And Sometimes I Wonder About You

20

At the curb, in a no-parking zone in front of the Tesla Building, sat a black sedan; coincidentally a Tesla. An almost nondescript white man somewhere in his forties stood by the passenger-side door. This man wore a cheap medium-green suit with a white dress shirt buttoned to the throat but sporting no tie. His hair was dark brown and just this side of unruly. He was neither tall nor short, and slight of build.

“Leonid,” the man said in a voice that was more an insinuation of resonance than an actual tone.

Hush owned the limo company. He bought the business not long after he gave up his lifelong calling: murder for pay.

“What’s the boss doing on the job?” I asked.

“I got my regulars,” he said. Liza Downburton came up beside me just then. Hush eyed her with an expression that maybe only I and his wife could read. “I also wanted to ask you a question. Maybe get some advice.”

“No problem,” I said. “I was going to call you anyway. This is Miss Liza Downburton, one of Twill’s private clients.”

Hush nodded at the young woman.

“Can you drive us down toward the Village?” I asked the driver.

“Not the restaurant?”

“All in good time.”

He opened the back door to the fancy electric car and I gestured for Liza to scoot in. I followed her and Hush went to his driver’s post.

As we tooled down Fifth Avenue I brought out a phone and entered a code for a very special number.

Within the last year Bug had made new and improved multichip phones for my use. I could turn off any of the numbers but there was one that my son, Mardi, Zephyra, and I kept on for emergencies. Twill’s emergency number was the one I called.

Three rings in he answered, “What’s the problem, Pop?”

The last word reminded me that I had found my father and lost him again.

“I’m in a limo with Hush driving and Liza Downburton sitting next to me.”

“That’s funny,” Twill said. “I’m in a green borough cab headed for Liza’s apartment.”

“You have anything to share with her, or me?”

“Did she tell you everything?” my favorite son asked.

“I have the basics.”

“I was gonna tell ya, Pop. It’s just I had to figure out what was goin’ on first.”

“And what, may I ask, is that?”

“I thought that the guy, the burglar Fortune, was settin’ Liza up for somethin’ but the deeper I got the more I came to understand that this Jones is the real thing. He got him a goddamned army and nobody seems to know about it. And once you get in you can’t ever get out — not ever.”

“And are you in?”

“All the way up to my nuts.”

I smiled then. There was something undeniably lovable about my sociopath boy.

“Are you compromised in any way?” I asked.

“I can’t be sure. I only met the dude once. He wears this fake beard and contacts that make his eyes a different color. The way he looks at you is spooky. Anyway — I heard him askin’ about Fortune so even if I’m in good with him, Liza and her boy might not be. That’s why I was goin’ to her place. I was gonna offer to put her at Mardi’s for a few days.”

“What if you asked Uncle Hush to do that?”

“That’d be like keepin’ a Christmas Club account at Fort Knox.” Twill listened to his elders and therefore had many of our outdated references.

“You tell your client,” I said. “I’ll ask Mr. Hush.”

I handed the phone to Liza and leaned forward over the seat.

“Twill needs you to put up his client for a few days,” I said to the killer who was something like a friend.

“Twill?” Hush uttered. “No problem. She knows the rules?”

“I’m willing to bet she’s a fast learner.”

By the time I leaned back Liza was handing me the phone.

“Twill says that he wants me to stay with Mr. Hush,” she said with trust in her voice that very few innocents ever had for me.

“Is that all right with you?”

“Can I call my parents?”

“Only if you don’t tell ’em the truth. You really don’t want anyone comin’ around Mr. Hush when he’s feelin’ protective.”

“Are we in trouble?” she asked me.

“You already know the answer to that.”

I waited in the car while Hush walked Liza up the stairs to his twelve-million-dollar mansion on Fifth Avenue not a block from Washington Square Park. Hush had more security surrounding his home than most senators or CIA spooks. Tamara, his wife, and Thackery, his young son, would take care of Liza while I worried about my own son’s chances at survival.

While I waited I called the Chambre du Roi, telling them to inform my date that I might be a few minutes late if she got there before me.

When Hush returned I moved to the passenger’s seat beside him.

“You sure it’s okay?” I asked.

“Everybody loves Twill,” he replied. “The restaurant now?”

On the way up Sixth Avenue, just around Forty-second Street, I asked, “Have you ever heard of a guy named Jones runs an army of underage thieves?”

“No. New York?”

“Down in the tunnels.”

“Wow. You need to find out more?”

“Twill’s already down there. What I have to do is figure how to pull him out.”

“Need help?”

“Maybe later.”

Around Fifty-fifth Hush said, “Dude from the federal government asked me if I could kill a foreign head of state and make it look like natural causes.”

“Oh?”

“If I couldn’t do that, maybe I could make it look like some other unfriendly leader or group did the deed. Seven figures, legal, no tax.”

“Damn.”

“What do you think I should do?”

“You need the money?”

“No.”

“I thought you wanted to try and go the other way,” I said. “I mean whether it’s official or not, blood on your hands is still blood.”

“Yeah. Yeah. But you know, LT, I’ve been gettin’ this itch.”

I didn’t need to ask what needed scratching.

“Ever since I quit killing for pay I want to hurt people,” he continued. “I never felt like that before. Everything was cut-and-dry in the old days, you know? I killed for my supper and the dinner was always good.”

Sometimes there’s nothing to say; no rule book to quote, no homily that has weight. There are things about being a human that cannot be excused or even understood. Hush wanted to go out and murder someone just to get his passion under control. That was crazy — but so were thousands of truly senseless deaths from Palestine to Kandahar to Congo.

The car came to a halt and I saw that we were at the restaurant.

“So?” Hush asked.

“How long ago this guy come to you?”

“A week.”

“Give it another week,” I said. “Think it over. Maybe go to the Zen monastery upstate and meditate a day or two. Then, when seven days are up, call me and we’ll talk again.”

Hush gave me one of his rare smiles and held out a hand.

When we shook I couldn’t suppress the little shiver of fear that ran down my spine.