Children of Paranoia (20 page)

Allen responded to my impertinence with some righteous anger of his own. “Fuck me? Fuck me? Who the fuck do you think you are?” Despite the words, his voice was still calm. “You think you're somebody? You're nobody. You think you can make demands? You can't ask for shit. We've got real men out there who have been doing what you do for decades. We have men out there who have dozens of kills under their belt. We've got men out there who have earned their stripes. You? You get sent to fucking Montreal in a rental car and fuck up a job because a guy's got a couple of bodyguards? Who the fuck do you think you are? I'd like you to tell me who you think you are because I know who you are. You're nobody. You're a fucking pawn. Do you play chess, Joey?” I wanted to reach through the phone and wring his throat. “Do you?”

“I know how to play, yeah,” I responded. Even in my own head, my voice began to sound like the voice of a petulant child.

“Good. Then you know what your job is as a pawn. It's your job to get pushed around. You're the first one to get pushed into danger, and if we have the option to trade you for one of their pieces, and it looks like it will help the cause, so be it. You don't get to make decisions about what happens to you. You move when we tell you to move. You kill when we tell you to kill. And if you survive, then maybe someday, just like the measly little pawn that you are, if you get pushed forward far enough, then you might turn into something useful. Then you can make demands. Until then, you little punk, you simply need to shut up.”

My anger nearly boiled over. “If I'm the fucking pawn, then what are you, you bastard? You sit there doing nothing. You jabber on the phone all day. What the fuck are you?” I asked, seething.

Allen spoke slowly when he answered, careful to enunciate every syllable. “I'm the pinky on the hand of the man who moves the pawn.” He didn't sound proud. He was just stating a fact.

I had nothing. I didn't know how to fight the faceless voice on the other side of a phone. He had my life at his fingertips. It was the fourth rule. The one we didn't teach the kiddies. Rule number one: No killing of innocent bystanders. Rule number two: No killing of anyone under eighteen. Rule number three: Babies born to babies get traded to the other side. Rule number four, the unspoken rule: Bite the hand of the man and he'll bite you back, only he'll bite you twice as hard. “Okay,” I finally relented. “I'm sorry. No more requests that I'm not entitled to.” The words pained me as I said them, but if I wanted to get back to Montreal, I'd somehow have to get in this guy's good graces.

“That's better,” Allen said. “See, not so hard.”

“So what do you have in store for me, because I'm ready to go back to Montreal to finish the job.” I didn't have high hopes that he was going to send me back.

“No one's going to be finishing that job anytime soon, kid. You fucked it up too good already. I've got another job for you.”

“Define
soon,
” I said without thinking.

“You still don't understand, do you, kid? I don't have to define anything for you. You've got to earn respect and right now you're running at a deficit. Soon is soon. Weeks, maybe months. We'll send someone back there when the job's ready to be done and not before that. If you impress me on this next job, maybe we'll send you. Maybe we won't.” I felt like a marionette, pull the strings and I'd dance. Weeks, maybe months. I had promised you that I'd be back sooner than that. What could I do?

I relented. “Okay. What do you have for me?”

“Naples, Florida. The safe house will be ready in three days. Your host will pick you up at the airport then, and no sooner. Take the first flight that day out of Boston. Your host will know what you look like. The details of your job will be there when you arrive.”

“What do I do for the next three days?” I asked. I didn't expect him to care.

“You stay out of trouble, stay out of Canada, and don't bother me.” Before I could say another word, Allen gave me the code—Jimmy Lane, Sharon Bench, Clifford Locklear. Then he hung up.

I spent the next two days the same way as I had spent the previous two. I'd exercise, watch bad television, go to the bar for some drinks and some food, and not sleep. I couldn't get you out of my mind, not even for a moment—not that I tried. Each day dragged on endlessly. I considered going back to see you but I worried about what would happen if I got caught. If I got caught now, I'd probably never see you again. I decided that calling would be too painful. To hear your voice when I had no idea when I would see you again was too much. It wouldn't be fair to you. That's what I told myself, anyway. So I worked through each minute of each day, watching the clock, wishing that I could simply push the hands of the clock forward to make time move faster. Your last words to me echoed through my head: “I'll wait for you, for as long as you need me to.” After two more agonizing days, I drove to Boston to catch a plane to Florida.

I landed in the Fort Myers airport outside of Naples in the middle of the day. The crowd at the airport was sparse. There were a few grandparents there to greet their grandchildren but that was pretty much it. I stepped off the plane with my backpack. The backpack was lighter than usual because I had actually checked a bag this time, a small duffel bag that I could have carried on if it weren't for its contents. I wasn't ready to give up the gun yet. The way things were going, I thought that I might need it.

I slung my backpack over one shoulder and had begun to walk toward the baggage claim when a broad, silver-haired man with a wide smile walked up to me. He extended his hand. “Joe?” he asked me as he presented himself. I nodded and shook his hand. His smile widened. His handshake was firm and deliberate, like the handshake of a man who had spent a lot of time shaking hands. I thought that maybe he had once been a salesman or a politician. He was wearing aviator glasses with clear lenses. His face was friendly and earnest. He looked way too honest to have been a politician. “Name's Dan,” he said. “I think you're staying with me for the next couple of days.”

“Pleased to meet you, Dan,” I replied, speaking much more formally than I normally would, inadvertently aping Dan. “I appreciate you coming to pick me up.”

“Of course. Of course. It's an honor, really. I just want to pitch in where I can.” He nodded his head as he spoke. “You ready to go?”

“Actually, I have to get my bag.”

“I didn't think that you boys checked bags. I thought you traveled as light as possible.” As he spoke, he turned and starting walking toward the baggage claim.

“Usually I do, Dan. I just didn't want to carry everything on the plane today.”

Dan smiled and put his hand on my shoulder. “I don't blame you, kid. I don't blame you. I can't stand fighting for space in the overhead compartment.” We got to the baggage claim area and stood behind the women and children.

“You been here long, Dan?” I asked, as we stood there, waiting for the buzzer to sound that would announce the arrival of the luggage from my flight.

“Just about an hour,” he replied.

“An hour? Was my flight delayed?” I asked. I knew that it hadn't been.

“No, sir. Right on time. But I didn't want to keep a working boy like you waiting. Besides, I like coming here, watching the action, seeing the people coming and going.” I don't think I'd ever met a man like Dan before. I looked over at him. He stood there, never taking his eyes off the baggage carousel even though there were no bags on it yet and it wasn't moving.

“Well, again, I appreciate it.”

After we retrieved my bag, we walked to Dan's car in the parking lot. Dan drove the car that I expected him to drive, a large white sedan, and for some reason, that made me happy. As Dan drove us into town, I peppered him with questions, trying to decode him. He was retired and, after a short stint in the navy, had indeed spent much of his life working as a salesman. He sold whiskey and cocktail napkins to bars in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. He was excited to hear that I was from New Jersey too. He told me that nearly half the people in this part of Florida were from either New York or New Jersey. He had been a “working man”—those were the words he used to describe my job—in his earlier years too. Back in his day, he informed me, the soldiers worked and kept day jobs too. Traveling around as a salesman was good cover. He'd do his routes, make his sales, and once or twice a year duty would call, as he put it. I asked him how many people he had killed during his days as a “working man.” He said that he hadn't kept track, that the numbers didn't matter anyway and that he wouldn't be proud of the number even if he knew it. He was just proud that he had been able to do his part during his time. Now he was proud to be helping me, proud that he still had something to give to the cause. Oddly, he made me feel proud too. I had almost forgotten what that felt like.

I asked him about his family. He told me that he didn't have any family left. His parents both made it to the end, dying of natural causes well into their eighties. He'd had a wife once and a daughter. Both had been killed. His wife was a civilian before he married her but that didn't stop them. She was murdered eight years into their marriage when their daughter was just three years old. It was a sloppy job, he said. She was killed in their home one day while he was out running errands. He was pretty sure they were looking for him. When he got home that day, there was blood everywhere, blood in multiple rooms. She must have put up one hell of a fight, he said. He found her body sprawled across the dining room table. They had stayed and watched her die before laying her on the table and leaving. His daughter was home the whole time. When he got home, she was hiding in the bedroom closet. He couldn't be sure if she ran there or if they put her there. She never said. She never spoke about what she saw that day, not once. She never talked about what she saw them do to her mother but as soon as she was old enough, she threw herself into the War. We have to teach some people to hate. Others learn it all on their own. She became a high-level Intelligence officer, one of the youngest in history. She rose through the ranks quickly because of how aggressive she was. That aggressiveness made her a prime target. She was murdered just two weeks shy of her twenty-eighth birthday. “Look, Joe, I don't like 'em and I'm proud that I've done my part in the fight against 'em,” Dan said to me as he drove, “but too much hate will ruin you. My poor little girl, I don't know if she had more than a couple of happy days in her life after seeing what happened to her mother. I've always felt guilty about that.” We were silent for a few moments. “Enough about me, son. What about you?” he said, slapping the top of my knee.

I didn't expect to tell him much. What was there to tell? Once I started speaking, though, it was hard to stop. I told him about growing up in New Jersey, about my family members who had been killed in the War. I told him about my job, about what being a “working man” entailed nowadays. He was thrilled to hear the War stories. He wanted to know as many details as possible. He seemed to think that my life was extremely exciting. To him I
was
James Bond, no matter what that bastard Allen had said about me being a pawn. I told him about how my two best friends were “working men” too. I loved using the phrase in front of Dan. It made me feel honest. I told him all about my adventures at the Jersey Shore, embellishing the story in some places. Dan ate every bit of it up. The only thing I didn't tell him about was Montreal. I didn't tell him about you.

After about an hour on the road, we pulled into a little retirement community just outside downtown Naples called Crystal Ponds. We drove slowly through the neighborhood. Everybody we passed waved to Dan and Dan waved back to everyone. All of the lawns were superbly manicured and there was a flagpole adorned with a waving American flag in every yard. After making a couple of slow turns we pulled to the end of a cul-de-sac and into Dan's driveway. Dan's house was a small white ranch sitting in front of a tiny pond. “We're home, kid,” Dan said to me after pulling into the garage and turning off the car engine. “Go inside and grab yourself a drink. I'm going to get the mail.” Then Dan hopped out of the driver's seat and began sauntering down the driveway toward the mailbox.

I walked into the little house and was immediately hit by the rush of cool air from the air conditioning inside. The first room that I stepped into was the kitchen. Not wanting to disappoint Dan, I decided to take him up on his offer and help myself to a drink. I walked over to the refrigerator and opened it. Everything in the fridge was newly stocked. There were two full six packs of beer, an unopened loaf of bread, an unopened orange juice, an unopened package of hot dogs, and on and on. Dan had done some shopping in anticipation of my visit. God knows what he ate when I wasn't there. I reached into the fridge and pulled out a bottle of beer. I twisted off the cap and threw it in the garbage under the sink. That's when Dan walked in. He spotted me with the beer in my hand and asked, “Mind if I join you?”

“Be my guest,” I replied. I turned back toward the fridge and pulled out another bottle. Then we sat at the kitchen counter together and drank our beer in comfortable silence. “So, Dan, I believe you have a package for me,” I said to him, midway through our beer.

“Yes, sir,” Dan replied. “Wait here.” Dan walked off into another room and returned with a familiar, sealed manila envelope. “I suppose you're going to want some time alone to go over that?” Dan asked as he handed me the package.

“I think that'd be best,” I replied, feeling the weight of the package in my hand. It was light—that tended to mean that the job was supposed to be pretty easy.