by J. P. Oliver
Hassan said nothing against it. Somehow that made me feel worse.
“I didn’t think it would be like that. Notes, and even that freaky fucking heart thing, are one thing, but….”
“Why would you think otherwise?” Hassan shifted in his seat, sparing me a single glance. “You don’t know this person. Don’t underestimate them. Then… things like this happen.”
Guilt ate away at me. I turned back to the window.
With a sigh, Hassan turned into my long driveway. “How did it happen?”
“A light was loose.” I undid my seatbelt with a snap. “Someone made it loose. Fell on the poor kid. The paramedic said if he was even a few more inches to the right, it could’ve been fatal.”
Hassan parked the car near the front of the house, tossing the keys to Jackson where he lingered near the front door.
“She’s all yours,” he piped, his Bostonian accent thick. He jingled the keys at me as we passed him. “Evening, Fred.”
“Jackson.” I offered a smile. “Don’t park it crooked this time. Hassan wouldn’t shut up about it.” Next to me, Hassan made a disapproving sound.
Jackson offered me the middle finger and a hearty smile before crawling into the car.
The front of my house felt different, even after a few days; Hassan was punching in a code on the security pad at the front door, and above me was a camera. I knew Mikhail was probably watching us on the other end. Every night was like this, the process of a shift change too tedious for my tastes. It required switching posts at the front door, entering passcodes, asking for updates on radios, and doing a security sweep of the estate.
Only then was I permitted to leave my foyer, and enter my Alcatrazian home.
“Want a drink?” I asked half-heartedly, once Jackson had given the all-clear over the radio.
Hassan’s face scrunched up. “Not on the job.”
“I’d like a drink.” I tossed my jacket onto the arm of the sofa as we passed through the living room, before throwing myself down after it. It had been a long day.
“You’re not going out.” There was amusement somewhere under all that seriousness.
“I’m not.” I grinned, making sure he saw. “Even if I wanted to go out like a normal adult, you wouldn’t let me.”
Hassan crossed his arms, placing himself on the armchair across from me. “You’re allowed to do whatever you want.”
The laugh that came out of me was one of disbelief. “That’s funny. I’m on lockdown here.” The grin on my face stayed as I tried to picture the alternative. “And, even if I wasn’t, I can’t imagine you in some fancy bar or club without looking like you’re about to have an aneurysm.”
“I’ve been to bars.”
“Dives, I’m sure.”
“Not the California strip ones you’re probably used to.” His voice was low and surprisingly nice to listen to, when he wasn’t shouting at people or threatening someone. “Too stuffy.”
“Hey, I wasn’t always rich, you know. I grew up with dive bars. I know how to hang out, shoot some pool, drink beer....”
Hassan grinned, and it felt like something very private. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”
I mirrored it. “...Make me a drink here then.”
“Fuck off.”
A comfortable silence fell over the two of us. I think that’s another thing I admired about Hassan. Silence wasn’t strange to him. I think he prefered it.
“How long do I have to keep living like… this?” My voice was quieter this time. The room was warm, and I couldn’t hear any housekeepers nearby. Despite having Hassan here, it was some much needed privacy.
“Until we catch this guy.”
I should have expected such a simple answer. Shutting my eyes, I allowed myself to bask in the silence, only interrupted by the sound of Hassan getting up and moving around. Peeking one eye open, I watched him wander over to the liquor cabinet on the wall.
“What are you doing?”
He pointed to the cabinet. “What do you want?”
“What happened to not being my housekeeper?” I tried to swallow the teasing in my voice, but I couldn’t shake it. Hassan looked at me, trying to stay annoyed.
“Forget it, then—”
“Whiskey.” I sat up. “Just a little bit. The black bottle on the second shelf.” I paused. “Please.”
Hassan sighed, annoyed that I had asked and even more annoyed, it seemed, by the idea that he would do anything nice for anybody. He made it quickly; I drank it quickly.
“I’m going to get to the bottom of this.” Hassan’s voice surprised me. I set the glass down on the coffee table. He licked his lips as he thought of what to say; my eyes followed the movement closely. “Find out who’s harassing you. Attacking your employees. You don’t have to worry about… getting hurt.”
I blinked at him, trying to process the words. The alcohol warmed my stomach, and Hassan looked more relaxed than I’d ever seen him (that is to say: he still looked like he was mildly irritated). With a long, relaxed sigh, I reclined back against the couch.
“I know. I think I know. You seem like you know what you’re doing, so… I trust you.” I shut my eyes, scratching lightly at my chin. There was a thin layer of stubble there—had I forgotten to shave this morning? “It’s nice. Having you here. You’re competent. I don’t have to tell you what to do. You just know.”
I waited for him to say something, but he didn’t.
“I don’t know. There are so many people who rely on me. Every single day, I get up and I have to tell people what to do, because they don’t know. If I don’t tell people at work what to do, things go poorly. If I don’t tell them how to fix something, it doesn’t get fixed. The movie flops. We lose money. I have to fix that, too.”
When I opened my eyes again, Hassan was watching me, waiting for me to say something else. I smiled at him. “Sorry. I’m rambling.”
Hassan nodded slowly. “...You’re allowed to be stressed.”
“Are you ever stressed?” At the look Hassan shot me, I waved my hand at him. “Stupid question. Don’t answer that. You practically leak stress.”
“Thanks.” Hassan shifted in his chair. “Like you said, I know what I’m doing.”
“Mm. Well, I’m thankful for it. I know I complain about being under lock and key, but I like having you in control. It makes me feel like….” I paused, sorting out the right words. “Cared for, in a way.”
Hassan was looking at me strangely. It wasn’t angry or confused, just… passive. A certain kind of something I couldn’t read.
5
Hassan
I didn’t sleep. The morning light crawled through the windows of the office space Fred had given me and my team, carrying a warm late-summer rain on its back. The usual light that stuck to every corner of the house was gray instead, and the heaviness of it seemed to affect the entire household. Staff members went about their early morning business.
I liked this shift. I could move around the house uninterrupted, work could get done quickly, and there was little to keep an eye on.
Shutting a folder around the paperwork I had been working on half the night, I stretched, cracking joints that hadn’t moved in hours. I decided coffee was a good idea and slipped downstairs quietly; a young man nodded to me as he went about with a mop in the foyer. I nodded back, slipping into the dimly-lit kitchen.
“Oh—” I cut myself off, pausing in the doorway at the sight of Frederic perched at the island with a tall mug in his hand. I glanced at my watch. It was only five-thirty; not his usual schedule. “I didn’t know you were up.”
I expected to feel disappointed, always a fan of spending some quiet time alone, but the feeling wasn’t there.
Fred shrugged, looking awake despite rocking some slightly tousled bed head and loose sleep clothes. Always a bit undone, the front of his shirt was open, exposing more of his caramel skin than I was used to seeing. “Thought I’d get an early start,” he said, answer enough for the b
oth of us. “Want some coffee?”
I nodded, moving towards the designer coffee maker where it sat on the counter—only for Fred to rise to do it himself. I paused again. “I got it.”
“You got me a drink last night.” Fred poured a mugful, sliding it across the island to me, the porcelain still warm on my hand.
“It was a favor.”
“Okay.” Fred sat back down heavy on his stool. “Then the coffee was a favor, too.”
I didn’t feel like arguing little semantics with him; it was too early for shit like that. Instead I took a long sip of the biting black coffee, setting the folder down beside it on the countertop. “I sat down with Mikhail last night. We drafted this up.” I watched Frederic take the folder, assessing the first page. “Doc helped some, too. We talked about taking a more offensive strategy. Actively pursuing and investigating this person, rather than waiting for them to come to us. It would involve more security.”
Fred shut the folder, hand splaying over the front; he looked concerned, lips pursing, but didn’t say anything. I took it as a sign to continue.
“We know he’s willing to come here, and willing to hurt other people. Statistically speaking, the likelihood of him hurting one of your staff or you is significantly higher than before. All of us but Doc have permits, so we were proposing arming whoever’s at the front both day and night.”
Confusion twisted into distaste. “For what purpose?”
“I think it’s pretty obvious.” I took a long gulp of coffee; still too hot. “There’re also plans detailed about options if we do find them ourselves. The softest option is turning them into the custody of the police, pressing charges if you want, depending on what happens….”
I had expected resistance of some kind, but an all-around even conversation. It was evident by the look on Frederic’s face that wasn’t going to happen. Great way to start the morning.
“Don’t you think that’s a little harsh?”
My frown—or, my Resting Bitch Face as Jackson had nicknamed it—only got bitchier. “Which part?”
Frederic nudged the folder back towards me. “Both?”
“No. I think it’s practical.” I hadn’t expected needing to argue every point, but, here we were. “You don’t own a handgun, Fred. No one here has any kind of training except my team and I—”
“There are kids that live here; a lot of my employees are parents.”
I scoffed, a little offended for once. “I’d think you’d find us a little more trustworthy than that. At this point.”
Fred looked into his coffee, the cogs in his brain turning the idea over and over. “Leave the details on my desk. I’ll visit it later and make whatever changes I think are necessary.” It was clearly a dismissal, an end to our conversation for now, but something seemed off, his tone suddenly clipped.
I could feel my brows arch. Deliberately breaking whatever orders Fred had just tried to issue me, I spoke: “Just last night, you were saying you liked someone else taking charge.” He tiptoed around the fact that it was himself that Fred had specified he liked having control. “Where’s that trust now?”
Rubbing the bridge of his nose, Fred sighed pointedly. Maybe he wasn’t a morning person. “It’s still there.”
“Then stop micromanaging.”
“I’m not—”
“You said I was capable and you trusted my judgement.” I wasn’t one to dawdle over praises given to me, but it had stuck in my head throughout the night. “Why not trust it now?”
It was a metaphorical checkmate, I figured, Fred’s argument taking a minute to gain footing. “It isn’t about… control or micromanaging. I have enough of that in my life already. It’s—” He searched for the right word. “Responsibility. It’s about responsibility.”
I didn’t know what he meant; I think he got it by the silence that followed.
He ran a hand through his hair, turning on his stool to face me head-on. “Everything that happens here is under my authority. It comes back to me. Whatever happens to someone will be because I approved it.” And there in his dark eyes, was a glimmer of pleading. “I need to make sure that nothing is fucked up. No one dies, no one gets hurt.”
The air hung heavily, like he had more to say on the matter, but didn’t.
“What do you want? Out of all of this.” It was a question I’d asked during our first meeting. I expected the answer to be the same.
Touching absently at the mug, Fred thought a moment. “If this… stalker needs help, I want them to get it. I don’t want them hurt or shuffled into the justice system. He won’t get the help he needs. I’d rather handle it privately, and to the benefit of everyone involved.” He fixed me with a hard stare, trying to drill it into my head. “Even him.”
God, it was sentimental. I lifted my coffee to my mouth. “Most people just want the problem gone. They don’t care how.”
Fred’s smile was small, and only a little prideful. I’m not most people. He wasn’t the kind of person to say it, but it was written all over his face. And it was true. He really wasn’t.
“You know, if someone makes their own decision, it’s not your responsibility, right?” I asked.
A contradictory noise came out of him. “Depends on the circumstance.”
“It doesn’t.” I leaned my arms against the counter. “People have minds of their own. They make their own choices in life. You can’t control that. Or micromanage it. Or claim responsibility over it.”
Fred opened his mouth to protest, I’m sure. I made sure to interrupt him: “That’s what you hired me for.”
“Double-standard.” Frederic called it with the authority of a referee, or a lawyer. Either way, a court was involved.
“No.” I pointed back at him. “You didn’t have a choice in this situation. You didn’t ask to be stalked by some… doomsday-obsessed stuffed-heart mutilator. He, on the other hand, chose to do it. Just like I chose to take this case. The victim isn’t responsible here.”
His hand tapped against the counter in his frustration. I could tell it was crawling higher, the strangled light in his eyes becoming more intense. “But I decide how to handle it. Giving you the okay to kill someone or throw them into a broken system makes me responsible!”
Outside, the rain beat down harder against the floor-to-ceiling windows, and I could feel the static of the storm swirling inside, too. I remembered how early it was; too early for an argument over morality. “I drew up the plan. You have very few options. You’re not responsible, and I’m absolving you of that, okay? I know things you don’t—”
“Like what?” When I looked at Fred again, he was sitting rigid in his chair. “Tell me.”
The coffee tasted got more bitter the deeper we dug into this conversation. “Some people can’t be helped, Fred. This isn’t….”
“What?”
“This isn’t a fucking movie.” Now that it was out, it was like a broken damn. “You can’t fix everyone’s issues. People have baggage. Sometimes they just need….” I sighed, knowing how it probably sounded to an optimist like Frederic Reyes. “They need to be stopped. Put down. It’s the end of the line. There isn’t anywhere left for them to go. Got it?”
Fred’s chest rose and fall around a bitter breath, equal parts angry and disappointed and surprised. “What the fuck?” he asked himself, me, and no one in particular.
The smart thing would have probably been to stop talking. I didn’t always do the smart thing. “You didn’t hire me to tell you what you wanted to hear—”
“Why the fuck are you like that?”
I would have prefered if Fred had been yelling. Instead he stared at me with a contained disbelief. It was distant; so unlike the Fred I’d come to know.
“I mean, what happened to you that made you so cold?”
I think he expected an answer; a dozen memories—sounds and sights and smells, the copper tinge of blood and the rasping of a person’s last breath—swirled around in my head. Where I typically felt anger, I
felt a sudden guilt and something else. A feeling I hadn’t experienced in so long, it was unidentifiable as it crept along inside me.
I took the folder, polishing off the rest of my coffee before depositing the mug in the sink. The tension broke a little with the movement. When I turned back to Fred, he was looking at his hands on the island, having the sense to look a little regretful at his own outburst.
I admired it. If the roles were reversed, I probably wouldn’t have felt bad.
“Hassan, I—”
“I’ll leave this on your desk.” I cut off what I was sure would be an apology. His gaze fluttered. “Jackson’s going to have the car around front in two hours.”
Nodding slowly, Fred’s gaze turned down into his coffee.
Preliminary research had been done, before the contract had first been signed. I had tools and resources available to me that often gave me information about a client, in case they were holding back something important. A lot of information about Frederic Reyes, thanks to his fame, was a matter of public record.
The information wasn’t too detailed, but there were interviews and reports and gossip rags that had pieced some sort of backstory together. Fred had been the son of an immigrant mother, but was born in the States. He was often open about having grown up in low-income single-parent household. He was a self-made success, having gone from a nobody living on the wrong side of the tracks, to a soap star, to an extremely successful Hollywood producer.
He had drive, and was respected for it.
There were more mysterious rumors about a sister of some kind, or a half-sister, who had died or disappeared. Either way, I had a source confirm that a sister had definitely existed. What had happened to her, though, was open-ended and left to the imagination. Fred wasn’t as open about this.
Despite all that though, he was compassionate. As I set the documents on Frederic’s desk, I sighed to myself because that much was abundantly clear. Compassionate, I thought, almost to a fault.
The two of us had lived our lives very differently.