Guns Will Keep Us Together (19 page)

I took her hands in mine. "No, it's a great story. It shows compassion in trying to resuscitate him and wanting to give him a proper burial."

"I don't know if jumping up and down on the corpse shows much respect," she said with a frown. "I doubt I could get away with that at work."

"It doesn't matter. I love it. And I love you." There. I'd finally said it. And I was glad I said it. I love Leonie Doubtfire and her dead iguana.

Of course, her cell phone chose that moment to ring. For the first time in my life, I'd told a woman I loved her. Could she ignore it?

Leonie grabbed her purse and pulled out the cell. She frowned at it for a long time, then with a stony look, told me she had to leave.

"Whoa! You can't go now. I just told you that I love you!" In spite of my best efforts, it came out as a whine. "I've never done that before! This is a major breakthrough for me!" And why didn't she say
I love you
back? I'm hardly an expert in these matters, but it does seem like it's a reciprocal thing.

She disappeared into the bedroom without answering, and in a few minutes re-emerged fully dressed. Leonie kissed me on the cheek. The cheek! What the hell was going on?

"Sorry, Dak. I've got to go." And Leonie Doubtfire walked out of my condo, leaving me standing there alone, in just my boxers, feeling like an idiot.

As if these last few months, that was a first for me.

 

 

 

"Listen up, maggots. You are not special. You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake. You're the same decaying organic matter as everything else."

~Tyler Durden, Fight Club

 

 

I didn't hear from Leonie the next day, or the day after that. I wondered if this was what the women who'd dated me before felt like. I didn't like it. It hurt. I left a number of messages on her voicemail, but she never responded. I felt like a washed-up loser.

Louis knew something was wrong but wisely didn't mention it. Mostly he talked about school, our trip, and his training. I just listened half-heartedly. What could I do? I felt like my heart had been ripped out, then eaten by Magua on
Last of the Mohicans.

"Dad!" Louis shouted, even though he was standing right in front of me.

"Huh? Oh, hey, buddy. What's up?" I responded glumly.

Louis rolled his eyes. "I'm trying to tell you that I want to join the Boy Scouts! They have a form you need to sign." He presented me with a form, requiring my signature.

"I used to be a Boy Scout," I mumbled, taking the pen he handed me. Maybe this was what Louis needed to give him more of a normal boyhood. Something that could cancel out the assassin training.

After he was asleep, I shifted my focus from feeling sorry for myself to my Cub Scout days. I'm pretty sure I liked it. Yes, I know I did. Paris and I were in a den together, and I started to think about camp-outs, pine wood derbies and newspaper drives. We always hit bull's-eyes in whatever type of target shooting we did. I think that unnerved the other kids, but since it had been part of our rigorous assassin training, we just shrugged when they asked why we were so good.

I looked at the form. The meeting was next week, and I had to accompany him. Okay. That sounded like something typical fathers did with their typical sons.

I thought about Leonie once more before banishing her from my brain. I didn't need another sleepless night feeling sorry for myself. Instead, I went to sleep dreaming of navy blue uniforms, square knots and trying to remember what the hell WEBELOS stood for.

Day three found me unwashed, in rumpled and dirty clothes, sitting in Paris's apartment.

"Let me get this straight. You told her you loved her, and you haven't heard from her since?" Paris frowned. "Wow. Talk about karma." He shook his head, "I mean they say
what goes around, comes around
but man, this is pure poetic justice."

I stared at him. "Wow. You are
so
supportive."

"Maybe not, but I know irony when I see it." Paris handed me a cup of coffee and sat down.

"So, what do I do now?" Paris might not have been the best person to ask. Don't get me wrong—he'd had his fair share of women. But as far as I know, he'd never fallen in love either.

"I don't know." He shook his head. "She's an odd chick. Not like your normal breed. This one has a brain. Did you say anything to offend her?"

I related the cerulean and dead iguana stories almost verbatim.

"It's hard to say. Maybe she's got a lot going on at work?"

Now why didn't I think of that? Of course that was it! Maybe there'd been a mass murder or something, and she was up to her neck in dead bodies and their bereaved.

"So, you're saying I should go over there?"

Paris cocked his head to the side. "No, I don't think I said that. If she's busy, you're likely to bother her."

"I should go over there!" I repeated a little louder, with enthusiasm.

"What are you going to do? Start crashing funerals just to see her?"

I jumped up from the couch and hugged Paris, "That is exactly what I'm going to do!"

Even as I showered, shaved and donned a clean suit, I wondered why I hadn't thought of this before. Of course she was swamped!

Being at Crummy's was a way to demonstrate that I supported her.  Leonie would see that and tell me how wonderful I was. It was a fool-proof plan.

I pulled into the parking lot, parked, and checked the newspaper. It was the Lutz visitation, and although I'd never met Dean Lutz or any of his family, I was attending his wake.

One final check in the rearview mirror told me that Dak was back. I locked the car and made my way into the funeral home. A different mortician greeted me at the door and sent me to the correct room. The receiving line was short, and I had to play the part.

"I'm so sorry for your loss," I said quietly to the widow.

"How did you know my husband?" she asked through her tears.

"Oh." How did I know him? Well, it hardly seemed prudent to say that I just spotted his visitation notice in the paper today. "I'd met him through work. Just a few times. I didn't know him well but wanted to pay my respects." I thought it was a great cover story. So why, then, was the widow looking at me with her mouth open?

"Could you come with me please?" Someone tapped me on the shoulder, and I saw that it was Leonie. My heart soared as I excused myself from the widow and followed her into the hall.

"What are you doing?" Leonie had her arms folded over her chest. "Are you crashing the Lutz visitation?"

"Yes. I thought I'd come find you, since you've been too busy to return my calls." I said calmly with only a smidge of defensiveness.

Leonie looked to her right and left before speaking. "That is so wrong, Dak! You can't stalk me like this."

"What are you talking about? I just wanted to show you some support."

"By pretending to be a colleague of Mr. Lutz's? Are you joking?"

"I could be a colleague. How do you know I'm not?" That's right, boy. Hang on to your dignity!

"Because Mr. Lutz was the fat man in a circus side show," she said grimly. Okay, she had me there. Come to think of it, the urn
was
enormous. (I just thought the widow was being dramatic.). And there was that woman with the beard…

"All right, fine! I came here to find you." I pouted.

Leonie sighed and brushed a stray loop of curls from her face, "Look, Dak. I just need some time on my own for a while. Don't call me or stop by. Just give me space."

My jaw was hanging down to my knees. Somehow I managed to close it. "You're…you're breaking up with me?"

"Look, it's more complicated than that. Someday I'll explain it to you, but I can't now. Okay?" Leonie patted me awkwardly on the shoulder, then left me alone.

Oh my God. I just got dumped by a redheaded mortician in a funeral home named Crummy's, after pretending to be a circus freak at the visitation I just crashed. I was pretty sure there'd be no bouncing back from this.

 

 

 

"I wonder if I have become smaller or has the bedroom

Always been the size of a western state.

The aspirin bottle is in the medicine cabinet

Two hundred miles away, a six day ride,

And my robe hangs from the closet door in another time zone."

~Saturday Morning, Questions About Angels, Billy Collins

 

 

"And then she walked out of my life forever. She thought I was a loser and a geek," I said to Paris as I slumped over my scotch at some bar.

Paris raised his eyebrows. "You're quoting movies now? Man, you've got it bad. What is that…
Casablanca
?"

"
Ghostbusters
. But that's beside the point." I was on my third drink and starting to realize that this might've been a bad time to take up drinking scotch. But Coney drank scotch, and he was soooooooo cool. I guess I thought maybe it would rub off on me. But all it was doing was getting me drunk.

Paris shook his head and motioned to the bartender for another Harvey Wallbanger.

"What's up with these '50s girlie drinks anyway?" I slurred.

"What are you talking about?" Paris asked.

I motioned dramatically toward his glass, "Harvey Wallbangers, Pink Cadillacs, Grasshoppers and Manhattans. That's what I mean! You had to tell the bartender how to make them! What's next? An Old Fashioned?"

"Ooooh," he replied, "I haven't tried one of them. I'll have that next."

"Dude—" I stabbed a finger at him—"you drink like Zsa Zsa Gabor."

Paris looked pissed. "No I don't! Frank and Dino and the other Rat Packers drank this stuff!"

I drained my drink and signaled for another, "That was fifty years ago, and they're all dead.  Drink something normal!"

"Oh, like you? I've never known you to drink scotch before. A little hung up on Coney?" Paris snorted.

We were stepping out onto dangerous territory here. And I was really drunk. If Paris would just quit wiggling like a rubber pencil and stop dividing into two people, I'd let him have it.

"I'd rather emoolatte him." I frowned, "Emyoolabe. Emulake."

Paris sighed and rolled his eyes, "Emulate?"

"Right! Instead of a bunch of dead actors." I nodded sharply, which was a mistake, because now there were three Parises.

"All right, Mr. Sunshine. Time to take you home." Paris threw some money onto the bar, and I watched as it got up and danced a jig. He wrestled his arm under me and dragged me out to his car. The whole time, I felt like I was walking through water—upside down.

On the way back home, I vaguely remember him calling my mom and asking her to keep Louis overnight and take him to school the next day. I couldn't help but smiling. Paris was so responsible. He was not only my wingman, but my son's as well. Why couldn't I be more like that?

"I love you, man," I said to my cousin as he tucked me into bed. Paris rolled his eyes and left me alone in my room, with its spinning ceiling.

I woke up around noon the next day, following a dream where I was being chased around a 1950s casino by Sammy Davis Jr., who was pissed because I accidentally dropped his glass eye into my drink. And let me tell you—he ran like the wind.

 

 

 

Man. I should
not
try new alcohol again. Right. Like it was the scotch's fault. I splashed some more water on my face and looked in the mirror, barely recognizing the gray ghost with purple bags under his eyes.

I was just brushing my teeth for the tenth time when the doorbell rang. I spit quickly, then grabbing a robe answered the door.

Paris stood there with a grin and a box of Krispy Kreme Donuts. "You look like hell."

I snatched the box and nodded. "Yeah, I just got back."

My cousin followed me into the kitchen and started making coffee. "Wait, I know that one." He absently tapped his fingers on his forehead, "It's from
Heathers
, right?"

I nodded. For some reason lately, I could only think in movie quotes. Which was okay, because words had failed me with the only woman I'll ever love. Oh, brother.

"Dude," Paris said as he munched on a maple donut. "You reek."

"If it weren't for the donuts, I'd throw your sorry ass out of here." He was right. I just didn't want to hear it. The huge quantity of scotch I drank was now saturating my pores. There wasn't enough soap in the world to get rid of it.

"Well, I've got some news that will cheer you up. Neil came through with the last assassin. He's in Portland, Oregon. I booked us a couple of flights for tonight."

Neil. Neil. My brain scrambled to pin an identity on that name. Oh yeah. Our contact at the CIA. Old friend in college who liked Air Supply. He was helping us nail the National Resources guys.

I opened one eye and squinted at him—mainly because that's all I could manage. "That will cheer me up?" Actually, it made me feel worse as I remembered I'd promised Louis not to travel so much.

Paris seemed to sense my inner protest, "We're only one more kill away from clearing this assignment. Then you can spend the rest of the year ruminating on how your life has become an ironic, tragic comedy."

He rose to his feet and slapped me on the back. It felt like getting hit with a baseball bat and sounded like a sledgehammer hitting concrete. "I'll pick you up at five. Pack for cold, rainy weather. Gin's going to pick up Louis from school and keep him till we get back. Ciao."

I heard the door shut—it sounded like cannon fire. I finished off the pot of coffee and the box of donuts, then took a long, hot shower. Maybe Paris was right. Getting this job done would be a huge relief. Leonie could wait. I could win her over again when I got back. At least—I desperately hoped I could.

Somehow I managed to convince myself that everything would be all right in the end. After all, the Council was likely to give us time off for accomplishing two or three years' worth of work in just under a month. Then I wouldn't have to shuttle Louis between Mom and Gin, and I could get my head straight on Leonie.