Noble Warrior (39 page)

The three of them, Stanzer, McCutcheon, and Kaitlyn, briskly walked to the abandoned house where the colonel had parked the car and then climbed into the Chevy.

Moments later, the white four-door motored away.

T
hey drove in silence, Stanzer at the wheel, McCutcheon in the front, Kaitlyn in back wiping Puppet's blood off of her fists with a small
white towel she'd found on the seat. Fifteen minutes passed without a word. They cruised along, dusk falling. The night would be dark and wet. M.D. finally turned around and looked over his
left shoulder.

“You okay?”

“You going to tell me where you've been?”

McCutcheon looked to Stanzer. He and M.D. made eye contact, but no words passed between them. McCutcheon looked out the side window without responding.

“And tell me again who this guy is to say no to that request?” Kaitlyn said. “I waited for you, McCutcheon. Waited for months because I knew you'd come back. There were
even times while you were away that, I don't know, it felt like you were right there watching me.”

M.D. remained silent.

“I'm not afraid anymore, you know,” Kaitlyn continued. “I was raised to be afraid. To be scared. To do good in school and follow the rules and go to college and get a job
and meet a nice boy and be safe, safe, safe. But it's bullshit. There is no safety. The more secure I try to be, the more I wrap my life in a protected little bubble…” She shook
her head. “It's never safe. Just sterilized.”

McCutcheon simply stared.

“And when you left I learned…” She paused. “I learned I wanted you.”

Kaitlyn suddenly leaned forward and stuck her tongue deep into McCutcheon's mouth. Gave him a huge, passionate, kiss, wet and meaningful and long, and then she plopped backward into the
car's rear seat.

“I started taking martial arts classes, too. My sensei has been teaching me to transform my fear into energy,” she said with pride. “My whole life I was taught to move
cautiously and be afraid, but I am done with that now. Done forever. I have power.”

Her green eyes lasered in on M.D.

“And I want to be with you,” she said. “I want to be with you more than anything else in the world.”

McCutcheon didn't respond. He just breathed in and breathed out, considering what to say. After a few minutes, M.D. glanced over at Stanzer. The colonel knew he was being looked at, he
could feel McCutcheon's eyes, but Stanzer still didn't take his gaze off the road in front of him, didn't waver for a second.

“Oh, I'm sorry,” Kaitlyn said from the back seat to Stanzer. “With all that shooting-of-an-unarmed-man excitement back there, I don't think I caught your name,
mister.”

The sarcasm in Kaitlyn's voice wasn't lost on anyone. “Reggie,” he said. “Colonel Reginald Stanzer. Nice to meet you.”

“A colonel huh? So you're like with the military. You McCutcheon's boss?”

Both men in the front remained quiet.

“What, you some sort of secret agent now?” Kaitlyn asked, her voice full of mockery.

M.D. said nothing.

“Oh, you're not going to tell me anything?” Her anger grew. “You disappear for nearly eleven months and I get the silent treatment. You have got to be kidding
me.”

M.D. struggled with how to respond. Not knowing what to say he didn't say anything.

“Oh, this is just great,” Kaitlyn said. “I spill my heart to the guy who caused me to be abducted, and all I get is a tough-guy look in response. Real brave man you
are.”

Though she poked him, M.D. didn't take the bait.

“Well, can I at least know where we are going?” Kaitlyn asked after another few moments of maddening quiet.

Stanzer and M.D. exchanged another look. This was McCutcheon's show; Stanzer was just the driver. It fell to M.D. to call the next shot.

“We're going to your parents' house,” he said. “I'm dropping you off.”

“Excuse me?”

“Go to college, Kaitlyn,” McCutcheon said. “All those people were right. Get a degree, find a job, meet a nice guy. Someone who'll, you know,” M.D. said, pausing
between words. “Come home at night.”

“Didn't you hear what I just said?” she replied. “I don't want a plastic bubble. I don't want a—”

“Look!” M.D. snapped. “You have your destiny and I have mine and they are not on a path to meet.” McCutcheon turned to Stanzer, firmness in his voice. “Her
parents' house. You need directions?”

“Nope,” Stanzer said reaching for his cell. “Got 'em right here.”

“Then step on it,” M.D. said, turning back around to face front. “I'm sure her family is worried sick.”

For the rest of the ride, McCutcheon made sure to only look straight ahead.

Stanzer turned north on the I-75 freeway, merged onto I-94, and looked for Exit 223, because Cadieux Road would take him directly into the heart of Grosse Point. The rain had turned from heavy
to light and then to mist, but it fell hard enough for Stanzer to have to use the windshield wipers. Their rhythmic swish filled the car with a lonely, melancholic sound.

Six minutes after exiting the highway Stanzer rolled up to the front security gate of a six-bedroom, 3,600 square foot Tudor-style home. He knew eight different ways to beat the access system if
he wanted to, but the colonel merely put the car in park outside the front gate and left the engine to idle.

M.D. exited the car and opened the back door for Kaitlyn. She stepped out and they made eye contact.

“You need to understand,” he said. “The world I live in is not made for you. It's too violent. Too dangerous. Too…” He paused. “Unforgiving.”

Kaitlyn gently, sympathetically, brushed her fingers across M.D.'s cheek, tender and affectionate.

“Fuck you.”

She walked away.

Kaitlyn punched in the access code to the front gate, a heavy click sounded, and the automatic barrier began to swing open.

A light went on by the front porch. The door opened. Two people, a man and a woman, haggard looking, squinted to see.

Was that their girl?

It was. Kaitlyn's mother began crying. Her dad raced to scoop up Kaitlyn and give her a hug. Was she bleeding? Was she safe? Did she need a doctor? M.D. stood by the side of the Chevy,
staring, staring, staring, frozen like a statue.

“We'd better go,” Stanzer said.

McCutcheon, knowing the colonel was right, climbed back into the car and buckled his seat belt. Tears streamed from his eyes.

“No shame, son,” Stanzer said. “No shame at all.”

L
ight taps of rain played like a gloomy sound track against the metal of the car's roof as the Chevrolet cruised along the road.

“Just one question,” M.D. said.

“Yeah?”

“Did you turn me into you on purpose?” he asked. “Or are people like us just born?”

Stanzer sniffed. Ran his hands through his hair and extended his arm. Rolling up his shirtsleeve was his only way of answering.

M.D. stared at the fading tattoo. He knew it wasn't just body paint to the colonel. These words gave meaning to Stanzer's life.

“We off to Norman, Oklahoma?” the colonel asked.

“Drop me at the bus station.”

“She'll be back in Bellevue the day after tomorrow,” Stanzer said. “You take the bus, Gemma will be gone before you arrive.”

“Just the bus terminal is fine.”

Stanzer stared. Studied his man closely.

“There are others you know. Other people your age in the program.”

McCutcheon remained silent.

“They have different skills, various abilities and so forth but, well…this thing is growing,” he said. “And they need a leader. Someone their own age.”

McCutcheon still didn't reply. A moment later, knowing M.D. didn't plan to add anything else to the conversation, Stanzer pressed down harder on the gas and accelerated their speed.
The two men drove in silence.

At the Greyhound terminal Stanzer pulled into an open handicap parking spot, figuring he'd only be there for a minute. He wanted to get M.D. as close to the front door as possible now that
the rain had picked up. If he parked too far away, the kid would get drenched.

“You know how to reach me?”

McCutcheon rolled his eyes.

“Am I going to see you again?”

M.D. didn't answer.

“Well, can I at least ask where you are going?”

McCutcheon debated whether or not to reply, but then he decided that giving Stanzer an answer would probably be the most strategic way to handle his departure.

“West coast.”

Stanzer raised his eyebrows. “West coast?”

“Actually, three stops,” McCutcheon said. “Chicago, L.A., then Seattle.”

Stanzer did a few calculations. It didn't add up.

“Can I ask why?”

“No,” M.D. said. He popped open the passenger door and stepped out into the rain. “But, well…thanks.”

McCutcheon closed the door, leaped over a puddle, and darted from the car to the front entrance of the bus station. After shaking off the wetness, he approached the ticket counter and reached
into his pocket for some money. There was no line.

“Three tickets, please,” McCutcheon said. “Next bus to Chicago. Four days after that I need a bus to Los Angeles. Four days after that I need a bus to Seattle,
Washington.”

“Express?”

“Of course.”

“Need any bag tags?”

“No.”

The elderly man behind the Plexiglas window punched up the tickets and M.D. paid in cash.

“The Chicago X don't leave for forty minutes,” the old man said.

“Got a restaurant?”

A finger pointed. M.D. noted the worn gold wedding band circling the old man's ring finger.

“They serve salad?”

“S'ppose so.”

“Thanks, I'll be in there,” M.D. said as he walked away.

The old man shrugged. He couldn't give a damn.

McCutcheon ambled through the terminal over to the restaurant, casually using his peripheral vision to glance toward the handicap parking spot where Stanzer had just dropped him off. The
blue-lined space was already empty. Yes, the colonel had taken off, just like M.D. expected.

But had he really? Doubtful.

McCutcheon, in no great rush, sauntered past a pair of long, brown empty benches in the middle of the station and entered the sparse eatery. It wasn't so much a restaurant as it was large
rectangle where they sizzled burgers and plated them with fries. Place could seat maybe forty-five diners though only two chairs were occupied, both with campers, people who weren't really
eating as much as they were just sitting at the vacant spots waiting for their buses to leave. A place like this didn't need two employees. Certainly not at nine fifty p.m on a Wednesday
night.

McCutcheon walked behind the eatery's counter and approached a guy in his mid-twenties wearing a Detroit Tigers baseball cap.

“Hey, you can't be back here.”

“I'll give you two hundred dollars for your hat.”

“What?”

“And another two hundred for your apron.”

The employee paused. “You serious?”

“Plus another three hundred and fifty to jump on a bus that's leaving for Chicago in thirty-six minutes. That means my offer's now up to seven hundred and fifty.”

The guy, medium height, a bit blubbery, considered it. “Who's gonna watch this place?”

M.D. pulled out a fan of cash. “Close early. We gotta deal?”

It took a moment for the guy to think about the offer. But only a moment.

“Heck, yeah. I love Chicago.”

“Good,” M.D. said, peeling off a series of hundred dollar bills. “Then enjoy a day on the town tomorrow courtesy of me. Need one more thing, though.”

“Wait,” the guy asked. “How do I get home?”