The Love You Crave

55.

After hugging Kimberly, we sit and wait for her luggage. She’s beaming. I’ve never seen her look so happy.

“Let me guess,” I say. “You found a golden ticket in your Wonka Bar?”

“Even better.”

“You’re in love again?”

“Even better. I realized I don’t need to be in love to be happy.”

I feel her forehead. “Are you feeling okay?”

She smiles.

I say, “You’re still a female, right?”

“Don’t be a shit head!”

She looks beyond me a second.

“Oh, the poor man!” she says.

I follow her gaze and see a man with two enormous bandages, one on each side of his head.

Tony Spumoni. Carrying a briefcase.

He sees me looking at him and immediately spins around and ducks into the men’s room.

“Do you know him?” she asks.

“We’ve met.”

“He seems terrified of you.”

My mind begins racing. If there really was an arms dealer, and if George didn’t come home last night, is it possible the arms dealer might have started threatening other members of Ropic’s board? Could they have coerced Tony into helping them? Like planting a bomb at the airport? I don’t know. But one thing I do know is sometimes indecision is worse than a wrong decision. I can’t take a chance on the terrorists planting explosives all over the world and setting them off at the same time with the wrist device. Even if there’s collateral damage, I’m suddenly convinced fewer civilians will die if I detonate the two hundred and twelve devices right now.

I remove the ceramic device from my pocket, take a deep breath, and press the button four times.

My head is fine, I’m happy to report, but the airport men’s room explodes.

I don’t know if anyone else was in there, but I know most of Tony Spumoni is not. One of his ears, still casted, rolls to a stop a foot from Kimberly’s shoe.

She kicks it away, and the look of shock on my face makes her laugh out loud.

People are screaming. Rushing, running around.

Kimberly’s smiling at me. Smiling!

“You’re not upset?” I say.

“Of course not.”

“A bomb just went off in an airport!”

“So?”

The noise around us becomes so loud I have to shout to be heard. “What’s going on?” I yell.

“I’m not upset because you’re not,” Kimberly shouts. She leans into my ear so the whole world won’t hear her words. “I’m also not upset because I saw you detonate the bomb. And because…”

“Yes?”

“I’m OOU.”

I give her a puzzled look. “What’s that mean?”

She points to herself, then to me, and says, “I’m one of us.”

“Tell me,” I say.

And she does. People are running around us, yelling and screaming, but as far as I can see, there’s no damage beyond what happened in the men’s room. There’s a TV monitor twenty feet away, suspended from the ceiling, and I glance at it from time to time while Kimberly tells her story. I’m trying to see if there’s any breaking news of planes falling from the sky or buildings blowing up.

So far, so good.

But it’s early.

Kimberly’s story is compelling, as is the TV monitor. She’s telling me she lied about being in school and how she hasn’t attended classes for the past two semesters. I don’t know what to think about that, because Lou obtained a copy of her transcripts. Her biology teacher’s a dick, remember?

But I don’t interrupt her.

The whole scene around us is surreal. Security guards are shouting, trying to make their way into the men’s room. People are running here and there, some have left their bags, others are stealing bags off the moving luggage belt. Someone’s making crowd control announcements, trying to get us to evacuate the building. Everyone’s yelling at everyone else, but no one seems to notice the two of us.

“Keep an eye out for your suitcase,” I say.

“I am.”

The area around us grows less noisy, and Kimberly no longer has to shout. She tells me she’s had a certain type of female problem she really can’t discuss, but that a man befriended her almost a year ago, and became her confidante, and gave her confidence, and uplifted her.

“Who is this man?” I say.

“Not important,” she says, then tells me how the man helped her understand the cause of her depression. He convinced her that what she really craved above all else in the world was her father’s love. When she gets to that point, she bursts into tears and hugs me, and I forget all about the TV monitor.

But when Kimberly calms down and tells me how the man paid for her psychiatric visits and kickboxing and weapons training, and how he taught her the family business of killing people-I felt like I was in the middle of a Fellini movie.

Now we’re being rounded up with the others and ordered to go outside. Kimberly sees her suitcase. We grab it and head outside.

“What do you mean you killed people? You mean you killed them in your mind? Metaphorically?”

She laughs. “No, father. I killed them in real life.”

I look at her with grave concern. I wonder if she’s crazy.

“You haven’t actually killed a human being,” I say.

“Yes.”

“When? How?”

She smiles. “I have your interest now, don’t I?”

I frown. “You do.”

Something suddenly clicks.

“This man,” I say.

“What about him?”

“Did he disguise his voice?”

She pauses too long before answering, “How do you mean?”

She’s lying. But why?

I say, “What I’m asking, did he use a voice altering device?”

“Not that I know of.”

“You’d know.”

“Then I guess not.”

“You’re certain?”

“Yes, of course. Why are you asking that?”

We start heading for my car. When we get there, I hold the passenger door open for her, and call Callie while putting Kimberly’s suitcase in the trunk. When Callie answers I say, “Are you with me or against me?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I want to know who I can count on. You’ve made some remarks lately that bothered me. I have trust issues. You know that.”

“Of course. And abandonment issues.”

“Right.”

“And emotional issues, and mental issues, and issues with women, and psychotic episodes, and schizophrenic issues and-”

“Enough! Can I count on you?”

“Of course. Why?”

“I’m declaring war.”

“On whom?”

“Darwin.”

“Oh, shit!”

“But he might be dead already.”

“You’re not making sense.”

“Me or him, Callie?”

“You, of course.”

“Will you help me?”

“I’ll pull the fucking trigger. Is that enough help?”

“Thanks.”

“Is that all you’ve got to say?”

“No. But it’s the first thing.”