We Know (5 page)

Isabel McBride. That's what the shiny new name tag, positioned left of her cleavage, announced. She was in her late thirties, with lush auburn hair, prominent breasts--grown-woman breasts--and a fringe of bra lace showing where her shirt was unbuttoned. She had a firm, lipsticked mouth and a few creases by her eyes when she smiled, which she did at me every time she leaned over to serve or clear. We all laughed and whispered and shot knowing glances to show how unnervous we were, and when I went up to the register to pay, she caught my wrist and said, "I get off shift at one. I have a daughter at home, but I could slip out to meet you and maybe teach you a few things."

"I'm seventeen," I blurted. "I live with my mom."

She glanced down at my Glendale High letterman's jacket and said, "Baseball? Meet me at your pitcher's mound."

I nodded, having lost the capacity for speech.

When I got home that night and opened the front door, Frank was standing in the hall as if he'd been waiting there for hours, though I knew he'd responded to the scratch of my keys in the locks. "Good," he said, turning back to his room.

I was thinking about Isabel McBride. The way that shiny hair curled around her collarbone to touch the top of her chest. The faint wrinkles in her neck that her tan had missed. She'd had a child. Though I was less experienced than I wanted to admit, this opportunity had stepped forth as if from the pages of a stroke mag, and there was no way I was going to miss learning whatever she was interested in teaching me.

"Frank," I said, "lemme keep the window open tonight. It's like a hundred out."

He stopped and scowled at me, as tired as I was of the old argument. He looked wearier than usual, yet wired at the same time. "Comfort doesn't matter," he said. "Security matters."

I lay on my bed and read, urging the clock on my nightstand to move quicker. At twenty to one, I slid from my sheets. I carried my shoes, wearing my socks to stay quiet down the hall. Frank had left his door open, and I could hear his even breathing issuing from the dark room. I stole into the kitchen, managed to get the waterproof magnetic box out of the garbage disposal without making too much noise. The key inside fit an alarm panel in the kitchen wall, by the door to the garage. I disarmed the system and slipped through the back door, locking the knob but forgoing the heavy-duty Medeco dead bolts that slid home with wall--

vibrating clunks.

Ten minutes later I was navigating the dark campus, positive that she wouldn't be there, that it was all a joke, that I'd made it up. But there she was, a feminine figure on the pitcher's mound, her hands clutching a purse behind her back. She'd gone home and changed, and she wore a sundress

that blew against her splendid form, showing both curves of her thighs.

"Hi," I said, as I approached. "I'm not really sure--"

She put her hands on my face and kissed me, her tongue flicking inside my mouth. Her body leaned into mine, and we were both responding, the first time I'd experienced a woman confident in her sexual appetite. She tugged me by the hand, and we walked to the outfield grass, still damp from the evening's sprinklers. Her hands were at my belt, and then I was in her mouth, arching my back, making noises, unsure of everything. She fought down my jeans and pulled her dress up to her waist and reached into her bag. "Here," she said. "Put this on."

I struggled with the condom, trying to unroll it upside down at first, and with all the tugging and the slow burn of my mortification, I came. I felt myself flush, and I turned away and threw the thing and collapsed onto my back. She stroked my chest and leaned over me. Her perfume was too sweet, and her hair brushed my skin, raising goose bumps.

"You have a really nice body," she said.

"Didn't help me out much tonight, did it?"

"It got you this far." She laughed. "That's one of the benefits to being seventeen."

"What is?"

"Wait five minutes and I'll show you."

I did and she did, and I lasted at least twice as long. I lay back in shock and amazement, and she petted my face. She'd popped in some gum, and her breath smelled of watermelon. "You're a sweet boy," she said. And then she stood, stuffing her panties into her purse, tugging at her sundress. "I have to get home to my daughter. But come by the restaurant sometime."

"I will," I said. And then, in case she hadn't heard me, "I will."

I jogged home in a daze. At the side gate, I slipped off my shoes. Moving stealthily alongside the house, I checked my watch--2:18. My breath caught when I turned the corner.

The back door was open.

A rustling issued from inside. I was running, full of dread. I stumbled over the step but kept my feet and saw a dark form in the middle of the living room. I hit the light switch, and there Frank was, at the end of a short, bloody trail he'd scraped along the floorboards, propped against his armchair. Both hands pressed to the dark, glittering hole in his gut. He was trying to talk, but there was blood at his mouth and his features were jerking around and I could see steam rising from between his fingers. The Glock was a few feet to his right, an ejected casing beside it.

The kitchen door leading to the garage was open, fresh air sucking through the rectangle of darkness past my face and out the open door at my back. Fear sent me into a scramble for the gun before I

remembered I'd never shot before. I was crying and pleading and apologizing, trying to place the gun in Frank's hand so he could protect us, but he could no longer grip. Then I heard the garage's side door bang open, clapping against the outside wall I'd crept along moments before.

Frank raised his hand, pointing limply to the circular key I'd left protruding from the alarm pad in the kitchen, and his lips wavered some more, and he choked out the word. "W . . . ? W-why?"

His other hand went loose over the wound, and the blood streamed out, dark, so dark. The next thing I knew, I was cradling him, my hands over the entry wound. I was sobbing so hard that his face was a smear, but I could see he was looking up at me with shock and bewilderment, and one of his feet was ticking back and forth, and then he wasn't looking at anything anymore.

Chapter
6

My head swam with nightmare images dredged from a thick slumber. I grasped for my timeworn mantra: You 're not seventeen anymore. You 're safe now.

My memory clicked, and my eyes flew open.

The nurse's face resolved from the bleached white of the room. Blond, pinched waist, clipboard--the whole nine. I was naked, it seemed, under a papery hospital gown.

"The agents told me what you did," the nurse said, "and I just want to thank you."

I squinted into the sudden bright. "How did I get. . . ?"

"Do you know your name?"

"Nick Horrigan."

"What month is it?"

"September."

"Who's the president of the United States?"

"Andrew Bilton." Unfortunately.

"Do you remember what happened to you?"

A rush of images. The bullet-riddled Jeep. The aqua glow of the pool. The bundles of spent-fuel rods under the glassy surface.

"Guy named Charlie. There was an explosion."

"You sustained no serious injuries, except some bruising and the small wound in your right cheek. Don't be surprised if you have some tenderness for a few days, maybe a whiplash that rears its head in a week or two."

The digital clock said 9:18 A.M. My brain was still playing catch-up, but I had a vague recollection of an interview I was supposed to be at in twelve minutes. I had graver concerns now. My fingers rose to my cheek, found a bandage and some tape.

She said, "I wouldn't take that--"

But I'd already peeled it back. I sat up, my stomach muscles burning. The skin on my face and chest felt raw, as if sunburned. The floor was cool beneath my bare feet.

The nurse said, "I think you should take your time getting--"

I trudged across the room to the mirror, my ass hanging out the hospital gown's gap, and looked at my face. A hole in my cheek, the size of a pea, with surprisingly little blood. The skin dimpled in around it. "Shrapnel?"

"You could call it that," the nurse said. "It's actually a bone fragment."

My eyes ticked right, picking up her reflection in the mirror. "Not mine?"

"No."

I swallowed hard.

"It's embedded in your cheekbone and it won't do any damage, so rather than have you undergo an invasive procedure, the doctor figured she'd let it be."

A little piece of Charlie Terrorist permanently lodged in my skull. My head throbbed a few times, hangover style, and I shuffled back and slid into bed. I took a few deep breaths. "Where's my stuff?"

"You mean your clothes?" The nurse pulled a plastic tub from under the bed and set it beside me on the sheets. My Pac-Man shirt had been sliced off my body by the paramedics. It was torn beyond that, too, the ripped fringes charred from the explosion. The heap of pajama pants was in similar condition. The Pumas sat neatly under the rags.

"The doctor'11 be in soon on rounds to take a look at you and probably discharge you." She offered her hand, which I shook. "A pleasure meeting you, Nick."

She left me alone in the private room. I was high up, maybe the fifth floor, my window overlooking Beverly Boulevard. Cedars-Sinai Hospital. Circling the room, I tried to slow my panicked thoughts.

I picked up the nightstand phone and called my place to see if anyone had left a message. After two rings someone picked up.

"Hello?" I said.

Silence. Not even breathing, but I could hear enough background noise coming over the line to know that it wasn't just a dropped call.

"Who is this?" I asked.

The connection went dead. I called back, got my voice-mail recording, and punched in my code. No messages. Had I misdialed the first time?

Your life is now on the line.

I shook off a shiver. Everyone lives with a shadow, whether it's a lump under the skin or an abusive ex-husband or an addiction that comes knocking when it's hungry. For seventeen years I'd done everything to forget what was hanging over my head. I'd tried my best to rebuild my life. Bad weekend volleyball at Santa Monica Beach. Happy hour at El Torito with "the gang" from work. The occasional date. It had been quiet for so long that I told myself I might be out of the woods. The past

few years, I'd even relaxed into believing, Yes, I can have this. But no matter how hard I pretended, deep down I knew that it couldn't be true. And now, finally, the spooks had come out of their holes.

I grabbed my left sneaker from the tub and shook it--the rattle was still there. Charlie's key. I pinched my eyes, rubbing hard. Kanji script appeared in the darkness behind my lids-- Charlie's TRUST NO ONE tattoo. Okinawa. War buddies. I recalled his rasping words: I trusted Frank. I trusted him with my life.

I found a remote on the nightstand, clicked on the overhead TV. The morning news showed helicopter clips of the car chase down the 405, but only stock footage of San Onofre; the airspace over the nuclear power plant must've been cleared last night. Standing on the Culver City street where the shoot-out had taken place, the reporter didn't mention my name or Charlie's, merely claiming that a high-speed pursuit had ended in a standoff at San Onofre and that the terrorist had been killed. A whirl through other channels revealed similar footage and vagueness.

MSNBC, however, was running highlights from the presidential debate. Not surprisingly, they were largely of Senator Caruthers. Caruthers had made changes since the days Frank helped protect him. The move to Capitol Hill was the most obvious, but there were subtle refinements, too. He wore his

razor-sharp suit more casually, the soft power
-
green tie picking up his striking eyes. A slight lean on the podium now offset his perfect posture. Despite being the heir to a textile fortune, he managed to project a man-of-the-people image. He was who we'd want to be if we were rich.

"Since I've promised a transparent campaign," Caruthers said, "let's state the obvious. Why are we in Harlem? We're both courting the black vote. The difference between me and my opponent is, I've actually come here to meet with community leaders numerous times in the past decade under circumstances far less contrived. How many times has my opponent?"

A cutaway to Andrew Bilton in his gray suit, lips pursed as if in amusement at youth's folly, though he and Caruthers were both in their sixties. An old, bitter rivalry, reaching back a decade and a half to when Bilton, as rising-star California governor, had acted as party hatchet man against the fiery then-vice president, cutting down Caruthers's first bid for the Oval Office.

I remembered my disappointment back then, watching Bilton paint Caruthers as too progressive for the time. Sneering from talk-show couches, riling up packed union halls, Bilton was paying his dues by acting as the public face of his party's negative campaigning, while allowing the nominee to remain above the fray. And Caruthers had failed to preempt and respond in the fashion

he'd now perfected. There'd be no catching him short this go-around.

From the TV Caruthers continued, "Well, Mr. President, this is your first visit to Harlem, is it not?" A welcoming smile. "I'd recommend the deep-fried catfish at Sylvia's on Lenox."