Butterfly Stomp Waltz

Chapter 33

33

A banana, a glass of milk, and an open-face peanut butter sandwich on thick fresh-baked brown bread with French apple jelly silence my gnawing gut. The clothes Bradley got me lack any sense of style, but that’s kind of the point. And she got me underwear, right size and everything. They’re bikinis, not my usual hiphuggers, but that’s still a huge step up from going commando in third-hand shorts. I’m in tightly laced brilliant white sneakers and a drab white sundress when I slip into Jacka’s room.

Jacka’s room is a little larger than the closet where I slept, but not much. It’s painted the same flat white as the rest of the place, but has a wood-framed faded photo of a family’s idealized previous generation hanging next to the door and a tiny wooden crucifix of ancient shriveled wood mounted on the far wall. He has a better window, too, cracked to blow away the twin taints of antiseptic and injury. His narrow bed looks a little softer than mine, too.

But to look at Jacka, he’s going to spend a lot of time in that bed.

Jacka always looks pale and thin, but now he’s downright gaunt. His lips are shrunken. His skin is tight over his cheekbones, and his eyelids heavy with painkillers. The thin pajama pants hang on him like he’s a clothes hanger, and the tidy but thick gauze bandage over his shoulder is only barely whiter than his skin. He’s half-sitting, back propped on this heap of pillows stuffed between his back and the wall. His eyes are loosely focused on this little tablet when I come in, concentrating on the tinny conversation of an old movie or something, but as I close the door behind me he looks up. He fumbles three times to stop the video. “Beaks. How you doing?”

“Better than you,” I say, trying to keep my voice upbeat and cheerful. I’m still angry at Deke, but I’ve managed to turn it down to a simmer on the back burner. You don’t yell at a maimed teammate, especially for what isn’t their fault.

“I get to sit on my ass. For the next week or two,” he says. “I’m doing awwwe-some.” He’s talking slowly, his voice wobbling up and down. The doc must have filled him with dope all the way up to the eyeballs. That’s okay—use the painkillers, or the pain kills. And gunshots are painful. “Few days from now, I’m goin’ down. To the coast. Rent a condo. Sun and sand and, and sea. For me! Grab a seat.”

There’s only space for one chair, this narrow wood thing you might use to interrogate prisoners, wedged into a corner near Jacka’s feet. I sit. “Rob said you wanted to see me.”

“Yeah. You get him t’go to bed?”

“Only after he introduced me to the guards.”

“Good guys?”

“They’ll do.” I’d seen worse than the half-dozen armed men taking shifts around this isolated little house. I hadn’t checked their skills, of course, but if everything went really bad their gunshots and final screams would give us time to slip out the back.

“Cool.” Jacka reaches for a glass on the bedside table, but his fingers can’t quite get a grip. I hop to my feet and help him get the straw into his mouth. He takes a long drink of water, then releases the straw. “Thanks.”

I put the glass back on the table, right next to a bottle of Dilaudid. “You’re a lucky guy. I don’t help just anyone with their drink.”

He coughs. “Yeah, first prize in… the bullet lottery.”

“It could happen to anyone.”

“I had night vision,” Jacka says. Bitterness seeps through the drugs. “I was looking wrong way. Didn’t even see, the bastard. Right round the edge of the bulletproof vest.”

“Rob says you’ll be up and working again, in no time.”

“Yeah.” His eyes get distant. “Maybe I should take the, the… hint.”

“That’s the pain meds talking. Give it a while.”

“Not the first time I been shot,” Jacka says. “Not the, worst, either.”

Oh, great, I think. He’s going to tell his saga.

But when someone’s hurt, you keep them company.

“Used to love food,” Jacka says. “Eat anything I, could get down my throat. Best out of three. Fought my weight. Had body… builder arms though.”

My surprise must have shown. Jacka had been thin since Deke introduced me to him, on our third gig together. These days, Jacka could give diet tips to skeletons.

“Yeah,” Jacka says. “Hard to believe, innit? Empty hand, that was my thing. Not punching, though I did that too.” He licks his lips. “Throws. Locks. Controls and come-alongs. Get behind someone, I’d get them to take a nap. Every time.” His eyes leave my face to stare into the past. “I did a thousand falls once. In two hours. No stopping just, just.” He starts to mime slapping a mat, but his hurt shoulder jerks him to a halt. I flinch in sympathetic pain. “Just down and up. Threw my partner between each fall. Back and forth. Knew two hundred and six—six! Different joint locks. Only quit cause I had a date.”

His eyes return to me. “I had a girl then, too. Siobhan. Engaged. Before I got shot.”

I don’t have anything to say, so I nod.

“On the job. Thought the bodyguard was down. Took a bullet.” Jacka slaps his bellybutton. “Right here.” And he’s looking into the past again. “Deke got me out, but that’s not, not the worst bit.” He rubs his stomach with his good hand. “Peritonitis. Lost a bunch of gut. They wouldn’t let me keep it either. I wanted to make guitar.” His good hand waves absently. “Strings. Guitar strings.”

Jacka’s not the only one looking into the past. I’ve always admired the really good martial artists, all lithe and strong but smooth. I can see a younger Jacka, hair still full of color, dancing and gliding between thrown punches, effortlessly answering each grab or a swing by throwing his attacker at the ground.

Then maimed. Sick. Crippled.

“Couldn’t fall,” Jacka says. “Any more. Abs won’t take it. Can’t take a punch. Can’t practice without falling. Couldn’t even teach. What was I gonna do? Work in an office?”

“That had to suck,” I say honestly.

“Siobhan going sucked more,” Jacka says.

“That b***h,” I say reflexively. You don’t bail on someone because they’re sick.

“Not her fault.” Jacka leans back and closes his eyes. “She tried. I’d given up.”

Jacka falls silent. I sit for a moment, then have to throw words into the gap. “Still, this isn’t so bad. You’ll be back up.”

“It was Deke,” Jacka says. “That saved me.”

Listening to Jacka, I’d managed to forget Deke. The anger, the shock of betrayal, floods back into me.

“He got me up. Got me to a shooting instructor. Taught me how to find things. I had contacts. Deke showed me to, to use them. Found out, I liked to drive hard. Pilot. Helicopters, too. Speedboats. Still can’t eat—every bite, it hurts. Going through. Lucky I don’t have a bag, though. Still can’t take a punch. To the gut. But, I’ve got, a life. And Deke, Deke… he gave it to me.”

Deke had never told me any of this. Like he’d told me many times, some stories aren’t his to tell. I’m fighting tears again, struggling against this surge of blended sympathy and pride and rage at him.

There were good reasons I’d fallen so hard for Deke.

“Point is,” Jacka says. “Point is, I owe Deke. So, I gotta ask.”

All those emotions flash-freeze into a knot in my throat. Don’t you dare tell me what to do with Deke! Please, please ask me to save him, to kill him, to crucify him, to forgive him, to burn him.

“When you find him,” Jacka says. “You find him. Please.” He heaves a deep breath. “Make it quick.”

I’m trembling. The peanut butter sandwich has turned to acid in my stomach.

But I can’t throw my anger in Jacka’s face. Not right now. He got shot helping me.

It takes all my self-control to say, “I can do that.”

Jacka pulls one eye open long enough to say, “Thanks.”

We sit in silence for another moment. I’m trying to hide the emotional hurricane battering my soul. Finally, Jacka fumbles for the glass again, and I swoop in to help.

“You don’t need to,” he says when I put the glass down. “Sit here. Watch a sleeping man.”

“I’ll let you be,” I say. “You rest.”

My hand is on the doorknob when a sudden thought strikes me. “Jacka?”

He grunts, maneuvering himself to lie more flat.

“You—you only flirt with the attached women, don’t you?”

The left side of his mouth quirks up. “It’s fun. But can’t have anyone… take me serious.”

His words make me a little sad. Jacka’s totally not my type, but I suddenly understand he isn’t quite as obnoxious a guy as I’d thought. No—he’s still obnoxious, but I can understand why.

And everyone deserves hope. Even for love.

I watch him wiggle down between the pillows to make himself comfortable. “Next time I need a driver,” I say, “you’re getting a call.”

Jacka gives a drowsy nod.

After all, he was a good driver.

And he wasn’t going to flirt with me. I wasn’t attached to anyone. Not any more.