Save the Enemy (22 page)

Color has come back to his face. The tourniquet worked. I allow myself a small sigh of relief. Roscoe’s tongue is lolling; I believe that is the technical word for it.

“We’d be incinerated while stuck in traffic,” Ben continues. “There have been proposals to expand the highway. I’m not convinced that they would actually move the cars any more quickly.”

“No?” Pete asks, absently.

I watch Ben watch Pete.

“You’re not really interested,” Ben says. “I’ll stop talking.”

Ben, I realize, is getting better at reading faces. Which means I should probably get better at hiding my feelings.

“How much longer?” I ask Pete.

“Not too far,” Pete says.

“That could mean anything on the Beltway,” Ben observes. “Look at all the cars. The first section of the Beltway opened in nineteen fifty-seven. There was heated debate about whether to call it the Capitol Beltway or the Capital Beltway.”

“What do you mean debate? You just said the same thing twice,” I say.

“No, Capitol with an
o
or Capital with an
a
,” Ben says. “With an
o
it means the capitol building. With an
a
it means
the capital city. They are homophones.” Pete chuckles. “Two words that sound the same but have different meanings,” Ben says. “Capitol and capital. Why is that funny?”

I can hear Dad’s joke in my head: “Homophonia is when people are afraid that they don’t know the difference between capitol and capital.” I can hear Mom’s correction in my head: “Capitol and capital don’t actually sound the same,” with her emphasizing the
o
in the one and the
a
in the other.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I finally say. I’m just not up for this conversation.

“But I just told you,” Ben says. “This is information. So you
do
know.”

“Are we almost there?” I ask again. I’m dozing off, still with one hand in Pete’s, the other around the gun on my right side. I put the gun back in my jacket pocket. It’s probably not safe to have it in my lap with my hand around it if I’m unconscious. Among other problems, Pete might take it from me. I can smell myself as I’m moving; I need a shower. I need this to be over. I really need this to be over.

“Almost,” Pete says. He starts inching into the right lane. A black Ford with darkened windows and a dent in its side almost hits him, speeding up in the lane he’s shifting into.

“Pete!” I shout.

He blares the horn of the Lincoln. “Goddamn Maryland drivers,” he says. “Maniacs.”

“You don’t think …” I say. “That’s not P.F.? Or
a
P.F.?”

“I think it’s just a bad driver,” Pete says.

“Okay,” I say. “Okay.” I pat Pete’s leg. Then: “Pete, who is your mother?”

“She’s my mother,” he says. “What do you mean who is she?”

Now is not the time to be cagey. Unless he thinks I know
more than I do. My hackles go back up. The car eases forward, foot by foot, toward the Lorton exit. I can see the sign for it just up ahead. It might as well be on the moon, as fast as we’re going to get there.

“I mean what’s her deal,” I say. “I mean why’s she involved with my life. Why did she send you to spy on me and Ben?” Then I sort of lose it. My voice cracks. “What do you think I mean who is she? What would you want to know if you were in my shoes?” My shoes, incidentally, are a pair of well-worn clogs that are not hiding my footly odor very well right now.

“I’d want to know everything,” Pete says.

“Yeah,” I say. I let go of his leg with a gesture to show that it wasn’t intimate. It was protective. “Or even just
something
.”

Pete puts on his turn signal. He sighs. I look back at my brother.

“How’s your arm doing, honey?” I call back to him.

“My arm hurts,” he says.

“I don’t want to tell you,” Pete says. “I don’t want you to know.” He’s looking at me. He’s staring at me. I can see something happening in my peripheral vision.

“Pete,” I say. I point forward. It’s the black Ford again, swerving into our lane.

“Goddamn Maryland drivers,” he says again, slamming on the brakes.

“Are they trying to hurt us?” I ask.

“They’d hurt us if they were trying to hurt us,” Pete says. “They wouldn’t count on a five-mile-an-hour traffic accident.”

“Who are they, Pete?” I ask.

“In the car? I don’t know—”

“Who is your mother?”

He hesitates. “She’s … complicated,” he says.

“All men think their mothers are complicated,” says Ben from the backseat. “So says Freud. Who has largely been discredited by mainstream psychoanalytic thinking.”

“Madeleine Severy is unusually complicated,” says Pete. He sighs. He looks at me. I’ve never seen him look so frightened. “Will you still like me after I tell you this?” he asks.

My stomach turns. It’s that flippy feeling of romance and it’s that flippy feeling of dread. “I don’t know what I feel about you now,” I say.

“Is he your boyfriend?” Ben asks from the backseat. I don’t answer. Neither does Pete.

We reach the exit. Drive down a stretch of prettier-than-usual strip-malled road, then take a left to a bridge that goes over a narrow river and into the world’s most charming gingerbread town. We pass a place called “Mom’s” advertising fresh pie.

“How about this?” Pete says. “I tell you the truth from now on. And the truth is: I love this place. They have the best blueberry pie I’ve ever had in my whole life. I wrote a song about it called ‘Mom’s Blueberry Pie.’ The joke of the song is that my own mom would never make pie.”

I get what Pete is trying to do. I wish like anything we were just on a friendly road trip, too: me and Pete and my brother and my (possibly drugged? brainwashed?) dog, off to this neighborhood of Victorian houses painted bright colors for pie and a picnic by the river. Like normal kids get to do. Then we’d go from here to prom because I’m not letting that one go in this fantasy version of our time together. But Pete’s mom, who’d never bake pie, and my dad … enough.

Pete pulls the car into a complex of new townhouses done up in the Victorian style the rest of the town seems to have come by more organically. He stops in front of a row of
townhouses with an
OPEN HOUSE
sign out front. He parks. Sighs again. Gets out of the car. I follow, as does Ben, holding Roscoe’s scary leather leash with the arm that isn’t hours away from having to be cut off. Not hours. Hour. A person has about two hours without blood flow before their limb becomes permanently useless, I remember from my childhood lectures on health and safety. We’ve been out and about for about an hour now. But Ben’s bad arm isn’t bleeding; he isn’t delirious; except for an occasional wince, he doesn’t even seem all that hurt. Dad’s tourniquet worked the magic it promised. Very nice. Good for Dad.

Pete fiddles with one of those key-holding lock boxes attached to the rail leading up to the brightly painted, three-story townhouse. It opens; he gets out a key.

“What is this place?” I ask.

“Model home,” he says. “Mom’s a realtor.”

“A
realtor
?” I ask. I hadn’t figured on the DC metro area’s competitive real estate market underlying any of our recent goddamn adventures.

“It’s her cover,” he says. “Well, not just a cover. She actually makes a lot of money selling houses.”

“Oh yeah?” I say.

“Ssh,” he says, opening the door. We walk into a perfect and yet strangely generic home. It’s got hardwood floors that look like they are made of plastic. The kitchen, right off to the right, has granite countertops, stainless appliances. A bowl of green apples sit on top of a lacquered dark brown table.

“What are we …?” I start asking.

“SSSSHHHH,” Pete says again. He gestures to follow him. First we go upstairs, tiptoeing, except Roscoe, whose nails go
clip-clip-clip
on the wood. We peek inside one upstairs bedroom. There’s a big platform bed in there,
covered in an apple-green duvet, with nice fluffy pillows on top, and an attached bathroom, with gleaming white accoutrements. There’s no sticky dried-up pee in front of the toilet, like there always is in our house. Mom complained bitterly that she was down on her hands and knees five, six, seven times a day cleaning up the piss that Dad and Ben would leave for her. She begged them to clean it up themselves. Dad asked why we couldn’t just get one of those absorbent rugs.

“Because those urine-soaked rugs are the most disgusting objects known to man,” Mom said.

“You’re supposed to wash them a lot,” Dad replied.

“Yes,
I’m
supposed to wash your piss-filled rug a lot,” Mom said. “I can see that’s your plan, Jacob, to get out of learning how to urinate into the toilet instead of all over my floor. And nice job teaching Ben to do the same. I should get you penis-people a litterbox to use. It would be cleaner.”

After Mom was killed, Dad brought home one of those rugs that go in front of the toilet. I don’t think he’s washed it once. I always make sure to wear shoes in the bathroom. That’s my solution to living with gross penis-people.

But if I lived here, I could probably use the bathroom barefoot and not have to worry about what I’m stepping in. If I lived here, I suppose I’d be in an even weirder world than the one I’m already in, which is plenty weird.

Pete leads us into another bedroom. This one has a crib in it.

“A baby lives here?” I ask.

“SHHHH,” he says. “Jesus, Zoey. Keep quiet.”

Ben says, “That wasn’t very quiet, Pete.”

Pete rubs his head with his hands. He takes off his sunglasses. His eyes have dark circles under them.

“I don’t think they’re here,” he says. “I … I must have been wrong.”

“Who was here?” I ask.

Pete walks to the crib and looks inside it. There’s a teddy bear. It looks unused. Unloved. He hugs it.

“This was my bear,” he says. “Mom kept it on a shelf in my room when I was a kid.”

“It’s cute,” I say. “Did you love it?”

“No,” Pete says. He gives it to Roscoe, who starts chewing on it.

“Did you think my dad was here?” I ask, losing whatever was left of my patience. “Is this where we were rushing to?”

“Yes,” Pete says. “This is where we were rushing to. My mom is a real estate agent, because it gives her … a good cover story. Access to properties all over Virginia and Maryland and DC. She’s used this house to … hide certain things before. I think. I thought. I thought it was where your dad would be.”

“Cover story for what?” I ask.

“Oh, Zoey,” Pete says.

I decide to ignore him. “Let me see your arm,” I say to Ben. “Maybe we’ll just go to the hospital now. We didn’t find Dad. We can at least save your arm.”

“No,” Ben says. “No. We have to save Dad. This isn’t his fault. I know it’s not. Mom told me. Mom told me!” He might start disassociating again. Or getting violent and angry. Which might be cathartic for me, to see him destroy this model house.

Pete heads downstairs. Roscoe tugs, so Ben follows. I follow, too. I feel that we’ve been defeated. Maybe this was the plan, to defeat us. Maybe Pete’s disclosures and promises were just subterfuge, for what? It’s not like we were inches
away from finding Dad before. We’ve been defeated from the beginning. Even if we’d known what the J-File was that first night, back at the Postal Museum, when my cell phone still worked and the kidnappers were getting in touch with me, what?

We get back down to the first floor. I wish I knew what to do next.

I walk to the back window in the dining room with the green apples on the table. I reach for an apple to eat. I’m hungry. Starving. It’s fake. Nothing to eat. Nothing is real. Across that lovely river I can see a tiny little shack, nearly hidden underneath the bridge we crossed to get to this town. Looks like a nice place to be a hermit. Seems like there’s smoke coming out of a chimney. Nice day for that. Spring fires are a comfort, a treat.

I can see someone on the yard by the river, with binoculars. I squint, try to make him out. Can’t see much. Just a dark-haired guy observing the water. Maybe he’s a scientist. Or a fisherman. Or libertarian scientist fisherman. I should learn how to fish. Really be self-sufficient.

Ben goes to the first-floor bathroom, leaving Roscoe with Pete. The two of them walk to me, by the window. Roscoe still has the bear in his mouth.

“Cover story for what?” I ask Pete again. I’m staring at his face, hoping to get some clue if I should trust him. If he’s trying to help me or trying to hurt me.

“My mom isn’t an ordinary assassin,” he begins.

“Not an
ordinary
assassin,” I repeat. “That’s like saying, ‘This person is an
unusual
 …’ I don’t know. Psychopath. Monster.” My analogies are failing me. “What is an ‘ordinary assassin,’ Pete?” I make scare quotes with my fingers, trying to regain some pull.

“You’re not stupid, Zoey,” he says. “We live in Washington. Ordinary assassins work for the Department of Defense, other agencies. They’re assassins by proxy, like the lawyers who give the okay to the CIA so that they can go kill terrorists in, like, Pakistan. Or they’re the actual CIA people who go kill the terrorists in Pakistan. Who do you think, like, does this in the real world?”

I feel a burning in my cheeks. Embarrassed at my own sheltered world, my own naïveté. The greater DC area is full of assassins. Of course it is! Pete’s mom is one of them. My dad is one of them? But he
hates
the government! And if it’s all so ordinary, then …

“What’s not ordinary about your mom?” I ask.

“She’s involved with a private enterprise. Finds clever people who are bored with regular life,” he says, his face growing harder. “They think they are getting into something easy. Exciting. They may travel to do a job. But if they try to get out—”

“What?” I say, dreading the answer, needing the answer.

“I told you, Zoey,” Pete says. “The P.F.s are mostly widowers.”

“Like my dad,” I say. I hate my dad. I hate him more than I’ve ever hated anything. Even lacrosse, and I really hate lacrosse. I hate everything. I hate
everything
.

“I guess that’s that then,” I say. “I guess let’s just get Ben to the hospital, so, you know, he won’t lose his arm. I’m sorry to have to ask you this, but can I borrow money to pay for it? After that we’ll get out of your life. I promise.”