She turned it off. “All I’m saying is: We were trying everything.”
“I believe you.”
“This was hardly your average kidnapping. You can’t buy off a man who asks for nothing; who knew what he wanted!”
“Mom, I know.”
“Oh, I was so worried,” she said.
Not that they had asked, but it was the old guy of the house who’d let him out. Shoved him down a rope ladder with instructions to keep going. And to call the police. Except Ned wasn’t going to do that. Forget the police, forget the feds; all he wanted was to wash the tunnel shit off his face and hightail it to Los Angeles. Because, for all those hours in the Helix House with nothing to listen to but his heart, after a while, he swore he’d heard a second heart. Not Anne-Janet’s, who was nuts and who’d disappeared; not Olgo’s or Bruce’s; but from inside, as though knowledge once cataleptic was now chanting what he wanted to hear most: Your twin is in L.A. That, and news from the PI, who had finally tracked her down.
Ned was ecstatic. He knew that one way to make life winnable despite the duress of physical and spiritual decay that was its chief characteristic was to experience intimacy with and through another human being. Progeny were good for this purpose, barring the financial commitment and moral obligation and opportunities to fail them, which were abundant. Marriage was good, barring its encumbrance and foreclosure on spontaneity. But a sibling, a twin — you could be a part of that for free. The trouble, really, was what came next. The unknown of other people’s feelings. How could you control those? Not even the Helix could make other people love you. Trust you? Maybe. But love you? No chance.
He drank down the last of his tea and stood. “It’s okay, Mom,” he said, and he bent down to kiss her on the cheek by habit before pulling up short. What a disaster. She looked at him, and in the glaze of those blues was a pleading that revolted whatever compassion he was trying to rally in her defense. They were not even related! He turned away, feeling pity and rage in equal measure but, in the main, resentment, because from now on he might always have to feel complicated about her and this was terrible and he was sad. He made for the cockpit. The plane had twin-engine jets, room for eight plus crew, with about three thousand miles before things got fumy.
He stared at the back of his father’s head. The hair — white, cropped thick and sea urchin — was his most resilient feature, so that even as his prostate, liver, and bones were crapping out on him, the hair said: I am virile! And also, apparently, I can fly. Ned had called his parents from Kentucky and told them to come get him, but he had not meant this literally. Six years since JFK Jr., eight since John Denver. Of all the crews to enlist, they chose themselves? Max had heart trouble. He kept nitrates in his breast pocket and some in Larissa’s purse. So, him at the controls — it wasn’t because he was young at heart but precisely because he wasn’t, the logic being that it was better to gesture against age and frailty by risking your life than to admit you were simply too old to pilot.
“Dad, you’re listing,” Ned said. He was standing in the doorway with one eye trained on the panel. “Stay the course.”
“Aye, aye, sonny,” Max said. “Chip schooling the old block,” and he listed worse.
“Honey!” Larissa said, alarmed and coming up behind Ned, because the plane had banked left for no reason.
“Helpful!” Max said. “It really helps when you do that!”
Ned looked from one to the other. He decided it was grim, having to save a marriage. Tedious, too. The emotional calculus — How far can I go, how much can I say, what is retaliatory and what constitutes a new offense? — was enough to fatigue every second of being alive to think on it.
“Mom,” Ned said. “Don’t you even want to know? What it was like or if I got hurt?”
“We can see you’re not hurt,” Max said. “It was barely three days.”
“So now we’re quantifying trauma?” Larissa said. “Is that your latest?”
“Oh, right,” Ned said. “You’re going to blame each other for what happened to me but forget about me altogether.”
“Not really,” Max said. “We blame you entirely. Your mother warned you about the Helix, but you, being so smart and Ivy League, blew her off. Reap what you sow, kid.”
“Dad, I went to Kenyon. And enough with this blue-collar bullshit. You’re a millionaire.”
“I came from nothing. No one silver-spooned me all the chances you’ve had.”
“So it’s my fault I got kidnapped? My fault everyone in this country hates each other? Look at you two! Setting a great example.”
“Oh, stop it,” Larissa said. “We were worried sick.”
“Silver-spooned,” Ned said, and he looked about his plane with disgust. He hadn’t been silver-spooned so much as bribed. What sort of parents let their child do anything so long as it was expensive? Guilty parents.
“It’s just turbulence,” Max said as the plane capered through the sky. “Even the Red Baron had turbulence.” He laughed but clutched the yoke hard.
Ned had wanted to see his sister right away, only he had wanted to impress her, too. So he revised the plan. Study the weather in Cincinnati. Maybe seed the clouds overhead and flood the city. Hone his skills, then head out West. Some bullshit excuse, bereavement leave, whatever. Until then: briefings whose details he had missed.
When the time came, he had no idea who or what he was scouting.
If that little troll who’d vetted him at speed dating was chief of a camarilla deputized to bust the Helix, and if this troll had drafted him into the mix — he found this out only after being kidnapped.
ETA: twenty minutes. He closed his eyes and went over what to expect. The PI had not been forthcoming with data on his sister, mostly because he didn’t have any. Her name was Tracy. She lived way out in the Valley. Someplace rural — farmland, mountains — with a husband, Phil, and a toddler son, Willard. Anything else? Hang on. Ned had waited thirty-five minutes while the PI took another call, only to get shut down when he returned.
“No, that’s all I got.”
“But what does she look like?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t take photos.”
“What do you remember?”
“I don’t know. I wasn’t paid to make out with her.”
“Hey, that’s my sister.”
“Are we done here?”
“No, wait, isn’t there anything else you can tell me? Is she tall?”
“She’s your height.”
“Really? What about her hair?”
“She’s got your hair.”
“Yeah? Wow. But wait, you never even met me.”
“Bingo, genius.” Click.
How many ways could he tell his mother the same thing? He plugged his ears, but she would not drop it. “How about if I call the police for you? I don’t mind. It’s the right thing; people need to know you got out.”
They’d been having this conversation all day. If he notified the police, they’d take him in. There’d be debriefings. Press conferences or, more likely, a quarantining by the feds, lest he broadcast their incompetence. Not that he could do much to tank the impression people already had of them, but he could spotlight the impression, at least until some other disaster laid claim to the country’s umbrage.
“Mom, I’ll call after Tracy.” He said her name and smiled.
“Don’t be so hard,” she said. “You make bad choices in life. You try your best.”
“Oh please.”
“Neddy, while you were at the Helix House, I prayed and swore if you got out, I’d make the best amends to you I could. So here we are. Flying you right to her door.”