Glitsky 01 - Certain Justice, A (13 page)

On this street, whichever one it was, three adjacent buildings had burned, and the acrid smoke hit him with every turn of the wind, making him cough, tearing at his poor sore ribs.

He had no idea how far he 'd run – maybe five blocks, over three fences. The good neighbor wasn't much inclined to give up the chase, but finally Kevin felt like he'd lost him. The chase had had the salubrious side effect of bringing him closer to USF, through the worst of the Addition.

But so what?

He doubted Wes Farrell had waited all afternoon for him there – but he would check. Certainly he hadn't been back home. Kevin had called Wes's place when he'd woken up after crashing in the borrowed apartment – it had been going on five o'clock, and there'd been no response, no answering machine.

Ergo Melanie.

A truly last resort, but she 'd have come through for him on that last call if he could have stayed in the apartment and waited. He was sure of it. And that was a good sign. It could be the entire world wasn't lined up against him.

But for now his lungs ached from the run, pinched from the coughing. He wondered if one of his ribs was broken, if a broken rib could puncture a lung, if a punctured lung could suddenly collapse, bring on a coma ...

He was coming up to a bigger cross-street, with traffic flowing. Geary? Was normal life going on someplace in the city? He found it difficult to believe but there was evidence of it right in front of him.

Shivering, coughing some more, he crossed with the light at Masonic, found another phone, and called Melanie again, telling her where he was. It was only another couple of blocks up to St Ignatius. Melanie knew where that was. She'd meet him there in fifteen minutes.

He sat in a pew in the back of the church, pretending to pray. He hadn't prayed much in the past five years, since the Houston diocese had refused to bury his father – a suicide – in the family plot in which
his
father, Kevin's grandfather, had been buried. Kevin's faith, never particularly strong, wavered after that. In the army, in Kuwait, after Joey's cleaning up on the Road of Death, it disappeared entirely.

But his hands were folded. He was on his knees. A priest came up the center aisle and nodded at him, blessedly without recognition, then he stopped, paused – about to say something? – thought better of it and moved along. Kevin let out a breath.

The door opened again. Please, he thought, don't let it be the priest coming back. He was too weary to run any further.

Melanie Sinclair slid in beside him. It startled him. Underneath her concern, the fear in her eyes, she looked radiant, alive, beautiful. Had he really dropped her? He must have been out of his mind. But she'd been, had
seemed
, such an uptight pain in the ass. He thought he remembered that – was sure he did – but the plain fact was that right at that moment he had never in his life been so glad to see anyone. Ever.

'I think you ought to get out of here.'

She was driving and he was slumped in the passenger seat, his face below the window line.

'I might do that,' he said.

'Kevin, you
should
do it...'

He glanced over at her, a look she'd seen before. 'Let's give the
should
a rest, huh, Mel. What do you say?'

Biting her lip, she almost, instinctively, corrected him again, telling him her name was Melanie. Not Mel. But she found she really didn't care if he called her Sweet Sue. She half-smiled at that, almost said it to him, could just see herself saying, 'Hey, Kevin, why don't you just call me Sweet Sue?'

'What's funny?' he asked.

'Nothing.'

He didn't pursue it, but Melanie wanted to make sure the air was clear. 'I didn't mean
should
like I knew, Kevin. I meant
should
like it seems like it might be a better idea to get away until this blows over a little. You're just too visible here. I could drive you right now. Just keep going.'

'You'd do that?'

She looked over, biting her lip again. 'Yes, I would.'

He took that in, satisfied. 'Except then I'm really on the run. If I'm caught...'

'But you're on the run now.'

This is true.'

They stopped at a burned-out streetlight where a policeman was directing cars through. 'Don't keep too low,' she said. There was more National Guard presence here, camouflage trucks lining the street, the traffic coming down to single file.

Kevin straightened up slightly. 'You're right.' He waved, smiling at a few of the soldiers. 'We're having some fun now.'

'Don't overdo it, okay. Please.'

He came back to her. 'You remember Farrell.. .?'

'Yes.' Wes, another unrepentant partyer, had been a sore point between them. 'Well, I figure my only decent shot is to get the story out on what really happened. Anything else – running, turning myself in, whatever – anything else and when they do get me I'm totally screwed.'

'What can Wes do?'

'Wes is a lawyer. He can get through.'

'He's not anymore.'

'Sure he is. He knows the ropes. He can do it.'

'Will he?'

'Sure. I'm sure he will.'

'And then?'

Then at least I figure I've got a chance. I just didn't do this, Mel, you know.'

She reached across and laid a hand on his, pulled it away. She wasn't pushing anything. She was helping him. He didn't need complications. 'I do know. I'm just saying I think it's a big risk, that's all.'

He shrugged. 'At this point, everything's a risk. This whole thing's gotten so out of hand. And then, if I run .. . anyway, I don't
want
to run.'

'It would look like an admission that you'd done it?'

'Yeah, that, I guess. But more because it just feels wrong. I mean, I know the truth. I know what happened. I was there, Mel.

And that's got to come out. What really happened. It's not just me.'

'And you think Wes Farrell is the man who's going to get you in a position to clear yourself?'

'I think Wes Farrell's a pretty good human being for a lawyer.'

She couldn't help herself. 'A lawyer who drinks too much and has a pretty low view of life, including his own.'

Kevin almost snapped back but held himself. This wasn't the time to get into it with her. She was there for him now. What was more important than that? He took her right hand from the steering wheel and held it on the seat between them. She looked down at it, smiled and took his hand firmly.

'Not here,' Kevin said.

They had swung by Wes Farrell's place and the 'pretty good human being for a lawyer' still wasn't there. Melanie was of the opinion, and Kevin couldn't deny it outright, that he was out getting drunk someplace. He had tried joking her out of it – 'doesn't mean Wes isn't a nice person' – but Melanie wasn't much in the mood for jokes, and, truth be told and though it had been his own protective reaction to stressful situations for as long as he could remember, Kevin wasn't either.

Small wonder that he couldn't shake the feeling that the whole damn city was after him. The elderly lady in whose doorway he'd huddled had recognized him earlier. The cruising cops had also seemed to. Maybe the guy upstairs from the apartment he'd borrowed.

Isolated occurrences? Maybe. Maybe not. These things had happened to
him
. It wasn't as though somebody
might
know who he was. Somebody – random and disinterested – already
had
.

And now Melanie was turning them into the drive-thru lane – into a line of cars – front and back, get
out
of here – at a hamburger place off 19th Avenue.

'Not here!' he repeated. 'What are you doing?'

'We've got to eat,' she said. 'We're not going inside.'

'Inside isn't the point. We've got to—'

All at once it was
too
late to back out. Somebody had pulled in behind them. Now it was either sit in Melanie's car or get out and make a run for it. But a run for what? And what were the odds on going unrecognized out on the street? Were they better than this, where he was a sitting duck? Did he want to bet on it? Bet his life? Hers, too?

It was not yet dusk. There was no problem with visibility. He honestly didn't think he'd get two blocks.

Twisting his head from side to side he saw a seemingly endless procession of faces everywhere – in the car in front of him (the backseat folks turning around – Why?), behind them, crossing at the intersection, up and down the sidewalk – and all of them with eyes focused on him.

Casual glances or studied stares – they were all directed at him. Melanie had picked a popular place on a crowded street close to the dinner hour. It had to be only a matter of time before somebody recognized him.

He slumped down, far into the seat. Melanie rolled her window down. 'What do you want?' she asked.

'I want to get out of here, that's what I want.'

She glanced into her rearview mirror. 'Not possible,' she said. 'What's your second choice?'

Her window was still open. 'You know, Melanie, I'd like to, but I can't seem to get myself feeling too casual about all this—'

'I'm
not
casual,' she said. 'But we have got to eat and the fact is that nobody's looking at you, not here.'

'Everybody's looking at me!'

The driver behind them honked and Melanie waved a conciliatory hand out her window, then ordered two double cheeseburgers, fries, shakes. She pulled forward. 'I can understand how you'd feel that, Kevin, but I don't think it's true.'

They were still in the line, hemmed in, the cars edging forward slowly. It was going to take at least five minutes to go around the building and get to the service window. 'It's heartening you don't think that, Melanie, but if you're wrong, I'm dead.'

'I'm not wrong. You have to trust me—'

'I have to trust my instincts. They've gotten me this far.'

She looked over at him. 'For the record, Kevin, I've had something to do with getting you this far. I understand ... you saw a man get lynched last night, for God's sake. Who wouldn't be scared?
I'm
scared, too. But I think I'm seeing things a little more clearly.'

He had to admit he was on the edge of panic and she seemed almost creepily calm. 'Maybe you're right but—'

'I'm only sure that right here is as safe for us as anywhere in the city, and you're the one who wants to stay here and make your stand, so I'd say the best advice is, get used to it.'

They inched forward. Honks behind them – people talking loud, laughing, yelling – off to the side out Melanie's window, but no one seemed to be moving toward them. Kevin looked down and put a hand to his forehead. 'How are we getting out of this?' he asked.

'It'll look better on a full stomach,' she said deadpan.

Melanie had been right. She had played a major role in getting them to where they were right now ... no one had recognized him, the drive-thru burger joint had been an inspired choice, and, right or wrong, things did look better on a full stomach. He took in this woman sitting across from him and was washed with an intense gratitude.

Most importantly, she had believed him, believed in him.

He had always suspected there was more to her – much more – than he'd seen when they'd been 'dating,' but something about their chemistry, or his own guilty conscience, or both, had made it all, finally, futile. The relationship wasn't going to work, not under the ground rules they'd tacitly established, so he'd decided he had to move on.

But now his dire situation had shifted the balance between them. They were partners, equals; And this realization suddenly made him feel like a cheat. He'd been unfair to Melanie by not being up front with her when they'd been going out, by not telling her that before they had gotten together he had slept – once, one night only – with her friend Cindy Taylor. Now he felt he at least owed Melanie the truth – both about him and her supposed 'best friend.' She hadn't just 'come on to him,' as he had said.

So he told her.

And now Melanie, who had weathered his flight and panic attack with stoic calm, now Melanie had balanced her half-full milkshake cup on the steering wheel and was, quietly, crying.

The early-evening sun peeked through the low cloud layer, highlighting the red in her dark hair, the glistening wetness on her cheeks. 'I don't believe it,' she said. '
Cindy
?'

'I thought I ought to tell you.'

'I don't know why ... why didn't you feel you should tell me before, when we were... I mean when I thought we were together.'

'We
were
together, Melanie.'

She almost laughed. 'Sure. God, what a fool I was. You must have both been laughing at me the whole time.'

'No. It wasn't like Cindy and I were an item. It was one night, before you and I got together.'

'But she said ... she
told
me—'

'She lied, Mel.'

She turned toward him. 'Why didn't
you
tell me?'