“What the fuck!?”
A warbling tenor wail breaks across my musings. It’s Bugsy and he’s spotted me.
“Holy shit! Bubbles! Ana!”
The covey of aces are pounding across the flagstones and cobblestones with murder in their eyes. I allow the muscles and tissue to soften and flow. The ace stampede stutters, slows, and comes to a confused and milling halt.
“What the fuck?” Bugsy says again.
“Good you should ask,” I say, and thrust Sprout toward them. “This is Tom Weathers’s daughter. Weathers and the People’s Paradise have the nuclear ace.” They are goggling at me. “You know. Drake. Little Fat Boy, so to speak.” It’s a terrible pun. They don’t seem to get that, either.
“You’re that magician,” Ana says. “The one who kicked our butts on American Hero.”
“I’m an agent for Her Majesty’s government.” At least until Bruckner reports to Flint, I think. “I operate in the Middle East. Recently I’ve been working in Africa.”
“But you tried to kill me,” Bugsy whines.
“Well, not really. If I had wanted you dead, you’d be dead. You were making a dreadful hash of things, and I had hoped to make you reconsider your involvement. Therefore it had to look good.”
“Hey! We saved those people—”
“Not now!” I let it snap with command and they subside. “Weathers is a dangerous psychopath and President Nshombo and his sister are equally murderous. They now have a living nuclear bomb.” I overenunciate the final three words. “I’ve left a message for Weathers that I have Sprout and he’ll get her back when I get Drake.”
Hearing her name the woman suddenly says, “Where’s my daddy? Is he coming soon?”
Bubbles can’t help herself. She puts an arm around the older woman’s shoulders. “He’ll be here soon. Would you like something to eat? Are you hungry?” And I realize that Bubbles really is kind.
“Actually we stopped in Iceland and I bought her breakfast while I waited for the sun to rise here,” I say.
“Why us?” Ana asks in her blunt way. “Why bring her here?”
“Because Weathers will try to kill me rather than make the exchange. I need your powers. Individually none of you can stand against Weathers, but together . . .”
“Yeah, well, I say you can just go fuck yourself,” Bugsy says. “Why should we risk our lives?”
“Because Weathers won’t make a distinction between me and thee.” I give him a smile. “And my message strongly suggested that the Committee was behind this.”
“You fucker,” Bugsy says miserably.
“You should broaden your repertoire of invective,” I say. “How do I get a cup of coffee?”
The day is dragging by. I sit on one of the benches in Jackson Square drinking the strong, chicory-flavored coffee and setting myself abuzz eating sugar-drenched beignets. Around my feet is a halo of crushed butts. I ran out of the Turkish cigarettes hours ago, and have been making do with Lucky Strikes. Ana, Gardener, and more disturbingly, an army of the dead are still working to raise the levees. Bugsy and I are keeping watch for Weathers. I’ve warned Bugsy that Weathers will do something surprising and to consider every possible avenue for an arrival, no matter how remote.
My phone rings. “Hi, babe,” I say as I answer. I know it’s Niobe. We’ve been calling each other every hour.
“Oh, Noel.” Her voice is husky with tears. “It’s your dad.”
It feels like a fist has closed hard around my guts. “Is he—” I can’t say the word.
“No, but he’s unconscious. I think it won’t be long now.”
I feel like a butterfly on a collector’s pin. I want to be with her. I want to see him. I need to be here for Drake. All I can manage to say is, “I don’t know what to do,” and there’s a five-year-old’s wail in the words.
“He said to tell you to ‘live forward.’ Then he was quiet for a long time, and then he murmured something. I think he was still talking to you. He said ‘for love is strong as death.’ Do you know what he means?”
The agony in my belly is gone. My throat is tight and my chest tight, but I’m oddly calm. “Yes. Yes, I think I do.”
“Are you coming home?”
“No. I need to be here for Drake.”
“Then I’ll be here for your father.” Her voice is very soft.
“I’ll see you soon,” I say and hang up the phone. “Good-bye, Dad. Godspeed. I love you,” I whisper. But the words are whipped away by the rising wind.
Shoulda
Caroline Spector
“YOU’VE BEEN A BAD, bad dolly,” Sprout said. “Now you have to go to bed.”
I walked into the room where Hoodoo Mama was watching Sprout play. Their heads were together, and it was hard for me to reconcile the hard-ass zombie chick with this gentle girl who was so tender with Sprout.
“My dolly has been very bad,” Sprout said, looking up at me.
“Oh, what did dolly do?” I asked.
“She walked funny. See.”
Sprout put the dolly on the floor. It got up on all fours and staggered around the room.
“What the fu—heck is that?”
“Uhm,” Hoodoo Mama said.
I strode over to the dolly and picked it up.
“Oh, hell no,” I said. “Joey, you can’t let her play with zombie cats.” I opened the door and dropped the cat in the hall.
“I want my dolly!”
“How about we go out shopping and find you a new dolly?” Hoodoo Mama said.
Sprout frowned. “But I want mine.”
“Tell you what, I bet Michelle will make you some bubbles.”
They turned back toward me with expectant looks. I gave Hoodoo Mama a glare, but I couldn’t be mad at Sprout. She was sweet beyond all measure.
“Okay, Sprout,” I said. “What kind of bubbles do you want? Soapy? Rubbery?”
“Balls!”
“Rubbery it is.”
I made an assortment of bouncy, soft, moderately tough bubbles. Sprout giggled and began to chase them around the room. Ever since Noel had dumped her in our lap, we’d been trying to think of ways to keep her happy. And not scared.
Once Hoodoo Mama had realized that Sprout was a child mentally, she was pissed as hell at Noel. “Fucker just dragged that poor little girl into the middle of all this shit about to go down,” she hissed at me.
“She’s in her thirties,” I said.
“That don’t mean dick.” Her hands curled into fists and her breathing was harsh. “You can tell by looking at her that she’s special.”
“Well, her father is at the center of all this mess,” I replied. “If you’re going to be pissed at anyone, be pissed at him. He snatched Drake and set all of this in motion.”
Hoodoo Mama’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t think I don’t know that. That fucker will be sorry he messed with any of this.”
Her rage was so pure and clean. I envied it. But I was also trying to avoid spending too much time with her. We hadn’t talked about what had happened in the warehouse the night of the hurricane. Just thinking about it made me feel queasy. And excited. And confused.
I didn’t know who I was anymore. I didn’t make love to other girls. I mean, girls other than my girlfriend. But Hoodoo Mama had needed me then. And I had wanted to help her, but then things got carried away. And . . . and I was making excuses.
I left Hoodoo Mama with Sprout and walked across the hall to Bugsy’s suite. Since the rest of the Committee had shown up, we’d taken over the entire top floor of the Royal Sonesta. I could hear the arguing through the door, but I knocked anyway.
“. . .you bastard . . . Weathers . . .”
The door flew open. Bugsy had a pissed look on his face. Behind him it looked like an American Hero reunion. Except there were no cameras and no one was smiling. But the furniture was better. Nice Louis XVI–style couches and chairs. All done up in tasteful blues.