by Bower Lewis
“We’re not scaling up anybody’s anything, Uncle John. Zane and I have been here since four this morning. We secured an entry hours ago, and it won’t involve terrorizing any innocent people. What’s wrong with you?”
She pointed to the door beside the loading dock and John shook his head.
“It’s double-deadbolted. We could force it, or shoot our way through if need be, but we’ll run a lower risk of setting off bedlam prematurely if we save all shooting for the main event.”
“It’s not deadbolted. We turned the locks around while the fire department had the exits disabled so the senator’s guys could check the building. And what the hell are you doing climbing up a nonprofit organization’s downspout? Do you have any idea how expensive those things are to replace?”
John stared back at her in amazement. Then he grabbed her and pulled her to the ground behind a wooden bin filled with basketballs. A couple of guards came around the corner as he grabbed Zane’s jersey and dragged him down behind them. The men passed and John jumped up. He brushed the tar from his hands before pulling Patience to her feet.
“Well, kid, I’ve got to hand it to you—your planning here today is about as convoluted and overly thought out as anything I’ve ever heard in my life. Are you telling me that you two broke into this building once undetected, and instead of staying put until show time, you spent God knows how much time screwing around with the locks, just so you could break back out again and risk getting busted three times instead of once?”
Patience pulled the phone from her pocket and bit her lower lip. Her uncle had received a heads up about the guards, but the screen remained dark. She shoved her hair behind her ear and turned back. “We had no choice, Uncle John. We still had work to do out here. Anyway, we needed a man on surveillance.”
He pulled the door open with a shake of his head. “In ten years on the job, I’ve never once needed a man on surveillance. I work for the Good Lord God, Himself, kid. That’s all the surveillance I need.”
She shrugged and stepped onto the dock as a tentative smatter of applause erupted overhead, like raindrops on a plastic roof. “You’ve never had to guard against what we were watching out for this morning.”
A voice shouted into a microphone and she turned toward the stairs.
“Okay, kid, I’ll bite. You already knew where the senator and his goons were stashed. What else out here was so dangerous that it compelled you to increase your risk of capture threefold?”
She didn’t look back at him.
“You, of course.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Patience pulled back on the grate of the hot air register in the tiny art supply room as Zane held both hands beneath to catch it. John reached down as it broke free of the wall and took the time-damaged iron skeleton easily in one hand and set it on the floor before the racks of dog-eared paper and brightly colored tempera paints. They all leaned in with their faces close to the dusty hole they’d created in the wall, where a second register aligned with it on the other side and afforded them an excellent view of the gym.
Forsyth was already on stage, peppering his speech with awkward, outdated slang as he impressed upon the audience how delighted he’d been to receive their invitation to come down from Boston and speak with them. Patience leaned in for a better view of the men surrounding the stage, searching for some sign of Rockwell.
John reached for his rifle and rose up onto one knee behind them. Patience glared in disbelief as the black steel barrel snaked alongside her and came to rest against the bottom edge of their spyhole. She grabbed it and jerked back hard with both hands, knocking her uncle off balance.
Zane leapt to his feet and reached for the closest thing at hand as Patience fought to keep John from lifting the weapon again. He tore the lid from a bottle and reached into the melee for the rifle, then yanked up and sent John and Patience tumbling back. A bright orange stream of paint burbled over the barrel and trigger assembly, splattering a fair amount onto the three of them as well.
John tossed his niece aside and pulled the ghastly-looking rifle from Zane’s grasp. He poked him in the chest with it, striking a glistening orange gash across his jersey.
“So help me, son, I am at the end of my rope with you. The second we’re back in the open air, you and me are gonna—”
Zane pushed the weapon away as Patience clapped a hand over her uncle’s mouth. John pulled her hand from his face and reached into his coat for his revolver. Zane yanked his own out, but the SCUD just cursed at the orange streaks gumming up his slide and trigger.
“These are two good weapons your friend has just destroyed, Pax. They’ve seen me through a lot. I didn’t mind the trick with the phenobarb, because I understood where it was coming from, but this is hitting below the belt.”
She wiped her hands on her jeans. “It’s hardly the thing I’m most ashamed of at the moment.”
“Criminy, kid. I wasn’t going to shoot the man here in the gym. But you’ve got to be on your guard for anything, at all times. When your target is in view, and he’s surrounded by a whole load of artillery himself, that is not the time to start destroying your weapons.”
Patience was unmoved. “You pulled out your rifle where children were present, so now you no longer possess a rifle where children are present. It’s simple cause and effect, Uncle John. It doesn’t get much more basic than that.”
She turned back, choosing to ignore her uncle’s apostolic grumbling and Zane’s opportunistic needling at the newly unarmed man. As long as they kept the volume low and refrained from further physical confrontation, they could fend for themselves. She still hadn’t located Rockwell, and the senator’s attempts to connect with the young people of Brockton were growing stranger and harder to follow.
She was distracted from her search by some quiet activity at the back of the gym. She nudged Zane and pointed toward a couple of serious-looking suits who’d just entered through the rear doors. They stood alongside the wall and scrutinized Forsyth’s performance with cool detachment. One was larger and younger than the other, and even from their distance, it was easy to note his deference toward the older man, but that was where their dissimilarities ended. They stood in identical postures, with expressions that were identically rigid, and Forsyth’s sobs about his pancreas struck Patience as somewhat less absurd suddenly, as she stared at them. These were not your eco-friendly solar power enthusiasts, building panels to charge their home-built hybrid vegetable-oil cars and their hydroponic systems. The unblinking severity of their attention to the senator seemed to lower the temperature in the gym ten degrees.
“SolarTech.”
Zane nodded and pointed back toward the stage. Rockwell was in the shadows at the back with his arm in a sling, watching over the men as they watched over Forsyth. Patience felt a conflicted sense of relief at the sight of him. His expression was as aloof and self-important as ever, and apart from the sling, he appeared visibly unaltered by his encounter with Zane’s bullet. The damage seemed hardly unforgivable.
John nudged her shoulder and cocked his head toward the suits. “Who are the party fun guys?”
She just shook her head without looking back. “If your omniscient PA system hasn’t filled you in, Uncle John, I guess it’s not for you to know.”
“Maybe not, kid. But it’s for me to find out.”
The noise from the bleachers was increasing in volume and variability as the kids seemed united by their confusion. They looked askance at Forsyth and at one another whenever he mentioned the fine pancake breakfast he’d enjoyed that morning or his abiding love for pancakes in general. They stared out the windows and up at the clocks on the scoreboards until a few of the older boys nodded a silent pact at one another, bumped fists, and climbed down to the gymnasium floor. They encircled their coach, who was standing at the wall beside the register, and demanded to know when basketball was going to start.
The tallest of the boys pointed up toward the stage and voiced their complaint,
a little more loudly than he’d intended perhaps. Or perhaps not.
“You said that he asked to come here and talk with us, Chris, not the other way round. This is whack. We got our team in the finals and he’s up there jawing about his breakfast, with a picture of himself on his chest. What the hell, man?”
“We’ll keep the doors open late tonight,” Chris whispered. He glanced back at the reporters and leaned in closer to the boys. “We’ll get all the games in, okay, Maleek? This is a really good opportunity to raise awareness about the center, and maybe a little support. Come on, man. Help us out for an hour or so, would you?”
Maleek stared back at his coach and then he dropped his eyes to the boards. “Okay,” he said. “Yeah, okay.”
He motioned halfheartedly to the others and they slunk back to the bleachers. Patience turned to Zane, but his phone was in hand and he was tapping something onto the screen. He hit send and looked up again.
“That should keep them on budget for the current year, anyway. I’ll have my accountants look deeper into the situation when I’m a little less covered in paint.”
Patience was overcome. She grabbed him by the front of his jersey and kissed him. John cursed and nudged at them with his boot, but she ignored him. Forsyth said the word “confrabasticalation,” and she ignored him as well. A couple of the kids asked their mentors if the guy on the stage used to be a member of New Kids on the Block, but Patience ignored them all. It wasn’t until Zane seemed in danger of losing consciousness that she released him at last.
“Sorry.”
He shook his head clear and pulled himself back together. “I suppose I’m just going to have to get used to it, aren’t I? The breakup, however, is off.”
Patience didn’t respond to that. John snuck a sideways glare at Zane and turned back to the senator. He’d finished his speech at last and was ready for questions from the audience. The fidgeting ceased and the gum stopped popping, as the gym turned still as a stickup. The kids sat with their faces down until Maleek tapped one of his buddies and nodded to the stage. The boy lowered his head over his knees and pretended not to notice Maleek’s stares, but then he dropped his shoulders and stood up with a hand in the air.
“Excuse me, Sir. Do you like basketball?”
“Basketball?” Forsyth scratched his ear and glanced over to Rockwell. “You bet I do! I mean, go Celts! Right, guys?”
The kid glared down at Maleek, who just shrugged and settled back on his bench.
“Right,” he said. “Okay, then. Thanks.”
The gym was quiet again, except for the occasional cough and some idle kicking at the benches. Maleek nodded to the boy at his other side, but he just sank lower and shook his head. A few seconds later, he, too, was starting to his feet when his dignity was spared by a fifth-grade girl several rows below. She stood up tentatively with her hand raised halfway.
“Excuse me, Sir. I have a question. Some of the boys on Chess Challenge were saying that you used to be a singer on YouTube, or something. That’s not true, is it?”
Forsyth smiled from the podium. No need to look to Rockwell for this one. He pointed at her like his finger was a loaded .357 and cocked its hammer with his thumb.
“You bet it’s true, darlin’. But back in my day, music didn’t come from YouTube or the iTunes. It came from something called MTV. Now, I’m not looking to embarrass anybody, but I happen to know that there are some good folks right here in this very room who know me at least as well from my days as a successful R&B performer as they do from my work as a humble public servant.”
Patience pressed her lips together and looked back at Zane. “R&B?”
“Try not to overthink it.”
The young girl was still standing when she turned back, and she appeared more confused now than before. “But you don’t do that anymore, right? Because the guys on Chess Challenge said that you were probably going to try to do a concert or something today, and I told them no way.”
Forsyth adjusted his necklace with a wink, and then his smile turned dangerous. The room stilled until the air itself seemed afraid to stir. “I appreciate that, darlin’. I truly do. Normally, I’d be delighted to perform for an attractive, enthusiastic audience such as this, but this is a serious discussion we’re having here this morning. This discussion is about the obstacles facing you young people and what I can do to turn those obstacles into challenges once I’m elected to the United States Senate next Tuesday. As much as I’d love to, I really shouldn’t distract us from the weightiness of our topic.”
The room relaxed at last and the girl sat back down on the bench. Forsyth became very still for a moment, and then he lowered himself over the podium. He gripped its sides with his head bent above the pages of his speech, and a strange expression passed over his face. Then his muscles constricted and he appeared to be holding his breath. Zane grabbed Patience by the hand and they awaited the finale in horrible anticipation.
The SolarTech Industries executives appeared equally alert and intrigued by what was happening with their candidate. Forsyth stayed low for another few moments and then he exhaled and wiped a bead of sweat from his hairline. He straightened his posture, nodded to no one, and flashed a big, white smile in the direction of the cameras before returning his attention to the crowd.
“What’s your name, sweetheart?”
The girl who’d asked the question hugged her backpack to her chest and glanced furtively around the gym. She was hoping, it seemed, that he’d moved on to someone else while she’d been daydreaming, but this flirtation with optimism was belied by a hint of fatalism in her eyes that Patience found deplorable in a child her age. Her head lowered and her shoulders raised, like a tortoise attempting to retreat into its shell, as she looked back up at the senator.
“Jasmine?”
He winked again and pulled the microphone free of its stand.
“Well, Jasmine, let me tell you something about Joey Forsyth.” He performed a modified kick-ball-change, clapped once, and turned a hip forward as he pointed directly at the mortified ten-year-old. “Joey Forsyth could never refuse a request from one of his constituents, particularly from such a pretty little future voter as yourself. So hey, kids, what do you say we liven this place up a bit, after all? And Jasmine, sweetheart, this one’s for you.”
The crowd turned to stare as she hid her face in her hands and refused to look up again. Forsyth pulled once on the mic cord and stepped out from behind the podium.
“There’s one song I cowrote a few years back that I think might be appropriate to our discussion here this morning. Kids, I want you all to go home today and remind your parents that Senator Joey Forsyth is doing it ‘Again and Again for You, Baby.’ I think they’ll understand.”
He raised an arm and began to croon in a way that niggled at Patience’s brain for a moment. Then she gasped and clapped her hands over her ears.
“Oh, my God!” she whispered. “This song has the word plunged repeatedly in its refrain, and not in any home maintenance sort of context. What the hell is he trying to do to these poor children?”
Senator Forsyth didn’t appear to be the slightest bit concerned about what he was doing to those poor children. He performed his demented little heart out, a cappella, complete with all the spins, and OH!s, and hip thrusts of his younger days. Rockwell stepped from the shadows and stood beside the stage, his face taut as he stared across the gym at the men by the rear door. He mobilized his people to surround Forsyth, and they applauded with fervor and gusto as the senator finished his song at last. The crowd clapped along uncertainly until Rockwell stepped up and took control of the microphone. He raised Forsyth’s hand into the air.
“Your next representative to the United States Senate, ladies and gentlemen, Massachusetts State Senator Joseph M. Forsyth! He will do it, and he will do it again and again, for you!”
Forsyth appeared drawn and somewhat shaky as Rockwell dug his fingers into his coat sleeve. They waved once more to the crowd, and t
hen he turned his candidate toward the exit and escorted him from the stage under the stark scrutiny of the SolarTech executives. They disappeared into a sea of suits, and then the rear door of the gymnasium clicked shut and the executives were gone as well.
Zane shook his head at Patience as he sat up on the art room floor. “He didn’t blow.”
“We’ll think of something else.”
“He didn’t blow.”
John nodded as they got themselves together, and then he turned without a word and punched Zane in the face. Zane’s revolver flew from his hand as he sailed across the floor and Patience dove for it. John plucked it easily from her fingers and turned back to Zane, setting a size-sixteen boot down on his chest.
“That’s for the guns. And this is your final warning to watch it with my niece. I’m not going to tell you again.”
He looked up at Patience then, who was standing before him with her own gun drawn, and he shook his head. He took that from her as well, reset the safety, and dropped it into his pocket. Then he kissed her on the forehead as Zane scrambled back onto his feet.
“You’re a good girl, Pax. I’d recommend keeping your bias against bloodshed as privileged information, though, if you’re going to be pointing guns at people. Now, I’m sorry about this. I was actually sort of rooting for you this time, but I think we both know what I’ve gotta do. Don’t think of it as a failing on your part. For a novice SCUD, you’re doing all right. Your planning’s a tad convoluted, and there’s still a lot of learning ahead of you, but that’s to be expected. Now, go and get some rest while I finish up here. I’ll see you on the other side.”
He strung his orange-streaked rifle over his shoulder and turned toward the door, and something unexpected crept into Patience’s gut. She was terrified of what he’d do out there on his own, but his leaving stung her in new ways that caught her off guard. She might have even asked him to stay, if she’d still had her gun.