Taking the Highway (17 page)

Ordinarily, he liked parties. He liked meeting new people, seeing fresh perspectives, learning new things. But this entire event left him drained. The energy of the place was all wrong. Maybe having to pay a steep admission fee perverted the whole idea of a party, and nobody was really having any fun.

“You know what’s wrong with this picture?” Oliver asked. “Your hands are empty. You need a drink.”

Andre patted his pockets. “I’m short of cash.”

“Like I’m going to charge you.”

He held up his datapad and wagged it in front of his brother. “Free drinks aren’t worth going blind and deaf.”

Oliver patted his own pockets and came up with a wad of silver tickets. He handed one to Andre. “You’re my brother. You can do what you want.”

Andre weighed the datapad in his pocket against the heavy, embossed tickets. Losing his frustration in the bottom of a bottle—especially a bottle that his brother had to pay for—wouldn’t make him feel like less of a lackey, but it might make him feel less like punching Oliver on the nose. He reached for the ticket.

Oliver snatched it away at the last second. “And tell your friend to quit antagonizing my guests.”

For a moment, Andre wondered how Oliver knew that Bob was his friend. But it made sense. Oliver had personally invited everyone here, so he’d know them, at least by sight. Staff wore those hundred-fifty-year-old costumes, making Bob stand out, and not in a good way.

“It’s a political fundraiser,” Andre said. “He was talking politics. Why’d you let Nikhil bring Price-Powell anyway?”

“I invited him. He’s a donor.” Oliver waved away Andre’s skeptical look. “He’s a press-conference radical. He complains a lot, but at the end of the day, he knows what money can buy.”

“What he doesn’t know is when to close his mouth. Topher’s the one antagonizing your guests. Bob Masterson is backing you a hundred percent, and he doesn’t even know you. He picked up the general vibe and went with it. I’m telling you, this guy is good. Any minute now he’s going to start in against datapads.”

Oliver’s eyes widened. “Jesus Christ.”

“No, it’s true. He’ll shit all over them. I fronted him three hundred bucks. Told him you were good for it. Believe me, this guy returns full value on investment.”

Oliver was looking past him. “I don’t believe it.”

“What?” Andre whipped his head around, but Oliver was already charging through the crowd. Andre followed blindly through the dim center of the green where the gaslights did not quite penetrate. As they got farther from the band, he started to make out two distinct voices—Topher and Bob. The crowd had formed a ring around them in the classic schoolyard way.

Topher’s voice rose above the crowd. “As if a fart-rammer like you would dare to set one foot in the disincorporated zone.”

With great dignity, Bob looked down at Topher and proclaimed, “You, sir, are a piss-diddling muff nugget.”

The spectators erupted in delighted, nervous laughter. Topher’s face darkened with embarrassed blood and his voice became a growl. “You stupid faggot.”

“What did you call me?”

“You heard me.”

Andre rushed forward, ready to step in front of the first swinging fist, but was stopped by Oliver’s hand digging into his shoulder.

Oliver pulled him close and hissed into his ear. “Solve this. Now.” He let go and walked away. He shook hands, smiled, held out his arms, trying to block the embarrassing scene with his body.

Andre looked around for Sofia, or the patrolman who guarded the door, since this was what they’d been hired for. But Oliver seemed to expect more of the finesse of a fourth than the directness of a cop.

That might be what Oliver wanted, but that wasn’t what he was going to get. Andre was sick and tired of playing politician, with his brother or anyone else. Oliver wanted it solved? Fine. The quickest way was to remove the problem. Donor or not, Topher Price-Powell was the problem.

Andre charged into the center of the circle and saw the kind of blunt posturing that men do right before they slug one another. Bob’s orientation didn’t matter in the least, here. A gay man was still a man. In this case, a very red-faced, very heavy-breathing man who was not backing down despite Topher’s constant shoving of his shoulder. Andre had to be quick. With all these people watching and evaluating, Bob and Topher could lock horns faster than he could step between them.

“Let’s go,” Topher said. “Come on. Me and you. Right now. Let’s go.”

“You want to do this?” Bob asked, smacking Topher’s arm aside. “Do you really want to do this?”

“No,” Andre said firmly. “He does not.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Fade,” Andre told Bob. “Mr. Price-Powell and I are going for a walk.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Topher said. “Fuck you, Un-cle An-dre.”

A soft
Ohhh
worked through the crowd. If Andre ended this now, it would be a funny story for the guests to tell later. Five seconds more and it would be an ugly embarrassment.

Bob hadn’t moved, and Andre realized that he couldn’t. To run away now would be to concede the fight. Neither man would leave unless forced to.

“You’re right,” he said to Topher. “You have had too much to drink.” He took one quick step to the side, directly behind Topher. He snaked a hand under Topher’s armpit, up the back of his neck, and grabbed a fist full of hair. From the front, it looked like he was supporting Topher like a buddy, preventing him from falling. Andre was taller, which meant all he had to do was stand straight to pull Topher’s shoulder and his hair. If he leaned forward, the smallest push would send Topher to the ground. His foot, slightly angled and directly next to Topher’s, would trip him, and he was in position to kick Topher’s feet out from under him if he had to.

A trained fighter might be able to get out of the hold, twist and roll, or land a punch, but Topher was not a trained fighter. He had to keep moving in the direction that Andre guided him—right to the front gates.

They moved through the crowd and off the green, down the road past the mercifully silent carousel and the dark historic buildings. Topher cursed him every step of the way.

“Uncle Andre!” Nikhil trailed along behind them. “Uncle Andre, you’re causing a scene.”

Andre stopped next to the cobbler shop and looked at the empty main street. “Scene’s over.”

“Quit it, just let him go.”

“Let me go!” Topher echoed.

“No choice,” Andre told Nikhil. “I have to kick him out.”

They’d reached the brick archway where the foppish doorman still waited. Andre untangled himself from Topher, giving him a little shove. “Mr. Price-Powell is leaving,” he told the doorman. “He won’t be back.”

Topher straightened up and stared at Andre with a mixture of disbelief and icy hate. “Fine. I’m out of here. Nikhil, stay if you want.” He turned and walked through the arch.

Nikhil started to follow and Andre caught his sleeve, holding him back. “You’d do that to your dad? I mean, politics is politics, but family is—”

“Also politics,” Nikhil said. “At least in some families.”

Topher stopped in the archway and called back to Nikhil. “Are you coming or not?”

Andre jerked his head in that direction. “That guy worth it?”

Nikhil shook off Andre’s hand. “Topher isn’t faked. He’s worth ten of my dad.”

Andre watched him go, Topher gesturing wildly, Nikhil trailing along. Any other day, he’d be ready to agree with his nephew about his brother’s shortcomings, but watching Nikhil follow Topher Price-Powell into the night left Andre feeling cold with disappointment. Betrayed.

He turned back to the party and hadn’t gone ten steps before he saw Oliver marching toward him, still carrying his drink in one hand, a brightly-lit datapad in the other.

“What did you do?” Oliver demanded.

“Me? I did exactly what you asked.”

“You removed my son from the party?”

“No,” Andre said, drawing out the syllable. “I got rid of the asshole.”

“My son went with that asshole.”

“You wanted me to leave the asshole at the party?”

“I wanted you to remove the asshole
you
brought.”

“Bob?”

“Yes!” Oliver exploded. “Take care of your own asshole!”

“I was trying to take care of you!”

“So now I’m the asshole?”

Andre pointed to Oliver’s blinking datapad. “You’ll use all the tech you want out here, but heaven forbid you touch it in front of one of your big contributors. Wouldn’t want them to know who you
really
are.”

Oliver turned his back to Andre, toward his party. He pointed his entire arm. “Who I am at that party
is
who I really am.”

Andre circled in front of him. “What, a hypocrite?”

“Fuck you, little brother. You think you know me? You think you know what I’m really like? You don’t know anything.”

“I know enough. Asshole doesn’t begin to cover it. Jesus, Oliver, even your own kid thinks you’re so full of bullshit you grow sunflowers out of your butt.”

“
You’re
the kid! All I do is take care of you.” Oliver fumbled in his pocket and alarms rushed through Andre’s body. All of his police training told him to watch hands. Watch where they go. Careful of pockets. He could be reaching for anything.

But Oliver simply pulled out the most powerful weapon he had—his wallet. He opened it and peeled off three bills. “Here’s your three hundred. No, make it four.”

“Forget it, old man. I’m not taking your money.” Four bills. That’s all Oliver thought a brother was worth. Worse, before the end of the night, Andre would probably accept it.

Oliver looked over Andre’s shoulder and snapped his fingers. “Ah, finally, there’s that eighty-nine. Please escort my brother out of here.” He gestured for the doorman. “Fred, you help.”

“I got this,” Sofia said from behind him.

Andre kept his eyes on his brother. “Stay out of this, Sofia.”

“I can’t.”

Andre’s hands were empty. Nothing to throw, nothing to break. So, it would have to be hand-to-hand. Oliver was a soft target. He’d be on the ground in no time.

Sofia stepped into his line of vision. He tried to duck around her but she moved with him. “Just give me one minute, Andre. Just step outside with me for one minute and we’ll get some air.” She took a step closer, then another, still speaking in a soft, steady tone. How did she sound so calm when the very air around them seemed tinted with rage? “Give me sixty seconds,” she said. “After that, if you want to come back and hit your brother, I won’t stop you.”

“No one’s hitting anyone!” Oliver yelled.

“Please.” Sofia ignored Oliver, holding Andre’s eyes with her own small black ones. “Step outside with me right now.” She was speaking to him. Only to him. Her voice was cool water, a slow-moving stream. He could listen to this voice.

“One minute,” he said.

“That’s all I’m asking.”

“Then he’s dead.”

“Your choice.”

Andre shook his head, trying to clear it. “One single minute.”

“I’m done for the night.” She took his arm. “Let’s go.”

S
ofia kept her arm
linked in his all the way across the lawn to the parking lot, pretending that he was escorting her, instead of the other way around. They didn’t speak as they passed the clock tower and the antique autos, across what felt like three kilometers of manicured grass. Her car, a midnight-black Banshee, unlocked itself at her approach and she walked him to his side of it and waited until he was settled in the passenger seat before getting behind the wheel. “Where to?”

Andre slumped against the door and mumbled his address to her companel.

“You live in Novi?” Sofia raised her eyebrows.

Andre was good and tired of that reaction. Single cops lived in the city if they could afford it. Married ones tended toward respectable blue-collar suburbs Downriver, full of hard-working people who were happy to call themselves Detroiters and grateful not to live near the oh-zone. But the wide swath of zone on the city’s west side cheapened property in Novi and points further west. The longer commute also meant fourths could command higher prices. It was the perfect combination. Andre could not only afford a house, but a house with a garage. A garage that—if there was any justice in the world—would hold a 2008 Dodge Challenger. So far, Oliver had refused to visit. Afraid he might have to approve.

“I live in Novi,” he said flatly. He didn’t feel like explaining. Not today. Not to her.

Sofia tilted her head in a half shrug and pushed the starter. The car tried to play music for her but she canceled all selections. They rode in silence.

Studying her profile in the river of passing lights, it occurred to Andre that he was being less than gracious. None of this was her fault. “Thank you.”

Sofia turned an incredulous look at him. “For what?”

“For getting me out of there. For shoving me in a car before things got worse. I’m sorry about that.” He concentrated on the dark screen of his silent datapad. His police phone implant was also silent. He’d shut it down as soon as he’d entered the car. He was done with this day. Sofia didn’t say as much, but he had the feeling she’d shut off her implant too.