Robert Bidinotto - Hunter

“We always seem to do better when the evening begins with a good dinner,” he said. “I’ve got seven o’clock reservations at a nice little French bistro.”

“Do I get to change first?”

His eyes roamed her body again. He shook his head. “You’ll do.”

*

Though the place was jammed, their table was set apart in an alcove filled with hanging plants. The wall was exposed brick and adorned with an Impressionist landscape. They ate meats baked in puffed pastries and shared a good bottle of Cabernet Franc.

She felt surprisingly relaxed. Looking at him study the painting in the candlelight, she couldn’t make her suspicions real. Garrett and Kessler had led her to believe that Matt Malone was a tragic victim of circumstances. But the man before her was their confident master. His light-hearted gaiety, his serene self-assurance…this was not a brooding, damaged soul, striking out in blind, bitter anger.

He turned to her. Then grinned. “Still trying to figure me out, I see.”

“Am I that transparent?”

“To me.”

“I’ll have to remember that.” She searched his face. “I’m just wondering how you got to be you.”

He sipped his wine, not breaking eye contact. Then: “Long story.”

“We have the weekend.”

He put down the wine. “So, what specifically do you want to know?”

“In my experience, most men are cynics. You’re not. You don’t seem to have a cynical bone in your body. You’re an idealist.”

“My idealism does get tested, from time to time. As I’m sure you know.” He paused, his expression now serious. “Because you’re an idealist, too, Annie Woods.”

She tried not to show a reaction. “Maybe. But this is about you, Dylan. I know that justice means everything to you. What interests me is why. How did that develop?”

“Maybe it’s not something that develops. Maybe it’s something that people have, but lose.”

“That sounds clever, but I’m not sure I understand.”

He gestured toward their fellow diners. “See all these people? How many of them start out their lives as cynics? How many of them, as little kids under five years old, have no dreams or ideals? How many identify with the bad guys?”

“Okay. I get that.”

“But by the time they’re in their teens, a lot of them have. They’ve already given up. Why? Face it, idealism is hard. It’s hard to adhere to some standard. Selling out is so much easier.”

“Then you’re saying that a cynic is just a coward?”

“Yes. But so are a lot of those fake ‘idealists’ out there, who turn their cowardice into virtues.”

“What do you mean?”

His eyes rested on the chandelier above their table; they flashed in its light. “Annie, it’s not easy to live with yourself when you sell out. When you give in, just to ‘belong,’ just to ‘keep the peace,’ ‘not make waves,’ ‘go along to get along,’ and all the other common euphemisms for cowardice. Because that’s what it is. Cowardice. And at some level, the person doing that knows that he’s a coward. And he feels guilty.”

“So, cynics are guilty cowards, then.”

“Which is why they need to rationalize. They even make virtues out of ‘humility’ and ‘turning the other cheek’ and ‘loving everybody.’ Why? Because it alleviates their guilt. It’s much nicer to pretend to yourself that your passivity makes you a saint, rather than just another gutless puke who won’t take a stand for what’s right.”

She tried to mask her discomfort. “Don’t you think some people who preach such things are sincere, though? Not cowards, but true idealists?”

“I don’t doubt it. But it’s like I said to you once before: Those types become enablers. Foolish enablers of evil, whether they intend to or not.”

“Let’s get back to you. When did justice become so important to you?”

He remained silent a moment, as if he were weighing something.

“All right. I’ve never told this to anyone. When I was about ten or eleven, I was on the playground at school. I saw this gang of kids in a circle, hollering, and I went over to see what was going on. A couple of bigger kids, bullies, were picking on this smaller boy, Joe. No teachers were around, and the others were just egging the bullies on. I liked Joe. He was nerdy, but smart and funny. Anyway, he was terrified and crying and-” He stopped. “I just couldn’t walk away.”

“You got involved?”

“At first, I just told them to stop. Then the pair turned on me. They were a lot bigger than me. One of them grabbed me, ripped the pocket of my shirt. I looked down at that, and I saw red. So I just swung at him, bashed him on the cheek. Then they started to hit back. We really started going at it. All the kids started yelling and cheering. For a minute, every time they hit me, I just got angrier.

“But then I tasted blood in my mouth. My blood. It was like somebody flipped a switch. I wasn’t enraged anymore. I just turned icy cold. I became like a machine. After that, nothing they did to me hurt at all. I didn’t feel anything.”

His gaze was fixed somewhere far away. “I just pounded them, knocked both of them down, first one, then the other. Then I jumped on them, kept pounding until they screamed for me to stop. I grabbed both of them by the hair, turned their bloody faces toward Joe, and told them to apologize. They apologized.”

He blinked, coming back to the present. “But I wasn’t done. I stood up and turned on one of the kids who’d been mocking Joe, and I demanded that he apologize, too. He looked scared to death and did. Then I faced down all the rest of them. Hell, it was a yard full of kids. I said, ‘Who wants to be next?’ There was dead silence, except for the two kids wailing on the ground. I pointed at them and said, ‘Any one of the rest of you ever bothers Joe again, that’s what will happen to you.’ And then I took him by the arm and led him away.”

She saw the imprint of the memory etched on his face as he raised his glass again.

“You went after the bullies,” she said. “And then you confronted their enablers, too.”

The glass paused at his lips.

“I hadn’t thought of it that way before,” he said. “But yes. I suppose that’s true.”

“That day changed you,” she said softly.

He placed the glass on the table and nodded slowly. “It was kind of a turning point. A moment of self-definition.” He suddenly looked at her. Smiled, breaking his reverie. “Okay. Now, it’s my turn to ask a question.”

“Oh. Well, okay, fair is fair, I suppose.”

“Trust.”

She licked her lips. “What about it?”

“What happened, Annie?”

She drew a long breath. “Actually, I had a conversation not long ago about that. Somebody close to me pointed out that I’d been betrayed twice. The first time, when my mother left my father and me to run off with another man. The second time, when I caught my ex screwing another woman.”

“I’m sorry. How long were you married?”

“Since July 2002.” She suddenly felt the need to unburden herself. “Frank was a commercial pilot. I met him at a hotel during a business trip, not long after 9-11. There was instant chemistry. And my dad liked him and insisted on throwing a big wedding in Georgetown. After the honeymoon, we resumed our careers. He traveled a lot, of course, and I was pretty wrapped up in my work, too. But we made the most of our time together. Or thought we did.”

“Until when?”

“Until last year. When I accidentally found the emails from his babe in Denver.” She paused to take a sip of wine, moisten her lips. “Ergo, my trust issues. Just so that you know, I’m officially divorced. Since January.”

“You had mentioned your mother on our first date. I didn’t know about your husband.”