Patience, My Dear

by Bower Lewis

  “I prefer you in your jeans,” she whispered as she stepped a stiletto onto Forsyth’s chaotic driveway.

  He looked her over once and nodded his approval. Then he slipped an arm around her waist and turned her toward the house.

  “Ditto,” he replied. “But I’m really not complaining.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “Tex!”

  Joey Forsyth appeared at the door in a cologne-infused cloud of forced bravado. He clapped a hand on Zane’s shoulder and ushered them inside.

  “It’s good to see you, man. I’d heard that you’d gone into the Peace Corps or something.”

  Zane glanced at his shoulder, as though checking it for spray-tan residue, and drew his mouth into a smile of sorts. “It’s good to see you as well, Senator. I’ve recently moved to Allston. I believe that’s the report you’re referring to.”

  “Allston?” Forsyth laughed. “What the hell is in Allston?”

  “I am.”

  The senator closed his mouth, covering his unease with a fractured laugh as he motioned them toward the study. “Vodka martini still your drink?”

  “Patience prefers gin,” Zane said. “Old Raj, if you’ve got it.”

  Forsyth straightened slightly, then he winked and turned toward the bar. Zane said nothing more; he just stared at the artwork on the study walls with an expression of bored disdain. Even with his back turned, Forsyth seemed to grow an inch smaller every moment Zane was in the room.

  Patience didn’t dare look at him at all. She kept her eyes and her voice low.

  “I don’t even know what ‘Old Raj’ is.”

  “It’s just a brand I happen to know he never keeps on hand. Don’t worry about it.”

  Forsyth clapped his hands twice and turned back with a tray of martinis.

  “Sorry about the simplicity, folks! Normally, the staff would serve such distinguished company, but you were so cloak and dagger about us needing to be alone tonight, Tex, I’ve sent them all home for the evening.” His fake, folksy twang grew more pronounced by the sentence. “They were happy enough for the night off, of course, but clearing out my advisors was no easy feat. Especially with the race heating up the way it is. But hell, man, when Zane Grey Ellison himself calls up and asks to come by for a visit, how can I possibly refuse?”

  Zane didn’t respond to that. The senator laughed at nothing and handed him his drink.

  “I’ve got to tell you, buddy, it sure caused a buzz when word got around that you’d left All Things Ellison and moved out to the wilderness. I hope your trust fund kicked in before you embarked on this crazy adventure.”

  “Of course, Senator. I left Hyannis because I wanted the freedom to do as I pleased and to interact with people who don’t hang lithographs of themselves on their study walls. I didn’t leave out of any great desire to be poor.”

  Forsyth’s face turned the color of the bright pink lithograph of his younger self dancing with his arms in the air and his shirt blown back from his chest that was hanging on the wall behind him. He turned his attention to Patience next, acknowledging her for the first time since they’d arrived. He lifted a second martini with a wink.

  “I’m sorry, little lady, but I seem to have run out of Old Raj.” He flashed her his best teen magazine photo shoot smile as compensation. “Some of the domestics may be overdue for a firing, I’m afraid. Will Bombay Sapphire suffice?”

  She took the drink from his hand, smiled slightly, and said nothing.

  “Well, Tex! I see you haven’t lost your taste for exotic-looking women. She certainly is a colorful little thing, isn’t she? But then, you always did buck convention.” Forsyth turned back to Patience. “Young Zane, here, would always go sneaking off at the club when he was a tyke. They’d find him hiding out with the kitchen staff or the grounds crew when the day was through, but it drove his father insane. Of course, I suspect that was the point, wasn’t it, Tex? Speaking of Rutherford, how is the old man? Still roaring cracks into the plaster?”

  “You’ll have to tell me, I’m afraid.” Zane took Patience’s untouched drink from her hand and set it back down on the bar. Forsyth watched in frozen-smiled agony as he returned and slipped his arm around her waist again. “I haven’t spoken to my father in weeks. And how are you getting on with him? The election is next week and I’ve yet to hear anything. I’d have expected Alex to have leaked his endorsement to a dozen different news outlets by now.”

  “Well, Tex…” Forsyth flushed. “You know how Rutherford is…”

  “Yes,” Zane said. “I do. Well, we don’t want to waste any more of your time, Senator. Why don’t we dispose of the silly nicknames that never caught on and the buoys about my father, and get down to business?”

  Forsyth licked his lips.

  “Rutherford’s not the only Ellison with cache in this election. I think you’ll find the conversation Patience and I would like to have with you interesting. But first, I’ll have to ask you to show us to your control room.”

  “My control room?” Forsyth glanced toward the door. “I’m not sure what you’re thinking of, kiddo.”

  Zane turned back to the lithograph. “I’m here on private business tonight. I’m not interested in attracting the sort of attention a photograph of me shaking hands with the next U.S. senator from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts would generate if it found its way into the wrong hands. I’m perfectly aware that you’ve got more cameras installed in this house than the Louvre. It’s a quirk that you’re sensitive about, obviously, as you’ve managed to keep it from Alex, but this is one aspect of your life I happen to be better informed about than Alexander Rockwell.”

  Forsyth made a mess of pretending to tidy up the bar. “Aw, Zane, that fundraiser Rutherford attended was three years ago. I didn’t see any need to reinstall the cameras his agents disabled. Things are different for me now. That was an old system, installed during my days with the band, when I attracted a different sort of fan. My groupies are a lot less crazed now. Hell, I was grateful to your father’s men. They saved me the time and aggravation of taking it all down myself.”

  Zane set his drink on the mantel and reached for Patience’s arm.

  “Thank you for your time tonight, Senator. Best of luck in the election.”

  Forsyth stepped before them with his hands in the air. “Now, Zane, let’s not be hasty. A man in my position can’t be too careful. But hell, buddy, I’ve always thought of you as a little brother. I guess it’s okay for me to let my guard down with family.” He gestured toward the door. “You two just come along with me.”

  Zane appeared hesitant, but Patience looked up at him with a frown. “You know how concerned I am about the environment, honey. This is important to me.”

  She managed half a pout and he turned back to Forsyth. “What concerns Patience concerns me as well. Give her any further cause for alarm and our next stop will be at Jake McEvoy’s camp, where I’m confident that she’ll be greeted with respect and his undivided attention.”

  Forsyth wiped at his lips with a cocktail napkin. “You don’t want to do that, Zane. If it’s the environment you’re concerned about, Joey Forsyth is your man.” He gestured to the door again. “I’m not sure this Allston adventure’s been too good for your mental hygiene. You seem to have developed a bit of a paranoid streak since you left Hyannis.”

  “That sometimes happens.”

  Forsyth led them down a series of hallways, stopping at last before an enormous, ornate, full-length mirror. He smoothed his hair back at the sides and then pressed at a spot behind the frame. A door released and swung forward and he stepped into a concealed room, waving to the bank of monitors that lined the far wall.

  “Make yourself at home, kiddo. I can’t wait to hear what this is about.”

  Zane stepped up to the monitors and removed the disc from each tray. He passed them back to Patience, and when their set was complete, he reached to his ankle holster and pulled out his revolver. “I’m sorry, Senator, but it looks like
we’re backing McEvoy in this one after all. Politics just isn’t a good field for you.”

  Forsyth stood there for a moment, laughing like the man who doesn’t get the joke. “What the hell is going on, Zane? Is it some sort of campaign gag? Did Alex put you up to this?”

  “No, Sir. Alex will have to wait his turn to take a run at you.”

  He nodded to Patience and she stepped behind the senator to search him for weapons. She pulled a revolver from his coat and another from his ankle, followed by a whale’s-tooth-handled hunting knife from his belt and an unsettling-looking set of metal balls from his trousers’ pocket. Then she relieved him of his BlackBerry and pulled a pair of handcuffs from her bag.

  “I’m sorry if this seems a bit crude.” She cuffed the senator’s hands behind his back. “We didn’t have time to plan anything snazzier. Now, we don’t intend to hurt you, if it’s not absolutely necessary, so just relax and try to behave if you can. Everything should be fine.”

  “Tex!” Forsyth shouted. “What the hell is this?”

  “It’s our duty to mankind.”

  “It’s nothing personal,” Patience said.

  “It’s a little personal.” Zane shrugged. “Let’s go.”

  • • •

  Patience pulled the passenger door open and spun back with a hand to her forehead. “Damn it, Zane! There’s no back seat? What the hell are we supposed to do with him?”

  Zane paused a moment, scratching his head as his shoulders lowered slightly.

  “Oh,” he said. “Wow, I never even… I’m sorry, Patience. I somehow lost sight of that detail in our rush to get here. I don’t know what to say.”

  “Is there a trunk?”

  He tapped his gun against the side of the senator’s head as he glanced down at the car’s interior. “Not as such. Do you think you could sit on the console?”

  “Do you plan to shift the car into gear at all?”

  “Good point,” he said. “Sorry.”

  She stepped back from the door and looked away. “Let’s get this over with. Put him in.”

  Zane beckoned for her to take the gun as he unlocked the cuffs. He wove them through the headrest and waved the senator inside.

  “Try not to tug too hard on that chain, okay, Joey? I’ll be pretty put out if you damage the leather.”

  He turned back to Patience, but she just shook her head and refused to look at either man. She leaned across Forsyth to drop her bag beside his feet, keeping her eyes fixed ahead.

  “Please believe me when I tell you that this isn’t personal.”

  She climbed carefully onto his lap and pulled her legs inside as Zane closed the door. He came around and slipped into the driver’s seat with his gun still pointed at the senator.

  “If you try anything over there, Joey, you can forget about Patience’s promise not to hurt you. If I get the impression that you’re even considering something funny, she’ll get that seat back to herself at one-hundred-sixty miles per hour. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “Zane, don’t be an idiot!” The arrogance in Forsyth’s voice disintegrated into a whining, nasally drone as his dampening, low-buttoned shirt added injury to Patience’s insult. “You must realize that people will be looking for me. Alexander Rockwell will tear this city apart.”

  Zane fired up the engine as Patience reached down for Forsyth’s BlackBerry. He winked back at the senator as she opened a fresh email.

  “I’ve no doubt that he’ll be pretty testy, but that’s a hazard of the job, Joey, working with you. It seems you met a dental hygienist tonight, and you know how unreliable that sort of thing tends to make you. It’s nothing Alex hasn’t dragged you out of a thousand times before.”

  “That was different! Nobody runs off with a dental hygienist anymore. You have no idea what’s at stake here. I’m warning you, Zane, you’re in way over your head. You’d better listen to me!”

  Zane winked back at him and glanced up at Patience.

  “Leave out the occasional vowel and go heavy on the exclamation points. Sign it, ‘J-Force’ and you’re home. There’s really not much else to know.”

  She nodded and he threw the car into gear. When they reached the bottom of the driveway, she held the Swarovski-encased BlackBerry up for his approval and he laughed. She hit send and powered down the phone, and along with it, the senator’s GPS. Zane turned the Veyron down the hill as a smile formed at the corners of his mouth.

  “ ‘Gigantastical’ is a very good word. Is it yours?”

  “It just struck me as something he might say.”

  Zane’s approval pleased her more than she’d anticipated, his screw-up over their seating arrangements notwithstanding. She kept her face low as she stashed the phone again, hoping he wouldn’t notice the slight flush creeping into in her cheeks.

  Something stirred beneath her then, and she froze. She closed her hands around the seatbelt, trying not to agitate her surroundings any further as she ignored it as hard as she could. Finally, the ignoring became unbearable and that flush in her cheeks turned molten.

  “Pardon me, Senator, but are you joking?” He turned his face to the window, but not quickly enough. A bead of sweat broke free of his hairline. He did appear genuinely miserable, but Patience wasn’t feeling particularly sensitive to his plight. “What is wrong with you?”

  “What’s wrong with me? You’re the culprit here, sweetheart. I’m the victim. You’re strapped to my lap wearing a dinner-and-domination dress, while I’m handcuffed to the seat of a goddamn Bugatti Veyron. I’m just a man, for Christ’s sake. If you’re not equipped to deal with it, you should have called a cab.”

  Zane fishtailed onto Harvard Avenue and slammed to a stop in a fire lane, leaving unspeakably expensive strips of rubber behind in his wake. He grabbed Forsyth’s collar, upsetting Patience from her precarious position as she lunged for his arms. She managed to push him back again as the senator’s face turned from retching red to airway-distress purple.

  “Stop this,” she said, with her fingers still gripping his forearms. “I need you to shed Alpha-Zane now. I have no idea what I’m doing here, and I’m about one misfired erection away from hiring up an Armageddon of my own and calling it a night. I need Allston-Zane back to help ensure that I don’t do that. Please bring him back.”

  Zane released the shreds of dress shirt from his fists and pulled his arms free. He turned back in his seat and stared into the taillights of the bus stopped ahead of them. Then he looked over at her finally, with a hurt expression on his face.

  “Whatever made you think that response wasn’t from Allston-Zane?”

  “Oh…”

  She looked down at him from her perch atop Forsyth’s unfortunate lap, and then she grabbed his face without warning and kissed him. He was still for a moment, his brain catching up to what his lips had going on, and then he slipped his arms around her and pulled her as close as the already taxed passenger seatbelt would allow.

  Forsyth groaned and shifted toward the window. “Are you two fucking kidding me?”

  Patience barely noticed as Zane pulled the revolver from his seat and pointed it at the senator, never disengaging from the most gigantastically exhilarating kiss of her life. Over a thousand horses stamped impatiently beneath the hood of the Bugatti as Senator Joey Forsyth muttered and cursed. His complaints grew increasingly lurid and whiny, until Patience pulled free of Zane at last and turned back to glare at him.

  “You’re incredibly disruptive.”

  He turned away and she brushed the hair back from her face. There was no mending the break in the magic, so she took a breath and nodded to Zane.

  “I think we’d better get home now. This is starting to get complicated.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  “You threw out the coffee maker?”

  Zane stood before her with an empty mug in his hand and a destroyed look on his face. “You can’t still be angry about the seating in the car last night, Patience. I’ve told you how s
orry I am about that.”

  She stared back at him, trying to connect the dots. “This isn’t retribution, Zane. It broke, as things often do. You do understand that things break, don’t you?”

  He leaned against the wall, sleep deprivation dropping his shoulders and taking his powers of cognition down with them. Senator Joey Forsyth, however, appeared alive and alert for the first time since they’d cuffed him to the crossbar of Patience’s sagging sofa-bed.

  “He has no idea,” the senator volunteered. He plumped up his pillow and settled back to enjoy the show. “Zane’s not from around here, honey, or hadn’t you noticed? He’s got no clue how anything you can pick up for less than ten grand works.”

  Zane turned on him and Patience took the mug from his hand to prevent it from rocketing into the good senator’s cranium. She shot Forsyth a look of warning and pulled Zane back again.

  “Of course I understand that things break,” he said. “I’m not an imbecile, Patience. I just haven’t had any coffee yet this morning, which is the crux of the problem, and I was thrown to discover that it wasn’t going to be remedied anytime soon. Joey didn’t shut up for a second last night and I’ve got a crick in my neck you wouldn’t believe. I wasn’t thinking, that’s all. I misunderstood you.”

  “Okay.”

  “Please don’t let an idiotic moment turn into some larger statement about my ability to subsist beyond the gates of my father’s estate. If I don’t happen to know the price of milk at the moment, it’s simply because I haven’t gotten around to purchasing a quart and not because I can’t figure out how to find out where it’s sold.”