Breaker

by Richard Thomas

  Breaker is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  An Alibi eBook Original

  Copyright © 2015 by Richard Thomas

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Alibi, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  ALIBI is a registered trademark and the ALIBI colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  eBook ISBN 9781101882634

  Cover design: Tatiana Sayig

  Cover image: Shutterstock/Leszek Glasner

  readalibi.com

  v4.1

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  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4: Natalie

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10: Natalie

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15: Natalie

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20: Natalie

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25: Natalie

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30: Natalie

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35: Natalie

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40: Natalie

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45: Natalie

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52: Natalie

  Epilogue: Natalie

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  The judge looked about him. He was sat before the fire, naked save for his breeches and his hands rested palm down upon his knees. His eyes were empty slots. None among the company harbored any notion as to what this attitude implied, yet so like an icon was he in his sitting that they grew cautious and spoke with circumspection among themselves as if they would not waken something that had better been left sleeping.

  —Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian

  Prologue

  In a city of almost three million people, a white van stands out about as much as a pigeon in a park. White vans deliver flowers; they carry plumbers and boxes destined for front porches. This white van is unlike the rest; it has been customized. The flooring has been torn up and replaced with sheets of steel, powder-coated with black paint so they won’t rust or show stains. Metal drains have been installed, complete with catches, drilled in three separate places for easy maintenance and cleaning. There are thick metal eyebolts fastened into the frame in several spots, impossible to remove, at various heights up and down the walls. The gas tank is a custom installation, almost double the normal size, holding up to thirty gallons of gas, which means that it can drive for almost six hundred miles, to St. Louis and back, without running out of fuel. It can also cruise the dark streets all night long—for days, even weeks—before finally becoming empty, frequent gas station stops to be avoided. And the windows are tinted black, illegal of course, but hardly drawing any attention, so dark that even standing up next to them, it’s impossible to see inside. And for the driver, that’s a good thing—a very good thing, indeed.

  The man behind the wheel is one of those three million Chicago residents, white, middle-aged, slightly overweight, nothing special, at least on the outside. He sits behind the wheel with a singular focus, hand pale as he clenches the wheel, in some sort of fever dream. He is looking for something specific, and his eyes dart from sidewalk to sidewalk—sometimes muttering to himself, sometimes singing along with the radio, sometimes crying alone in the dark. He is on the prowl for a special young woman, a girl really, that fits his singular taste—the right age, the right colored hair, and often, a certain outfit, specific clothes. He’s been doing this for a long time, and while many nights he came home to his family, alone, never having found his prey, there were other nights that he succeeded. On those nights, the van might be seen in Humboldt Park, or on the side of the road on Kedzie Avenue, or now and then on Lower Wacker Drive, the engine running, exhaust pouring out of the back, as inside the metal cage he goes to work.

  This will be his seventh victim, the man thinks, as the radio plays Smashing Pumpkins, lyrics flowing into the cold metal space of the van, the killer in me, he hums, and then a turn signal is flipped on, down the boulevards of Logan Square, is the killer in you, he whispers. And even though it’s dark out, a dusting of snow on the ground, he spies four girls walking home—maybe from the library, he thinks, backpacks over shoulders weighed down heavily with books, hats on, gloves pulled tight, faces bright with laughter and discussion.

  He slows down and tracks them as they slowly peel off, one by one, until there is just one girl, headphones on, a bounce in her step. Long, dark hair hangs out the back of her black knit hat, tied up in a ponytail with a pink bit of ribbon. A smile eases across his face and he pulls over to the side of the road. He leans across the van to roll down the window.

  “Excuse me, sweetheart?” he says. She doesn’t hear. He tries again, louder. “Miss?”

  She stops walking and peers into the van, her eyes dulling, no longer a sparkle behind them. Whatever smile she had a moment ago disappearing.

  She slips off the headphones. “Yeah?”

  “Sorry to bother you, but I’m lost. I’m looking for North Avenue, and I got turned around. Am I headed the right direction?” he asks, pointing south.

  She steps toward the van but then stops. “Yes, that’s the right way. Just down about ten blocks.” She turns her head to the left and then the right, biting her lip, taking a breath. Her friends are no longer on the street. A few cars pass by, but it just looks like a father talking to a daughter, a scowl sliding over her face.

  As the girl scans the street, the man looks her up and down greedily, and smiles again. “One more thing,” he says, waving her closer. “Real fast—come here, I can hardly hear you. Bad ear,” he says, tapping his head.

  She thrusts both hands into her coat pockets, looking for something it seems. The girl smiles again as she takes a step forward. Now she’s leaning on the van as exhaust shoots out the back, white noxious fumes filling the air.

  “Sure, mister, what is it?”

  As the man opens his mouth to speak, the girl pulls her right hand from her coat and points a white plastic cylinder of pepper spray at him. She pushes down her finger and drenches his eyes, his face. As the poison shoots into his mouth, the man sputters and screams in pain.

  “Fucking pervert!” she screams, darting down the street, through a metal gate, and into the safety of her apartment building.

  He scowls, wiping his eyes. Reaching into a cup holder, he grabs a bottle of water and flushes his eyes.

  When he can focus again, he eases the van forward and stares at the apartment complex. With blurry eyes pasting a fog across his vision, he makes a
note: 2206 North Kedzie.

  He won’t forget.

  Chapter 1

  What has been seen can’t be unseen. What has been done can’t be undone. I wasn’t always this way—a chameleon, a liar. But it’s what I am now—among other things. The girl next door, Natalie Morales, she sees me, she sees it all—or maybe she sees nothing. Here in Logan Square off the boulevards, I can feel winter slipping closer, its icy grasp just itching to grab hold. I understand that yearning, that need to fill a void, to hold something close and never let it go.

  The apartment always feels too small to me—the tiny living room with dirty bay windows, peeking out onto the street, the outdated lace drapes a memory of my mother. Buses rumble past, suits and ties, skirts and lies, all heading someplace important. When Mother was buried, long after Father disappeared for good, the space took on an added layer of quiet, as if cotton had been shoved in my ears. I keep her bedroom door closed—shut tight and locked, only the faintest hint of her perfume wafting out from under the door. Not that I ever get down on my hands and knees and sniff it. No, I wouldn’t do that. And I assure you the room is empty.

  Mostly.

  I took all of her glorious furniture, covered in slipcovers, and gave it away—all if it. Some to Goodwill, some to Salvation Army, and what they wouldn’t take, I smashed with a baseball bat and burned in a metal trash can at the back of the apartment complex. She liked her pretty things—the ornate scrollwork on the antique tables, dainty doilies resting under brass lamps, chandeliers made from cut glass. Okay, some of that I sold; I’m not stupid. But anything that would burn, it burned. The paintings that I hated, lining the walls, quiet landscapes of mountains and rivers, places she never visited, a false sense of security, no more real than Peter Pan and Neverland.

  Sometimes I catch myself in the kitchen scrubbing dishes, staring off into space, my hands red from the hot water, never clean enough, my parents’ voices echoing, a glance out the back windows showing the telephone wires, brick walls, and leaning fences—wrought iron keeping the danger out—and in.

  You’re as useless as tits on a boar hog.

  That would be my father talking, David Nelson.

  My mother would be in her bedroom sewing, the needle going in and out, in and out, piercing whatever fabric caught her attention that day.

  But they’re gone now. Can’t get to me any longer, can’t touch me anymore, a pile of his belts melted in the bottom of that trash can, like a nest of writhing snakes. My fingers float up to a shallow scar that runs beneath my right eye.

  When I kept growing, taller and taller, they had to squint up at me, not quite comprehending where the height came from. Pale skin, doughy flesh, I became a translucent shadow that hovered over their lives, a living ghost. My hair started out blond; I expected it to turn brown, like theirs, only it faded over time, nearly white now.

  The haunted became the hunted. The tables turned as they grew older and smaller, reliant on me now, which was a big mistake. I never forgot any of it—no matter how hard I tried. Raymond, now Ray, alone in the world but for one fractured sister, dancing to a siren song that will never stop playing, her body shared with one lost man after another, nothing new, her desperation. We all must feed the beast.

  My sister, Stephanie, has her pound of flesh, and I have mine.

  I sit in the darkness of my living room, the thrift store furniture surrounding me in plaid earth tones and torn black leather, a scarred rectangular coffee table holding up my cracked, bleeding elbows. I am a mole that only comes out at night, a muted golem listening for the call, a man who uses his fists in a variety of ways—to earn, to purge, and to cleanse. When her knock comes at the door, as it always does—Natalie the urchin, the innocent lamb—I clasp my hands together and hold the trembling digits tight, unwilling to stand, to keep the cycle going, pleading for her to walk away, to ask another neighbor for a cup of sugar, or two eggs, or perhaps a glass of milk.

  “Ray? You home? Ray, it’s me, Natalie. I know you’re in there.”

  In time she goes away. It’s not that I don’t like her; I do. That’s the problem. In a world filled with chaos and injustice, how do I deal out my suffering?

  There are places I go to share my misery. Sometimes, it’s a Blue Line el ride all the way to the end, and then a bus even farther out until the warehouses swallow me up. I find people there who have need of my services, my skills. I have rent to pay, after all. Sometimes I chase down my sister, Stephanie, and try to put her back together. Her eyes are a perpetual glaze. The tiny bird that rests in her chipped rib cage fluttering in a constant state of panic. And sometimes I find myself so far north, out of the city, practically into Wisconsin, that all I can see are cornfields, a waning moon my only witness.

  Something’s going to break—I’m just not sure which levee will give first.

  Chapter 2

  I awake to the sound of boys outside in the alley. I’ve fallen asleep on the couch again, my bedroom left untouched. It happens quite often, my body tense and riddled with electricity, trying to quiet the darkness, only to shut down and surrender to exhaustion.

  I can hear the voices out the kitchen window at the back of the apartment—laughter, then voices lowering, a bottle breaking, and then a foot kicking a trash can, cursing and threats. I stand up and stretch, my fingertips just grazing the ceiling. Hungry. I reach into my sweatpants and pull out a wad of bills, wondering how many sandwiches I can get at McDonald’s, the dollar menu my frequent vice. I tried working out once, sit-ups and push-ups, eating nothing but chicken breasts, steamed broccoli, and brown rice. Didn’t lose a pound. So, screw it. I eat what I want now. At my height and build, with my pale skin and scars, it doesn’t really matter. People are going to be scared anyway—turn the other direction and walk the other way.

  Except for Natalie. And I’m not sure why.

  “Let me through,” she says, the little mouse squeaking in the alley, standing up to the boys.

  “Listen, Gnat, you gotta pay if you want to pass through—you know the rules.”

  “Yeah, what Gino says.”

  Two neighbor boys, Gino and Mikey, couple of apartment buildings over—I’ve seen them around. Firecrackers, lightbulbs, rocks—they’re drawn to anything they can break, smash, shatter, or otherwise destroy. Ants and a magnifying glass, BB guns and random squirrels—the alley cats give them a wide berth.

  “Guys, I’m not paying you anything. First, I don’t have any money, and second—bite me.”

  I ease up to the window and listen closer. I’m curious to hear how she handles them, what they’ll do next. Better than cable.

  “Mikey, you hear her? She ain’t got no money. That’s okay, sweetheart, there are other ways you can pay us.”

  I hear bikes clatter to the ground, and grunts from all of them, her voice piercing the air.

  “Stop it, you jerks. Get off me.”

  For a moment there’s a hand around my neck, and I can’t breathe. Spittle in my face, the smell of bourbon and cheap beer, a smudge of fingerprints embedded in my flesh, cigarettes and oil, grease and rough stubble pushed up against my trembling cheek.

  I lean against a potted plant that is sitting on the windowsill—purple mums that have turned to gray—and it tips over and slides off the chipped white wood, falling out the open window into the alley below. I hear it crash on the dirty pavement, curses drifting up to me. I stick my head out the window, knowing what to expect.

  “Watch out, boys,” I say. “Sorry about that—must have bumped it by accident.”

  I smile at the kids who stare up at me in horror, lips pulled back in snarls, the pot lying shattered on the ground next to them. Gino is still holding Natalie by her coat lapels, Mikey right beside him, squinting up into the sun.

  “See, I have this problem,” I say, extending my arms out the window. Even from the second floor it feels like I can almost reach them. “I hardly fit in my own apartment. Especially at this time of the month, when the moon gets full, and I
start to swell.”

  They continue to stare, mouths opening in shock and wonder.

  “He’s right,” Natalie says, eyeballing the pair. “I’ve seen it. Had to pull him out the door just the other day. Got stuck in the frame.”

  Gino lets go of Natalie, and the two punks pull their dark knit hats on tighter, shrug their shoulders, and start easing toward their bikes.

  “When’s it get full, Ray?” Natalie asks, looking up at me, smiling.

  “Soon, Natalie. Soon.”

  The boys pick up their bikes, zip up their coats, and tug their fingerless gloves on tighter, a bit braver now that they’ve stepped away.

  “Whatever,” Gino says.

  “Yeah, whatever,” Mikey echoes.

  I turn my gaze back to the boys for a moment, a flutter of snow just dotting the air.

  “You two are one building over, right? Twenty-two hundred, yeah? Your mothers, they’re cleaning ladies, right? Always coming in just before dark, coats bundled up, their hair under those do-rags, smelling like Windex and Pine-Sol? Is that right?”

  The boys don’t say anything.

  “Which one of your fathers works for the landscaping company, Jimenez Brothers or something? That you, Gino?”

  The boy nods.

  “Nothing wrong with working with your hands. A bit partial to using my hands as well,” I say, cracking my knuckles and massaging my tired flesh.