by Lee Thompson
“Hello,” he said, looking at her, sad, but trying to smile.
“Hello.”
“Nice weather,” he said.
“Let’s not talk about the weather, okay? It’s lame.”
“Is it?”
“Yes,” she said.
“What do you want to talk about?”
“Why did you come down here?”
“It wasn’t really planned,” he said.
“But you’re here.” Then she cocked her head and said, “You’re here for a reason though.”
He shrugged. “I have to be somewhere.”
“Did you think someone from where you used to live might come looking for you here? That that someone might hurt people here to find you? Was that not planned either?” She didn’t realize how mad she was until she started speaking, but she could see all too clearly Derrick Friendly and the female officer’s blood bright on the grass near the gazebo. Remembering it so vividly felt like someone setting a hot coal on her chest.
“Two cops got beat up over nothing.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Bull shit,” Nina said. “Do you owe the mob money or something? Are you addicted to gambling? What is it? Why did you run away?”
“It’s not your business. It’s not anybody’s business. And I didn’t run away.”
“Well, there’s somebody looking for you that is making it his business, so you better wise up and get with the program.”
“Get with the program?” he said, laughing. He drank more. “You’re such a weirdo.”
“I’m trying to save your life.”
“Really? A little girl is going to save my life? What life? Who says I have a life? And who gave you the power over it?”
“What?” Nina said, perplexed. “Nobody gave me power. And I’m not a little girl.”
“Yeah,” he said, “you are.”
She was tempted to stand and to walk away and leave him to his fate, but he said, “So who is after me? He said my name?”
“A gorilla,” she said. “A gorilla in a suit. Sound familiar?”
“Yeah,” he said. He crushed his empty beer can. “But if it’s the same guy we’re talking about then I have a ghost hunting me.”
He stood and started to walk away.
Nina followed him a few paces, trying to process what he’d said.
“He’s not a ghost,” she said. “His name is Victor.”
Jacob stopped and turned around.
“Victor is dead, kid. He went down in the towers with someone else I love.” But he knew that for her to know Victor’s name, he hadn’t died like Jacob had thought. Victor had planned to visit Santana at work that morning, September 11th, and it would have taken something incredibly urgent for her brother to miss his appointment.
Jacob shook his head. He had grieved, if only slightly, for Victor. He thought he should feel guiltier than he did, but he lacked the energy to drum up much emotion for anyone.
He thought, He can’t be alive and he can’t be down here… but it also gave him hope because if it were so then his brother-in-law could show him the house he’d been searching for.
But finding her childhood home was not all that he needed. He had to process his own grief, to lay down his sword and shield and accept that sometimes love, no matter how powerful, could not last forever. And he needed time to accept the fact he must give up hope he would ever find again what he’d had with her. He didn’t even want it again, not with anyone else, because he would imagine they were her in the still quiet hours of night, in his dreams, and when he opened his eyes he’d feel as if a stranger were lying next to him.
He shook his head again and studied Nina. It was easy to imagine his wife being so much like this kid when she was that age, upfront, outspoken, alert, intelligent, and a bit stubborn.
“Who is he?” Nina said. “Who are you?”
“Let it go,” he said. “Please.”
“No.”
There were birds in the trees, singing softly, cars on the street speeding toward unknown destinations, a house somewhere in the city that contained two decades of Santana’s memories.
Nina shifted her feet and pebbles ground together under her shoes and Jacob ground his teeth together. Spittle flecked her lips and she stood with her fists bunched at her sides, watching him in return. Her skin grew warmer. Her mind was running wild on her.
She said, “He can’t be dead. A bunch of people have seen him.”
Jacob started walking. She followed him. Followed him for three hours, hoping that he’d explode on her or tell her who he was and who Victor was, and she followed him in hopes that they’d see Victor together and she could point and say, There, you see! But she knew by then it would be too late. Victor would pull a pistol and he’d park a few bullets in Jacob’s chest, or club him and throw him in the trunk of the car and haul him back to whoever he owed a lot of money. She’d seen sociopaths and how easily they could feign interest in another person, and she was certain that the big man had only trouble in mind. She swallowed, her mouth and throat dry. Jacob stood beneath a couple of maple trees across the road from the university, having led her in a big loop, nearly back to the Starks’ house.
She stopped near him and said, “Do you know anything about the little girl that came up missing?”
There were a string of kids on the road, college age, getting ready for their first year at the university, nervous kids, exploring the area surrounding what would become to them either a prison or a catapult to their destinies.
He looked at his shoes, and then looked at his watch. He didn’t know how to handle someone so persistent. Santana had been that way, and most of the time he never considered her persistence to border being a pest, but of course he didn’t know Nina, and he had no idea what she was talking about, even though he suspected her intentions were good. It was difficult to decipher if she was messing with him though. Whereas a lot of people pretended children were angels, Jacob knew they lied at least as much as adults. Her mention of Victor had nearly stopped him in his tracks though, so it took him a few paces before he realized that she was talking about someone else now.
His brow was dirty and wrinkled as he studied her. “What little girl?”
“A little black girl was taken from the park the day after you were there. The police haven’t talked to you?”
“No.”
“So you don’t know anything about it?”
“No,” he said.
“Have you ever been down here before at this time of year?” she asked, moving a few steps closer to him, some part of her intellect telling her that he would trust her more, possibly open up to her and be honest, if she was nearly within arm’s reach. “Ever vacation down here in the fall?” she said.
He hesitated a moment and then shook his head.
Nina thought he was lying. She said, “You were married? Where was she from?”
Jacob toyed with his watch, ignoring her. Nina said, “Was your wife from here?”
“Why don’t you leave me alone?”
She walked beside him. “Why don’t you answer my questions?”
Jacob turned away from her, turned right into Officer Friendly, who Nina had not seen approaching because she wanted Jacob to prove to her he was an innocent man. Clint’s dad was wearing his police uniform even though Nina had thought he had taken a few days off work to recover from his run-in with Victor. His neck was bruised but his eyes seemed to glow in his face and he moved with a rough stiffness, keeping his eyes locked on Jacob and totally unaware of Nina. He slapped a hand on Jacob’s shoulder and said in a voice very unlike his normal one, this voice deeper and meaner, “Whoa there, boy. I’ve been looking for you.”
He glanced at Nina for a second, recognition filling his eyes. She knew he had warned her away from Jacob, and he would tell her mom about her talking to him again. He shooed her away with his left hand.
She didn’t move.<
br />
She shook her head.
She thought, Here’s my chance to learn something about this guy…
It was a lot to count on, a lot to hope for, but she’d take what she could.
Friendly said, “Do you have any identification on you?” He kept his chin tucked toward his shoulder, his body positioned nearly sideways to offer less to attack in case Jacob was anywhere near as vicious as Victor. Jacob nodded to answer his question.
Friendly said, “Let me see it.”
He took Jacob by the elbow and walked him over to where his cruiser was parked on the curb. Nina inched closer, hoping that if she didn’t say anything Officer Friendly wouldn’t run her off. Jacob stood outside the cruiser’s passenger door. He didn’t argue, just handed over his wallet. There was a lot of money in it.
Friendly said, “Where’d you get all this?”
Jacob said, “I worked for it.”
“Honest work?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’m going to ask you to sit in the back of my car here until I find out who you are.”
“Am I under arrest?”
“Not at the moment.”
“Then I prefer where I’m standing.”
Friendly smiled and Nina couldn’t read his intentions though she could see he was irritated, and she thought it could work badly in Jacob’s case.
“I can place you under arrest,” Friendly said. “You were in the park where someone abducted a little colored girl. You’ve got a strange fella looking for you and he wasn’t very cooperative. I’d say you’re a person of interest.”
“Where do you think I’m keeping the kidnapped girl? In my coat?”
“I don’t like your smart mouth, and I don’t think I like you much.”
“That’s too bad. I’m not here to cause anybody any problems.”
Friendly grunted. He used his walkie-talkie to call his dispatcher and ask them to run Jacob’s driver’s license number. He said, “Let me know ASAP if this guy has any dirt in his jacket.”
“I don’t have a record,” Jacob said.
“Well, I can’t just take your word for that,” he said, smiling. “But, while we wait to find out the facts, why don’t you tell me what you’re doing here exactly. I don’t buy that bullshit story you told me before.”
“Are you sure you’re a cop? You seem more like a bully to me.”
“Why did you really come to my town?”
Nina had to fight to keep her mouth shut. She whispered, “Ask him about his wife.”
Friendly glanced at her, frowned, touched his night stick and then pulled his hand away from it like it’d burned him.
“I think I’m going to run you in.”
“Do what you gotta do,” Jacob said.
“All right.” He opened the back door of the cruiser and turned Jacob around, pulling cuffs from his belt and attaching them to Jacob’s wrists, behind his back, as he read him his rights. Jacob’s shoulders tensed and his face went pale as Officer Friendly tucked his head and helped him in the back seat and shut the door.
He turned to Nina and said, “Run along. I told you to stay away from that guy.”
“I want to know what he’s doing here too,” she said. “Ask him about Victor.”
“Oh,” Friendly said, “I’m going to. Move along now.”
“No.”
Then she saw a blur of light out of the corner of her eye, as someone parked behind the cruiser, and she heard a car door slam shut. But the sunlight glaring off the windshield of the Lincoln blinded her for a second, and it must have blinded Officer Friendly too, because he moved much too slowly as Victor stepped up onto the curb, looked at Jacob locked in the back of the police cruiser quickly, and came up behind the cop. He wore a light gray suit, polished black shoes, a white shirt, and a blood red tie. He grabbed Friendly by the collar and the belt and slammed him onto the hood of the cruiser.
Air whooshed out of Friendly’s lungs and his face went pale.
Nina stood ten feet away from them, unable to move, although she feared that the giant would not show any mercy this time.
Friendly clawed at his pistol, his surprise in the last few seconds having turned to rage as he glared up into Victor’s face. He almost had his pistol out of the holster, his knuckles white hard lumps, but he ceased moving when Victor pressed a gun to the side of his head.
The big man said, “Hand it to the little sweet heart.”
“What?”
“Give your pistol to the little girl. Butt first.” Victor looked at Nina, said, “Keep your finger off the trigger and the muzzle pointed at the ground, all right?” He looked back at Friendly and said, “Do what I told you or you’re going to die right here on the hood of your car. A little girl shouldn’t have to see something like that, should she?”
“Fuck you,” Friendly said.
Nina said, barely a whisper, “Don’t kill them.”
“I can’t promise anything,” Victor said, and as absurd as it seemed to Nina, he winked at her like they were buddies. He reached forward and smoothly pulled Friendly’s pistol from the holster. “You got a bad habit of harassing people, sir.”
“What?” the cop said, as if he’d misheard him.
Victor said, “I’m done talking to you. Good night.”
Before Friendly could move, before he could utter a response, Victor slammed the butts of both pistols on his ears. Friendly’s body contorted, as if his brain had liquefied or turned to jelly. Nina felt urine trickle down the inside of her thighs. But she stood in front of the rear door and said to the juggernaut who she knew could easily snuff her last breath from her chest, “Why are you hurting people?”
“I don’t like cops. And this one, he’s a bad one, okay? He had that coming.”
“No he didn’t.”
“Move out of the way, kid.”
“No. Leave Jacob alone.”
He cocked his head. Then he shook it. “I can’t do that.”
She trembled. “Why? What did he do?”
“He ain’t done nothing, but he needs somebody to look out for him right now. For as bright and brave as you seem to be, you’re hard of hearing. He’s not in his right state of mind.” He pointed at the window, said, “Look at him.”
She took one last look at Friendly, wondering if Victor had killed him—she thought he might have—then she glanced in the rear seat of the cruiser. Jacob looked like somebody who was a few days away from eating out of a dumpster. But his eyes were bright with recognition and they were locked on Victor’s face not with the disbelief that she expected, but a type of love she imagined long lost brothers shared.
Yet what she thought she’d seen on his face quickly passed and fear took hold, made him look much, much older. Nina wanted to fight for Jacob but she didn’t want to get hurt, and she knew that there were things going on that she had no idea about, no understanding of, so she stood her ground, glad that no one had hurt her.
Then she saw Clint and a couple of other boys in his Camaro and they were slowing down, laughing, pointing at the cop on the hood of the car, until Clint realized who it was and hit the brakes. Nina heard him say, “That’s my fucking dad.” And he and two other boys climbed out. They were stockier kids than Clint, the other two wearing football jerseys, and they were all unarmed.
Victor glanced at them and said, “Get back in your car.”
Clint came around the front of the cruiser to check his father’s condition. The other two boys moved around the back of the car, up onto the sidewalk, trying to look tough, but it failed them when they saw the two pistols Victor held loosely. The boys nearly tripped over their own feet, backpedaling, clawing at each other to stay up. Victor nodded at them, said, “Adios, fellas.”
Clint came up behind him; he either hadn’t seen the pistols, or didn’t care about them.
Nina cried out, wishing he hadn’t been so stupid, but he was a dumb kid and he had his father’s night stick in both hands and he swung it like a baseball bat
, expecting to connect with the side of Victor’s head.
Jacob screamed something from inside the car though. Nina thought it was, Behind you!
Victor simply leaned forward as he saw Clint’s shadow on the ground and heard the scream building in the boy’s throat, and the nightstick cut through the air a foot behind his head. Clint spun nearly a hundred and eighty degrees from the momentum of the swing and committing himself to taking the man’s skull apart.
By the time he righted himself, tried to regain his footing, Victor had turned around. He raised one of the pistols and said, “You run along now or your car is going to block traffic, and even worse, your brains will be all over the sidewalk.”
Clint said, “There’s never any traffic down here.” He looked at the street. Then back to the pistol. He dropped the night stick. It bounced a few times, an oddly loud yet hollow tone to it. Victor told him to hoof it again. Clint shook his head, afraid, but angry. “You hurt my dad.”
“He’ll be fine, unless you keep running your mouth. Then I’m going to shoot him and then I’m going to shoot you.”
“What?”
Nina said, “Get out of here, Clint. Go!”
Victor nodded. “Listen to her, friend.”
“We’re going to get you,” the boy said.
“You have no idea how many times I’ve heard that, even by some people that were semi-capable.”
Clint stumbled back. His knees looked like they’d betray him. He looked like he might puke as he turned his gaze to his father. His old man appeared dead. He hadn’t moved a bit that Nina had noticed. Clint quickly felt for a pulse and whispered, “He’s alive.”
“I told you he’d be fine,” Victor said. “Move it.”
Clint ran to his car and a moment later peeled away, the two football players looking out the side and back window. Nina cleared her throat. She still didn’t know how to keep the behemoth from taking Jacob. What he’d said about helping him sounded genuine but she didn’t know how anybody could trust someone so violent. She couldn’t stop him, and she hoped Jacob could do it for himself, like maybe he was a black belt, or knew pressure points, or had a gun of his own he hadn’t let anyone see, which would give him an edge. She cleared her throat again. She said, as Victor turned toward her and put a hand on her shoulder and gently pushed her out of the way, “What are you going to do to him?”
