Charlie Huston - Sleepless

“Who are you?”

Rose made clucking sounds with her tongue, and the baby imitated her.

“Don’t be an asshole, Park.”

The man shook his head.

“No, Rose, your husband isn’t being rude. I have caused some confusion.”

Park tried to see an angle into the room that would put him between the man and his family.

“Who are you?”

Rose was smiling.

“Do you see how happy Omaha is? I haven’t seen her like this in so long. Not since Berkeley.”

Park took a step toward the bed.

“She wasn’t in Berkeley, Rose.”

She stopped bouncing the baby on her belly.

“What are you? Yes she was. We.”

She turned to the man.

“What was I just telling you, Jasper?”

Park thought of the Hurtin’ Man.

His family was in the room. He could not run. He could not attack.

The man nodded at Rose, never quite taking his eyes from Park.

“You told me very many things, Rose, all of which I am grateful for. You are a wonderfully truthful woman. But I’m afraid your husband is correct; you never had a baby in Berkeley. Not unless I missed some part of the story.”

Her eyes stirred. Park saw that his old Rose had been in the room, that now she was being submerged again as her confused double surfaced.

“What? No. Of course not. We didn’t have a baby.”

She looked at Park.

“Where were you? Are you okay?”

A whine came from the baby’s chest.

Park took another step, raising the hand without the water glass, palm out, warding the man from the side of the bed.

“Who are you?”

Rose shook her head.

“He’s Jasper, Park.”

The man did not move away from the bed, but something changed in his stance, a shift in balance that took him from his heels to the balls of his feet, bringing menace nearer.

“The confusion was caused, I’m afraid, by a lie I told. You see, Rose, I am not a detective, and Park did not send me to see that Francine went home early or, for that matter, for me to keep an eye on the house because of all the troubles this evening.”

Park rapped the rim of the glass on the footboard of the bed that had belonged to Rose’s grandmother. It shattered, leaving him with the jagged-edged base cupped in his hand.

“Take three steps directly back from the bed, keeping your hands where I can see them at all times.”

The baby’s whine rose in volume and pitch.

The man indicated her with two long white fingers.

“You’re making the baby cry, Officer Haas.”

Rose was pulling the baby to her chest.

“Park, I don’t like it here. It’s hot and fucking no one gives a shit about anything but the stupid fucking business and I miss the rain and my mom hasn’t met the baby and I hate guns and I remember when it was better and I want it better again.”

Park stepped closer, his arm raised, maneuvering to slip himself between his family and the man who refused to move.

“Back away and keep your hands visible.”

The man displayed his hands.

“Keeping my hands visible will not make anyone in this room safer, I assure you.”

Rose was squeezing the baby and starting to rock.

“I am going home. I have defeated the Clockwork Labyrinth, and I am going home.”

The man nodded.

“It’s true, you know. She did defeat the Labyrinth; I sat here and watched her do it as we spoke.”

Park was clutching the broken glass; he knew that he needed to hold it lightly if it was to be any use as a weapon, but he could not help himself.

“Back up. Please back up.”

The man’s eyes flicked to the window.

“Officer.”

The lights in the converted garage out back blinked quickly on and then off again.

“Officer, do you have houseguests?”

Park’s brain stumbled over the question.

“Do we?”

The man reached for his daughter.

The glass cracked in Park’s hand as he began to raise it.

The man plucked the small dark rectangle from the baby’s mouth, flipping his thumb, causing a small sharp blade to appear at the end of the object.

He stepped back, slapping Park’s hand as it passed in front of him, knocking the glass to the floor, turned his back, and walked toward the window.

“We are under attack, Officer. There will likely be three of them. I can handle that many. There may be six. In which case they will kill me. They will be well armed and trained. I assume you have a firearm. Please don’t shoot me with it. Get it and stay in here with your family.”

He pointed at the bedside lamp.

“Will you turn that off, please, Rose?”

Rose switched the light off. The man slipped the screen from the window frame and pulled himself up and through, a mongoose down a snake’s hole.

Rose nodded her head.

“He’s Jasper.”

Omaha began to cry.

Park went to the safe for his other gun.

I FOUND THREE of them. One team.

An indicative number. Despite my hurried flight across town, my ID broadcasting my course, they apparently were unaware that I’d come to the Haas residence. If they had known, they most certainly would have sent more killers. That they expected a sleepless mother, a baby, a young and inexperienced cop, and perhaps a nanny, was heartening.

It heartened me to know they had no idea I was present. It heartened me to think they might not even know yet that I was alive and unfettered. Or, at least, that the information had not yet been disseminated throughout the Afronzo security apparatus. It heartened me to know they were the kind of mercenaries who rubbed against light switches, announcing their presence. It heartened me to think they were ill informed, appeared more than slightly careless, and were coming to kill a sick woman, her lost husband, and their baby girl. Not that I hadn’t killed the helpless and meek in my own time. Most of all it heartened me to think that this must be their C team, the A and B teams having been dispatched already to my home. Quite honestly, I doubt I’d have been up to anything more.

Still, they were quite capable of capitalizing on my own carelessness.

The first was the light switch rubber. I watched him from the shadows of a moldering stack of firewood that Park must have bought in a fit of romance when they moved into the house. Not quite accounting for the lack of opportunities the environment allowed for burning one’s way through a full cord. Much of it had been chopped in advance to fit the modest fireplace inside. My hand found a wedge that suited my grip.

The man who’d flipped the lights was just inside the screen door of the converted garage, revealed by intermittent adjustments that caused the laser sight on his weapon to shiver over the steel mesh just in front of him. He was meant to be covering the rear. Making sure that no one fled the house as his teammates went in through other access points. Commotion within would draw him from cover as he moved to support. So I ignored him and backed away from the woodpile, down the side of the house where disused bicycles and a lawn mower were gathering ash from the assortment of wildfires, and found Omaha’s bedroom window. I took down the screen, pocketed my knife, dropped the small log onto her crib ma-tress, and boosted myself inside, scraping my legs, biting the pain.

Rearmed with blade and log, I cracked the door slightly and watched as the second mercenary crept across the living room in perfect pistol-combat mode, presenting a minimum target silhouette, weapon raised, held in both hands, fingers overlapped, trigger finger parallel to the barrel to protect against accidental fire.

He began gesturing to someone out of my sight line, the third team member, for whom he appeared to be providing cover as they cleared the house room by room. He was making responsive hand signals, pointing at the hallway without turning his head, indicating that he would take point on the new course. I opened the door a bit more, passed through, and closed it behind me.