Under Pressure: A Lucas Page Novel

by Robert Pobi

  “Seriously, Luke, are you okay? Because you really do look like shit.”

  “I could have done without the really. But thank you for the manufactured concern.”

  Hoffner came in with the coffee and sandwich, and Lucas was grateful he placed the mug in his hand—if he had put it down on the desk, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to get to it. “Thank you,” he said, meaning it. He took a sip and it tasted of medicine and blood. When they were alone again, Lucas asked, “Have you talked to William Hockney?”

  “We interviewed him twice and we’ve got a line open to his lawyers. He’s been around the block enough times that he wasn’t shocked, but he was surprised. He was worried that his son might be in the guy’s cross hairs, and he’s grateful that you put a fork in his ass.”

  “Where is his son?”

  “Beijing, bringing capitalism to communists—the world is a many-splendored thing.”

  “You think Frosst did all this?”

  Kehoe opened his arms. “What’s important is that we have everything under control here, Luke. You were a big help. You rattled a lot of trees. And you pointed us in the right direction.”

  “Have you tied the bombings in Medusa, Forest Hills, Hoboken, Castleton Corners, and Brooklyn to Frosst?”

  Kehoe shook his head. “Not yet. The IEDs in those bombings were all cell-phone activated, and they detonated one after the other, seconds apart. The cell phone we found on Frosst didn’t make any calls around the time of the detonations, but it’s possible he had a burner and disposed of it before he tried the hit on you and Whitaker. But we assume that Frosst carried them out. He used those five young men to advance his agenda, then erased them—it’s not an uncommon tactic. Like I said, I have a whole department going after him. We’ll find the connection.”

  “Not if it’s not there.” Lucas tried to pull in the scent of coffee, but all he got was the medicinal smell of antibacterial ointment. “It’s not Frosst. Not entirely. There is too much money revolving around this. And there’s a personal angle that I can’t find; the bombing at the Guggenheim was too barbaric to have the simple goal of erasing those people from the gene pool. Our guy is sadistic—he wanted them to suffer. This is personal, Brett.”

  “That’s not what Behavioral Sciences is saying.” Kehoe took a breath and it was obvious that the past week had taken its toll on him the way he said, “Look, Luke, you need to get some rest. The doctors said you’d be in the hospital until Monday, and that was being optimistic. Look at you, you’re—”

  And by the way he let the sentence hang open, Lucas knew he was trying not to state the obvious.

  “There’s nothing wrong with my mind, Brett.”

  “It’s not your mind I’m worried about. Human bodies can only take so much. How about I put you on a plane to your family? Spend some time with them until I get all the bolts put into this. Go to Big Bear. Have Halloween with your kids. Sit by a fire. Read a novel. But you’re not coming back.”

  Lucas almost threw the coffee at him. “Not coming back? You fucking came to me, Brett. I didn’t ask you for a job. You showed up at my door last winter with Hartke’s death as a carrot and had me come in here because your computer models—I’ll repeat that: computer models—couldn’t figure out that shot. So I came back. And we both know what that was like for me. You cut me loose before, you’re not doing it again.”

  Kehoe nodded at the door. “I just did.”

  72

  The Upper East Side

  A junior agent drove Lucas home—another kid who looked like she wouldn’t know how to use a rotary phone if her life depended on it. Her name was Vasquez, and she was polite and quiet. Lucas sat in the back, trying to stay upright and to think—which felt like mutually exclusive tasks. Every now and then he’d see a poster or a flyer or a sign taped to a lamppost, stapled to a fence, or plastered onto a wall, and they all seemed to be a call to the citizens to join the Machine Bomber in rejecting technology and joining humanity. He thought about it for a moment, and in absolute terms it was an alluring premise. But then he remembered the protesters/demonstrators down at Federal Plaza and worried that there was very little humanity to rejoin.

  Lucas asked Vasquez to drop him off at a corner on Madison. She went through the same routine as the cabbie had earlier, telling him that it was no trouble to drive him all the way. But this time Lucas didn’t feel the need to fake civility and simply told the girl to fuck off, which got the desired effect.

  He went into the market and Oscar was behind the counter—this time in a bright orange V-neck T-shirt and a perfect five o’clock shadow. When Lucas walked in, Oscar did a What-the-fuck? but didn’t say anything because a fedora-wearing hipster with a little girl in a tiger Halloween costume was at the cashier, buying diapers, an off-brand box of macaroni and cheese, some microbrewery IPA, and a pack of Parliament Menthols.

  Lucas didn’t crowd him—if the guy didn’t see him and stepped back, the whole Erector set would come crashing down. And the way he felt, he might never get back up.

  The guy paid for his stuff while the little girl, who was about Laurie’s age—maybe eight—stared up at him. Her face was painted with whiskers and she was beautiful, and the way she stared suggested he looked like he had been shot out of a cannon. She pulled on her father’s pant leg and pointed up at Lucas.

  The man turned and, seeing Lucas’s aluminum hand and bloody bandages, said, “Great costume, bruh. But can you smile or something? You’re scaring my kid.”

  Lucas did his best and a dollop of blood leaked out of the corner of his mouth and spilled down his chin.

  The girl screamed.

  “Asshole,” Hipster Dad snapped, and left with his diapers, macaroni, smug beer, packaged cancer, and tigress.

  “You asked!” Lucas called after him, and the effort almost took the pressure out of his hydraulic system. He put his hand against the counter and concentrated on not falling over.

  “You okay, Dr. Page?” Oscar asked, the Italian accent missing from his delivery. “Because you don’t look so good.”

  “Can I get some Tylenol?”

  “I don’t think that will do it.”

  Lucas took a breath to keep himself from yelling and repeated, “Can I get some Tylenol?” He then added, “Please,” and even to him, it sounded like a threat.

  That shook Oscar loose from his stare, and he pulled a bottle down off the shelf. “Here,” he said, and gave it a maraca shake.

  Lucas tried to get his wallet out, but Oscar held up a hand. “No charge.” He pushed the little red and white box across the counter. “I insist.”

  Lucas pocketed the Tylenol, nodded a thank you, and tried not to pass out before he got outside.

  Leaves rattled down the street as he walked home from the corner. He wondered when they had moved his house—it was farther away. How had that happened? And then a solution presented itself—the one thing he had difficulty getting his students to understand was that objects in the universe weren’t moving away from one another; the space between them was increasing—so maybe they had just slipped in more sidewalk between the market and his front door.

  After about three years he got to the steps and he stood on the concrete, staring up. Had there always been this many steps?

  It took him a day and a half to make it up the seven sandstone steps, which was a miracle considering he was fresh out of pitons, rope, and Sherpas.

  He reached out for the knob and wondered if the whole shithouse would just go up in flames when he turned it.

  He cranked the knob.

  But there was no kaboom.

  There wasn’t even a bark from the dog.

  Without the big dummy around to slobber on his pants—after the bloodstains, who would notice a little drool?—the house was depressingly quiet. A few toys were on the floor by the hall tree and Laurie had left her fish sweater on the chair by the console, giving the effect that the place had been cleaned out by a radiation scare.

  He walke
d through the main floor without kicking off his shoes and stopped at the kitchen island, where he managed to get the Tylenol out of his pocket. He dumped it onto the counter and was about to head out back to Dingo’s place when the doorbell rang. It was a lonely sound without the kids chiming in with their harmonic yodel.

  Lucas took a breath and opened the big slab of oak, again half expecting a kaboom. Calvin-Wade Curtis stood two steps down, staring up, both his hands clutching a camouflage backpack in front of his chest. It was obvious that he was nervous, because he had that idiot smile dialed up to piano key voltage. He stood there staring at Lucas.

  Lucas decided that he needed to say something or Curtis would just stand there like Lot’s wife. “Hello.”

  “Wha—? Oh. Yeah. Hello. Sorry. I just—” And he stopped.

  “You want to come in?”

  Curtis brushed by, contorting comically so as not to touch Lucas.

  After he closed and locked the front door, he turned to see Curtis staring at him. “Want some water or something?”

  That got a nod.

  Lucas led him into the kitchen and pointed at the sink. “There you go.”

  But Curtis sat down at the island and Lucas took up position against the stove.

  “You’re interrupting naptime.”

  The statement gave Curtis purpose, and he unbuckled the flap on his backpack. “This…” he said, pulling out a stack of hard drives—five aluminum wedges, “is all the data the lab has on the bombings. Everything from crime-scene analysis to chemical composition to victim histories. All my photos and notes. Everything. I thought there might be something in here you can use.”

  Lucas appreciated the effort, but Kehoe had been very specific about his new position in the food chain. “Kehoe fired me.”

  Now Curtis was smiling as if it were a dare. “Yeah, well, I heard about that.” The southern accent was back now, and he added an extra syllable to the last word. “But it’s not like you lost your security clearance or anything. I checked and your ID is still valid. So, technically, we’re not breaking any rules.” Curtis stopped smiling for a second. Then it was back. “As long as we don’t tell anyone.”

  Lucas gave his own smile at that, and by the way Curtis’s eyes widened, he knew that it hadn’t quite turned out. “That’s kind of you.”

  “There’s nothing but hundreds of miles of numbers on these.”

  “Which is exactly what I want.” Lucas examined Curtis. “Why are you doing this?”

  “Because Kehoe’s wrong; that Frosst guy didn’t do all this.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because you said so.”

  73

  Lucas knocked on the door, triggering Lemmy’s deep baritone. He leaned up against the railing and held on—if the dog’s enthusiasm was turned past five, Lucas would go over like a Jenga tower. Dingo opened the door but only enough to let his head stick out.

  “Hey,” Lucas said, while holding on to the railing a little tighter than usual.

  Dingo tried to give him a friendly smile but managed only a scowl. “For a guy who does spreadsheets, you don’t look so good.”

  “So people keep telling me.”

  “No, seriously, Luke—you look like shit.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You think maybe you should be in the hospital?”

  Lucas wanted to tell him to fuck off. To mind his own business. So he made an effort not to yell when he said, “I came to get Lemmy.” On cue, the dog’s big snout suction-cupped to the window and it fogged over with condensation.

  “I can keep him for you.”

  Lucas would never admit it, but he needed the dog around; Lemmy was the closest thing to family he had right now, and if he died in his sleep, he didn’t want to be alone when it happened. “Has he eaten?”

  Dingo nodded. “Walked and pooped. He’s gotta pee, then he’s good for the night.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You wanna come in? I can make you some food. Or you can just crash on the sofa, you know, if you don’t want to be alone. Or I stay at your place. Your call.”

  “I’m going to take Lemmy, then go to sleep.”

  Dingo opened the door and Lucas gave the dog a be calm command. Lemmy came over and sniffed him—which was doggie code for Where have you been, what have you been doing, and what have you eaten without me? And as if he could sense that Lucas wasn’t well, he didn’t go into the usual knock-him-in-the-nuts-with-his-tail spins.

  “Hey, dummy,” Lucas said, and scratched his ear.

  Lucas headed down the steps, throwing Dingo a thank you over his shoulder.

  He got Lemmy to pee in the tiny backyard before climbing the steps to the mudroom. When they were both inside, Lucas leaned against the counter and wondered if he’d be able to make it upstairs for the night. He could call Dingo, but that would set off another “Let me stay with you” soliloquy, and Lucas wasn’t in the mood for talking.

  He stared down at the Tylenol and realized that it would be like putting a cork in a bullet wound. But he found the energy to get a liver treat out of the dog’s cookie jar by the sink, and gave it to Lemmy, who took it gently from his fingers, again letting him know that he understood that something was wrong. Lucas didn’t bother picking up the Tylenol.

  When he got to the study, he pulled a bottle of Laphroaig out of the liquor cabinet—an eight-year-old wedding gift that they had never cracked—then climbed the stairs, one clunky footstep after another. He paused on the landing and resisted the temptation to set up camp right there in the glow of the little elephant night-light. Lemmy was looking down with those sad expressive eyes and probably wondering what the hell was going on.

  Lucas finally made it to the bedroom. Erin had left some clothes on the chair and a little open suitcase by her nightstand, but everything else was in its place. He put the bottle down on the dresser by the door and limped into the bathroom. He played chess with the pill bottles in the medicine chest until he found one that fit his needs; the codeine was old and expired, but would provide the much-needed effect. He pocketed it, then walked back out to the bedroom and picked up the bottle of scotch. Lemmy was in the door, still eyeing him with that quizzical look on his face.

  “Come on,” he said to the dog, and went out into the hall.

  He decided on the lower bunk in the boys’ room, and he sat down on the edge of the bed. Lemmy came in and flopped his big ass down on the carpet, his hips out to one side, his attention locked on his human. It was obvious he thought there might be a treat in this for him.

  Lucas opened the bottle of painkillers and tried to get a pill out with his prosthetic. Thirty seconds of frustration was enough, and he put it to his lips, shaking out a few pills that got stuck at the back of his throat. He put the bottle down on the nightstand, managed to crack the Laphroaig, and washed the codeine down with a mouthful of smoky peat. Then he lay down on the bed, clunking his head on the top rail.

  When he was settled in, Lemmy climbed up. The dog didn’t have space to do his usual samba before lying down and he paused indecisively before stretching out beside Lucas. He was going to tell the dog to get off, but he was too tired.

  The glow-in-the-dark sticker constellation that he and Damien had spent an evening getting just right shone down at him. He had lain on the floor while Damien held up the various-sized decals—there were four in all—and Lucas had done the art direction with a laser-pointer, guiding the boy’s hand, until they had strategically re-created all the northern constellations. He saw Draco, the dragon, and its brightest star, Eltanin. The constellation was visible year-round from the Northern Hemisphere, and Lucas wondered if the kids would bother looking up at the sky while they were out at Big Bear—the seeing over that particular part of California was perfect.

  But he needed to get some sleep. And tomorrow would be the first day of the rest of his life.

  Lemmy started to snore. Lucas closed his eyes, put his arm over the dog, and began to cry.

&n
bsp; 74

  Someone had packed his head with frozen wet compost during the night. It had melted and leaked down, filling the back of his throat with a flavor that might as well have been cooked up in an anchovy’s colon—it was tainted with scotch, stomach acid, and something that would probably work in ant traps.

  He lay there with his eyes closed for a few moments, hoping the taste would go away and he could go back to sleep. But he burped, almost threw up, and tried to sit up. But Lemmy was on his arm, and all he did was startle the dog, who bumped him in the ribs when he popped up.

  Lucas let out a howl.

  The dog jumped to the floor.

  Lucas sat up and banged his head on the bunk above.

  The dog farted.

  Lucas fell back into the pillow.

  And that was the beginning of the first day of the rest of his life.

  He had fallen asleep wearing his eye patch from the hospital, and during the night it had rotated around to the back of his head and was now tangled in the bandages protecting the right side of his face. But there was no blood on Hector’s pillow, which meant that he had stopped seeping—so at least there was a silver lining portion to the program.

  Whenever he slept with both his prosthetics on, it threw his skeleton out of whack, and he woke up with a little extra back pain, a kink in his neck, and a decent headache. But last night’s Molotov cocktail of codeine and Laphroaig had added to the usual problems, and now he had that taste he couldn’t shake.

  The Lucas Page machine felt a little stronger today. He wondered how long he had slept; the light coming in was from one of those rainy fall days where it could have been eight in the A.M., three in the P.M., or just before dusk. He checked the alarm clock on the nightstand; it was almost two.

  He turned and eyed Lemmy skeptically. “Don’t you have to pee or something?”

  Lemmy just tilted his head in the universal canine expression for Huh? and Lucas took him downstairs and into the backyard—all without falling.