Abandoned sb-4

by Cody McFadyen

  “Tommy,” I say. “Did you just use profanity?”

  His eyes swim toward me, here yet not here, happy and disbelieving at the same time. “Did I?” he asks. He stands up, the chair sliding back on the wood floor. He walks over to us and he takes us both in his arms, Bonnie and me, equally.

  “I love you both very much.” His voice is rough, like unsanded wood. He hugs us to him with certainty and tenderness, that mix of sorrowful strength all good men seem to carry around with them.

  “This is great news.”

  Tommy, my man of few words. Sometimes shorter is not just better. Sometimes it’s the best of all.

  “Listen to me, honey,” I tell Bonnie. “This is important.”

  “Okay.”

  “The first thing you need to know is, the moment you stop really listening to me, the moment you put your attention on automatic or start acting like you know everything or get impatient with my direction in the slightest way, we pack up and leave. Got that?”

  “Yes.”

  Bonnie and I are at the shooting range. Raymond, Kirby’s undertaker friend, sits outside in the parking lot, watching and waiting. He reminds me of a frog. Perched, quiet and harmless, until a fly buzzes by, then the fly is consumed and quiet harmlessness resumes.

  We’d gotten past our tears and happiness. Well, maybe not past the happiness, but at least the giddy side of it. Tommy is at home, searching the Internet for a book on pregnancy and childbirth. I considered trying to dissuade him but gave it up in the end because, in truth, I like that he’s doing it. This isn’t going to be the walk in the park it was when I was in my twenties. The thought of Tommy boning up on the subject brings me comfort.

  Bonnie and I had already made our appointment for the range tonight, and there’s no way I’m breaking it because of my announcement. I’ve never had to juggle two kids, but something tells me it would be a bad precedent to set.

  I’ve been shooting at this range in the Valley since I can remember. Its owner, Jazz, is an ex-marine sniper with eyes that are warm up front but cold in the back. He doesn’t have to let me bring Bonnie here, but he’s made no bones about it. I guess he approves of her teething on gunmetal.

  Bonnie has big hands for her age, and they’re strong, so I’ve decided to start her with a 9mm. We’ll work our way down from there as needed. Jazz rents guns at his range, and I chose the Sig Sauer P226 for her to begin with. It’s a 9mm that’s somehow always felt light and comfortable to me, and it’s an accurate weapon. I prefer the Glock, but mostly because it’s the gun that found me first. Jazz set us up with a ten-round-capacity mag, one hundred rounds of ammunition, some paper targets, and our eye protection and earmuffs.

  “Earmuffs go on before we enter the range,” I continue. “They never come off while we’re on the range. You could go deaf, no joke. Protective lenses stay on at all times while you’re on the range, without exception.”

  She nods, and I’m mollified by the rapt seriousness on her face. It’s apropos. I pick up the gun.

  “This is a double-action weapon. What that means is that you don’t have to pull back the hammer prior to firing. Just pulling the trigger will cause it to fire. Not only for that reason but especially because of it, you are never—and I mean never—to have the weapon pointed anywhere but down the firing range when it is loaded. You are never—and I mean never—to point the weapon at anyone, including your own foot, regardless of whether you think it’s loaded or not. Do you understand so far?”

  “Yes.”

  “You are to eject the mag and place the weapon down each time you finish firing.”

  “How do I put in and eject the mag?”

  I look at Jazz and raise my eyebrows, asking permission. It’s a firm rule that you never walk off the range with a mag in your weapon. I was here when someone forgot this rule, and I watched as Jazz held a .357 on them and asked them to lie down on the floor. No one got shot, but it made an impression on me.

  “Go ahead,” he says, watching it all with a passive interest.

  I show her, sliding the empty mag home and then releasing it. “Got it?”

  “Can I try?”

  I hand her the weapon and watch as she examines it carefully, along with the mag. She takes her time, not putting on a show of pretending to understand how it all works. “What’s this?” she asks, pointing at the decocking lever.

  “Kind of like a safety.”

  “No,” Jazz says. “It’s a decocking lever. Not a safety. Apples and oranges.”

  He’s right, of course. I’d been trying to dumb it down for Bonnie, to keep it simple, but the old rule is always the best rule when it comes to guns: If you’re not smart enough to understand your weapon, you’re not smart enough to use it safely.

  “Many handguns have what’s called a safety, honey, that you can put on manually. The P226 has a decocking lever, which lowers the hammer of the gun safely. That way, when you travel, you don’t have to worry about the hammer coming down by accident for any reason. But,” I continue, emphasizing this last, “it also means that this gun is basically always ready to fire.”

  “Decocking lever,” she repeats, nodding. “How do I engage it?”

  Jazz raises an eyebrow and smiles. “Engage. Good word.”

  I show her. She practices it a few times. “I got it.”

  “Okay, so load the magazine.”

  It takes her a moment, as she’s going slow and is observing everything as she does it.

  “Good. Now, use your thumb to pull down on the slide catch lever. Here, honey,” I say, pointing it out to her.

  She does, and the slide snaps forward into the battery. “Like that?”

  “Yep. There you go. If the magazine was full, your weapon would be loaded and ready to fire.”

  Bonnie pulls the trigger back, and I hear the click as the hammer hits home. I grab the gun away from her.

  “Never fire a weapon off the range, loaded or not!” I snap at her.

  She’s surprised at my anger but doesn’t quail the way I’d like. Jazz sees this and walks from behind the counter. He comes over to Bonnie and stands above her, looking down at her. Jazz is not a big man, but he personifies intimidation. There is a calm and quiet coldness that surrounds him. Bonnie’s mouth falls open as she looks up into his dead-fish eyes.

  “You ever do that again in my shop and you’re going to be in a lot of trouble,” he says, full of patient threat. “You understand?” She gulps, swallows. “Yes,” she manages. “Yes, what?” he asks. “Yes, sir.”

  He nods. “Good.” He ambles back over to his side of the counter. “Now, the two of you get on the range and leave me alone.”

  Bonnie and I put on our protective lenses and head toward the double doors that lead to the indoor range.

  “Put your earmuffs on,” I tell her before opening the first door. She hesitates. “He’s scary.”

  “A little, yes.”

  She glances back at Jazz, who’s writing something on a stack of receipts. “He’s killed people,” she says. “I can tell.” She slips on her earmuffs and gives me a beaming smile before I can think of anything pithy to say to this. “Can we go and shoot now?”

  We’re riding home in the dark that’s never really “the dark” in Los Angeles. There’s too much ambient light from all the megawatts we throw around in this city for that. Darkness here comes in pools, little islands of blackness where the monsters hide and where all the bad things happen. Women get raped in the spaces where the streetlamps don’t reach; their bodies get left in the night shade of trees, with perhaps a naked foot poking out to be silvered by the moon.

  Bonnie wasn’t a natural, but she did just fine. The loudness of shooting a handgun surprised her at first, which is a common reaction. Her eyes went wide and she nearly dropped it. She caught me watching and pulled herself together, determined to show no fear. One hundred rounds later, she was getting very comfortable with the whole process. Her fingers weren’t strong enough yet to load a fu
ll magazine, but that will come in time. Her accuracy was so-so. Jazz brought in a step stool for her to stand on, to make her more even with the target, and that helped.

  She asked me to shoot a little before we left. I had brought my Glock with me, and I took it out of its case and obliged. She watched as the target disappeared to the end of the lane.

  “You can really hit it that far out?” she asked.

  “Uh-huh. Watch.”

  I never think much about shooting, and I never have, not after my first thousand rounds or so. It’s something that comes best naturally, like walking or breathing. The more I think about it, the less accurate I become. I keep it instinctive now.

  I like to draw and shoot, not as an Old West emulation but because that’s often the truth of things. I stood facing the target, heart rate slow, relaxed, hands at my sides. My right fingers danced in their dangle, getting ready. Then I pulled my weapon and fired, eight shots, not the full mag, rapid-fire.

  “One shot per second on the range, please,” Jazz’s voice said, coming over the loudspeaker.

  I gave Bonnie a wink and a grin. I pushed the button to bring the target forward and was satisfied at the tight grouping. All center mass.

  “Wow!” Bonnie said, goggle-eyed. “Do you think I’ll ever be that good?”

  “It’s possible. With practice.”

  I’d shot a few more times, and then it had been time to leave. “That was fun, Mama-Smoky,” she says to me. “How often can we go?”

  “Every other week, like I promised, as long as you keep your end of the deal. If I’m away, Tommy can take you too.”

  “I want to practice a lot. It’s important.”

  She lapses into silence, and I sneak a glance at her. The determination I see in her face, as it goes from shadow to light to shadow to light, is as uplifting as it is disturbing. It makes me question again my decision to help her walk on this path.

  “She’ll walk it with you or without you,” Tommy had said to me. “With you is better, I think.”

  I hope he’s right, but who knows? Bonnie catches me looking at her and gives me a big smile.

  “Thanks for doing it. I know you’re really busy right now.”

  “You get my time when I have it, honey, always. Even when the new baby comes.”

  “I’m not worried.”

  “That’s important to me, babe. I love you. I don’t want you ever thinking you’re second fiddle for me.”

  “It’d be pretty selfish of me not to be happy you get to have another baby, Mama-Smoky. I know you love me. I love you too. Actually, I’m pretty excited about it.”

  “You are?”

  “I always wanted a younger brother or sister.”

  “Me too,” I admit. “Which do you hope for more: a brother or a sister?”

  “A brother,” she replies without hesitation.

  “Me too.” I laugh. “I don’t know why.”

  “Little boys are cute.”

  “Let’s hope.”

  She fiddles with her lower lip, thinking. “We’re turning into a real family now, aren’t we? You and Tommy are married, a baby on the way. Wow.”

  Wow, indeed. I decide it’s time to spring my other surprise on her. “Honey, Tommy wanted me to ask you something.”

  “What?”

  “He’d like to formally adopt you. He’s been thinking about it for a while, now, but we needed to get married first.”

  She stares at me, blinking. Once, twice, three times. “He … he wants to be my father?”

  “Very much. But only if you’re comfortable with that.”

  “Comfortable? Is he joking? That’d be awesome! I’ve never had a dad.”

  Bonnie’s biological father was a flake. He’d left Annie in the lurch and died a few years later in a car accident.

  “You tell him when we get home, then, honey. It’ll make him so happy.”

  “Really? It will?”

  I reach over and caress her chin with my hand. “Of course it will. He’s never been a dad either.”

  Tommy and I are lying in bed, drifting, not so much toward sleep as simply drifting, two lovers in a rowboat, floating on a windless lake. My cheek is against his chest, while my hand lies farther down, nestled against his penis—for comfort, not for sex. His eyes are half lidded, but I know he’s awake.

  “She was genuinely happy about me adopting her,” he murmurs.

  “I think ecstatic is the word.”

  Silence.

  “Never thought a child would be so happy to have me as a father.”

  I lift my cheek onto my hand so I can see his face. “Seriously?”

  “I don’t mean it like that. It’s not that I thought of myself as unworthy or anything. It’s just … to have her not only say yes but to be so happy about it …” He sighs. “I can’t explain it.”

  I smile and lie my head back on his chest. “I think I understand.”

  “I did a lot of reading tonight about babies,” he says. “Ordered some books.” He clears his throat, perhaps a little self-conscious. “I want to understand everything.”

  “The books help. Up to the birth. After that, we’re on our own.”

  “I don’t care if it’s a boy or a girl, by the way.”

  My hand pauses in its slow caress of his lower belly. “Really?”

  “Yep. I know most guys want a son, and that would be fine, but I honestly don’t care. I just want a healthy child that we raise together.”

  “I’m afraid we’re going to get punished for being too happy.” I don’t mean to say it. The words come of their own accord.

  He strokes my hair. “I understand.”

  I snuggle into him, finding comfort in him speaking those two simple words and no others. He didn’t try to reassure me or pooh-pooh my fears.

  We drift again, and I feel him slip away. Tommy usually falls asleep before I do, just as he wakes before I wake. His breathing is slow and steady, and I feel the reassuring beat of his heart against my ear.

  I reach down and run a hand over my belly.

  Are you in there, whoever you are? No arms, no legs, just a lump of cells, I guess, but I’m going to talk to you a little, anyway. I want you to know that I’m going to take care of you. I’m not going to let anyone hurt you or take you away from me. I have a new rule, baby. Do you want to know what it is?

  My stomach gurgles, and I take this as an acquiescence.

  Anyone who comes after me or my family personally? They don’t get to go to jail after doing that. Not anymore. The price for that is death, pure and simple. Okay, baby?

  No gurgle this time, but that’s okay, because I’m drifting differently now too. My eyes are heavy, and I close them and drift off, one hand on the place where my child grows, the other on the man who helped to make it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  “I’ve set up some software that lets you log in to our computer,” Leo says. “You’ll be able to watch what we’re doing as though you were the user. That’s how you can follow along with the chats and so on. I’ve also got a webcam on so we can talk over the microphone.”

  Leo and Alan have taken their places in “Robert Long’s” apartment. Marjorie is ensconced in the house as Cynthia.

  “Cynthia’s not working yet,” Callie had briefed us. “Since we needed the cover-up and running so quickly, I decided that we would go a similar direction with the ex-Mrs. Long as we did with Robert. She’s trying to decide what to do with her life. In the meantime, she’ll go to the gym, get her hair done, read, all those activities the well-kept woman engages in.”

  I peer at the image on my own computer. “It’s like being right there,” I say, impressed.

  “This technology has come a long way,” Leo agrees. “You should be able to read everything as we type it. I’ll be keeping logs as well, so you can catch up on anything you miss, as needed.”

  “Have you registered with the website yet?” I ask.

  Alan’s voice comes through the microp
hone. It’s odd to be having conversations while staring at a monitor. “Yep: Hurting2105. Hurting 1 through 2104 were taken.”

  “That’s a lot of pain.”

  “Or whining,” Alan says. “Anyway, we’re ready to get started.”

  “Go ahead.”

  Law-enforcement undercover work is not that exciting, unless you’re a narcotics officer. Most of it is not about the moment of the criminal act but the day-to-day living that surrounds your cover identity. You have to eat, and sleep, and make bank deposits, and pay bills. You have to see movies and decide between popcorn and licorice. You have to buy toilet paper. All of it done under the assumption that every move you make is being watched. You play your part and hope that the moment of action comes.

  I watch as Leo surfs to the beamanagain website.

  “Should I log in to chat?” he asks.

  “Take it slow,” Alan counsels. “Let’s see what’s happening on the forums first. What’s the hot topic of the day?”

  Leo navigates to the General Discussion section of the forums. “This is a new one,” he says.

  I lean forward, squinting a little to read what he’s talking about.

  “You’ll need to use the software connection if you want to follow the chat,” Leo says. “But you should just read the forums yourself, in your own browser, since everyone reads at different speeds.”

  “Good point,” I allow.

  I open the other browser window and get myself onto the website. I navigate to the forum. The top posting Leo had pointed out is entitled More housework, better sex?

  “That sounds interesting,” I murmur.

  I click on the topic and begin to read.

  A recent study found that when men and women feel the housework is divided evenly, the couple’s sex life is better. The study noted that it wasn’t important that the housework was factually divided evenly. Only that the parties involved felt that it was. Discuss.

  The next posting:

  PUH-leeeze. Who did that study? A woman, right?

  LOL.

  The next, from the poster who started the thread: