In the Land of Milk and Honey

by Nell E S Douglas

  “Stay present, Hunter,” he said low, balling his fist in his lap.

  The two guards left their posts at the door and headed towards me. Danny’s guards stood on either side of his chair and grabbed the top of his arms. I guess Hawk wanted him to watch me gettin’ my ass beat. Money just doesn’t buy hospitality these days. In the end, it was six against two. They dumped me out at the airport with my bag they’d collected from my hotel, and the last image I had of Danny was the best I’d seen of him in a while. Team Captain, cage-rattler, honorary McBride, and all-around one credibly bad mofo. He was pounding a man’s face into the designer wood floor right up until they quit twirlin’ their batons to the body and zapped him in the temple.

  I found out Hawk’s security team had found him early the next morning after he left in my coat, before he made it back to my place. Danny was only a block away when they got him.

  I imagined Danny 2.0 had showed back up at that gal’s life like a returning dignitary swooping down for his intended. He probably put her on a pedestal first, then in a glass case, then tried stuffing her his glove box. For all this time she’d been a mirage for the man, an idealistic pursuit, not to mention spank bank material. She didn’t go for that. In fact I’d seldom met a woman in Danny’s acquaintance less shepherded by him than this gal, and never one in his sights able to run as hard as she. I found that partly thrilling. Statistically possible but still a whimsy. Daniel was finding zero thrill in the chase. He never had. He only knew quick take-downs. Prolonged enjoyment. When she got too far, he simply kicked her pedestal from under her. She kept getting bigger, quicker, though. I didn’t look at my wrist, but I thought about the faded cut line. He really botched it up with that. No matter how he approached her, he’d failed.

  Since Hawk got him, he had too many sous chefs in his kitchen. In fact, I had laid back in the cut after reunited with Danny. I went there after visiting that gal and her sister. Danny was knotted and ‘botted. I didn’t trust him. He was still a beast, but you could practically see all the strings dug into him and around him. He had as much security as he’d had in Reykjavik, just in better outfits. And I could guess whose suggestion that was. And Kate. Hot, smart, and hiding. A talisman of humility to the upper echelon, offering a philanthropic slant from a close-but-no-dice neglected upper-middle. She’d walk a pile of refugee bodies to achieve the next caste, though, without a glance down. For all the torment Danny had rained down on his gal, it had done one thing time hadn’t. It had returned Danny to himself and severed him from Hawk, once and for all. It had cut him in other ways, too.

  “If you’re already on to doing something dumb, execute. You know what I mean.”

  “I don’t think I do,” he said.

  “So you miscalculated. You know, in the storybooks spells go wrong when they bumble up the brew. You’ve already reengaged whatever this is. Hawk’s confiscating your company because you gave up the win. He’s got your granddaddy’s shares you signed off to get out, froze your euro accounts, and damn near took back your name. You ain’t got a drop left to lose. Don’t stop now. By all means. More newt brains.”

  “I cracked every newt skull within reach, and without. Those are issues. I can think my way around them, out of them, possibly, but the underlying problem still exists.”

  “Get her a pony, then.”

  “You’ll have a morning chat show in no time with such advice.”

  “Fuck, that’s a good point. How about don’t ask me so I don’t have to embarrass myself talking about it.”

  “The day you don’t have an analysis at the ready is the day Dubai snows falcon’s shit. I’m touched by your concern, but I have fucked the situation so magnificently it’s unrecognizable to me. Just as I am to her. It’s done. He is back where he belongs,” he said, way out past any buoys. Self-aware, he began again. “My misery must be more diverting than your explorations elsewhere. You wouldn’t be returning if it weren’t.”

  “The city is back to being a mad hatter’s dinner show. I like it. I like her sister, too. She beds like there is a camera rolling, though. I did a sweep of her room to be sure she’s not running cameras.”

  “That’s paranoia. She’s harmless.”

  “No, she’s a gymnast with a fetish for extras. Maybe to the first thing, not to the second.”

  “I’ve known you to remain tuned into a woman in spite of more. The Aussie pop singer who called you by cowboy daddy. That club dancer in Quebec who tattooed you in your sleep.”

  “Every girl since who’s seen my buttock asks who Ming is. Can’t bring myself to part with it. I don’t remember much else, besides she had phenomenal breasts. A-1. Variety spices up the days.”

  “Kindly avoid exacerbating things while you’re busy getting shagged. I’m sure their camp could do without any additional complications.”

  “I don’t see that on the horizon. She loves the bone, but she’s got her feelings in check. We’re only passing time, her bouncing around on me like a bunny on acid.”

  “That’s fitting. A high-fashion bunny and the Beverly Hick.”

  “What can I say? I’m irresistible,” I replied. “So what about your gal there? Must’a been some reunion, while it lasted. Not sure what I was picturing, seein’ as you don’t say much.”

  I was wrong the night in that alley. That didn’t sit right, either. Not since he’d seen the picture in the news alert. Danny in the bigger frame lookin’ like the fella he never wanted to be and then a woman, in black and white. Error, I knew. I’d closed the browser window and booked passage to the city he’d written off. I met her there at her place, letting go of Danny’s failings to get her down on paper, waylaying his failure for his part, too, meeting eyes big and pretty, and throwin’ off silver. A picture of a kid that looked like Danny hanging on the wall.

  I continued eloquently conversation-like. “She’s fit. How was the sex?”

  Daniel kept his eyes out over the steering wheel. He gassed, gunning it through a weave of traffic. On the other side of it, settled back. I stared, knowing if you stare at someone long enough, you’ll get a reaction and, eventually, what you want out of ‘em. Danny had clearly gone frosty. He used to be a lot more fun.

  “Mm. Quoth the Raven ‘Nevermore,’” I recited. Mmm. “She was in the house when you sent me lookin’.”

  “Come again?”

  “It was after dark, she was there. I think she was sleeping on a little cot in the back. She looked real different. Anyone that saw her would have assumed she was….She didn’t look anything like now. And I’m guessing she didn’t look much like that when you met her. I saw the baby in her belly and I’ll tell you today, plain, I was sure it wasn’t your girl,” I said, telling the story I had determined upon reacquainting with Danny would go with me in a wood box to the Texas hardpan. Against Danny’s stubbornness, it had me reconsider my way in the matter. Like how sometimes women think a heap of makeup is a good idea, then they meet one with too much makeup and see how it really looks, on someone else…so they go home and wash their face.

  “Does she recognize you?” he asked impatiently.

  “No.”

  “You were wrong,” he said, three words that, regardless of tone, were a biting indictment. He swallowed thickly. “I think I know, but tell me anyway.”

  “She cut me. So I pinned her up. Well, then, her little blanket fell open, she wasn’t in my jacket, so I backed off. I told her to go get help, for the child’s sake. That I did say. Look I did what you asked.” Danny looked unwell.

  “Hunter, I love you like a brother. You’re one of two people alive I can say that to. You should get out.”

  I raised my eyebrows and turned to him as the car stopped. His knuckles on the gear shift were locked but weren’t getting white, and that was bad. His grip on the steering wheel wasn’t, either. He was gathering, like he did out on the playing field in the rare times he got himself yellow carded the hell out. He was missing the joy. It was filled with another thing that ran much dee
per. This is why you stick to sandbars, I reminded myself. “I can’t be sorry for gettin’ it false. That’s not on me.”

  “It won’t occur to you that you were in a position to help, anyway,” he said. “She was with child, which so happens to be mine,” he intoned, ready to whistle.

  “Mm, I didn’t stick a bill in her teeth, like you think you woulda. That sounds awful mighty. You’re not far enough from my worldview to judge it. I maintain a code and I can live with that. You tried to steal that gal’s baby. She was the one living on Skid Row, defendin’ it, with nothing but a pocket knife. Now, you had a hard few years, I grant you, but you’ve been ridin’ high since. You made your deal. You left it history. And you’re living off the gains. If you can’t move on, fine, do what needs to be done. Sweep her off her feet. Fight for her. But that’s not what you did. We don’t make someone else pay the price for us comin’ up short, manipulating our expense to nothing,” I said, talkin’ sense to him. I didn’t care if he was mad. “Used to ask the world to heel. Nothing wrong with a man wanting that. Now, you force it to kneel. The Danny I knew wouldn’t have shared a room with that.”

  “Fuck, you talk.” He glared. “If I look like someone still in denial, you’ve lost touch. Dodging responsibility on your little island. I have changed world economies. I could’ve woken you to a nightmare while I cut your American dollars in half, while you fish, and fuck, spending fortune on whims. If something gets on its knees for you, you take off the belt. I don’t need cute dating advice, either. It cost me billions, and I have only one dread since she spoke down from where I tied her and that is she returns to see what I’ve done,” he said. “Try that on in your analysis box. Now get out of the fucking car.”

  “Can’t believe I delivered a stuffed bear for you.” I swung the door shut. Go on, then, ya hardheaded dumbass. I looked back when I heard him growl from the window.

  “She wasn’t some girl, Hunter.” His face contorted in pain and rage. “She is my fucking wife!”

  My mouth fell full open. I stepped back to the truck but his head snapped forward and he peeled off before I reached the doorhandle.

  I didn’t plan to impart that much insight into the matter nor did I know where he’d put all that energy summoned, all that truth, but it needed doing. I was tired of looking at a checked-out shut-in anyway. Again. And it looked like he had a bigger problem than anyone’d realized.

  His fuckin wife!

  Way to shit the bed. Stay present, brother.

  Chapter 27 - Nothing that Fragile

  Gabrielle

  The next day after dropping off Tristan at school, I took a cab from West Village to Manhattan.

  I walked up familiar stone stairs, my foot landing determinedly each time, and knocked. I was expecting Jeeves, but Daniel opened the door. Or rather, he cracked it, and I stepped in. He took me in standing on the doorstep as though I was a ghost and then beyond me, finally relenting, he turned leaving me in the open doorway. I had expected resistance, so I quickly let myself in and closed the door. As I followed him, I took in my surroundings. It was dark. All the curtains were drawn in the front rooms. No lights were on. Some of the lithographs that had lined the hall were gone, the dark sitting room was missing several integral pieces, like a couch. Redecorating, I reasoned, but I was secretly thinking Kate must have cleaned the place out in her departure. The craftsman in me was slightly bitter. The Remington, done in solid bronze, of the scales of justice was missing from the foyer; but then—alarmingly—I spotted it. As I passed the cavernous dining room, it was crashed through the center of the dining table like a shipwreck, sideways in a nest of splinters. I kept my eyes on the triangular back of the black shirt ahead.

  At the rear of the mansion, past an updated kitchen, was a study I’d never been to before. It was a small room, trimmed in dark-stained oak and a beamed-slanted ceiling with a multiple triptychs of mutton windows overlooking a small garden—the one from Tristan’s drawings. The room was an addition, I realized, but an old one, looking more as though the house had been added to it. The room seemed intact as Daniel made himself a drink at a small bar and occupied the only other seat in the room besides the desk chair, a large comfortable-looking leather arm chair. He crossed one slacked ankle over a knee and took a sip of the drink. I noticed he was missing socks. I felt unsettled, like I was in a fun house or an alternate universe. Daniel was here, polished as ever, but it was all slightly off-kilter. His face was hollow, his eyes dim, and the space around us as I walked through struck me as a staged atmosphere, thick with an air of distortion, a house holding secrets, and they were barely contained, much like the owner. As I studied him, I knew my face held clinical alarm, so I cleared myself. My shoulder rolled like a prize fighter, trying to expel the bad mojo. He didn’t seem to paying me any attention, though.

  “We haven’t seen you in a while,” I stated. “Tristan asks about you still. He’d like to see you.”

  Finally, faintly curious, he asked, “Why would you allow that?”

  “Because you’re his dad,” I explained, trying to sound neutral.

  He caught a piece of ice in his jaw and worked at it, less in arrogance than in delay. “And you think he would benefit from my company?” he asked, mastering the tone I was after.

  “No. But I think you could benefit from his,” I replied a little tartly. Being in this room with him made my skin itch with the need to flee, but I fought it. He was quiet. Prepared to dig in, I made my position known by leaning against the edge of the desk. Underneath me the top of the heavy wood desk groaned and slid a few inches, dovetail joints had snapped clean, completely unfixed to its body. Then I knew the sparkly fragments I’d seen sporadically throughout the house—just beyond reach of a broom—were not some new kind of chunky party glitter. Broken glass, snapped furniture—the house was a soundstage concealing a natural disaster.

  He had the grace to look down into his tumbler but seemed otherwise disinterested.

  “Why did you do this?” I asked, righting myself.

  He replied simply, “Do what?”

  I’d had it. I said, “Everything. Everything that you’ve done.” He smiled, and I knew he wasn’t going to answer.

  “Gabrielle, Gabrielle,” he stared at me not breaking contact and chanted my name. Despite his tone, his eyes held no ridicule.

  “I am a good mom,” I defended, jutting my chin. He rested the tumbler on the leather arm of the chair, a pregnant bead of condensation rolling down the crystal, a wet ring pooling on worn caramel.

  “I know,” he said with frustrating softness—reminding me I had nothing to prove.

  “Then why did you do this to us? Why did you try to take him?” I pressed with force.

  He sighed, reanimating himself. “Because he loved me,” he revealed flatly. “The albums you gave me. That was the night he said those words to me. You offered much, but he offered me more. I meant to keep it.”

  “All for yourself.” I mashed my teeth together. So it wasn’t ultimately misplaced concern for Tristan’s welfare, or making up for lost time, or even to gain romantic leverage over me, an idea I’d entertained in darker moments. Of all the possible things he could have said, this seemed the worst. “That is the most selfish motive I’ve ever heard.”

  He was unruffled, disagreeing tiredly. “No, it came at great cost to me.”

  “Oh, a great cost to you? Well don’t do me any favors,” I retorted.

  “It would have been worth it, so sleep well tonight knowing I haven’t.”

  “I do, despite all you tried to rob from me. And how do you sleep at night? How do you live with all that you’ve inflicted on us?” He met my eye, but there was nothing there, and I could see he was just barely doing that. His jaw gently rocked on its axis before looking away; into the garden. Sleepless most definitely, haunted more aptly. Sedately, I asked, “Then why did you give him back?”

  He seemed to shift more deeply into the seat. “It would have been a pyrrhic victory,” he
answered incompletely, his attention drawn to the drink in his hand.

  Did you think he would stop caring for you if you took him from me?” I asked, in shock. If he’d won Tristan, the damage he’d done to the people Tristan loved would have eventually created a wedge. Tristan didn’t understand now, but he was young…and in time, there would be questions. I could hardly conceal my disbelief. Yes, he had nearly burned down everyone my son held dear—but he didn’t get it. Much to my chagrin and despite all reason, Tristan’s love for him was limitless.

  His lip tinged with annoyance. “Are you here to remind me of what is no longer mine?” he accused flatly. “A wasted trip.”

  “You have plenty,” I reminded, irritably.

  His head snapped up. “I’ve lost all,” he leveled, ending the debate. Until then, his heart hadn’t been in anything he said. His voice lacked energy, cool fire of seduction and manipulation; the steady inferno I’d seen in both wrath and lust, the burner was simply off. He looked wearied, like a man who’d traveled a long road only to reach a destination no longer worth the journey. I refused to feel sorry about it.

  “You haven’t lost him,” I said, confined to honesty.

  “Not yet.” He answered, looking into his glass as if it were a crystal ball.

  “Daniel, I can’t believe I’m standing here trying to convince you to crawl out of whatever funk you’re in and come see your child. I can’t believe I’m here at all. I should be tying a block to your leg and pushing you into the river. I should be having a cold beer at your wake. So please don’t make me second guess this any more than I already do.”

  He raised a brow doubtfully, repeating dryly, “Beer?”, as if this fact alone negated my entire statement. But he was right; I disliked beer. I knew I’d never told him that.

  “Who are you?” I asked, incredulously. Although I didn’t conceal the truth of the question behind my penetrating gaze, and he seemed to be nearing pushing to an edge; the burner flickered—then died.

  Ice clinked as he drained the last of the scotch from his tumbler. He brought down the glass, remarking dryly, “I thought you could answer that.”