Caffrey Flashback

Chapter 39: Fix You

Neal sat beside Henry on the sled. They were way outside his area of expertise. He wished Graham were here. As much as the man wanted his grandson to take over the company, Neal didn't believe he wanted to make Henry miserable in order to accomplish it. "All that on top of me being drugged and hospitalized, huh?"

Henry briefly leaned against Neal, more of a quick shoulder bump. "Thank God you're okay. That really was more than I could handle at any time, regardless of the rest."

"That's over now. I'm back on my feet again, so why not lean on me for a change?"

Henry shook his head. "It's too soon. You're still not out of the woods."

Neal gestured to the trees around them. "We're both in the woods, in more ways than one. Listen, I don't know the first thing about how a company like Win-Win works, and I can't say I want to know. What I do want is to be there for you. Tell me what to do, and I'll do it."

Henry laughed. "You're going to start following orders all of the sudden?"

"I'm serious. The last week or so, everyone's been coming to my rescue and been on my case about how I should ask for help. How about you get over the big brother thing and admit you could use some help, too?"

"I guess you could..." Henry paused as Satchmo bounded up to them. "Hey, boy." He rubbed the dog's ears.

"Thought you two might have gotten lost," Peter said, reaching them a moment after Satchmo. "Everything okay?"

Henry stood up. "Sure. We're good, aren't we, Neal?"

Neal took Henry's hand and stood up. "Getting there. Sorry about that, Peter. I lost track of the time." Then he grabbed Henry's cap, balled it up and yelled, "Fetch, Satchmo!" as he threw the cap back toward the cabin. Satchmo ran after it, with Henry a step behind.

Neal remained beside the sled, silent.

Peter started pulling the sled toward the storage shed. "Anything you want to talk about?"

Neal followed, and hoping he was doing the right thing said, "For a long time, Henry was my hero, you know? He came to my rescue, never let me down, always seemed to know what he was doing. As time went on, he took on more and more. Partly to impress me, partly because... I think it's his rush, you know? For me it was the cons and heists. For him it's playing the hero. Or at least undermining the bad guys."

Peter opened the doors of the shed. "You still think he knows what he's doing?"

After Peter had the sled in place, Neal helped push the doors closed. "With a big job, like a museum heist, you do a lot of planning. You consider all the details and possibilities and have back-up plans. But in the end you have to go with instinct. I rely on my instincts to get through tough situations, and Henry even more so. He's dealing with people now who have such intricate plans that the best way to throw them off is to go in with all the information but also with what appears to be no plan at all. At least, not a conscious plan. He's a chess player when he needs to be, but he's a genius at working on the fly and pulling all the elements together at the last minute. But that makes it hard to help him. And it could be that he's reached a limit of how much his instincts can take in and react to and still stay above water. I'm not sure he's going to recognize that he's in too deep until it's too late."

"Tell me he's not going to pull you into whatever this is." When Neal didn't answer, Peter stopped on the path up to the cabin and put a restraining hand on his nearest shoulder. "Neal?"

"You know he wants me to work at Win-Win someday."

"And is that all you're talking about? Neal, you gotta give me more to go on. You wouldn't have started telling me about this unless you wanted me to do something about it. Tell me what to expect."