Children of Paranoia

  “You’re a fucking mess,” he said to me. It was going to take more than one pit stop to make me presentable again. “We’ve got to get you out of here. You’ll attract attention.” He quickly began to lead me toward the exit. “You seen Michael?” he asked me. So I started to mumble the whole ordeal to Jared. “Short version,” he said to me. So I skipped the story and simply told him that Michael was stuck in the hospital with a knife in his gut and that, if we didn’t get him out of there, he’d be found by both the police and our enemies. “Michael will be fine. I’ll take care of it,” Jared assured me. He placed a hand on my shoulder and pushed me toward the exit.

  “What does that mean? What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to make a couple of phone calls. While you two were out playing cops and robbers, I was working on getting us out of here. Sometimes you have to count on our guys being better than theirs. That’s the benefit to being the good guys. Here you go, Mr. Robertson.” Jared handed me papers from inside his pocket. It was a plane ticket from the Atlantic City Airport to Atlanta. I was traveling as Dennis Robertson. God and Jared only know what had happened to the real Dennis Robertson. “Now lay low until tomorrow. Get to the airport on time. Clean yourself up. I’ll work on getting our friend out of trouble.”

  “He saved my life, Jared.” I looked at Jared, trying to impress upon him how important it was that we help Michael.

  “I know. But whatever you do, don’t go back to that hospital.” He shook his head. “Fucking heroes. You’re going to get us all killed one day. I’ll handle it. Trust me.”

  I was hoping that I’d see Jared or Michael at the airport—that Jared might have arranged for all of us to leave for different places at the same time. Jared was too smart for that. When I boarded the plane to Atlanta, I boarded alone. When I boarded, I still didn’t know what had happened to my friends.

  Six

  After landing in Atlanta, I rented a car, or should I say Dennis Robertson rented a car, and drove west. I drove aimlessly for a few hours before finding a roadside motel where I could lay low and heal up. The desk clerk didn’t even look at me twice when I checked in, despite my bandaged hand and black eye.

  Once in my motel room, I slept for nearly thirty straight hours. When I finally woke up, it was morning, a full day later. It was a crazy feeling knowing that I could just miss a day like that. When I woke up, I could hear the couple in the room next to mine fighting. I needed quiet, so I went out for a run. I had new sneakers and new clothes that I purchased at the airport with Dennis Robertson’s credit card. I ran for nearly an hour and a half before coming back to the motel. When I came back, I showered. I was running out of ways to delay the inevitable. I picked up the phone. I dialed and waited. The phone rang twice. It was answered by a chipper-sounding woman. “Global Innovation Incorporated. How can we help you?”

  “Michael Bullock, please,” I responded.

  “Please hold.”

  I waited a few moments before the phone began to ring again. After two rings it was answered by an equally chipper-sounding woman. “Spartan Consultants, how can we help you?”

  “Dan Donovan, please,” I responded this time.

  “Please hold.”

  Again the waiting. Again the two rings. Again the chipper female receptionist. It wasn’t enough that they had us risking our lives but they had to mimic the worst of corporate culture too. “Allies-on-Call. How can we help you?”

  “I’d like to speak to Pamela O’Donnell.”

  “Please hold.” This wasn’t a prearranged call time. I was pretty sure someone would answer, though. My code would let them know who was calling. My guess was that after the debacle I’d just lived through, they’d be eager to hear from me.

  It was only half a ring this time when someone picked up the phone. “Jesus Christ, Joe, what the hell happened?” It was Matt, my contact.

  “Have you just been sitting by the phone for the last two days waiting for my call?”

  “Basically, yes.”

  “Don’t they let you go home?”

  “Not after the shit you pulled. Not when you were supposed to be in Montreal. What the fuck happened, Joe?”

  “I don’t know. We were ambushed.”

  “Yeah, so was I. By my bosses. You got me in a shit-storm of trouble.”

  “Funny. I thought trouble was standing on a beach with your hands tied behind your back with some psychopath explaining how he is about to butcher you. I was pretty sure that was trouble. I guess I was wrong.” I wasn’t in the mood for any bullshit.

  “I’m sorry, man. I know it was bad for you, but I’m just trying to do my job here. The guys that you three took out were some serious characters. They had at least fifty-four kills among the three of them. It’s the only thing that kept me from getting demoted.” Three of them? They must not have found the cabbie’s body yet. Gone and forgotten, just like that.

  “Listen; do you know what happened to Michael?”

  “No details. They don’t share that sort of thing with us, only with his own contact. All I know is that we got him out.” I let out a breath of air, a breath that had been knotted up in my lungs ever since I’d dropped Michael off at the hospital.

  “So he’s okay?”

  “As far as I can tell.”

  “Okay. I need you to do me a favor.”

  “Listen, Joe, I may be out of favors here.” Matt’s voice sounded nervous. His nervousness was reasonable. My last favor had gotten us into this mess.

  “I need you to get me in contact with him.”

  “With Michael?” There was a pause on the other end of the line. Matt’s voice dropped. “That’s impossible. You guys are radioactive right now. The guys upstairs don’t want you three near each other. They think it’s too dangerous.”

  “Look, I’m not trying to meet up with him. I just want to talk to him,” I argued.

  “There’s no way. I wouldn’t have a clue where to find him and, even if I did, if I passed you that information, I’d have my ass handed to me on a plate.” I wasn’t in the mood for this. I took the phone and slammed it hard on the desk three times. Someone from one of the other motel rooms shouted at me to keep it down.

  “What the fuck is your real name, Matt?” It was breaking protocol to ask. I didn’t care.

  “You know that I can’t tell you that, Joe.” I heard his answer and slammed the phone down on the receiver. I stood up and paced around the room for about five minutes trying to calm down. I called back, using the same three names that I had before. I was breaking more protocol, using the same code twice, but after going through the motions, Matt picked up again.

  “What’s your fucking name?” I demanded.

  “Pedro. Rondell. Jesus. What difference does it make?” the voice on the other end of the line shouted. I slammed the phone down on the receiver again. I waited another five minutes and called for a third time.

  Matt picked up. “You can’t call on that code again. If you do, you won’t get through. Calling with the same code again will send red flags flying all over this place.” I knew it would. They monitored the codes. If a code was used more than once, they checked it in case it was the other side digging for intelligence. Use a code three times, and they assume the worst.

  “Then tell me your name. We’ve been working together for five years. My name is Joseph. My parents’ names are James and Joan. It was a big freaking J thing. My older sister’s name was Jessica. She was killed in front of me when I was fourteen. I grew up in a little town in New Jersey. Just tell me your name.” My voice went from yelling to pleading. I don’t know why it became so important to me.

  “Fine”—the voice on the other end of the phone began to whisper. “It’s Brian. My name is Brian.” He was telling the truth. I don’t know how I knew. I just knew.

  I almost started laughing out loud. “Your name is Brian and they make you use Matt. What the hell’s the difference?”

  “Matt’s a rank, a third-tier In
telligence officer. When I get promoted I’ll move up to Allen.”

  “Listen, Brian.” I used his real name. It felt liberating. “I really need to speak to Michael. He saved my life. If it weren’t for him, I’d be buried in a shallow grave right now having my eyeballs picked out by seagulls. Saving my life got an eight-inch knife punched into his gut. You want to know what I did then? I ran. I left him alone at the hospital and ran. I need to make sure that he’s okay.”

  “Jesus, Joe. I’m sorry, but I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

  “Do you know who his contact is?”

  “Sure.”

  “Start there.”

  There was a heavy sigh on the line. “I’ll see what I can do. Call me again tomorrow. Same time. But don’t expect miracles.”

  “I stopped believing in miracles a long time ago, Brian.”

  “Terry Graham. Annie Campbell. Jack Wilkins.” Brian hung up the phone.

  I woke up early again the next morning. A good night’s sleep had become pretty rare for me over the past two years or so. I usually just chalked it up to anxiety. I had gotten pretty accustomed to it, moving through the day on three or four restless hours of sleep. That morning, I knew that anxiety wasn’t the only culprit keeping me awake. It was anxiety mixed with guilt. I got out of bed and headed out for another run, running hard, trying to burn off the stress. When I got home I still had another twenty minutes before I was due to call Brian. I picked up my calling card and dialed the phone anyway.

  Eventually, a female voice answered. The voice was no less sing-songy than yesterday. “Hello.”

  “Hey, Ma, it’s me,” I responded.

  “Joey! It’s about time you called me. It’s been weeks.” I had a clear picture in my head of my mother scampering around in the tiny kitchen of the house that we moved into after my father died, donning her robe, making coffee. I knew she’d be up. My mother never slept past five.

  “I know, Ma. I’m sorry. But you know that I’m not allowed to call from the safe houses and sometimes it’s just hard to find a secure place to call from.”

  “I know. I know. Now that everybody’s buying cell phones, just a plain old regular phone is so hard to come by.” I was happy to have her make up excuses for me. I never would have thought of that one. It must have come to her after hours of rationalizing why I didn’t call more often. “How are things, Joey?”

  “Things are good, Mom. Same old, same old. How are things with you?”

  “Things are okay. Jeffrey passed away.” Great, more death. Jeffrey was our cat. He had been at least seventeen years old.

  “What happened?” I barely cared. I was just making conversation. After all the death that I’d seen, it was difficult to mourn for a cat, even if it was my own cat. My mom was probably pretty broken up, though. Now the house was completely empty.

  “I don’t really know. He went out one day and came back all beat up. Part of one ear was missing and he had scratches on his nose and blood all over him. You know Jeffrey, always a fighter. Anyway, he came home, and at his age, it was too much for him. He fell asleep in my lap and never woke up.” I could hear her voice beginning to choke up as she spoke.

  “Well, at least he made it home. Knowing Jeffrey, whatever he was fighting didn’t fare so well.”

  “Oh, poor Jeffrey,” she said in a barely audible sigh. Then she paused, switched gears, and asked in a cheerful voice, “So, how’s work?”

  “Work is good,” I lied. “More of the same.” My mother knew what I did for a living, but I never gave her details. It wasn’t that I thought it would be dangerous for her to hear. It’s just didn’t feel right describing to my mother the things that I did.

  “You’re too modest, Joey. ‘More of the same.’ And all the while you’re out there saving the world.”

  “I wouldn’t say that I’m saving the world, Ma.”

  “Well, I would,” my mother said sternly, rebuking me for my modesty. “But I hope you’re finding some time for yourself. I hope you’re not working too hard.”

  “Actually, I just got back from a vacation.”

  “Really? Where’d you go?”

  “I went down to Saint Martin with Jared and Michael,” I replied. It was the safe answer. I wished it had been true.

  “Really? And how are the boys?”

  “They’re good, Ma.” I checked my watch to see how much time I had before I could call Brian to find out if I was lying.

  “That Jared is a fine young man. He’s really going to make something of himself. You stick with him, Joey, and you’ll go places.” My mother loved Jared. She always thought that Michael was a bad influence.

  “Anyway, I’m going to have to go, Ma. I have some things to take care of.”

  “Okay,” she said with another sigh. “I know you’re an important man.”

  “Stop with the guilt, Ma. I really got to go.”

  “I know. I know. But don’t make it so long before you call again.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Promise?”

  “I promise.”

  “Okay. I love you, Joey. And I miss you.”

  “I love you, too, Ma.”

  “Stay safe.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “And never forget how proud I am of you. And your father too. Your father would be so proud.” Now it was my turn to begin tearing up. The reaction surprised me. I went to say something but the words got caught in my throat. All I got out was a small grunt before shutting up again. I took a deep breath and fought off any real tears.

  “You okay, Joey?”

  “Fine, Ma,” I finally got out. “I really got to go. I love you.” Then I hung up and checked my watch. I still had four minutes until I was supposed to make my next call. So for four minutes I just sat there on the edge of the bed, staring down at my empty hands. They were shaking.

  When it was time, I picked up the phone and dialed. Terry Graham. Annie Campbell. Jack Wilkins. I went through the process again, past all of the chipper receptionists and waited for the phone to be answered for the fourth time. It rang; each ring seemed to go on forever. Finally, after the sixth ring, someone answered the phone.

  “You owe me.” It was Brian.

  “I guess that means you found him.”

  “Yeah. But you have to promise me you’ll pay your debts before I let you talk to him.”

  “All right, so what is it that I owe you?”

  “Your next job. It’s the one in Montreal. I need you to lay low for two more weeks. Just stay where you are.”

  “Here?” I asked, looking around my dank motel room.

  Brian ignored my question. “I’ll arrange a flight for you in two weeks. Take the time to get your head on straight. The job in Montreal is an important job. It’s a tricky job. You’ve got to do it right. No mistakes, no drama. You get in, you study the job, you do the job, and you leave.”

  “That’s how I operate.”

  “Yeah. That’s how you used to operate before you attacked a woman in public and left three corpses on a beach.”

  “They found the cabbie?”

  “Yeah, what was left of him. Sharks made off with all the good stuff. Some guy hooked the rest of the body while deep sea fishing yesterday. Betchya that’s not the catch he expected.” There was a chuckle in Brian’s voice. “Anyway, you owe me a clean job. That’s all I ask.”

  “You got it. There’s nothing in the world that I want more than to get things back to normal.” Brian started laughing. “What’s so funny?” I asked.

  “Your normal is pretty fucked up. You know that, right?”

  “The concept’s not lost on me,” I replied. Brian proceeded to give me the details of the Montreal job. It was a tricky hit. The guy was a player. He ran with protection. His house was wired to keep people out, to keep me out. I didn’t ask who he was or what he did. After what had just happened, I didn’t need the motivation. I was to go to Montreal and scout the job for six days. Then I had a couple
of days to pull it off. I wasn’t to call in again for another ten days unless I needed something. “Try not to call me until you’re standing over a body,” Brian said.

  “Okay,” I replied, trying my best to sell the reply. “Now, how do I get in touch with Michael?”

  “Stay on the line. I’ll patch him through.”

  “Thanks, Brian.”

  “Listen, Joe, don’t call me Brian. It’s Matt. It has to be Matt. Victor Erickson. Leonard Jones. Elizabeth Weissman.” There was a click and then dead air on the line. I waited for a few seconds and then there was another click.

  “Hello?” Michael’s voice came through. He sounded confused.

  “Michael? It’s Joseph.”

  “Joe!” Michael sounded genuinely excited. There was no anger or bitterness in his voice. “Look at you, breaking rules. How the hell did you arrange this?”

  “I’ve got friends in high places,” I replied. “They didn’t tell you that I was trying to reach you?”

  “Nope, my connection just told me to stay on the line, so I stayed on the line. How are you? Where are you?”

  “Georgia,” I replied.

  “No shit. Hotlanta. You can have some good times down there.” I wasn’t really in the mood for good times. “What’s up, Joe?” It was like Beach Haven never happened.

  “I just wanted to make sure that you were okay. I felt bad about leaving you like that.”

  “That’s pretty sweet of you. Checking up on me.” I could deal with the ribbing. Michael paused for a second, considering his own wellbeing. “I’m good. There were a few scary moments but they all make for a good story now. Right after they stitched me up, a couple of cops came in, dragged me out of bed, threw me in their cruiser, and told me they were taking me in. Real cops too. Real cop car. It was crazy. It turned out they were on our side. Go figure. Who would have thought that? Real cops? Anyway, they told me that they got a phone call from pretty high up in Intel and were ordered to get me somewhere safe, somewhere where they could finish patching me up. You use the same connections to save me that you used to set up this call?”