Night of Thunder

He awoke at ten, took a shower, rebandaged the cut on his knee, checked on the swelling around his eyes to see that it had gone down a little, took three ibus, then changed into new jeans and a new polo shirt. Next, rather than breakfast, came coffee brewed in the room’s coffee maker. Then he got down to it. His first call was to his wife.

“Well howdy,” she said, and he sensed from the joy in her voice something good had happened.

“Is she awake, Julie?”

“She was. For almost a whole minute. She sat up in bed, looked at me, and said, ‘Hi, Mom.’ Then she smiled at Miko and said, ‘Hi, little sister.’ Then she lay back down and went back to wherever.”

“Oh, great! Oh, that’s the best news! What do the doctors say?”

“It’s how they come back. It’s never, ‘Hi, what’s for breakfast? Let’s go to the movies.’ It’s a slow swim out of the dark place. She may have short periods of wakefulness for a few days going before she comes out of it completely. So they’re very, very optimistic. Sometimes the victims don’t remember a thing, but she knew who I was and who Miko was. Oh, it’s such good news. Can you come soon? It’d be so good if you were here when she really came out of it.”

“Well, damn, I’ll try. There are some things, some issues, I have to deal with.”

“There was more shooting last night out there.”

“I didn’t fire a shot. In fact, my gun was still in the trunk. I come through it all right, except for a cut knee and a swollen forehead. They’re even calling me a hero and some TV station wanted an interview. I told ’em to call my PR rep. Anyway, I’ll call back in a bit. It still ain’t-isn’t a good idea for you to call me. I just don’t know where I’ll be and the sound of the phone might not do me any good.”

“Okay. But please come soon. Oh, I am so excited.”

“The news is great, honey.”

The next thing he did was call Nick Memphis again. Nope, no answer. Where the hell was he? It wasn’t like Nick to disappear. Maybe he was overseas or something. Anyhow, Bob just left the same message. Then he called Terry, the grocery clerk, to see how he was doing, but got no answer. He left a message. A second later the call-back came.

“You all right?” Bob asked. “Holding up?”

“Sir, it’s been great. I been on the TV a bunch of times, I got calls from some producers in Hollywood, I been in all the papers. Is that okay? Am I handling this correct?”

“You ride this for all it’s worth, you hear. You owe me nor nobody nothing. You leverage it for all you can get out of it. If you want, I won’t never call again, Terry.”

“No, no, sir, call me. I want to know what’s going on and I may need your advice. Also, I feel guilty being called a hero-”

“Which is the true mark of a hero. All heroes feel that way. I’ve known a few. But don’t kid yourself, you stood and fought against two armed men, you took one of ’em down, put him on the floor and really won the fight while all I did was squeeze a trigger a few times. You are a hero, son. Even if you don’t believe it. The rest is meaningless details.”

“Yes sir.”

“Now I can’t tell you anything about the entertainment field. It’s full of sharpies and you’d best keep your hand on your wallet is all I know. But you do call me if you have any trouble, you see anyone dogging you. And be careful. These fellas was working for other fellas. You hear me?”

“I do.”

The next call was to Charlie Wingate, the boy genius in the computer store.

“Any more for me, Charlie?”

“Mr. Swagger, this hard drive is totally fried, near as I can tell. I only got that little bit, I’m afraid to say. Won’t charge you a thing for that.”

“Oh, yes you will. You charge me for a full day’s work at top-scale, consultant level, and not a penny less, you hear?”

“Yes sir.”

“Now I want that brain of yours working on something else. Know anything about the Bible?”

“Not much.”

“Well I don’t either. But something’s come up involving a biblical passage, Mark 2:11. It’s where Jesus cures a crippled man and says to him, ‘Get up, go home.’”

“‘Mein Fuhrer, I can valk,’” said the boy.

“Yeah, something like that,” said Bob, not even close to getting it. “So what hI want you to do is analyze it from any perspective you can think of. Is the number significant, the two-eleven? Is the page on the Bible significant, don’t know what it would be. What do the commentators say about it? What are the different interpretations? Is there some word translated differently from the original language, whatever the hell it was.”

“Aramaic.”

“Yeah, fine. Could it be a code, what are its other citations or usages in history or whatever? Are there paintings or something based on it? All that stuff. You’re smart, you know what I mean.”

“I’ll try.”

“You know the town?”

“Been here my whole life.”

“Okay, maybe there’s some connection between it and this town. I don’t know what, but be creative, think outside the box, make it fun, a puzzle. Who knows what you might come up with.”

“Yes sir.”