Chapter 41 Can’t Handle This
Can’t Handle This
Once Evan reached Beverly Hills, he pulled over at a meter to make the call from the side of the road. Kenzie wept silently, not fully believing that the threat was over.
“How do I know for sure?”
“I took his phone,” Evan said.
“What if he uploaded it?”
“As soon as I get home, I’ll hack into his system and wipe all his photos from the cloud. Obliterate his entire digital identity.”
“What if he has it somewhere else?”
“Kenzie,” Evan said softly, “he’s too scared to ever bother you again.”
“What did you do?”
“Nothing he didn’t deserve.”
A stunned silence. A motorcycle whipped by, the sound rising to a high-pitched roar and then fading.
“You didn’t…” Her voice, hushed with horror. He realized that she was terrified. “You didn’t kill him, did you?”
“No. He’s fine. No permanent injuries.”
She wept some more. It sounded like relief. It was confusing. Females were often confusing to him.
When she caught her breath, she said, “Thank God. Thank you. I don’t know … I don’t know what to say.”
“I have one thing to ask of you. One thing only. That you find someone else who needs help. Someone in a terrible situation, like you were. Someone being terrorized with nowhere else to turn.”
“Why do you want me to do it?”
“Because you’ll see what I can’t see. You’ll notice what I don’t notice.”
And, he thought, because it will help you to help someone else.
“Okay,” she said. “And I give them your number?”
“Yes.”
“1–855–2-NOWHERE?”
“Yes.”
“And you’ll help them like you helped me?”
“Yes.”
“And you won’t kill anyone?”
He did not respond.
“I don’t want to pass on, like, an assassin phone number or something. I don’t want to be responsible for that. I’m just a kid.”
He did not respond.
“Hello?”
“I will not kill anyone,” he said, “unless it’s life or death for the person I am helping.”
“I can’t,” she said. “I can’t do that.”
Traffic whirred by on Wilshire, and his thoughts whirred along with it.
“I can’t handle this. I’m sorry. Thank you but I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I just—I can’t handle this.”
She hung up.
After a time, the call cut off. He’d forgotten to disconnect the line.
The city blasted by around him, oblivious, six lanes of drivers in their own separate bubbles, going their own separate ways.
He wondered what the hell held it together.
Joey had texted again.
Just four words, but they had hit Evan in the heart or whatever the correct metaphor was for such matters.
Back in the penthouse, he banged away his frustration on the speed bag.
He tried not to think of the look on Tyler Russell’s sister’s face or his mother’s wails.
He tried not to think of Anca in the hospital getting re-sutured.
He tried not to think about the aggressive protectiveness that had roared up inside him, scalding Joey at the club.
He didn’t have the words to explain any of this to himself, let alone to Joey.
Rage and fear, guilt and vigilance, the strange responsibilities he had to her at various levels, responsibilities that crashed into one another with exquisite confusion.
He hadn’t learned to name complexities of emotion like this, to shape them and push them out of himself in a manner discernible to others.
It was the opposite of everything he’d been built to be.
And no matter how hard he struggled to learn this different language, it eluded him.
His attack on Tyler had been a ruse.
Painful to admit.
It had not been a properly conducted mission. Evan had done his bullshit drive-bys and recon but he’d known there was no legitimate physical threat. That’s why he hadn’t bothered to clear the house for no-shoots.
He’d charged over there looking for an excuse. He’d baited the kid into taking a swing at him so he could smash up the furniture with his face.
He’d beaten Tyler Joseph Russell with the might of the world just to knock some sense into him through the cracks.
What was he supposed to do instead? Leave Kenzie to the legal process? Trust the courts and the lawyers, the politicians and media, the educators and corporations to protect her? To stop places like RedLite from spewing bile and brutality into the face of reprobates like Tyler Russell 24/7?
All the while, the pack of predators who’d fed on Anca were out there still, prowling the streets of New York, looking for their next victim.
How was he supposed to trust Kenzie to this world? Trust Anca to it?
Trust Joey?
But he had to. Or else people could go storming into houses playing battering-ram with asshole kids’ faces whenever they wanted.
So they’d better clean up the institutions. Root out corruption and capture. They’d better get to it and fast.
But also?
Perhaps Evan had a responsibility to be part of the cleanup.
He did not like that idea. It was not his skill set.
Arms burning, he walked over to the couch where he’d left the RoamZone. With a sweaty finger, he tapped the screen, once more bringing up Joey’s text.
what’d i do wrong?
How pathetic that four words had rendered him incapable of responding. Rolling his wrists, he let his boxing wraps unwind, spiraling free to puddle on the training mat.
He hit the heavy bag.
He hit the heavy bag.
He hit the heavy bag until his knuckles bled.
After a shower, Evan iced his hands and then dressed to see Mia. The usual boots and gray V-necked T-shirt. Black jeans in place of cargo pants, his concession to date night.
The RoamZone rang. A 631 Southampton area code, likely Joey calling from Devine’s estate.
Good. If it was her, they’d keep it to business.
He answered. “Do you need my help?”
Rawlings said, “Yes.”
Evan took a second to reset. The words almost left his mouth: Is Joey okay? But he caught them.
Devine’s chief of staff continued: “We have it from credible sources that the Islamic Republic is back-channeling with Russia through OPEC Plus to cinch off oil supply before the U.S. Consumer Price Index quarterly.”
That was it, then. Joey had stepped back to let Rawlings take point with Evan.
It stung. But he refused to admit it stung.
Evan said, “They’re trying to tank the president’s numbers?”
“Yes. The party in general. Getting a head start on the midterms. We’ve had outreach for Mr. Devine to support increased domestic production as a counterweight.
It’ll take some regulatory changes and tax incentives, which requires him making calls to key members of Congress and some leaders in the private sector. Mr. Devine has been resting.”
“Luke? Resting?”
“I know. It’s fucking weird, sir, if you’ll pardon my language. But he’s actually listening to the instructions you laid out. And we don’t know whether to pull him into this.”
Evan went to the closet and extracted the royal shoebox. He sat on the floating bed, rested it across his knees like a Christmas present in a movie. “How’s his mood?”
“Seems like he’s coming down.”
“But he’s not in his right head? Whatever the hell that is?”
“Not fully, no.”
“Is President Donahue-Carr taking countermeasures? Against the oil price-gouging?”
“We have signals that indeed she is.”
Evan raised the lid and stared at those pristine camo brogue boots, yin-yang nestled beneath the flap of blue polishing cloth. “What are they?”
“She’s backchanneled to the Fed to raise interest rates, adjust reserve requirements for banks, and sell bonds on the open market. It’ll be announced at a press conference tomorrow.”
“So the bullshit on either side should cancel itself out,” Evan said. “Before the quarterly CPI.”
“I suppose that’s one way of looking at it.”
He lifted the boot. It smelled of prime Northampton leather. “Don’t get involved. If Devine’s resting, let him rest.”
“There’s also this matter in North Korea.”
“He is no condition to deal with North Korea at the moment,” Evan said. “Nor are we.”
“Yes, sir.”
How’s Joey?
He caught that question, too. Hung up.
Now both boots were out of the box, in his hands.
Did he dare try them on?
He removed his Original S.W.A.T.s and slid his feet into the new boots. They felt as perfect as an ARES 1911 seated in his palm.
He laced them up.
He stood.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d worn something so elegant. He felt ridiculous, indulgent, and gratified in a manner he could scarcely understand.
Leaving the bedroom, he walked up the brief hall into the great room and took a big lap around the penthouse, past the kitchen with its island, living wall of herbs, and freezer vault filled with the world’s finest vodkas, past the wall of ceiling-to-floor glass facing downtown, past the weight stations and training mats and the water-heavy bag marred with powdered chalk from his fists.
As he strolled, he stared down at the boots.
He could scarcely believe they belonged to him.
Did he dare wear them in public?
Would they make him stand out as he’d berated Joey for standing out?
And yet, this was a date.
He checked his Vertex fob watch.
It was time to pick up Mia.
He stood facing the front door, unsure what to do.