Shoot (26 page)

I didn’t care.

I was Tarzan.

King of the Jungle.

I was back in-country, at the head of my team, outside a night target location, weighed down by full battle-rattle. I was cleared hot—staring into darkness. My left side throbbed a quiet warning, the gloved hand of the operator behind me squeezing my left shoulder, signaling go, go, go.

But my PEC-Fours were no-go. Dead, the batteries of the infrared night-vision goggles failing at exactly the wrong fucking time. I flipped them back up onto my helmet, now using just my useless eyes, blind inside the black. Before I could relay my problem, the dark lit up with banging white strobes of muzzle flashes and screaming tracers—first the long fire bulbs of rapid AK-47 rifle blasts, returned by our M-4s on full auto. My left side burned with pain as I fell.

I fucked up. Ambush.

I pulled my M-4’s trigger. Nothing.

We were all going down.

I woke up, snatching for my weapon. I grabbed a fistful of sheet.

After a deep breath I was glad to be awake, naked in bed with a naked Jane, and not there. I concentrated on my breathing and let the thoughts come and go, rolling off me like rain, as I had been taught. My heart slowed down. The details of the dream were always different but they all had the same ending.

The sky visible over the townhouses across the street was gray, cloudy. Hot, sunny weather put me on edge. Bad weather always calmed me. Snowstorms made me positively purr. For most of my years in uniform, the Taliban never attacked in winter. The passes were snowed in and we were the only ones initiating kinetic operations. That’s why I spent a year in the Caribbean. An army shrink, who thought I had become sun-phobic, said she thought it would help me readjust to life. I don’t know if it helped, but it was great. I flushed out my headgear and acquired a minor taste for dark rum because there was no arak.

“What’s wrong?” Jane mumbled, rolling toward me.

“Nothing. My scars pinch when the weather changes, you know, with the barometer,” I explained. “When I’m asleep, my mind makes up reasons for that.”

“You had a nightmare.”

“Everybody does.”

“Not like yours, I bet,” she said, yawning and stretching. “In my nightmares, I didn’t study for a test or I’m in a play and I don’t know the lines.”

“Same with me.”

“I thought we were going to talk to each other?”

I took a deep breath and told her my dream but it’s hard to convey to a civilian the terror, insanity and addictive rush of combat.

“Did that ever happen?” she asked.

“What? Me dying? Let me think.”

“No,” she laughed, swatting me with her pillow. “Did you ever fuck up, let your men down?”

“Men and women,” I corrected her.

“You were in combat with women?”

“Sometimes, yes.”

“Where?”

I shook my head. Not going there.

“And a dog,” she added.

“Yeah. Fatimah.”

“The dog who saved you, who blew up with the bomb that injured you.”

“Yeah.”

“Whose bones hit you, gave you those scars on your face?”

“Yeah.”

“But that wasn’t your fault.”

“You mean logically.”

“Of course. I understand… Survivor’s guilt.”

“I’m glad you do.”

She crawled onto my chest and hugged me. I pretended the sheet, now covering us both, was a quiet layer of snow. I closed my eyes.

“If you want something to worry about,” Jane began, “worry about me meeting your parents today.”

“Who says you’re meeting my parents today?”

“I do.”

“Thanks, Jane. Maybe you should stop trying to help me.”

“I’m a doctor. And I do house calls.”

“You’re an animal doctor. Are you calling me an animal?”

“No, but I think you have excess stress, energy that needs to be released with physical activity.”

“Does this involve a gym?” I asked, pulling her closer.

“No.”

“Good.”

After breakfast I took a shower and got ready to leave for Park Avenue with Skippy, who was prancing around, eager to get outside. I pulled on my backpack and called my mother to ask her if she was demonstrating at the Park Avenue home of the Tea Party billionaires. The chanting in the background made her “yes” redundant. I told her I was going to stop by and hung up before she could ask me why. I noticed Jane had sent me an email with her notes on the autopsies, the tests on the dead politicians’ blood, the silk patches and the silver musket balls. As I thanked her, I realized she was getting ready to come with me.

“Can we walk you to the office?” I asked.

“I told you. I’m coming with you,” Jane informed me.

“Don’t you have work?”

“You’re not getting rid of me. I’ve reshuffled things and had the staff take the emergencies so I can come with you,” she explained. “I want to meet your parents.”

“I don’t want you to meet my parents.”

“Why not?” she asked. “Is there something wrong with me?”

I decided to cling to honesty, no matter how much all my senses warned me of danger.

“No. There’s something wrong with them,” I explained. “Also, they think there’s something wrong with me and most people, and they’re not shy about sharing their opinions. On everything.”

“You think I’ll break up with you after talking to your mom and dad?” she chuckled.

“Maybe. They might insult you. Why should you be different?”

“What’s the worst that could happen?” Jane asked.

I didn’t answer. Skippy and I led the way. I noticed Skippy now occasionally watched the sky, alert for any more possible enemy aircraft.

“Good boy,” I told him.

“So, you think the killers—these Tea Party Animals—are ultra-conservatives murdering slightly more moderate Republicans?” Jane asked.

“Looks that way,” I said. “One thing is for sure— whoever is doing it has lots of money. Antique muskets? Silver bullets?”

“Like the Roehm brothers, whose house we’re going to?” she asked.

“Right. Deep pockets and deep hatred.”

I asked Siri to give me information on oil billionaire Hans Roehm and his brother Gert Roehm at 740 Park Avenue in Manhattan. More than a million hits popped up. The two were also paper moguls. Oil and toilet paper, the ass-wipe kings. One story credited the brothers with actually creating the Tea Party by setting up dozens of “astroturf” political groups claiming to be grass roots organizations that spontaneously appeared in response to the election of the first black president in US history. The camera-shy twins, one a coin collector, the other a stamp collector, were identical. The gaunt septuagenarian siblings had silver hair and thick, arched black eyebrows, and looked like clones of Count Dooku from
Star Wars
, without the beard.

“This is a dark time in our beloved country,” Hans said in one video interview. “We have to put these
people
back in their place and take back
our
country—for the
real
Americans—no matter what the cost.”

The two Roehms were awash in oil money and also ruled Wall Street. They required congressional and even presidential hopefuls to travel to their Park Avenue tower to kiss their rings and beg for support from what one Liberal columnist called “the twin Darth Vaders.”

“Siri, are the Roehm brothers trying to take over the planet?”

“I can’t answer that, Shepherd,” Siri replied.

“Talking to Siri again?” Jane asked. “I’m beginning to get jealous.”

“Jane, you have nothing to worry about—unless Siri learns how to make house calls like you.”

Jane blushed and slugged me on the arm. Skippy jumped and pulled at the leash. He liked hanging with us but he needed to run. I knew the feeling.

A white limo glided to the curb ahead of us and parked. The driver door opened and a husky Asian guy in a tight black suit and thin black tie popped out. Skippy stopped and tensed. I kept the leash taut. The driver opened the rear door and stood behind it, then gestured into the dark interior of the limousine.

“Mr. Shepherd?” the driver asked.

“Yeah?”

“Mrs. Anthony would like a quick word with you.”

Jane and I looked at each other, clueless.

“Who?” I asked.

“Faith Anthony, sweetie,” a high, raspy female voice echoed from inside the car, a voice both sweet and sharp, like chocolate syrup poured over a pile of broken glass. “Don’t be afraid, I won’t bite. At least, not too hard. Hop in!”

Skippy and I peered inside. An aging diva, dressed in a pink silk gown at ten on a Tuesday morning, was ensconced in the white leather rear seat. Her elevated cheekbones screamed high-end plastic surgery. Her impressive platinum-blonde hair and perfect makeup job bespoke a fancy salon. She was wearing pearls, real ones probably, around her neck. A wooden breakfast-in-bed table, which had been converted into a small desk, was propped above her lap, cluttered with two cellphones, a small computer and a notepad and pen. She looked like a well-preserved fifty but it was a lie. Her perfume was no doubt expensive but the aroma irritated my nose.

“Please come in,” she said. “If you don’t mind, Ad will keep your friend company outside while we have a quick chat, Francis.”

Jane shrugged. I handed her the leash. Skippy sat.

“I don’t like my first name,” I told her. “I prefer just Shepherd, thanks.”

“Okay, Shepherd,” she said, extending her hand like a duchess.

I couldn’t shake her hand, so I just tugged at her thin, hard fingers, topped with gleaming pink nails. One had a diamond ring with a faceted shiny rock the size of an ice cube. Her hand smelled of musky perfume and Marlboros.

“Just call me Faith. Everybody does.”

“Okay, Faith. Look, I usually use Uber cars or one of those rental bikes to get around. I can’t afford to travel in these things.”

“Sure you can afford it, dear boy,” she chuckled. “The
Daily Press
pays you very well.”

Then she told me my exact salary.

“So you’re
not
a car service?”

“You’re joking but you really don’t know who I am, do you?”

“You’re a rich lady in a big white limo,” I answered.

“Amazing,” Faith said, shaking her head in wonderment at my vast ignorance.

“Among other things, I write page nine every day in the
New York Mail
. You used to work there, I would think you would have noticed.”

“I wasn’t there for long. I quit after my bosses decided to lay me off in an unusual way.”

“Yes, I heard those allegations,” Faith said. “Hard to believe.”

My memory told me I had heard something about her but I couldn’t remember what it was.

“Believe it. So you’re the gossip girl at the
Mail
? What can I do for you?”

“You can come home, dear boy. All is forgiven. The editor would like to hire you back at double your current salary at the
Press
.”

“I’m a popular guy,” I told her.

“You’re a very effective guy. You’re kicking our ass and we will pay you a lot more to leave the
Press
and start kicking
their
ass. That is the power of the free market in action.”

“Ginny Mac just offered me this deal last night and I said no.”

“Yes, I know.”

Her perfume finally got to me. I sneezed.

“Bless you,” she said.

“Thanks. Why do we say that when someone sneezes?” I wondered aloud.

“It’s an old thing,” Faith explained. “Your soul is sneezed out of your body and the devil can jump down your throat and take your soul unless someone says ‘God Bless You’ in time. At least, that what the nuns told us.”

“Huh. So, you just saved my soul?”

“I’m trying, Shepherd.”

“I didn’t say yes to Ginny Mac, why would I say yes to you?”

“Because I am much more persuasive,” she said. “I am a powerful friend and a very bad enemy. I know everybody and everybody knows me.”

“I didn’t know you,” I pointed out.

“But you do now,” she said, the friendly tone becoming slightly harder. “And I know you now. If you continue to fight against us, you’ll force us to cut you down to size. Nobody wants that. If you come back to the
Mail
, we will make you rich and famous. That’s a promise.”

“From you or from this shy editor?”

“Both.”

“What’s his name?”

“Come with me to the office and you can meet your new boss. We can have a lot of fun together, Shepherd. You’ll be a celebrity. I will
make
you.”

“I’m already made, thanks.”

“I heard about your little fistfight the other day,” she said, her Upper-East-Side voice suddenly veering downtown. “You think you’re tough but you were just lucky. Maybe next time you won’t be so fortunate. We can protect you.”

“You’re going to protect me? Is the paper still owned by the same man? Is Trevor Todd still hiding out in New Zealand?”

“What do you care who owns it?”

“Because I don’t like that guy,” I told her. “I didn’t like a lot of the people who worked for him. Let me know when Trevor Todd is in jail where he belongs and somebody else owns the rag.” I reached for the door. “Nice meeting you, Faith,”

“You really do not want to say no to me, Shepherd.”

“I just did.”

“Change your mind,” she said, offering me a business card between her bony fingers.

“Change your perfume,” I suggested. I was out of the order-taking business.

“What was that all about?” Jane asked, after the limo zipped away.

“Fucked if I know.”

“Do you know who she is?”

“Of course,” I protested, as we resumed walking with Skippy. “Faith Anthony. Gossip columnist for the
New York Mail
.”

“Among other things. How mad was she?”

“Who said she was mad?” I asked. “In fact, she offered me a job back at the
Mail
for twice as much money.”

“Really? What did you say?”

“No, of course. You know I won’t work with those people.”

“So she wasn’t mad about her son?”

“What son?”

Jane looked at me like Faith had. Like I was the dumbest tourist in New York.