I nodded.
I went back the fence, put up two dozen targets. I handed the boys their guns, told them to stay near the car. I kept a gun at my side and my eyes on the rebels. Alvin took a sawed-off shotgun out of the trunk of his taxi. He had enough weapons to start a small war.
He blew away targets, reloaded fast, blew away more targets, reloaded, did the same.
I stood behind him, firing shots at the ground around his feet.
Combat training. It was a loud, powerful, terrifying performance.
It let the enemy know we weren’t a pack of deer hunters.
Alvin fanned out, moved left and fired, reloaded as I fired at his feet, then he moved right and fired. He did that over and over, his gunshots as rapid as a lightweight boxer’s blows.
When it was done, when the gunshots faded, Alvin scowled at the rebel flags.
The members of the 14-88 club looked our way, their eyes focused on him.
Alvin wiped sweat from his brow, reloaded his shotgun, and held his ground, stood in dust, inhaled pollen. He had initiated call. Now he waited on response.
My gun was loaded. I’d become his wingman.
The men in that racist group nodded their heads.
One simple nod.
Alvin did the same.
One simple nod.
Respect. Or fear. Didn’t matter. Alvin could leave on his own terms.
Alvin said, “Government keeps talking about terrorists overseas, but I’m more worried about the rednecks in my backyard than Bin Laden. Rednecks been terrorizing black people for hundreds of years, so terrorism ain’t new to us. Slavery. Lynchings. Church bombings. Getting water hoses and dogs put on us. Terrorism ain’t nothing new to the black man. Not at all.”
Powder Springs, Georgia.
An area where the Cherokee Indians used to rule before being forced onto the Trail of Tears. An area that had many trees and hiking trails. That was where I had found a three-level house for Catherine and Steven. Now, because of my misdeeds and bad luck, Robert had joined the crew. I’d gone from being a loner, only worried about taking care of myself, to practicing selflessness and being overwhelmed, taking care of three people besides myself.
Catherine came to the front door when we pulled up in front of the house. We were riding with the windows up and AC on high, the cold air taking the edge off the unbearable heat. It was overcast, but the heat was wrapped around everything in the South.
Apprehension danced inside my gut. Like it always did before I did a contract.
My next one was in Buenos Aires. For Arizona. That thought had my head in a vise grip sponsored by regret while a noose of resentment tightened around my neck.
I despised her as much as I used to desire her. Was close to hating her.
And when I hated someone, that wasn’t a good thing, not for them.
I waved at Catherine. She smiled and waved back.
Before she was Catherine, she was a whore named Thelma.
I have no idea who she was before that. I only knew that Thelma wasn’t a French name. She had come to North America and changed her name in order to fit in. Same thing she had done for the boys. Steven used to be Sven. Robert’s name was new as well.
Just like Gideon wasn’t my birth name.
We were children of whores. We were whores and killers pretending to be squares.
Catherine wore jeans and a pink-collared blouse. She was French, born in the land of fashion, and she was an excellent dresser. Only she did it on a budget. Everything fashionable and inexpensive, more than likely from discount stores like T.J. Maxx or Ross.
I felt some uneasiness. Some anger. Some fear.
That surveillance video played inside my head. The man who had hurried inside the house I had given them fucked her, and then hurried away like a john. We had lived that life all of my youth. She’d said that she no longer worked in lingerie, said she no longer serviced men and women by the hour. The woman who reared me owned a natural beauty and a graceful charm that made her a cynosure, but she wasn’t the center of attention. She looked like a homemaker, a conservative PTA mom who took care of her boys and minded her own business.
Catherine called to Alvin, “Where is your study notebook?”
“In the trunk of the car. Let me run back and get it.”
“Did you do your homework? Did you write sentences like I asked?”
“Yes, ma’am. Well, I finished up most of it.”
“Most is not all. You must take this seriously. Don’t waste my time.”
“I know, ma’am. I know.”
“Come prepared.”
Catherine called Robert and Steven, only called once. She never had to call them twice.
She never shouted, her voice soft and firm, a serious mother.
She said, “Come wash up and eat. Baked salmon and vegetables.”
The boys booed.
I smiled a jealous smile. When I was a child, our relationship had been ugly.
It had been abusive.
The boys stopped kicking the soccer ball, ran to Catherine and gave her kisses.
Catherine hugged the boys, gave them equal love. She smiled and rubbed the boys’ heads. Boys who had been friends in London, now brothers in the United States.
Alvin opened his trunk, rushed to get out his materials for school.
I stood close to Catherine and said, “Let’s open the FedEx and look at that DNA.”
She held on to her smile, but her eyes changed, the joy lessened.
She said, “Now?”
“After you finish with Alvin. After he leaves. Just me and you. We settle this.”
She nodded. “This is why I kept it. I knew you would want to. I knew you would.”
Catherine went inside, small box in her hand, laughing with her
fútbol
-loving sons.
Her laughter wasn’t strong, a pretty laugh filled with nervousness and worry.
I thought about what I had seen on camera, her and that man.
I looked at the boys.
Robert’s mother was brutally murdered. Like I was told mine had been.
That was our bond.
The other boy, Steven, was possibly kidnapped.
Like I might’ve been when I was a baby.
Thelma. Not Catherine. Thelma.
I had no idea who she really was.
I was afraid to face my own horrors. I wanted a window, not a mirror.
I remembered what she had done to me when I was almost a man.
Remembered too much.
There was no optimism in my heart.
Only cynicism.
And the deadly hate.
Chapter 27
last regret before reality
Alvin’s lesson
lasted close to two hours.
Every minute had passed like an hour of acidic angst.
I’d been on the iPhone, again reviewing footage. I saw Catherine’s latest secrets.
I had tried, but the things I’d seen in my life, they couldn’t be forgotten.
The things I had done, they couldn’t be undone.
It felt like I was back inside a brothel. I took a deep breath and smelled the past, perverts’ sweat on come-stained sheets and mattresses, the leftover stench from my childhood.
The stench had returned and wouldn’t go away. Maybe it had never left.
I was in the basement when I heard the big man come down thirteen carpeted steps that ended on a tiled floor. The subterranean area had been finished after my ordeal in Antigua. Alvin and I had done all of the work. We had added a bathroom. Built a room for Catherine’s treadmill and EFX machines. There was a room for the boys that had a thirty-two-inch flat-screen television and Wii equipment. And there was a room no one could see. I opened a section of drywall that appeared unmovable, unhitched and slid that drywall to the side. I took a key and opened two dead bolts that were on a steel door that exposed a hidden room, one impenetrable to gunfire, big enough for ten people to sit in and wait for trouble to pass. I hit a switch, and twelve recessed lights came on, made the room bright as day. Four guns were in that room, all nines.
Alvin asked, “Where you off to next?”
A new anger rose. I took a breath, then answered, “Argentina.”
“That in Spain?”
“South America. Straight south. South like going to Hell.”
“Hot down there, huh?”
“Cold. Short days. Seasons are reversed. Our summer is their winter.”
“Bet some pretty women down there. Would love to see winter in the summertime.”
I rubbed my eyes and said, “But you’re not ready.”
“I’m ready. You see how I can handle myself. I’m ready.” He pulled up his shirtsleeve. “Look at these guns. Been working out. Sculpted, lean, hard muscles. Been on that P90X program like you told me to get on. Got into the best shape of my life in record time. Been eating right, on that creatine and whey protein. Look at my abs. That’s an evil six-pack. Mean, ripped muscles like you, like I’m an MMA fighter. Been working out with some MMA guys over in Buckhead. Getting in some judo and grappling. That and boxing over at Crunch on Cobb Parkway. Been studying Krav Maga too. Fists and elbows and knees. Real fighting. Doing the kind of fighting you and that Hawks woman you told me about were trained to do. Street shit. I didn’t look this good when I was in my best shape when I was in the ring. I’m faster. I’m lighter.”
“Are you bulletproof?”
“As bulletproof as you are.”
“What would you do if you were in a situation and you had to read?”
That shut him down.
I said, “What if your life, or somebody else’s life, depended on you being able to read a sign?”
He nodded. I’d hit his sore spot with words that were as strong as a knockout punch.
I shook my head. I’d stated my position. And it wouldn’t change.
Alvin opened the hidden doors, inspected the safe room. He was good with his hands. He could walk into a forest with a knife and build a house. My friend could build or fix anything.
I took a deep breath, licked my lips. “Where’s Catherine?”
“She’s waiting on you. Think she’s nervous. She had a hard time concentrating.”
“No reason to be nervous, not if you’ve been telling the truth.”
“She’s a good woman. No matter what, she’s good to those boys.”
Now he didn’t want me to open the FedEx. I smiled. She had said something to Alvin, used her charm, pulled him to her side. He had reversed his course over the past two hours.
I asked, “What did she say to you?”
“She’s a good mother. You can look at them boys and tell she’s a good woman.”
“Don’t get blinded by her beauty. Don’t ever get blinded by a woman’s beauty. If somebody had told me that before I went to North Hollywood, my world would be better.”
“What happened in North Hollywood?”
“The beginning of a long line of bad decisions.”
He nodded. After that, I didn’t press it. He’d been put in a difficult position.
We talked. Had a serious conversation. A scary conversation.
He thought he knew me. But he didn’t. He had no fucking idea who I was.
No fucking idea of my life and the things I’d done.
When that talk was done, we shook hands. We had an understanding.
My confidant said his good-byes to the boys and headed home to his family.
It was time for me to climb thirteen carpeted stairs and deal with mine.
Chapter 28
the lady from Yerres
My demons roared.
It was time to face the life-changing issues I had avoided for too long.
I’d centered my breathing, the smell from old whorehouses blown out of my nostrils.
The house smelled like salmon and vegetables, had the scent of vanilla plug-in air fresheners, looked like a home that Beaver and Wally Cleaver would approve of.
Steven and Robert raced out the back door, down the stairs into the backyard.
Catherine called after the boys, “You can play one hour. Do you hear me?”
My mind remained restless. On Arizona. On a man I owed a favor. On South America.
And on the motherfuckers who were blackmailing me for two million dollars.
My iPhone rang. It was Hawks. I didn’t answer. Seconds later she sent a text. CALL ME. It wasn’t tagged with an emergency code. So she could take a number and get in the queue.
The television was on local news. Thieves had burgled two Ken nesaw eateries, stolen sixteen flat-screen televisions. Rapper Soulja Boy Tell ’Em was attacked in his home and robbed of five large and jewelry. Unemployment was at its highest in sixteen years. Two of the women in
The Real Housewives of Atlanta
had been evicted from their homes.
Then one of the stories put a spear in the center of my chest.
The next story was about a Riverdale mother who moved out of her marital bed so her husband could sexually assault their daughter. A mother who got her own daughter intoxicated on vodka and forced her kid to sleep with her father, a father who fucked his own child.
Everywhere I looked, fucking pedophiles.
I sat at the dining room table. The FedEx box in front of me.
X.Y.Z.
I touched the box. Had a déjà vu moment.
Catherine walked into the room. She lingered in the doorframe for a moment.
We made eye contact.
Her eyes broke away from mine, went to the box.
Our elephant.
She went to the cabinet, took out two Starbucks cups. She took out Earl Grey bags, put one inside each cup. The teapot on the stove whistled, and she filled the cups with hot water, then put one in front of me. She handed me a spoon. Honey was on the table. I added honey to my tea. Then she picked up the honey and did the same. And as I stirred my tea, she stirred hers. She didn’t sit down. She stood by the stove and sipped, her fingers opening and closing, her expression that of weariness.