Dan opened up a little too, telling Fred he and the boy were from Massachusetts and heading west to California, San Diego to be exact. The boy’s parents had died recently and the man could not care for him. There was an aunt on his father’s side willing to take him in. Dan said the two of them had been having themselves a real good time too, until the car broke down, that is. But something he said must not have fit. He watched with some discomfort as Fred furrowed his brow.
“Ya don’t mind me askin’,” he said, “you’re a little off the beaten path for a trip to California.”
“Yeah, I know,” Dan answered quickly. “We had some extra time to kill and figured we’d take the scenic route. Maybe stop off and see Tombstone. Anyway, we got off 40 in Albuquerque and headed south until we hit 10.”
Some of that was true. What really happened was that Dan had grown paranoid in Albuquerque, where a cop seemed to follow them for longer than necessary. But once again, his answer seemed to satisfy Fred.
When they pulled into the small city, Fred parked the car on Main Street. He pointed out the municipal offices where his appointment was before pointing to an auto parts place across the street. The two agreed to meet in the lobby outside the post office in the municipal building in half an hour, forty-five minutes tops. Both agreed that neither man’s business should take any longer than that.
Dan walked across the street and into the auto parts joint. He grabbed a couple of gallons of antifreeze from the display up front before walking back and placing them on the counter. The sound of good-natured banter came from somewhere among the long shelves running along the back. He rang the bell, and before too long, a young kid in a Police T-shirt came up front.
After Dan told him what he needed, the kid raised his eyebrows as if he didn’t hold out much hope, but walked off anyway and began fingering the Dodge catalog. Dan himself was confident they’d have one that fit. Though his was now seventeen years old, there were still a lot of Darts on the streets. And ‘64 had been a very good year for Dodge. The kid found the part number and disappeared around back, returning a few minutes later with a box containing a new hose and some clamps. Dan paid in cash and thanked the kid before heading out the door.
With some time to kill, he threw a dime into a box on the sidewalk and grabbed a Tucson newspaper before heading into a small diner. He sat down at the chipped Formica counter where he ordered coffee and perused the paper. The Pope was still recovering from his gunshot wound. Dan thought back to the attempted presidential assassination a few months earlier and wondered if the world had gone mad. He went looking for the box scores to see how the Sox were doing, only to remember that baseball had gone on strike a few weeks back. Both sides had since dug in their heels. It looked like it might be a long one.
A tiny blurb from the Center for Disease Control caught his eye. He found he paid more attention to medical news in just the few months since his nephew had become sick, though this one didn’t look too promising. The article reported that five homosexual men in California had contracted a rare form of pneumonia usually seen only in patients with weakened immune systems. Not knowing what to make of that, he moved on. After reading that Iraq was still squawking about Israel’s recent destruction of their nuclear reactor, he set the paper aside. A pox on all their houses, he thought, leaving a buck on the counter before walking out the door.
Looking up, he saw the sky had darkened considerably while he’d been taking care of his business. There was a low blanket of fast moving clouds in the sky and an ozone smell, an almost electric feel to the air, that he figured might presage a desert thunderstorm. He hoped so anyway. He’d seen pictures of them too.
Back at the car, he left the jugs of antifreeze beside the passenger door, deciding to take the box containing the radiator hose with him. He walked up the concrete steps into the municipal building and saw a sign in the lobby pointing him down a long hallway to the post office and county offices. While walking, he passed bulletin boards along the way and saw official looking notices of public hearings, and mimeographed pleas for lost cats.
After glancing at the glass-enclosed bulletin board just outside the post office, he stopped and froze in place. He was still staring a minute later when he heard the sound of high heels on the tile floor approaching from behind. Dropping his box, he bent over and began fussing with his shoelace. It seemed to take forever, but when the footsteps were safely beyond him, he stood up again to stare at the bulletin board where, behind its glass doors, his own face stared back.
There were two photographs. The first he recognized immediately as one he carried in his own wallet, smiling goofily from his driver’s license photo. His thinning, brownish hair was shorter back then and had grayed some since. The beard he wore at the time had already gone mostly gray, but he had gotten rid of that not long after he and the boy went on the run. They had anticipated that.
The other photo, a black and white stop-motion obviously taken from a surveillance camera, showed him unbearded. Though a fuzzy, facial close-up, there was no doubt it was him. Behind him in the photo were waist-high, velvet ropes. Puzzling over that, he glanced up and saw what he was wanted for and remembered. It must have been taken at the bank near Memphis where he’d arranged the wire transfer that closed out his account. That explained the bank robbery charge. But even he thought the murder charge a bit much.
While reaching to open the glass door, from behind he heard the high heels again. Panicked, he went into his shoelace act while using his shoulder to shield his face. His heart raced as the sound grew closer, and when they stopped beside him, he feared it would explode. A lifetime later, she spoke.
“Y’all OK down there?”
He grunted and thought fast. “Yeah. New shoes, is all. Rubbin’ out a blister. Thanks, though.”
For some reason, he had made an attempt to disguise his voice that even to his own ears sounded like the most suspicious thing he’d ever heard. He held his breath and kept playing with his shoes. Entire galaxies were born and died before he heard a laugh.
“I been there myself, friend,” she said. “You know what? They got some first aid down the town clerk’s office if y’all need it. Down this hallway and to the right. Good luck, friend!”
She chuckled again before the clattering of her shoes continued down the hallway. Jesus, he thought. Is everyone out here this nice?
While waiting for his heart to slow, he tried to imagine how these people who showed such kindness would be treated in his own taciturn Massachusetts. He smiled cynically, ashamed to already know the answer. Standing up again, he pulled at the door to the glass case only to find it locked.
After glancing up and down the hallway, he peered more closely at the locking mechanism and saw it was a simple latch. He reached into his pockets and felt nothing but paper money and loose change. A bead of sweat rolled down his forehead before he suddenly remembered his box. Picking it up, he reached in and pulled out the hose clamp.
Bending the hard metal into an L, he slipped it between the gap in the doors and pulled. The hinges at either end groaned but the doors snapped open. Reaching in, he tore out the posters and shoved them in the box with the loose hose. He threw the box to the ground, then lined up the latch with the hole and used both hands to push them together. The doors shut. No longer flush, they fell forward a little bit. But the latch held. Letting out a long breath, he waited for his heart to slow before picking up the box.
He took only two steps down the hallway when he saw Fred emerge from an office down the hall to the right. He wondered what he must look like but managed a smile anyway. Fred flashed him a look of concern as he approached.
“You all right, boy?” he asked. “Looks like you just run a marathon or something.”
Dan took a deep breath and tried to get his heart rate back to normal.
“Nah, I’m alright. Steppin’ out of the heat into the cool of the building kinda threw me for a loop. Felt a little faint for a minute there. But I’m better
now.”
Fred looked at him a while longer and then noticed the box. He motioned with his head toward the exit and the two began walking. Fred asked, “They got y’all fixed up I take it?”
Dan smiled. “Sure did. Even had time enough to grab a cup of coffee. How ‘bout you? You get your license all squared away?”
“Damn bureaucrats can’t keep nothin’ straight,” Fred replied, spitting out the words. “Said they’d have to check with Phoenix and get back to me.”
The ride home was mostly silent. Dan watched in wonder as miles ahead of them, the clouds finally burst and the rain fell, and he imagined the parched ground below sizzled. He tried to engage Fred in conversation a few times, but for some reason, his responses were stilted and distant.
A few miles outside of Mercy, they came upon a railroad crossing. The lights flashed and the gates were down as the longest train Dan had ever seen rolled past. A few minutes later, Dan tried again.
“Long train, huh?” He turned and flashed Fred a smile but got only an “uh huh” for his trouble.
Looking down, his eyes flashed to the box beneath his feet and a shiver ran up his spine. It was the only thing that would explain Fred’s newfound reticence. Glancing at him again, Dan saw Fred’s piercing blue eyes were already turned his way. Their eyes locked. A moment later, Fred finally asked the question.
“So, you wanna tell me who you really are, Mr. Smith?”
Chapter Two
1
The man in a dark suit caught the first flight out of Dulles back to Oklahoma City, the main Operations Center for Atlas Consulting and home base of its subsidiary Task Force 132B. About halfway through the flight, he had just completed his preliminary review of the FBI file and was now settled back comfortably in the plush leather of his first-class seat mulling over what — if anything — it all meant. The summary noted that the boy had been born and raised in the town of Grantham, Massachusetts, and seldom left it. His mother was dead about two years after a long bout with cancer. His father had been killed in the Grantham incident, leaving the uncle the boy now traveled with his only living relative.
Of the dozen or so photographs in the file, most were of the posed, school picture variety. The third- through sixth-grade photos showed a smiling, even impish kid, with brownish-blond hair and crooked teeth. While glancing through the photos — especially the more recent ones — the man was struck by the strange sensation he had seen the boy before. He went through them more slowly a second time, racking his brain before setting the thought aside. It would come to him. Perhaps the kid merely bore a resemblance to a TV or movie actor, though he didn’t look the type. Moreover, if the photographs were any indication, by the time the boy reached seventh-grade, the man was certain no casting director would have him. Something about him had changed for the worse by then.
Later pictures revealed a wary, distrusting exterior. The once apparently happy boy was no longer smiling. The man crosschecked to verify that yes, this was indeed the period of his mother’s illness. Around this same time, the man noticed the boy began wearing his hair longer, uncombed and unkempt, as if he had simply stopped caring. The most recent photo taken just this past winter showed a boy who had become a mere shadow of his earlier self, one who was now just another puffy-eyed teenager who looked in desperate need of sleep.
Delving deeper into the file, the man found something that might explain that. It was a small, orange notebook filled with page after page of customer receipts and notations. Apparently, for the last few years — the man checked to confirm it was indeed up to and during the Grantham event — the boy had maintained an enormous paper route. While turning the pages, the man caught himself almost smiling at some of the less than cryptic entries in the book:
Stiff!
Dog – Beatrice - (bites!)
Pretends not to be home
Don’t go in the house!
He set that book aside and picked up another, this one a well-worn and much-punched savings account passbook that showed a current balance of $2,348.26. Opened three years earlier, the boy had made deposits almost every week, and given the number of customers the boy had, the man knew all of it had been hard earned. There was only an occasional withdrawal.
Though he tried hard to avoid it, while looking through the boy’s photographs and personal belongings, the man couldn’t help but think of his own son, C.J. A seventh-grader at St. Joseph’s Academy in D.C., C.J. was the fifth generation of the Arthur family to attend the school. All the senior executives within Atlas had gone to St. Joe’s. The Jesuit order that ran the place was long familiar with the important work they did, and prepared their boys both body and soul for the lives they’d been born into. There was no doubt that one day, C.J. too would take his place in the family business.
Setting those thoughts aside, he was ready now to begin wading through the dozen or so spiral notebooks contained in the file. The boy had been an inveterate journal keeper. While reaching down to the accordion file between his feet, he felt the unmistakable sensation of eyes upon him. Turning to his left, he saw that the blond man in the seat beside him was staring past him to gaze out the window. Leaving the man to his own thoughts, he bent over once again and plucked a notebook at random.
As in the customer account book, the boy was a careful printer, his handwriting neat and clean. All the entries were dated, though some of them were brief, e.g., Movies – Jimmy, Larry, Mike. There was an occasional clumsy attempt at poetry or wordplay, a song lyric that he liked, or a joke he wanted to remember. Other entries were longer, detailing the innermost thoughts and dreams of an adolescent boy. The man found himself almost embarrassed to be reading some of it, as if he had no business snooping about in this dead boy’s life. More than that, he was almost saddened to know that none of those dreams would ever come true, when once again, confoundingly, he felt the sensation of someone else’s eyes upon him.
He turned to look at his seatmate again and saw the man was now turned toward him. This time, the man looked him straight in the eye and smiled. Disconcerted, Arthur looked beyond the blond man to notice for the first time that many of the first class seats were empty. The blond man could have moved to any one of them, but for some reason had chosen to remain exactly where he was.
Closing the notebook, he turned to the man and asked, “Can I help you with something?”
The blond man kept smiling, long enough for Arthur to notice he had pale blue eyes, smooth skin, and brilliant white teeth. He wore his hair parted in the middle. It fell below his ears. He might have been anywhere from twenty-five to forty, and Arthur supposed he might even be considered handsome, though there was something of the beach bum about him.
“Some kid, huh?” the man said.
A chill crawled up Arthur’s spine to think the man had been reading over his shoulder. “Excuse me?” he asked.
The man kept smiling. “You know. The kid. Scott. Seems like if it weren’t for bad luck, he’d have no luck at all. And wait’ll ya read the notebooks. They’re a real hoot!”
He laughed without mirth before going on.
“Life’s funny, huh? One day, you’re writing love notes to your girlfriend, and the next day you’re a . . .” The man leaned uncomfortably close to Arthur before bringing his hands up in the shape of claws and saying, “ . . . vampire!” He brought his hand-claws forward and grasped Arthur by the neck before opening his mouth and chomping loudly on his teeth a few times. His eyes rolled back in his head. He began emitting guttural, throaty sounds.
Arthur shrank back in his seat to get away from the madman. He heard a fearful gasp escape his own throat moments before the man let him go. After he did, the blond man sat back in his own seat and began to laugh. It was another moment before Arthur put two and two together. The old man had said the DCI would be sending someone. There was no other possible explanation. This was the man. Once the man stopped giggling, he turned back to Arthur and put out his hand.
“Sorry about that, dude
. Couldn’t help myself. Name’s Duane Richards. Nice to meet you. I understand we’ll be working together.”
Arthur let the hand stay there a long while as he composed himself. He took his time brushing the wrinkles out of his suit and straightening his tie. He pondered for a moment just leaving it there, but that wouldn’t do. The old man had made the stakes quite clear. No, for better or worse, he would be working with this man.
Turning to Richards, he took the man’s hand in his own and squeezed harder than necessary, then looked him in the eye and flashed a smile of his own.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Richards. My name is John Arthur. And if you do something like that ever again, I’ll kill you. Do we understand each other?”
He watched a change come into the other man’s eyes and immediately regretted the threat. Though he’d been deadly serious, something in those eyes seemed to reach out and remind Arthur that the only people he’d ever killed were already dead, whereas the people this man had killed were not. Whatever it was, it disappeared after a moment and Richards laughed again.
“Fair enough,” he replied. The two let go of each other’s hand just as the announcement came over the intercom.
“Ladies and gentlemen. Please return your seats and tray tables to their upright position as we begin our descent into the Oklahoma City area. Once again, we thank you for choosing to fly the friendly skies. For those of you with stopovers . . .”
Arthur returned the unread notebook to the file and closed it up. The engine noise changed as the plane began banking to the right. For the third time in recent memory, Arthur felt eyes upon him. He expelled a deep sigh and turned toward Richards.
“Well? What is it?” he asked.
“I was wondering,” Richards began. “Of course I’ve been briefed about some of it . . . but just how do you know where they are? I mean, how do you follow them, track their movements and whatnot?”
Applewood (Book 2): Fledge Page 4
