I Shot You Babe (19 page)

“Each success only buys an admission ticket to a more difficult problem.”

—H
ENRY
K
ISSINGER

The first thing I did was put an unconscious Dekker on the family plane. He awoke on the tarmac in Amsterdam without knowing how he got there. I left him a letter in his pocket and hoped I would never see him again.

The next few weeks were a blur. I helped my cousins dismantle the Bombay Corporation. Our other cousins seemed relieved that we had done this without them. Paris and I managed to liquidate our assets and divide them equally among the living Bombays. We kept the island and the jet. We’re not complete fools.

Missi got married to the guy she met on the reality show. I gave her a felted bag I knitted from the cashmere I got in Mongolia. For some reason, Missi and Lex spent their honeymoon in Ulaanbaatar before settling on Santa Muerta.

Life was slowly getting back to normal. Sartre grew fat as I spoiled her rotten with an extra ration of fruits and vegetables. I could tell she missed Ronnie. She actually seemed a little depressed.

I missed Ronnie. But I’d messed that woman up. Because of me, she’d eaten testicle soup, been kidnapped by a Dutch mercenary, saw her hero crucified and had a lover who treated her like a grand inquisitor. Maybe I was never meant to have a relationship. So why did I still believe that I could have had that with her? But what kind of relationship had areas that you could never, ever discuss? I’d lied to her about Dekker—letting her wonder what happened to him. And there was so much more about me she could never, ever know. Love couldn’t last in a vacuum.

Somehow I managed to get in on the last few carnivals of the season. The work was steady. Some of the bloom was off the rose. I’d be forty in a year and a half. The injuries I’d suffered on the steppes of Mongolia still haunted me. And for the first time in my life, it seemed important that I had a plan for the next forty years.

That disturbed me the most. After all, I had taken so much joy from the idea that I was completely and utterly free. You know what started to get to me first? Eating alone. No, eating alone in a trailer, night after night. Suddenly the things I loved about my life had become the things I hated about my life.

Oh, sure, I toyed with the idea of settling down in some obscure university town. It wouldn’t be too hard for me to land an academic job. But the thought of that made me feel sick inside. Was that insane or what?

As if I could settle down somewhere. And there it was. Whenever that possibility crossed my mind, I thought of Veronica. And when I thought of Veronica, I wondered what she was doing. Probably thinking evil thoughts about me. She probably was afraid I would show up on her doorstep again someday and kick her puppy.

With a sigh as rusty as the metal safety bar on the Ferris wheel, I snapped the two riders into place. It was a young couple, probably in their early twenties. I gave them a smile as I pulled the lever and sent them up to the moon.

“Poor thing,” I heard as they came around the first time. I was bored or I wouldn’t have been eavesdropping.

“He’ll never amount to much,” they said on their second rotation. Were they talking about me? No. It was stupid of me to even think that. They could be referring to anyone here.

“I love you,” the woman said to the man on their third rotation, and I watched as they kissed, disappearing into the stars. Just for fun, I let them ride twice as long.

“Coney!” I turned to find Chudruk standing directly behind me.

I threw my arms around him in a big bear hug. “When did you get back to the States?”

Chudruk grinned. “I came with Zerleg. He starts college this semester!”

“That’s great! He’s going to Yale, right?” I ignored the fact that the Ferris wheel was still turning. I didn’t hear anything anymore as the lovers went by.

“No. He decided on Iowa. Got a poetry scholarship.”

I wasn’t upset. Zerleg should go to the school he wanted to. I was just happy he got away from home to do what he loved.

We chatted for a while. Yalta was coaching Zolbin for next year’s competition. Sansar-Huu and Odgerel had moved their family into town for the winter. It was comforting. Like mail from home.

Funny. I’d never thought of anyplace as home before. The mere sensation of thinking of Mongolia as home was electric. Man, I had it bad. The events of the summer meant that life was never going to be the same.

“So what happened to Ronnie?” Chudruk asked.

“Oh. We kind of went our separate ways.”

Chud smiled. “Zerleg and I stopped to see her. She’s going to help him get acclimated.”

That got my attention. “Really? How is she?”

“She said you are a dick.”

“Great.” My enthusiasm waned a bit. So she still hated me. At least I inspired passion in her for something. Granted, it wasn’t what I’d hoped, but at least it was something.

I had a break coming up, so we continued our conversation in the beer tent.

“How did you find me?” I said as I cracked open a bottle.

He shrugged. “It wasn’t hard. I knew your patterns. I think you’ve ended every season at this fair.”

“So are you coming back to work?” I asked him.

Chudruk shook his head. “No. I’m too old for this kind of crap.”

A stab of pain in my shoulder made me think the same thing. “What are you going to do?”

“Oh,” he said as he peeled the label off his bottle. “I’ve got a girlfriend in Paris. She’s a surgeon. I figured we’d settle down. Have a couple of kids.”

“Seriously? When did you get a French doctor girlfriend?” Seriously! When did that happen?

“There’s a lot about me you don’t know,” Chud said with a wink. “You really shouldn’t compartmentalize people. It’s demeaning.”

I stared at my friend and his sudden command of the English language.

“You’ve been holding out on me.”

He shook his head. “No. You only saw what you wanted to see and didn’t ask any more than that.”

The news hit me like a one-ton weight. That was what Ronnie had said. Was I really like that?

I spent the evening in my trailer, completely freaked out. Oh, my God. I’d been doing what I accused others of doing. I was a hypocrite, an asshole and possibly a pseudointellectual. What was wrong with me?

“Sartre,” I said as I strapped the seat belt over her cage at midnight. “This isn’t going to work out.”

The pig
wheek
ed her disapproval as I drove east. Somehow I was starting to think that she was smarter than me. And I didn’t mind a bit.

“Politics are very much like war. We may even have to use poison gas at times.”

—W
INSTON
C
HURCHILL

The great thing about the way I lived my life was that I could walk away anytime I wanted to. Anytime things got inconvenient or uncomfortable, I could bolt. I told myself that was exactly what I wanted. My friends and family seemed to admire that about me.

But the truth was, I became the world’s biggest loser. While they admired me, my family lived differently. And I never figured that out. Until now. What did I learn? That with all my prestigious degrees and vast worldwide travel, I really knew nothing at all.

Okay, I did know something. I knew that I was madly in love with Veronica Gale. And I knew that I had to see her and tell her the truth. About everything. What she did with the information was up to her. But I couldn’t pursue her without her knowing the truth. All of it.

I pulled into a Target parking lot this time. It was three in the morning and I felt like a change was in order. I fell asleep with Sartre next to me. For the first time in a long time, I slept well.

I slept until the afternoon the next day. After renting a car—I didn’t want to violate zoning ordinances by trying to park my trailer on a residential street—I drove to where she was staying and knocked on the door.

“Cy!” She actually looked happy to see me. Was this a trap? I was used to traps.

“Come in.” Ronnie pulled on my sleeve and, once I was inside, stuck her hand into my jacket pocket and pulled out Sartre. She knew where I kept her. She knew that I’d brought her. Maybe there was something to the idea of fate after all.

“I need to talk to you,” I said as I followed her into a large sunroom. We sat on the couch, facing each other.

“Okay. But first I have to tell you something.” She took a deep breath. “Sartre just peed on me.”

I looked down at her T-shirt and saw a large, spreading yellow stain. I think the pig winked at me.

Ronnie jumped up and ran out of the room. I toyed with suggesting she just take off her shirt, but thought maybe we should talk first. In a minute, she returned with a fresh shirt and Sartre wrapped up in a towel.

“I gave her a bath.” She patted the little rodent’s head. Sartre really looked pissed. Her fur was fluffed out, giving her the appearance of being much larger than she was, and the way her hair was askew gave her an angry look.

“Okay. So, I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry,” Ronnie said with a grin. “I should have introduced you to Drew. I should have e-mailed you and explained when I didn’t at the house. The thing is”—she chewed her lip adorably—“you are a dick and an asshole.”

I nodded. “I know. You are absolutely right.”

“And you make me so angry I want to kill something,” she continued, without understanding the irony of her words. And why would she? I’d never told her.

“I’m not sure I can forgive you. Which is in direct conflict with my feelings for you.”

I looked at her. “Why would you have any feelings for me? I don’t deserve them. I treated you badly, thought I had you all figured out. I’m just here to apologize.”

I stood and Ronnie grabbed my hand, pulling me back down to the couch. “That is exactly what I wanted to hear.”

“It is?”

“Yes. I don’t know why I’m telling you this, but I’ve realized that, in spite of my better judgment, I’m in love with you, Coney Bombay.”

My head felt light and dizzy. It was a strange feeling when someone you loved told you they loved you too. My heart tightened in my chest, and I was worried about having a heart attack.

“What did you want to tell me?” she asked sweetly.

Oh. That. Now that she loved me, I didn’t really want to tell her.

“The truth,” I finally said. “I want you to know who I really am.”

Ronnie shook her head. “I’m not pigeonholing you. And we have our whole lives to learn about each other.”

Something in her light tone made me almost chicken out. But I was here and I had to say it.

“I’m an assassin.”

She laughed. That was unexpected.

“No. Seriously. That’s what I do. Or did, rather. I don’t do it anymore.”

Ronnie’s mouth formed a perfect O. “You’re serious?”

I nodded.

“You mean you aren’t an overeducated carney?”

“No, I’m those things too. It’s just that I also used to kill people.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Define ‘used to.’”

I guess if I was going to tell her everything, I should be completely honest. “As in up until a few weeks ago.”

Ronnie got up and left the room. She was gone so long I was starting to think I should find the door on my own with my wet pig in tow.

Just as I was about to get up, she came back in carrying a bottle of red wine and two glasses. “I’m lousy at opening these things. Do you think we’ll need another bottle?”

I poured. “No, one bottle should do it.” And then I told her the story of my family and what the Bombay family business was all about.

Veronica listened carefully; her face did not betray one iota of emotion. Perhaps she had distanced herself, listening academically to what I had to say.

As the words came out of my mouth, I felt something strange. My shoulders started to relax. Tension flowed out of my arms into the sofa. I realized that I’d never told another non-Bombay about this. And what a burden it had been to carry it around all these years.

That was good. But the jury was still out on how Veronica would take the news. There was no guarantee she wouldn’t throw me out on my ass. I didn’t think she’d call the police. At least, I hoped she wouldn’t.

We finished the bottle as I finished my story. I took a deep breath and waited for her to speak.

“That is so interesting,” Ronnie said finally. “I mean, that really appeals to the anthropologist in me. And if I look at it that way, it doesn’t bother me.”

“It doesn’t?”

She shook her head. “At least, not yet. Give me a few days.”

“Oh.” What else could I say?

“You only killed bad people, right?” The ring of hope in her voice was unmistakable.

I nodded. There was no point in telling her that I might have killed someone who didn’t deserve to die. The cousins and I had vowed that we didn’t want to know the truth about that, and I felt comfortable in my ignorance.

“Did you kill Dekker?”

“No. I couldn’t do it. But I did drive him to thoughts of suicide.” I told her the story of how I kept him alive as my own imprisoned therapist.

Ronnie snorted. “Oh, my God. That is the funniest thing I ever heard! Did you really do that?”

Okay. So it was all out there. And she took it well. But I still felt very uneasy.

“I shouldn’t have accused you of anything,” I started. “I was the one who pigeonholed you. I should have asked you—”

Ronnie silenced me with a kiss. She stood and started to pull me upstairs. I followed. Even though she hadn’t fully processed everything and was very likely in total shock, I wasn’t about to turn her down.

Man: How you doing, Keaton?

Keaton:
I can’t feel my legs…Keyser.

—
T
HE
U
SUAL
S
USPECTS

So this was what it was like. I listened to Ronnie breathing beside me and sighed. If she woke up and decided she never wanted to see me again, at least I had this moment. I rolled over and watched the sun set lower in the sky. I wanted every late afternoon to be like this.

“Hey.” Ronnie tapped me on the shoulder and I turned to face her, brushing a strand of hair from her eyes.

“Hey. How are you handling this?”

“Aside from the dream I had where you had a contract to take out an evil capybara, I’m okay.”

“Really?” It was amazing how much hung in the balance of that one word.

“Really.” She kissed me and climbed out of bed, starting to put her clothes on.

“Why are you putting your clothes on?” Why was she putting her clothes on? Maybe she didn’t accept this like I thought.

“Don’t be so paranoid!” Ronnie laughed as she threw my shirt at me. “Sartre and I are starving.”

We made our way down to the kitchen and in moments we had a buffet of unrelated food, from cheese to Jell-O. Sartre had blueberries.

“So, you are okay with this?” I asked again, in danger of becoming annoying.

She nodded. “If I look at it from a scientific viewpoint, yes. And it helps that you only killed really bad people and have retired from the business altogether.” She popped a grape into her mouth.

“I didn’t expect it, is all. I thought you’d go through the roof.”

Ronnie thumped me on the chest. “That’s because you pigeonholed me.”

“Yeah, I guess I did.” We continued eating.

“So, are you ever going to tell me who killed Kennedy?” she asked.

I shook my head. “No, I can’t do that. I had to sign a confidentiality oath in my own blood when I was five.”

Her eyes went wide. “Really?”

I nodded.

“Wow. But there really was a conspiracy, right?”

I laughed. “Yes. While there isn’t always a conspiracy, there was in that case.”

Ronnie cocked her head to one side. “I bet you think I’m a real idiot over the whole Senator Anderson thing, don’t you?”

I stiffened. “No. I don’t.”

She waved me off. “I mean, when you gave me that file listing all the horrible things Anderson had done, I was really mad at you. But I did some more digging and found out you were right. I guess I didn’t look hard enough because I didn’t want to believe that he’d really had a heart attack.”

“Ronnie—”

“And the ridiculous lengths I went to in order to find his killer! And I was part of that weird group! We were so sure we were going to bring the senator’s killer to justice!” She laughed again. “I mean, how do you bring something like heart disease to justice?”

“Ronnie.” Something in my voice must have told her to stop, because she did. “You weren’t wrong. Senator Anderson was killed for selling a list of CIA agents to Iran.”

“What?” She slammed her hand down on the table, causing Sartre to jump. “Oh, my God! I was right!”

“You were right.”

She started pacing wildly around the kitchen. “Oh, my God! He really was murdered! I can’t believe it! Well, actually that is a relief, because I thought I might be nuts.” She continued her inane prattle as she prowled around the room.

“And I bet you know it because you are in the business! Talk about weird shop talk! Can you tell me who did it?”

I nodded.

“Really? ‘Cause you can’t tell me about Kennedy! Really? Wow! This is like
The X-Files
!” She paused for a second, and I wondered if I would need a geek intervention here. “So, who was it? Who killed Anderson?”

The woman I loved looked at me with eyes shining, as if she had discovered the tomb of Jesus Christ.

“Me.”