Fibbey

Handgun in hand, pocketknife in pocket.

Through the front door I could visualize their outlines. I could put two bullets through each, presuming the .45 rounds could pierce the solid-core metal door. Why'd I have to buy low velocity rounds? I know why, so that if I made an idiot mistake and accidentally let a shot off outside it would disintegrate before it went farther than 100 yards, so I wouldn't end up killing someone and ruining some drapes by letting the thing fall to the ground.

Lot of good it'll do me now.

Then a knock on the door, and a voice. "FBI, open up! We need to ask you some questions." The voice sounded grizzly, like a tired old man.

We need to ask you some questions. It sounds better than "we need to shoot you in the face and laugh about it afterwords," but who ever says what they mean these days?

I'd lived in the area long enough to have seen an FBI agent or two, and these guys sure fit the bill. Suits worn just for the sake of being suits, unremarkable sedans, always traveling in pairs. Mulder and Scully. Harris and Marquez. Butch and Cassidy.

I could hear the soup boiling, mirroring the temperament of the blood at the base of my skull. Another pound on the door, sounded like the base of someone's fist. I sighed, still contemplating firing blindly through the front door. If I'm supposed to be turning myself in for killing someone today, I might as well go for the high score.

Or not. They could in fact be FBI agents, they could have found the car and traced it back to me. Better err on the side of safety, I figured, so I lowered the gun from the door. My shoes were sitting a few feet away, so I grabbed one and set it on the floor in front of the door, turned the deadbolt back, and opened the door a few inches so it caught on the toe of the shoe and was stopped by the friction of the shoe against the floor.

"Badges, please," I said, peering through the two inch opening of the door. My left hand was on the back of the door, ready to slam it, my right hand was holding the gun behind my back. The two men bent forward to see through the crack. They looked at each other, shrugged, and pulled folding wallets from their belts and held them up.

"Hand one to me," I said again. The man closest to me was older than the other, looked to be in his fifties and with his sagging jowls and slicked back light hair, he looked like a depressed bulldog. He drew in a breath to speak, then shrugged again and handed the wallet through the crack in the door. I snapped it away with my left hand and slammed the door shut with my knee, turning the deadbolt again as I stepped away from the door.

The wallet was a simple black leather folder, when opened, the a gold badge sat sideways on the right fold and a plain blue card was slipped behind a clear pocket. It was a white laminated card with all blue writing. "Department of Investigation. FBI. This certifies that whose signature and photograph appear hereon is a regularly appointed special agent for the FBI." The picture matched the old man outside, the signature said his name was G-something Bremer. If it was a forgery, it wasn't an obvious one.

I kicked the shoe away and opened the door, still eyeing the badge.

"Special Agent Bremer?" I said, "Is there something to differentiate between 'agent' and 'special agent'? Because I only hear about 'Special Agent whoever' and never 'Agent whoever'."

The older one, Bremer, allegedly, scowled, exaggerating the lines in his face. The younger one smiled tritely and said, "An agent is a new hiree, once they go through the FBI Academy in Quantico they're appointed Special Agent."

I handed the badge back to Bremer. "Quantico, eh?" I said, "I hear that's a nice place."

Bremer took the badge and slipped it back over his belt, the annoyance fading from his face. "It isn't," he said.

"May we come in?" the younger one asked. He looked no older than thirty, had thin-framed glasses and wavy blond hair. He had about six inches over his old partner.

"Just a few questions, Mr. Baker," Bremer said, as if on cue, "No funny business, scout's honor."

I frowned. "You don't have any pepper spray do you?"
"Why, do you need some?" Bremer asked, playfully.
"Yeah, thought my soup could use some kick."

I looked them both over, if they wanted to gut me they could have done so already. I flicked the safety on the gun and tucked it into my pants' waist on my back and covered it with the back of my shirt, then stepped back away from the doorway.

"Be my guest," I said.

They both stepped inside, neither of them surveying the room or rest of the house. "I'm Special Agent Bremer and this is equally Special Agent Rubino, my partner."

Rubino didn't look very Italian, he looked like Navy man, save for the glasses. When I closed the door, Rubino stood in front of it and Bremer stepped into the kitchen. He seemed to be the one who liked talking, so I followed him.

"You want some soup?" I asked, stepping around the counter and over to the stove to turn the heat down.
"Naw, I only eat soup when I'm sick," Bremer said.
"And you're not," I said.
"What?"
"Sick."
"Not this moment," he said. He pulled a tall chair from the counter and sat down, resting his elbows on the counter. "So," he started again, "do you have any questions for us?"

I stirred the soup with a wooden spoon, "I thought you had some questions for me," I said.
Behind me he said, "We might. But I thought first you might want some answers."
"About what?" I asked.

"Oh.. anything really. Most kids I meet your age are just brimming with questions, about what 'Special Agent' means or whether we carry guns and if we ever use them."
I moved the soup pot from off the heat and turned around, leaning against the front of stove. He was looking at me flatly. I just shrugged.

"But you probably know all you need to about guns," he said. "The range target sheets they pulled from the back seat of your car this morning had pretty tight grouping. Your dad teach you to shoot?"

I bit the side of my cheek. "From my car?" I said, trying to sound innocent. "My car was out front last I checked."
"Huh. Must have been stolen, then. Stolen and taken to Lorton for some shooting, some Wendys, and a few gallons of milk."
"Crazy world we live in." There was no use denying it, he was pretty convinced.
"Very crazy," he said, leaning back in the chair, "so crazy that whoever stole your car looks exactly like you and has an accomplice that looks exactly like Amy Westborne. At least, that's what the security cameras at Hobson's Grocer saw, and verified by the testimony of a few shoppers and employees who are not used to seeing teenagers storm through the store and douse their face with two gallons of Dairy-fresh."
"Builds strong bones"
"But the most crazy thing was when a CPA was taking a shortcut to work this morning, he found his path cut off by your car, the one that was stolen by a pair of look-alikes of you and your friend, smashed into the side of a police car with a John Doe practically cut in half and a dead state trooper sittin' easy in the trunk."

Ok, so I'm going to jail then.

He sat there for a minute, reading my face. I stood and did the same.

"You never answered my question, though," Bremer said after a moment. "Did you learn to shoot from your father?"
"I don't think my dad liked guns," I said through my teeth.
Bremer smiled, "Ah yes, he did always seem the pacifistic type."

He was lying; he had to be.

Rubino stepped into the kitchen slowly. "Soup smells good," he said.
I looked back at Bremer, then stepped forward and sat both hands on the counter opposite him. Bremer looked over his shoulder at Rubino, "We were just talking about Dan," he said.

My dad didn't like to be called Dan, I thought.

"He didn't like to be called Dan, remember?" Rubino said.
"Oh, right," Bremer said with feigned realization. He then turned back to me, "So you must just be a quick learner, then. With the shooting, I mean," he made a play gun with his fingers and took a shot at the pot of soup behind me.

"Is this going somewhere?" I asked, trying to to keep my voice from wavering.

"As I was saying," Bremer said, "we just wondered if you wanted to ask us anything."
"And all you want to ask me is where I learned to shoot? Haven't you been watching the news? Kids these days are learning their combat and car-stealing skills from video games."
Rubino stepped forward and set his hands on the chair next to Bremer.

"If you don't have any questions for us, then we really don't have any questions for you," Rubino said. "We just thought, you know, you might be going through some things and you might want some input from some people as knowledgeable as us."

"Ok," I said, "How can I tell if a girl likes me likes me, or just likes me?"
Bremer laughed again, "That's not my department, kid," he pointed at the ring on his right hand, "Third marriage. Jake might be able to help you there." He turned to his partner.Rubino just shook his head.

"What we meant," Bremer said, "is that if you started noticing anything weird going on, like next time if -- instead of your car getting stolen -- it's actually you who drives a Civic through a guy with no record or file in any database. Should something weird like that happen, you might want to call us and see if we can do anything for each other."

They each pulled their real wallets out and slipped out a business card, then slid them across the counter.

In the distance I heard police tweeters, not sirens, calling every few seconds. The noise came closer and closer, until out of my kitchen window I saw two police cruisers, state trooper insignia, racing down the street and pull awkwardly into my driveway. From the first car came a uniformed officer and another man wearing a drab suit and thick overcoat to which a badge was pinned. Two uniforms stepped out of the second car.

"How's that for timing?" Bremer asked. He turned to Rubino and asked casually, "Why don't you take care of that, Jake?"
"Sure thing, sir," Rubino said, stepping backwards out of the kitchen.

I heard him open the front door, and stepped over to the kitchen window to see him walking toward the policemen with his badge held up. Bremer and I watched now as Rubino stepped up to the plainclothes officer and hand him the badge. He spoke for a minute, the officer didn't look happy. After Rubino stopped talking, the officer began talking back and, waving his arms in the air and I heard some obscenities through the window. The officer spun around and slammed his palm against the roof of the squad car.

"They get antsy when fellow officers turn up in trunks," Bremer said as he watched the show.

Rubino started talking again, pointing at his own car then at my house, then placed his hands at his hips. The officer swore again, then turned to the dumbfounded uniformed officers watching the exchange and waved them off. He got back in the passenger seat of the car he came in, and in a few seconds the second car was gone, then the first.

Rubino came back into the house and said to Bremer, "They're going to give it some space for a while, but I figure as soon as they can pull some new evidence from their collective ass they'll be back."
Bremer turned to me, "Alrighty, sport. You hear that? We can keep them off your case for only so long, so it'd be just grand if you could start helping us out sooner rather than later. You have our cards, so when you think of or find something you'd want to talk to us about, you can give either of us a call."
"Whichever of us you think would have the better phone voice," Rubino said.

Bremer stood up and straightened his jacket. "We'll be seeing you," he said as he left the kitchen and out the door toward their car.

Rubino held back for a moment, his hand on the doorknob, and said, "And in the unlikely event that you really are in the dark about things, you might start looking for answers from that principal of yours." He looked me over one last time, then stepped out the door.

Stiff-collar executives who like to read The Art of War and apply it to sales techniques and judge the careers of their peers based on the quality of the stock and lettering of their business cards have a technique they use after any meeting. They ask themselves, What new contacts have I just made?, What did I just learn that I didn't know before, and How can I use those two things for my advantage? I didn't have any justifiable answers for any of those.

My thoughts were cut short by my cell phone chirping. I found it on the coffee table by the couch I'd slept on, and answered it without looking at the caller ID.

"Hi Chris, sorry I didn't call before but things have been hectic around here with Cathy," it was my mother.
"Oh, well, that's fine," I said into the phone, looking around the room.
"Ok, and I thought I'd give you the weekend without bugging you. Didn't figure out how to throw any parties, did you?" she laughed.
"Nope, no parties."
"Well that's good I guess. Anything else going on, then? Anything exciting?"

I swallowed, my mouth felt dry and my stomach was rumbling for that soup. A mile or so away from my house were a few cops who wanted my blood and behind them were two FBI Agents -- Special Agents -- who seemed to know more than they let on and seemed only interested in playing mind games. An hour away there was a dead police officer and a "John Doe" was apparently in pieces.

"Nope," I said, "nothing at all."