Multiples of Six (9 page)

Chapter 20

“Nic.”

It took a moment for the response, but eventually she responded in a quiet, hidden voice.

“Yeah.”

“I need you to be with me, here,” James said. “I need both of you to be with me on this.”

Kevin stirred and looked at him and he could hear her turn around in the back seat. She had been still for at least an hour. James had let her do it. Had given her that chance to come back by herself. She hadn’t, though, and it was starting to bother him. The road was still dark, though the snow had let up. And on more than one occasion, he had considered finding the interstate and just turning back. Forget the whole thing. Just drive back to Jersey and live in his parents’ house for the rest of his life, as short as it might be. At least he’d be comfortable. But, then he knew it wasn’t that easy. Knew he wouldn’t just be left alone. And besides, that house would always await his return. It and nothing else awaited him back there. At least while he was out here, wherever here was, he was not alone. At least not yet.

“Are you ok? Are you lost?” Nicole said in a voice that was not completely her own.

“You could say that,” James said, “I think we passed into Ohio a ways back and…and I just need to hear a voice…something. The radio’s just not doing it for me anymore.”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“Sorry, bro, that shit was…well, it was fucked up back there,” Kevin said.

“Don’t I know it. But, don’t apologize…I won’t hold it against you. I just really need you to both be with me in spirit as well, instead of just in body.” She grasped his shoulder and he could hear the hesitation in her voice.

“Pull over,” she said. “Kevin, can I sit up front?”

Kevin nodded.

James pulled over, finding as clear a spot as he could on what little shoulder there was. He put the car in park and helped her as best he could with the seat. She climbed in and wrapped him around the head with both arms. He returned the hug and they just sat like that for a while, awkward as it was with Kevin in the back. He inhaled deeply of her and felt himself relax for the first time that night. There was something he was chasing here. There was something to be found at the end of it, and it might not just be the promised other brother, or the remote hope of family. Nicole let go first and as she sat back, James could see fresh tears streaking her cheeks.

“It was my fault,” she said, choking back a sob.

“Oh Nic, you couldn’t have done anything--” James started.

“I must’ve…pushed the dial button…on my cell phone…sometime in the night,” she gasped.

“But…” she wouldn’t let him speak though.

“It was to my home number and the answering machine is unplugged. I have the ringer on so low, you have to be on top of the phone to hear it. It just kept ringing. It was nearly dead by the time I got in the car. It had been ringing for over two hours.” She couldn’t hold anything back and began sobbing furiously. James sat looking at her, the pieces trying to work their way together through the clouds of sleeplessness.

“The signal,” Kevin said and Nicole nodded her head without looking up. “They could have triangulated the position within a couple miles depending on where the nearest towers were.”

James looked back at Kevin, an eyebrow cocked.

“I watch a lot of Discovery Channel,” Kevin said.

“Right. But, how would they know to be looking for you, Nic? There’s got to be another explanation,” James said and leaned out to Nicole and gently stroked the side of her head.

The sobs were coming less frequently now. She pulled his hand to her face and rubbed her cheek against it. Her face was warm and damp. The lights that suddenly appeared behind the car startled James.

“Get down,” he hissed and they obeyed.

He looked back at the road and realized that, despite his attempt to pull over, he still took up most of the lane. He rolled down his window enough to stick his arm out and wave the car by. They didn’t seem to notice, or care. The car pulled up right behind the 300M.

“No way,” James said, “No fucking way. Sit back up…slowly” and as if to answer, the car was suddenly flooded with red and blue flashing lights. James felt sick as his body moved hurriedly from fear to relief and back in a matter of moments. Paynter’s voice was still clear in his head, ‘They are the police.’

Nicole made to straighten her face and hair in vain. Her eyes were red and puffy from all of the crying she had done that night, and her hair was everywhere. She sat forward and pulled on her seatbelt. Kevin looked especially nervous. His hands rummaged in his pockets for something that wasn’t there. He turned away from the driver’s side door as James rolled the window down the rest of the way. He watched in the side view as the officer got out of his car and made the slow walk up. He tried to move the shifter into drive as smoothly as he could. The car gave it away with a loud “Thunk!” The officer stopped short of the door, his hand suddenly at his holster.

“Put the car into park, sir.” James hesitated for only a moment then did as he had been told. He made a split decision that he wasn’t feeling that brave.

“Sorry officer,” he said, placing both hands up on the wheel.

The officer, a local from what James could make of his uniform, relaxed his position only slightly.

“Bit far from Florida tonight?”

“Florida?” James said, his mind trying to make some sense out of the word.

“Yes…yes it is, officer,” Kevin said from the back seat.

He shone a large black flashlight into the back seat. Kevin waved as cheerily as he could.

“Are you aware of the current state of emergency, sir?”

“State of Emergency?” James said, wishing he could do more than spit out a question to answer a question.

The officer moved closer to the window, bent down and got a good look at Nicole.

“Are you all right, miss?” said the officer. His free hand was still on the top of his unbuttoned holster. James tried not to look uneasy. It wasn’t working. In the suddenness, none of the consequences of what was happening had occurred to him until now. The officer would routinely ask for a license and registration. James would provide it to him, upon which the officer would realize that the car was not registered to either of its occupants. Then he would run the plate, and discover that the car belonged to a man in Florida named Reed. Oh yeah, and the three in the car just happened to fit the vague description of three from a crime scene about a half hour away. They would be arrested. The officer would probably call for backup, and this whole escapade would end with James in jail.

“Do you want to see my registration, officer?” James blurted out.

“I asked the young lady a question, sir, and I’d like her to answer it.”

“She’s not feeling too well,” James said. The officer looked at him.

“Have you been drinking, sir?”

James’ laugh was a little quick and a little too high pitched. The officer took a step back from the car. His name-badge said Williams.

“You were going to ask me for my license and registration, so I just thought I’d save you the trouble of asking.”

The officer’s free hand nervously fingered the snap that kept the 9mm holstered.

“Step out of the car, sir,” Office Williams said.

“I’m sorry, Officer Williams,” James said, his voice faltering with the knowledge of what he was about to attempt, “I just can’t do that.”

“Sir?”

“James…what are you doing?” Kevin whispered.

James could tell that his answer had somewhat stunned him. As James looked at the man, he realized that he wasn’t really a man at all. At least, not in James’ definition. He might have been a year or two older than James, though the smattering of facial hair gave him the look of a few more years. He had most definitely never fired that gun at anything but a target, or perhaps some poor four-legged creature, and the sudden prospect of being forced to pull it out now, and possibly using it against another man, seemed daunting. James was betting on it.

It was a clumsy move. Amateur at best. James turned toward Nicole quickly and leaned over the center console, saying something about the registration being in the glove compartment. The officer wasn’t expecting the sudden movement or the refusal to leave the car. With his body blocking the view of his hands, James reached with his left and slammed the gearshift down with his right.

“Sir?” Office Williams said again, his voice cracking a bit. James could hear the sidearm slide out of the holster.

His foot was on the pedal down to the floor. It was done. It wasn’t pretty. But, it was done. Nicole screamed. Kevin gripped the back of the seats like they might fall off if he let go.

The all-season radials fumbled about in the snow before finding anything resembling traction. The tail of the car fished about on the road in front of the stunned officer.

The car righted itself and was twenty feet away before Officer Williams had raised his gun half-heartedly to bear on the car. He considered firing a shot into the rear of the car, but then he remembered the girl. He stood there in the snow, choosing not to give chase. He would not report it. He did not want to waste the paperwork. As he sat in his car, convincing himself to forget all about it, his in-dash monitor lit up. It was a brand new APB out from the Springfield police department, about a half hour away. They were looking for a couple of vehicles involved in a possible homicide; one of which was a green Chrysler 300M with two young men and a woman in their early twenties.

“Sonofabitch.”

Chapter 21

“That fucker,” mumbled the man in black. It had been less than two hours since the incident in the hotel parking lot. Taylor had watched as his captor had rolled through every level of anger possible. He had gone so far as to slam both fists against the wheel, nearly sending them off the road. It was too much for the doctor to handle anymore.

“Alright! Get over it,” Taylor said, lashing out, “You’re such a fucking expert. You didn’t think he’d see something like this coming? Fuck him. He’s out of the way. He’d be a fool to follow now. Focus on those boys. They’re all that matters. They’re all that ever mattered.”

The man in black stared back across the car at Taylor, but Taylor did not flinch. He merely tried to meet the man’s gaze without faltering. The slow wicked smile crept across the man’s face.

“Growing some balls, doc,” he said, the smile only fading slightly. “I like that. You’re gonna need ‘em.”

Taylor looked away from him. He felt ill. His inability to stop James from continuing on, and the escape of Paynter had turned a bad day into a worse night. He had not wanted this man in black to kill Paynter. He had told himself that repeatedly. And he had felt a sense of relief when he realized his old friend had escaped. He had not felt so relieved by James’ deliverance. He did not want to kill James, but the thought had grown that there might be no choice in the matter.

“I need to stop,” Taylor said.

“Tough shit, doc,” said the man in black, his humored look wiped clear of his face.

“Might be tough to get off the seats,” Taylor said.

He watched as the man in black turned toward him, turned away, turned back, and pulled roughly onto the side of the road, cursing under his breath. A cloud of snow and steam billowed into the glow of the headlights as they came to a stop. They were surrounded by rolling fields of what might have been corn during the summer. Taylor opened the door, the drastic difference in temperature snapping at his exposed neck. He looked back at the man in black, who was lighting a fresh cigarette.

“Don’t be gone too long, Doc,” a sneer peeling his lips back across his teeth, “I don’t wanna be losing you out here in this lovely weather.”

“Wouldn’t that be a shame,” Taylor said.

“Yeah, especially if you lived to tell about it,” the man said.

Taylor stepped out of the car, trying to ignore what the man had just said. He had known it from the time he woke up in that room days before. Taylor was not going to survive this trip and the man in black knew it as much as he. There was a certain sound in his voice that sometimes disappeared, but always returned to remind the doctor of its purpose. Sure, he needed him to get to James, but Taylor wondered if even that was true.

No, thought Taylor, he knew where he was going, or at least he had an idea…and someone was definitely feeding him information. How else would he have known to look at that particular hotel in the middle of nowhere Pennsylvania? Taylor served a purpose though. Perhaps he was simply a convenient secondary target that might draw fire away.

Taylor expelled a large breath into the cold air and watched it whip around his head before dissipating. What little hair that was left atop his head was blown around like grass in a storm. He would start shivering soon. He had started walking aimlessly out into the field where they had stopped. Amongst the lonely remnants of corn stalks, he was emboldened. He could run for it. But, he wasn’t exactly dressed for a romp through the snow in the middle of winter. He still had his wingtips on. He might make another two hundred feet into the field before the man came after him. And where would he be then? Dead in the middle of a corn field. As opposed to being dead somewhere else, he thought. Dead in the trunk of a ’69 Barracuda found at the bottom of Lake Erie? Nah, he’d never give up his baby.

The cold was starting to make him shiver uncontrollably. The notion of relieving oneself in such weather was really beyond Taylor. Even if he had been able to maneuver his fly open with his now frozen fingers, he could not imagine performing in these extreme conditions. He stopped walking. He fingered the revolver still in his coat pocket. It was useless in his hands and he knew it. Near the stock was the small folded piece of paper with six sets of letters. A jumbled mass of numerals that only he understood. He didn’t need it. He could still remember the cross-country hike.
Had it really been twenty-four years ago?

“Doc,” said the man in black.

His voice was low and deadly even at fifty feet. Taylor made a quick glance to make sure that the man had not crept up on him. He had not. The man in black sat against the side of the car, still smoking the cigarette. Taylor made to pull up his zipper. His hands aged in the cold air, feeling like they might break if he bent the knuckles. He turned to face the man.

“Cut the show, doc. We got miles to go yet,” said the man in black.

“I needed a breather,” Taylor said.

The man was silhouetted against the car, his cap pulled low over his face. The cigarette burn brightly with one long drag, then it was tossed on the ground. The man got back into the car. Taylor squinted his eyes against the wind. Before him, the sleek blackness of the car merged with the darkness of the night, contrasted by the white of the earth. Its eyes the taillights, gleaming red, its breath the exhaust. I’ll grow to love this car, thought Taylor. Only if I’m behind the wheel…and he’s under it.