Housebroken (6 page)

“Of course,” Jenna said, her tone gone cold. “Should we continue?”

They did.

The theater room, upstairs loft with Jenna’s vast array of workout equipment that would rival most gyms, the master bed and bath—almost as unfamiliar to Blake as it was to their “guests.”

The procession continued as Blake slid more and more into himself. Maybe it was the realization of just how much access their kidnappers intended to intrude upon or that feeling of being judged, for how much excess they felt entitled to and how frivolously they spent their money. Perhaps it was the even harsher realization that in some regard, those judgments might be justified.

Back downstairs, Jenna led them to Blake’s study. Double doors opened into a room lined with custom bookshelves that had been soundproofed to ensure Blake’s ability to work from home without distraction. Blake had tested it himself, having Adam scream as loud as he could just outside his office and then sealing the doors. Not a whisper passed through.

A gilded oak desk sat in the center of the room like a throne, walls and shelves lined with accolades—awards and gifts and pictures of Blake with businessmen, politicians, men and women of power, and in each framed photo, Blake smiled, an arm around someone’s shoulder or waist, wine glass, cigar, or beer bottle held in the air.

While Joje glanced at the pictures and awards, Drew picked up a gold-embossed model airplane from one of the shelves. It had been a gift from one of Blake’s Chinese friends at BSC International. Blake had helped them win a contract with Boeing that took their company from twenty million in sales to over two hundred million. The golden plane was in reference to a Chinese proverb of the bird that wanted to fly to the sun; once he reached it, he was turned to gold, never to fly again.

The plane slipped from Drew’s hands, falling to the floor. It hit with a loud thunk,  a propeller and piece of wing breaking off.

Drew moved on to the next memento, not even bothering to retrieve the downed plane.

Never to fly again
, Blake thought with a certain sadness.

Joje moved around the desk, sitting at Blake’s chair. He waved his hand through a holographic clock, shook the wireless mouse, Blake’s thirty-two-inch monitor awakening to a black screen. His laptop was still in his briefcase.

“So is this your office, or do you go in to an office?” Joje asked.

“Both. Most days I work from home so . . . this will be it.”

“And today, when you hit me with your car?”

Blake was pretty sure Joje had been the one to do the hitting. “I was going in to work.”

“Where’s work?”
Wuhk
.

“Westlake. It’s our corporate office.”

“Uh-huh,” Joje said. “So we should be there right now, not here. Are we late? Do we need to leave?”

Blake looked at Jenna, unsure how to answer.

“Do you think they postponed your meeting?” she asked.

Blake should be so lucky. “I doubt it.”

“JT will understand,” Jenna said, her voice unable to disguise her doubt.

Prior to being offered a position with Symbio, Blake had worked with them on a few projects, consulting with JT and, on occasion, his board. Jenna knew of their volatile relationship and the stress it had induced. Blake not showing for a meeting as important as today’s would go beyond a screaming match. JT wouldn’t fire him; he’d have Blake murdered.

“I screwed up your day, didn’t I,” Joje said, as if he hadn’t considered the inconvenience kidnapping Blake and his family had caused. “Do you want me to call and explain things?”

“No!” Blake shouted. Too quickly, he realized, as Joje snapped his fingers, holding his hand out. Drew slid the Cyborg from his pocket, handing it over.

“Thirteen missed calls,” Joje said. “JT’s your boss?”

Murder would be too kind, Blake realized. JT would want him tortured.

“It’s ringing,” Joje said.

Blake’s face fell. This was all wrong. He had to come up with a plan first, some reason for his absence that JT would at least consider.

“Remember our rules,” Joje said, placing the phone to his ear.

“You’re white,” Adam said quietly, staring at Blake. “Your face.”

“Tell him—tell him I’ve been in an accident . . . I won’t be in until tomorrow, but I wanted him to know. And I’m okay!”

“You want me to lie to your boss?” Joje asked. “In front of your son?”

“No! I was in an accident, and I am okay—”

Blake fell silent as a blaring stream of unrecognizable screaming poured from the phone held to Joje’s ear. Joje pulled the phone back.

“Hey!” Joje shouted, gripping the phone like a walkie-talkie. “No, wis—hey, no, you wissen! No . . . this . . .” He looked at Blake incredulously, as in
this
is what you deal with every day?

He hit the end key, disconnecting the call.

“Daaghhh!” Blake yelled. “I said don’t call him!”

The screen lit up, phone vibrating in Joje’s hand.

“Don’t!” Blake said as Joje answered the call and brought the phone back to his ear.

“Wissen, oh I’m hanging up! Undohstand? I’m cauwing on behalf of Bwake . . .” A brief pause. “No, that’s—that’s not it. I’m—” Joje held his other hand up in the air in frustration.

Blake leaned in, yelling into the phone. “I’ll explain tomorrow JT! I can’t talk now. Tomorrow!”

Joje looked at Blake sharply, ending the call once again. “I said no phones.”

“I, I wasn’t—I just, it’s my job.”

“
No phones
!” Joje screamed into Blake’s face.

Blake made the conscious decision to keep his feet planted, surprised by the amount of effort it took. He would not let this kid intimidate him. Not in front of his family. “If you’re going to be my voice on the phone, I need you to listen to what I say with exactness,” Blake said. “That’s the only way this’ll work.”

Joje’s dark eyes seemed to shrink beneath his protruding forehead. His face relaxed, features calming. “No more warnings,” he said, his tic sweeping over his face. “You break a rule, however slightly, you force me to break one of mine.”

Blake nodded, he understood.

His eyes swiveled to the closet behind his desk. His .38 Special, an antique handed down from his grandfather who had fought in the first World War, seemed to be screaming louder than JT had over the phone. He needed time—time, the cold steel of a pistol in his sweaty palm, and a beer or two in him to settle his nerves.

The targets he already had.

The day passed slowly, but unlike an idle day spent at the lake, this day dragged. It was as if every second were waiting until the absolute last chance to dart the short distance across the face of the clock. A day determined to extract a price for every minute’s passage.

As Joje relentlessly inquired what the family would be doing, Blake began to wonder himself. What did they do to fill their day? He couldn’t remember when they had spent this much time together, and the awkwardness was beginning to show.

Jenna ran her seven miles on the treadmill; there was no way Drew could keep up with her on a real run. Blake joined her upstairs, lifting with free weights.

It was difficult staying focused with Drew’s reflection in the background, a silent stalker on the fringe of a photo. His eyes never left Jenna’s body, and Blake was frightened at the unspoken implications.

Joje had joined Blake, lifting as well and even spotting him on a few occasions while Adam had silently played his portable video games.

After the workout, Joje asked what they did next. Shower? Together?

The simple question caught them so off guard neither Blake nor Jenna had been able to reply. Adam, fortunately, had come to the rescue.

“They don’t do anything together.”

They fumbled over excuses until settling on their after-workout routine of going for a swim, and so, for the first time as a family since their move, they ventured out to their backyard.

The swimming pool was bookended by two hot tubs, one hidden behind a curtain of water from above, the other raised several feet above the pool around a curved stone tower. In the middle of the pool was a small island with a fire pit. At night, you could swim beneath the stars, waves crashing below with only the faint glow of the outdoor lanterns and flicker of flames rising from the pool’s center to light your evening.

Both Jenna and Blake remained in their workout clothes to one extent or another, ducking into the raised spa. Joje opted to stay out, quietly observing from a patio chair below the straw umbrella hut. His gun never left his hands.

Drew and Adam had jumped in, playing volleyball with the net that spanned the pool until they grew tired with the amount of work required. Neither of them was very good.

When they decided to get out, Blake realized he and Jenna had sat across from each other the entire time like strangers in a hotel Jacuzzi, not a single word exchanged.

They went as a family to take the dog for a walk, dialogue so stilted and tired they stopped trying.

The TV was turned up louder than normal. Shows Blake had never seen proffered chuckles beneath breaths that were as forced as the conversation.

Blake tinkered in his office on his laptop for a bit, Joje breathing over his shoulder the entire time. Without Internet, he felt crippled.

Projects and deadlines floated through his thoughts like clouds he couldn’t grasp. He went through the deck of slides he had failed to present, talking through some of the points with Joje, but found his attention hovering toward the Wi-Fi bar with a slash through it. No connections available. Seemed to sum up his life—with his computer, his son, and his wife.

After dinner, Conrad dropped her knotted rope throw toy at Joje’s chair at the kitchen table, tail wagging furiously behind her. She never grew tired of the game, and Joje was inclined to indulge her.

He lobbed the gnarled rope back across the room. Conrad’s feet slipped and slid as she picked up traction on the wooden floor.

“She likes you,” Jenna said, grabbing the plate in front of Joje and adding it to her stack before returning to the sink.

Dinner had been anything but normal. The fact that they were eating together as a family was a novelty, but a home-cooked meal, despite being a once-a-year occurrence, had also been befuddled by an almost bare pantry. Mother Hubbard’s cupboards hadn’t gone dry; they had never been filled.

“Can I be excused?” Adam asked. His plate of scrambled eggs and toast had barely been touched.

“Sure,” Blake said at the same time Joje said, “Yes.”

Blake looked up sharply, but Joje seemed oblivious to it. Drew scraped Adam’s eggs onto his own plate as Adam walked past, heading back into the family room.

“Dogs are so stupid. ”Joje yanked the throw toy from Conrad’s gritted teeth, then hurled the rope back into the family room. His trajectory was timed, the thick twisted rope swinging high and striking Adam in the back of the head.

“Ow!” Adam cried.

Blake’s chair screeched as he stood. “Hey, do we have a problem?”

“We do. You’re putting me in a position I don’t want to be in. Already breaking the rules”

“We haven’t even seen anyone,” Jenna began. “How could we—”

“It’s what my Sunday school teacher might have called a sin of omission,” Joje said. “Do you think I’m stupid? That today was just an ordinary day? What was our third rule?”

Blake looked at Jenna, who shook her head ever so slightly.

“Nothing changes from our routine,” Adam said from the family room.

“Someone paid attention,” Joje said. “How much of today would you consider normal routine, Adam? That wasn’t changed on account of us being here?”

Adam hesitated before answering. “Almost none of it.”

“If you don’t normally cook dinner? Then don’t cook for us. If you don’t know how to operate the dishwasher, don’t pretend you do dishes every night. If you don’t spend time together as a family, don’t start now. If you don’t like each other, don’t act like you do. If your marriage is a sham? I want to see it. If you fight every night? I want to see it. If you’re sleeping around? I want to see it! I want to see every sick and disgusting thing you wish you didn’t even know about yourself! Are we clear?”

Yeah, we’re queer
, Blake thought.

The tension in the air felt like a living, breathing entity, choking all hope of normalcy in their supposed arrangement.

“Since you’ve all broken a rule, you force me to break one of mine,” Joje said.

“George, we’re trying—we’re learning. Work with us here,” Blake said.

“You’re weak Bwake. It’s why your dog shits on your floor, your wife resents you, and your son has no respect for you. The consequences were clearly laid out. If I don’t follow them, you make me a liar. And I do not lie.”

The gun, which had been in and out of Joje’s hands all day, silently appeared, though this time with purpose. The thrumming in Blake’s chest rose to his head; he instinctively moved out from the table, stepping between his son and Joje.

“Don’t do anything you’ll regret,” Blake said.

“Precisely the lesson you need to learn,” Joje said.

They stood facing each other like gunslingers in the Old West. Only Blake had no gun and was, in effect, begging for his life.

Joje’s mouth twitched, his right eye blinking furiously. He finally broke the silence, tilting his head down and shrugging, gun in hand. “Tell you what. You broke your third rule, I’ll break my third rule.”

“Seven days,” Jenna said. “You’re not leaving after seven days?”

“Correct,” Joje said. “We’ll scratch this day off the calendar and start our week tomorrow. Unless you want me to break one of my other rules?”

“No, no, that’s . . . more than fair,” Blake said.

“Generous,” Jenna said from the kitchen.

“Let’s not have this talk again,” Joje said.

“What about next time?” Drew asked.

Blake hadn’t realized Drew had been paying attention to the conversation, though in hindsight, how could he not.

“Next time they break a rule?” Drew continued.

His quiet demeanor was a farce, Blake realized. If Joje hated violence, as he had stated—not that Blake believed that for an instant—Drew clearly hungered for it.