Bucked

The cops don’t talk much as they cart me across town, and they don’t have to. We all know where we’re headed, and it isn’t a cell.

Sure enough, twenty minutes later we pull up in front of the family mansion and they let me out with a cursory, polite indication that I should be more careful.

“I’ll do that,” I tell the officer, rubbing my wrists where the cuffs had chafed me on the drive over.

He glances down at my hands. “Sorry about that, Mr. Ferry. Procedure.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I sigh. The house looms over me, and by the time the cops pull away from it I’ve forgotten them. Inside, Daddy is no doubt waiting to deliver his disapproval.

I straighten my jacket, and put on my best shit-eating grin as I push through the great carved doors and stroll into the foyer. Sure enough, Reginald is waiting in the receiving room, eyes hard, jaw clenched, fingers steepled. How long has been there? Did he sit down just like that the moment he got the call? That would be like him; Reginald does like a show.

“Just what the fuck is wrong with you?” he asks. Entirely rhetorical.

“A complete lack of consequences,” I say anyway. “What can I say? I’m spoiled.”

Reginald’s face darkens, well past the point of show business and into serious territory. Cut-out-of-the-will territory. I don’t flinch—I never flinch—but I give up the grin in exchange for the flat affect that hides the twinge of nervousness in my guts.

“Get out of my sight,” he growls.

For the sake of dignity, I stand there a moment longer, locked in a staring contest that I know I’m going to lose—but by God, I’m going to show him it’s my choice to leave. Five, six, seven, eight, nine…

Ten seconds seems like enough. I jam my hands into the pockets of my slacks and turn on a heel, stroll casually away, and only let out the breath I’m holding when I’m well out of sight.

My suite is on the third floor, and when I get there I shed clothes in a trail to the bed. The room tilts dangerously back and forth, like a yacht on the open sea, and I let it tip me over and onto the bed. Above me, the sunroof is, for now, a moon roof and the sliver of white looks down disapprovingly. Everyone gets a free shot at criticism tonight, I suppose.

I hate that my father has that effect on me. Like a trained dog, there’s something Pavlovian about his disapproval, about his heavy, stony glare that turns me into a petulant toddler again. I’d give anything to get out from under his thumb. The longer I’m here, the stronger his hold is. If there’s one thing that can be said about my father, it’s that he never lets go of his possessions. Especially one of his own flesh and blood.

Morning slaps me in the face, digging at my eyes with its thumbs. Groaning, I roll over and reach for a pillow to fend off the assault. Just past my sanctuary, a note stands on my bedside table. I have to squint to read it.

“Terrace. Noon. We’ll be taking the boat out.” Reginald’s handwriting is hasty, efficient, minimalist. Even in short notes his demands leave no room for argument.

It’s already ten thirty in the morning. So I complain to no one all the way to the bathroom, where a cold shower drives some of the fog away—not all of it, but enough for me to be functional.

By the time I’m done in there, breakfast is waiting for me. Two boiled eggs, a slab of greasy bacon, and a bloody Mary.

Good old Esmeralda; that lady has psychic powers and zero judgment. She’s been watching over my father and me since I was two, making meals just like this one since I turned fifteen.

The time ticks away. I eat, dress, watch the clock. It’s a long walk to the marina, but I have plenty of time. Wonder what he plans to say? I’ve endured enough scolding lectures from my father to fill a small book, always expertly delivered. He has a handful of favorite tactics. Disappointment is a favorite, but he mixes it up. Variety is the spice of life, right?

Once I run out of things to do, I finally leave, and make my way to the marina, checking my Rolex periodically. By the time I make it there, it’s 11:58 a.m.

So, I wait. Just a little, just long enough to be a little late. He expects me to show up on time, precisely, but I want to show him that I’m my own man in whatever little way I can. He won’t call me out on it, but he’ll notice. This little chess game is one we play day in and day out, and we’re both too aloof about it to acknowledge there’s even a board between us.

He’s waiting for me when I arrive, dressed in white with that awful captain’s hat on his head. I stroll up to the boat, just shy of a yacht—the yacht is moored elsewhere—hiding any sign that I’m nervous. My father loves to deliver the really serious talks on his boat, out on the ocean, where there’s no place to storm off to.

I’m on the boat and sitting down before he finally acknowledges me. Touché, father mine. Even then, he waits a moment, scrolling through the ledger on his tablet. My father the micromanager. The same accountant for thirty years and he still looks over Saul’s numbers, looking for any sign of embezzling, or even just a comma out of place.

Finally, he sets the tablet down and drops his sunglasses down on his nose so that he can look at me over the rim of them. “Rough night,” he says.

I shrug.

Reginald stares at me from his end of the deck, and then stands and approaches me. Inside, I brace myself for him to hit me. He’s done it before, an open hand slap right across the face. It kills him when I don’t react, so I mastered the craft of ignoring the sting of it and controlling the reflex to flinch away years ago just to make a point.

To my surprise, though, he doesn’t. Instead, he claps me on the shoulder, his grin wide and wicked. When he speaks, his voice is cool and calculating, all business. “Don’t worry about it,” he says. “I know just how you can make it up to me. I’ve got a way to clear this PR mess up, and get us Miss Hall’s location.”

He stands, and jerks a thumb over his shoulder. “Go start the boat. We’ve got a lot to talk about.”