Misunderstood

by Jay Sherfey

  “I know but what could we do? Next month doesn’t look much better.” Frank started to pace.

  “If I was you, I would leave for awhile.” Sly opened the bag Frank handed to him earlier and counted the cash and small bags of prescription pills. “I’ll try and put in a good word after all these years of good business but…it may not go too far. Deal’s, a deal.”

  “Thanks. Anything you can do, since there’s no leavin’ for us.” Frank turned and headed back to the main entrance. Sly walked to the parking lot. Jason wondered what “not happy” meant. Who was not happy?

  Suzy tugged on Jason’s arm. With a great whoosh, like a vacuum, he was sucked back into his seat next to Suzy.

  “Where were you? Russ’s team just took the lead.” She was annoyed. “You missed it.”

  “Frank’s in some sort of trouble.” Jason rubbed his eyes. He found it hard to focus. “Lydia too, probably, which means we all are.” His sudden departure down the tunnel with an equally unexpected return left Jason queasy. It took several minutes for the effect to go away.

  “C’mon. Get up,” insisted Suzy. “You can tell me later.”

  A jubilant Russ and the big kid jumped up and down. His third teammate crossed the plate. They gave him a big hug. Jason clapped and cheered along with everyone else.

  Later that night Jason lay awake on his cot in the tool shed. The whole gang except Frank, who stole away to the house, celebrated the Rocket win at the local diner after the game. Russ’s father agreed to get Jason, Suzy, and Rachel home when Frank begged off.

  Jason smiled; he remembered the laughter and the food. He ate too much and felt like a two pound sausage in a one pound casing. His notebook lay open across his chest. The list of things about which he knew little grew ever longer.

  I can reach much further now. I have no idea how. Maybe total concentration?

  Peg and Patti, Russ’s mother and younger sister. I’m not the only one.

  Thoughts and pictures swirled in his mind, as he drifted off. He worried about coming trouble. Suzy never got the chance to talk with him about Frank. He closed his notebook and placed it on the floor beneath the cot. Tired, Jason stopped fretting about what was outside of his control. His brain calmed further like ripples in a pool left undisturbed. Little by little he became unaware and slept.

  * * *

  The word on the street among the drug dealers spread like wildfire. Dubois failed again to come up with the drugs or enough cash. Sly took the call at his desk late Tuesday night.

  “Don’t say a word.” Sly knew better than to argue. The man on the other end of the phone meant business. “It will happen soon. Maybe no one gets hurt…bad, but maybe bad things happen to people who don’t deliver. It’s not the money. It’s the principle.”

  “OK.” Sly shook his head. He hoped none of the kids got in the way.

  “You warn these sorry-ass people and you will be on the list, as well.” The man hung up.

  Sly laid the receiver down. There was nothing he could do or would do. He warned Lydia and Frank that things looked shaky. The lack of promised profitability was an issue for the mob. Frank took this warning seriously. Sly frowned on Frank’s noble nature but now saw him as a reasonable guy. Frank wanted to bail, as Sly advised. He sat forward at his desk and started to tap a pencil on the blotter. He stared at the phone. Should I?

  “Just pay off these guys,” Frank had said last December. Lydia glared at him; her foot tapped. She claimed she had a new kid on the line. He would bring in a new type of drug worth loads. She wanted the deal. Damn near took off Frank’s head in front of Sly when he disagreed. It was clear who ruled in that house.

  “You wanted it,” Sly whispered. “You got it.” He dropped the pencil and turned off the light on his desk. “To hell with ya.”

  Chapter 6

  An older, distinguished looking man with thinning, gray streaked, brown hair relaxed on a foldout, wooden, deck chair. He lounged, eyes closed, legs crossed, and enjoyed the early spring weather, as if he vacationed on an ocean going liner. His hat, a fedora, which he usually wore at a rakish angle, rested on his knee. An expensive gray overcoat draped over his shoulders. The three piece suit beneath confirmed his wealth and the gold watch chain that linked the pockets of his vest. The man’s costume was not an oddity given his location. He took his leisure beside the concrete steps of the Morgan Guaranty Trust offices in New York City where Broad Street and Wall Street met. He faced the New York Stock Exchange while over his right shoulder across Wall Street the bronze statue of the first U.S. President looked out on the ever changing city.

  Near noontime the heavy traffic both on foot, brokers off to power lunches, and automotive, trucks making deliveries further uptown and down, passed the gentleman without notice. The grandfathers of some of the scurrying men might recall an odd, old man comfortably decked out near the exchange in the 1920s and earlier. Rodney Davenport grinned at the thought. His smile faded; he concentrated.

  “C’mon, norman,” he whispered. “C’mon. Give me something.” A powerful telepath, Rodney weaved in and out of the minds of the Wall Street movers and shakers. Everyone without psychic ability was norman. Timing was everything. The scheming, the trickery, had to be at the front of the brain to be useful. He found it. His minions, who waited on the trading floor, received his orders, and sprang into action. They bought. They sold. A mountain of money would be made today.

  With his goal achieved Rodney relaxed until a shadow fell upon him. He ignored it; a norman became aware of him while his focus was elsewhere.

  “Rod, we need to talk,” said a young woman. Rodney opened one eye, glaring at this annoyance. She wore denim jeans and a brown, bomber jacket. Her shoulder length chestnut hair was caught up in a white, knit beret. “We have a situation and it looks…”

  Rodney raised his hand, stopping her from uttering another word. He opened both eyes and stood. He pushed his arms into his overcoat and reached down to collect the deck chair. It folded conveniently into his grasp. A black limousine appeared at the curb next to them. The driver dashed around the front, took the chair from Rodney, and stowed it in the trunk. He then held the door open, as Rodney and his companion got in. In seconds he was behind the wheel and the limo joined the northbound traffic. They headed for Rodney’s office in the Empire State Building.

  “Never,” said Rodney through gritted teeth. He stared out of his window at the passing scene. “Never give norman an opportunity to overhear our business.” He was furious at such a stupid lack of security.

  “I know that, but…” she sat forward and glared back at him determined to make the financial leader of all the U.S. Communities understand. Rodney felt her pull in his mind and allowed it. He turned to face her. “A search and destroy action may be necessary.”

  “I see.” He did not believe it. “Are you sure, Samantha?” It had been more than a decade since the last kill mission. Mistakes had been made in the past. It caused senseless mayhem.

  “Activity has been detected.” Samantha Black sat back but maintained her psychic exertions to get her point across. She relaxed a bit when she sensed she had his undivided attention. “At first the energy detected was small but constant. It reached a higher level over the last week, and remained constant. We have to act.”

  “Have to?” Irritated, Rodney slammed Samantha. To whom did she think she was talking? She collapsed against the seat. All of her strength instantly drained away. “Where?”

  “Somewhere,” She choked out unable to move, “south of Philadelphia.”

  “Strength level?”

  “Five at the least.” Samantha gasped for air. “I…I apologize. This seemed important.”

  “It is.” Rodney let his anger subside. He examined her, considering her worth to his organization. Samantha was gifted. Within her limited range enemies had no chance of survival. She never gave nor asked for quarter. A tool worth keeping, he finally decided. This impudence would go unpunished but not forgotten. He rele
ased her.

  “I want Constance and Riley,” said Rodney turning away from her. “We need to plan. Philadelphia is a long reach.”

  “I’m on it,” said Samantha who pushed herself up slowly. She hurt all over.

  “We will meet at the Tarrytown house when ready.” The limo pulled to the curb at Twenty-Third Street and Broadway next to the Flat Iron Building.

  “Consider it done.” She grasped the door handle; then stopped. “I almost forgot.” She pulled a folded piece of paper from her back pocket. She held it out, her hand shaking. “From Community Central.”

  He glanced at the sheet then up at Samantha. A laugh almost escaped his lips. He admired how she played politics. In time she would probably replace him. He might have to kill her first.

  “She wants what?” The message on the paper, he knew, was no secret.

  Samantha unfolded the note and read.

  “To the Northeast, blah, blah, blah.” She took a breath. “All power greater than level four is to be destroyed with prejudice. No exceptions. Yours truly…” She knew better than to speak the name.

  “Stupid woman,” whispered Rodney. “States the obvious,” he said louder. “Make the appropriate response.”

  Samantha nodded and stepped out of the limo. Rodney watched her walk away until she disappeared among the trees of Madison Square Park. As the limo pulled away from the curb, his fist pounded the seat. He needed to release his fury at that woman who ruled the Communities with an iron fist since the end of their war. He would not have been so upset, if it had been his iron fist. Toward that end he worked diligently. It was only a matter of time. He calmed, when he remembered that part of the mountain of money made today would go to his efforts to unseat the current regime.

  “It belongs in New York anyway.” He settled back into the black leather thankful for norman’s conniving ways. Their greed opened doors for his kind’s financing. Funny, he thought, how the norman world war overlapped their revolution. The psychic battles, however, expended a great amount of blood and destruction on American soil. He dismissed the thought and moved on. The wheels in his head spun; he worked out the logistics for today’s money and the upcoming assassination.

  Chapter 7

  “Found some,” called Suzy on her hands and knees. The early morning sun poured through a break in the thick clouds and reflected off a brass casing. The glint caught her eye. She stood and brushed the dirt off the knees of her blue jeans; then held up the shiny round piece of metal.

  “Great!” Jason came over and looked at the five casings. Suzy handed them over. He looked at the oak tree where he discovered the bullet hole at daybreak. Suzy joined him in the search for the second hole and happened upon the casings.

  The Philly boys, Sly warned Frank about at the game a week ago visited the house during the night. Nothing prepared them for a confrontation with a gifted psychic who operated on instinct unable to control himself. Jason remembered little of the night’s happenings. He thought shots had been fired but he could not be sure until the evidence rested in his hand.

  As the morning warmed, Jason dumped his blanket in the tool shed. He dressed in an old, plaid shirt and jeans to continue the search. He found an extra pair of clean socks in the folded pile of clothes on the bench top. The old ones were stiff and uncomfortable. He stepped out of the shed and looked up. Clouds gathered in the sky, Jason hoped the rain would hold off until they finished the investigation.

  “So,” said Suzy, scouring the ground for more clues. “How did you know those guys were comin’?”

  “Don’t know.” Jason stood next to her and stared off into the distance. He tried to remember but shook his head. “I was asleep on the cot one minute. The next, I’m standing by the old oak staring at an empty yard. Then you came out of the kitchen wondering what I was doing?”

  Suzy looked up at him from her search of the ground.

  “Yeah, sometimes I get up in the night to get a drink or something to eat.” She returned her attention to the ground. She asked, as her hand parted the weeds, “How did you know what to do?”

  “I have no idea.” Jason, frustrated, kicked a small stone that sailed into the wooden fence. “But…it seems I’m not supposed to know how to do this stuff.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly; he bent over to study the ground for more clues. He moved away from Suzy. “Wish I knew though. ’Cause it worked real well.”

  After twenty minutes, Jason abandoned the ground investigation and started to look over the shed for holes that should not be there. When will I get control? He wondered. A forlorn sigh escaped. He ran his hands over the rough surface of the shed wall, found nothing, and stood to consider what to do next. Suzy came over and sat on the shed threshold. She looked up.

  “What’s that on your neck?” Suzy noticed what looked like a scar and pointed.

  “What?” Jason brought his hand up and felt around under his chin.

  “There’s a swirl or something just there.” Suzy came close and touched the spot. “It might be fading.”

  “Let’s find those bullets and worry about this later.” Jason went over the same area around the oak tree where he found the first bullet hole. Suzy rose and looked everywhere else. Jason stomped across the yard to the porch without finding anything new. He sat on the steps and thought. He scanned the whole backyard. He watched Suzy suddenly bend down and pick something up near the shed.

  “Hey, Jason. Your shed is falling to pieces.” She brought him a six inch long, wood chip with one straight edge and the other torn up. A small rounded indentation could be seen along the ragged edge.

  “Suzy, you’re brilliant!” he cried, excited. “This is it.” He dashed to the shed and examined the corners where the walls came together. Suzy watched. The second bullet hole was easy to find now. Jason fit the piece Suzy handed him into a damaged corner closest to the oak tree about four feet from the ground. Jason jumped and held his fists high in victory. Suzy laughed.

  Jason dashed into the tool shed; then sat on the door stoop, his notebook and pencil in hand. Suzy took a seat, cross-legged, on the ground in front of him. In the notebook, as his hands shook with excitement, he drew a simple picture of the tree, himself, and where he thought the assailants might have been.

  “Look.” He drew two lines from stick figures armed with guns through a figure to the tree. He was the figure. He showed the drawing to Suzy.

  “You should be dead?” She looked puzzled, concerned.

  “I should be. But I think I know what happened. Look at the back of my neck. Do you see another swirl?” Jason bent over and turned his head to let Suzy examine him. She stood up and peered over his bowed head. “Lift up my hair in the back, it might be hidden.”

  “Part of it is.” Suzy pushed the hair up from the hair line and found a match to the swirl in the front. It was faint and hard to see. “It’s definitely fading, Jason.”

  “Oh…my…god! This is great!” Jason set aside his notebook and jumped up. He paced and built a picture in his imagination of what happened.

  “What? What?” Suzy’s eyes followed him around the yard.

  “I was distracted.” Jason looked at her. “Some defense control kicked in. I don’t know how but one bullet passed through me without doing any damage and lodged in the tree. The second was deflected away by some action and hit the shed directly to my right. I must have done it.”

  “So you’re like a super hero or something?” she asked excited. She mimicked Russ’s reaction.

  “Don’t know for sure.” He stopped moving. “It does mean I have some more stuff to add to my list of what I can do but don’t know how.” Jason returned to the stoop and his notebook, turned to the page with the list, and scribbled.

  “Hey, what’s that,” asked Suzy. Something red caught her eye. She walked to the gate and reached down between the garbage cans. Suzy strained to heft a rusted red can with both hands. It had a domed lid that screwed on. Jason came over and supported the underside with one hand
. With the other he grabbed the handle and took it from her. Suzy did not argue. It was heavy.

  “Gas,” she said. The smell of fuel inundated the immediate area. “Frank keeps his gas for the lawn mower in the garage on the other side of the house. This isn’t his.” She spoke with certainty. Jason nodded.

  “Let’s put it behind the shed for now.” Jason went to the back of the shed where he hid it. He didn’t want a lot of hysterics. It was important that this episode remain secret.

  “Then,” said Suzy, “those guys were going to start a fire and burn down the house or maybe just the tool shed.”

  “Let’s not think on it,” said Jason. He took her hand and pulled her to the front of the shed. “It doesn’t matter right now anyway. It’s over.”

  Suzy shuffled her feet and wondered if this was the right time to ask. She gathered her resolve.

  “Jason can we talk?” she asked. Jason scribbled in his notebook. The sun shone brightly below the edge of dark clouds.

  “I thought we were,” he said not looking up. He took a deep breath and focused on the page.

  “I mean about how angry I got over what you did to Rachel.”

  Jason froze and glanced up at Suzy.

  “What about it?” He felt bad about what had happened.

  On the Sunday night after he started school while everyone in the house slept, Jason, unable to understand Rachel’s hostility, sat on the rug outside Rachel’s bedroom. He felt stronger after practices with Suzy and Russ. They proved to be strict task masters; Russ’s ideas worked.

  Frustrated with Rachel’s treatment on his first day back to school, Jason decided to invade her sleeping mind and find out why she hated him. The trick would be how to do it.

  Closing his eyes, he dropped his defenses. Images surged at him, as always. Like wind whipped waves the horrors crashed against him. He allowed them to come no longer frightened. After a time, he shifted and sorted through the voices and pictures until he heard Rachel’s name. She dreamt.