Published
Every Day
v 
by A.J. Kohlhepp
Get it together, I tell myself. Don’t show them what you are feeling right now…. I reach casually into the pocket of my pullover and pull out my phone. Nothing (yet) from Ollie.
“Anything from Ollie,” inquires Jean-Luc in a cool voice.
“No,” I blurt. “Just a text from the head pro at East Side.”
One of the operatives – the one who looks as if he ended up on the wrong end of a Cameron Pilley forehand -- steps forward to impart some information to his boss.
“East Side?”
“Yeah, the club where I train.”
Jean-Luc nods knowingly. No doubt he is aware of my father’s encouragement of my squash habit.
“And what news from ‘head pro’,” inquires Jean-Luc, bleding patience and patronization seamlessly.
“Nothing important -- an open slot this afternoon.”
“A lesson?”
“4 to 5 is wide open,” I read off of the screen, then direct it toward Jean-Luc in case he should desire visual confirmation of the least relevant factoid of a very strange day.
The other operative, this one bearing no marks of physical trauma except for the residual shuddering gasps that might come after a particularly grueling rallies against Nicol David, checks his phone and steps forward to confer with Jean-Luc.
“Excellent,” Jean-Luc murmurs to his henchman. Turning to me, he states, “I think perhaps you should take him up on it, Hayden.”
“Excuse me ?,” I expectorate. “I don’t see how squash is going to help right now.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” laughs Jean-Luc. “A little racket therapy never hurts… .”
*********************************************
A couple of hours later, having picked up my squash bag, guzzled two large lattes from Lavazza, and checked my phone three or four hundred times, I walk in the front door of East Side Squash.
“A little racket therapy” keeps ricocheting about in my head. How could Jean-Luc know that phrase?
“Hayden,” says Selena, the Sole Cycle sadist from behind the desk. “Haven’t seen you for a while,” she adds with a menacing grin. “Fancy a spin?”
“Um, no thanks. Just here for a little racket therapy.”
Selena raises an aggressively pruned eyebrow.
“A lesson with Hank,” I explain. “He had a cancellation.”
“Of course,” she smiles. “Need a towel?”
“Please,” I smile, and catch the plush towel she flings my way, nothing like the course cotton rags we tried to dry ourselves off with at St Exodus.
A quick change in the locker room and I head for the glass-walled show court. When I get there, I notice that the lights above the court are on, while those surrounding it have been dimmed. Unusual for a Saturday afternoon -- but maybe the mood lighting will help me focus.
Dropping my bag and pulling out my crimson Stiletto eye guards and Ion X-Force Cornett, I step through the open door.
There on the “T”, moving casually through a familiar series of strokes and steps, is a familiar physique. But not the one that I expect.
“Hayden,” he says warmly as he turns around. “I was wondering how long it would take you.”
“Ollie,” I stammer in disbelief. “How did – what about – “
Ollie chuckles, then pounds the black rubber sphere onto the boards. “You ready?”
More than he could ever know… . We hit in silence for a few minutes, relishing this pregnant pause that English call the “knock up.”
“Up or down,” I ask Ollie, about to spin my racket, hardly able to tell one from the other. The serve doesn’t matter much when we play, as I need to ratchet down my game a notch to keep him from losing hope.
“Down,” calls a remorseless voice from the dark void off the court, “but apparently not out.”
Onto the court steps none other than Jean-Luc, in a black Fila jumpsuit, flanked by his two associates in their standard issue suits and shades.
“Gentlemen,” he orders calmly. “Please escort the professor to the gallery. There is a certain matter I need to work out with Miss Vaughn.”
Ollie seems to be considering something foolhardy, but I will take my chances on the court.
“It’s okay, Ollie,” I reassure him. “You just be careful with these two.”
***************************************************
Eschewing the contemporary fad for 11-point scoring, we agree upon the traditional 15-point game from the hardball era.
Hardball indeed. The stakes for our single game are simple. If I win, Ollie walks; if I lose, then I have to make sure Ollie never walks (or sees the light of day) again.
“I am certain that your father would approve of this configuration,” observes Jean-Luc with a great deal of confidence. “Jack always enjoyed a structured risk.”
Jean-Luc is an aggressive ball-striker, but his shots get looser as the game draws on. And I am finding my rhythm now, playing my way into the match and thinking more about placement than points.
At 7-all, Jean-Luc is starting to perspire visibly, his dark clothes taking on a deepening sheen. He begins pausing between points to wipe his racquet hand on the glass.
Ollie sits nervously between them, elbows on knees and hands clasped together in front of his mouth. Every so often he will take them apart to clap or cheer.
As we hit 11 points each, Jean-Luc’s breathing has become ragged. It is clear that he is struggling under the physical duress of this contest.
On we play, Jean-Luc lashing out for reverses and hunting nicks, while I keep stretching him with soft drops and firm drives. Irving Johns, the poet laureate of St. Exodus, has said that you should never write about what you love, but I can imagine trying to capture this feeling in prose.
We are dead even, point by point. Jean-Luc has a game ball at 14-13, but I pull him back to 14-all with a delicate drop that he frames off of the forehand side, just clipping the tin.
“Set one,” he pronounces boldly, pride and athleticism masking extreme cardio-pulmonary distress. Good, I think…. Let’s end this now.
With a firm serve into his body, I put Jean-Luc on the defensive. He volleys aggressively, looking to end it with a nick, but the ball kicks out on my forehand side. Racket up and ready, I wait an extra split second before I trickle a boast toward the front left.
Jean-Luc pushes hard to the front and attempts the shot we are all trained to look for: the straight drop. I have seen this sequence so many times that I am practically on top of him as he makes his desperate play.
His drop is well angled but high, lacking finesse. I am onto it quickly and strike cleanly through the ball, driving it toward the backhand corner, where it caroms softly into the back wall, six inches up, then drops gently to the floor.
Jean-Luc, having extended himself in a frantic last effort, lies on the floor, angled awkwardly into the back corner. He does not move. Gasping for air and understanding myself, I place two fingers across his left wrist. No pulse. It’s over.
In my periphery, I can sense that Ollie has risen, as have the book-ends. A closer motion draws my eyes.
Stepping onto the court is a ghost.
“No need to play that last ball,” observes my father dryly. “He never cleared. It was a stroke all the way.”
Jack
by Pierre Bastien
Ollie stood motionless, observing. He was outside the squash court, a few paces beyond the glass back wall.
Ollie’s two minders, Gus and Kirk, stood on either side of him, a little too close.
They all stared at Hayden, who was on court, kneeling next to Jean-Luc. He looked lifeless, slumped in the corner, legs sprawled awkwardly.
Hayden had two fingers on Jean-Luc’s wrist, presumably to check for a pulse. Was he dead? He sure looked it.
Ollie was hoping for some sort of status report from Hayden. But whatever she had discovered about the poor bastard’s health, she wasn’t sharing; instead she was frozen, staring at the guy who had just made his dramatic entrance.
Jack – that was the guy’s name.
You see, Ollie had fled to the East Side facility. Instinctively, he had gone straight down to the men’s locker room.
There was a guy, who would turn out to be named Jack, leaning nonchalantly against a bank of lockers, bathed in fluorescent light, examining his fingernails. He looked about 60, very lean, with close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair. He was dressed in black shoes, gray trousers with a black belt, and a black sweater – one of those military-style ones, with patches on the shoulders and elbow.
Ollie stopped when he saw the guy.
“Hi Ollie,” the guy had said, tilting his head up to catch Ollie’s eye. “I’m Jack.”
Ollie was taken aback, but just a little. On this particular day, surprises were the norm. Ollie considered running, but he decided to play along.
“Hey Jack,” said Ollie. “Do we know each other?”
“We do now,” Jack said. “Soooooo,” he continued, staring down at his fingernails again, “you should come with me if you want to live.”
“What?” blurted Ollie.
“Just kidding,” said Jack. “Sort of. Come along, and I’ll tell you how you’re involved in all this.”
A guy with a six-pack and leg tattoos emerged from the showers wearing a too-small towel and some Adidas shower shoes. He walked past Jack and Ollie and stopped at a nearby vanity mirror to squeeze out some body lotion.
“I’m not sure I want to know how I’m involved in all this,” replied Ollie, nervously shifting his squash bags around.
“Come on,” said Jack. “We need to get set up before Hayden arrives.”
“Hayden?” Ollie asked, but Jack was already moving toward the exit.
Ollie paused and glanced over at Mr. Six-Pack, who was starting to put lotion on one of his legs.
Jack walked out of the locker room, and Ollie hustled to catch up.
Jack was bounding up the stairs, Ollie trying to keep pace with him.
“So,” gasped Ollie, “how is Hayden involved?”
“We’ll get to that,” said Jack, as they reached the top floor, dashed past an exercise room filled with treadmills and a few sweaty patrons, and ducked into the squash area. Ollie could hear the thwack-thwack of a squash game in progress.
“Suit up,” directed Jack, waving Ollie towards a changing area tucked beside the courts.
“You mean get in my squash gear?” asked Ollie.
“Non-marking shoes and everything,” Jack replied casually, looking down at his fingernails.
Ollie ducked into the changing area, putting his bags down on the handy benches. He pulled out his squash kit and threw it on quickly.
As Ollie emerged, Jack tossed him a fresh Dunlop double yellow dot ball.
“Brand new,” said Jack. “Now listen, we only have a minute. I want you to get on this court here and warm the ball up. A few visitors will be along shortly. They’ll be familiar to you. Now, here’s the thing. Whatever you do, don’t run. Just play along. Got it?”
“Got it,” said Ollie.
As bizarre as this all seemed, Ollie trusted Jack. Whatever situation was developing here, Jack seemed to be on top of things. Plus, he wanted to find out the truth about Hayden. Jack hopefully would fill him in when the time came.
“OK,” said Jack. “I’m going to disappear for a bit. Remember: stay cool. Just play along.”
Jack walked into the changing area and then disappeared out a back door.
Ollie hopped onto the court and began warming up. Who was going to meet him here?
A few minutes later, when Hayden showed up, he was hardly surprised.
Then Hayden and Jean-Luc had started their game, the winner supposedly deciding Ollie’s fate.
Now here he was, standing between Gus and Kirk, watching Hayden look for a pulse while staring at Jack.
The next word out of Hayden’s mouth cleared up some of the confusion.
“Dad,” she almost whispered, as a smile broke out across her face.
Hayden finally stood up and embraced Jack in a huge bear hug.
“Hey, kid,” said Jack, kissing Hayden on the top her head.
“Good to see you again, Dad,” Hayden replied. “Sorry that didn’t go quite as planned.”
“We’ll get ‘em another way,” said Jack.
“Uh,” ventured Ollie, “what’s going on here?”
Jack explained, “Hayden and I have been trying to trap Jean-Luc for over a year. We finally get everything lined up” – Jack broke out into a grin here – “and Hayden goes and kills the guy on game point, before we can learn anything from him.”
“Hey,” said Hayden, “how could I know he was about to have a heart attack?”
“Right,” said Jack. “Anyway, Ollie, I promised to tell you how you fit into all this. Well, Jean-Luc used to be my protégé at the CIA. Over the years he became increasingly unreliable, even a loose cannon. Eventually he left the agency and went out on his own. He got mixed up with a gang in Quebec.”
“What does that have to do with me?” asked Ollie.
“Oh, they’re very interested in some research you’ve been doing,” replied Jack.
Ollie didn’t say anything. Could they know about his work with Dr. Karwah?
“And no,” said Jack, “it’s got nothing to do with that cold fusion nonsense.”
“Oh,” said Ollie, sheepishly. “What then?”
“It’s what you were working on before that – your research on oil pipelines. You know the Keystone XL pipeline, the one that’s going to carry the tar sands oil?” asked Jack. “Well, these Quebec guys are trying to sabotage the project if and when it gets built. And they are pretty sure you can help them.”
Ollie looked at Hayden. He asked her, “And what’s your deal in all this?”
“My job was to protect you,” she replied, “while giving Jean-Luc the impression I was working for him. In fact all this time I’ve been secretly in touch with my dad, trying to bring down Jean-Luc.”
“So it was just a job then,” said Ollie.
“It started that way,” said Hayden, her eyes cast downward. “But it got more complicated as time went on.”
“Listen,” interrupted Jack. “We need to get out of here. We don’t have much time before Jean-Luc’s associates start coming after us.”
Jack moved toward the door, with Hayden and Ollie trailing behind, still wearing their squash clothes.
Gus and Kirk stayed behind, presumably to deal with the body.
You Know What You Need To Do
by Tammy Mehmed
I ain’t got no body
by Al Tommervik
Chapter 10
Body of Work
by David Smith
While the “boys” were in the house, I had time to toss this crazy day around in my mind. Was it really just a few hours ago that I woke up in Ollie’s bed on the verge of betraying him. Betraying him was such a benign way to say that I had screwed him, helped kidnapped him, subsequently rescued him, only to kill him all in the course of a few hours. Now, that’s a day’s work.
My earlier meltdown was out of character. Don’t really know what could have caused that! It was just a typical murder-my-lover-in-the-nude type of day. Truthfully, he really sucked as a lover, but that shouldn’t get you killed. Otherwise, I would have racked up quite a body count by now.
What the Hell?
I was stunned to see Steve’s buddies come out of the safe house. They were not supposed to come out.
When Steve told me that Ollie’s body was gone, I was further staggered.
“What do you mean the body is gone? That is just stupid,” I said mustering as much bravado as I could. For the life of me—well, that may be an unfortunate choice of words—I had no idea what happened to the body. Dad must have changed the plan.
“Let me show you,” I said quickly, as I bolted from the car and headed for the house. Safe house, indeed. It couldn’t keep a dead body safe.
As I pushed open the door, I made as much noise as I could hoping that Dad or his team were still in the building--as was the original plan. While slightly skeptical that they were still there, I had to trust Dad.
I charged through the house with the grace of an overweight squash player making as much noise as reasonable. I continued to hold out hope that Dudley-Do-Right would rescue Nell, but if not, this Nell would have to get to the weapons closet. I worked over in my mind how best to get to the pantry where the weapons were hidden.
Despite knowing what they had said, I was still stunned when I got to the bathroom. Clearly there was no body, but as I took in the scene, I could appreciate that whoever had cleaned up had done so quickly. My David Bruce Pinot, or what was left of it, was still on the counter next to the tub. Not being one to waste a good Pinot, I walked over and drained the glass.
Pointedly, I held the glass out to Steve. “This is my glass of wine! I left it here after Ollie sort of passed away.”
“Cute. Then where is his glass?”
“He left it in the kitchen where he drank it.” With that, I charged out of the bathroom and down the hall to the kitchen, praying that the wine, the glass, or Dudley would be there.
Empty. No wine. No glass. Sadly, no Dudley to rescue me either. Hayden, you are in deep shit. I blustered around the kitchen acting as if this whole thing was preposterous, and in the process, worked my way over toward the pantry.
I was just a step away from the weapons cache when Steve pulled his own gun and shouted for me to “Stop!”
I have never been great at taking orders, so I paused for half-a-beat, mentally said screw it, and ripped open the door to the pantry, and pulled it shut behind me. Just as I reached the weapons and grabbed myself a Glock, I heard an explosion behind me and saw a flash of light under the door. After a very short pause, gunfire erupted. I noticed with a certain degree of self-interest that none of the bullets were focused on the pantry.
Shooting gave way to shouting, and the resulting cacophony of voices gave me hope that the worst was over. I may have great legs, but at the moment they were quite wobbly. My Glock and I eased toward the pantry door.
A first glance showed bodies down and pools of blood ruining the shine on the hardwood floors. The two bodies closest to the pantry were Steve’s buddies. Gathering my courage, I eased further out into the kitchen and saw my father with his gun trained steadily on Steve, who was kneeling on the floor holding a bloody shoulder. He wouldn’t be playing squash any time soon. But then neither would his buddies.
“Dad? Can you explain what is going on?” I asked with no little amount of attitude. I had been a teenager once, so Dad was used to it.
“Yes, Hayden, I can explain. Let me get this cleaned up first.”
“Dad! Now!” Ok, in some ways I never stopped being a teenager.
Dad got one of his men to keep an eye, and a gun, on Steve, and instructed another to get one of the company doctors over to Tarrytown right away. Dad then nudged me out of the room and onto the screened-in porch at the back of the house.
“There was a slight change in plans.”
“You don’t say! What the hell happened?”
“Well, Hayden, half of the team that was supposed to be here before you arrived was in an accident on the Cross Bronx. I didn’t think we had enough men to assure that we could take out those two, keep Steve alive, and most importantly protect you. We decided to make sure we could draw them all into the house before we made our move. We decided to make them hunt for the body. There wasn’t a safe way to update you since you were with them. You did great by the way.”
“So where is Ollie?”
“Basement.”
“Ok. Are you going to show him to Steve so that he knows that he is dead?”
“Yes, let’s do that now. And hopefully, he will lead us to his boss, the person who was controlling Jean-Luc. We need to find that person.”
Dad and I led Steve carefully down the stairs to the basement. There, propped up in the corner was Ollie. I fought down the bile that gorged up into my throat. Ollie was definitely dead. Cold. Blue. The odd angle of his legs indicated that he was still in rigor. Yup, no doubt about it. I did a good job of killing him. Really, he wasn’t that bad of a lover.
____________________
An hour north of Montreal, the middle-aged blonde walked slowly through the Disney-like village of Mont Tremblant. The cool mountain air always helped her to think and clear her mind. The loss of Jean-Luc was especially difficult for her—professionally and personally. She did not believe that he had a heart attack. She suspected that Jack had something to do with it. She also suspected that Jack was the reason the rest of her team had not made contact in hours.
She paused at a little walk up shop, picked up an order of poutine, and sat at the base of the ski slopes. As she ate the purely Quebecoise concoction of pomme frites, soft cheese, and gravy, she watched the hikers making their way down the hill in the darkening twilight.
Settling on a difficult decision, she reached for her phone and dialed a long forgotten number. The distant ring ended with a crisp voice mail message. She hesitated, and then plunged forward. She had no choice.
“Hayden…”
Chapter 11
Too Many BodiesChapter 12
Exit Strategy
by A.J. Kohlhepp
I stared at my phone in disbelief. Was she really alive, and was that really her voice, and did she really have the hots for the elusive Liberian scientist? And what about the gunshot?
All of a sudden, the half bath in the safe house felt a bit cramped.
“You okay, kiddo,” called my dad.
“Fine, Dad,” I replied as breezily as I could. “You know about women and bathrooms.”
Pocketing my phone, I flushed the unused toilet, ran some water in the sink, and dried my hands hastily on a Laura Ashley hand towel that was probably the height of homemaker fashion when this house was set up during the Cold War.
“Living as a bachelor – I mean widower – all these years, I kind of forget,” he laughed, seated comfortably in an armchair near the gas fireplace. Somehow the gunplay on the other side of the house had not impacted the den. I guess that “the company” was pretty good at integrating bullet-proof firewalls into structures meant to shelter their inhabitants.
“Do you miss mom as much as I do,” I probed, hoping to confirm the electronic tidings I had just received.
“Once we made the decision –“
“Decision,” I interjected.
“The decision to take her off life support – after the accident,” he continued. “I found it easier just to move ahead with life, rather than wading about in death.”
Funny, I reflected. You don’t seem to have any troubling wading in, or bringing about, the deaths of others. And you didn’t even contact your living daughter until it became professionally expedient… .
“I think I need a drink,” I exclaimed. “I wonder where that pinot – “
“Already cleaned up,” he said breezily. “But there’s a bottle of single malt in the Audi. Why don’t you grab it and we can toast your professional success?” Dad beamed in the direction of the basement door, with Ollie’s body a staircase below.
Was he joking? Was he so coarsened by years of “professional success” that a fresh corpse a flight of stairs away was stimulus for libation rather than revulsion?
“Great idea,” I brightened, playing along as best I could. The “safe” house in Tarrytown was feeling about as secure as a bad boast at the Tournament of Champions.
“Keys,” I inquired, flashing back to an inquiry I had deployed frequently while on break from St. Exodus.
My dad flipped them to me with the good-natured warning he had offered every time I had taken his car as a teen: “Don’t use up all the gas having fun.”
“Don’t worry dad. Not much chance of that,” I laughed, feeling sicker by the minute. “Hey, can I borrow your lighter?”
This was a guess, but it turned out to be a good one. My dad cocked an eyebrow as he reached into his breast pocket, taking out the monogramed Alfred Dunhill he still carried to ignite contraband cigars on special occasions.
“Didn’t know you smoked, kiddo,” a hint of paternal concern creeping into his voice.
“Holidays, funerals, you know the drill. Never close to a tournament,” I assured him. “I’m a pack-a-year girl. And that pack is in a kitchen drawer – just in case.”
Keys in one hand and lighter in the other, I headed toward the garage. “Hurry back now, Hayden,” he called behind me. “We have lots of catching up to do.”
Striding into the kitchen, I slowed a bit to negotiate the wreckage. The place looked like the set of “Mr & Mrs Smith” just before the hottest scene. But my very own Brad Pitt lay dead in the basement. And I had too much meat on my bones to squeeze into any of Angelina Jolie’s haute couture.
A drawer next to the stove offered a neatly-folded assortment of tea towels. Laura Ashley again. Somebody ought to burn this place down and start over.
I walked past Steve, still under the watchful eye of Jack’s henchman. Noticing their gaze directed at the tea towel, I brought it up to my eyes and was surprised when it came away wet. A faint smile and a half-hearted shrug were enough to get them to turn away as I opened the door to the garage, then shut it firmly behind me.
The black Audi was safely stowed where we had parked it. Pressing twice on the appropriate button, I heard the reassuring ker-tweet. I popped the trunk, pulled out my Black Knight racket bag, and looked around for a little liquid to get the party started. Nothing.
Opening the passenger door and sliding into the seat, I checked the glove compartment. And there it was: 70 cl of Springbank 12 Year Old 100 Proof. Old enough to be the best and strong enough to burn.
I reached past the steering wheel and hit the fuel cover release, uncapping the scotch with my other hand. Leaning out of the car door, I took a swig of the Springbank and poured a healthy helping onto the towel. Two steps had me positioned by the fuel door which, opened, allowed access to the tank.
“You find it, Hayden,” inquired my dad, barely audible from the other end of the house. I wondered whether it was me, or the Springbank, or the lighter he was worried about. Dad always did enjoy a good drink and smoke after work.
“Mission accomplished,” I replied, pushing the tea towel as far into the fuel tank as I could get it. One more splash of scotch to prime the pump. I grabbed my gear and, about to cast the Springbank aside, thought better and stowed it in my bag.
Lighter out, towel on fire, and I was out the back door into the yard. Good thing it was getting dark. Jogging now, I reached Franklin Street as I hear the Audi rocked by cataclysms of flame. A funeral pyre for Ollie, perhaps, or a fiery end for Jack Vaughn and his crew.
Three minutes later, I was boarding a Metro-North train southbound for Manhattan.
Hood up and sunglasses on, I took out my phone and redialed the number Ted had called from. Straight to an automated response. “The voice mail for this number has never been set up.”
GOOD TO HEAR FROM YOU, TEDDY BOY, I typed into my phone.
Now what? Needing space and time, I made a snap decision: to return to the place where I had first picked up squash and, a decade later, Ollie. The two best things in my increasingly grim life.
After a hasty descent into the bowels of Grand Central – no time to stop and peek at the ToC practice sessions -- and a short hop on the Blue line, I was in the Port Authority. And my timing continued to be lucky, as Greyhound #428 was boarding. Northeast to New England, with stops in Hartford, Litchfield, Pittsfield, Williamstown, Bennington and Concord. We Exies used to call it the Transcendental Special, though whether that had more to do with psychotropic recreation or literary heritage is hard to say.
PURSUING EXIT STRATEGY NOW. SEE YOU SOON. And… send.
If mom was really alive, she would understand and enjoy “exit strategy” -- our code name for St. Exodus. She too had lost and found herself, a generation earlier, amidst the Georgian brick quadrangles and pastoral enclosures of the “finest preparatory school in New England.” The best place I could think of for a midwinter reunion between a mother long dead and a daughter on the run.
Chapter
18
Let, Please
by A.J. Kohlhepp
Stay loose, I told myself while turning the key. React and respond. Echoes of my old coaches in my head.
What I saw through the open doorway froze me, despite my preparation, like a freakish frame-job crosscourt nick when you are perfectly positioned on the T. This could not be happening.
Sitting in the small, well-lit living room, semi-automatic in his lap and single malt in his hand, to judge by the color of the beverage and his predilection for cocktails, was none other than Jack Vaughn. He inhabited a comfortably faded armchair as if he had already passed some time there. Facing him, and looking considerably less at ease upon a floral printed loveseat, was the woman claiming to be my mother. This tableau, which might bring joy or wonder in other circumstances, invoked little more than disbelief at this juncture.
“That was quite a stunt you pulled in Tarrytown,” offered my dad with clear amusement in his voice. “Steve’s boys are still trying to clean the site before the arson investigators can draw any conclusions.”
“Arson?!” interjected Ted, or the woman who claimed this name.
“Yes,” responded Jack, moving his eyes from me in the doorframe to her in the living room. “Hayden made a fiery exit from the scene of her latest crime.”
“Latest crime,” I blurted. “That was Jean-Luc’s call – or maybe it was yours – or for all I know Dr. Karwah ordered the hit from her Ebola lab in West Africa!”
Increasingly aware of the cold Quebecois night on my backside, I took a purposeful step into the cottage. At the same time, I slipped my hand into my coat pocket, wherein I grasped the rigid plastic grip of the Hi-Point C-9, which the clerk at Pulse Electronique had been kind enough to sell me out behind the store.
Jack, noticing the direction of my hand and sensing the intention of the gesture, slid his right onto his weapon as well. “No need to do anything rash, my dear,” he said cheerfully. “Ted and I are just chatting. Why don’t you come join us?”
I looked from him to Ted, who had yet to budge. She shrugged noncommittally.
Shutting the door behind me, I walked slowly into the room and thought about taking a seat next to her, choosing instead the armchair that matched Jack’s. As I fell into the chair, I shoved my free hand into my other coat pocket, encountering the squash ball I had played with at Club Atwater. The small black orb was good and cold by now, having accompanied me in the aged Volkswagen whose heater seemed to do little more than dissuade ice sheets from forming inside the windshield.
My new throw-away phone, also purchased at Pulse Electronique, was also in my pocket. It was an old-school flip model of the sort that was popular when I was at St Exodus. Like many school kids at the start of the twenty-first century, I had enjoyed the novelty of clandestine communications in the classroom. At St. E’s, rather than exchanging random teen-text greetings, we had swapped esoteric Haikus beneath the traditional surfaces of the Harkness tables. Recalling those days of competitive texting, I half-consciously flipped open the phone and ran my thumb over the familiar configuration.
“You must have plenty to catch up on,” I said, gazing from one parent to another. If in fact they were my parents.
“Actually,” replied Jack, “We see each other fairly frequently. Work-related issues, mainly.” I reversed the order of my gaze, panning from Jack back to Ted, who responded with another shrug.
“Is that true,” I blurted toward Ted – mom – the woman who had only just --
“Yes, Hayden,” she said quietly. “That car crash made it official, but our marriage had really ended years before.“
“Your mother had begun to explore other options long before we agreed to the structural reassignment,” offered Jack in the most reasonable tones, looking intently at Ted now, then swinging his gaze my way.
“What about me,” I protested. “Do you have any idea –“
“We knew it would be hard for you, sweetheart,” said Ted in the calming tones she had always used with me after devastating losses. “But we thought it best – “
“It was time to make the call, Hayden,” explained Jack. “You had come of age, and the company needed a decision.”
“What kind of decision?” And which company was he referring to? It was getting hard to keep the back stories straight in this twisted little narrative.
“We never wanted this life for you, Hayden,” said Ted. “Actually, it was me who drew the line. Your father thought you were a natural.”
“She’s right about that, kiddo,” he laughed. “You had the requisite skill set, and in spades: adventurous spirit, competitive outlook, superior strength and speed. The things that made you great at squash -- ”
“I must say, Jack,” observed Ted. “You always did find ways to invoke squash at the most bizarre moments.”
“Squash is a metaphor for life,” he replied, pausing for a sip from his highball glass. “Of course, life is also a metaphor for squash, if you really think about it.” Ted rolled her eyes. She had heard dad wax philosophical about the world’s greatest indoor racquet sport many a time. Ironically enough, she was the real player of the two, having reached the upper echelons of the junior circuit before playing at St. Exodus and Princeton. Jack had simply picked up the game as an adult and, the deeper I got into squash, poured himself into the theoretical and historical aspects of the game.
“And so squash…” I mused, drawing connections that had eluded me till now. The endless court sprints and star drills, the pre-match inquisitions into my opponents’ traits and tactics, the obsessive memorization of faces and facts of every player on the men’s and women’s pro tours: all of this undertaken, under the watchful eye of Jack Vaughn, in preparation to become an operative?!
“Water under the proverbial bridge,” he said calmly. “You remember what your coach used to say, right? You can’t replay a point that’s over.”
“Right,” I added heavily. “Learn from it and move on.”
I slumped back in my chair, probably looking to them like the quarrelsome teen they had last glimpsed in their household in suburban Maryland, hands still deep in my pockets. With my left I flipped open my phone and began typing a text message; with my right I slipped off the safety on my pistol.
Message done, I clicked the key to choose a recipient. Fortunately, I had entered only two numbers in my new phone as I waited for the cashier to ring me up: Ollie’s, typed in with guilty sentimentality, and Ted’s, entered with skeptical longing. Of the two possible recipients, one was clearly dead and the other was quite possibly fake. Even if she was the real Ted, there was that whole weird business about her phone. Oh well, sometimes you need to take a shot, I mused, hitting send and waiting.
Ted’s phone emitted a plaintive tone from her handbag. She looked at Jack before reaching that way. He nodded consent as he took another deep draught from his glass. Her eyes dropped toward the device as she brought her phone into view. There on the screen stood two simple words:
“Let, please.”
She looked up at me quickly, signaling comprehension or, at the very least, compliance. As she did so, I moved my hand from cell phone to squash ball and, with casual precision, tossed it in the air. The ball arced toward Jack, heading for a dying bounce against the fireplace grate. Before it could land, Jack reached up casually and caught it with his right hand, his left still cradling the highland elixir.
Ted
dove toward Jack’s lap, snatching the Glock and returning to the
loveseat, just as I pulled out the C-9 and leveled it at the
patriarch.
"Well," he observed, downing the last of the whiskey and setting the glass on the end table. "I didn't see that coming."
