Point of Impact

mouth.

Definitely a cousin worth kissing, Maggie. If it hadn’t been her brother’s funeral, he would have thought about hitting on her, though the family would have howled at that. Shoot, he wasn’t going to marry her or have kids, what did it matter if they were cousins? He’d seen the way she looked at him, she’d be up for it.

His father said, “How are things at work, Robert?”

He came away from his mild sexual fantasy. “Fine. I’m up for a promotion. They are considering me for head of Polymers. Be worth another ten thousand a year.”

“Congratulations.”

“How is Arizona? The dog okay?’

“Fine. The dog is fine.”

That pretty much exhausted everything Drayne and his father usually said to each other. But sitting here waiting for some preacher, who at best probably had not seen Creepy in ten years, to talk about what a wonderful boy he had been and God’s plans and all, Drayne felt an urge to poke at his father. He said, “You hear about what happened at HQ in L.A.?” There was no need to identify HQ, that was all it had ever been called in their family.

“I heard.”

Drayne wanted to grin, but of course, that would have been inappropriate in this place at this time.

“Sounds like something you’d pull,” his father continued.

For a second, Drayne felt a cold splash of terror. “What?”

“I haven’t forgotten the incident in your English class.” His tone was stem, disapproving.

He felt a sense of relief, and at the same time, of irritation. Jesus Christ! The old man was still pissed off about that? Drayne hadn’t thought about it in years.

It had been nothing. He’d made a little stink bomb, one with a kitchen match and a cheap ballpoint pen, the kind of things kids did. You took the ink cartridge out, put the match inside the body of the pen, and rigged a bobby pin in the spring, then screwed the thing back together. The bobby pin stuck out where the ballpoint tip had been, so when you pulled it back and let it go, it thumped into the head of the match, lighting it. But since the flame didn’t have anywhere to go, it flared up and down the pen’s barrel and vaporized some of the cheap plastic before it went out. The result was a short blast of godawful smelly smoke; that was it.

Drayne had been fourteen, in the eighth grade, when he’d dropped one of the pen stink bombs into the garbage can next to the English teacher’s desk when she hadn’t been looking. It had been a hoot, that stinking smoke belching from the trash, but some goody-goody had seen him do it and ratted on him. He’d gotten two days off to consider the heinousness of his crime, and the old man had taken his belt to him when he found out. And never let him forget it.

“I’m not fourteen anymore, Dad. That was a long time ago.”

“I didn’t say you did it. I said it sounded like the kind of childish prank you used to do.”

Drayne didn’t say anything, but it pissed him off that the old man was still throwing up ancient history in his face. Even though he had done the FBI prank, that shouldn’t have been the first thing out of the old man’s mouth.

“Nobody got hurt, did they?” Drayne finally said.

His father had been thinking about it. He came back fast: “But they could have been. People unwittingly exposed to drugs are at risk. Somebody could have been injured. What if some of the agents or staff had been allergic to the drug? On medication that it might have interacted with? What if there had been some kind of emergency needing a prompt response? A fire in the building, maybe a bank robbery or a kidnapping, and they had been unable to respond properly? The idiot who thought it was funny to chemically assault an office of federal agents didn’t think about those things, you may be sure. It was an irresponsible, criminal act, and he’ll be caught and punished for it. I hope they lock him up and lose the key.”

Drayne gritted his teeth. It would be a bad idea to say anything. Just let it go. What did you expect? The old man was gonna express admiration for the cleverness of the stone job? C’mon, Bobby, you know how he is. Now is the time for all good men to shut the fuck up.

But he couldn’t help himself. Drayne said, “Maybe not. From the reports, it didn’t sound as if they had any leads. Maybe the guy was too smart for them.”

The old man turned to look at Drayne, blinking at him as he might at seeing a dog turd dropped into a church social punch bowl. “If he had been smart, he would have known better than to assault agents of the FBI. They’ll get him.” He paused a second. “Do you admire this criminal, Robert? Is that what you are saying? Didn’t you learn anything from your upbringing?”

Drayne flushed but finally realized it was time to keep silent. He just shook his head.

Yeah, Dad, I learned plenty. Much more than you will ever know.

But then the minister arrived, a guy who looked to be about a hundred years old, and it was time to get down to the business of burying Creepy.

Malibu, California

Tad was still up, though about to crash, watching the morning bunnies and studs jog along the beach. The early fog had mostly burned off by nine or ten A.M., showing the brilliant blue hiding behind the gray.

Man, he was wasted. As the chemicals of the Hammer faded and lost their grip on him, he felt a bone-deep weariness begin to claim him. This was gonna be a hard one to recover from, he knew. Best thing to do would be to take a shitload of downers and sleep for as long as he could, twenty-four, thirty-six hours, let his body get as much enforced rest as he could. Couple of the long-lasting phenobarb suppositories, some Triavil, maybe some Valium mixed in, to keep the muscles relaxed. Some Butazoladin for the joints, Decadron for the inflammation, Vicodin and little snort of heroin for pain, Zantac for his stomach, maybe even a little Haldol, just for the hell of it.

Bobby, off at his cousin’s funeral, wasn’t gonna be too happy with him when he found out about Tad busting up the gym. Probably they wouldn’t want to be seen hanging together for a while, in case ole Steve the bodybuilder ran into them somewhere and made the connection. Tad didn’t think the gym rats knew he was tight with Bobby, he was pretty sure they didn’t know, but book it, they weren’t gonna forget him after last night.

It would probably be in the papers and on the tube, about the gym, but Bobby wasn’t plugged into the news, only what he caught on the radio when he was out driving, so maybe he wouldn’t hear about it until Tad had a chance to break it to him, put a little spin on it.

He managed a grin, even though his face was sore from the drug rictus he’d worn for most of the night. Yeah, spin, right. How much spin could you put on trashing a place and beating the crap out of folks because you had suddenly gotten horny?

Well, at least there weren’t any public recordings of the Zee-ster and Bobby floating around, Tad knew that. That was the important thing. Maybe Bobby was right. Maybe they should jet over to the islands and mellow out for a few weeks, come back when things settled down. Way he felt right now, the idea of swinging the Hammer again any time soon didn’t really appeal. Of course, if he lived through the recovery and got to feeling better, the desire would come back pretty quick. It always did.

Being able to do what he had done last night when he looked like a male version of Olive Oyl? That was a big fucking draw.

Hell, after he’d left the gym, he’d lost interest in sex, but he had driven up to the Hollywood sign, hopped the fence, and climbed up to the top of the big H. Sat there watching the city for a while, climbed down, and driven to Griffith Park, where he’d roamed for hours, just enjoying the green. Hadn’t gotten home until after Bobby left, which was a good thing, ’cause he’d probably have told him about the gym, being fearless at the time.

No, better he learns about it in a couple, three days, back when I’m straight again and it’s all past tense. Bobby could go to World or Gold’s or one of the other upscale places to work out, it was no big loss.

“Time to get the doc-in-a-box out, Tad m’man,” he said aloud. “And settle down for long nap.”

22

Quantico, Virginia