Dues of Mortality (25 page)

Xavier
wanted, like hell, to hit something, to beat the shit out of it. His
hands floated up in front him, seemingly outside his own control. For
a moment, it looked to Benny that his brother might try to smash the
urn. Instead, Xavier’s trembling fingers gripped the mantle of
the fireplace like he was teetering over a bottomless canyon. His
eyes burned red with tears. “This is dated nine months ago. Why
the hell didn’t anyone tell me?”

“
I
tried!” Benny said, taking the question as accusatory. He
shunted his words through his nose so as not to startle the women,
but doubtlessly advancing his rage. “I called
everyone
.
I couldn’t find you; nobody could. By the time I tracked you to
the VRC, they said they hadn’t seen you in nearly a year.”
Benny stepped closer with ire afoot. “After you were
discharged, you saw Momma what, twice? Then you just disappeared for
over
two
years
. You
never called. No letters, no emails, nothing! I didn’t know
what the hell else to do, so I just told everybody that if they saw
you to let me know. So don’t you think of jumping bad with me
because you weren’t there! You’ve got nobody to blame for
that except yourself.” Benny's eyes became cold and perilous,
like two colossal boulders thundering down a mountainside, about to
flatten the village below. He
wanted
Xavier to hurt; hurt bad. It
would especially serve him right, given how many nights Benny had
watched Momma cry herself to sleep over his good-for-nothing ass.
Benny bit his lip.
It
would be so easy right now
,
he thought.
Maybe
he’ll finally know what it feels like to
...
Benny’s chin waned
port-side and he caught the view of his wife pouring tea in the
kitchen, one hand resting gently against her belly.

He
then squeezed his eyes shut and sighed morbidly into his fist. He was
disgusted with himself.

Not
out of guilt for wanting to
hurt
Xavier, but instead for not being able to stay enraged long enough to
do anything about it. Later, he might tell himself that it would’ve
desecrated Momma’s memory or would’ve only damaged
something vitally human in himself, which would both ring true. For
now, however, it was just the same old story: good ‘ol
fool-me-twice Benny incapable of holding a grudge even when to do so
made perfectly common sense. No matter whose it was, Benny was always
about wanting to
stop
the pain. Not much of a shock, considering he could recite the
Hippocratic Oath backwards and in three different languages by the
time he was twelve years-old.

Xavier
pressed his forearms against the sides of his own head like a vice.
Benny was right. Every word. Xavier couldn’t face anyone after
his discharge, especially Momma. She’d actually said once that
she was proud of him after he’d joined up. It was no small pole
vault, to go from six years of, “When are you going to get your
shit together?” to “I’m proud of you.”

“
It’s
just the Army, Momma,” Xavier had said. “No big deal.”

“
It
is
a
big deal,” she'd told him. “You’re protecting
others who can’t protect themselves. You’re protecting
people like me, and that’s something to be proud of.”

Xavier
let himself feel good about that. Very good. So good in fact, that he
couldn’t bear to face Momma after he’d
failed
at
the one
goddamn
thing
for which she’d finally
been
proud. If
she’d been told he was drunk at the time it happened, even
though he wasn’t, she’d know exactly what she’d
always been afraid to admit: that Xavier was just like his father and
she wished he’d never been born.

No!
No, don't even think it!
There
were a lot of things Xavier could imagine facing right now, but
accepting that he was even a little like his old man, was not one of
them. He pushed even harder at his temples. Xavier was only seven the
day Momma had taken them and finally left that drunken asshole. Benny
had gone Samurai on the man’s calf with a screwdriver, after
he'd thrown Momma against a wall like a Hail Mary in the fourth
quarter. To this day, Xavier dreamed of having one last shot at the
low-life. Pops then broke a beer bottle over the edge of the kitchen
table and went after Benny full-throttle. With her shoulder fractured
in two places, Momma tackled him to the floor where he smacked his
head on the tile. She left him bleeding and unconscious, not caring
if he woke up.

This
is why Benny was different
,
Xavier thought, angrier, and meaner: Xavier wasn’t there! He
wasn’t there for Momma, in her last hours when...

Oh,
God!
He'd let Benny go through it alone! What kind of a
bastard brother would do that? Xavier lowered himself onto the sofa
and gripped the empty flask through his pocket. He wanted a drink so
bad, he could swear his tongue was swelling. It took him a good two
or three minutes to pull himself together enough to speak. “Was
she worried about me?” he asked.

Benny
looked over as if he weren’t sure he was being spoken to.
“
What
the hell kind of question is that?” he burst. “Of course,
she was worried about you! You were her son! You dropped out of sight
with barely a word! She knew something was wrong! We both did!”

“
Damn,”
Xavier said, with barely a breath. “I really didn’t want
her to be worried about me.”

Benny
pulled back a bit and said, “
I
really thought that you would have found out by now. I’m sorry
it had to be like this.”

“
Honey,
is everything...?” Cassandra asked and severed her question the
second she saw Xavier on the edge of collapse. She and Glenda were
both in the living room now, the sheer intensity having eclipsed
their entrance.

“
Oh,
my God,” Cassandra said. “He didn’t know, did he?”

“
No,”
her husband answered.

“
Do
you really think I would have stayed gone so long if I had?”
Xavier insisted.

“
I
don’t know what you would have done,” Benny said,
harshly.

Xavier
slowly rose to his feet, looking contritely at his brother. He
suddenly felt like he couldn’t breathe, like the air was as
thick as cement. He then bolted for the door, his legs barely
qualified for the job.

Glenda
followed him without a second’s hesitation. “Xavier?”

Xavier
stumbled outside and over to the Civic like a stabbing victim in a
horror film trying stay on their feet. He doubled over, planting his
hands on the hood of the car.

Momma
.

He
then exploded with a blood-curdling howl that shattered the night's
peace and he hammered his fists straight downward.

Glenda
stopped in her tracks.

He’d
actually dented the hood, completely ignoring the pain of the impact.
He ground his knuckles into the depression and squeezed his eyes
shut, forcing the tears from their lingering well. An all out roller
coaster of emotion ran through him at breakneck speeds, weaving
through harrying loops of anger and regret. It nearly caused him to
vomit.
Hold on! Hold on!

Benny
had to physically stop Cassandra from chasing down their uninvited
guests. He knew his brother well enough to know that Cass could do
all the mothering in the world and Clyde would appreciate it about as
much as a death row inmate appreciated a free wall calendar.

Cassandra
approached her husband as he stood across from the mantle; his
crooked expression angled hypnotically toward the urn as if it were
speaking to him. Cassandra’s empathy scattered in so many
different directions at once, she was almost embarrassed to have to
be reminded of where her priorities lied. She enrobed Bennet in her
warm, womanly arms and said not a word as she waited for his fresh
tears to fall to her fingers.

Not
many women would know better, right now, to ignore the instincts that
were imploring,
ordering
Glenda to take up her god-given role as an agent of comfort. Xavier
had made it clear he was the type who lashed out at having his grief
invaded. Any injection of herself could be akin to flicking a lit
cigarette into a powder keg. Glenda couldn’t imagine what he
was feeling right then. The only loved one she’d ever lost in
her perfect little life was an eight-year-old Collie and maybe a few
others that didn’t really qualify as close family. As it was,
she was forced to simply stand aside and try not to make Xavier feel
like a sideshow as she witnessed his agony. Minutes went by. When she
finally thought he would accept it, Glenda placed a hand atop one of
his fists. When he didn't pull away she put her other hand to his
face and he simply fell into it like a wounded bird into its nest.
She pulled him in a little, putting her forehead to his temple. She
would hold him there until the sun came up if need be. When Xavier
felt he could bear it, he gently took hold of her hand and pulled it
down and away, silently thanking her for its loan. Abruptly, he
sucked up a massive swallow of air as if breaking the water's
surface. He then rocked on his legs and Glenda held fast to his arm.
She nearly asked if he were all right, but bit down, pretending her
emerging vocalization was just an expression of tension.

“
This
was a mistake,” Xavier said.

Glenda
offered no rebuttal. They took their respective places by the car's
doors as she watched him carefully.

“
Xavier?”
she queried.

He
looked up, hesitantly. Glenda was looking straight toward the house.
Xavier turned as well and saw Benny standing on the stoop, hands in
his pockets. Good ol’ Benny.

Christ
in a cup!
Nearly twenty million dollars’ worth of
technology in that machine’s head, and they couldn't find room
for a camera?
Gabriel punched his palm. He had quietly acquired
the corresponding recordings from public surveillance around the
motel and even the alley where Hobson had blown the job the day
before. But no matter what the angle, there wasn’t a single,
decent shot of the bum's face to be had.

“
This
is getting us nowhere,” Wallace said gruffly. He was standing
in sentry position by the door of Millenitech’s main security
hub while Gabriel diddled with the video. “There’s just
no way of determining who he is from those pictures.”

“
It’s
all we have to go on for now,” Gabriel said. He squirmed under
the feeling of Wallace literally breathing down his neck.

“
What
about our other surveillance?”

“
Zilch.
Kelmer's innocuous lifestyle seems to be his one advantage.”

“
Nothing
at all?”

“
Kelmer
has no family and no friends, only colleagues. All of which he kept
at arms' length. There's one that works for Roxxon Pharmaceuticals we
might have a shot at, but it's unlikely. We've got every place bugged
except her lab—too much magnetic interference from the
equipment.”

“
Shit!
This would be over by now if I hadn't listened to you.”

“
You'd
be in jail by now if you hadn't listened to me.”

“
Maybe,
maybe not,” Wallace said shrinking. Gabriel had a talent for
dissuasion. “I know this wouldn't be necessary if the damn
thing hadn't started shooting people. That wasn't the brightest
move.”

Gabriel
clenched his teeth. He was determined not to let Wallace get to him.
“I programmed it to allow no interference with its objective. I
had no control over how it interpreted that order. This version of
the implant was designed to permit a certain level of autonomy for
purposes of authenticity.”

“
You
couldn't stop it when the cops showed up?”

“
I
didn't know the cops were there. They were parked at the rear of the
building the entire time. The implant only allows for tracking and
programming. I couldn't see or hear what was going on around it.”
Gabriel neglected to mention how he had spent most of his time inside
the men's room of the Blue Fish cafe programming the Jones unit and
that by the time he'd come out, Percy and Bowen were already inside.

“
Then
you should have done something about that before you created it.”

“
I
told you, it was built only to
retrieve
a piece of information
,
not to infiltrate the
entire CPD
. There was
no
need
to
give it extraneous hardware that would have been pointless in
monitoring and possibly traced back to us after the job was done. It
was supposed to have been destroyed after we got what we needed, not
re-purposed to go after the woman. That was
your
idea.” Gabriel manipulated
the video, zooming in around the vagrant’s right shoulder.

“
You
see that?” he asked, pointing to the magnification. He tapped
the screen, enlarging the patch on the mystery man’s sleeve.
“He might be a veteran.”