Campbell (33 page)

As had Juan.

Either way, there was one party that benefited more than the other, and in light of current events, it was one that didn’t need Campbell swooping in and claiming the spoils of their failed empire.
 

West. Connor. Connor had everything to gain, Tal realized, as he heaved into the wastepaper basket beside his bed.
 

It made sense. Connor’s lack of concern when Andrew Campbell told him Tal was missing, so disconnected and unconcerned that it seemed off, even to a psychopath like the oldest Campbell. Connor had everything to gain.
 

At almost two in the morning, Tal quietly left the house and headed for a place where he knew he’d find a confidante; someone that would be as angry as he was.
 

Despite the hour, the lights were on, but Tal knocked quietly so as not to wake the kids.
 

When Rika answered the door, she didn’t look the least bit surprised to see him, in her housecoat once again, a large glass of red wine in hand.

“I was wondering when you’d figure it out,” she muttered. “Took you long enough.”

“You knew?”

“It was fairly obvious when I thought about it,” she nodded at the couch. “Come on in. We have a lot to talk about. It’s late, and the kids will be up in a few hours.”

Chapter 19

December 2002

Pasadena, West

Tal climbed over the railing of the Colorado Street Bridge and peered into the darkness below, gulping back air in short bursts. Breathing hurt. Thinking hurt. When he closed his eyes, all he could see was her smile. Her airy laugh filled every silence. He let out a sob, unable to hold it back any longer.
 

It was his fault.
 

She’d asked him to come outside with her, to go for a walk. All she’d wanted was to get out of the house for a bit. It wasn’t safe. It hadn’t been safe for a month, ever since supplies started drying up in a real way and the price of the things everyone really needed went through the roof as everyone attempted to trade up to get ahead.
 

Eventually, the kids without conscience just took what they wanted. Bartering went out the window.
 

They’d put their heads down, himself, Leah, and Rachel. They had supplies, and the connections he’d made through his work with Connor had afforded them privileges not many had. The last thing he wanted to do was draw any attention to them. He’d stopped keeping up the front yard.
 

All she wanted was to get out of the house.
 
A week later, he could still smell her blood on him, still feel it, hot, sticky, and metallic.
 

It was too much. It hadn’t been before that day, not losing his brothers, his parents, everyone he’d ever known that had the answers. Nothing had been his fault before that. He felt so heavy with loss that the only thing he could think of was tipping over.
 

He sat down on the ledge and let his feet dangle over, which was deliciously freeing. The dream of not feeling anything clouded his mind, and he imagined falling, falling, then nothing. He snapped out of his fantasy when a flashlight shone in his face.
 

“Jesus, I’ve been looking for you everywhere,” Connor called out. “Come on back over the edge.”

Tal ignored him and swung his legs a little, reveling in the rush it created.
 

“You’re not doing this. It sucks, what happened. It really sucks, but don’t do this. We didn’t live, work for everything, for you to do this. I…need you.”

Lights in the distance drew Tal’s attention and he continued ignoring Connor, which was impossible under any other circumstances.
 

“We’ll do things your way. We’ll do good things. Make sure this didn’t happen for no reason. Come on, buddy. Please,” he pleaded. “I…don’t have anyone else.”

“It’s not about me,” Tal mumbled. “And you have lots of people.”

“Not like you. Not who will tell me how it is. So you made a mistake. You’re not going to make it again—”

“My six year old cousin is dead!” Tal screamed, standing up on the edge, feeling the weight of the night breeze holding him back. “She’s dead because of me.”

Connor held his arms out, beckoning Tal towards him. “She’s dead because some stupid kid fired a gun. We all make mistakes. We’re more than our mistakes, but you won’t get to see that if you don’t come home with me.”

“Get out of here, Connor,” Tal grumbled. “I didn’t come here to hug it out.”

“I did,” he said, hopping over the railing and standing about a foot away from him. “How’s this sound? You jump, I jump.”

Tal looked over at his friend, and wiped his eyes, embarrassed that he was crying. “Go home.”

“I mean it. You want that on your head too? We’re a two for one deal, Tal Bauman.”

“You don’t need me!” he roared. “Go!”

Connor shook his head. “Don’t tell me what I need. So, come on. Are we doing it, or are you going to get over yourself and realize that there are people out there who need you, and will need you in the future?”

Tal closed his eyes and felt the breeze against his face. He gripped the smooth metal railing with his hands.

“Come on, and I’ll never tell anyone we were here,” Connor whispered. “No one will ever know.”

October 2012

Los Angeles, West

The kids were up, bathed, dressed and fed, playing happily in the backyard by the time Tal left at nine the next morning. He was amazed by Rika’s multitasking abilities.

“Let me talk to my people and we’ll touch base tonight?” she cocked her head at him. “You sure you don’t just want to crash in the spare room—”

“My cousin will worry. She’s probably already worrying. We had a fight, sort of.” Tal rubbed his eyes. “I’ll come by—”

“After nine.” She pulled her glasses down from the top of her head. “We’ll see if we can’t figure something out fast.”

Connor was parked at his house when he got back and Tal shoved his hands in the front pocket of his hoodie and put on a smile.

“I’m going to Irvine,” Connor said brightly, after rolling down his window. “Thought you might want to come along.”

As soon as he spoke, Tal was torn between bludgeoning him and telling him to fuck off. He knew Connor wouldn’t kill him if he went, not yet, anyway, and Tal wanted to get more of a read on him, but he hated him, hated him more than he’d ever hated anyone. He hated his face, his dumb, fake-innocent smile, the way he vainly glanced in the rear view mirror of his car.
 
He’d determined Connor’s guilt through the circumstances that had unraveled in his head over the days preceding, but a part of him needed to know it with certainty so he could finish him confidently. “Why Irvine?”

“Something’s wrong with the projector at the big theatre. I said I’d go look at it.”

Connor loved the technical aspect of playing movies just as much as Tal did. They’d learned together. If he wasn’t trying to make amends for something, he sure as hell seemed like he was, because Tal knew any other day, he would have sent someone. This was an attempt to appeal to Tal’s nostalgic side, probably since he’d tried to have him killed, unwittingly involving him in a multi-territory war, and manipulated and fucked his cousin, not to mention having their mutual friend killed and widowing one of the smartest women Tal had ever met.
 

The list kept growing.

“Yeah, I’ll go,” Tal said, opening up the passenger side door. “Just let me tell Leah.”

Telling Leah really meant grabbing his pocketknife. Tal caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror by the door, and for the briefest moment saw a reassuring face.

His father’s.

“So you’re adjusting okay to being back?” Connor asked, after they pulled out of the driveway. “You seem a little down.”

“I took Juan’s ashes over to his house a couple of days ago. That was pretty hard.” He looked wistfully out the window, in an attempt to keep his fury in check as he watched the city fly by. “That was hard.”

Connor nodded deeply. “I meant to go see Rika, bring some flowers or something, but it’s…” He swallowed, and furrowed his brow sympathetically, much like his father had in a dozen or so romantic comedies. “It’s just hard, you know? And I’ve been so busy with all this Vegas shit that the time wasn’t right. Sorry you had to do that.”

What chilled Tal to the bone was how sincere he sounded. If he hadn’t already firmly decided on Connor’s guilt, he would have questioned it. Connor was a master manipulator, and a better actor than he got credit for.
 

“It was all right. She’s okay. He’s got lots of family to look out for her and his girls.”

“Cute kids, huh?” Connor smiled thinly. “They were an unlikely couple.”

“Those are always the best ones, my grandpa used to say.” Tal looked at Connor expectantly, knowing he’d bring up Leah sooner or later.

“Listen, I don’t know if you talked to Leah…” Connor raised his eyebrows and attempted to look remorseful.
 

“I did talk to Leah,” Tal muttered, trying to focus on the bigger issue of Juan’s death and his own attempted murder. He’d let Leah’s stupidity go if it bought him some time to plot. “Not cool, man.”

“I know,” Connor nodded sincerely. “It goes against all the man codes. We really didn’t think you were coming back—”
 

“And the first thing that comes to mind was to put your dick in my cousin?”

“What happened with you and Lucy Campbell, out in the middle of nowhere, when we were worried sick about you and you couldn’t even call us?” Connor snapped back.
 

“Don’t turn this around on me.” Tal shook his head, thinking of Leah, seething on the inside as he flashed to what it would feel like to snap Connor’s neck—a thought compounded by what Tal was sure Connor had masterminded for himself, Lucy, and Juan. He remembered Lucy, blood on her mouth, on the ground after he’d murdered her attacker. “We’re not doing that.”

“You didn’t call for days. She called her people.”

Connor did technically have him there, but what Tal knew after the fact made it clear that he’d made the right call. “Nothing happened with me and Lucy Campbell.”

“You seem awfully keen to start handing her over property now. I don’t think we had to give her Seattle. Not if we’re leaving her alone while she deals with her East problem. I hope you at least got your dick wet, so then you being so pussy-whipped would make sense—”
 

“What did you tell Leah, Connor? Did you tell her she’d end up some whore somewhere if you weren’t around to help her out? Did you tell her you’d take care of her?”

Connor’s nostrils flared. “I didn’t have to tell her anything.”

It was all Tal could do to retain his calm facade and remember that it wasn’t smart to go to war without a plan.

Nothing was said for the next twenty minutes as both men seethed.

“I won’t again, with her,” Connor muttered. “Since it obviously bothers you.”

“You’re fucking right, you won’t,” Tal muttered.

“Do you remember when we were kids and we used to play Lego in your basement?” Connor asked thoughtfully. “And everything you made was perfect and orderly with the right colored blocks, and everything I made was so tall it almost fell over?”

Tal nodded.

“It’s why we’re a good pair. Vision and order.”

“I certainly wouldn’t be arming the Nevada border.”

“What would you do?”

Tal thought about it. “I’d see what they wanted.”

“And if it wasn’t what you wanted?”

“I’d try and understand why, and learn something from it.”

“And that’s why you’re not the vision guy.”
 

“Vision will only take you so far—”
 

“It’s taken us both very far,” Connor boasted as he pulled into the empty theatre parking lot. “Things could have turned out very differently.”

They both knew exactly what he was getting at. It had been the reason Tal had put aside his feelings for a long time. The reason he felt indebted to a man who he was sure his friendship would have otherwise naturally run its course with way before they made it out of junior high school. Connor had saved his life; literally pulled him off the ledge. Tal had paid his debt, however, through the unnecessary blood he’d spilled in Missouri, and a hundred times before that.
 

“But they didn’t.”

“No,” Connor shook his head and gave him a knowing look. “They didn’t.”

Fixing the projector took about an hour. Wordlessly, the two boys worked together to clean each piece before reassembling it, and doing a quick test run with the closest reel they could find.

Gladiator
.

“This was a kickass movie,” Connor noted. “Epic.”

Tal nodded in agreement. “Yep. We’ve never made anything that good.”

“Yet, my friend,” Connor said, with a determined grin. “We’re not even twenty-five and we’ve made what? Two hundred movies? That’s pretty impressive.”

“We’ve got the market cornered,” Tal agreed.

“No one’s even tried to compete.”

Connor dropped Tal off around three and he spent the afternoon stretched out on the couch in his dad’s old office, trying to decide what his next steps were. He knew he wanted to call Lucy. He wasn’t sure it was the best plan of action for any number of reasons, the most important being how she’d react to what he’d figured out the night before. He didn’t have any proof though, he realized. Instead of calling her right away, he decided to head upstairs to take a nap, in the hopes of waking up with a little clarity.
 

Clarity was not what he got when he woke up with Leah curled up beside him on top of the blankets.

“Are you going to forgive me?” she asked when he opened his eyes. “You’ve been avoiding me all day.”

“I’m not mad at you, exactly. I’m disappointed,” he grumbled, moving away from her. “You made things more complicated.”

Her lip wobbled and she swallowed hard. “I…that week, I wasn’t myself. I’d take it all back, if I could.”

“Well, you can’t. What’s done is done,” he said, more gently than before. “And we move on.”