I don’t know how long I stood there on Gin’s front lawn, staring after Leonie. I’m pretty sure it was a while, and that I would still be standing there, had Louis not tackled me from behind. Gin waved me into the kitchen.
“Are you okay, mate?” Diego handed me a Diet Coke, and I nodded.
Gin was twittering nonstop about how wonderful Leonie was. I just sat there, mired in confusion. She didn’t seem to notice.
“What is wrong with you?” Gin finally sat down next to me at the kitchen table.
“Huh? What do you mean?” I felt unstable. Kind of like I was homesick for . . . what?
“You haven’t said a word.” Gin frowned. “Oh no! You’re not breaking up with Leonie!”
“What?” I jumped. “No! I’m just, just a bit overwhelmed right now.”
Diego nodded, “That makes sense. You got a new son, a big job from the Council and a new girlfriend. That’s a lot to deal with.”
I looked at him. He was right. There was a lot on my plate. All of it was good individually, but together they twisted my insides mercilessly.
“At least the E.D. problem is over.” Maybe that was one less thing to worry about.
“So why were you standing on my lawn for twenty-five minutes this morning, watching the road?” Gin grinned.
“You’ve got it bad, my friend,” Diego said softly.
I looked at him. Diego understood, probably more than I did. Last night felt like a triumph and a disaster at the same time. I had the feeling that a huge tidal wave was about to crush me at any second. And for a moment . . . just a moment, I thought it might be a good idea if it did.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.”
- R.E.M.
I know this is going to sound stupid, but I spent the rest of the day feeling really, really bad and really, really good at the same time. Gin and Diego kept me company in the backyard while we watched Louis and Romi play. No one spoke, which was good, because I had no idea what to say.
For the moment, I was hung up on the fact that I cried during sex. What did that mean? Shouldn’t I just be grateful I was able to have an orgasm? But the idea of tears streaming down my face made me feel vulnerable and lost. Gin watched me with some interest. Every time she started to speak, Diego shushed her. He’s a good man.
Was I in love with Leonie? Oh my God. What was happening to me? Maybe I wasn’t in love with her. Now, that thought hurt more.
I sat there for hours like that. Gin fed me lunch, then supper, then asked if I was spending the night. I looked at her like she was speaking Swahili.
“Let’s go home, Dad.” Louis tugged on my sleeve. “Survivor is on and we need to order pizza.”
Oh, right. Our little ritual. Yes. We should do that. As we walked out the door, I had another panic attack. I had a weekly ritual. With my son!
“You know what, Dad?” Louis looked at me very seriously and I tried not to smile at the pizza sauce smeared on his chin.
“What’s that?” I wiped his face then pulled him a little closer.
“Well,” he started, “I think we need to spend more time together.” Louis raised his small hands to protest the words he thought would come – and if I wasn’t so shocked, I might have said something. “I mean, I know my arrival was inconvenient and that you have consulting work to do and all, but I can see that you and Leonie are getting serious and want to make sure you and I get to know each other too.”
I sat there for a while, speechless. My son had just told me he wanted to be with me. And while that should’ve made me feel great, he also said his arrival in my life was inconvenient and that he wanted to be as important as Leonie was. The sheer weight of this six-year-old’s words crushed me like an aluminum can.
“Louis.” I licked my lips to stall for time. “You are very important to me. You are never, and never will be inconvenient. I’m sorry I made you feel like that.” I was starting to get a little choked up.
“Leonie is important to me, but you are my son. Nothing in my life will ever be as important as you are. Do you understand that?” Hell! Did I understand what I was saying? All at once, I felt ashamed of the way I’d been acting all day. I practically ignored my own kid for a pity fest.
Louis scrutinized my face. My heart started to twist thinking that he was trying to figure out if what I said was bullshit or not. Before I could say anything else, Louis burrowed onto my lap and sighed.
I held him for a long time. Damn. This kid had been through a lot. And here we start to get closer and I dump him on Mom and Gin every day. No wonder he considered himself inconvenient.
After a while, I realized he was asleep. As I picked him up and carried him to bed, I could feel his little heart beating. My son’s heart had been broken when his mom died. Hell, he was probably scared to death when they brought him to me. I needed to prove to Louis that he came first and foremost. And this was probably the first time in my life that someone else did.
“You did what?” Paris chose to respond to my confession in a less sensitive way than I had hoped. All I could do was nod. I told him about Leonie hoping for advice. I wasn’t ready to talk about Louis yet.
He sat back with a stunned look on his face. “Damn. Damn,” was all he could say.
“I know. I don’t know why I reacted like that.” And I was feeling more than a little defensive.
“You’ve got it bad, man.” Paris shook his head, but I noticed he didn’t try to stifle a grin. Bastard.
“Can we just move on? What did you find out about the next guy on the list?” I wasn’t just stalling. We needed to change the subject and get a move on. Our two weeks were almost out and we’d only knocked off two of the five National Resources assassins.
Paris nodded, turning back to his laptop, “His name is Garth Stone and he works at Disney World. He’s completely evil. He once hit a kid so his parents, in their grief, would sell their company to a conglomerate. I can’t wait to get a crack at this asshole.”
I swore under my breath, thinking about Louis. This bastard was going down as hard as possible.
“He plays Mickey Mouse at the Magic Kingdom, six days a week,” Paris continued.
I nodded, “Okay. We can do that. It’s hard to see or hear in those costumes. We should be able to get the jump on him.”
Paris looked at me as if I had sprouted two heads. “And just how do we kill Mickey Mouse in front of hundreds of kids?”
“I didn’t say the plan was perfect. I just said the opportunity was better.” He had a point. I didn’t really want to scar the memories of a bunch of children as they watched Mickey Mouse spray blood all over them like a nightmarish lawn sprinkler.
“I’ve looked at a map of the Magic Kingdom. There’s only one entrance and exit.” Paris pointed at the map he placed in front of me. “And a lot of witnesses. We will also have to figure out disguises, because two thirty-year old men in suits would stand out.”
“Don’t they have one of those Gay and Lesbian Days there?” I asked. Paris shot me a look. “Okay, how about we go as Japanese tourists?”
Paris rolled his eyes, “Great. We’re either homosexual lovers, or we have to completely modify our physical features to look Asian.” He tossed his hands up in the air. “I don’t see how we can do it outside of finding out what his day off is.”
I thought about that (mainly because it was better than thinking about my other problems). Figuring out his day off was too risky. There was no way to know when it would be and how we would find him. Great. We know who he is and where he is. We just can’t get to him. I examined the map. It was a long way from Toontown, where the soon-to-be-deceased Mickey signed autographs, and the exit.
My cell phone started to ring and I panicked for a moment, hoping it wasn’t Leonie. I’d called her the next morning (hey, I’m not a total cad!) and we made tentative plans to take Louis out for pizza tonight (and I know what you’re thinking – pizza two nights in a row
, but we’ll order it with vegetables). But I was still scared of her and the way she made me feel.
Whew. Just Gin. I answered.
“Hey, Dak,” Gin said breathlessly. “Now that you have a kid and since next week is Spring Break, I thought we could do something together with Liv. What do you think?”
I looked at Paris with a slow smile, “Sure,” I answered. “I know exactly what we should do.”
Within an hour, Paris had made all the arrangements for a Bombay Family trip to Disney World. We had hotel accommodations at the Contemporary for four days, Park Hopper passes, flights and everything. Gin, Diego, Romi, Me, Louis, Paris, Liv, Todd, Alta and Woody would all go.
“So,” Paris asked as he confirmed all the reservations, “Are we telling our sisters why we’re really going?”
I shook my head. “They’d be pissed and try to stop us. Besides, Gin thinks I’m acting like a real Dad now. I’d hate to ruin that for her.”
“Well, we leave in a few days. I think we should knock out the Ohio zookeeper before we go so we can at least report three of the five kills to the Council.”
“That’s a good idea,” I said.
“Let’s go now – we can be there in about eight hours.”
I shook my head. “Can’t. My priorities are to Louis first and tonight, I promised him pizza.”
Which is how Paris and I came to be in his car, on the interstate to Tinker, Ohio, early the next morning. Gin was thrilled with the spring break plans and happily agreed to take Louis for a few days. I had the strong suspicion that by the time I got back, Gin and Liv would have cleaned the Disney Store in the mall out of clothing for all four kids.
I felt awful, leaving Louis again – especially after our recent man-to-man. Before dropping him off, I promised that this would be the last time I had to leave him for a while. And I intended to make good on that.
Tinker, Ohio was twenty miles north of Columbus. A small town with it’s own zoo. And yes, we checked, they had bears. I patted the box with Missi’s death-by-bear kit.
About ninety miles away from our destination, my cell rang. I looked at Paris and answered it.
“Hey, Dela,” I used my most charming tone.
“Cut the charisma, Dak. What’s your status?”
Man. She wasn’t buying it. Okay, fine. “Good. We’ve taken care of the dentist, the speaker, and by this time tomorrow, the zookeeper. The next one is now a cast member at Disney World so we’re going there next week to take care of him. That just leaves the last one.”
There was a sigh on the other end of the phone. “All right. Just try to get it done before the end of next week. Undoubtedly the NR people have learned of the two deaths so the rest will be on their guard.”
“Roger that.” I said. “Paris and I are working together so we should be fine.”
“I’ll tell the Council,” Dela replied. “Nice job with the zip line by the way. I hated that bastard. Lou once ordered his tapes and the whole Council spent a month listening to them.” Then she clicked off.
“All’s well,” I said to Paris as I snapped my phone shut. And in my mind, I really hoped that was true.
We checked into the Super 8 Motel and changed into our disguises. Once again, Paris arranged for the costumes and once again I cursed him. Dressed in Wrangler jeans and cowboy boots, Ohio sweatshirts and baseball caps, we looked like any other average Joe. What I resented were the wigs. Why did they have to be mullets?
I slipped on my blonde wig and stared at myself in the mirror. So this was what hell was like. Paris joined me in the mirror with his dark wig and a fake mustache. All I could think of was, please don’t let me die on this gig.
The idea of dying on a job was one that Bombays came to grips with at an early age. You never knew what could happen, really. We all carried cyanide capsules somewhere on our bodies. Gin had hers in a locket. Mine was in my ring. That’s right, the one that got stuck in Leonie’s hair. If I hadn’t been able to get it up that night, I probably would’ve taken it.
The idea that you might die would be frightening, if it wasn’t hammered into our subconscious at an early age. No one had ever died on a hit, thereby exposing the family. But just to be safe, we never allowed ourselves to be fingerprinted.
I did not want to die with a mullet (there are just some things your reputation can’t bounce back from). We’d have to be extra careful. Especially in case Dutch (our target) had found out about the deaths of his colleagues. Without a word we went out to the pickup truck Paris had rented under an assumed name and drove to the zoo.
This proved to be a good idea, because all we saw on the road were men in mullets and trucker caps, driving pickup trucks. Oddly enough, we went unnoticed.
Paris circled the perimeter of the zoo twice, and I took notes of the entrances and exits. He pulled into the parking lot and we got out and one at a time, bought tickets and entered. I was studying the zoo’s map when Paris joined me.
“What do you think?” he asked quietly. His mustache was a little lopsided. I swallowed a smirk and responded by pointing out the bear enclosure on the map. We headed in that direction.
I’ve always liked bears. In this case, it was three black bears in an enclosed area that gave the illusion it was completely open. The brochure said that they preferred to make it look like you could reach out and touch the animals. No cages were in evidence, but the bears were surrounded by a thirty-foot-wide by thirty-foot-deep cement moat.
Beary, the male, looked like he could handle the assignment. Missi said black bears were unpredictable. The two females, Belle and Bebe, seemed docile. Beary stretched and looked at us, then rolled over and fell asleep.
“Hey,” I asked a teenaged kid wearing a staff shirt, “is Dutch around?”
The kid rolled his eyes. “He works the night shift tonight.” Then Kid put ear buds in and turned up his iPod so loud I could hear some country singer wailing about Ford trucks.
Back in the room, we checked our equipment and waited. Paris guessed that Dutch must’ve had the night feeding shift. And that was good because no one would be there to find his body until morning. Well, what was left of it anyway.
CHAPTER TWENTY
“And the number one threat to America is . . . bears!”
- Stephen Colbert, The Colbert Report
You know what’s really stupid? Not locking the gates around a zoo at night. Granted, you probably don’t have to worry about the animals escaping, but you do have to worry about someone like . . . well, like me.
Paris and I were crouched in some shrubbery near the bear enclosure. We’d been sitting there for some time, and my legs hurt.
“There he goes!” Paris whispered in my ear, and I squinted into the darkness to see that our prey was heading toward the bear pen. Surely it couldn’t be this easy?
Without making any noise, we slipped from our hiding place and followed Dutch into the darkness. I wasn’t sure where we were going, but it looked like a cave. For a moment I hesitated before I realized that this must be the entrance to the bear compound.
The faux cave had a heavy door with iron bars. Because Dutch had just gone in and thought he was alone, it was unlocked (what is it with Ohio?). We managed to squeeze through and close it without a sound, and waited until our eyes adjusted before proceeding.
I assumed, incorrectly, I might add, that there would be some sort of corridor . . . maybe a lab or something similar, before we entered the bears’ lair. I was wrong. Within seconds I realized we were outside, and another second later, I tripped over something large and furry.
A low grumble told me I wasn’t in Kansas anymore. I didn’t know which bear it was and I didn’t care. Scrambling to my feet, I somehow managed to jump free of his paw as it swiped out at me.
Shit! Shit! Shit!
“Dude,” Paris asked quietly, “did you just trip over a bear?”
“Sh! He might hear you!” I hissed.
It was like I could feel Paris roll his eyes in the darkn
ess. “Well watch where you’re going!”
Hysteria filled my voice, “I didn’t think we were inside the bear thingy!”
“Who’s there?” a deep voice boomed. “Goddamned kids!”
Now what? We were trapped between our prey and a predator. The bear growled behind me. I saw a very large shadow moving toward us.
“Dutch!” Paris shouted, to my complete surprise, “Over here!”
“What the hell are you doing?” I whispered.
“Identifying our target,” Paris shrugged, like I was an idiot and we didn’t have an angry bear behind us and an angry assassin in front of us.
“Yeah?” The voice was getting closer. “Who the fuck are you?”
Paris didn’t answer. Instead he moved out of the bear’s path and crouched down against the faux cave wall. I joined him, still not sure what his plan was.
Dutch loomed in front of us. Paris immediately flashed his LED light onto Dutch’s arms, I guessed to search for the tattoo. The way the flesh on his arm twitched, it looked like Woody Woodpecker was laughing at us. Of course, that wasn’t it – Dutch was just angry.
I grabbed the silver tube containing Missi’s Bear Love Potion #9. I had to make the shot count, meaning it had to hit Dutch in order to attract the bear. I just wanted to get the job done.
Dutch decided to charge us. The silver tube was slippery in my fingers, but I managed to find the button and push it. There was a sharp cry and I felt some satisfaction. We’d only have a few seconds before our Vic realized he’d just been doused to smell like a cross between an appetizer and an attractive, bear whore.
I could feel the beast moving now. Its four feet slapping against the ground rumbled like thunder (a thunder with sharp claws and teeth). Paris ran off, as fast as the bear closed in on us.
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