“Can I help you with something?” I want him to leave. I wonder briefly if my thread is showing, if Cal is racing toward the store. I hope not. The moments when threads show during the day, I’ve had to calm him so his wings aren’t visible. I don’t know what would happen if they exploded out of him in the middle of Rosie’s Diner. Probably not the best thing to happen. I will myself to calm.
“I’m sure you probably could,” Fish Eyes says. “Tell me, Benji. What does a guy your age get up to in a small town like this?”
“Mostly work,” I say with a false smile. I can almost place his voice, but the answer dances away. “I own the store, so I don’t have time for much else.”
“Well, as long as you’re staying out of trouble, then you should be okay,” Fish Eyes says. “Would hate to think anything would happen to you. Or Cal. Good old Cal Blue, right? That his name?”
“You ask a lot of questions, mister.”
He laughs like that’s the funniest thing he’s heard. “I am a curious man,” he agrees, wiping his eyes. “I like to know everything I can, if you catch my drift.”
“Can’t say that I do,” I say, trying to sound bored. Stay away, Cal. Stay away.
He looks behind me. “Why don’t you give me a pack of them Marlboro 100s and we can call ourselves square.”
I turn, an idea forming in my head. I reach up and grab the smokes. “Got your ID on you?”
He looks taken aback. “I’m flattered, Benji, but I think I’m a bit above eighteen.”
“Federal law requires me to swipe a driver’s license through the reader every time I sell cigarettes. Don’t want to get dinged by the state. They do random tests.” I shrug like it is out of my hands. “For all I know, you could be an agent doing an inspection. Haven’t had one in a while.”
“Do I look like a government agent to you?”
“You look like a lot of things to me. Got that ID so I can ring you up?”
He narrows his eyes as he reaches into his back pocket for his wallet. He opens it and slides an Oregon driver’s license across the counter. I snap it up, trying to look at ease. I turn to the ID reader behind me and slide it through. I glance down at the screen on the reader. VERIFIED, it says. JACK TRAYNOR DOB 11/14/1959.
Traynor.
Where have I heard—
No. Oh fuck.
The gunman: All I wanted was a fucking hit, man! Traynor told me I could get it, that fucking bastard!
Then—
Mayor Walken: You seem to forget, Traynor, that you are operating in my town, with my permission, which makes me your boss.
Then—
The smoker: I say we just take them out now. Kill the fucking faggot before he goes any further with this.
He’s here, I think. He’s here and he knows I was there that night. He knows I was listening.
For each thought I have, each voice that goes through my head, another second ticks by. I can hear them counting off in my head and it’s one and it’s two and it’s three… until I realize that I’m still staring at the reader which is shouting: TRAYNOR TRAYNOR TRAYNOR.
“There a problem?” I hear him ask, an edge to his words.
“No,” I say, sounding remarkably calm. “No problem. It just didn’t read it. Shouldn’t be but another moment.” I swipe it again. The screen lights up brighter than it ever has before, saying TRAYNOR, shrieking TRAYNOR. It’s trying to tell me what I already know. Get it together, Benji, I tell myself. Focus. Get it together and fucking do your job. He’s waiting for you to fuck up. He’s waiting for the look on your face. Do your fucking job.
I plaster a smile on my face, the skin feeling tight. I turn back to Traynor, who is watching me with a scowl. I hand him back his ID, which he snatches out of my hand. I ring up the smokes. “That’ll be $7.86,” I tell him evenly.
He hands me a ten. “You know, you look a little nervous.”
Fuck. Calm. Calm. No threads. Cal, stay away. “Just tired,” I assure him as I make his change. “Been a rough couple of weeks.”
“Is that right?” he says, holding out his hand for the change, hooking his fingers up. I can’t help but think how much like a bear trap it looks.
I nod and drop the dollars and coins into his hand. And just like that, the trap closes, his fingers encircling my wrist, vise tight. I know he can feel my pulse, the blood rushing in erratic beats of my heart. My hand is clammy and my breath lodges in my throat. It’s like the world has gone silent around us, as if we’re stuck in a vacuum. I don’t know if I could call out even if I tried. No, Cal. Stay away. Stay away.
Traynor has a shrewd look on his face, as if he can see inside my head and knows every single damn thing I’m thinking. There’s so many weird things going on in this town that I banish Cal from my thoughts just in case Traynor can see inside. These are some strange days, I think frantically. I’m expecting his eyes to start twitching back and forth and his head to cock to the side, like he’s a bird stalking its prey.
“You okay, there, Benji?” he asks, deceptively soft. “You getting sick?”
“Might be the flu,” I say weakly, the first thought in my head. “Been going around town. May head on home when the shift change gets here in a few minutes.” There’s no one coming in, but he doesn’t know that. At least I don’t think he does.
If he’s worried about my words, he doesn’t give a reaction. He grinds his fingers into my wrist and I bite back the whimper that threatens to rise. “You know,” he says, “faggots can find themselves in a world of hurt if they don’t mind their own business.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Sure you don’t,” he says, squeezing my wrist again. “But you look like you need a reminder, just in case.”
Anger is rising and I do nothing to stop it. I try to jerk my hand away, but he outweighs me by a good seventy pounds, and his hand is a steel trap. “Get the fuck out of my store before I call the cops,” I growl at him.
He laughs. “The cops? You want to get the sheriff in here, boy? Well, that might be the best idea you’ve had in your short, short life.”
The bell rings overhead as the front door opens. Traynor stiffens and immediately drops my wrist, leaning back on his heels. He doesn’t turn away from me.
“Everything okay in here, Benji?” Fuck.
“Everything’s fine, Abe. Just selling this gentleman his smokes. He was just on his way out.”
Traynor sneers at me. “That’s right. Just got my smokes. Hey, Benji?”
I say nothing, pulling my hands into fists at my sides.
“Remember what we talked about, okay? I would hate to see something happen to someone so young. Seems to me there’s been enough death in this place.” He smiles as he says this last, and it’s all I can do to keep from launching myself over the counter and ripping his fucking face off with my bare hands. I want to cause him pain. I want him to hurt.
He snorts and brushes past Abe none too gently and walks out the door, the bell ringing overhead. He gets into an old Mazda and waves at me as he backs out onto Poplar and drives away.
“What in the hell was that about?” Abe asks, rushing over to me. “You okay, boy?”
“I’m fine,” I mutter. I try to hide my wrist, but it’s too late. He grabs it and pulls it up to his face. The ache is deeper than the red marks, easily seen as fingerprints. It’ll bruise later, mottling my skin into deep blues and greens.
“You’re not fine,” he snaps at me. “Who was that man?”
“Just some guy,” I sigh. “Friends with the sheriff.”
Abe’s jaw drops. “Benji, you’ve stepped into some shit here. You’ve got to watch yourself before something happens.”
“I know,” I say, withdrawing my hand. “I may need to call that—”
The bell rings again. “Abe!” Cal crows.
“Shit,” I mumble, trying to catch Abe’s eyes, to tell him to keep his fool mouth shut. He either doesn’t see or he ignores me.
&nb
sp; “Cal,” he says tightly. “It’s good to have you back, but you seem to be doing a piss-poor job at this whole guardian-angel thing.”
“I can handle myself,” I snap at Abe. “I’ve been doing just fine for years without him here.”
“Fine?” Abe says, arching an eyebrow at me. “That’s what you call it? Fine?”
“What’s going on?” Cal asks, his voice low and dangerous.
“Some guy was just in here and he attacked Benji!”
“Abe,” I groan. “He didn’t attack—”
Cal’s in front of me even before I can finish my sentence. He towers over me, irritation flashing in his dark eyes, his upper lip twitching. “Show me,” he says.
Try as I might, I can’t refuse him. I hold out my wrist again, and his touch is gentle as he rubs his fingers on the darkening skin. I try rolling my wrist in his hands, and while it hurts, it doesn’t seem like anything is sprained.
“Who did this to you?” he says, his voice vibrating with fury.
“It doesn’t—”
“No games!” he barks. “Tell me.”
“Traynor,” I say, looking away.
“Traynor?” Abe says, sounding surprised. “Wasn’t that… Arthur Davis said that name. That was him?”
“Who is Arthur Davis?” Cal says with a scowl. “He is not one of mine. He is hidden from me. Traynor is too. You asked me about him once.”
“Shit,” I mutter again.
“Arthur Davis was the guy with the gun that you scared to kingdom come,” Abe says.
“I will find him,” Cal promises. “I will find this Traynor. He will not bother you again.”
“No,” I say sharply, and he flinches. “You are not to do anything like that again. You promised me.”
“He hurt you.” Now it looks like his anger is directed at me. “Why didn’t I see your thread if you were being hurt?”
That’s a question I can’t answer, though part of me wonders if I kept it from him by merely wishing it so. This isn’t information I think needs to be shared, if true. That would mean that God… crap, I can’t even begin to think of it. “I’m fine now,” I reassure him. “Abe came in and rescued me.” This is supposed to be a joke, but it comes out flat.
But to Cal, it’s serious. He turns to my old friend. “Thank you,” he says somberly. “Thank you for doing what I could not.”
Abe shrugs. “Don’t need to worry about that. I saw you up with those people at Rosie’s and figured Benji could use some company.” He raises his hand to cut Cal off as he tries to interrupt, guilt pouring off him. “Didn’t mean a thing by that. You might have been watching Benji for a long time, but you aren’t the only one who cares what happens to him. People are just a mite glad you are back, and I’m one of them. I don’t expect you to leave again anytime soon, we clear?”
Cal nods, bowing his head. He entwines his fingers into mine and grips me tightly. I squeeze back to let him know that everything is okay, even though it’s so far from okay it’s mind-boggling.
“What are you going to do about this, Benji?” Abe asks. “This is getting to be bigger than all of us.”
“I may need to make a call,” I admit.
“To who?”
I avert my eyes. “That FBI agent. Corwin. This might be the wildfire he was talking about.”
“Government men,” Abe mutters. “We’ll see what he’s capable of, I guess.”
“I don’t know why you just don’t let me handle this,” Cal mutters. He keeps his hand in mine, tightening his grip. He looks worried and guilty.
“Hey,” I chide softly. “None of that. I know what you’re capable of, but Abe’s right. This might be getting bigger than we are. You’ve still got my back, right?”
He looks at me incredulously. “You’re not leaving my side again.”
I roll my eyes. “You’ve got a job to do, Cal. And so do I. But we’ll figure something out, okay?”
“Government men,” he grumbles. I don’t even think he knows what that means. Abe starts to chuckle and I follow suit. Somehow it’s not as hard to laugh as I thought it would be.
the life and death of joshua corwin
I would learn later that Agent Joshua Corwin was a family man, much to my
surprise. He had a wife and three adorable girls, nine, and thirteen, and fifteen years old. He and his wife Rebecca had been married for twenty years. They’d been high school sweethearts who married upon graduation. They’d gone to college together at the University of Oregon, Rebecca electing to pursue a degree in journalism, Corwin going into criminal justice.
Shortly before graduating college, Corwin was recruited into the FBI. His plan had been to become a police officer for a few years before applying to the academy, but they came knocking years early with an offer he could not turn down. After training at Quantico and passing with flying colors, he was assigned to the field office in El Paso, focusing on narcotics coming across the border from Mexico. Rebecca worked as an on-air reporter for the local ABC affiliate.
He and his wife were twenty-three when their first daughter, Alex, was born. They were twenty-five when their second daughter, Jennifer, was born. They were twenty-seven when the world went insane on September 11. All other
assignments were put on hold as tons of steel fell in a cloud of dust so thick it looked like the deepest fog. By then, Rebecca had worked her way up to a weekend anchor desk with hopes of going to weeknight anchor as soon as that old fossil Bill Macklin decided to retire. But 9/11 gave them different priorities, much like it did the rest of the world. They made the decision that Rebecca would stay home with the girls, while Corwin, like so many others, was reassigned to work on a terrorism task force. It was a completely different animal than he was used to, but like the rest of the country, he felt an absurdly ridiculous charge of patriotism in the years that followed.
Eventually, missing the work he used to do, he put in a request to go back onto a drug task force, and when a spot opened up back in their home state of Oregon, he jumped at the chance and dragged his family back to the Northwest, including their new addition, their youngest daughter Lily.
I would learn later that Corwin was a big softie when it came to his daughters, his little girls. He doted on them, giving them whatever they wanted. They were all daddy’s girls, through and through. He was never harsh, never cross. He could be stern, but only when they were in the wrong. They loved him; they thought him the greatest man who ever lived. And for all they knew, maybe he was.
His marriage was strong and deep. Friends would say they’d never seen a couple so devoted to each other as Joshua and Rebecca. They acted like they were still eighteen, so young, so in love. They were strong together, playing off each other’s strengths until they had created a formidable team. He worshipped the ground his wife walked on.
Life was good for Agent Joshua Corwin and his family. He had a good job. He had a great family. He had the life he’d always wanted to have. It was wonderful. Everything was just wonderful.
He couldn’t possibly ask for anything more.
Those are the things I learned about him after I killed him.
Of course, I knew nothing of Corwin’s life when I first called him, the day
after Traynor visited the store. I was solely focused on not sounding like a complete idiot when I called him, especially when I realized just how thin my story sounded. It didn’t help that Cal paced in front of me, scowling, muttering to himself that he just couldn’t believe I thought he couldn’t protect me. Didn’t I know he was an angel? I reassured him that I knew that and more, pressing a kiss against his lips which he returned with a desperate edge. It bothered him immensely that Traynor had gotten in and out without him knowing. It bothered him that he did not know who Traynor was. It bothered him that he was still cut off from his memories.
But I think what bothered him the most was the fact that he had been surrounded by adoring people while I was getting harassed. I never said anything to him about this,
and while he didn’t articulate it in so many words, I could see any anger he directed at himself. People came into the store the next day to see him again, but he was less forthcoming than he’d been the day before. He flat-out refused to leave with any of them. A thread arose at some point that morning, and I could see the conflicted look in his eyes as he glanced between me and the door. Rosie had walked in at that moment, much to his relief. He must have thought she carried her shotgun everywhere, because he felt at least a slight comfort leaving her there with me, even though she didn’t have it on her. She’d been puzzled, but I just shook my head, telling her Cal was being Cal, and he worried a little too much.
She didn’t leave until he returned.
“Corwin,” a gruff voice says into the phone.
“Agent Corwin?” I ask. “Joshua Corwin?”
“Yes.”
“My name is Benji Green.”
“Yes?”
“You gave me your card a few weeks ago. In Roseland? You asked about my
father, Big Eddie? I’m sorry. Edward Green. It was at the gas station.” He gives me a brisk, “Hold on.” I hear him cover the phone, then a muffled voice speaking to someone else. I can’t make out any of the words until, “And can you shut the door on your way out please? Thank you.” There’s another pause. “Mr. Green?”
“Uh, yeah. You can call me Benji. If that’s okay.”
“And what can I do for you, Benji?”
I’m at a loss of where to begin. I want to ask questions immediately, demand an
explanation, but my mouth feels dry, and I don’t know if I’m entitled to these answers. The silence begins to drag on until Cal comes up behind me and wraps his arms around me, pulling me into his chest. He reaches a big hand under my shirt and rubs my stomach in slow, soothing circles. He leans down and kisses the top of my head. “You got this,” he murmurs. “If you have to talk to him, then talk.”
“Benji?” Corwin asks, his voice sharper.
“Sorry,” I mumble. “I’m… nervous. About calling you.”