Zero at the Bone (17 page)

He went to the small kitchen where Jack was forming the burgers. “Want a beer?” D said, opening the fridge.

Jack glanced at him. “Uh… no thanks. You shouldn’t have one either on top of that Demerol.”

“That was four fuckin’ hours ago.”

He shrugged. “Fine, have one.”

D cleared his throat. “Guess I’ll have lemonade,” he said, hauling out the pitcher and pouring a glass. He expected Jack to smile or comment, but he just kept his eyes on the burgers.

“Better start the grill,” he said, and headed out the patio door. D watched him go.

He's freaked out. The bullets and the near-assassination and the fiery gas stations
were okay, but the hand-holding freaked him out.

Ya sure it's him yer talkin’ about?

D shut his eyes again.
You ain't done nothin’. You didn't hold his hand; he held
yours. He started it. You were all hopped up on Demerol, didn't know what you was
doin’.

Oh yeah? Well, was you on Demerol in the desert?
But that was in the vault, and there it would stay. It ain't like that.
I ain't like that. Jack's my responsibility. He ain't… I
don't....
Every sentence he tried to start wound up with its tail in the vault, the clang of that door slamming shut, cutting off his every thought.

D shook himself and went outside. Jack was bent over the grill, opening the propane tank. He glanced up at D's approach, and then straightened. He squared his shoulders and faced him. "How's the shoulder?" he asked.

"It's okay. Don't hurt no more."

Jack nodded. "Good, good. Listen, D, I'm really sorry about that. I should have been more careful. I didn't realize you were right there—"

D held up a hand.
Is that what's eatin’ him?
"You don't gotta apologize, Jack. Was an accident."

"Well, I'm supposed to first do no harm, and here I am getting all excited about shooting a goddamned gun, like I’m some violence-obsessed teenager, and hitting my patient where he’s hurt…. I could have opened up the wound again."

"Hey," D said, stepping closer. "Don't take on so."

"You must think I'm the world's biggest dork," Jack said, half under his breath.

"Nah," D said, going for a casual tone when his mind was spinning.
Christ, he's
talkin’ like… like he thinks I'm one a them cool kids from high school and he's afraid I'm
gonna make fun a him. That what he thinks? Oughta tell him he got it backwards.
"No harm, no foul."

Jack met his eyes and held them for a moment, and seemed reassured by whatever he was seeing there. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll get the burgers.” D stood by the grill and drank his lemonade, then set the empty glass on the patio table. He took a deep breath—it didn’t twinge his shoulder for once—and looked out at the view of the lake, a view of which he had yet to tire. Jack came back out bearing the Zero at the Bone | 73

plate of burgers. He put them on the grill and shut its lid, then came to stand at D’s side, a little closer than he might have the day before. “Nice day,” D commented, hoping he sounded neutral.

“Yeah,” Jack said. D felt their fingers brush slightly.
Move away. Just take one step.

Don’t hafta be obvious about it, even though he’ll know.
And yet the seconds ticked by and he kept not moving. He just stood there motionless as Jack reached out, moving nothing except his hand, and cupped his fingers around D’s. D cut a quick glance out of the corner of his eye and saw Jack staring resolutely forward, as if unaware of what his left hand was up to and claiming no responsibility for its actions. Jack’s hand was warm and dry, and his fingers were strong; his grip was one that could lead and guide. Maybe lead D to places he’d sworn never to return, places he’d even disavowed knowledge of.

He didn’t respond at first, wondering if Jack would just let go if he did nothing, but when he did not, D was left with no other choice. He squeezed Jack’s fingers briefly, then released them and stepped away. He picked up his lemonade glass and made as if to drink from it, then realized it was empty and put it back down again. Jack was going back to the grill to turn the burgers, and the whole exchange went unremarked upon.

A topic. I need a fuckin’ topic.
“So, this contact ya got in the Marshals,” he said.

“What’s his name?”

“Churchill,” Jack replied.

“That his first name or his last?”

Jack looked up, blinking. “I have no idea. We only talk about official stuff.”

“You trust the guy?”

He shrugged. “I guess. Don’t have much choice, do I?” He put down the tongs and sat on the arm of the nearby deck sofa. “Do you really think someone bought my location off somebody inside the office?”

“Not really. Witness Protection is pretty damned airtight. But I do think it might be possible for somebody slick enough ta hack the information out. That’s why if ya call this Churchill guy, ya cain’t tell him where we are. Even if he’s trustworthy, it could still get out. I ain’t trustin’ nobody.”

Jack nodded. “Will they be able to track me with the phone call?”

“Not if ya use one a my cells. They’re untraceable.”

“Then what?”

“Then we gotta find someplace ta hole up ’til your trial. Someplace without no connection ta you at all.”

“The trial’s two months away! Are you really going to—” Jack cut himself off.

“That’s a long time, D. I can’t ask you to—”

“To what? Finish what I started? Jack, I am gonna see you on that witness stand unharmed or die tryin’.”

“I don’t want you getting hurt again,” Jack said, his eyes so large and blue as they bored into D’s own that everything else seemed washed-out and pale.

D shrugged it off. “No one’s gotten the better a me yet, don’t you worry.”

“Where will we go?”

“I got a coupla ideas.” He wiggled his slung arm. “How long ’til I’m free a this contraption?”

Jack stepped closer, that doctor face sliding over his features, and pushed D’s shirt aside so he could lift the bandage and examine the wound. He palpated it gently.

“Another day or two. But that doesn’t mean you’re ready for full mobility with it yet.”

“I got it. But we gotta wait ta head out ’til I got most a the use a this arm.” 74 | Jane Seville

“Two days sound all right?”

D nodded. “Okay.” He looked up; abruptly aware of Jack’s proximity. He could smell him as he reaffixed the bandage and straightened D’s shirt, his hands smoothing the fabric over the knob of D’s shoulder joint. His eyes remained lowered as one hand trailed down D’s arm, gently enough that it might have been an accident.

D stood up and stepped away. “Don’t wanna let them burgers burn,” he said.

They ate in silence, and it seemed that there was a third person at the table with them now, an uninvited guest who’d come breezing in on a magic carpet of Demerol and now refused to leave.

D kept thinking of their shooting lesson that morning. Jack had been right; D didn’t like to see him firing a gun, although he could appreciate the practicality of him learning to do so. It was just yet another way that D’s life was infecting Jack and pulling him further and further from the life he’d started to lose the day he’d witnessed that murder.

Looked good doin’ it though, didn’t he? Looked natural. Did real well fer a first-timer,
better even than ya let him think he did. Got them steady surgeon’s hands and a sharp
fuckin’ eye. Little trainin’ he could be a helluva marksman.

“You want to tell me about your nightmares?” Jack said, out of the blue. D looked up, startled by the abrupt question. There was a challenge in Jack’s eyes.

“What?”

“Might help to talk about them.”

“What nightmares?”

Jack swallowed a bite of burger and shook his head, as if wearied by D’s obtuseness. “The ones you have every damned night, D. Or anytime you sleep.”

“How d’you…. What the fuck?” D snapped, a cold ball of fear settling into his belly.
How’s he know? What am I fuckin’ comin’ to?

Jack’s expression was edging toward sympathetic now. “Jesus. You really don’t know, do you? You aren’t just fucking with me.”

“If you tell me what the hell yer talkin’ about maybe I can help you with that question.”

“D, every night since you got over your infection, you’ve woken me several times.

Yelling, thrashing, banging against the wall. I almost said something before, because I was afraid you would injure your shoulder in your sleep, but… I don’t know, I didn’t like to.”

D stared at his plate. He never dreamt. The vault kept everything that might show up in his dreams locked up tight so that not even his unconscious mind could get to it. He couldn’t remember having any nightmares here, but he didn’t doubt Jack’s word.
Fuckin’

vault’s leakin’. God knows what’s bubblin’ up
. “I don’t remember no nightmares,” he said. “What was I sayin’?”

“Well,” Jack began, looking a little uncomfortable now, “you say your daughter’s name a lot.” He glanced up at D’s face, then quickly away.

Jill
, D thought, queasiness rising up with that forbidden name. “Oh,” he managed.

“Lot of it isn’t intelligible,” Jack went on. “I hear you say ‘no’ sometimes, like…

you’re begging.”

D picked up his burger. “Maybe you oughta invest in earplugs or somethin’,” he grumbled.

“Don’t just brush this off. You’re saying that you don’t remember having nightmares? That isn’t normal, you know.”

D laughed. “Normal fer me. Much as anythin’ about me can be called normal.” Zero at the Bone | 75

“Maybe your unconscious mind is trying to tell you something, or trying to get you to face something.”

“So yer a shrink as well as a maxiwhatsis surgeon, that it? Ya fix the outsides a their heads ’n’ then the insides? Two fer the price a one?” Jack recoiled a little. “I’m just trying to help you.”

“I don’t need yer help. Not on this subject.”

“According to you, there’s nothing to this subject!”

“I don’t wanna talk about it.”

“No, of course not,” Jack said bitterly, stabbing at his potato salad viciously. “You just go and do what you always do, D. Back off and shut down. I guess that’s just your way of dealing with everything, isn’t it?”

“Works fer me.”

“Sure. Works so well you have screaming nightmares and can’t handle the slightest emotional investment in anything.”

D narrowed his eyes at him. “Investment? Like what?”

“Like… this!” Jack said, making vague motions in the air between them. “You know!”

“No, I fuckin’ don’t.”

“You do; you just won’t admit it.”

“Maybe you oughta think twice before gettin’ up in my face, Jack.”

“Yep. That’s the next step. Go hide behind that big scary hit man thing. Well, I’m not scared of you!” Jack shouted. His face was red and a vein was throbbing in his neck.

D was glad. Anger, he could deal with. The angrier Jack got, the cooler and more in control D felt. It was an autonomic response, and comforting in its reliability. He calmly laid his hands in his lap and watched Jack with a flat gaze.

“You should be,” he said.
Don’t do this. Don’t make him afraid a you. Ya don’t
want him ta be afraid a you, do ya?

No, a course I don’t. But it’d be better fer both of us if he was
.

“I should be a lot of things,” Jack said. “I should be living in Baltimore and operating on little girls with cleft palates and spending my Saturdays watching an entire season of
24
. But am I? No, I am here in a cabin in the woods… with you.” He stood up and tossed his dishes into the sink with a clatter. “I’ll be in my room. Minding my own business. I guess that’s what you want, isn’t it?” He stomped off without another word, and D heard his door slam.

He sat there quietly for another few minutes, then got up and slowly went outside.

Jack had, apparently, cleaned up their target practice detritus while he’d been sleeping; the target had been taken down, the guns were gone. Looked like nothing more than a quiet backyard, a vacation house, a retreat. Except for D there was no retreat, not from anything. The mistakes of his past refused to be quieted. He’d infected Jack with violence, and now he’d infected him with the proclivities that had trapped him in this outlaw existence.

Maybe ya want him trapped too. So you’ll have company.

That couldn’t happen. He’d be safe, and he’d be left alone, and that was just how it was going to be.

D retrieved the cell phone he’d been using and checked his text-message inbox.

Nothing. He wasn’t surprised—X rarely contacted him first—but he was disappointed nonetheless. He could send a message, but he had nothing new to say or ask, nor any requests to make, and he and X had maintained only-when-necessary communications for 76 | Jane Seville

eight years, a streak he didn’t particularly feel like breaking today. Besides, he had another call to make, one he’d been putting off. He sighed and parked himself under a tree on the far side of the cabin, where Jack could not possibly hear him, and dialed a number he’d long ago committed to memory.

He heard a series of clicks and relays, different ringtones denoting different lines and extensions, until finally a female voice said “Switch, nine two six.” He shut his eyes. “Relay, alpha two one zero.”

Tap tap tap of fingers on a keyboard at the other end. “Clearance?”

“Seven six, bravo four five mark eight.”

Tap tap tap. “Hold, please” Click, click. Dial tone. Click, ring.

It rang three times before it was picked up. D had no idea where this final relay was answered, always by the same man, who would only tell D to call him Stan. “Switch, six two nine.”

“It’s me.”

“Do you have Francisco?” the man asked. No preamble.

The question threw D for something of a loop. He’d expected to have to explain the situation. “That’s affirm,” he said.

“Are you secure?”

“Much as can be expected.”

He heard a sigh. “I heard through another informant that you’d accepted the hit on him. I didn’t want to believe it.”

“Didn’t have no choice. Payin’ fer that now, make no mistake.”