Page 64 of Help Me Remember

My jaw tightened, and I moved past him to look out the living room windows. A car was parked on the other side of the road. It was nice enough that it didn’t stand out, but I could see the three men Eric had mentioned. One of them was out of the car, a phone to his ear as he looked down the street. Another stepped out, lighting a cigarette as he walked down the sidewalk.

“Those don’t look like the Russian guys,” Eric said quietly from behind me.

“They’re not,” I muttered, pointing toward the back room. “Get dressed and get our things together.”

“Fuck, what now?” Eric moaned, and I heard his quiet but quick footsteps retreating.

I watched the men carefully, tracking their movements. The one on the phone was calm and sat on the hood of the car, carrying on what looked like a normal conversation, which was completely ruined by his frequent glances toward the house. Even more obvious was the man in the back seat, who I could barely see, scanning the street intently, only partially obscured by the tinted windows.

After a couple of minutes, I heard Eric reappear, just as the third man appeared as well. I hadn’t noticed before, but he held a clipboard as he approached the front door. He looked benign, wearing a pair of slacks and a button-up shirt. I looked him over, unease washing through me before I turned to Eric.

“He’s going to knock,” I said, wincing at what I was about to say. “I need you to see what he wants.”

“Ugh,” Eric said, flinching lightly when a knock came. “Seriously?”

“They could be benign.”

“Or could be not!”

“If they’re not, they’re going out of their way to pretend they are, which hasn’t been the case with anyone before.”

“Christ on a cracker,” Eric muttered as he walked toward the entrance.

I followed him, standing where the door would obscure me and allow me to be close enough to hear clearly and intervene in case anything went south. Eric rolled his eyes, shoving the gun and my wallet into my hand before standing by the door. With a sigh, he rubbed at his eyes roughly before running his hands through his hair rapidly.

Disheveled and bleary-eyed, Eric opened the door. “Hello?”

“Good morning, sir,” the man on the other side chirped merrily, though I thought I heard a tone of barely concealed surprise.

“Not yet,” Eric said in what I admitted was a pretty passable sound of annoyance and sleepiness. “Can I help you?”

“Ah, right. Sorry to intrude, sir. We’re going around the neighborhood to see if anyone is willing to sign our petition?”

“Okay, that doesn’t really clear it up. You can’t just say ‘petition’ and expect people to know what you mean. And why are you wearing your necklace inside your shirt? Most people wear it on the outside?”

“Necklace?” I heard the stranger say, sounding bewildered. His tone was immediately hasty and almost embarrassed as he spoke again. “Oh, that’s not a necklace.”

“Looks like the cord to one.”

“No, it’s the cord to my pacemaker. Sorry, I normally have it out of sight better.”

“Right,” Eric said with a grunt that was so uncharacteristically grumpy I found myself smiling. “Well, tell you what, I’ve been awake a whole five minutes. How about you come back in an hour and tell me what you want to save, conserve, whatever.”

“Well, I’m not sure if we’ll be around later,” the man said, and I noted how quickly he was trying to get the words out.

“I guess we’ll find out,” Eric said, pushing the door closed. “Have a good morning.”

“I—” the guy tried to continue but was cut off by the door closing in his face.

“Nice,” I said, walking back into the living room to watch him depart. He stood by the front door with a frown on his face for a couple of seconds before walking back toward the car. “Cord?”

“Looked like a cord.”

“Or something else.”

The man on the phone glanced at him several times, and the chirpy ‘petitioner’ looked agitated as he walked toward the road. When I looked closer, I realized the man from the back seat was no longer in the car.

“Like what?” Eric asked.

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