Elixir (5 page)

Salinas the narcotics kingpin and a bodyguard with an AK-47 stagger from the Escalade bleeding from their heads and arms. The underling lunges in front of the boss to defend him, spraying his weapon at the van. The cops roll out and crawl behind, metal-on-metal bangs rippling through the streets as the siding gets pummeled.

One of the policemen slides around the bumper, pumping two cover shots. A second slips around the other end, capturing the henchman in his crosshairs, discharging a round at him. It enters him about an inch under his right eye, a rope of blood squirting as his body crumbles to the asphalt. Still alive, he sweeps for his gun but goes lifeless when two more slugs pass through his forehead.

Salinas is terrified without his human shield. He fumbles under his jacket for a pistol but can’t get to it in time. The cop sticks three bullets into his chest, knocking him ten feet back while he chokes on his last breaths.

As the officers pile into their vehicle, onlookers scream, four riddled corpses on the pavement, two belonging to the criminals, two to a young man and woman killed by stray fire from the AK-47.

Sitting cross-legged on his blue bedroom carpet, Sean pours crackers on a paper plate. He’s in a better mood today, the bird predicament almost behind him after a few days of talking it over with his aunt. His best friend Kyle eyes the saltines between them. “One minute,” Sean says. “The whole thing.”

“Come on,” Kyle says as if his buddy’s been lying to him. “It’s not that much.”

Smiling, Sean claps a couple times. “All right then hotshot. Go for it. Twenty bucks if you do it.”

“You’ve got the money?”

Sean walks to his desk, pulls a ten and two crumpled fives from a drawer, and drops them on the rug. “It can be yours in sixty seconds.”

“You’re telling me nobody can do it?”

“I’m not telling you anything other than if you eat six of them in a minute you get twenty bills.”

“How you timing it?”

Sean points at a digital clock on the wall by his
Die Hard
poster. “As soon as the minutes change you start. You got until they do again. Cool?”

“Easiest twenty bucks I’ll ever make,” Kyle says, arrogant. He extends his hand, Sean shaking it. They watch the clock, Kyle brushing away strands of his straight black hair. In a few moments it flips from 3:07 to 3:08.

“Go,” Sean says, leaning forward.

Kyle downs the first. “That’s one,” he says, grabbing a second. He takes some bites and finishes. On the third, his chewing slows.

With delight, Sean sees his expression go from cocky to distressed. “How’re those gums feeling champ? Nice and moist?”

“Shut up,” Kyle says with a mouthful, speech muddled. He gropes at the plate for another.

“Time,” Sean says with a celebratory slap on the floor.

Crumbs all over his lips, Kyle gawks at the clock. 3:09. “No way that was a minute.”

Sean snags the cash and sticks it in his pocket with a smirk. “Want some water?”

Kyle nods, gnawing what’s left in his mouth. “Still can’t believe it.”

“You saying I rigged it somehow?”

“No...just...I don’t know.” He swallows. “Whatever. I need some Goddamn water.”

“Kitchen. Come on.” They stroll out, then down the stairs.

Sean opens the refrigerator and fishes out a bottle of Poland Spring and a canister of Tropicana. Kneeing the door shut, he tosses the water to his buddy. He heads to the living room with the orange juice dangling from his hand, noticing Aunt Mary and a heavyset lady in a denim jacket on the couch watching a soap opera. “Hey,” Mary says to him.

“Hey,” he says, admiring the sultry blond actress on the TV.

Gaping at him, the other woman on the sofa says, “Hi there.”

“Sean, this is Babs,” Mary says. “Babs, Sean. She’s my friend from book club. We’re heading over there in a bit.” He raises the jug as a hello gesture.

“I’m a huge fan,” the lady says. “I saw every episode of you on
Jeopardy!
.”

“Oh yeah?” He rubs the back of his neck.

“Malone’s such a common name, but when I met Mary I had a feeling you two were related. Same...face shape. I thought maybe your mom at first. Then we got to chatting one day and sure enough...not mom, but still blood.”

“We are,” he says. He turns to his aunt. “We’re gonna ride our bikes to the mall. Came in to let you know.”

“Okay. I’m making pork chops for dinner when I get back. Say around—”

“How do you remember all that stuff?” the woman asks him, cutting off Mary. “It just doesn’t seem possible.”

“What stuff?”

“From
Jeopardy!
.”

“I don’t know,” he says, a tad defensive. “I just kind of do.” He unscrews the juice.

She inspects him as he drinks. “I pictured you’d have a bigger head in real life. To store it all.” She pauses. “Your head’s pretty normal-sized.”

“Yeah,” he says in a flat way, lowering the bottle.

She pulls her phone from her purse and visits Wikipedia. “Let me try to stump you,” she says with excitement as she types.

He rubs the back of his neck again. “I think we’re leaving soon.”

“Hold on,” she says, oblivious to his discomfort. “I got one. What’s the capital of Uganda?”

“That show was years ago—”

“Did I stump you?”

“I guess.”

She pumps her fists in triumph, jean jacket squeezing her excess arm weight. “The girls at work aren’t going to believe this.” She peeks at his aunt, expecting her to be happy. Mary is straight-faced, aware of how much her nephew hates stuff like this. Sensing an awkwardness, the woman says, “I’m going to freshen up in the bathroom before we hit the road.”

“No problem,” Mary says. The lady lifts her big body off the couch with a groan and lumbers toward the hallway.

As soon as she’s out of sight Sean says, “Kampala.”

“What?” his aunt asks.

“The capital. Of Uganda.”

“Why didn’t you say it before?”

“I wanted her to leave me alone. She would’ve kept asking me stuff if I got it right.”

She laughs, so does Kyle. “Well played,” she says, surfing the channels. “Sorry about all that.”

“Ready to go bro?” Kyle asks.

“Yeah.” As Sean returns to the kitchen a newscaster’s voice on the television grabs his attention. His brow creases. He turns to the screen, a live image of Mexico’s Church of Santa Prisca plastered all over it with the headline “Drug Lord Gunned Down Outside Mexican Cathedral.” He steps closer. “Don’t change it,” he says with alarm, a chill tingling his skin.

A newswoman in a red blazer says, “...Who governed a narcotics empire estimated to generate north of four billion dollars a year. Salinas was anonymous for nearly eighteen months, no visuals or hints of his whereabouts until today. Multiple eyewitnesses confirmed the presence of three Mexican federal policemen engaged in gunfire this morning with him and associate Bertram Velasquez. Deaths have been verified for both of the men, with no reports of any police injuries. We’ve also learned however that Fernando and Natalia Flores were pronounced dead at the scene as well. Fernando was thirty-two, Natalia twenty-eight. A husband and wife from Taxco with no apparent connection to Salinas or his criminal network.”

A photo of the Flores family appears, the victims standing in the Pacific Ocean swinging their young son above a wave. “According to Mrs. Flores’s mother, the couple was walking to church around the time shots broke out,” the newscaster says. “Local authorities determined they were struck by stray bullets from Velasquez’s automatic weapon. When the shooting took place Mrs. Flores’s mother was at home with the couple’s two-and-a-half-year-old son, Mateo.”

“What a shame,” Mary says in a deflated tone.

Sean marches to the kitchen, the reporter audible behind him, everything spinning, the Tropicana label, the fake plant his aunt keeps next to the sink, her copy of today’s
Los Angeles Times
on the dinette table. “Dude what’s wrong?” Kyle asks, confused.

Sean clamps his eyelids as tight as he can, his buddy foggy in his ears. In ten seconds or so he says to nobody in particular, “I’m going to the school.”

“You have class on Tuesday?” Mary asks from the den, noticing his tense expression through the entryway, growing concerned. “I thought you guys were going to the mall?”

As they stare he trots outside. The chilly air hits him. Rubbing his bare forearms, he crosses the lawn onto the blacktop. He charges up his serene, tree-lined suburban street, a neighbor mowing his front yard, US Postal Service truck making its daily route, the rhythm of a basketball getting dribbled.

He freezes as the screech of brakes fills the block, a silver BMW X5 stopped a few feet from him, angry middle-aged man honking inside. “Watch where you’re going asshole,” the guy says behind the windshield. Sean’s brain is so fixated on the news story his heart rate doesn’t even rise from the near collision. He catches the driver’s eyes for a moment, then tilts his head down and keeps moving.

In about twenty minutes he passes under an arch that says “The Southern California Technology Institute” in big orange letters. He cuts through a busy courtyard and jogs down the stairs. A kid from his “Advanced Methods in Applied Statistics” class from the semester before last calls out to him to say hi, but Sean ignores him. He stomps to the Computer Science Building, pushes the red door, and runs up the steps.

He weaves through his older, taller schoolmates toward the professor’s office. He twists the knob and barges in, his teacher standing in front of a whiteboard lecturing five grad students on the finer points of the Chinese Remainder Theorem. Everyone stops what they’re doing, staring at the boy. “I need to talk to you,” Sean says in a demanding way.

“Can it wait?”

“No.”

The pupils glance at each other, then the professor. He nods. They close their laptops, zip them in their cases, and file out, avoiding eye contact with the fourteen-year-old. “What is it?” the professor asks, examining the twitching muscles on his face.

Sean shuts the door, turns on the television in the corner, and flips through about thirty channels to CNN, two commentators discussing the shooting. “Is that Operation Golden Bear?” he asks with hostility.

“Operation what?”

“From the meeting at the NSA. The guy from the DEA mentioned something called Operation Golden Bear in Mexico.”

The professor glimpses the TV. He’s beginning to understand what he’s implying. “I haven’t spoken to anyone at the NSA since we’ve been back. I don’t have any clue what this is about. Why don’t you sit down and we can—”

“Call Patrick Goya.”

“Please, relax first. You’re upset and you’re not thinking with a clear head.”

Sean slams his fist on the metal desk, filling the room with a rattle. “Two innocent people are dead. You don’t have any blood on your hands. But if that’s Operation Golden Bear, and they used my algorithm, then I have blood all over mine.”

The professor lingers on the Flores family photograph onscreen. “What’re you planning on asking him? Patrick.”

“I want to know if they did or didn’t use my paper for this. That’s it.”

“It’s their business, not yours,” he says in a soothing voice, patting his shoulder. “You personally have nothing to do with this, no matter how it may be related.” He shrugs. “Even if it’s related at all.”

“It’s my business after they stole the work I did. Call him. Now.”

By the emotional look on Sean, the professor can tell he won’t give this up. “Fine. I’ll dial him for you. Just, please try to calm down.” He slides his cell phone from his pocket. “Don’t lose your temper with him. I’ve been a colleague of his for a long time. He’s a good man. He absolutely did not intend to put you in any circumstance—”

“Just call him, all right?” In a few seconds he keys a number, hits send, and nudges the phone across the desk.

Sean clasps it and walks to the corner. He holds it to his cheek as it rings, eyes on the CNN reporters. Patrick answers and the kid says, “No it’s not Steven. It’s Sean. Malone. Mexico. All over the news. Was the US behind this?” He listens for a few moments. “Did you use what I did for it?” He’s still for a while, then dips his head, Patrick confirming the suspicion in a slow, hesitant voice. “Put the Secretary of Defense on a conference line with us. I want to talk to him too. Do it dammit.”

The professor grasps a bottle of Xanax in a drawer and pops the cap. “Sean—”

“You heard me,” the boy says into the phone.

The professor takes a pill with a sip from a thermos. “Why don’t you hang up? You and I can figure out a better—”

“Mr. Pine, it’s Sean Malone.” He listens for a bit, then asks in a challenging tone, “What’re you doing to make things right for the family of the two bystanders in Mexico?” Pacing, he bites his lip, teeth clamping so hard they almost break the skin. In a dry voice Pine says a few things in the earpiece. Reacting, Sean kicks the wastebasket into the wall, trash pouring all over. “Because reaching out to relatives isn’t your policy?” His face shades to a deep red. “How about I hack into the database of Peltex Industries and dig up all the company files when you were CEO there? I have a feeling I’d find some interesting things about a certain dictator who paid a lot of money for your products under the radar. I’ll print everything out, wrap it in a bow, and walk it over to the
Los Angeles Times
. They can do what they choose with the info. How does that sound? Or would that not be part of your policy either?”

Panicking, the professor lunges at him. “Sean, enough.”

“I’m done.” He hangs up. “I got nothing else to say.” He flings the phone into a cushion on one of the chairs and storms out, slamming the door.

Kyle rides a BMX bicycle up Sean’s street a few days later, his red backpack hanging a couple inches above the rear tire. He hooks into the driveway, tosses the bike down, and strolls to his friend’s stoop. He knocks. No answer. Then once more.

Mary opens the door, surprised to see him. “Oh. Hi Kyle.”

“Hey Ms. Malone.” She looks a tad frazzled, no makeup concealing her crow’s feet, a few astray light-brown hairs.

“He’s upstairs. Come in.” He enters. “I didn’t know you were stopping by. What do you guys have planned today?”