The Suitor

Amy's house was bigger than mine. I always thought my place was a bit too big for three people, but Amy's seemed to exaggerate that notion. I'd only seen it in the dark, but now that I'd made the walk in the daytime it seemed bigger than it had at night. Dark tan bricking and copper accents, the front lawn was big enough to play some pick-up football, if I knew how to play football. It was being used by just two people now, like my house. My dad was gone, leaving me and my mom alone in our house; Amy's mom was gone, leaving her and her dad alone in theirs. If this were a bad Disney Channel movie, my mom and her dad would end up together and Amy and I would wind up as siblings.
That notion disappeared when I met her father.

I stood outside the house for a few minutes, looking at the upstairs windows trying to decide which one was Amy's room. I thought about choosing one and throwing a rock at it, but that seemed a bit too Gentleman Caller. I would have just called her, but after the police and FBI left my house I had to get outside before my head exploded. I hung up after the conversation with my mom, threw the phone on the couch, slipped my shoes on and ran out the door, trying to find some calmness or clarity in the trees or the clouds. I only found whispers, so I started walking. Walking through backyards and over a small brick wall in the only direction that seemed to make sense, toward the only person on Earth who seemed to make sense.

So I went up to the front door and rung the bell. A man in his late thirties answered, a longneck beer bottle in one hand and wearing a USMC t-shirt that didn't suit his probably newly-acquired beer gut. When he pulled the door open, the sleeve pulled back revealing the bottom of a "Semper-Fi" tattoo on his left arm. As soon as I saw him, I remember Amy telling me how she didn't tell him about anything she did. I was probably the first guy to show up on his doorstep to ask for her, and I could feel the wheels in his head churning horrible thoughts about me.

Probably didn't help that I was still wearing that gas station t-shirt.

I croaked, "Is Amy here?" and after a moment he nodded and gestured his head toward the stairs leading upstairs. He stepped away from the door so I stepped in and allowed him to close the the door. Amy's dad scratched at his neck for a moment, then hollered "Amy!"

Upstairs and through a door, I heard her yell back, "What?"
"Visitor for you," volleyed Mr. Westborne. Silence from upstairs.
"She'll be right down, then," he said after a moment.

I stood there in the foyer, tapping my fingers against my legs. Sunday afternoon football noises came from a TV somewhere down the hall. Amy's dad just stood there, opposite me, looking me over. I tried to imagine all the horrible things evident about me that moment; I hoped my eyes weren't red or puffy anymore, to make me look like a pothead. I adjusted my posture, looked around at what I could see of the house and try to seem impressed. He just kept looking me over, then his eye caught on the stainless steel clip hanging out over the right pocket of my jeans. The big, deadly, probably illegal to carry knife was still on me.

Great, a kid shows up asking for your daughter wearing a gas station shirt and carrying a knife. Go get the shotgun.

"You always carry a knife, Mr..." he said dryly, before taking a sip from his bottle.
"Baker, sir," I croaked again, "Chris. And, uh.. I just got this yesterday. It's, um... it's an Emerson." I don't know why I said that.

His eyes shot up at that last word, though. He set his bottle down on a table behind him and said, "An Emerson, really?"
I didn't know if that was bad or good. Did I just tell him I drove a Pinto or a Jaguar? "Yeah," I said, unsure whether to sound apologetic or satisfied.

He seemed to liven up, and said, "Really, what kind is it?" with an outstretched hand. I delicately pulled the knife from my pocket and handed it over to him. He took it and looked the handle over, then flicked the blade open with a simple flip of his wrist. I hadn't tried that yet.

"Ah, a CQC-7," he said. "The classic."

I guessed I'd made the right choice. I was pretty sure the model number wasn't printed on the knife anywhere, he must have recognized it by sight.

"You must like Emerson," he said, "You have any more?"
Before I could answer, he almost squealed, "I have a whole set of them, here, I'll go get them." He closed the blade with one hand and tossed it to me, then practically pranced out of the foyer and disappeared down a hallway.

A moment later, Amy appeared at the top of the stairs. Her hair was wet and tangled, some strands clinging to the side of her face and neck. She was wearing a fresh shirt, brown featuring an animated frog that looked bored to be alive, and deliberately-frayed jeans. Bare feet.

"Oh, you," she said when she saw me. She started down the stairs when her dad came back, carrying a wooden box that looked like the sort of thing you find dried butterflies pinned to felt inside of. I looked apologetically to Amy and held a finger up, then stepped forward to look inside the box her dad had set on the table next to his beer. Inside the box were five or six knives, folded closed in handles that looked more or less identical to mine.

"Here's a SARK," he said, picking one up then setting it back down. He pointed at another and said it was a CQC-7B like mine, but without "Wave", then pointed at another and said it was a CQC-10, then finally picked one up and held it like you might hold a baby dove with a broken wing. "This," he said, "is a CQC-12. Just came out about a year ago." He flicked the blade out, and I stepped back for a moment almost to sheer fright. The blade looked like hot death, about seven inches long with a bowie curve at the end. It made my three-point-something incher look like a butter knife. "He designed it to match the AK-47 bayonet. This thing is serious business." I tried to imagine who "he" was, then just said, "Ah, the 12. I've been trying to find one of those." I looked at Amy, who was standing just to my left now, and grinned.

He folded the knife shut and stuck it back in the box. "I know a guy who owns a gun shop in Lorton, he gets me a good deal on them," he said, picking the box up. I looked over at Amy, now she was grinning.

"You wanted that study guide for the algebra exam, right?" Amy asked me.
"Right," I said, after some consideration.
"Ok, I can print a copy and we can go over it upstairs," she said, turning around and heading up the stairs. I followed.

"Leave the door open," Amy's dad said, still holding the box of knives. I started to laugh, thinking he was joking, then remembered the size of that knife and just shut up.

"I thought you were going to call first with the story," Amy said when we got in her room. The room was a bit bigger than mine, a few small posters of bands I've never heard of decorated the wall behind her bed, an L-shaped computer desk was in the far corner, a fat monitor and a monster-sized printer taking up what room wasn't occupied by strewn papers and textbooks.
"Change of plans," I said when my attention returned to her.
"So what's the new plan," she asked, taking a seat on the edge of her bed and pointing to the desk chair a few feet away. I pulled the chair out and sat down.
"The new plan is to make a new plan," I said. Then I told her about earlier that afternoon, about the soup, the FBI, the cops, the general lack of information as to why the FBI was even there, and the ominous suggestion that Mr. Comstock, my high school administrator was behind it all.

She pulled up her legs and sat Indian-style while I told the story, nodding and asking understandable questions throughout.

"I thought we'd figured Comstock was working for the government," she said after the shock and awe wore off.
"We don't know that," I said, "we just know that somebody's paying him a boatload of money from an unmarked account. The money could be coming from out of the country, where laws are different."
"And the guy last night, the fake cop. Nobody said anything about who he was?"
"No, this Bremer guy just said he was a 'John Doe' -- which means the police or anybody else has no record of him and can't identify him."
"They could just be saying that. Hell, he could have been working for the Feds."
I nodded, "Could be. Whoever he was, I'm mostly off the hook for killing him. Just like I'm off the hook for that fight at school on Thursday, which brings us back to Mr. Comstock. And besides that, you know how people are supposed to have nightmares and flashbacks and feel all shitty after killing someone?"
Amy nodded.
"Nothing," I said.
She frowned, "Well maybe I wouldn't feel so bad about killing someone who tried to kill me either. If you ran over some old guy crossing the street, you might feel bad, but this guy killed a cop and tried to kill you -- probably us."

We sat in silence for a while.

"So what are we even supposed to be doing now, anyway?" Amy said, breaking the calm.
"Waiting? Waiting for the FBI to... something?" I said. I didn't know.
"It sounds like they want you to do their job for them. The guy, Rubino whatever, he said if you want questions to start with Comstock, right? Maybe they need you to do some groundwork because they can't legally go there, or something."
"Possible. You think they might be interested in his bank records we got? I still have that CD."
She shook her head, "If they're FBI then they can get into his bank account on their own, can't they?"
I thought for a moment, "Yeah, I think so."
"And how they kept telling you to ask them questions before they'll talk to you. It sounds like they need you to find something out about Comstock, and when you ask them the right question they'll start helping you. Like the right question is the passphrase to answers, or something like that."

I thought about that. Special Agent Bremer did keep saying I should have questions for him, and to call him when I did. Either he wanted me to flat-out ask, "What the hell is going on with me?" or he was trying to tell me I had to figure something out on my own first. If he wanted me to ask what was going on, he could have just told me. They wanted to make sure I knew the question before they gave the answer, so it had to be that I had to find the question on my own.

"Alright," I said, "when we find something new about Comstock, I can call the FBI agents and start getting answers."
"Am I going to have to be Sarah from the bank again?" Amy asked.
"No," I said, "we're going to have to do some old-fashioned recon."
"You don't have a car," she said. "Or do you? Did your dad have a car?"
"Yeah, but it's still at his work. In Quantico. We never bothered to go get it."
"I don't think my dad will let me borrow his car to let us go get it."
"No, that's alright. I'll still need a new car, I don't want to be the seventeen year old driving a Cadillac around."
"So... what? You want to really kick off this crime spree and go steal a car?"
"Don't you remember," I said, "I told you I could afford it."