Rundown (16 page)

Authors: Michael Cadnum

BOOK: Rundown

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Bernice is one of those people who say
Good morning
first thing, never
Hello
. She mouthed the words through the window of her Mazda, and I said, “Hi.”

I sensed her eyes following me, her car taking a moment before it scooted up the driveway, a whiff of car exhaust in the air.

I made it through the gate before the one-horsepower motor closed it, but I didn't start running right away. The dozens of pills in my zipper pockets felt like twin bean-bags, and the floppy silk jacket flowed around me, confining even at a fast walk. I strode briskly up Campus Drive, power-walking past the sleepy, brown-shingle Victorians and the multi-unit apartments made out of white, grandmotherly houses.

I popped into a convenience store, the kind of place that sells computer software and ready-made sandwiches. I bought a half-pint of orange juice, the only size they had. I went back for another bottle when I realized it wasn't nearly enough fluid, and the clerk put them into a plastic bag.

I would follow the jogging trail, and when I reached the placeâthere my plan ran out of script. I thought I would ease myselfânot rolling, not stumbling this timeâdown the bank of blackberry thorns, and sit within the sound of cars and joggers and take the pills, one by one.

I pried the cap off a plastic bottle of Berkeley Farms orange juice, “from concentrate,” and as I walked along, the juice splashed out onto my hand. It was cold and, after a half block or so, sticky. I stopped, put the unopened bottle in its flutter of plastic bag on the curb.

I unzipped my pocket and placed two tablets on my tongue. I washed them down with a swallow of breathtakingly cold juice.

Chapter 34

It did not take me long, accompanied by the whisk and blast of morning traffic, to realize that swallowing these pain pills would take ages. So I put a few more in my mouth and swallowed, determined to hold off on ingesting the majority until I had reached my destination. But it was a challenge to stop, take pills, swallow, with bicyclists whirring by, the supply of orange juice running out way before the pills.

I found myself observing my hand, palm wrinkles cupping dazzling white pills, stuffing the quantities into my mouth. I sipped the juice, not taking great gulps, conserving. The pills went down hard, and even harder when I tried swallowing them naked, without any juice at all.

I gagged. I dropped the empty orange juice container into a green plastic-only bin, and stuffed the bag in after it.

Tennis players drilled each other on a concrete court. No amiable serves, no easygoing returns. They were practicing kill-shots. I felt good. Alert, observant, thankful that I had chosen such a fresh morning.

The pills were weak. The medicine had conquered my headache, I recalled, after a prolonged fight. The power of this stuff was exaggerated. My stomach was awash in pills and juice, and I felt only the slightest tingle in my lips. Cars squealed to a stop, a traffic light, a red hand ordering me to stay where I was. A couple of men in summer-weight tweeds looked at me, up and down. I get attention like this only when I wear running clothes.

A man with a shopping cart full of mashed beer cans was trudging against the traffic. He was dressed like I was, except that his outfit was well broken-in. He wore a zipper jacket, his running pants dirty at each knee, his running shoes worn toeless. His hair was carefully parted, but had the shiny, clogged appearance of hair that needs to be shampooed.

The man smiled the way Mr. Emmit sometimes does, a cheerful grimace of effort, and I hurried with my orange juice, coughing down one fistful of pills after another. I wanted him to have my empty bottle.

It was a struggle but I was ready for him as he passed, and he caught my bottle with one hand, almost dropped it, tossed into his shopping cart, and gave me a flash of his teeth. I wanted to tell him that there was another empty container in the recycling bin not far away, but for the first time I began to think that the medication might possibly be having some influence on my thoughts.

It was subtle, but maybe the pills did have power, after all.

Chapter 35

My fingertips tingled, and my feet struck the ground flat, not in that graceful heel/toe stroke of the ground you take for granted. It was funny, in an ugly way. My feet plodded along, my arms hanging slack, my hands lead pendulums at the end of my bones.

Cyclists shifted gears, the ratcheting sound accompanying the pronounced gristly leverage of the knees as they glided past. I sat on the curb, shivering, the air around me ice.

I told myself that it was very smart for me to take a seat beside a bus stop and reflect, because I was feeling very weary. The bus stop bench was made of concrete, gray cement with fine bubbles in it, gray cheese. I leaned my head against it. I was very tired, completely exhausted, and my eyes slipped shut.

I opened them slowly, one eye out of focus until I blinked hard.

When you sit down and watch a motorcycle putter exhaust into the morning air, all the things you have been doing become clear. It's easy, then, like someone squeezing frosting onto a cake, to see a spot you have missed. Birds bickered in the bushes behind me, and in the date palm over my head.

When my eyes eased shut again I could hear where the palm fronds ended and the empty sky began. I could imagine my father, asking what kind of birds they were. I could hear Cass saying they were slum birds, sparrows.

I had not expected to feel like this. I wrapped my arms around myself, like someone falling, downward through space.

I swung to my feet.

People make the gesture jokinglyâthey stick a finger in their mouths and make a face like throwing up. But I thrust my finger all the way past my soft palate and into my glottal region, and nothing happened. My hand tasted vaguely of salt and a little orange juice.

I squinted at the sun to determine the correct direction. The concrete was a wilderness of cracks, white and yellow grass worn to nubs in the fissures.

I ran hard, and stumbled. My skin abraded painlessly on the curb, blood welling from a dozen minute sources in my flesh. I found my stride again, a loping, long distance pace, no sensation in my lips, my tongue. As long as I kept moving, life would pump, through my arms and my legs, but if I slowed down for even a moment, to ask for help, to call 911 at a pay phone; all of this would disappear.

I kept the pace, running hard in the direction I believed was home. A tart, bad-milk phlegm filled my mouth. Sounds faded, and ceased. There was no noise, nothing.

Not even the sawing of my breath.

When I found the pay phone I had trouble pushing the O for operator. My finger kept crooking, my finger slip ping off the button.

I could barely hear the phone trilling in my ear.

When a distant voice said, “Thank you for using A T and T,” and asked if she could help me, I felt the danger, how the impersonally polite voice could misunderstand my silence, in a hurry to respond to other callers, other people she would never know.

I spoke, and the words came out clumsy, my tongue fat. I had to begin to tell my story.

And I had trouble shaping words.

She understood just enough of what I said. “Is this an emergency?” she was asking.

Time was running out on me, on what I had to say. I said, “I have to speak to the Berkeley Police.”

“Is this an emergency?” she was insisting.

“Sex Crimes Detail,” I said to the male voice that answered the phone. “I need Detective Margate.”

About the Author

Michael Cadnum is the author of 35 books for adults and young adults. His workâwhich includes thrillers, suspense novels, historical fiction, and books about myths and legendsâhas been nominated for the National Book Award (
The Book of the Lion
), the Edgar Award (
Calling Home
and
Breaking the Fall
), and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize (
In a Dark Wood
). A former National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellow, he is also the author of award-winning poetry.
Seize the Storm
(2012) is his most recent novel.

Michael Cadnum lives in Albany, California, with a view of the Golden Gate Bridge.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cover design by Drew Padrutt

ISBN: 978-1-5040-1976-7

This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

345 Hudson Street

New York, NY 10014

www.openroadmedia.com