Taken (9 page)

“That’s exactly right.”

“I heard that King Edward was a fat pig.
Un puerco gordo.
”

Victoria sputtered a laugh and said, “Good Spanish.”

“I’m serious. He was a county-fair prize hog, like a hundred and fifty kilograms.”

“Well, we’re cooking healthy versions of the foods tonight. I hope you will enjoy them. And the games.”

“Oh no! Not games!”

“Oh yes.”

I trudged toward the door in despair. “Edwardian-era decorations, foods, and games. This dinner is a Mickie Meyers vidspecial, isn’t it?”

Victoria shrugged politely.

I left the kitchen, muttering to myself, “Of course it is. What isn’t?”

I must have nodded off on my stretcher because, incredibly, I looked at the vidscreen clock and it was 16:20. I was shocked! I never fall asleep without really trying to. Never. Sleeping has always been difficult for me. Was it something in the Smart Water? Or was I just exhausted?

I had a few seconds of peace before the awful memory of Albert’s death returned. My eyes welled up with tears, and I cried silently for a long minute. Then, all on its own, the voice of my Highlands training returned. It whispered inside my head, telling me what I had to do: I had to accept the unacceptable, Albert’s murder. I had to accept it temporarily anyway, in order to survive. Afterward, once I got back home, I would avenge him. I swore I would. If the police wouldn’t do it, then Patience and I would do it ourselves. We would hunt Dr. Reyes down with a Glock and fill him full of bullets. We would. Albert would be avenged.

For the time being, though, I had to control myself. I had to cooperate with my part in the plan. I sat up and looked at Dessi. He wasn’t staring at the two-way anymore; he was reading a book. A glance at the cover told me what it was. Before I’d left for “the hospital,” Victoria told Albert to put a book in my backpack. I hadn’t thought about it again until that moment.

I was upset that Dessi had gone through my stuff, but not surprised. I’m sure the kidnappers had gone through all of my belongings, looking for anything dangerous to their plan, anything that might lead to them getting caught.

When he saw me looking at him, Dessi just held the book up distastefully, like it was a smelly sock. He asked, “What is this?”

“What? You don’t know the Ramiro Fortunato books?”

“No. Do you read these?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Why? They look like they’re for first graders.”

“No, they don’t. They’re bilingual books. People read them to learn Spanish. Or English.”

“Then they don’t work very well.”

“What do you mean?”

He sneered. “Do you speak Spanish?”

“Yes. I know quite a bit.”

“Like what?”

“Like I can speak it when I want to.”

“Say something for me. Say one word.”

“Okay.
Mierda.
”

Dessi smiled. “Yeah. I know that one. Kids always learn the dirty words first. In French, it’s
merde.
”

Dessi turned toward me and read from the back cover of the book, his lip curling higher and higher: “Ramiro Fortunato won the school spelling bee. He led his soccer team to the state championship. Ramiro Fortunato only got into one fight—with a drug dealer—and he drove him away from the school. He started his own lawn business. Once he saw a lawn guy across the street steal from a garage.” He looked up at me. “I bet it was a black guy.”

“No. I remember that book, and it wasn’t.”

“Really? I’ll have to take your word for that.”

“It wouldn’t hurt you to read one.”

“I think it might.”

“Reading’s good for you.”

“Hey. I read. I read real books. These do not qualify as real books.”

“Oh? Then what are they?”

He shook the book at me. “They are social engineering. They are telling someone like me how to behave, how to be a good boy. And they double nicely as military recruiting. This fine young man joined the marines, right?”

“I believe he did. What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing. I’m glad he did. Now maybe they’ll leave me alone.”

“You could do worse than be like Ramiro Fortunato. He’s a hero.”

“He’s not a hero! He’s not anything. He doesn’t even exist. He is a fictional character invented by the masters to keep the slaves in their place.”

“I see. So who’s your hero? That Dessalines?”

“
Oui.
Dessalines was born a slave, but he did not die one. He died an emperor.”

“So is that what you want to be, too?”

“An emperor? No.”

“What, then?”

“A doctor.”

I could tell that he was serious now, so I tried to keep him talking. “Why?”

“Why?” He stared right into my eyes. “Because my mother needed a doctor once, but she couldn’t get one.”

“Why was that?”

“Because she didn’t have a health-care plan. And she didn’t have currency.”

“Well, couldn’t you have taken her to—”

He cut me off roughly. “No! You don’t know anything about her!” He stood up, suddenly agitated. “I will be back in five minutes. You stay where you are. Others are watching the ambulance. Several others. You are not to get off that stretcher for any reason.”

He threw the door open, jumped down, and slammed it shut.

I looked at the vidscreen. Not surprisingly, the red light was on. The time was now 16:31. A little over seven hours to go. Why weren’t we moving on to the next step in the plan? Why hadn’t I heard anything about the ransom drop or about the plan to release me? Was there a problem?

Of course there was a problem! I knew what it was, and I knew who it was. My father. He was the problem. Maybe they couldn’t reach him. Maybe he had disappeared with one of his football buddies and he wasn’t answering his phone. Or worse, maybe they
had
reached him but he was stalling, or negotiating, or making some other stupid mistake that you are never, ever supposed to do with kidnappers. They wouldn’t tolerate that. They would move right to the next step, the step where they cut off a part of my body looking for the GTD and send it to him to get him to shut his stupid mouth and bring the currency. That stupid man! Playing with his stupid toys! Living it up, enjoying his selfish, thoughtless, stupid life!

Somebody had to wake him up.

Well, I hadn’t lived with Mickie Meyers for three years for nothing. I leaned forward and stared into the red light. I delivered a powerful video performance, a performance worth broadcasting to my father. Through dry lips, with a cracking voice, I whispered, “Please. Help me. Do whatever it takes, Daddy. Do whatever they say to do. Help me.”

I tried to squeeze out a tear, but I was too dehydrated. The speech would have to do. My fate was in my father’s hands. He had better have been listening. He had better cooperate.

For my part, all I could do was continue to be someplace else in my mind.

Foods, Drinks, and Games

A
s always, Victoria and Albert had decorated the house beautifully for the holidays. Albert had volunteered to help redecorate the Square, too. Perhaps he felt partially responsible for the mess. That would have been just like him.

Anyway, the damage from my father’s helicopter assault had all been undone. The circle of trees, one for each of the Twelve Days of Christmas, had been restored. Santa and his reindeer had been raised from the dead. All was in order.

The “celebration” began when our group—my father, Mickie, Lena, Kurt, and I—met up with Mr. and Mrs. Patterson, Patience, and Hopewell in front of the Eight-Maids-a-Milking tree. We stood in the Square with about one hundred other Highlands residents to experience Christmas songs by the Dickens Carolers and another shower of fake snow, this time courtesy of the Martin County Fire Department.

This fake snow was actually freezing slush, expelled from fire hoses atop a hook and ladder truck. The firefighters then proceeded to spread a thin layer of slippery wetness over the streets of The Highlands. As part of the celebration, several families had modified their golf carts into sleighs in order to enjoy a “jingling sleigh ride” home.

While the rest of us were climbing into the Pattersons’ sleigh, Mr. Patterson pulled my father aside and made another offer for our house. Right then and there. “I’ll give you hard currency,” he told him. “You can have it all in yuan if you like. I’ve got it right in the vault.”

My father just smiled. Mickie, however, looked interested.

Patience and I climbed into the back of the sleigh last, and then it took off. The Pattersons’ RDS servants, Daphne and Herbert, were left to walk behind us, traversing the slushy streets as best they could. As soon as we picked up speed, Patience whispered something very disturbing to me: “Listen to this—Daphne told Herbert that Victoria’s little break in November was an emergency trip to bury her father down in Mexico City.”

My eyes started to tear up immediately. I whispered, “Oh my God. No.” I thought back to earlier in the day. I told her, “Albert was trying to talk to Victoria about something, but she wouldn’t answer him. That must have been it.” I shook my head slowly. “Why wouldn’t she tell me?”

“She’s not allowed. She can’t tell you anything personal.”

“But this is different.”

Patience just shrugged. “Not really.”

That made me angry. “Yes, really!”

Patience pointed to her servants. “Be careful. They’re getting too close. They’ll hear us.” She raised her voice and changed the subject. “So, what’s the theme of the show tonight?”

I was still angry, and hurt, and upset, but I managed to suppress it all. I answered, “We have two themes tonight. The dinner theme is ‘An Edwardian Christmas.’”

Patience deadpanned, “There’s a surprise.”

“And the overall theme is ‘Living with Divorce.’ Mickie is doing a series on how a divorced couple can still have a good time with their kids over the holidays by agreeing not to bring up marital issues.”

“That should be nice and tense.”

“Do you think?”

The sleigh skidded to a halt at the front gate and we all climbed out. Mickie led everyone into the house, past the glittering white lights framing our doorway and into the sumptuously decorated foyer.

Kurt hefted a camera onto his shoulder and spun in slow circles, shooting as Mickie pointed out the different features—the nut garland, the cards on ribbons, the candles, the boughs and wreaths. After she recorded a voice-over, we all entered the dining room and found our hand-calligraphed name cards.

My father walked up to Mickie and said, “This is taking ‘relentless’ to a new level, isn’t it?”

Mickie acted like she wasn’t really listening. “What’s that?”

“You’re shooting our Christmas dinner now? Is nothing off-limits to you?”

Mickie settled into her seat at the head of the table. She answered coolly, “Kurt is going to shoot some footage, but I don’t know how we’ll use it. We’ll have to see how it all goes—the foods, the drinks, the games, the readings. Maybe we’ll use it next year as a Christmas special. Why? Do you object to the crew being here?”

Kurt set up a tripod across from Mickie and started vidding.

My father ignored the red light. “No. I’m glad you’re making your own money.”

Mickie smiled tightly. “I’ve always made my own money.”

“But you don’t always spend your own money, do you?”

Mickie, to my amazement, worked this into the show: “It is neither the time nor the place for this discussion.” She looked at the camera. “Not if you’re Living with Divorce for the holidays. Hello, everyone. Tonight we have friends over, including Charity’s friends Patience and Hopewell. It’s important to include the children’s friends so that they can have their own fun.

“We will all be enjoying a traditional Edwardian Christmas celebration tonight. The menu items, all delicious, come from authentic nineteenth-century recipes. Those will be followed by some hilarious parlor games favored by King Edward, who was Queen Victoria’s son.

“Then we will gather in front of the fireplace for some Christmas readings by some of the greatest nineteenth-century writers, including Robert Louis Stevenson, Leo Tolstoy, and of course Charles Dickens.”

Mr. and Mrs. Patterson were already exchanging glances, perhaps wondering what they had gotten themselves into.

Mickie’s voice turned solemn. “But before we eat, I’d like to begin with Jesus’ words, words we shared with the people of Mangrove last week.” She raised her glass. “There but for the grace of God go I.”

Mickie was certainly fond of that expression. She had used it during the Thanksgiving show, too. I think it had secretly rankled Mrs. Veck, because Mrs. Veck had given me an extra-credit assignment to look it up. I decided to share the results of that assignment with Mickie and the group. “Excuse me. Actually, that wasn’t Jesus.”

Mickie stared at me blankly. She finally said, “No? Are you sure?”

Patience started giggling.

I replied, “I am totally, A-plus sure.”

“Who was it, then, honey?”

“It was an English preacher named John Bradford.”

Mickie replied like he was some third-rate local vidshow host: “Never heard of him.”

“He got burned at the stake by Bloody Mary.”

My father sat up, his eyes darting between Mickie and me. He joined in on the teachable moment. “I’ve heard of her. Now, which queen was she? Is she related to William?”

“No. She was a Tudor. Mary Tudor. She was the daughter of Henry the Eighth.”

He laughed. “Like father, like daughter!”

I had to set him straight, too (courtesy of Mrs. Veck). “No, actually, she was nothing like him. She hated her father and his Protestant church. She restored the Catholic church to power in a very bloody way.”

My father nodded respectfully. “I see. Hence the name.”

Mickie concluded, “Well, that’s all very interesting. But the quote is certainly appropriate for Christmas, a time when we think of the less fortunate. So I say again: ‘There but for the grace of God go I.’” She raised her wineglass and held it up until the other adults did, too. Then they all drank.

Patience muttered, “In Mangrove, they probably say that about us.”

Albert served another round of wine to the adults. My father chugged his in one gulp and protested playfully, “Hey! You skipped me!” Albert smiled and refilled his glass.

Mickie commented, “Yes, and it wouldn’t be an Edwardian Christmas without a drunken king, would it?”

Soon Albert, with Herbert’s help, started to serve the ten courses that Victoria had prepared. Mickie said to Patience and me, “Please rate the different foods for me, girls. You, too, Hopewell. I want to have the young persons’ opinion.”

She may have regretted that request.

Victoria was a wonderful cook, but we had no use at all for the foods from the Edwardian era, and we said so as descriptively as we could.

The mince pies were “slimy-gross.”

The vegetable parcels were “vomit-inducing gross.”

The “Stilton rarebit” was “throw-up-on-toast gross.”

My father, at least, found our opinions amusing. He laughed at every one. And drank more wine. After the black bun, some sort of fruitcake that we agreed was “we-wouldn’t-put-that-in-our-mouths gross,” he announced to the group, “Charity never cared much for food.” He turned to me. “Remember when I was making ElectroPlus?”

I did, but just barely. I nodded.

Mr. Patterson asked, “What’s that?”

“It’s an energy drink that I invented, back when I was an inventor. It was like Smart Water, but without the caffeine. It could have gone global, too. But the University of Florida threatened to sue me over the patent, so I had to give it up.”

“Why? It was too much like their Gator drinks?”

“Exactly. Or so they claimed. So Charity was my first and only customer.”

I remembered more. I said, “There were different colors and flavors, right?”

He laughed delightedly. “Right. Six of them. For total daily nutrition. You were supposed to drink the six flavors, one at a time, at two-hour intervals. And it worked! You drank them and you remained very healthy. But then your mother got upset. She made you go back to solid foods.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I remember.”

My father extended his hands to include the Pattersons. “Forgive me for saying this in the middle of dinner, or at whatever stage we are in this monumental meal, but ElectroPlus also eliminated all solid wastes from daily life. Think of that. A feces-free existence!”

Patience burst out laughing; I think Hopewell smiled a little, too. But Mr. and Mrs. Patterson shifted uncomfortably and looked at their laps. Mickie did not react at all. I’m sure she considered the entire exchange to be dead airtime, but she let Kurt keep shooting and the meal went on.

After the final course, a deadly concoction called “gilded Christmas pudding,” which Patience pronounced “fresh-from-a-landfill gross,” my father proposed a toast of his own. He raised his glass, waited for everyone’s attention, and then announced,
“Feliz Navidad.”

Mr. Patterson asked, “Do you speak Spanish, Hank?”

“Sure. A little. I grew up in Miami.”

Mrs. Patterson looked amazed. “I grew up there, too. What part?”

“Kendall.”

“We were in Miami Shores.”

“Miami Shores isn’t as bad as Kendall, but it’s still pretty bad. Have you been back there lately?”

Mrs. Patterson looked at her husband. She answered emphatically, “Oh no. Roy drove us down there about ten years ago. I wanted to show the children the house I grew up in. I couldn’t believe it. The street looked like something you’d see in a war movie. We never even stopped the car.”

My dad pointed to Albert and Herbert. “I wouldn’t go back to my street today without these guys and an armored van. But still, in the spirit of the holiday,
La Natividad,
let’s all raise up our glasses.”

Everyone around the table raised a glass—some up high, like Patience and me; some barely off the table, like Mickie. My father repeated
“Feliz Navidad,”
and we all drank. Albert stepped forward to fill Dad’s glass. Then Dad continued, “Okay. Now we need a new toast.” He turned to Mickie. “See if you can guess who said this: ‘The rendering of useful service is the common duty of mankind.’”

Mickie shrugged. “Abraham Lincoln?”

“No. Here’s the next part of it: ‘And only in the purifying fire of sacrifice is the dross of selfishness consumed’”—he shot a glance at me—“‘and the greatness of the human soul set free.’”

Mickie stared at him impassively. She wasn’t about to try another guess.

He smiled at her. “Let me give you a hint: You were in New York, vidding the lighting of a big Christmas tree. I was just standing there, reading this quote off a wall.”

Mickie’s eyes widened behind her red frames. She answered, “Rockefeller Center!”

“Right you are. And the words are from…?”

Mickie shook her head in quick little motions, like a metronome. “I have no idea.”

“Well, the words are from John D. Rockefeller, Junior.”

Nobody said anything for a moment. Mr. Patterson broke the silence by asking, “Where did his money come from, Hank? New York real estate?”

“No. Oil. Standard Oil. Which you and I still consume robustly in our big diesel cars.”

Herbert entered, carrying a tray of coffee cups. He was followed immediately by Albert, carrying a pair of porcelain pitchers. They served coffee to the adults (except for my father, who waved his away) and hot chocolate to the kids.

Mrs. Patterson turned to Mickie and changed the subject. “What are you up to for the holidays, Mickie? Are you doing any shows?”

Mickie gestured toward Lena and Kurt. “We’re doing two shows over the holidays, a week apart. We’ll be at Disney World tomorrow for the Christmas parade.”

“That’s a great parade.”

“We’re flying to Orlando for that. Then we’re flying to New York to do the New Year’s Eve show in Times Square.”

“Oh, I love that show.”

“It’ll be great this year. Lots of exciting guests.”

Mrs. Patterson then turned to my father. “And how about you, Hank?”

“Ah well, it’s the college football bowl season. The biggest week of the year. I’m flying to the SatPub Bowl tomorrow—Florida versus Texas.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Oh yes.”

“And what about for New Year’s?”

“For New Year’s Eve, I have the Orange Bowl Fest down in Miami. That’s a great party. Then, on January first, it’s football all day: the Cotton Bowl at eleven hundred hours, the Fiesta Bowl at sixteen hundred, and the Orange Bowl at twenty hundred. By twenty-three hundred hours, the Hurricanes will have been crowned the national champions.”

Mrs. Patterson wagged her finger at him like he was being naughty. “Hank, what on earth do you do when there’s no football?”

He held up a finger of his own. “Ah! That’s easy. Golf! There’s always golf.”

Mr. Patterson confirmed this: “That’s true. I play golf with clients all year round. Say, Hank, who’s that new guy who’s tearing up the junior tour?”