Woke Up Lonely (25 page)

Thurlow glanced at the hostages, hoping they agreed with Dean and would indicate as much in their bearing or demeanor. What he did not hope was that they would volunteer advice out loud, which Anne-Janet did, saying, “Not to overstep, but you’d best let him out,” the others nodding and maybe even weeping because, if nothing else, watching someone have an epileptic fit was terrifying.

Wayne looked peaceful, but his breath was short.

“Call an ambulance,” Thurlow said. “And, I don’t know, tell the feds not to shoot anyone when they come out.”

Then he kissed his father on the cheek. He probably would not see him again, though he knew Wayne would be fine.

An hour later, a knock at the door. Norman.

“How is my father?” Thurlow said. “What’s the news?”

Norman flipped through a notebook. “Dean handled it. Ask him.”

“I’m asking you.”

Norman palmed the back of his own neck like he might slam his face into the desk. He said, “I thought I was the one dealing with the negotiator. Dean let one out and got nothing in return. Good job.”

“He’s not
one,
he’s my dad.”

“Just trying to get with the lingo,” Norman said. “Now that we’re all criminal.”

“You weren’t around, Norman.”

“You could have called.”

Was this really the time to be discussing his hurt feelings? Thurlow said, “You should know and tell the others: Vicki is out. She was bugged.”

“I heard.”

“She won’t be the last, either.”

“Naturally.”

“So, can you find out about my father?”

His face blanked just long enough for Thurlow to realize he wasn’t listening. “Fine,” Norman said. “I’ll check it out. Sorry.”

“You’re sorry. Since when is ‘I’m sorry’ our panacea of choice?”

This time, Norman did not hesitate. He said, “‘Self-indictment will be considered adequate restitution for mistakes made in dereliction of duty, so long as the derelict is earnest in apology.’”

Thurlow snorted. Norman said, “I’m
sorry.
I’ll
look into it.
”

“Norm, look, I know this day hasn’t produced yet, but let’s make it happen—right now, okay? Let’s get this tape filmed. How hard can it be just to hit Record? I’ll talk about the Helix; we’ll grow tenfold! Can’t you round up the crew and get us going here?”

But no. Norman looked like candle wax come down the shaft. He was melting, drooping.

“Norm, come on, cheer up, things will change once the ransom tape is out—you said so yourself. When have I ever let you down?” But the look on his face stayed put, and it was as if the specter of their history together scared out all the breathable air in the room.

“We just got word from the money,” he said, which was what he called Pyongyang. He pulled up a website, and there it was: a plaint from the North Koreans. Apparently, they appreciated how the Middle Eastern clubs communicated worldwide and, to similar effect, had usurped back-end control of websites unlikely to attract big notice. Today’s effort had been dumped in noise on the Birdhouse Network.

The message said they were not happy. They were concerned about the safety of their investment. They wanted reassurance that the Helix had not been imperiled by this hostage situation, and they wanted this reassurance in the form of words Thurlow was to speak on the ransom tape. They had instructed him to pay tribute to the most beloved leader Kim Jong-il but to do so in a way that would not expose their relations. By way of subtlety, Pyongyang had suggested he say, “In the tradition of the most beloved leader Kim Jong-il, and though I cannot speak with half as much wisdom as he, and though the DPRK is the most blessed and enlightened nation on earth, the ascendancy of which I cannot even hope to broach with what feeble ambitions are mine and my people’s, nonetheless, hello.”

Norman read over his shoulder.

“These people have some nerve,” Thurlow said.

“Maybe they just want what’s been promised them.”

“I promised to try to make them look good, that’s all. Everyone’s been promised something.”

“Great,” he said. “I’ll be sure to pass that on.”

Thurlow wanted to shoot him a look of such authority, it would crush the revolt in his heart. Except why bother? He noticed Norman’s Helix boutonniere was brass, not silver, only they had never ordered brass, so it was all clear. Clear like Vicki—one by one, down they went. Norman followed his eye—“You must be kidding”—and he wrested the pin from his lapel. He plunked it in Thurlow’s hand with the insolence of a kid surrendering his gum to the principal. Thurlow examined it with a magnifying glass he kept in the desk, and when he was satisfied the silver was just tarnished, the button was a button, he squirreled it away among other contraband, including a sunburst, a class ring, and an ivory cameo heirloom his new TC had cried about for an hour.

“What do you want me to write back?” Norman said. “Tell Pyongyang that everything is fine and not to worry.” “You should know a couple tanks just crossed the river. There’s kids giving the National Guard balloons and pie outside the stadium.”

“So much for the stealth of night,” Thurlow said.

“So much for everything,” Norman said back. He tossed a crumpled sheet of printer paper on the desk, which he’d obviously snatched from the garbage. It read:

If my wife comes here with Ida.

In exchange for the hostages, Ned, Bruce, Olgo, Anne-Janet, I request. I demand. The Helix requires.

On behalf of the Helix, I demand that for the release of the four detainees, Esme Haas and daughter Ida present themselves at my door for cookies and milk. Tea and cookies. Hot chocolate and pfeffernüsse, because what little girl can resist the spicy, chewy, finger-lickin’ euphoria of the German pepper cookie?

Christ fuck bring me my wife and daughter or I will kill myself. Or them. Or someone.

If my wife comes here with Ida.

In exchange for the hostages, Ned, Bruce, Olgo, Anne-Janet, I request. I demand. The Helix requires.

On behalf of the Helix, I demand that for the release of the four detainees, Esme Haas and daughter Ida present themselves at my door for cookies and milk. Tea and cookies. Hot chocolate and pfeffernüsse, because what little girl can resist the spicy, chewy, finger-lickin’ euphoria of the German pepper cookie?

Christ fuck bring me my wife and daughter or I will kill myself. Or them. Or someone.

Thurlow ironed the sheet with his palm. He summoned for calm—Will the calm in me please stand up?—and said, “Norman, why are you sifting through my trash?”

Norman shook his head. “It’s one thing to do this to me, but what about everyone else? They’re
expecting
something. Something great.”

“I wasn’t going to say all that on the tape, Norm. I was just messing around. You found it in the garbage, right? Where is your head?”

“Yeah? So what
are
you going to say?”

They gave each other the eye. When two people had been friends that long, the eye was murder. Thurlow decided to murder first and thought him the truth: Nobody wants to play the endgame of his life alone.

Norman leaned against the wall and murdered back: You are the collapse of all the hope I have ever had.

Thurlow said, “So you told the film crew to go home? No crew, no tape? Are we just supposed to walk out of here now, hands up?”

“There’s worse ideas.”

Thurlow didn’t even have to tell him to get out; Norman turned his back on him unbidden.

His study was locked, and his bedroom was the least solacing place on earth. He could get to a meditation parlor via one of the tunnels, but, with the encampment outside and the rigors of what was left to him of this day, he settled on his stepmother. She was not parent enough to reap from his flaws motive to hug him, but she might not curse his name, either.

The halls were quiet as he went to her quarters. He had hoped to find guards outside his parents’ door but was not surprised to find it unmanned. On the bright side, since there was nothing to keep Deborah from leaving, her being there was a gesture. She believed in him and wanted to help. That or, in her deafness and solipsism, she still had no idea what was going on. There were no windows on this side of the house, but there was still the noise of sirens and helicopters, and the special din of so many cameramen struggling for best sight line to the action. All part of what Thurlow imagined was a late stage in the day’s ratcheting into chaos.

He found her at the computer.

“What news?” he said, and by this he meant, What was up with his dad? She was accustomed to Wayne’s seizures, so he was not shocked to find her unruffled by his latest.

“I’m checking my Google,” she said.

Because Deborah did not understand the principle of the Internet, she did not understand how a search engine works. He found this charming but for the part where he’d told Dean to disconnect their cable line. All he needed was for her to be getting word of the siege from some blog or, God knows, IMing with the feds. Did the feds IM? There was something weird about that idea, hard to say what.

“You want to tell me about Dad?” He tried to lure her gaze from the computer screen to the mien of the worried son.

She closed the laptop.

He put his hand on hers. “He’s going to be all right, you know.”

“Of course he is. He’s in the bathroom. Tyrone’s getting a shower.”

Thurlow shook his head. He was beginning to despair of ever knowing again what went on in this house. When did his father get back? How did his father get in? Why wasn’t he told?

He found Wayne misting Tyrone with a bottle of Evian. He had stood the bird on the vanity and turned on the bubble show lights.

Thurlow sat on the lip of the tub and asked after Wayne’s health. His head was wrapped in gauze.

“False alarm,” he said. “Just a cut in the back. I had some stitches. The wrap is to prevent swelling.”

It was tight and layers deep, and more like a turban than cladding swath. But since Thurlow had not sought medical care since the infarction, perhaps the new science preferred a turban.

“You got out of the hospital pretty quick,” he said, because if there was a new science, he hardly thought there was a new efficiency as well. “Did anyone talk to you?”

“Like who? I got in an ambulance. I went to the ER. They checked me out and sent me back. I figured you paid for the ride home.”

“So you only spoke to the doctors? No one else was out there?”

He stopped with the Evian. “Like
who,
son? My paramedic had a hoop in her nose; she was leaning over me the whole time. Now, can I get on with this?”

He checked to see that Tyrone was wet throughout, then lathered his hands with baby shampoo.

Thurlow had the urge to cry. Sense was in exile from his life. His father was in the dusk of his power as a decently healthy and self-sufficient man, and here he was, lavishing what energies were left him on a bird. Not on his son, but a bird.

Wayne finished rinsing and said, “Hold this open,” meaning a towel monogrammed with the Helix. “Don’t just stand there,” he said. “Wrap him up.”

Thurlow enwombed Tyrone so that only his head was free, and thrust him at his father.

“Easy, son. You don’t have to destroy everything at once.”

“What are you talking about? I thought you said you didn’t talk to anyone out there.”

Wayne patted Tyrone down and inspected his breast and under-wings. “Son, I asked you for a marriage counselor, and you have not produced one. So if my marriage falls apart, I blame you.”

“You asked me not three hours ago. I’m not a magician.”

“Then let us talk to the arbiter. The Indian.”

“Are you kidding? He’s busy.”

“He is not. But if you won’t help, I’ll find him myself.”

Thurlow got between his dad and the door. “You will do no such thing. Just—just stop interfering.”

He made for the door, only in the time he’d been here, Dean had carried out his order to disable the exit. Wonderful. There was no way out except a hatch in the walk-in closet, which his father and Deborah were not supposed to know about, but what choice did he have?

He closed himself in the closet and pulled back the carpet. Located the door in the floor, secured with a padlock and hasp. So far, the only blessing in this day was that he’d had the foresight to wear his key chain of universals.

He gripped the handle and tried to lift from the knees. He had passed on the compression-spring install, but finally the door opened. It had a holding arm that locked in place at ninety degrees. This was a welcome precaution against losing a finger but not ideal for closing the hatch after yourself. He left the hatch open and descended the ladder. The rungs were slippery with condensation from a heating pipe, but he managed just the same. For good measure, when he hit bottom, he turned the ladder on its side. Just in case his father decided to come after him.

The architect’s best contribution to the house was actually the house inside the house. A warren: reticulate, waterproof, and climate controlled. Most of the tunnels were passable upright. Some of them led to underground and illicit facilities open to anyone privileged enough to get access, but this was not Thurlow’s doing. Cincinnati was a strange town.

For his purposes, he’d had electrical lights arrayed throughout the network. Those failing, he’d had flashlights mounted on the wall every few feet.
Those
failing, he’d had secured to the floor photoluminescent strips. No foresight had been lacking in the preparation of this route to the basement, so why in God’s name was it pitch-black? He was afraid of the dark. He had dermal crises in the dark. As a boy, he’d once woken up in the middle of a blackout and within five minutes was weeping fluid from sores erupted down his spine.

He threw out his arm and prayed to graze a flashlight along the way. He did, but the light had no batteries. He felt about the floor for the photoluminescent strips and found they had been painted over. He knew this because he could feel the impasto. He was going to kill Vicki. And Dean, because he had obviously been in on this. Who else had a universal? He wondered what the feds had promised him.