I reach into my purse, grab for my gun—a SIG P320 Nitron Subcompact—but the gun isn’t there.
Of course it’s not there. Because today we went to the Smithsonian and they make you walk through metal detectors and so I took out my gun, placed it in the glove box, and normally I would have retrieved it right away, but I’ve been so preoccupied that I forgot it and that’s where it is now, in the glove box along with the owner’s manual and tissues and my emergency ration of tampons.
I consider backing away, retracing my steps, retrieving the gun, coming back up here properly armed.
The only problem then is I lose a good sixty seconds. Not only that, if whoever is inside is a pro, they’ve heard me coming—maybe even watched me pull into the parking lot—and of course it doesn’t help that my keys jangled when I extended them, so now whoever’s inside knows I’m standing right outside.
Maybe I’m overreacting—maybe Josh just forgot to close it when he left this morning—but I know that’s bullshit because Josh is smarter than that, especially with other people’s stuff, and then I think maybe it’s Josh inside, having come back because he decided to dump that stupid bitch and keep what we have going, but I know that’s not the case either and I know that the closest weapon I have to me right now is in the kitchen, a butcher block full of sharp carving knives.
Five seconds have passed. The world warbles back into place, losing that fourth dimension.
I raise my right foot and kick the door and immediately pivot away, place my back against the wall, waiting for a gunshot. When a second passes and nothing happens, I peek inside. Nothing; all the lights off. I hurry in, staying close to the wall, keeping my breathing shallow, listening for any sound. Four seconds pass and then I reach the kitchen but stop before I enter, crouch down to peek around the corner, because anyone watching will expect me to still be standing and will be aiming for a headshot. Again nothing, nobody at all. I slip into the kitchen, losing my shoes so my socks are silent on the tiles. I go directly to the counter, grab the longest carving knife, and turn back around.
Still nothing.
Now sufficiently armed, I start toward the doorway leading into the living room. The light here isn’t great either, not with the shades drawn, but it’s not total darkness and I have no problem spotting the person sitting on the sofa.
“Stop right there,” I say loudly, the knife held up with the tip pointed straight out.
I take a step forward, squint so my eyes adjust to the dark. Then I lower the knife. “Goddamn you, Nova,” I say.
“No lock is too small to keep me out.” He gives me a drunken smile and holds up a bottle of Cuervo, shaking it slightly so the tequila inside sloshes around. “Now why don’t you help me finish this bad boy off?”
Twenty
“Walter’s a fucking asshole.”
“He’s just doing his job.”
“He’s trying to cover his ass, Holly, that’s what he’s doing. You know what I say? I say fuck him.”
We’re up on the roof of my apartment complex, sitting on cheap lawn chairs staring out over the buildings at the setting sun. Neither of us speaks for a time, and in that moment or so the only sounds in the world are the traffic drifting up from the street and the rusty wind chimes someone placed up here long ago tinkling as they sway in the breeze.
“Walter’s not the bad guy here,” I say finally.
Nova takes a swig of the tequila, shakes his head. “No, I guess he’s not.”
I take the bottle from him. “He saved my ass a long time ago. Did I ever tell you about that?”
“I’ve heard some but never the entire story.”
“It happened in Iraq.”
“I know that part, yeah.”
I open my mouth to continue but decide now’s not the time. Also I’m not sure I want Nova to hear the story. Not because he wouldn’t understand—I know he would—but because it’s such a personal thing, the one time when I truly failed as a friend and as a human being.
“Walter says I’ve been on a gradual decline. Have been for the past two years.”
Nova says nothing, just keeps staring out at the horizon.
“What—you agree with him?”
Nova stands up suddenly. Stepping forward, he hawks a loogie and lets it fly up over the edge of the building. He watches it a moment, just watches it, and for some reason I picture it in my mind, that wad of phlegm flying down toward the parking lot, coming apart the farther and faster it goes. Maybe it hits a car, maybe it hits the pavement, maybe it hits the grass. Whatever the case, it hits something because that’s its nature, its purpose.
When Nova turns back to me, he says, “What do you want me to say?”
“I want you to tell me the truth.”
“The thing with your father was fucked up. It would have traumatized anybody.”
“Oh, I see. So now I’m traumatized?”
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Then how did you mean it?”
The breeze picks up, sending the wind chimes into a sudden frenzy, clanging and clattering.
“Look, your old man?” Nova says. “He just … flipped.”
“I sometimes think I should have seen it coming.”
“How?” He takes a step forward, his eyes intense. “Just how could you have seen that coming? There were no warning signs. There was absolutely nothing you could have done about it.”
“Still …”
“Still what?”
“Still it never made sense. How he could do something like that. Why he would have in the first place.”
“Everyone has his price, Holly. Sometimes I think even God would bow out for the right amount.”
The breeze dies down and the wind chimes go quiet, still swaying but not making any noise.
“You can’t bring God into the equation,” I say.
“Why not? It’s a good cop-out answer.”
“That’s exactly the reason.”
Nova holds his hands out, the open palms lifted toward the sky. “Then what the fuck do you want me to say?”
I shake my head, wipe at my eyes. “I’m thinking about getting out.”
Nova doesn’t say anything.
I glare up at him. “This is the point in the conversation you’re supposed to tell me that’s a crazy idea.”
Nova looks down at his feet, looks back up. His voice suddenly soft, he says, “Holly, you have to be honest with yourself. Walter … he’s right. You have changed. That shit back in Vegas, you never would have done that before.”
“Another one of my fucking little crusades, right?”
“Holly—”
“Why do you do it, Nova?”
“Why do I do what?”
“The work you do.”
His gaze steady on mine, he says, “Work is work.”
“It’s that simple?”
“Why do people become accountants? Why do they become bank tellers? Why do they become CEOs of fucking oil companies? They have to do something. And me, well, I have to do something too.”
“But why killing?”
“Our work is more than just killing.”
“Answer the question.”
He stares at me, his eyes still intense. Finally he looks away, shakes his head.
“No,” he says. “It’s none of your goddamned business.”
“That’s what I thought. People like us, we’re driven to do this work. Something in our past makes us who we are.”
“What the fuck are you now, a shrink? Of course something in our past makes us who we are. It’s the same for everybody.”
“But we kill people.”
“We do more than that.”
“Do you want to know why I do it?”
“Why?”
“To save lives.”
Nova just smiles. He takes a swig of the Cuervo, tilts his head back and gargles it like mouthwash before swallowing.
“I’m serious, Nova.”
“I’m sure yo
u are.”
“That’s how I’ve always rationalized it. We kill the bad guys so the good guys keep living.”
“And what’s changed now?”
“Apparently I’m on a gradual decline.” My voice seethes with sarcasm. “Have been on a gradual decline.”
Nova says, “What is this really about? Is this about Scooter? You feel guilty now and you’re having a fucking pity party for yourself?”
“It’s not like that.”
“Isn’t it?”
“I don’t know what you and Walter are talking about. I haven’t changed at all.”
Nova barks out a loud laugh. “That’s a good one. Got anymore?”
“Fuck you.”
“You want the truth, Holly?” He takes three quick strides until he’s standing in front of me, his face right in front of my own. “You’ve become reckless. You’ve become irresponsible. You don’t give a shit about anybody else except yourself. And the worst part about that? I don’t even think you like yourself very much.”
He hasn’t shaved in the past two days and his face is full of stubble. Normally he looks very good—hence his name, Casanova—but now his eyes are bloodshot, his face haggard.
My voice low and steady, I say, “You don’t know anything about me.”
“Yes, I do. I know more than I fucking want to.”
“You don’t know shit.”
“Oh, fuck you.” He turns away, takes another swig of the Cuervo. His back to me, he says, “Quit being a cunt, Holly,” and I’m moving before I even know it.
I come up behind him and kick at the back of his knees. He loses his balance and falls down, dropping the bottle, and with the heel of my hand I punch him in the ribs. He groans, tries to reach for me, and I grab his arm, twist it up behind his back.
“Call me a cunt one more time.”
“Cunt,” he spits.
I twist his arm even more, right to the point it’s ready to dislocate.
“Go ahead, Nova, say it again.”
But he doesn’t say it again. He’s drunk off his ass and he weighs one hundred pounds more than me, but he’s not stupid, not when he’s in this position.
“I’m in control of my own life,” I whisper into his ear. “Got it? And there’s nothing fucking wrong with me.”
In one quick motion I let go of his arm and stand back up, step out of his reach. It doesn’t matter. He just stays on the ground, his face against the stones, groaning softly as he moves his arm back in place. I stand there watching him for another moment, then turn and start toward the roof door we’d left propped open with a broken piece of brick. I only stop when Nova calls my name.
“You go ahead and tell yourself that,” he says. “But ask yourself this—had the Vegas mission taken place two years ago, would you have gone out to that ranch? Would Scooter still be alive?”
I continue walking, right to the door. I grab the brick and open the door and then toss the brick out on the rooftop, letting the door close loudly and lock in place.
Twenty-One
Total silence.
They say there’s no such thing except in space, but there are moments when I’m alone in my apartment with the windows closed that I sit or stand very still and it’s like the world doesn’t exist anymore, that such things as screams and gunfire and crying are just a distant dream.
It’s well past midnight and I lie in bed and stare at the ceiling and think about total silence. It’s so quiet that if a mote of dust was to float down and land on the floor it would be as loud as a firework popping.
Over the years I’ve come to crave total silence. There’s something peaceful about it, something so soothing that it almost helps me forget all the bad shit there is in the world.
It’s like a black hole, a void I can crawl into and curl up and just fall asleep. No pain. No suffering. No murder.
A car horn sounds outside, shattering the silence.
I blink, take a breath.
I imagine Zane lying in the bed next to me. He stares up at the same spot of ceiling I’m staring at. I want to turn to him, snuggle into his embrace, hold on to him and never let him go. Before him I’d felt empty, insecure, unloved. He’d helped open my eyes to the world. Helped me understand that behind every façade, every smiling face, there is an evil just ready to make its move.
I imagine him lying beside me and asking, What’s wrong, Holly?
I fucked up royally this time.
Why?
Scooter’s dead.
And it was your fault?
Yes.
No, it wasn’t. Stop blaming yourself.
But I’m scared.
Scared about what?
But I can’t answer him, because before I do I take my eyes off that spot of ceiling and turn my head and find his side of the bed empty. A tear hatches from the corner of my eye and starts to slither down my cheek. I don’t bother wiping it away.
The silence returns and I stare back up at the ceiling.
I think about a lot of different things.
About murder and death and how they’re wedded together, a perfect union.
About two years ago, down in Miami, on that drug lord’s yacht, a fire having already broken out, a number of the bodyguards dead, and my father and I finding the drug lord cowering below deck.
About taking the entire bottle of Valium concealed behind the bathroom mirror.
About dragging the drug lord up to the deck and aiming my gun at him and my dad turning to me and raising his own gun at my head.
About Karen and what she confided in me.
About floating in my tub filled with warm water and slicing the veins along my arms.
About Zane stepping out of nowhere, shouting for my dad to stop, and my dad turning his gun and firing three rounds at Zane’s chest, the bullets forcing Zane to stumble back and fall over the edge and into the water.
About going to the roof of my apartment and stepping up onto the edge and just letting gravity do its magic.
About the dry Iraqi desert.
About shooting my own father, one two three four five times in the chest, screaming as I do it, stepping closer and closer, and then while he lies flat on the deck moving in even closer for the kill shot.
About taking one of my many pistols hiding scattered throughout the apartment and placing the barrel in my mouth.
About the stench of the porta potty, the urine and shit mingled together.
About standing there with my gun aimed at my father’s face and wanting more than anything to pull the trigger, to watch his head explode.
About turning on the oven and sticking my head in like Sylvia Plath.
About opening the porta potty door and knowing who would be on the other side and ducking the punch coming for my face.
About watching my father already lying there covered in blood and knowing that the yacht would soon sink and deciding that for the moment there had already been enough killing.
About just lying here in bed and staring at the ceiling and letting days and nights pass and not getting up, not eating, not drinking, just letting my body waste away until there is nothing left.
About shaking my head at my father before turning and running away, stepping up onto the edge and diving into the water toward the place where Nova was waiting in the powerboat.
About all the people I’ve killed and all the people I’ve saved because of the people I’ve killed.
About the first man I killed, the two of us alone under the clear Iraqi night sky.
About swimming toward Nova as he came toward me and being underneath the water for a few moments at a time, hearing nothing at all, floating in a void.
About Scooter dying in my arms.
About my mother and my sister and her husband and the boys.
About Casey and David, Marilyn and Walter.
About Karen again.
About all the people I’ve killed and all the people I’ve saved because of the people I’ve killed.
/> About Nova helping me up out of the water just as the fire on the yacht finally reached the gas tank and the entire thing went up, momentarily lighting the night, and how he was shouting above the explosion, asking what happened, what the fuck just happened.
About two weeks later learning I was pregnant.
About knowing I couldn’t keep it.
About taking myself to the abortion clinic and then driving myself home.
About nobody ever knowing, not even Tina.
About Karen, saying in her deep southern accent, Can you keep a secret?
And about how sometimes when I’m in total silence, in the dark void, my unborn child is with me and we curl up together to keep ourselves warm and then just float there, mother and child, safe from everything that is evil.
Twenty-Two
“Holly, Holly, look at that elephant!”
“David,” I say reproachfully, giving him a look.
His smile fades a moment as he works the translation in his head. Then, in a slow, stunted voice, he says, “Regardez … l’éléphant?”
“Très bon,” I say with a nod.
Casey tugs at my shorts. “Can we go see the sea lions?”
She doesn’t ask the question in French, and before I have the chance to give her the same reproach I just gave her brother, David points and says, “Hey, that’s not fair!”
I place a hand to my forehead, try strangling this migraine before it grows any stronger. Another night of little sleep and I didn’t do any running, any exercises, which I know I should have done this morning but which I put off anyway and now here I am with the kids at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo even though the sky is overcast and threatening rain.
“Holly,” David says, stressing my name in two syllables, “how come I have to speak stupid French and she doesn’t?”
One of my few nannily duties is teaching the kids French, Spanish, and Japanese. Tuesday we try to speak French as much as possible; Wednesday it’s Spanish; Thursday, Japanese. As can be expected, Casey and David have never been thrilled with the task, but they do pretty well, especially Casey who seems to be picking up the languages very quickly.
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