Chapter 3
“Well, Downtown,” she mumbled over cheeseburger and fries. We were sitting in a booth at Denny’s surrounded by the four agents and Dad. I’d wanted to sit by ourselves, but knew that wouldn’t happen. I had learned to deal with the realities of being a Senator’s son and boyfriend of the President’s daughter.
Had I been to the White House? A few times. There was enough for me. Plus, after watching White House Down, I was glad to stay away.
We babbled about the planes, the Saturn rocket, and the actual console of the Enterprise where we were able to go inside and work the toggle switches and buttons. Sit in the pilot seat and pretend to know what it was like to fly one.
Felice ate like I did, not an ounce of extra fat on her body. She ran track at school. And yes, she did go to a private learning institution, even though that was a constant argument with her Dad and the Secret Service. She said it could be worse, she could have been home schooled. I rolled my eyes at that, home schooled in the White House didn’t really count.
I stole her French fries and dipped one in ketchup. I’d already polished off my burger, fries and a chocolate milkshake and was working on hers. She slapped me.
“Get your own, Downtown,” she grumped. So Dad ordered onion rings and I ate those, too.
“Downtown?” He asked, raising an eyebrow. His eyes were blue, his hair a dark blonde. I got my eyes and my looks from Mom, he often told me, my height and blue eye from him.
Oh, my name is Dantan Townsley De Rosier, hence the nickname ‘Downtown’. I got the Townsley from Mom, named for my weird, lovable and eccentric great uncle. He had the weird eyes–one blue and one brown, like Mom. Said he was psychic, too. On the morning my Mom was murdered by the drunk driver, he tried to call her, warned her about the blue minivan and T-bone from his nursing home, but the staff who caught him wandering in the RN’s office thought he was babbling about supper as if T-bones were on the menu for toothless old farts. His words, not mine. Dad and I visited Uncle Town nearly every week. Even if he did give me the creeps.
“Where to after this?” Dad questioned. “Is this an official date? You need to borrow the car?”
I slugged him. I’d just turned fourteen and no matter how I begged, he wanted me to wait to get my learner’s permit. Even though Matt Damon [real name Jake James], offered to take me to the FBI closed driving course and teach me where agents learned real defensive driving.
I could understand Dad being cautious after Mom and truth is, I was a bit scared myself. I’d seen and read the statistics for teenage drivers and fatal accidents. Last thing I wanted was to put my Dad through that again. “It’s seven thirty, Dad. You have an early day tomorrow. Don’t you need to get in early?”
He rolled his eyes at the grinning agents and Felice. “It’s almost past my bedtime,” he whispered to her. “Do you think if I beg, he’ll let me stay up another hour?”
“What are you doing tomorrow, Danny?” She asked finishing her last fry and looking for an onion ring, but I’d eaten them all.
“Pig,” she added.
“Look who’s talking. Those jeans look tight,” I said staring at her chest.
She slugged me. “I weigh exactly 125,” she retorted. “And I can still outrun and out leap you.”
“But I can out shoot you,” I sneered. “Out eat, out track and outlast you. And I’m smarter, too.” I never let her forget my PSAT scores were higher than hers.
“By ten points. You spelled your name right for that. Any who, Dad’s going to the farm to get some fishing and riding in. Want to come?”
“He’s hiding from his bigmouth faux pas?”
She flushed red, having heard about his unfortunate words. “He said he didn’t say that,” she defended.
“My Dad said that the Easter Bunny’s real, too,” I returned. “I stopped believing that when I was eight.”
“Really?” Dad inquired. “And how come I put a five dollar bill under your pillow for the last tooth you lost on Friday?”
I flushed,and said, “tips for the dentist.”
“Speaking of which, you have a dental appointment on Monday at 11 AM. Ms. Penny will get you out of class and take you.” Ms. Penny was Dad’s secretary and stood in for errands where a full-fledged agent wasn’t quite needed.
“I can take myself, Dad. The office is only four blocks from school.”
“No,” he said sharply. I knew he meant it. It wasn’t the best neighborhood between school and the strip-mall where the dental clinic was.
“Okay,” I agreed quietly. “Tomorrow, I’m going to the park and practice shooting. Tournament’s coming up, and I’m stale.”
I was enrolled in archery class and wanted to try out for triathlon, archery, target shooting and running sometime in the near future.
“You guys done?” Dad asked, standing up and the other agents flanked him. The waitress brought the check, Dad handed over his American Express and left her five dollar tip. He never paid more than 25%, he said waitresses deserved to be rewarded for their service, but not to make him feel magnanimous. Out in the parking lot, Felice gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek before she was hustled away into the big limo and we got into the Kia. I sighed. Dad waited until I was seat belted in.
“You like her, Danny?”
“A lot. She’s smart, pretty and fun. Likes to read, and do the same things as me. Likes animals. You know she wants to be a vet?”
“I take it you don’t mean a war vet?”
“Daaad,” I sighed. “A veterinarian. Why can’t we have a dog, Dad?”
“We tried, Danny,” he said softly. “When you were young, several times. It made you sick. Your Mom wanted you to have a pet, too. We both loved dogs. It killed her to give Clipper up when you got ill at seven. That was the last time we tried.”
“No one else’s pets bother me. I can be around Dusty all day and I’m fine.”
“Outside. Not in the house,” he pointed out.
“What is it, do I have asthma or something?”
“No, Dantan. Worse than that. You passed out and were in a coma for days. We had to take you to Crowley Trauma to a Specialist. Four times.”
I rubbed my forehead and squeezed the temples, as a sudden headache accompanied by nausea hit me. “Dad, pull over,” I managed and he stared at me in the rear view mirror.
“What’s wrong, Danny?” He asked sharply, putting on his right blinker. “You’re green!”
He pulled to a stop and unlocked the doors. I headed for the grass along the wood line as his escort pulled over to park behind, hurrying up to Dad with their hands on their hips. I leaned over and puked as Dad kept his distance. One thing he hated was the smell of vomit.
Voices babbled in my head. I saw pictures of a man putting together a rifle and a fat tortoiseshell cat was watching him from the table covered with a purple-flowered plastic tablecloth in a large dining room wainscoted walls and an overhead five-bladed fan light. Three windows and a door covered with paisley drapes in the picture window opened into the narrow kitchen, a window frame sized opening but no glass. The floor was carpeted and on top that was one of those braided rugs in green.
A small pendulum clock ticked on one wall between the windows and on the other was a really nice pencil drawing of a red setter.
The man was in his 30s with a bland generic face, blue eyes and dark hair. You’d look at him twice and not see him. He was not tall, but it was hard to judge his height sitting in the Captain’s chair at the table. There were four other chairs around the table, each one different. A portable phone lay at his right side near the cat that purring away.
I was seeing it all through the eyes of the cat, could hear and smell what the cat did.
“Danny?” Dad’s voice came from far away and I vaguely felt someone’s arms around me.
“Gonna get that bastard with one shot,” I said, echoing the man in front of me. “Oh yeah, President Jason Rickover’s gonna be splattered all across the front of the Museum of Space and Science.”
“Danny?” Dad shook me. “Danny, what?”
I looked up, no longer in the cat’s mind, but back on the side of the interstate with five worried faces staring at me. Dad sent the other guys back to the car to get help.
“Huh?” I asked, wiping my mouth of vomit.
“Danny, what did you say about President Rickover?”
I swallowed. “Dad, remember when I gave you that stock tip, and told you not to drive that day the accident happened on the expressway?” He nodded. “Well, tomorrow some guy’s going to shoot Felice’s Dad in the head at the museum’s grand opening.”
“Danny,” Dad said helplessly.
“Dad, you’ve got to do something. Don’t tell them, they won’t believe me.”
“You know who he is?”
“Some guy with a cat. A tortoiseshell. Dark hair, blue eyes. He looks like everyone. He has a rifle.”
“What kind?”
“Like that short sniper rifle made of composite so it doesn’t show up in x-rays or metal detectors. Is Felice’s Dad supposed to be there tomorrow?”
“Yes,” Dad said. “A last-minute change of plans… How did you know this, Danny?”
“He told me. The guy with the rifle.”
“Danny, you telling me you read minds?”
“No, Dad. I can’t read minds. I hear things see things, sometimes. Like through their eyes.”
“The people’s eyes?”
“No, Dad. Through their pets’ eyes. Dogs, cats, birds. Even wild animals. It’s like I’m in their heads, seeing through their eyes, hearing through their ears.”
He started to say something, stopped and then said, “The stock tip?”
“I heard a broker, talking on the phone to his partner. His dog was in the room, a big black lab.”
“How do you pick the animals, Dantan?”
I shrugged. “Sometimes, they just suck me in. No rhyme or reason. Doesn’t usually make me sick either.”
Dad said, “Hush,” as the agents came back over.
“Hey, Danny,” Damon asked. “How are you? We called an ambulance, Senator. Just in case. Food poisoning, you think?”
Dad said smoothly, “I’ll take him home. I think he’s okay now. Cancel the ambulance, please.” Dad held onto me back to the car and made me lie down in the back seat. Halfway home, I passed out. Don’t remember being carried into the house or the subsequent pandemonium when they couldn’t rouse me.