The Odds (8 page)

“They already closed down the kitchen. They probably still have some fries, though. I’ll see.”

Still no Nick. A man comes up next to her and starts a conversation with, “Hard to talk in here, isn’t it?” He wears his hair in a long ponytail and tattoos appear everywhere his skin is visible.

Cacophony is good for something. “Very hard,” she calls back.

When she looks at her watch, the man asks, “Waiting for someone?”

“Kind of. Yeah.” The saxophone is whimpering now, very nice, very nice.

“Let me buy you a drink.”

“Thank you, but I’m going to pace myself for now.”

The bass player is having his say—which makes the room vibrate with a low almost nasal thrumming. Next in rotation, the drummer sends the tables to a quiver.

Something, she’s not sure what, maybe just imagining Christie imagining her here, makes her think of him. What is he doing? Up watching TV, sleeping, beating down nausea? Tomorrow she’ll call early to check on him.

The fries arrive. Soggy, salty, and somehow satisfying. A coda later, the music quiets down to a low background pulse, a signal, a prelude to the bass player coming forward to announce a break. His amplified voice is a bit of a shock; the piano player has started up doing an underlining riff while the bass player introduces the members of the combo. A couple of people cheer. One guy bangs at his table, and suddenly, it’s calm again.

“Now we can talk,” the man says. Suddenly she wonders if Nick has sent the guy. She looks up to the front of the bar long enough to see Potocki wink at her.

“What do you do?”

“Police. Homicide.”

The man’s eyes glaze. “Not really?”

“Yes. Truly.” She orders another drink and gets no argument when she pays for it herself.

The man drifts away.

The next set lasts half an hour, a little more. She has a third drink. By the time it’s done, she is pretty sure Nick isn’t going to show. Potocki must be sure, too, for he’s come up to her. “Sorry I’m late,” he says, winking again. “Buy you a drink?”

“This was my third.”

“When you’re ready.”

“I was trying to nurse it so I could concentrate and … and speak if he came.” She looks at her watch. “What the hell, huh?”

“That’s what I say. You got stood up.”

“I guess I did.”

“Well, you snagged a biker anyway.”

“And I wasn’t even trying. That’s the way.”

“What drove him away?”

“I told him what I do. Same thing I did with Nick Banks.” She groaned. “I blew the charming part, I guess.”

“Don’t think about it.”

“Right. So. Maybe Farber won’t want us. And wouldn’t that be nice. We could be who we are. Do what we do.”

Potocki buys her her fourth drink, which makes its way quickly into her bloodstream, making her feel reckless. “You have to move tomorrow morning,” she says.

“Some things. A few things.”

“I’ll help you. Like I said.”

“If you’re up to it tomorrow. See how you feel.”

The music turns mellower in the set that begins close to one o’clock. When she gets up to go to the john, Potocki takes her elbow to steer her the first couple of feet. She falls back into him and he kisses her brow before sending her on her way.

The whiskey floats her toward the sink in the ladies’ room. Makeup is faded, hair needs a fluffing. What a mess. She applies a little lipstick, tries to make the “pieces” of her hair take the right, jaunty shapes.

She plucked four grays this morning. They’re coming in faster than she can pull them. She has two distinct laugh lines at each eye. And not enough laughs to account for them. Wishes: taller, thinner thighs, lose ten pounds so that
all
clothing will look great—it does on sylphs, why is that? Five-five and curvy in a world that values tall and skinny.

She gives herself a hard look in the mirror. I’m getting old, she reminds herself. I’m fucked up. Potocki is my partner.

   SATURDAY MORNING JOEL headed up the hill toward the playground where Russell and Ryan played basketball. On the way up the hill, he passed the house he knew Mac and Zero crashed in. His heart pounded adrenaline anger up to his head when he thought of the way Mac treated him. Zero was nicer. Tried to be.

He didn’t really believe Zero would come to the house to meet him. But he couldn’t help himself. He slipped into the backyard anyway and found the door not quite in place. Ha. It meant they were in there early. Or maybe Zero was.

The ground was wet from Thursday and yesterday. There were flies everywhere even though the weather had cleared.

He let himself in.

Flies, a smell, yes, it smelled different. They were up to something.

He drew in a deep breath and climbed the stairs. They were up there. He could sense breathing. Dirt got on his pants from the banister that was torn down and just hanging there. Meg would kill him. It meant he either had to wear dirty pants to school next week or …

Joel surfaced on the top floor, heading toward the little bit of light.

At first he couldn’t take in what he was seeing. But he knew he was in the middle of something bad.

There was one man to his right, almost behind him now as he lurched forward. The man was lying against the wall with a lot of something all around him. Tar. Blood. He knew it was blood. He could hardly take in that sight because a second man, five feet in front of him, to his left, lying curled up, held a gun on him. The man didn’t move and his eyes seemed half closed, but still Joel felt pinned to the spot. He saw the clenched jaw. He saw the glittering eyes. Suddenly the man grunted and made a terrible face.

“I … was looking for my friends,” Joel said. His voice went high, embarrassing him. “Please don’t—?”

The man jumped and shifted forward, seemed to relax the gun downward. Was that a trick? “Wait. Wait. Who’s coming here, did you say?”

Joel didn’t want to say their names. He shook his head, tried to break the gaze of the man. He wanted to back away, but he didn’t know how long it would take to aim the gun again or how far back the stairway was. Now he could see there was a lot of blood around the dead man. And that the man who held the gun was curled awkwardly over his leg and there was blood there, too.

“Come here.”

“No.” He looked around him. He wanted to run, but not—not slipping in the blood.

“You have to or I’ll—”

He came a couple of steps closer.

“You’re just a kid.” In one move, the man leaned forward and grabbed his leg. He heard the gun bump against the floor and the man made a terrible sound as Joel toppled and fell forward. Judo, martial arts. There were answers to how to get away. He tried to remember something—kicking under the chin, something. He fell across the man’s body and onto the other side of it. The man shouted again, a terrible sound, but the vise-hands didn’t let up squeezing his leg.

“Let me go.” Everything in him flailed—arms and legs, head, torso.

“Oh, man. Stop. Fuck. Stop.”

He kept kicking. The man screamed and let go. Joel managed to get up on one knee, but he couldn’t right himself and the sounds the man made frightened him and pretty soon the man grabbed and he was down again.

Joel’s shoulder hurt. He was not breathing right. He gulped for air from his lying-down position.

“Listen. I been in this place maybe twelve hours. What time is it?”

“Like ten thirty.”

“I’m not going to make it out of here without help. Listen to me.”

“Let me go. I’ll go get you help.” Joel began to get up slowly, an inch at a time so as not to scare the man. He could see the gun was on the floor, two feet away.

“No police. No ambulance or anything like that.”

Joel went still, he didn’t mean to, but he did and the man felt it.

“No police. You can’t tell anybody. You understand?” He reached over and slid the gun closer as he asked, “Is anyone else with you?”

“No.” Joel wished he had said yes.

“What day is this?” the man asked.

“Saturday.”

“Okay, under twelve hours then. I need you to listen to me.”

Joel wondered if he ran whether the man would shoot him in the back like a coward.

“I can’t stay here. I’m going to need to move. And I can’t walk. Are you listening? I need water real bad. And a bandage and alcohol. My leg’s torn up and I can’t walk. But if I could get to my car … I’m going to need food, too. You’re the only one can help me get out of here.”

“I don’t care. You killed that guy.”

“Listen to me. You don’t know what happened here. It isn’t what you think. The thing is, listen, you tell the police and I know some people would kill you and your family on the way to killing me, that’s how they are. If you don’t believe me, it’s going to be bad for both of us. My leg is shot.” The man looked straight at him, then seemed to collapse. “I can’t move. That’s what I’m saying.”

“You want me to look at it?”

“You know what a bullet hole looks like?”

“No. Yeah, I do, from pictures.” Joel looked toward the leg. He wanted to see it. He wanted to be able to look at anything.

“Go on, then, take a look.” The man’s voice was raspy, almost a whisper, and the more he talked, the more Joel got used to his voice and the less scared he was. “You aren’t afraid of things, huh?”

He was. He looked around behind him to see if the other man moved at all.

“One shot and it killed him. I was lucky. He got me once and I’m still here.”

Joel looked toward the other guy for a few more seconds. Not a twitch.

“He’s dead. For sure,” the man said.

Joel nodded.

“I need you to reach in my pocket. Go on. I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t even want to hold you down, but you’re a kicker. Pull out my wallet.”

Joel did this gingerly. He thought his own right leg might never move again and he now had blood as well as dirt on his clothes. His hand brushed the plaid hunting shirt the man wore and it reminded him of something good. His father. Maybe that’s what broke him down. He stopped fighting and tried not to cry while he waited for directions.

“Open it up. Take out a twenty.”

Joel did this. He saw another twenty in there and maybe more behind it, but he took only the one. It’s what he’d come in for after all, money. Got it one way if not the other.

“That’s for peroxide, bandage, water, food maybe, and some kind of stick to wrap my leg. But hurry.”

Water was the most important thing, Joel knew, the crucial thing, but if he said it, the man might take the money away.

“Good boy. Good boy. I’ll take anything. Peroxide, alcohol. Whiskey would be a treat. Anything you can find in the way of yardsticks, rulers, rags, bring them. I have to splint my leg and figure out how to walk. You’re going to do this for me?”

He felt now how hot the man’s hands were as, sweating and shaking, the man reached out to retrieve his wallet.

He looked back to the leg, wondering how the bullet went in.

“Anybody can see it’s … it’s bad,” the man said.

Close up, the bullet hole was a spirally burn right through the man’s jeans. And the shape of the lower leg was funny looking, but maybe it was just the angle the man was in and the blood on the pants. No. It was a compound fracture, that’s what they called it.

“You have to let me call an ambulance.”

“No. If you believe in anything, no. They’ll kill me.”

“The doctors?”

“Other people. I’m telling you, don’t call. You’d be killing me. Just get me what I need.”

“Okay.”

The man let him go.

   MEG WAS CLEANING THE kitchen when she heard Joel come into the house. She was planning a family meeting to be held at the kitchen table during lunch when she served the macaroni again. The food, if they ate small amounts, would get them to Sunday noon. The four of them had decisions to make. “Did you play basketball?” she called after him.

“Some. Ryan didn’t show. I went to Russell’s house for a while.”

She started up the steps and saw him turning the corner. “Did they offer you food?”

“No. I was just using his computer a while.”

“Are you changing clothes again?” she called out.

“Putting old clothes on,” Joel called back.

“Should have done that to begin with.” She never knew what Joel was going to do, never could guess. “You going out again?”

His voice was muffled, but she heard, “I don’t know.” His answer was a surprise. He might be getting sick. Something was off. She knew for sure something was off when she heard his footsteps on the way to the basement. She flicked on the little radio that sat on the kitchen windowsill. Some talk program was on, and Laurie, who was sitting at the kitchen table said, “Not that. I want music,” but Meg didn’t feel like working the radio to get another station in clearly. Even with the radio talk, she could make out the sound of water going through the pipes. Joel in the basement.

Laurie caught her eye. “Again?” she asked. “With what?”

“I don’t know.”

The next surprise was that Joel slipped into their living room and put on the TV. It was nice outside today. He had an hour before lunch to be out in the sunshine. Meg went in and looked at him. “Did you throw up on your clothes or something?”

“Yeah.”

She felt his head. “I can’t tell if you have a fever or not.” After that she went into the kitchen and poured water into the tallest glass they owned. “Here. Drink this. All of it.”

“Okay.”

“Best medicine in the world.”

“Yeah, I
know
that. Do we have rubbing alcohol?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Peroxide?”

“Maybe some, I don’t know. Why? That’s for cuts. Do you have a cut?”

“Nope.”

“Why are you asking all this?”

“Ryan wanted it for something. School project or something.”

“Tell him we have nothing to spare. He’s a freeloader. Lunch is at twelve thirty. We’re having a meeting. Serious meeting.”

He made a
huh
sound that signified he’d heard.

“Do you have anywhere to get soap? If you could borrow some from Russell, you could try car washes again. I don’t think bar soap would do it.”