Quiver (9 page)

The next morning, Jodie gave him a ride to the airport. Jack had told her he was leaving, catching an early flight back to Tucson to find a job. Nobody was hiring in Detroit. It was 6:30 a.m. when she dropped him off at the terminal. She parked at the curb, turned in her seat and locked her gaze on him.

“I guess I’ll see you in four years.”

That was how long it had been since she’d last seen him; Jodie being funny.

“Stay straight, Jackie, will you please? For me, if not for yourself.”

Jack said, “My bad-boy days are over.”

“You’re a good person. You’ve got so much to offer. Get a job like the rest of us and make something of yourself.”

Problem was, he wasn’t like most people. He’d never be able to hold a job and play it straight. He thanked Jodie for everything, leaned over, kissed her on the cheek. He got out and opened the back door
and pulled his knapsack out of the backseat. Jodie waved through the window and he waved back.

He went in the terminal, took the escalator to the second floor, read the signs, and went left looking for long-term parking. He walked behind the first row of cars. There was a cool breeze, wind whipping through the parking structure. He heard a jet, saw it through an opening in the parking deck and watched it take off.

A dark SUV approached and crept past him, looking for a parking space. He studied the nameplates on the cars, stopping at a Mercedes E500. He went around the car, checked to see if the doors were locked. They were. Checked the frame under the driver’s door but didn’t find what he was looking for. He moved down the row to a Cadillac Escalade, did the same thing again. No luck.

There was a green Lexus 430 in the next row. He walked around it and checked all the obvious hiding places and found a yellow magnetic box covered with road scum attached to the frame under the rear bumper. He pried it open and there was a spare key. He unlocked the door, threw his knapsack on the front passenger seat, and got in behind the wheel. The parking ticket was in a cup holder in the console.

He’d learned this trick in the early days of stealing
cars. Keeping a spare key somewhere sounded like a good idea, but it was almost as dumb as going into a store for a pack of cigarettes and leaving your car running. Or parking in a bank lot and going in to use the ATM—it’ll only take a minute—and leaving the keys in the ignition.

Best place to find the car you were looking for was to stake out a sporting event, movie theater, or airport. What he also did—and it took a little longer this way—was find a car he wanted at an upscale mall or market and follow the person home. He’d break in the next day, find the spare keys and boost the car. That way, it was nice and clean. Better than pulling the lock barrel out of the door with pliers or breaking a window. You didn’t have to worry about car alarms, either.

Jack had worked for a guy named Torcellini, a Sicilian from Palermo who came over to Detroit when he was sixteen and still carried a switchblade in his zippered black boot. Torce, a fan of westerns, had a pencil-thin mustache and sideburns and wore a black Stetson and a duster. He thought he looked like Lee Van Cleef of spaghetti-western fame. “What do you think?” he’d say to Jack with a mean look on his face, the Stetson low over his eyes and Jack would say, “Yeah, I can see it.”

Torce would give him a list of cars he needed, and Jack would find them and bring them in. He got $1,500 for a late-model high-end ride. Cash on the spot. Some weeks he made $9,000. Not bad for a twenty-two-year-old whose friends were trying to scrape together enough money to buy a six-pack.

Torce had chop shops around Detroit where they could strip a car down to its frame in six hours. If it had a blue book value of $20,000, they could strip it and sell the parts for $32,000, or more.

Or he’d boost a car, bring it to the shop, and they’d strip it clean and drop the shell on a street somewhere. The police would find it and tell the owner, who’d tell the insurance company, who’d sell it at auction to try to recoup some money. Torce’s guys would buy the shell at auction, put the stripped parts back on it and sell it as a used car. It was beautiful.

They also shipped high-end Benzes, Bimmers, Caddies and Jags to buyers in Latin America and the Middle East. That’s how Jack met Teddy and DeJuan. They all worked for Torce, until the operation got busted—Torce and fifty-six others arrested in a raid conducted by a joint task force of the Detroit Police and the FBI.

Jack had just stolen a Benz S600 from the Somerset
Mall. He was outside Nordstrom. Watched the valet run to get a car and walked over to the curb when the Benz pulled in, an annoying guy on a cell phone, telling him to be careful, saying the car cost more than he’d make in four years.

Jack said, “Don’t worry, I’ll keep an eye on it for you,” and he did.

When he got to the chop shop, an old brick warehouse on St. Antoine, it was surrounded by police cars, light bars flashing. He could see the Ren Cen, now the GM building, in the distance. Teddy pulled up behind him in a black Town Car. They decided it might be a good time to leave town, figuring someone would dime them for a plea, human nature being what it was—the urge to protect one’s own ass overriding any sense of honor or loyalty.

Jack cruised out of the parking deck in the green Lexus, hands on the varnished wood steering wheel, engine so quiet, it didn’t sound like it was running. He stopped at the booth, paid the parking fee with the fifty he’d borrowed from his sister, and drove to Kate’s.

“Luke, I’m leaving,” he heard his mom call up the stairs. “Are you sure you have a ride to school?”

Luke yelled, “Positive,” from the upstairs hall.

It was 7:45. He didn’t have a class on Friday till 8:30. He stood at his bedroom window and watched her pull out of the driveway. Luke stuffed clothes in a backpack, grabbed his iPod and went downstairs to the kitchen. The keys to his dad’s Corvette weren’t in the drawer where they usually were. His mom probably hid them somewhere. He checked her desk in the den, didn’t see them. He went upstairs to her dressing room. His dad’s clothes were gone, his side of the dressing area, cleaned out. Why’d she get rid of his clothes? Was she trying to forget him?

He found the car keys in her jewelry box. Slid them in the pocket of his jeans and went back down to the kitchen.

He heard a car and saw a green Lexus drive up and park. He saw Jack get out and come to the door, press his face against one of the glass panes. Knocking and then opening the door and coming in. What was he doing here?

Luke went through the dining room and circled around to the front of the house, hiding in the front hall closet, door cracked open half an inch. He
heard Jack walk in from the kitchen, cowboy boots clicking on the slate floor. He stood at the bottom of the stairs and looked up. “Anybody home? Kate…?”

Luke watched him go into the den, but couldn’t see what he was doing.

Kate told him she had a dentist appointment at eight and knew Luke would be at school, so no one would be home. He sat behind Kate’s antique desk, staring at her checkbook. He’d seen it the night before on the house tour. He was desperate for money and decided to write a check for a thousand dollars to hold him over.

Jack felt odd taking money from her, but then thought about Guatemala. How much did it cost him to get Kate and her friend back? Five grand—at least. She owed him. He made the check out to cash and traced Kate’s signature from a letter he found in one of the drawers. It wasn’t that difficult.

He stared at the check and for the first time in four years, Jack was feeling good about himself. Things were falling into place. He was as close to being rich as he’d ever been.

Leon came down the stairs now, stopped, sniffed the air and wandered over to the closet. Luke trying to get rid of him, “Leon, get out of here,” saying it under his breath. “Go on.” He pulled the door closed and Leon yelped and barked.

Jack saw the dog and called him. “Here, boy. What’re you doing over there, huh?”

Luke cracked the door and Leon was sitting there, tail wagging, tongue hanging out, drooling, eyes fixed on Luke.

He heard Jack’s boots on the slate floor again coming across the foyer toward them. “What’re you doing?”

Luke could see him coming toward the closet.

“Something in there you want?”

Luke stepped back into the darkness, kneeling behind some boxes.

“Boy, want a treat?” Jack said. “Does the big man want a treat?”

He could see Jack heading for the kitchen, and Leon, to Luke’s surprise, was following him.

Luke went through the living room to the sun porch, unlocked the door and went outside, moving along the back of the house to the kitchen. He looked in the window, saw Jack open the refrigerator, helping himself to leftover lamb
chops, eating meat off the bone and throwing Leon scraps.

Ten minutes later Jack got in his car and left, Luke wondering what was going on, this old friend of his mother’s coming in their house like that.

Jack cashed the check at the Chase branch at Cranbrook and Maple. He didn’t have an account, but he flirted with the teller, a mousy little thing and she said she’d make an exception and he said, “Thanks, darling.” Then he drove back to Kate’s to wait for her.

Kate could feel a tingling in her jaw, the first indication that the Novocain was wearing off. She’d had a cavity in a back tooth filled, her dentist, Dr. Hanson, giving her two shots of Novocain, saying he had to drill pretty deep and didn’t want to take any chances.

She drove in the garage and noticed the Corvette was gone and couldn’t believe it. Thinking about what she said to Luke and how she said it. “Don’t drive. Don’t even think about it. You’ve got a restricted license. If the police stop you, they’re going to put you in jail. And don’t go anywhere unless you ask me first.” What didn’t he understand about that? She even hid the keys. He said he was going to straighten up and stay out of trouble. He wasn’t going to use Owen’s death as an excuse anymore.

Jack was sitting at the breakfast room table reading the paper, drinking a Coke, when she walked in the kitchen. It bothered her to see him in
the house, reminding her of how he used to show up at her apartment in Ann Arbor. She’d come home from class, he’d be watching TV or taking a shower, like he owned the place.

Kate said, “Make yourself at home,” an edge to her voice. “Can I get you anything?”

“I thought I’d surprise you.”

“You did,” Kate said. She didn’t need this right now.

There were half-eaten lamb chops on a plate in front of him.

Jack said, “You don’t mind, do you? The door was unlocked.”

Kate said, “Have you seen Luke?”

The message light on the phone was flashing.

“No,” Jack said.

“How long have you been here?”

“Half hour,” Jack said. “You all right?”

She could see he was concerned. She moved to the counter, pressed the message button on the phone and heard Helen Parks’s snippy voice say, “Mrs. McCall, Luke has failed to show up for school again. This is Mrs. Parks, please call as soon as you can.”

Kate picked up the phone, called Luke’s cell, heard his voice say, “This is Luke, leave a message.”

Where was he?

Jack said, “There a problem?”

“I don’t know.”

She checked the den, the billiard room, the family room, walked through the living room to the sun porch, Jack behind her, crowding her. She went upstairs, looked in his bedroom. Leon was on the bed, but Luke wasn’t there or anywhere in the house. Where would he go? All his friends were in school.

“Listen,” Kate said to Jack, “I’ve got to go out for a while.”

“What’s going on?”

“I’ll tell you later.”

She could see Jack in the rearview mirror as she pulled out, Jack walking down the driveway toward the street, wondering, no doubt, what had happened. He’d asked if he could go with her and she said no. There was a Lexus sedan parked in front, Kate assuming the car was Jack’s. It was the only one around. Last time he came over he was driving his sister’s eight-year-old Chevy Cavalier. Where did he get a seventy-thousand-dollar Lexus? Did he buy it or borrow it—or steal it? Her distrust of him creeping back to the surface.
She drove to Tower Records at the mall, one of Luke’s favorite stores. She’d start there and then try the arcade.

DeJuan was checking her out—good-looking woman—as she walked through the record store moving fast, glancing around like she was looking for something. He’d followed her from the house. She lived half a mile from Marty, other side of Sixteen Mile Road, also called Big Beaver. He’d like to check her beaver out, imagined it waxed and trimmed, little arrow of fur pointing up at her knocks.

He liked the ’hood called the Village, with its nice wide streets and big houses set back a couple hundred feet from the road—lot of property between the cribs, so nobody snoopin’ on nobody else’s shit.

He was checking out a Mony Karlo CD—
For the
Luv of Money
—DeJuan thinking, did this brother get it done? He most definitely got it done. DeJuan took his eyes off her for a minute and when he glanced back she was walking out the store—moving fast. He caught up to her at the escalator, riding down to the first floor. Waited while she went in an arcade. Came out, went to the parking structure, got in the Land Rover, while he got in his Malibu, tailing her back to
her place, trying to stay close as she hit seventy on Sixteen Mile.

He watched her pull in the driveway and parked a couple houses away. Listening to an interview with Barack. Man was smooth as silk. Articulate, black US senator, scaring the shit out of white folks, saying he considering making a run for the presidency. DeJuan thinking, yeah, bring some rhythm and soul to the party.

Land Rover appeared five minutes later, blowing down the driveway. DeJuan firing up the Malibu, slipping it in gear, taking off. Twenty minutes later he passed a sign that said “Clarkston,” traveling north on I-75, doing ninety-five, trying to keep up with her. Wondering where the bitch was headed. Thought it’d be an afternoon of errands and shit. Check out the mall while she shopped. Once she got somewhere, call Teddy; tell him to make his move. But it didn’t happen like that, and thirty minutes later he was driving through Flint—asshole of the Midwest—wondering what the fuck was going on. To make things more interesting, he had just under half a tank of gas and there was no end in sight to this crazy-ass odyssey.

Then it hit him. He looked at himself in the rearview mirror and grinned. Sure, it had to be that.
Bitch was going to the discount mall. Could buy ten of anything she wanted, but couldn’t resist the idea of a deal. Like she taking advantage of somebody.

He remembered his moms, aunt and cousins driving from Detroit to someplace called West Branch, DeJuan and four ladies in an old Cadillac Deville, yakking, going on about girl shit, going up north for a day of shopping, listening to the Shirelles singing “Dedicated to the One I Love”—the memory coming back to him as he saw the West Branch sign and passed it.

Forty minutes after that, he was following her through Grayling, running on fumes when she pulled into a gas station. Big place had ten pumps, all of them taken except for the last one, place crowded with SUVs and RVs, big forty-foot-long motherfuckers.

He parked on the other side of the pump from her, filling his Malibu while she filled her Land Rover, catching glimpses of her, finally making eye contact, saying, “Yo, know where Traverse City at?”

“Follow 72,” she said, extending her arm and pointing to the left. She seemed wound up, tense, like something on her mind.

He filled his tank and went inside the mini-mart and paid. Bought two chocolate doughnuts with
sprinkles and a large coffee. When he came out, the Land Rover was gone. He scanned the lot—saw it pulling out of the station, going left. He dropped the doughnuts and coffee and ran to his car and got in. He had to wait for an RV to get the fuck out of his way. Floored it, jerked the steering wheel, tires squealing, blew out of the gas station parking lot, took a left, picking up speed, cruising now along the I-75 bypass, fast-food restaurants lining the road on both sides, reminding him how hungry he was. DeJuan picturing a platter of chicken wings smothered in hickory brown-sugar barbecue sauce, wash it all down with a 7&7 or a Cuba libre with a big slice of lime. Hadn’t eaten anything all day, starving now at three thirty in the afternoon.

He thought for sure he’d lost her, thinking what a waste of time his day had been when he saw a silver Land Rover parked in a vacant lot next to a Mickey D’s. He drove in the D’s lot, went around the building, parked with a good angle on her, facing out.

What she doing, sitting there? Then the door opened and the dog jumped out. He watched it sniff around, do its business, while he sat there smelling meat cooking, starving, stomach groaning, making noises.

He took out his cell phone, called Teddy. “Yo, Theo, what’s up?” It was a bad connection, a lot of static.

Teddy said, “I can barely hear you. Where the hell you at?”

“Ain’t going to believe where I’m at.”

On the way home from the mall, Kate had gotten an idea. The Corvette had OnStar. They could do a satellite check and tell her where it was. She called and talked to a patient customer rep with a nice voice; saying the Corvette was missing and asked if they could locate it.

The rep, whose name was Amy, told Kate the Vette was on Highway 72 just west of Kalkaska. Luke, it seemed, was heading back up to the lodge, which surprised her. It was the last place she would’ve expected him to go. She had an odd feeling, her stomach nervous, uneasy now. What was he planning to do? She called Dr. Fabick, the psychiatrist. The receptionist said he was on vacation in Europe. He’d be out of the office for ten days.

Kate said, “How can I reach him?”

The receptionist said she couldn’t. He was on an airplane headed for Paris. She called the Leelanau
Sheriff ’s Department and asked for Bill Wink. She said it was important and the deputy who answered the phone—she couldn’t remember his name—said he’d get in touch with Bill and have him call her.

Kate drove home, packed a bag, put Leon in the car and took off. She was on I-75 passing Pine Knob when her cell phone rang. It was Wink. She told him the situation. He said he’d go out to the lodge and keep an eye on Luke till she got there. No problem. Bill and Owen had been friends. Fished together occasionally, and although Kate didn’t know him all that well, she thought there was enough of a connection to ask for Bill personally.

She stopped for gas in Grayling, then let Leon sniff around, take care of business. It was now three thirty in the afternoon. She hadn’t eaten since breakfast, but she wasn’t hungry. Her stomach was churning. Cutting through town, she passed a convoy of military vehicles with camo paint schemes. National Guard troops wearing camo fatigues and helmets, on maneuvers heading back to Camp Grayling, glancing at her as she drove by in her silver Land Rover with twenty-inch rims.

Then she was on two-lane 72 driving behind an RV, and it reminded her of the time Owen pulled up
in the driveway in a thirty-eight-foot Winnebago Adventurer, with its dizzying three-tone exterior, a look of excitement on his face.

He said, “Do you believe this?”

No, Kate wanted to say, but she couldn’t talk, one of the few times in her life she’d been speechless.

“Let me give you the tour.”

He opened the door and they went inside, Owen giving what sounded like a sales pitch: “The interior’s a color called Caspian blue with washed maple cabinets—beautiful, isn’t she?”

Kate wondering at the time why he referred to this RV behemoth in the feminine gender.

Owen said, “She was handcrafted by the Winnebago artisans in Forest Lake, Iowa, and has got all the comforts of home: flat-screen TV, home theater sound system, queen-size bed, and gourmet kitchen. What do you think?”

“Why don’t you use it for the Cup season?” Kate said.

“You don’t like it?”

“I’m not an RV person.”

That was it. He understood and wasn’t offended and never mentioned it again.

Kate slowed to twenty behind an eighteen-wheeler and a pickup towing dirt bikes. Why was Luke going
back up, risking everything? She wouldn’t let herself think about it before. Now she couldn’t think about anything else. According to Dr. Fabick, he’d been severely depressed since the accident. She knew that, but didn’t know how bad he was until the arrest. What did Fabick say? Luke was reliving the trauma over and over. But there had to be more to it. Why would he disobey her and take the car with all the trouble he was in? It seemed desperate. What was he planning to do? Was he going to kill himself? Now that was the only thing that made sense and Kate was frantic. She pictured Luke with her Smith & Wesson Airweight, putting the barrel against his head and she pressed down on the accelerator, gunned it around the semi, and then took chances, passing two and three vehicles at a time, forcing an oncoming pickup truck to slow down and let her in, horns honking at her questionable moves.

She made good time through Suttons Bay, passed the casino in Peshawbestown, the Leelanau Sands, going eighty up the western shore of Grand Traverse Bay, the water turquoise where it was shallow and turning dark blue where it got deep—nineteen miles to Northport and then ten minutes more to Cathead Bay.

Bill Wink’s white patrol car was parked next to Owen’s Corvette on the gravel drive outside the lodge. She let out a breath, relieved. She went in and heard explosions and lasers, watching them for a minute: Bill and Luke, with PlayStation controllers in their hands, faces animated, Bill looking like an overgrown kid in his brown uniform. He glanced at Kate, put the controller on the coffee table in front of him, grabbed his hat and stood up. He found the crease; fit the hat on his head.

“Luke, I’ve got to run,” he said. “We’ll finish it another time.”

Bill Wink moved toward Kate now and when he got close, she said, “I’ll walk you out.”

They were on the gravel drive when he said, “Luke seems fine to me. He was playing
Halo
when I got here. It’s a video game.”

“That much I know,” Kate said. “I really appreciate you coming out, keeping an eye on him for me.”

“Anything else you need,” Bill said, “give me a call, I’m serious.” He grinned and took his hat off and got in the car, closed the door and put his window down.

Kate didn’t know him that well and wondered if he was coming on to her.

“I have an idea,” Bill said. “Think Luke would want to go out on patrol with me, see a real cop in action?”

It sounded like he was kidding but his tone was serious—a real cop in action. “I’m sure he’d like that, Bill.”

He grinned. “Take her easy.”

She watched him roll down the driveway, tires crunching on the gravel. The trees had their leaves and the sky was still bright at five o’clock, staying light longer as the season changed, heading toward summer, but it sure was cold. She felt a breeze blowing in from the lake and pulled her coat closed. Leon barked and chased a squirrel across the yard into the woods.

Luke was in the kitchen when she went back inside. He took a Coke out of the refrigerator and faced her. They stared at each other, Kate hoping he’d give her something—some reasonable explanation at the very least.