Save the Enemy (8 page)

I don’t know how I could not have realized we were coming back now to that same place. I suppose the world goes on, reusing the same settings. Or else that my mother being killed here, and P.F. Greenawalt’s business card sending us here, is something other than just a weird coincidence.

“Okay,” I say, taking in a deep breath. I want Pete to ask what we are doing, coming to this odd house in Georgetown late at night. He puts his hand on my shoulder.

I can see in the front window, as I stand ringing the doorbell. Leather couches. Rows and rows of books. Dark portraits of severe men in military uniforms. No sign of my brother.

“Whose house is this?” Pete asks as the door starts to open. I wish I knew. No one answered the door here when I came by looking for Roscoe.

Before me is a short guy, about five four, with dark hair gelled into rows of crispy waves and wire-rim glasses. He appears to be in his mid-thirties, maybe. It’s hard to tell given his clothes: schlumpy white button-down shirt, wrinkled khaki pants with pleating at the hips that makes it look like he’s got hips made for birthing. If the guy at the Postal Museum looked nerdy, this guy looks like the dude that guy would call a nerd.

“Is my brother here?” I ask the guy. I am still feeling slightly woozy. I may ask this more loudly than intended.

“You must be Zoey,” he says in a nasal voice. “I’m P.F. Greenawalt. Political Consultant. Come in. Please. I’m anxious to speak with you. I knew your mother.”

“I’m Pete,” says Pete in his easy way, following. “Should I call you P.F.?”

P.F. Greenawalt pauses for a second and looks Pete over. “Mhm,” he then says, nodding and leading us toward the back of the house, into a big kitchen.

My mother. How does this guy know my mother? Why is he anxious to talk to me? My brother is sitting at a farm table. I feel a surge of the sweetest relief I think I’ve ever felt. Just as quickly, it’s gone. The gun is in the middle of the table. Perhaps not
the
gun. Maybe it’s just
a
gun.

“Sit down,” P.F. says, pointing at the table. “I was making your brother some eggs.”

I sit next to Ben. I whisper to him, “Are you okay?” He shrugs and pulls away.

“So,” says P.F. “How do you like your eggs?”

“Scrambled,” says Pete.

“How do you know my mother?” I ask.

“We met when your family moved here,” he says, as if that somehow explains anything at all. My mind whirls. Ben stares. P.F. cooks. Pete asks him questions about being a Political Consultant—who does he do it for, how long has he been doing it, etc. P.F. says he’s got his own small firm. He has a variety of clients. He does some consulting on elections. And some other things, which is how he met my mom.

“Do you spend a lot of time on the road?” Pete asks. “My mom used to do that. Hard on the family.”

“I enjoy most of the travel,” P.F. says.

“Have you ever come across something called a ‘J-File’ in your work?” I ask. My brother gives me a look.

“Zoey, can you help me carry something in from the other room?” P.F. asks, putting three plates of scrambled eggs on the table.

I follow him up a flight of stairs. We go into a room with a harpsichord in it.

“I’ve always been interested in the Renaissance,” he says by way of explanation. Then he points to a well-worn leather
chair in a corner, underneath a framed Harvard diploma. I sit down.

“J-File,” P.F. begins. “What do you know about a J-File?”

“What do
you
know about it?” I ask him.

He closes his eyes a moment, then pulls the bench from underneath the harpsichord and sits on it.

“Your brother came to my house tonight asking why my business card was in the pocket of a man who accosted you the other night,” P.F. says. “I didn’t tell him. Though when he pulled out a gun …”

“Why was it there? The business card, why was it in that man’s pocket?”

“How old are you?” he asks.

“Seventeen,” I say.

“You are too young,” he says, “to have to be hearing any of this—”

“I haven’t heard anything yet,” I interrupt.

“Your mom,” he begins, “was coming to see me when she got … murdered. She was bringing me a, a, a … a record. A record of … of bad things. It’s called a J-File.”

“What kind of bad things? Why was my mother bringing this to you?”

P.F. Greenawalt, Political Consultant, looks exceedingly uncomfortable. He pulls a piece of paper out of a pocket and fidgets with it, twisting it into a string, then untwisting it. I grab him by the wrist and dig my nails in a little bit. Dad called this move “the human handcuffs.” It was very effective when he, a grown man, used it against me as a small eleven-year-old.

“Just tell me,” I say, quaking. “My father is being held hostage. His kidnappers say that I have to bring them the J-File. I don’t know what it is or where it is, and I can’t get him back without it.”

“Oh, hell,” P.F. Greenawalt says. He twists his wrists out of my hands, using a deft move that Dad didn’t know or neglected to teach me. My nail catches on his skin and rips, which hurts. Now I have a hangnail. I try to bite it off. It starts to bleed. I watch the blood bubble on my cuticle. The pain of it is odd because I don’t really feel it in my finger. I feel it in my stomach. I feel nauseated. (Not
nauseous
. Nauseated. Mom was a stickler for correct usage.)

“Do you have a Band-Aid?” I ask. I don’t want to suck on the blood because it’s gross and I think it might undermine my authority here.

P.F. Greenawalt sighs and leaves the room. I sit there, trying not to wipe my finger on one of the leather chairs. But then I do anyway. I don’t want to get blood on my dress. My gross dress would be even more gross. More punk rock, though. The blood leaves a mark on the leather. I lick my finger and try to wipe it out, but the spot just gets darker and more damp.

Finally P.F. comes back with some damp, generic-brand Band-Aids. He holds them out to me. He doesn’t seem to notice the blood on the chair. I take the bandages from his hand, then grab his wrist again, smearing some blood on his hand.

“Please tell me,” I say.

He extracts his wrist again, frowning, then wiping his hand onto his pants. He seems ruffled. Then again, I have no idea what is running through his mind or how he’s feeling. He made my brother eggs after my brother pulled a gun on him.

“Your mother was bringing me the J-File,” he says, avoiding my eyes. “She was killed on the sidewalk outside my house. I believe by someone from the group whose nefarious activities would have been exposed by this list … This is all speculation, of course.”

“And you don’t think that the person who killed her also took the J-File?”

“I don’t think so. If she had it on her, then why would your father have been kidnapped?”

“I don’t know. Maybe someone other than the kidnappers got the J-File. And why did my mother have the list at all?” I ask.

“I really can’t say,” says P.F.

“Was it my dad?” I say. “Is my dad …?” It sounds too preposterous to contemplate. But all of this is preposterous. “Is my dad a spy of some sort? A
murderer
?” He’s such a goofy libertarian, I think. Did he take Ayn Rand to some crazy logical extreme for real? Is he responsible for my mother’s death? My mother’s murder? I know Mom says no when she comes to visit Ben in his dreams. But on the other hand, he is responsible for trying to teach me martial arts. And he’s such a goddamn weirdo. And he’s my dad. And I miss him. And I don’t know what to think.

Neither, apparently, does anyone else.

“I really don’t know,” P.F. says. “I would just encourage you to find the list. And bring it to me.”

“But my dad,” I say. “My dad.”

“If my clients have the file, they can save your father,” he says.

“Why can’t they save him without the list then?” I ask.

“They don’t have a bargaining chip without the J-File,” he says.

“But if
I
have the J-File, then why shouldn’t I just give it to them directly to get my father back?”

“Look, Zoey,” P.F. says. “This is how it has to work. You have to trust me.”

He has a smear of my blood on his trousers now, and I
have so many questions. I don’t know if this is the time to push … My judgment feels impaired. This also feels like a situation for which I don’t have a body of experience to guide my intuition.

I reach out to grab his wrist once more for good measure. Perhaps I should have tried a different move. He doesn’t seem surprised, or even annoyed, and definitely not scared. He just moves his arms out of reach, then comes back to pat my own.

“Your eggs are cold,” P.F. says. He isn’t so much cold as he is cool. As a cucumber. An incredibly dorky cucumber. “Zoey, you have to trust me,” he says again. “Does your hand hurt? I’m sorry you got cut.”

The fuzzy boldness gives way to P.F. Greenawalt’s certainty. I touch my hangnail.

“I’m okay,” I say loudly, like I’m objecting.

We go back downstairs. Ben and Pete have finished their eggs and are spinning the gun around on the table. It slows and stops, pointing right at me as I approach the table.

“That seems unsafe,” I say.

Pete opens his hand. He’s taken out the bullets, a small cluster of shiny, brass-colored things. I pick one up. It’s cold and lighter than I thought it would be. I give it back. Pete puts all the bullets in his front pocket.

“They’re just pieces of metal,” he says, trying to make me feel safe, I think.

“Let’s go home,” I say.

“Do you need a ride?” P.F. Greenawalt asks. “I can drive you.”

This saves me the problem of needing to expect Pete to pay. But I don’t think that I want P.F. Greenawalt, Political Consultant, knowing where I live. On the other hand, he probably knows already. He knew Mom. He knew who I was when I appeared at his doorstep.

“I’m tired,” Ben says.

“There probably won’t be any cabs nearby,” Pete says.

I stare at P.F. Greenawalt.

“It’s no trouble,” he says in his nasally voice. “I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to you kids and I hadn’t made sure you got home safe.”

I’m tired, too, I realize. I pick up the gun and put it in my tote bag. It’s about as heavy as a hardback volume of
The Sun Also Rises
. With the two of these objects, the tote has gotten uncomfortably heavy on my shoulder. It would really be terrible if I got, like, scoliosis from walking all the way home to Virginia with
The Sun Also Rises
and a
gun
in my tote bag. I finally nod, surrendering.

We walk a few blocks and find his black Lincoln sedan. I get in the front seat and P.F. explains his car-buying philosophy, as if this were a natural conversation to have. “I always buy a luxury car that isn’t trendy,” he says. “I can get more car for the money that way.” He shows me a panel that lets each front-seat passenger control their own air temperature.

“That mattered more when I was married.”

Now he has my attention. “Oh yeah?” I ask. “So how did you and Mom meet?”

“Through mutual acquaintances,” he says, waving his left hand a little bit. He’s still got a thin gold band on his ring finger. Did he and my mom have an
affair
? That is the
most
preposterous idea yet, I think. I stare out the window as we drive over the Key Bridge, look at the few boats enjoying this spring Saturday night on the Potomac. Through Rosslyn, which is a grim and militaristic-looking place, then through some of the other Virginia suburbs, which are grim without seeming
especially
militaristic.

Pete tries to make conversation, asking if anyone’s seen
any good movies lately. P.F. Greenawalt describes a Hallmark movie he saw on television that weekend.

“It turns out that Hallmark films pack a surprising emotional punch,” he concludes.

He and Pete get to talking about what makes for a good film, and if a good film has to have any meaningful intellectual content or if it’s sufficient for the viewer merely to be emotionally engaged. Pete argues that art has to have
some
intellectual content to be good, and that he always makes sure his songs are more than just cheap tearjerkers. P.F. says he thinks artists who over-rely on intellectual content are lazy.

“I truly can’t believe I’m hearing you say this,” Pete keeps repeating. “You’re saying that Hallmark moviemakers are the
most
honest artists?”

“That’s what I’m saying,” P.F. says back, spiritedly, nasally, this odd man who likes the Renaissance and has my blood on his pants, and is driving us home in his old-man car.

I actually have mixed opinions on this topic, but I keep them to myself. Part of me wonders if P.F. is trying to get us to lower our collective guards so he can kill us all and bury us in our backyard. Joke’s on him; we don’t have a backyard. We drive through Crystal City, which has a revolving restaurant/bar that we all went to when we first moved to the area, so we could see the monuments “in the round.” Mom’s words, uttered after having gotten a little tipsy on pink cocktails as the bar was going around and around and around. We spent hours there, looking out over the Reagan National Airport (which Mom refused to call the “Reagan National Airport”; she’d only call it “National Airport”), the Jefferson Memorial, the Pentagon, time and time again.

Dad made a big deal about the Pentagon, pointing out the
part of it still black and ruined from where a plane hit it on 9/11. He said that there shouldn’t be a Pentagon, shouldn’t be a state-sponsored military.

“Do you know why houses are so ungodly expensive in this area?” he asked me.

“Because they’re nice?” I said.

He had only been drinking coffee with whipped cream on it and had become a little bit agitated from the caffeine and sugar and views of government expansion.

“Because of defense contractors,” he said. “That big Pentagon spends billions of dollars per year buying airplanes and missiles and tanks. The people around here make millions persuading the Pentagon to buy their airplanes instead of the other guys’. It’s a racket.”

As the restaurant rotated, the Jefferson Memorial came into view. This thing of glowing white marble, with columns and a round roof, built to honor the primary author of the Declaration of Independence, which I’d been reading as part of my American History class.