Crescent City Connection

away. I decided not to bring her.”
    His father threw his arm back, and Daniel saw what was coming next, but he was frozen. Errol Jacomine whacked him as hard as he could on the side of the head.
    “What’s the matter with you, Daniel? Are you crazy? You get that little girl back or we’re all gonna fry.”
    It didn’t really hurt. It wasn’t a big deal at all. Though he’d just been hit, Daniel was elated. This was what he’d hoped for—he was over all that.
    “Come on, Daddy. Tell the truth. You just want to see your granddaughter.”
    “Yeah. Maybe I do.”
    Daniel grinned, and his dad grinned back.
    Errol Jacomine said, “Now, is what we’re doing important work, or are we merely spinning our wheels?”
    “It’s real important, Daddy.”
    “Are we going to save the world, Daniel?”
    “We’re sure gonna try.” For the first time in his life, he actually felt close to his father, felt they shared a mutual respect.
    “Well, let me tell you something. It won’t be because of your brainpower if we do. You don’t have the sense of a rhesus monkey, do you know that? I swear to God I wish I had time enough to send you back to school. What were you doing all those years in Idaho? Lettin’ your brain atrophy? Is that what you’ve been doing?” He let his voice rise.
    “I haven’t got time for this crap, Daniel. I just haven’t got time for it. What we’ve got going is big, and what we’re going to get going is bigger. Do you understand me, son? Do you actually get my drift, or is it too complicated for your tiny brain? We have to move fast. We have to move very fast. You get that young lady back and you get her quick. Double quick, goddammit.”
    He shouted so loud Daniel felt like running. Simply turning tail, slamming the door, and hightailing it down the street, exactly as he’d done a thousand times when he was growing up.
    This time he didn’t. He thought to himself,
He’s right. He’s acting like an asshole, but there’s nothing wrong with what he’s saying.
    He felt proud that he could separate the two. Working with his father was hard, the hardest thing he’d ever done, but what he thought was, the man was smart, the smartest man Daniel knew, probably, and he’d taught Daniel good values.
    Daniel liked what he was trying to do, and deep in his heart he knew his father was proud of him and trusted him or he wouldn’t have come to Idaho to get him, revealed himself even though he was wanted for half the crimes in the universe, recruited his older son to be his first lieutenant.
    A woman came into the room, shaking wet hands and looking worried. “Daddy! Everything all right?”
    “Well, Miss Bettina. However are you today?”
    “Daddy, I heard shouting….”
    “Were you worried about me? Were you worried about your old daddy? You know, you are absolutely the sweetest woman I’ve ever met in my entire life. You’re going to make someone a wonderful mama.”
    The woman looked about nine months pregnant. She smiled. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
    “Well, that’s not the point. The point is, how are you? You still getting sick around cigarette smoke?”
    She kept smiling, obviously reveling in the attention. “I’m better, Daddy. Thank you.”
    “Well, you take care of that precious cargo.”
    The woman left, leaving Daniel shaking his head. Daddy was like that: furious one moment, all concerned about someone the next.
    He thought:
Daddy has a style, that’s all. He yells and he says things, but he doesn’t mean ’em. If he did I wouldn’t be here. I’m gonna do my damn job, and the hell with that crap. I really don’t care.
    His dad was all business again: “One thing. Before you get my granddaughter I want you to do something else.”
    Daniel thought he couldn’t be hearing right. “Daddy? I don’t understand. I thought you just said—”
    “You thought. You thought! You’re not supposed to think, son, you’re supposed to do what God put you on this Earth to do.”
    “But…”
    Errol Jacomine leaned over his desk and pushed his son’s chest with the flat of his hand—a little peanut of a man with fire in his eyes, pushing Daniel, who prided himself on his body, who went to the gym every day. “Shut up, Daniel. I’m telling you, do this first and then do the other and I want ’em both done by tomorrow. Have you got that?”
    “But tomorrow I have to—”
    “I know what you have to do tomorrow. Don’t sleep. Work round the