Unflappable

by Suzie Gilbert

  Lyllis wore a brilliantly patterned kaftan, her hair intricately braided and dotted with tiny beads. When the building’s front door buzzer sounded she looked up from the hem of a half-finished dress, crossed the room, and pressed the button. For a few moments she stared out the window at her Chicago neighborhood, then she opened her door.

  Roland stood waiting. He tucked his sunglasses into his jacket pocket and gave her a careful smile. “Baby,” he said warily.

  “Baby,” she replied, in the same tone. He leaned down and gave her a kiss on the cheek. She stepped aside, and he entered the apartment.

  “Drink?” asked Lyllis.

  “Beer?”

  Roland walked past the flamboyantly-colored couch and stood before the window. To the left hung a wall of framed photographs, each showing one of Lyllis’s creations in a star-studded setting. His eyes traveled over the smiling celebrities and socialites and came to rest on Luna, who wore a showstopping turquoise gown and an impassive expression.

  Lyllis emerged from the kitchen with two glasses and two bottles of beer. She set them down on the coffee table, one at each corner of the latest National Enquirer. LOVEBIRD QUADRANGLE screamed the headline, surrounded by head shots of Luna, Adam, a long-haired Ned, and a white-headed eagle. She sat down on the couch.

  Roland approached and surveyed the arrangement. Carefully he lowered himself beside her, picked up a beer, and a poured it into a glass. He offered it to her, then poured one for himself.

  “How was Kentucky?” she asked pleasantly.

  “Not a place I want to spend a lot of time,” he answered agreeably. “How are things at the store?”

  “Just fine. Hired another salesgirl.”

  “Anything new in the fashion world?”

  “Not much. What’s new with you?”

  “Oh, not much.”

  Lyllis took a sip of her beer, returned her glass to the table, and sat back. Three, two, one, thought Roland, just before she squared her jaw, reached for the National Enquirer, and held it up with both hands. Roland returned her gaze, determined to remain silent. “He just wants to talk to her, is all,” he said, in less than ten seconds.

  “So you’re after her again?” she snapped.

  The first time Luna disappeared, it was from Adam’s Chicago townhouse. They had been married for three months, and the whirlwind of travel, social events, and public appearances had left her edgy and rattled. She played a good game, perfecting an expression of inscrutability even as her rigid posture announced she might as well have been dropped into a cage match. Adam had tried to distract her by pouring money into her account, most of which she immediately gave away to her rehabber friends.

  Roland remembered Adam’s expression when she didn’t show up at the restaurant, starting with a slight frown and steadily morphing into something close to panic. Soon he had twelve men and half the Chicago police department looking for her, and Lyllis knew it. At one in the morning he let himself into her loft and found the two of them on the flamboyantly-colored couch, hammered on margaritas, Chinese food containers littering the coffee table. Their laughter had been audible in the hallway. When he appeared in the doorway Luna regarded him silently, looking younger and more fragile than she ever had before.

  You back the fuck off and give this girl some space, Lyllis had said, enunciating each word like a mob boss.

  Roland returned an hour later with Adam, who was uncharacteristically subdued. Lyllis? said Luna as she left. Don’t forget your promise, okay?

  “You know where she is?” Roland asked.

  “You want to check my closets?”

  “Don’t start. I don’t need this.”

  “You don’t need this from me, or from Adam?” she asked contemptuously. “The sonofabitch himself denied the kidnapping story, which means she left him of her own free will. And that means if you’re looking for her, he’s turned you into a bounty hunter.”

  She looked pointedly at a framed photograph. A young Roland stood grinning, wearing a mud-covered football uniform. His arm firmly encircled a young Lyllis, dressed in a dazzling summer dress and beaming, a wide smudge of dirt across her cheek.

  “I’ve been waiting for you for years,” she said, spooking him with her quiet deliberation. “Waiting for you to quit beating the shit out of people while that bastard looks the other way. Waiting for you to turn back into the man you used to be. All this time, wondering what would push me over the edge.”

  Roland maintained his deadpan expression, but it was difficult. He could deal with shouting Lyllis, threatening Lyllis, dish-throwing Lyllis, even torrentially weeping Lyllis. But this was different.

  “And this is it,” she said.

  Roland’s frown deepened. “What do you care?”

  “You are one blind man when you want to be. I care because that girl doesn’t deserve either one of you. You don’t even see how much she’s like you.”

  Roland gave a disgusted snort. “What? Why? Because we both grew up in foster care? Lot of kids do. Doesn’t mean anything.”

  Lyllis narrowed her eyes. “Don’t you get dismissive on me, Roland Edwards. You had one stop. You know how many she had? Like, ten. Little skinny white girl, running like Flo-Jo. And every time they cornered her, she turned into you.”

  “The hell are you talking about?”

  She grimaced. “Never mind. I don’t break my promises. But I’m going to tell you two things: one, you hurt her, and I will tell the police everything I know about you. Not that they’ll do anything, except maybe make your life nice and miserable for awhile. And two: you push her too far, and she’s the one who’s gonna make you sorry.”

  • • •

  Gunderman saw the slight figure racing toward him and stopped his car. He glanced at the top of the hill, but the gray van was gone. Angrily he opened his door. “Where did he go with the eagle?” he demanded.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about!” shouted Luna defiantly. Her open aggression surprised him, even though his dozens of phone calls had unearthed a lot more about her than he anticipated. Don’t take a chance, he thought, and reached for his handcuffs.

  Sean, Bailey, and Cole hurried toward them. Luna recoiled at the rattle of the handcuffs, and Sean reached out protectively. “There’s no need for that!” he protested.

  “Stand back, sir!” Gunderman ordered. As he glanced at the trio he nearly missed Luna’s fist, which flew out of nowhere at his face. He jerked his head back, spun her against the car, and pulled her arms behind her. “What are you doing?” he asked incredulously, as he snapped the handcuffs shut.

  “Come on, man, leave her alone!” said Sean.

  Gunderman glared at him. “You have been harboring a fugitive, which is a third degree felony!” he said. “You have jeopardized both your state and federal permits!”

  “They had nothing to do with it!” said Luna furiously, turning to face him. “If you touch their permits or charge them with anything I swear to God I will contact every media outlet in the country and tell them you’re a liar and a fool!”

  Gunderman felt a surge of anger. “Get in the car!” he snapped. He opened the back door, covered her head with his hand, and pushed her inside. “I will be in touch with you,” he told Sean. He slid into the driver’s seat, made a quick three-point turn, and drove away.

  There were no street lights on the small country road. Gunderman’s solitary car cruised through the darkness, the windows up, the doors locked. The dashboard screen glowed a soft blue. Luna sat in the back seat, her hands pinned behind her, adrenaline flooding her system. Rivulets of sweat ran down her back.

  “Why are you doing this?” Gunderman demanded, the intensity of his eyes visible in the rear view mirror. “Why are you breaking all these laws? The eagle’s probably going to end up right back at Celia Jenkins’ wildlife center, so what’s the point?”

  “Probably!” Luna shouted, her heart throbbing as the cold steel bit into her wrists. “Probably going to end up at
Celia’s? You mean unless Adam buys you off and takes him back to Florida? Or unless one of your stupid bureaucrats who knows nothing about eagles decides to send him to some random place in California? Did you look up his history? Do you have any idea what he’s been through?”

  The headlights illuminated an overpass scrawled with a single hieroglyphic. As they emerged from beneath it, a heavy thud shook the car. Gunderman swerved and jammed on the brakes, and a man in black slid off the roof, opened the door, and yanked him out.

  “I’m a federal officer!” Gunderman grunted, as the masked figure slammed him face down on the road and closed a pair of handcuffs around his wrists. In quick succession he removed Gunderman’s gun and keys, then pulled him into a sitting position and dragged him backwards into the woods. There was another heavy click, and a second set of handcuffs bound the officer to a slender tree.

  “Let me out!” cried Luna from the back of the car, her voice rising in volume, her feet thudding against the door. “Get them off! Get them off me!”

  Silently the figure returned to the car, pulled her out, and unlocked her handcuffs with one of Gunderman’s keys. She rubbed her wrists, her face flushed, her breath coming in ragged gasps. “Get them off!” she whispered, brushing her wrists as if they were covered with hornets. The man crouched, pulled her down beside him, and removed his face mask.

  “Look at me,” said Warren, in his deep and lazy drawl.

  Luna tried to concentrate but her trembling continued, her eyes on her hands as she rubbed them violently together. “Look at me!” he insisted, and grasped her chin. Breathless, she locked her eyes on his.

  “Stop it,” he said.

  She struggled to breathe normally, blinking as he held her eyes. She took one last gulp, and with a final shudder she was still.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “Yes. I’m okay.”

  Warren cocked his head and gave her a slow smile. “Don’t make me ask you again.” He replaced his mask, and disappeared.

  Luna climbed into the passenger seat and wrapped her arms around her knees. Heat rose from her skin, leaving a chill behind. Warren emerged from the woods and slid behind the wheel. “You don’t look so good,” he said, eyeing her as he tossed his mask into the back. “You going to pass out on me?”

  “No.”

  “All right.” He pulled onto the road. “Well, this pretty much sucks,” he added. “I just left one of my heroes cuffed to a tree.”

  “What?”

  “That was Erik Gunderman. He works in the Loxahatchee. One of the kitties made it up there, I don’t know how, and some prick winged her with a rifle. Gunderman collared the guy and netted the kitty, all’s I had to do was pick her up and take her to surgery. Damned good man. This complicates things.”

  “If he’s such a good man, why is he after me?”

  Warren gave her an inquiring look. “Because you’re an alleged felon?”

  Luna rubbed the back of her neck with a shaky hand. “Right. How long do you think it’ll take him to figure out it was you?”

  “About two seconds. I left the keys near him, so we better get out of here.”

  “How did you find me?”

  “Anna Lee called after you left Blue Moon. That is one hellacious woman.”

  “But…”

  “I was heading for you when Gunderman showed up. Sean called me before you got to the end of the driveway.”

  “But how…?”

  “Open your necklace. Just be careful.”

  Luna opened the silver bead hanging from the leather cord around her neck. Nestled on top of the downy eagle feather was a metal microchip.

  “I tracked you. Now you’re like one of my kitties. I put it in there the last time you spent the night, when you were sleeping. Don’t lose it.”

  She threw her arms around his neck. “Thank you,” she whispered. He kissed her forehead, pulled a phone from his pocket, and placed it on her lap.

  “I can’t see shit without my readers,” he said, shifting the car into gear. “Find Jake.”

  “Who’s Jake?”

  “Just a homicidal old hippie. He doesn’t bother anybody.” He raised one eyebrow. “Long as you don’t piss him off.”

  Luna tapped the phone, and handed it back.

  “Jake! Yeah! Wassup, man. Listen, I got a hot van I need to swap out. What?” He peered around the dark country road, then sighed. “Oh, hell, I don’t know. Some fucking place in Indiana.”

  • • •

  Ned tilted the water bottle over his handful of dirt, made a muddy paste, and smeared it across the van’s front license plate. He repeated the process with the back plate, the sound of crickets and tree frogs singing in his ears. The small dirt path where he was parked was deserted. The small country road he had pulled off was deserted as well.

  He had driven through the hayfield, then taken a left. He had no idea where he was headed, let alone how to find Luna and free her from her arresting officer. He wanted to avoid the highways, but there were police on the back roads as well. Instead he had found this almost invisible path, and followed it into the woods.

  He poured more water from the bottle onto his hands, rubbed most of the mud away, and dried them on his pants. The panic he felt while driving had subsided, but now threatened to re-emerge. A mosquito whined in his ear, and another bit his arm. Normally he would seek shelter in his car. But inside his car was Luna’s meat-eating god of war bird, so he stayed where he was and slapped the back of his neck.

  He scanned the list of rehabbers he had transferred from Luna’s phone to his. He could call anyone, and the firewalls on his phone would protect him. But they wouldn’t protect those he called, especially if they were surrounded by police and/or federal agents. He pressed his phone, a map popped up, and a small red arrow pointed to his exact location. This does me no good, he thought, as a swarm of mosquitos finally drove him into the car.

  He pulled the door shut, turned around to check the crate, and froze. The cover had slipped. Mars stood on his perch, fully revealed, microseconds away from launching himself through the metal grate and seizing Ned with his bayonet feet.

  Mars didn’t move. Ned felt a pain in his chest, and remembered his body required oxygen. He took a breath and dropped his eyes, as Luna once told him wildlife consider a direct stare a sign of aggression. Quietly, he cleared his throat.

  “So, like, here we are,” he said, attempting a conversational tone, well aware that addressing this creature was further proof of his mental descent. “I’m good with you, if you’re good with me.”

  The eagle watched him steadily, apparently unconcerned that Ned might consider it a sign of aggression. He still didn’t move, though, which Ned took in a positive way. Long minutes ticked by, and Mars looked out the side of his crate. “Any thoughts?” asked Ned. “Because I’m coming up with nothing. I suppose I could call my parents, but…mmm…no.”

  He thought about a prospective conversation with his father, who usually answered the phone. “Would you like to hear a discussion between my dad and me?” he asked the eagle, whose gaze returned. But not in a hostile way, Ned thought, so he continued. “Ok, here’s me: ‘Hello, Dad?’ And here’s my father.”

  He extended his thumb and pinky as if he were holding a phone, and switched to a hearty but, he hoped, unaggressive voice. “‘Why, hello there, Neddo! Glad you called! I want to talk to you about this theft and kidnapping business. You’re dealing with some high-powered people, which is good, but it appears that none of them are on your team!’”

  Mars shook his feathers, and Ned shifted in his seat and leaned back against the steering wheel. “You know what I’d say then?” he asked. “I’d say, ‘But Dad — I was just punched in the face by Roland Edwards!’”

  Theatrically he dropped his jaw. “And you know what he’d say?” he asked, and switched to an awestruck voice. “He’d say, ‘Roland Edwards? Heisman Trophy winner Roland Edwards? MVP thirty yard forty home run draft pick in the m
ile slam dunk twenty points off the Stanley Cup Kentucky Derby Day Roland Edwards? Why, Neddo, that’s sensational! Shelley, come in here, our Neddo was just punched in the face by Roland Edwards! Aww, Neddo …. son! Son!’”

  Ned stopped, afraid he’d used up the eagle’s quota of patience. Languidly Mars extended his left wing and left foot, then emitted a soft exhalation. “You know something?” said Ned. “You’re right.”

  Slowly he raised his arms, closed his eyes, and stretched, sighing deeply near the end. The tightness in his body began to disappear. He couldn’t believe how much better he felt, even though he was still hiding in the woods, an accessory to a felony.

  His new spiritual master gazed at him from an oversized animal crate. Ned wondered if eagles were categorized as soaring birds, whose feathers weighed more than their skeletons. “Listen,” he said. “I’m going to get us both out of here, and I’m going to find your mistress. Or hostess, or whatever she is to you.”

  He brainstormed, analyzed, conceptualized, and free-associated, all to no avail. “Don’t be afraid to jump in here,” he said to Mars. He looked down at his phone, at the infuriating little red location arrow. Eventually he typed in patron saint of bird thieves.

  There was no patron saint of bird thieves.

  However, there was a patron saint of thieves in general: St. Dismas. Ned frowned. He hadn’t actually stolen the bird himself, although he had driven the getaway car and was currently in possession. He re-typed “bird thieves,” hoping for some kind of support group, and discovered a treasure trove of information: not about people who stole birds, but about birds who took things that didn’t belong to them.

  Bowerbirds stole each other’s nest decorations. Steller’s Jays took acorns from Clark’s Nutcrackers. Cowbirds pilfered a single egg from a different species, then replaced it with one of their own. Gulls grabbed french fries and ice cream cones from tourists. Crows, the most larcenous birds on earth, made off with whatever they could get their beaks on. And Bald Eagles…Bald Eagles mugged hard-working Ospreys in midair, and took their fish.