Hellbent

She held up the phone. David’s face duplicated with each new post, a Warholian effect on the endlessly refreshing screen. The chirps quickened, reaching video-game intensity.

“You bitch.” David’s voice was so raw it came out as little more than a rasp.

“I don’t expect you to understand,” Joey said. “Maybe you’ll get it when you’re older.”

“You just took away any shot of me being anything.”

“No, you stupid little shit,” Joey said. “We saved you. We just gave you a normal life. Where you don’t have to spend all your time running away from… running away from yourself.” Her voice cracked, and beneath the vehemence there was something wistful, something like longing. She swallowed hard and turned away to stare at the rear of the liquor store.

“Go back to the McClair Center,” Evan said to David. “There’s a charge nurse who’ll be happy to see you.”

“Fuck McClair.” Tears streaked David’s red cheeks. “Fuck the charge nurse.”

“I’m going to give you my phone number in case you ever need my help.”

“I’m never gonna call you. I’m never gonna ask for your help. I never want to see you again.”

Evan took the first-aid kit out of the trunk and dropped it at David’s feet. Then he walked to the driver’s seat and got in.

Joey stayed in the alley, gazing at the cracked stucco wall, her arms folded. It took her a moment to start moving, but she did.

She climbed in, slammed the door louder than she needed to.

Evan said, “Look up the number of the McClair Children’s Mental Health Center and tell them you spotted him here. I already called. It should be a different voice.”

Joey said, “Gimme a moment.”

David didn’t move as Evan backed out. The side mirror passed within a foot of his shoulder. Evan hit a three-point in the cramped space and spun the steering wheel toward the open road.

They left him in the alley, staring at nothing.

58 An Ad for Domesticity

A few minutes past eight o’clock, the GPS dot finally stopped moving. In the passenger seat, Van Sciver pointed up a suburban street and said, “There.”

Thornhill steered the Chevy Tahoe into a hard left. Van Sciver held his phone up and watched the blipping dot, finally at fucking rest. Candy hunched forward from the backseat, bringing a faint hint of perfume.

“Two houses up?” she said.

The muscles of Van Sciver’s right eye ached from all the focus. He nodded. “Backyard.”

They slowed as they passed a white Colonial house that had recently undergone a Restoration Hardware facelift. A family of four ate at a long wooden farm table, displayed in the picture window like an ad for domesticity.

Thornhill threw the gear stick into park.

Three doors opened. Three Orphans climbed out.

Van Sciver and Candy parted at the curb, each heading to a different side of the house. Thornhill leapt from trash can to fence top to a second-floor windowsill, vaulting onto the roof. Inside, the family dined on, oblivious.

The Orphans converged on the backyard at the same time, Van Sciver and Candy crowding in with drawn pistols as Thornhill dropped down from the decidedly un-Colonial veranda, landing panther-soft on the patio.

The backyard was empty.

A family of black ducks bobbed in the swimming pool.

Van Sciver stared at them, his jaw shifting.

Then he sighted with the holographic red dot and pulled the trigger. The suppressor pipped once, a pile of feathers settling over the water. The ducks winged off vocally into the night. Van Sciver held the unit in one meaty hand and watched the blinking beacon fly away.

Candy said, “I told you GPS was sloppy.”

Van Sciver’s phone chimed, an alert muscling in on the GPS screen. He thumbed it to the fore and read the brief report. The visuals were distressing — David Smith’s face propagating out through the Information Age.

Candy’s phone had gone off, too, and she drifted over, reading the same update on her screen.

Thornhill gave them their space.

“Let’s head back to McClair,” Van Sciver said. “Put the kid down.”

“Sure,” Candy said. “That’s strategic. A kid whose picture just went viral, let’s turn him into a media event.”

“He’s a loose end.”

As Van Sciver started back through the side gate, Candy stayed at his elbow. “Does he know your name?” she said.

“No.”

“Does he know anything about the Program?”

“No.”

“Then let him rot in a kid’s mental ward, spin his delusions in group therapy with the rest of them.” She shook her phone. “Taking him out after this is gonna bring press. Why add fuel for the conspiracy theorists?”

Van Sciver halted in the cramped space at the side of the house. “So X doesn’t get what he wants.”

His eruption caught Candy by surprise. It seemed to have caught him by surprise, too.

He turned and continued on. As they neared the front yard, the door to the kitchen opened, the father leaning out in front of them, hands on hips. He was wearing a red-and-green Christmas sweater, seemingly without irony.

“Excuse me,” the man said.