Do Not Call

by Julian Folk

  But for the gas station attendant in the window, no one would know Connor pissed here.

  Crazy.

  No traffic on the parkway. No traction. Aatma drives slower.

  “Sir, your jaw, your cheek,” he says. Aatma adjusts the rearview and points to his own jaw and cheek. “Your jaw, your cheek.” He adjusts the rearview again, for Connor.

  Connor sees a freakish growth inside his mouth. Globular. Bulging.

  Fingertips palpate the new growth. Numb as hell. Tremendous swelling. Causing a mass to form that’s larger than a golf ball.

  Harbor bacteria. Cracked tooth. Rampant infection.

  “Doesn’t hurt,” Connor says. The mass slurs his speech. “Took a swim in dirty water. My doc’s in North Berkshire.”

  Aatma has no idea what Connor’s saying. He’s unintelligible.

  “Worry about the road,” Connor says.

  Steering worsens by the minute.

  The curfew hasn’t taken effect. Most people voluntarily stayed home. The reports must be so dire. Only snowplows and salt-spreaders pass them.

  “I risk a fine on the way back, sir,” Aatma says.

  Does he want more money?

  “Know that your work has significantly helped a family save itself and get its mojo back,” Connor says, unable to understand his own slurred speech.

  Random memories of making love to Ayelet flit across the screen of his awareness. He should’ve brought more intensity. If he knew Eric/Vincent was alive and fucking Ayelet, Connor would have licked her ’til his tongue wore away and fucked her ’til his cock fell off.

  The closest exit to home would put Connor one left turn from Main Street. God knows what’s on Main Street. The government’s thrown Vincent under the bus. That means nothing to Connor. The stuff Jasper said… Connor knows way too much.

  Rogue agents might be stationed in town. They could shoot him dead or abduct him and hide him at a black site forever.

  Robert died fighting Vincent. That is what Connor believes. Robert died fighting Vincent, and he refused to give up the location of the Vermont cabin. So that Big Bro could save his family, he fought to the death.

  If Connor kills Vincent, they’ll kill him, but maybe they’ll let Ayelet live, and if they don’t, they’ll let Connor Jr. live, because he’s a day old. Connor’s son won’t know him, he’ll believe lies about his father, but he’ll have the chance to live his life.

  Connor asks Aatma to stop short of the exit and drop him at the woods. He shakes Aatma’s hand, knowing Vincent could see the driver on the road and kill him, or the car could slip on the snow and smash a tree. He closes the door. Aatma turns the cab around. It gets stuck in the snow. Connor muscles the cab mere inches forward. The downhill slope lends the cab momentum.

  The tires gain traction, and Aatma makes his turn.

  Sipping the last of his Diet Coke, Connor faces the woods.

  How deceptive the landscape is.

  The treacherous lake resembles a vast snowy plain.

  The radio said the temperature plummeted to twenty degrees. Still, it would take days to freeze this lake so he could walk on it. He knows he must climb the roots, grasp the limbs and hug the trunks of the trees on the edge. Falling into this water means frostbite and amputation.

  He litters the soda cup and pockets the straw.

  Connor goes for it, with his gloved hands holding tree limbs, and his boots on the roots. When one appendage slips, the others stabilize him. The work of moving root-to-root, branch-to-branch absorbs his attention completely. Vincent could already be at the house. He could be sawing Ayelet’s body to pieces. But there is no thought of anything here. The snow reflects the half-moon light. Connor sees graceful movements, beautiful trees.

  And then…

  I’m home…

  The house is dark inside. Don’t read into that. Feeling invigorated, he hops the fence in one try and lands to the side of a bush. No gunshots. No screams. Perfect quiet on the block.

  He wonders if the neighbors moved away.

  Snow dives from the sky.

  Connor fantasizes about Isoldi’s killer hardware: gun/Taser/pepper spray/baton.

  He rubs his gloved hand over the plastic straw in his pocket.

  He glances back at his path. By adding snow, the blizzard erases it.

  Chapter 34

  Curfew time.

  The roads are closed and unnavigable anyway. State police choppers hover overhead. A couple dozen FBI, state troopers and local cops hold down the barricade. Others take up tactical positions throughout the town.

  Vincent DeSantis’s whereabouts? Guy’s a ghost. Isoldi asked why the roadblocks. Police Director said, “Just in case.”

  Three tumors grow in her mind: anger, frustration and resentment. Innocent people died in the town she was sworn to protect, thanks to Vincent. When Ayelet and Connor disappeared, Isoldi rooted for them to prevail. She also prayed for them to not come back to Western Massachusetts and attract more violence and death.

  North Berkshire was such a peaceful town.

  It had gone sixty-four years without a wrongful killing.

  Isoldi can tolerate a rightful killing.

  Ayelet, her newborn, a broken-nosed bombshell FBI agent and a large bearded dude sporting State Department credentials rode up to the barricade. Their persons and their vehicle were inspected. The bearded man’s toxic swagger tripped Isoldi’s primal alarm system. So did the dripping discomfort of Ayelet and the bombshell FBI agent in his company. The State Department flack, Bud, said his job was to protect the ladies. But his vibe was predatory, not protective.

  “You look familiar,” Police Director Spagnoli told Bud.

  “I’m new to your cool town, dude,” Bud said.

  Ayelet hugged Isoldi, showed off Connor Jr., and asked if she’d seen the baby’s father. Isoldi said no. The cop also said she’d reread The Mother of the World. Ayelet asked the other officers: “Did anyone see my husband, Connor Yard? He’s about six-foot-tall, thin, blond hair, um, kind of a mix of preppy and hipsterish, but possibly messed up tonight.”

  The responses verged on flippant: “Nope”; “Sorry, not tonight”; “No blonde boys, ma’am”; “Just workaday people, we’ve seen.”

  With help, Isoldi moved the wood barricade. The truck careened along Main Street in the direction of Ayelet’s house. She should check on them sooner, rather than later.

  Isoldi nurses a latte. Caffeine aggravates her anxiety as much as it sharpens her physical skills. Once, when she was having coffee at Bean-to-Martha’s with her mom, some transient ripped off a lady’s bag. Isoldi, caffeinated to the gills, shot up and chased him across the campus, over goose-shitty grass, and tackled him with prejudice. It was the best chase-and-tackle of her short career. Then she had a panic attack.

  Tonight she faces a much fiercer adversary.

  Visibility is limited to fifty feet in any direction. The choppers fly dangerously low and contribute scant information. They report endlessly.

  A trooper looks left at the same time Isoldi looks right. Their eyes meet. Cute guy, but she wishes he wasn’t wearing his Smokey Bear Hat in the blizzard. The ultra-flat brim lends itself to high snow accumulation; the crown accumulates well, too. And the snow stays put even as he speaks to Isoldi, who is more than a foot shorter.

  “Weather service says we’re getting three feet,” he says.

  “Pilin’ up four inches an hour,” she says.

  “Whiteout conditions,” he says. “I guess our murderer—”

  He stops, offended.

  Isoldi’s not listening to him. She hears the grumble. Her hearing is acute. Preserved by avoidance of earbuds or headphones.

  Now the trooper hears it, too. The grumble of a stressed engine. Louder than thunder. Sounds like a million revolutions per minute. And a scrape, off-and-on, a scrape of the road. She pivots and darts to the trees.

  The Police Director shouts her name.

  When she’s ensconced, no, trapped, betw
een the trees, it occurs to Isoldi these trees are of no help. They’ll yield to a large enough vehicle. She committed to an unsafe position, and she has nowhere to go.

  Through the branches, she still can’t see it. The sound was low at first. Now it’s not. The engine labors so hard. The vehicle moves so fast. The strain of maximum acceleration is an angry demon’s groan. The scrape of the road screams like a torture victim.

  “Fuck out of the road!” Isoldi yells.

  Agents and troopers bail. Live bodies jump to either side of her.

  The Police Director opens fire. North Berkshire cops, too. Closer now. The engine roars like a herd of angry dinosaurs. No headlights. Isoldi’s radio blares, “We got a possible…” The chopper hovers overhead, unable to report accurately. “…Is that a salt spreader, or a plow? Someone’s comin’. Foot stuck on the gas.”

  Local cops and troopers stationed thirty feet behind the barricade open fire. Isoldi hears shotguns and semi-automatics. The Police Director screams, “I see a guy at the wheel.”

  Just before the snowplow flattens her boss, Isolidi looks, and yes, a man sits at the wheel. But his head droops. It’s awash in blood. He’s dead. He’s been that way. Cords tie the man in place and prop him up. A log or block keeps the gas pedal down.

  No.

  Too many twists in the parkway.

  DeSantis drives the snowplow remotely.

  It casts law enforcement vehicles aside and mows the cops. Isoldi runs out from the trees. The plow follows the ramp and turns onto Main Street. She merges with a thin stream of cops running after it. At an angle, the plow crashes against facades of a pub, boutique and bank and turns sharply into the guts of a restaurant which explodes. Then the adjoining stores. Fire engulfs the north side of the strip.

  The stunning magnitude of the explosions forces the stream of surviving cops to fall back to their original position, their focus quickly shifting to their flattened brothers and sisters. Isoldi stares at the Police Director’s pancaked body. Five minutes pass. A blanket of snow has covered it.

  Chapter 35

  Vincent daydreams a thousand different visions of triumph and projects them onto the white screens of snow.

  Then he remembers reality and frets.

  I’m supposed to be there, Vincent thinks. I’m supposed to be in the woods north of Main Street. But I’m not. I should hear the first responders and smell the smoke. But I don’t.

  No means of checking his coordinates now.

  He borrowed the dead driver’s phone, downloaded the app, hacked the plow and pulled a Maisie. Tap a button to accelerate, tilt the phone to steer. The vehicle slowed slightly at the exit ramp. He guessed there was a barricade. And the plow disappeared from GPS after it cut hard into the shops. Looking back, it took way too long to get there.

  He lobbed the phone in the trees, on the other side of the road, otherwise Jasper’s new team could pinpoint his location and track his movements. This way, the whiteout conditions shield Vincent from the human eye and hide him from aerial surveillance. He counts on the sound effects of the explosions and fire response to mask his movements in North Berkshire.

  But why is he not near the exit?

  He couldn’t hear the booms.

  Vincent must’ve stopped more than a mile short of where he intended to stop.

  The snow gains depth by the minute. Walking becomes a chore. You sink your leg in the tide of snow. Your foot meets the ground and stabilizes your body. You lift the other leg.

  The process drains energy Vincent reserved for use against Connor.

  It’s more than that. The snowy woods drain Vincent’s vitality from him, his essence. He feels himself losing his punch.

  Connor must be in the area.

  Vincent should’ve let those kids toss the Molotov cocktails into the house.

  Even if it didn’t kill Connor, it’d’ve burned his ass to a crisp. He wouldn’t’ve shown his burned skin in public. Too vain.

  The woods open wide. Vincent wades into a clearing. The snow drift reaches his waist.

  This shit is dangerous. What’s underneath?

  A feeling of absolute depletion pervades Vincent’s body. He falls backward into a snow drift. His bones and muscles sink deep in the comically high accumulation. He hates wearing the dead driver’s bulky gear, despite its resistance to cold and moisture. The snow melts on his mouth and cheeks.

  A case of mental indigestion strikes.

  He revisits the choice in Boston: Finish the mission, or flee the country.

  Doubts about his decision munch on his bones and drink the marrow, leaving him hollowed out.

  In North Berkshire, he’ll be outnumbered and outgunned. Say he slips in, kills the adults dead. That’s doable. But what to do with Vincent Jr.?

  Babyman’s less than twenty-four hours old.

  He’d have to carry his swaddled baby through the woods, trudge two miles to the safe house he rented on the sly with stolen funds (identity theft)—not even Maisie knew about that—hoping the snow covers his tracks and impedes cops canvassing the Berkshires. Then he’d hop from safe house-to-safe house, infant in tow, negotiate in a weak bargaining position and escape the country.

  While the authorities scour the countryside for father and son.

  Babyman really limits his movements.

  And, you never know, the kid might be Connor’s.

  What if the reattachment surgery actually was successful?

  The alternative now: forgo justice, spurn the baby and hike up to the safe house. Given Vincent’s superior strength and endurance, unencumbered by his son, he could travel days on foot, evading detection. The plow driver’s waterproof boots go up past his knees. Maybe they’re a half-size too small but they get the job done. He would stop at one safe house to pee, eat and shower, travel to another and sleep the day. No one would be the wiser.

  He’d be out of the country in three days.

  He’d be in Tehran, fucking up Jasper’s shit next week.

  Now that Jasper betrayed Vincent, Iran’s antics seem brave, not cowardly.

  The idea of defecting is nice, but Vincent swore a solemn duty.

  The snow falls. He hears faint sirens to the east. Finally. They remind him of the mission. He agreed to complete testing No Touch Kill. He owes it to the country, to the people. Beyond that, Vincent still has a moral obligation to fight bullies at every turn.

  That’s why Connor must die, and die properly, at Vincent’s hand, under Vincent’s gaze.

  Robert Yard sacrificed for his despicable loved ones.

  Vincent has so much respect for that.

  Connor’s a different breed. He won’t sacrifice his life for anything or anyone. He’ll devise a sneaky maneuver to save his ass and his family at the same time. Because he needs to have his cake and eat it too.

  The intensity of Vincent’s revulsion induces lightheadedness.

  Now he hears sirens originating from the east, south and north. This indicates mobilization of nobodies in neighboring backwaters. An urge overcomes him.

  He jerks off.

  Keep east. Avoid the lake. Peek above the fence, scout the property.

  Simple instructions. Difficult to obey. Naturally, Vincent’s mind goes slack in the absence of a challenge. He daydreams of the response he’s due to receive in the wake of Jasper’s arrest. Picture Fox News touting and honoring him. He’d watch it with Dad. Picture Hannity, O’Reilly and Megyn Kelly hailing him as a hero. What an incomparable platform from which to spill inside knowledge of the government’s betrayal.

  Watch a disgraced president resign and get whisked away on Marine One.

  Watch disgraced past presidents erect walls around their estates.

  Watch CNN, MSNBC, NYT, NPR and WaPo hit Vincent hard on the Connor/Ayelet/North Berkshire bullshit.

  Watch them hit the true centers of power harder.

  Watch them crucify Jasper.

  A bomb of truth is about to be dropped on the United States.

&n
bsp; Denial is not an option.

  Watch beautiful women throw themselves at Vincent.

  (Not the kind you build from scratch, like Maisie.)

  Watch his new consulting firms reel in billions.

  Watch Vincent Jr. grow up to regard his father as a hero, savior of a nation, titan of incomparable success and wealth. The most respected man on the planet.

  The obvious occurs to Vincent. Contemplating it frightens him. By the age of forty, they’ll draft him to run for president.

  How do you say no to that?

  Vincent gets a couple years to party. Then the party’s over, and he must serve.

  Never has he been so motivated to destroy Connor.

  Shame there’s a snag in his path.

  Or, rather, a cabin.

  A snowed-in cabin: Lights on. TV blares. Red-brick chimney blowing smoke.

  Where in the fuck am I?

  This is Vincent’s second time in these woods. Both times he got lost. He punches his thigh.

  A president doesn’t make the same mistake twice.

  Vincent’s confidence collapses. So does the cabin’s roof, partially.

  The inhabitants scream.

  In no mood to help or kill, unwilling to further dilute his aggression, Vincent plods on, pondering the future difficulties that might arise in his White House when carelessness of this nature strikes.

  Chapter 36

  Explosions shake Ayelet’s house. The avalanching snowfall reflects Main Streets flames. Lathers false daylight on Ayelet’s ghost-town block.

  The house reeks of death, decay and piss. The blood on the floor, once sticky, has gone to crust. Law enforcement took the bodies and left the place as it was. The food in the fridge acquired new colors and stenches.

  No electricity in the house, nothing to hack. Bud removed the NTK cams and mics after the swatting. By candlelight, he sweeps the whole house for new surveillance gadgets and turns up nothing.