I go back to the bakery, get a French baguette and a doughnut, and eat it as I walk back to my apartment. It has been a long time since I've been in this place and my home is something of a stranger to me now. I sit at the empty countertop and bite into my doughnut, savoring the sugar and the sweetness, and I think back to Jacqueline.
I miss her.
I pushed her away for a reason and now I have even more of a reason, to keep her at arm's length. But then again, I also need her to know what kind of danger she's in. Hell, I need to know what kind of danger she's in.
She called me a lot after I caught her in Seattle, caught her being, of course, the operative word. I didn't really catch her doing anything. In fact, it was more of an excuse than anything else. I saw an opportunity, and I took it, and I shouldn't have. I miss her, and I love her. Now I'm genuinely worried about her life. I pace around the apartment, trying to figure out the best way to approach this.
As much as I hate my father, doing this job for him, especially since it doesn't involve killing anyone, it wouldn't be too much of a favor. I know that I want to put him out of my mind and never think of him again, but he needs my help. He needs a good crew to do this job for him, and if he doesn't get one, if he doesn't get some sort of help, I'll have to attend his funeral. But worse than that, my brother would never forgive me.
"What about then?" I say out loud.
I'll make the decision after.
What about Jacqueline? I ask myself.
If her life is really in danger, then we'll deal with it. But regardless, all of that will have to come after I help him, after Montauk, after we get that folio, right?
My phone rings. It's Lincoln.
He's early. I was supposed to have until six o’clock to decide, but I know that he can't wait.
"Are you going to do this or not?" he asks.
I pause for a little while and then say, "Yes."
6
Dante
We get to Montauk later the following evening. We rent a nondescript hotel room and make plans there. We're all using assumed identities and fake identifications. We paid for the room with cash, but it's registered in our fake names, just in case. This whole situation has unwound much faster than I ever thought. After I said yes that morning to Lincoln on the phone, he told me all of the plans and to get to Montauk as soon as possible. He told me to rent a car under an assumed name. Luckily, I have a lot of identities, a driver's license laying around from my old days doing this kind of thing.
We make the plan. My father looks small and not so powerful or charming sitting in the Motel 6, where the ceilings are low and the chairs are less than ideal. There's one queen-size bed with a spotted, flowered comforter tucked tightly under the pillows. My father sits at the dining room table nursing an espresso. His hair is tossed to one side and he still very much embodies the fabulous bachelor-like persona that he likes to portray, but something is different. There's a lot less bullshit now and everything seems more serious.
There's a bit of a moment of silence where the three of us just gather after we say hello, and then don't say much else. I'm dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, boots, and a baseball hat that I especially wore to keep my face from being on camera when I got the key card. Lincoln is wearing all black, but Dad? He just couldn't help himself. A linen, starched, white Brooks Brothers shirt, and a casual pair of Dockers. This is the most casual that he could probably muster.
"What am I doing here?"
I finally start the conversation after a very long pause. Lincoln's eyes flicker up.
"Are you going to tell me the plan? I mean, how's this happening so fast after our conversation?”
"There isn't much time to waste," Dad says with a huff.
"I originally thought that we would have much more time, but the folio is being moved or at least Fierzynski, the owner of the house, is moving. There were trucks outside, according to my lookout."
"So you don't even know if it's there?"
"I didn't say that."
He shakes his head.
"All I said is that there's a good chance that we are running out of time."
My father is careful with his words. I guess that's the thing about being a writer. You give them a lot more depth and meaning than other people perhaps would. If you were to look him up on Wikipedia, you'd find an entry about someone famous for writing exquisite, creative nonfiction, peppered throughout with some short stories that have been published in all the most exclusive magazines, like The New Yorker and Plowshares.
When I was younger, I admired him for this exact thing. I've thought about how wonderful it would be to make up stories for a living but when I tried, I could never think of anything to say.
As I got older, I realized that my father merely inhabits the idea of being a writer. He likes living the lifestyle. He likes having people think of him as this great storyteller. But, in reality, he spends most of his time chasing women, drinking, and thinking up scams.
I never told him this, but when I was a child, I went into his office and I looked at his notebooks and I read character sketches about two little boys, one called Dante and another one, Lincoln.
One sketch just talked about Dante being self-centered and obsessive, focused entirely on himself and Lincoln being a momma's boy. There were little stories written about the characters, one in which Dante tried and tried to do different things, but could never succeed at anything because he was a loser. And Lincoln, though he did succeed in getting a lot of accolades and financial success, lost it all. And, in both cases, the little boys always returned to their father and their father always saved them from whatever endeavor or problem they encountered.
I was old enough to know that this was exactly how my father felt about us. The problem with fiction writers is that a lot of people ascribe feelings and emotions to them that they don't really have. They write about heroic characters overcoming obstacles and some of them have never overcome anything, so you can't necessarily take fiction as an example of what someone believes. But, when it came to these stories, with their descriptions and their specific details about these boys, I knew that there was nothing made up about them.
This was us.
This is what he really thought about us.
He only saw his children through his own lens, how he could use them, and how they affected him. We never existed as real people with personalities.
Apart from him, we were always at his beck and call and he always saw us through his own lens as the father. I photocopied those stories and I keep them with me. And, there were many times when I was tempted to show them to Lincoln, but I got scared. Not because of how he would react, but because I love my brother and I didn't want to hurt him the way our father had hurt me.
The house that we're planning to hit is located at the end of a leafy cul-de-sac. There are two empty lots on either end, property bought by the owner, and there's a large fence all around. Of course, Dad already has the code for the gate.
We arrive at night, dressed all in black and traveling under the cover of darkness. No one is supposed to be there.
The moving people are gone and we hop the fence in the back where it's a little bit lower and where the cameras won’t be able to spot us. I hate to admit it, but I'm actually getting a thrill out of doing this with my brother. We haven't done much of anything fun together in a while, and this gives me a rush reminiscent of those days when we were teenagers playing in underground poker games.