Too Lucky to Live

by Annie Hogsett

  Sweet Jesus. A miracle! A scary miracle. I almost peed myself.

  “Tom!” I yelped. “She’s alive! I’m going to call 9-1-1.”

  A voice from outside the busted door, calm and professional, announced, “No need for that, ma’am. Somebody already did. I’m going to ask you to come stand by the gentleman here. And please keep your hands where I can see them.”

  Chapter Six

  We didn’t get arrested. Or shot. Those were the two good things that happened to us during that portion of the night, and they were a welcome surprise. The pair of cops—one tall and young, the other shorter, older, and tireder—summoned an EMS unit for Renata Davis, and after they’d done what little they could for her, they questioned us closely. I could tell, though, that somewhere along their way to 1415 on this night they’d heard about the blind Mondo winner.

  They must have found it improbable that this blind guy would have, upon winning five hundred million dollars, proceeded to public housing to beat some unknown woman senseless. It couldn’t be totally dismissed, of course, but for the most part it didn’t compute.

  After a couple of edgy minutes they started treating us more politely. And even as they secured the scene, wrote down our information, and looked at our picture IDs, they zeroed in on another major cause for concern. An eight-year-old boy had announced his lottery numbers to a room spilling over with a bunch of nice, not very well-to-do people and with some probable ruthless felons. Now that his numbers had come in, he was missing.

  Tom explained to them in shorthand form why he’d bought the ticket, ending with, “I wanted to show him that gambling is no way to make money.”

  The older of the two cops, whose last name was Valerio and who was not quite paunchy enough to be Donut Cop but cynical enough to play one on TV, snorted. “And how’s that workin’ for you, Mr. Bennington? The Third.”

  The EMTs labored over Renata, pronounced her ready to be transported, and then transported her. After the groan that had taken at least fifteen years off my life, she hadn’t been responsive, so no one could ask her who had beaten her or what had happened to her son.

  “Tom? Did Renata—does she—have family around here?”

  “I have no idea. I only talked with her a couple of times. I assumed she was making sure I wasn’t a pervert. Seemed like a reasonable thing for a responsible mother to do. She told me she was glad Rune had somewhere safe to go sometimes. Safe.” His voice cracked. It broke my heart.

  We were waiting in the hall outside Renata’s apartment for the police to tell us we could leave. They’d searched for Rune inside, even the smallest niches, but he wasn’t anywhere. Given the shape his mom had been left in, I couldn’t tell whether that was good news or bad, but I didn’t feel relieved.

  The cuter of the two policemen, who’d introduced himself as Officer Clark, came out to tell us we could go. He lingered for a minute, deciding what to say, how much to get involved, how much trouble to ask for. He looked both of us over and then addressed himself to me. “You guys have a winning Mondo ticket, correct?”

  Tom answered. Maybe he couldn’t tell who the cop was talking to. Maybe he’d gotten used to being talked over and around because of his disability. “Yes. We do.”

  The cop refocused himself toward Tom. “Not on you, I trust.”

  “No. It’s—it’s in a safe place.”

  “Buddy, there isn’t a safe place on the planet for a piece of paper worth 524 million dollars.”

  “Five-hundred-twenty-four?” I squeaked. “I thought it was five hundred.” Not that I meant to quibble. After 450 million or so, who’s counting?

  “That was awhile ago. And when the pot gets big, it always jumps up right before the drawing. People rushing to get in. That’s the last number I heard.”

  “Great,” Tom mumbled. “That is just fantastic.”

  The cop glared at him in disbelief and shook his head. “You really didn’t want to win, did you?”

  I watched him assess the fundamental unfairness of this situation.

  Tom heard it in his voice and tried on about half a grin. “It never even occurred to me that I might. It was the last thing—I think I’ll be glad I won, once I see Rune is safe.”

  That seemed to mollify the cop, who nodded. “You live around here.”

  “Yes. Over on Waterview.”

  “You been home all evening?”

  “No. I was at—No. I haven’t been home since maybe three o’clock this afternoon.”

  “Well, you’re free to go—”

  Grouchy Cop glanced up from his note-taking.

  “You people may want to hang out here a couple of minutes and let us go down there with you. If people know where you live….” He let the sentence die out, but his meaning was clear. Who knew what we’d find at Tom’s.

  Tom waited, thinking it over, and then nodded. “Okay, yes. Please. I’d like you to go.” He sighed. “No need to be stupider than I’ve already been.”

  Cute Cop gave him a sympathetic smile, which, of course, was lost on Tom, but won the guy a few points with me. He was maybe twenty-five or so. Tall, blond, and muscular. Bold blue eyes, a bronzed complexion, and an earnest manner. On a different day in a different decade, I’d have thought he was a candidate for one of those Officer Stud-Muffin calendars.

  He cleared his throat. “Here’s some advice. When you have your ticket in your possession again, sir, sign it. It’s a bearer instrument. Anyone who has possession of it can cash it in. Signing it doesn’t completely protect you. If you don’t have it, you don’t have it. So don’t lose it. But signing it helps. And someone who took it from you would have to answer a lot of questions. Just be careful.”

  Tom was listening to him with a interested expression. “You’ve thought about this a lot, haven’t you, Officer—? Sorry. I’ve forgotten—”

  “Clark. Bob Clark. Yeah. I play all the time. Not big. A buck. But regular. It’s—I don’t know—I’m never going to make much money, but it’s entertaining to fantasize what it would be like.”

  “Would you quit your job? If you won?”

  He smiled, and hesitated for a second. Fantasizing, I assumed. “Nah. I like my job. Now, you and Ms. Harper stand over there. As soon as a couple of other guys get here to take over, you can ride down to your place with us.”

  Chapter Seven

  Tom’s house was small and spare. White Dutch lap siding and green shutters. A deep porch that ran the width of the front and faced the water. Wicker furniture. Flower boxes along the railing. Waves crashing. Tom’s beach house. All neat and tidy on the outside.

  The inside had reaped the Mondo whirlwind. Furniture overturned. Braille books and regular books strewn around. Cabinets yanked open. A lot of expensive stereo equipment passed over in a wild search for something smaller but substantially more valuable. It was a mini disaster. Earthquake. Tsunami. Tom had been so right. I was looking at it.

  Officers Clark and Valerio gave it a quick look-see while I walked around, applying the practiced eye of a messy woman who’d cleaned up a lot of wrecked rooms in her life. “It’s not so bad, Tom. Things are only slightly, uh, dislocated. Nothing much damaged that can’t be fixed. I’ll help you put it back. You can tell me where everything goes.”

  “It’s Rune I’m worried about.” He was standing in the center of the room, using his cane to poke at his scattered possessions. His expression was impassive, but the death grip on his cane and a good-sized clench in his jaw gave him away. “I probably shouldn’t stay here until I can put it all back. I depend too much on knowing where everything is. This is an obstacle course. I’d break a leg trying to get around. I’ll go to a hotel, and tomorrow I’ll decide what to do.” He gave the clutter of books at his feet an angry kick.

  “No. Tom—” I began.

  But young Officer Clark cut me off.

  “You
need to stay completely away for a while, Mr. Bennington. This is a drop in the bucket to what might have happened if you’d been home when they came in. We can circulate a car by here. No guarantee, of course, but that should help. In the meantime, you need to go somewhere, so that nobody knows where you are except the people you totally trust.”

  He’d taken his policeman hat off, revealing a white-blond crew cut. “This money. I can see it doesn’t matter to you. A few folks around here’d kill you for a twenty if the moon was full. As soon as you can, get your ticket, sign it, and cash it in. Then lie low. Until things get better. Until people forget.”

  Tom sighed. “People will never forget.” I watched as he pulled himself together, squaring his shoulders against the despair I could read on his face. “Allie, can you help me get some clothes and things together? Then we’ll go. And do whatever comes next about Rune.”

  We made our way into the bedroom, Tom using his cane to deflect the wreckage of his comfortable home. Me, murmuring little warnings. His hand dragged heavy on my elbow now. We pulled together a few changes of clothes. Odds and ends. He wasn’t teaching this summer, he explained, so he didn’t need clothes for work. I admired a nice, neat stack of those fabulous white tees.

  We found his special laptop undisturbed in a case by the bed. The intruders hadn’t made as much of a mess of the bedroom. I could hear Officers Clark and Valerio talking quietly and static bursts from exchanges with a distant dispatcher.

  I was folding things and getting ready to start rooting out a suitcase, when Tom went still. Listening. I was reminded of his deer-in-the-headlights freeze when he’d started hearing his numbers. And had stopped kissing me. “What—?”

  He put his fingers to his lips and pointed toward the closet. The door was partly open from the cops’ earlier walk-through and whatever Tom had heard was coming from in there. I heard it then, too. A rustle, a small scuffling noise like a burrowing animal. Tom turned to me and gestured toward the chatter of the policemen in the living room.

  Got it. I stepped to the door and waved to them, motioning them to silence. They came with guns drawn and advanced on the closet, pushing Tom and me back and away from the door. They would have shoved us out of the room but Tom shoved right back. He grabbed onto me and showed me, with his palm flattened and parallel to the floor at waist level, the universal sign for “child.”

  Clark saw it, too, and he showed his partner. They didn’t lower their guard, but they eased up enough. And Clark’s voice was gentle. “You. In the closet. It’s okay to come out now.”

  And Tom said, “Rune. It’s me. I’m here. Come on out.”

  The door eased open and a skinny boy about four feet tall, wearing torn jeans and a red-and-white striped shirt, stepped into the light. His hands were empty and the cops disappeared their weapons. Rune’s eyes were wide with fright. He’d been crying at some point, but, apart from dusty streaks on his cheeks, there was no evidence of recent tears. He passed between the two policemen as if they weren’t there and ignored me, too, as he walked straight to Tom and looked up at him. Mournfully. Accusingly.

  “We won. And you didn’t come.”

  Tom squatted down. “Rune. I’m so sorry. I had a little accident this afternoon and this lady, her name is Allie, took me home with her. She made me some good chili and I forgot all about the ticket. Remember, I didn’t think we’d win. And then, as soon as I heard the numbers, we came to find you. We went to the common room but you weren’t there.”

  The boy nodded. “That’s okay, then. I figured it had to be something like that for you not to show. But did you see my mom? I came over here from the rec room because I thought you’d be here. But they followed me, so I hid. I heard them, looking for me…talking about her. Like they’d gone to see her to make her give them the ticket or tell where it was. But Tom, she didn’t know. I don’t even know. I’m afraid they hurt her. Did you see her?”

  Tom nodded. “Yes. I’m sorry. She’s injured, Rune, but she’s alive. She’s at the hospital. I’ll call about her. And you can see her when she’s up to it.”

  The boy accepted that with a resignation that made me sad. “Can I go home?”

  Bob Clark squatted down too, and looked Rune in the eye. I was appreciating him more and more. “Rune, I’m Officer Clark. Your home is a mess now. Like Mr. Bennington’s house here. It can be fixed fine but it’s not ready to be lived in. And you’re not old enough to live anywhere by yourself. I’m going to call a very nice lady I know and she’ll come here and you can go with her for tonight. How would that be?”

  “Can’t he come with us?” I pleaded. “He knows Tom—”

  Clark cut me off with a shake of his head. “I have to follow regulations, Ms. Harper. Plus, you’ve got plenty going on without trying to protect Rune. Besides, this lady is nice. She’s my wife. She’s a social worker. Helping kids is her job.”

  He turned back to Rune and smiled encouragement at the boy, who was regarding him without the slightest scrap of trust. “You’ll like her, son. She’s very pretty. You’ll see. You can phone Tom tomorrow and he can come visit you. And of course you’ll be able to see your mother, if—when—she’s able to have visitors. We’ll wait a short while, and Marie—the nice lady—will come.”

  Having made all our decisions for us, Officer Clark moved to the door, cell phone in hand. He stepped out onto the porch and I heard him say, “Marie?” Then he lowered his voice so, I suspected, we wouldn’t be able to listen to a man explain to his wife that she needed to haul out at hellacious a.m. to find a safe place for a little lost boy. The lake sounds rose around him as he walked down the steps and swallowed his no doubt conciliatory words.

  We waited. We talked some. The cops asked Rune if he recognized the guys who’d followed him. But he shook his head. He explained that after he’d run to the house and hidden in Tom’s closet, they’d come in and started making their way from room to room.

  “I was sure they’d find me because I made a mistake and hid in an easy place. I was afraid the closet was where they’d look first thing. But one of the guys’ phone rang and they got spooked. The man said fuh—the very bad word—and then, ‘He’s not here. He’s there.’ And the other guy said it too. They ran away fast. But I told myself, ‘Don’t come out yet. They might come back.’”

  His eyes were still a tad reproachful. “So I waited for you, Tom.”

  ***

  After a while, Rune and Tom both dozed off, sitting on a couch which Officer Clark and I had hauled up off its face and set back on its legs.

  Tom’s arm was cradling Rune’s shoulders and the boy was resting his head with absolute confidence on Tom’s chest. They looked good together. I’d have to tell Tom later, that, yes, Runako with his burnished brown skin and trusting young face was handsome as his name.

  I was wide awake, of course, handling the worrying, the scheming, and the planning about how the three of us could stay alive, cash the ticket, and then, maybe, make a safe place for Rune in the midst of Tom’s private tsunami. Now I could see where Tom’s grim look had come from while I was doing my Mondo happy dance. Heads up, Allie.

  It was well after one when Marie Clark came to get Rune. He went, reluctant but docile with sleep. And she was indeed pretty, as blond and blue-eyed as Bob, with a warm smile that soothed even old skeptical me. They were a matched pair. Him in his dashing navy blue uniform. Her in her trim, tailored navy blue suit. Marie looked insanely buttoned-up and professional for one in the morning. As advertised, she was quite nice. She had that serene demeanor I’ve always aspired to but had the good sense not to pursue into the land of futility.

  She was inspecting Tom, and her eyes were thoughtful. News travels fast. Poor Tom. Poor, nouveau riche Tom. He’d been right. People would never forget. Nobody who knew his story would ever look at him again without doing the math. I was glad I’d met him back when he was just another hot blind guy st
uck in the crosswalk.

  It took us and the cops maybe fifteen more minutes to corral Tom’s getaway stuff and close the house up as tight as possible. We left a light on in every room.

  We caught a ride in the squad car back to the parking lot and Margo’s Volvo. After they helped us transfer Tom’s things and said good night, the cops moved back toward the big gloomy high-rise, Officer Valerio leading the way, Officer Clark striding behind. They would keep looking for answers. Making notes. Writing reports. Doing whatever cops do in the dead of night to follow up on break-ins and beatings.

  I stole one last glance up to the rows of dead blank windows before I joined Tom in the Volvo, locked the doors, and took off. I was feeling an itchy sensation that could be caused by the laser focus of a hundred pairs of invisible eyes. Tracking our every move.

  Chapter Eight

  Wednesday, August 19

  One less-than-comforting thing about driving down Lake Shore at two in the morning was that anything moving stood out like a sore thumb. The streets were empty. No people. No cars. Not even a stray cat. Nobody but good old us in the Sore Thumbmobile.

  The moon had popped out from the clouds and the street was overspread with clear, silvery light. The corners where moonlight couldn’t reach were deep in shadow. Plenty of places where someone could lurk, still and watchful, for a little Mondo opportunity to drive by.

  I was recalling Bob Clark’s warning about the “folks around here who’d kill you for a twenty if the moon was full.” Which, in fact, it was. This very night. I didn’t worry so much that they’d kill us right off the bat. They’d want the ticket first. Then they’d kill us. I wished we’d asked the cops to follow us home, and hoped my paranoia would start easing up sometime soon.

  News of money travels fast. It felt to me as if all of Greater Cleveland had already heard that the winner of the Mondo was a local blind guy. I was betting this was a regular flash bulletin among the kill-you-for-a-twenty-moon-crowd. I glanced over at Tom, settled back in the passenger seat, gazing at nothing behind his dark glasses and amended my previous thought. The winner of the Mondo was “a local, hot blind guy.” I may have been in a tricky situation, but I wasn’t dead yet. I could still appreciate hotness in my passenger. My now peacefully sleeping passenger.