The Dispatcher (29 page)

‘My ankle hurts.’

‘I know it, Bee.’

Up ahead on the left he sees a rusted-out Chevy flatbed poking from a barn that looks about ready to collapse. He nods toward it.

‘Let’s see if we can get out of town in that.’

‘It’s kind of big.’

‘We’re not shopping around, Bee. We gotta take what’s handy.’

He looks around, but the dirt road appears to be empty of life. Sirens wail in the distance and grow louder. Their time is short.

They walk toward the truck.

‘Check it,’ Henry says as they get near.

Beatrice limps to the truck and grabs the handle and thumbs the button and pulls open the door. Flakes of rust fall to the ground. She leans in and looks.

‘There’s a key.’

 

 

 

Henry turns it. The truck’s engine groans. He gives it a little gas. The exhaust pipe spits black smoke. The engine starts. He puts the truck into gear and it rumbles out of the barn and onto the dirt road. He glances at Beatrice. She has Sarah leaning against her arm and she is stroking the girl’s blond hair, combing her fingers through it. Then Beatrice lifts the skirt of her own dress, revealing sweaty cotton panties, and wipes at the blood on Sarah’s face.

‘She’ll be okay,’ Henry says.

‘You shouldn’t’ve hit her,’ Bee says.

 

 

 

Henry drives south along a road that does not appear to have a name. After a block he reaches the Interstate 10 feeder road and turns right. He can see the interstate up ahead, several police cars—and a county SUV—parked on the side of the road, lights flashing. He’s never going to get past all those cops. It just isn’t going to happen. He should have . . . well, should have what? In another half hour cops will be all over Sierra Blanca. News of what happened here will move through town like brushfire. He’s lived in a small town all his life and knows how quickly news spreads. He has to get away from here as fast as possible, and there is only one place for him to go. There is nobody he can count on but his big brother.

As he drives onto the interstate he sees the right lane is completely blocked off by flares and traffic is backed up several cars as sheriff’s deputies wave cars through one by one.

After everything that’s happened, this is where it ends; in some spit-smear of a town in West Texas with the sun beating down on him. He puts on his turn signal and merges into the left lane. He reaches into his shirt pocket and pulls out a roll of antacids and thumbs one into his mouth and chews it.

There are five cars in front of him. Deputies stop each car and ask questions before allowing them through.

This is where it ends.

 

 

 

Henry looks in the rearview mirror as he drives away from the scene of his most recent crime. His chest feels tight, but the further he gets from it, the smaller the scene appears in his rearview mirror, the less his heart seems squeezed. He can barely believe he made it through.

‘Where you headed?’

‘My brother’s place in California.’

‘What for?’

‘Pick up a car he don’t want no more.’

‘Brought the whole family?’

‘Why not? You don’t get to go to California every day.’

‘Where you traveling from?’

‘Houston.’

‘You live in Houston?’

‘If you wanna call it living.’

‘What kinda car?’

‘Fifty-six Buick Special. Gonna restore it.’

‘Hobby of yours?’

‘Man needs a hobby.’

‘All right, go on.’

‘Thank ya.’

A smiling salute, and that was it. He was sure they’d ask him for identification. But maybe nobody with authority has arrived yet. Maybe they were just looking for suspicious behavior and if everything seemed cool they’d move on to the next. Doesn’t matter.

He slipped through.

 

 

 

The gray road stretches out before them. The cab is silent but for the rattling of the truck itself. Beatrice looks out the window while Sarah leans against her, asleep. Henry glances over trying to read her expression in the reflection on the glass, but it is blank. Her eyes dull, her mouth hanging open slightly. He does not like the silence between them. He is doing all of this for her and he refuses to lose her to it.

‘What are you thinking, Bee?’

‘Nothing.’ She does not even glance toward him when she speaks the word, simply continues to stare out at the emptiness.

‘Nothing?’

‘Nothing.’

‘You must be thinking something.’

No response.

He licks his lips. ‘You know I love you, right, Bee?’

‘Okay.’

‘I know some of the stuff that’s happened last two days upset you.’

‘It didn’t happen. You done it.’

‘I had to do it. I did it for you.’

She turns now and there are tears in her eyes. ‘Well, you shouldn’t’ve.’

‘But, Bee—’

She cuts him off with the silent but vehement shaking of her head. Tears roll down her cheeks. ‘You shouldn’t’ve.’

‘There was no choice, Bee.’

‘There’s always a choice.’

‘Do you want to go to prison, Bee?’

She wipes at her eyes. ‘What would I go to prison for?’ ‘What do you think?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Sarah. She’s why we had to leave Bulls Mouth. She’s why we’re on the road now. She’s why we needed to get rid of our truck. Why Flint and his woman had to die. Don’t you act like you don’t know what’s going on, and don’t you act like it’s got nothing to do with you. That ain’t fair and you know it.’

‘Henry, I—’

‘You know what happened to the other Sarahs, Bee. You know what we done. We
both
done it. I did what I had to do to make you happy, but you let me. You knew and you wanted it so I done it. Don’t act like you wasn’t a part of all this.’

‘But . . . I needed—’

Henry nods. ‘I know it,’ he says. ‘That’s why I done it.’ ‘But what you done to that nice couple and to that cop was—’

‘Was what I had to do to get us out of a tight spot Sarah got us into.’

‘You . . . you killed—’

‘I did what I had to to keep our family together.’

Bee sniffles and sits silent a long moment. She licks her lips. Then she looks at him with wide hopeful eyes. ‘You
had
to?’

Henry nods. ‘I couldn’t let nobody tear our family apart, could I?’

‘They wanted to take Sarah away?’

‘That’s right. We couldn’t let them do that.’

‘Family’s the most important thing there is.’

‘It is.’

‘You didn’t really want to stomp on Sarah last night?’

‘I was just mad, Bee. I would never hurt Sarah. Not on purpose.’

‘Because she’s family.’

‘That’s right.’

‘And family’s the most important thing there is.’

He nods.

‘I love you too, Henry.’

‘I know it,’ Henry says. ‘Now wipe your eyes. I hate to see you cry.’

Ian stands motionless under the hot spray of the shower. His eyes are closed and all he can see is that which exists within his mind and his mind for the moment is empty. These moments are rare and he holds on to them as long as possible, which is never long. As soon as a part of his mind becomes aware of the silence within, it is no longer silent.

The catheter twists out of his chest just below and to the right of his pectoral muscle, and then curls down to the drainage system sitting on the floor just outside the bathtub in which he is standing. It is still in the satchel. He saw no reason to remove it. His body is turned slightly to the right so the shower water does not hit the wounds in his chest.

He opens his eyes and grabs a small bar of single-use soap from the window sill where it was resting. He rips the paper from it and wets it and washes himself.

Outside, through the window, he can see the sun sinking into the ground. A wind blows a swirl of dust across the lot, toward the restaurant in front of which his car is parked. He left it there before coming to his motel room, which is not a motel room at all, but half a single-wide mobile home. Where there should be a hallway leading to the back half there is only a slab of unpainted dry wall. His room consists of what would normally be the kitchen and living room, though the kitchen has been converted into a bathroom and the living room into a bedroom. The bedroom consists of small bed, a chest of drawers, a mirror, and a table on which rests a small TV. An ancient fan wobbles in a ceiling decorated by fat black flies, its five blades cutting through the hot air without cooling it in the least.

Ian rinses and shuts off the water.

He pushes the plastic shower curtain aside and steps from the tub, slipping on the linoleum floor and having to catch himself on the counter.

Something in his back tears as he reaches out to catch himself and he curses through gritted teeth, goddamn it, and closes his eyes in pain. Tears stream down his face. After a moment he opens his eyes. The pain begins to recede. It is still there, and severe, but it becomes almost tolerable. He grabs a towel from the counter and dries himself off. Arms and legs and back and fa—

The towel is covered in blood.

There are several drops of it on the linoleum floor. And now he can feel it running down his back. He picks up the satchel from the floor by the tub and walks naked to the living room where a mirror sits upon the chest of drawers. He turns around and looks at himself over his shoulder. Several of the stitches have been torn from the wound in his back—which is larger than he would have guessed, the bullet having taken its pound of flesh with it as it left—and blood is bubbling from it, frothy and seemingly thick as honey.

‘Shit.’

He stands motionless for a long time as blood drips to the carpet, and then he walks to the phone and dials the manager’s office.

‘Motel/Food.’

‘Monica?’

‘This is Betsy.’

‘Can I talk to Monica?’

‘I’m sure I can help you, hon.’

‘I’d like Monica.’

‘Right. Hold on.’

The sound of the phone being set on the counter.

‘Mon, I think it’s the guy just checked in.’

A long emptiness. Then: ‘Hello?’

‘Monica.’

‘Hey. Did you change your mind? I was hoping you would.’

‘Not exactly,’ he says. ‘Do you have a first-aid kit?’

 

 

 

Ian walks to his duffel bag, which is sitting on the bed, unzips it, and pulls out a pair of boxer shorts. He slips into them.

A knock at the door.

He walks to it and pulls it open. On the other side stands Monica with a white metal first-aid kit hanging from her fist. For a long time she is silent, and he can only imagine what he looks like. Middle-aged and overweight with thinning blond hair and wearing nothing but a pair of boxer shorts, a plastic tube twisting out of his chest and into a black satchel which he is holding by the handle like a door-to-door salesman.

‘Hi,’ he says.

‘Jesus,’ she says. ‘What—what happened?’

‘I was shot.’

‘With a gun?’

‘With a gun.’

‘You should go to the hospital.’

Ian shakes his head.

‘I’ve already been,’ he says, and holds up the satchel. ‘That’s where I got this. I just had an accident, is all.’

‘What happened?’

Ian turns around to show her his back. He looks over his shoulder at her. She is grimacing, but she does not look away. In fact, she leans forward, examining the wound.

‘You sure you don’t need to go back to the hospital?’

‘It’s not as bad as it looks.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘I can probably bandage it myself if you just—’

‘Don’t be dumb.’

‘What?’

‘It’s in the middle of your back. Unless your elbows bend the wrong way, you’re gonna need help.’

Ian stands silent for a long moment, then steps aside to let her in.

 

 

 

He lies on his stomach on the mattress and Monica straddles him. The first-aid kit sits open beside her. He cannot see what she is doing, but he can feel and hear her. He can feel the soft curves of her backside against the backs of his legs. He can hear her tearing the paper from something. He can feel her gently wiping the blood away from the wound with a pad of gauze.

‘You’re right,’ she says.

‘What?’

‘It’s not as bad as it looks. Only a few stitches tore out.’

He has barely felt a woman’s touch in two years, not since he went drinking at O’Connell’s and picked up one of the coeds from Bulls Mouth City College, and that was an angry drunken fuck, nothing like the gentleness he feels now from Monica. He had forgotten that this kind of gentleness existed.

After she wipes the area around the wound, he feels her pour something onto it and into it. It stings and he sucks in air in a hiss.

‘Sorry.’

‘It’s okay.’

She wipes at it again, and then lays something over it. She does it with gentleness, a soft touch that makes the pain feel almost pleasurable. Then she pulls something else from the first-aid kit, and he hears a clinking sound, then something like tearing. Medical tape being unspooled and torn away. She tapes a pad of gauze onto his back. After another minute, she tosses everything into the first-aid kit and latches it closed.

‘All done.’

‘Maybe you could stay a while longer.’

‘You’re in no shape for that.’

‘I know. That’s not what I want.’

‘What do you want?’

 

 

 

He lies on his back in bed and watches her take off her clothes. She does it slowly, first her T-shirt, and then her bra. She unbuttons her skirt and lets it drop to her feet. She is wearing a pair of utilitarian white panties. She puts her thumbs into the waistband and pushes them down. She has a thick thatch of reddish-brown pubic hair. The bones in her hips are visible. Her breasts are small and her nipples light pink, ghosts of nipples. There is a mole on her left breast. She stands there completely naked before him, looking at his face.