The fish didn’t reply. But Donny seemed especially happy, surrounded by four new brothers, all upside-down catfish, fifty bucks a pop at the pet store. Four of the Osmonds were currently inverted, feeding on the freeze-dried brine shrimp floating on the top of the tank.
Even though Presley didn’t know it, her sudden appearance in Grim’s life had been good for him.
Since her arrival at Fabler’s, Grim had somehow discovered motivation he’d thought was long lost.
Presley cleaned Fabler’s house, not because Fabler ordered her to, but on her own time after complaining about the dust.
And, while she cleaned, Grim followed suit at his own place.
Presley took over the cooking at the Fabler household, and Grim made fresh meals on his own, usually copying Presley’s recipe from the night before. So far, they’d made chicken stir fry, lamb curry, beef goulash, pepperoni pizza, and baked Chilean seabass—which Grim learned was actually called the Patagonian toothfish until some savvy marketer changed the name for obvious reasons.
When Presley showered, Grim showered. When she worked out, Grim hit the weights until he ached. It had been less than a week, but his beer gut had shrunk noticeably.
“I know this is unhealthy.” He sprinkled more brine shrimp into the top of the tank, watching the Osmonds chow down. “But can it be unhealthy if I’m feeling healthy? I mean, it’s not hurting her at all. I’m not some pervert stalker. I’m watching her to make sure she’s okay. Like a protector.”
He set down his phone, grabbed his keys, and left the apartment to check the mail. Grim waited at the top of the stairs, listening for Mitch in the lobby. The mailman wasn’t around, so Grim descended and checked his box.
Bills. More bills.
He went back upstairs, logged into his bank, and frowned at the balance.
Grim knew he could probably get contract work if he wanted it. He still knew how to take orders. How to shoot. A month in Afghanistan or Kuwait would pay his bills, including recent expenses, for a year.
Now that Presley was in the picture, Grim didn’t want to leave the country.
He needed to stay home.
To watch her.
To find out what happened to Lori.
To keep an eye on that asshole, Fabler.
“I’m broke, and that asshole has got money. A few hundred grand from the state, for a few easy years in prison. He killed my sister, and gets to live like a king. Is that fair?”
The Osmonds didn’t respond, but Grim got the impression they agreed.
“Or can I?”
PRESLEY ○ August 3, 2017 ○ 10:34am
“First aid kit.”
Presley, the welding mask on her head, had her whole arm in the backpack and was probing around, trying to find the object Fabler requested.
She pushed past a roll of duct tape, a pack of emergency candles, a large flashlight, a walkie-talkie with an ear bud, and finally locked her hand around some sort of container. She tugged it out.
“No.”
Presley weighed it in her hand. “What is it then?”
“That’s the toiletries. Deodorant, camping toilet paper, baby shampoo, toothbrush, zinc oxide, camo paint stick.”
Without removing the mask, Presley shoved the case back into the bag, making sure she put it in the right location because Fabler had drilled her ad nauseum, “Everything has its proper spot, so you can find it without looking,” and then she pulled out something in a squarish, fabric case with a canvas handle. But as soon as she got it free, Presley knew she’d gotten it wrong. Too heavy. Too solid.
“That’s the AED.”
“The AED.” It took a moment for Presley to remember what the letters stood for. “Are you going to teach me how to use this?”
“It has voice commands that walk you through it when it’s activated.”
“Maybe they can walk me through finding the first aid kit in this bug-out bag?”
Fabler didn’t laugh. Nor did he give her extra guidance.
Presley put the AED back and continued to rummage. She pulled out something odd-shaped; light, felt like plastic, had a hinge in it that folded out.
“What’s this thing?”
“A Pocket Fisherman. Popular when I was a kid.”
“How big were your pockets when you were a kid?”
“Funny. It’s a complete fishing rod and reel combo in one unit. Much smaller than a regular pole.”
“So what’s the Pocket Fisherman for?”
“Fishing.”
Presley put the Pocket Fisherman back in its spot, and searched the rest of the backpack for the first aid kit. But the kit didn’t seem to be present.
Then she remembered that it was in the bottom pocket, not the main bag.
Irritated that Fabler hadn’t corrected her sooner, she unzipped the bottom, and found the case.
“Take out the lidocaine bottle and a syringe.”
That required twenty seconds of rooting around inside the kit. Being blind was brutally tough.
“Is this the bottle?”
“It’s the only bottle in there.”
“Okay. Now what?”
“Open the syringe, and draw out one cc of liquid.”
“How do I know how much one cc is?”
“How big are the syringes?”
Presley remembered looking at them earlier. “Three ccs.”
“So only pull out the plunger one third of the way.”
“I need to do this without looking?”
“Sometimes you can’t rely on your eyes.”
“If it’s too dark, couldn’t I use one of the flashlights in the bag?”
“Darkness is only one way to blind you.”
That made about as much sense as anything else Fabler said.
Presley opened the syringe pack and pulled the cap off the needle.
“Now pull in a cc of air.”
“You want me to inject air into my arm?”
“No. That would cause an embolism, and could be fatal. You’re going to inject air into the sealed bottle, to displace the liquid so there isn’t a vacuum.”
Presley did as instructed, measuring the draw with her fingers. Then she pushed the needle into the rubber top of the bottle, pressed in the air, and withdrew a guesstimated cubic centimeter of fluid.
“Now what?”
“Stick it into your upper arm.”
Presley hesitated. “Lidocaine is a local anesthetic. I don’t have any pain in my upper arm.”
“Have you ever done heroin?”
“No.”
“Are you a diabetic?”
“No.”
“So you’ve never given yourself an injection. I need to see that you can do it.”
Presley raised the needle—
—touched it to her arm—
—and stopped.
t see anything. I could be injecting myself with rat poison.
“Go on.”
“I…”
“Do it, Presley.”
“I… I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“It doesn’t make sense.”
“It does make sense. You just don’t understand it yet.”
“I don’t understand any of this, Fabler. Because you don’t tell me what any of this is for.”
“You understand following orders. Learning to react makes it possible to act in the absence of command.”
“I thought this was a job, not me re-enlisting.”
“There will come a time when something happens that is so bizarre, so alien, that your brain won’t be able to handle it. But you don’t need to understand it. You need to act. Hesitation is fatal. Overthinking is fatal.”
“It doesn’t make sense from my perspective.”
“Then change your perspective. Change your perspective, change your world.”
“I won’t do this, Fabler.”
Presley startled when Fabler took the bottle from her hand and tugged off her welding mask.
Then he reached for his ankle holster and pulled out his Charter Arms Pitbull.
Presley had her revolver out half a second later, but as she raised it, Fabler opened the cylinder of his weapon and dumped the five cartridges onto the table. Then Fabler chose a round, placed it back into the cylinder, and spun it before swinging it back into place.
He handed Presley the revolver, butt first.
“Aim it at my head and fire.”
She didn’t take his weapon. “Really? You expect me to play Russian roulette?”
“I expect you to follow orders.”
His eyes were intense. “Presley, I need you to trust me.”
“Trust you? That isn’t part of the job description.”
“I loaded at the three o’clock position, and spun the cylinder three times exactly. The live round is in the last position, five shots away from firing.”
“I’m not shooting you in the head.”
“You won’t shoot me in the head. I counted the clicks. The hammer will fall on an empty chamber.”
“There’s a twenty percent chance it won’t.”
Fabler’s face contorted, slightly cockeyed. “For this to work, you need to do what I say, when I say it.”
“For what to work? I’ve been here for ten days, and I don’t even know what this job is. You’ve got me doing all of this bizarre training, but haven’t told me for what.”
“I’ll tell you when I need to.”
“Well maybe you need to, because I’m about to walk away from twelve hundred bucks a week if you don’t start explaining.”
Fabler placed the gun against his temple—
“Fabler!”
—and pulled the trigger.
CLICK.
The hammer snapped down on an empty chamber.
“Jesus. Fabler, that was the stupidest—”
He squeezed the trigger again.
CLICK.
“Fabler!”
And again.
CLICK.
Without even being aware of it, Presley had brought up her own gun and was pointing it at him. “Stop it. Put the gun down, Fabler.”
Fabler cracked the barest of smiles. “You’re going to stop me from shooting myself by shooting me?”
Presley lowered her gun, unable to stop her hands from shaking. “Fine. I believe you. You’re some kind of gun ninja, and knew how many times the cylinder spun.”
Once again, Fabler held out the revolver, butt-first.
“There’s one more empty cylinder. Shoot me.”
But Presley didn’t take the gun.
“Do it, or you’re fired.”
“This is wrong, Fabler. It’s sick. Guns aren’t toys.”
“Guns are tools. Right now, I’m using this tool to get you to trust me.”
“This doesn’t make me trust you. It makes me doubt your sanity.”
“Take the gun. Pull the trigger. I’ll be fine. The bullet is in the fifth position.”
“No.”
A grunt of obvious disapproval rumbled in Fabler’s throat, and he lowered the revolver.
Then in a blur of motion Fabler raised the pistol, pressed it under his chin, and fired.
CLICK.
She flinched anyway, imagining the top of his head blow off so vividly it could have been real. But when that didn’t happen fear gave way to anger. “You… son of a bitch.”
On instinct, Presley raised her gun again, but Fabler slapped it down, pinning it to the table. Then he raised his Pitbull over his head and fired.
The shot was deafening, and bits of wood from the vaulted log ceiling sprinkled down on them.
“Fifth position!”
He yelled, so she heard him above the painful ringing in her ears. Then he released her gun hand, and she raised her weapon again as he reached for the syringe she’d dropped. He injected himself in the arm, keeping his eyes locked on hers the whole time. Then he stuck two fingers into his breast pocket and removed the bottle of lidocaine, setting it in front of her.
“I want you out of here by tomorrow morning.”
Fabler stood up and walked out of the dining room, leaving Presley so shaken she began to cry. When she got herself under control, she set down Fabler’s .45, left the table, and walked out of the house, with no idea of what to do next.
GRIM ○ 10:39am
Grim, watching the scene on his cell phone app, stood up straight when Fabler shot the ceiling.
“Holy shit.”
He bumped into his aquarium tank, watching in seeming slow-motion as it toppled over and crashed to the ground, glass shattering, water exploding everywhere, the Osmonds all skating off in different directions across his floor.
“Holy shit.”
He sprinted into the kitchen, filling a large bowl with tepid water, then hunting around for his catfish. He found Merrill next to the TV stand, Jay over by a bookcase, and Alan pinned under a large piece of glass that, thankfully, didn’t cut or crush him.
Wayne tried to swim through a mushy pile of aquarium gravel, and he joined his brothers in the bowl.
But Grim couldn’t find Donny.
“Donny!”
Calling for a fish was stupid, of course, because Donny wasn’t going to respond. Grim got on all fours, placing his cheek on the floor, trying to spot Donny’s obvious tear-drop shape.
Grim re-checked the remains of the tank, fearing Donny had been mashed, and then he heard something.
Flop. Flop-flop.
Grim crawled over to the sofa, and saw Donny underneath. He gently scooped him up and placed him in the bowl.
Donny floated to the top, belly up.
“Don’t check-out on me, buddy.”<
br />
Grim poked him, trying to keep him submerged, and then whipped out his phone and tried to Google fish CPR, spelling CPR wrong with the letters inversed, trying again, coming up with search replies that had nothing to do with resuscitating aquatic friends, and he weighed the pros and cons of picking up Donny and blowing into his mouth like a balloon when his little fins twitched.
“C’mon, buddy. Don’t give up.”
Donny flicked his tail. Once. Twice.
Then he began to swim around.
Grim drew a bath, fussing between hot and cold until he got as close as he could to room temperature. He transferred the fish into the bathtub, and double-checked the tightness of the plug.
“Sorry, guys. My bad. Watching that maniac…”
That little Russian roulette scene had unnerved Grim in an unexpected way. Part of him had been waiting, hoping, for the gun to fire and end Fabler’s miserable life.
But another part of Grim, a bigger part, wanted to plead with Fabler to stop the craziness.
“He’s out of his goddamn mind.”
The Osmonds didn’t answer. But the Zen vibe they’d been giving off since he bought them had disappeared, replaced with obvious agitation.
“Minor setback. We’ll get things right again. I promise. But first you need a new home.”
Grim dressed and headed into town to buy an aquarium.
FABLER ○ 11:04am
Presley had driven away in Fabler’s Jeep, not saying where she was going.
Fabler didn’t care where she went. Her whereabouts, and his vehicle, weren’t what concerned him. He’d wasted ten days, and during that time had discovered training to be a lot more complicated than he’d anticipated. On him, and on her.
Fabler had even begun to think that she might actually survive.
But, when it came down to it, the woman couldn’t follow orders. She hadn’t even taken her .45 with her, leaving the ankle carry on the table when she left.
Fabler couldn’t abide by that. She had to go.
What Happened to Lori Page 8