by Bower Lewis
“No one is doing that, Zane.”
“Speak for yourself, sweetheart!”
Zane pulled his gun from his waistband and Patience caught him by the arm.
“No one who can’t be silenced by a quick trip down the dumbwaiter shaft is doing that. There’s a 7-Eleven up the street. You can get a cup of coffee there, and you can pick us up a quart of milk, as well, while you’re at it.”
He pointed his revolver at the couch.
“Are you mad, Patience? I’m not leaving you here alone with him.”
She released his arm and stepped back, stunned and damned insulted by his implication. “I should think that I’d be able to resist the senator’s exaggerated charms for fifteen minutes, Zane, but thank you so much for your confidence. Is making girls feel cheap and untrustworthy after you’ve made out with them normal operating procedure for you or is this something special just for me?”
He groaned and let his head fall back.
“Stop it, Patience. That’s not what I meant. My point was that some dangerous people must already be looking for Joey, and God only knows what’s going to happen next. So, no, I’m not leaving you alone with him. But since you’ve introduced the topic, are we ever going to talk about what happened last night? You’ve deflected every attempt I’ve made to bring it up, and I’ve been patient about that because I understand that things are hectic right now. But at this point, it’s bordering on insulting.”
She looked down and he crossed his arms, awaiting her response. She didn’t understand why he couldn’t just let it go. Dating was complicated under the best of circumstances. It took care and attention to make a relationship work, and starting something up now—while they waged war against Armageddon—was just begging for disaster.
“I didn’t mean to insult you, Zane. I just thought we could deal with that when we no longer had an elected official handcuffed to the sofa.”
He slid his gun back into his waistband.
“I guess I hadn’t realized that kissing me was something you’d have to ‘deal’ with. My mistake.”
The senator roared. “Buck up there, Zany-boy! I’m sure there’s a purple-headed girl out there somewhere if you need to work off the sting. Try over in Brighton, maybe.”
Zane was at the couch again before Patience could do a thing to stop him. Forsyth’s hoots turned to hollering as Zane dragged him sideways by the ankles and folded him up into the sofa bed. He gave it a shove, and the bedraggled piece of furniture took on the appearance of an extremely stubby snake that had just swallowed its dinner live.
“Let him out, Zane. He might suffocate in there.”
Forsyth’s unbroken stream of threats and profanity seemed to satisfy him that her concerns for the senator’s air supply were unsupported. He tossed the pillows back into place and turned toward the kitchen. She heard him rummaging, and he returned with a roll of duct tape in his hand. He lifted an end of the sofa off the floor, and as Patience stood helplessly by, wound the tape around it with a focus that seemed almost otherworldly. Finally, the tape broke free of the spent roll and he dropped the sticky silver cocoon back onto the floor.
“That ought to keep him out of our hair for the moment.”
The couch shook and thumped before spitting out a muffled insult directed at Zane’s dead mother. He reached for his gun again and Patience pulled him to the kitchen by the belt.
“This is a different side of you.”
He set the revolver on the counter and stared down at his fingernails. He appeared far from penitent. If anything, the project seemed to have relaxed him a bit.
“I’ve never had any patience for Joey. You try listening to the man dissecting the voting patterns of Billerica and Chelmsford for Caroline Kennedy sometime without clocking him on the head with a croquet mallet. It’s a lot harder than it sounds.”
Patience didn’t know how to respond to that. Zane rubbed a hand over the back of his neck and their uncomfortable silence was broken by a blast of The Biz’s ring tone. She pulled the phone from her pocket and set it beside the gun. “This is private, if You don’t mind.” Then she turned back to Zane. “I wasn’t trying to deflect you about last night. It’s just that I think we need to know each other better before we try to figure out what that was.”
“That’s fine,” he said. “What do you want to know?”
“It’s not that simple. Take the guy you were last night, for example. We’ve been through a lot together these past few days, but I’d never have believed he existed if I hadn’t witnessed it myself. Don’t get me wrong, you were amazing and effective, and it was sexy as hell to watch, but honestly, that guy scared me a little.”
“Is that what this is about?”
Her phone chimed again and he dumped it into the sink. He flipped a switch at the splashguard and a thwumping-clonking sound thundered from the garbage disposal. The Toccata and Fugue died horribly and took the ancient motor down with it. Patience gaped at the plastic shards spewing from the basin as it coughed out a burning smell and then she gaped back up at Zane. He turned off the disposal and crossed his arms with no discernible change in expression.
“I only behave the way I did last night with people who demand it of me. I don’t enjoy it and I don’t enjoy spending time with those who won’t respect anything less.” He shook his head at the ceiling. “Please don’t be upset that I can do that, Patience. Be happy I choose not to.”
She stared down at the remains of their latest cellular catastrophe, awed a little bit by the carnage. A smile twitched at the corners of her mouth.
“That is so much worse than anything I’ve done. At least I was mostly in denial when I smashed up His phones. You just really went for it, didn’t you?”
He glanced at the sink and then nodded. “I’ll probably feel wary about wayward lightning bolts for a while.”
She sighed and he lifted his gun from the counter. It appeared they were in agreement, even if neither was entirely clear about what it was they’d agreed to.
The couch lay motionless when they returned to the living room and the blood drained from Patience’s face. Zane crossed over to it and nudged it a few times with his shoe, but he was met by no response. Patience turned back to grab a knife, but he reached for her arm. He circled to the rear of the overtaxed piece of furniture and tipped it forward over its front legs, and it let fly a string of profanities. It came down with a thud, exposing a wedge of the scowling senator’s face from behind its torn underbelly.
“How ya doing in there, Joey? Feeling snug?”
“I am going to sue the shit out of you, Zane. I’m going to sue your girlfriend and your father, and then I’m going to have your ass tossed in jail for kidnapping and extortion. And that’s just the beginning, kiddo. You are going to be very sorry you fucked with me.”
Zane smiled at Patience and yanked the sofa upright. “He’s fine.”
She sighed and turned back toward the bedroom. “Nonetheless, I’m going to scare up a pair of scissors to keep on hand. Will you please do your best not to shoot him while I’m out of the room?”
She heard him mutter something about dumping the whole couch out the window and being done with it, but she knew he’d never fit it through the frame, so she chose to ignore it. She turned to her dresser in search of the scissors, then froze as a high-pitched whizzing sound shot through the front door. A second pierced the frame, followed by the unmistakable crack of a heel splitting wood.
Patience ran into the living room as Zane shouted her back. She froze and gaped at the stern-looking stranger who stepped in through her broken door carrying a revolver with a silencer attached. He was tall and slender, dressed in a business suit. He took one look at Zane, who stood over the misshapen couch with his own gun pointed down at it, and turned his weapon on Patience.
“I’ll take that revolver now, sport.”
Patience shook her head, but Zane dropped his weapon and kicked it under the couch.
“There!” the couc
h shrieked. “You two thought you were so smart with that ridiculous email, but I told you Alex wouldn’t be fooled!”
Rockwell never turned his eyes from Zane as he reached to his belt for a black-handled Buck knife. “So help me, Joey, I’m having a goddamn LoJack installed on your ass.”
Zane stared at the knife with a disapproving air. “Christ, Alex, this weapons thing really has become a fetish for you two. I’m not sure that’s healthy.”
The bed burst apart with a few long slashes, expelling the sweat-soaked senator as though it couldn’t purge him quickly enough. Rockwell’s jaw tensed at the sight of his candidate, but then a stark smile etched across it as he turned a cold eye back to Zane.
“Let me tell you what’s not healthy, sport: attempting to fuck with me, or this campaign, again. If you or your girlfriend tries another stunt like this, it won’t make a bit of difference who your father is, because your bodies will never be found. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Patience stiffened, as chilled by his manner as by his words, but Zane appeared to find the speech amusing. His smirk wasn’t lost on Rockwell, who squared his shoulders and stepped his gun closer to Patience.
“I’ll take the key to those cuffs, now.”
She shook her head from the doorway. “Don’t do it, Zane. You’re an Ellison. He can’t touch you.”
“You’d be wise not to underestimate me, Pink. I know how to clean up a mess.”
She shook her head again, but Zane reached into his pocket and tossed Rockwell the key. “I couldn’t take another minute of his yapping, anyway. Now, lower your goddamn gun, Alex.”
Rockwell released Forsyth from the bar and dragged his still-gasping candidate down by the scruff of his neck. He stared back at Zane as he pushed him toward the door.
“I wasn’t ever with a dental hygienist last night,” Forsyth complained, keeping close to his handler. He pointed to Patience as they passed the bedroom door. “She’s the one who sent that e-mail from my Black-Berry. They were only supposed to come over for a minute. I was planning to stay in and rest up for Marblehead, just like we agreed.”
“Shut up, Joey.”
“But, Zane said he wanted to talk about the election. I was just trying to pull my own weight, like you’ve said I should start—”
Rockwell stopped and turned back to the senator. “I have just spent the entire morning tearing your house apart, Joey, in search of some clue to where you might have gone, because I somehow failed to understand that you can’t be left unsupervised for a single night. What kind of imbecile meets alone with a man who’s never shown him anything but contempt, mere days before the biggest election of his life? It’s a miracle you actually remembered to synch your BlackBerry to your computer for once, or you might very well have stayed stuffed in that sofa until Tuesday.”
Forsyth sulked back at him and Rockwell turned to Zane.
“I’m afraid I may have left your place in a bit of a mess, sport, but I was in a rush. I’ll give you credit for having done a decent job covering, but you and Pink might want to give some thought to window treatments. Imagine my surprise when I looked out your window this morning only to discover you here, shoving my candidate into a sleeper bed.”
Patience sighed apologetically. “I’ve really got to be more conscientious about those shades.”
“You and me both, I suppose.”
Rockwell waved them onto the mattress and wove the cuffs back through the bar that had been so effective at keeping Forsyth contained. He locked them together and slipped the key into his pocket. Then he looked back down at Zane.
“It appears that we can finally take a break from pretending to tolerate each other for the sake of appearances. So while we’re having this moment of honesty, let’s get one thing straight. Joey Forsyth is going to be elected to the United States Senate next Tuesday, and nothing you or your girlfriend can do will stop me from making that happen. There’s been a lot of speculation about your mental state lately, owing to this radical lifestyle change you’ve embarked upon. If you were to just go poof tomorrow, I don’t think it would be very long before your disappearance was accepted as the predictable end to a tragic slide into mental illness. And your girl, of course, is unlikely to be missed by anyone who matters at all.”
Patience kicked at him, but Zane just laughed.
“That was a hell of a speech, Alex. It was almost as off-base as it was overwrought. It was also an excellent illustration of the fact that you don’t, and won’t ever, understand my father. Rutherford doesn’t lose his car keys without hunting down every last person who’s touched them and holding their feet to the fire until they’re returned. That’s why his car keys never go missing, regardless of where he leaves them. Don’t try to intimidate me with your threats and hyperbole. You sound like an ass.”
“You think so, do you?”
“I know so. Now, I have no doubt that in that dark little heart of yours you’d be happy to make Patience and me disappear, but you’ll never do that. The simple fact of the matter is that you’ve only ever cared about one thing in your sad, sociopathic life, and that’s Alexander Rockwell. Well, Alexander Rockwell would be crushed to dust and sprinkled as mulch into my father’s flower beds if you so much as threaten my lunch money and that’s just a fact. And what’s bothering you most right now, Alex, is that you know I’m telling the truth.”
Rockwell grabbed Forsyth’s collar and pulled him to the door. “The smartest thing you can do right now, sport, is stay the hell out of my way.”
“We’ll see how that goes.”
He pushed his candidate through the broken frame and Zane let his head fall back. He turned to Patience with a heavy smile as their footsteps disappeared in the stairwell and she tried to quiet the thunder in her ears.
“I thought they’d never leave.”
“Have you lost your mind, Zane? You practically dared that man to shoot you. And not two minutes after giving up your gun!”
“I had to give up my gun, Patience. He might have shot you otherwise. As arguments go, I found that one to be pretty persuasive.”
“But you said—”
He grabbed her by the hand and wrapped his fingers around her wrist. Then he started tugging at the chain. “Let’s see if we can bust through this poor wreck of a couch. The sooner we get after them, the better.”
She turned away and kicked the heel of her boot against the crossbar. “I noticed that Rockwell’s gun didn’t deter you from slipping back into Alpha-Zane. For a minute there, it looked like he couldn’t decide whether to shoot you or send the senator outside to wash your car.”
She looked back at Zane and he glanced down. He appeared apprehensive about the topic. “It’s just a thing we learn to do in my family. Look, Patience, Alex has just upped the ante. This is going to become a whole other mess to clean up if we don’t get after him soon. We’d probably have had some advance warning that he was on his way if I hadn’t lost my temper with the phone the way I did. I’m sorry.”
She pretended to search the crossbar for weak spots. “The Biz can reach me without the phone, Zane, and He damn well knows it. It’s like He’s entrenched. So, please cool it with the self-recrimination, would you? It makes me itchy.”
He nodded and went back to work on the cuffs. Patience watched him for another moment and turned her attention to the sky.
“We really are sorry about that phone,” she whispered. “We’ll get You a new one. In the meantime, could You maybe help us figure out what to do now some other way? We’re sort of in a bind here.”
The sky didn’t seem to be in a chatty mood, so she turned back and resumed her assault on the crossbar. She got in a few more good kicks before a thundering bang rattled the apartment. They spun to look as the broken front door flew back on its hinges and the frame was filled by an enormous man in combat boots and full camo. He stepped inside and stalked toward them. It was clear that he meant business.
Zane threw himself across Patienc
e as the soldier pulled an automatic assault rifle from his back and fired a single shot. The cuffs blew apart as the bullet exploded against the chain and ricocheted into the window frame behind them. Then he stepped forward and lifted Zane from the mattress. He dropped him onto the floor and Zane grabbed his gun from beneath the couch. He jumped between them as the intruder turned back to Patience, but the man just pushed him aside again and Patience burst into tears.
She threw her arms around the soldier’s neck as the fear and fatigue of a decade swelled up inside her. “Uncle John,” she hiccupped.
He stood very still for a moment, and then he set the rifle beside the couch and folded her into a crushing bear hug. “Well, hey there, Pax. You got big.”
“Of course I got big, you asshole. You’ve been gone for over ten years.”
John grinned and set his niece down onto the floor. Then he turned back with a hand outstretched. “That must make you Zane. You can put your little gun down now if you like, Zane. I didn’t come here to fight ya.”
Zane just stood there with his mouth agape, his gun hanging in the air between them. John shrugged and turned toward the kitchen, where a muffled sound startled them from their stupor. It was odd in tone and vaguely unsettling, like the cry a gagged Barbie doll might make if she’d been brought to life only to be jabbed repeatedly with a hat pin. Patience followed her uncle to the silverware drawer, where—pushed to the back with the unused serving utensils—he unearthed the senator’s forgotten BlackBerry.
“I understand that you two sometimes overlook what’s right under your noses,” he chided. “We’ll have to work on that. Now, this ought to sort out your mobile phone predicament.”
Patience felt dizzy as she took it from his hand. It went off unexpectedly and she dropped it with a crash back into the drawer.
Oh!
Forsyth’s message alert was a sound bite from an old Boi II Boi tune, the telltale cry that signified the chorus was imminent. She looked up at her uncle, trying to make sense of his presence and his apparent association with The Biz, and then she shuddered as the BlackBerry squealed again. She stabbed her finger at it to silence it.