“Um, no, I think that answers all of our questions.” Ann gives the Higgins a weak smile and sets her empty coffee cup on the end stand next to the couch.
Carol smiles. It’s a warm, pleasant gesture that I haven’t seen a whole lot of since I left my bed in Georgia. “Have we helped your investigation?” She nods her head, hoping for good news.
“Honestly, I don’t know,” Ann answers. “This gives us a clearer picture, but it doesn’t make the pieces of this mess fit together any better. We still can’t tell if exile has driven Samantha to these actions, or if there is something darker going on.”
Ann’s honesty rocks Carol. Her hands tremble and she leans across her seat to lay a head on John’s shoulder. He gently brushes the side of her face and sweeps her hair back. The whole scene looks like Normal Rockwell on depression. The touchingness of the thing makes me happy to help people. Happy there are still people to help.
“Just do one thing for us,” John says. As much as Ann’s words were like a punch to the gut to Carol, they solidified John. More of that ‘real man’ machismo from way back. He appreciates a straight shooter and Ann couldn’t have given it to him any straighter if she tried. “Just make sure, that no matter what happens to our Sammy, you will bring her back to us. No matter what state she’s in, we need our baby back.”
John looks Ann directly in the eyes until she nods in agreement and then he turns to me. I do the same. How could I not? How could I deny grieving parents the very basic right of having their child home from war? Whether alive and unharmed, in a straitjacket, or in a box, “We’ll bring her home.”
WE LEAVE JOHN AND CAROL
in each-other’s arms, contemplating God-knows-what about their daughter. I don’t envy them. Are they wondering if this is their fault? If maybe they did something wrong? Or are they thinking about how SHI ruined her life and pushed her to the edge? Doesn’t matter, I guess. Everyone comes around all the stages eventually, right?
“You want to grab something to drink?” I pull open the passenger door of the hot rod cop car and drop down in the seat.
Ann takes her place behind the wheel, starts the car and glances at the clock. “It’s two a.m. and you want to grab a drink?”
“First, it’s two a.m. Houston time. It’s probably five o’clock somewhere. Second, we can’t do anything until we hear back from Adriana about the Grand Poupon, and I can’t exactly sleep right this moment.” When was the last time I slept? My body feels like it weighs a thousand pounds, but my mind is as strung up as McCarthy’s. This adrenaline is going to dump eventually. When it does, I’m going to be in for a world of hurt.
“Fourth, we need to talk about this whole situation. I’d much rather do it over a drink than in Air Force One, surrounded by heroes who think
I
cancel out their super powers.”
Ann pulls the car into gear and accelerates more gently than on our way here. I roll my window down to let in some peaceful night time air and all I get is a couple barking dogs. Pit bulls, maybe. Some big mean fuckers like that. “Do you think there’s even anyplace open right now?”
“I’m sure of it.”
We drive toward the city, taking it slow and looking for neon signs. Eventually we spot a tiny bar that’s as lit-up as it ever was. We’re still a couple miles out of the city center where the attacks occurred, so there’s no worries about bumping into any pissed-off superheroes. Ann pulls to a stop in between a 1970s Ford F-150 and a Harley Davidson that seems to be from roughly the same era. The truck is dented and rusted and the motorcycle has those big-ass handlebars that stick up over the rider’s head.
“Looks like a top-notch establishment,” Ann says.
“Hey, it’s still open and they probably have booze.” A sign on the door declares, “The best Tex-Mex casserole in the country!” My stomach growls at the idea of food, but I’m not so much sure I trust what these guys are cooking. I picture a dude in a stained white shirt with his belly hanging out of the bottom, teasing the tops of the burgers as he cooks them.
Honky Tonk music spills from inside. There’s no clatter or chatter of a busy bar, and that’s just what we need. I push the door open for Ann and we step through. A steel guitar on the jukebox fades and “Boot Scootin’ Boogie” replaces it. I haven’t listened to this kind of music in years. The older country makes me feel nostalgic. Reminiscing of days in the hot sun, riding in the truck with my dad out to the lake to fish.
One table holds two old men on either side of a checker board. They argue about how the
capes
are overrunning the world, or so I can make out through the slurred voices. A booth in the right corner holds an older man—covered in wrinkles and scars—and a pretty, younger woman. He’s old enough to be her dad, but their posture is all wrong for that kind of relationship. I turn away before I flip the table and run the
couple
out. Not my town, not my job.
I hit the bar. “I’ll have a shot of whiskey and big glass of whatever you’ve got on tap that’s not imported or light.”
The bartender, a middle aged Mexican man with a mean mug and towel over his shoulder nods, turns to Ann.
“I’ll take the same.”
He smiles, a mouth half-full of brown teeth, and gives Ann the up-and-down with a half-appraising, half-predatory eye. If he only knew all the ways she could fuck him up. His eye catches on the gun holstered on her hip. She pulls out her SHI ID. “Official business,” she says.
“Sure,” he replies.
He fills glasses that may not have been washed since the last asshole put his syphilis-infested lips to them. But hey, alcohol kills anything, right? I grab the beer mugs and Ann the shot glasses, and we make our way to a booth in the opposite corner from the locals. As we take our seats, Brooks & Dunn quit their wailing and Tim McGraw takes over with, “Don’t Take the Girl.” I fucking hate this song.
“What is this music?” Surrounded by the redneck atmosphere of the bar, Ann has never sounded more posh.
“It’s twenty-five year-old country music. Back before country became a synonym for Top Forty. And don’t knock it, this is my childhood we are listening to.”
Ann winces, takes her shot with a straight face. “Your childhood has a truly naff soundtrack.”
“Naff? What the hell does that even mean?” I down my shot and can’t help but make a face. This shit tastes like it was distilled in an oil barrel out back. I have serious concerns for my vision. “Excuse me, Sir,” I raise my voice for the bartender to hear me, “where did this stuff come from?”
“Ron.”
“Ron?”
“Yeah, my buddy Ronnie. He brews the shit out behind his house in like, old oil drums or some shit.”
Good to fucking know. I eye my beer.
“It’s okay,
Huero
, that shit’s Budweiser.” The bartender winks at me and goes back to wiping out a glass with his towel.
I grunt and take a swig of beer to get the taste out of my mouth. “How did you drink that swill with a straight face?”
Ann smiles at me. “I’ve been through worse than this. I told you, hero training is intense. We spent almost an entire month getting riddled with all kinds of different drugs just to see if we could keep our composure while not in a peaceful mental state. I’ll never forget this one candidate – he had been solid through all the physical and mental training. We had to draw drugs out of a hat, so we weren’t all on the same thing at the same time.
“So this bloke, Tom, first draw, on the first day, gets LSD.” Ann sips her beer. “The instructors get everything all set up and give Tom his first hit of acid. He’s cool at first, but I watched him as all the others drew their drugs. At first, he just stared a hole in the wall, but as it went on, his eyes jerked all over the room.
“One of the instructors goes to Tom and says ‘Hey, tell me your deepest, darkest secret, Recruit.’ He does it in that loud, boot-camp kind of voice you always hear on TV, yeah. Tom’s eyes get as wide as saucers and he stares at the instructor’s head. ‘I love oatmeal cookies,’ Tom says, and launches himself. Then he licks the instructor’s face. This instructor, the guy was six-foot-six, two-fifty easy, all right. The shock on his wet, drill sergeant face was priceless.” Ann rubs her hands on the side of her glass and laughs to herself.
I let the laughter die off into the sound of a country western guitar riff. It’s all major scales played with the twang turned up to eleven. The couple in the booth drown out the music with a vocal argument about a little girl, or something. Their voices get louder and louder until they realize they’re both shouting. The old man notices first. He casts a glance around the bar, sees the five other people in the room watching him. Embarrassment must sink in because he leans in and growls something in the girl’s ear before storming out. She downs the rest of her beer and chases after him. Chris LeDoux picks up where the argument left off, singing a ballad to chewing tobacco, literally.
I sigh. “This is some fucking mess we’re tangled up in, you know that?”
“Yeah, the whole thing’s proper fucked, innit?”
I take a drink of beer. “All that and then some.” Another drink and I’m down to foam in my glass. “What do you make of it all?”
“I think we’re on to something with that cock McCarthy. Seems like a pretty good bet that he made the bomb and somehow got it to DeLaCruz who blew the Engine up. Yeah, that much makes sense. We’ve just got to track down this Donovan cunt to confirm.” Ann finishes off her beer and waves two fingers at the bartender for another round.
“We close in twenty minutes,” our friendly neighborhood liquor-slinger says.
“Then we’ll drink fast and tip well.” Ann’s response is quick. The more I hang around her, the more she seems like a girl raised around four brothers. The kind that has to learn to be tough, inside and out, to deal with a house overflowing with testosterone.
The bartender shrugs and starts filling two more glasses.
“What about Tess?”
“That bit’s trickier. I think being put on the outside may have drove her mad. Maybe she does hate heroes, maybe she hates herself for being one of them. It’s possible.” Ann sits back to let the bartender set our beers and two more shots of whiskey on the table. She thanks him and he mutters a response before turning chairs over on top of the tables in the dining area. We both throw back our rocket fuel.
“I don’t like that theory. It just doesn’t fit. Someone who’s that huge for helping people wouldn’t go destroying cities without a reason. And how would that tie together with the AHA bombing? I’m with you that it seems likely DeLaCruz-McCarthy-Donovan did the bombing, but how do they tie to Tess?”
“Maybe she worked with them. Maybe she was the ‘in’ into SHI Headquarters. What if AHA picked up on Tess’ dissatisfaction with SHI and approached her for this? She could be part of this whole thing.”
I don’t like it and tell Ann as much. “That doesn’t feel right to me. Like I said, she wanted to help people. The most benevolent people in the world tend not to mass-murder.” I take a swallow of beer. My chest feels warm and my cheeks burn.
“I think you let her parents sweet-talk you.”
“And I think your theory has far too many ‘maybes.’” Her quip stings through the alcohol and mine makes her sit up a little straighter. “You heard them back there. Did that seem put on to you?”
“No, but what parent doesn’t think his or her kid is the best player on the team? Huh? Yeah, sure she did charity work in her free time, but you know psychopaths act normal to avoid suspicion. We didn’t get the full picture from her family. What parent is going to tell you her kid has violent tendencies? What parent is going to—”
“Okay,” I say, cutting her off, “I get it. Yeah, sure, parents are usually pretty big on their children, but still. Everything we’ve seen doesn’t add up. The bombing, the attacks…not one bit of it makes a damn lick of sense.” The song “John Deere Green” comes on and I drink to Billy Bob’s work ethic.
“A damn lick of sense? And you made fun of me for saying naff? I think this bar is bringing the redneck out in you, Cool Jim.” Ann drains her beer and slams it on the table.
The two old men playing checkers jump at the sound. The bartender gives us the stink-eye for fucking around in his bar this close to close.
At least six mean, useless comebacks—mostly involving royal families and bad teeth—bounce around my mouth before I swallow them all and try not to choke on the bile. I think of how long it’s been since I ate and how long since I slept. It’s clear that I’m drunk and pissy, and I would be willing to bet Ann’s not far behind me. Drunken bickering will get us nothing but thrown out of this bar.
I open my wallet and throw fifty bucks on the table. “Thanks for the drinks,” I say to the bartender who is mopping right next to our table. The get-the-fuck-out hint is so subtle I almost trip over it.
“Come on,” I say to Ann, “we’re leaving.”
“I’m not some little drunken diva that you can just order around.” Her slurred accent would be hilarious if the words around it didn’t make me want to put my fist through a wall.
“Okay,” I say, turning on my patience, “I’m a little tired, so would you mind driving me back to our private jet.”
She scowls, but slides out from behind the table. Her gait toward the exit isn’t quite ‘drunken sorority girl material’, but it’s certainly less sure-footed than I’ve seen out of her so far. The first couple steps I take behind her feel like I’m trudging through tar pits. Someone should really put out a warning about drinking on an empty stomach after 48 hours of consciousness.
Ann shoves the door open with too much force and doesn’t bother holding it open on my account.
“
Adiós
,
pinche pendejos
,” the bartender says, as I push out the door.
My feet hit the parking lot right about the time Ann slams the car door closed. “Goddammit,” I mutter as I quickstep to the passenger side and yank the door open before she leaves without my ass.
Ann starts the car, drops it into reverse, and stomps on the gas pedal like it insulted her mother – all before I manage to get my door closed. The miasma of burnt rubber clouds in the open door.