Page 62 of Marcellus: House of Drakos
“You mean other than Alex and me?” asked Oz.
It came so out of nowhere that Kari and Savannah couldn’t help it. They laughed. Alex and Marcellus smiled. “Other than you guys, Oz, yes. I figured you wouldn’t do something like that.”
“Why not?” Oz asked him as he stared daggers at him.
Marcellus was discomfited. Savannah wanted to take his hand, but she resisted. “I wouldn’t do it if the shoe was on the other foot,” he said, “and I have far more to complain about than you ever had.”
Oz frowned. “You have more to complain about?”
“Careful Oz,” said Kari.
“How would you have more to complain about when it was your mother that destroyed our family? Our father was married with children when she was whoring around with him. You and your mother wrecked our entire family and you have the nerve to talk about your woes? What the fuck you had to complain about?”
“He impregnated my mother,” Marcellus shot back. It was a simmering wound that needed care and attention. “When she gave birth to his child he dumped her,” Marcellus said with emotion in his voice. “While you were living it up with our father in Greece, my mother and I were homeless. We were scrounging around for food in those seedy backstreets of Paris just trying to survive another hour! She sold her body just to put a morsel of meat in her baby’s belly. With the snap of a finger he could have helped her. Or at least his own child! But he didn’t give a shit. That’s what I had to complain about motherfucker. That’s what!” Marcellus blared out.
The room went still. It was as if Alex and Oz were hearing it all for the first time. Kari too. The way they’d been told it Marcellus’s mother was a homewrecker of the first order and that was all there was to it. She was the enemy and, after his birth, so was he. Forget that their father had many hoes and many babies outside of marriage. But she was the first.
“And last I looked,” Marcellus added, “a baby can’t wreck anybody’s marriage. It’s an impossibility.”
It was too much for Alex to take. He knew their dislike of Marcellus and even of his mother was misguided all along. Their father was a whore from way back. But it was still too much to take. He stood up so fast it startled everybody. “Let’s take a break,” he said. He looked distressed even more than Marcellus did. As the oldest, he probably saw more damage than either one of his brothers. “We’ll meet back in an hour,” he said. “I need a break.”
Marcellus stood up too as Alex reached out his hand to Kari, she took his hand and stood up, and they began heading for the exit.
But Savannah noticed Oz wasn’t leaving. If anybody should, it would have been his ass. But then he let out a loud exhale. And spoke. “There’s this one guy,” he said.
Alex and Kari stopped walking and turned around. Everybody looked at him.
“He’s an explosives guy that mob-type figures use on occasion. You need a car blown up, or a house, or even an office building, he’s your man. He’s known as a hired assassin without a gun.”
But Marcellus was baffled. “An explosives guy? Why would you think he would be connected to me?”
“He told me he used to work for you.”
Marcellus stared at Oz. “He worked for me?”
“For Drakos Aeronautics, yes. That’s what he once said to me.”
“Who is he?” asked a now anxious Marcellus.
“I’ve only used him a couple times – and neither time was recent. I don’t know his real name, but I know him as Bobcat Grishom.”
When Marcellus heard that name, he went white as a sheet. And they all saw it.
“You know him?” asked Alex.
Marcellus nodded his head with a slow-motion nod, as if he was making certain he heard Oz right. “Yes. I know him.” Then he looked at Alex. “His name is Robert Grishom, although I’ve heard him referred to as Bobcat as well. And he did work for me.”
Alex saw the concern in Marcellus’s eyes. And he knew then there was no getting away from it. He placed his handaround Kari’s waist and escorted her back to the sofa. They sat down. Marcellus sat back down too.
“Tell me everything,” Alex said. “I can’t help you if you hold anything back.”
Marcellus hesitated at first, but then he spoke up. “He’s a reckless man. That I know.”
“What was his job?”
“Aircraft designer.”
“Oh my,” said Kari. “That’s a real connection then.”
