Authors: G.M. Ford
In a single deft movement, the big guy shoved Eunice aside and punted Benny the dog into the middle of next week, whence Benny then scrambled to his feet on the second bounce and, without looking back, three-legged it in the direction of the TV room, tongue lolling, his breath coming in ragged gasps.
Unlike Benny the dog, however, Eunice was not so easily deterred. As a matter of fact, single-minded tenacity had pretty much been the story of her life up till then. While most people are able to make a distinction between the things that merely cross their minds and the things appropriate to act out, Eunice wasn’t wired that way. Once Eunice got a bee in her bonnet, it wasn’t going away until she acted upon it; no matter how malicious or mean-spirited the action might be, Eunice wasn’t giving up on the idea until either it reached fruition or she died in the attempt.
Eunice was eight years old when somebody first got an inkling that all was not well in Decatur. Problem was, despite her chronological age, she still acted as if she were five . . . a particularly malicious and narcissistic five at that. By the time she was ten, it seemed pretty much certain five was as good as it was going to get. Kind of like one of those “most likely to succeed, homecoming queen” types who peaks in high school and spends the next fifty years in free-fall ennui, disappointed in themselves and in everything else they encounter along the way.
As doting first-time parents, Milton and Doris Ponds had deflected the first suggestions of developmental deficiency as being, at best, anecdotal and, at worst, maladroit. So convinced were they of their daughter’s normality that they’d eventually hired a lawyer to help them fight the local school district’s designation of Eunice as developmentally disabled and as such as a “special ed” student. They lost.
Five more years and three more children, upon whom Eunice enthusiastically heaped both physical and psychological abuse, had eventually, however, disabused Doris and Milton of any conspiratorial notions. Milton’s bold proclamations about how no child of his was going to ride the “little bus” to school faded to stony silence. If the unending parade of cuts, burns, bruises, and abrasions that regularly appeared on the younger Ponds children did not sound the alarm bell, the children’s steadfast refusal to name their older sister as the culprit . . . despite the best efforts of countless teachers, guidance counselors, and child psychologists . . . finally put the fear of God into all concerned.
As if by providence, just as Milton and Doris found themselves facing the unenviable task of deciding what to do with a “bad seed” (as Milton liked to say), the family fell victim to what local fire authorities labeled a “suspicious” house fire, a tragedy that not only left them standing on the front lawn watching everything they owned turn to soot, but provided the final impetus for securing a suitable environment for Eunice, one which provided both the sort of supervision she required and the opportunities for professional counseling she deserved.
“Ooooooh,” Eunice wailed. “You pushed me.” She drew back her fist and punched the guy right in the middle of his solar plexus with sufficient force to immobilize the vast majority of her fellow citizens. Not this gorilla, however. He never even blinked. When he caught her second punch in his black-gloved hand, Eunice balled the other fist and raised it to shoulder level. He smiled and twisted. And then twisted some more until something went pop in her wrist, something sounding like the snapping of a Popsicle stick. A shriek rose from Eunice’s throat. She banged her knees on the hard stone floor, her face purple with pain, her howl of agony rattling the rafters.
“No” was all gray suit said.
The big guy threw Eunice’s injured hand back at her as if it disgusted him. Lying on the floor now, her cheek pressed hard to the flagstones, Eunice assumed the fetal position, cradling the injured wrist, sobbing into her kneecaps and howling like an air-raid siren. Down at the far end of the hall, the double kitchen doors burst open. Helen Willis was patting her hands dry on her apron as she strode to the front of the house. Ken Suzuki held a piece of buttered toast in his right hand. The sight of Eunice writhing on the floor opened his eyes so wide he looked Caucasian.
Helen jogged across the floor and dropped to the floor next to Eunice, who continued to bear-hug her knees and cry. After a series of hugs and soft entreatments proved ineffective, Helen scrambled to her feet. She put her hands on her hips and confronted the strangers. “What happened here?” she demanded. Gray suit waved a disdainful hand at the wailing figure on the floor. “This person attacked a federal officer,” he said. His voice was soft. His diction clipped and certain as if he’d gone to pronunciation school or something.
The squeak of the kitchen door announced the arrival of Mrs. Forbes. Helen waved her forward. “Take Eunice out to the kitchen,” she directed. “I’ll be in there in a minute.”
Together, after a coupla tries, they managed to lever Eunice to her feet. Her tear-stained face was contorted nearly beyond recognition as she shuffled across the foyer and down the hall, holding her injured wrist before her like an offering. Mrs. Forbes stayed at Eunice’s side, offering a grandmotherly arm thrown around her shoulders and a calming whisper that everything was going to be okay. Helen Willis turned back toward the front door. She pointed with a trembling finger. “Get out,” she yelled, stamping her foot.
“I’m calling the authorities.”
Gray suit sneered at her. From the inside pocket of his suit jacket, he produced a small handful of paperwork and a black leather case. He flopped the case open about an inch in front of Helen’s face. Gold badge and plastic ID card. National somethingorother.
“We are the authorities,” he said, snapping the case closed. Helen pushed the case away from her face. Blood roared in her ears. “Let me see that again,” she demanded. He ignored her. The big guy spoke softly into a tiny microphone attached to his collar. Helen bellied in closer, but before she could open her mouth, four more men burst into the foyer.
Gray suit twirled a finger. “Everybody in . . .” He looked around. Pointed a buffed fingernail back across Ken Suzuki’s shoulder, over at the front parlor, the only room in the house reserved for formal occasions. “Put them all in there,” he finished. Two headed up the stairs. Another pair pushed past Helen and Ken, following Mrs. Forbes and Eunice toward the back of the house. The sound of pounding feet beat an unpleasant rhythm, a sound Helen Willis had never heard before, a sound more common to war zones, she thought, and then, inexplicably, her mind wandered to one of her favorite books. She envisioned Anne Frank hiding in that dank annex, imagining her anxiety at the sound of boots on the stairs, then the cold steel terror of the man with the gun. For some reason, the recollection emboldened her. She turned quickly toward Ken. “Call the police,” she said with as much command as she could muster. Her bravado wasn’t enough. One look at Ken Suzuki told her she was going to have to make the call herself. Ken stood like a Buddha carved in stone, fear in his eyes and granite in his feet. You could see it. Ken had been rounded up before. Ken wasn’t taking any chances here. He made a face at Helen. Shook his head in caution. Helen was having none of it. She shouldered her way past the big guy and started for the phone in the parlor.
“By all means,” gray suit said. “Call the po-lice.” He put the accent on the wrong syllable and then smiled at his own little joke.
Helen was halfway to the parlor when she encountered Carman Navarre and Dolores Hildebrand, both of whom were being herded into the front room by one of the agents. Carman tugged at Helen’s dress. Helen stopped and put a hand on her shoulder. Carman was short and squat, a Down-syndrome victim and one of the most universally pleasant souls Helen had ever met. Nearly fifty years before, a police officer had found Carman wrapped in a hotel towel and stuffed in a garbage bin down in Long County. Unlike, say, Darl and Randall, whose grip on reality was at best tenuous, Carman was generally on top of things . . . as long as you weren’t in a big hurry for her to get there. Carman was slow to process information. She got things right, but took quite a while to do so. The agent sought to hurry them along. He reached for Carman, but Helen batted his hand away. “Don’t you dare touch her,” Helen said. “Don’t you dare.”
Satisfied she’d deterred him, at least temporarily, she turned her attention back to Carman. “What is it, Carman?” she asked. Carman leaned in close. “Somethin’s wrong with Benny,” she whispered.
“Like what?”
Carman shrugged. “He went down in the cellar and won’t come up.”
“He was limping,” Dolores piped up.
Suddenly the air was alive with strained voices and the sound of moving feet. They’d rounded everyone up and were herding them downstairs. The elevator door slid open. Paul wheeled Mrs. Dahlberg toward the front room. Shirley rolled herself along in their wake. Darl and Phillip were both agitated, a state which each man handled in a completely different manner. While Darl just kept winding himself higher, until he required sedation, Phillip, when overstressed, went thumb-sucking catatonic. Helen took a moment to soothe each man as he passed.
At that moment Mr. Hallinan walked up the front steps and into the foyer, five minutes early for his morning shift, as was his habit. Helen Willis hurried to his side. “Mrs. Forbes is in the kitchen with Eunice. I think she . . . Eunice, that is . . . may need to see a doctor.”
He started to hurry off. Helen grabbed his sleeve. “Benny’s in the basement. I don’t know what the problem is, but Carman says he won’t come up. She thinks maybe he’s hurt somehow.”
Jacob Hallinan was a man of few words. He immediately hustled off toward the kitchen, pulling the keys to the van from the hook in the hall on his way by.
“How many?” the voice came from behind her. When she turned, she found herself closer to the man in the gray suit than she cared to be. She took a step back. “How many what?”
“How many residents?”
“Twelve,” Helen said. “Not counting staff.” The minute it was out of her mouth, she regretted telling him anything at all.
“How many computers in the building?”
This time Helen didn’t answer. Instead she turned on her heel and hurried into the front parlor. Everybody was sitting down except for Darl and Randall, both of whom were too excited to be still. Darl was so agitated he just kept muttering under his breath and turning in small circles. Randall was trying to appease Carman with a gift of his slippers. Carman pinched her nostrils, making the “stinky” sign. Dolores laughed and turned her face aside, whispering something to Mrs. Dahlberg, who was sitting in her wheelchair beneath the Art Deco floor lamp.
Three of the assistants counted the crowd.
“Twelve,” one of them said to the others, who agreed. Same guy pointed at Paul. “He’s the only one who’s even close.”
Gray suit only shook his head. “No. Not him.”
Helen pulled open the center drawer of the sideboard. She came out with a yellow legal pad and a green golf pencil. “I want your names,” she announced. “Every one of you.” She waved an angry pencil. “And your badge numbers . . . or whatever kind of numbers you damn people have.”
The words caught in her throat. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d cursed in public. Didn’t matter, though. The big guy caught her by the shoulder, welding her to the floor like a butterfly pinned to a board. She tried to step out from beneath the weight but could not move. “Don’t you dare . . .” she shouted. And then, in an instant, Ken was there . . . coming like a line drive, using his velocity to bump the big guy off balance. The lessening of the weight bearing down on her shoulder allowed Helen to step away. Ken used the opportunity to insert himself between Helen and the big guy. He stood firm, the very picture of defiance, his eyes ablaze, his chin thrust out like a lance, his fists balled at his side, all rigid and primed to go off like a stainless steel spring. The air hummed with tension. If not for Ken giving away a hundred or so pounds to the gorilla, the smart money might have been laid on Ken, on the theory that self-righteous indignation will carry a body a long way. As it was, badass as Ken might have been feeling at that moment, he never stood a single chance in hell.
The weight lifter reached out and grabbed him by the front of his shirt. A couple of buttons popped as he was lifted completely off the floor. His attempts to kick and flail fell pitifully short. Another button popped and fell to the floor, where it bounced twice and then rolled under the upholstered bench, where people took off their shoes.
“No,” gray suit said again.
The big guy hesitated a beat and then set Ken Suzuki back onto his feet. Ken shuffled backward like a boxer. Gray suit stepped into the breach. He directed his voice at the assembled multitude in the front room. “Thank you for your assistance in this matter,” he said.
“At this time we’ll need you to return to your rooms.” The gorilla whispered instructions into his collar mike.
Took some of them longer than others to grasp what was wanted of them. But as was their nature, once they understood the request, they cheerfully acquiesced.
Took a full five minutes before everybody but Helen and Ken were shuttled upstairs. When Helen cast a glance up the stairwell, she saw Paul Hardy standing at the railing looking down at her. A kind of raw electric energy ran between the two of them. She quickly looked away. “Again,” said gray suit. “How many computers in the building?”
She held out the legal pad. “I want your names and—” He cut her off. “It’s up to you,” he said. “We can do this the easy way or we can do it the hard way. You choose.”
Ken moved up close to her elbow. She could feel Paul’s gaze raking her from above and desperately wanted to look up. She steeled herself. “Where’s your warrant? I want to see a warrant.”
“We don’t need a warrant. This is a matter of national security.”
The words sent a shiver down her spine. She looked back over her shoulder at Ken, whose anger had turned to confusion. “How could anything . . . how could these people have anything to do with . . .”