ta go for a time. Been called away. Don’t know how long I’ll be gone. You wanna watch out for that Punk for me, huh.”
Elmore nodded. “That all, Bill?”
Bill grunted. “Yeah, guess so.”
“You got me all sat down for just that? You sure that’s it?”
Damn, the boy could see right through him. How could he do that?
“Well.”
“Thought so. Spit it out.”
“Keep track of that Dawg, too. Ya know, he can’t even wipe his ass after takin a shit without fallin on his face.”
Elmore raised his eyebrows.
“Now I know there’s somethin’ up, man. You’re always goin on trips for a time, besides which you actin like you give a shit about Sammy…”
“Oh, Jesus Christ, Pratt, he’s my fuckin’ brother, can’t I—“
“Ya can, but ya never say it. You’re gettin’ all weird on me, and I’m thinking that you’re thinking that you’re not comin back from whatever shit you got cooked up, and it has ta do with whoever was on the other end of that ma bell.”
“Now you’re Dick fuckin Tracy, huh?”
“I know it ain’t my business, but it’s someone else’s, and I think ya better say somethin’ to em about it. You tore a lot a’ people up last time ya went sightseein’ and come back all fucked up.”
Bill’s lovely little trip to Afghanistan. He gritted his teeth, pulled the words from deep inside his resolve.
“I couldn’t help that. I can’t help this. I need to go. More than just me at stake here.”
Elmore rubbed his hands together and sat back against the back-rest, making the chair creak against the weight.
“You’re my friend, Bill. I give a shit if you’re gonna go get your ass shot off, or stabbed, or blown up, or whatever. I know ya have your reasons, but you’ve got a lot goin now. Best not ta lose it, huh?”
Bill rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger, thinking. Finally, he looked up and held Elmore’s gaze with a look that would have made his typical stone-set look he gave the Punk lie down by its bowl.
“Remember this. No matter what happens, no matter what you hear, what you’re told… I will be back. Understand?”
Elmore’s response was grave. He nodded.
“I don’t like the way ya said that, boy, but I understand. I won’t forget it.”
“And don’t tell anyone I told you that. Anyone. Got it?”
Elmore nodded again.
“Watch that Punk, the boy, the Dawg…”
“I will.”
“…ah…”
“Bill?”
“Hm?”
“What are you doin’? Really?”
Bill sighed.
“Gonna go die, boy.”
Bill made a stop at the Richfield Bank and Trust in Burnsville and withdrew the entire balance of $73,246.29 from the account of one Ronald Levy, an account he’d created not long after he’d bought the most recent house that the Punk and Co. now lived in. He had several such accounts around the country.
From there, he purchased a bland looking black sedan from the Saturn dealership down the road, and left the suburban double-parked in the mall lot across the street. The Burnsville police would descend upon it soon enough and someone would come pick it up. He drove several miles to a Hell-Mart and bought a few sets of clothes, shoes, and hair dye. As he was walking up through the aisles, he noticed a Motorola booth set up in the midst of the chaos, a bored looking punk teenager behind the counter. Bill stopped and bought a cellphone and a service plan under the Ron Levy name as well.
In the parking lot, he slid behind the wheel and dialed the home number. One of the children answered.
“You have reached the Gae-ri-ties, doo-dahhhh, doo-dahhhh. You have reached the—“
“Nuala, girl. This is—“
“Uncle Bill! Uncle Bill! You have reached the Gae-ri-ties and the Stran-nix-es, doo-dahhhh, doo —“
Bill closed his eyes against the singing. No need to be harsh, just a little girl. Deep breaths.
“Put your Auntie Deb on the line, girl. Gotta holler at her a while.”
“What’d Auntie do?”
“Nothin’, girl. Not yet. You know your Aunt Deb. Just get ‘er on the phone.”
“She’s not here. She’s out with mamma. Wanna talk to Da?”
He sighed again. Punk’s never where she ought to be. Neverthless…
Bill heard the distant rumble of a male voice on the other end.
“Who are you talkin’ to, little one?”
“Uncle Bill! I was just singin’ to him…”
“Nuala, put your Da on,” he said quickly, not wanting to talk to the owner of the voice on the other end, knowing he’d probably have to anyway. He pondered hanging up, but it was too late.
“Strannix. What does your sorry ass need that I can’t do for you?”
Bill bit a few harsh retorts in half. His brother was never one for subtlety.
“Gotta take a trip. Been called away. Don’t know how long I’ll be gone. Hold the fort, huh?”
Knowing silence filled the line. How in the hell did these goddamn people know him so well?
“You going to say goodbye to Deb?”
No fucking around, that one.
“No time, boy. Gotta run. Thought I’d check in.”
“Coward.”
“Now hold on—“
“You leave without any word this time, you better not be planning on coming back, or I’ll kill you myself.”
“Gerard, you dickhead—“
“I mean it. You scared the hell out of these people, out of me—“ Sam stopped for a moment, as if something were stuck in his throat, or that he was stopping himself from voicing a thought that they both had trouble with most days. “At least tell me where you’re going. You could do that much.”
Going? He’d already done as much as lie to Pratt. As much as he wanted to believe he could run, hide, fight, and evade, he knew the cold reality of it all. He’d been on the other end of the phone, the other end of the gun, and knew that when they began, they would be relentless. It would only be a matter of time.
“Old business. Tying up loose ends. I’ll be back in a few weeks.”
Goddamnit.
Sam’s voice was skeptical.
“You have a problem, do not hesitate, young man. Call me.”
“Gotta run.”
“Strannix, you fucking cowa—“
Bill cut him off in mid-sentence. He couldn’t bear to hear anymore. Could be worse, though. He dialed once more, the next, and last, call he would make on that particular phone.
“Ryan, the Oreo cereal is in the pantry where you last left it, now if you keep calling I’ll throw this freaking cellphone in the Mississippi river!”
Bill grinned. “Hey, baby. It’s Bill.”
Jade’s tone changed completely. “Oh, hi Bill. What’s up?”
He could hear the noise of a well-populated mall in the background. Not the Burnsville mall, he hoped. Children screaming in delight confirmed that they were, in fact, at the Maul of America, a good ten miles away from where he sat.
“Not much. That Punk with ya?”
“Yeah, hold on.”
“Hey, freakshow.”
“Hey yourself, girl. Need ta talk to ya.”
Another careful tone. What was with these people? “Why don’t you wait until I get home, then we can talk, huh? You know how much I hate these damned phones.”
“Yeah, I know, but I don’t have much time.”
“Billy…” A touch of fear was creeping in. Was he that transparent these days? Or was it the fact that he’d not spent so much time with the same people in a long damn time?
“Nothin’ to worry about, girl. Just got called away on a trip. I’ll be back before ya know it.” Damn it, boy, is this all there is, lie after lie? Shut up. Don’t think about it…
“Does this have anything to do with that shit from before?”
“No.”
“Now I know there’s something up. You’re all monosyllabic. Whatever this is, don’t do it. Okay? Billy?”
“I… have to go. I’ll be back. I promise.”
“Billy--!”
“I… I love you, Punk.”
“Billy! Goddamnit!”
He hung up the phone and rested his forehead against the steering wheel. It was time to go, uneasy feeling in his gut or not. It was time to finish what he’d started.
Ronald Levy’s phone ended up at the bottom of the Mississippi river forty-five minutes after he’d hung up with the Punk.
“Jade?”
“What’s up?”
“Can we go? I need to go home.” Not that the one I wanted would be there when I arrived. Damn the man, just when he had me believing the cloak and dagger shit was over and done with, something like this would happen.
Jade was silent on the ride home. She knew what these things were about; apparently it had been just something like this that had separated her from Ryan the last time such a thing had been allowed to happen. I stared out the window at the passing scenery. I had known this area, this land, since childhood. The low rolling hills and lush greenery were as much a part of what made me as anything else I could name. I had come back here, worse than some damn idiot swallow homing in on Capistrano. It was hard to imagine trying to live anywhere else.
“Sometimes I hate this place.”
“What place?” Jade asked, her voice carefully neutral.
“This place. Here.”
Jade had turned off the main road and into our long driveway. Rather than continue on to the house and face the music just yet, she stopped the truck.
“This place is exactly what you wanted. Why would you hate it?”
I tried to string together some words and mostly failed. She waited for me. I tried again.
“It’s always where I am when I have to be afraid for something.”
Jade made the correct substitutions in her mind.
“What was that call about? He taking off again?”
Jade knew the drill almost as well as I did by this time. I had only to nod.
“He knows what he’s doing. You know Bill, worse than a bad smell. Sucker always turns up.”
He hadn’t sounded so confident.
“I know that. He’s never missed yet. Maybe it’s just that I’m a worrier…” The words trailed off and I stared at my hands, lying loosely in my lap. I had grown used to fixing things, and the only time I didn’t fix things anymore was when Bill fixed them. Sometimes he fixed them until they were broken, but even then they were fixed damn good. I couldn’t fix what was wrong with me now, so I forced the broken bits down to a place where they wouldn’t bother me until I felt like letting them.
“Oh, shit. What the hell is wrong with me, I’ve been through this before. He’ll go off and play GI Joe and come home with a whole lotta nothin’ to say.”
Jade’s smile was somehow encouraging. She put the truck in gear and we drove the rest of the way to the house.
Later…
“Heard anything from Strannix?”
Sam lit on me like stink on a skunk.
“You know what I know, Sambone,” I answered. I was proud of myself. I sounded almost as unconcerned as I wanted to feel, and as cocky as I would be once I had got used to Bill’s absence. Not that I ever got used to Bill’s absences. “He usually tells me when he’s getting up steam, so’s I know not to set a place. For the rest of it, need to know and, as usual, I don’t.”
“Damned strange,” Sam said. He was ruminating. Cosmo Renfro had once described what happened when Sam finished such an action, and according to Renfro, the aftermath usually involved extended trips away from home and a fair amount of physical danger.
“What’s damned strange? Bill? He was born damned strange. What’s eatin’ you, Sammy?”
“He told me he was taking off, asked me to watch out for you and the boy.”
Bill never told Sam anything unless Sam choked it out of him. That he had said anything at all was news to me. Jade joined us on the step.
“Well… I don’t know… maybe he had a good reason… he always says vague stuff like that, doesn’t he?” The both of them looked at me and I read their faces. Denial. Was that what they saw?
“Let me talk to Ryan,” said Jade.
Sam’s eyes sparkled for a moment, then turned flat again. “That’s not such a good idea, young woman. You both have those babies to think of.”
“Sam…” I began, but he ignored me. He was very good at that when he wanted to be.
“Keep me informed. I’ve got some work to attend to, here.” Sam nodded slightly and walked past us, into the house. I didn’t like the purpose in his stride at all. I’m sure most fugitives from the law weren’t too partial to it either.
“Deb, I don’t like the way he said that.”
“Me neither. But there’s no arguing with him.”
We stood for a moment, both of us lost in our own thoughts. Then,
“Jade, could you do me a favor?”
“I’ll watch Rainer. If it comes to that. He might just be going to work, you know?”
“I know.”
“You don’t think so, though.”
“Doubt it.”
Another quiet moment passed.
“Well, be careful. Understand?”
I nodded, and almost as an afterthought, I hugged her, tight.
“Thanks.”
Sam noticed his shadow pretty quickly. Not that too much escaped him, and I wasn’t exactly the most stealthy of people.
“Don’t.”
He’d turned to me in the middle of the hall, a small duffle bag in one hand, car keys in the other. His windbreaker was zipped up half-way, and I could just make out the outline of a gun underneath his shoulder. He shrugged slightly, and the bulge disappeared.
“What are you talking about, Sam?”
“You’re a bad liar, little sister. You know where you belong.”
“Yeah, I do.”
“So, don’t.”
“When did I ever do what I was told?”
Sam turned away from me, as if the subject was exhausted and he’d had the final word. I followed noisily, since there was no point in pretending I hadn’t been noticed. He ignored me some more until we got back outside. Jade had disappeared, and we were alone. Sam unlocked his truck and I hopped around to the other side.
“No,” Sam said.
I stepped up on the running board. Maybe it would make him think twice about driving away without me.
“No,” he repeated.
“Sam, the man called, which was not unusual. What was, was that he told me he loved me before he hung up.”
Sam opened the door, but stopped short of climbing into the vehicle.
“I take it that’s unusual?”
“It has to be pulled out of him,” I replied.
Sam stared across the interior of the truck and through the window at me. I stared back, feeling naked there.
“What are you thinking?” Sam asked.
“That he’s thinking he might not be back.”
More silence, more of the concentrated stare. I waited him out, knowing that once he made up his mind it would be concrete.
“Get in.”
Sam drove away from the house. He might only have been driving me in to the Corner, but there was so much more between us remaining unsaid.
It had been three weeks since Bill had done his fade. Sam had been in and out, taking mysterious telephone calls and not saying much at all. It stood to reason that he was on the move because of what he had learned from the calls.
“Sam, where are we going?” I asked, at length.
“New York.”
“Why there, of all places?” I continued.
“Best place in the world to hide in plain sight.”
That made sense. Bill would want anonymity. It was how he did his business, whatever that was.
I’d learned from CNN that Admiral Casey Ryback, former head of CIA Special Operations and current liason to the Pentagon for that agency – or some such government-speak for spook, had been found dead in his Pentagon office. Officials had first ruled the death a suicide, however later reports amended that to a homicide once it was determined that Ryback’s neck had been snapped prior to his service revolver being placed in his mouth and discharged. Ryback had been working late, and the body wasn’t found until the next morning. Police had no clues, and were continuing their investigations.
“Bill,” Jade said.
“He might as well have signed his name,” I agreed.
Two or three nights later, the national news reported on the steadily declining condition of General Hawk Hawkins, of Team Daedelus fame. As a voiceover recapped Hawk’s accomplishments and the progression of his disease, a tape was shown of Hawk being discharged from a Utah hospital. Beth walked beside a wheelchair containing a graying Hawk. Her hand rested gently on his shoulder. Pushing the chair was a silent figure, clad in flannel and denim, with a battered baseball cap shrouding his eyes. Dark hair protruded from beneath the cap, and a heavy beard covered the man’s jaw. The voiceover made no mention of the man, but Jade and I didn’t need one.
“It’s Bill,” I said instantly.
“He wouldn’t be caught dead in a flannel shirt,” Jade said. “Unless he was hiding.”
“That’s Bill. I can tell by the way he carries himself,” I replied firmly.
Footsteps on the carpet caught our attention and Sam poked his head around the door. “Hawk on the news?” he asked. “Thought I heard.”
I glanced at the television – the report had gone to the days’ economic mess and there was a film of Martha Stewart being walked into or out of a hearing room someplace. Thank God, I said to myself. The last thing any of us needed was Sam seeing Bethy on national TV with Bill. Yipes.
“He’s just coming out of the hospital. No better but, thankfully, no worse,” I answered.
Sam said nothing, just drew a deep breath and nodded once. The head disappeared, and Jade and I were able to breathe again. Nothing like dodging a bullet.
And Mick, who had turned out to be an inveterate climber, had finally fulfilled everybody’s predictions that he would bust himself up if he continued to crawl up on everything. A favorite spot of his was the llama enclosure, and he would go up the post and rail fence like a monkey every chance he got. Rama surprised him one day, and Mick overbalanced and went over like a sack of hammers. Fortunately he was young and the greenstick fracture in his leg would heal quickly. In the meantime, he was the proud owner of a plaster cast. His father had drawn an amazingly faithful copy of the tattoo on his own backside on the surface of the boy’s cast, and Mick was constantly worried that it would be destroyed when the cast was removed.
Sam marched directly to the American desk and requested two seats to New York on the next available flight. Upon discovering that this flight did not leave Minneapolis until sometime late in the afternoon, he did an about face and went to the United desk, where he received similar news. Delta was totally booked through until the following day. Northwest had seats on a flight leaving in less than an hour, but they were in business class. Sam hesitated to take them. When he traveled on the government’s tit, coach was required and when he traveled on his own, it was affordable.
I had no such compunction. I had got used to the idea that my bills would be paid if not silently, at least regularly. I slapped down my visa.
“We’ll take them,” I said.
“Hold on, young woman,” Sam growled. He slid the credit card back toward me. “When’s your next flight?”
The answer was more than acceptable, something like an hour and a half if we connected through O’Hare. Sam was fine with that, O’Hare was like a second home. The one time I’d gone through that godforsaken airport had been more than enough.
“If we take the business class seats, it will be a direct flight? We won’t have to change at O’Hare?” I asked. The ticket agent nodded brightly. I had a feeling the woman would have nodded brightly had she informed us the only way to get to New York was through Athens via the Great Wall. “Fine,” I said, shoving the credit card across the desk, “we’ll take them.”
Sam grabbed the card before the woman could. “Deb, this trip is my idea.”
“And it’s my idiot we’re chasing after. The least you can do is let him pay for it.”
Sam handed the woman my credit card. “Put it that way, L’il Sis…”