Kimberly was getting further away from anything concentric. She was not sure this was going to help her and yet, she was being pulled in, it was fascinating. “Really?” was all that came out.
“Yeah, but here’s the crazy part, he looked the same,” Chris said, it appeared as though he had decided to trust her, for no reason other than something he saw in her eyes. She thought she saw desperation in his. Perhaps that was it.
Kimberly found her best detective face and put it on. “So, he looked good, huh, for his age?”
“No, Special Agent Watson, he looked good for eighteen.”
Kimberly didn’t know what that meant, or how it fit into her case, but it increased her need to go see Vale. “Why do you think that is?” she asked.
“He took the apple from the snake, like Eve.” The sad song of a bird sounded nearby when a break in the traffic created a quiet rarely heard in this city.
She thought perhaps the time had come for her to fill him in on exactly what it was she was investigating. “Mr. Carter, would you like to get some dinner? I think we have a lot to talk about and I have something I’d like to show you.”
* * * * *
He had thought often of how he would react if this day ever happened, if some official showed up with questions about it, about Jimmy, about the Cleaner, about It. He had never decided how he would handle that, and the indecision was ruling his responses to this woman. He reasoned that she couldn’t hurt him any, couldn’t disrupt his plans unless he divulged them, and listening was not talking. He watched her watch him, she was patient, probing but not pushing. She was good. “I could eat,” he finally said, and she smiled.
Chapter XVII
It was just past five in the afternoon, when Kimberly Watson put down the cheeseburger and licked her fingers, one at a time. Many men would have been at least mildly aroused watching her, but for Chris, it was more of a clinical observation. He was greatly interested in learning what made her tick. He was facing a challenge of biblical proportion and was not fool enough to think he couldn’t use an ally if that’s what she turned out to be. Not that he was blind to the sexuality seeping from her pores. It didn’t seem to be a thing she was trying to do, it just kind of came with her, it was part of her: the way she moved, the way she talked, the way she ate. It was a sweat-like secretion. But that wasn’t important, not now.
* * * * *
“God, these are the best,” she said, picking up a paper napkin and wiping her mouth after she had licked the juice from her fingers and then her lips. “People swear by In-N-Out in California, but I’ll take a Jackson Hole burger from Astoria Blvd. any day.” The burger joint had been a convenient stop in their Uber car, on the way there.
“Fries are pretty good too,” Chris added, but Kim thought he was just making conversation, the fries were the last thing this guy wanted to talk about. He leaned back in the red leather chair and stared vacantly out the window of Kim’s room at the Marriott. There was nothing she could read on his face, it was like he wasn’t really there but instead, had traveled somewhere else in his mind.
Special agent Watson stuffed the last oversized bite into her mouth and closed her eyes in a reverie that was akin to a sexual climax. “I could almost do that again,” she said with her eyes still closed. She opened them to see Chris push his chair back from the small table and walk to the window. He was a handsome man, she thought, in a rugged, mountain man kind of way. His lean body was only hinted at beneath the baggy clothes. She could imagine the parts she couldn’t see, based on the tan skin and tight muscles of his forearms, biceps, and calves. “Would you like to… take a shower or anything, I mean as long as you’re here?” She wondered, as the words were escaping her mouth, if her repressed sexual desire had prompted that comment and she pictured him emerging from the bathroom with his wet hair and a towel wrapped around his waist.
Chris looked back over his shoulder at her, met her gaze and then turned it back out the window toward the jets she could see taxiing on the runway across the Grand Central Parkway in LaGuardia. “I’d like to continue our conversation if you don’t mind,” he said, in a virtual rejection that popped the bubble housing the image conjured up in Kim’s mind.
“Yes, of course,” she said, her voice harder and more official now. She stood up and walked to a Rubbermaid container that sat on the floor beside the bed. She sat on the bed and couldn’t help a glance back at Chris, as she opened the top and reached in. She withdrew a shoebox, Nike orange, and walked it over to Chris.
* * * * *
The box looked familiar to him, something from his childhood, the way the lid was creased on one corner and the label was peeling on the side; 2506 NIKE AIR PEGASUS, it said. He could almost see the shoes as he pulled them out of the box that first time; so very long ago. Chris sat back in the red chair, opened the top, and the memories came flooding in. The smell of the box was the inside of Jimmy’s old Firebird, it was damp with just a hint of pine from the tree-shaped air fresheners that used to hang there. Sitting on top of the open box, its pages bent up to make it fit, was a 1989 Mobil Travel Guide.
Chris took the book out and ran his hand across the cover, feeling its glossy finish, still smooth and shiny all these years later. He lifted the book to his nose and breathed in, smelling the stories inside: the damp car, the earthy woods, a smoky campfire. He heard Jimmy say, “I would seriously trade my soul to be Axl, man.” And then he whispered aloud, “Careful what you wish for bro.” His eyes were closed, and he could almost see the two girls sitting on the side of the interstate: How’s that for scenery, he thought.
* * * * *
Kim watched him with a practiced eye, recording all his reactions in her mind, filing them there to pull out when she needed them. Her primal needs long forgotten, this was what she did. This was how she would break the case. This was a big moment. She stood and quietly walked from the bed back to the chair she had been eating on, careful not to distract Chris or impose on the moment.
* * * * *
When he opened his eyes, he could have been anywhere in the world, with anyone, but all he saw was the book. He turned to the Great Lakes section and looked at the map, his comments written there, and the red circle drawn around Rocky Arbor State Park. Then he saw on the map the original plan. Even after all these years and everything that had happened, his brain refused to let go of the alternate lives that might have been if they had taken Route 66. From there, it was a short jump to, “what if I had done the cleaners bidding?” a thought he touched briefly and then went far away from. A tear rolled out of the inside corner of his left eye and settled on his upper lip. He reached his tongue up and pulled it in.
“Chris? Are you okay?” Kimberly asked, leaning forward in her chair, and touching his knee, a look of compassion and sympathy on her face.
Chris turned his eyes up to her, and what he saw there, confirmed his earlier thought: Time to pull her in, he thought, without a hint of duplicity, it just was what it was. “No,” he said in a throaty whisper. “No, I’m not okay at all.”
What did you mean by “be careful what you wish for?” she asked.
“How much time have you got?” Chris said and folded his arms across his chest.
Part Two
In the beginning…
Chapter XVIII
1989
The blazing August sun was just appearing in the cloudless blue above the steel and concrete mountain range of the Chicago skyline; as it faded away in the rear-view mirror, Chris Carter and Jimmy Vale began the last sane day of their lives. The A/C in the car had stopped working the day before, and the wind rushed in through the open windows, threatening to sweep the black cowboy hat from Jimmy’s head. His long blond curls danced beneath it, as he peered through his no-name aviators at the baking black highway stretching out before them. Wearing acid-washed jeans and black Converse All-Stars, Jimmy regretted not packing shorts, and his red flannel shirt with the sleeves cut off was probably a mistake as well. The boys had spent the night
sleeping in the car, in the parking lot of a Dominick’s Supermarket. They had planned to make camp every night, but after deciding at the last minute to take I-90 West towards South Dakota instead of Historic Route 66 Southwest through Oklahoma, Texas, and Arizona, they’d had to change their plan.
Jimmy knew that Chris was a little pissed, having painstakingly plotted and marked every campsite they were planning to use in the Mobil Travel Guide his dad had given them, but Jimmy was much more impetuous, and he had convinced his friend that the Black Hills and Badlands sounded way cooler than corn fields and twisters. “I just have a feeling about it, you know? Like, maybe our destinies await us there,” Jimmy had said. After washing up and brushing their teeth in the supermarket restroom, they grabbed a couple of donuts and coffees in the stores’ bakery and hit the road.
“Not quite eggs and bacon like we could’ve made at the campsite,” Chris half-heartedly complained. He was more sensibly attired in white denim cut off shorts and a light blue tee shirt. There were no shoes or socks on his feet.
“I’ll trade food for adventure any day, my friend,” was Jimmy’s prompt reply.
“I knew you were gonna say some shit like that,” his friend answered. Chris wore his dark brown hair short, and his brown beard and mustache were close-cropped as well, giving him the appearance of an older, twenty-something man.
“Great minds…Hey, might as well check that guide for someplace to camp tonight though. Think we can make South Dakota?”
Jimmy glanced down to check the level of gas in the tank, “About half full,” he reported.
“Don’t know,” Chris said as he reached beneath his seat and fumbled for the map. “Could be a bit optimistic, although I don’t expect we’ll see much traffic up here anywhere. I read that Wisconsin was a beautiful state, maybe we shouldn’t just blow through it,” he added.
“You trying to get me to slow down?” Jimmy asked, it was not the first time Chris had tried to mitigate his heavy foot on the gas pedal. It was not uncommon for him to glance at the speedometer and see the needle hovering between the 80 and the 90. If they ever got pulled over in hick country like this, they’d be dead. There was a cooler of beer in the trunk, weed under the front seat, an assortment of pills in Jimmy’s pocket and a vial of coke in the glove compartment: Dead! Jimmy eased off the gas and watched the needle drop to just under 70.
“No, well maybe,” Chris said, “but it does look cool!”
“Fine, man, so look in that Mobil bible of yours and let me know what there is to see,” said Jimmy, and the car jumped forward as he pressed down a little harder on the gas pedal once again, forgetting all about his caution from thirty seconds ago.
The boys had left New York City just two days earlier, and the first one had gone pretty much as designed: Eight hours in the car including a few stops, and the planned tent site in Allegheny National Forest was set up long before nightfall. They were traveling in Jimmy’s 1982 slate grey Firebird which had been his Uncle’s mid-life crisis car. When Uncle Kenny had tired of it, he practically gave it to his nephew. “Just give me $100 a month for a year or so, Jimmy, and we’ll call it yours,” he had said, on Christmas Eve in 1988 when he handed him the keys. Jimmy had been working part-time in a supermarket then, and playing in a band, he could easily have afforded twice that. Since his father’s death, his Uncle had stepped up big time. He even told Jimmy that he had managed to squirrel away a small college fund for him. It would have to be State College but hey, that was still a decent thing to do. God, those two brothers were like Jekyll and Hyde.
The interior of the car was light gray leather, well worn, and immensely comfortable for a long drive. The bucket seats were a cloud. It had a faint damp smell from a small floorboard hole that occasionally wet the carpet but that was mostly masked by a pine scented green tree that dangled from the shifter.
The second day’s journey was a bit more grueling, lasting nearly nine hours with just a few short breaks and terminating in the Dominick’s parking lot. Jimmy knew Chris had not been happy but appreciated him biting his tongue and going along with him for the sake of the harmony of the balance of the trip. They were almost an hour out of the other side of Chicago now and Chris was reading in his travel guide about different highlights in the “Things to Do and See” category, under Wisconsin.
“Ever hear of Wisconsin Dells?” he asked.
“Nope, sounds like a cheese farm or something,” Jimmy answered, taking the cowboy hat from his head, and tossing it like a Frisbee into the back seat. His hair was matted with sweat and the air blowing through the car was chilling on his wet head, despite the heat. He took both hands off the steering wheel and rubbed them through his hair, fluffing the wet, tangled curls.
Chris waited patiently, for Jimmy to grab the wheel again before speaking. “Sounds super cool and it’s like right off the interstate, listen to this,” he began. “About 15,000 years ago, during the last Ice Age, there was this huge lake called Glacier Lake that was held back by a big glacier. When it started to melt, it weakened, until the lake finally crashed through the glacier and created these roaring rapids that cut gorges through the sandstone, a hundred feet high. You can swim there and water tube and shit. What do you think?” He took a red pen from the glove compartment and drew a circle around the park.
“Could be fun, I guess. They have any tent sites?” His lack of excitement starkly contrasted Chris’s enthusiasm.
“How’s this sound,” Chris answered and began to read. “Tranquil, 244-acre park with campsites and hiking trails amid white pine-tree forests and sandstone bluffs.”
“Not crazy about ‘tranquil’ but I guess we could always wake it up,” Jimmy said, hiding the glint in his eyes, beneath his shades.
“Maybe,” Chris answered. “Check this out,” he said and read aloud some more. “The park exhibits a scenic sandstone gorge believed to be five hundred million years old, carved by the Wisconsin River.”
“Nice,” Jimmy answered and for the first time noticed that it was getting considerably cooler as they continued north on I-90. He no longer felt over-dressed in his flannel shirt. “Can you reach back and grab my hat. Wanna burn a j?” He asked.
“Maybe when we get there,” Chris answered, contorting half-way into the back seat and getting his friend’s hat for him.
Jimmy always drove even faster when he was high, and he thought that was the reason for his friend’s suggestion of abstinence.
“Shit, listen to this, ‘Rocky Arbor State Park can have low impact earthquakes,’ crazy, right?”
“Doesn’t sound very tranquil to me,” Jimmy joked, and they both laughed.
As the scenery raced by out the windows, the boys settled back in their seats. Chris continued reading his guide, silently though now, and Jimmy began to design in his mind how their night might go. As always, his imagined revelry included; drinks, drugs, guitar, and girls and not necessarily in that order. Just past Rosemont, I-90 became a toll road and the boys slowed at the booth to get their ticket. Right before Rockford, the interstate turned due north and they drove another hour before exiting near Janesville to fill up the tank and get lunch. The gas had cost nine bucks and the lunch two.
They had already decided to stop for the night in The Dells so their road time for the day would be less than four hours. They spent longer than they would have otherwise, walking around the truck stop and checking out all the Wisconsin Badger shirts and Packer Jerseys; Majkowski, Sharpe, and Harris seemed to be the dominant ones. Jimmy wasn’t crazy about the idea of losing a half-day of driving time, but he felt like he owed Chris one. When they pulled away from the gas station to head back to the highway, black clouds spread over the sky and projected their darkness down until it enveloped the land, their car and them. Large raindrops began to fall, and Jimmy put the windshield wipers on.
Chapter XIX
At eight-years-old, growing up in McFarland Wisconsin, there was nothing better than endless summer days of warm sun, with nothing
to do and a head full of daydreams; at sixteen, there was nothing worse. Jenny Walker slowly opened her eyes, and they adjusted gradually to the streaks of sunlight attacking them through the bedroom window. As sleep grudgingly gave way to consciousness, a smile began to lift the corners of her mouth. New York or L.A., today was the day. A toss of a coin would decide her fate and begin the journey she had been planning and dreaming of since she walked out of the door at McFarland High, for the final time. It had been the last day of her sophomore year, but she already knew then that she was never going back; school was a tomb.
She sat up and turned slightly to adjust the pillows behind her, rousing her orange tabby, Samantha, who jumped off the bed and ran double time out of her room. Jenny was wearing a long-sleeve white tee against the cold of the air conditioning, and the soft pastel pink cotton blanket covering the sheets on her bed was pulled up to her waist. There was a backpack waiting, hidden in her closet, full of everything she thought she would need to get started.
Jenny was not a nickname, Jenny was her name, the one on her birth certificate. It was not short for Jennifer, it was just Jenny. She was named for the character Ali McGraw had played in the movie “Love Story.” Her mom had been so distraught when the character died, that she had decided to bring her back to life in her daughter. Jenny had always thought it somewhat of a bad omen to be named for a girl who died ridiculously young from some horrible disease. She wished her mom had named her Ali instead, the actress had lived.
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