See How They Run

by Bethany Campbell

  They went to it and sat before the fire, a bit stiffly. He uncorked the wine awkwardly. A man needed two good hands to uncork wine properly. But he got it done, and he filled a plastic glass for each of them.

  “Even drinking glasses,” she said, taking hers. “You thought of everything.”

  “I tried,” he said wryly. Toilet paper had been a minor victory of planning, he thought. It would have been a hell of a thing to have forgotten toilet paper.

  I’m a great Don Juan, he thought. Here I sit in the firelight with a pretty woman, drinking wine and thinking about toilet paper.

  “You even remembered toilet paper,” she said. “I’m glad you didn’t get colored. The twins don’t like it colored. I forgot to tell you that.”

  He laughed. She looked at him, puzzlement on her face. “What’s so funny?”

  “Nothing,” he said. He liked the way the firelight played on her even features, sparkled in her hair.

  “To getting out of this mess,” she said, lifting her glass in a toast.

  “I’ll drink to that,” he said and clicked his glass against hers. They each took a sip. Then a silence fell upon them. The only sound was the wind moaning at the boarded windows and the crackle of the fire.

  “The smoke,” she said, at last. “What if somebody sees smoke coming out of the chimney?”

  “Nobody will while it’s snowing,” he said.

  She settled back against the propped-up mattress, but she looked tense. “And when it stops snowing?”

  “I bought three propane heaters. If that’s not enough, I drive back to Nashua, get another.”

  “Where’s the money coming from? You can’t be using checks or credit cards. Somebody could trace us.”

  “Marco had a bunch of CD’s in his safety deposit box. He cashed them in, gave me the money. He gave me his bank card, too. I’ll use it if we have to, but only in an emergency. It’s too easy to trace.”

  “God love him,” she said, shaking her head in wonder. “What would we do without him?”

  “God love him indeed,” said Montana. “Yeah. I think, deep down, he thinks this is fun. Not for us, I mean. But it gets his juices going.”

  She took another sip of wine as she gazed at the flames. He watched the firelight play on her profile. She had a nice profile, a straight nose, not too long, not too short, a well-set mouth, a firm little chin.

  Once again he listened to the groan of the wind, the snapping of the fire. “So,” he said, at last. He gave a casual shrug. “What’s your story? Got a boyfriend back there, worrying where you are, how you are?”

  She kept gazing at the flames. “No. Nobody.”

  He digested this information, nodding to himself. “So,” he said again. “Wasn’t there ever anybody? Boyfriend? Husband?”

  She was silent a moment. Then she said, “Husband. There was a husband.”

  He gave another nod. “Okay. What happened?”

  She said nothing.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “You don’t have to answer.”

  “He left me for another woman,” she said, her face impassive.

  Shit, thought Montana, and he gave himself a grade of F in conversational skills.

  “I’m sorry,” he repeated, but an apology seemed worthless. He’d hurt her by bringing up the subject; he could tell by her voice.

  She held her glass up, regarding the glint of the red wine in the firelight. “It happened after I lost a baby,” she raid, her voice under perfect control. “It would have been our first. It happened in the fifth month. The doctors said I couldn’t have any more. And I won’t. They removed that part of me.”

  She kept staring at the wine. “He wanted children. He really did. He was an instructor at NYU. He fell in love with a graduate student. He got her pregnant. He divorced me, married her. They had a little girl. A beautiful little girl, I hear. That’s all. That’s my story.”

  Montana cleared his throat. He refilled his wineglass. He gazed at the fire a long time.

  “You loved him?” he asked. He was unused to asking such questions, and he felt he was bad at it.

  “Yes.” She gave a bitter little laugh. “And I was so happy to be pregnant.”

  He stared into the flames for another moment. He had one more question. He made himself ask it. “You still in love with him?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I am. Don’t ask me why.”

  “What about the rest of your family?” he said. “I know your grandparents lived around here. What about your parents? Brothers? Sisters?”

  She shook her head. “My parents got divorced when I was five. After that, my father and his side of the family never had much to do with us. He went back to Texas. We don’t communicate. My mother died my senior year in college. She was an only child. So was I. I’m the end of that particular line. It’s like nature is a lifeguard, and he blew his whistle and said, ‘Hey, you—out of the gene pool. You’re out of the swim.’ Well, that’s the way it is.”

  She turned to him. “So what about you? You didn’t get through life without falling in love once or twice, did you?”

  “I fell in love a couple of times,” he said with a shrug. “Then I fell out.”

  “That simple?” she asked. “That clean?”

  “No. Usually she’d fall out first. My job. What I did. Dirty work. Rotten hours.”

  “You said ‘usually.’ You mean once it didn’t happen that way?”

  Damn, he thought. She was too sharp. He said, “Once I made the classic vice-cop mistake. Absolutely classic. She was a hooker. I thought I’d make an honest woman of her. I thought wrong.”

  “What happened?”

  “She couldn’t kick her habit. She’d say she would. She wouldn’t. Finally I said, ‘Choose. Me or the shit.’ She chose the shit.”

  “What happened to her? Or do I ask too many questions?”

  He took a long pull of wine. “She’s dead. An overdose. It was inevitable.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry for me,” he said. “Be sorry for her.”

  Laura gave him a questioning look, and he knew what she wondered. What was she like, this girl? A good question. He was still trying to figure out the answer.

  He said, “She was the prettiest little thing I ever saw. Puerto Rican. She wanted to be a model. She should have been. But it was more than that. It sounds stupid, but she had a kind of innocence. Yeah. That’s stupid. But it’s true.”

  Laura put her hand on his arm, so lightly that her touch was ghostlike.

  He gazed at his scarred hand, which was gilded by the firelight. “Know how she got the money for an OD? By selling me out. I should have known. I knew it was a dirty world. I got down in it, as dirty as anybody.”

  For a dozen heartbeats, Laura left her hand on his arm. Then she took it away. When she did, he realized he’d been holding his breath. He let it out slowly.

  “Your husband,” he said, looking her in the face, her lovely face, “was a real fool.”

  She gave him a tight smile. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” he said. Then he leaned to her and kissed her. He put his left hand to her face.

  She kissed him back. She took his right hand, the stiff, deformed one, and drew it up so that it, too, touched her face. That surprised and touched him.

  He kissed her more hungrily. She put her arms around his neck. She parted her lips, and her tongue, her mouth, tasted like red wine.

  She drew back, momentarily. She touched his face, and looked up into his eyes. “I meant it, Montana,” she said. “I don’t expect you to fall in love with me or anything.”

  “We’ve been there, done that, haven’t we?” he said.

  She nodded.

  He lowered his face to hers, and covered her mouth with his own. He nudged the mattress to the floor and, taking her in his arms, lowered her to it.

  She wound her arms around his neck, tracing her tongue silkily over the inner curve of his upper lip. Her touc
h made him crazy, and he reached under her sweater to feel the warm swell of her breast.

  She sighed shakily against his mouth, and he kissed her more hungrily. They made every move as silent as possible, so that no one would awake.

  The wind mumbled at the windows. The fire crackled.

  NINE

  Laura wanted to resist, yet couldn’t. She had a wild hunger to touch and be touched. Reason pulled her one way, but desire, a hundred times stronger, pulled her another.

  Her misgivings only made her blood beat more wildly. Montana didn’t love her, and she didn’t understand what she felt for him; she knew only that she wanted to feel alive in every part of her body.

  Shy and reckless at once, she desired his naked body against hers, yet, her fingers shaking, she stopped him when he had half unbuttoned her blouse. The fire cast too much light on them; they were too visible.

  “The boys,” she whispered against his mouth. “Or Jefferson. What if they wake up? What if they see us? We can’t.”

  “We’ll go to your bedroom.”

  He rose and drew her to her feet. Haltingly, almost desperately, they kissed and fondled their way into the furthest bedroom. He closed the door behind them, and drew off his sweater.

  There in the darkness, he finished unbuttoning her blouse, pushed it from her shoulders, and let it fall to the floor. He kissed her bare shoulder, his hands cupping her breasts. She shivered.

  “Take off your bra,” he murmured, his lips moving to her throat.

  She did. He kissed and touched her until she was half faint.

  “Unbutton my shirt,” he whispered. She did.

  Her fingers trembled, but he was patient. When the buttons were undone, he shrugged out of the shirt and gathered her close, so that her breasts were pressed against the naked hardness of his chest.

  The chilly air made his body seem all the warmer. They kissed and caressed each other in urgent silence. The imposed secrecy of their acts made their need keener.

  Her shyness dissolved, leaving only yearning. She trembled from the outer cold and inner heat.

  “Lie down with me,” he whispered.

  “Yes.” The word came out in a ragged breath.

  They lay on the narrow bunk. Awkwardly, they struggled out of their remaining clothing until they were naked and could join each other completely. He kissed her almost fiercely. She kissed him back with something akin to despair.

  Each thrust of their bodies was like an affirmation that said, We’re alive, we’re alive, we’re alive.

  Afterwards, he held her tightly, and neither of them spoke. She should have felt ashamed, but didn’t. He stroked her hair. She lay with her cheek against his bare chest. They slept in each other’s arms.

  Montana was up before anybody else in the lodge the next morning. He phoned Conlee. Conlee got straight to the point.

  “I’ve been told to order you to turn yourselves in,” he said.

  “The hell you say,” Montana retorted.

  He glanced around the lodge’s dilapidated main room. He’d refused to tell Conlee where they were or to admit Jefferson was hurt. But Conlee knew about Jefferson. The owner of the blue Bronco had talked, just as Montana knew he would. He’d told the police about the big black man who’d bled profusely.

  Montana lied glibly, saying they’d left Jefferson behind, but he wasn’t saying where. “Hey, he’s got a lot of friends,” was all Montana would say about it.

  The Bronco hadn’t yet been found. Conlee persisted in asking if Montana still had it, but Montana wouldn’t comment.

  Conlee’s voice grew almost pleading. “Listen, Montana—you’re positive the teacher and kids are all right?”

  “They’re fine.”

  “Tell me where you are. Federal marshals will bring you in. The bureau and the task force are pledged to guarantee your safety.”

  “You can’t guarantee our safety,” Montana countered. “Somebody inside the organization doesn’t care if these kids die. I care.”

  “Are you still inside your region’s jurisdiction?” Conlee asked.

  “Neither affirmative nor negative,” said Montana.

  “Montana, you’re to turn yourself and your party over to the marshals. That’s an order.”

  “The last time I followed orders, two of our men died. The kids could have got it. The woman, too.”

  “Montana, I’m conveying an order.”

  “It’s an order I can’t follow in good conscience,” Montana said.

  “Fuck your conscience,” Conlee said. “It’s not your choice to make.”

  Montana ignored him. “The next time I call you, I want a list of everybody who knew we were going to Valley Hope. Understand? Everybody. Somebody on it’s rotten.”

  “We’re checking. You think we’re not checking?”

  “I want a list.”

  “Fine, fine.”

  “And I want to know why the Colombians mixed it up with the Mafia. Why’d Zordani get shot? Is anybody talking?”

  “The hit may have been hired,” Conlee said. He sounded uneasy. “By an independent. Not the Cartel.”

  “Which one? What independent?”

  “Your independent,” Conlee said.

  “Mine?” Montana said dubiously. “Dennis Deeds? He deals marijuana, for Chrissake. He’s still back in the hippie days, selling love and happiness. He never killed anybody in his life. He’s never had anybody killed.”

  “Yeah? There’s a first time for everything. Nobody’s found him yet. He’s hiding, like you. Only now he has to hide from the Mafia, too. If you run into him out there, give him my regards.”

  Montana frowned. What Conlee said made no sense. Deeds was a major grass dealer, but a quiet and elusive one. His main business was not hard drugs but recreational ones; he ran his organization like a conservative corporation, and he never played rough.

  “Where’d you get your information?” he asked Conlee.

  “Florida. We got a couple people in Fort Lauderdale we’re leaning on.”

  “Lean harder,” said Montana.

  “We’re doing all we can, believe me.”

  “How’s Fletcher?”

  “Semicomatose. When he talks, nothing comes out that makes sense. He thinks his kids are babies again or something. Nobody understands him.”

  Jesus, Montana thought. Just what the kids needed. A vegetable for a father.

  “Montana, if you don’t come in, they’ll put a federal warrant out on you. You’ve already impersonated an FBI officer. You illegally seized a citizen’s vehicle. Now you’re defying a direct order. If you don’t come in, do you know how many charges they can slap on you? Obstruction of justice—”

  Montana hung up. He walked to the front door, opened it, and looked out. The snow had stopped, but fog had closed in, obscuring the world even more.

  Something in Conlee’s tone hadn’t rung true. There was too much bluster in it, too much grandstanding. Conlee couldn’t personally guarantee their safety, and he and Montana both knew it.

  His gut instinct was that Conlee didn’t want him to come in. Conlee, as well as anybody, knew there was a leak somewhere, and nobody was safe until it was plugged.

  But Conlee’s tip about Dennis Deeds hiring Colombian free-lancers, that was interesting—if it was true. Now Deeds had the Mafia after him? That was more trouble than a prep school pipsqueak like Deeds was prepared to handle.

  In the meantime, Montana was dead set against handing Laura and the kids back to the government. He wouldn’t do it until he could be certain they’d be safe.

  And he knew, full well, that day might never come.

  When Laura arose, Montana was already up, and Jefferson had just awakened and limped into the kitchen. Montana gave no sign that anything had happened between himself and her. Neither did she.

  Montana gave them the news. Conlee had ordered them to come back under task force protection. Laura blinked hard and tried not to flinch.

  Jefferson shook his head.
“Man, we can’t go back. No way, and Conlee knows it.”

  “Right,” Montana said. “But he can’t say that. That call was monitored. He’ll say what he’s got to.”

  “They can’t guarantee our safety,” Jefferson said. “We were supposed to be safe before. We were sitting ducks.”

  “Laura?” Montana said.

  She stared down unseeing at her coffee cup. She kept thinking of all the people who had been surrounded by security but still had been shot—even presidents.

  “We can’t go back,” she said. “There’s no use even discussing it—is there?”

  “No,” said Montana, meeting her eyes. “There isn’t.”

  Jefferson, in spite of his night’s sleep, looked weary, and dried blood spotted his sweatshirt. He must have bled during the night.

  “We gotta find someplace to go,” Jefferson said, shifting uncomfortably in his chair. “But I’m damned if I know where. Oof.”

  Laura tried not to wince at his pain.

  “I’m thinking of a place,” Montana said. “I’ve got to check things first.”

  Laura wanted to ask What place? What things? but Montana looked as if he intended to keep his own counsel for now. And then, suddenly, the twins were up, confused, disoriented, and making a dozen demands on her.

  She hustled to get them calmed down and to feed them breakfast. Montana told her only that he needed to drive back to New Hampshire. There were details to tend to, he said, options to check.

  She nodded, acting as emotionless as he did, wondering if last night had been only a dream. Her body, still tingling, told her it had not.

  But nothing’s real anymore, she thought rebelliously. None of this is real, so what we did doesn’t matter.

  After Montana had gone and the boys finished breakfast, Jefferson kept her company at the scarred kitchen table, nursing his second cup of coffee.

  By the fireplace, the boys played with pennies and marbles and the Chinese checkerboard. They’d heaped their plastic lizards between them in a bright pile. Laura had told them they could play half an hour before lessons began.

  Jefferson finished his coffee and stared morosely at the empty cup. “I hate camp,” he said with comic gloom. “Call my mama. I want to go home.”