I Shot You Babe

by Leslie Langtry

  “Why not?” came a voice over the PA. Cali cringed as the voice of her daughter bellowed from the speakers overhead. “For chrissake, Mom! You sent me on a damned reality show, where I almost killed the wrong guy, just so you could set me up with a man!” Missi appeared in the doorway and walked toward us. There she was, my ace in the hole. And I knew her recent experience gave the council reason to rethink this.

  “And you did find a man!” Cali seemed surprised her daughter wouldn’t get the logic. “You found Lex! Because of us!”

  Missi stopped and placed her hands on her hips. “This is idiotic. You are all manipulating us into doing whatever you want! You’re using these assignments to run our lives!”

  Our parents looked at one another. Did they get it?

  “The truth is,” I said, “we aren’t going to work for the family business anymore.” I gave them a moment to let it sink in. By the looks on their faces, I was pretty sure they hadn’t seen that coming.

  “And we are conducting an audit to review our finances,” Paris added.

  “And we never, ever want to know if we have killed anyone who didn’t deserve it.” Liv’s voice trembled with rage.

  The council was stunned. They had no idea we would demand the disbanding of the family industry. In the past, the old guard would have shot us. Would they do that?

  “You can’t just quit!” York protested. Somehow I took his words to mean that we couldn’t quit because he was never able to.

  Paris sputtered, “This isn’t a fraternity! You can’t just do things because they were done to you.”

  “Don’t you see?” Dak said calmly. “The time for things like this is over. The Dark Ages ended centuries ago. This is civilization. We can’t keep killing people.”

  Liv shouted, “And we sure as hell aren’t going to kill anyone just because you think we should!”

  “We won’t allow it,” Cali said with steel in her voice.

  There it was. The threat.

  “Are you going to kill your own children?” Gin shouted. “We represent the majority of our generation. You’ll be wiping us out.”

  “And you’ll have to raise our kids!” Dak threw in somewhat unhelpfully. From what I’d heard about Carolina Bombay’s obsession with babies, I thought that was more of a strike against us.

  Missi joined us at the table but didn’t sit down. “You will have to kill us. Because we are never going to kill anyone for you again.”

  I fist-bumped her. It wasn’t something I’d ever done, and likely wasn’t something I’d ever do again, but I did it anyway.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Agent Sands (in Marlon Brandon voice): Failure to appear at meetings at designated times will result in forfeiture of protection…protection you will definitely need.

  —ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO

  If you are going to make an ultimatum, you have to be ready to back it up. Once you say with absolute certainty that you will not do something, there is no going back. The Bombays have followed this flawed logic with a religious zeal that would have made Hitler envious. Family members who refused to participate in the business were “liquidated” immediately—usually by another family member.

  It was a delicate and unstable way to approach life, but that was our culture. Some cultures wrestled over their differences. Others used a game of chess or a “dance-off.” We usually made one another bleed to death. Every family was different.

  I was not an only child. But my brother had been such a supreme asshole that I felt like one. Dak and Paris had their sisters. They were lucky. And I was lucky that they included me in that group. And it helped make it that much harder for the council to disagree with us if they had to wipe out all their children. That was a plus for us.

  So we glared at one another over a conference table for at least ten minutes, each side hoping the other would suddenly jump up and laugh and yell, “Just kidding!” But that wasn’t going to happen. And we’d use shrapnel instead of confetti.

  We’d made a very dangerous move here. And we weren’t even armed. Well, Missi was. She had a button that could electrocute the council. Hopefully we wouldn’t need to use it.

  While we sat there in silence, each side hoping their glares were dramatic enough to influence the others, all I could think of was Ronnie. I had it bad. It sucked that she loved Drew. But even if I died, she’d live—I’d tipped the pilot a lot to take them back home if we didn’t return. I hoped she’d take care of Sartre. I loved that little rodent. Considering that guinea pigs only lived about four years, I thought it was ironic that she might actually outlive me.

  Still nothing was coming from the council side of the table. I expected our parents to scream, shout, even cry to get us to change our minds. I didn’t expect what happened next.

  “What the hell,” Pete spoke up in his gravelly voice. “I’ve been wanting to retire for years.”

  “It’s not like we need the money…” Montgomery ventured timidly.

  The others looked at one another, then turned to us and nodded simultaneously.

  “Right,” York said. “Tradition is so overrated.”

  We stared at them as if at some point they were all going to burst into flames. That would have surprised us less than the words that came out of their mouths.

  “You’re serious?” Gin squeaked.

  Her mother nodded. “Why not? I want to spend more time with my grandchildren, not stuck on this island handing out death sentences.”

  The others seemed to agree. Was this for real? How did that happen? We weren’t even that persuasive.

  Dak eyed them suspiciously. “You mean I can stop training Louis? And I never have to train Sofia?”

  Carolina snorted. “Like I want that precious little girl to kill people! Now, that doesn’t mean she won’t be taught how to fend for herself.”

  We watched in awe as the council stood up and made small talk. This had really happened. Without bloodshed. Holy shit.

  My cousins hugged their respective parents, who in return hugged them back. Mum came over to me and threw her arms around my neck. After a few seconds, I held her. It was over. It was—

  Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzt.

  And in a split second, the Bombay Council lay twitching on the floor. I knew Missi had something rigged up with the last council where she zapped them at a crucial moment. But I’d never seen it. It was somewhat disturbing to watch our sixty-plus-year-old parents twitching like lobotomized electric eels at our feet.

  “Missi!” Liv screamed. “You were only supposed to do that as a last resort!” She ran to help her father up.

  Missi shrugged. “When was I ever going to get to do it now that we’re going legit? Besides, these bastards just put me through a month of unmitigated hell for a stupid reason.” She smiled innocently. “A girl’s gotta have a little fun now and then.”

  It was over. Four millennia of wet work were over without so much as a whimper. How about that? I might have waxed more philosophical on it if I didn’t have a planeload of turbulence waiting for me on the tarmac.

  I left the others to negotiate the terms of the dissolution of the company and made my way to the plane. And even though we had just scored a major victory without spilling so much as one drop of blood, my mood worsened with each step.

  Ronnie had something to say. No doubt it was that she had chosen Drew over me. Perhaps she’d twist the knife and tell me why him. Whatever it was, this was going to be unpleasant.

  I found her sitting alone on the steps of the jet. I didn’t want to talk to her. But since I’d just dragged her into another hemisphere, I guess I owed her something.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “Come on. We can take you two home now.” I took her hand to lead her up the steps but she pulled out of my grip.

  “You are so wrong about me.” She wasn’t pleading. She just wanted me to know.

  I cocked my head to the side. “Am I?”

  She nodded. “You never gave me a chance to
explain. And I’m really pissed off about that.”

  “Well, the feeling’s mutual, because you didn’t try to explain.” My brain hurt. I wanted to go home, sleep for a week, then think all this through.

  “Okay. I guess that’s somewhat true,” Ronnie said after a moment.

  “Well, here’s your big chance. Go ahead. Explain it.”

  For a second I thought she was going to get angry and refuse to talk.

  “Drew isn’t my boyfriend.”

  “What?” Not a great response, but considering the month I’d had, it was a respectable one.

  “He isn’t my boyfriend.”

  “Oh. Right.” I’d had enough of this. If she wanted to play games I had Risk and Sorry on the plane.

  “He’s gay. And he’s my cousin,” Ronnie said, a slight glimmer of victory in her eyes.

  “Right. And the Victorian house is really several apartments.” Oh, that nasty sarcasm.

  “No, Drew is house-sitting for a professor who is on sabbatical in Paraguay. My apartment is being renovated due to an asbestos problem.”

  Oh. Shit. I had hated her over asbestos.

  “You never gave me the chance to explain,” she concluded. “If you had, you would’ve known that.”

  I didn’t say anything, so of course she decided it was a good idea to continue.

  “What is it with you men, anyway? All I’ve learned from being around you that no matter how well educated and worldly, you are still jealous, possessive and love to fight. You jump to conclusions at a moment’s notice and never stop to think about it—”

  “Maybe you’re right,” I cut her off. It was too painful to hear that she had such a low opinion of me. Hell, I had a low opinion of myself.

  “And then, after dumping me unceremoniously without so much as an explanation, you leave. And a few weeks later, you show up again with a file full of…” The words choked in her throat. “Full of ugly things I’d rather not have known, thank you.” She paused. “You came by just to hurt me even more. Just to prove you were right. And then you left, again, without allowing me to explain.”

  Somehow, Veronica had managed to make herself really angry at me all over again. And I just stood there and let her.

  She pushed past me and climbed aboard the jet. We didn’t speak all the way back to Cedar Rapids.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  “Each success only buys an admission ticket to a more difficult problem.”

  —HENRY KISSINGER

  The first thing I did was put an unconscious Dekker on the family plane. He awoke on the tarmac in Amsterdam without knowing how he got there. I left him a letter in his pocket and hoped I would never see him again.

  The next few weeks were a blur. I helped my cousins dismantle the Bombay Corporation. Our other cousins seemed relieved that we had done this without them. Paris and I managed to liquidate our assets and divide them equally among the living Bombays. We kept the island and the jet. We’re not complete fools.

  Missi got married to the guy she met on the reality show. I gave her a felted bag I knitted from the cashmere I got in Mongolia. For some reason, Missi and Lex spent their honeymoon in Ulaanbaatar before settling on Santa Muerta.

  Life was slowly getting back to normal. Sartre grew fat as I spoiled her rotten with an extra ration of fruits and vegetables. I could tell she missed Ronnie. She actually seemed a little depressed.

  I missed Ronnie. But I’d messed that woman up. Because of me, she’d eaten testicle soup, been kidnapped by a Dutch mercenary, saw her hero crucified and had a lover who treated her like a grand inquisitor. Maybe I was never meant to have a relationship. So why did I still believe that I could have had that with her? But what kind of relationship had areas that you could never, ever discuss? I’d lied to her about Dekker—letting her wonder what happened to him. And there was so much more about me she could never, ever know. Love couldn’t last in a vacuum.

  Somehow I managed to get in on the last few carnivals of the season. The work was steady. Some of the bloom was off the rose. I’d be forty in a year and a half. The injuries I’d suffered on the steppes of Mongolia still haunted me. And for the first time in my life, it seemed important that I had a plan for the next forty years.

  That disturbed me the most. After all, I had taken so much joy from the idea that I was completely and utterly free. You know what started to get to me first? Eating alone. No, eating alone in a trailer, night after night. Suddenly the things I loved about my life had become the things I hated about my life.

  Oh, sure, I toyed with the idea of settling down in some obscure university town. It wouldn’t be too hard for me to land an academic job. But the thought of that made me feel sick inside. Was that insane or what?

  As if I could settle down somewhere. And there it was. Whenever that possibility crossed my mind, I thought of Veronica. And when I thought of Veronica, I wondered what she was doing. Probably thinking evil thoughts about me. She probably was afraid I would show up on her doorstep again someday and kick her puppy.

  With a sigh as rusty as the metal safety bar on the Ferris wheel, I snapped the two riders into place. It was a young couple, probably in their early twenties. I gave them a smile as I pulled the lever and sent them up to the moon.

  “Poor thing,” I heard as they came around the first time. I was bored or I wouldn’t have been eavesdropping.

  “He’ll never amount to much,” they said on their second rotation. Were they talking about me? No. It was stupid of me to even think that. They could be referring to anyone here.

  “I love you,” the woman said to the man on their third rotation, and I watched as they kissed, disappearing into the stars. Just for fun, I let them ride twice as long.

  “Coney!” I turned to find Chudruk standing directly behind me.

  I threw my arms around him in a big bear hug. “When did you get back to the States?”

  Chudruk grinned. “I came with Zerleg. He starts college this semester!”

  “That’s great! He’s going to Yale, right?” I ignored the fact that the Ferris wheel was still turning. I didn’t hear anything anymore as the lovers went by.

  “No. He decided on Iowa. Got a poetry scholarship.”

  I wasn’t upset. Zerleg should go to the school he wanted to. I was just happy he got away from home to do what he loved.

  We chatted for a while. Yalta was coaching Zolbin for next year’s competition. Sansar-Huu and Odgerel had moved their family into town for the winter. It was comforting. Like mail from home.

  Funny. I’d never thought of anyplace as home before. The mere sensation of thinking of Mongolia as home was electric. Man, I had it bad. The events of the summer meant that life was never going to be the same.

  “So what happened to Ronnie?” Chudruk asked.

  “Oh. We kind of went our separate ways.”

  Chud smiled. “Zerleg and I stopped to see her. She’s going to help him get acclimated.”

  That got my attention. “Really? How is she?”

  “She said you are a dick.”

  “Great.” My enthusiasm waned a bit. So she still hated me. At least I inspired passion in her for something. Granted, it wasn’t what I’d hoped, but at least it was something.

  I had a break coming up, so we continued our conversation in the beer tent.

  “How did you find me?” I said as I cracked open a bottle.

  He shrugged. “It wasn’t hard. I knew your patterns. I think you’ve ended every season at this fair.”

  “So are you coming back to work?” I asked him.

  Chudruk shook his head. “No. I’m too old for this kind of crap.”

  A stab of pain in my shoulder made me think the same thing. “What are you going to do?”

  “Oh,” he said as he peeled the label off his bottle. “I’ve got a girlfriend in Paris. She’s a surgeon. I figured we’d settle down. Have a couple of kids.”

  “Seriously? When did you get a French doctor girlfriend?” Seriousl
y! When did that happen?

  “There’s a lot about me you don’t know,” Chud said with a wink. “You really shouldn’t compartmentalize people. It’s demeaning.”

  I stared at my friend and his sudden command of the English language.

  “You’ve been holding out on me.”

  He shook his head. “No. You only saw what you wanted to see and didn’t ask any more than that.”

  The news hit me like a one-ton weight. That was what Ronnie had said. Was I really like that?

  I spent the evening in my trailer, completely freaked out. Oh, my God. I’d been doing what I accused others of doing. I was a hypocrite, an asshole and possibly a pseudointellectual. What was wrong with me?

  “Sartre,” I said as I strapped the seat belt over her cage at midnight. “This isn’t going to work out.”

  The pig wheeked her disapproval as I drove east. Somehow I was starting to think that she was smarter than me. And I didn’t mind a bit.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  “Politics are very much like war. We may even have to use poison gas at times.”

  —WINSTON CHURCHILL

  The great thing about the way I lived my life was that I could walk away anytime I wanted to. Anytime things got inconvenient or uncomfortable, I could bolt. I told myself that was exactly what I wanted. My friends and family seemed to admire that about me.

  But the truth was, I became the world’s biggest loser. While they admired me, my family lived differently. And I never figured that out. Until now. What did I learn? That with all my prestigious degrees and vast worldwide travel, I really knew nothing at all.

  Okay, I did know something. I knew that I was madly in love with Veronica Gale. And I knew that I had to see her and tell her the truth. About everything. What she did with the information was up to her. But I couldn’t pursue her without her knowing the truth. All of it.

  I pulled into a Target parking lot this time. It was three in the morning and I felt like a change was in order. I fell asleep with Sartre next to me. For the first time in a long time, I slept well.