9
Wednesday, June 8th
Washington, D.C.
Michaels felt as if he were a thousand years old and mostly turned to dust as he held the phone’s receiver in a death grip that threatened to break his hand or the instrument. He kept his voice as light as he could.
“... really great, Dadster, and all the kids in my class love him.”
His daughter was talking about Byron Baumgardner, a teacher at her school in Boise—and his ex-wife Megan’s boyfriend.
No, not boyfriend—fiancé. They were getting married at the end of the month. And they wanted to have Byron the bearded wonder adopt his daughter, move in and take over as her father, and deny Michaels visitation—if he allowed it.
Needless to say, Michaels had not been invited to the wedding.
His initial inclination had been to fight it to the death—preferably Megan and Byron’s death. He didn’t like either of them right now, and at their first meeting had put the bearded wonder on his ass when the man had grabbed him. Megan had been doing her usual slash-and-burn number on him, and when he’d said something back in an angry retort, dear young Byron had taken it upon himself to defend her honor. Without thinking about it, Michaels had decked the man, thus proving that the silat he’d been learning actually worked.
In retrospect, that had been a mistake, but boy, it sure felt good at the time.
Well, Byron the bearded wonder would find out about how much honor his new love had the first time he crossed her—Megan fought dirty, always had. Michaels had overlooked that for a long time, blaming himself for a lot of their troubles, but eventually he realized it wasn’t all his fault. Yeah, he had spent too much time at the office, and yeah, he could withdraw into his own head and not engage even when he was home, but he had been a good father, and when Megan started throwing the lousy-dad crap in his face, it was hard to smile and shrug it off.
But would taking his ex and her new love to the legal mat and trying to choke them out benefit Susie? How would an ugly custody battle affect her? Sure, kids were resilient, they could bounce back after really nasty trauma—mental, physical, whatever—but did he want to be the one who caused that trauma?
No. Even if it was mostly Megan’s doing, she was going to be the person who got Susie out of bed every day, the person Susie would come crying to when she fell and skinned her knee, the person who could, with a few well-chosen words, plant a lot of lies about dear old dad that would slowly and surely turn his daughter against him. And he wouldn’t put it past Megan, not after what he’d learned about her after they had split up. She had a mean streak, and it was a lot wider and deeper than he’d ever imagined it could be.
Getting into a tussle with her mother over Susie’s affections would be a losing proposition, no question. At least until she became a teenager and rebelled ...
Susie, now eight, continued to talk about what a swell guy Byron was, and as much as he didn’t want to agree with that, Michaels didn’t say so. Poisoning a well was never a good idea in his mind, you never knew if somebody you loved might drink from it—or if you might have to drink from it yourself someday. Susie was going to be living with the man, and what good would it do her to be in the middle of a pissing match between her real father and the new stepdad?
What harm might it do her?
Truth was, Byron probably was a nice guy. If he’d met him away from Megan, he suspected he wouldn’t have had any problems with him. Yeah, he’d been out of line when he got between a divorced couple in a long-running fight he didn’t understand, but he would have done the same thing in Byron’s place. Michaels had been ragging on Megan—justifiably so, in his mind—but what kind of man were you if you didn’t step up to protect your woman? Even if she was in the wrong?
Or even if she was somebody like Toni, who could protect herself better than you could?
Michaels shook his head. Toni ?sn’t your woman anymore. Don’t go there.
“So when are you coming to see me, Dadster?”
“Pretty soon, Li’1 Bit. Next month.”
Yeah, next month. Friday, July 1. The day of the first round of the custody hearings. His lawyer, Phil Buchanan, was confident they could win, or at least stall things for a long time, or so he said. But the question was: Did he really want to do that?
“Spiffy! Did Momster tell you that Scout caught a rat?”
“A rat?” Scout was a toy poodle Michaels had come by when an assassin, a woman disguising herself as an old lady walking her dog, had used the little beast as part of her subterfuge. Fortunately for him, the dog had barked at just the right time, saving his life. He’d thought about keeping the pooch, but figured he needed more attention than he could give a pet, so now Scout was his daughter’s companion.
“Oh, yeah, we heard them fighting under the porch last night and then Scout came out dragging it by the neck! It was a big rat, all brown and bloody, and it was dead, but he bit Scout on the leg, so we had to take Scout to the vet to get a shot so he wouldn’t get rat disease. He’s okay, though.”
The idea of the toy poodle tangling with a wood rat and coming out the winner was amusing. When he’d lived there, Michaels had used D-Con or traps to keep the rat and mice population down. That was a long time ago, in a galaxy far away ...
“I gotta go, Daddy. Daddy-B is coming over to take us to the new IMAX 3-D. I love you.”
“I love you, too, honey. Bye.”
Michaels stared at the phone. Daddy-B.
Well, okay, sure, what was she going to call him? An eight-year-old using his first name somehow wasn’t right, but “Daddy-B”?
Michaels sure as hell didn’t need to hear that, regardless of what was best for his child. That wasn’t right, either.
So, what was he going to do about all this? He had only a few weeks to decide, and the decision would affect him and his daughter for the rest of their lives.
Wasn’t that just one more straw his camel didn’t need. His life had become a damned soap opera.
London
“Are you sure?” Carl asked.
Toni nodded and sighed. “Yes. I have to go.”
They were in Carl’s silat school, which occupied the second floor of a four-story building between a tandoori restaurant and a boarded-up charity shop in a less-than-posh section of town called Clapham. The school was bare-bones, old wooden floors and a few mats, run-down, but kept spotlessly clean by students offering hormat and adat—basically honor and respect—to their instructor. The first evening class would be starting in about an hour, and the students who volunteered to sweep and mop the floors would be there soon.
Carl nodded in return. “I understand.”
Impulsively, Toni put her hand on his chest. Under the thin white T-shirt, the muscle was tight and warm. “Thank you. I appreciate all you’ve taught me.”
He caught her hand with his, pressed it against his pectoral a bit harder. “It has been mutual. Listen, if things don’t go well with your Mr. Michaels, let me know soonest, would you?”
“I will.”
“I have occasion to visit the States now and then. I’d be pleased to see you there whether this works out with Alex or not.”
“I’d like that,” she said.
“Are you going to stay for class?”
“No, I need to get packed. My flight leaves early in the morning.”
He nodded again. “I’ll miss you.”
“I’ll keep in touch, I promise.”
He bent and kissed her gently on the lips, leaned back, and smiled. “Travel safely,” he said.
Toni nodded and smiled. Carl was a path not taken, at least not fully, and she had a feeling she would always wonder how it would have been to travel that way.
Back at her flat, Toni looked through the things she had gathered during her weeks in the country. Some of it would fit into her bag. Some of it she could have shipped if she wanted. Most of it would stay here. A coffeemaker, a blender, a small microwave oven—they would be useful for the next tenant. What she would mostly take would be her memories, and now they were jumbled in a way she had to reconsider. Alex hadn’t slept with Cooper, whatever his reasons for allowing her to think otherwise. It made a difference to her, and she had to resolve it.
She could have had her com receive his daily call. Could make the connection herself and ask him about it from thousands of miles away. No risks to that. But no long-distance voice, even complete with a video image, was enough for such a conversation. She needed to be able to see into his eyes, watch him closely, pick up the little movements of his body language, to touch, smell, maybe even taste him. She didn’t kid herself that she could always tell if somebody was lying to her, but she thought she could tell if Alex was lying, if he was standing right in front of her and if she was looking for it. So if what Cooper had said was true, if he hadn’t cheated on her, then what would that mean? She had left him, quit her job, and if she had done it because she had made a mistake—it was a very big f*cking mistake. If she had been that wrong, then what did that say about her?
She had to know. One way or another. And if she had to swim across an ocean and then walk the rest of the way when she got to dry land, then that was what she was going to do.
The doorbell chimed.
A deliveryman dressed in blue shorts and a matching shirt and cap stood there, holding a small package. She signed for it, then went back inside. What could this be?
Inside the box, enveloped in fat green plastic bubble-wrap, was an eight-inch-tall, dark blue glass bottle, about as big around as a cardboard toilet tissue tube.There was a small sheet of print rubber-banded to the cylinder, and a note in the box. The note said, “Toni—I thought you might be able to use this. It won’t do anything for your ego or your soul, but it might help with external aches and pains. Cheers, Carl.”
The sheet of print turned out to be instructions for using what was inside the blue bottle: Balur Silat, also called Tjimande Silat, or if you liked the newer spelling, Cimande, where the “C” was pronounced the same way as the “Tj.”
Toni grinned. Balur Silat was a training aid, coupled with conditioning devices like padded punching and kicking targets. Toni didn’t use it much anymore, but she still had a striking ball that Guru had made for her years ago. It was an old athletic sock with about three pounds of copper-coated steel BBs in it, the kind used by air guns. The BBs were tied off in the toe of the sock, which was then clipped to make a globe about the size of a baseball. This was then wrapped tightly with layers of duct tape. What you did with this was to punch it, or hold it in one hand to bang it against your forearms or elbows or shins, to help get them used to being hit.
Balur Silat was a blend of coconut oil and different roots and herbs, a concoction that took about a month to make. You ground the herbs up, cooked and mixed them together, put the resulting goop into a dark glass bottle, and stored it in a dark cool place for months, or even years, to age.
After a bruising session of bone-to-bone contact during a workout, battered shins and forearms were common. Like the Chinese herbal remedy Dit da jow, or “iron hit wine,” the classic Indonesian preparation was said to be a great help. Literally, balur means “to crystallize” or “to harden.” The stuff was solid at room temperature and had to be heated slightly to liquefy. The liniment thus created was used to help speed healing of bruises, and to help to condition and toughen the skin. There were practitioners of some fighting arts who had shins so hard and impervious to impact they could break baseball bats over them without apparent harm or pain. Toni had seen a picture of an old Serak stylist who could do that once, and she had no desire to have her shins scar and knot and wind up looking like his; still, a certain amount of conditioning was a good idea, and Balur Silat was a help, though finding the authentic stuff wasn’t easy—every other guru out there had his or her own recipe, and some were better than others. She was pretty sure that Carl Stewart’s stuff would be decent.
She hefted the bottle. If it would work on bruised egos, the maker could name his price and retire rich in a few days. She smiled again, and went back to her packing.