Tod Goldberg - The Giveaway

When people talk about sensing fear, this is what they mean. When you’re scared, your sweat emits a different smell, a genetic marker that one can pick up on and exploit. The breeze rolls by and things smell and feel different and you start to feel anxious and aware, it’s usually because you’re perceiving someone else’s fear.

“We need to ditch some guns,” I said. If I was going to show up at my mother’s at the same time cops were, it would be wise not to have an arsenal of illegal guns on my person, nor would it be great if Fiona came sliding out of the Charger strapped like Bigfoot was coming after her stamp collection. A pretty face and a cute walk go a long way, but a pretty face and a cute walk and several guns in front of twitchy-fingered beat cops could mean a bullet.

And I really didn’t want Fiona shooting anyone.

“Do you propose I walk into the Chick- fil-A and just hand them what I have?”

She had a point.

I looked around the area. There was indeed a Chickfil-A, but there was also a library, a gas station and three houses. In front of one of the houses was a gutter.

“We’ll dump them in the gutter,” I said.

“I have to tell you that I find this offensive on every level,” she said, but then she gathered up what we had, leaving us each with one gun, and threw the rest into the drain system. She got back into the car silently.

A girl separated from her guns is never a time for joy.

I started the car back up and drove at a natural rate of speed toward my mother’s, though with the windows down so I could hear the sirens and any shots.

The sirens were easy enough to hear-they came in crashing waves.

And then came the gunfire-a wail of shots echoed into the air as I pulled onto the street adjacent to my mother’s. It was mostly small-arms fire from what I could hear, which made sense. The gangs weren’t known to be stocked with a lot of rifles and submachine guns. What was clear, however, was that there was a volley going on-an all-out assault vs. an all-out assault. You could hear the call and response of battle.

This would be good for home values in the neighborhood.

If everything was working as planned-or, at least, as recently devised-the Ghouls and the Banshees were now doing a bit of mutual assured destruction. The police would be arriving soon enough, but one thing police are keen to do is let bad guys kill bad guys. It’s a lot less paperwork in the short and long term. If we got lucky, the Ghouls would be so busy with the Banshees, they’d be forced to forget about Bruce for at least a few minutes, and that meant they’d forget about my mother’s house and all of the people inside.

Still, I had to be there to be sure.

I started to get out of the car, but Fiona stopped me. “You can’t be seen there,” she said. “You walk into the middle of that gunfight and you’ll either be killed or arrested. And if you’re arrested, you have no idea if you’ll ever see freedom again.”

She was right, but I couldn’t stand by, either.

If you’re a good spy, you don’t need to be the instigator of violence to be effective. Sometimes it’s enough just to be the guy who makes everyone else feel safer.

“I’ll be fine,” I said. “Take the car back to the loft. I’ll call you when it’s over.” I leaned over and kissed her once on the cheek before jumping out of the car. I hurdled the Evanses’ side fence, took the Strongs’ back gate in a nice swing move, scaled the Williamses’ block wall, shimmied under the Mecklenburgs’ bougainvillea bush (which was just a sprig when I was a kid) and then wormed my way into my own backyard.

The sound of gunfire was intense, but the sound of approaching sirens was pervasive. I looked up and saw not one but three helicopters hovering.

The news has always loved to televise bad people doing bad things to one another, especially when they do so in unusual places, like, say, neighborhoods filled with blue light specialers.

My main goal now, however, was to navigate the labyrinth of razor wire I’d prepared in the yard, as I’d become accustomed to having two Achilles tendons and had every intention of growing old with both. I put my head down and watched every step, remembering the pattern of the wire, the circle pattern meant to ensnare even the most limber advancing army, which in this case would be me. All I knew was that I had to get into the house and make sure all was okay.

“Don’t take another step or I’ll blast you.”

I looked up to find Zadie clutching a shotgun. She didn’t have her glasses on, so I was likely just a blur moving through the yard. She was looking to her right. I was standing about twenty feet to her left.

“Zadie,” I said, “it’s Michael. Don’t shoot.” I took a step forward and she fired a single shot that conveniently found its way into the dirt about five feet behind me and to the left.

“Are you dead?” she asked.

“No, Zadie, I’m still standing right here.”

“You didn’t run off?”

“No, Zadie, I didn’t. Now put that gun down before you hurt someone.”

“You say you’re Michael?”

“That’s what I say, yes,” I said.

“How do I know it’s you?” she said.

“You could go inside and get my mother,” I said. “Just don’t tell her you shot at me. My mother reacts very poorly to people who try to shoot her son.”

I could almost see the gears working in Zadie’s head. Eventually she lowered the gun. It must have made sense to her, so I kept walking until I was directly in front of her and then gently removed the shotgun from her hands.

“Let me take that,” I said.

“In my day I was a pretty good shot,” she said.

“I’m sure you were,” I said.

The gunfire on the street had come to a stop and now I heard the barking of police officers, shouting, screaming, moaning, and the approaching sound of more than one ambulance. I didn’t know where Sam was, or his condition, only that he’d brought a war zone to bear on my mother’s street and the likely result was that the bad guys were now about to be the incarcerated guys. My first concern, however, was the collateral damage.

I looked Zadie over. She was unwounded. She didn’t even seem all that nervous. “Are you okay?” I said.

“This isn’t the first time I’ve heard people fighting,” she said.

“That was a bit more than a fight,” I said.

“I ever tell you about my husband robbing buses?”

“Yes,” I said.

“So maybe sometimes he wasn’t alone.”

You learn a lot about someone if you know how to get the right stories out of them.

I put my arm through Zadie’s and guided her inside the house, where we found Nate crouched behind a sofa, my mother and Maria beside him. Maria’s dog stood panting over them. There was no blood and it didn’t look like any bullets had come sailing through the windows. I peered out the window and saw a dozen police cruisers, SWAT members, three ambulances and a lot of people on the ground.

This was going to be on the news. Probably nationally.

What I didn’t see was a gold Lincoln. Lyle Connors was behind a desk somewhere following all this on his BlackBerry while sitting in a management course. A good leader has plausible deniability. A great leader has actual deniability.

I also didn’t see a white van. Where was Sam?

“You can get up now,” I said.

“How do you know?” Nate said.

“If you ever see more blue lights in your house than blood, you’re safe.”

Nate checked himself. No wounds. My mother stood up, walked into the kitchen, pulled open a drawer and a pack of cigarettes and immediately lit up. “If I’m going to die,” she said, “it will be on my terms.”

Maria just sat dazed next to Nate, absently petting her dog. This had not been a particularly good week in Maria’s life.