See How They Run

by Bethany Campbell

In spite of himself, he took her hand in his good one, held it tightly. “Yes. We run.”

  “For how long?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “But they’ll all be looking for us. The law. And the Colombians, too.”

  “Yes. They will.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “We throw them off the trail. I’ve already started.”

  “You mean by switching cars, calling doctors?”

  “That and more,” he said. “I used Jefferson’s Visa card. I called American Airlines, made one-way reservations on a night flight to Philly. Two adults, two children. You went to school in Philly, right?”

  “Yes,” she said, looking bewildered. “But you don’t mean …”

  “No,” he said. “My sister Cindy’s picking up the tickets, checking in. She won’t use them, but there’ll be a record we checked in. It’ll take them time to find out nobody went.”

  She nodded. She raised no objections about Jefferson’s credit card. That was good. She was learning fast to be hardheaded.

  He said, “I mailed Jefferson’s credit card and two of mine to Cindy. She’ll drop one of mine in the bus station in Manhattan. She mails one to my sister Susie in L.A. Susie does the same thing. Pretty soon they got crazy credit patterns on two coasts. They won’t know what to trust.”

  She swallowed and nodded again. “Aren’t you afraid to involve your family?”

  “Yes. But I never did when I was undercover, and they won’t expect me to now. We do nothing that they’d expect.”

  “They won’t expect you to come here, to Marco?”

  “They shouldn’t. I know half a dozen doctors on the wrong side of the law. I called one. I mailed him another one of Jefferson’s credit cards. Told him to take a nice vacation. Immediately.”

  “So what do we do—really?”

  “They’ll expect us to panic, to bolt. And to leave Jefferson behind. We do none of those things.”

  “We take Jefferson because we can’t leave him with Marco?”

  He paused, then nodded. “That, and we may need him. Now this is what I think we should do. Find a place to lie low a few days, get our act straight. Then we go someplace, keep a low profile, and establish new identities. We don’t hurry it. We do it right. It takes time, and they don’t expect us to take time.”

  Her face was strained. “It’ll be hard on the boys. Really hard.”

  He gripped her hand more tightly. “I know. Just keep on doing what you’ve done. Can you?”

  She didn’t answer yes or no, but she raised her chin to a determined angle. He liked the way she looked when she did that.

  “So,” she said, “where are we going to hide?”

  “We’ll find somewhere,” he said. “We just need an out-of-the-way place to light for a few days. We’ll find one.”

  She took a deep breath. “I thought about it. While you were gone. We can’t go to a hotel or motel. They’d want a driver’s license, the van’s plate number. We’d leave a trail.”

  “That’s right. There may be an all-points bulletin out on us. We don’t know.”

  She stared at their locked hands. “Like I said, I thought about it—hard. I might know a place. It’s primitive, but it might be safe.”

  He was dubious, yet he knew she was smart. “Okay,” he said. “Tell me about it.”

  As if by mutual consent, they kept their hands joined, resting on the tabletop.

  And she told him of the place she knew.

  • • •

  Don Mesius Estrada sat in his library at his desk, and in his palm he held a cross of gold and emeralds with a golden chain. He played grimly with this chain, studying it with distaste.

  A dark, cadaverously lean young man with a scabrous face sat in the leather chair on the opposite side of the desk. His name was Santander, and he was Mesius Estrada’s sometime bodyguard and his most feared henchman.

  When Santander had first heard the word “henchman,” he hadn’t liked it; it had a cheap, insulting sound. But he had looked it up in Estrada’s big English dictionary, and it had said “a loyal and trusted follower.”

  The word had once meant the “page of a prince.” It pleased Santander to view himself this way, as the messenger of the prince. The message that he frequently delivered was a final one. He had done so today, three times over.

  But tonight his prince, Estrada, looked half ill with rage. He threw the chain and cross across his desktop in disgust.

  “Santo Domingo, how could they do such a thing? Tell me again.”

  Santander started to rub his jaw, then stopped himself. His dermatologist told him he mustn’t scratch his face. “Suarez and I took them to the park on Long Island. The truck was there, keys under the seat. Like you said.”

  Estrada nodded coldly. Santander knew Estrada had executed his side of the bargain as scrupulously as possible, in fact, flawlessly.

  Santander’s mouth crooked contemptuously. “They were at Valley Hope at the right time. They were in the right place. They must have opened fire too soon, before the van was inside the gate.”

  “Los imbécils,” Estrada said. “Why’d I think the little shits could right their own wrong?”

  Santander wondered this himself. By trying to contain the damage the three fools had done, Estrada had only compounded it. Perhaps now the prince had learned his lesson.

  “They came back to us crying like kittens,” Santander said. “You gave them no time to plan, they said. Personally, I think they were hung over. The big one, Carlito—he had breath like a fart.”

  Estrada rose and paced to the shelves that held his philosophy books. “Go on.”

  “They whined about the snow,” Santander said. “They couldn’t see good, they couldn’t drive quick, the snow made them skid. If it weren’t for the snow, they would have come back heroes.”

  Santander gave a disdainful little laugh. “So it was your fault. It was the weather’s fault. It was God’s fault. It was anyone’s fault but their own, the pricks.”

  Estrada looked as if he tasted gall. “The Yankees have a proverb: Don’t send a boy to do a man’s job. I should have killed them right off and sent you and Suarez.”

  Santander ducked his head slightly, as if bowing in acknowledgement. Once again he resisted the desire to pick his face.

  He said, “The one who shot the snowplow driver was Carlito. The big one, the stupid one. He panicked and fired.”

  Estrada nodded, his expression more sour than before.

  “They crashed the truck, but not bad,” said Santander. “It still ran. But they panicked. They came back to the park to drop the truck and escape. With us. They came like dogs with their tails between their legs.”

  Estrada picked up a volume of Miguel de Unamuno. “They came back,” he said, shaking his head. “They actually expected sympathy.”

  “They bitched like women,” Santander said. “They thought they’d get another chance.”

  Estrada opened the book. His eyes fell on words that obviously displeased him. “ ‘Being right is a small thing,’ ” he quoted in contempt. “Unamuno was a fool. Being right is the only thing.”

  He slammed the book shut, shoved it back on the shelf. He turned to Santander, his face grim. “They didn’t even know who they’d killed and who they hadn’t.”

  Santander shrugged. It was true. They hadn’t.

  “I have it on the best authority that the twins escaped,” Estrada said bitterly.

  He looked at Santander and seemed to choose his words carefully. “The Cartel’s position is delicate. We mustn’t be blamed for spilling the blood of these witnesses. But we must be sure they die.”

  “Yes,” Santander said. He asked no questions. He had his opinions, but he knew his place.

  “You will be my capitán in this,” Estrada said. “I’ll get you killers who can do the job. But this has to be done with discretion.”

  “I understand,” said Santander.

  “I’ve found t
hese twins once. I’ll find them again.”

  Santander believed this. Finding them might take longer this time, but Estrada could do it. He was a powerful prince, and Santander would have served no other sort.

  Estrada leaned back against his bookshelves, his gaze as cold and flat as a cobra’s. “When I locate them, kill them. We’ll put the blame on the norteamericano. And then he’ll have to be killed.”

  Santander nodded.

  “The three young buffoons,” Estrada said. “They were surprised?”

  Santander smiled crookedly. “The baby-faced one, he cried. He didn’t want to, but he did. The big one pissed his pants. The other one swore and called us Judases.”

  Under other circumstances, Estrada might have smiled. “And you did what I said?”

  Santander nodded. “We cut off their heads. We have them on ice. In a Styrofoam cooler.”

  “Good,” said Estrada. He would send the severed heads to the Mafia, a gift of good faith. We, your friends in the Cartel, have tracked and killed those who preyed on your organization.

  He picked up the golden chain and cross again. The emerald at the cross’s center glittered. That morning, the cross had adorned the neck of Paco Paredes.

  Estrada regarded it with contempt. Paco had no more need of necklaces. Nor did his friends.

  “And their bodies?” he asked.

  “To Zarate’s Funeral Parlor. They’ll be burned—how do you say?”

  “Cremated,” Estrada said, regarding the cross. “It’s good to be rid of them. I should have done it sooner.”

  Santander was wise enough to say nothing.

  Estrada shook his head, musing. “Did they say why they took Reynaldo Comce with them? My God, the stupidity.”

  “They said he wanted to come. They said, ‘How do you say no to somebody like Reynaldo?’ ”

  Estrada studied the cross, then threw it back to his desktop. “Madness,” he said with scorn. He raised his eyes and met Santander’s. “The woman and twins die. And the men with them. The man. There are two, but one’s wounded. They’ll leave him behind.”

  “Of course.” Santander was careful to keep his expression neutral. Killing a man was standard procedure, nothing special. As for the twins, they sounded like the spawn of a diablero to him, a wicked witch. He could kill them as easily as he would crush a pair of insects.

  But he was seldom asked to kill women, and the idea of killing women secretly excited him. He liked to read books and magazines about it, true stories of serial murderers and sex killers and men who cut apart women’s bodies. He liked to look at the pictures.

  He had dreams, and often the dreams left him with sticky wet spots on the bed clothing. He thought of the schoolteacher and raised his hand to his face. He allowed himself to scratch his cheek deeply, just once, for the pure, forbidden pleasure of it.

  Morning was gray outside the bedroom window.

  “I can’t take this,” Laura told Marco DeMario. “It’s a real fur coat.”

  “What’s the matter?” Marco demanded. “You’re one of those women who won’t wear fur?”

  He held out a jacket to her with his slightly shaky hands. The fur was silvery white. It was still beautiful, even though it had the air of being old.

  Laura shook her head in consternation. She didn’t approve of fur coats, or at least she supposed she didn’t. She’d never had the money to buy one if she’d wanted.

  “Genuine silver fox,” Marco said. “It was my wife’s. A Christmas present. Years ago. You disapprove? You think these pelts belonged to personal friends of Bambi?”

  “Well, there’s that,” Laura said, “but even more—”

  “Pretend these foxes died of old age,” Marco told her. “If left to natural causes, they would have by now.”

  “It’s more than that,” Laura objected. “That must have been very expensive.”

  “It turned out to be a very expensive meal for moths. Take it. I offered it to my niece, but she’s so short, she was like a fur ball. She looked like something the cat coughed up.”

  “I wouldn’t feel right—”

  He made a sound of impatience. “You can’t take your own coat. It’s bloody. It’s like wearing a sign saying, ‘I’ve been shot at recently.’ You go without a coat, you’ll catch pneumonia, then where will those boys be? Take it.”

  With a sigh she relented. Time had dimmed the luster of the jacket’s satin lining, made it musty, riddled it with tiny moth holes. But the fur itself was still thick and silky.

  “Thank you, Marco,” she said. “But no more now—please. You’ve given me enough.”

  But he did give her more. While she’d coaxed the boys through their breakfasts, Marco had rifled through his dead wife’s closet. From its long-undisturbed depths, he’d pulled over a dozen items that were still wearable, blouses, slacks, and sweaters. There was even a pair of furry mukluk boots, a bit ratty, but warm.

  The clothes were fifteen years out of fashion, but well made and wearable. Marco had even gone through his wife’s bureau and found a few changes of underwear, yellowing with age, but still perfumed with the fading scent of sachet.

  Lastly, he talked her into taking the jacket. All her clothes, as well as Jefferson’s and Montana’s, had been in the car with Stallings and Becker.

  “You’re built like my wife,” he said gruffly. “All long legs and no real meat to you. But on her it looked all right. You, too. Does me good to see you in it.”

  She wasn’t so sure it did him good, because she thought she saw unshed tears in his eyes when he stood there looking her up and down. She wore a pair of his wife’s dark plaid slacks, her navy sweater, the mukluks, and now the silver-white fur.

  But his expression was not one of pathos. His head was high, his nostrils pinched, the set of his mouth critical. He looked almost ferocious, like a very old hawk who still had fight in him.

  “Laura!” It was Montana’s voice, and it startled her. “Laura, are you ready? The kids are antsy.”

  “Go,” Marco said. “You’ve got to go now.”

  “Thank you for everything,” she said. She leaned and kissed his cheek. It felt soft, cool, and fragile beneath her lips.

  “Enough of that,” he said, waving her away. “I’ll carry your suitcase downstairs.”

  “No, I can manage,” she protested. But he insisted. To argue with him, she felt, would insult his masculinity.

  He huffed, he gasped, he swayed and frightened her on the steep staircase, but he made it to the landing. Then Montana saw them, came up the stairs, and took the heavy suitcase.

  Marco followed them downstairs to the back door. The boys, in fresh jeans and their jackets, waited at the door, looking sulky with sleepiness and confusion. But they held road maps—Marco had found one for each—and they still clutched their quart jars of pennies. Marco refused to take them back.

  Jefferson had already been helped into the car. Marco told the boys good-bye. After Laura’s persistant coaching, they said good-bye and thanked him. Both the good-byes and the thanks sounded mechanical and perfunctory, and neither boy looked Marco in the face at all.

  But the old man didn’t seem to mind. He smiled at them, even if they wouldn’t smile back. He understood. Laura felt choked. How could she bid him good-bye, perhaps forever, after all he had done? How could she thank him?

  But he didn’t seem to want her to try. Perhaps he didn’t want her to see any more of his emotion. Impatiently he gestured for her to be on her way. He allowed her to give him one more peck of a kiss.

  Then she was herding the twins down the back porch stairs and into the van’s long middle seat. The new vehicle, which was red, seemed to intrigue them. They peered at it, eyes narrowed. She glanced back and saw Marco and Montana in the doorway. They were silhouetted against the kitchen light.

  They embraced each other, an embrace that struck her as heartfelt and very Italian. Then Montana released the older man, clapped him on the shoulder, and loped down the stairs and
across the snowy yard. He got into the driver’s seat, and began backing out of the drive.

  She saw the silhouette of Marco’s body against the rectangle of light in the doorway. He watched after them until they were at the end of the drive and turned on the street. She waved, but if he saw her, he gave no indication.

  Then he closed the door. She stared at his house until she could see it no more. A sick feeling of homelessness filled her when it was out of sight.

  The twins, full from breakfast and drowsy from being awakened too early, clutched their penny jars and road maps and seemed ready to fall asleep again. Ricky hummed for a while, then his humming faded into silence.

  Jefferson, full of pain pills, was asleep in the front seat, snoring gently. Coatless, he had a quilt wrapped around his big shoulders. His own coat was ruined by blood, and Marco had nothing but an old zippered sweatshirt large enough to fit him.

  Marco had enough pain pills to keep Jefferson comfortable until the afternoon. He’d written a prescription for more, as well as one for tranquilizers for the twins if they were needed. Laura strongly resisted the idea of drugging the boys, but she’d accepted the prescription, just in case.

  Snow had begun to fall again. She supposed, in a way, that was good. It would slow them down. But it would slow down any pursuers as well.

  For a quarter of an hour they rode without speaking, listening to the drone of the car’s motor, the rhythm of the windshield wipers, and Jefferson’s drugged snore.

  At last Montana broke the silence. His voice was low, but it startled her. “You’re awfully quiet back there,” he said. “What are you thinking about?”

  She crossed her arms and pulled the jacket more closely about her.

  “I was thinking,” she said, “that this is one hard way for a woman to get a fur coat.”

  EIGHT

  They crossed the toll bridge that separated queens from the Bronx, and cut a northward path through Connecticut.

  The twins, awake again, played complicated number games with their maps and pennies.

  “Let me get this straight, man,” Jefferson said in a pained voice. “We’re going to Bible camp?”

  “It’s her idea,” Montana said, nodding in Laura’s direction.