Lousiana Hotshot

Don’t tell me: you and Eddie probably want to recommend a bodyguard. And your firm just happens to supply them. That’s it, isn’t it? We came to you in good faith, and you’re trying to scam us.”
    There was no doubt in Talba’s mind she really did believe it.
    Oh my God, I’ve blown this so completely. I’m not cut out for this shit. If that kid gets killed, it’s my fault.
    She felt so miserable she wasn’t even angry at the insult. She said what she always said when things were so badly out of control she felt she was about to hit a tree at high speed: “I think we’d better talk about it later.”
    And for the second time that day, she got yelled at: “What kind of fool do you think I am?” Aziza just took the one shot and left it at that. Considering the kind of day Talba’d had, it seemed the mildest of attacks.
    When she was in the car, she thought,
That’s three times if you count Eddie. I wonder what my horoscope for today is.
    ***
    The unaccustomed experience of tears left Eddie feeling punchy and bewildered. What in all hell had that been about?
    Anthony. It was about Anthony.
    I miss him,
he thought.
Well what the hell, he’s my son. Sure I miss him— but why would I cry about that?
    Because of the way he is and what he did.
    He was getting up a little outrage, and that felt better. He was stronger, surer, the minute the grudge started to gather. This was familiar territory, the place he needed to be.
    Goddammit, the kid never… Anthony always
.
. .
His mind was blank. It was huge what Anthony had done. Unforgivable. He’d left home without Eddie’s permission, refused to finish school, sashayed off… and then he’d… Eddie didn’t want to think about it.
    The phone rang. He ignored it.
    Goddam
that Talba. Where in hell did she get off? How
dare
she? He found it absolutely incomprehensible that one human being could invade another’s privacy like that.
    Would I do that to her?
he thought.
How the hell
could
she?
    Dad, for Christ’s sake, you’re a private eye.
It was Angela’s voice, implanted somehow in his brain.
You do shittier stuff on a daily basis.
    He really wished his daughter would clean up her language. Also, get out of his head.
    He picked up the phone and listened to his voice mail— Angie again. In his head and out of it. “Dad, I got the weirdest phone call. Where’s Eileen? What’s going on over there?”
    He went to find some aspirin. He had some kind of tired, naggy headache, but nothing like one of those big babies that kept him out of work. Surprising, he thought. His eyes hurt from the tears, that was about all.
    He choked down the aspirin, washed his face, looked in the mirror, and thought,
I want to see him. I really want to see him.
    It was a big fat mistake. A horrible sound came out of him, and then more tears. Damn. He hoped nobody came in before he could get this thing under control. But what in hell to do about it? Every time he turned around, it ambushed him.
    Lots of things ambushed him. Things Anthony had said to him wouldn’t let up, kept cycling round and round his brain, leading nowhere.
    Dad, I’ve been thinking about you a lot. I mean, with your birthday coming up and all.
    This was the son who had defied him, left home at sixteen, quit school. Quit school when Eddie himself had had to work two jobs just to finish high school, and never had gone to college. Mr. Big Shot Spoiled Brat Anthony just thought he could up and do anything he wanted.
    “I just wanted to pursue happiness in my own way,”
he’d said.
“I don’t understand why the people I love most want me out of their lives.”
    “Because you’re a bum, Anthony,” was what Eddie wanted to say. “Because you don’t care about us. Why the hell should we care about you?” But something prevented him, something in his son’s voice, some remembered note, a remnant from the boy’s childhood that brought back his feelings for his son before it all went sour.
    He had loved that kid. Loved him more than Angie, and that was the truth. He saw bits of himself in Anthony, little inklings of an innocence he couldn’t remember having, but must have had— a purity of heart that might once have been his, that maybe he could recapture. Intelligence as well. Lots of it. More than he had ever had, he was damned sure of that. Of course Angie had it too, but Angie was a girl; she intimidated him. She was foreign. Anthony was familiar. Like Eddie himself, only better.
    Could have been