Won't Back Down

by J. D. Rhoades

  For the first time, Alia laughs. It nettles Meadow a little. “What’s so funny?”

  “You’ve read about the Bechdel test?”

  “The one where two women in a book or movie are supposed to talk about something other than a man?”

  Alia nods, still smiling.

  “Okay, first,” Meadow says, “this isn’t a movie. And second, if we’re going to be friends, we’re going to talk about a lot of shit other than boys. But here and now, I want to talk about my friend Ben.”

  “So, we’re going to be friends, then?”

  This time it’s Meadow’s turn to smile. “Guess so.”

  Alia nods. “Then I’d like it if you’d introduce me to your friend Ben.”

  “Okay, great. See you around, then?”

  “See you around.”

  Meadow’s feeling cheerful as she walks away. Today’s good deed is done. Then she spots Brandon Ochs and one of his gang heading her way. Fuck. She hates doing it, but she alters her path to make a beeline for the ladies’ room inside. As she gets inside and hopefully just out of their sight, she breaks into a run and slips inside the restroom door just as she hears the door to the courtyard bang open. She goes into a stall, shuts that door, and locks it. When she was a freshman, the school had removed the stall doors “for security” because they were concerned students might be smoking weed in the stalls. Thankfully, a parental protest and the threat of lawsuits backed them down. In a long-practiced move, she perches on a toilet and draws her knees up so no one can see her legs. She doesn’t think Brandon and his slack-jawed henchman will dare brave the barrier of the girls’ room door, but he’s perfectly capable of sending his bitch girlfriend inside to drag her out. She’s actually more afraid of Amber than she is of her boyfriend. Brandon will push, humiliate, maybe even smack someone around to get his jollies. Some of the looks Amber gives her have Meadow convinced the blond girl could literally kill her. She stays there, carefully hidden, barely daring to breathe, for at least forty-five minutes. There’s no way Brandon has the attention span to wait that long. One or two girls come in, do whatever they came in for, and leave. No one calls her or rattles the stall door. Meadow still doesn’t move. When she’s sure he’s gone, she climbs down, takes a deep breath, and opens the door. No one. She walks as quietly to the bathroom door as she can and peeks out. The halls are empty. Classes have started, but she decides she’s had enough of this place for the day. She walks out, brushing her tears away with the back of her hand.

  NINE

  Of all the places he’s ever been in his life, Keller finds this one the most unlikely: waiting in a line of cars outside an elementary school to pick up his son. It’s something Keller’s own father had never been there to do, and he’s determined to be a better man in every way than the man who abandoned him for most of his life, then came back a year ago bringing only more violence and heartbreak. The cars inch forward, stopping and starting, the sound of children shouting on the playground overriding the radio Keller’s turned down low. He sees Francis standing in a group of other children, under the watchful eyes of a middle-aged black woman who Keller knows as one of the teacher assistants. The woman sees Keller’s truck, bends down, and says something to the boy. He looks down the line and nods solemnly. Marie assures him that Francis is a normal, happy boy, but he’s never been anything but solemn in Keller’s presence. “Give him time,” Marie tells him. “He’ll warm up.” Keller wants to ask when, but he knows there’s no answer. So he hangs in, does what needs to be done, and waits.

  Keller pulls the car to the curb, leans over, and opens the door. “Afternoon, Mr. Keller,” the assistant calls as Francis climbs in, tossing his backpack onto the floor at his feet.

  “Afternoon, Mrs. Newby.” He smiles back before turning to Francis. “Buckle up.” The boy looks straight ahead, not answering. Keller looks up at Mrs. Newby, who shrugs.

  “Rough day,” she mouths at him. “Buckle up now, Frank.” Only then does the boy fumble for the seat belt and fasten across his body, sighing audibly as if it’s a major imposition. Mrs. Newby shuts the door and Keller pulls off.

  “Bad day?” he says.

  Francis shrugs. “It was okay.”

  “Doesn’t seem like it was okay.”

  Keller recalls how Mrs. Newby addressed him. “So you’re going by Frank now?”

  The boy doesn’t answer right away. Then he mutters something that Keller doesn’t hear. “What was that?”

  “I said,” the boy’s voice rises with irritation, “Francis is a stupid name. It’s a girl’s name.”

  Keller gets it now. “So, someone giving you sh—giving you grief over Francis?”

  No answer again. “It’s a good name,” Keller says. “It was your grandfather’s name. But even he went by Frank. When he grew up.”

  “They called him Francis at the funeral,” the boy says in a small voice. “I didn’t know who they were talking about.”

  Keller looks over. The boy is staring straight ahead, his face expressionless.

  “You miss your grandfather a lot, don’t you?” Keller asks.

  The boy nods.

  Keller nods back. “I get that. He was a good man. And he loved your mom like crazy.”

  Francis turns to Keller. His voice is even, without malice, but the words cut Keller as deeply as a curse. “He said you never brought my mom anything but trouble and pain.”

  They’re almost to Marie’s house by then, and they make the rest of the trip in silence, Keller trying to figure out a better rejoinder than “He may have been right.”

  Marie’s house sits on the top of a hill in the middle of forty acres of farmland that hasn’t been tilled in years, since the last occupant passed away and his children were too involved in their lives away to come back and work it. Some of the fields have grown up, on the way to returning to woodlands, but the acre or so of grass around the house at the end of the long dirt driveway is cut short. The driveway slopes down to where the house sits on a flat space, the land falling away on a long slope behind the house.

  Marie’s car has just pulled up when they arrive; Keller sees both doors opening. Ben’s on the opposite side from Keller and he can only see Marie, but she’s clearly agitated; she leaps from the car and shouts something to him as he walks to the front door with swift, angry steps. Too late, Keller remembers he was supposed to keep Francis away for a time so Ben and Marie could talk. “Ben,” Francis says, his voice fraught with alarm. As Keller pulls to a stop behind Marie, the boy grabs his backpack and leaps from the car. He runs past where Marie is standing, passing her without a glance as if she isn’t there. Keller gets out and walks up beside her as she stands in the open door of the car. She clenches her fist and slams it down on the car roof. Keller sees Francis catch up with Ben. The older boy turns and smiles down at his half-brother. He crouches down and says something to him. Then Ben looks over and sees Keller standing with his mother. His face freezes. He stands up, says something to Francis, and takes his hand. The two of them go inside the small farmhouse.

  “I take it things didn’t go well,” Keller said. “Sorry. I was supposed to keep him away longer.”

  Marie turns to him, and he can see the tears brimming in her eyes. He aches to reach out and take her in his arms, but Francis’s words are still lacerating him: you never brought my mom anything but trouble and pain. So he stands next to her, arms held awkwardly by his sides.

  “God,” Marie is saying. “He is so infuriating. He’s so much like his father…” She stops and gets hold of herself, ducking back into the car to snag a tissue out of the center console. “How’d things go with you and Francis?”

  “About the same.”

  She sighs. “He’s having some problems adjusting, Jack. And I take the blame. I kept him away from you too long.”

  “He says your dad told him I’d never brought you anything but pain.”

  She looks stricken. “Jack, that’s…it
’s not true.”

  “True or not,” he says, “that’s what Francis believes. Oh, he wants to go by Frank now.”

  She steps back slightly, eyes narrowing. “What are you saying?”

  “Sounds like some kids are picking on him for being called Francis. He thinks Frank will make him sound less like a girl.”

  “Okay, fine. But you know what I mean. What are you saying about Francis?”

  Keller shakes his head and looks at the door of the house behind the deep front porch. His son is on the other side of that door, but he might as well be on the other side of the moon. “I shouldn’t have come here.”

  She closes her eyes, and her next words come out through clenched teeth. “God damn it, Jack, I do not need this right now, too.”

  “I know. We’ll talk later. You go deal with Ben and Frank.”

  She opens her eyes and shakes her head. “Frank. It makes him sound so grown up. I’m not sure I’m ready for that.”

  “Who is?” Keller starts back to his car, then turns around. “I’m not leaving. Not yet. But maybe you should consider that your dad was right.”

  As Keller gets back in his car, another voice from the past comes to him. You bring death, the voice had told him, and Hell follows with you. He watches Marie go into the house. When he closes his eyes, he has a vision of the house in flames, the smell of blood and burned flesh in his nostrils. Burning, they’re burning… He closes his eyes, breathes deeply. Over the years, he’s learned to deal more effectively with the flashbacks. In. He draws a long, slow breath, not stopping until his lungs are full to bursting. Out. He lets the air out slowly, under his conscious control. The effort and the concentration push the images of flames in the desert night and the memory of the smell of burning flesh from his mind. When he’s able to breathe normally again, Keller gets in his car and leaves.

  TEN

  As Keller pulls into his driveway, he sees a familiar light blue compact car parked in front of the door. A sandy-haired man in a pair of blue jeans and a green polo shirt is stepping away from his door. Keller stops the car and gets out. “Afternoon, Reverend.”

  The man approaches, an apologetic smile on his unlined, handsome face. “Afternoon, Jack. And like I told you, you can call me Ed.” He sticks out his hand.

  Keller shakes the hand. It’s a good handshake, firm but not overbearing. “I was going to bring the rent by later.”

  “I know.” Ed MacDonald nods. “I was just leaving you a note to let you know I’m going to be at the church all afternoon and that you can bring it up there.” He nods to the simple white building that sits across a neatly mowed field from Keller’s rented house. That house is a small two-bedroom stone structure, built in the early 1900s by a homesick Scot who’d missed the stone houses of the Highlands. It had been the old country church’s parsonage before MacDonald and his family had their third child. Now they live in town and Keller rents the place for a couple hundred a month and doing simple chores around the church.

  “Come on inside,” Keller says. “I’ll get the rent for you.” He pulls the note from the door and goes inside, MacDonald following in his wake. The minister takes a seat in the house’s tiny living room as Keller goes into the back bedroom to fetch the cash. He pulls a metal lockbox out of a closet and dips into the stash of currency that’s part of his father’s legacy. The money had been in a safe deposit box in Florida, and Keller tries not to think too much about where it may have come from. He’s been trying to put the past behind him. But if today’s proved anything, it’s that the past has a way of following close behind, whether you want it to or not.

  Keller walks back into the living room and hands MacDonald the cash. The minister puts it in his pocket.

  “Not going to count it?” Keller asks.

  MacDonald smiles. “You wouldn’t try to shortchange a preacher, would you?”

  Keller shrugs. “You never know.”

  MacDonald inclines his head curiously. “Everything okay, Jack?”

  “Yeah. Fine.”

  MacDonald doesn’t appear convinced. “Okay. Sorry. It’s just that you seem a little troubled.”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “If you say so.” MacDonald turns to leave, then turns back as he gets to the door. “By the way, we’re having our Wednesday night prayer meeting tonight at seven. You know you’re always invited.”

  “Thanks for the invitation,” Keller says, “but I’ve never been much of a praying man.”

  “Uh-huh.” MacDonald smiles. “And how’s that working?” Without waiting for an answer, he turns and walks out.

  Keller shakes his head. The man’s relentless in trying to get him through those church doors, but Keller can’t bring himself to dislike him. Relentlessness has always been one of his own character traits, after all.

  ELEVEN

  The man who trudges out of the debarkation area at Raleigh-Durham airport is tall, overweight, and grumpy looking. His most striking feature is a thick mane of silver hair brushed back from a jowly, light-brown face. He’s dragging a roller-bag behind him that looks as if it was dropped out of the airplane immediately before landing. He stops and looks around, searching. Waller raises the hand-lettered paper sign up higher, hoping to attract the man’s attention. AL-MANSOUR, the sign says.

  The man Waller knows as Mohammed Al-Mansour has spotted the sign and is striding towards him. Waller lowers the sign and puts out his hand. “Mr. Al-Mansour? Patrick Waller.”

  The man hesitates. Waller sees that he’s sweating, even in the frigid air conditioning. Waller stands, still smiling, hand still out, until Al-Mansour grudgingly takes it for a perfunctory shake. “Is the car ready?”

  Waller nods. “Yes, sir. My associate is bringing it around. We’ll take you to a motel near the property.” He smiles again, apologetically this time. “I’m afraid the accommodations may not be what you’re used to.”

  “Change them,” Al-Mansour barks. “If this truly is the man I’ve been looking for, he will have people watching nearby hotels. I’m willing to drive a little further to preserve security.”

  You mean you’re willing to have us drive you further, Waller thinks as Al-Mansour stomps toward the baggage claim, dragging his battered roller bag behind him like a sea anchor. Waller’s not crazy about the imperious tone, but he recognizes it from his days back in the Sandbox. This guy was Iraqi military, a colonel at least. Maybe even a general. From the sound of things, Warehouse Man, the guy they’d been surveilling, may have even been part of the same cabal. A more vicious pack of backstabbing assholes hadn’t been seen in that part of the world since the glory days of the Ottoman Empire. A thought occurs to him. “Sir,” he calls out, trotting to catch up. “We were staying in that same motel. Do you think—”

  “No,” Al-Mansour interrupts with the air of someone who regards interrupting subordinates as a God-given right. “He would be looking for…people like me.”

  “Yes, sir.” Now Waller knows why they were hired. He’s betting Al-Mansour had tried to track the target using his own people and they’d been made. A couple of white guys, with guns, in this area, though…even if they looked military, the area was full of current and former soldiers from nearby Fort Bragg. Waller does appreciate the deviousness. But it also makes him wonder if Tench isn’t right. Al-Mansour is using them. What would be wrong about using him back?

  TWELVE

  Keller puts the last dish from his dinner away and contemplates another quiet evening at home. He’s been working his way through the collection of worn paperbacks left behind by MacDonald. The minister’s taste leans towards classic adventure tales: some Alastair Maclean, some Louis L’Amour, even some Edgar Rice Burroughs with racy Frank Frazetta cover illustrations that MacDonald probably had to hide when parishioners dropped by. He’s settling onto his worn couch when he hears the knock on the front door. As he goes to answer, he looks up at the shotgun he’s stowed on a pair of brackets above the doorw
ay. The weapon is always loaded, a round of double-ought buckshot in the chamber. Logic tells him he’s safe now. All his enemies have been left behind him, and most in the ground. Since he’s a convicted felon now, that shotgun, as well as the half dozen other weapons scattered around the small house, could land him back in prison if the cops found them. But they help him sleep at night.

  The man standing in the doorway when he opens it is a head shorter than Keller. His face is middle-aged, but his slicked-back hair and neatly trimmed mustache are still dark, perhaps a little darker than is strictly possible in nature. He’s dressed a pair of light brown polyester slacks, a bit tight around the middle, and a short-sleeved dress shirt. His skin is light brown, and Keller can’t tell at first if he’s Middle Eastern or Hispanic. When he speaks, however, it’s with an accent Keller hasn’t heard in years, the pseudo-British accent of the educated Arab.

  “Mr. Jack Keller?” the man asks, blinking at him through horn-rimmed glasses.

  “I’m Jack Keller. How can I help you?”

  The man holds out a tentative hand. “My name is Adnan Khoury. I am the father of Bassim and Alia Khoury.”

  Keller shakes the man’s hand. It’s a handshake firmer than the man’s timid appearance would seem to indicate. There’s something off about the man, something Keller can’t quite put his finger on. But he seems harmless enough. Keller steps aside. “Come on in.”

  Khoury steps in, looking around at the small space, taking in the worn furniture and the dim lighting. His expression doesn’t change, but Keller feels the judgment. It irritates him. “What can I do for you, Mr. Khoury?”

  The man looks at him, his chin raised slightly, almost defiantly. Keller can tell that his is costing him something. “I want to thank you,” Khoury says, “for helping my son and my daughter today.”

  “Ah,” Keller says. Khoury seems more pissed off than grateful, but Keller decides to take the words at face value. For now. “You’re welcome. It was no trouble.” Khoury doesn’t speak, just continues to look around. “Um,” Keller says, nonplussed. “Would you like something to drink? I think I have tea.” It’s in the back of the cupboard, left by MacDonald and his family, and Keller has no idea if it’s still any good, but he needs to say something, and he recalls from his short time in Iraq that the locals sucked down tea by the gallon.