“And then what?”
“Destroy the evidence.”
“I mean, what about me?”
“What about you?”
“It’s time you pony up after all these years. It’s time I get what I deserve.”
“I like it when you whine. It reminds me of what you have become.”
“You owe me.”
“Oh, Bobby, Bobby, Bobby. W hat is one to say? I have allowed you to serve our joint ambitions at my behest. I have turned you into a malicious little pet. What more could you ever have hoped for?”
The figure on the screen rose from her elbows and, while still on her knees, turned to him, her arms outstretched, her lovely breasts shimmying. The sweet gray tongue, slipping out of her taunt of a mouth, beckoned.
“I’m going to kill them both,” he said.
“See that you do.”
“And then I’m coming for you.”
CHAPTER 35
BEFORE WE DO ANYTHING ,” said Liam Byrne as they drove toward the city in his rental car the day after the fire, “we need to get you properly dressed.”
“I’m dressed okay,” said Kyle, unable to hide the irritation in his voice. After spending his whole life feeling deprived of a father, sitting in that car now, sitting beside his actual father at last, he should have felt the keen lift of elation. But instead he stared out the window, watching the scabrous landscape of New Jersey flit by, and felt nothing more than annoyance. Annoyance at having to spend all this time with an utter stranger who bore only a passing resemblance to the father he had desperately missed for so long. Annoyance that this stranger was full of crap and yet felt free to relay that crap to Kyle as if it were acknowledged truth. Annoyance that they were talking about his clothes.
“Did you look at yourself in the mirror?” said his father. “You look homeless.”
“I am homeless.”
“Ah, yes, I forgot. My successful son.”
“Well, you know I had it tough growing up,” said Kyle, still looking away. “My father died when I was twelve.”
Liam Byrne gripped tightly to the steering wheel with both hands and leaned forward, an old man straining for a better view of the road. “You could use a haircut, too. And a shave. But it’s the clothes we need to do something about first.”
“What’s wrong with my clothes?”
“Look at that T-shirt you’re wearing. Besides the fact that it’s really just a piece of underwear?”
“Yeah, besides that?”
“It’s ripped and stained and smells like smoke. And those things on your legs—”
“Shorts.”
“Yes, well. Enough said about those.”
“My stuff’s a bit ragged from the fire, sure. I mean, last night we were both almost killed, remember? But truthfully, Dad, their condition is not much worse than after one of my normal nights out. I need some fresh underwear and socks, is all. We can go to my friend Kat’s, where I have some stuff, or buy something new. We passed a WalMart just a ways back there.”
“You need more than new socks, boyo. You have a suit, don’t you? I saw you wearing one at Laszlo’s funeral. Was the suit you were wearing there borrowed from Goodwill, or does it belong to you?”
“It’s mine.”
“Excellent, then let’s put it on. For what we need to do today, you’ll want to be wearing a suit.”
“What I have on is fine. It’s what I wear.”
“Here’s a lesson for you, boyo. You dress today for how you want to be perceived tomorrow.”
“That’s what I’m doing.”
“If you want respect, dress like you deserve it. No one gives advancement to a sloven. Don’t you want to be somebody?”
“Sure, somebody who can still get away with dressing in a T-shirt and shorts.”
“Where’s your pride, boyo?”
“I buried it with my father.”
Liam Byrne didn’t respond, he just shifted in his seat and set his jaw. This was the first time in his life Kyle had talked back to his father, and Kyle didn’t like it one bit.
“My style must be too hip for you to appreciate,” said Kyle, injecting a forced lightness into his voice. “It’s the latest in casual bohemian.”
“It’s like you don’t care enough to care.”
“Exactly. I should start a business with that motto: ‘Clothes for the indiscriminating buyer who doesn’t care enough to care.’ ”
“That’s not a style, it’s a sign of resignation.”
“It’s comfortable.”
“And that’s the towering height of achievement you aspire to? Comfort?”
“Sure, why not?”
“Because comfort is for octogenarians in their nursing homes with bibs tied and diapers tight. The rest of us are here to seize what glory we can.”
“Glory? Not very Zen of you, Dad. Glory’s for saps.”
“So you tell me now, as others leapfrog over your head.”
“And what’s it getting them?”
“It’s getting them money and power, the corner office and the new Lexus. It’s getting them laid, boyo.”
“I don’t have any trouble, there.”
“Well, maybe not. You’re a Byrne, after all. But with clothes like that, I’m sure it must be high-class stuff you’re getting. Answer me this, boyo: Five years from now, where do you want to be?”
“On the couch, playing Xbox.”
“That is the saddest thing I ever heard. It’s all the dope you kids smoke. You smoke a boatload, I suppose.”
“Not too much anymore.”
“Waste your mornings with a pipe and a video game and your nights with cheap beer and wanton women.”
“On good days, yeah.”
“Ah, youth. I forgot how stupid it can be.”
“Go to hell.”
“Let me give you some advice about that marijuana. We had it in my day, too, we thought we discovered it. But stay off it, it’s a curse. It kills your ambition, that stuff. It seems like nothing more than a pleasant diversion, and ten years later you’re living in your mother’s house and letting the mortgage lapse.”
“What are you doing, Dad? Trying to jam fourteen years’ worth of parental lectures into one miserable car ride?”
“Somebody needs to set you straight.”
“That was my mom’s job. You left it for her alone, remember? It’s too late for you to get your licks in.”