The Red Hunter

by Lisa Unger

  Then he left the house, climbed into his Toyota, and headed toward the Bishop place. What was he going to do? What were his options? He could go to the cops and come clean—about everything. That’s what Lee would no doubt tell him to do. There’s power in the narrative. Saying what was, what really happened, so that you can move clean into the future. Lee was 100 percent about the truth, the whole truth, all the time. Lies took too much energy. They drained you and left you vulnerable.

  Josh could call the big man, tell him what he told Rhett, that the money wasn’t there. That he needed to leave the house, the people living there alone or Josh was going to tell the police what happened all those years ago. But that was basically like just asking to get killed. No joke. That man, those men, they didn’t care who lived or died, especially not Josh or even Rhett. The fact that they’d been left alive after the mess at the Drakes’ was basically a miracle. Because they’d proved they could keep their mouths shut, never talked, even when the police brought them both in; that was the only reason either of them was still breathing. The second Josh became a liability, a problem, he was going to find himself buried back in the woods, or in a chipper, or a vat of chemicals somewhere. So far, he’d kept secrets, done what he was asked, kept an eye on the place, an ear out for anyone digging around. He met Dilbert once a week or so at Lucky’s. Dilbert—like all cops—was a talker. He had a pet interest in the Drake murders, because Seth Murphy was Dilbert’s best friend. So it came up—people got caught digging, kids broke in. In all these years, no one ever found anything. Still Josh, dutifully called the old man every couple of months, just to say he still had an ear out. More than ten years he’d done that.

  Or Josh could go to the Bishop house and try to talk his way in, just see if he could get down into the basement, say he wanted to measure or something. If there was a tunnel, the entrance would definitely be in the basement. And if it was there, it would explain where that money was and why in all these years he’d never found it. In the best case, he found what he was looking for and got out somehow.

  Or he could just go to Lee’s, ask for help. They would talk it through. Josh knew he could trust Lee to keep his mouth shut.

  He pulled into the lot of the party store and was parked before he even realized he’d done it. It was the beer he’d watched Rhett drink; it kept popping up in his thoughts—the way it smelled, sounded, that pop and fizz, the swallow. He sat in his car, breathing hard. This was a bad moment; a fork in the road with no good turn. He reached for his phone to call Lee, but then he heard another foreign ringing. Rhett’s phone. He didn’t recognize the number, but he knew who it was. He answered.

  “It’s Josh,” he said.

  There was a pause, an annoyed sniff.

  “What are you doing with his phone?” The old man.

  “I borrowed his car,” Josh lied. “He must have left it in here.”

  “What’s the plan?”

  “I’m going over there now,” he said.

  “Now.”

  “I know her,” said Josh. “I’m helping her renovate. I think I can talk my way in, get it if I can find it, and get out. She doesn’t have to know anything. No one gets hurt. She’s a nice person, has a daughter.”

  There was just breathing on the other line. Then,

  “I don’t give a fuck how you get it,” he said. His voice was always flat, no matter what he said, always just above a whisper. “Just get it.”

  “What if it’s not there?” he said. “You know I’ve been looking all this time.”

  “It’s there,” he said. He didn’t sound totally convinced.

  “What if it isn’t?”

  A sharp inhale like the first drag of a cigarette. “Where’s Rhett?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’ll be there by midnight,” he said. “You know where to meet.”

  “Yeah.”

  The old man hung up, and Josh was alone in the car. A big pickup truck pulled in, and a couple of large, young guys got out—jeans and boots, camo jackets. Josh watched them go in, come out with a six-pack of beer and couple of microwave burritos.

  Tick tock.

  Rhett was going to wake up. What would he do when he found his phone gone, his keys? He’d be white hot, the kind of anger that made him go blank like an animal. He’d call Missy. Rhett would know right where Josh had gone.

  His phone rang then, and it was Lee. Josh picked up the slim cell and almost answered. Instead, he just watched until the call went to voicemail. Josh would bet ten dollars that Jane had called him. Surround yourself with people who live right and do right, that was one of Lee’s big things. They’ll help you stay on the path.

  The phone buzzed with a text from Lee.

  Jane said she thought you might need to talk. Everything okay?

  How long did he just sit there, turning over all the scenarios in his mind? The money was there. It wasn’t. He got it and ran with it. He got it and turned it in to the police, came clean about the whole thing, took his chances. He got it and brought it to Rhett, hoped he’d just go away for good. Maybe Claudia didn’t let him in at all. Maybe he told her what was going on, she helped him out. Maybe he told her and she threw him out, called the cops.

  If he came clean to the police and went to jail, what happened to Mom? Who would take care of her?

  Another chime from his phone. Lee again.

  Just let me know you’re doing okay and I’ll stop bugging you.

  Josh couldn’t bring himself to answer. He didn’t want to lie. He couldn’t tell the truth. He was trapped. That was the feeling he couldn’t stand, the thing that got him every time. Every time.

  What was amazing was, even after seven years of sobriety, how easy it was. He strode into the party store, bought himself a forty. Took it in its brown paper bag out to the car. There was no tearful struggle, no inner battle. It was just one, just for today, just to give him the swagger to do what needed to be done. In fact, he was doing a good thing. If he could get that money and get rid of Rhett, he’d be sparing himself, his mother, maybe even Claudia Bishop and her daughter a lot of heartache. He could call Lee tomorrow, start over. He just popped the tab and took a sip, then another. The cold, bubbling liquid sluiced down his throat, and his body took it in like a river run dry. And it was just a few minutes before that guy show up, the one Lee always warned about, the one who did bad things and asked the “real” Josh to bear the consequences. Josh had never been so happy to see anyone in his life.

  • • •

  RHETT WAS WAITING BY THE entrance to the Bishops’ drive, the Barracuda idling in the shoulder like a junkyard dog. Rhett climbed out as Josh pulled up.

  “What are you up to, little brother? Trying to cut me out?”

  Josh regarded him; Rhett was considerably less scary now that that guy was here. The Josh who’d been beaten and bullied and tortured by Rhett, the one who still cowered and kowtowed, who backed down was gagged and bound in some back room. Josh felt a kind of easy strength, a calm that he normally didn’t feel.

  “I’m trying to get this done without more trouble,” he said.

  “You worry too much,” said Rhett. “Where’s the key? The survey?”

  “I have it,” Josh said. “How’d you get the car started?”

  Rhett smiled a wolfish un-smile. “I keep another key under the wheel well, just like old Dad taught us. Did you forget?”

  Josh glanced over at the Cuda and saw that Missy sat in the passenger seat, watching Josh. She was not still hot, as Rhett claimed. She had never been hot. She had a hard, vulpine face, mean, dark eyes. She was thin—in a kind of wiry, bony way. She was easy, had made a number of passes at Josh over the years. He wondered if Rhett knew that. She and Rhett were weirdly suited to each other, had a way of looking like a complete set when they were together, and not in a good way. She was a dark whisper in his ear, the last thing he needed.

  Josh tossed Rhett his phone.

  “I talked to the old man,” said J
osh. “Told him I’d handle it. He was good with that.”

  Rhett looked down at the device, back at Josh.

  “You can have the money, all of it,” said Josh. “Just let me get it.”

  The air had taken on a hard chill; he’d heard there was a cold front moving in today. There was already that shift from the bright colors of autumn to the dead brown just before winter fell. The leaves fell and whispered all around them. Few cars ever came down this road; there were only a few properties, all of them of large acreage set far back. Two of them were vacation homes. The nearest one to the Bishops’ was an old farm, which was empty and had sat on the market for years.

  “Okay,” said Rhett. “You have one hour and then I’m coming in.”

  twenty-eight

  About an hour later, using tools they found in the basement—two hammers, a crowbar, and a lot of muscle— they’d knocked a big hole in the wall, revealing a gaping space beneath the stairs. They were all coughing and sneezing by the time it was done. Claudia shone a flashlight into the area. Nothing. It was empty.

  Claudia was surprised at the weight of disappointment. What had she thought they were going to find under here? If there had been a tunnel, wouldn’t some historical society have located it by now? Her father had said that there was nothing special about the house.

  Before Claudia could stop her, Raven crawled through the hole they’d made.

  “What is that?” asked Raven.

  Troy and Claudia crowded in together to stare, shining the flashlight into the space. Raven crouched down in the corner.

  “Oh my god, Mom,” said Raven.

  “What is it?”

  Raven turned around, her eyes wide.

  “It’s a door,” she said.

  She moved aside so that Claudia could shine her flashlight in. She saw it. A small door, more the entrance to a crawl space. This must be it, the entrance to a room or to a tunnel that led to who knew where. Claudia climbed through and squatted down next to Raven. She reached out and yanked on the handle, but it was solidly closed. It did not budge.

  Claudia shone the light on it and saw the lock, bright copper glinting in the beam. Something new in a place where everything else was rusted and old.

  “Open it, Mom,” said Raven, her voice taut with the excitement of discovery.

  She sank back and stared at the door, the kids close, looking over either shoulder. How strange, Claudia thought.

  “I can’t,” she said. “It’s locked.”

  twenty-nine

  I drove to the house, my mind a roomful of monkeys, thoughts, memories, leaping around, shrieking, and dancing in the rafters.

  It wasn’t until after that first night, when I saved the street kid from those bullies, that I started asking the real questions about my parents’ murder. Before that, I had cast myself as the victim in the story of my life. I saw the events as they had unfolded through the eyes of someone who was fourteen; I saw myself that way, too. Arrested development, my shrink would call it. When a life-altering childhood trauma retards the maturing of the psyche. Or whatever. I couldn’t move past that moment of trauma, where I was powerless as men hurt me and took my parents, ripped a gaping hole in my universe. And then in the kung fu temple, but more so on the street that night, I realized I wasn’t powerless. Not anymore.

  I couldn’t talk to Paul. After years of raging, and spearheading his own investigation, and writing letters, and whatever you do when you realize that there’s not going to be justice for your family—he just kind of shut down about it. He put away his files and tried to move on. I didn’t want to open the wound. That’s why I talked to Mike.

  He, my dad, Paul, and Boz had all been friends for a long time. Paul, Mike, and my dad since childhood, Boz since John Jay College. Mike took an early pension after fifteen years as a beat cop in the East Village, opened his kung fu school, and did the occasional private investigation work on the side.

  I wanted to stop locking people up and start teaching people how to channel their negative energy into something positive. Hence his work with kids at the kung fu temple and the program he ran for at-risk kids in various neighborhood schools around the city.

  The morning after I saved the street kid, I had my class to run. I put the girls through their drills. There were just five in that morning session, but they were my favorites. Daisy, who cried when she had to hit someone. Kayla with an attitude a mile wide. Bella, who had real natural talent—speed, agility, and a steely eye of the tiger. Jessa, who worked harder than anyone and had come from not being able to do one pushup to leaving everyone else panting on the floor. And Kym, my mirror—quiet, shy, wrapped up tight. They all lived together in a group home run by a woman named Melba, each removed from their families for various situations of abuse. They were all at the school “on scholarship,” as Mike liked to call it. He never turned anyone away, even people who couldn’t pay. Which was part of the reason he was always sweating the finances.

  We ran through the kicks, blocks, punches, and then we did our forms. Then gentle sparring between the girls or with me. It was an hour and a half of intense physical activity, and afterward they drank about a gallon of water, and we sat around and talked. I was still buzzing from what happened the night before; I could still see that big man crumble, hear his scream. I felt good about it, saving that kid, and I didn’t. Maybe my dad was right, maybe there was something more to it. Something dark.

  “You know,” said Jessa. “I didn’t think I was strong when I first came here. But now I do.”

  “You are strong,” I said. “You all are.”

  “I used to think I was strong,” said Kym. “Now I don’t.”

  It was only her third week, and she hadn’t said much. I let her be quiet, was soft in my instruction. The other girls, maybe sensing that she was fragile, were careful with her, too. They roughhoused with each other, but not with her yet.

  “When I was your age, a little older,” I said. “Someone hurt me, too.”

  I had never talked about it before with anyone except Paul, Mike, and the police. But there it was on the surface, maybe because of what happened the night before.

  She looked at me, with big eyes, chewed on her nail. There was a kind of sullen anger there, something I recognized. “Your dad?”

  “No,” I said. “Strangers.”

  “Did they go to jail?” asked Daisy, her cheeks flushed.

  “No,” I said. “They weren’t caught. I thought I was weak, too. I felt powerless, a victim.”

  “Do you still feel that way?” asked Bella. “Because now you’re like all badass. You’re like pow!—and like bam!” She threw some punches to punctuate her words. “Even Mike works hard when he’s fighting you.”

  I tried not to smile. A certain type of girl sees it as mockery.

  “I think when you learn to fight, you learn things about yourself,” I said. “You come to know your strengths, your weaknesses. You learn to flow with who you are. There’s a strength in that. I’m small, but I’m fast. My arms aren’t as strong as my legs. I try not to let it ever be a match of strength alone.”

  The girls were all watching me like I was imparting some deep wisdom. I felt a little guilty; who was I to teach them anything? I had broken a ton of Mike’s rules last night.

  “What happened to you, Kym,” I said, “was not your fault. You are a kid. Your care was entrusted to someone who didn’t deserve it. You were a victim in that moment, but that doesn’t mean you’re a victim for life. You can find your strength, your power. You can create the life that lies ahead of you.”

  She nodded, but I could tell she didn’t hear me yet. If she stayed with us, if I kept saying it, I knew we could make a difference. I’d seen it before—in myself.

  After a while, the girls left, and I went to see Mike, who was in the back office, trying as usual to figure out how to keep running a school that most months cost money rather than made money. I could tell because he had his head down in his hand. As it w
as, none of the teachers got paid; we were all volunteers. We didn’t use the heat or the air-conditioning. The rent on the huge space was killing him, but he couldn’t find anything cheaper.

  “Good class,” he said, not looking up at me. “I like what you had to say today. The girls respect you.”

  I sat in the chair opposite his desk, regarded his office, the towering shelves of books stacked every which way, his countless trophies, awards, photographs at martial arts competitions. There were pictures of Paul, my dad—old ones from when they were all young and handsome, even one of my mom and dad together. Looking at the wall was like time traveling, ghosts captured by light. A milky sunshine washed in though cloudy windows. He swiveled to look at me, the chair suffering beneath his girth.

  “What’s on your mind?”

  “I want to know everything.”

  “Everything.”

  “About what happened to my parents,” I said. “I know you and Paul ran an investigation. That there are people you strongly suspect. But that you haven’t been able to prove anything. I want to know what you know.”

  Those light hazel eyes in a landscape of dark skin, graying stubble on his jaw. He was the face of New York City, a celebration of mingling cultures, people from all over the world, all different colors, religions, countries meeting in mecca, falling in love, and having babies. It’s one of the things I love about New York. Class might still divide us, and maybe nowhere else are the contrasts as stark as in this crazy place. But culturally, we are New Yorkers first.

  “Why?” he asked. The question had weight. Not: Why would you want to? But what is your motivation? “Why do you want to know? What will you do with this knowledge?”

  I wouldn’t have been able to answer then. But the idea was already in my head, even if it was just a seed. Something that had burrowed itself into the dark recesses of who I am. It felt good to give those frat-boy bullies what they deserved. I liked hurting the bigger one and watching him cry out in pain. Even if the boy was a thief, it was the dominion of the physically strong over the physically weak that I couldn’t abide.