Painless

by Derek Ciccone

  Carolyn wasn’t especially interested in her mother’s legacy. She wanted to play.

  “You wanna catch fireflies, Billy?”

  He looked up from the laptop. “Not right now, Carolyn. We are going to barbecue some chicken in a few minutes. You can help me—your dad is going to be home tonight.”

  It didn’t register. “Hey—I gotta good idea. I think we should ride bikes!”

  “No.”

  “How ’bout we color?” She got up to run. “I’ll get the crayons.”

  “No, Carolyn!”

  She stopped and turned back toward him, looking at him with her big negotiator eyes. “Then I guess we’re gonna haff to ride bikes,” she said with a wispy shrug and grin.

  Billy devised a compromise—they would both write. He wrote his article, while she scribbled with crayons on a piece of scrap paper.

  “I’m writing a story just like you, Billy.”

  “That’s good.”

  “When I grow up I’m gonna be a newspaper writer.”

  “I thought you were going to be a firefighter?”

  She sighed. “Can’t a girl change her mind?”

  He couldn’t hide his smile. “I’m not sure newspapers will still be around when you’re my age. Maybe you should think about starting a blog instead.”

  “Blog rhymes with frog,” she said, then performed her best frog imitation—ribbit…ribbit. It was cute the first few times, but got old real quick.

  They finished their masterpieces simultaneously. Billy emailed his story to his editor, and Carolyn displayed her work for his viewing. The scribbles weren’t legible, but that didn’t stop Carolyn from reading them aloud, “I love Mommy, Daddy, Billy, Aunt Dana. I hope they never die and go to Sesame Street. But if they do, I hope I can come because it would be fun!”

  He was really going to miss her.

  They moved to the top of the cottage and Billy started the barbecue. Regardless of his fate, he thought cooking a meal for Chuck and Beth would be the least he could do for giving him one of the most fulfilling weeks he’d had in a long time.

  Carolyn was his assistant, stirring the barbecue sauce before Billy brushed it on the chicken. She referred to it as “painting the chicken.” But she ate most of the profits by dipping her finger into the spicy sauce and licking it off.

  “Doesn’t it sting?” he asked, thinking of her wounded tongue.

  She giggled and took another fingerful. “Like a bee?”

  “Something like that.”

  She made a buzzing sound. “I’m gonna sting you, Billy,” she said and poked him with her finger.

  He smiled. “Come on and help me paint the chicken before you eat it all.”

  In one ear and out the other. “Now you be a bee and try to sting me!”

  She began to run from him.

  “Get back here, Carolyn, be careful!”

  She continued to run, heading for the steep stairs. “You can’t catch me, Billy!”

  “Get back here, Carolyn!”

  She rapidly approached the dangerous stairs.

  “Watch me fly like a bee, Billy!”

  “Nooo, Carolyn!”

  She looked back and smiled—

  And then she jumped.

  Chapter 20

  Following another morning visit to Arlington, Kerry Rutherford instructed his driver to bring him to his Northern Virginia estate so he could get some much needed rest and relaxation. Benny, his longtime driver, rolled his eyes and mentioned that he didn’t think Rutherford would ever get any rest until he caught all the bad guys. Benny was right.

  They drove past the Pentagon, which was the castle where Rutherford was king for so many years. Then into the bumper-to-bumper morning traffic of I-95 South. They passed Quantico, where he had done the majority of his marine training. Memories hit him like a wave pounding the beach.

  Twenty minutes after Benny dropped him off at his home, Rutherford was in his government-issued, bulletproof GMC Yukon XL. He drove out of the city, the road soon turning into a quiet highway lined by thick trees and overhanging greenery. An hour later he arrived in Fredericksburg, a sleepy city off of I-95, the complete opposite of the busy Beltway area. The main drag in the town featured nothing but chain store after chain store, which all blended together into a monotonous backdrop. That was one of the reasons they selected it.

  Rutherford turned off a road that rested between an Applebee’s and a NAPA Auto Parts. He passed through a small historic district, which included George Washington’s childhood home. The place where he allegedly claimed he never told a lie. Rutherford respected the father of his country, most admiring him as a courageous soldier, but doubted Washington could’ve been an effective intelligence officer with such a philosophy.

  He arrived at a row of block-shaped warehouses in an industrial park. He turned into the first driveway, pulling up to a non-descript, windowless cube of cement. It was the building that had housed Stipe Security for the last twelve years. The expectation would be that one of the world’s leading security companies would be housed in a luxury high-rise, but low profile was the key to everything.

  Franklin Stipe had always been a problem, but lately his over-the-top attitude had gone too far, and the threatening phone call demanding this meeting was the last straw. Iran was a long overdue wakeup call for Rutherford. Operation Anesthesia had to end before Stipe was raising his right hand before Congress, basking in the spotlight as he trampled on the Operation’s legacy. Rutherford had created Stipe Security with the sole purpose of funneling money to Operation Anesthesia via legitimate government contracts, and had put Stipe, then a young marine, in charge. And now he was going to show him who his daddy was.

  Stipe sat behind a cluttered desk with his usual cocky grin.

  “I got your message,” Rutherford greeted him coldly. “What do you want?”

  “Since you’re in charge of US intelligence, shouldn’t you know?”

  “That’s the same smug arrogance that led to the debacle in Iran.”

  “I thought I heard you say in your press conference that no such mission took place. An intelligence officer not telling the truth, I’m shocked.”

  “I thought I made myself very clear: Anesthesia is over.” Rutherford had little patience. And even less for a subordinate like Stipe.

  “One mistake in twenty years and you’re ready to bail. Are you sure you just aren’t covering your own ass now that you’re Mr. Big Shot?” Rutherford wanted to physically remove Stipe’s smirk from his face. “Funny how all that patriotic, greater-good mumbo jumbo sounded better when you didn’t have such a high-profile target on your ass.”

  “This wasn’t one incident,” Rutherford scolded parentally. “Nor did the downfall start and end in Iran. This happened because of power struggles within the ranks that diverted focus from the original mission statement. Each small crack has laid the foundation of a fault line, and I’m going to put an end to it before a major earthquake occurs.”

  Stipe stood and limped to the water cooler. His shirt was unbuttoned to his navel, exposing his scars. It was as if he was trying to show Rutherford he was every bit the soldier he was, like a child trying to live up to his father.

  “Good thing you set me up with a good medical plan when you set this place up, Kerry. Going through worker’s comp is a bitch. Just one big bureaucracy—the only thing worse is the government,” he said with a shit-eating grin.

  “You still haven’t told me why I’m here,” Rutherford said, anger building.

  “Oh yeah,” Stipe said, having returned behind his desk, “We have another bidder. Either you pay up and continue to support Operation Anesthesia, or we’ll be forced to go another direction. You know, free market. Isn’t that the American way we’ve been fighting for all these years?”

  “Another bidder?”

  “Al Muttahedah. They’re…” he stopped in mid sentence, maintaining his mocking grin, “Oh yeah, you’d know who they are.”

  “You
sick son of a bitch,” Rutherford lost his usual cool. “I started this operation, it served a purpose for the greater good, and now I’m going to end it.”

  “It was your idea to go to Iran and snoop around on the taxpayer money you funneled to Stipe Security.”

  “And if you didn’t screw it up then maybe we wouldn’t be in this predicament!”

  Stipe took out a small recorder and placed it on the desk. “If you are so confident all this was for the good of mankind, I’m sure you won’t have a problem sending this tape to LaRoche, to see what his congressional panel thinks of it.”

  Rutherford took a step back. He felt woozy. “You’re taping this?”

  “We’re one of the leading security companies in the country. We tape everything. It’s the sending it to Congress part I’d be worried about if I was you.”

  “Give me the tape! Do you know who you are dealing with?” Rutherford barked, swiping unsuccessfully at the recorder.

  Stipe laughed as he tossed the recorder to Rutherford, who awkwardly caught it. “I’m not taping you. Only Nixon was stupid enough to do that. Besides, if I were, you’d never know until it was too late. But I do think it’s important that you come to the realization that you’re no longer in charge of this operation.”

  “Are you threatening me?”

  “I’m not threatening anyone. This is just good old fashioned capitalism. Supply and demand. And it’s not just me; the doctors are in full agreement. Either you pay for our services or I go to Al Muttahedah.”

  Rutherford wasn’t worried about himself; he’d already given his life for his country. He had sacrificed everything to protect the US from an enemy like the one Stipe was willing to do business with. He doubted the part about Naqui being part of this coup d’état, but wasn’t as sure about Naqui as he once was.

  He visualized the mushroom cloud rising up from the city streets. America was his child, and if his child were kidnapped then he would grit his teeth and pay the ransom. The irony was as thick as the cloud he visualized.

  “I’ll pay,” he finally said.

  “Good,” Stipe replied, then handed him a glossy photo of an attractive family of blonds. “Since we’re still on the same team, I guess you should take a look at these.”

  “What’s this?” Rutherford asked with annoyance.

  “These are the Lerners. They’re our new recruits, partner.”

  Chapter 21

  The doctors in the emergency room at Norwalk Hospital told the Whitcombs what they could, based on their extensive medical training. Carolyn had a broken collarbone and severely sprained ligaments in her right ankle. Her little body was covered with cuts and abrasions, looking like a painted mural of reds and purples.

  Billy looked on, bewildered, and more concerned with what the doctors couldn’t tell them. How did a four-year-old girl leap off a twenty-five foot drop, and then get up and run again? These doctors were trained in the scientific—not the mystical.

  Billy relived the moment, still unable to wrap his frazzled mind around what he had witnessed. He couldn’t shake the horror he felt when she jumped. He would remember it for the rest of his life. She was heading toward certain death when her foot caught on one of the steps. She veered off to the right, and luckily tumbled over the railing and toward a bush. The bush slightly slowed her descent, but she still crashed to the ground with a vicious thud.

  Then things turned science fiction. Not only was Carolyn not dead, but she rose to her feet. She started running again, her right ankle limply hanging. She craned her neck back at Billy, who stood stunned at the top of the stairs. And without missing a beat, she exclaimed, “You can’t catch me, Billy!”

  She tried to point in his direction, but her shoulder was out of joint and hung lifelessly at her side. Her ankle had turned to jelly, buckling under as she tried to run. She kept falling to the ground like a drunk failing a sobriety test, and then repeating the process over and over. The look on her face was not pain, but confusion.

  He could tell the doctors doubted his improbable interpretation of events. He wouldn’t have believed it himself if he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes. The superhero and alien theories didn’t seem so wild anymore. The doctors fit Carolyn with a sling for her badly damaged collarbone and an air-cast for the ankle. They gave her pain medication, although Billy wasn’t sure it would be necessary.

  Beth and Chuck—who was already on his way home from his hunting trip when he got the call— took their daughter home, along with the eight-hundred-pound gorilla in the room that wasn’t addressed. Those answers would have to wait until Monday when they were scheduled to meet with the leading pediatric neurologists at Yale/New Haven Hospital.

  Something else was nagging at Billy. Why hadn’t Dana told Beth and Chuck about his arrest? He would have been an instant suspect in Carolyn’s swan dive off the staircase, if they knew. But once again, Billy knew beggars couldn’t be choosers, so he returned home with the Whitcombs, feeling no urge to blow the whistle on himself and expedite his homelessness.

  Carolyn spent the weekend confined to a wheelchair. She was fascinated with how certain body parts no longer operated correctly, but showed no signs of pain. She actually seemed to be reveling in being in her wheelchair, having her every whim waited on like a true princess.

  Beth and Chuck were paralyzed by uncertainty. Especially Beth, who had always been convinced there was something horribly wrong with her daughter, linked to her own self-destructive behavior. She looked resigned to the fact that Monday’s consultation would cement her fears.

  The dark clouds lifted slightly Sunday morning. The Shoreline Times arrived with two pictures of Beth Whitcomb on the front cover, twenty-one years apart. “Abandoned No More” was the boldfaced headline.

  Billy made his chocolate Cream of Wheat specialty, requested by the princess, while Chuck read aloud. The article didn’t delve into Beth’s most recent abandonment by the Boulangers. Rather, it focused on an intelligent, caring mother who found love with a hockey player, and was the proud owner of the world’s most wonderful daughter.

  When he finished reading, Carolyn tried to clap, but her shoulder wouldn’t work. So she raised her glass of strawberry milk with her healthy arm and toasted Beth. “Mommy rocks!”

  Chuck and Billy held up their orange juice and seconded, “Mommy rocks!”

  Beth was overcome with emotion. Billy wasn’t sure what to expect since he hadn’t sought permission, and they hadn’t exactly gotten off to the best start together. He expected to be evicted by this point anyway, which would’ve rendered it a non-issue. But ever since their confrontation in the cottage, they had slowly begun to chip away at each other’s icy exteriors, forging a bond of painful pasts.

  By Sunday night, everyone, including Carolyn, started to grasp the gravity of the situation and the house grew ominously quiet. They stared blankly at an episode of Desperate Housewives before Chuck took Carolyn up to her room to tuck her in for the night. After he sang his nightly lullabies—a customized version Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline,” which he changed to “Sweet Carolyn,” and as to not damage his macho image, Metallica’s “Enter Sandman”—he passed the baton.

  Billy entered the airport hanger and sat on the edge of her bed, story in hand. She called him to come closer and whispered in her most serious tone, “I don’t like hospitals—I don’t wanna go.”

  “They’re going to make you all better, so you don’t have to be in a wheelchair anymore.”

  “I kind of like being in a wheelchair. It’s fun—and everybody is ’sessing over me.”

  Billy had predicted such fears, and brought with him what he felt was the perfect Peanut Butter & Jelly story for the situation. In this one, Peanut Butter needed to have her tonsils out, but she was scared. So the two girls concocted a plot to escape from the hospital, and almost pulled it off, before a nice doctor caught them. They learned the lesson that doctors are there to help them, and it ended happily with a bowl of ice cream for the girls.


  “Will I get ice cream?” Carolyn asked.

  “If you are a good girl you will. Then when you come home, we’re going to color, ride bikes, paint the chicken, you name it.”

  Her face twisted with anxiousness. “Whoa—you’re going, right?”

  “I have to work on my articles.”

  A lonely tear trickled down her apple cheek. “Stick together, remember?”

  Billy remembered why he had a rule about dating actresses. He always gave in to the drama. “You’re right—stick together.”

  Chapter 22

  Monday morning, Billy and the Whitcombs traveled thirty minutes up the Merritt Parkway to Yale/New Haven Hospital.

  Billy knew they were dealing with something very rare because every few minutes a different doctor would stroll into Carolyn’s room with a wide-eyed look of wonderment. They would poke and prod her, before uttering, “remarkable” or “never seen anything like it.”

  Carolyn was officially a science experiment.

  A team of doctors interviewed the Whitcombs. They rubbed their chins and took copious notes. Beth opened up about her drinking and self-destructive behavior. The doctors continued writing. They asked her about family history of disease, focusing on any potential leprosy, paresthesia, and TB, but all she could contribute was the adoption/abandonment tale.

  Billy retold the story of the little girl jumping off the porch and then gleefully running away, despite significant structural injury to her limbs. They wrote more notes and continued rubbing chins. He could tell they were no closer to answers.

  Billy tried to keep Carolyn’s spirits up. He would come to visit in the early morning, then leave to work on his stories in the afternoon, before returning in the evening. This week’s article was a feature on the starting quarterback for New Canaan High for the upcoming season. The hook was that it was a female. Dana, who was surprisingly still his agent, and acting as if the radio “incident” never happened, quipped that if the Amish could successfully quarterback then it should be a piece of cake for women.