by Steven James
She sets her brush down and turns to me. Normally, she would have her cross necklace on, and the fact that it’s missing just reminds me again of Emilio’s death. “Did you think of me?”
“I’m sorry?”
“When you jumped off that cliff. Were you thinking of me—of us, I mean? Of how it would affect me if you drowned or landed on these boulders at the base of the falls?”
“I, well . . .” I want to tell her that I did, of course I did. After all, the last thing I would ever want to do is to hurt her in any way, but I sense that in this case the truth will hurt her feelings. However, in the end I go ahead, trusting that it would be better not to lie to her, so I just shake my head and tell her, “No. I was just thinking about stopping that guy. About catching him.”
“I see.”
“But that doesn’t mean I don’t care about you, or that I . . .” I’m really not sure where to go with this. I almost say, “Or that I don’t love you,” but hold back at the last second for some reason I can’t put my finger on.
“I know you care about me.”
“Sometimes I just make snap decisions.”
She goes for her mascara and says softly and without any animus, “Yes. I know.”
I search for the right words. On the one hand I have the sense that I should apologize for not hesitating at the top of that cliff, but on the other hand I can’t understand how she would have expected me to be thinking about anything other than catching the guy who killed Emilio.
Besides, ever since I’ve known Charlene, I’ve been doing escapes that could have proven to be fatal.
She seems to be able to read my mind. “The more I think about us, the more I think about how hard it would be to go on without you.”
Still unsure what to say, I finally just tell her that I’ll see her downstairs, and as I head toward the kitchen, my thoughts circle around me like buzzards closing in on a corpse: She knows what you’re like, what you do for a living, so why did she bring this up now? Should you have chased Tomás at all or stayed with her and Emilio? If you were thinking about her feelings, would you have jumped off that cliff after all?
And honestly, I’m not really sure about the answers.
Flapjacks
As I round the corner to the kitchen I can hear Fionna: “That’s too many chocolate chips, Mr. Wray.”
“You need an even ratio of chocolate chips to pancake batter, right, kids?”
Mandie chirps in her five-year-old agreement.
“At least a one-to-one ratio,” Maddie agrees. “Minimum. Chip-wise, that is.”
Fionna lets out a motherly sigh.
I enter the kitchen and see that Xavier has a spatula and is leaning over the griddle. Fionna is brewing some coffee, and her two daughters are at the table watching Xav as he lifts one of his pancakes that’s dripping melted chocolate and much too large for a single spatula, and flips it spectacularly into the air before it lands, incredibly enough, in the pan.
However, it ends up splattering chocolaty pancake batter onto the countertop and across his faded gray T-shirt, which has a picture of an alien and the words “If found, return to Area 51.”
The girls love it. Fionna just shakes her head. “I’m not cleaning that up off the counter.”
“That’s okay, Jevin will. Hey, Jev.”
“Hey.” I greet Fionna and the girls, and they wish me good morning back.
Maddie, who turns ten next week, has a petite ponytail, studious glasses, and copies of The Catcher in the Rye and Silas Marner resting beside her plate, positioned just so next to her fork. She takes a moment to turn the syrup bottle so that it faces her directly, not angled forty-five degrees like it had been.
Mandie is sitting on a stool instead of a chair so she can reach the table easier. Her enormous stuffed dog, Furman, has his own chair beside her, his paws resting tranquilly on the table.
Keeping the girls’ names straight has always been a bit of a problem for me, so I finally came up with a way to remember who was who—Maddie was born first, Mandie second, and d comes before n in the alphabet, just like Maddie came before Mandie. It’s not much, but it usually does the trick.
“Okay,” Xavier says. “Who’s ready for a pancake?”
Mandie’s hand shoots into the air. “Me!”
He passes his stack of pancakes around the table. After the girls have loaded their plates, I help myself to some as well. I find some ibuprofen and ice, explain simply that I bruised my leg on a rock in the Philippines, and take a seat at the breakfast counter. Holding the ice against my leg with one hand and eating pancakes with the other isn’t easy, but I make do.
“Uncle Xavier?” It’s Maddie.
“Yes?”
“Since you got here too late to tell us a story last night, can you do one now?”
Xavier has gotten into the habit of making up a story for the kids whenever he’s around at bedtime. The girls love it, Lonnie seems impressed with Xavier’s creativity, and Donnie, who acts like he isn’t into it, is.
“I’m afraid not. Bedtime stories have to happen at night. It would break all kinds of rules if I told you a bedtime story at breakfast.”
“There’s rules?” Mandie asks, wide-eyed.
“Oh, yes. You have to be very careful about these kinds of things. For example, if I told you a bedtime story right now you might fall asleep, and your head would tip forward and your face would land right there on your plate, right in your pancakes. Melted chocolate chips and syrup would get all over your cheeks and maybe go up your nose, and that would not be a pretty sight.”
“No it would not,” Fionna agrees.
Mandie wrinkles up her face. “Up my nose?”
“And besides, the boys would miss out.”
“We could wake them up?” she offers.
“Good luck.” Maddie carefully lifts a precise little square of pancake to her mouth. She has a sausage link on her plate as well and is careful to not let the different types of food on her plate touch each other. “At this time of day that would be taking your life into your hands.”
“Tonight.” Xavier holds up his fork as if he’s making a solemn pledge. “I promise.”
“Pinky promise?” Mandie presses him.
He hooks his pinky finger around hers. “Pinky promise.”
She smiles and, reassured, goes at her chocolate chip pancake with kindergartner gusto.
Xavier unscrews the top of a Nutella jar and smears a healthy glob of the spread onto his chocolate chip pancakes. “Ah, yes.” He smiles. “Nutella is the new chicken.”
Fionna looks at him blankly. “That doesn’t even make sense.”
He takes a Xavier-sized bite. “This is good.”
“By the way, whatever happened with the cheese? You used to have this thing for eating cheese all the time.”
“Moved on from that.” He’s speaking with his mouth full. “To nuts.”
“Nuts.”
“A different kind for every day of the week.”
“And you’re eating Nutella today.”
“Yup.” He swallows. “Made from hazelnuts.”
“Ah, let me guess, tomorrow it’s Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups?”
“Actually, that’s on Tuesday.”
“And then what? Pistachio nut ice cream?”
His eyes light up. “Now see, that’s good. I hadn’t even thought of that one. I’m gonna go with that for tomorrow.”
“Wonderful.”
“Can I eat ice cream and candy bars every day too, Mommy?” Mandie asks.
“No.”
I reposition the ice on my leg and work at finishing my breakfast.
Maddie looks up thoughtfully. “Uncle Xavier, I’ve been wondering, phonetically, why do we say a z sound for your name instead of an x?”
“You mean, why don’t you say ‘X-avier’? Pronounce the x separately?”
“Yes.”
“Well, it would be like someone saying your name like this: ‘M-addie,’ or cal
ling your mom ‘F-ionna.’”
“Or ‘M-ommy.’”
“That would be silly.” Mandie giggles.
“Yes, it would.”
Maddie considers that for a moment. “Or it would be like saying ‘x-ylophone.’”
“That’s right. You see, when an x appears at the beginning of a word—unless it’s hyphenated, like X-Files—it makes the z sound, not the x sound. So when you say my name, it sounds like ‘Zavier.’”
“Then why isn’t it spelled that way?”
“Because then no one would ever have to ask me about it.” The girls accept the mildly evasive answer, and Xavier puts down his fork. “So what are you two up to today?”
I hope he’s not going to make some sort of smart comment about them being homeschooled, and thankfully he doesn’t but just points to Maddie’s copies of The Catcher in the Rye and Silas Marner and says good-naturedly, “Looks like a good day to tackle the classics.”
“Oh,” Maddie replies, “Mom doesn’t like us to read the classics. I’m just doing a report on why you shouldn’t read these two.”
“She doesn’t like you to read the classics?”
“Nope.”
“That’s right,” Fionna agrees. “I don’t want my children to read books that haven’t stood the test of time.”
“Wait. The classics haven’t stood the test of time?”
“Well, not those two at least.”
“Okay, that, you’re going to have to walk me through.”
“Sure, I’ll pencil you in for tomorrow afternoon.”
“Why not right now?”
“Builds more suspense this way.” She flourishes her hand mysteriously. “Makes it all the more intriguing.”
“You’re just stalling.”
“Uh-uh,” Maddie cuts in. “She’s got a bunch of reasons. Seriously.”
Xavier pours a healthy dollop of syrup onto his Nutella-covered chocolate chip pancakes. “A homeschooling mom who doesn’t want her kids reading the classics? I’ve never heard that one before.”
“Mom’s not your typical homeschooling mom,” Maddie informs him.
“You know, I think I’m starting to catch hold of that.” Then he nods respectfully toward Fionna. “Nice flourish, by the way, a moment ago when you said it builds suspense.”
“Thank you.”
“You need to teach that to Jevin.”
We’ve been through this before. “Sorry,” I tell him. “I don’t flourish.”
Xavier shakes his head. “I still can’t believe you’re a magician and you don’t flourish. It’s an unwritten rule. All magicians flourish.”
“Grayson never trained me in the fine art of flourishing. Never flourished, never will.”
A few minutes later Charlene joins us. We finish breakfast, and the girls head into the other room—Mandie to play with Furman, Maddie to finish the research she started yesterday on jellyfish. I put the melting ice away as we lay out our plan for this morning.
Even though I don’t think Charlene is being chilly toward me, I sense that something has definitely wedged its way between us. Maybe it was my fault for chasing Tomás off that cliff, or maybe it was her unreasonable expectations, but in either case I don’t want her to get the sense that I don’t think about her feelings.
Well, maybe you don’t—at least not as much as you should.
That thought ticks me off and troubles me at the same time.
“I checked online.” She pours herself a cup of coffee. “The FBI office isn’t open on weekends.” When she goes on it’s with a slight touch of sarcasm. “I guess they expect fewer crimes on Saturdays. Anyway, I’ll see what I can do about setting up a meeting with an agent. In the meantime, I thought I’d do a little more research on cobras.” She glances my way. “Try to figure out why that bite had such an effect on you the other day when we were in the Philippines—that is, if it didn’t have its venom—and why it didn’t hurt you worse if it did.”
“Thanks.”
Fionna flips open her laptop. “By the way, thank you for making breakfast for the girls, Xavier. I’m sure the boys will be sorry they missed it.”
He pushes his chair back to stand. “I’ll mix up a few more flapjacks.”
She quickly waves that off. “No, no, I didn’t mean it like that. It’s fine.” She checks the time on the clock above the sink—8:58—then addresses me and Xav. “So, like we talked about last night, while you two go take a look at Emilio’s place I’ll see what I can dig up here on this USB drive.”
Charlene leaves to search the Internet for Sri Lankan cobra venom info, Fionna starts typing, I grab my lock pick set just in case I need it and then join Xavier in the hallway to the foyer.
“What’s with the lock pick set?” he says. “Used to be you could use a safety pin, a needle, a paper clip, the prong of your belt buckle, a barrette . . . You must be out of practice.”
I sigh, set it aside, and pick up a pen. “How about the spring from this?”
“Works for me.” He holds the front door open for me. “We can take my RV?”
“Or we can take my Aston Martin.”
“I was hoping you’d say that.”
Disarray
We take my Skyfall Silver Aston Martin DB9.
I drive.
The streets are quiet.
A stark azure sky watches over my city, and it’s as breathtaking as ever.
I’ll never get tired of seeing the vast, cloudless Nevada skies. If you visit Vegas and spend all your time on the Strip and see only its lush palm trees lining the streets, you’d never guess that we only get four and a half inches of rain a year, that we’re located in the middle of the Mojave Desert.
A stunning amount of water goes into creating the illusion that this is a tropical paradise. Gray water and Astroturf.
A mirage in the desert.
But the sky is not a mirage.
It is stunningly, marvelously real.
Out here in southern Nevada, it’s clear nearly every day, which is one reason the Air Force has such a strong presence in the region. No hurricanes. No tornadoes. No blizzards. Just wide-open, endless blue skies, perfect for flying and, as Xavier has pointed out to me more than once, for testing experimental aircraft.
Although some people need to be at work early, nearly everyone in Vegas is involved somehow in the entertainment business, and the city doesn’t really start stirring until nine or so, even later on a Saturday. Although the casinos are open twenty-four hours, quite a few businesses don’t open until ten o’clock.
We keep different hours than most of America.
Actually, we keep the hours most of America would like to keep.
Before jumping onto I-15, our route takes us past 3650 West Russell Road, which is where Copperfield’s “secret” magic museum is. He has semis parked beside it that say “The Magic of David Copperfield,” so it’s a tad obvious who owns the building. The place used to have a sign out front that read “Butchie’s Bras and Girdles.”
His semis with his name emblazoned on the side were parked in the lot the whole time then too, so I’m not sure how many people he was fooling with the lingerie sign.
Before continuing on to Emilio’s house, I need to stop for gas. While I’m pumping, Xavier places both hands firmly against the metal support beam holding up the roof above the gas pumps, closes his eyes, and breathes in deeply.
“Um, what are you doing, Xav?”
“Discharging my static electricity. You can blow up or start on fire.” He eyes me. “Haven’t you ever read the warnings there next to the gas pumps? It can be fatal.”
“You, of all people, are concerned about an explosion?”
“I like my explosions controlled.”
“Xavier, how many times have you heard of anyone blowing up or starting on fire because he didn’t discharge his static electricity at a gas pump? Or maybe, I’ve got it: keeping the deaths a secret is a Big Oil conspiracy so people won’t be afraid to pump.”
He nods at me knowingly. “Now you’re actually starting to make sense.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Go ahead, discharge your static electricity, you’ll feel better about it.”
“I’ve never discharged my electricity in front of another guy before.”
“I won’t look.” He turns away; I go ahead and discharge my static electricity. I’m not sure how long it should take. I count to five. “I don’t really feel any safer,” I tell him when I’m done.
“Well at least you won’t blow me up. So, I was meaning to ask you, do you have anything special planned for Thursday?”
I join him by the car and wait for the tank to finish filling. “Thursday?”
“Valentine’s Day. With Charlene.”
“Oh. Right.”
“So?”
I top off the tank, replace the nozzle into its slot at the pump. “Not really.”
“So, not at all.”
“Pretty much.”
“You better come up with something special. You know how women can be about Valentine’s Day.”
I close the gas cover, snag the receipt. “Do you have anything special planned?”
“Why would I?”
“Just asking.”
We climb into the car. “About who? With who?”
“Oh, I don’t know. A red-haired hacker mom, maybe.”
A blip of silence. “Nope. I don’t have anything special planned.”
“Well, you know how women can be about Valentine’s Day.”
“She’s not expecting anything from me. I mean, why would she?”
I shrug. “Beats me.”
“Mm-hmm.” A pause. “You think I should get her something?”
“I think she wouldn’t mind if you did.”
I direct the DB9 toward Emilio’s house, and after a little internal debate I decide to go ahead and bring up what’s been on my mind. “Xav, back at the house this morning, before Charlene came downstairs, she asked me if I was thinking about her when I jumped off that cliff in the Philippines.”
“What did you tell her?”
“The truth.”
“Which was?”
“That I wasn’t thinking about her. That I was just thinking about stopping that guy, Agcaoili.”