Dues of Mortality

by Jason Austin

  “I’m sorry about...all this,” Xavier said languidly. “He has every right to hate me.”

  “So I’ve heard,” Cassandra said, her composure unwavering.

  “I suppose he’s told you a lot about me.”

  “It seems now, that he hasn't told me much at all.”

  “It makes sense. He'd prefer to keep his mouth shut than say something unflattering or make up stories...even about me.”

  “He would at that.”

  Xavier drifted a few paces, like a dollar bill along a windy sidewalk. He pretended not to notice Cassandra’s sagacious surveillance as he stepped into the living room. Not that it made him uncomfortable— like a security camera or a beat cop who’d picked up his scent. It was more like a mother watching her child on the playground. Any minute she might say, “Oh honey, be careful. Don’t hurt yourself.” He liked that vibe. It was a rare one, and could be incredibly addictive. Xavier couldn't help but notice how hot Cassandra was. Hot in that naughty-nurse kind of way, like her bosom was designed for a baby boy during the day and a grown man at night. She looked like an amalgam of all the sexy, next door moms Xavier used to get boners for when he was going through puberty. Best of all, Cassandra was somewhat on the cushiony side, carrying her excess in the places that turned the hourglass into God's greatest invention ever. And Xavier had a noted thing for fleshy chicks.

  Inside the cozy milieu of the oversized living room, Xavier wobbled on his feet as he admired the early American décor that heralded his sister-in-law’s homemaking wizardry. The ceiling over the living area was depressed a couple of feet in relationship to the rest of the house; kind of like the room was giving him a warm hug. Various photographs and artwork ornamented the bright lavender walls and Benny’s diploma from Central State along with his medical degree hung to the far left. In front of Xavier was a large soapstone central fireplace that often hosted quiet nights of good conversation and romantic interludes for the doctor and his wife. A brightly lacquered redwood mantle encircled it at eye level. In the center of the mantle sat a small piece of uniquely crafted pottery attached to a wooden base with an engraved brass stamp. Xavier was automatically drawn to it. As he moved closer, his eyes began to focus on the stamp, slowly aligning the words of the engraving.

  He blinked. He had to be reading it wrong. Or hallucinating?

  It had happened before, when he experimented with H or was just so drunk the only things he could see were what his own head could fancy. His eyes puddled quickly and he lost his breath as his heart insisted on pounding its way out through his chest. His knuckles popped as his fists clenched and long-neglected fingernails gored his palms. He tried wiping his eyes over and over again, yet the bitterly pungent writing steadfastly refused to change: THE REMAINS OF MADELINE JANETTE HAWKINS, BELOVED MOTHER.

  “I thought you already knew,” Benny said. He had entered the room outside Xavier’s attention. Glenda needed to pay a bathroom visit before the exam and he was awaiting her.

  Xavier turned, practically assaulting his brother with grief.

  “I thought that’s why you were here, at first. When you didn’t say anything, I assumed you just didn’t want to bring it up.”

  “Wh...wh...what happened?” Xavier asked.

  “It was a heart attack; undiagnosed arrhythmia.” Benny talked straight, but watched his brother with pointed eyes, as if waiting for the timer to reach zero. “She got up one morning, went outside to get her mail and just...collapsed. She’d lost too much oxygen by the time help arrived. She hung on for a week. Then she...” He let it go.

  Xavier wanted, like hell, to hit something, to beat the shit out of it. His hands floated up in front him, seemingly outside his own control. For a moment, it looked to Benny that his brother might try to smash the urn. Instead, Xavier’s trembling fingers gripped the mantle of the fireplace like he was teetering over a bottomless canyon. His eyes burned red with tears. “This is dated nine months ago. Why the hell didn’t anyone tell me?”

  “I tried!” Benny said, taking the question as accusatory. He shunted his words through his nose so as not to startle the women, but doubtlessly advancing his rage. “I called everyone. I couldn’t find you; nobody could. By the time I tracked you to the VRC, they said they hadn’t seen you in nearly a year.” Benny stepped closer with ire afoot. “After you were discharged, you saw Momma what, twice? Then you just disappeared for over two years. You never called. No letters, no emails, nothing! I didn’t know what the hell else to do, so I just told everybody that if they saw you to let me know. So don’t you think of jumping bad with me because you weren’t there! You’ve got nobody to blame for that except yourself.” Benny's eyes became cold and perilous, like two colossal boulders thundering down a mountainside, about to flatten the village below. He wanted Xavier to hurt; hurt bad. It would especially serve him right, given how many nights Benny had watched Momma cry herself to sleep over his good-for-nothing ass. Benny bit his lip. It would be so easy right now, he thought. Maybe he’ll finally know what it feels like to... Benny’s chin waned port-side and he caught the view of his wife pouring tea in the kitchen, one hand resting gently against her belly.

  He then squeezed his eyes shut and sighed morbidly into his fist. He was disgusted with himself.

  Not out of guilt for wanting to hurt Xavier, but instead for not being able to stay enraged long enough to do anything about it. Later, he might tell himself that it would’ve desecrated Momma’s memory or would’ve only damaged something vitally human in himself, which would both ring true. For now, however, it was just the same old story: good ‘ol fool-me-twice Benny incapable of holding a grudge even when to do so made perfectly common sense. No matter whose it was, Benny was always about wanting to stop the pain. Not much of a shock, considering he could recite the Hippocratic Oath backwards and in three different languages by the time he was twelve years-old.

  Xavier pressed his forearms against the sides of his own head like a vice. Benny was right. Every word. Xavier couldn’t face anyone after his discharge, especially Momma. She’d actually said once that she was proud of him after he’d joined up. It was no small pole vault, to go from six years of, “When are you going to get your shit together?” to “I’m proud of you.”

  “It’s just the Army, Momma,” Xavier had said. “No big deal.”

  “It is a big deal,” she'd told him. “You’re protecting others who can’t protect themselves. You’re protecting people like me, and that’s something to be proud of.”

  Xavier let himself feel good about that. Very good. So good in fact, that he couldn’t bear to face Momma after he’d failed at the one goddamn thing for which she’d finally been proud. If she’d been told he was drunk at the time it happened, even though he wasn’t, she’d know exactly what she’d always been afraid to admit: that Xavier was just like his father and she wished he’d never been born.

  No! No, don't even think it! There were a lot of things Xavier could imagine facing right now, but accepting that he was even a little like his old man, was not one of them. He pushed even harder at his temples. Xavier was only seven the day Momma had taken them and finally left that drunken asshole. Benny had gone Samurai on the man’s calf with a screwdriver, after he'd thrown Momma against a wall like a Hail Mary in the fourth quarter. To this day, Xavier dreamed of having one last shot at the low-life. Pops then broke a beer bottle over the edge of the kitchen table and went after Benny full-throttle. With her shoulder fractured in two places, Momma tackled him to the floor where he smacked his head on the tile. She left him bleeding and unconscious, not caring if he woke up.

  This is why Benny was different, Xavier thought, angrier, and meaner: Xavier wasn’t there! He wasn’t there for Momma, in her last hours when...

  Oh, God! He'd let Benny go through it alone! What kind of a bastard brother would do that? Xavier lowered himself onto the sofa and gripped the empty flask through his pocket. He wanted a drink so bad, he could swear his tongue was swelling. It took him a
good two or three minutes to pull himself together enough to speak. “Was she worried about me?” he asked.

  Benny looked over as if he weren’t sure he was being spoken to. “What the hell kind of question is that?” he burst. “Of course, she was worried about you! You were her son! You dropped out of sight with barely a word! She knew something was wrong! We both did!”

  “Damn,” Xavier said, with barely a breath. “I really didn’t want her to be worried about me.”

  Benny pulled back a bit and said, “I really thought that you would have found out by now. I’m sorry it had to be like this.”

  “Honey, is everything...?” Cassandra asked and severed her question the second she saw Xavier on the edge of collapse. She and Glenda were both in the living room now, the sheer intensity having eclipsed their entrance.

  “Oh, my God,” Cassandra said. “He didn’t know, did he?”

  “No,” her husband answered.

  “Do you really think I would have stayed gone so long if I had?” Xavier insisted.

  “I don’t know what you would have done,” Benny said, harshly.

  Xavier slowly rose to his feet, looking contritely at his brother. He suddenly felt like he couldn’t breathe, like the air was as thick as cement. He then bolted for the door, his legs barely qualified for the job.

  Glenda followed him without a second’s hesitation. “Xavier?”

  Xavier stumbled outside and over to the Civic like a stabbing victim in a horror film trying stay on their feet. He doubled over, planting his hands on the hood of the car.

  Momma.

  He then exploded with a blood-curdling howl that shattered the night's peace and he hammered his fists straight downward.

  Glenda stopped in her tracks.

  He’d actually dented the hood, completely ignoring the pain of the impact. He ground his knuckles into the depression and squeezed his eyes shut, forcing the tears from their lingering well. An all out roller coaster of emotion ran through him at breakneck speeds, weaving through harrying loops of anger and regret. It nearly caused him to vomit. Hold on! Hold on!

  Benny had to physically stop Cassandra from chasing down their uninvited guests. He knew his brother well enough to know that Cass could do all the mothering in the world and Clyde would appreciate it about as much as a death row inmate appreciated a free wall calendar.

  Cassandra approached her husband as he stood across from the mantle; his crooked expression angled hypnotically toward the urn as if it were speaking to him. Cassandra’s empathy scattered in so many different directions at once, she was almost embarrassed to have to be reminded of where her priorities lied. She enrobed Bennet in her warm, womanly arms and said not a word as she waited for his fresh tears to fall to her fingers.

  Not many women would know better, right now, to ignore the instincts that were imploring, ordering Glenda to take up her god-given role as an agent of comfort. Xavier had made it clear he was the type who lashed out at having his grief invaded. Any injection of herself could be akin to flicking a lit cigarette into a powder keg. Glenda couldn’t imagine what he was feeling right then. The only loved one she’d ever lost in her perfect little life was an eight-year-old Collie and maybe a few others that didn’t really qualify as close family. As it was, she was forced to simply stand aside and try not to make Xavier feel like a sideshow as she witnessed his agony. Minutes went by. When she finally thought he would accept it, Glenda placed a hand atop one of his fists. When he didn't pull away she put her other hand to his face and he simply fell into it like a wounded bird into its nest. She pulled him in a little, putting her forehead to his temple. She would hold him there until the sun came up if need be. When Xavier felt he could bear it, he gently took hold of her hand and pulled it down and away, silently thanking her for its loan. Abruptly, he sucked up a massive swallow of air as if breaking the water's surface. He then rocked on his legs and Glenda held fast to his arm. She nearly asked if he were all right, but bit down, pretending her emerging vocalization was just an expression of tension.

  “This was a mistake,” Xavier said.

  Glenda offered no rebuttal. They took their respective places by the car's doors as she watched him carefully.

  “Xavier?” she queried.

  He looked up, hesitantly. Glenda was looking straight toward the house. Xavier turned as well and saw Benny standing on the stoop, hands in his pockets. Good ol’ Benny.

  Chapter 27

  Christ in a cup! Nearly twenty million dollars’ worth of technology in that machine’s head, and they couldn't find room for a camera? Gabriel punched his palm. He had quietly acquired the corresponding recordings from public surveillance around the motel and even the alley where Hobson had blown the job the day before. But no matter what the angle, there wasn’t a single, decent shot of the bum's face to be had.

  “This is getting us nowhere,” Wallace said gruffly. He was standing in sentry position by the door of Millenitech’s main security hub while Gabriel diddled with the video. “There’s just no way of determining who he is from those pictures.”

  “It’s all we have to go on for now,” Gabriel said. He squirmed under the feeling of Wallace literally breathing down his neck.

  “What about our other surveillance?”

  “Zilch. Kelmer's innocuous lifestyle seems to be his one advantage.”

  “Nothing at all?”

  “Kelmer has no family and no friends, only colleagues. All of which he kept at arms' length. There's one that works for Roxxon Pharmaceuticals we might have a shot at, but it's unlikely. We've got every place bugged except her lab—too much magnetic interference from the equipment.”

  “Shit! This would be over by now if I hadn't listened to you.”

  “You'd be in jail by now if you hadn't listened to me.”

  “Maybe, maybe not,” Wallace said shrinking. Gabriel had a talent for dissuasion. “I know this wouldn't be necessary if the damn thing hadn't started shooting people. That wasn't the brightest move.”

  Gabriel clenched his teeth. He was determined not to let Wallace get to him. “I programmed it to allow no interference with its objective. I had no control over how it interpreted that order. This version of the implant was designed to permit a certain level of autonomy for purposes of authenticity.”

  “You couldn't stop it when the cops showed up?”

  “I didn't know the cops were there. They were parked at the rear of the building the entire time. The implant only allows for tracking and programming. I couldn't see or hear what was going on around it.” Gabriel neglected to mention how he had spent most of his time inside the men's room of the Blue Fish cafe programming the Jones unit and that by the time he'd come out, Percy and Bowen were already inside.

  “Then you should have done something about that before you created it.”

  “I told you, it was built only to retrieve a piece of information, not to infiltrate the entire CPD. There was no need to give it extraneous hardware that would have been pointless in monitoring and possibly traced back to us after the job was done. It was supposed to have been destroyed after we got what we needed, not re-purposed to go after the woman. That was your idea.” Gabriel manipulated the video, zooming in around the vagrant’s right shoulder.

  “You see that?” he asked, pointing to the magnification. He tapped the screen, enlarging the patch on the mystery man’s sleeve. “He might be a veteran.”

  “Oh please, he could've gotten that jacket anywhere. Look at him. I see dozens of people just like him every day jingling a cupful of quarters in my face.”

  “I’m pretty sure the man I saw with Glenda Jameson was wearing a jacket just like that. Could be the same guy.”

  “Don’t give me pretty sures and could bes...Not when I already have a cop questioning my researchers, the same cop that Glenda Jameson talked to at the precinct! That means she told him about the phone calls!”

  “Those phone calls are nothing more than a desperate puppy with a hard-on for
a woman light years out of his league. The cop didn’t request a meeting with you, did he?”

  “It’s only a matter of time! If he’s smart enough to look this far...”

  “He can’t prove anything, Jerome! Even if he did want to talk to you, it would still be about Kelmer and the woman, not Millenitech. Glenda Jameson has no ties to you, me, or this company. He thinks Kelmer is a long shot to her anyway. If he can’t find him, he’ll take another course. All we have to do is keep cool and give him zero reasons to keep sniffing around here.”

  Wallace gazed down, sneering at the back of Gabriel’s head. “He asked Ruiz about Kelmer's implant.”

  “Only as it relates to Kelmer's despondency,” Gabriel pointed out.

  “And if he finds Kelmer first?”

  “Kelmer went into hiding for a reason. He doesn’t have any proof to take to the police. He’s just a lonely science nerd with a closet full of porn, who finally snapped under the weight of his empty, unfulfilling graduate degrees.”

  Wallace drove his fists into his pockets, bowing to Gabriel’s grasp of the situation. He’s right, Wallace admitted silently. That Det. Roberts would have to be exceptionally intuitive to formulate a connection between Glenda Jameson's misfortunes and Millenitech's operations. If Kelmer did bubble back up to the surface, it would be with an obvious ax to grind and industrial pioneers like Wallace had been the victims of radical smear campaigns throughout history. Kelmer would be slinging mud with his hands while Wallace could do it with a catapult.

  “Really, you give the police too much credit,” Gabriel said. “Besides, I’ve got a department man with his ear to the ground. If anything develops, we’ll know.”

  “And I give them too much credit? I’d never trust anyone that easily bought.”

  “Not everyone needs to be hardwired to cooperate. How else do you think we knew where the police were hiding her? There’s a reason the old-fashioned way has withstood the test of time. ”