Run You Down

by Julia Dahl

  “Sucking dick,” says Mellie, interrupting him.

  Ryan ignores her. He’s racing to get the story out.

  “At some point he started carrying a gun my dad gave him. He didn’t tell me. He probably knew I’d freak out. A gun is a major parole violation. Like, do not pass Go, go directly back to prison. It was a couple weeks before Pessie … died. I found an apartment in Hudson that’s nearer to my work and Sam was helping me move in. He was staying with his sister, on and off, but he didn’t really like it there.”

  “Aviva?”

  Ryan looks surprised. “Yeah,” he says. “How’d you know that?”

  The words rise up fast, proud: “I’m her daughter.”

  “Her…?” Ryan puts his hand over his mouth. “Oh my God. You’re from Florida?”

  “She told you about me?”

  “She told Sam. Wait. Do you know where they are?”

  “Aviva and Sam? Are they together?”

  “I don’t know! Sam won’t return my calls since…” Ryan inhales deeply. “I don’t blame him. If he hadn’t met me Pessie would be alive.”

  “What happened?” I ask.

  “Okay. So, Pessie came over to my new place with Chaim; that’s her son. He’s like, one, I think. He crawls but he can’t walk. So we’re just hanging out in the living room and Chaim is sitting on the floor and Sam’s backpack is by the couch and Chaim, like, pulls it open and Sam’s gun slips out and Chaim picks it up. I didn’t even notice, and then Pessie screamed. She grabbed Chaim and went ballistic on Sam. Saying how reckless and thoughtless he was. How she didn’t understand him anymore and she couldn’t believe he’d put her child in danger. She was shaking. She looked like a totally different person. Pessie used to visit a lot before we got locked up—before she got married and had the baby—and she was always really, like, even-tempered. She didn’t come around as much after Sam got out and it was clear she was being a little cautious with him, but I never saw her get mad about anything. She told Sam she didn’t want to see him again. She said she had to take care of her own family now and he needed to, like, get his shit together.

  “Sam was crushed. He loved her. Him and Pessie were like … they just understood each other. Or at least, Sam thought Pessie understood him. He barely left the apartment for a week and then he went down to Roseville to try and apologize, but she wasn’t having it.”

  “He went to her work,” I say quietly.

  Ryan nods. “So, about a week later, me and Sam were at my apartment when my dad and Hank come barging in. I guess the door was unlocked. I was on the couch and Sam was, like, coming out from the bedroom, I think. My dad went over and just coldcocked him. He was, like, are you two faggots? Sam was on the floor. And I was just like, fuck it. Yeah, we’re fucking faggots.”

  “How did he find out?” I ask.

  “Apparently my dad has a monthly drop in Albany and the pickup guy used to bounce at a club we went to before Sam went away. Sam filled in doing the drop and the guy recognized him. The next week the bouncer gave the regular guy some shit. He was all, since when does the Brotherhood run with fags? I guess the regular guy told my dad.”

  “Your dad had a right to be pissed, Ryan,” says Mellie. “He was employing your fucking fag boy and you’re both totally laughing behind his back.”

  “We weren’t laughing behind his back, Mellie. You’re insane. It doesn’t make it okay to fucking kill an innocent girl!”

  Mellie puts her hands up in a weak surrender.

  “Pessie must have driven in a couple minutes after my dad and Hank. She probably wanted to make up with Sam. When she walked in with Chaim, Sam was on all fours on the floor, bleeding from his mouth, and my dad was kicking him in the stomach. Hank had my arms behind my back and was holding a fucking knife to my throat. My brother. Your fucking baby daddy. I was just trying to get through it, you know? But Pessie started screaming. Loud. My dad was like ‘Who’s this bitch?’ And Sam and I were like, ‘Leave her alone.’ My dad told her to shut up and she didn’t. She backed toward the door and he went to grab her hair. But, you know, she wore a wig. And it came off. He was like, what the fuck? Then he started laughing. I swear to God. He got a handful of her real hair and dragged her over to Sam and he was like, ‘This is your fault, faggot. You did this.’ And then he … it happened so fast … he put one of his hands in her mouth and one on the back of her head and snapped her neck.”

  His fists are clenched, and when he falls silent I realize that mine are, too. I exhale and it feels like fire coming from inside. She just wanted to make up with her friend. That was it. Sam wanted one kind of life and Pessie wanted another, but she refused to give up the boy she had always loved. Why should she have to? And it killed her. All her empathy, all their memories together, meaningless against the gale force of a bigot in a rage. I look over at Mellie and, for the first time since I arrived at the diner, she appears uneasy. She is bent forward, one hand on the edge of Eva’s car seat, rocking the little girl as she sucks on her bottle, the other hand holding her head up, hiding her face.

  “She was a tiny thing,” whispers Ryan, his face now red. “She fell like … boom. I mean, there was no question. She was just … gone. Sam started screaming and the baby was screaming and my dad and Hank bailed. They were like, this is your problem.” Ryan looks down at his hands. “It was Sam’s idea to take her home. We wrapped her in a blanket and laid her down in the backseat of her car and put the baby in the front seat. He was still all strapped in. I drove my truck and Sam drove her car. Her husband wasn’t home and we used her keys to open the door. We brought her in and at first Sam said to put her on the bed. Like maybe she’d died in her sleep. But I’d just seen this show on TV—I think it was 48 Hours or something—about this woman whose body was found in a bathtub and they were trying to prove her husband killed her but they couldn’t because apparently it’s really hard to prove how somebody died when there’s water involved. So I said we should put her in the tub and turn on the water.

  “I drove Sam back to New Paltz and then took the truck—which is my dad’s, technically—to the McDonald’s in Cairo and called a buddy from work to pick me up. I texted my dad that I didn’t want the truck anymore and that he should come get it.”

  Ryan stops talking. I haven’t written down anything he said. For a moment, all three of us sit in silence.

  “Why didn’t you go to the police?” I ask, finally.

  “Because I’ve got a record. They’d think I did it. And I am not going down for them. But now…” He looks at Mellie. “You have to tell her.”

  For a moment Mellie acts like she hasn’t heard him. She keeps her eyes on Eva. “Connie and Hank are planning something.”

  “Something?” I say.

  “Hank’s been all secretive lately. I thought he was fucking around but…” She pauses. “Connie has cancer. Bad cancer. He told us last month and he said the doctors told him he has, like, a couple of months to live. He wouldn’t even know if he hadn’t gone to take Nan to the doctor. Usually I do it but Eva was having a meltdown and he offered. I guess he rolled her into the exam room and the doctor took one look at him and was like, what the fuck? His skin was all yellow. I mean, I’d noticed he looked kind of sickly, but what do I know? Anyway. They did some tests and apparently it’s all up in him. Too late for chemo or whatever else. He’s saying he’ll be dead by the Fourth of July.”

  “Which means he has nothing to lose,” says Ryan.

  “Right. But Hank does. And so do me and Eva and the new baby. Connie can go out in a blaze of glory but I don’t want Hank involved.”

  “A blaze of glory?” I say.

  “Look,” she says, leveling her eyes at me, “you didn’t tell me you were a reporter, okay? Which has to be, like, against the law, right? This is Off. The. Record.”

  “Jesus, Mellie! If Hank and dad kill a bunch of people you’re going to be in the paper! You’re going to be on CNN getting led into Guantanamo, okay! Stop being so fucking stupid
.”

  “Kill a bunch of people?” I say. But Mellie and Ryan don’t hear me.

  “That’s why I called you! Not the fucking cops or the media. I’m still here, okay? I need your help. Hank is never going to choose me over your dad. He’s too attached. But he’ll listen to you. Your dad is out for blood on you being a fag and he’s got Hank convinced they have to make this stand for the race.”

  “That’s so fucking stupid!” shouts Ryan.

  The people in the booth on the other end of the diner look back at us. So does the waitress. Somehow, she seems to know not to come over.

  “Well, it’s fucking happening,” says Mellie. “So you need to deal with it.”

  “What, exactly, is it?” I ask.

  “Hank won’t tell me.”

  “Do you have any ideas?”

  She shrugs.

  “Because somebody threw a Molotov cocktail into Aviva’s house in New Paltz this afternoon.”

  Ryan’s face goes white. “Was anyone…?” He can’t bring himself to say it.

  “The guy who lived there is burned really bad.”

  “Isaac?”

  I nod. “He’ll make it though. No one else was home.”

  Ryan coughs, sucking back the sobs I can practically see filling his chest. “Oh thank God,” he says.

  “I don’t think that’s it,” says Mellie. “A Molotov cocktail isn’t, like … that’s not a big enough deal. Who’s gonna remember that?”

  “It’s true,” says Ryan. “If Dad could pull off Oklahoma City in Roseville he would.”

  I open my mouth but nothing comes out. They seem to be working up to something. The canvas duffel bag with Pessie’s wig inside is beside me. I look over and imagine the secret of her death unzipping the bag and wafting out, creating a vision in fog. A warning. I pull my phone from my coat pocket and with shaking, sweat-slick fingers, text Van: get in here

  “Who are you texting?” asks Mellie.

  “Nobody,” I say. “When is all this supposed to happen?”

  “Hank said it was supposed to be April twentieth.”

  “Unbelievable,” says Ryan. “It’s such a cliché. Dad’s gonna kill Jews on Hitler’s birthday.”

  “Kill Jews…?”

  “Let me finish,” says Mellie. “It was supposed to be April twentieth, but Connie moved it up.”

  “To when?” I ask. My eyes are now on the front door. Please let them be close.

  “Soon. I guess.”

  “Which is why I called you,” says Ryan, leaning toward me. “You’ve got connections. We read your articles about that lady in Brooklyn.”

  “I didn’t read your fucking articles,” mutters Mellie.

  “Me and Sam did,” says Ryan. “You tell the cops what Mellie said. They’ll believe you.”

  And that’s when I see Van’s flashing lights. He pulls in fast, his Roseville police car taking up four parking spots in front of the diner.

  Mellie tries to glare at me, but the fight has gone out of her. “Bitch called the cops.”

  Ryan looks stricken for a moment, then he nods. “Good,” he says. “Good. This stops now.”

  “So much for off the record,” she says.

  “Oh my God, Mellie, shut up. What was she gonna do? Not tell the cops that two completely insane people are plotting a terrorist attack!”

  “They’re not terrorists! They’re patriots! They’re Christians who hate all the niggers and kikes leaching off white people.”

  “Christians who hate…” Ryan shakes his head. “They’ve got you deep, Mellie. You realize that that’s insane, right? You realize all that shit you think is so cute, making your little swastika earrings, that the rest of the world knows you’re crazy? If Dad’s gonna die in a month he is a ticking time bomb. You’re fucking stupider than I thought if you don’t get that.”

  “Call me what you want. I don’t talk to cops.”

  But she doesn’t have to. When Van and Saul get to our table, Ryan tells them enough to warrant Van calling his friend at the State Police. When he does, he learns that, based on Isaac’s suspicion about who threw the Molotov cocktail, officers have been camped out at the Hall compound since midnight.

  “Apparently the only person there right now is an old lady,” says Van after he gets off the phone. “But Ryan, if you’re willing to repeat what you told me, they can probably get a judge to sign off on a warrant to search the place.”

  Mellie, who has been slumped low in the booth, expelling her nervous energy by knocking her tongue stud against her teeth, suddenly looks nervous.

  “If you know something I highly suggest telling me now,” says Van. “Unless you want to have that baby in prison.”

  “I don’t really know anything,” she says softly.

  “You don’t really know anything?”

  And then, before Mellie can stonewall him some more, my phone rings. Caller ID says: MOM.

  “Hello?” I say, standing up, widening my eyes at Saul, who has been sitting quietly at one of the barstools along the diner’s counter.

  “Rebekah! This is your mother. This is Aviva. My phone was … Rebekah, you have to help. Sammy has taken my car. Something is happening.”

  Her voice is low. Not quiet—she is panicked and practically shouting—but a good octave below most women’s. She has an accent that, if I didn’t know was a product of speaking Yiddish, I might call Russian. Her words come from the front of her mouth.

  “Hi,” I say. “Are you okay?”

  “Sammy has taken my car! He was tracking Conrad Hall.”

  “Tracking him?”

  “Rebekah, I am so sorry to talk to you like this!”

  “Like…? It’s okay. Hold on, I’m here with Saul. Do you want us to come get you?”

  “Yes. I will explain everything.”

  She gives me the address and I tell her we will be there as soon as possible. When I hang up, I feel strangely calm. I am conscious of the fact that everything before I picked up the phone was “before Aviva,” and the rest of my life will be after. I am ready.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  REBEKAH

  The morning sky is pink when Saul and I turn on to the street where Aviva is hiding out. Van is behind us in his cruiser. At the diner, I asked him if we could have a little time alone with her before he rolled in. He said he’d give us five minutes.

  The driveway leading to the enormous house winds through maybe a quarter mile of woods. Saul and I haven’t said much to each other since getting in the car. I think we are both a little stunned by what Ryan and Mellie told us, and as Aviva looms just ahead, I imagine we’re both having conversations with her in our heads, conversations too intimate to share.

  We park and get out. The weak sun is almost warm, and here among the trees and the quiet, it feels like it could be a beautiful day. Aviva opens the front door and she is exactly as I should have imagined her. My height, but thinner, a little too thin. Her hair less vibrantly red than mine, streaked now with bits of gray. She is wrapped in a puffy black winter coat, jeans, off-brand sneakers.

  “Rebekah,” she says, stepping outside. I walk toward her, and she walks toward me. When we meet, she grabs my hands. “You are so beautiful.”

  “So are you,” I say. Because she is. There are tiny crow’s-feet at her eyes and she is smiling. At me.

  “I am so proud of you, Rebekah,” she says, squeezing my hands. “Look at you. A big reporter. And you still have your father’s little ears. Of course!” She is giggling. We both are. I’ve played the moment I meet her in my head all my life but I never imagined us laughing. I never imagined thinking she might be someone I would actually like.

  “I will explain everything to you, Rebekah.”

  “Okay,” I say. I almost say, it’s okay, because it kind of feels like it is. Or rather, like it will be.

  “Can I hug you?” she asks.

  I nod and open my arms and we fold together. I have a feeling like I am holding a baby, something delic
ate and precious. She holds tighter than I do. Less wary, I suppose.

  When we part she looks at Saul and blushes. They don’t hug, but they both seem to want to.

  “Thank you for coming,” she says, speaking now to him.

  “Are you all right?” he asks. “What is happening?”

  “Sammy left just before I called you.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Nothing! I woke up and he was gone.”

  “Where did he go?”

  “I don’t know!”

  “Do you have any idea?” I ask.

  “He was tracking a man. A Nazi. Sammy put an app on his phone.”

  We all turn to the sound of tires on gravel. Van in his Roseville Police car is coming up the driveway.

  “Who is that?” says Aviva, stepping back.

  “We know him,” I say. “He found Pessie. He’s a good guy.”

  She looks at Saul.

  “Isaac is in the hospital,” says Saul. “You were right, Aviva. Whoever vandalized your home came back.”

  “In the hospital?”

  “He will be all right,” says Saul. “But he was badly burned.”

  Aviva puts her hand on her forehead and scrunches her face as though she is trying to lift something very heavy. Van pulls right up to the end of the driveway. As he steps out of the car, Saul says, “He left just before she called.”

  Van sits back down and grabs the mouthpiece of his radio.

  “Is he armed?” asks Van.

  Aviva doesn’t answer.

  “Aviva,” says Saul, “please tell him.”

  “I don’t know!”

  “Does he own a gun?” asks Van.

  She shakes her head but too quickly. The answer is yes. “Please,” she says. “He is not going to hurt anyone. He wants to help!”

  “What kind of car is he driving?”

  “I know about the police in Roseville,” says Aviva. “I am not going to tell you anything!”

  Van’s radio screams to life. Beep beep beep and a dispatcher’s voice.