Orphan X

6 Please Don’t

Killing a cop was no small business.

Evan sat in the dark of the cramped bedroom that Morena Aguilar shared with her eleven-year-old sister. The chair, dragged in from the kitchen, barely fit between the twin mattresses. In his loose fist, he held one end of a common household string that arced across the room to where it was tied to the lever handle of the closed door. Perfectly still, he waited.

The drawn curtains glowed faintly from the streetlights beyond, and he heard distant voices from various yards. Even here in the locked room over the stench of the birdcage, he caught the faintest whiff of barbecue.

The Victorinox watch fob clipped to his belt loop showed 9:37. He’d been in position for over an hour, and still twenty-three minutes remained until Detective William S. Chambers’s scheduled rape of Carmen Aguilar.

“Please don’t!” the parrot squawked. “Carrot, please!”

On Evan’s right knee rested Morena’s on-call cell phone, on his left his Wilson Combat 1911 with the suppressor twisted on. He’d painted a tiny arrow onto the steel of the suppressor so he could index it to the identical position every time. In addition to the magazine in the pistol, he carried three more in his cargo pockets. They were go-to-war ready, validated in the desert on a makeshift range. As Jack used to say, The loudest sound you’ll ever hear in action is a click.

Generally Evan preferred Speer Gold Dot hollow points, but tonight he was loaded with 230-grain hardball. The heavier round traveled at 850 feet a second, just below the speed at which it would break the sound barrier. The suppressor would take care of the sound signal of the gun’s firing, but given the bustling neighborhood, Evan needed to ensure the bullet didn’t make noise on its own.

The parrot shifted from claw to claw in the darkness, the cage clanking. The faded yellow sheets mussed on one of the mattresses were patterned with watermelon slices. The dinged-up trumpet case leaned in the corner by the door. A single red Converse shoe lay on its side in the closet, the toe worn through. Elmo looked out from a peeling sticker on the stained, empty fish tank, reminding Evan of Peter and his lively Band-Aids. Then Evan thought of the grown man en route to this room.

“Please don’t!” the parrot squawked cheerily. “Please don’t!”

Evan breathed. Never make it personal. Assume nothing. Never make it personal. Assume nothing.

He felt the weight of the pistol resting on his thigh. The weapon, it was always there for him, tried and true, a constant. Steel and lead, they responded predictably. They were finite, unchanging, able to be mastered. He could count on them. People failed. He couldn’t rely on flesh and blood, sinew and bone.

Too often it ended badly.

There is still dark at the windows of the dormer room when the alarm screeches, but Evan is already awake. Most of this first night in Jack’s house he has spent staring at the ceiling. He rises and regards the room. The rolling chair is perfectly centered at a desk, and the shelf above holds a row of books ordered by height and a cup filled with unsharpened pencils. Shutters are folded back from a bay window, letting in the first glow of dawn. There is no trace of dust, of disorder. Every item squared up, aligned, stacked with precision.

Evan’s new home is a two-story farmhouse set behind an apron of cleared land in Arlington, Virginia. His window looks out on a green blanket of oak trees. It is like nothing he has seen outside of television.

He finds Jack downstairs in a study lined with dark wooden bookshelves. He is reading a volume on something called the Peloponnesian Wars. Classical music issues from an old-fashioned record player. On a side table rests a picture of a woman in a tarnished silver frame. She has long dark brown hair down to her waist and a slight chin, and her eyes are smiling behind large glasses.

At Jack’s feet Strider lifts his Scooby-Doo head and notes Evan’s presence. The dog is at least a hundred pounds with a reddish tan coat and a wicked-looking strip of reverse fur running down his spine.

Evan waits for Jack to look up, but he does not. He sits as motionless as a carving, focused on his book. Everything about him seems different from the Mystery Man with his slender face and sallow skin, always lurking in shadows, peering through the chain-link, flicking up a flame to catch the tip of a new cigarette.

Finally Evan asks, “Why’d you pick me?”

Still Jack holds his gaze on the page. “You know what it’s like to be powerless.”

The intonation is that of a statement, but Evan realizes it is in fact a question. More precisely, something he is being asked to answer.

Evan’s face burns. His lips firm, but he forces the answer. “Yes.”

“For what we are about to embark on,” Jack says, the book at last lowered to his knee, “I need someone who knows that. In his bones. Don’t ever forget that feeling.”

Evan would do anything to forget it but knows better than to say so.

“No one can ever know your real name,” Jack says.

“Okay.”

“What is your last name?”

Evan tells him.

“You like it?” Jack asks.

“No.”

“Want to pick a new one?”

“Like what?”

A long silence ensues. Then Jack says, “My wife’s maiden name was Smoak. With an a in the middle and no e on the end. Want that one?”

Evan notes the past tense and recognizes that this is a gift. As he weighs the cost of accepting it, he does his best to keep his eyes from the framed picture on the side table. Then he says, “Sure.”

“You will use that name in your personal life only,” Jack says. “The people you work with will never know that name.”

“What will they know me as?”

“Many things.” Jack rises, keys in hand, his face severe. “It’s time,” he says.

Leaving Strider with a full bowl, they take a truck instead of the sedan, which makes sense since most of their journey proves to be off-road. After a half hour, they turn sharply uphill and bounce violently along a trail, branches screeching against the windows. They emerge at the back of a barn.

Evan follows Jack into the barn. It smells of hay and manure. Jack shoves the heavy door closed behind them. There is only a dangling lamp swaying slightly over the stables, throwing insufficient light.

Evan feels his heart rate tick up, and he looks at Jack, but Jack does not look back.

There comes a crunching of boots across hay. A big man steps from the shadows, a dense beard crowding his ruddy face. He holds a hooked knife. He doesn’t smile so much as bare his teeth.

“Hello, son,” he says. “I’m here to teach you about pain.”

A full-body buzz of fear rolls through Evan. That wicked blade sways in the man’s bulky fist, catching the light seeping around the cracks of the door.

Jack’s square face points down at Evan, and he says, gruffly, “The First Commandment: Assume nothing.”

The bearded man spins the blade expertly and offers it, handle out, to Evan. He says something, but Evan cannot make out the words over the thudding of his heartbeat.

The voice comes again. “Take the knife, son.”

Evan does, his fingers trembling. Then he looks at Jack. What now?

The bearded man says, “Stab yourself in the palm.”

Evan looks from the man to the hooked blade and back to the man.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” the man says, seizing the blade from Evan. His thick fist encircles Evan’s wrist, and then the steel tip pokes down, popping the tender skin of Evan’s palm.

Evan gives a little cry.

“That hurt?” the man asks.

“Yeah, it—”

The man slaps Evan across the face, hard. Evan reels back, the nerves of his cheek on fire.

“Doesn’t hurt now, does it? Your hand.”

Evan stares at him dumbly, his ears ringing.

“Does your hand hurt?” Each word drops deliberately, one stone after another.

“No. My face hurts.”

The man shows his teeth again, that slash of a grin. “Pain is relative. Subjective. A hangnail hurts until someone kicks ya in the nuts. I’m gonna teach you the difference between physiological pain and felt pain.”

He grabs Evan’s other wrist and raises the knife, and Evan flinches, ducks his head, the sting in his lowered palm flaring to life again. The knife does not descend. The bearded man’s eyes stay locked on Evan’s.

“Anticipation of pain leads to fear, and fear amplifies pain,” he says. “Expectation of relief from pain increases the opioids in the brain, makes the hurting stop. How your mind reacts to pain determines how much pain you actually feel.”

Jack’s voice floats over from somewhere beside Evan. “‘Pain is inevitable,’” he says. “‘Suffering is optional.’”

Evan yanks his hand free. Blood drips from his other fist. He senses Jack at his side, doing nothing, and a feeling of betrayal spreads fire-hot beneath his skin.

But Jack is not doing nothing. Jack is watching. And Evan realizes that this is a test like the ones that have come before. He understands that how he reacts now will determine everything, that this is in fact the biggest test so far.

Before Evan can say anything, the bearded man says, “You need to learn to rein in the brain centers that fire when your body detects pain. Control your insular cortex, get distance from the sensation by focusing on your breathing. I’m gonna teach you to attend to pain, put it in a box, put the box on a shelf, and go about your fucking day.”

Evan’s throat clicks as he swallows. “How are you gonna do that?”

The man’s beard bristles again around his grin. “Practice makes perfect.”

Evan looks up at Jack directly now for the first time and thinks he sees Jack give him a flicker of a wink, a tiny vote of confidence. Or maybe Evan has imagined it altogether.

The stink of damp hay thickens the air. Evan holds a breath in his lungs until it burns. Then he exhales. Turning back to the bearded man, he extends his arm, opens his other hand, exposing the pristine palm.

“Then what are you waiting for?” he says.

Morena’s on-call cell phone chimed in the darkness, interrupting Evan from his thoughts, and he lifted it from his thigh.

A text message: IM OUT FRONT. U HAVE HER WAITING?

Breathing the reek of the birdcage, Evan thumbed an answer: BEDROOM.

A moment later Detective Chambers’s reply came in: GOOD. U CLEAR OUT NOW. I WANT HER ALONE.

Beyond the lavender curtains, a car approached, a heavy American model by the sound of it. It idled a moment, the engine deep-throated and growly, then went silent. The neighborhood sounds drifted back in — someone laughing in a backyard, a rapid-fire Spanish commercial on a blaring radio, a jet arcing overhead. And then the crunch of footsteps approaching the house.

Evan wondered how often Morena heard those footsteps as she waited here in this room.

The parrot grew restless. “Please don’t! Please, please don’t!”

The footsteps led to the metal-on-metal purr of a key entering the front door, and then the hinges squealed. The floorboards creaked. Closer, closer.

The bedroom door handle jiggled up and down. Locked.

A gruff voice came through the thin door. “I’m sure you’re scared, Carmen, but I’ll be gentle.” The rasp of a palm against wood. “Your first time doesn’t have to hurt. I know how to do this right.” The handle rattled again. “I know how to take care of you.”

Evan set Morena’s on-call phone down and lifted the pistol from his other thigh.

Out of the memory mist sailed another Jack-ism: Big problem, big bullet, big hole.

“Come on, now. I brought you flowers. Open up and let me show you.”

The door handle rattled a bit more roughly this time. The parrot squawked and squawked some more. Evan’s hand tightened around the string.

“I’m getting tired of playing games, little girl. Open the door. You open this fucking door right—”

Gently, Evan tugged the string. It tightened, causing the door handle to dip, the lock releasing with a pop.

Chambers’s voice, once again calm: “There you go. Good girl.”

The door creaked inward, propelled by a strong slab of a hand. A muscular forearm came into view, bulging beneath a cuffed-back sleeve. Chambers’s face resolved in the darkness as he squinted into the dark room. Blotchy clean-shaven skin, cropped hair, hard eyes.

Chambers stepped forward, his shoes rustling over plastic sheeting. His face changed. “Who the hell are you?”

He looked down, only now noticing the drop tarp unfurled beneath his feet. When he looked back up, his eyes were different.

“Oh,” he said. “Oh, no.”