The Franklin Incident (Philly-Punk) (5 page)

“Don’t start with me!”

“You had to pick a lunchbox that can’t hit fifty without losing pieces!”

“And the station wagon you were eyeing was a gem?”

“That was a solid car!”

“A solid piece of shit!”

“Look, I know you’re worried.  So am I but—“

“Your father’s life isn't at stake!”

Anger suddenly flared in Sparks’ chest like a lit match, all brimstone and combustion.  Gripping the steering wheel like a vise, he jerked it to the left, swinging around an abandoned car in the right-hand lane.  More empty cars were ahead, the drivers probably having run off.  Sparks could see smoke in the distance and flashes of green, orange, then blood red.  He jerked their car around another, his own thoughts warring.  “Look!  Just because I'm no one’s sidekick doesn't mean that I don't care about what's happening—“

“I know.  I'm sorry.  I know that they... that The Rook means a lot to you too...”

Ahead, the heavens rumbled and the two young men watched a lone man fall from the clouds, the buildings swallowing him.

“Just get us there fast.  Please.”

Friday

JUNE 16TH

Chapter One

Jack King lay in a place somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, a part of his brain knowing that he should get up.  Another part, one that was stronger and quite expressive, told Jack to go the frak back to sleep.  However, he felt Rachel stir beside him and knew that all was lost.  As if to further that point, his cell phone alarm sounded, first vibrating then belting out some smooth jazz melody that was the least offensive of all his pre-programmed ringtones.  Jack, well practiced in this most important of actions, reached out unseen, grabbed his phone, and pressed SNOOZE.

“Good morning,” Rachel purred in his left ear.

“No talky.  Sleep.”  Jack replied, pulling the sheets up over his head.

“I have to get up.  So do you.”

“Why?”

“Because I have to be in court by ten.  And, if you don't go into the store, Cecil will probably burn the place down in some antisocial form of expression.”

Jack pulled down the sheets, his eyes peeking out at her.  And what a sight she was.  Wrapped up in his sheets, she revealed nothing but the shape of the lithe form underneath.  He still had no idea why this beautiful, intelligent, funny lawyer wanted to spend her free time with him.

“Right....”  Jack groaned and got out of bed, the chillness of the slightly-open window a little wake-me-up against his naked body.

Rachel just lay back, watching the show.  And whistling.

“You like what you’re seeing?”  Jack asked her as he tugged on underwear.

“Oh, yes.”

Jack grabbed his t-shirt.  Before he slid it on, he motioned to the end table beside the bed.  “There's something in there for you.  I meant to give it to you last night but I got—“

“Distracted?”

“Something like that.”

Rachel leaned over and, as she looked in the drawer, chided him, “Oh, Jack, I hope it's not a ring because it's just so....”  Her words faded away as she found not a ring but a single brass key.  She picked it up, turning it around in her fingers.  It had a few slivers of metal shavings still attached to it.  “Is this for me?”

“I want you to be able to come and go as you please.  I got a dresser drawer all emptied for you.”

She suddenly burst into the biggest smile, thin tears in her eyes.  She leapt out of bed and pounced on him, laughing with joy as they fell to the floor.

Jack was going to be late for work.

* * *

An hour later, Jack rode the escalator up the two stories from the stale-air subway to an overcast morning above.  He had both hands on each railing, never a fan of escalators.  Though his thick sweatshirt kept out the morning’s dampness, it seemed to hang in the air like a mist.

Out of the station, he made a slight left and crossed the intersection.  The city was oddly quiet this Friday morning.  Though it was right in the middle of the run-as-fast-as-you-can-from-the-subway-to-your-job morning rush, not many people were on the streets.  The streets, the signs, the buildings – tall steel monoliths in this newer area of the city – seemed just as still and cast in same gray hues of the clouds above.  Downtown Claremont seemed devoid of all color and still asleep.

Then he saw the park.

And what he saw made him stop abruptly.

Remembrance Park, the center of Remembrance Square, was in bloom, determined to be colorful when the rest of the world refused to be.  Outside her crimson wrought iron gates, a line of dark blue trucks stenciled with CITY WORKS CREW sat.  Men in matching uniforms carried white wooden chairs into the park, setting them up in rows in front of a long granite wall.  The Memory Wall, as it was called, was covered in names etched into the shiny, stone face.  These same workers had planted lively pink, yellow, and purple flowers all along the Wall’s base.

Today was The Naming Ceremony.

And he'd forgotten.

Seeing those empty chairs sitting in front of the Wall, though, Jack couldn’t help but let that old friend, sadness, in.  The chairs, sturdy and strong, were poised to take on the weight of those who had lost loved ones ten years ago.  Ten years of pain and heartache, only to come back to this park, a place that had been the epicenter of so much death, and revisit those emotions all over again.  How could such torture be honoring the dead, really?  It was like public flagellation.

Jack left the edge of the park and made his way deep into the north side of Remembrance Square with its variety of restaurants, droves of trendy clothing shops, a trio of cell phone boutiques, two coffee houses, and a bookstore.  Someone, years ago, had thought another way to best honor the dead was to enshrine them in consumerism.

Jack walked into the bookstore where he worked.  It was clean-looking from the outside with big windows full of interesting displays and lots of signage.  Inside was the same: no precariously stacked book towers, tall shelves that blot out the sun, or cats.  Downtown Books was a casual reader’s bookstore – not a haven for true bookstore hobbits.

“Jack...!”

Though, it did have its share of woodland creatures.

Cecil, behind the information desk, looked like one of the 'talking trees' from
The Wizard of Oz
– a long trunk of a frame, stick-like fingers, and an angular face with a gnarled nose and shrewd eyes enlarged by Coke bottle glasses.  Jack had once found him lovingly holding an apple and had almost pissed his pants from laughing so hard.  Cecil was one Jack's two ‘Banes of His Existence.’

The second – and the source of Cecil's current whining – looked spot-on for the Mayor of Munchkinland: squat, rosy-cheeked, and always decked out in his finest clothes.  For Norm, though, that was Sci-Fi-themed t-shirts.  Today’s read
HAN SHOT FIRST
and, coincidentally, he was reading a new
Star Wars
paperback.  He glanced up at Jack and instantly began to perspire.  “Uh...  Hey...  Jack.”

“Jack...," Cecil whined again, clawing at Jack's arm with his impossibly-long fingers.  “He’s doing it again.”

Jack used to work mornings with another bookseller, Silvio.  But Silvio had decided to pull a 'Felicity' and follow some girl he barely knew to college.  He'd been a liar, pathological thief, and stuttered heavily.  God, he missed Silvio.

Jack swallowed his slowly-rising anger.  “What’s the problem?  What's he doing?”

“He hasn’t bought that book.”

“Cecil, we’ve been over this: the boss is okay with customers reading the books in the store even if they haven’t bought them.”

“He’s dog-earing the pages.”

Jack bit down on his tongue.  This shtick was such a regular bit that Jack often thought about taking it on the road.  “Let’s just let it go today, okay? “

Ever persistent, Cecil exclaimed, “But, Jack, he’s cracking the spines!”

Jack thought for a moment about cracking Cecil’s spine but instead said in his best Mr. Rogers’ voice, “Fine.  I’ll talk to him.”

Jack walked over to Norm and was about to speak his name when the man cut him off with a verbal explosion.  “Jack, I’m having a crisis of faith!”

“To be honest, Norm—“

“I don’t think I love
Star Wars
as much as I used too!  I think the prequels really did me in.  Even the books aren’t—“

Jack cut him off with a wave
a la
Jedi.  “Stop!”  Norm did.  “I’m sorry that you are having a crisis of faith but you can’t deface the books if you haven’t—“

“Cecil, you’re such a Judas!”  Norm suddenly screamed past Jack.

“Jack, he’s yelling at me!”

But Norm wasn’t done:  “That’s because you’re a tool—“

“I’m just doing my job!”

“You can take your job and stick—“

“WILL THE BOTH OF YOU SHUT THE HELL UP?”

Norm felt a slight wave of heat rush over him and he shut up instantly.

Cecil, utterly terrified, cowered behind his book.

Jack hissed through gritted teeth, “The both of you are driving me crazy.”

“He started—“

“If he wasn’t—“

“SHUT.  UP.”

They did.

“I’m going to go get a cup of coffee before I murder one of you.”  He pointed to Cecil:  “Leave him alone!”  Then to Norm, “If you’re going to damage the book, buy it.  I have no qualms about calling the cops on you for loitering.”

“Hey—“

But Jack wasn’t listening.

He just left the store.

Chapter Two

Bruce Webster stood under a chalkboard sign that said 'Order here, dumbass.'  He was in a coffee shop around the corner from Jack’s bookstore, trying to get the attention of a tall red head cleaning a metal pitcher.  She was strikingly beautiful – like turning a corner and bumping into a six and a half foot Viking goddess.  Casually, her shockingly violet eyes glanced over at him, then, realizing that there was someone there, she turned, her ponytail whipping behind her.  “Hi!  I'm sorry I didn’t see you there!”

Bruce moved the black messenger bag strung across his muscular frame just slightly and flashed a smile that could have said anything from 'No big deal' to 'You better impress me!'  The meaning was really in eyes, though, which looked like pools of melted chocolate in the café’s soft lights.

Katrina must have read something nonthreatening in them because she smiled and said, “What can I get you?”

“Cappuccino, please.”

“Decaf?”

“Dear God, no!”

She laughed.  It wasn’t a girlish giggle but a laugh of a woman comfortable with herself.  “One leaded cap coming right up.”

She started making his drink.

Bruce took a moment to casually glance around the café, trying to look like a tourist.  He saw the usual café fare: black and white photography splattered across latte foam-colored walls, small tables that had four seats but really only sat two, and two female waitresses looking at him hungrily.  Normal.  The only original thing was the sign he was standing under.

And the barista behind the bar. 

Feeling that enough time had passed for his conversation to still be perceived casual, he began, “Was it around here that those beatings happened a few months ago?"

She didn't look up.  "There was some trouble.  Just some local toughs trying to prove something."

"Yeah...?"  Bruce shrugged.  “I heard that someone stopped them.”

Now she looked up.  And Bruce could have sworn she looked slightly taken aback.

She might have looked even more surprised if she'd seen the pistol that he'd pulled out of his holster.

Suddenly, the door behind him opened and someone stormed in, yelling, “Tell me you got something stronger than espresso?”

Hearing Jack’s voice, Bruce turned away quickly, hiding his face.  And the gun.  Oblivious, Jack stormed past him in his assault on the counter.

Katrina still eyed Bruce cautiously as she spoke to Jack, “Which one is it now?”

“Would you believe both?”  Jack replied, putting his head down on the counter with a soft
thud
.  “Can you make me a mocha with lots of chocolate and whip cream?”

“Do you want sprinkles?”

“Will you marry me?”

“Yes.  But only for the sex.”

Jack looked up, a blush on his cheeks.

Katrina laughed embarrassingly and went to make his drink.

Bruce couldn’t help but glance at the both of them.  Jack likes this woman.  Interesting.

Jack saw him.  “Bruce?  What... what the hell are you doing here?”

Before Bruce could even reply, Jack was hugging him.  “I had to come into town early.”

“Agency business?”

Glancing at Katrina, he said, “Something like that.”

“God, it’s good to see you!  You look great!”

“So do you.”

Jack, actually, did look good.  The weight he'd put on since he'd retired was gone.  His hair, though, was still a wild, red mop and his skin looked as if it never saw the sun.  But the air about him definitely seemed... happier.  Almost, at peace.

For Jack, that was saying something.

“It’s all my clean living,” Jack replied.

“Jack, here’s your large quadruple shot mocha with extra chocolate and whip cream.”

Jack took his drink.  “Thanks...”

He took a sip, then noticing Katrina there, nodded to Bruce.  “Katrina, this is my best friend Agent Bruce Webster.  Bruce, Katrina.”

Bruce shook her hand.  “It was good to meet you.”

Katrina eyed him carefully.  “Yeah...”

Jack motioned to the door.  “I have to get back to work...”

Katrina motioned to Jack, “Before you go, Oliver said take whatever pictures you need for tonight.”

“Pictures?”  Bruce asked, glancing from Jack to Katrina.  “Tonight?”

“Jack has an art show,” Katrina replied, motioning to the photos on the wall.

Bruce, intrigued, left them and walked over to the black and white images that he'd only given the most casual of glances before.  On closer examination, though, he could see that the photos were much more than ordinary.  All set in Claremont, they were of people sitting in outdoor cafes, a child playing in a puddle that reflected the Spears Building, a couple kissing passionately under The Arch, a lone man standing in front of The Memory Wall, his fingers lingering over names.  “These... these are all yours?”