CHAPTER
SIX
Jason Slavka had already cleared the
traffic circle and was just a couple of blocks from the station
when he heard his call sign requested over the air. He pulled the
mike from its clip on the center console and he keyed the transmit
button. “Two-Four David.”
“Two-Four David, what’s your
status?”
Damn, he thought. Time for an ethics check. He’d hoped to
sneak back into the station without changing his status on the
board; that way no one would dispatch him on any calls, and he’d be
able to finish the pile of paperwork on his desk.
Ah, screw
it. “I’m ten-eight, en route back to headquarters,”
he said. The answer virtually volunteered him for another
call.
“Um, Two-Four David . . .” He could
hear commotion in the background as someone distracted the
dispatcher with questions. “Stand by, Two-Four David.”
Jason chuckled and shook his head.
“Stand by?” he asked the radio, talking to it off the air, as if
addressing a person. “You called me, remember?”
The speaker popped again a few seconds
later. “Ah, Two-Four David, what’s the ten-twenty of your
passenger?”
“I dropped him off at the hospital.
His mother’s having an operation of some sort.”
This time the commotion in the
background was louder—much louder, in fact—and Jason distinctly
heard the word “shit!” boomed by somebody. If he didn’t know
better, he’d have sworn it was Chief Sherwood’s voice. “Okay,
Two-Four David.” The dispatcher’s voice sounded like an island of
calm in a sea of bedlam. “Stand by to copy.”
“Oh, God, Jake, you’re safe!” Carolyn
threw her arms around his neck and hugged him tightly enough to
hurt. “I’ve been worried sick about you.” Inside, the place was
black, lighted by a single kerosene lantern on the floor. But the
work had all been done.
Once the adrenaline kicked in, she’d
become oblivious to everything but her mission. She’d flown through
the storage bays, collecting their prepacked duffel bags and
second-guessing herself at every turn.
She’d finished early—nearly an hour
ago—and that’s when the panic had really started to sink in. If
family came first, then how come she had everything else done, yet
no one to talk to?
Loneliness was a horrible thing—if
only for a few minutes at a time—and loneliness in the dark was
worst of all. In the dim light of the kerosene lamp, her fears had
taken on a physical dimension. She sensed that if she’d tried, she
could have reached out and felt her fears with her hands, and the
more she’d told herself that she was being silly, the larger and
darker the fears had become.
She’d found the pint of Jack Daniel’s
without really even looking for it, buried deep in the middle of
her duffel. She dimly remembered hiding it there a long time ago—a
time when the bottle was her first priority. She told herself that
all she needed was a swig—a single pull—to bring everything under
control. Well, maybe two. It burned wonderfully as it sought that
place in her soul where the body manufactured courage. As the level
fell below the top of the label, though, she was jolted by vivid
memories of a different monster, and she’d returned the bottle to
the spot where it belonged, in the fold of her denim jacket, about
a quarter of the way down from the top of the bag.
From the movement of her shoulders,
Jake knew she was crying. She smelled of fear and dust and sweat.
And, dammit, of booze. His
vision blurred as he held her and kissed the top of her head. “I’m
so sorry,” he whispered.
The embrace felt magical; hypnotic
almost. They’d been through so much together over the years—so much
trembling and crying and running—that sometimes Jake wondered if
the world could possibly spin without her. The drinking drove him
nuts, and the screaming in the night terrified him almost as much
as it did her, but she was the only person in the world who knew
who he truly was. Even his own son didn’t know—couldn’t
know.
The realization hit Jake like a
hammer. He pushed Carolyn just far enough away to see her eyes.
“Where’s Travis?”
He sat all the way in the back of the
school bus, in the corner, right where the teachers and chaperons
expected the Farm Meadows kids to sit. He felt ridiculous with his
purple eye, and the cheap imitation Oakleys he wore to camouflage
the bruise really didn’t hide a thing.
Travis had already been reminded three
times—once getting on the bus at the school and then twice more
once they arrived at the stupid plantation house—that one more
fight would get him thrown out of school. Like that would just
friggin’ break his heart.
He was sick of school as it was; tired
of always being the new kid—every asshole’s most convenient
punching bag. His dad had told him that this move might really be
the last one; that this job might be the one to stick. And wouldn’t
you know it? After moving every damn year that he could remember,
from one dump to another, this butthole of a town was the place his
parents decided to sink some roots. Wonderful. If you asked him,
the whole state of South Carolina sucked.
To distract himself from his misery,
he thought of Eric Lampier, wondering if Pussy Boy was able to
breathe through his nose yet. Poor baby couldn’t even haul his butt
into school this morning. Travis’s smile triggered a stab of pain
in his eye.
Yeah, it
was worth it.
The “fight,” such as it was, lasted
all of three seconds. After enduring a good two minutes of trash
talk in the cafeteria from Eric and his Snob Hill pals, Travis
reached his limit when Eric referred to him and his friends as
“trailer park shitheads.” He simply stood up, smashed Eric’s nose
like a cherry tomato, then sat back down to finish his Tater
Tots.
The fountain of blood and snot ignited
an explosion of screams, mostly from the Snob Hill girls, with Eric
howling right along with them. God, what a mess. It took maybe two
minutes for word to travel to the Gestapo. You’d have thought
somebody had a gun, the way they swarmed in there. No one even
questioned who was the guilty party. While the nurse slobbered all
over Eric, the principal, Mr. Menefee, dragged Travis off toward
his office. As they reached the hallway, some panicked grown-up
shouted for an ambulance. Was that not the most ridiculous thing
you’ve ever heard? An ambulance for a damn broken
nose!
“I’ve had it with you kids!” Menefee
growled. That’s the way it always was. In the minds of faculty,
everything a Farm Meadows kid did somehow implicated all other Farm
Meadows kids as silent accomplices.
That trailer park kids were unwelcome
around there was the worst-kept secret in the world. Best Travis
could figure out, J. E. B. Stuart Junior High had been the
exclusive domain of the Snob Hill squeaky-cleans until a couple of
years ago, when some redistricting bullshit mingled “Farm Meadows
trash” with the “Hill youngsters.” He didn’t pretend to understand
all the politics—frankly, he didn’t care—but one thing was sure:
the teachers and the school administration wanted things back the
way they used to be.
For the life of him, though, Travis
couldn’t see why people complained so much. From his perspective,
having Farm Meadows kids in the school made the business of
discipline a no-brainer for everybody. If there was blood on the
tile someplace, punish a trailer park kid. It didn’t really matter
that it might be the wrong kid, because everybody from Farm Meadows
was guilty of something. Every time a Hill kid smoked, cussed,
picked his nose, or jerked off, it was because a Farm Meadows kid
had talked him into it. Travis thought it was hysterical. Like
there was some conspiracy among him and his friends to lure rich
kids away from their brick palaces to come live in shit-heap
trailers.
At J. E. B. Stuart Junior High, a rich
kid got to do or say whatever he wanted. Such were his
constitutional rights. For Travis and his pals, though, the
Constitution seemed to end at the point where they told the rich
kids to fuck off. And to touch one of them—particularly with a
fist—was more than the system could bear.
Mr. Menefee—Der Führer to Travis and his friends, thanks
to German class—was as pissed as Travis had ever seen him. That’s
the word he used, too. Pissed. Travis wondered if he was still
going to be “pissed” when he talked to Eric Lampier’s lawyer-daddy.
Somehow he didn’t think so. Perturbed, maybe? Acrimonious (a
brand-new word to Travis)? Certainly, he’d be something more
elevated than pissed.
Menefee had had it with Travis’s
antics. He refused to tolerate violent behavior in his school,
goddammit, and no, he didn’t give a shit who started it. They
should be ashamed of themselves. When Travis mentioned that there
was no “they”—that this was strictly between Eric and him—Menefee
seemed unimpressed.
“Are you going to yell at Eric, too,”
Travis had asked, “for swearing at me and my friends?” For an
instant, Travis thought the man might punch him. Instead, he told
Travis to mind his own damned business—another expression that was
sure to be edited from the Lampier version.
“This is it, Brighton,” Menefee
concluded, his face beet red and his hands trembling. “One more
time and I’ll toss you out of here forever!”
Big effing
deal, Travis didn’t say. In the end, he escaped with
academic probation—whatever the hell that was—and a stern warning
to review the Code of Behavior. Yet to be decided was the issue of
whether or not the Lampier family would press charges—a concern
rendered moot later that afternoon while Travis was winding his way
through the woods toward Mike Howe’s place to watch some X-rated
videos his friend had found in a closet.
Terry Lampier—Eric’s older brother—and
two of his high school buddies just materialized out of nowhere,
blocking his way. Instantly, Travis knew he was in deep trouble,
and he took off in the opposite direction, running as fast as he
could. But the jocks had him beat at all levels: height, weight,
and speed. They caught up with him after maybe a dozen steps,
clotheslining him and bouncing him off the hard-packed dirt path.
The details were a little fuzzy after that, but he remembered
putting up a valiant defense, all things considered, until an early
shot to his balls drove all the fight right out of him. He didn’t
even remember what nailed him in the eye. All he knew was, one
minute it felt like his guts had exploded, and the next, he was ten
feet off the path, under a bunch of bushes.
As he pulled himself to his feet, he’d
marveled that everything still worked. He wondered if maybe they
thought they’d killed him and then stashed his body out in the
woods. Either way, he was grateful to be in as good shape as he
was. They could have killed him for real.
By the time Travis had made his way
back to his trailer, the sun had started to dip, taking the
temperature down along with it. With the whole back and side ripped
out of his T-shirt, he felt cold. He felt dizzy for a while, too,
and thought that he might have to sit down, but the feeling passed
just as he turned onto his street.
Bullet Boobs Barnett was out in her
garden as he approached, pretending to mind flowers when in fact
minding everyone else’s business. She took one look at Travis and
freaked. “Oh, my God, boy, are you all right?”
From the look on her face, Travis
figured he must have looked a lot worse than he felt. “I’m fine,”
he said. “I fell down. I just want to get home.”
Mrs. Barnett arose from her knees with
some effort and waddled toward the boy, pausing to step carefully
over the six-inch white wire fence that defined her flower beds.
“Fell down,” she scoffed. “I don’t believe that for a minute. Here,
let me take a look at you.”
Travis never stopped walking. “Really,
Mrs. Barnett,” he said without looking back, “I’m fine. My mom
should be home now.”
“You tell her you need to see a
doctor!”
He acknowledged her with a wave over
his shoulder, then tried to hike his tattered shirt back into
place.
I’m
doomed, he moaned silently. If he got that kind of
reaction out of Bullet Boobs, God only knew how bad his mom was
going to freak out. He didn’t have to wait long to see. Apparently,
Mrs. Barnett couldn’t contain herself long enough for him to break
the news himself. As he turned the last corner, both his mom
and his dad came running
down the street to meet him.
“Oh, my God!” his mom yelled.
“Travis!”
The boy instinctively checked over his
shoulder to see if anyone was watching as his folks descended on
him.
“My God, what happened?”
His dad answered for him. “He’s been
in a fight.” His voice oozed disapproval.
“Who did this to you?” his mother
demanded.
“Not here, Carolyn,” his dad
cautioned. “Let’s get him home first.”
Thus
beginneth the lectures, Travis remembered. They came
one after another. First, there was the need to get along in their
new community, followed immediately by the one about how the
choices he made today could affect the rest of his life. When he
tried to defend himself, describing the insults he’d had to endure
from Eric Lampier, his mom jumped right in with the
two-wrongs-don’t-make-a-right pitch. In the end, though, he got a
reprieve when his folks turned on each other over the question of
whether or not they should take him to see a doctor. His mom was
worried that he might have some hidden brain injury, while his dad
maintained that they couldn’t afford to take him unless it was a
true emergency.
It was kind of weird. Travis had never
thought of them being so poor that they couldn’t afford to protect
him from brain injury. Terrified as he was of doctors and the
needles they wielded, he decided not to feel insulted. Instead, he
just slipped down the short hall to his room and left them to fight
it out among themselves.
Now, as the bus swung around the
circle in front of the school, he sighed. In three more years, he’d
be done with this crap. One thing South Carolina had going for it
was their emancipation laws. He’d actually done the research. In
three more years, he’d be sixteen, and then he’d be able to quit
school forever.
Jake kicked at the floor. “Shit.” He
checked his watch without seeing the time. “When’s he due
back?”
“Around two.”
This time he moved his watch around in
the dim light until he could read the face. “That’s fifteen
minutes. How are we doing here?”
“I think we’re about set.” Carolyn
picked up the lantern and led him to the back of the storage
bay.
Of the two adjacent storage areas, the
one on the right housed a strictly forbidden plain white Chevy van.
In the five months they’d been in Phoenix, the van hadn’t moved an
inch. He hadn’t even cranked the starter. In the eight years they’d
owned the vehicle, it had been moved fewer than two dozen times,
and then only at night, accumulating just under eighteen thousand
miles on the odometer. It’d start, he told himself. It
had to start.
The first order of business after
renting these spaces had been to cut a doorway between them, thus
allowing materials stored in the left-hand bay to be loaded and
unloaded from the van without having to go outside.
Clearly, Carolyn had worked like a dog
to pack it all up. All the weapons were on board, along with
assorted building materials—two-by-fours and plywood, mostly—and a
couple of weeks’ worth of canned food, all stacked neatly on the
shelves he’d installed and secured with bungees. On the other side
of the makeshift doorway, Jake could see the back end of the
Celica, all locked up and out of sight.
“You done good, honey,” he said in his
teasing hillbilly accent.
She shrugged a little and shook her
head. “I just don’t believe we’re doing this. How could it
happen?”
He sighed. “Random bad luck,” he said.
“It’s so amazing. You plan and plan, and in the end, it’s a bunch
of dumb dopers who pull the rug out from under you.” As he spoke,
he busied himself by lifting the big Glock-17 from the rubbermatted
floor of the van, where Carolyn had left it for him, holster and
all. Unzipping his jacket, he unthreaded his belt from the loops on
the right-hand side of his Levi’s, then attached the holster high,
so the muzzle was invisible below the waistband, the grip tucked
securely under his arm. “Is the money already on
board?”
Her silence drew Jake’s eyes around.
She just stood there, her hands at her sides, staring off at a spot
in the dark. “Honey?”
She blinked once, then only her eyes
moved. “I don’t think I can do this again,” she
whispered.
He flapped his jacket back over the
gun and walked two steps closer, taking her shoulders in his hands.
As she tried to break eye contact, he wouldn’t let her, moving his
body to stay in her field of view. “Carolyn, honey, listen to me.
We can’t weaken now. Do you hear? We’ve known all along that this
moment might come—hell, that it probably would come—and now it has. I wish it was
some other way, but it’s not. We’re out of options
now.”
She closed her eyes tightly and sighed
again. “Maybe we should just turn ourselves in this time. Let the
courts handle it.”
The words from his wife frightened
Jake at a level much deeper than anything he’d felt in the shop or
in the police station or out along the road. For any of this to
work, they needed to be a team—and a strong team at that. “Carolyn,
look at me. Please.”
She opened her eyes. They were dry.
She knew he was right.
All the same, he needed to make sure.
“You know that if we’re caught, there won’t be any trial, right?
This has gone too long and too far for whoever’s in charge to let
that happen. If they catch us, we’re dead. It’s that
simple.”
She nodded. She knew it, all
right.
“Think of Travis,” he pushed, selling
to the sold. “They won’t know what we told him. He won’t be safe,
either.”
She thought about that one for a long
time. “Maybe we should leave without him,” she said, measuring her
words.
He cocked his head. “You’re not
serious.”
“Maybe he’d be safer without
us.”
He stared at her for a long time. “Do
you really believe that?”
She didn’t know what she believed
anymore. She felt adrift in a sea of emotion, and Travis was the
root of all of it: fear, remorse, guilt, pity. The years since he’d
been born had been their best. And now here they were, rewarding
his innocence and his love with deadly lies and mortal danger.
These were things he’d never understand; never
forgive.
The day she brought his beautiful face
into this world, she’d entered into a contract which she believed
with all her heart was governed by the will of God. In return for
Travis’s smile and his pranks and his love; in return for the
sleepless nights of worry over unexplained fevers and colic and
messy diapers; in return for unqualified, unquestioning love, the
one thing she owed him more than anything else was simply to be
there to hold him. In the best of times or in the worst, her job
was to be always down the hall when he cried out in the night, or
to be always the first on the scene with a Band-Aid for his knee, a
tissue for his tears.
But he wasn’t little anymore. He put
on his own Band-Aids and shrugged away from her hugs and her
kisses. Maybe that made him strong enough to endure on his
own.
As if to prove herself wrong, the
specter of her own adolescence bloomed large in her memory. She
remembered all too clearly the hurt and the doubt and the
insecurity, and she remembered how sometimes a willing ear or a
special dinner would have mattered every bit as much as a hug or a
Band-Aid. No one had been there for her. How could she not be there
for him?
The contract, she realized, went on
forever—for better or for worse, until the last day of her life. In
the end, then, the answer was simple.
“No,” she said at length, “I don’t
believe that at all. Let’s go get him.”
Jake watched her for a moment more
before he shared her smile. He brought her to him one more time and
kissed her. “God, I love you.”
She slugged him lightly in the ribs.
“Talk’s cheap. Just prove that you can get us out of
here.”
He went to work. Even in the darkness,
he seemed to know where everything was. Leaning halfway into the
van, he pulled a blue gym bag out from under the left-hand row of
shelves. “Here, let me see your wallet,” he said.
She took the lantern around to the
front to retrieve her wallet from inside the little fashion purse
and was back in no time. “Here.”
“Thanks.” He took the wallet in his
right hand as he battled the bag’s zipper with his left. “Can you
bring the light around a little?”
He shifted his butt to make room for
her, then produced a fistful of identification and credit cards
from the bag. He handed over a North Carolina driver’s license and
warned, “Take everything out of your wallet and out of your pockets
that has anything to do with Jake and Carolyn
Brighton.”
“What do I do with them?”
“I don’t care. Leave it on the floor
here. We are now Jerry and Carrie Durflinger.”
“Durflinger? You’re kidding,
right?”
His eyebrow danced. “Sorry about
that,” he said, smiling. “I couldn’t find any Smiths who fit the
profile.” He cleaned out his own wallet, except for the money, and
dumped the contents on the floor. “Got everything?”
She took a deep breath, then shrugged.
“I guess. Do the license plates match these IDs?”
Jake responded with a look. Of course
they did.
They closed up the back of the van,
and while he climbed into the driver’s seat, she stood by the
overhead door. Even in the yellow light of the lantern, he could
see his wife’s hand on her chest, her fingers crossed. He closed
his eyes and offered up a silent prayer, then cheered when the
engine jumped to life.
“Yes!”
Flashing a thumbs-up, Carolyn lifted
the overhead door. Jake pulled out far enough to clear the back
bumper, then waited while she pulled the door back down and locked
it. As she climbed into the cab, she struggled with the money bag
to make room for her feet.
“I’m ready,” she said.
“Let’s go, then.”
As he edged the van out into traffic,
he felt like he should be saying something—making some pithy remark
that would somehow make all of this better. Try as he might,
though, the words just weren’t there. In their place was a sense of
dread. Of all the stupid decisions he’d made in his life, he sensed
somehow that this was the worst; of all the adventures, this was
the last.
As if to emphasize the hopelessness of
their plight, he had to wait for two police cars to scream past
him, sirens blaring, before he could pull out onto the
road.