But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him;
and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet:
And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry:
For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And
they began to be merry.
--The Bible, King James Version, Luke 15:22-24
Rain. A woman holding her baby. Gloves clutching a wheel.
Flashing blue lights; the driver curses and pulls to the side of the road. "Goddamn norteamericanos," a voice murmurs in Spanish.
"Be careful what you say about them," the driver answers, in the same language. "I was norteamericano once."
"You?"
"Grew up in New York City," he says, turning his head to look at the cops getting out of the car. Only three of them. Not too bad. "I'll see if I can bribe them. Stay in the van. Whatever happens, stay in the van."
He gets out, faces them. Not border patrol, they're happy to grab some Mexicans of their own. Usually, INS gets all the fun.
"Put your hands up!" the first one cries, tall blond guy, gun in one hand, badge in the other, daring him to try something.
"Gentlemen," the driver says, the sleeves of the dark coat rising, face hidden by the hood, "perhaps we could reach some sort of understanding..." He wonders why there are three;
it's unusual for them.
"We don't take bribes, you stupid wetback," the woman says, aiming straight for his head.
"That wasn't the understanding I was trying to reach," the driver says, and there's a flash of metal, two flashes, and the blond guy's screaming, and the woman's dead. The third cop still has his gun up, ready to shoot, trying to figure out what just happened. "The understanding is that we all leave quietly and nobody gets hurt...any more."
Some kind of martial arts weapon or something, sticking out of the woman's throat...before he'd even noticed what was going on the guy'd had time to aim for her throat...the other cop's hit in the side, bleeding all over the badge, so drunk in his pain
he's forgotten the driver, the gun, everything.
"Put the gun down," the driver says quietly. "He'll die if you don't get him to a hospital, quickly. Good luck." The cop puts his gun down, and the driver reaches down and jerks the blade out of the woman's neck. "Of course, you could stick around and try to stop a coupla honest Mexicans from coming to America..."
The cop kneels down and picks his partner up, starts to drag him toward the car. The driver picks up the other sai, rubs the blood off both blades on the dirt of the road. He can hear the blond guy begging for his mother behind him. It didn't go as well as it usually does; usually he can bribe them, at least kill them quietly. Everybody in that van knows what he just did. The border patrol'll be apeshit for a month, at least; makes it that
much harder on everyone else trying to get through.
He'd have to switch the plates on the van, too. Again.
"Sorry about that," he says when he gets back into the van.
"Sorry?" the woman with the baby says, her voice verging on hysteria. "You're sorry?"
He says nothing, turns the key, listens to the purring engine.
"And what of that child?"
"I've got some papers in the glove box. My family will take care of him if anything happens." He pulls back onto the road.
She persists. "What will you say when he's old enough to understand?"
The driver's hand reaches toward the boy, thick fingers caressing the top of his head. Carlos smiles back at his father, loosens the death grip he's had on his stuffed monkey.
"He's starting to understand," the driver says darkly.
"Why does he go with you, then?" she asks, her voice easing a little.
"My family's up north," he says. "I'm all he's got."
"What about his mother?"
"She's dead. She died a couple years ago."
A man asks suspiciously, "what happened to her?"
"I'd rather not say with the boy here, if that's all right. Not what happened to the cops out there, if that's what you're worried about."
"This is no life for a child," the woman says harshly.
"You got that right," he tells her, turns his attention back to the road.
The city's just as grimy as he remembered, but there's a bite in the air he'd forgotten living down on the border.
Carlos murmurs to him in Spanish. "No, no," he said. "English. We speak English now, remember?"
"English, Papa," the boy smiles. They glide up the stairs together. Don wouldn't change the lock, he knows. The key turns, and the door opens without a murmur. Something's wrong; the living room actually looks halfway decent. The furniture's good, there are pictures on the walls, and it's neat. Not ridiculously neat, but a heckuva lot better than the four of them had ever kept the place.
It's tasteful, he realizes with a shock.
The door to what had been Don and Leo's room is open, and he takes Carlos' hand and peeks in the doorway.
One big double bed, cream bedspread, some really interesting stuff on the walls in this room, a gorgeous tapestry and some photography that's amazing, but nothing that looks like Don. Nothing that even makes the place looked lived in, when he thinks about it; everything looks brand new, like some kind of showroom.
"I don't know, Carlos," he says, stroking the boy's hair. "We may have to check in with Auntie April and Uncle Casey."
Carlos doesn't say anything; he's too busy staring at the floral pattern that borders the tapestry. He's just noticed that there are smaller flowers woven into the fabric, beyond the main pattern, and is trying to get a closer look when his father pulls him out of the room. "One more place to check, kiddo, then we're outa here."
He pulls open the door to the room he and Mike had shared.
It's crammed with electronics. There's a path you can follow over to the window, where the workstation is, and he can see a coffee cup on the table. He picks it up, sloshes the inch or so of coffee around. It's thick as soup.
"Well," he says, "I bet your uncle Don's still here, anyway."
"Anderson wants to change the splash page on the webpage, too. Again."
"Hell, it's been a week, surprised he hasn't called sooner..."
April laughs. "Hey, as long as he pays--"
"Easy for you to say," Don says to the door that separates him from the front office. "Not your account."
The door opens behind him. "Uncle Don?"
Three kids call him that.
None of them have Spanish accents.
He spins around, comes face to face with Raph, who grins one of those "I-know-you-don't-really-wanna-punch-me-in-the-face" grins and points down at the kid.
"This is Carlos," Raphael says gently. "My son."
Wonders never cease, Don thinks, and kneels down so he can be on the kid's level. Carlos is staring. He's never seen anyone who looked this much like his dad before outside of a pond. He's got dark, curly hair, beautiful eyes; about Angela's age, Don guesses. "Hi, Carlos." He holds out his arms, picks him up, grabs Raph in a hug.
"I called Mike and he wants to do some big thing tonight..."
"April and Casey gotta take his mother out tonight, but we--"
"Byron already said you were comin'."
Don opens his mouth, closes it, tries again. "You met Byron?"
"Yeah. I like him. Those little sculptures..."
"He brought another one home?"
Raph's smile widens. "He figured he'd be in trouble, but now he thinks you'll forget it 'cause I'm back..." He chuckles. "Can tell you two ain't been together that long..."
They've closed the door to the fire escape behind them and are watching Byron play with the kids. "Maybe somebody could pick some stuff up for me. He's mostly just got things I've scrounged around, I'd like to get him some decent toys, some good clothes--
"
"Maureen'll pick stuff up for ya, she's good with that stuff--"
Mike still keeps throwing his arm around Raph, touching him, not quite believing he's not just dreaming it all. "Damn, it's good to see you."
"I put it off for so long..."
Carlos has run across the room and is now showing off his stuffed monkey. Byron bows to the toy and gravely shakes its hand. Carlos and Angela are impressed.
"He's really cute," Mike says.
"Gets it from his father," Raph grins.
Don starts laughing, practically chokes on his cigarette smoke.
"What is that shit?"
"Oh, he's found cloves," Mike says. "Last year it was menthols, now it's cloves. Year before that was Camel unfiltereds, right?"
"No, that was American Spirit from the bag. Then I got sick of rollin' em." The end glows as he inhales. "I'm down to three a day, now."
"So what happened to all the furniture back at the apartment, anyway?"
Mike's turn to laugh; Don says, defensively, "there's plenty of furniture..."
"Yeah, but it's not all the stuff we used to have..."
"Tell him," Mike says, grinning.
"Well, you left, and Leo took off, and Mike moved in with Maureen, and so it was just me wandering around the place with all this crap I didn't need, so I just figured I'd get rid of
it."
"Back in September," Mike says, "he had three folding chairs and a tatami mat."
Raphael pauses for a second; Don blows out some smoke, finds great interest in a bright light across the alley.
"Three chairs, Don? Did you really need all those?"
"Shut up."
"You don't mind, do ya? Really?"
Maureen gives him the best smile she can muster. "Nah."
"We'll work out a place for 'em, I know April's got something coming open..."
"It's okay, Mike. They can stay here..."
"We can put some cots up in the training room..."
"Mike."
"And it's not like he's got a lot of stuff..."
That was true enough. Five jumbo-sized coolers, almost completely empty, a bag of kids' clothes, Carlos' sleeping bag, Mono the stuffed monkey, and two beat-up Spanish-language Michaelangelo Hamoto paperbacks didn't qualify as a lot of stuff.
"Finally had to break into the damn bookstore and leave the money on the counter," Raph had said at dinner, taking yet another helping of lasagna. "Prob'ly the only break-in they'll ever have that locked the door behind 'em. Same story, the whole time I was on the border; plenty of cash, no place to spend it."
He's a lot thinner than she remembered, wiry. She hadn't realized how close Raph and Mike had been until tonight, and it scares her a little. He's not competition, not really, no
more than Don is...funny how dumb you get when you love somebody, how you want him all to yourself. But she knows how much she misses her own brother, how she's looking forward to his return to the States with more hope and dread than she's ever felt
before...
"Are you sure it's all right?"
"Mike, he's your brother. Of course it's all right."
Maureen volunteers to finish cooking breakfast so Mike can play with the kids. Raph got up late, so he's the last one that needs feeding. Things go fine until he tastes the
sausage.
"What is this?" Raph asks, his upper lip curling in distaste.
"Tofu. I'm a vegetarian."
He pushes the plate away with a finger. "Tofu sausage?"
"Yeah," Maureen says. "I don't even like the smell of it, but Mike loves sausage, so--"
"Tofu?"
"That's what I just told you."
"I drove around the border eating scraps for three years so I could get tofu when I
got home?"
"Guess so," she says nonchalantly, trying to stay calm.
"Look, woman. I'm a turtle, and we eat meat."
"Don's a vegetarian now," she says.
"And I'm not. And I'm gonna call the market and have 'em bring up some real sausage."
"I don't have meat in this apartment."
"Well, you're gonna." He stands up.
She leans down to his eye level. "There's never been any meat in my 'fridge, and I'm not gonna start keeping it now just 'cause you want it."
"Maureen," he says, the hint of a threat in his voice, "I don't think you understand me."
"Oh, I understand you just fine. You cut out on us three years ago, and now you come swaggering back and expect us to wait on you hand and foot. Kill the fatted calf, right? 'Cause we're all so goddamn glad to have you back?" She keeps her voice low; she doesn't want Mike or the kids to hear. "Were you there when Don would call screaming at two o'clock in the fucking morning? Were you there when Mike would finally get him calmed down, and hang up the phone, and just collapse? I
want to know, Raphael. I wanna know where the hell you were when he came in to sleep on our couch at four a.m. and I got out the blankets and wrote off having a halfway normal life for one more night. And even then-- now-- you come back and Mike's so
fucking happy...and he makes you breakfast and..." She picks the plate up, blinking back tears she's too stubborn to cry, and slams it back in front of him. The salt and pepper jump a little. "The fatted calf's still kicking, Mister. And you are gonna eat this fucking sausage. And you are gonna like it. Do you understand?"
Raphael looks into her eyes as he yells into the other room. "Hey, Mike?"
"Yeah?"
"Y'know, this sausage's great. What's in it, anyway?"
"What is going on, Maureen?"
"Whatcha mean?"
"You called us six times last night."
"Oh, yeah...I forget you have Caller ID...can you guys come over?"
"Casey can, I gotta stay here and wait for Karen to come pick Shadow up..."
"Well, have him come over, okay? He can bring Raven, too..."
"Sure...what's goin' on?"
"It's kind of a long story, I'll tell ya later...April?"
"Yeah?"
"You've got some apartments coming open in the next couple months, right?"
"The kid hardly even talks, it's hilarious, Raven and Angela ran all over him..."
"Raph probably beats him into submission," she says cynically.
"April, ya gotta see him with Carlos...he's great with him,
you can't even imagine."
"Really?"
"Really."
"So maybe I was wrong," she says, her voice divided between skepticism and hope.
"Maybe?"
"Look, I'm not gonna warm up overnight..."
"That would be a first," Casey says, and she punches his arm halfheartedly.
"You're such a jerk," she tells him, leans up and kisses him.
He puts his arms around her, smiles. "I think maybe Raven's got the hots for Carlos."
"He's too young for her."
"Not in a couple years..."
"Naah."
Byron sees Mgume examining the fish at the end of the aisle. It's been-- God, more than ten years now-- but he'd know her face anywhere. He sidles up to her, not wanting to panic her. "Why, yes," he says, "since you asked, I am Byron Hughes." She turns to him, stares, and her eyes widen in recognition. "You must have seen me in the Times..."
"Why yes," she stutters, "yes, Mr. Hughes, it's a great honor to meet you..." she bows, and he bows back.
"I must ask your name," he says, and she frowns.
"Anna," she tells him after a pause. "Anna Watanabe."
"Well, Ms. Watanabe...you wouldn't happen to be looking for work, would you?"
She deliberates for a second. "I might be...why?"
"I've been looking for an assistant in my studio," he says, "I've got an ad in the Times today, actually. I do pay well...and I have to admit, I'm always impressed by anyone who can recognize me outside a gallery. Give me a call if you're interested, all right?"
"All right," she stutters, and he retreats before he can scare her any more.
Raphael comes down, soaked with sweat, wiping grime off his forehead with the back of his hand. "Man, that furnace is a mess. Casey's gone down to see if it's gonna be cheaper to try to fix it or just replace the whole thing-- April? Are you okay?"
"We need to talk," she says carefully.
"Why?"
"Your son tried to hang one of Shadow's Barbies, that's why."
Raph takes a deep breath, blows it out. "Got any coffee?"
"I went south when I left," he tells her, "and I kept goin' south. Finally ended up down in
Chiapas."
"In Mexico? Where the rebellion is?"
He nods. "That's where I met Maria. She was-- she was pretty far gone when I met her, taking stupid risks, drinkin' too much, dragging her poor kid along with her no matter what was goin' on. And I wasn't much better. And-- I don't know, she found out what I was, and we started hanging around each other some." He takes a sip of the coffee. "I saved her ass a couple times, and she broke up with the guy she was seeing, and I let her
stay with me. So it was the three of us, her and me and Carlos, in this friggin' tent-- damn, it was smaller than the kitchen here-- and she slept at one end and I slept at the other. And Carlos slept with her, and then sometimes with me, and sometimes on his own somewhere...and we calmed down a little, stopped drinking so much, started being a little more careful, lettin' the others do the stupid stuff. And I kept telling myself it'd
work out, that she'd get used to me. I don't know, maybe I thought she'd fall in love with me. I know I thought I was in love with her. I don't know, now..."
He looks up at April. "I'm gettin' there."
"It's all right."
"So anyway, she did get a little used to me, not a lot, enough that I could think things were getting better. And Carlos started stayin' on my side more and more. Shoulda known then that something was wrong." He wraps his hands around the coffee. "Too cold up here, now, I'm freezin' to death...one night we got drunk, not that drunk but drunk enough..." He's not looking at her anymore, he's looking through her, beyond her. "She was beautiful, April. She was so beautiful...her skin was just this amazing color, and it was so soft...And I woke up and she wasn't beside me and my head was throbbing, and Carlos was saying something..."
He lifts the cup up to his mouth, drinks, puts it back down.
"She'd hung herself," he says. "From the tent. Flimsy-ass thing like we had, you'd have to really mean it...she left a note and everything." He shakes his head. "So I took the kid and left, she'd wanted him to go with her brother up in the States, but he'd been through so much already, so many different people..."
She puts her hand on his shoulder and he shrugs her off. "I'm okay. It's just...I wish the kid hadn't seen it. I kept thinking, he was so little, maybe he'd forget, but...I guess you
never forget seein' your mama like that." He smiles, bitterly. "Well, that was a lot more'n you wanted to know..."
"Mom," Shadow says, running in, "can we watch a movie?"
"Not right now, honey," April says distractedly. "Maybe in a minute."
Shadow walks over and climbs into Raph's lap, kisses his cheek. "I didn't forget you," she says. "Just like I promised."
He squeezes her. "I know, sweetie. I know...thank you." He holds her for a second, kisses her forehead. "You sure it's safe to let Carlos and Raven play with your stuff?"
Terror crosses her face, and she jumps off his lap and runs back into the living room. He smiles, but it doesn't last long. "Think she'll always be like that?"
"Whaddya mean?"
"Well, look at her," he says, with a sad, half-sweet smile. "Climbs up into my lap like that...but what happens when she realizes what we are? When she realizes..."
"She's been at school two years now."
"Yeah..."
"And look, I got used to you, and I lived twenty-seven years without..."
"But you're afraid of me," he says. "You're still afraid of me."
She tries to think of something to say, something reassuring, something true.
Byron leans over the skyscraper, adjusting the cables on the tiny elevator. It's still jerking too much going up...maybe some WD-40 on the main gear--
They don't bother knocking, they just break the door down, three of them in the familiar costume of the Foot regulars; he can hear some coming in behind him, through the windows.
He'd known coming back to the city was a risk, but the opening, damn, how could he have been that stupid...the front page of Arts and Leisure...
The solder iron's still hot, he remembers, grabs it, gets the first guy in the eye socket and he howls in pain, crashes off into one of the sculptures. Byron kicks at the next guy but
he ducks it, follows it up with a punch--
Christ, it could've been Mgume-- no, not her--
Something strikes the back of his head, and he drops to his knees. As he struggles to focus, he can see someone leaning down-- his face hidden by the basket the elites wear...
"Hey, Malcolm," a familiar voice says. "Long time no see."
"Raph," she says finally, "I--"
"Cut it out!" Shadow's voice.
They run in, see Carlos and Raven in a tug-of-war with Carlos' monkey. Carlos hauls off and smacks her; she starts screaming and lets go. Raph snatches Carlos up, pivots him, kneels down and holds him at eye level. "Carlos."
Carlos stares at him guiltily, squeezing the monkey to his chest.
"She tried to take Mono and Carlos wouldn't let her," Shadow reports to April.
April asks, "Is that true?" Raven nods, her eyes trained on the floor.
Raph asks Carlos, "What's the rule about hitting?" Carlos stares at him blankly and he repeats the question in Spanish.
Carlos, knowing he's busted, answers in English. "No hitting when we're not training."
"Were you training?" Carlos shakes his head.
"Why did you do that, Raven?"
"I wanted to play with him."
"Why didn't you just ask Carlos if it was all right if you played with Mono?"
"I dunno," Raven answers.
"You'd better apologize," April says gravely. Raven nods.
"Are ya gonna apologize?"
"Yes, Papa."
"You gonna mean it?"
"Yes."
"All right." He leans over, whispers something in the boy's ear, kisses the side of his head.
"Carlos-I'm-sorry-I-tried-to-take-your-monkey," Raven tells the floor.
"I'm sorry I hit you," he tells her, with an equal lack of enthusiasm. He looks back at his father, who nods his head very slightly. Carlos thrusts Mono out at Raven. "You can play with him, if ya wanna."
This was more than Raven had been expecting; she looks at him with wide-eyed amazement. "Thank you."
Raph stands up, smiles at Carlos, ruffles his hair. "Yer welcome," Carlos stutters.
"Good boy," Raph murmurs to him.
"I'm sorry," he says to April as they walk back into the kitchen, "he's a good kid, he's just not used to hangin' out--"
"It's fine," April says. "Raven was the one who tried to snitch his monkey."
"He knows better than to hit her," Raph says. He picks up the empty coffee cup and puts it in the sink. "Casey says that apartment next to Don's is coming open."
Oh, great. April nods. "Raph, I'm sorry but I really can't afford to give you a deal on the rent--"
"That's all right," he says, dismissing it. "It's one of the bigger ones, isn't it?"
"Little bigger than Don's--"
He nods. "When they movin' out?"
"Raphael, I get a lot of money for that--"
"Casey told me. It's fine. You can raise it, like you wanted to. I told you, it's all right."
He's leaning against the counter now. April sits back down at the kitchen table, half-teases, "You gonna start robbin' banks?"
"I made a lot of money down there, April. I just didn't have any way to spend it, which is one of the many reasons I should've gotten my ass back up here sooner."
She frowns. "What were you doing?"
He smiles at her. "They didn't tell ya? I was president, founder and C.E.O. of Raphael's Rio Grande Ferry Service. I charged more, but I always got people through. And I got a
nice little Swiss bank account, and did some investing through that....it wasn't much on the front end, but then I put a lot into this little company called Yahoo!..." He sighs, sits
back down at the table. "You don't have to worry about the rent, April. Not for a long time...I finally found something I'm good at. Splinter'd be impressed."
"I think he would be," she says seriously, puts her fingertips on the knuckles of his hand.
"I hope so," he says softly, more to himself than to her.
He's strapped down to a table of some sort, he's not sure why, Kawabata should know that Pentothal'll kill him before he ever talks...his thoughts are interrupted by a voice.
"You shouldn't have come back," Kawabata says. "We had no idea where you were before you showed up at that opening. Even then, of course, we might have been willing to let it go. Our Master Shredder has been gone a long time...most of the elites are dead,
massacred..."
"So what's the point?"
"I think you know what the point is, Malcolm."
"Will you stop calling me that?"
"You like the fancy-ass artist name better?"
"Malcom's dead. He died when I left the Foot."
"Then tell me, 'Byron,' who's got the fifteen mil?"
