Broken Piano for President (42 page)

“I’ll do that,” Henry says. “It still doesn’t explain—”

“Long story short, dick, is I’ll quit when I say. Not them. What’ll that fix?”

“You’re the boss.”

“Got that right.” He’s still waiting for the fist bump. “I needed this bad, Martin. It’s top shelf. Who do you buy from? Can I have his beeper number?”

Martin finally trades knuckle taps and says: “You don’t want to know.”

Henry watches Martin speak—so casual, so laid back. There is tons to learn from his love.

“Yes, I do.”

“You don’t.”

“I do.”

He gives Henry a look. “Bust-A-Gut.”

“What?”

“Our lab made it from Winters hamburgers, actually.”

“Dude, did you poison me?”

“I said you didn’t want to know.”

“Dude.”

“Relax, it’s pure. It’s just from the Flu Burger syrup.”

“Oh, right on, I’ll buy that.” Pandemic’s eyes poke from his face like a couple of fishbowls. They are trapped in Hamler’s apologetic stare. “I forgot, you and I are not talking, dude.”

“Juan, I’m sorry, man. I can explain,” Henry says. He stands, hands shaky. “I didn’t know it was your grandpa.”

Pandemic concentrates on Lothario Speedwagon as a tornado of nerve endings build behind his nose, meth soaking into the gooey tissue near the brain. “I am going to gouge out your eyes. See these fingers? They’re pupil-bound. So, until I blind you, we are not speaking.”

“Dude, Juan, come on. I…” He steps close, but Juan shoves him hard. Henry stumbles back, but Martin steadies him.

There’s a crash outside the bus. The Russians leave Dimitri against the inside of the phone booth. His blanket stains the cracked windows with sticky blood.

(Ask your friend, does he have any handcuff?) Sonja says, shutting the door.

The van rumbles to life with Keith behind the wheel.

“Martin, do you have any handcuffs in your bag, they want to know.”

“I don’t.”

The bus lurches forward and Sonja fumbles with Martin’s wrists and a bungee cord. She yells at the spy.

“Martin, she says to loosen up. Not to struggle or you’ll be killed. Listen to her, please. I need you.”

“Henry, we’re going to be okay.”

“Just, please, for me. For us.”

“These guys don’t speak English, right?”

Henry shakes his head.

“
These
guys aren’t Russian military. They’re too clumsy. They’re too—”

Sonja elbows Martin in the skull. It makes a dull, meaty thump. He leans back on the bench, tongue resting funny.

“Hey!” Henry yells.

In a flash, Martin’s hands are a nest of rubbery bungee cords. He’s led, pings of light bursting in his eyesight, to the bedroom at the rear of the bus.

(What are you doing? He’s not a threat,) Henry yells to the cosmonauts. (He’s
helping
us. You are getting the stupid?)

Sonja’s voice is so heavy, Henry’s skin tingles with a thousand needles: (You are our prisoner, I am thinking you are forgetting. We are needing no help. Your boyfriend has outstayed his welcome. He is fortunate we have not put bullet through his eye.)

(Bullshit, I’m knowing you weren’t even a Russian soldier,) he says. (Or a cosmonaut. You’re too stupid. Too dumb.) Henry stands and says the final two words eye-to-eye with the spacewoman.

Henry Hamler has never been pistol whipped. In all honesty, he’s never really been in a fight. His older sister knocked him around some as a kid, but for the most part his skull has always been blunt-force-free. That is, until the hind end of a cosmonaut terrorist’s 9mm digs into his forehead.

For a moment all he can grasp is that sharp chemical smell in the air.

It takes a few blinks to figure out what just happened. It doesn’t hurt at first: He is fly before swatter. Matador before bull. Baseball before bat. Suddenly, a spotlight burns behind his eyes. His neck snaps back and up. When Hamler’s vision fizzles, root-canal pain pours through his skull.

Henry flops back onto the bench and goes to sleep as a bubble of skin grows around the pistol’s point of impact.

Bright and early, the Public Relations Director for Bust-A-Gut claims this is a once-in-a-lifetime stumble from the competition. The sun is just rising orange through skyscraper windows. “First the cosmonaut
thing
,” she says. “Now this crystal meth fiasco. We look like chocolate bunny rabbits. Let’s get Mister Findlay’s approval ASAP.”

“Gosh,” a woman says. “Where’s the old man been? I haven’t seen him in forever.”

The Marketing Director claims they can position a new ad campaign during prime time as early as next Wednesday. “As long as we get a plan established by the close of business today. It being Friday—expect to work all weekend.”

The team clears out and a few minutes later, Lepsic and Dean sit alone in the boardroom. Every surface shines with freshly waxed wood and morning light. The room is warm and soap-scented.

The veins in the VP’s normally creamy face are a ball of yarn. “Deshler, I’m worried” Lepsic says. His eyes are wet and ready to pop. His unshaven jaw is a bristle broom.

“About what?”

“Ethically, you know. I don’t know what move to make here.”

“Really, worried about ethics? Well, I guess, what does the boss think, Thurman?”

“That’s just it.”

“What’s just it?”

“You may have noticed I’ve been calling all the shots for a few weeks. You have to promise your silence on this one.” Lepsic’s mouth is wrapped tight, clinching his teeth.

Dean’s never seen him so vulnerable, so strung-out. If there was ever a time to hang Thurman from his ankles over the bridge, it’s right now. Dean exercises control, though. “Okay.”

Lepsic pulls apart his tie until it makes a scarf. The skin around his nose and eyes is cracked and peeling. He runs an unsteady hand through once-perfect hair. “He’s…Mister Findlay is in a coma. Doctors don’t think he’ll ever recover. We’ve just been keeping things under wraps. I’ve been, well, I guess
pretending
to be him since then.”

“Thurman, what are you saying, what happened?”

“Don’t know. We just found him lying in the street near the Club a while back. His car was stolen. It’s a miracle the news has been suffocated this well.
Nighbeat
would flip its wig.”

“Whoa.”

Lepsic’s confession reminds Dean of spending the rest of his teenage years pretending Gibby was a parent. It helped while he and his brother cried themselves to sleep, thinking they caused their real father’s breakdown. It didn’t help that Dean’s mother would remind the pair every time she lost patience.

However, around sixteen, Dean learned a valuable lesson:
No matter how screwed up things get, there’s always a logical explanation.
“Truth is,” a relative told him at Christmas that year. “Your dad had mental problems, didn’t you know? Had them since before you were even born. When he’d forget to take his medicine the poor guy always stuffed things into his ears. Started with fingers and pens, then graduated to raisins and your toys, and then…I’m sorry…that chopstick. Said he heard voices chattering, telling knock-knocks, but mostly numbers. Said he heard
endless streams of statistics
. Numbers, numbers, numbers. You boys had nothing to do with it.” By the time Dean learned this tidbit, Mom refused to leave her room and her sons were sent to foster care. Gibby was Dad.

“That’s not the problem, though,” Lepsic continues. “The trouble is I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what Findlay would do. This is a great opportunity, but God, we’ve really been straying from our mission statement lately. This is uncharted water for me. Where does it end? When I stepped in, I was hoping I could clean this company up a little, you know? Make us honest. But, Christ, is that what Findlay would do?”

A fog crowds between Dean’s ears—he’s not shocked, just disappointed he didn’t figure it out sooner. “Wow, Thurman. You’ll make the right choice. I trust you.”

“What would you do?”

Deshler realizes he’s late for a meeting at Winters. Then something cracks open and surges through him like smelling salts. A crunchy clarity, more perfect than last night’s silence. A blood-and-guts kind of thinking. Dean smashes his career to pieces with a gap-toothed grin. “Go for the throat, that’s my advice. Destroy them—put your boot between their teeth. Which reminds me, I’ve got a dentist appointment. I’ll be back later. We’ll solve this, okay?”

Hamler’s fingers are balled up cold and tight when his eyes open again. He has no idea what time it is, but the sun is up. His shoulders shake with shivers. The cosmonauts stand on Pandemic’s porch as the home’s owner jabs at the lock with unsteady fingers. Keith props Henry up, leaning him against the house numbers.

Sonja lugs the duffel bag over one shoulder. She scans down the street for cars. The rising sun snuggles neighborhood rooftops.

The key clicks, the door opens. Inside, the cosmonauts moan and breathe heavy through their mouths. The stale urine belch of meth cookery hangs in a thick, permanent cloud.

(Put ice on your head and go to sleep, Little Henry. We are nearly complete with the mission objectives,) says Sonja, holding an elbow over her nose.

(What are you talking about?
What
is this mission? You haven’t told us,) Henry says, regaining some vision through his foggy mind.

The two Russians plug their eyes together across the room. Keith takes quick breaths through his mouth, careful not to use his nasal passage. (Your friend knows, he is helping soon. You have no worries. Just translate.)

(Pandemic?) Suddenly, his mind is clear and his heart asks its first question. (Wait, what did you do with Martin?)

(He is no longer part of the mission,) Keith says. (We have parted ways.)

Entering from the kitchen, Pandemic brings a glass of water for both cosmonauts. “Don’t murder anyone before you go to bed, dick.”

(Go to sleep, Little Henry. We have very few hours until Mission is complete. You must rest. We will rest also.)

Recalls, refunds and rehab are the orders of the day. Olde-Tyme PR says: claim ignorance, offer sympathy and, for God’s sake, stop serving the Flu Burger! Call the FDA and help with their investigation. “We are
not,”
they emphasize during a meeting Dean is thirty minutes late for. “Going to look good no matter what happens.”