Tourquois Wynn had known my father for eighteen months. He took her classes and worked on his novel. She had the feeling that he never intended to finish the book; that it was more like a penance than something to be published or even read by anyone outside the workshop.
He always wore a dark suit with a collared shirt but no tie. He drank coffee continuously, and whenever he went out with the group for the end-of-semester class party he smoked real Cuban cigars.
He never said where he lived but that didn’t bother me. I could always get Bug to hack the school records.
“He was always very present,” Tourquois said. “You didn’t need to know about where he came from or who his people were because — I don’t know how to explain it, exactly — he was right there in front of you, sharing ideas and listening very closely. The usual banal questions just didn’t seem to matter.”
She hadn’t heard from him since the class, and her phone number had changed a few times over the years. Twice during the meal Lemon had excused himself to go outside for a smoke. I went with him for the second break.
He offered me one of his Parliaments and I accepted, the first cigarette I’d had since being the cause of the young men’s deaths.
“I do good, LT?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said, “like a drug dealer at the back door of a rehab program.”
“He really your father?”
I took a deep hit off the cigarette before saying “Yeah” through a cloud of fumes.
“How long since you seen him?”
“Not since before Tourquois was born.”
“Damn. You want me to ask around some more?”
I left him with my phone number and my apologies to the ladies.
I crushed out the cigarette and stomped the pavement as far as Forty-second Street before taking a cab the rest of the way home.
As i was making certain that the security functions of the front door were activated I could hear Katrina’s loud snoring.
Before finding the source of her susurrations, I went down the sleeping hall and glanced into Twill’s room. That was habit. He wasn’t there and I wasn’t bothered by that fact. He was usually out in the world at night. Katrina was sprawled out on the daybed in my office; one foot was shod in a blue pump while the other shoe lay on its side on the floor. She was wearing an old housedress and smelled strongly of alcohol.
Her right arm was thrown up, covering her face, and the left lolled out over the side, lifting and falling slightly with her raucous breathing. For all that was on my mind, Katrina brought a smile to my lips. There was more warmth in that knowing grin than the night of sex we’d just experienced.
She had never sought refuge in my office before — as far as I knew.
When I lifted her into my arms she stopped snoring.
“Huh?” she squeaked. “What is it?”
“I’m taking you to bed.”
“Oh, Leonid. You are so strong.”
There are some things that a man just likes hearing. It doesn’t matter how predictable or clichéd they are. A man wants the woman in his arms to be charmed by his strength. So what if it gets him killed one day? Everybody’s got to die sometime.
I took off Katrina’s clothes and then disrobed myself.
Naked under the covers, with Katrina breathing easier, I was surprised at how tired I was. Before I knew it I had passed through the veil of sleep, transformed into a little boy at the best amusement park in all the world.
There was a real spaceship and live elephants. The elephants walked under beautiful waterfalls, depositing me in front of a hall of mirrors containing half a dozen giggling naked women reflected a thousand times.
My eight-year-old heart was pounding so hard I worried that I might die before seeing all the other wonders of the park...
There came three dissonant chimes. Each was a different length and tone — and they were loud.
I recognized the sounds. I had chosen them because they were so jarring and unpleasant. The excitement of the dream helped the adrenaline work even faster.
I was up and armed in under six seconds.
As I moved toward the bedroom door I went back through the litany of every night that I came home. I checked Twill’s bed because Twill needed keeping track of. He was not there. I didn’t look in on Dimitri because he was gone. And what about Shelly?
There were two of them coming down the hall toward the master bedroom. They had gotten past the front door, with its dead bolts in the wall and floor, more quickly than I could have imagined. They were hurrying one behind the other, moving low like predators, like twin brother cheetahs on the hunt.
I shot the first one as he sensed my presence and was raising his own pistol. A tenth of a second later his rising gun hand hit mine, knocking the long-barreled.44 from my grip. This was a posthumous act because he was already dead from the bullet entering his skull.
The second killer, trying to move around the still-falling corpse, was twisting his pistol to point at my chest, but I moved, with Gordo’s boxer training, grabbing the wrist of the hand holding the gun with my left and his throat with my right. He was at least four inches taller than I but still I lifted him up off the floor.
The fever returned, momentarily fueling my rage like the furnace of a hot-air balloon.
“Urk!” he yelped. One high note not unlike the feline predator he brought to mind.
Three shots fired from his pistol, his windpipe collapsed under my grip. He died almost as quickly as his comrade had.
I dropped him to the floor. My heart was beating as it had been in the dream. I stood there, naked, triumphant, and trembling. I would have been scared if it wasn’t for the blood screaming through my veins.
35
“They knew exactly what system you had and the tools to get around it,” Carson Kitteridge was saying.
We were in the dining room. Katrina was wrapped in a plush yellow bathrobe, sitting at our hickory dining table. I was standing next to her, wearing only my blue suit trousers.
When the cops arrived I was still naked. After killing the second failed assassin I saw that his three shots had gone through the wall to Shelly’s bedroom. I rushed in. Two of the bullets hit her bed but she wasn’t in it. After that I called 911—the idea of getting dressed never occurred to me.
One of the uniforms answering the call told me to put on some pants. If it wasn’t for her, I might have still been naked.
“They didn’t know, exactly,” I said. “I had a separate contractor put in the second alarm system — just bein’ careful.”
“Smart,” Kit said, his eyes, the color of a pale afternoon, staring into mine. “Looks like they used a souped-up magnet on the electronic lock and perfectly beveled crowbars on the bolts. Real pros.”
Katrina put her left elbow on the table, leaning her forehead against three extended fingers. She shook her head ever so slightly, mouthing something over and over.
“Bullets went through Shelly’s wall,” I said. “Two of ’em hit her bed.”
“Why don’t we go down to your den, LT?” Kit suggested. “Officer Palmer can stay with your wife.”
Palmer was the lady cop that told me to get dressed. Her skin was milk with freckles. Even frowning, she seemed friendly.
In the hallway there were five more cops, a coroner, and four paramedics.
Kit led me to my office, ushered me in, and closed the door. He said that we should sit. I didn’t answer. I didn’t sit either. I was a soldier right then; my squad had just fought off one attack and was anticipating the next.
Kit stood with me, watching closely.
While aware of the scrutiny of the insightful cop I was concentrated on the daybed where Katrina had been. I was thinking that no one had ever tried to kill me in my home before. The antithesis of that realization made me snicker.