The course had taught him to become aware of physical cues, to note what was happening when he was still between a One and a Seven. Seven was his personal Rubicon. Once he crossed Seven, he was no longer rational.
Right now he was redlining the barrier. Setting down the phone, he closed his eyes and paid attention to his body. Pulse rate elevated. Heat in his stomach. Fingernails indenting his palms.
“You okay, chief?”
“Is the room ready?” Gadds said. “I need the room ready.”
He noted the volume of his voice—high—and the pitch—higher. Two more cues to let him know he was on the verge of losing control.
He was supposed to search for other emotions swirling around inside him, the primary sentiments that his rage was covering for, but he wasn’t having much luck. His hands were balled up now, the knuckles bulging and bloodless.
Hurtada took a step back and held open the door on the left. “Sure it is.”
Gadds shoved back from the chair, sensing the heat welling up from his stomach now as he tried to shut out the memory of that smug-fuck caller—I hear you’re weakened —and peg his anger on that scale of One to Ten.
Seven now, and rising.
He charged down the hall.
The Rage Room’s door was padded and soundproofed, and it autolocked behind him. Inside were an array of items selected for their fragility. An antique lamp on a slender side table. A sixteen-piece china set arranged on a hutch. A variety of vases. A freestanding bookcase hosting a menagerie of glass figurines.
It was as though he’d stepped onto the showcase floor of a Beverly Hills furniture store.
A catcher’s mask dangled from a peg on the wall. He donned it.
The steel baseball bat was end-weighted, heat-treated, and double-walled—illegal for most men’s leagues.
He hefted it and confronted an old-fashioned stereo stack, the record player on top begging for the first blow.
He felt his anger cross the Rubicon, and he yielded to it.
For a time he raged.
It might have been fifteen minutes. It might have been thirty.
When he came to a halt, panting and winded, his hands cramped and sore, the Rage Room was decimated. It was much more satisfying to take his anger out on someone rather than something , but this was what his course leader had called Making Good Choices.
He tilted the bat against the wall beside a golf club and returned the catcher’s mask to its peg on the wall. He felt clearheaded now, ready to make some business decisions.
When he emerged, Hurtada was waiting in the hall, a gym towel folded over one chubby forearm as if he were a waiter from the Roaring Twenties. He wore the same nervous expression he always had when greeting Gadds outside the Rage Room.
“The way things are going,” Gadds said, “you’d best restock the room.” He snapped the towel off Hurtada’s arm and mopped his face. “This can’t stand. None of it. Charter a jet. I have to go down to South America. I’ll kiss a few rings, negotiate a goddamned dangerous new line of credit, and get the distribution flow unfucked.”
“On it,” Hurtada said.
Gadds was already moving up the hall, Hurtada wobbling along at his side. “Chief? Chief? I got an update for you.” Hurtada produced a fax. “On the other matter.”
Gadds snatched the paper and looked down at it.
Then he smiled.
This was good. A more pleasing target for his rage.
Someone always beat something .
“Let the retard know,” he said.
*
Trevon was sitting on the couch alone with himself and the Scaredy Bugs, and alone with them wasn’t a good place to be. He flattened his hand and pressed his palm to the side of his head, pushing hard, his head tilted. He didn’t know why it felt good, but it did, like he was holding all the pressure in, like he was holding himself when there was no one else there to do it for him. Mama told him it looked weird and he should be careful about doing it in front of other people.
Mama.
He was making noises now out of his mouth and hearing them like it wasn’t him, and he didn’t know what else to do since they wouldn’t let him work and there was no more family and he couldn’t talk to the cops or anyone else or Big Face would get him. He wanted to call his friend, the Nowhere Man, but Mama told him that friendships had to be reciprocal and you couldn’t just keep calling folks, you had to wait for them to call you back even if sometimes they never did.
He felt something touch his legs and he jerked back, but it was just Cat-Cat twining between his ankles. Cat-Cat looked up at him and meowed twice, which meant he was hungry.
Trevon didn’t feel like he could move let alone stand up, but he had to, ’cuz he was responsible to Cat-Cat and Cat-Cat was responsible to him. That was what the rules were, and the rules kept him calm and kept Cat-Cat fed.
He was shaking some kibble into Cat-Cat’s bowl when the doorbell rang.
The doorbell rang again, and he realized that he’d frozen there over Cat-Cat’s bowl. “Who is it?”
“Delivery.”
Trevon set down the bag, walked over, and peeped through the peephole. It was a FedEx guy.
“Okay,” Trevon said.
“Can you open up please, sir?”
“How come?”
“I need you to sign.”
“Can I see your badge?”
“I don’t…” The guy scratched his nose. “I don’t have a badge.”
Trevon pressed his head some more.
“Sir? I don’t have all day.”
Trevon undid the chain real slow-like and opened the door. The guy stared at him a sec. Then thrust an electronic pad at him.
Trevon signed. His fingers were shaking. He couldn’t remember the last time he ate.
The guy took a small box from beneath his arm and handed it to Trevon. “Have a nice day.”
“Thank you, sir. You have a nice day, too.”
Trevon shut the door and locked it and rehooked the security chain.
He got a pair of scissors and walked to the table, holding the closed blades in his fist like he was taught. Then he sat down and opened the box.
Inside was a small black clock.
But it didn’t tell the time.
It said 10 DAYS, 23 HOURS, 09 MINUTES, 11 SECONDS.
It was counting down.
But for what?
The only thing Trevon knew of that counted down was— He dove away from the table, gathered Cat-Cat up in his arms, and huddled against the kitchen cabinets. He stayed like that for a time, Cat-Cat meowing to get back to his food.
After a while he let Cat-Cat go.
He tried to relax.
A bomb didn’t make sense.
Like the Nowhere Man said, Big Face needed Trevon alive and well to maximize his suffering.
He crawled back over to the kitchen table, then drew his eyes up so he could see the clock: 10 DAYS, 23 HOURS, 07 MINUTES, 54 SECONDS.
He watched till it counted down to 10 DAYS, 23 HOURS, 05 MINUTES, 30 SECONDS.
What could it be?
When it reached 2 MINUTES , he got a horrible feeling in his gut.
He stood up and went to his computer. He logged in.
The horrible feeling in his gut got worse when he saw he had an e-mail from Kiara.
Hey, Tre!
The program’s wrapping up a little early due to some funding issues, so I’m flying back a week from Thursday. I e-mailed Mama already but wanted to let you know. I probably won’t be able to get to a computer again to check e-mail but I hope you can go with her to pick me up at the airport. Miss you!
xo—K
His heart was pounding loud enough that he could hear it in his ears.
He double-clicked on the attached itinerary.
She was on a Spirit Airlines flight that landed at LAX June 29 at 12:35 P.M.
Today was June 18.
He squeezed his eyes shut, saw the numbers in his head, the days and minutes and seconds. He opened his eyes and looked over at the clock on the kitchen table.
They matched.
His jaw started watering like he was gonna throw up. Before he could, his cell phone rang. He fumbled it out. “H-hullo? Who is it, please?”
“Trevon.”
It was Big Face.
“Yes, sir?”
“They say a decapitated head can still see for three seconds, but I’ve always wondered. My thinking is that you’d pass out from the shock without so much as a blink of recognition. But when your sister gets home? We’re gonna find out.”
“Hello? Sir? Please don’t. Please let’s not find out.”
But Big Face had already hung up.
Trevon’s mouth watered even worse than before. He barely got the trash can out from under the desk in time.
41
Customer Service
Terrance DeGraw lived in Chatsworth off a winding canyon road on an isolated patch of land that might’ve once passed for a ranch. Yellow weeds covered the earth, and one of the walls of the stable had rotted away, revealing the empty stalls. The house was falling apart, windows shattered, screen door rusting on its hinges.
Evan parked and crossed through the front gate, dead leaves crunching underfoot. He didn’t get halfway up the front walk before the door opened and two men came out.