Housebroken (41 page)

“Oh, holy shit.” The words were Ty’s. JT, for once, was unable to come up with a sufficient curse.

As Blake’s eyes adjusted he looked out at his handiwork. Entry points in the floor arced in front of the pool table, the ground no longer revealing cracks but rather the aftereffects of a collision, splinters spawning splinters like a shattered windshield. The two men in the room were standing on glass as fragile as a spider web.

“Rory wins,” Blake said. “Not you, not me. He’s the only one getting what he wants.”

“You’re wrong. And this”—JT gestured down toward the floor—“is as replaceable as you and your family. Sorry, Blake. You lose. And Rory will never get his hands on that coin.”

“It wasn’t the nickel he wanted. It was my son, and what your nickel represents . . . your floating building.”

Before JT could respond the floor blew outward, pool table disappearing into the dark stream beneath. Like a black hole, the darkness ripped the remaining shards and chunks of glass out. the bar, table, and chairs disappearing to the sudden angry howl of wind. Blake never saw Ty disappear—he was one moment there, the next gone—but he caught the look on JT’s face before those invisible and nightmarish black talons reached in, snagging him then retracting back down. The look was an unintelligible one. Symbiotically unintelligible. A look of sheer horror.

The staircase no longer attached to a floor wobbled beneath Blake’s weight as if it wanted to join the rest of the room. A cloud of dust kicked up from the side of the hill, hiding the remnants of furniture, glass, and bodies as they floated down the slope and out of sight. When the dust settled it was as if the hill had swallowed them whole, Blake catching only faint traces of glass reflecting moonlight.

“I hope you’re happy!” Blake shouted into the night. “I hope you have what you want!”

Somehow he knew Rory, or rather Joje, would be listening.

“I understand you’re ready to talk.”

The cuffs on Blake’s wrists were well used, their metal shine dulled, gouges and tiny dents more numerous than rhinestones in a woman’s bracelet. He nodded surreptitiously.

“And you’ve denied your right to have a lawyer present. Is that correct?”

His hands were shaking. Such a strange effect to watch those finite vibrations, his body acting independent from his mind.

“Yes, that’s correct.”

He focused on the wrapping over the stubs of his missing fingers. He couldn’t feel them, couldn’t feel the pain. Pain had simply become synonymous with living, a state of being, like a blind man who wakes one day not bothering to open his eyes.

“And you have reason to believe that the supposed man who kidnapped you and your family this week was Rory Shepard, a wanted fugitive in over twenty-eight states.”

“No,” Blake said.

“He wasn’t Rory Shepard?”

Blake closed his eyes against the intense white light bleeding down from the ceiling. “No, it wasn’t ‘supposedly’ Rory. It was him.”

St. Helena’s Foster Care was in a part of East Los Angeles where Caucasians weren’t a minority—they didn’t exist. The “home” was in an urban industrial building along East Cesar Chavez, the drone of cars between the competing 5, 10, and 101 freeways, turning any conversation into a shouting match.

Blake handed the keys to JT’s black Jaguar XK to the two dark-skinned men who had been sitting on the steps of an abandoned church across from the home, La Iglesia del Dios Recordado. A black trash bag blew inward, exposing an open window, broken scraps of furniture within. Blake wondered when the change in management had taken place, the Church of the Remembered God becoming instead forgotten.

A police car drove past. A heavyset woman in shorts and hideously undersized tank top screamed at a young girl with ratted hair, then snatched her by one arm, dragging her around the corner.

Five minutes to midnight.

Blake approached the doorway. The smell of urine was strong. He raised his hand to knock.

Blake hadn’t seen Officers Randall or McClellan since stepping into the downtown Los Angeles Police Department off East First Street. Nor had he been allowed to see his wife despite his repeated requests. The men sitting in front of him weren’t police officers, they were FBI. At least they had been kind enough to bring in a donut and mildly warm coffee.

“Look, I believe you believe this man was Rory. If you manage to make
us
believe, you’ll be the first person on record to have ever seen him.”

The handcuffs were beginning to rattle with the shaking that had now traveled from Blake’s hands to his arms. “I should’ve seen it. He kept saying, ‘I wowee, I wowee’ . . .”

“I worry?”

“Not ‘I worry,’” Blake said. “‘I Rory.’”

“Why don’t you start at the beginning for us.”

Someone whistled, that forceful hail Blake had never been able to manage using fingers in your mouth. He turned, hand still raised at the door. A black boy, so skinny the flesh on his arms clung to the bone, stood at the corner of the street. Staring at Blake.

The kid nodded. He couldn’t have been more than ten. His chin was smaller than the rest of his head, giving him the look of a drawn caricature at a carnival, or maybe it was his uncombed afro. He wore a stained nightshirt, his feet bare against the cold and litter-strewn sidewalk.

Blake walked over to join him, more aware than ever of the scraps of metal and glass, broken needles and garbage he was stepping over.

“You’re Stitch?” he asked.

Now that he was closer Blake could see the long, thick scar that ran across where the boy’s right eyebrow should have been. It climbed his forehead, disappearing beneath the tangles of stringy hair.

“D’you bring it?” He was chewing gum. Or tobacco.

“Is this your home?” Blake asked, gesturing toward Saint Helena’s. Any plans of beating Joje’s whereabouts out of whomever he was supposed to meet quickly fled.

The kid started walking away.

“Wait!” Blake cried out after him.

“Show me the coin,” Stitch said.

Blake brought out a thin leather case. He had found it in JT’s glove box, a way to keep his insurance and registration in one place. But it could have as easily held a valued coin.

The kid stopped, now intrigued.

“You should keep it,” Blake said. “Don’t give it to him. You know how much it’s worth?”

“Not as much as my life.”

Blake smiled. He liked the kid. “How do I get ahold of him.”

Stitch shook his head.

“How do you get ahold of him?” Blake asked.

Stitch held his hand out, lips closed.

“He took my son,” Blake said. “I need to find him, tell him I know who he is. And I will expose him if he doesn’t send Adam back. Can you tell him that?”

The kid’s bright eyes remained fixed on the case.

Blake sighed. The exasperated release of a man admitting defeat. “Is this where he grew up? Joje? Rory?”

Stitch wriggled his fingers, bidding Blake to hand him the envelope.

Blake held it out. Stitch grabbed the other end. Blake still held on to his side.

“Don’t become like him,” Blake said, then released it. Stitch bolted down the street then scampered up a block wall. At the top of the wall, he opened the envelope. He spent some time looking at what was inside, a single piece of hair along with a message for Joje and the location of the Liberty nickel, just in case it was what he wanted. Stitch looked back up at Blake, his face expressionless, then disappeared on the other side of the wall.

Head down, Blake turned back, remembering he had given his car away. He had passed a police station a few blocks north. Maybe he’d be able to make it there in one piece.

The bars slid shut with a pervasive ring. An hour later Blake still felt the rattle in the fillings of his teeth. There was no bed in this cell, just a long metal bench like you would find on a bleacher. Blake stood until his legs gave out, then sat on the ground, the base of his neck leaning against the cold metal seat.

It hadn’t been enough. When truth was more fanciful than lies, he should have known better than to stick to it. He pissed in a seatless toilet at the back of the cell. A meal was brought at some point. He ate some of it.

Blake looked up at an officer calling his name. From the unpleasant look on the guy’s face, he had been calling Blake for some time.

“Stand up, spread your legs, and put your hands against the wall.”

Blake did as he was told.

Through several hallways, they buzzed him in to a locked room. The officer held the door back for him. Jenna was inside.

Blake looked back at the portly officer at the door, who simply nodded back at him. Blake rushed into the room. Jenna was in a wheelchair, a blanket covering her lap and draped down around her.

“Careful,” she said, but when Blake embraced her she squeezed back, her arms wrapping around him, hands gliding up and down, wet cheeks pressing against his own.

“How . . . Why?” Blake began.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Does it matter?”

“Have they charged you?” Blake asked.

“Shhh,” she answered, bringing him back down to her and holding him.

“I’m so sorry—”

“No! None of that,” Jenna said. “We’re alive. It’s over.”

“Adam.”

She ran a hand through his hair, the other caressing his bruised and mottled face. “We just have to believe.”

“And you? You’re okay?” he asked.

A faraway look came over her momentarily, and then she was back. She pulled the blanket up around her, exposing the metal rack at the bottom of the chair where her feet were resting. But it was only one foot. Farther the blanket rose, until her right knee came into view, covered in wrappings. Nothing emerging from the other end.

Blake couldn’t dam the guilt that swept through him, but Jenna gently lifted his face to look into hers.

“Believe with me?” she said.

Through the tears, soon Blake was nodding.

Blake wheeled Jenna into what appeared to be a conference room, the long table in the middle of the room much nicer than any of his previous holding rooms. A thin black woman with a beige skirt and enough jewelry to prove she was not only married, but married well, greeted them at the door.

“I’m Lieutenant Whitaker. Thank you for joining us.” She extended a hand to each of them, gold bracelets accentuating the movement. The gesture of kindness seemed so foreign. Before Blake could ask any questions, she continued. “There’s been a . . . development.”

Blake recognized the two FBI men from what they had deemed his “story time.” Two other men and one woman were new faces in the room. One of the men stood, moving out a chair so Blake could push Jenna up to the table. He sat beside her.

“Did you find him?” Blake asked. “Our son?”

The lieutenant exchanged a glance with one of the new faces, a large man with a thin black goatee. In that brief glance his hope was shattered. Jenna took hold of his injured and bandaged hand beneath the table, encasing it with both of hers.

“We have reason to believe your . . . story,” Whitaker said, standing across the table from Blake and Jenna. “And that the kidnapper was in fact who you say he was. At this time, unfortunately, we don’t have any leads to his whereabouts or the whereabouts of your son.”

Jenna’s grip tightened on Blake’s hand, his arm flinching back at the sudden jolt of pain.

“Sorry,” she said and moved to wipe the tears from her eyes.

“I don’t understand,” Blake said. “These two said I should’ve been a writer, what with the crazy shit I came up with. What changed?”

Again that shared glance.

“Enough!” Blake shouted. “Either tell us or throw us back in a cell!”

“We’re hoping for your cooperation,” Whitaker said. “No one’s ever been that close to Rory before. With a little luck and your help, we can use that information to determine what he’s planning next.”

“What he’s planning? He’s planning on disappearing! With our son!” Blake’s head was pounding from the incompetence in the room.

The large man with the goatee spun his chair to face Blake, one leg up, crossed over the other, as if they were old friends having the most casual of conversations. “We received an e-mail,” he said. “Did you want waters by the way?”

Blake stared down at the table in front of him, trying to keep himself in control. “Who’d he send it to?” Blake felt the man’s eyes begin to drift to Whitaker. He slammed his fist down on the table. “Who!”

“Every damn one of us,” Whitaker said. “And keep your voice down. You’re still under custody.”

“Every agent and police officer even remotely involved in your two cases received an e-mail at approximately eleven forty-two this morning,” the other man said. “Sent to our departmental e-mail and, as far as we can surmise, every officer and agent’s personal accounts as well. The district attorney was also copied, as was the mayor.”

“So what . . . ?” Jenna said.

“As far as our sources have been able to ascertain, it appears the message was sent from the president of the United States’ own e-mail account.”

“It’s him,” Blake said.

“What’s it say? What’s he asking for?” Jenna asked.

But Blake already knew. There were no demands. There never had been.

Whitaker took over, motioning toward one of the men at the end of the table. He rose, turning on the small flat-screen TV mounted on the wall. “We felt it appropriate you see for yourselves,” she said. “Dim the lights?”

The man who had turned on the TV typed into a wireless keyboard, opening an e-mail account on the TV screen. Blake felt his body tense as he read the  subject line before it was even clicked on.

Subject: Farewell

The e-mail contained a single link that had been opened before. The officer or agent or whoever was typing at the table clicked on it. A video screen opened up.

On the screen Joje smiled into the camera. The same smile Blake saw every time he closed his eyes. After a quick buffer, the video began to play.

“I’m sending this to help a good friend of mine. Blake Crochet.”