Even Steven (5 page)

Not that she had a lot of choice anymore. She'd decided to keep the belly squirmer, and that's all there was to it. To hell with what William thought.

William was a pig. He'd been a pig for as long as she'd known him, and if it hadn't been for the night of drunken passion that had created Justin, she'd never in a million years have married him. William wasn't the father, but he was a man, and at the time, that's what she thought she needed most.

April pulled into her space at The Pines and scanned every compass Point for signs of trouble before turning off the ignition and climbing out of her tiny Geo. Her little Chevy served as her symbol of freedom --her statement to the world that she wasn't completely useless. It also was the only asset that she owned outright and in her own name. One day, it might just be her ticket out of here.

Making sure she'd gathered all her stuff, she didn't bother to lock the doors as she walked away. Better that a thief get into the car and find nothing to steal than break out the windows and leave her with a big mess in the morning. If they wanted to steal the car itself, more power to them. She could use the insurance check.

As she crossed the dark playground on her way to her building, she kept her hand in her coat pocket, wrapped around the tiny .25 that she'd bought six years ago but never fired. William liked to say that she could empty a whole clip into someone and only piss him off, but if that bought the time she needed to avoid a rapist or a weapon bigger than hers, then that was just fine. Killing wasn't her bag. Surviving was.

She kept her eye on the cluster of kids over by the sliding board, watching without turning her head, as they did the same to her. What could they possibly be doing outside at four in the morning? Where were their parents? And why would they want to be outside on such a cold night? In the summer, it almost made sense, as a means to escape the stifling heat of the apartments, but not tonight. Here in Pittsburgh, spring felt too much like winter.

Twenty, thirty yards away the lads posed no immediate danger, but as one of them took a step closer, her hand tightened on the pistols grip. When it turned out that he was merely moving around to sit on the end of the sliding board, she relaxed. She tried to tell herself that her paranoia was silly, but it was the kind of silliness that kept you alive in The Pines.

She'd once counted the steps, from her parking space to her front door, and the number 182 remained burned into her brain forever. One hundred eighty-two steps, exposed to the whims of whoever might decide to take advantage of her. Yet, no one ever had. She wondered sometimes why that was. Maybe it was because she stayed clean and sober and never hassled those who could not make the same claim. Maybe she was seen as a kind of Switzerland among the warring drug factions. She liked to think of it that way.

Soon, though, Justin would grow from a toddler to a little boy, and along about the time he started school, the druggies would come after him. Not to use - that came in junior high - but to carry money from one spot to another. The gangs liked to use little ones because police didn't hassle them as badly. Even when they were caught, the kids were usually home with their parents by the next morning.

That's if they were just carrying money. More and more, the dealers were using little ones to shuttle guns, and that scared the daylights out of her. Guns brought death, it was that simple. Just like in the pocket of her jacket right now. How close would she have let that kid on the sliding board approach before drawing down and threatening him? And once drawing, how much closer still before she pulled the trigger?

Sometimes, the world seemed bleak as hell.

Finally, she arrived at her apartment door, relieved to find it locked. Usually, that meant that William was reasonably sober, and there'd be no fight. There'd be sex instead. William liked getting laid in the mornings, after a good night's sleep for him, and an endless workday for her. Her friends called his demands a power play - lofty psychological analyses from the Oprah school of medicine - and they were probably right, but what the hell? Five minutes of grunting and sweating beat the hell out of the whining and yelling that were the only alternative. Jesus, it wasn't even a contest.

April had to turn all three dead bolts, and as the door swung open, she nearly screamed. William was waiting for her on the other side, sitting in the La-Z-Boy opposite the door. In the blue light of the television he looked like somebody's ghost.

"My God, William," she exclaimed. "You scared me to death."

He didn't seem startled at all. "Sorry," he grunted. "I've been waiting up for you."

What's wrong?" Call it woman's intuition or a premonition or whatever, but she knew that something terrible had happened. She felt it in the pit of her stomach.

He didn't say anything. He just pivoted his head, and then she saw the bruises. Mottled shades of black and red marred the whole left side of his face, swelling his eye shut, and drooping his lower lip.

"Jesus, William, what-" She took a half-step closer, then froze. "Justin," she breathed.

Dropping her purse to the floor, scattering keys and change everywhere, she bolted down the short hallway toward the baby's room. She slapped at the light switch, missing it twice before the single, dangling sixty-watt bulb jumped to life and bathed everything in a dim yellow light.

Justin didn't sleep on a bed per se, but rather on a mattress on the floor, and that mattress looked for all the world to be empty. "Justin?" she said, first at a whisper, and then as her panic grew, she shouted it. "Justin! Where are you!" Frantic, she fell to her hands and knees and tore at the covers, trying to convince herself that her son was under that mess somewhere. He'd just rolled off, that was all. He just was lost somewhere among the covers.

But he wasn't lost. He was gone.

"William!" she screamed. "William, where's Justin?" She bolted back into the living room, panic boiling hot in her belly.

William hadn't moved. He still stared at the blue light, studiously avoiding eye contact.

"Goddamn you, William, talk to me. Where is Justin?" She reached out to strike him, but quickly retracted her hand. She'd never seen him like this before. She worried what emotions might accompany the stare.

As his eyes finally came around - only one of them would open all the way - she noticed the tears, and her legs buckled. Sagging to the floor, she covered her mouth with her hands and gasped, "Oh, God, is he dead? Please tell me he's not dead."

William shook his head, just a barely perceptible movement, but she understood it for what it was. "He's not dead. At least, I don't think he is."

"Tell me!"

William winced against her scream, looked as if he might cry. He waved his hands in an odd, circular motion, as if to draw the words out of his body, but nothing came.

April changed tacks. She put her hand on his forearm and gently squeezed it. "Tell me," she said again, much softer this time. "Just tell me what happened. Don't worry about the right words, just tell me what happened to Justin."

He took a deep breath and finally made that subtle nodding movement again. "They took him."

The words cut like razors. "Who took him? What are you talking about? Who would take Justin?"

"Two men. Cops. They beat me up really bad."

"Why! Goddammit, William, stop with the mystery and tell me what happened."

"I don't know!" William blurted. "They pulled me over while I was driving Justin over to Wilson's and -"

"You were taking a two-year-old to a bar?"

For just an instant, the grief disappeared from Williams face, replaced with a flash of anger, which just as quickly went away. "I don't know why I was doing that. I know it's wrong, but I was being a piece of shit, okay? I did it. Or I tried to do it."

April realized that she really had no interest in Wilson's or the fact that her boy would be taken there. "Okay," she coaxed. "You were on your way to Wilson's and what happened?"

"They pulled me over. These two cops in an unmarked car. I was over there off of Tyson Boulevard, you know, in that stretch where everything's boarded up after five?"

It was a good half mile out of the way, but April didn't bother to ask why he was over there. Tyson's dead-ended about a block from Wilson's, and by going that way, he avoided any breathalyser traps that the cops might have laid. "I know where it is. What happened?"

"Well, they flashed their lights at me and pulled me over, and then when they came to the window, the big one just dragged me out of the car and started beating on me. I swear to God they broke my jaw." His S's slurred into a sloppy, juicy sound, making swear sound like shwear. "When I got up, they had Justin, and they were taking him back to their car. I tried to stop them, but they just kept going. Honest to God, April, I swear I don't know why. They just came out of nowhere."

April's brain raced to piece together the puzzle. "The police don't do this sort of thing, William."

"Well, these did."

"Then we need to call some more. Jesus, you haven't done that yet?"

He shook his head. "No, I thought -"

"William! We've got to call the police."

"No. I don't think that's a good idea."

There was that look again. This time it wasn't anger, but fear. As if he'd been caught at something. Suddenly, she knew he was sandbagging. He knew more than he was telling her.

"What?" she demanded. "What's the rest of it?"

The hurt face returned. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"You're lying," she yelled. Suddenly, the .25 appeared in her hand, and his pretend fear became very, very real. "Tell me what happened to Justin!"

"Jesus, April, put that away!" He tried to cover himself up with his arms and hands. "Look at me. They beat the shit out of me."

"Then it had to be for a reason. I want to know the reason."

"I don't know -"

She raised the gun even higher and moved in closer, to a range where even she couldn't miss.

"Okay, okay," he said, cowering in the La-Z-Boy. "I think they were working for Logan. Logans guys took Justin."

Suddenly, the room seemed short of oxygen. April had to breathe hard to keep from passing out. "Why? Why of all the children in the world would Patrick Logan want my little boy?"

"I - I d-don't know."

"Don't lie to me!" Honest to God, she was ready to shoot him. Her finger tightened on the trigger.

"Jesus, April! God, okay, okay, I'll tell you, you crazy bitch. God. I owe him some money."

It just got worse and worse. "You owe Patrick Logan money? You borrowed money from that drug-peddling son of a bitch? Are you crazy?"

"I didn't borrow money from nobody," William said, somehow inflating a little as he spoke the words, as if there were more respectable business dealings with a man who killed people for sport. "I rolled a guy last week who turned out to be one of Logan's mules. He wants the money back, and he took Justin as insurance that I'll get it for him."

"How much?"

"About a thousand dollars."

April brought her hands to her head and squeezed, gun and all. "A thousand dollars! A thousand dollars? What, did you think that someone walking down the street just happened to have a thousand dollars in his pocket? You had to know it was Logan's money. Or Ortega's or somebody who runs drugs."

William shrugged again. One more time, and April swore that she'd shoot the son of a bitch just for the thrill. "I guess I wasn't thinking."

"You weren't thinking. That's what you have to say? You weren't thinking?" Jesus, a thousand dollars was more money than April had ever seen in one place in her entire life. A thousand bucks could buy a life, for God's sake. "Give it back. Give it back, and we'll get Justin back. Is that what he said? He'll give him back if we pay up?"

"It's not that simple. I don't have it anymore."

"How can you not have it? You spent a thousand dollars in a week?"

Another goddamn shrug. "Well, there's interest, too."

This was too much. April couldn't believe what she was hearing. "I don't give a shit about interest! How can you spend that much money in a single week?"

"It just went. I don't know, I bought a couple of rounds at Wilson's, and I guess my luck wasn't so good at cards there one night."

"Jesus Christ," she growled. "My God, William, you lost my son over booze and cards? Are you out of your mind?"

Something in her tone transformed William's demeanour. Like flipping a switch, he became angry. "Hey, it's not like I'm proud of it, okay? Its not like I offered him up for sale. They took him, April. And they kicked the shit out of me in the process. Thanks for noticing, by the way."

What? What? Surely he didn't think she gave a shit about his bruises. If they'd have killed him on the spot, that would have been just fine with her. Saved her the trouble of doing it herself. This was not happening. Not as hard as she worked to keep things together. Who did Logan and those assholes think they were, stealing her child? What would possess them to think that they could get away with such a thing?

Without a word, April turned on her heel and headed for the kitchen.