She held back a gasp. On first impression, she felt as if she was looking at Johnny Depp’s older brother. He had the same straight dark hair, high cheekbones, thin nose, and square chin. As in some recent photos of Depp she’d seen, he also favored aviator sunglasses with blue lenses.
But as she studied him more closely, she realized that the resemblance ended there. Whereas the actor’s skin was uniformly smooth, this man’s skin was rough, twisted, and scarred, especially along the right side of his face, but oddly regular along his forehead and under his eyes.
Botox, Lisa concluded. And extensive plastic surgery, maybe the result of an injury.
When he removed the sunglasses, she saw that it was his eyes that really distinguished him. They were wide-set, mesmerizing, and fierce.
They seemed to pull her in like magnets and communicate some intangible dark knowledge. And in that moment, she sensed that there was something wrong with him physically. She found evidence in the yellowish tinge of his scleras and the unhealthy grayish pallor of his long lips.
It reminded her of a story Clark had told some dinner guests about Abraham Lincoln. When Lincoln was advised to include a certain man in his cabinet and refused, he was asked why he would not accept the man. The president answered, “I don’t like his face.” To which the man’s advocate responded, “But the poor man isn’t responsible for his face.”
“Every man over forty is responsible for his face,” countered Lincoln.
The face of the man at the head of the table spoke volumes-of big appetites, struggles, paranoid fears, self-hate, vendettas, and monumental ambition.
Turning to Lisa, he said, “Welcome,” in a deep, confident voice with a slight accent.
She couldn’t say “Thank you.” Her heartbeat quickened. Sweat appeared on her palms and coated the insides of her thighs.
The man she assumed was the Jackal frowned, then whispered something to the men who stood guard behind him. Two of them walked to the door behind her and exited.
He smiled at something the third man said, revealing white, even teeth that looked as though they had been capped. He wore a silver crucifix, along with other amulets and bracelets, and a white linen shirt unbuttoned to his muscular chest, which had a dark tattoo on it. She made out the outline of a skull.
Despite his fine clothes and the care he had taken to reshape his face and control his surroundings, there was something coarse and rough about him. She intuited that he’d come from a hardscrabble background and had ruthlessly clawed his way to the top of whatever this organization or gang was under his command.
The click of high heels registered in her head, and out of the corner of her eye she saw the two bodyguards reentering. Instead of turning to look at whoever the high heels belonged to, she focused instead on the intense, admiring, and almost ravenous expression on the face of the man at the head of the table as his eyes followed the person behind her.
“Are you the Jackal?” Lisa asked, trying to hide her fear behind a cold formality.
“Yes, but you can call me Ivan.”
“Ivan what?”
“Just Ivan.”
She had a speech prepared in her head. In it she offered to cooperate as long as he continued to treat her with respect.
The click of high heels continued to the seat across the table. Through her unfocused eyes she caught a glimpse of the suit, which was identical to the one she was wearing. But Lisa felt far away, and receding. She thought that if she tried to say something, she’d have to shout to be heard.
It was hard to see the face beyond the glow of candles. As the woman bent to sit, Lisa registered that she was young and wore her blond hair pulled back like her own.
Unexpectedly and for an instant her perceptions sharpened, and she recognized her daughter. Lisa blinked and looked again to make sure she wasn’t hallucinating, then gasped as though she’d been punched hard in the chest. “Olivia!”
“Mother. You’re here?”
“Yes.” Her hands reached for her heart. Despite the admirable restraint her daughter was showing, the complex and powerful emotions she felt were impossible to hold back.
Lisa started to tremble and angry tears poured from her eyes. She rose unsteadily to her feet and shouted, “No! No! I won’t accept this! It’s wrong. So very wrong. Please, stop!”
Crocker looked down at the crab cakes on his plate, then up at his father. As the old man ate, he talked about goings-on at the local VFW he commanded. Funds were tight, and the chapter was divided between those who wanted to spend money on chapter activities like meetings and dinners and those who wanted to focus on helping disabled vets. His father led the latter camp and complained about the self-centeredness of some members. Takers, he called them.
He mentioned that Senator Clark’s wife had served as the hostess of the chapter’s fund-raising picnic at Harpers Ferry two years ago.
“Great gal,” he said. “Cares about vets. Her father served with the Special Forces in Vietnam.”
“Yes.” Crocker had met her once at the SEAL Team One reunion that she attended with her husband in Coronado. He remembered a friendly woman with the face and build of a model.
“It’s awful about her being kidnapped. I hope she makes out okay,” his father said.
“Me, too.”
Crocker’s immediate concern was Carla and the fact that she hadn’t come. This was the second time she had wiggled out of an invitation to meet.
When he brought her up, his father defended her, saying she was a busy, hardworking woman with a son to take care of and little support from the army, which had denied her benefits despite the fact that she was a Gulf War vet suffering from PTSD.
Crocker’s father was the kindest, most honest man he’d ever met. So it pained him to ask, “Dad, is it true you’ve been helping Carla out financially?”
His father ran a hand through his gray hair and groaned, “I don’t know why that’s anyone else’s business.”
Crocker had learned to confront problems quickly and head-on even if it meant pissing people off. “Because Karen and I care about you and don’t want anyone taking advantage.” Karen was his younger sister-a ball-buster and CPA, with an alcoholic husband and three kids.
“Let’s change the subject,” his dad said, reaching for the iced tea.
“How much is she into you for?”
“I’m not telling.”
“How much?”
“Around thirty.”
“Thirty thousand?”
His dad nodded. He wore a checked cotton shirt open at the collar and a pair of the same black pants he’d used when he sold insurance.
Crocker looked at his dad and considered that thirty grand was roughly half his savings and a hell of a lot of money to a seventy-eight-year-old man living on Social Security.
“Shit, Dad,” he said. “She planning to pay you back?”
“Sure.” His father nodded, but even in that gesture there was more than a hint of doubt, which made Crocker feel sad.
“The older you get, the lonelier you become,” his dad said. Crocker noticed that he still had on the thick gold wedding band he’d worn since he was married to Crocker’s mother fifty-five years ago in a little Protestant church in South Boston. “A woman, even if it’s only to listen, brings a kind of tenderness that a male friend can’t.”
Crocker couldn’t argue with that.
His dad explained that Carla was using the last ten thousand he’d given her to enter a private rehab facility where she would kick the dependence she’d developed to prescription drugs like Vicodin, and cover her bills while she took time off from work. Once she got clean, he was confident that she’d pull her life together and find a better-paying job.
“When does she start the rehab?” Crocker asked.
“She started already, Monday morning. That’s why she couldn’t join us tonight.”