Quiver

by Peter Leonard

  Jack was sitting at the breakfast room table reading the paper, drinking a Coke, when she walked in the kitchen. It bothered her to see him in the house, reminding her of how he used to show up at her apartment in Ann Arbor. She’d come home from class, he’d be watching TV or taking a shower, like he owned the place.

  Kate said, “Make yourself at home,” an edge to her voice. “Can I get you anything?”

  “I thought I’d surprise you.”

  “You did,” Kate said. She didn’t need this right now.

  There were half-eaten lamb chops on a plate in front of him.

  Jack said, “You don’t mind, do you? The door was unlocked.”

  Kate said, “Have you seen Luke?”

  The message light on the phone was flashing.

  “No,” Jack said.

  “How long have you been here?”

  “Half hour,” Jack said. “You all right?”

  She could see he was concerned. She moved to the counter, pressed the message button on the phone and heard Helen Parks’s snippy voice say, “Mrs. McCall, Luke has failed to show up for school again. This is Mrs. Parks, please call as soon as you can.”

  Kate picked up the phone, called Luke’s cell, heard his voice say, “This is Luke, leave a message.”

  Where was he?

  Jack said, “There a problem?”

  “I don’t know.”

  She checked the den, the billiard room, the family room, walked through the living room to the sun porch, Jack behind her, crowding her. She went upstairs, looked in his bedroom. Leon was on the bed, but Luke wasn’t there or anywhere in the house. Where would he go? All his friends were in school.

  “Listen,” Kate said to Jack, “I’ve got to go out for a while.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “I’ll tell you later.”

  She could see Jack in the rearview mirror as she pulled out, Jack walking down the driveway toward the street, wondering, no doubt, what had happened. He’d asked if he could go with her and she said no. There was a Lexus sedan parked in front, Kate assuming the car was Jack’s. It was the only one around. Last time he came over he was driving his sister’s eight-year-old Chevy Cavalier. Where did he get a seventy-thousand-dollar Lexus? Did he buy it or borrow it-or steal it? Her distrust of him creeping back to the surface. She drove to Tower Records at the mall, one of Luke’s favorite stores. She’d start there and then try the arcade.

  DeJuan was checking her out-good-looking woman-as she walked through the record store moving fast, glancing around like she was looking for something. He’d followed her from the house. She lived half a mile from Marty, other side of Sixteen Mile Road, also called Big Beaver. He’d like to check her beaver out, imagined it waxed and trimmed, little arrow of fur pointing up at her knocks.

  He liked the ’hood called the Village, with its nice wide streets and big houses set back a couple hundred feet from the road-lot of property between the cribs, so nobody snoopin’ on nobody else’s shit.

  He was checking out a Mony Karlo CD- For the Luv of Money — DeJuan thinking, did this brother get it done? He most definitely got it done. DeJuan took his eyes off her for a minute and when he glanced back she was walking out the store-moving fast. He caught up to her at the escalator, riding down to the first floor. Waited while she went in an arcade. Came out, went to the parking structure, got in the Land Rover, while he got in his Malibu, tailing her back to her place, trying to stay close as she hit seventy on Sixteen Mile.

  He watched her pull in the driveway and parked a couple houses away. Listening to an interview with Barack. Man was smooth as silk. Articulate, black US senator, scaring the shit out of white folks, saying he considering making a run for the presidency. DeJuan thinking, yeah, bring some rhythm and soul to the party.

  Land Rover appeared five minutes later, blowing down the driveway. DeJuan firing up the Malibu, slipping it in gear, taking off. Twenty minutes later he passed a sign that said “Clarkston,” traveling north on I-75, doing ninety-five, trying to keep up with her. Wondering where the bitch was headed. Thought it’d be an afternoon of errands and shit. Check out the mall while she shopped. Once she got somewhere, call Teddy; tell him to make his move. But it didn’t happen like that, and thirty minutes later he was driving through Flint-asshole of the Midwest-wondering what the fuck was going on. To make things more interesting, he had just under half a tank of gas and there was no end in sight to this crazy-ass odyssey.

  Then it hit him. He looked at himself in the rearview mirror and grinned. Sure, it had to be that. Bitch was going to the discount mall. Could buy ten of anything she wanted, but couldn’t resist the idea of a deal. Like she taking advantage of somebody.

  He remembered his moms, aunt and cousins driving from Detroit to someplace called West Branch, DeJuan and four ladies in an old Cadillac Deville, yakking, going on about girl shit, going up north for a day of shopping, listening to the Shirelles singing “Dedicated to the One I Love”-the memory coming back to him as he saw the West Branch sign and passed it.

  Forty minutes after that, he was following her through Grayling, running on fumes when she pulled into a gas station. Big place had ten pumps, all of them taken except for the last one, place crowded with SUVs and RVs, big forty-foot-long motherfuckers.

  He parked on the other side of the pump from her, filling his Malibu while she filled her Land Rover, catching glimpses of her, finally making eye contact, saying, “Yo, know where Traverse City at?”

  “Follow 72,” she said, extending her arm and pointing to the left. She seemed wound up, tense, like something on her mind.

  He filled his tank and went inside the mini-mart and paid. Bought two chocolate doughnuts with sprinkles and a large coffee. When he came out, the Land Rover was gone. He scanned the lot-saw it pulling out of the station, going left. He dropped the doughnuts and coffee and ran to his car and got in. He had to wait for an RV to get the fuck out of his way. Floored it, jerked the steering wheel, tires squealing, blew out of the gas station parking lot, took a left, picking up speed, cruising now along the I-75 bypass, fast-food restaurants lining the road on both sides, reminding him how hungry he was. DeJuan picturing a platter of chicken wings smothered in hickory brown-sugar barbecue sauce, wash it all down with a 7 amp;7 or a Cuba libre with a big slice of lime. Hadn’t eaten anything all day, starving now at three thirty in the afternoon.

  He thought for sure he’d lost her, thinking what a waste of time his day had been when he saw a silver Land Rover parked in a vacant lot next to a Mickey D’s. He drove in the D’s lot, went around the building, parked with a good angle on her, facing out.

  What she doing, sitting there? Then the door opened and the dog jumped out. He watched it sniff around, do its business, while he sat there smelling meat cooking, starving, stomach groaning, making noises.

  He took out his cell phone, called Teddy. “Yo, Theo, what’s up?” It was a bad connection, a lot of static.

  Teddy said, “I can barely hear you. Where the hell you at?”

  “Ain’t going to believe where I’m at.”

  On the way home from the mall, Kate had gotten an idea. The Corvette had OnStar. They could do a satellite check and tell her where it was. She called and talked to a patient customer rep with a nice voice; saying the Corvette was missing and asked if they could locate it.

  The rep, whose name was Amy, told Kate the Vette was on Highway 72 just west of Kalkaska. Luke, it seemed, was heading back up to the lodge, which surprised her. It was the last place she would’ve expected him to go. She had an odd feeling, her stomach nervous, uneasy now. What was he planning to do? She called Dr. Fabick, the psychiatrist. The receptionist said he was on vacation in Europe. He’d be out of the office for ten days.

  Kate said, “How can I reach him?”

  The receptionist said she couldn’t. He was on an airplane headed for Paris. She called the Leelanau Sheriff ’s Department and asked for Bill Wink. She said it was important and the deputy
who answered the phone-she couldn’t remember his name-said he’d get in touch with Bill and have him call her.

  Kate drove home, packed a bag, put Leon in the car and took off. She was on I-75 passing Pine Knob when her cell phone rang. It was Wink. She told him the situation. He said he’d go out to the lodge and keep an eye on Luke till she got there. No problem. Bill and Owen had been friends. Fished together occasionally, and although Kate didn’t know him all that well, she thought there was enough of a connection to ask for Bill personally.

  She stopped for gas in Grayling, then let Leon sniff around, take care of business. It was now three thirty in the afternoon. She hadn’t eaten since breakfast, but she wasn’t hungry. Her stomach was churning. Cutting through town, she passed a convoy of military vehicles with camo paint schemes. National Guard troops wearing camo fatigues and helmets, on maneuvers heading back to Camp Grayling, glancing at her as she drove by in her silver Land Rover with twenty-inch rims.

  Then she was on two-lane 72 driving behind an RV, and it reminded her of the time Owen pulled up in the driveway in a thirty-eight-foot Winnebago Adventurer, with its dizzying three-tone exterior, a look of excitement on his face.

  He said, “Do you believe this?”

  No, Kate wanted to say, but she couldn’t talk, one of the few times in her life she’d been speechless.

  “Let me give you the tour.”

  He opened the door and they went inside, Owen giving what sounded like a sales pitch: “The interior’s a color called Caspian blue with washed maple cabinets-beautiful, isn’t she?”

  Kate wondering at the time why he referred to this RV behemoth in the feminine gender.

  Owen said, “She was handcrafted by the Winnebago artisans in Forest Lake, Iowa, and has got all the comforts of home: flat-screen TV, home theater sound system, queen-size bed, and gourmet kitchen. What do you think?”

  “Why don’t you use it for the Cup season?” Kate said.

  “You don’t like it?”

  “I’m not an RV person.”

  That was it. He understood and wasn’t offended and never mentioned it again.

  Kate slowed to twenty behind an eighteen-wheeler and a pickup towing dirt bikes. Why was Luke going back up, risking everything? She wouldn’t let herself think about it before. Now she couldn’t think about anything else. According to Dr. Fabick, he’d been severely depressed since the accident. She knew that, but didn’t know how bad he was until the arrest. What did Fabick say? Luke was reliving the trauma over and over. But there had to be more to it. Why would he disobey her and take the car with all the trouble he was in? It seemed desperate. What was he planning to do? Was he going to kill himself? Now that was the only thing that made sense and Kate was frantic. She pictured Luke with her Smith amp; Wesson Airweight, putting the barrel against his head and she pressed down on the accelerator, gunned it around the semi, and then took chances, passing two and three vehicles at a time, forcing an oncoming pickup truck to slow down and let her in, horns honking at her questionable moves.

  She made good time through Suttons Bay, passed the casino in Peshawbestown, the Leelanau Sands, going eighty up the western shore of Grand Traverse Bay, the water turquoise where it was shallow and turning dark blue where it got deep-nineteen miles to Northport and then ten minutes more to Cathead Bay.

  Bill Wink’s white patrol car was parked next to Owen’s Corvette on the gravel drive outside the lodge. She let out a breath, relieved. She went in and heard explosions and lasers, watching them for a minute: Bill and Luke, with PlayStation controllers in their hands, faces animated, Bill looking like an overgrown kid in his brown uniform. He glanced at Kate, put the controller on the coffee table in front of him, grabbed his hat and stood up. He found the crease; fit the hat on his head.

  “Luke, I’ve got to run,” he said. “We’ll finish it another time.”

  Bill Wink moved toward Kate now and when he got close, she said, “I’ll walk you out.”

  They were on the gravel drive when he said, “Luke seems fine to me. He was playing Halo when I got here. It’s a video game.”

  “That much I know,” Kate said. “I really appreciate you coming out, keeping an eye on him for me.”

  “Anything else you need,” Bill said, “give me a call, I’m serious.” He grinned and took his hat off and got in the car, closed the door and put his window down.

  Kate didn’t know him that well and wondered if he was coming on to her.

  “I have an idea,” Bill said. “Think Luke would want to go out on patrol with me, see a real cop in action?”

  It sounded like he was kidding but his tone was serious-a real cop in action. “I’m sure he’d like that, Bill.”

  He grinned. “Take her easy.”

  She watched him roll down the driveway, tires crunching on the gravel. The trees had their leaves and the sky was still bright at five o’clock, staying light longer as the season changed, heading toward summer, but it sure was cold. She felt a breeze blowing in from the lake and pulled her coat closed. Leon barked and chased a squirrel across the yard into the woods.

  Luke was in the kitchen when she went back inside. He took a Coke out of the refrigerator and faced her. They stared at each other, Kate hoping he’d give her something-some reasonable explanation at the very least.

  Kate said, “You promised me you weren’t going to do anything else.”

  “I had to come back,” Luke said.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  He pulled the tab on the can and took a drink.

  Kate said, “What are you doing here?”

  “I don’t know,” Luke said.

  “You came back up here, but you don’t know why?”

  Luke looked down at the floor.

  “You’re not supposed to drive,” Kate said. “You’re not supposed to leave town.”

  “I don’t care.”

  Kate decided not to say anything else. She was glad he was all right.

  Luke said, “Why’d you call the sheriff? What’d you think I was going to do?”

  “Nothing would surprise me the way things have been going.” She was angry and wanted him to know it.

  Luke’s face tightened and he turned and walked out of the kitchen. She heard the back door close and moved through the lodge to the big picture window. She could see him heading down toward the lake. She went outside, walked to the end of the yard, stood on the bluff and watched him-regretting what she’d said-Luke on the beach skipping stones across the flat dark surface of Lake Michigan.

  She couldn’t believe how much their lives had changed in the past seven months. She was worried about Luke, but maybe this was a blessing in disguise. It was just the two of them now. She could spend time with him and try to help him.

  DeJuan parked on the side of the highway, left Scarface on the gravel shoulder and walked-had to be a mile-through the woods. It was cold, too, freezing in his Fubu jersey and Sean John denims. Didn’t have the right clothes on ’cause he didn’t know he was going up north on vacation. His moms said his great-grandfather was Masai, lived in northern Tanzania in Africa. DeJuan looked it up. Masai were the dudes carry spears and herd cattle. Wore bright red cloaks. Young warrior called a moran had to go out, kill a lion with a spear. That’s why DeJuan was freezing his ass off-’ cause it don’t get cold in northern Tanzania.

  He could see the cabin through the trees now. Saw Mrs. McCall talking to a sheriff ’s deputy in a brown uniform. It look like she knew him. They friends. DeJuan watched him get in the car and disappear down the driveway. Mrs. McCall went inside. But the dog was running around. Went in the woods and came up behind him, started barking. “Yo, pooch, be cool. Don’t want no starving, skinny-ass black motherfucker.”

  He saw the kid come out of the cabin now, scan the front yard.

  “Leon… want a treat?”

  Dog left DeJuan there, took off running.

  DeJuan was so hungry he’d eat a dog biscuit right now. He moved through the
woods to the side of the cabin. Could see Mrs. McCall and the kid-looked like they in the kitchen-having a heated conversation. He saw the kid walk out the room, then come out the back of the cabin. DeJuan followed him down to the water, look like the ocean, deep blue out to the horizon. Could see cottages way off-look like miles-in the distance on the other side of a long deserted stretch of beach. Nothing the other way, either.

  At first DeJuan thought he going to have to call it off. But now he was thinking, wait a minute-this out-in-the-middle-of-nowhere location going to work out better.

  Bill Wink was trying to think of a way to ask Kate out without being too obvious. Invite her to do something. Not make it sound like a date. Maybe include Luke, too. But, what?

  He came to Woolsey Lake, took a right, passed a gold car parked on the side of the road. He didn’t see anyone in it. He did a U-turn and drove up next to it-a 1980-something Chevy Malibu with a custom paint job and chrome alloys. He figured whoever was driving it ran out of gas or had car trouble. Lighthouse Point, the national park, was a mile or so down the road, and he guessed that’s where it was heading. Person probably hitchhiked back to the Mobile station in Northport.

  He backed up and stopped and punched the license number in his computer. The vehicle was registered to a DeJuan Green, who lived on Fourth Street in Royal Oak. He didn’t check any further. His shift was over. He’d change, go into town and have a couple beers.

  FIFTEEN

  Luke listened to Wilco on his iPod, driving into town with his mother, turned the music up so he couldn’t hear her, didn’t have to talk to her. He liked “Hummingbird” on disc two; it was his favorite. He listened to it three times in a row, reminding him of “Mr. Blue Sky” by ELO. He saw a couple of deer as they drove on their private drive through the woods-almost a mile to the county road, and then passing cherry orchards on the way to Northport, trees blossoming with white flowers giving off a sweet smell.