The Terror of Living

by Urban Waite

  THE LEXUS PULLED TO THE CURB. THE VANCOUVER heat reflected off the city streets and hovered over the cement. In the distance, large glass buildings seemed to float. "Sixty degrees today, and then forty with a chance of snow tomorrow night," the driver said. "Weird weather."

  The man in the passenger seat gave the driver a deadpan stare, then opened his door and stepped out and went into a nearby hardware store.

  Inside, he went through the aisles. He found the bin of hose clamps and picked out several of the large metal rings. In the gardening section he found a pair of thick shears with a loaded spring. He held them in his hand and undid the lock. When he came to the bin of bolts, washers, and screws, he took a small screw and held it between the blades and cut it cleanly in half. There was only the sound of the two halves falling to the floor. The clerk at the desk looked his way. The man returned a wave, then bent to pick up the two halves. When he stood up again, the clerk sat at the counter reading.

  Outside, the man opened the passenger door and threw the bag of hardware supplies in before him. When he stepped down into the car, the man in the driver's seat had already opened the bag and given its contents a quick look. "Ambitious," he said. "But not that much for plumbing supplies."

  "Convincing."

  "Sledgehammers are convincing, hatchets, nail guns, saws. Have you ever seen one of those old two-man saws - more teeth than a shark on those things."

  "Can you just drive?"

  The driver started the car. "It should be intimidating."

  "This will be plenty."

  "Do you want to grab some food?"

  "How long will it take?"

  "Are you in a rush?"

  "Just anxious. Drive by the airport."

  HUNT SAT ON THE COUCH. OUTSIDE, THE RAIN HAD stopped, and he worked his leg and thought the situation over. His father had killed himself over a situation just like this one, small-time loan-sharking with credit that wasn't his. If his mother could see him now, he thought, she might do the same. Hunt had grown up over the years, but the idea of being a continuous failure had stuck with him. He was sure of himself in all the wrong situations. A good man, made up of all the bad things in the world.

  The girl's purse lay on the table, and he went over and opened it. A passport fell out, a tube of mascara, a small stick of lip balm, some tissue, a set of keys, her wallet. He picked up the wallet and went through it, money he had never seen before. In one of the card slots he found a picture of Thu and two children. Again, he thought that if he'd had children, his life would have been different. The children were of a dark complexion, tanned, with their hair lightened by the sun. Both wore sweaters, and it made them look funny, out of place, like there was no reason to wear those sweaters. In Thus coin purse he found a Seattle address. After looking at it for a moment, he put it into his pocket.

  The thought hadn't really figured itself out yet. But it did then. He'd been thinking of the girl as a dollar figure. He felt bad for that. The two boys in the picture-Thus boys - looked up at him from the kitchen table. They smiled. How much was she worth? Ninety thousand? It wasn't enough to start a new life, but it might be enough to get him there. For a second he thought of moving to Vietnam, he thought of Thu, and he thought of Nora. He'd bet that money could do things for them there. It wouldn't be a great life at first, but they'd build it. He felt foolish. He laughed to himself, a desperate laugh, half-choked, and at the end he could feel something slick in his eyes and he blinked it away.

  He could hear Roy and Nancy talking from the bedroom. Roy came out and Hunt put the passport and makeup back in the bag. Roy stood looking Hunt over. Hunt held out the picture for Roy to see. Roy nodded, taking the picture and then giving it back. They didn't say anything to each other. Hunt put the picture back into the wallet and put it all away in the purse. He watched Roy fill a bowl of water with ice. After Roy had finished, he followed after him, holding his bad leg and limping through the hallway.

  Thus breath was starting to slow. The girl was almost unconscious, half-dead, her eyes nearly closed. Hunt and Roy were in the doorway looking in. "She's getting worse," Nancy said. "It's time we called someone."

  Roy moved for the kitchen phone, but Hunt put a forearm up and blocked him. Roy was bigger, but the move surprised him and he stopped.

  "Come on, man," Roy said. "You can't be this cold-blooded. She's going to die. Her pupils look like needle pricks."

  Hunt looked in at Thu. She'd saved his life, they all had, but he couldn't let them do it. There were other things to consider. He knew what turning her over meant, no drugs, no future, just a one-way ticket back to prison. He couldn't have that. There was a lot he hadn't done in his life. There was a lot he'd missed out on-family, fatherhood, safety-because of a past he wanted to take back every hour of every day but knew he couldn't.

  The girl's breathing had slowed, and for a while now, she hadn't opened her eyes. The room stank of her sweat. Hunt held his forearm out; he had his fingers up on the wall and his arm out, stiff as he could make it.

  Roy put a hand into the crook of Hunt's elbow and folded it back. "You're lucky I didn't kick your calf out from under you." Roy went past and Hunt followed.

  "You make that call and everyone who is looking for us is going to know exactly where to look."

  Roy held the phone. He thought this over. Hunt knew he was thinking about the boat-even with the rain, he knew it had been a bad sight. Blood all over the deck, the dust from the fiberglass like a paste over everything. Bullet holes and broken glass, it was something serious to consider. Hunt had been considering it; he knew Roy was now.

  "I'm already as mixed up in this as I care to be," Roy said. "I'm not about to have a heroin overdose in my bedroom." He put the number into the phone and waited.

  "I'll take her," Hunt said.

  "What?" Roy held a hand over the mouthpiece.

  "I'll take her," Hunt said again. "Give me your keys and I'll take her." He went over to where Roy stood with the phone in his hand.

  Roy didn't answer.

  "Come on," Hunt said. "Give me your keys. You said it yourself, you don't want to be mixed up in this anymore. We both know how this is going to turn out once they find out you've been to Monroe." The two men stood very close together. "Roy, just tell me where to go. I can get her to the hospital faster than if you call an ambulance."

  Nancy came and stood in the hall doorway leading to the kitchen. "He's right, Roy. Give him the keys. He can get her there faster than if we call it in. One of the capsules she was carrying must have burst in her."

  Roy looked from Nancy to Hunt and then back again. Someone had picked up on the other side of the line, and they were, all of them, listening to the sound of a muted voice coming off the phone.

  Roy looked down at the phone in his hand and then hung up.

  "Go on, get him the keys," Nancy said. Hunt could hear her leave and go back into the bedroom. He took Thus purse from the table and followed Nancy.

  Nancy was at the bed, the bowl of water nearby and the rag for mopping at the girl's face. From a side table, Nancy took a pen and wrote down the directions to the hospital. "Take her into the ER and they'll get her through from there."

  Hunt didn't know a thing about the girl, where her family was from, or how she'd gotten into this. He felt dazed, couldn't believe what was happening or that he was here. He looked down at the sheet of paper in his hand, the directions. Straight ahead till the stop sign, through the center of town, then a right on Blanchard. "She's going to be all right," Hunt said. And it was how he felt, how he had to feel. He picked the girl up off the bed and tried to lift her. The pain came immediately from his calf, and he dropped her to the mattress, Thus eyes shooting open for a moment. He thought for a second she had recognized him, understood what needed to be done. Hunt was still holding her purse, dumbly, unknowingly, like he was holding on to a string and plumbing some hidden depth.

  He tried to tell himself this was the best thing for her. It was the only th
ing he could say to make the guilt go away, though it was still there, waiting for him. How many times had she done this? Just let her go home, he wanted to say. But he didn't know whom he was asking. He thought it was more praying than anything, something he hadn't done in a very long time.

  Roy came in and gave Hunt the keys, along with the small orange survival bag he'd come off the boat with. Inside the bag was the heroin, neatly tied up in a clear plastic grocery bag. Thu must have passed the heroin in the night. He didn't know if this was all of it, but he could guess it was most. Lying on top of the small plastic balls was the Browning. He looked at Roy, but Roy didn't meet his eyes as he hoisted the girl in his arms.

  Following Roy through the house, Hunt couldn't believe he had the heroin. They came to the door and Nancy held the screen back and they went out into the light and down the stairs to a rusted hatchback.

  "You need to try and keep her conscious," Nancy said. But Hunt could see even then she was losing it. He hoped he could get her there. He hoped that she would make it and that it would mean something, that it would free her and in a way free him, but he didn't know this and he felt the worry all through him like a chill.

  He started the car as Roy leaned the girl down into the seat beside him. "Thanks," Hunt said.

  Roy looked over at him. "Thanks for what?" Roy said, and then he closed the door.

  He watched Roy pass around the car and stand with Nancy. For a moment he held the wheel and just stared at them. Thu groaned beside him and he looked at her and then backed out, and as soon as he hit the street, he pushed the car into drive and sped forward.

  It wouldn't be long now, and he tried to brace himself for the reality of the hospital. But even this wasn't a reality to him. Grady had shot the horses. It scared him. He didn't think Grady would find Nora, but he didn't know that for sure. He realized that he didn't know anything for sure now, and that there had been a point when he could have said he did.

  Nancy told him Thu was dying, and he knew there was nothing more he could do for her except drive her to the hospital and hope it all turned out.

  The car was automatic, which meant he could drive it with one leg. He rested his injured leg to the side. On his lap the Browning and the heroin stared up at him from the open maw of the survival bag. With one hand he raised the bag to his face and pulled the zipper closed with his teeth. The smell made him gag. He looked back through the rearview mirror at the road behind, then threw the bag to the backseat.

  Thus eyes had closed, and when he looked over he could see a thin line of saliva brim at her lips, then breach and come down along her chin. "Wake up," he yelled. He held the wheel in one hand and with the other he shook her till her eyes opened and she turned to him with a sleepy look.

  Hunt didn't slow the car when he came to the stop sign. He went on through, the speedometer at fifty on the pressed-gravel road. He could hear the tinging of loose rocks as they caught in the tire treads and sprayed up into the wheel wells.

  When they came into town, he caught himself and slowed the car. Thu had nodded away again and he reached out until he had her chin in his hand and shook her face and watched her eyes. They wouldn't open. He went through the main intersection and found Blanchard. With one hand on the wheel, he hit her several times in the face with his open palm. Her head bounced away, then rolled back, but her eyes didn't open, and he swore under his breath and looked for the hospital sign in front of him.

  When he found the emergency room, he pulled straight to the entrance and came out of the car yelling for help. It was a three- story hospital surrounded by pine trees and thirty parking spots at most. The sliding glass doors were the only sign that it had seen the modern world at all, and he hoped that they would be able to do something, would be able to help in some way. He was around the side of the car with Thus door open by the time one of the orderlies came out of the glass doors.

  "Help me," Hunt yelled.

  He had Thu under the arms and he could feel the stitches in his leg straining and the pain coming through him. He was dragging her now, away from the open car door and up the slight incline to the hospital entrance. The orderly was there and he was trying to help, but Hunt wouldn't let go, and the orderly was saying, "Give her here, sir. Give her to me." And when he saw that Hunt would not, he went in and grabbed a wheelchair from inside the door, and together they got Thu onto it.

  The feeling came over Hunt again, like it had the night before, loss of blood, the bandage on his leg dampening. He put his head down and held it between his legs. He closed his eyes. Thu was somewhere inside now, and when he raised his head his vision had gone blurry, but he could see Thu in there and the shape of a doctor standing over her. He was watching this all, and then they were coming for him, and he lurched back into his own reality, his own needs, and he was running around the front of the car. With the doors both still open he sat and pressed the gas pedal, nearly leaving his bad leg to drag outside the car. He bumped out onto the road with both doors open and the engine roaring. When he righted himself and hit the gas again, the jolt swung the doors back onto the body of the car. Things came back into focus. He looked behind him, looked back on the road. Pine trees all around, the small drive leading up toward the hospital, but that was it, no armed pursuit, no chase, just him in the car driving, trying to keep himself on the road.

  * * *

  IV

  CONFESSIONS

  GRADY PARKED THE ATTENDANT'S CAR IN ONE OF THE upper lots. Below him he could see the marina where he had left his car. No police cruisers. Nothing. He scanned the lot, looking for anyone who might have been waiting for him. He didn't see one thing out of place, just a few people fishing off the docks. In the mirror he checked the welt on his head. With his fingers he tried to pull the hair down, giving himself a sweep of bangs and covering the gash along his hairline. The purple was getting worse and it looked almost black on his pale skin.

  When he'd done all he could with his appearance, he drove the car down to the lower lot and let it idle in neutral. The boat ramp, where he had talked to Hunt the day before, was just in front of him. He tried to remember every bit of the car he had touched, and with his sleeve he went piece by piece through the car, wiping away his fingerprints. When he was satisfied, he left the car in neutral, grabbed the bag with the collapsed rifle, and opened the door.

  The rain had passed, and the lot was covered in puddles. There was little wind and he could see the sky in the water. He put the bag over the top of the car, then, looking around, bent and released the emergency brake. Taking his bag from the roof of the car, he stepped back.

  He walked on, making a straight line toward his car, careful not to rush. He could see his car across the lot, sitting there, seagulls on the fence posts, the masts of sailboats, white and bobbing with the movement of the water. Behind him, he heard a woman scream.

  He walked on. Grady wove through the cars, bumper to bumper. The sound of something hitting the water hard, the burst of air bubbles. When he turned to look back, the attendant's car was no longer where he'd left it.

  A crowd had gathered around the ramp, and there in the water, floating out to sea, was the attendant's car. He watched it only briefly, the car bobbing there on the water, air escaping, and the vehicle going under. If Hunt still had the boat, he'd need to find another ramp. He knew Hunt was still out there. All Grady could think about was time. Time to get east of the mountains, find the little motel the lawyer had told him about, and hope for an improvement in his day. He was pulling out of the lot when the car finally went under.

  THEIR MAN AT THE AIRPORT HAD TOLD THEM WHERE to go. They parked the Lexus four spots down and on the other side of the street from the house and looked up toward it. At the end of the block, they could see a city bus pull to a stop, then move off. The cross street above them was busy at all times of the day with cars and people passing. In the late afternoon, with the sunlight directly in front of them on the horizon, the oranges and reds painted the scene like a fire,
the figures crossing the street nothing but shadows of coal. The driver lit a cigarette and sat watching the house. Every couple of breaths he released a stream of smoke from the window.

  The house sat close to the street, with the front stairs leading almost to the sidewalk. Cars were parked in nearly every space along the street, several with pieces of windblown trash resting against the tires. It was not a well-kept part of town, though perhaps at some time it had been. The plain white house was made of wood boards, the roof cracked and bandaged with tar patches, shingles the color of sandpaper. One central floor looked out over the street, with a window high up that was probably the attic. No one appeared to be home.

  Several people walked by on the street, but not the person they were looking for. After forty-five minutes passed, a man carrying a grocery bag stepped from the far curb and crossed the street toward the house. He climbed the stairs and, in the same moment, brought from his pocket a set of keys that the two men in the Lexus could see clearly.

  "I wish I had my gun," the driver said as he opened the door and emerged onto the street. He was careful to push the door of the car closed with his body, his weight shifting to the car, but the door making no sound. He flicked away the cigarette, then crossed the street toward the man, who had reached the top of the stairs and stood with his keys at the lock and his opposing arm wrapped around the grocery bag.

  By the time the man opened the door and leveled the bag with his knee, the driver had reached the porch and, without stopping, punched the man in the right kidney. The man buckled, and the grocery bag fell from his arms. The driver then hooked the man's throat with his forearm and rammed his knee straight and with force into the back leg of the man, who seemed to flop over and put his weight full onto the driver, his face caught just above the driver's forearm, a strange smile on his lips. The driver pulled him through the door and into the house.