5 Chapter 5:"A plumbing job"

"Again, I am so, so, sorry about this, Margarita. So sorry." said Elaine. She dabbed the woman's head with a cloth, who had a cut the size of a golfball on her temple.

Patrick had immediately called his sister the second Margarita had passed out. Elaine had arrived after about thirty minutes and had taken charge. The cleaner was looking pretty awful, to tell the truth. Her face was a purplish colour, and she was obviously still in a bit of shock after Patrick's surprise appearance.

Patrick sighed nerviously. "Yeah, me too. I... wasn't thinking straight. Apologies."

Margarita waved her hand, and mumbled something about that it was fine, and that she forgave him, but her dazzled face showed otherwise.

"This isn't looking good." Elaine said, her gaze fixed on the wound. "Yeah, we should probably head to the hospital, the bleeding isn't getting any better."

"Right." said Patrick, and so they both helped the woman to her feet and guided her to the front door.

Elaine insisted that she go, so her brother didn't offer too much resistance. Just as she got in the car, their eyes met for a moment. Patrick shrugged slightly, at the door, but she just shook her head and drove off.

***

The wound healed over time, and soon Margarita returned to her job as the housekeeper. Patrick learned that the Argentinian had been taking care of the Chamberlains' house for a long time, way before Alan's death, but he considered it strange he had never seen her before.

The pair then bumped into each other quite frequently from then on. Any given day, Margarita would simply let herself into the house with a key of her own and get on with her business. Patrick did the same, though he was quick to note an atmosphere of tension and awkwardness when he was around her, and he was sure that she felt it too. Little conversation was exchanged among them, apart from a minimal greeting when they met, and an occasional "goodbye" when the woman departed, as silently as she had came.

Her limited English wasn't the problem; it was the change in their routines, the change of seeing a new face in their day-to-day, a face and person they weren't accustomed to. The two of them were individualists, sailing gently through life on their own, neither of them with a wide network of social life. But Patrick didn't let the awkwardness affect him, and so he did his best to ignore it.

***

The doorbell rang.

Patrick, who had recently adopted Alan's study as a workplace of his own, heard it immediately. So he got up and made his way to the front door. He didn't know if Margarita was around, but neither did he care.

He was greeted by a man at the door, somewhere in his fifties, Patrick guessed. A huge sphere of a belly surged from the area bellow his ribs, sticking out like a mountain in the Netherlands. He had bushy brows and a similar moustache, which were just clumps of tangled, thick black hair. And on top of it all, a practically bare scalp and an irregular nose to accompany them. "Out of shape" would be an understatement to describe his body on the whole.

"Mornin'." the man said, giving his moustache a scratch. It wasn't a hot day, but his face was red enough. As he talked, Patrick sensed the odour of tobacco coming from the man's breath, filling his lungs like a river of filth.

"Hello." he responded bluntly. "And you are...?"

"The plumber."

The man pointed to the van on the street behind, without looking away. "PLUMBING SERVICES MANHATTAN" read the painted sign on the side of the vehicle. Sure enough, the plumber was dressed in blue dungarees, with black marks around the legs and knees.

Patrick nodded slightly. "Right. Listen, I'm not sure you have the right address-"

"Oh? Let me check" said the plumber, pulling out a small notebook and quickly flipping through the pages. "No, yes, yes, this is the right address: 14B Worthington Street?"

"Okay, that is this address, but I think there must have been a mistake. I haven't been informed that we need anything fixed, or-"

"There is no mistake!"

The two of them continued to argue as Patrick began to lose his patience.

"What's going on?" another voice asked.

The two of them turned to face Margarita, who was at the doorway now, too.

"Nothing, just a misunderstanding." Patrick shrugged.

"What misunderstanding? The plumber was supposed to come, Mr Darren."

Patrick tried not to frown as she called him by his surname, but then sighed:

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, yes. We have a problem under the kitchen sink that needs fixing. Come!" she beckoned the plumber to step forward.

"Thank you!" the man said in response, and after exchanging a short glare with Patrick, stepped inside.

"Margarita, I have no recollection of my sister telling me we had a plumbing problem." Elaine's brother said, reluctantly closing the front door.

"But we do! She told me herself, and I called the plumber yesterday."

Her accent stuck out with the last word, as she moved about the house nervously. She seemed agitated and unsteady, making Patrick feel the same way.

As the Latina woman and the plumber analysed the issue in the kitchen, he took out his phone and tried calling his sister. But no response came, and after three failed attempts, he gave up.

The plumber finished the job in just over twenty minutes, as the others let him do his thing and got on with jobs of their own.

"Right, that will be all, then." the fat man affirmed as he packed his tools and proceeded to leave.

Margarita smiled a little too exaggeratedly, and Patrick realised that it was pretty much forced. What was wrong with her? The man was just a plumber, for goodness sake.

"Here you go." she said, handing the man an envelope. The fake grin was still there.

Patrick raised his eyebrows. "Great, she's paying him in cash and I have absolutely no idea if this is legit or not." he thought. But the man quickly grabbed the piece of paper like a hungry lion waiting to be fed and smiled too, but just for an instant. They then said their goodbyes and off the plumber went.

The other two were left in silence for about a minute, before Patrick spoke up:

"Margarita?"

"Hm?"

"How much did that cost?"

But she just half smiled, and calmly put a hand on his shoulder.

"Not much, Mr Darren."

***

That night, Patrick couldn't sleep.

He lay in bed, simply waiting to slip into unconsciousness, but it just wasn't working for him. So sometime around three am he finally got up, unable to bare it any longer.

After fumbling in the darkness, he found the lamp switch and turned it on. What was he going to do? Certainly not wait until dawn, that would be madness; no amount of caffeine in his system would be able to keep him awake all day. He suddenly realised that the glass of water beside his bed was empty. Well, at least he now had something to do. So he quietly got up, taking the glass with him, and sauntered down the stairs to the kitchen.

Patrick drank a little and then sat down on one of the stools by the counter. Even in the dark he could still admire the lovely kitchen. It was decent-sized, with plenty of space for cupboards, a fridge, a freezer, an oven, a microwave and even a little table up against the wall. It could all easily be twice the size of his own kitchen, back in his apartment in Brooklyn.

He was about to get up and head back to bed when he heard a noise. The faintest beep, so faint he could've even just imagined it. But he doubted that. Of course, there were other things in the room that probably sounded similar, like the oven or the dishwasher... but nevertheless, he was curious.

It seemed to be coming from under the sink, so he opened the cupboards and had a look. And that's when remembered about the plumbing job. Silly him, he had never thought of checking it out after the man had left. Well, now was his chance; Patrick didn't know a lot about plumbing, but to him everything seemed ordinary and fine, nothing out of place or anything like that.

But the beeping continued, rhythmically, as if marking a pulse.

He was sure it was coming from there, so he rummaged around until he finally came across the source. Behind the furthest pipe, there was a strange object. It was made out of four brown tubes, no more than fourteen inches long. Surrounding them, there was a wire, which kept them together and stuck to the pipe. The wire ended with a small device on one side of the tubes; it was a little screen, which on it read the numbers 5:17,... minutes and seconds.

The journalist's heart skipped a beat as everything clicked inside his head. He was looking at a bomb.

For an instant, everything just stopped. Patrick crouched there, just watching in utter horror as the seconds went down with every beep. A huge dizziness invaded his head, and he half rolled over onto the cool floor in shock. The sticks were dynamite, and the device was a timer. 5 minutes. He had 5 minutes before the whole thing was going to blow. One, two, three, four sticks.... that was certainly enough to blow two houses down, never mind one. He then looked at the clock on the wall: it was five minutes to three. There it was again, five minutes. The bomb was destined to explode at three am in the morning.

He had to get out of there.

In one big jump he got his feet and raced up the stairs once more. He didn't think, he couldn't, for there was no time. He crashed into his sister's bedroom.

"Elaine! Get up! You've got to get up, please get up! ELAINE!"

She sat up in shock, startled, as her brother violently shook her back and forth.

"Wha-what is it, Pat? Stop!"

"Listen, I need you to get up. GET UP!"

"Alright, alright, but why? What's wrong?"

"Just stand up, grab some clothes and go out the front door."

She just stared at him as if he had gone mad.

"Do it, just do it, please. Don't put them on, don't go the washroom, just go! Go!"

She barely even protested, and simply did as told.

"Hurry, hurry!" her brother urged.

"I demand an explanation, Patrick."

"Not yet. Oh, and take Maya with you, do the same for her."

And with that, he left her, and headed to Jake's room.

"Time to get up, Jake. Wake up!" he said, picking the boy up in his arms.

The seven-year-old was too asleep to even respond, so Patrick did his best to grab some clothes from the wardrobe himself. He then ran down the stairs, through the hall and out the front. Elaine and Maya were already out there, waiting impatiently on the street. The little girl was sobbing, and Patrick realised that Jake was about to do the same.

"Pat, what is going on?!" asked Elaine hysterically. Her hair was a mess, but she was more awake than ever.

Her brother looked at her, out of breath. "There's a- There's a bomb in the house, El."

"What?!"

But Patrick didn't interact with her anymore. He had what, about two minutes left? Sure, there was enough time to get a few belongings. There had to be. So with Elaine screaming behind him, he raced back into the house. What could he pick up? Money, expensive items, jewellery, clothes,... too many options.

He ran about the house, to and fro, stuffing his pockets, filling bags, collecting anything he came across, without getting to distracted with care. There couldn't be more than a minute to go, so it was time to head out. All this time, the beeping pulsated inside his brain, bouncing around his head like a ball trying to drive him nuts.

Patrick sprinted through the door... when suddenly, it happened. There was a huge burst of light, a millisecond before the noise came. It deafened his ears, and the impact sent him flying through the air, over the steps. He finally crashed onto the street, bringing the items in his hands and pockets down with him.

Elaine screamed in terror as the family looked back at the house, now destroyed. A huge ball of fire and smoke rose from the building, high into the sky. But Patrick just lay still on the ground, relieved, before passing out.

They were alive.