by Patti Abbott
"OK."
"Is there anything else I can help you with today, Mr. Crawford? Ms. Raymond?"
* * *
Angie and I walked down to the cafeteria for some coffee.
Neither one of us wanted to talk about Brent's surgery, about what was happening at the moment. I said something about the coffee being too weak. She said something about the chairs being ugly.
She set her cup to the side. "You want to tell me why you and Brent were at some homeless guy's house?"
"He's not homeless. Not if that's his house, I mean. We wanted to talk to the guy there. Or see what was going on. I don't know."
"Why didn't you just call the cops?"
"We did. I mean somebody in the neighborhood did. Couple weeks ago. Didn't find anything."
"So you guys decided to play cop?"
"Just thought we'd go see if anyone was still living there."
"Guess you got your answer."
"Yeah."
"Why you? I understand why Brent goes, because you asked him and he's your BFF or whatever. But why you and not someone closer?"
"I don't know. There's families around. There was some talk at one of the neighborhood meetings. The one with the bylaws they were writing. Everybody was saying nonsense. I just thought I'd go and I guess I said something to Brent while he was over playing Call of Duty and we just figured we'd run up and check it out."
"Drunk?"
"No."
"Drinking?"
"Yeah. Probably. Not drunk."
"Jesus Christ, Danny. You looking for a story? Get back into reporting? That what this is about?"
"No, that's not what this is about. We just were going to check it out. Look. See if somebody needed to do something."
"Somebody who? Somebody you?"
"No," I said. "I don't know."
"So, you guys play this video game all day about killing people and then just decide to waltz on up and have a nice chat with these, these whatever, these squatters?"
I shrugged. "I don't know. Something like that. But better. It was just the one guy anyway."
"Let me guess. You wanted to be a cop when you grew up? Not a reporter. A cop?"
"I never wanted to be an astronaut or cop or anything. Helmets and spaceships." I tilted my coffee cup on its edge, trying to get the coffee that was left to level off, to stop moving. "Never thought about growing up and doing that."
"Then what?"
"I don't know."
"Just tell me, Danny." Her voice pitching up. "What did you want to be when you grew up?"
"Who cares?"
"I'm just asking you a simple question. You wanted to be a cop when you grew up, didn't you? So you go off playing cop with Brent?"
We watched a nurse in green scrubs push a little boy in a wheelchair past a few tables until the mother caught sight of them, rushing to hug the boy, the dad standing back, dragging his fingertips along the table top.
"No," I said. "I didn't want to be anything. I just wanted to be older."
The father was making that smile, tight in the lips, wrinkles in the forehead. The kind where you're standing back a little, waiting for someone to tell you what to do.
"It's like this catalog we had in college," I said. "We used to get in the mail. Where you can get D.H. Lawrence's shoes for $200. How they tell that story and you're walking through the light rain in Ceylon and this woman knows your name and then she takes you to a room over a café and someone is playing violin and you watch the moon between the buildings and everything is just right and whatever. I wanted that. Whatever that is. Not a job."
She nodded, started to smile a little. "You should get those shoes."
"Yeah."
She sat there for a minute, and neither of us said anything for a while. "So why did you want to be a reporter? Stories like this?" she asked.
I didn't know if she was just trying to make small talk or if there was some fiendish plan. But I didn't want her yelling at me for nearly getting her boyfriend killed, so I was fine with this. We could talk nothing all day. Just go along with it, until it's time to leave. Just step onto the moving floor, hold the handrails, let it carry you along. "Hell if I know. Why'd you want to be a lawyer?"
"You first."
I pushed the handle of my mug, moving it around on the table. "I don't know. I guess because I was good at it. Or thought I was."
"You did the crime beat when you started?"
"A little of everything, like everyone else at the paper. Started doing courts and sports."
"Weird mix."
I shook my head. "Not really. You sit in the audience. Write up what happens, the big plays. Tell who wins. Get post-game quotes from the lawyers, coaches. Just sit back and watch."
"And that's what you liked? Sitting in the audience and writing?"
"Yeah. Then I did some business writing. Some political stuff. You know, where the funding comes from. Who the players are."
"More like courts and sports?"
"Yeah," I grinned, forgetting for a second everything else that was going on, falling into talking about something that made sense, that I could hold on to. "I liked writing the stories. Getting the information together. Looking at all sides and finding out what's really going on. What makes sense. Seeing how things work, you know? How they fit together. How they could work better. Like the consulting I do now."
"Corporate business? Doesn't sound like much fun to me."
"Takes a certain kind of mind. Analytical. You look at spreadsheets. Cashflow. Make sure folks are putting their money where they can make more money. You lawyers probably do the same sort of analysis in seeing what fits and what doesn't."
"I've had a couple of cases that required substantial business expertise, I suppose. Derivative contracts. Retained earnings."
"Yeah," I said. "What I do isn't that complicated. Sometimes I just say 'online strategy' for a couple of days until the check clears."
She nodded for a second, then tilted her head again and looked at me as if for the first time. "You ever think about being an attorney like your father? I studied some of his cases at LSU."
I pushed my chair away from the table a little. "I wouldn't have been like my father."
"No. I don't suppose so," she said, and I wasn't sure what she meant. "Geez. Didn't mean to bring you down. He's been gone how long? Little over a year?"
"Eight months," I said.
She nodded. "I was just wondering whether reporting or defense law is easier."
"The judicial or the journalism?"
She grinned. "Right. You said you had to look at all sides. Defense looks at all sides, but only has to present the one."
"Well, but you still have to know both sides. You have to know what the other side has. What they're likely to spring on you, right?"
"Oh, sure. And it's tough having to fight, to pour your soul into something and then not come out with what you wanted."
"You think reporters don't do that?"
"You play both sides, right? Never have to worry about being on the losing side?"
"I've lost before," I said. "It's overrated."
I refilled our coffees from the counter and sat back down.
"It's not so much the playing both sides," I said. "It's looking at the sides, being objective. Being able to hold opposing viewpoints in your head. Just looking there at both sides."
"Holding everything and touching nothing?"
"What's that mean?" I asked her.
"Something my mother used to tell me. About not keeping yourself out of the world. Not thinking you were better than everyone else. Being able to be involved in things. Not being a ghost in the fog."
"Being involved. Right. That always works out well. Look at Brent."
"You can't completely blame yourself for that. I was giving you hell before, but it's not like you pulled the trigger."
"I don't know."
"It will be fine," she said, leaning in like she was going to touch my hand, my arm
. She didn't. "He'll probably have some pain killers. Extra couch time. He'll be fine."
"It's not that," I said. "I mean, I know he'll be fine. But I've just been replaying it in my head. Not of Brent getting shot at, getting hit or whatever. Not of me falling down the stairs." I scrunched my eye to see if my head still hurt. It did. "I have the image of that second before we went in, you know? Like, if we'd just walked away, I don't know."
Her shoulders were down now. She was nodding as I talked. "I guess you guys were just trying to help." She said it the way people say "It is what it is." Some dumb phrase to patch up the emptiness. You just never know. God works in mysterious ways. He had a good life.
I shook my head, tried to knock something loose. "Since last year, since that break-in on Mallard where that old man died, I guess I've thought about being in spots like that, thought about what I'd do. In my mind, I always did the right thing. Before anyone else. Like someone on TV, you know? I always took the knife from the guy or chased down the kidnapper. Like there's this crash I hear while I'm getting the mail. And I go through the woods to the back of that house where that guy from the bank and his wife and all live. And there's people I can see through the back window. I picture myself going in, taking away their guns. Yelling things at them. Saving the kids. Doing whatever it takes."
"Yelling things?"
"Yeah. Like I play it all out. I'm going 'How many? How many?' Like yelling for the guy with the gun to tell me how many other bad guys are there. Then he looks up the stairs and I know there's someone behind me. And I spin around and put the dude's body in front of me and the other guy shoots him and I fire back and everyone's screaming and there I am, running through the house, yelling 'Clear' every time I get to an empty room."
"Jesus, Danny. There's something wrong with you."
I said I knew there was. I knew that I wasn't doing the thing, whatever it was. The thing I wanted to define me. I knew I was just hanging there, this tender flesh, a conveyer belt pulling me into the darkness.
"You've got to snap out of it."
I nodded, like it meant something, sitting there talking about nothing, her with me, so far away from the guy I thought I was.
"You alright?" she asked.
I nodded my head. Reflex. Then looked around. The metal rails in front of the cafeteria food, dull plastic trays being pushed along. "No," I said. "I'm pretty sure I'm not."
"That's okay," she said. "Nobody is."
The woman in blue scrubs was standing nearby, waiting for one of us to look up. She cleared her throat as Angie reached across the table for me.
The woman in blue scrubs coughed again. Her white sneakers making a sound against the linoleum floor, a high-pitched squeal, like someone far away opening the door in a house you thought was empty.
†
A lonely hitchhiker was walking down the road on a sunny afternoon. All he carried with him was a knife inside his jacket pocket. He'd set out along this same stretch of highway before, too many times to count. Each step delivered a jolt of pain. If he stopped and untied his boots, he knew he'd feel relief for a split second, but that small freedom would be overshadowed by the agony of stuffing his blistered, bloody feet back in and continuing on. He had no choice. He had to go forward. A million steps. Ten million, maybe. A hundred million didn't seem out of the question. He couldn't count that high.
You should've stayed in school, you know.
The voice in his head sounded like his father. More accurately, it sounded like his father after the old man had downed a sufficient quantity of cheap whiskey, lying back in his La-Z-Boy, chain-smoking Camels and flipping channels.
Maybe if you'd stayed in school, you wouldn't be a bum. If you'd stayed in school, you wouldn't have turned into a lying, thieving mur …
The hitchhiker tuned out the voice. That was his only luxury. It would be back, and it would bring friends, but on this sunny road, he didn't have to listen.
He felt the sun on his face, and he knew he should savor it. It was such a beautiful day, but it was spoiled by the dark knowledge of what he was going to do. He thought about a buddy of his. For the life of him, he couldn't remember the guy's name, but he had remnants of his Zen-and-pot-inspired aphorisms swirling around the edges of his mind. Live in the moment. Stay right where you are. This moment is everything.
There was laughter in his head, a whole choir splitting its sides. You're living in the moment, all right.
The hitchhiker heard a car behind him, and he half-turned to look. It was a silver Prius, of course. Always the silver Prius. It purred to a halt beside him.
"Hey, how you doing?" asked the driver. He was in his fifties, with a bad comb over and an eager expression on his fat face that suggested he wanted a pat on the head. "You need a ride?"
"Yeah," said the hitchhiker. He let a moment pass before opening the door. Then another. The driver's face didn't lose its puppy like enthusiasm.
What if I just run in the other direction? the hitchhiker thought. What if I …. But the question was already moot. His bloody foot-stumps were moving of their own volition, leading the rest of him into the vehicle.
"Sweet ride," he heard himself saying.
"Thanks. I got it because of the environment," said the older man. "I never used to care about stuff like that, thought the whole movement was for tree-hugging guys with squirrels for brains." He grinned at his own lame joke. "But my boy, he just went off to college. It's a whole different world now. Those climate-change deniers are crazy. Everything is getting worse. I keep thinking, what's the world going to be like when my boy gets older? What's it going to be like when he has kids of his own? Now I'm like this one-man reduce, reuse, recycle show."
The hitchhiker squirmed in his seat. A minute in this guy's presence, and he already felt stabby. Sure, change the world so your own kids and grandkids can go on enjoying it. Selfish bastard. It was all about him.
"You're about my son's age," the man said. "How do you feel about global warming?"
The hitchhiker had no feelings on the subject. For all he cared, the planet could heat itself up until it burst. Give the cockroaches a chance. But words flowed out of his mouth. He'd always been able to talk a good game. The first time he'd killed someone, he'd screwed up and got caught by the police. But he'd kept his composure, fronting innocence and throwing shade at another guy who he knew the cops would love to lock away. It wasn't a tough choice for them between a sweet-looking white boy with no priors, and a black kid who'd been busted for dope-dealing. It had worked out well for the hitchhiker in the end.
He ran his finger along the side of the big hunting knife inside his jacket. There were words inscribed on one side of the blade: Numquam debitum retribui.
"You want some water?" the driver asked. "There's a bottle by your feet."
Water. The mere mention of it made the hitchhiker weak with craving. He wanted it more than he'd wanted anything in his life. Even though he knew it was a trick, he fumbled for the bottle. His hands trembled as he opened it, and he thrust his head forward, hoping to catch a drop. Before he could, the bottle fell out of his hands, splashing water all over the floor of the Prius.
The driver didn't notice. "You in school, or taking some time for yourself?" His voice was amiable. "When I first went to college, I thought it wasn't for me, so I took some time off and went into the Peace Corps. I just felt called to serve, somehow. Afterwards, it was hard to go back. I traveled around for a while, then went back for my degree. I'm glad I did, even if it took me a hell of a long time."
The hitchhiker remembered that there was more to this conversation, but he was exhausted and only wanted for it to be over. He pulled the knife out of his jacket and leaned over, stabbing the man in the throat. Only instead of slumping over the wheel in a giant splurt of blood, the man stayed upright and kept talking.
"My boy's studying history. Most people don't see the point of that, but I believe in the value of a liberal arts education …"
Anoth
er voice cut in from just behind the hitchhiker's right ear. "You are not allowed to change a thing," it rasped. A pincer reached around to clasp his throat. Suddenly, the hitchhiker couldn't get air into his lungs, and even though he knew he was already dead, this terrified him.
"You play out the scene exactly as it happened in life. Over and over and over," the demon said. "One day, we may give you another of your victims to play with. But you will play out the crime in full each and every time."
The demon leaned closer, and the hitchhiker felt the creature's hot, wet breath against the back of his neck. It loosened its grip just enough to let him inhale its stench. His eyes filled with tears and he choked on bile in his throat.
"You are only in the first circle of Hell," it reminded him. "Things can get worse. Much worse."
The hitchhiker felt hundreds of burning needles digging into the back of his neck, and he made a weak squawking noise as the demon slurped and bit at him. The pain wasn't like anything he'd experienced in life. It vibrated through him, obliterating his mind and memory until there was nothing but agony.
"You're delicious," the demon said as it chewed. "Now, remember, numquam debitum retribui."
"The debt can never be repaid," gasped the hitchhiker through his sobs. Everything went dark around him. He could feel his body being pulled into a shadowy spiral. He'd never prayed in life, but now he prayed for oblivion.
When he opened his eyes, he was back where he started. A lonely hitchhiker, walking down the road on a sunny afternoon.
†
Kyler Knightly woke from a dream so lucid he knew it was prophetic. But he woke in the sleeping niche of his own room, not the Precog bays where he worked, and there were no electrodes attached to his temples or a somnograph humming away. He'd had the dream, the vision, under natural conditions.
Which meant it was very powerful.
Which meant it was coming true.
He rolled out of the niche, wondering how much time he had. "What time is it?" he asked the darkened room.
