Just as the light turned, Wallace realized that the man driving the van was staring at him. As he passed alongside, he could feel the man’s eyes boring into his head. At the next set of lights, he turned right. There wasn’t a car anywhere, not even any parked. There were no people, no dogs.
“Don’t fuck this up,” Dotty said. Her voice carried a thin urgency like prayer. “Please don’t … just this one time … oh please.…”
“Can she breathe?” he asked, slowing at a stop sign.
Dotty shaded her eyes and pointed to the next intersection, where two churches stood on opposite corners, one of brown gritty stone and the other of white clapboards. The white church had a tall steeple with a gold-numbered clock in it.
“Go by the white one,” she said, “and turn down the driveway.”
“Can she breathe?” he asked again. But Dotty still didn’t answer.
He pulled into the driveway that horseshoed around the church, entering and exiting onto the same quiet, carless, peopleless street, where nothing moved, not a leaf or a bird or even a cloud in the hard blue sky.
“Park behind,” she whispered. “There! Right there!” She pointed when they were directly behind the church, looking down over a hilly cemetery, hummocky and ridged with thin dark gravestones, some so old they sank in angles to the earth, like crooked, rotting teeth. “There’s ’sposed to be a vault down there,” she whispered, squinting down the hillside. “It says Henson over the door. But the door won’t be locked. The money’ll be inside in a duffel bag.”
“I ain’t going down,” he whispered.
“I know that!” she said. “I’m just going over it, that’s all.” She looked around. “So quiet. I never been in such a quiet place.” She rubbed her throat and coughed. “I can’t even swallow. I’m so nervous, I can’t swallow.” She tucked the gun into the band of her skirt and bloused her shirt over it.
The stillness was strange. The world had stopped turning. When Dotty opened the door, its creak was like a sudden scream. “Shit … oh shit,” she whispered, letting it hang open. Once out of the car, she looked back over both shoulders, and then she seemed to take a deep breath before stepping forward to the edge of the grassy hill. She skittered sideways between the gravestones, wary and startled as a night cat, jerking to a halt every few steps to look back frantically. She thinks I’ll leave, he thought, and he wished he could.
She disappeared down the hill. In the back seat, Canny groaned. As Wallace turned to her, his eye caught a glimpse of bright glassy movement flashing in the sideview mirror. He froze, then saw it again. Up in the steeple, in a small louvered portal, just under the clock, stood a man in a pale summer suit, with binoculars to his eyes. He was looking straight down, in the direction Dotty had taken. Canny groaned again. The half-formed words of her drugged sleep sounded watery and distant under the sheet.
“Don’t,” Wallace whispered into the stillness that encased them like glass. “Jest stay still. Jest don’t move.”
In the mirror he saw the man lower the binoculars and bring what looked like a microphone to his mouth.
“C’mon … c’mon …,” he whispered.
She was coming back. She had to carry the duffel bag with both hands. She would take a step, then swing the bag before she took another step.
“Poppy? Poppy, my head hurts,” Canny said. She batted away the sheet and sat up with her legs drawn to her chin. She swayed from side to side. “Where’s Momma? She go someplace?”
“Shh.” He glanced up and saw that the portal was empty. Probably the preacher, he assured himself. Probably goes up there couple times a day and looks things over.
Dotty came around to the open door and hauled the bag onto the seat. “A goddamn fortune!” she gasped. “What’s she …” She looked from Canny to Wallace. “Get her down! Get her down, you asshole!” She jumped inside and slammed the door.
“Her head hurts,” he said.
“Start it up!” she cried. Sweat ran down her face.
He started the car and drove around the side of the church. Dotty knelt on the seat, turning back to Canny. “Get down! Get down, Canny … cover up!”
“My head hurts. It …,” Canny was saying. There was a slap and Canny’s quick, sharp cry. “Momma, don’t … my head.…”
Dotty kept slapping her, telling her to lie down and cover up with the sheet.
“We’re sitting ducks now!” she gasped. “If they’re here, they seen her and they know we got her with us!”
“Nobody saw her,” he lied.
“They got everything they want now,” Dotty panted. “They’ll shoot us, you goddamn little bitch. You want that? You want that?” Her hands flew, flailing and slapping Canny’s covered head. Canny’s thin wail filled the car.
“She’s covered! It ain’t her fault,” he said, grabbing Dotty’s arm as he drove onto the street. “She didn’t know!”
“She knew!” Dotty said, still kneeling facing Canny. “She knew!”
“Course she didn’t,” he said. The thread was snapping, the air thinning. “She’s jest a little girl. She don’t know why we’re here.” From the corner of his eyes, he saw the glint of Dotty’s upraised hand, which he jerked down next to him. She had been pointing the gun at Canny, who sobbed under the sheet.
“You gonna shoot her?” he asked, driving with his left hand while his right still pinned Dotty’s forearm against his side. Her face was a welter of pain and confusion as she sagged down with her head bowed and her cheek against the seat back. With the gun still in her hand, she embraced the duffel bag with a harsh gagging sound.
She’s going to shoot us, he thought. If not here, then on the road to the town forest, and if not there, then the shed, and even if she didn’t then, even if they just kept driving, she’d do it sometime. First Canny and then him.
“We’ll drop her off,” he said quietly, turning right.
She looked up suddenly, turning toward the window. In the distance, there was the rhythmic sound of an approaching engine. It wasn’t until it grew louder and nearer that he realized it was overhead.
“It’s a helicopter!” Dotty said. “You think it’s …” Her words were drowned out by the thunderous rack-rack-rack-rack that vibrated above them. The dull black blades whirled stripes of shadow and sunlight over the car and the road. Dotty squinted and turned her head, cringing with each gash of light, as if she’d been struck. Her mouth opened and closed, but he couldn’t hear her. In the back, Canny lay motionless under the sheet.
Suddenly, the helicopter veered off with a jerk, as if by some invisible tether, and rose into the sky.
“It must be the cops,” Dotty shouted, watching it disappear beyond the treetops. “See! We got the money, so now they’re looking for her! Stay down, Canny! Stay down under the sheet!” She leaned forward. “Keep going straight, Aubie! We’ll get on the highway and then we’ll just keep going. I gotta count it first! I gotta be sure we didn’t get screwed. We can stop later and call.” She was trying to unzip the bag. “Goddammit,” she muttered, jerking the frozen zipper back and forth. It would only open an inch. She closed it and again tried to force it open. “Jesus Christ!” She opened the glove compartment and pawed frantically through papers and straws and road maps. She looked at Wallace. “Where’s the can op …?” Her eyes widened in disbelief and her mouth fell open as they turned the corner. “You little prick!” she moaned. “You stupid little prick.…” She shook her head and tears boiled out of her puffy, gashed eyes. “Where’re you going? We’re on her street!” She looked around wildly. “They’ll kill us! You want that? You want us all dead, you stupid prick?” She raised the gun and, holding it with both hands, pointed it at his head.
“Don’t stop, Aubie! Don’t do it!” she cried as he slowed the car. She kept licking her split lips. She sat sideways now, facing him, a hissing, spitting turmoil of energy.
“Momma?” Canny called.
“Can you hear me?” Dotty screamed. “I said keep going!”
“Momma! What is it?” Canny wailed. “Tell me!”
“They’re gonna shoot us and he doesn’t give a shit!” she said to Canny, who flailed at the sheet to get it away from her. “You think they’ll pick out you and me, you stupid prick?” Dotty asked him. “They’ll shoot her too! We’ll all be dead! Is that what you want?”
“Don’t stop, Poppy!” Canny cried behind him. “Please don’t, please don’t,” she whimpered over and over. Her breath ruffled the back of his neck like a warm breeze.
Ahead was the round, flaring porch of the Birds’ house. Just like the old bandstand back home. Wouldn’t they be proud of him there? Wouldn’t they be happy? The band would all stand up in their crisp white suits and gold-braided hats and bow at the waist when they introduced him.…
This here’s our long-lost friend … Hyacinth’s long-lost husband and them two swell boys of his, Answan and Arnold’s long-lost daddy, Aubrey Wallace, Hazlitt Kluggs would holler through the microphone so loud, the hills and mountains would echo it back all day and long into the heat of night like welcome thunder.… Aubrey Aubrey Wallace Wallace Wallace.
He almost smiled. Everything had become so clear and so simple that he was astonished at the ease of it all. Suddenly, as if a switch had just been pulled, all the right connections were being made. His brain knew what his eye saw and heard all that entered his ears, and more. So clear, so pure was his vision, that he could see through things. He could hear music, drums beating and trumpets blaring. Getting louder and closer. From far, far away emerged all the time he had lost, all the days and months he thought he had forgotten.
He felt lighter. His skin was clear and tight on his bones. He was a young man, a boy, a child. He and Canny were the best of friends. He would let her get there first, calling allee, allee, home free.…
Of all the connections and energies that flowed through him, the keenest, surest, most trustworthy one now was his heart. So if his eyes clouded, or his ears blocked, or his brain froze, it didn’t matter. No sir! Now as he approached the big white house with the shiny black shutters and the bandstand flaring over the sidewalk, he knew exactly what to do.
“Don’t you …,” she was screaming. She stretched her leg out to jam her foot down on the gas pedal. “Don’t you do this … this is my last chance …,” she screamed, as they roared past the house.
Behind him, Canny was hysterical. “Please, Poppy!” she begged. “Do what she says, Poppy!” She put her arms around his throat and held him tightly, screaming, “They’re coming after us! Look at them all!”
The only voice in the car now was Canny’s, thin and harsh. “They’re gonna shoot us, Poppy!” she kept saying.
There were police cars everywhere: three behind them, more pulling out of each driveway they passed. Ahead, at the tree-shaded intersection, two more cruisers with flashing lights crept forward.
With Dotty’s foot hard on the accelerator, the car tore through the intersection in a storm of blinding dust. Out of nowhere had come the helicopter, swooping like a huge crow, flying so close to the car that the chop-chop-chop of its blades drowned out every sound.
The car skimmed over bumps and ruts and flew around curves, soundless and motorless, so effortlessly that there no longer seemed any need to steer over this tree-lined, snaking road.
He kept grabbing for the gun she had jammed into his ribs. Finally, his hand closed over hers and, as he squeezed, he saw her eyes widen, and then she threw back her head and screamed as they careened off the road and crashed through a dense wall of gnarled and ancient rhododendron that cracked and spit against the windshield. The car broke through a dappled stand of bushes and saplings, then came to the top of the wooded embankment, where it teetered briefly before its long sideward plunge of creaking, crunching, sagging, gasping metal into the muck of a yellow swamp-grass clearing below.
The car had stopped. Dotty was slumped forward with her cheek on the dashboard and the top of her head crammed against the shattered windshield. A thin bloody drool ran from her chin along the soft white curve of her throat.
“Canny?” he called softly, picking slips of paper from his face.
They were buried in these dollar-shaped pieces of newspaper that had burst from the duffel bag.
“Poppy!” answered Canny, as she struggled to pull herself up from the floor in back. Part of the front seat had torn loose, and it pinned her legs. “Momma’s dead,” she whispered, reaching over onto the seat for the gun. Only her eyes moved, from left to right at the policemen scrambling down the hillside. Their uniforms were different; some wore gray, others dark blue. Some wore ordinary clothes, plaid shirts, jeans. Some had on suits and ties. One carried a bullhorn and wore a tall, gray hat. They all carried rifles or hand guns.
The helicopter was returning. It brooded over the hilltop, its blades striking a softer clop-clop, a beat more of wings than of steel.
“They’re gonna kill us too,” cried Canny, looking wildly about. “They’re gonna shoot us!”
“Canny,” Wallace whispered, watching the policemen encircle the car.
“Get away!” Canny screeched, moving the gun from window to window. “You bastards! You goddamn pricks, you get the fuck away from us!”
“They ain’t gonna hurt you, Canny,” Wallace said.
Coming around the front of the car was a tall, thin, stoop-shouldered man with sharp bony features and long, deep creases in his cheeks. His eyes were bloodshot and set deep with weariness. He was the only unarmed man. “Caroline?” the man called, his voice cracking as he stopped to look through the shattered windshield. He came to Dotty’s side and, squinting, peered in at Canny.
Wallace knew at once who the man was and he was suddenly deeply ashamed for this wild-eyed, wild-haired creature who bit her lip as she raised the gun, pointing it at Louis Bird, just inches from his worn face.
“Canny,” Wallace said, staring miserably over the wheel. “That’s …”
“Get the fuck outta …,” she gasped, cringing as Bird leaned closer.
“Oh my God!” Bird cried in a thick, choked voice. “It’s you, Caroline, my …”
It was then, then as he reached toward her in a gesture of such painful longing, then that Wallace’s mouth filled with sickness, then that she squeezed the trigger with all four dirty, sweaty fingers, closing her eyes with the sudden jerking blast that threw her back against the seat, boneless and limp. And then, in that instant, as the bullet whizzed past Bird’s head, the police, all thirty, or forty, or fifty of them instinctively raised their guns with both hands, their slitted eyes trained on the car, on the opening door, on the unshaven little man who darted out, a gun at his side.
“Stop!” one cried, crouching on powerful legs.
In a foot-dragging limp, Aubrey Wallace scrambled past them toward the embankment. In unison, they all turned and fired. At first his body jerked and quivered with each bullet’s entry. Then it didn’t hurt anymore. He could hear them whizzing into him, stuck, and biting hard, but the feeling was gone. He began to dive to earth. The plunge would take forever. His eyes were wide, wider than they had ever been, so wide, the whites seeped into the hard blue glare of the sky. He saw them take her, kicking and biting and swearing savagely.
Louis Bird ran alongside the policeman who carried her toward the embankment. Their feet made sucking sounds through the mud.
“It’s going to be all right,” Bird kept telling her. “It’s going to be all right.” He reached to touch her and she whacked away his hand.
“Bastard!” she wailed. “You killed him, you bastards!”
A siren screamed. An ambulance was coming. Above them, it screeched to a stop. Down the embankment ran two white-suited attendants. A man with a walkie-talkie to his ear called to them as they bent over Wallace. “Forget him! He’s gone! Get her! Get her out of the car before she bleeds to death.”
“Momma!” Canny wailed through the trees.
They were lifting Dotty from the car.
&nb
sp; “Don’t worry,” someone said when she moaned. “You’re okay.…”
“Jesus Christ!” said another. “Look at her face! Look at the job he did on her, the crazy son of a bitch!”
Another ambulance arrived. More attendants charged down the hill, dust spitting from their heels. When they came to Wallace, they stopped.
“Poor bastard,” one of them muttered. He lifted Wallace’s wrist, then flung it down into the warm black ooze.
Aubrey Wallace was dead. Shot eleven times. Not a bullet had hit his heart. Not a one.
Epilogue
This is all so crazy. I been on four TV talk shows, and two magazines and a ton of newspapers want to interview me. All of a sudden I’m famous.
People keep asking me what’s the truth; what’s the real story and why he did it, why he took little Caroline Bird in the first place. And I tell them I don’t know for sure. All I can do is guess. I think what happened was he was so simple, he didn’t know much better, and he was so lonely, he just wanted love.
A lot of people say he’s nothing but a vicious, money-hungry kidnapper, a killer. But that’s not the way it was. Aubrey Wallace never meant to hurt a soul. Some people just got in his way, that’s all. That’s not to say I approve of what he did. Just that like everybody else, I’m trying to understand it.
Soon as I’m better, I’m heading out west. This guy read about me in the paper. His name’s Brett Bracker and he said he could get me started in acting. He wants to be my agent. It’s funny how things happen, isn’t it? How a break like Brett Bracker could come out of such an awful tragedy—all those deaths, first my father and then the Hullers, all the ones he killed.
Aubrey used to watch me, I guess. Or that’s what he said. I was just a kid then up in the mountains and what kid notices an old guy like him hanging around? I guess he just got it in his head one day that I was gonna go with him. Me and my Dad were out walking and up he comes behind us. And out of the blue, he smashes my Dad’s skull in (with what, I’m still not sure) and then he tries to set him on fire. But that’s when I took off and he chased me all over hell, for hours and hours, half the night, I guess. I don’t know. So much of it’s a blur now. All I know is he finally caught me and he tied me up to a tree and then the next day he came back and got me and dragged me into a truck and off he went. Like a bat out of hell, driving and driving, until we hit that little town, and we were low on gas and money, and I begged him to let me go, but he never said a word. He just got out of the truck and walked up on that big round porch and rang the bell and then he just opened the door and went in.
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