Patience, My Dear

by Bower Lewis

  SORRY

  She nodded and pulled herself up. She didn’t stop moving until her hand came down on the banister of the campaign office’s basement staircase. She grabbed ahold without hesitation and climbed up into the unknown.

  Voices greeted her ascent to the main floor. Ed O’Brien was explaining to Rockwell that he’d better lower his weapon or he was bound to spring a leak. They had all the time in the world, and it was a simple fact that Rockwell’s arm was going to seize up on him at some point. The moment that happened, bang. Ed wasn’t going to tell him again. Patience kept low and listened for the campaign manager’s vitriolic response. She wasn’t kept waiting long. She followed his voice to the end of a hallway and stopped before the door of the headquarters’ central office.

  She caught a hint of Rutherford’s cologne as she approached the open office doorway, followed by a blast of his disdain. “Good God, Ed, this has gone long past tiresome. Would one of you just shoot the prick, so we can be done with it?”

  For what was possibly the first time in his life, Rutherford Ellison gave an order that was met by no response. The room was silent, until the only one who dared chimed in. Patience held her breath as the phone rattled away on the other side of the wall, then took advantage of the distraction to slip across the doorway. She crouched low beside the frame, finally able to get a glimpse of the action.

  Rockwell and Rutherford stood a few feet to her left with Rockwell’s back to the wall. He held his hostage in front of him as a shield. Zane was about ten feet before them, surrounded by Ed and his men. He grinned up from the phone and held it over Ed’s shoulder, allowing Rockwell to get a look.

  “Well, imagine that!” He winked. “It’s a message from God.” He held Rockwell’s stare and the coolness in his eyes belied the smile on his face. “You really are a demented son of a bitch, aren’t you, Alex?” He glanced at his protectors and then resumed his command over Rockwell’s attention. “Joey died from tetrodotoxin poising, Ed. He fed him pufferfish. It’s deadlier than a heart attack and won’t be detected in an autopsy unless they know to look.”

  Rockwell’s voice was like the sound an ice pick makes when it breaks a block in two. “Who was that on the phone, Zane?”

  “I’ve just told you who it was, Alex. And I’ve got everything, how you prepared the nastiest parts of the fish into that soup you fed to Joey, through those hours you spent dancing around his living room to your Tom Jones CDs while he lay watching you from the couch, conscious and aware of what his best friend had just done to him, but paralyzed from head to toe by the poison. The moment of his death was particularly moving, when you drank a toast from the good senator’s bar and then called your SolarTech friends from that throwaway cell before placing your anguished nine-one-one call from Joey’s landline. It’s over now, Alex. Let Rutherford go and let’s end this. Joey was a pain in the ass, and he sure as hell wasn’t worth the trouble either of us has been through on his account these past few days. Why don’t we both just stay out of prison together, now? How does that sound?”

  Rockwell’s eyes were fixed on the phone as his face turned to stone. He spoke slowly and more deliberately still. “I won’t ask you again, Zane. Who was that on the goddamn phone?”

  “I won’t tell you again, Alex. It was God, so you might want to watch it with the goddamn language. And please try to pay closer attention to this next part, if you can, because it’s my favorite. The whole ugly scene at Joey’s place was recorded for posterity at twenty-four frames per second.” He winked. “And I’ve got it all right here.”

  He waved the phone again.

  Rockwell’s grip tightened on Rutherford’s arm, but then he relaxed and spat out a clipped little laugh. “You see, Zane, this has always been your problem. You never know when to stop. You almost had something there, but you took it too far, and now I know you’re bluffing. There is no way you’ve got footage of anything you’ve just described, so back off, sport. You’re about thirty seconds from a premature inheritance as it is.”

  Zane shrugged and leaned across the top of Ed’s arm. “The clips of you dancing are a little rough to watch, if you want my honest opinion. You never did have Joey’s sense of rhythm, did you?”

  Rockwell took a step forward to lean in and Patience lunged while his balance was off-center. She knocked him aside and the mogul was ensconced behind a wall of suits and weaponry before she’d even hit the floor. Ed turned his gun on Rockwell and Patience’s world turned very still. Then Zane broke from the agents in slow motion as Rockwell spun back in a burst of action and grabbed her up from the tiles. She punched him in the jaw and his head flew back, but he held her tight in front of him as Zane dove between them and the line of fire, spinning back to face Ed with his arms out.

  The skin around the agent’s eyes tightened. “Step aside, Zane. Please don’t make me do this the hard way.”

  Zane shook his head at his hired guardian and turned an exasperated glare back to Rockwell. “Don’t be an idiot, Alex. These men won’t spare Patience if it’ll prevent them from cutting down your murderous ass, but they won’t have a choice if it’s me. I’m standing right here, you deranged dumbfuck. Use your head for one damned minute, and let her go.”

  Patience’s disgust at being captured by Rockwell turned to horror as she registered what Zane was saying. She tried to shove him toward the agents, but couldn’t reach, so she kicked him.

  “Ow.”

  Rutherford pushed toward his son, but the agents pulled him back. “For the love of God, Zane! Don’t be a damned fool.”

  Zane didn’t respond to his father. His eyes were fixed on Ed. The agent wouldn’t turn his sights or his gun from Rockwell, looking for that one clear shot.

  “Ed?”

  “Don’t do this, Zane. Please, son, just step back. We’ll do everything we can for her once you and your father are safe.”

  Zane held the phone up and turned it back over Patience’s shoulder. A tiny Rockwell continued his dance around the screen. The campaign manager flushed a deep crimson and turned the gun on Zane at last.

  “Was that so hard?” Zane pushed Patience aside. “Christ, Alex, get it together. I can’t do everything for you.”

  Patience felt as though she was trapped underwater, staring back at him from the center of the room. The air turned heavy and everything slowed down around her. She hardly noticed as Mason broke rank and grabbed her by the arm. He pulled her back behind him as Rockwell relieved Zane of his revolver and the phone.

  “What the hell is wrong with you people?” she cried. “You’ve got about a thousand guns on the measly psychopath. Can’t one of you get a shot at him?”

  Zane smiled past the agents’ shoulders. She glared back in return. “If they’d had a shot, they’d have taken it, Patience. They’re not the only ones who know what they’re doing, here. Come on, you know this is right. So it’s time to get creative again.” There was something so different about him now. He looked easier in his skin than he had since they’d first heard that Forsyth was dead. Since before then, really. Zane seemed more at ease then he had since he’d pulled the trigger on Rockwell.

  “Our way is harder.” He nodded. “It is what it is.”

  Rockwell kept his back to the wall as he pulled Zane toward the door and Rutherford fought past his men at last.

  “Goddamn it, Zane! What have you done?”

  The mogul remained free of the sea of worsted wool just long enough to catch his son’s eyes. Zane nodded back, his apology set in his face.

  “What needed doing, Dad,” he said. “I’m sorry for all the trouble today.”

  “Don’t do this!”

  Rockwell looked past the agents into the sharp, dark stare of Rutherford Ellison. “If I see even one car I don’t like in the rearview mirror, your son is dead. Keep your men back, Ellison, do you understand me?”

  The mogul nodded, ashen-faced and looking every one of his sixty-eight years for the first time in his life.

 
“That goes double for Pink.” Rockwell flipped the latch of the office door behind him and tapped Zane on the shoulder with his gun. “You’re driving.”

  Zane shrugged. Then he turned to Patience as Rockwell pulled him back through the door. “This is right,” he repeated. “Just do what has to be done, and for the love of God, try not to piss these men off.” Then he winked and mimicked her uncle’s gruffer voice. “I’ll see you on the other side.”

  The door slammed shut and the agents ran forward. They ripped the posters from the windows, but Rockwell was too intimate with the paranoid mind to leave himself so exposed. He used Zane as a shield as he backed into the Bugatti and climbed over the console, pulling his latest Ellison hostage into the car behind him. Zane waved to Patience as he settled into his seat. Then he looked up at his father and then at Ed, and his door slammed shut.

  Patience didn’t even realize Mason still had a hold of her until the Bugatti ignited and sped off down the street. She pulled her arm back and he released it, appearing surprised by that realization as well. She turned away, her mind empty of productive thought until Rutherford Ellison looked at her with an expression that seemed a fair representation of how she felt inside.

  She turned to stare back at the agents all around her, on the move in a flurry of action, with the sole exception of the chief. He still stood at the window and stared down the street with a vacant expression on his face.

  And then Ed O’Brien, the agent who never got angry, punched his fist through the double-paned glass of the campaign office door.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Ed stood in the center of the room, menacing her with his stare as he held his mangled hand in the air between them. He’d allowed Mason to stitch up the worst of the cuts and splint it as he grilled her, but that was the extent of the intervention he’d submitted to, and it was now swollen to the point that it resembled an inflated surgical glove. Beyond keeping it elevated, however, he appeared entirely disinterested in it. Ed’s attention was focused only on finding Zane. His uninjured hand stood sentry at his revolver, and his jaw twitched on occasion. Patience stared back through eyes equally set and narrow. They were two people united by a rigidity of purpose and mutual frustration, and they were each determined to move on despite the other.

  “I will ask you for the last time, Miss Kelleher, where are you and Zane getting your information?”

  She turned her face back to the crowd of capable men, suspended in action as their boss wasted their time and Zane’s. She could appreciate his attempts to wear her down, but she had no patience left for his process.

  “And I will tell you for the last time, Mr. O’Brien, you’re not getting an answer to that question. Just trust that it’s reliable, and consider it a gift, because that’s all I’m telling you tonight. Now, for the love of God, can we please move on?”

  Ed pulled his gun. Mason stepped between them, but he cut him off with a look. “What I trust, Miss Kelleher, is that your interference has just put Zane’s life in danger, and that I’m going to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Those are the only things I trust tonight.”

  Rutherford Ellison pushed between his two highest ranking agents and pulled Patience from their reach. His grip on her forearms was awkward and abrupt, but it wasn’t an aggressive maneuver. It was beseeching.

  “Young lady, do you care for my son?”

  She pulled her arms free of his grasp, more comfortable suddenly, under the threat of Ed’s gun than the plea in the tycoon’s eyes.

  “I love him, Sir. And I need to go now.”

  He nodded and his face returned to a more recognizable version of Rutherford Ellison. “I’m coming with you.”

  He turned and pulled her toward the rear exit as Ed stepped in front of his employer. Rutherford raised a hand and stepped around him.

  “Nothing happens to this girl while Zane is missing, Ed, do you understand me? I don’t give a rat’s ass whether she’s getting her information from God, or from the goddamned Twitter. She knows things and that’s all that matters. I want my son back right now. Let’s go.”

  “I’m sorry, Sir. I can’t let you do that.”

  Rutherford pushed past him again, following as Patience burst into the alley. She looked up at her snoozing hulk of an uncle and choked on the cold air stinging her skin and eyes. The sight of John in the Hummer made her want to cry from some strange and unexpected surge of relief.

  Zane’s father reached for her arm as they approached the truck.

  “I don’t know how to address you.”

  She turned back, startled by the strange plaintiveness of his remark. “My name is Patience, Mr. Ellison. Please call me that. How would you address me if I was any other girl Zane brought home?”

  “I would address you as ‘Miss Kelleher.’ But, something tells me that would irritate you.”

  She just stared and he released her arm.

  “It would,” she said. “And something tells me that you’d mean for it to. I don’t mind that sort of thing from Dick Tracy back there, because he’s obligated by the job to have a stick up his ass. But from you, it’s condescension disguised as courtesy, and that’s a hard thing for a polite person to complain about without coming across like an ass. Of course, I’m often not a polite person in situations like this, so sooner or later we’d wind up with angst and drama, when all Zane was trying to do was introduce his girlfriend to his father.” She slapped her uncle on the shoulder and pulled the Hummer’s door open. “You’re welcome to ride with us if you can make it past your guards, Sir, but this man who nearly got you killed this afternoon is my uncle. He’s the same man who’s going to help me get Zane back now. It’s up to you, but I really think you’d feel more comfortable with your own men.”

  Ed’s good hand came down on Rutherford’s arm. “Please come with me now, Sir. It’s time to go.”

  Rutherford stared back at Patience, then allowed himself to be pulled back toward the awaiting SUVs. She jumped into the driver’s seat and thrust the key into the ignition, catching a glimpse in the rearview mirror of Rutherford Ellison’s haunted expression as she threw the truck into first. She cursed under her breath as a stream of passing cars forced her to a stop at the mouth of the alley. She needed to get out of there. She could only fight on so many fronts.

  A sharp bang came down on the Hummer’s roof and the rear door flew open. A figure dove inside and slammed the door shut behind it.

  “Go.”

  Rutherford slapped his palms against the back door locks, turning back as his agents tried every door. Then one raised an elbow to the glass at the seat next to his.

  “Go!”

  Patience went. A dozen men in dark suits ran behind the Hummer as she cut into traffic. A sedan skidded to a halt behind her and they scattered, then turned as one and sprinted back toward their vehicles with their radios and guns in hand.

  • • •

  John appeared both sober and relieved to see her. Patience reached a hand to his face and turned it to hers. He caught the fury in her eyes and set all questions aside but one.

  “What do you need, kid?”

  She pulled her hand back and held it up for him to see. “They won’t stop shaking, Uncle John. I think I need you to drive now, but that would mean I’d have to trust you. I don’t know what to do. Alexander Rockwell’s taken Zane and I’m useless. I think I might finally be ready to consider that grenade launcher, though.”

  “Kid,” he interrupted, “are you gonna cut me loose and let me take over? Because I’m suddenly feeling like maybe I’m not the parent of most concern in this carpool group, and that’s sort of freaking me out.”

  She pulled Rockwell’s Buck knife from her coat and slid it beneath the knots at the armrest. Then a vision of John, with his rifle raised in Rutherford’s office, flashed before her and she slammed her fist against the truck’s door.

  “Was it something I said?”

  She looked up to Rutherford’s reflection in the mirro
r. His gaze was fixed on the traffic outside and his expression was unreadable. John touched a finger to her hand and said nothing more. Then the phone chimed.

  CUT HIM LOOSE

  She reached over again and sliced his left arm free. John took the blade from her hand and cut his right from the roll bar, then shook the blood back into them with a grin.

  “That’s better, kid. Now, let’s get this show on the road.”

  He stretched a long arm across her and pulled the seat release back. Patience screamed and clung to the wheel as it whipped back and he jumped in behind her. He reached around her for control of the wheel and jammed his feet up under hers and onto the pedals. Patience scrambled over the console to the passenger seat and lay back, gasping for air as she pushed the hair from her face. Then she caught Rutherford’s reflection again. He seemed hardly to have noticed the histrionics at the front of the truck. She closed her eyes and swallowed back some of the adrenaline.

  “Are you sure you’ll be able to do this, Uncle John?”

  “What, you mean this?” He grinned and lifted his bandaged hand from the steering wheel. “I’ve had worse mosquito bites. Don’t you worry about me.”

  “No, I meant will you be able to do this without killing anyone?”

  He was quiet too long and Patience’s gut turned to lead. She covered her face with her hands and turned away. “Oh, Jesus, what have I done?” She grabbed the phone from her lap. “I sure as hell hope You’re more confident about this than Your SCUD seems to be.”

  It chimed back immediately.

  PT ON UR SEAT BLT

  A pain shot through her like a drill bit, and then she heard another chime.

  AND WULD U PLS TRY 2 HAVE SUM FAITH?

  “No!” She glared up toward the sky. “What I need, Biz, is information. You said to untie him, so I assumed that You were confident that he’d come around. But he hasn’t come around to a damn thing, has he? This is like the ‘time-out’ all over again.”