Writ of Execution (14 page)

Cruising the compact neighborhood, he noticed that the houses were neat, some of them; small, most of them; and messy, some of them. The same array of houses could be found in the homes and yards in his neighborhood in Mountain View, in fact. Unlike his neighborhood, however, people were not piled on top of each other into condos, blocking the desert sunset. Low frame houses, mostly one story with porches, and a few garages dotted the sparse landscape.

Kids riding around on bikes and trikes pulled over to the side of the street to watch him pass. He felt out of place, although not necessarily unwelcome. A few smiles greeted him, and a few glares. Just like home, he thought.

He found the right number, pulled his car in front of a small cabin that looked more like someplace in Tahoe than the other houses, and got out. He walked up a dusty path to the door and knocked.

No answer.

He knocked again. Again, no one came.

He circled the house, peering into the windows, but they were shaded. Still, through one he saw the yellow of a lamp burning. “Joya?” he called. “It’s me, Kenny!”

He heard footsteps. The back door opened.

“What do you want?”

Joya stood in the doorway, facing the sunset. She wore a red tank top that Kenny couldn’t take his eyes off, and a pair of jeans-shorts that began somewhere below her exposed navel. She stood very still. Only her hair moved, shivering in a hot gust of wind off the mountains.

Kenny searched for his voice. She wasn’t wearing a bra. She made a face, but he didn’t think she minded him looking at her.

“Well?”

“I need to talk to you.” He came around to the back to face her. “Can I come in?”

“No.”

“It’s an emergency.”

She looked behind her furtively.

So she had someone inside waiting for her. Well, of course she did, a beauty like her! He was horribly disappointed.

Her voice softened. “What’s the problem, Kenny?” He really felt exposed out here. A few children had come alongside the house and were now amusing themselves by watching him. “It’s private.”

Again, the sidelong glance behind. “Okay,” she said. “But this is a bad time. You can’t stay but a minute.”

He came into a kitchen about ten feet by six feet painted a deep azure with print curtains at the window. Old white-and-black linoleum tiles on the floor, eight inches square. He saw plants everywhere. She had been potting a plant on the counter.

“Sit,” she said, reaching into the refrigerator. “Lemonade okay?”

He nodded, and sat at the table. While she rinsed her hands in the sink, then added ice to two glasses, he tried to see past her into the hallway beyond, but it was getting late and any rooms were shaded, unlit. The only light came from a stained-glass lamp that hung over the table. He could hear no other person around. He guessed that a single bath, two small bedrooms, and a living room pretty much completed the rest of the house. The boyfriend could be anywhere, sprawled in front of the stereo with headphones on; asleep, post–terrific sex on her sheets . . . it hurt to think about it.

She put two full glasses on the table and sat down, again blocking his view into the hall.

“Someone tried to kill me today,” he said.

“Yeah, sure.”

“It’s the truth!” He told her about the car in the alley.

“Everyone almost gets hit by a car every day, Kenny! Geez, you’re jumpy.”

Then he told her about the man with the gun that looked like his Glock running after him, but before he could finish, she leaped out of her chair, upsetting it. “Get out of here. Now.”

When he didn’t move, she grabbed him by the arm and pulled until he stood, too, then tried to push him toward the door.

“Wait,” he said. “Just a second!” She kept pushing until he was inches from being completely ousted. “Ouch, Joya. Stop! What’s that sound?”

It was loud and it was lusty. Kenny knew that sound.

“What’s going on?” Kenny said.

At the sound of the cry, Joya had stopped pushing and listened, obviously vacillating between her immediate problem of getting him out the door and placating what was beginning to sound like an enraged animal.

“You woke him up,” she said. “Damn.” Apparently giving up on her plan to remove Kenny for the moment, she left the room. She returned a few seconds later with a big boy baby on her shoulder, wrapped in a yellow blanket.

“He’s hungry,” Kenny said, after one look at a scowl that took up most of the baby’s face. He was elated. No boyfriend, she had just been baby-sitting somebody’s kid. “Loudmouth,” he said with a laugh.

Joya went to the microwave and pulled a bottle out. The baby settled down into her lap. He looked almost big enough to brawl, with lots of fuzzy black hair and large brown eyes which regarded Kenny calmly now that he was sucking away. The eyes looked familiar.

“He’s yours!” Kenny said, shocked.

Joya stroked the baby’s hair with her free hand. “Kenny, listen to me. You have to promise me you won’t tell anyone.”

“I won’t.”

“Remember that guy I told you was after me?”

“Yes.”

“Atchison Potter. He’s the grandfather. And if he knows this little guy exists, he’ll take him away from me. I won’t let that happen. I’ll die first.”

“Why does he hate you?”

“He thinks I killed his son.”

“Wow! Did you?”

Joya looked like he’d stepped on her foot, so he said, “Sorry.”

“You think I would do something like that?” she said.

“I don’t know. You surprised me, the way you brought it up, Joya.”

“Call me Jessie.”

“Okay.” Jessie. He liked it.

She fed the baby for a few minutes while the sun finished setting behind the mountains outside the house and Kenny finished his lemonade. He didn’t really want to go, had no place to go in fact, and he wondered what he was supposed to do now.

The child, after a heavy burp, fell asleep on her shoulder. She left and put him back to bed.

“How old is he?”

“Gabe is nine months.”

“He’s big. I’m going to estimate nineteen pounds.”

“You’re right,” Jessie said, surprised. “You’re a walking computer. I think I’ll call you Rain Man.”

“But Rain Man won when he gambled,” Kenny said, “unlike me. How did you end up here?”

“I left Hawaii after my husband died. Last April. I was in the Marine Corps.”

“Huh,” Kenny said, thinking.

“Right. Dan never saw Gabe. He would have loved Gabe so much.”

“How did Dan die?”

“He drowned.”

She sounded angry. Kenny had noticed this about her. She got angry when he would have been blue. He found it unsettling.

“Whoa. I had no idea,” he said. He had—face it, he had envied Jessie her win. But she had a baby, and she had suffered a lot. Kenny kicked himself for his selfishness.

“What about this place?” He motioned with one hand.

“I live here. My auntie Anita lives in the house connected to this place. Look. You have to go. I can’t have Gabe in danger because of some screwball business deal in your past.”

“Yeah. Guess I’ll be going. I’ll call you when I know what I’m doing.”

“Call Nina.”

“Okay. Good luck.” She seemed to think he had just come to say good-bye. Her lips separated and she came close and got up on her toes. He felt the soft lips press on his cheek. Her body brushed against him, tall and strong. “Thanks,” she said. “Even if it doesn’t work out.” His hands held her at the waist.

He kept holding her, his heart reeling.

“Well, get moving.” She took his hands away and opened the door. Her words were harsh, but she was smiling.

“I hate to tell you this,” Kenny said. “Especially with the baby. But this has to involve you. I don’t have any enemies, or at least they can’t find me at the moment.”

“You’re a white-collar crook, aren’t you?” Jessie said.

“On the run, like me.”

“No! I’m an entrepreneur!”

Her face hardened. “What’s going on? Why did you come here anyway? You say someone tried to kill you, and you come here. I have enough problems.”

“It’s got to be the jackpot, Jessie. Someone wants the money.”

“Wait. Could it be . . . it might be Mr. Potter.” She pulled him back inside and closed the curtains and turned on the light. “Are you sure no one followed you?”

“There was nobody on that road with me. Not one car. Could it really be your father-in-law?”

“I don’t know!” she cried. “What did the paper say? Did it have a picture of you, too?”

Kenny nodded. “I think so. To the world, we’re married, aren’t we? Maybe that made him mad.” He sat back, arms folded. She shouldn’t forget that. Maybe she was responsible for this attempt on his life after all. She would be a widow twice over at twenty-one if that happened. An unlucky sort of woman, but this made her poignant, and the baby was beautiful. She was soft with womanhood. He had felt her lips. She couldn’t hide her essential nature from Kenny anymore.

I am in love, he thought giddily.

She said, “Stay here,” and she went into the back room. He heard a suitcase clicking closed. The light in the kitchen was dazzling. He peeked through the curtain. Deep twilight out there, the shouts of kids.

She came back in carrying a Portacrib and a suitcase. “Maybe you could help me load up,” she said. “I intend to stay alive and kicking until that check clears. I’ve gone through a lot for it. Gabe needs it.”

“Rapid advancement toward profitability,” Kenny murmured.

“What?”

“It’s just a phrase that has stuck with me. We’re rapidly advancing that way, wouldn’t you say?”

“Not fast enough for me.”

“Jessie. I’ve been wondering. You don’t have to tell me, but the money isn’t just something you need to raise Gabe, is it? You have something in mind.”

“Maybe I do.”

“What?”

“I don’t want to talk about that.”

“Why not?”

“I—don’t think you’d understand.”

“Try me.”

“Some other time.”

“I need it too. That money is going to help me so much, Jessie. You have no idea how close I came to . . .” He stopped, unwilling to go into that right now. He didn’t want to be questioned on the subject. He reserved the right to reopen that path in the future, after he paid his parents back.

“If we can just get it.”

She raised her shoulders. “We have a deal. You’ll get your money if and when I get it. Meanwhile, Kenny, you do have to go. Whoever it was. And I don’t want you coming back, either.”

“We could go together.”

“I’m sorry,” Jessie said. “I wish I could trust you. But I don’t know you, so how can I? You understand? I can’t put my baby’s life in your hands.”

“You can trust me,” Kenny whispered. “But I understand. You know, Jessie, I . . .” but she shook her head.

They both spotted the silver car parked down the street at the same time. He recognized the pattern of the grille, but it was too far away to get the numbers on the plate.

He slammed the door shut. “He’s out there! The guy who attacked me! Get the baby!”

But Jessie was already in Gabe’s room. Within seconds, she came out again on her stomach and wiggled toward him, holding the baby gently above the floor. “Get down,” she said. “If he has the weapon . . .”

Kenny squatted down on the floor. Jessie handed him Gabe to hold, pushed him and the baby under a heavy oak table, and shimmied over to a locked gun cabinet against the back wall. She took a key ring out of her pocket, opened a knife on the ring, and popped the cabinet.

“What are you doing?” Kenny whispered, trying to rock the baby, frightened. Were there footsteps out there in that desert night, footsteps that would take them all away from this life he was so uncertain about?

Jessie didn’t answer. Keeping low, she began a methodical search of the room, cursing quietly to herself. “They’ve got to keep shells for these guns here somewhere,” she whispered back. “But where?”

“Try the freezer,” Kenny hissed. “That’s where my dad keeps his.” They had found the handgun and the hidden bullets when he was about twelve and Tan-Mo was ten. They had loaded the gun, shooting until it was empty into a pie tin hammered to a tree in the backyard and marked like a target. Their father had never known.

Jessie scooted down the hallway and out of sight.

Kenny heard the crickets singing in rhythm outside, indifferent to the looming horror that lurked somewhere out there among them.

He heard something, the garbage can going over.

She flew back into the room, loading an old, long hunting rifle.

Making her way to the front window, she kneeled by it. She pushed a wooden blind slowly to one side with the rifle barrel and looked outside.

“What do you see?”

“One body. Stay down!” She began crawling on her stomach from window to window, checking. “It’s too dark.”

They waited. Gabe, apparently exhausted from his initial brutal wake-up call, had fallen asleep again.

“How is he?”

“Fine.”

They heard an unmistakable sound on the porch. The Glock’s safety catch.

Jessie yelled, “I’m armed, sucker! I’ll shoot!” She cocked the rifle. In the stillness it made a very definite noise too.

Wild racketing, as whoever had made it up to the porch jumped off it again. Whoever was out there had not expected them to mount a defense. They listened tensely.

“This is our chance. We’ve got to leave!” Kenny said. “We’ve got to get out of here! This place is a trap. We can be surrounded. . . .”

“Don’t get hysterical. We’re safe here.”

“He could set the house on fire!”

“He won’t get close enough. I’ve got us covered. We’re staying.” She pulled one of the windows open just wide enough for the barrel, and shot at the sky. “That’s for scaring me, you turkey!” she yelled to the door. They heard alarmed voices, neighbors maybe. Someone would be calling for help.

“Don’t kill anyone,” Kenny said. “Please don’t. It’s very bad karma to kill someone. Are those kids still out there by the fence?”

“No. The kids around here are smart enough to run when they hear gunfire! Now, shut up, Kenny. And keep Gabe safe or I’ll kill you, too.”