“You going to follow me to the airport?” I ask.
Callie nods. Then asks, “What happened with Bernard?”
Bernard is a dean’s list student at UCLA Medical. He’s also Jane and Roger’s son.
“Jeff’s got him in his trunk. He’s currently making wide circles around the airport, waiting for us. He can take care of your car later tonight.” Jeff is one of my former assassins who offered to pitch in for this project. Unlike Callie, Jarvis and me, Jeff actually lives in L.A.
“What if Roger doesn’t care we kidnapped his family?”
“I expect he’s proud of Bernard. The kid’s a top student, plans to follow in Dad’s footsteps. As a backup, Jarvis is still watching Ellen’s house in Atlanta.” Ellen is the Asprin’s married daughter, and a new mom. Judging from the baby pictures on Roger’s desk, he’s quite fond of his granddaughter.
“You think that’s enough?” Callie says.
“To get Rachel released? No.”
“He’d let them all die?”
“I think so. He’s a scientist. This thing with Rachel is a big deal.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“What I do best.”
“Remind me what that is,” she says, smiling.
“I’m going to torture him.”
“Can I watch?”
“But of course.”
32.
We’re airborne. Jane and Bernard are comfortably sedated, and lying on the twin couches at mid-cabin. Callie and I are sitting aft, keeping an eye on them. If all goes according to plan, they won’t wake up till they find themselves strapped to hospital beds in the Sensory Resources Medical Center.
Callie and I have the type of relationship where we’re comfortable being silent for long periods of time when traveling together. She knows I’m upset about Rachel, but doesn’t attempt to comfort or reassure me. I appreciate that about her. She doesn’t like Rachel, and is far too honest to feign sympathy. She’s only participating in this adventure as a favor to me, same as Jeff and Jarvis. Same as I’d drop everything to help them.
So I’m sitting here in silence, running the whole Rachel kidnapping through my mind, filtering it through Sam’s theory about the Flu Pandemic of 1918, and can’t help but think I’m missing something. There’s a solution here, or at least a Plan B. I can feel it. I just can’t see it.
I run it again, and still come up with nothing.
I quit trying to figure out what I’m missing, and decide instead to access some of my favorite memories of Rachel. In the attic of my mind there are many boxes labeled Rachel. Some say Rachel and Kevin, for that’s the name I gave her when we met, and it’s the name she’s called me ever since. But each box holds a specific memory. I let my thoughts drift around the attic until I come to the box that says First Time. In my mind, I open that box, and find us riding horses across the lush Kentucky meadows on a crisp, spring day. She’d skipped work to be with me, and I’d found a gorgeous riding stable that agreed to rent me a couple of spirited horses for an afternoon picnic.
For weeks the sexual tension had been building between us, and after an hour of working the horses we found ourselves lying on the red-and-white checked picnic blanket I’d brought for the occasion. We were in a secluded area, surrounded by a stand of pine trees, next to a bubbling brook. If it was ever going to happen, I figured, it would happen here. It was, quite simply, a perfect setting.
We had some lunch, shared some bourbon, and Rachel looked me dead in the eye, unbuttoned the top button of her shirt and said, “All day long you’ve been looking at my ass like it’s your job.”
“It is my job,” I said.
She smiled. “Do you have any idea what I’m going to let you do to me right now?”
I smiled back. “Tell me.”
“Nothing,” she said.
“Nothing?”
“Nothing.”
“Why?”
“I want our first time to be special.”
I looked around, bewildered, unable to imagine a more romantic setting for our first time.
“What did you have in mind?” I said, utterly confused.
“When it’s right, we’ll both know it,” she said.
I gave her a look.
“Don’t pout,” she said.
I gave her another look.
She kissed me. “Seriously, Kevin, I’m worth waiting for.”
“I believe you.”
She gestured with her arm at the setting around us. “This…is bullshit.”
“Bullshit?”
“No offense.”
“How could I possibly take offense?” I said, sarcastically.
She laughed. “You are so totally used to getting your way with women, aren’t you?”
I shrugged.
“You’ve had prettier than me, I’m sure.”
I said nothing.
“And smarter.”
I still said nothing.
“And sweeter, and nicer, and cuter, and more romantic, and you know what?”
“What?”
“None of those things were enough for you.”
I cocked my head and squinted a moment, and realized she was right. But before I had a chance to comment about it, she grabbed my crotch and cooed, “Wait till you see what I’ve got planned for Bullshit!”
“Bullshit?”
“That’s what I’m going to call your manhood. I just decided.”
“Surely you can think of something more romantic.”
“Nope. For the rest of our lives, I’m calling it Bullshit.”
“You can’t be serious,” I said. “What guy would want that? I know you can come up with something better. Something more impressive. Something grander, something—”
“Noble?”
Sitting here on the airplane, remembering how outraged I was that afternoon when she not only pissed on my picnic, but named my dick Bullshit—I find myself unable to stop smiling. I fast-forward my time-saved memory an hour, and find us tying the horses to the rail outside the barn, after our very unsatisfying picnic.
“Got everything?” I said, ready to head for the car.
Rachel looked around a moment, then said, “Follow me.”
She led me from the far end of the barn, to the tack room, next to the wash bays. She opened the door and entered the tiny tack room, and pulled me in behind her. It was dark, and musty, and the air was redolent of moldy old leather. The floor was littered with sawdust and caked mud. Rachel closed the door, locking us inside.
“We’ve got three minutes, Kevin,” she said, “So make them count.”
“Why three?” I’d said.
“I just saw a car turning onto the farm road.”
“Just so we’re clear—”
“Fuck me,” she said. “Right here and now. Or never get another chance.”
I spun her around, pulled her jeans and panties to her knees, bent her over an elevated saddle, and accomplished all I could in the allotted time. About half-way into it, Rachel said, “Gosh, if only mommy could see me now!”
Her comment gave me the briefest pause, but I quickly put it out of my mind when she shouted “Harder!” I obliged her, and abruptly she said, “Time’s up.”
“What?”
“That’s it. Time’s up.”
“But—”
She reached behind her and pushed me out. Then she turned to face me, got on her knees, and said, “Close your eyes, Kevin, because this is something you’re never going to forget.”
I did as she said, closed my eyes, and within seconds I was on fire.
“What the hell?”
She’d put horse liniment on Bullshit! My crotch smoldered for hours afterward, which proved her right about our first time being something I’d never forget. On the ride home I said, “Why would you do that to me?”
“To make you like me.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“If you still want to see me after today, it proves you like me.”
“Can you explain the concept a little clearer?”