T. Parker - Full Measure

“Cade? Ted here! I’d like you to meet someone.”

There was a short silence. Then, “All right, Ted. Be right there.”

Cade came through the double doors. “Hello,” he said. But his tired-looking eyes went to Jasmine and stayed there. “I’m Cade.”

“Jasmine.”

“Jasmine’s my companion tonight.”

“You’re a lucky man,” said Cade.

Ted looked at her proudly, saw her smile at Cade in a way that said she’d heard that line several hundred thousand times. “We just had a real good dinner at the Café des Artistes. Except Mayor Anders was there and she mistook me for Patrick again. Made another one of her scenes.” Ted winked at Cade.

“Again.”

“You’d think after twenty-six years in this town they could tell us apart.”

“You would. Jasmine, can I get you something to drink?”

“Just some water would be nice.”

Cade went back into the bay. Ted told Jasmine that this place had been here since he was a boy, but he didn’t say anything about what had happened to Cade Magnus’s mother. “Cade’s dad is Jed Magnus. Jed is very well known in political and racial circles. He’s a patriot-philosopher. He moved away ten years ago and now Cade’s back to continue his work.”

Cade returned with a bottled water and two beers. He set them on the counter and motioned for his guests to sit. Ted pulled out a stool for Jasmine and she settled in gracefully. Cade stayed on the other side of the counter, leaning back against the wall, a Fallbrook Classic Car Show poster from 1985 on one side of him and the 1986 poster on the other. They talked about the arrest of Ibrahim Sadal and the evidence found at the gas station where he worked. Ted said he felt relieved. Jasmine had seen the TV news report that showed the suspect being hustled from the mini-mart to the plain white van. What a spooky-looking guy. She said terrorists should be shot. After a fair trial, of course. Cade smiled and raised his beer to her and Ted joined in.

Cade said it was no surprise they caught the raghead, what with all the law enforcement descending on Fallbrook after the fire. What a bunch they were, Cade and Ted agreed. Ted told Jasmine of the very weird Department of Homeland Security Special Agent Max Knechtl, who thought he could wear suits in Fallbrook and not be noticed. Cade had been questioned by two DHS-HSI special agents, Chennoweth and Landsea, who allowed that Knechtl was “different.” Cade had also been visited by an FBI duo out of San Diego, but they’d seemed more interested in Jed Magnus than in the Fallbrook fire. Cade’s friend Trevor had been detained and interviewed by FBI National Security Branch Counterterrorism Division special agents out of San Francisco. Cade said that these hardworking agents had discovered Las Brisas taqueria and were usually crammed into a booth there every time he went in, hiding behind their sunglasses, raiding the salsa bar over and over. Jasmine laughed and asked them how they remembered the initials for all of the departments and agencies and bureaus. Cade said all she really needed to know was that DHS was all the people who couldn’t get jobs at the post office.

For Ted, the time shot past like a bullet train with him in it. It was like getting glimpses of himself and Jasmine and Cade through the windows. Just a smear, a streak. Jasmine excused herself for “the sandbox” and Ted told her it was through the double doors and back on the left. As she walked away the men watched her glistening body and the lazy sway of her knit dress, and heard the clop of her heels on the polished concrete floor.

“Patrick as your crazy twin brother? Now that’s genuinely funny.”

“I had to say something.”

“What the hell are you doing here, Ted?”

“I want to be friends again. With you and Trevor and everyone. I want to be a Rogue Wolf. I want another chance.”

“But all you bring us is suspicious feds and your pissed-off ex-Marine brother. You flub up an easy thing with the Mexican, get yourself stabbed instead. What do you want from me?”

“Just a chance to prove I’m good enough.”

“Prove away, then, Ted. Please. Surprise me. Impress me.”

“How?”

Cade sighed and looked at him, eyebrows raised as if in exasperation. He drank some of his beer, then crossed his arms, and fixed Ted with his blue eyes. “How about something with the mayor at the concert? She’s giving one of her little speeches before the show, the paper said.”

“I’m ready for anything after what she did tonight. What did you have in mind?”

“That’s what I want you to do, Ted! Figure out something on your own. Show me the distance you’re willing to go. Until you can do that you’ll continue to be a nobody. But, if you want to impress me, really write your name big on the wall of history — how about you taking Mayor Anders to the next level when she’s making her speech?”

“I thought of doing that. I swear I did. Before you even said it. I dreamed it once, too. I was able to do it.”

“I’m talking way next level. Think the representative in Tucson. I know you have the tools. But do you have the balls? The concert is Friday, three nights from now. Three nights to think hard about it, Ted. About who you are and who you want to become.”

Ted said nothing. He’d certainly imagined such a thing. Ever since trying to apologize to Mayor Anders in her office, and being rejected and dismissed by her, the idea had been inside him, looping endlessly along like a bass line, just barely audible. Then tonight, after being assaulted by her husband, the sound came stronger and more clearly. “Tucson. I can do that.”

Cade looked toward the sound of Jasmine’s heels coming toward them across the high bay concrete. “Which service?”

“Edie’s in San Diego.”

“Sweet. Maybe I underestimated you, Ted.”

“Everyone does.”

Patrick got to Warrior Stadium early Friday evening to help Iris with the concert. He had not seen her since the dinner party and they had talked just once on the phone in the last six days. She had sounded calm but distant. Kenton was Kenton. Best friend Carrie was getting married. Family was good, friends fine. So far as the Cruzela Storm show on Friday went, she could use some help and get him a seat. But nothing about herself or what had happened. Was she furious? How furious? Or, by some miracle, was she pleased by his work? She gave no hint nor clue. Patrick wanted to do as he was trained — to take the fight to the enemy — but how exactly do you do that to a woman you’re in love with?

None of his old clothes fit because he’d lost so much weight in Sangin, so on Thursday his mother had taken him shopping in Escondido. Away from home and alone with him, Caroline was light and forthcoming and she bought a new scarf and took Patrick to lunch in the swanky café at Nordstrom. She said she enjoyed shopping much more than filling sandbags, but not to tell Archie. Patrick noted that she drew looks from men of different ages and she seemed both aware and impervious.

As they roamed the crowded mall she took his arm and told him a story about herself at eighteen, one week out of high school, the same week that Patrick had joined up. “My father was vicious when he was drinking, which was always. He disliked women. They were sexual things or nothing at all. He treated my mother like a child, and in some ways she was. Their fights were violent. My older brothers were his life and future, and I understood this, on paper anyway. I was invisible. In a way it was a relief. But I tried extra hard to please him. I was class valedictorian. I played varsity volleyball. I learned Spanish and French and I learned to dance and sing and ride a horse. I tried to be beautiful. I kept my, um... honor. The Sunday after graduation he took me to brunch. Santa Monica, upscale place. He told me he was proud to have done his part with me. He said I wouldn’t amount to much but if I could marry right I’d be okay. And if I married right a portion of his fortune would follow me. He leaned in close and whispered something in my ear.”