Second Skin (76 page)

Bravo ordered a double espresso. When the waiter had gone, he said, “I was under the impression we provoked each other.” He engaged his father’s eyes with his. “Don’t you enjoy it?”

“As a matter of fact, I don’t.”

The espresso came. It had been six months since the two had seen each other. An undercurrent of loss and a certain sorrow was passing between them, amplified by the prickly exchange. It was the particular friction that arises between two people who are too much alike. Without the buffer of his mother, who had died ten years ago, sparks often flew between them. This was true even before Jordan Muhlmann, whose mere presence seemed to have aggravated the problem, possibly because he was French and Dexter’s dislike of the French was all too well-known to Bravo.
We’re both headstrong,
Bravo thought.
Not to mention opinionated, forceful and determined.

Dexter shifted in his seat. “I want to talk to you about your future.”

No,
Bravo thought at once,
I simply can’t do this again.
“Dad, you’re always wanting to talk to me about my future. I’m too old for lectures—”

“First of all, you’re never too old to learn something new. Second of all, this isn’t a lecture. I want to make you an offer.”

“Does the State Department have you recruiting now?”

“This has nothing to do with State.” Dexter Shaw leaned forward, his voice low, urgent. “Remember your old training?”

Again out of self-defense, Bravo glanced at his watch. “We’re late, Dad. Emma must be wondering what’s happened to us. Besides, I rushed in from the airport without any time to get her a present.”

Dexter sat back and gave him a basilisk stare. “You know what I think? I think Muhlmann sent you to Brussels deliberately.”

Bravo’s head came up. He was like a dog on point. “Now don’t start—”

“Muhlmann knows perfectly well about your annual family reunion.”

Bravo laughed. “You’re not implying that he set up an international conference just so—”

“Don’t be absurd, but he could have sent someone else.”

“Jordan trusts me, Dad.”

A silence descended over them, thick with the implied accusation. Horns blared as a car lurched out into traffic, and with a metal clang the rear doors of a delivery truck opened.

Dexter Shaw sighed. “Bravo, can we call a truce? It is urgent that we talk. In the space of a week, the world has changed—”

“After dinner.”

“I told you this was urgent.”

“I heard you, Dad.”

“I don’t want Emma—”

“To overhear. Of course not. We’ll go for a walk, just the two of us, and you can make your pitch.”

Dexter shook his head. “Bravo, it’s not a pitch. You have to understand—”

“It’s late and getting later.” Bravo stood, putting money on the table. “You go on to Emma’s while I forage for a present.”

“I’d like to go with you.”

“So she’ll be pissed at both of us?” Bravo shook his head. “You go on, Dad.”

As Bravo turned away, Dexter Shaw took his son’s arm. There was so much to say, so much that needed to be communicated and now, at the eleventh hour, with bells tolling in his head, he knew that he should feel closer to Bravo than he ever had. Instead, there was between them a kind of chilly chasm he recognized as being of his own manufacture. He had tried to shield his son from the terrible responsibility of what was to come for as long as he could, but what, in the end, had he accomplished except to make him feel as if he wasn’t trusted, as if he’d been manipulated for an unknown reason. Secrets, lies and the truth, he thought now, sometimes there wasn’t much to choose from between them.

In any case, he had chosen, but it wasn’t until this moment that he understood the depth of his failure. Steffi had warned him that it would come to this, Steffi who had known him—and their son—better than anyone. She had begged him not to involve Bravo in his shadow life—she’d ranted, wept, she’d flown at him like a hellion—and still he’d held fast to his convictions.
My darling Steffi, wherever you are, please don’t hate me.
But of course she had, just as he knew completely and irrevocably that she had loved him with all her heart and soul. She could not have helped but fear him—that other Dexter Shaw who was rigid, rule-formed, intractable, who disappeared for days or weeks at a time into a world she of necessity only dimly knew. At last, spent and defeated, she had said to him,
“You’re like a rock, all of you —no blood, no feeling, no hope at all of change or movement. This is the life you will condemn Bravo to.”

Tears welled in his eyes, the sudden onrush of unfamiliar emotions rendering him inarticulate. There was a chance now to change all that, but, no, it was too late. The die had been cast, what choice he’d ever had had been stolen from him. That was the essence he saw now in a moment of blinding revelation, the heart of the matter that Steffi never understood and he could never explain. In his world, choice was nothing but a dangerous illusion, offered up by a cunning devil.

“Dammit, son.”

For a moment, Bravo was shaken—his father never cursed. Whatever was on his mind was important, he knew that much. But now, really and truly, they had no time. Carefully he disengaged himself. His voice, when he spoke, was warm and conciliatory. “I’ll be along soon enough, and then we’ll have our talk. I promise.”

Dexter Shaw hesitated, gave his son a resigned nod, turned and headed to the curb. Bravo watched him crossing the avenue, then turned and headed south. But where was he going? He suddenly realized that he had no idea what to get Emma. His father was the one who always knew what his children would like best. Reluctant as he was to feel once again the pressure of his father’s judgment, he nevertheless swallowed his pride and, dodging traffic, jaywalked at a run across Sixth Avenue. By the time he’d gained the west side, Dexter was trotting up the stairs to the brownstone. Bravo called after him as Dexter went through the outer door.

Bravo ran all the faster, hoping to get his father’s attention before Emma buzzed him through the inner door. He was mounting the front steps when the explosion blew out the front windows. The heavy front door, torn from its hinges, slammed into him, lifted him bodily, throwing him into the street.

Immediately, there came like ravens’ cries the harsh screech of brakes, alarmed voices raised in anxious shouts, but Bravo, unconscious, was already oblivious to the growing chaos.

“No,” his father said to him once again.

Bravo lifted his nine-year-old head with its inquisitive blue eyes and tousled hair. “Where did I make my mistake?”

“It’s not a matter of making a mistake.” Dexter Shaw knelt down. “Listen to me, Bravo. What I want you to do is use your mind
and
your soul. Intellectual pursuits will only get you so far in life because
all
of life’s great lessons involve loss.” He glanced down at the puzzle he had set before his son. “A ‘mistake’ is something mechanical—a wrong way of acting, maneuvering, thinking. A mistake is a surface thing. But
beneath
the surface—where loss manifests itself—that’s where you must begin.”

Even if Bravo hadn’t understood every word his father used he couldn’t mistake the meaning or the intent.
Manifest,
he thought, turning over the word in his mind. It was strange and beautiful, like a gem he’d once seen in a store window, gleaming, faceted, deeply colored and, somehow, mysterious. He could feel his father’s intent, a living thing, as palpable and intimate as a heartbeat. He knew what his father wanted for him and, naturally enough, he wanted it, too.

I want to manifest myself one day,
he thought, as he threw himself mind and soul into solving the puzzle his brilliant father had devised for him.

A sharp pain racked him, threatening to draw him far away, and he fought against it, fought as hard as he could. More than anything, he wanted to stay by his father’s side, to complete the puzzle because puzzles linked son to father in a very private and mysterious manner. But another spasm of pain clouded his vision and his father’s face flickered like quicksilver, swimming away into a mist of voices that all at once had gathered around him like a murder of crows....

“At last. He’s coming around.”

“It’s about time.”

Bravo heard these voices as if through a wall of cotton. He smelled a masculine cologne cutting through a peculiar sickly-sweet scent. He began to retch, felt strong hands on him, wanted to shake them off but lacked the strength. He had trouble stringing two thoughts together, as if he no longer wanted to think.

On opening his eyes, he was presented with two hazy shapes. As his vision slowly cleared these shapes resolved themselves into two men standing over him. The older one was slight. He had very dark skin and Indian features; he was in a white coat—a doctor. The other, perhaps a decade younger, had a face as rumpled as his suit. Bravo noticed his jacket had one frayed cuff. The strong cologne was coming off him in waves.

“How are you feeling?” the doctor said in a slight singsong accent. He had cocked his head, like one of those crows Bravo had imagined. His coffee-black eyes scanned the electronic readouts flickering above Bravo’s head. “Mr. Shaw, please say something if you can hear me.”

The invocation of his family name came like a splash of cold water. “Where am I?” Bravo’s voice sounded thick and peculiar to his ears.

“In hospital. St. Vincent’s,” the doctor said. “You’ve got some deep bruises, contusions, burns here and there and, of course, a concussion. But most fortunately nothing broken or burst.”

“How long have I been here?”

The doctor checked his watch. “It’s just about two days since they brought you in.”

“Two days!” Bravo put a hand up to one ear, but the doctor’s slim brown hand stopped him. “Everything sounds muffled—and there’s a ringing....”

“Your proximity to the explosion caused a degree of temporary hearing loss,” the doctor said. “Perfectly normal reaction, I assure you. I’m relieved that you’ve regained consciousness. I don’t mind telling you that you had us all a bit on edge.”

“That damn heavy door saved you, Mr. Shaw, that’s a fact,” the younger man said in a heavy New York accent.

And then it all came rushing back—the sprint up the block, mounting the worn limestone steps, a fury of sound and then... nothing. All at once everything looked flat. He felt hollow inside, as if while he was unconscious some great hand had passed through skin and tissue to scoop out his insides.

The doctor’s brow wrinkled. “Mr. Shaw, did you hear me? I said that within a matter of days your hearing will be unimpaired.”

“I heard you.” In truth, Bravo had received this news with an equanimity bordering on stoicism. “My father?”

“He didn’t make it,” the suit said. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

Bravo closed his eyes. The room began to swim around, and he seemed to be having trouble breathing.

“I told you. It’s too soon,” the doctor said from somewhere over Bravo’s head. Then he felt a warmth, a sense of calm enter his system.

“Relax, Mr. Shaw,” the doctor said. “I’m just giving you a bit of Valium.”

Still, he struggled against it—the Valium and the tears that burned his lids, tears that leaked out onto his cheeks, humiliating him in front of strangers. “I don’t want to be calm.” He had to know.... “My sister. Is Emma alive?”

“She’s in the room down the hall.” The suit had taken out a pad and pencil. No PDA for him.

“Don’t worry about her. Don’t worry about anything,” the doctor added soothingly.

“I need some time with him,” the suit said gruffly. There followed a minor altercation, played out on the edge of Bravo’s consciousness, which the suit ultimately won.

When Bravo next opened his eyes, the suit was looking at him out of liquid brown eyes, slightly red around their edges. Dandruff lay on the shoulders of his jacket like ash from a fire. Or an explosion. “My name’s Detective Splayne, Mr. Shaw.” He held up an ID tag. “NYPD.”

Beyond the door, a conversation had started up, one voice old and querulous. The squeak of rubber wheels took them away. Bravo endured the deathly silence as long as he was able. “You’re sure. There isn’t any mistake?”

The detective produced two photos, handed them to Bravo.

“I’m afraid he took the brunt of the blast,” he said softly.

Bravo looked at his father, or rather what was left of him, laid out on a slab. The second photo, unspeakably stark and therefore vile, was a close-up of his face. The pictures looked unreal, something from a gruesome Halloween prank. Bravo felt almost dizzy with sorrow and despair. His vision swam and, unbidden, the tears came again.

“Sorry, but I gotta ask. That your father? Dexter Shaw?”

“Yes.” It took him a very long time to say it, and when he did his throat felt raw, as if he’d been screaming for hours.

Splayne nodded, pocketed the photos and went and stood by the window, silent as a sentinel.

Bravo wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “How... how is Emma?” He found that he was almost afraid to ask.

“The doctor says she’s out of the woods.”

Splayne’s words momentarily reassured him, before the full force of his father’s death came rushing back to him, blotting out everything. Dimly, he became aware of the scrape of a chair’s legs, and when he next opened his eyes, Splayne was sitting beside the bed, watching him, patient as a cat.

The detective said, “I know this is difficult for you, Mr. Shaw, but you’re an eyewitness.”

“What about my sister?”

“I already said.”

“‘Out of the woods.’ What does that mean?”

Splayne sighed as he ran a huge hand across the worn facade of his face. “Please tell me what you remember.” He sat still, hunch-shouldered, directing all his attention at the man lying on the hospital bed.

“When you tell me Emma’s condition.”

“Christ, you’re a piece of work.” Splayne took a breath. “Okay, she’s blind.”

Bravo felt his heart jolt.
“Blind?”

“They’ve gone in and done whatever they could. The doc says that either she regains her sight in a week or two, or the blindness will be permanent.”