The wrong idea, p.13
The Wrong Idea, page 13
Home. Was it too good to be true? And what about the Prime Royale? Even their own surveillance guy had warned against it. I thought again about his one-man pondering show. Was he just a freak, or was he scared to come right out and tell them the truth?
Thirteen
My bandits’ hideout was a mod glass and stone building nestled into a hill behind a thick cover of trees. In spots between the branches, you could some more homes and even the ocean beyond. The interior was full of colorful furniture, modern art, and books. White paper lanterns hung from the ceiling, and a strip of flame burned behind blue glass.
I’d never seen such a fireplace, such a home. It was comfortable, and more whimsical than I’d imagined, too. Odin had done the interior design, it turned out.
Zeus showed me my room. It was simple and elegant with a view of the sun-splashed ocean through the trees. “You go ahead and make it yours however you want,” he said. “That was a rich haul. You’ll see when we split it.”
“It’ll definitely need a Paris Hilton sheep’s wool comforter,” I said.
“We’ll all get one.”
I settled in and put a few things away. I was excited to be able to put my clothes in a dresser and know they’d be there for more than forty-eight hours. I’d never even had a room of my own. Back at the farm with my sisters, I shared a room with Vanessa.
After I’d settled in, I headed back out to the main room to find Thor going around flinging open windows. Zeus was downstairs getting in a quick workout.
I grabbed a snack and settled in with a book.
Home.
There was a hot tub, of course, and the remnants of a garden Thor had planted the year before. It seemed that they came here on and off when things felt safe.
We grilled out a late dinner and slept like logs, or at least Thor and Zeus and I did. You never knew about Odin. He had such sleeping issues, sometimes even thrashing around. Maybe settling down for a spell would help him.
The next day was the ultimate fun—nothing extravagant, nothing scathingly sexy, just the simple fun of playing house with three amazing guys. There's nothing like constant danger to make you appreciate normal, stupid everyday things. Even the act of washing dishes with Zeus to some 80s hair band that he loved, even that was worth everything.
Thor had gotten up stupidly early and had gone out to get coffees for us and had picked up an actual old-fashioned newspaper, and the four of us sat out on the deck and read it, passing around the different sections. The porch overlooked a hillside of trees and homes, sloping down to the ocean that was wild with whitecaps. It was like being in a treehouse with the hottest guys alive.
One of the things we confirmed from the newspaper was that the man in distress would be okay. He was recovering well.
Thor had really and truly saved him.
Also, none of the supermarket shoppers had snapped my picture. This wasn’t a big surprise; we'd been monitoring the online news sites since the robbery, and there was nothing, aside from a pretty bad sketch of me, complete with wig and the beauty mark. Odin said that if they'd had a photo of me, they would have put it out there right away. But, oh my god, this sketch! Even my sisters wouldn’t recognize me. I barely recognized myself. There were sketches out of Thor, too. Just as bad.
“It's like they tried to make me look as dorky as possible in this sketch,” I complained. “I look so dour and frowzy, and they got my cheeks and nose all wrong.”
Zeus just laughed. “Be happy that it doesn’t look like you!”
“I know, but can’t it be just a bit sassier? I feel like they’re trying to troll me.”
Later that day, Zeus got into doing some repair work on the deck. I loved that he was so handy. The ultimate in competence porn, my Zeus.
Thor went out and started weeding his garden; we might not be there to see it grow, but Thor cared about things like that.
Odin enlarged the sad images of us and printed them off and worked on coloring them in, like Andy Warhol art. I wasn't so sure about this art idea, considering what I looked like in those pictures. But I liked them better and better as the day wore on; Odin was transforming them, adding a sassy element that made Thor and me both look fabulously notorious. That was such an Odin thing to do—I loved it.
“How long do you think we can stay here?” I asked him while he cut mats for his creative art project.
“I'm hoping for a few weeks,” he said. “But who knows, maybe longer. Ideally long enough to plan and execute the Prime Royale job.”
They were talking about bringing Matteo in on it now. It would be like a bank robbery supergroup.
Odin finished his masterpieces, eventually. He hung them on the wall above the blue flame fireplace and called Thor and me in to see. We totally gushed over them, possibly embarrassing Odin, but he had really made them into something fun.
“I will admit that I was skeptical,” I said, “but now I love them!” I turned to Thor. “You look especially notorious.”
Thor grinned. “And you look especially sassy!”
I hugged Odin. “Best. Most wanted pictures. Ever.”
“Enough,” Odin protested. “Who’s hungry?”
“I am,” Thor said.
“So so,” I said.
Odin yelled the question down to Zeus, who boomed back an enthusiastic fuck yeah!
I snorted. My guys were always hungry, and not just the sexy kind of hunger. Dudes will pretty much always eat; this was a new and amusing thing that I definitely hadn’t experienced growing up in a home full of girls.
Odin looped an arm over my shoulder. “I’m gonna suggest an appetizer of almond croissants and then…Thai?”
“Thai and pizza,” Zeus said, bounding in.
“Good with me,” I exclaimed.
Thor grabbed the keys. Another thing I’d learned is that outlaws rarely order delivery food, which made a lot of sense. Just take-out.
For our first stop, we headed into croissant express. My bandits picked out a selection of croissants while I teased them about having dessert before dinner.
“Always, goddess,” Thor said with a wink.
I rolled my eyes. “I would insist you eat something wholesome first.”
“Is that right?” Thor said as we made our way out the door and back to where our shiny SUV was parked. “What did you have in mind?”
I had backseat hijinks in mind, to be perfectly honest, but just then, Zeus let out a string of profanity, and Thor gripped my arm—hard—stopping me in my tracks.
Zeus and Odin both had their weapons out, hanging discreetly down by their sides, and were moving ahead, or more melting slowly ahead, disappearing into the row of cars parked along the street.
“What's going on?” I whispered to Thor, pulse pounding. Had ZOX caught up to us after all?
“Check out the windshield,” he said.
I squinted in the bright sun, and then I saw it—a white rectangle; a piece of paper, from the looks of it—stuffed under the windshield wiper.
“Maybe it's just an ad for a carwash,” I said.
“Then why isn't there one on every car?” Thor grumbled.
“Oh,” I said.
Thor and I backed up to lean against the rough stucco wall outside of the bakery, scanning the scene while we waited for Zeus and Odin to attend to their project of skulking invisibly around the row of cars along the street. What they clearly weren’t attending to was reading the note, because it was just sitting there still on the windshield, and I was burning with curiosity at this point.
“Maybe it's nothing,” I said. “Maybe it’s a carwash ad, but everybody else who got it drove away. Wasn't Odin saying just last night that the ZOX guys were supposed to be poking around in Maine? They have no idea that we're here.”
“When you’re in hiding, no note’s a good note,” Thor said.
“Shouldn’t they just read it?” I asked.
“They will,” Thor said. “Whoever left the note is probably lurking around, so that's the focus now. The note will be there.”
We waited for what seemed like forever, scanning the street from our post against the wall. Ten minutes later, Odin appeared next to the SUV. He nodded over at us, and Thor nodded back. Odin plucked the paper from the windshield and shook it gently to unfold it, holding it by the corners and studying it with a frown. Zeus went over next to him, and they both scrutinized it. Zeus took a picture of it.
“Suspense definitely building,” I said. “Will they be coming over and showing us anytime soon?”
“Right?” Thor said. “What the hell.”
“Can't we go over there?” I had no doubt that Zeus had thoroughly checked the SUV for bombs by now.
“Let them do their work,” Thor said.
Sigh.
Finally Odin was heading back toward us. He nodded as he passed and went right into the bakery.
“Hello,” I mumbled. “Any day with the note.”
Thor snorted.
“Or was this just an elaborate excuse for more croissants?”
“I wish,” Thor said.
Odin came back out with the note in a plastic bag. “Come on,” he said.
I pushed off the wall and followed him and Thor back to the vehicle.
Zeus nodded at the dry cleaner that we’d parked in front of. “I’m gonna go in there and see if they saw who dropped this. If anybody saw anything, it’ll be these guys.”
“Agreed,” Odin said, “but I'll try that deli. Can you two maybe Google that shit? I airdropped the image to you.”
Thor and I took out our phones. Sure enough, we each had an image of the note. I clicked on it and opened it up. The note began with the words “TAKE HEED,” written in loopy cursive. The rest of it was a typewritten passage several sentences long:
* * *
Passion has helped us; but can do so no more. It will in future be our enemy. Reason, cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason, must furnish all the materials for our future support and defence.
* * *
“Well, if this is a car wash ad, I can't say I’m impressed,” I said.
“Seriously,” Thor said.
I typed the text into a search bar and got my answer instantly. “It’s the second to last paragraph of Lincoln’s ‘Lyceum Address,’ given in January of 1838—when he was twenty-nine.”
“Weird,” Thor said.
“I know, right? Can you imagine a twenty-nine-year-old of today saying anything close to this? Like coming up with even one of these sentences?”
“No, I mean it’s weird as a note that somebody would send to somebody like us,” he clarified.
“Yeah, that too.”
“It reads like a warning,” Thor said. “Don't you think?”
“Take heed definitely suggests a warning. But a warning about what? Too much passion?” I frowned. “Wait, should I be insulted?”
“You do inspire a great deal of passion, it’s true,” Thor said. “But passion comes in many forms. It could be a warning about getting too riled up about anything.”
I nodded. Thor didn’t say it, but I suspect he was talking about Zeus here, the way Zeus could get so carried away about things. But then, Thor was no great shakes in the unimpassioned reason department, let's just say, considering that he'd almost gotten us caught with his passion for saving lives. It was a great passion to have, obviously, but it had put us in danger. Could that be the warning?
“What were the circumstances of the speech?” he asked, interrupting my train of thought.
I scanned the Wikipedia article. “The speech was given before Lincoln held any kind of office. It's a warning about tyrants, basically.”
“Hmm,” Thor said.
“I think the only tyrants in our lives are ZOX,” I said.
“Agree,” Thor said.
Zeus was back. “They did see something. A guy dressed as Abe Lincoln in a top hat and beard. And black gloves,” he added.
Thor frowned. “Gloves.”
“Yup,” Zeus said. “We’ll see if we can lift prints, but when I see gloves…”
“Yeah. Unlikely we get anything.”
“The Lincoln get-up does make sense,” I told him. “The passage is from an early speech that Lincoln gave at some kind of young men’s club.” I related what I’d learned.
Zeus glared down at my phone. “Take heed,” he said. “So it’s a warning.”
“He was warning against tyrants in the speech,” I added.
“Is somebody playing games with us?” Zeus grumbled.
Odin walked up just then. “There's a performance art group in the neighborhood. The deli clerks said that sometimes they go around dressed as clowns putting up weird signs on lampposts, and they have put screeds under people's windshield wipers in the past. The clerk said that he got a drawing of Ronald McDonald under his windshield wiper one time. When I told him about the Abe Lincoln character, he was sure that he would have come from the group.”
“Then why are we the only ones who got the piece of paper?” Odin asked.
“Maybe everybody else drove away? Or maybe randomness is the point.” I had my handy Wikipedia article open. “By some definitions, the goal of performance art is to generate a reaction.” I looked up. “They would get more of a reaction if it's just one person that gets the note, because it seems more specific.”
Zeus sighed. “Yeah, I'm getting a fucking reaction alright. I assume you got their address.”
Odin had an address. I plugged it into my phone, and we headed off, around the corner to a sad office building with a facade of cracked stucco and bars on a large and very dirty ground-floor window. You couldn't see into the window because there was a thick curtain covering it, but it had once been a storefront from the looks of it. A small, hand-written sign was taped to the corner of the window with one word: Irony. Some kind of music was coming from in there, hypnotic and grungy.
Zeus rapped hard on the metal door.
No answer.
I was feeling despondent. Was our fun going to be over so soon? Our wonderful life at the hideaway?
Zeus knocked again; still nobody came to the door. Odin sighed and pulled out a small leather wallet-looking thing that I happened to know was one of his lock-picking kits.
“I so hope it was them,” I said as Odin worked at the lock. “Let it be just nothing. Just a weird freak thing.”
Thor sighed. “Unlikely, goddess.”
A loud click signaled that Odin had cracked the lock.
Right then, the door was yanked open from the inside, and we were face-to-face with a large man with chunky black glasses, purple hair, and a short, immaculately trimmed beard. “What the hell are you doing?” the man barked.
Zeus showed him the bag with the note in it. “This yours?”
The man frowned. “No.”
“Let me rephrase that,” Zeus said. “Did you or anybody you know put this on our windshield?”
The man took it and studied the note through the plastic. “Fuck no.” He gave it back. “And this shit?” He pointed to the lock the Odin had opened. “Next time I call the cops.”
He tried to shut the door, but Zeus shoved a foot in the way.
“That's it, I'm calling now.” The man had his phone out. Odin plucked it from his fingers.
“Hey!”
“Look, we really are sorry to bother you,” Thor said, taking a polite tone. “We were just extremely upset to see this strange warning, and we're trying to get to the bottom of it. Are you sure it doesn't seem familiar? Or like the work of somebody that you might know?”
“Lemme see it again,” the man said.
Thor handed the bagged note over.
The man scowled at the thing. “This was on your windshield?”
“Left by a man dressed as Abe Lincoln,” I said. “It's an Abe Lincoln speech fragment.”
“Take heed,” the art dude said. “Looks like somebody is giving you a heads up on something.”
“You sure this isn't somebody from your group?” Thor asked. “You and you group have put things on windshields before.”
The man sniffed, totally insulted. “Maybe so, but I promise you—this? No. Zero chance. Precisely zero. I mean, seriously? A few lines of a speech by Abe Lincoln delivered by a man dressed as Abe Lincoln. How stupidly literal is that? If we had any interest in delivering Abe Lincoln speeches around town—and I guarantee that we do not—but if we did, we wouldn't dress as Abe Lincoln. We’d go with something like a clown or a large rabbit or…maybe not that but…”
“Why?” Zeus asked.
“Because we’d want to add something new. Some kind of juxtaposition or commentary or if nothing else, a nonsensical element. At minimum. Otherwise, what’s the point?”
I nodded like I totally got it, but I really didn't see the point of any of it, frankly.
Odin, apparently, was fully following along. “Couldn't Abe Lincoln coming from the past to deliver warnings about tyrants to be some kind of commentary on the present?” he asked.
“We're not political like that, but even if we were, it's still way too on the nose,” the man said. “Because you already have Lincoln in the speech. So, Abe Lincoln delivering part of an Abe Lincoln speech? Why would anybody waste their time stupidly echoing an element that's already present? As performance art, it’s simply idiotic.”
Odin nodded. “I suppose it is really on the nose.”
“Thank you,” the man said, seeming both highly annoyed, but grateful that Odin got it. “A thing like this…wait—lemme see that note again.”
Thor handed it over.
Zeus looked hopeful. “Got something?”
“Maybe,” the man said, examining it. “Hold on,” he added.
I sucked in a breath and waited. Did he have an idea? Did he recognize the handwriting? The style?
We held on. Maybe this could still be easy. We’d find out it’s nothing, go get our takeout food, and have a nice night.
“Okay, got it,” the guy finally said.
“Yeah?” Odin asked hopefully.
“If I were trying to make a creative political point with this, I would definitely dress up as one of the monkey dudes from Planet of the Apes. Right? As a counterpoint to this message?” He looked at each of our faces, like he was sure one of us would be vibing with him, but even Odin wasn’t pleased.
