by J. S. Bailey
Randy had nearly reached the car, key in hand.
“Randy?”
He was going to open the door.
Bobby broke free from his unwanted paralysis and barreled at the man, knowing that if Randy so much as got inside the car, he would die.
“Randy!”
Randy turned his head at the last second, but Bobby was coming at him too quickly for him to get out of the way in time. Bobby’s momentum enabled him to shove Randy over even though he weighed a deal less than the man, and both of them went sprawling to the ground, Randy on his side and Bobby on top of him.
Bobby was vaguely aware of a cell phone skittering out of a pocket and into a puddle. He dragged in a breath. “Randy, you can’t—”
Randy threw Bobby off of him before he could finish his warning, his face far more livid than the situation should have warranted. Bobby let out a yelp as a well-toned bicep caught him around the neck and nearly crushed his windpipe.
What was going on?
Bobby struggled to break free from his grip, but Randy had him pinned against his chest, and now something cold and sharp pressed into the tender skin of Bobby’s neck just below where Randy had hold of him.
Bobby could feel the man’s breath on his ear when he spoke. “Who sent you? Was it Graham?”
Bobby’s mind buzzed like a hive of trapped bees. He’d only meant to save the man from certain death, and now he was about a millimeter away from having his throat slit. “I think there’s been a misunderstanding.”
“Who sent you?” Randy repeated, his voice as cold as an Arctic lake.
“Nobody sent me! My roommate found your job listing in the paper, and—”
“What’s his name?”
Bobby’s heart tried to beat a hole through his chest. “My roommate? Caleb Young. College kid. Wears huge glasses.” And could crush a pop can into the size of an atom with his bare hands. “He only found the listing this morning, so I—”
“If nobody sent you to attack me, then may I ask why you felt the need to bowl me over?”
“Only if you let me go. If I try anything, go ahead and stab me.”
Randy let him go.
They stared at each other.
A new light had been kindled in Randy’s eyes. His six-inch blade, clenched in his right fist, looked sharp enough to filet a bear. He slid it back into a sheath hidden under the length of his t-shirt.
Suddenly the skull on Randy’s shirt appeared all too fitting.
Bobby took a deep breath, well aware that they were both being soaked to the skin. “If you get into that car, you’ll die.”
“How do you know that?”
Bobby’s thoughts went to Tyree, his neighbor in New York. They’d only known each other for a few days but had discovered a mutual interest in guitars, so a fast bond had formed between them.
They had been sitting in Tyree’s apartment strumming out tunes when the premonition came to him.
“Hey, Tyree, I don’t think you should go out tonight.”
“Why not?”
Undefined images of blood and death had filled Bobby’s head. “It’s dangerous out there.”
Tyree laughed. “It’s New York, bro. What isn’t dangerous about it?”
Bobby found Tyree dead between the cars the very next morning. Tyree’s face had been frozen in an expression of surprise and his pockets had been turned out.
Killed for a bit of cash. A casualty of greed.
“I just know,” Bobby said, feeling sick at the memory.
A look of impatience crossed Randy’s face. “Can you also divine the future from tea leaves? I’d like to get home and into some dry clothes.”
“I’m telling you, if you get into that car, it’s going to blow up or something.”
“Did you plant a bomb in it?”
“No.”
“Did you see someone plant a bomb in it?”
“No.”
“Then what do I have to worry about?”
Bobby decided to use Randy’s bizarre behavior to his advantage. “You clearly think someone is after you or you wouldn’t have tried to kill me.”
A muscle twitched in Randy’s cheek. “A man has to protect himself.” He stepped past Bobby and jammed his key into the slot on the door.
Bobby felt the blood drain from his face. “Please don’t.”
Randy threw him an annoyed glance and pulled the door open.
Bobby couldn’t believe it. The man’s stubbornness was going to kill him. And just like with Tyree, Bobby could do nothing to stop it short of wrestling the knife away from him and slashing his tires.
“Wait a minute,” Bobby said as an idea dawned on him. “Don’t start the car yet. I’ll be right back.”
Please don’t let him start the car, he prayed as he dashed across the parking lot to his own vehicle. He got the door open and flipped open the glove box. There. A flashlight. Just what he needed to prove to Randy he was right.
He hurried back over to the Ford, where Randy sat in the driver’s seat drumming his fingers on the wheel. He’d left the door open.
“What are you doing?” Randy asked. Some of the sharpness had left his voice, and he eyed the flashlight with interest.
“Checking something.” Bobby got down on the ground and squeezed himself under the car, wishing he had one of those flat, wheeled jobs mechanics used while they repaired the undersides of vehicles.
His memory conjured an image of a sweating, overweight man gasping for breath at a kitchen table.
He banished the memory into the back of his mind. He had no time for that now.
Water running across the blacktop soaked into his clothes as he shined the light up into all the nooks and crannies under the car. What exactly did a car bomb look like? Did people even put them down here, or did bombs go under the hood with the engine?
All he knew was that nothing looked out of place to him. Which didn’t mean much since he’d never paid attention when his father tried to teach him Cars 101.
He was about to crawl out from under the vehicle and have Randy pop the hood when something that wasn’t rain dripped on his head.
Bobby scooted a few inches to the side and shined the light on the spot from which the drip had originated.
“Uh, Randy?” he called. “I think I found your problem.”
LUPE SANCHEZ tried not to give much thought to Graham Willard once Randy left the hospital after that fateful night last year. Thinking about Graham at all made a cold weight settle upon her heart, and since she wanted to be strong for Randy while he mended she’d done her best to banish the old man’s face from her mind.
Graham had dropped off the face of the earth after he’d left Randy for dead. His face appeared on news broadcasts for weeks. His bank accounts and credit card showed no activity. An all-points bulletin had been issued for his Grand Marquis, which later turned up at a used car lot sixty miles away. The lot owner explained that the man who sold the car to him for $500 cash looked “nothing like the guy on TV” so he hadn’t suspected a thing.
That brought the investigation to a dead end. Graham had not purchased a new vehicle at that lot so it was anyone’s guess as to what he drove now. Police went to other car lots with photographs of the old man in addition to the sketch that had been created from the description provided by the dealer. No one had seen him. If he’d gone to another dealership, he must have worn a disguise and used a different name.
Follow-ups of all recent vehicle purchases came up with nothing. None of Graham’s kin had heard from him, either. Randy said he hoped the man had crawled away somewhere and died because it would have been better if he’d never been born.
Lupe hadn’t been able to help but agree with him.
But then, just as life began its gradual return to normal, Graham came back
The encounter took place in the Walmart parking lot over on Skyline Avenue. Lupe had just finished loading groceries into her trunk and was wheeling the empty cart over to the nearest
corral when a man stepped out of a nearby vehicle into her path.
At first she didn’t recognize him. The man had black hair and brown eyes and wore a Portland Pilots t-shirt. Since Graham had gray hair, blue eyes, and staunchly supported the Oregon Ducks, she made no connection with the man standing before her and the one who had very nearly murdered her soon-to-be husband.
“Excuse me,” she said, trying to push her way around him.
The man smiled. “Don’t you know who I am?”
Her heart froze at the sound of his voice.
She let go of the cart and started to run back to her car, but the man’s hand shot out and gripped her wrist. “We need to have a chat,” he said, pulling her toward an unfamiliar slate-gray Nissan.
Lupe wished she could feign ignorance of the English language like she’d done on other occasions when she wanted to avoid conversation with certain people, but Graham knew her far too well to fall for that trick. “I’ll scream,” she said, glancing around to see if anyone stood within earshot.
Graham’s smile broadened. “I’ll shoot.”
This was so wrong. Graham had been an honorary grandfather to them all, and if Lupe hadn’t known about what he’d done to Randy, she would have thought this was some kind of sick joke.
“What will killing me accomplish?” she asked in a low voice.
“Not much, I’m afraid.”
“If I get in your car, will you kill me?”
“I already told you we need to have a chat. I can’t talk to you if you’re dead.”
Lupe had no idea what the man had in mind, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to know, either. “Will you kill me after we have this chat?”
“Only if you try to pull something stupid. You get in the car, we talk, and then you go free. Make sense?”
“What’s going to stop me from going to the police?”
The man chuckled. “That would fall under the category of pulling something stupid. Now get in the car.”
Twenty minutes later when Graham finished their one-sided chat, Lupe wished she had just asked him to shoot her on the spot instead.
Now, months later, Lupe sat on her living room couch trembling so badly she thought she would burst while waiting for the phone call that would come before the night reached its end. She’d tried hard to thwart Graham but had no way of knowing if her partial defiance would work.
She considered killing herself if her plan failed. She had pills. She had knives. It wouldn’t be hard to do.
But she also had faith, weak as it may have been at times. It had been years since the terrible nights of sitting in a warm bathtub with a razor in one hand while she examined the dark blue threads of vein pulsing beneath her skin. She had been so close to doing it one night. The tip of the razor had barely pierced her flesh when an unexpected voice inside her mind clearly said, “Wait.”
So wait she did. With tears in her eyes, she wiped up the single bead of blood and threw the razor blade in the garbage.
The next day was a Sunday, and for the first time since coming to Oregon she went to church. When the service concluded, the young, dark-haired man sitting to her left turned and in flawless Spanish said, “Are you new here? I don’t recognize you.” His smile could have melted a glacier. It certainly melted her heart.
She’d nodded. “I’m Lupe,” she said, feeling a blush warm her cheeks. She didn’t notice any Latinos in the congregation aside from herself, and the sound of her native tongue made her feel even more out of place.
The man stuck out a hand. “And I’m Randy Bellison. It’s nice to meet you.”
“Gracias. It’s nice to meet you, too. But how did you know I speak Spanish?”
“Easy: I knew it in my heart.”
They had chatted for awhile longer after church let out, and then Randy offered to take her to lunch that day since he didn’t have any plans and the weather was so nice. Though nervous about it, Lupe agreed for the sole reason that nobody had ever asked her to a restaurant before, and she wanted to know what it was like.
They’d sat out on the restaurant’s patio beneath a giant umbrella as they dined on authentic Chinese cuisine. At first they’d talked about simple things like their jobs and what they enjoyed doing in their free time (Lupe liked to crochet and Randy often spent time with friends or in prayer), and after awhile Lupe brought up some of the happier things that had happened to her in Mexico, which surprised her since she rarely spoke of her old life. In turn, Randy told her how he’d had a troubled childhood and finally found peace when he turned such cares over to God.
It soon became a ritual for them to sit together in church and then go to lunch. At first Lupe simply considered Randy a new friend whose company she enjoyed, but as weeks passed she found herself wishing they could stay together longer each Sunday. She would think of Randy often throughout the day and eventually started calling him to chat whenever she wanted to hear his voice.
She noticed an odd thing, though. Sometimes he would not pick up his phone, and when he returned her calls, he would sound unimaginably exhausted.
It would not be until their relationship deepened further that she would learn the reason why.
In the present, Lupe checked the time. It felt like an eternity since the last time she’d looked at the clock but in reality it had only been a handful of minutes.
She closed her eyes and prayed. Padre, keep watch over your child Randy. Protect him from all harm and the hand of evil. Send your angels to guard and guide him, and never let your Spirit leave him.
She had done a terrible thing, but she did it anyway. And why? Because while she had often sought to end her life and left it open as an option, she feared dying—especially at the hands of the one who controlled her.
I am a terrible person. Padre, don’t let him die.
Her cell phone let out a shrill ring that nearly stopped her heart.
She answered it with a shaking hand. “Hello?”
RANDY TRIED to be calm while the kid in the tie rummaged around underneath his car, but being calm did not always come easy to him, especially after what happened last year. Sure, on an ordinary day he’d feel as composed as he ever had been, though every once in awhile certain events would trigger his fears and he’d end up doing something rash. Only last month he’d been taking trash to one of the bins at the church when a car backfired out on the street, and the next thing he knew he was dashing for cover as if he were under attack.
It wasn’t something he cared to admit. He’d always been the self-possessed sort of guy who kept his head during crises.
Not so much anymore. He had Graham Willard and his gun to thank for that.
If Bobby hadn’t been sent by Graham to harm him (if knocking him into a wet parking lot could even be remotely classified as such), then what in the world was going on?
Father, a little advice here would be awesome.
The Voice within him sounded amused. Be patient.
Bobby said something, but Randy couldn’t tell what it was over the sound of the falling rain. He hopped out of the car and joined Bobby beneath it. It wasn’t like his clothes would get any wetter at this point. “What did you say?”
“Look at this.” Bobby’s flashlight illuminated a piece of severed tubing that dripped something onto the wet pavement.
Randy felt the breath leave his lungs. “That’s not a bomb,” he said, though if he’d driven away without heeding Bobby’s warning, the effects would have been just about as disastrous for him.
Bobby shook his head and glanced at Randy with fear in his eyes. “No. I don’t know much about this kind of thing, but I think it’s one of your brake lines.”
That’s what Randy thought, too, and it made his stomach squirm. You cut the brake lines, you lose the brake fluid; you lose the brake fluid, you lose the brakes. Not exactly a death sentence but close enough.
“Let me take a closer look at that.”
Bobby handed him the flashlight and moved aside. Randy prodded the se
vered line with one finger. It looked like it had been snipped with wire cutters. “How did you really know about this?”
The kid didn’t immediately reply. Randy glanced over at him and saw that tears had welled up in his eyes.
“Look,” Randy said, feeling a shred of guilt at having pulled the knife on him. “I’m not mad at you. Did someone tip you off and you’re afraid to tell me about it?”
“No.” Bobby cleared his throat. “Nobody tipped me off. Sometimes I just know things, okay? You’re a church guy. I figure it’s God who told me you’d be meeting him at the Pearly Gates if I didn’t jump in and save you.”
Now that was an interesting thought. “In any case, it looks like I’m safe now,” Randy said as he wriggled his way out from under the car. He patted his pocket for his cell phone so he could call a tow truck and discovered it had vanished. He made a quick scan of the area and found it lying screen-side down on the ground four feet away. He picked it up, shook droplets from its screen, and tried to dial Lupe’s number just to see if it worked.
It didn’t.
Bobby joined him in the growing downpour a moment later. “Sorry about that,” he said, eyeing the lifeless phone. “Here, use mine. Are you going to file a police report? There could be vandals in the area doing this to other people’s cars.”
Randy shook his head. It would be one thing if this was the work of ordinary vandals out to wreak havoc upon the neighborhood, but his gut told him this was Graham Willard’s doing. The church had no outdoor security cameras and a tall row of shrubs lined one side of the lot, so the culprit might not have been seen. The police would have nothing to go on other than Randy’s own suspicions. Besides, how would he explain his knowledge of the severed line? He hadn’t driven the car anywhere to know something was wrong with it, and he hadn’t seen the leaking brake fluid since it had mingled with the water on the pavement. “Nope,” he said. “I just need the tow truck.”
Before he dialed 411 for information about sending over a wrecker, he called Lupe to let her know what had happened. Hearing her voice eased some of the tension in his chest. It was strange, though. When she answered the phone, it sounded like she was crying.
