by Steven Gould
I looked back at the purse, at the pill bottle. "What kind of pill was it?"
She looked away. "They said it would knock you out. So they could catch you." She looked back at me and winced. "Yeah, I know. If you'd jumped it wouldn't do any good, even if you passed out after. It had to be poison."
"You knew that?" It felt like my face was going to break. "You knew that and… maybe that's why you dropped it." Then the rest of it hit me. "They have your parents." I didn't ask it-I said it.
She dropped to her knees. "They killed my father. They cut his fucking throat right in front of me! And then they put the knife against my mother's neck!"
"Oh, God. I'm so sorry." I got up and walked over to her but she shoved me away. She kicked at me and clawed and I stepped back, then dropped down and sat on my heels. "How did they find you? Was it me? Did they track some of my jumps in Trenton?"
She was lying on her side, curled in. "He did it! Goddamn him. He did it. He wanted to check up on you. After he found that sketch, he got a friend to run a criminal check. They showed up with police badges and he answered all their questions. He gave you to them on a silver platter and then they cut his throat. Daddy, you idiot! The fucking phone won't get a signal! Oh, God. They'll kill them both!"
Oh. "They have your brother, too."
She screamed again and pounded the ground with her fists.
I understood, then. "You went up on the ridge to try to get a signal. If you'd reached them, what would you have done? Come down and finished me? Wait until they came and confirmed my death?"
She jumped up and ran down the arroyo, north. She was still sobbing. I pocketed the phone and, cautiously, the black cylinder, then took up her purse. I let her get about fifty yards away and tripped her, appearing beside her path with my foot outstretched. While she was still down, I hooked the waistline of her jeans and jumped her back to the Hole.
She looked at the bed and collapsed on the floor, sobbing, sobbing.
I couldn't stand it and I jumped away, to the Greenwood Shell petrol station across from her high school. There, in the light of the fluorescents, I looked at the rod. It had four projecting electrodes, sharp, for sticking through clothing, and a slide switch, like on an electric torch. I turned it on, but it didn't spark, so I suspected it was actuated when a partial conductor bridged the points.
I took out the cell phone and called, using the only number in the cell phone's call log.
"Speak." It was Kemp's voice.
"She's dead. I blame you."
I hung up.
I didn't want to hear his threats against Mrs. Kelson or E.V.'s brother, Patrick. I wanted to lower the bar, remove any reason for the bastards to kill them. The phone buzzed in my hand, vibrating, and I thought about throwing it away. Instead I held down the power button until it turned completely off.
I jumped back to the Hole. "Where did they have them?" She flinched at my voice and looked up at me. "What?" "Where did they have your mother and brother?" "They said they'd be moving them. Not to bother with a rescue since they wouldn't be there."
I looked at the ceiling and squeezed my eyes shut. "That's what they said. Where were they when they killed your- when they threatened your mother?"
"In the basement. They were all in the basement."
"How many of them were there? That you saw?"
"I don't know. None of the men at the club were the men at the house. There were four at the house." I jumped.
The house was dark. I'd walked from the petrol station, expecting them to show up in cars or on foot. Hell-I half expected them to parachute in.
But they hadn't.
I remembered the bomb at Alejandra's and I wondered if that's what they had in mind. I jumped away, to the Empty Quarter, and then back again.
Nothing.
I kicked the front door in and jumped away, to the sidewalk.
The dog began barking from the backyard.
I went around the side. There were covered stairs-storm-cellar type, just short of the fence. Booger danced on the other side, barking and wagging his tail at the same time. I tugged at the handle and it opened but I jumped back to the sidewalk before it swung to the side.
Nothing.
I remembered the bomb in San Diego, the one they'd set for movement in the house, unless a door was opened first. They'd used a cell phone trigger in Mexico. How about here? Surely they knew I was here. Even if they were all over at the Teen Club, they could surely feel my jumps.
Or they were waiting inside.
Standing just inside the front door, I flipped the light switch up and jumped back to the sidewalk. The light came on. Nothing exploded. No one jumped out of the coat closet with a knife or a stun gun. I jumped into the house, to the end of the hallway where it ended at the kitchen, then away.
Nothing.
I returned and flipped on the light switch in the kitchen and jumped away.
Outside, I moved down the cellar steps. The door was locked but it had a diamond square glass inset. I showed my head and jumped away.
Nothing.
There was nothing to see-the lights were out and it was pitch black within. I found the inside cellar stairs leading down from the kitchen. There was a light switch at the top. I flipped it and jumped away.
A few minutes later I looked back in the glass inset from the outside cellar door.
Mr. Kelson was on the floor, facedown, his hands cable-tied behind his back. They'd done it next to the floor drain so there wasn't as much blood as I'd seen in Consuelo's kitchen. On the far wall, pushed up against a leaning pile of disassembled cardboard cartons, Mrs. Kelson and Patrick Kelson were in wooden chairs, their legs duct-taped to the chair's front legs, their arms duct-taped to the chair arms. Duct tape covered their mouths, running all the way around their heads, and there was duct tape across their eyes, too.
I couldn't tell if they were alive or dead.
I couldn't see anyone else through the door but that didn't mean they weren't there.
I jumped into the middle of the room and away, as quickly as I could, so sure I'd trip a motion sensor that I panicked, and arrived back in the Empty Quarter with shreds of cardboard flying around me.
Boy, haven't done that in a while.
I jumped back to the sidewalk, outside. The house was still there. Men with knives weren't popping out of the bushes or falling from the sky.
Back in the cellar I could see their labored breath. They'd both soiled themselves and for some reason that made me madder than anything. They taped them up and just left them. I wondered how long they'd been without water.
I went to Mrs. Kelson and reached for the tape across her eyes and then froze.
My sloppy jump had dislodged the cardboard stack behind them.
And that's where the bomb was.
It was a military thing, olive drab nylon bag, one end opened, exposing olive drab metal with screw-down terminals and two different multiconductor wires, each leading across the floor to a chair. The wires went up the chair legs under the duct tape and transitioned to the chair seat, tucked under the backs of their knees.
Pressure switch? When you freed them and lifted their bodies off the chairs, did it complete the circuit or break it?
And could the bastards still detonate it remotely?
Call the bomb squad!
Right. And do they detonate it then, when they see all the trucks pull up?
Fuck it!
I gabbed the back of each chair and jumped.
My arms hurt and I couldn't keep Patrick's chair from falling over, but I did slow his fall and we were there, in the Empty Quarter.
Alive.
The wires had broken at the terminals-there was a bit of stripped copper still showing. I wondered if the bomb had gone off or not. Maybe there'd been a delay set.
I took the tape off of their mouths first, and their breathing eased. The tape over their eyes was tricky-I felt like I'd damage their eyelids, so I left it.
Mrs. Kel
son groaned.
Patrick stirred. "Who is it? What's happening?"
I thought about reassuring him, then shook my head.
I left them taped to the chairs and jumped them, one at a time, to the sidewalk outside St. Francis Medical Center in Trenton-it was right across from the east side of E.V.'s high school. Someone shouted and I heard footsteps but I didn't even turn around before jumping back to Euclid Avenue in Trenton.
The house hadn't exploded.
I heard the dog barking still, from the backyard, and I was glad.
"Nine-one-one operator. What is the nature of your emergency?"
"There's a dead man and an unexploded bomb in the basement of a house on Euclid Avenue." I gave the street address.
I'd used the cell phone to make the call and when I hung up on the 911 operator's questions, it buzzed again, and I wondered if the operator was calling back.
It was Kemp.
"We'll kill her mother and brother, you know."
Did he expect me to turn myself over to them? Or did they have some way of tracking the phone?
"By all means, kill them," I said. "They deserve it."
I went back to the cellar, quickly, before the bomb squad got there. I wiped the phone off and set it beside Mr. Kelson's body. I was about to jump away again, when I saw a baseball bat leaning in the corner. It wasn't full size-probably left over from Little League. I wondered if it had been Patrick's or E.V.'s.
I looked down at the body.
"Mind if I borrow this?"
The first sirens sounded in the distance and I jumped away.
Chapter Thirteen
Ends and Beginnings E.V. was at the table with one of her diet sodas and the bottle of pills. I dropped the bat and jumped across the room, snatching the bottle off the table. She flinched. In a flat voice she said, "I wasn't going to. I thought about it-I really did."
I threw the pill canister across the cave and into the old entrance shaft.
"Why?" I asked. "The bastards are already doing enough. You want to do their work for them?"
She just looked down at the table. She wouldn't look up.
Love me. Take me back to bed and love me. Make it like it never happened.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I'm sorry about your fath-"
"Goddamn it! Couldn't you have lied? Why'dyou have to tell me your real name? Why couldn't you have lied! You lied about the other stuff!"
I'd already had the same thought. Her father would probably still be alive if I'd made up a name. Hell, I could've been Paully MacLand, the bastard. I took her elbow, to pull her up, and she lashed out at me. I blocked it automatically. Years of karate were good for something, it turned out. Keep your girlfriend from beating on you.
Something wrong there.
I shoved her back down into the chair and while she struggled to get her balance back, trying to keep the chair from tipping over backward, I stepped in and jumped her to the sidewalk across from her high school.
She twisted away, hunching in on herself, then looked around. "What-why here?" She was staring west, toward the high school.
I gestured behind her toward the medical center, at the large internally lit red cross with the words EMERGENCY ROOM beside it. "Your brother and mother are in there. They're okay-probably dehydrated, but physically okay." I shrugged.
Anger, rage, fear, terror, grief-she'd finally managed to hide those, to push them to the background-but this, hope, was too much. I had to walk her the rest of the way, supporting her through the waiting room door, to the first row of seats.
It wasn't crowded. A woman in scrubs came forward, concern furrowing her face. E.V.'s grief was extravagant, unmitigated, loud.
I saw her safely seated and turned to the nurse. "Her mother and brother were just dropped off here. Uh, there was duct tape involved."
The nurse's eyes widened. "The police are-"
I held up my hand and something in my face made her recoil and stop talking, midsentence.
I put E.V.'s pocketbook in her lap, touched her hair and said, "I hope you never have to lie about who you are, E.V." I took a deep shuddering breath and felt the tears coming.
I no longer cared who saw me or not.
"Good-bye."
I jumped.
I could still smell E.V. on the bedding. Hell, her coat was still lying there, with mine, on top of the dresser. I took it with me to the bed and buried my face in it.
It was all mixed up-stuff from Mum and Dad, stuff from Sam and Consuelo, Henry. E.V. E.V.'s grief for her father, a man who'd really just wanted to make sure his daughter was safe. I wish he'd left well enough alone. Everyone would've been happier or, at least, alive. I wanted to be angry with him but hard as I tried, it all turned inward.
After all, what was the common denominator, if not me?
It was the worst night, the longest night.
I'd jumped that day, accidentally, when Paully charged me. Mum and Dad were dead.
Going to live with Alejandra had doomed Sam and Consuelo. If I hadn't sent the INS in, would the agents still be alive?
If I hadn't used my real name with E.V. or real details about where I lived. Me, me, me, it was all me.
I hated myself. I even thought about the pills down the tunnel. I fell asleep and had nightmares. I woke up and the reality was just as bad.
E.V.'s smell was a torment and a comfort and I thought about wrapping myself in her coat, going down the old tunnel, and getting the pills.
I soaked in that for a while-wallowed, really-but then the other common denominator gradually surfaced.
Them.
I snatched San Diego Sheriff's Department investigator Bob Vigil from the parking lot at the Lemon Grove substation. He'd just shut the door on his car and was turning toward the building when I appeared, grabbed his collar, and jumped. He came down on his back, hard, in the Empty Quarter, but his hand came out from under his coat with his service automatic pretty darn fast.
I wasn't there any more.
I watched him for a few minutes, sitting in the shade on top of the ridge. He tried his cell phone but it didn't get a signal. He put away his gun after a few minutes and I jumped, jabbing him in the right arm with the black cylinder. He fell over in a very satisfying way and I had his gun, his Mace, his extra clips, his cell phone, his wallet, and his handcuffs before he was able to sit up, much less stand.
When I'd first grabbed him, in the parking lot, I'd felt the stiff edge of his Kevlar vest. I'd been planning to shock him in the back, but I changed to the arm instead.
I didn't bother threatening him with the gun. In fact, I popped the clip out and then aimed it off to the side, to see if there was a bullet chambered.
There was. We both flinched at the noise.
"How's that shoulder, Bob?"
He glared at me. I pulled up my shirt, on the left side, and twisted to show him my scar. "See that, Bob? That's where your friends tried for my kidney. Pretty, huh?"
His expression went from angry to wary.
"I'm not happy about that, Bob. I think that's pretty understandable." I jumped twenty feet directly behind him and said, "Do you understand, Bob?"
He twisted so fast he tangled his feet and staggered off to one side. "What are you?" he asked hoarsely.
"Didn't they tell you, Bob? Didn't they give you some justification?" I jumped again, twenty feet off to his left, and he recoiled again. "You set me up. What did you think would happen?"
"They said you were a threat to, uh, national security."
"A sixteen-year-old kid? A threat to national security?" I opened his wallet. He had three twenties and a few credit cards but there was a zippered compartment behind the cash. I pulled the zipper, spread it wide, and whistled. I held it out to display a thick sheaf of hundred dollar bills. "How good is the pay at the sheriff's department?"
"Go fuck yourself," he said. "I don't have to tell you anything!"
"Oh," I said quietly to myself, "I really think you do" This time I jab
bed him in the right buttock with the shock stick. He dropped to the side and yelled.
I crouched down about five feet away. "I'm not the police. I'm not constrained by your rules of evidence and prisoner treatment." He was watching me and twitching. I swayed to one side and his eyes followed me. "Of course, you don't seem that constrained by the rules, either. I almost believed you about the national security thing."
He snarled.
"I don't even care about you. I don't know if they told you they'd be trying to knife me or not. But I want to know what they told you. How they contacted you. If-no-how they wanted you to contact them if I showed up again."
I played with the black cylinder, passing it from hand to hand. "Why don't you just tell me? You do, and it checks out, I'll let you go."
He swore at me in Spanish so I switched to that.
"Este es tu momento de la verdad, Roberto. Literally. Your moment of truth. They didn't quite get me, but they killed someone else two days ago and I'm not happy about that. You can probably tell. Not only can I do this-"
I feinted toward his leg with the cylinder and he cried out, "Stop!"
I rocked back on my heels. "But I can also give information to the FBI about your involvement in that murder. They cut his throat while his hands were tied behind his back. And then there's the INS-they'd probably like to know that you've been taking bribes from the people who killed six of theirs."
I sort of smiled but I could feel the wrongness of it, like fingers tugging my features around. "I'm not sure you'd see trial."
Now this, where the physical stuff didn't seem to be getting through, actually seemed to work.
"It's on my phone. In my contacts. There's a number labeled saltador But that's all I know, I swear!"
I laughed out loud. Saltador is Spanish for vaulter or jumper.
I left him there while I checked for a signal. I got one at the Texaco petrol station out on Old 80, barely. I jumped to the ridgetop where I used to meet Sam and Consuelo and found that it was closer to the cell tower, three bars on the signal-strength indicator.
Vigil was standing when I got back but looking around, confused. The sun was high overhead and he wasn't sure which direction was which. I threw his wallet to him, high, and as he jumped up into the air to grab it, I jumped him and spilled him onto the ridgetop.
