John Gilstrap - Hostage Zero

His eyes turned red as tears balanced on his lids. “And that, my new friend, is a life sentence in and of itself. There are no jobs to be had, and because you’re not allowed to be within two thousand feet of a school or a church or a playground, there’s no place to live, either. Not unless you got land in the country, which is really difficult when you don’t have an income.”

Harvey spread his arms wide, as if to say, Ta-da! “So here I am, hero of our nation, brought to nothing by single lie told by a single child who no doubt will one day be president of the United States.”

For a long while, Jonathan just stared, allowing the story to soak in. It was the oldest cliche that everyone accused of disgusting crimes was innocent in his own mind. Over the years, Jonathan had lost track of the number of terrorists and kidnappers who had stared him straight in the eye and sworn that they were the innocent victims of happenstance. The wrong place at the wrong time. Merely exercising their right to practice their own religion. Simply trying to help the victims. These excuses and many more abounded even as their victims’ blood congealed on their clothing.

Jonathan was anything but an easy mark for a sob story; yet he believed Harvey Rodriguez. Perhaps it was the absence of histrionics, the simple, bare-bones telling of the story. No, he realized, it was none of those things. It was the absolute absence of self-loathing that convinced him.

“Your life sucks, Harvey,” Jonathan said. He didn’t mean it to be cruel; he was merely stating a fact.

“Thank you,” Harvey said. “Made even suckier by recent events.” He laughed as he scratched his beard aggressively with both hands. “I am open to any suggestions you might have on how to un-suck it.”

“I think I just might have one,” Jonathan said. “How’d you like a job here?”

“What, at a school? Maybe you weren’t listening to the part where-”

“The law?” Jonathan laughed. “Tell me one thing that’s happened since we met that complies with the law.”

“Easy for you. I’m the one looking at the jail time. I can’t be around kids. Hell, I don’t even want to be around kids anymore. I’ve had enough of that shit.”

All things considered, Jonathan didn’t blame him. “Well you can’t just hang around here. Not without a job. Even if I said it was okay, there’s no way Mama Alexander would let it happen.”

“Mama who?”

Jonathan let that go. Mama defied explanation to anyone who hadn’t met her. “We have an opening for a custodian here,” Jonathan said. “It’s yours if you want it.”

Harvey scowled. “What, slopping toilets and cleaning up puke on the floors?”

“And earning a salary for your efforts. It’s better than living in the woods and getting shot to death.”

“Again, easy for you to say.”

“I’m just trying to help.”

Something changed behind Harvey’s eyes.

“What’s wrong?” Jonathan asked.

“What’s your angle?”

“I don’t have one.”

“Bullshit. Everybody’s got an angle-even the ones who don’t think they do. You expect me to believe that you suddenly give a shit about me? Hell, look at me. Even I don’t give much of a shit about me.”

Jonathan scooted his chair back and crossed his legs. As he reopened the manila file folder that Venice had given him, he said, “I have a soft spot for veterans.”

Harvey laughed bitterly. “I swear to God, if you say ‘thank you for your service to our country’ I’m going to barf all over your floor.”

Jonathan read from the file. “Purple Heart, Navy Distinguished Service Medal and Navy Cross.” He looked up. “That’s some pretty high cotton.” Among Marine Corps awards for gallantry, the Navy Cross was trumped only by the Congressional Medal of Honor.

“Don’t mean nothin’,” Harvey said with a dismissive wave. “Not anymore.”

“They mean a lot around here,” Jonathan countered. His own medals for gallantry remained classified top secret and were displayed only in Unit headquarters at Fort Bragg. “I’m alive because of medics like you.”

Harvey looked at his hands. “I’m not a medic anymore. I’m not a Marine anymore. I’m the creepy loner who lives in a tent, and that’s just fine by me.” He raised his eyes. “What are you doing wandering through the woods shooting people? And what did you do with the bodies?”

Harvey Rodriguez posed a special kind of problem. The clandestine side of Security Solutions required extreme secrecy that had all been blown to hell by the events of this morning. It was bad enough that one of the children of Resurrection House had seen him kill; now he had to deal with direct knowledge held by a nominally unstable homeless drifter.

He considered every word as he spoke. “What do you know about the school next door?”

“That every one of the kids in there can probably do algebra better than me.”

Me, too, Jonathan didn’t say. “It’s a residential school for children of incarcerated parents. Last night, the boy you helped, Jeremy Schuler, was kidnapped from that school.”

“So you’re a cop,” Harvey said.

“No, I’m a good Samaritan.”

“Who shoots people and disposes of their bodies. That’s a lot of attitude for a good Samaritan.”

Jonathan chuckled in spite of himself. He was liking Harvey more and more. “Can we just leave it at that for now?” he asked. “You really don’t have the need to know.” He hoped that if he invoked military-speak for “back off” Harvey would get the hint.

“The police don’t even know about you, do they?” Harvey guessed. So much for taking hints. “And you’re not just hiding me from the killers. You’re hiding me from the cops, too.” His eyes narrowed as they became crystal clear. “You’ve got some interesting secrets, don’t you, Mr. Graves?”

Jonathan cocked his head and smirked. “It’s Grave,” he said. “No s. And I believe I’ll neither confirm nor deny.”

“Sounds like a ‘yes’ to me.” Harvey was like a different man. For the first time, he seemed fully engaged, his fear evaporated. “Don’t worry, though,” he added. “Your secret’s safe with me. I got no one to tell it to, anyway. It’s interesting, though.”

Jonathan believed him, though he still had no idea why. He’d come to trust his sense about people over the years-a valuable confidence when working backcountry with local tribal leaders and inner-city miscreants to accomplish tasks that would get them all killed if word leaked out.

“It’s important to me that you stay close for a while, Harvey. And I think it’s important to you to be useful.”

“Ah, so you’re a psychiatrist, too.”

“A legend in my own mind,” Jonathan said with a smile. “Think about it, okay?”

A knock at the door let him off the hook.

It was Mama Alexander, Venice’s mother, and the hand holder in chief for every child in Resurrection House. In her late sixties, with the stamina of a forty-year-old, Mama bore a striking resemblance to the actress Esther Rolle from the seventies sitcom Good Times. After Jonathan’s mother had died when he was still a little boy, Mama had stepped in as surrogate. In Fisherman’s Cove and the surrounding communities, the name Mama meant Mama Alexander.

“You wanted to see me, Jonny?” she asked. Of the 6.8 billion people who walked the earth, she was the only one who got away with calling him that.

Both men stood. “Mama Alexander, I’d like to introduce you to Harvey Rodriguez. He was instrumental in saving Jeremy’s life yesterday, and I want you to consider him to be a very special guest.”

Mama’s face lit up like a full moon. “I’m very pleased to meet you,” she said, reaching out to embrace his offered hand with both of hers. “The Lord smiles on any man who offers what little he has to the betterment of others.”