I nod enthusiastically.
“What happened — she died?”
“It’s on loan; she’s fine,” I say, suddenly panicked. I hadn’t thought about this part — about how it would happen that I had Lillian’s tin. I knew that Lillian’s cookies were a good lure.
I proudly open the tin, having replicated the same old crinkly, rarely replaced circles of wax paper, the cookies vaguely pale but rich with lumps of chocolate chips and walnut halves.
“How many?” George asks, looking at me expectantly, like a child, not realizing that if he wanted it the whole box could be his.
“Two?” I suggest.
“Per person?” he asks.
I shrug, imagining he wants his two and my two as well.
“Are they kosher?” George asks. I’m caught off guard.
“I don’t know if Lillian keeps kosher,” I say, genuinely perplexed.
“I think she does,” George says, wanting it to be true.
His friend Lenny steps out from behind a tree directly behind me and scares the hell out of me. “So you’re the putz?”
“This is Lenny,” George says. “He’s part of the program.”
I hold out the tin. “Would you like a cookie?” I ask.
And then they are upon us. Like fucking Spider-Man — they drop from the sky. The cookie tin flies out of my hand. There are men everywhere, their infrared goggles lit up with tiny red blinking lights like bug eyes. There is smoke and confusion. Something stabs me in the ass and throws me to my knees. My eyes are burning, I am facedown in the dirt. There is commotion all around me, and then silence. I see what look like blurry puffs of white being sucked upward and realize it’s George’s silk boxers blowing in the updraft of the chopper. I dimly see George just ahead, flat out and bleeding from the head.
As fast as it happened — it’s over.
The Israeli is gone.
I crawl back to the car and into the front seat. “You blinded me, you fucking blinded me,” I bellow, rubbing my eyes.
“You’ll be fine — just stay put,” Walter Penny’s disembodied voice speaks to me. “And stop rubbing your eyes, you’re only making it worse.”
“Stay put for how long?”
“A few hours, maybe until morning.”
“With these dead people?”
“They’re not dead, they’re sleeping.”
“You can’t just leave me here. What if he wakes up angry, what if there’s one you missed, what if someone wants the car? I am a citizen, I have rights.”
I hear multiple people talking in the background, someone saying, “The playmate is turning into a tuna melt and wants a ride home. Can we send someone in to drive him out?”
I start beeping the horn.
“Hold on.”
“You’re not coming to get me? Fuck it,” I say. And I beep again. “Fuck it, fuck it, fuck it.” A beep for every fuck it.
“Your microphone is in the area of the horn. If you don’t stop beeping, I’m going to fucking unplug your ass. We’ll have someone to you in two minutes. Don’t beep again.”
I hear the chopper coming in — dark. My eyes are stinging, blurry, as I watch them lower a man in full combat gear. He’s clutching a bottle of spring water and looks like a demented commercial for managing your thirst during wartime. The soldier lands, unhooks his tether, and gives a yank; they pull up the rope. He comes to the driver’s side like a gigantic glow-in-the-dark bug, opens the car door, twists the top off the water bottle, and squirts water directly into my face. “Feeling better?” he asks.
Drenched, I get out, go around, and get in on the passenger side of the car.
“You only have half a gallon of gas?” he says, starting the engine.
“It’s not like I passed any gas stations on the way in.”
He throws the car in gear, and we bump along the road. “Are you going the right way?” I ask. “Why haven’t you turned?” I’m wiping my eyes with my shirt. It’s not working: whatever is in my eyes is also on my shirt.
“Hey, shit-for-brains,” Walter Penny’s voice comes over the speaker, “the putz is right, you’re going the wrong way.”
“Sorry,” the soldier says. “I’m kind of dyslexic.” He turns the car around and steps on the gas, and there’s a giant ka-thunk. It’s not a sound but the weighty sensation of having struck something.
“What the fuck was that?” Walter Penny asks.
“I think I hit an animal,” the soldier says.
“Let’s hope it was an animal,” Walter Penny says.
“I think we can keep going,” the soldier says. Dented, we limp towards the finish line. At the road, we’re met by two unmarked cars that escort us back to the deployment area.
I get out. Someone hands me a bottle of eyewash. The first thing I see when my eyes are clear is the dented hood, ripped fender, a crack in the windshield, and blood.
Walter Penny comes over to me, looks at the car, and takes a white claim form from his manila folder. “I always keep a few of these with me. It’s a government claim form, same for an auto accident as if you’re killed by friendly fire. The government is self-insured — one form for everything. But here’s the thing,” he says, dangling the form. “It only works if you were at the wheel. Did you drive yourself out?”
Confused, I look around. The soldier has vanished.
“Did you drive yourself out of the woods?” Walter asks again.
“Apparently,” I say.
“Alone?”
“Guess so,” I say, plucking the form from Walter’s fingers.
“Then you can use it for your car and your person.”
“You shot me,” I say to no one in particular.
“The car, your person — put it all on the same invoice,” Walter Penny says.
“Grazed,” one of the unidentified men says. “I watched the playback.”
“You look a lot like your brother,” one of the soldiers says, like that explains it.
I don’t even ask where the Israeli is but notice that one of the unmarked vans is gone. “Are we done here? Am I free to go?”
“Yes,” Walter says. “And don’t forget to get gas.”
I am escorted to the thruway. There is an eerie absence of traffic. I fly towards home at eighty miles an hour. I would go faster, but anything over eighty elicits a disturbing rattle.
Shivering, I turn on the heat — nothing happens. I reach down; the car seat is damp. I flick on the map light and see the seat is dark with blood.
Outside, the sky is beginning to lighten. I’m not sure what time it is — the car’s clock is frozen at three-forty-three. Just before my exit, I take a detour, pulling in at the local hospital. From the parking lot I text Ricardo’s aunt to say it’s all taking much longer than planned and notice six missed calls — messages from Ashley and Ricardo saying hello, telling me jokes, wondering when I’m coming home.
A security guard comes to the window. “No standing,” he says. “Patient parking only.” He points to a sign.
“My ass is bleeding,” I announce, getting out of the car. The guard escorts me to the triage nurse.
“What happened?” the nurse asks.
“I’ve been shot,” I say, and then faint, falling flat to the floor. I come to facedown on a gurney with my ass up in the air, and someone is taking photos. I overhear that they’ve already gotten an X-ray and that luckily there’s no shrapnel to be found.
“We’re going to clean it up,” the doctor says. “There’s really nothing to sew.”
“I got a new digital camera for Christmas; I could bring the old one in,” someone says.
“What’s the resolution?” another guy asks.
“No idea, but it’s better than this piece of crap.”
They’re talking supply chain while my ass is up in the air. The one guy bends down and speaks directly to me. “We’re going to put some numbing medicine on your tushy and clean it up,” he says. “The wound was deep.”