The Anomaly's Enigma

“Gerard!” Someone screams at me when they enter the house, and I roll my eyes to see Frank scrambling inside.

“What?”

“We have a major problem. We have a really major problem. We have a giant problem. We have a giant problem bigger than the sun. We have a problem so big that the size of it cannot possibly be described with any human form of tongue. Our problem is so gigantic that-”

“Frank!” I interrupt him, “would you mind telling me what our problem is?”

It’s not like I’m unhappy to see Frank, because I definitely am, but I was on a roll and Frank broke my rhythm. It’s fine, I needed a break soon anyway. It’s been four, almost five hours since he left and I don’t know how long he was going to be out, but he’s here now and that’s all that matters. He’s alive at least right now.

“Oh, yeah sorry. Gerard, this is huge. This is like, flee the country huge,” Frank says and that’s got me listening. I hadn’t looked at Frank quite yet, but now that I see the look on his face he’s gotten my attention. Frank looks absolutely terrified, and I don’t understand how he can look that scared and also be that attractive simultaneously.

I turn around on the couch, setting my sketch pad on the coffee table in front of me. I turn to look at him, on my knees, with my arms on the back of the couch to steady myself.

“Well than it would be really nice if I knew what was going on!” I say to him.

“Gerard, Conte is dead.”

“He’s what?”

“He’s dead,” Frank says.

“How? Why? When?”

“Well see the thing is that Conte shouldn’t be dead. He absolutely one hundred and fifty percent shouldn’t be dead. For one thing, no one in the fucking world knows who he is. Not a single person. I don’t think he’s got family, I don’t know where the fuck he’s from, possibly Italy, but he could be from anywhere. I’m not sure if that’s his original face or if he’s had it remodeled a few times. His accent has no specific dialect, his ties are numerous but easily cut. I don’t know where he lives, I don’t know if he’s even alive. I don’t know if he’s fucking human or not. He could be a vampire for all I know, thought I doubt it, because vampires aren’t real.”

“Nicholas Cage,” I point out.

“No time for that, Gerard,” Frank says and if I wasn’t scared before I sure as hell am now, because Frank never tells me to stop joking around. Never.

“Okay, sorry,” I reply.

“It’s okay, this is just a really big deal, Gerard.”

“Alright, tell me when it happened.”

“Word on the street is that he dropped about three weeks ago, right about when you started getting your letters,” Frank says.

“And why was he killed?”

“I can only guess it’s because someone knew he wasn’t an average citizen. I highly doubt that whoever killed him knew who I was three weeks ago. They probably tapped him out for his source of information, and then tapped him out of life.”

“Okay,” I nod, “so why aren’t we dead yet?”

“Well that’s obvious, isn’t it? Whomever is after us is scary as fuck. They like to play with their food.”

“Yikes,” I say, feeling myself get a little colder in the apartment.

“Precisely,” Frank agrees, “so someone wants us to squirm. This is both a blessing and a curse, because at this point in time, they don’t know that we’re onto them. They don’t know that we’re aware of our status, but we do know now.”

“Okay,” I nod, “so we go into hiding again?”

“We might have to,” Frank agrees, “otherwise we’re dead.”

“Fuck,” I groan.

“Well, but this time we’re not positive what allies this person has. We don’t know who it is, whereas when we went into hiding last time, we did know.”

“So what you’re saying is?”

“Well, we don’t know how far we need to go to hide, so my best guess is we should stay in the city,” Frank tells me.

“But won’t that make us less safe?”

“Gerard, this is a big city. Huge even. You could hide forever here and not be found. We need to seclude ourselves so that no one knows who we are, but we do need to hide,” Frank states.

“But what about my life?” I ask him, “I don’t say that to sound like I’m being ungrateful of you or your idea or anything, but I’m somewhat of a public figure. I have things to go to, places to be.”

“Well yeah, but you can’t attend those things at all if you’re dead,” Frank states.

“Alright, valid point. So we hide then. If you think that’s best, then I agree with you to the fullest.”

“Yeah, so the three of us are going to have to hide-”

“Three?”

“Mikey!” Frank says looking at me like I’ve lost my head, “we need to protect Mikey too. It’s been established, widely even, that we are basically just as vulnerable without Mikey as we would be if we were ass-naked on international television. Mikey is leverage. If the two of us were to go into hiding without him, we might as well not do it at all because-”

“Because than they’d just ransom Mikey off like Banks did.”

“Precisely,” Frank says.

“So then we hide,” I say, “we hide and we bring Mikey with us, and we don’t leave the safehouse at all if we can prevent it.”

“I’m thinking we should hire a private investigator,” Frank says, “though I think we might want one who doesn’t play by the rules so much. Under the law, not bothered by legality.”

“Great,” I say sarcastically, “We’ll be bringing someone else into this.”

“Well we don’t have to tell them the whole truth.”

“Do you think it’s best?” I ask him.

“What? Yeah, I do.”

“But will you be putting that person’s life in danger?” I ask him further.

“It’s possible,” Frank says, with a shrug.

“Then I don’t want to include someone else in on this,” I say and Frank’s face falls, “Frank, Mikey is enough as it is. He’s already an innocent party. I’m not going to add any more people to this, because I don’t want anyone to get hurt because of this. No one. Absolutely nobody, got that?”

“No, I get it,” Frank nods.

“Good.”

Frank breathes in deeply, “I would be lying if I said that you were wrong in that decision. You’re right, and I know that. We’ll keep it between the two of us then. This stays here, we don’t want anyone else slipping my secret anyway.”

“Exactly,” Gerard nods.

“So then we’re going to have to hide ourselves, and I guess I’ll have to investigate this myself,” Frank declares.

“No!” I answer, “Absolutely not, you won’t do anything by yourself, okay? You’re in just as much danger as me. We can hide, sure, but if you think for one second I’m going to let you go out alone and try to find out what’s happening, then you’ve lost your fucking mind. I’m going to come with you.”

“But Gerard-”

“Don’t ‘but Gerard’ me, okay? I’m going to be with you at all times,” I tell him, “I’d rather get shot in the face with you then wait for you to get home one day to see that you never will come back. I’m not even going to let you get coffee by yourself, because the last time that happened, you got kidnapped.”

Frank makes a face and I can tell he disagrees with me on that, but I stand by what I said completely. I will not let him do this all by himself when I might lose him. I don’t want to lose him. That’s the last thing in the world I would let happen.

“You’re stubborn,” Frank shakes his head.

“Well yeah, but you’re my fucking husband and I’m not going to let you get yourself killed unless I’m there to do something hella stupid.”

Frank makes a face and looks at me like he hates me and also wants to give me a hug.

“Gerard!” He groans, and walks over to me heavily.

“What?”

“I hate you,” he frowns. Frank stops on the other side of the couch, facing me. He’s about level with me now, because the couch isn’t very tall.

“I know,” I say.

“Fucking kiss me!” Frank says when he steps close enough and I do because he looks way too stressed out right about now. Though really, I don’t need to be convinced to kiss Frank. I need to be convinced to not kiss Frank. Who am I kidding though, no one can get me to not kiss Frank. You’d need a crowbar.

“So what is it then?” I ask him.

“What is what?”

“What is the last thing that you haven’t told me, and are trying to refrain from telling me because you’re afraid of what my reaction is going to be?” I say. I know him too well.

“Oh, well, um,” Frank says stepping back slightly, and I look at him with my best disapproving glare. “You’re not gonna like it.”

“Well I assume that’s why you didn’t say it already.”

“No, I mean, you’re really not going to like it,” Frank says, “really really. It’s not good. It’s probably the worst news of this whole ordeal, actually.”

“Well then I really do have to know, Frank,” I say.

“Ugh,” Frank groans, “well basically, Conte, he didn’t go out gracefully. He didn’t have a very... uh, quick death.”

“Fuck,” I respond, “do I wanna know?”

“Well no, but you insisted!”

“Don’t make it graphic.”

“Okay well basically, he was kind of, sort of, maybe a little bit tortured a bit.”

“Tortured!” I exclaim, because that is not okay. Like at all.

“Well, yeah. I mean, I told you he wouldn’t have given me up by choice, but he did, so I asked around, and yeah, he was tortured. It wasn’t pretty. Whoever this was, they knew what they were fucking doing. This was no dunking your head in ice cold water though. What I went through would’ve been Disneyworld compared to what happened to him. That’s how they got Conte talking. It was tortured out of him.”

“Oh god, so that’s kind of terrifying,” I say, trying to take the repulsion out of my face. That guy was Frank’s friend, not mine. I may be more scared in a selfish way than how I probably should be. Usually we feel bad when we hear that someone who helped us was tortured than murdered, but I never met the guy, and he was a criminal. I’m a fucking hypocrite, what am I saying? I’m married to an ex-assassin. I don’t want to be tortured though, I didn’t sign up for that!

“Gerard,” Frank says, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. It’s becoming clearer to me that this is my fault. This is all my fucking fault and it’s going to get us killed, get you killed, and that’s the last thing I want to happen. I wish I could just make this all stop happening. I thought we were gonna be safe, I really did. I left that life behind and I thought we’d be safe, but we’re not and I’m sorry.”

“Don’t you dare blame yourself, Frank.”

“But-”

“Frank!” It’s just one of those days where we’re interrupting each other a lot, “Frankie, four years ago, you said the same thing to me every day. You told me over and over again not to blame myself because I wasn’t the sicko with the need to kill people. It may have been my actions that triggered what happened, but you were right. I wasn’t the one who was trying to kill someone. You said it yourself. You did a bad thing Frank, but that doesn’t mean you deserve to die. There’s nothing in the world that would mean you deserve to be dead.”

Frank looks back at me and he looks like a wounded dog, which breaks my heart a little. We don’t even know if the suspicion is correct that this has nothing to do with Derek Fischer. That’s just a guess we have at this point. We don’t know who to blame, but Frank’s already taking the blame unto himself. Oh god, this must’ve been what it was like for him to see me when Banks was trying to kill me. It’s not a pleasant feeling at all.

“I love you, Frankie. I do, and I know I shouldn’t, but I do. Whatever is happening right now, whoever wants to hurt us, it’s not your fault.”

Frank nods slowly, and he looks back at me, straight into my eyes, “okay, Gerard.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah,” Frank says, “Whatever you or I did that caused this, it’s not our fault. We’re not the bad guy.”

I grab the back of Frank’s neck until our foreheads meet together, and I look at him as closely as I can get, “I’m not going to let you die, Frankie.”

“I know, and I won’t let you die either. And I love you too, Gerard.”