Minus Tide (22 page)

“Forget him, Bill,” Jeff said. It wouldn’t be worth it. You do something and he’ll never get the fun of going to jail. Come on. Let's go see if we can help Jim.”

“Okay. Have it your way. But if he ends up walking away from this with nothing but probation I’m going to be pissed. This boy is no good.”

“I believe you,” Jeff said. He turned around and walked toward the Subaru. Bill stared down at James a little longer before he followed Jeff.

As soon as both men had their backs facing him, James ripped away the foil blanket and pointed the .38.

“You’re not going anywhere with that car.”

Kathy put her hands to her face and screamed. The men spun around on their heels, startled. James stood up and the foil blanket slid onto the ground and rustled as the wind pushed it away. For the first time all night he realized how much better he was feeling about himself. How the musty stacks of money and Ann’s .38 had cultivated a take-charge attitude in him. That and a real hated of Bill and what he did to his family when he got home from drinking most nights.

I had it lucky if you wanted to make comparisons, James thought. And that’s what made Bill’s kids so mean. He supposed that the way Bill thought was the only way he knew. That you had to make them tough so they’d be ready for a tough world. He’d once stood by idly watching his three boys beat the hell out of James for fishing in what they believed was their polluted trout pond.

“I thought you said he was hurt bad,” Bill said.

Kathy ignored Bill. She turned to James and stared into his eyes. “You don’t want to shoot anyone James.”

“No I don’t, ma’am. I just want the keys to this car.”

“Hell if you do,” Bill shouted. When he took a step forward, James fired the .38 over the man’s shaved head.

He thought of the moth flying through the flame. Saw the sullen face of Bill’s daughter when he’d tried to walk her home one night after school. He’d wanted to take her out to the movies but she kept telling him she couldn’t. And then later she’d fallen during track and when he’d picked her up his eye had caught the bruises on her inner thighs.

“I will put you down, Bill Calder. Watch and see.”

Chapter 46

After Ann tied the boat she pulled herself up the staircase to the parking lot, her leg dragging behind her. Hurt so bad she’d started crying. When she got to the top she saw two cars. Hers and someone else’s. Hers had blown over onto its side. It took her a moment to recognize Chad’s bug. She couldn’t believe he was here. The driver had turned on the lights when she’d come up. She thought she saw him and waved and he waved back.

When she got to Chad’s car she was overcome with the need to get warm again. She opened the passenger door and got in. Right away she asked herself if Chad had grown a beard. Thought it strange that it wasn’t blond. His hands, however, were not the same ones she knew. The nails were not painted black. They looked more like dirty claws.

“Hello Ann,” Cyclops said.

“Who are you?” Ann asked. She reached for the door handle but his hand shot out and stopped her.

“I will tell you.”

“What have you done to Chad?”

“He’s around.”

“Where?”

“I promise you’ll see him. After we talk.”

Ann glanced down and saw the Cyclops’ trench coat piled on the floor. The only person she had seen wear something like that had been the derelict she’d seen on the highway.

Chapter 47

He’d learned early on that you had to complete things. If you let go of stray ends they came back and choked you.

He’d buried her. But he hadn’t killed her.

When they reached San Diego he’d checked them into a quiet motel a few blocks from the beach. He thought he’d only stay with her a couple of nights but it turned into a week. There was plenty of business to be done in Tijuana, people to meet. In the evenings he’d cross back over the border and return to their motel. He often found her inside the room crying and he’d hold her until it got dark and then take her out to the pool and float around in it with her. He could’ve done it then, he remembered thinking later. She was drunk enough most nights. The cops would just think it was an accident.

One night she told him she couldn’t go through with it. That she wouldn’t survive living like fugitive. Without her daughter in her life. She told him she’d rather die.

He didn’t know what to say to that. He’d been alone on his own for so long that he could only imagine how deep the hurt must have gone.

He tried to think of what else they could do. He told her that with his connections he might be able to help her relocate in Mexico. Eventually get the girl down there with her. But it was only an idea. It would take time. A lot of things would have to be arranged. And it would take some money to make it work. Money he didn’t have right now.

It was late one night when he got back to the motel, too late to go out to the pool and drink with her. As soon as he opened the door he realized something was wrong. She was gone. Hadn’t packed anything. He told himself not to panic. Walked around the motel thinking he might see her coming back from the gas station store with cigarettes. An hour later he checked a couple of bars near the motel. Nothing. She’d vanished.

He kept looking but still couldn’t find her. Sat up all night waiting for her to come back. Calling the police was out of the question. By morning he left her a note on the bed and took a drive down to a strip of seedy bars. He went into some and asked around. After midnight he went inside a dive they’d been to a couple of times. Everyone sitting at the bar turned around and stared at him. Old men elbowed one another and laughed, and a big man with tattooed arms sneered. When Mikhail stared back the man paid and left, the geezers turned back to their drinks. He talked to a cocktail waitress who said Ann’s mother had come in the night before. Dressed only in a bathrobe with a bathing suit underneath. She’d ignored the glances of the men sitting around and ordered several drinks. The waitress said she’d catch cold if she wasn’t careful and the woman had laughed. Had told her that where she was planning to swim was always warm.

He went down to the beach to look for her but couldn’t find her. But by the next afternoon surfers reported seeing her body drifting out past the last breakers. She’d looked peaceful, as if she were asleep on her back. Except for the birds having taken her eyes.

Her body was taken to the city morgue. She had no identification. And after her fingerprints and photos were compared with missing persons reports, they’d decided to put her on ice, shoved her into metal-locker limbo. On the chance that something would change. That someone would come forward and claim her.

It took him a few days to get her out of the morgue. The janitor wasn’t cheap, had treated him as if he was just another sick customer. Mikhail made a mental note to come back and kill the man. He’d loaded her body into the trunk of his car and drove several hours into the desert and buried her before sunrise next to a cluster of Joshua trees. He wasn’t going to let her stay in the cold morgue forever. It was the least that he could do.

It had taken him all night to dig a proper burial hole, much longer than he’d imagined it would. He’d found lots of cans and bottles under the sand, tattered newsprint and windshield glass. And bones. Bones of all shapes and sizes. He could hear coyotes in the distance. Knew that the rocks he’d stacked on top of her would not keep them from her for long.

Chapter 48

James took Bill Calder’s keys but he didn’t shoot him like he’d wanted. This was no time to add vigilantism to his resume. He’d shot a cop and a high school football coach and he didn’t know if he’d killed them both. And he knew what they did when someone shot a cop, even if it was someone like Dawkins.
If they don’t kill you themselves they’ll catch you and you’ll stand trial. And by the time your chance for parole comes up you’ll no longer see the point in getting out.

As soon as he started the Subaru he was blasted by FM Country. Bill and the others just stood watching him drive away, afraid that if they moved too soon he would turn around and come back. He watched Bill’s face in his rearview mirror until he turned off. Saw the surprise still working his face. Wondered if Bill’s family would be wishing James had gone a little farther off the deep end.

Farther up into the mountains there were downed trees everywhere. James had to lever down the window of the Subaru so he could navigate. The night air was redolent of sawdust. Many of the trees he saw appeared to have been trimmed in a hurry and pulled to the side.

The suitcase of money sat next to him. A bullet had passed through it to the other side and he could see a hint of green at the edges. He wanted to open it but he needed both thumbs to unsnap the locks. When he saw that the highway was going to straighten for a few miles he pulled off the hoodie and draped it over the suitcase. He would have to look at the contents again later. When he checked into a motel or pulled over onto some back road for a few minutes of sleep.

As he drove he struggled to focus. His thoughts kept getting tangled up with Ann and the men he’d shot. He wasn’t any good at turning off the switch. Not like the guys he’d met in Mexico who worked in the drug trade. You didn’t mess around with them, kept your past off limits, didn’t even allow yourself to dream about it because they had people who worked for them who would find out about it. He’d made it clear right away that he had no interest in their business, that he was only living there because he needed a place to be alone and think.

Ann’s going to be fine. It’s not going to matter if she hates you for what you did. She’ll get over it faster that way. Besides, you weren’t even back for very long. You’re never going to see each other again so close the door and move on.

He glanced over at the suitcase to make sure it hadn’t gone anywhere. Like the first night he had his new truck and Ann had sat next to him in the cab. For a moment he’d felt like the luckiest man in the world and he’d kept turning his head to see if she was still there and he would’ve hit a deer had she not seen it and let him know.

It wasn’t easy to imagine what it was going be like. But in a few days he was going to wake up as another person in another town with all the identification to prove it. How long could he go before he had to look for a job, he wondered. People are going to notice eventually.
It kind of defeats the purpose then. You have all this money and you’re still not free.

Chapter 49

He’d told her almost all of it except what happened to her mother’s eyes. How it haunted him still. A body that lies out at sea won’t remain beautiful for very long.

“I missed her,” he’d said. “Even if she went to the cops before she died.”

She’d refused to show them any identification. Had spent an hour telling them everything she knew about him and Duane. When her body was found two days later the cops had no idea she was the same person.

He told Ann that as soon as he’d heard about it on the news he’d left town, leaving out the part about stealing her mother’s body from the morgue and burying it in the desert.