From Cape Town with Love (47 page)

“Pain in the ass,” Ramirez said.

Cold-steel reality unfolded in my head: I was in an interrogation room in an unknown location. My body felt butchered. I had been promised a long stretch in prison. I had just lost my oldest friend. I had barely survived the night, and a man had died at my hands.

No. I had
killed
a man. For the first time in my life I'd stilled a beating heart. Wasn't I supposed to feel something about that? Anything at all?

He was dead, I was alive.

I wondered how many people R.J., Ramirez, and Reiter had killed among them, or what measures they were willing to take when they wanted information. I didn't get along with most cops already—but they weren't cops, or anything like it.

I wished they were. I understood the rules with cops. There were no rules in this room. There were ends, and means, and God help anyone caught between them.

R.J. folded his arms, sighing for me. We both understood my predicament.

“As for the dead guy, it's your word against a witness,” R.J. said. “Our witness, it turns out, has a lot of surprising things to say.”

“What witness are you talking to? Paki?” I said. No one answered,
but Paki was probably on a crusade to keep himself out of prison. “He sold his daughter out for ransom. He'll say anything to stay out of jail.”

“But what will
you
say to stay out of jail?” R.J. said.

I finally got it.

“This is all about my statement,” I said. “My official story to the FBI.”

Stone silence from the three R's.

“Let me guess . . . ,” I went on. “You don't want me to mention a certain female operative.”

R.J. smiled, approving. “That's a good start. But you're missing the big picture.”

“Bigger than lying to the FBI?” I said.

R.J. leaned closer to me, those wild eyes at the bridge of my nose. “You're not thinking too clearly, are you?” R.J. said.

I didn't blink. “I'm thinking very clearly,” I said.

“I hope so,” R.J. said. “People who don't think weary me.”

I thought about my bed at home. Wondered what Dad and Chela were going through, worried about me. Those were the thoughts R.J., or whatever his name was, wanted me to have.

“The way I see it,” R.J. said, “you have two choices: Sit here and piss on yourself for the next few days, or you can play it smart.”

My heavy bladder pulsed, taut. “I'm listening.”

“Here's what happened,” R.J. said. “You got drunk. You mouthed off at two guys in a bar. Or four. Whatever your ego can handle. They jumped you. You passed out. You lost track of time.”

No one who knew me would believe that story.

“You never met anybody in covert ops,” R.J. went on. “You've never heard of Kingdom of Heaven.”

“You were never in San Diego,” Ramirez said. “Or Paso. Or Happy Cellars.”

Reiter finished: “You haven't seen Nandi since the failed drop.”

They had my story all worked out.

“The FBI found Nandi,” I said, trying the lie out on my tongue.

R.J. smiled. “Damn right.”

“Best agents in the world,” Ramirez said.

“God bless America,” finished Reiter.

We worked out the story a bit longer, and I thought they might be
willing to let me go home soon. When I asked to use the bathroom, they cheerfully agreed.

R.J., Ramirez, and Reiter were gone when I was brought back to the interrogation room, but lunch was waiting for me on the tiny table—a bag from In-N- Out Burger that smelled like Heaven in a wrapper. Inside, the double cheeseburger and fries were still warm.

It was the best damn burger I ever tasted, just like Marsha promised.

Wherever she was. Whoever she was.

We were both invisible that day.

The man who had killed Spider and rescued Nandi was somewhere in the room, somewhere in my body. But he wasn't me.

If he wasn't me, then . . .

A voice from the dead whispered in my ear:
“After we dance, you and I . . . if you survive, you will understand my words.”

Spider's words. He claimed to have found the answer to my life's question.

And now, so had I. I thought he'd seen the fighter in me, because that was what I'd always thought I was seeking. Instead, what I'd found was a killer. He had known it from the beginning.

Cliff had told me I'd make a breakthrough in six months. I had gone to a place beyond my dreams, and it had taken only six minutes.

Of all the teachers I had ever known, how very strange that, in the end, a little South African named Spider had been the best.

Tennyson escapes with Nandi

http://www.simonandschuster.com/multimedia?video=87316084001

I LOST ABOUT
thirty-six hours after the shoot-out in the vineyard. By the time an unsociable FBI team dropped me off at my front door, it was seven o'clock in the morning the day
after
Nandi got home. I didn't know what day of the week it was. My street fascinated me, as if I'd never seen it before, shiny cars and colorful gardens. The gardens reminded me of Paki's house.

There were no paparazzi waiting. I wasn't a part of their story anymore, and that was fine with me. Anonymity has its advantages.

I hopped up my walkway with my crutches. My right leg was wrapped and braced.

“Holy crap!” Chela said when she opened the door. Her face twisted, as if the sight of me hurt her feelings. I hadn't expected the tears in her eyes. “Ten, are you okay? What the—”

“Better than the other guy,” I said, a rote joke that made my stomach drop. “I'm fine.”

“What the hell, Ten?” Chela said. “Nobody knew anything. Your agent called and said Sofia Maitlin was trying to find you. Nandi's back home, but you're gone? No calls, no cell phone? We went to the freaking morgue last night!”

“Shhhhh.
It's okay,” I said, and hugged her. I could have been talking to Nandi.

Dad stood in the doorway with a new wooden cane, eyeing me to see
if he believed me. He watched the unmarked FBI sedan drive off until it turned the corner, out of sight.

“What happened?” Dad said when I didn't offer a story.

“Nothing,” I said. “Bad night. Too much to drink. Couple of guys jumped me.”

The cover story was the plainest way to tell Dad I couldn't talk about it. He'd never known me to be drunk in my life. I trusted Dad with my secrets—but like Marsha said, I didn't know who was listening.

“Next time, pick up a damn phone,” Dad said, and I wondered if he'd believed me until I saw the comprehension in his eyes. We would talk later. Privately.

“Were those cops?” Chela said, and gently led me into the foyer.

“They let me off with a warning,” I said.

Someone stirred on the living-room sofa, and it wasn't Marcela. At first, I didn't recognize the tall young man sitting there, his wiry hair mussed from sleep. He was olive skinned, with a thin, dark mustache. Had an agent been sent to my house?

“Hey, Mr. Hardwick,” said a voice that was deeper than I remembered. “Sorry I crashed out. Chela was going crazy.”

His name came to me.
Bernard Faison.
Chela's boyfriend.

“I said it was all right, Ten,” Dad said. “He slept on the couch.”

As far as you know,
I thought. When I was in high school, I asked Dad if I could spent the night on a girlfriend's sofa—and he looked at me like I was crazy. Chela grabbed my arm, as if to restrain me. I hid my flinch so she wouldn't know she'd hurt me.

“He was helping us check hospitals!” Chela said. “He drove me all over after school yesterday, then he got us Taco Bell. I don't know what we would have done without B., Ten.”

Bernard unfolded, standing at his full height, and he was taller than I remembered, too.

“No big deal, Mr. Hardwick,” Bernard said modestly. “Glad you made it home. Go easy with the . . . you know . . .
drinking.”
He stage-whispered the word with a disapproving look.

Chela held his hand, and for a moment I was forgotten. Bernard filled her eyes.

“Thanks, man,” I told Bernard, “but I wasn't expecting company.” I
didn't want Bernard up in Chela's room with her, and I didn't want anyone except family in my living room.

Bernard's face went flat. “Oh. Right. You're probably . . . tired.”

Chela looked mortified, but my bandages kept her civil. “He needs to sleep it off, baby,” Chela told Bernard as she led him to the door, casting me a look over her shoulder.

Was Chela in love with him? If I didn't hurry and adopt her, she would be grown.

The stairs would be hell on my leg, so I stopped at the sofa for a while, pushing Bernard's blanket aside. Chela stayed outside with Bernard for a long time, an emotional good-bye after their first trial together. Bernard's stature had risen while I was gone.
Glad to help, B.

The news on TV didn't bother me anymore, since the story wasn't about me.

BIRTH FATHER ARRESTED
, the caption on CNN's screen read. Footage taped the previous day showed a proud police procession following Maitlin and her husband as they brought Nandi home. Nandi was all cleaned up, with bows in her combed hair. I hoped Maitlin would never know exactly how her child had looked and smelled in the basement in Paso Robles.

Watching Sophia and Nandi waving and grinning for the cameras in front of Maitlin's house, it looked like mommy-and-daughter day at the park. Their joyous smiles were identical.
Ebony and Ivory,
I thought. Living in perfect harmony on my HD flat screen.

Next came footage of Happy Cellars, where police vehicles still crowded the farmhouse.

“. . . a harrowing scene in tranquil Paso Robles last night, halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, when helicopters descended on the vineyard where Nandi Maitlin was being held . . . one kidnapper is dead, and the FBI made at least a dozen other arrests, including Paki Zangwa, the South African national who is Nandi's birth father . . .”

Paki's mug shot. He took a good photo even when all hell was breaking loose.

For irony's sake, the network showed footage of Maitlin's
The Vintner.
Maitlin, in Victorian dress, was running between rows of ripe grapes toward an impossibly beautiful sunrise.

When Marcela arrived with a small bag of groceries, I had to submit to prodding and wrapping all over again. She grudgingly admitted that the doctors had done a good job with my injuries, but she clucked because I hadn't been admitted to a proper hospital.

“A knife again?” she said, without being told. She could tell by the marks.

“Clumsy me,” I said.

Marcela held both of my hands, trying to get past the crazy. “That knife came only inches from an artery in your leg.
Cinco minutos,
and good-bye. And your face!” She looked mournful, gazing at my slashed cheek, like a ruined Picasso.

“I'll never drink again,” I said. Except maybe the occasional glass of wine. Maybe.

I noticed intricate African designs on Dad's cane. It was the one April had bought in Little Ethiopia, I realized. “April came by?” I said.

“Checked in on you yesterday,” Dad said. “Worried, like the rest of us.”

Like everyone else I knew, I owed April a call. I had given up on getting my phone back. Once I could stand up again, I would need a new cell phone—but I no longer felt incomplete when I was out of touch with April. The people I needed to talk to were already here.

“Where's the vampire lady?” Chela said, returning from her long good-bye. “Was she with you when you got jumped?”

“Nah,” I said. “She's moved on. Rolling stone kinda thing.”

“Good,” Marcela said fiercely. “I didn't like her.”

“Seemed all right to me,” Dad said, and Marcela breezed away with her medical kit.

“Why aren't you getting ready for school?” I asked Chela. “Go on. I'll still be here when you get back.”

Chela sighed, ready to protest. Instead, she wrapped an arm around my neck, careful to steer away from my bandages. “You better be, Dad,” she said.

Dad.

My heart, which had felt dead for days, sparked back to life.

After Chela went upstairs, Dad sat beside me on the sofa, without help except from his cane. His sigh wasn't from exertion; it was a leftover worry set free.

“Sorry, Dad,” I told him. “It was out of my control. I couldn't call.”

Dad patted my knee. “Grateful you're in one piece, more or less. Thank you, Jesus.”

On TV, the newscaster said the FBI would be giving a press conference the next day.

“Feds pulled it off after all . . . ,” Dad said, almost a question.

“Looks that way.”

“Caught a lucky break?”

“Real lucky,” I said.

We left it at that, for the time being. Dad was so proud of me, he couldn't help smiling. He patted my knee again.

The last faces I saw before I dozed off to sleep were Maitlin's. And Nandi's.

Smiling.

I had made it up to my bed by two o'clock, when Len Shemin called. By then, I had slept and not much else all day. Any interruptions felt like dreams; only sleeping felt real. I was sleeping so hard, I didn't have rooms for real dreams.

“Is this your number now?” Len said. “The home number? All this time, I never had it.”

“For a while,” I said.

“Before I forget, Spike wants to know when you can be on the set,” Len said. “They called this morning—so you're still in. Let's both give thanks to the movie gods.”

I tested my body, trying to sit upright. All of me roiled with pain, even in places the knife hadn't touched. I vowed to start painkillers by bedtime.

“I can't do it before next week,” I said.
Or a hell of a lot longer.