by Lee Thompson
“You deaf? I’m going to take care of him.”
“He—”
“Does he look scared?” Victor opened the door, saw Jacob was cuffed, so he retrieved the keys from Friendly’s pocket, freed Jacob and helped him out of the car. He cuffed Friendly to the ramming unit bolted to the frame and threw the keys so far that Nina couldn’t tell where they landed. He said to Jacob, “Hop in my Lincoln, buddy.”
Nina said, “Jacob?”
He ignored her and walked to Victor’s Lincoln and opened the passenger door and slid into the seat. Victor patted Nina on the head. “I’m going to buy him some lunch, you want to come along?”
“What?”
“Are you hungry?”
She wasn’t, and she knew how dangerous the man was and how stupid it would be to get in his car with him, but she wanted to know who they were and what the hell Jacob was doing there. She wanted to know that more than anything.
And Victor could have killed Clint, and he could have killed Clint’s friends, and he could have killed her. But he hadn’t.
He hadn’t really hurt anybody other than the two police officers who had pushed him too far. She had never felt so conflicted.
She said, “Where are you going?”
“Where’s a good place to eat around here?”
Nina shrugged. “I don’t eat in restaurants very often. The Waffle House?”
“Hop in. You got strong convictions. I like that.”
“The cops are going to be looking for you.”
“So? They aren’t going to ram us off the road if they see you in the car, and I don’t think that dipshit saw my vehicle, he was too wrapped up in pushing Jacob around, and Jacob don’t need nobody giving him a hard time right now. He’s got enough to think about.”
“Officer Friendly is going to shoot you the next time he sees you.”
“He can try,” Victor said. “We gotta scoot, kid. Either hop in or have a good life.”
She hated herself for a split second because she could see how the reporter, Caitlin Reno, would die for an opportunity like this, and Nina loved that it was her that these two strange men had accepted. Jacob gave her a hard look as she opened the back door and slid into the seat behind him.
10
The big man took up most of the front seat and Jacob leaned against the passenger window and watched the landscape roll by as they traveled outside town. Victor drove ten miles south and they crossed the border into Georgia.
Nina said, “Where are you going?”
He smiled at her in the rearview mirror.
Nina suddenly afraid, said, “Stop. Let me out.”
“Sorry, sister. You chose to come along.” His smile widened. She thought horrible thoughts. She thought Victor was taking her to some small cabin in northern Georgia where Robin Stark was, or had been, and she thought that Jacob knew all along about Victor’s evilness, but he let it go because somehow they were related, and maybe Jacob had helped him sometimes but had wanted out, wanted to stop, so he’d run away, to start over, or just to fade into oblivion, get so lost inside a bottle until he had the courage to jump off an overpass into oncoming traffic to atone for his sins. But Jacob’s nightmare had come back to him, there was no escaping it, and she’d chosen to ride with the devil because why? Because he hadn’t killed Officer Friendly and the woman cop?
Stupid, stupid, stupid…
The man breathed menace.
Loretta had told her right before she left, Be careful, but had she listened? No. She thought she knew best, believed she could take care of herself.
Only she couldn’t. Not much anyway.
Then Jacob spoke.
“You can get into trouble for bringing her across state lines,” he said.
“We’ll take her back after we find a place to eat. She wanted to come along. Right, kid?”
“I didn’t want to leave town,” she said. “Who are you guys?”
“This is Jacob,” Victor said, “and I’m Victor.”
“I know that.”
“Did you mean what are we?”
She didn’t like how he watched her in the mirror. “Will you stop doing that?”
“You’re making her uncomfortable,” Jacob said.
“I apologize,” Victor said, glancing in the mirror again. Then he patted Jacob on the shoulder and kept his eyes on the road until he found an exit that offered food. He pulled into a grease pit where big rigs filled up a pockmarked gravel and dirt lot. The ground was red as blood and the wind threw dust across the windows. “They always say these little hole-in-the-walls have the best food. My bet is it will give us all diarrhea. What say you two?”
Jacob said, “Why didn’t you just stay home?”
Nina kept quiet. The air conditioner hummed. Classical music played very quietly through the car’s speakers. A fat trucker came out of the diner and held his hat firmly on his head as he leaned into the wind and walked bow-legged to his rig.
“I was worried about you. The whole family was.”
“It’s not me they should worry about.”
“I told them that but they don’t listen,” Victor said and shrugged.
Nina said, “Are you guys in the mob?”
Victor shook his head.
Jacob said, “He is.”
Nina said, “My stepdad thinks you’re a hit man.”
“He is,” Jacob said.
“He’s lying,” Victor said.
“He’s killed thirteen people that I know of.”
Nina swallowed and her eyes watered and she didn’t care. “Why would you do that?”
“Why does anybody do anything?”
Jacob said, “What kind of answer is that?”
“An honest one. I’m a mystery even to myself.”
She believed Jacob. His friend was a hitman. He’d killed thirteen people. Nina wondered what her chances were of getting out and running. But to where? The diner? Then she’d only put everybody inside in danger since she could identify both of them and she knew more about them than the police.
If she ran to the trucker who was now climbing into his rig, Victor would tear him apart in a matter of seconds, the guy would probably have a heartattack or stroke from high cholesterol the moment Victor pointed a pistol at him.
She shook her head.
Her hands felt small in her lap.
She said, “Will you just take me home?”
Jacob nodded. “Take her home.”
Victor turned in the seat the best he could and looked at her. “I’m not going to hurt you, kid.”
“My name is Nina.”
“I’ll clear things up for you, okay? Then we need to eat because I am starving like you wouldn’t believe.”
“You’re huge,” Nina said, “I’d believe it.”
He chuckled and looked at Jacob. “This kid has brass balls.”
“I know. And she doesn’t know when to quit.”
Victor nodded, looked at Nina. “So, here’s the deal…”
“I don’t want to know,” she said, “if it’s going to put my family at risk.”
“You watch too many movies.”
“She doesn’t need to know anything,” Jacob said.
“But she wants to,” he said, “and she’s got some weird attachment to you.” He glanced over the back seat again. “Why you got this weird attachment with my friend here?”
“It’s not weird,” she said. “I was just worried about him.”
“It is weird,” Victor said, “to worry about people you don’t know.”
“Says you.”
Jacob said, “Let’s just eat and take her home.”
“I don’t think either of you is seeing the big picture here.”
“What’s that?” Jacob said.
“That cop was going to take you off someplace and make you give me up over hurting his pride. He’s an unhealthy individual.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Maybe not anything
,” Victor said. “Other than I saved both of your lives, but I haven’t heard anybody thank me yet.”
Nina laughed. It was a painful laugh. She said, “You are insane.”
Victor gripped the wheel. The back of his neck grew red. “Fine,” he said. “I’m insane. It’s not like I haven’t heard that my whole life.”
“Vic,” Jacob said. “Relax. She didn’t mean it like you’re really insane.”
Yeah, I did, Nina thought. And now I think he’s even more insane to get offended by that when he kills people…
But she kept silent.
The wind slammed into the car.
Victor said, “You want the truth? Maybe I am insane.”
“You’re not,” Jacob said. He turned to face Nina. She felt her heart turn to liquid at the warmth in his eyes, not for her, but for the giant behind the wheel. He said, “Victor is my brother-in-law. I’ve never seen him hurt anybody that didn’t deserve it.”
“That’s reassuring.”
“He has this weird thing though. They give him a job to take someone out and he plays private investigator. He’ll find something he can hate them for so he has a right to kill them. And once he finds that thing it’s a done deal.”
Nina nodded, thought, Okay, insane…
“These guys he’s murdered are bad guys, Nina. Guys that would shoot a kid like you, or get people hooked on drugs, or burn down churches.”
“See,” Victor said. “I’m an angel.”
Jacob seemed to tremble.
“Are you in the mob?” Nina asked Jacob.
He shook his head. It took him a long time to speak, his thoughts somewhere else, and Nina thought it was because the last two weeks he had thought his brother-in-law was dead. He said, “I’m just an artist.”
Nina nodded slowly. “I can see that. You seem soulful. Are you any good?”
“Some people think so.”
“And your wife?”
“She’s dead,” Victor said. “Went down in the north tower a couple weeks ago. Then Jacob ran away like a little girl and I had stuff I was supposed to be doing but I was worried about him so I started searching for him. I know his account numbers for his debit card because he was married to my sister. It wasn’t hard to follow the trail to your neighborhood.”
“I’m sorry about your wife,” Nina said. She couldn’t look at Jacob’s face because she could see how tortured he was. “Is that whose picture you were looking at in the gazebo the first day I came over there?”
He nodded.
“Why did you run away?”
“My wife was pregnant. We were getting the room ready for our son. And then they were both gone. I couldn’t protect them. I was listening to the radio when the first plane hit, painting our son’s room. I didn’t believe what I was hearing at first. And then I turned on the television.”
“I’m sorry.”
Victor said, “I’ve never seen anybody as in love as this dummy and my sister. Never. And I’ve seen love, real love, and I killed a man once who really loved his wife and she really loved him, and that’s the only time I ever felt bad about what I do.”
“Can we not talk about you?” Nina said. “Or about what you do. It makes me sick to my stomach.”
Victor shrugged. “They were excited about that kid. I was too. I couldn’t imagine what it’d feel like to be an uncle. I’d have spoiled that kid rotten. He’d have been—”
“He won’t be anything,” Jacob said. His nose was running and he wiped it on his sleeve. “The fucked up thing is that I try to imagine what he’d look like as he would have growing up. Kindergarten, seventh grade, learning to drive, graduating…” he turned forward and propped an arm on the door. “But it’s daydreaming. It doesn’t mean anything. And I feel bad because there were times that she was hurting during the pregnancy and all I could do was think about myself, my needs, my wants, my fears. But she took it in stride.”
“She was a trooper,” Victor said. “She learned it from me.”
Nina nodded. She said, “Officer Friendly is going to put a beacon on you guys for an abduction that happened by my house.”
“We didn’t hurt anybody,” Jacob said. “Especially not some kid.”
“I know that,” she said. “But—”
“What kid?” Victor said.
Nina told them about it, told them about meeting Loretta just a few hours ago.
“But I saw Clint, Officer Friendly’s son, put a little girl in his car yesterday. I didn’t tell anybody. I don’t know why. I don’t know.”
Only she did know why. She didn’t want to believe that he was a monster.
“You’re going to have to tell the cops that,” Jacob said.
“Maybe he was just giving her a ride,” Nina said.
“A ride where?” Victor said. His smile turned her stomach again. She didn’t want to imagine what he was thinking or what kind of pleasure it might give him.
She rubbed her arms. “Can you turn the air conditioner down?”
Victor nodded and adjusted the thermostat. He said, “I’ve seen cop’s kids do some really fucked up shit. A lot of them. Same with preacher’s kids. It’s their way of rebelling and shaming their parents. I think we should have a talk with him. What say you two?”
“No,” Nina said. “I don’t know that he did anything wrong.”
“How old are you?” Victor said.
“Thirteen.”
“And him?”
“Sixteen.”
“Huh,” he said.
Jacob said, “There’s a big difference between the three years separating them and this kid Clint and some little girl.”
Victor said, “She’s a little girl,” hiking his thumb at Nina.
“I’m not a little girl.”
“In five years you won’t be a little girl.”
She looked at the back of Jacob’s head, unsure what to say. Dust peppered the car. Another big rig pulled into the lot. She said, “You guys should just get out of town, go home, otherwise they will lock you up. Both of you.”
“They can get me on an assault beef, which is nothing. I’ve got lawyers who can get it thrown out, and they don’t have anything on Jake.”
“Who?”
“Jacob,” he said. “They got nothing on him.”
“They’ll make something up,” she said, “because he’s associated with you.”
What she said seemed to sting the juggernaut. He cringed, wiped a hand across his face.
“He didn’t do anything.”
“I know that. But he’ll be guilty anyway. Of something.”
“Because of me,” Victor said, and looked out the driver side window, away from both of them.
Nina said, “Are you from here Victor?”
“What?”
“Are you from Cleveland too?”
“No.”
Jacob looked back and said, “Their parents split up when they were young. Their mom and Santana stayed in Cleveland. Victor and his dad went up to Manhattan.”
“What did your dad do?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Victor said. “You ask too many questions.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I’m just curious about other people.”
“It’s all right,” Jacob said. “Most people don’t give a shit about strangers.”
11
As they ate in the diner, Nina realized how much trouble she was going to be in when she got home. She had no doubt Clint’s father would have swung by their house and told Nina’s mom what happened, all under the ruse to make sure Nina was safe, but secretly to get a handle on where Victor went so that he could settle a score. And she thought it was absurd Clint’s father might pin a bunch of trouble to Jacob and Victor when Clint might get away with whatever he was doing. And she also thought it was absurd that she was in a diner in Georgia with a hit man and an artist, both mostly strangers, but both men that she kind of liked for different reasons the more she got to know them.
As th
e men talked quietly, she thought that Victor loved Jacob like a brother, and she could see that despite what Victor did for a living Jacob didn’t judge him for it, even went as far as defending him, trying to sum up his pathology by saying that Victor only killed bad people.
And in a way she believed that. He was rough around the edges, but he wasn’t a psychopath or sociopath. And Jacob, he was just scarred beyond limits, like nobody else she knew who had been scarred, other than the Stark family. But they still clung to the hope that their daughter would be returned to them, and they probably would continue to do so until her body was found and she just became a chapter in the book Caitlin Reno was writing.
12
They took her home in the late afternoon. Only a few blocks from her house now, Nina said, “So, are you guys going to go home then?”
Jacob didn’t answer. Victor’s hands kneaded the steering wheel. He kept an eye out for police. “We’ll let you out here, kid.” He stopped the car. She looked at the side of his face as he glanced back, and then she looked at the back of Jacob’s head.
“Aren’t you going to say goodbye?” she said.
“Good bye,” Victor said. “Stay out of trouble.”
She snorted. “You are insane, you know?”
“Sure thing.”
“Jacob?”
She waited for him to look back at her. Minutes passed. Victor kept looking around but if he was uncomfortable with parking there on the street Nina wasn’t aware of it. Eventually Jacob looked back. She noticed again the legion of troubles living inside him, that he sometimes stoked the fires beneath, afraid that he would one day forget his wife, or lose the dreams of their son growing up and becoming whatever it was he would have wanted.
He offered a slight nod. Nina felt like pouting, but she didn’t.
She said, “I know nothing I can say will help you feel better, but I think you’re a good person and you don’t deserve what happened to you, right? So, don’t act like you do deserve it, like you brought it on your wife and your son and yourself for something you failed to give them.”
