Boosting - Chapter 26
"What happened to your jaw?" Anderson asked Joe, observing the slight swelling and bruising that Frank had gifted him the day before.
"Uh, ran into a door, clumsy."
Frank shifted uncomfortably before motioning for James to take his seat and moved to perch on the window ledge behind to stare out of the window. He extended his leg along the length of the ledge and tucked his stick down the side of his outstretched limb.
Nancy continued with her story of what she suspected had happened to Con. "I'm…we, I should say—" she corrected, glancing at James, "—aren't sure what happened but we suspect someone broke in to ambush Con. Maybe they discovered who he was, or maybe they wanted to take back the Ford Fairlane for some reason. One thing's for sure, if they didn't know Con was working on the case, they certainly do now because his FBI badge was on the ground when we found him. I don't think they bargained on Rebel being there, or it could have been a LOT worse."
"Or, of course, it could have been a regular burglary gone wrong," Anderson pointed out. "We could be jumping to massive assumptions."
"Ford Fairlane?" Frank asked. He'd turned from the outside view, his full attention now on what Nancy was saying.
"Is that the fancy car Con used to force me off the road?" Joe asked.
"Yep," Anderson confirmed.
"Hang on, what's this about an FBI badge?" Frank asked.
"Yeah, and who's Rebel?" Joe asked next.
"Con's dog of course," Nancy said with a smile. "There was blood running right through the house that we don't think is Con's, so Rebel probably had a bit of fun with whoever was trespassing."
"Con's got a dog?" Joe exchanged a surprised look Frank, his eyebrows so high they were almost travelling off his forehead. "Holy cow, Frank, are you as confused as me?"
"Probably more – FBI?"
An unrelated thought suddenly entered Nancy's head. "We should be contacting Con's family."
"I'm not sure Con has any kin," Joe said. "He's never talked about them to me. But I suppose if Con's not goin' to tell anyone he's got a dog, the Dude's not gonna mention family, is he?"
"We know about Rebel at the precinct," Anderson said. "He's one of our ex-police dogs, but when his hearing started to go it ended his career and they couldn't use him, so Con adopted him. Dunno about family, but I can report in and find out?"
Frank spoke up. "Actually, I'm pretty sure Con does have family, but I think he's estranged from them. I heard mom and dad talking about it once."
"I'll give dad a call," Joe decided. "We should be keeping him in the loop anyway."
Joe selected his father's number. It was answered after only a couple of rings. "Hi Dad, I—" he paused, listening. "—No I'm in Bayport, what do you mean?"
Jumping from his seat Joe began pacing, listening, but after a while, started trying to interrupt: "Dad…Dad…DAD, will you listen to me! I don't know anything about having to come to River Heights, okay? It's not that I'm disobeying Con. Con didn't tell me because he wasn't able to. That's why I'm phoning…he got attacked at home last night…no, I'm not kidding around, what do you take me for?"
Joe rolled his eyes, exasperated. "We want to know if there's anyone we should be contacting, like family?…Oh I see, that's what Frank said…hang on a second Dad—" he dropped the handset. "Dad said Con hasn't any family he's in contact with." Joe paused, his eyes flickering towards Frank and moving away as quickly. "I'm goin' to go outside, I need to talk to dad. Business stuff." Joe turned on his heel and left.
Nancy looked at Frank who was gazing out of the window again with his arms tightly folded. At first glance, he appeared unfazed by Joe's hasty departure, but he hadn't fooled Nancy. She could see the muscles at the side of this jaw working furiously and his heel was tapping against the floor.
Ten minutes later Joe was back. "I've gotta go. I don't want to, but Jack Wayne is waiting for me and I've gotta swing by the office first. Dad needs me in River Heights, he's got a lead on that PI that went missing…Bobbie is it?" he asked Nancy, holding her gaze a little longer than felt comfortable.
She nodded a confirmation wondering why he was staring so intensely.
"I can't leave dad alone, especially now the bad-guys have gotten wind of their FBI involvement. You can come with me if you like Nancy, unless you're set on staying here for Con?"
And then Nancy knew why he was holding her gaze; he was sending a silent message to 'play along'. "Erm…yes, I'd rather stay, so at least there's someone Con recognises when he wakes up, if you don't mind." She wasn't lying; she truly didn't want to leave Con alone.
"No, that's fine."
"Joe—" Frank said suddenly. "Do you—" he stopped.
"You want to come with me?" Joe asked slowly.
Nancy saw color rising to Joe's cheeks. He really, really wanted Frank to say 'yes'. Joe couldn't hide any emotions from her, they were always written across his face in plain sight. "The crafty devil!"
And in response, Frank was either playing Joe's game, or he was totally unaware of what was happening and had fallen into his sticky web. "Well…I thought, that if Nan is staying, you could use the extra back-up?"
"I'm staying here," Nancy said firmly and half smiled at Joe, knowing Frank couldn't see her face.
Joe raised his shoulders non-committedly. "Whatever. No skin off my nose." He bent and extracted their helmets from under the seats, knocking Anderson's legs aside with Frank's before handing it across. "Let's go, dude, time is money!" He jammed his hard hat onto his head and began to deal with the chinstrap before turning to walk quickly away.
"Hey! Hold up, Joe!" Frank said and got down off the window ledge. He gave Nancy a quick kiss and hobbled quickly after. "What's this about the FBI?" he asked as he rounded the corner and moved out of sight.
*****
The Hardy brothers pulled up outside the agency offices and parked up – Frank was back on the red bike. In retrospect it would have been wiser to have gone to their parents' house and fetch his convertible, or swung by Joe's place to get his clunker, but they hadn't had the luxury of time.
Joe had received a briefing from his father about the car theft case and had in turn explained it to his brother as they'd headed to their motorcycles from the hospital. Frank had nodded and processed without interrupting. Now it occurred to Joe that his father wasn't expecting Frank to be with him, but that didn't matter, he knew his dad would be fine with it. Would welcome Frank with open arms, actually.
Their first task was to pick up their FBI badges before heading to the airport to meet Jack Wayne who would be flying them to River Heights to finally rendezvous with their father by the early evening at Nancy's home.
Joe noted Frank's apprehensiveness. It was only natural that he would be nervous; he'd just spent the last few weeks convinced that he was on the shelf, investigator-wise. Now he was fighting against his self-inflicted protection programming – war mongering with his own instincts.
Joe took Frank's helmet from him while he unfurled his walking stick, and headed for the building. He went straight through and strolled down the hallway, only realising Frank wasn't behind him once he turned to mount the stairs. "Dude?" He could see Frank through the door window, head down and staring at the handle, his hand presumably resting on it.
Placing the helmets on the steps, Joe returned to the door. Once nearer, he could see Frank's hand wasn't on the handle at all, it was hovering just before it and shaking slightly. Then his fingers curled up entirely and Frank spun to look up at the building across the street.
Joe pushed the door ajar and poked his head around. "What's the problem?" he asked as Frank's ashen face came round to meet his.
"I can't do it," Frank said, stepping back a few paces and putting his hand to his forehead.
"Do what?"
"Open the door."
Joe came through. "Don't be stupid, what do you mean you can't open the door?"
"Exactly what I said!" Frank snapped beginning to back off. "I gotta get away!" He looked towards his bike like it would lead him to salvation and began patting down his pockets in an endless circular pattern, getting more and more agitated as his keys eluded him.
Joe was trying to catch his eye, to calm him, his palms up, but Frank clearly wasn't thinking straight, starting to sweat, his eyes looking anywhere but at his brother, his breathing growing more and more rapid. "Where are they, where are they?" he kept repeating until finally, his arm dropped to his side, his eyes rolled back and he began swaying. His walking stick fell from his hand and hit the ground with a clatter.
Joe caught onto Frank's elbows and took a bracing half step back as his brother's weight settled on him. "I gotcha – you okay?!"
Frank gripped on in response, so tightly that he was in danger of leaving his brother with bruises. "I can't breath."
"Yes you can, that's the problem – you're breathing too well and you're hyperventilating. Sit down here for a bit, huh?" Joe gently broke Frank's painful hold and deviated him towards a low wall, feeling the weight lifting as his brother found his feet again. "Take smaller breaths, yeah? You'll pass out if you're not careful; it's an anxiety attack is all. Panicking will make it worse."
Joe went to retrieve the stick as Frank slumped down and put his head in his hands to concentrate on controlling his breathing. Joe returned and dropped down, rested a hand on his brother's shoulder and waited. "Better?"
"Yeah. Thanks." Frank grimaced. "God, I feel like such an idiot!"
"Not as dumb as me hiking into the building without waiting for you. What's the problem?"
"I don't know! I went to pull the door open, and I couldn't get my fingers to the handle, all I kept thinking about was that film of dad getting shot at that the Pandora Posse sent me. I thought someone was aiming at me, daring me to open it." And to illustrate the point, he looked again behind and up at the office windows opposite.
"I see. C'mon," Joe said and stood up. "You gotta face this one head on."
"You mean—?"
"—Yeah, c'mon, dude. You're goin' to open that door!" Joe pulled Frank to his feet. "Remember how I used to have a fit every time a firework went off after Iola was killed, or we had a thunderstorm, or even if a car backfired?"
Frank nodded.
"Well, I never told you this, but one night me and Chet got a-hold of a box of fireworks and Chet let the whole lot off in one of the Morton's back fields while Biff, Jerry and Tony held me down. By the time Chet was half way through, I'd quit tryin' to beat them off and screamin' and was watching them. By the end of it, I'd even exploded a couple myself."
"Why didn't you tell me that?"
"I guess we thought you'd try to stop us if you knew what we were planning, that I was going 'cold-turkey', so we kept you out of the loop. You were away on one of your courses from school and it was done by the time you came back. That's why I held a firework display off the boathouse roof when I named her 'Iola's Memory'. So, c'mon, this is my big brother's whiz-bang moment…you're goin' to open that door. "
Joe led his brother to the front entrance and stood to one side expectantly. "Go on dude, open it."
Frank leaned on his stick and reached his hand tentatively out, but, as before, it stopped short and started tremoring.
"C'mon, Frank, you can do this, how hard can it be?"
Frank sucked in some air and shut his mouth tight, deeply concentrating before he shivered and ducked slightly as though someone had touched the back of his neck.
Joe looked at the building opposite. "There's no one looking or aiming a gun at you, so grab that handle!"
Frank's head started to shake in denial. Joe could see his nerves becoming frayed, that he was about to lose him. "I don't think—"
"—Dude, do you want me to call Biff and the gang and have them force you to do it by putting some rockets under your butt?"
That made Frank laugh, and then to his surprise, his hand naturally moved forward and his fingers curled around the handle. With a final loud breath and a flourish, he pulled the door open and limped into the hallway. "Ta daa!"
"Way to go, Frank, one step at a time, that's all it takes!" Joe slapped him on the shoulder and with a quick smile, moved ahead to get to the stairs.
Now that Frank had gotten through the door, the stairs were a cinch, even with the walking stick. Joe waited at the top and they entered the office.
Joe left his brother frozen in the doorway staring around and went to get the safe key from its hiding place. Once the safe was open, he glanced back to find that Frank had moved to his workstation and was looking down on it. "My desk?"
"What about it?"
"No one's used it."
Joe smiled and pulled the box out his father had directed him to. "That's right." He set it down on Con's desk and opened the lid.
"Why not?"
"Didn't seem right to…hot damn, you should see what's in here!" Frank approached as Joe pulled out a pair of handcuffs and one of the guns. "Bet dad was truly thrilled when he found these in here."
"And I bet Con had to talk him down," Frank said, grinning as Joe dropped them back into the box and carried on rooting through.
"A-ha, here they are," Joe muttered and extracted two wallets attached together with an elastic band. He untwined them and checked the name on the first one, which he immediately turned on Frank to shove it into his face. "Freeze punk, FBI!"
Frank laughed and took the other one from him. "I wonder where they got these photos from?"
"They're the ones we supplied for our PI licences."
"Oh yeah, that's right."
Joe slid the box back into the safe. "Let's go and put Jack out of his misery."