K
PRESENT. It was a humid evening, A small, two story house. And a man pacing back and forth, back and forth, back and forth on the porch.
A woman, shoulder length brown hair and deep brown eyes, wore jeans and shirt with comfortable sneakers. She walked up the sidewalk to the house. Made her way up the stairs and met the man face to face. She stood feet from him and paused.
"Can I help you?"
"My name is Pierre. I - I wanted to ex - express my -."
"Did you know my father?"
The man fumbled with the briefcase he cradled in his arms. He straightened his already straight glasses, "I did, well, sort of. Good man."
"Then I do not believe you knew him well."
She moved toward the door in hopes that he would allow her access. He did not budge. His thin body stood square in front of the door. His hands gripping the briefcase. They stared at each other for a moment. He let go of the briefcase and put his hand out towards hers. "Was wondering if I could have a word with you? An interview possibly?"
"Ah ha! A reporter! I knew it. And how did you know I would be here? This is not my home.”
"I know. I have been waiting -."
"Waiting?" Her arms crossed on her chest.
"Yes since Friday evening. Since.. The news broke."
Disgusted, she looked away from the puny man standing half a foot lower then her in a brown trench coat and wire rimmed glasses. His brown hair a flutter.
"Please leave."
He put his other hand out, a bit more desperate and waved it about in the air. She might have not seen it hanging there, this would just be a reminder. "Just a word with you, please. I believe I may have some infor -."
"You have nothing I could want or need. Leave my father's home. NOW!"
He moved away from the door and slowly down the steps.
The woman withdrew a set of keys from her pocket and fumbled with them. She approached the door.
The man paused on the last step. "I will be right out here when you change your mind."
She said nothing. Tried a different key as the first key was unsuccessful.
"It's all a shame, really. I am sorry for your loss."
Finally, the correct key unlocked the door and the bolt unhinged loudly. "I am not sorry. It is not my loss. I don't believe it is a shame."
And he retorted. Now his eyes locked with hers. "It is, however, um, interesting to see as how you, um, resemble your mother so unmistakably."
She stared as his tiny eyes grew bigger behind his glasses. The silence filled the space between the two. They stood engulfed in the humidity of the evening. Pierre broke his concentration, turned and walked to his car which was parked across the street from the house.
The woman opened the door. Slammed it shut behind her. entered the dark house and slammed it shut behind her. She made her way through the darkness slowly, one foot in front of the other. Her hand guided by memory moved to the right and she groped the air. It had been years since she had set her eyes on this house let alone walked through its door. Her right hand hit something in the dark. Quickly, her other hand reacted and steadied the object, felt it and flicked the switch, lighting the table lamp.
A dim orange glow gave the room a sick feeling as it illuminated the once quaint, family style living room that now looked as if a hurricane had moved in for a while and abruptly left without cleaning after its stay. The woman breathed heavily and her eyes darted about the room. Instinctively she backed up to the front door.
The couch cushions had been pulled apart, knifed. Magazines, pictures, china had been scattered, broken all over the carpeted floor. Patches of the carpet unearthed and wooden floor panels had been pulled up and strewn about the room. The light grew dimmer the further back and her eyes strained to see. The hurricane of whoever did not stop at the living room.
She found the door handle and in one quick motion she was out on the porch once again shutting the door behind her. She controlled her breathing and calmed as her eyes rested on the navy blue Honda parked across the street with the man, Pierre, she remembered that he had told her his name, sitting in the front seat unaware of her appearance on the porch. Moments later she found herself standing at the driver's side door. She rapped a knuckle against the window.
Pierre started the car and the window electronically went down as he looked up at her, "Changed your mind?"
"Off the record?"
"What?"
"I want this exchange here," indicating with her hands as she pointed from him to her and back to him again, "I want it off the record."
"Yeah, um, okay."
"What's your full name?"
"Pierre Madison," he said still sitting inside the car. He sat so low and it seemed he was a prisoner being interrogated.
"And what paper are you with?"
"The Washington Post," he said proudly.
"Uh, huh. And how is it that you know my father?"
"Under the circumstances, I'd say I am not the only person interested in your -."
She smirked, "you are the only one interested right here, right now. As I do not see anyone else parked out here. And you seem to know information that, even with little research, no one could possibly know.
They both stared at each other. The woman's eyes became slits as she held her stance, "You did not answer my question, Pierre Madison. How did you come to know my father?"
"He was my ..." Pierre nodded his head as if to imply what he did not want to say out loud.
Her voice lowered, "spy, informant, 'deep throat'" her voice sarcastic with the last remark. None-the-less she jumped to the next question and left this one open-ended and the abrupt manner of doing so she was sure Pierre understood as well. "You have been here for the past two days and two nights?"
"This makes the third night, yes," Pierre agreed.
"Anyone come in and out of that house?" She pointed at her Father’s house.
He paused, looked over at the house and then went on, "Yes. The first night. About an hour after it happened they came -."
"Okay!" She waved her hand to silence him and motioned for him to follow her back towards the house. Pierre rolled the window up, turned off the car and with briefcase in hand, quickly followed behind her.
As the Woman reached the front door she paused and Pierre’s hand tapped her shoulder. She turned to see him hugging his briefcase with one arm and readjusting his wire rimmed glasses with another. She laughed as he leaned in for a whisper, “What shall I call you?”
The Woman leaned back and asked, “What did you call my Father?”
“M,” Pierre whispered back.
The Woman smiled and nodded as she understood something Pierre could not. She leaned back by his ear and whispered, “K.” She took a deep breath, her eyes scanned the area behind him and she carried on, “Anything said between you and I from this moment on – ANYTHING! – is off the record. Is that clear?”
Pierre nodded, “You could not make that any more clearer.”
K’s hand touched the door knob, turned it over and they both entered the house and halted as the door as it shut behind them. K locked the door and turned as Pierre gasped.
“What happened? What did they do?” He asked.
K gently slapped his shoulder and put a finger up to her mouth indicating for him to stay quiet. She moved to the side of the room, watching where her feet stepped as she made her way to the CD player and turned it on. She moved over to the speakers and turned them and then hit play and The Beatles filled the house as it came through speakers scattered throughout the house. K heightened the volume and motioned with her hand for Pierre to follow her.
Pierre bounced his head to the beat of “I Want To Hold Your Hand” and smiled approvingly at K. She gave no such return. It was her father who enjoyed the earlier as K the latter of The Beatles’ albums.
K slowly led Pierre through the living room, his eyes panned every inch of surface they could drink.
“I saw them come. There were two cars, four men. They had keys -.”
“They had keys?”
“Yes,” Pierre continued, “They stayed no more then a half hour before leaving with boxes.”
“Why didn’t you call the police?” K stopped, turned and looked at him.
Pierre shrugged and said honestly, “They were the police. They left with about six boxes filled to the brim.”
“Do you know what kind of police?” K did quotation marks with her fingers in the air for “police”.
“I can take an educated guess.”
“So can I. I thought, however -.”
“No,” Pierre said firmly, almost ashamed, “I do not know who they are.”
K continued walking forward, “Could you ID them in a lineup?”
Pierre gave a nervous snort, “Without a doubt. But I don’t believe these men will be that easy to track down.”
K ignored him as she kicked things out of the way. A fallen picture frame that cracked as it slammed into the fireplace.
Pierre cleared his throat and caught up to K, “K, I know you haven’t talked to your father in a long time.”
“Estranged. We were estranged,” Her eyes roaming quickly all over the room.
“Yes, yes.”
Pierre followed her into the kitchen and sat down at a bar stool and set is bag down on the counter in front of him as he pushed aside broken glass and more photos.
“I don’t suppose we’ll be cleaning this tonight?” Pierre snorted to himself, as he was the only one in the room that found what he said funny.
“It’s not mine. I don’t care.”
“Then may I ask why you are here. And for that matter, why did you bring me in here?”
K opened the fridge and found two bottles of beer in the vegetable drawer. She pulled them out and popped the tops. She handed one to Pierre who nodded and accepted. K took a swig and leaned back against the far counter, roughly ten feet from Pierre.
K closed her right eye and looked at Pierre with her left. Then she closed the left eye and looked at him with her right. Then went back and forth, back and forth, left eye, right eye, left eye, right eye.
Finally she stopped and said, “I am here for information as I can assume that is why you are here.”
“Yes. But why am I here?” Pierre motioned his eyes around the room which indicated to K, inside the house with her at that very moment.
“I thought you might find it less crampy than that horrid machine you were stuffed in.”
Pierre raised and tipped his beer in thanks, “I am not one to look a gift horse in the mouth.”
“Good,” K stared at him intently as his thin rimmed glasses added a bit of character to sunken face and dark, beaded eyes. His furrowed brow gave him a sense of unnatural curiosity that seemed to leap from his face as soon as he smiled which revealed his perfectly white teeth and full lips.
Pierre laughed, interrupting her thought, “You’re staring. That’s not why I am here now is it?”
His tone reached sarcasm which repulsed K.
She brushed it off her shoulders, shrugged and said, “I know what my father saw in you.”
Surprised, Pierre’s eyes grew wide and his smile gave K the answer that he wanted to know what it was, that he needed to know.
“It’s why you have been sitting outside my father’s house since…” Her voice trailed.
Pierre relaxed and his wide smile faded. He gestured a reassuring nod.
“It’s the reason you said what you said about my mother. He knew, my father.”
Confused now, Pierre squinted at her.
“He knew I would take, as he did, to your kind eyes. Was probably a bit irritated by your snorting and constant twitching, though, but he asked you to park out in front of his house, didn’t he? Asked you to sit there and wait. If something were to happen. Something horrible and unexpected to – to him that your instructions were to sit out in front of his house and wait. Day into nights. He said for you to do so until…” K looked firmly into his eyes.
“Until you finally arrived,” Pierre finished her sentence and then pounded back a few gulps of beer. “How did you figure though, K?”
“The beer in the fridge.”
Pierre gave a snort and recoiled in embarrassment.
“My father is an alcoholic. He was anyway. Was sober for forty odd years.”
Pierre looked at the bottle of beer in his hand. He raised his bottle and said, “To your father for giving us something to quench our thirst.”
K took a few sips, she did not toast nor say a word. Her eyes trailed across the kitchen and took in the room that had not changed in the years she had been gone. The music filled the house at an even hum as the two drank in silence and watched the humidity move about the house enclosing itself around the broken fragments strewn across the floor and table tops. Crickets began their summer call and K finally broke the silence, “What other instructions did he give you?”
“I – he – um…”
“What? What else did he say other then sit in front of my house and wait for my daughter?”
Pierre shrugged his shoulders and began pealing the beer bottle’s label – he ripped and tore, ripped and tore. K waited. Pierre looked up from the bottle, like a child scolded by his mother, his eyes hid behind the bottle’s neck. Pierre’s thin expression was not one of curiosity or of knowledge that he wanted. It was, as K best interpreted, knowledge he did not want to let go of. Still K said nothing but stared and waited. Ripped and tore, ripped and tore.
Pierre finally sat up and adjusted his glasses yet again, “As you had inferred before, K, your father was my, for lack of a better word, informant. He offered me insight to many things. After a while it became apparent that the information had become a necessity to leak. It was now information they wanted out there for the public to read. Well, those of the public who still read. I figured this much when your father began finding our meetings more of a chore. But I never confronted him. I just left our meetings alone and reported on what I was told. I am not proud of this and I know you father felt the same way, though he said nothing of it ever to me.”
K laughed to herself. She felt pity for the poor scrawny man sitting in front of her. A bond he thought he shared with her father. What a rouse! The acting her father had perfected over the years had become believable. K quieted her mind.
Pierre finished his beer and continued, “The last time I saw your father was a little more then a week ago.”
“When I received a phone call from him,” K interrupted oddly perturbed by the coincidence.
Pierre looked at her surprised by her sudden out burst and waited for to elaborate. When she stayed silent, Pierre picked up where he left off, “I returned home from the paper at an awfully late hour and parked my car in my garage. As I made my way to the door that leads into my house, he sprang from behind some boxes where I guess he had been waiting for my arrival. Scared me to death and I almost had a heart attack. He cornered me.”
K finished her beer and set her empty bottle on the counter, her eyes not moving from his.
“He had not showered and looked as though he had been wearing the same clothes for the past week. He seemed desperate which caught my attention. He apologized for scaring me and motioned for me to follow him back over to my car. He took my keys, started my engine and turned on the radio just as you did here tonight.”
Pierre made a gesture with his eyes to show he was impressed. K felt her cheeks warm a little but stayed firm in her glare.
"He was worried and talked fast. Though he was not meeting me to give me information as I thought he might be,” Pierre’s eyes squinted through his lenses, tense. “He was there because he was worried for your safety. And only you, you alone.”
“Me?”
“He told me he was going on a trip and he believed it to be dangerous, the kind you aren’t sure you are coming back from, even hinted at it. I, of course, pleaded with him not to go, but he paid no mind to my rant. He went on with why he was no sitting in my car withy me, radio blaring. I knew something was up because this was not where we usually met. I never brought,” he paused, “informants home with me. He then gave me explicit instructions, made it very clear, his voice unwavering.”
K, on the verge of suspense, blurted, “Which was?”
“He would be out of town for a few days. If something were to go wrong, if he were to you know, I was to park myself in front of his house and wait, wait for you. He gave me an envelope which had a piece of paper with his address and a picture of a woman. He told me the woman was your mother and that you would resemble her. He told me to make a comment about that to you when I finally met you as I did earlier this evening out on the porch. And, if you don’t mind me interjecting, how remarkable and I will say that again because the two of you could be twins. I was astonished when I saw that you really did resemble your mother.” Pierre stared at K but got no reaction and returned to end his story, “After that he said nothing but nodded, patted my shoulder and hit the garage door opener from inside my car, then disappeared out into the night.” Pierre finished his beer and let out a long, drawn out sigh. He removed his glasses and wiped off the lenses carefully with his Polo shirt.
K pulled two more beers from the fridge vegetable drawer, removed the tops and handed one to Pierre. He thanked her and chugged nearly half before coming up for air. K felt somehow, though she could not understand exactly how, that he was leaving much out. She was curious about his prior meetings with her father. What previous information he had leaked and then what information was being deliberately leaked. And she wanted to read his articles, tear into them, one by one, searching for the answers she no longer believed he would be revealing to her on this night.
“And now,” Pierre interrupted her thoughts, “It’s my turn. Off the record, of course.” He smiled, his teeth gleaming in the faint light and his eyes opened wide with tempting curiosity behind his wire rimmed glasses.
A woman, shoulder length brown hair and deep brown eyes, wore jeans and shirt with comfortable sneakers. She walked up the sidewalk to the house. Made her way up the stairs and met the man face to face. She stood feet from him and paused.
"Can I help you?"
"My name is Pierre. I - I wanted to ex - express my -."
"Did you know my father?"
The man fumbled with the briefcase he cradled in his arms. He straightened his already straight glasses, "I did, well, sort of. Good man."
"Then I do not believe you knew him well."
She moved toward the door in hopes that he would allow her access. He did not budge. His thin body stood square in front of the door. His hands gripping the briefcase. They stared at each other for a moment. He let go of the briefcase and put his hand out towards hers. "Was wondering if I could have a word with you? An interview possibly?"
"Ah ha! A reporter! I knew it. And how did you know I would be here? This is not my home.”
"I know. I have been waiting -."
"Waiting?" Her arms crossed on her chest.
"Yes since Friday evening. Since.. The news broke."
Disgusted, she looked away from the puny man standing half a foot lower then her in a brown trench coat and wire rimmed glasses. His brown hair a flutter.
"Please leave."
He put his other hand out, a bit more desperate and waved it about in the air. She might have not seen it hanging there, this would just be a reminder. "Just a word with you, please. I believe I may have some infor -."
"You have nothing I could want or need. Leave my father's home. NOW!"
He moved away from the door and slowly down the steps.
The woman withdrew a set of keys from her pocket and fumbled with them. She approached the door.
The man paused on the last step. "I will be right out here when you change your mind."
She said nothing. Tried a different key as the first key was unsuccessful.
"It's all a shame, really. I am sorry for your loss."
Finally, the correct key unlocked the door and the bolt unhinged loudly. "I am not sorry. It is not my loss. I don't believe it is a shame."
And he retorted. Now his eyes locked with hers. "It is, however, um, interesting to see as how you, um, resemble your mother so unmistakably."
She stared as his tiny eyes grew bigger behind his glasses. The silence filled the space between the two. They stood engulfed in the humidity of the evening. Pierre broke his concentration, turned and walked to his car which was parked across the street from the house.
The woman opened the door. Slammed it shut behind her. entered the dark house and slammed it shut behind her. She made her way through the darkness slowly, one foot in front of the other. Her hand guided by memory moved to the right and she groped the air. It had been years since she had set her eyes on this house let alone walked through its door. Her right hand hit something in the dark. Quickly, her other hand reacted and steadied the object, felt it and flicked the switch, lighting the table lamp.
A dim orange glow gave the room a sick feeling as it illuminated the once quaint, family style living room that now looked as if a hurricane had moved in for a while and abruptly left without cleaning after its stay. The woman breathed heavily and her eyes darted about the room. Instinctively she backed up to the front door.
The couch cushions had been pulled apart, knifed. Magazines, pictures, china had been scattered, broken all over the carpeted floor. Patches of the carpet unearthed and wooden floor panels had been pulled up and strewn about the room. The light grew dimmer the further back and her eyes strained to see. The hurricane of whoever did not stop at the living room.
She found the door handle and in one quick motion she was out on the porch once again shutting the door behind her. She controlled her breathing and calmed as her eyes rested on the navy blue Honda parked across the street with the man, Pierre, she remembered that he had told her his name, sitting in the front seat unaware of her appearance on the porch. Moments later she found herself standing at the driver's side door. She rapped a knuckle against the window.
Pierre started the car and the window electronically went down as he looked up at her, "Changed your mind?"
"Off the record?"
"What?"
"I want this exchange here," indicating with her hands as she pointed from him to her and back to him again, "I want it off the record."
"Yeah, um, okay."
"What's your full name?"
"Pierre Madison," he said still sitting inside the car. He sat so low and it seemed he was a prisoner being interrogated.
"And what paper are you with?"
"The Washington Post," he said proudly.
"Uh, huh. And how is it that you know my father?"
"Under the circumstances, I'd say I am not the only person interested in your -."
She smirked, "you are the only one interested right here, right now. As I do not see anyone else parked out here. And you seem to know information that, even with little research, no one could possibly know.
They both stared at each other. The woman's eyes became slits as she held her stance, "You did not answer my question, Pierre Madison. How did you come to know my father?"
"He was my ..." Pierre nodded his head as if to imply what he did not want to say out loud.
Her voice lowered, "spy, informant, 'deep throat'" her voice sarcastic with the last remark. None-the-less she jumped to the next question and left this one open-ended and the abrupt manner of doing so she was sure Pierre understood as well. "You have been here for the past two days and two nights?"
"This makes the third night, yes," Pierre agreed.
"Anyone come in and out of that house?" She pointed at her Father’s house.
He paused, looked over at the house and then went on, "Yes. The first night. About an hour after it happened they came -."
"Okay!" She waved her hand to silence him and motioned for him to follow her back towards the house. Pierre rolled the window up, turned off the car and with briefcase in hand, quickly followed behind her.
As the Woman reached the front door she paused and Pierre’s hand tapped her shoulder. She turned to see him hugging his briefcase with one arm and readjusting his wire rimmed glasses with another. She laughed as he leaned in for a whisper, “What shall I call you?”
The Woman leaned back and asked, “What did you call my Father?”
“M,” Pierre whispered back.
The Woman smiled and nodded as she understood something Pierre could not. She leaned back by his ear and whispered, “K.” She took a deep breath, her eyes scanned the area behind him and she carried on, “Anything said between you and I from this moment on – ANYTHING! – is off the record. Is that clear?”
Pierre nodded, “You could not make that any more clearer.”
K’s hand touched the door knob, turned it over and they both entered the house and halted as the door as it shut behind them. K locked the door and turned as Pierre gasped.
“What happened? What did they do?” He asked.
K gently slapped his shoulder and put a finger up to her mouth indicating for him to stay quiet. She moved to the side of the room, watching where her feet stepped as she made her way to the CD player and turned it on. She moved over to the speakers and turned them and then hit play and The Beatles filled the house as it came through speakers scattered throughout the house. K heightened the volume and motioned with her hand for Pierre to follow her.
Pierre bounced his head to the beat of “I Want To Hold Your Hand” and smiled approvingly at K. She gave no such return. It was her father who enjoyed the earlier as K the latter of The Beatles’ albums.
K slowly led Pierre through the living room, his eyes panned every inch of surface they could drink.
“I saw them come. There were two cars, four men. They had keys -.”
“They had keys?”
“Yes,” Pierre continued, “They stayed no more then a half hour before leaving with boxes.”
“Why didn’t you call the police?” K stopped, turned and looked at him.
Pierre shrugged and said honestly, “They were the police. They left with about six boxes filled to the brim.”
“Do you know what kind of police?” K did quotation marks with her fingers in the air for “police”.
“I can take an educated guess.”
“So can I. I thought, however -.”
“No,” Pierre said firmly, almost ashamed, “I do not know who they are.”
K continued walking forward, “Could you ID them in a lineup?”
Pierre gave a nervous snort, “Without a doubt. But I don’t believe these men will be that easy to track down.”
K ignored him as she kicked things out of the way. A fallen picture frame that cracked as it slammed into the fireplace.
Pierre cleared his throat and caught up to K, “K, I know you haven’t talked to your father in a long time.”
“Estranged. We were estranged,” Her eyes roaming quickly all over the room.
“Yes, yes.”
Pierre followed her into the kitchen and sat down at a bar stool and set is bag down on the counter in front of him as he pushed aside broken glass and more photos.
“I don’t suppose we’ll be cleaning this tonight?” Pierre snorted to himself, as he was the only one in the room that found what he said funny.
“It’s not mine. I don’t care.”
“Then may I ask why you are here. And for that matter, why did you bring me in here?”
K opened the fridge and found two bottles of beer in the vegetable drawer. She pulled them out and popped the tops. She handed one to Pierre who nodded and accepted. K took a swig and leaned back against the far counter, roughly ten feet from Pierre.
K closed her right eye and looked at Pierre with her left. Then she closed the left eye and looked at him with her right. Then went back and forth, back and forth, left eye, right eye, left eye, right eye.
Finally she stopped and said, “I am here for information as I can assume that is why you are here.”
“Yes. But why am I here?” Pierre motioned his eyes around the room which indicated to K, inside the house with her at that very moment.
“I thought you might find it less crampy than that horrid machine you were stuffed in.”
Pierre raised and tipped his beer in thanks, “I am not one to look a gift horse in the mouth.”
“Good,” K stared at him intently as his thin rimmed glasses added a bit of character to sunken face and dark, beaded eyes. His furrowed brow gave him a sense of unnatural curiosity that seemed to leap from his face as soon as he smiled which revealed his perfectly white teeth and full lips.
Pierre laughed, interrupting her thought, “You’re staring. That’s not why I am here now is it?”
His tone reached sarcasm which repulsed K.
She brushed it off her shoulders, shrugged and said, “I know what my father saw in you.”
Surprised, Pierre’s eyes grew wide and his smile gave K the answer that he wanted to know what it was, that he needed to know.
“It’s why you have been sitting outside my father’s house since…” Her voice trailed.
Pierre relaxed and his wide smile faded. He gestured a reassuring nod.
“It’s the reason you said what you said about my mother. He knew, my father.”
Confused now, Pierre squinted at her.
“He knew I would take, as he did, to your kind eyes. Was probably a bit irritated by your snorting and constant twitching, though, but he asked you to park out in front of his house, didn’t he? Asked you to sit there and wait. If something were to happen. Something horrible and unexpected to – to him that your instructions were to sit out in front of his house and wait. Day into nights. He said for you to do so until…” K looked firmly into his eyes.
“Until you finally arrived,” Pierre finished her sentence and then pounded back a few gulps of beer. “How did you figure though, K?”
“The beer in the fridge.”
Pierre gave a snort and recoiled in embarrassment.
“My father is an alcoholic. He was anyway. Was sober for forty odd years.”
Pierre looked at the bottle of beer in his hand. He raised his bottle and said, “To your father for giving us something to quench our thirst.”
K took a few sips, she did not toast nor say a word. Her eyes trailed across the kitchen and took in the room that had not changed in the years she had been gone. The music filled the house at an even hum as the two drank in silence and watched the humidity move about the house enclosing itself around the broken fragments strewn across the floor and table tops. Crickets began their summer call and K finally broke the silence, “What other instructions did he give you?”
“I – he – um…”
“What? What else did he say other then sit in front of my house and wait for my daughter?”
Pierre shrugged his shoulders and began pealing the beer bottle’s label – he ripped and tore, ripped and tore. K waited. Pierre looked up from the bottle, like a child scolded by his mother, his eyes hid behind the bottle’s neck. Pierre’s thin expression was not one of curiosity or of knowledge that he wanted. It was, as K best interpreted, knowledge he did not want to let go of. Still K said nothing but stared and waited. Ripped and tore, ripped and tore.
Pierre finally sat up and adjusted his glasses yet again, “As you had inferred before, K, your father was my, for lack of a better word, informant. He offered me insight to many things. After a while it became apparent that the information had become a necessity to leak. It was now information they wanted out there for the public to read. Well, those of the public who still read. I figured this much when your father began finding our meetings more of a chore. But I never confronted him. I just left our meetings alone and reported on what I was told. I am not proud of this and I know you father felt the same way, though he said nothing of it ever to me.”
K laughed to herself. She felt pity for the poor scrawny man sitting in front of her. A bond he thought he shared with her father. What a rouse! The acting her father had perfected over the years had become believable. K quieted her mind.
Pierre finished his beer and continued, “The last time I saw your father was a little more then a week ago.”
“When I received a phone call from him,” K interrupted oddly perturbed by the coincidence.
Pierre looked at her surprised by her sudden out burst and waited for to elaborate. When she stayed silent, Pierre picked up where he left off, “I returned home from the paper at an awfully late hour and parked my car in my garage. As I made my way to the door that leads into my house, he sprang from behind some boxes where I guess he had been waiting for my arrival. Scared me to death and I almost had a heart attack. He cornered me.”
K finished her beer and set her empty bottle on the counter, her eyes not moving from his.
“He had not showered and looked as though he had been wearing the same clothes for the past week. He seemed desperate which caught my attention. He apologized for scaring me and motioned for me to follow him back over to my car. He took my keys, started my engine and turned on the radio just as you did here tonight.”
Pierre made a gesture with his eyes to show he was impressed. K felt her cheeks warm a little but stayed firm in her glare.
"He was worried and talked fast. Though he was not meeting me to give me information as I thought he might be,” Pierre’s eyes squinted through his lenses, tense. “He was there because he was worried for your safety. And only you, you alone.”
“Me?”
“He told me he was going on a trip and he believed it to be dangerous, the kind you aren’t sure you are coming back from, even hinted at it. I, of course, pleaded with him not to go, but he paid no mind to my rant. He went on with why he was no sitting in my car withy me, radio blaring. I knew something was up because this was not where we usually met. I never brought,” he paused, “informants home with me. He then gave me explicit instructions, made it very clear, his voice unwavering.”
K, on the verge of suspense, blurted, “Which was?”
“He would be out of town for a few days. If something were to go wrong, if he were to you know, I was to park myself in front of his house and wait, wait for you. He gave me an envelope which had a piece of paper with his address and a picture of a woman. He told me the woman was your mother and that you would resemble her. He told me to make a comment about that to you when I finally met you as I did earlier this evening out on the porch. And, if you don’t mind me interjecting, how remarkable and I will say that again because the two of you could be twins. I was astonished when I saw that you really did resemble your mother.” Pierre stared at K but got no reaction and returned to end his story, “After that he said nothing but nodded, patted my shoulder and hit the garage door opener from inside my car, then disappeared out into the night.” Pierre finished his beer and let out a long, drawn out sigh. He removed his glasses and wiped off the lenses carefully with his Polo shirt.
K pulled two more beers from the fridge vegetable drawer, removed the tops and handed one to Pierre. He thanked her and chugged nearly half before coming up for air. K felt somehow, though she could not understand exactly how, that he was leaving much out. She was curious about his prior meetings with her father. What previous information he had leaked and then what information was being deliberately leaked. And she wanted to read his articles, tear into them, one by one, searching for the answers she no longer believed he would be revealing to her on this night.
“And now,” Pierre interrupted her thoughts, “It’s my turn. Off the record, of course.” He smiled, his teeth gleaming in the faint light and his eyes opened wide with tempting curiosity behind his wire rimmed glasses.
K felt anger boil inside her. So angry that she did not want to speak. Did not since the day she got the phone call from her father. For little more then a week she had stayed silent.
“What did your father say on the phone when he called you a little over a week ago? As I am as certain as if my life depended on it, it was very unlike him to call you at all. It must have been, what?” He stared at her with excitement and affirmation in her information.
“Ten years,” and K gave it to him.
Pierre held back. His breath heavier as he heard himself breathe.
“So, yes, very unlike him.”
There was silence between them as The Beatles; “Help!” rang through the house and bounced against the kitchen walls like a beach ball.
K smiled, for the first time, “That conversation will have to wait.”
Pierre looked shocked as this is not how he had imagined the conversation going moments earlier. His face contorted to his emotion and he let out a disappointed sigh, “Understandably, I expected nothing more,” He lied through his pristine, white teeth.
And in the strange silence that fell over the room as the song died out and the crickets numbed the humidity, a key slid into the front door of the house and the bolt unhinged loudly. K and Pierre’s heads turned in the direction of the front of the house as if they had x-ray vision and could see who entered.
K turned, unshaken, and motioned her hand from Pierre to the back door and whispered so he could hear, “Time to go.”
Pierre quietly got to his feet, hugging his briefcase to his body and slowly followed K to the back door. They could hear more then one set of footprints enter the living room. The back door shut behind them without noise as the faint sound of The Beatles, “Yesterday” began before it was rudely stopped by the intruders. K and Pierre disappeared over the fence into the neighbor’s yard as the night, dark and murkier now, engulfed their shadows. There was no breeze as the humidity hung in air like drying laundry, stagnant in the moonless summer night.
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