Action Figures - Issue Three: Pasts Imperfect Page 14

  “...”

  “You can tell me. I promise I won’t get mad.”

  “Joyce. Joy,” Baron croaks.

  “Know what? Screw it. Doesn’t matter,” Joy says, flipping her hand dismissively.

  “Joy, please. I was only —”

  “Keeping tabs on me was what you were doing. Why? What the hell is this all about?”

  “I don’t know,” Baron says, prompting Joy to slam her fists on the table. “I swear, I don’t know! They kept me in the dark deliberately.”

  “What do you know? Spill.”

  Spill Dr. Baron does, in as much detail as his terror-addled brain can muster. It was sixteen years ago, give or take several months, when he was approached by a man seeking doctors — pediatricians, to be precise — interested in making a substantial amount of money in exchange for their services, and for their discretion. He wouldn’t be involved in anything illegal, Baron was assured. All he had to do was provide medical care to a young mother’s child, keeping a sharp eye out for any unusual developments or physical anomalies, then file detailed reports with his contact. He was instructed to never discuss the patient with anyone, never share his findings with anyone but his contact, and never reveal his contact’s identity. He signed a lengthy confidentiality agreement to that effect, even though he doubted a deal with such questionable overtones would be enforceable in a court of law.

  Under normal circumstances he never would have agreed to something so shady, but he was in a bit of a bind at the time, he tells Joy, hoping to wring even a drop of sympathy from the girl. His wife was preparing divorce proceedings and had declared up-front she planned to soak him for all he was worth, and the temptation of a generous secret paycheck was too great to resist.

  Joy takes a long, slow look around Baron’s kitchen, a room larger than her bedroom back in Roxbury — and much larger than her cell at Byrne. The glow of a small chandelier-style light fixture, dripping from the ceiling directly over the table, reflects off lacquered cabinets, off tile floor the color of beach sand, off the matching stainless steel appliances. The stove is especially impressive: four burners, plus a central griddle, and an oven spacious enough to bake a whole cow.

  Even fancy stoves like that can have problem. They can have gas leaks. They can spark massive house fires.

  “Your contact,” Joy says. “He can tell me what this is all about?”

  “Maybe,” Baron says. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “His name.”

  Baron balls his shaking hands into fists. To hell with confidentiality. A lawsuit is better than a funeral.

  “Hamill,” he says. “Dr. Kenneth Hamill.”

  PART TWO: SINS OF THE FATHER

  FIFTEEN

  We leave Matt at the Coffee Experience, though not by choice. He resisted our efforts to gently pry him out of his chair, preferring to stay there and sulk over joining us for the nightly homework jam. I get the feeling he’d sleep there if Jill let him, anything to avoid going home.

  Lot of that feeling going around lately. As we head home, Sara and I debate whether to sneak a quick dinner at my house or hers before zipping off to Stuart’s place. We come to the conclusion that any lingering tension between the Hauser women would be easier to endure than Mr. Danvers’ increasing contempt for the world at large.

  “I don’t know how much longer I can put up with his crap,” Sara says. “I get it: He thinks the world is going to hell and people suck, but making my life miserable isn’t going to fix anything.” She sighs. “I get the feeling we’re going to be spending a lot of nights at Stuart’s place. At least his parents aren’t insane.”

  “Missy’s parents aren’t insane,” I point out.

  “Are you sure about Dr. Hamill? I could see him snapping, guy that uptight...”

  “Yeah, but I think if Dr. Hamill snapped, it’d still be pretty mellow. Like, he’d stop wearing neckties.”

  Sara giggles. “He’d wear something with color.”

  “He’d stop watching PBS.”

  “He’d smile.”

  “We’re awful.”

  “We are.”

  Our good mood lasts until we reach my house, and this time I can’t blame Mom or Ben for spoiling it: We step into the living room and freeze up at the sight of my mother sitting on the couch with Mrs. Steiger — who, judging by her bloodshot eyes and splotchy face, has been crying, a lot. Mrs. Steiger sits upright and puts on the worst everything is okay face I’ve ever seen.

  “Carrie, Sara, hello,” she says, her voice raw.

  “Hi, Mrs. Steiger,” I say. Sara nods in greeting.

  “I’m sorry, honey, I haven’t had a chance to get dinner going,” Mom says. Mrs. Steiger offers a stammering apology for intruding on our evening, but Mom quickly cuts her off and insists she has nothing to be sorry for.

  “It’s okay, I’ll scrounge some leftovers,” I say as I hustle through the living room, hoping to avoid any further involvement in this very awkward encounter.

  No such luck. “Have you seen Matt?” Mrs. Steiger says. “Mr. Dent called me this morning. He said Matt never showed up at school.”

  “Uh, yeah. I guess he was hanging out at Coffee E all day,” Sara says. “He was still there when we left.”

  “He needed time to clear his head,” I say. Mrs. Steiger nods.

  “Girls, would you mind taking dinner upstairs?” Mom says. “Barbara and I have some things to talk about.”

  Things to talk about? Oh, no.

  My mom and Matt’s mom aren’t exactly friends. They met at a parents’ night at school soon after we moved to Kingsport, but they don’t hang out at all, or even talk to each other as far as I know. It seems unlikely that Mrs. Steiger would turn to my mom for consolation or a sympathetic shoulder.

  She might turn to Mom for advice, however. Mom is very knowledgeable about cooking, about marketing (or advertising, whatever it is she does for work), about driving me crazy...

  She also knows how to file for divorce.

  “Hey, kiddo,” Jill says, “closing up shop in about fifteen minutes.”

  Matt grunts in acknowledgement, then ponders where he might go once the Coffee Experience shuts down for the night. The Carnivore’s Cave stays open late. The McDonald’s at the far end of Main Street is a twenty-four hour place, though he suspects the staff might not allow a minor to loiter there into the wee hours. Wandering around town isn’t an option, not when the temperatures are still dropping below freezing every night.

  Matt pulls out his phone and scrolls through his directory, wondering which of his friends might put him up for the night. All of them would but it’s unlikely any of them could, not as long as their parents had a say in the matter — and their say would undoubtedly take the form of an inquiring phone call to his mother.

  Or worse, his father.

  “Hey, sexy. What are you doing here so late?”

  “What?” Matt says, realizing immediately the question was not meant for him.

  “Hey, Natalie. Mindy called in again,” Jill says, “so I got stuck working open to close. Again.”

  “Want me to take her out back and work her over for you?”

  “And deprive myself of that delight? Oh, no. What can I get you?”

  “Short espresso,” Natalie says. “Just need a boost to get me home.”

  “Right up.”

  Natalie leans against the counter as the espresso machine hisses to life. “Hey, Matt, fancy meeting you here,” she says as she turns to drop a dollar in the tip jar. Matt gives her a perfunctory hello nod. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Nothing I want to talk about,” Matt says, more to the table than to Natalie.

  “Okay.”

  He looks at her quizzically. “You’re not going to harass me into telling you what’s bothering me?”

  “Nope.”

  “That’s what everyone else does.”

  “Look, something’s obviously eating you, and it’s not that I’m not concerned, but pesteri
ng you about it won’t help. If you don’t want to talk, you don’t want to talk.”

  “Good. All talking does is make me angry all over again.”

  Jill presents Natalie with her coffee, which she chugs down in a single gulp. “All right, bud, you’re coming with me.”

  “I am?”

  “You are.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I got the cure for what ails you. Come on.”

  Too curious to refuse her, Matt follows Natalie outside to a car so dinky Stuart could flip it with a stiff sneeze.

  “This is your car?” Matt says. “You actually drive this.”

  “It’s my boyfriend’s car,” Natalie says, somewhat defensively, “and don’t laugh. It gets fantastic mileage and I can park it anywhere. Perfect car for a city-living college girl.”

  Matt folds himself into the passenger’s seat. Natalie slides in, her petite frame better suited for the cramped quarters, starts the car, and cranks the stereo for the short drive. Matt recognizes the tune: “One Step Beyond” by Madness, old-school ska at its finest. His respect for Natalie grows by a leap and a bound.

  The trip ends halfway up the hill leading to Milne’s Woods, at an old warehouse that was long ago converted to a public gym. Natalie leads him inside, past a front desk clerk who doesn’t look up from her book, down a narrow hall that opens into a space that, by Matt’s best guess, occupies at least half of the building. Six boxing rings, all of them currently empty, occupy the main floor, laid out like the pips on a die. Speed bags line one wall. A row of heavy punching bags dangle from chains secured to a high girder, one of several supporting a corrugated steel roof.

  “Ay! Natalie!” The voice is loud and low, like a cannonade of approaching thunder. Its owner beams at Natalie as he approaches in a lazy, rolling gait, almost a waddle. The man in the garish Hawaiian shirt is massive, possessed of a bulk built from raw, unrefined muscle, and he towers over Matt by several inches — and over Natalie by a foot and a half.

  “Big Mo!” Natalie says, and she all but vanishes in Big Mo’s arms when she goes in for a hug.

  “Where you been, girl? Haven’t seen you in a dog’s age,” Big Mo says, his smile bright against his dark skin. “I was starting to think you didn’t love me no more.”

  “College is a harsh mistress, Big Mo, she demands a lot of my time.” Natalie makes a gesture of presentation. “Big Mo, this is my friend Matt. He needs to do a little ragework.”

  “How you doing, brother?” Big Mo says, offering a crushing handshake.

  “Okay.”

  “You go ahead and use whichever ring you want, girl, place is all yours tonight,” Big Mo says. “You let me know if you need anything.”

  Natalie picks the closest ring, a ragged thing with turnbuckles patched many times over with duct tape, and a mat sweat-stained a sickly gray. “Pad up,” she says, indicating rows of shelves sporting a wide range of sparring pads. “Gloves, boots, elbow and knee pads, minimum, and I’d recommend some head protection too. We’re going full contact.”

  “Full contact?” Matt says. “Wait, we’re going to fight?”

  “Yep. If there’s a better way to burn off stress than a knock-down drag-out sparring match, I can’t think of it.” Natalie pauses, a lascivious smirk playing on her face. “Well, maybe one better way.”

  Matt pulls off his sneakers and starts rooting through the pads, searching for a set of gloves with more padding than reparative duct tape, but becomes distracted when Natalie unceremoniously strips off her jacket and T-shirt — yet the sight of Natalie’s lean, muscular form in a sports bra is not what causes Matt to gasp.

  “Oh my God,” he says.

  “What?” Natalie says, but Matt cannot bring himself to admit he’s staring at the myriad of scars marring her body. A series of crisscrossing lines stitch up her left forearm. A reddish stripe streaks across her right biceps and triceps. The flat, taut plane of her belly is marred by a scar too broad and jagged to be the aftermath of an appendectomy.

  “Nice war wound collection, huh? Only one gunshot, though,” Natalie says, touching the not-an-appendectomy scar with her fingertips. “Well, the graze on my shoulder, too, but I don’t count grazes.”

  “You’re...proud of them?”

  “Hell, yeah, I’m proud of them. Every scar on me is a man who got to go home to his family, or a woman who didn’t have to spend the next year in intensive therapy, or a cop who gets to end his career with something better than a hero’s funeral. This is the job, Matt,” Natalie says, spreading her arms as a silent invitation to Matt: Look at me; look at your future. “We take the hit so no one else has to.”

  Matt, understanding at last, nods.

  “C’mon, get your pads on,” Natalie says. “Time to start throwing hands. Fair warning, bud,” she says, rolling into the ring, “The only thing I’m declaring off-limits is a shot to the junk. You’re welcome.”

  “Um...isn’t hitting a guy in the nads fighting dirty?”

  “If you’re boxing, sure, but this isn’t boxing; this is fighting for your life — and when your life is on the line, there is no such thing as dirty fighting. Got it?”

  “Got it.”

  “Good. So, groin attacks are off the table, but other than that, I’m not going to hold back and I don’t expect you to, either. You come at me full steam.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Ma’am? Oh, you are going to pay for that one...”

  Matt climbs through the ropes, bright red pads wrapped around his fists and his feet, his elbows and knees. Natalie eases into a fighter’s stance, left hand leading, right hand cocked back for a strike.

  “Let’s see what you got,” she says. “Try to hit me.”

  He tries. Natalie deftly slaps away two jabs, stops cold a wild right hook, replies with three snapping jabs to Matt’s face, and drops him to the mat with a brisk uppercut.

  “What the hell?” Matt says. “You told me to hit you!”

  “I told you to try,” Natalie says. “I didn’t say I’d let you.”

  Matt begins to rise, only to be driven back down by a jackhammer punch. “Hey!”

  “What, you want to get up?”

  “That’d be nice.”

  “So get up,” Natalie says, but each of Matt’s attempts is met with a fist to the face. “You’re persistent, I’ll give you that,” she says, preparing another blow.

  Her fist drops, but Matt is not there to receive it; he dives forward, tucking into a shoulder roll that brings him to his feet. A backhand, delivered blindly, nevertheless finds its target, glancing off Natalie’s chin — not a debilitating strike, but enough to disrupt her momentum and open her up for a series of attacks. Punches fly high and low, pummeling Natalie’s head and midsection. She reels under the assault, arms in front of her face in a defensive wall.

  Natalie hits the corner. Matt hesitates, retreats a step. It costs him. It’s more of a shoulder ram to the gut than a proper tackle, but the effect is the same: The impact jerks Matt off his feet, doubles him over. An arm like an angry python snares him around the neck, cutting off his air.

  “What was your first mistake?” Natalie asks.

  “Agreeing to this?” Matt wheezes. Natalie squeezes. “I didn’t press my advantage. I gave you an opening.”

  “Correct. Do you know what I’d do now if this had been a real fight?” She feels Matt shrug. “I’d throw my weight back and drop you on your head. Pro wrestlers call it a DDT. The impact would give you a nice concussion for sure, maybe fracture your skull, and probably wrench your neck so badly you’d be in a brace for two solid months.”

  “Um...”

  “That’s why you never ever go easy on someone in a fight. Whatever you’re willing to do to an opponent, they’re willing to do far worse to you. Don’t give them that chance, because they will kill you.”

  “...Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure.”

  “Are you scared of dying?”

  The q
uestion causes Natalie to break the headlock.

  “I mean, you know, on the job,” Matt says. “Are you ever scared you’ll be killed?”

  “Nope,” Natalie says with a shake of her head. “I’m scared of dying stupidly: getting hit by a car while crossing the street, slipping in the shower and cracking my head open, choking on a bite of hamburger, that kind of thing — but dying in the line of duty?” She smiles. “I got no problem with that.”

  Matt nods. “I...I’ve never felt it. The fear, I mean. People have tried to kill me, and I know I should have been terrified, but I never felt anything. I was starting to think there was something seriously wrong with me,” he says, drawing a laugh from Natalie.

  “Of course there’s something wrong with you. Look at what you’ve chosen to do with your life. I’m going to let you in on a secret,” she says, lowering her voice. “Super-heroes are not sane people. We have superhuman abilities and an overpowering desire to help people, but do we become cops or firefighters or join the military? Nope. We pass up steady paychecks and health benefits so we can put on silly costumes and play vigilante. Does that sound sane to you?”

  “Not when you put it like that.”

  “Embrace the madness, kiddo. You’ll be better off for it. Now,” Natalie says, striking her fighting stance, “let’s get back to business.”

  Big Mo lets Matt and Natalie go past closing time, waiting until 9:30 to gently shoo them away. They step out into the parking lot and Matt shrugs out of his jacket, giving the cold night air access to his sore muscles.

  “Put your jacket back on. You’re still sweaty,” Natalie admonishes. “You don’t want to catch a cold, do you?”

  “Colds are caused by viruses, not exposure to the cold. Be honest with me,” Matt grunts, each step sending a fresh jolt of pain up his spine. “Am I hopeless?”

  “As a fighter? Not at all. You definitely need some training but your basic instincts are good, and you punch like a sledgehammer. Where’d you learn to throw hands like that?”