The Heir

by Paul Robertson

  I opened my eyes and the light had moved. I didn’t know where I was. The worst pain was my head—my jaw and a place above my ear. I tried to turn over, but the pain in my side and stomach was too sharp.

  I was lying on an uneven pile, and my face was against rough metal. I thought as hard as I could and I finally figured it out.

  I was in a Dumpster, on a heap of garbage. The top was closed, and just a narrow crack let in sunlight.

  There was no use moving. I don’t know how long I’d lain there, or how long I had been unconscious. I remembered the train station, and then the fight. What had that been about?

  Just a stupid back-alley mugging. I tried to feel for my wallet, but I couldn’t move my arm. They’d seen me buying the food, flashing my cash. Stupid.

  I was going to Nathan’s house. I tried to sit up and almost passed out. Everything hurt, every part of me. How long had they beat me? Why hadn’t they just killed me? I wished they had.

  I couldn’t move. I couldn’t do anything. The pain was too much, it was overwhelming. I fainted.

  When I was awake again, I could see daylight through the opening, but none was coming in. I had to move. Slowly I turned over, onto my back.

  I could tell where the pain was. My jaw, my head, a dozen places. I sat up. The stench was nauseating. I could touch the closed cover, but there was no way I could lift it. Was someone going to open this thing sometime?

  It was late afternoon maybe, or evening. I didn’t want to be here through the night. Please get me out.

  Could I call for help? It would be the end. Billionaire fugitive murderer found in the trash. But I didn’t want to be here in the pitch black and the smell.

  It would be better to give up. They’d put me in a hospital and the pain would stop. Oh, it hurt.

  The garbage truck would come. It would lift the whole Dumpster and everything would tumble out. Just imagining it—falling and crashing—I was sweating. And then into the back of the truck and the crushing. They wouldn’t even see me. When would the truck come? I had to get out.

  I couldn’t give up.

  It got dark, then black. There were no streetlights.

  I heard voices. There was a clang and the top lifted.

  “Why’s it closed?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The crack was a couple feet wide. A heavy plastic trash bag was shoved in but wouldn’t fit through.

  “Just put it in the other one.”

  “It’s full. Help me get the top open.”

  The top lifted farther to the height of its arc, then swung down, slamming harshly against the outside. Then the bags came in on top of me, one after another, and then they left.

  It took me twenty minutes to get out—pushing the bags off of me, climbing over them, and then the final drop to the pavement that jolted every bone. But I was standing, outside, leaning against that evil prison. No one saw me. I limped away from it into the shadows.

  I didn’t know the time. My watch was gone. I felt my pockets. No wallet. All the money was gone. I still had my keys. And something else . . .

  It was my gun. Cursed thing, the one time I really should have used it, I hadn’t even thought of it.

  There was a back door by the Dumpsters where they’d brought out the trash. It was unlocked. Inside the train station was an empty, grimy hall. It was too bright. A clock said it was nine twenty. Sunday night? It must be. There was a men’s room close.

  What I saw in the mirror was hideous. One eye was bruised and swollen and the lip was split, and the face lacerated and torn—the bleached yellow hair was a scar itself. The shirt was matted with dried blood. It wasn’t even human.

  I couldn’t stay. I stumbled back out into the night. The bus was impossible. I couldn’t be seen like this; I didn’t have money anyway.

  I had to get to Eric.

  Fifteen blocks.

  I had to keep myself hidden. I had to keep moving. My jaw was the most painful now—I had to hold it with my hand. The jarring of each step made the pain still worse.

  I don’t know how long it took to go that mile. I was half delirious. People who did see me stayed far away. I didn’t stop at the cross streets, and once a car squealed and swerved around me.

  His street was mostly empty. I got across it, to his building. It was after eleven, but the fifth-floor lights were on.

  The front door was locked. It took a few tries to get the key right, but then I was in. I got in the elevator. I’d forgotten to look for police. I’d just hope they weren’t close.

  I had to prop myself against the elevator wall and it jerked my jaw when it stopped. I crossed Eric’s lobby to his door.

  I didn’t know whether to knock or just go in. It would be better if he didn’t have a chance to call anyone. I put the key in the door and turned.

  He was startled. He was watching television, still dressed, in jeans and a clean white pullover. He looked just like he always had.

  “Who are you?” He’d stood when he heard the door opening, his reaction surprise and revulsion. He stared at me. His mouth pinched closed and his nose wrinkled. “What do you want?” he said. He really didn’t know who I was.

  “Eric.”

  He kept staring, and the reaction slowly changed into simple hate.

  “Jason.”

  I closed the door. “Help me.”

  He stood aside, shrinking from me. Now he was frightened, too. I staggered into the room and stood for a moment with my back to him, looking at the clean, comfortable furniture, the wall of televisions. He walked around me, keeping his distance. “Jason?” he said again. I nodded. I was about to collapse.

  I reached a chair in time, just by the door, and fell into it.

  “What happened to you?” And then, “Where have you been?” And then, harder, with anger, “Why?”

  “I didn’t kill her.” It took all my strength to speak.

  “I don’t believe you.”

  That hurt worse than anything, or it would have if I could have felt any more pain.

  “I need water.” I hadn’t eaten in almost two days, but even more, I was thirsty. He didn’t move. “Please.”

  He filled a glass and held it out to me; he didn’t want to get close. I tried to drink but I couldn’t get my jaw to open enough, and most of it poured down my chin.

  “Straw,” I said.

  He found one. It was still difficult but I filled my mouth with the water. Swallowing, I gagged, and lost it again.

  He was disgusted. “Drink it slow if it’s so hard.”

  I forced it down my throat. “More.”

  “Here.”

  The water helped so much. Now I was desperately hungry but I wouldn’t be able to chew.

  “I need help,” I said again.

  “You stink.” He backed farther away. “What happened to you? You tried to kill somebody who could fight back?”

  “I didn’t kill her!” I screamed it at him but it was a hoarse whisper. “I didn’t kill her!” I tried to stand up but I couldn’t.

  “I still don’t believe you.” He said it quietly. He was in pain, too. I could see what this week had done to him.

  “It was Fred.”

  “No! You’re lying.” That made it worse. I should have known how he would react. “You hate him!” he shouted.

  “It had to be. He had the gun.”

  “You had the gun.”

  “No. I dropped it.”

  “No you didn’t! You walked out with it. I saw you.”

  It was too hard to understand. “What?”

  “You walked out of Fred’s office with the gun in your hand,” Eric said. “We all saw you.”

  “But Fred—”

  “Shut up, Jason!”

  I was too confused, and there was too much pain. “But it had to be him.”

  “No. Everybody knows you killed her, and you killed Angela, and . . .” He couldn’t say it.

  “I didn’t.” I had no more strength. “I didn’t kill he
r, Eric.” It wasn’t Fred? It had to be Fred. “I didn’t kill anyone.” Then who killed Katie? Now the pain of her loss came back stronger than any of the other pains, and I started crying, and then I leaned back into the chair and I was sobbing, my head in my hands, the world more black and terrible than it had ever been.

  “I’m calling the police.”

  I looked up to him. “No.” This was even worse. How could I stop him? “Please.”

  “I have to.” He picked up the telephone.

  “If they find me I’ll never . . . I’ll never . . .” I’d never what? I couldn’t remember. He pushed three buttons, 9-1-1. I had to do something.

  “I need the police,” he said.

  “No.” It would be over. How could he be such an idiot? I couldn’t stop him and I couldn’t get away. I thought about what I had in my pocket.

  He spoke into the phone, standing by the big coffee table, his eyes on me. “My name is Eric Boyer.” Should I even stop him? The police would come and it would finally be over. They’d put me in a hospital and the pain would stop, and the running.

  No. I had to make him stop. I put my hand around the handle.

  “My brother, Jason Boyer, is in my apartment.”

  His eyes were locked into mine. My finger was on the trigger. I had to stop him. Why had he always been such an idiot?

  “Yes, ma’am,” he was saying. “Detective Wilcox told me . . .”

  I pulled the trigger.

  The gun wasn’t as loud as the shattering of the huge television screen. Eric’s head jerked toward the glass explosion, his mouth hanging open. For the moment, he was stunned. I had to move fast. With every ounce of energy I had and more, I launched myself out of the chair at him. I didn’t know what I was doing besides stopping him.

  I slammed right into his chest and he fell backward with me on top of him. There was a crack as his head hit the slate table, and I felt his body jerk and then go limp.

  “Hello? Hello? Mr. Boyer? Are you there?” The little voice piped from the phone. “We’re sending help. Are you there?”

  I was still on him and I could hardly move. Something had hit my jaw, the pain was white-hot. I rolled off and sat next to him. It seemed like he was breathing, but he didn’t move.

  What could I do? There was nothing I could do. I took hold of a chair and pulled myself up until I was standing. The only sound was the telephone. “Mr. Boyer, the police are coming. They’ll be there in two minutes. Mr. Boyer, can you hear me?”

  It was the same as before, in my office, with Rosita screaming. I had to get away. I threw the gun as hard as I could through another television.

  If there was anything I could have done, I would have stayed. But there was nothing I could do.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. Again, I fled.

  I stumbled out to the elevator and rode it down to the garage. I should have taken his car keys but I didn’t think of it. There were all his beautiful automobiles filling a whole wall of the garage—his life.

  If he was going to die, I should have carried him down so he could die in one of them.

  I got out to the side street. The sirens were coming fast. I crossed the street and found the alley behind the row of businesses. They weren’t so antique and picturesque from behind.

  Sirens screamed, car doors slammed, lights flared. I heard the locked front glass door shatter and I saw a cruiser cut off the garage entrance. I had only seconds to get moving.

  As steadily as I could I walked the length of the alley to the next side street. At the end, I turned toward the blocks behind.

  38

  A hundred times in the dark I woke. Some of the times were from pain, some from dreams, some were from voices and the tread of feet above me or sirens in the street outside. And some were from the cold.

  My body couldn’t sustain consciousness. Each time I’d wake in terror. The nightmare images would all be a jumble: Eric’s face, Katie’s face, screaming, Fred with a gun, men in dark streets. Then I’d remember what they meant just as I slid back under the waves, too wounded and weak to struggle.

  Daylight found me under the front porch of an old derelict house. I was lying in dirt, and the floorboards were twelve inches above my head. It was better than a Dumpster.

  My jaw was fighting for my attention against all the other aching muscles and bruises. I knew I could move when I had to and I knew how bad it would hurt.

  How badly was Eric hurt? It had to be that he was only hurt. Why was he such an idiot? Surely he would be all right. He was still breathing when I left. I had to find out.

  It was time to move. The pain clamped down on me, just like I knew it would, and I crawled out of my rathole into the bright light.

  The house was close to the street. I was about ten feet from the sidewalk. The neighborhood had once been better, but it looked like it had gotten mugged and thrown in the trash. I fit right in.

  I didn’t know which way to go. I got to the first corner. If I went south I’d cross the line into Eric’s affluent quarter. It must be close.

  Four blocks was all. I came out within sight of his building. I pulled back into the alley.

  I found a trash can behind a restaurant, full of garbage. Right on top was a half-eaten chicken sandwich. I tried to take a bite but my jaw couldn’t do it. Then a man inside yelled at me and waved an empty bottle like a club. I shuffled away.

  What was I supposed to do? I wanted to find out about Eric, but I couldn’t think of any way to see the news. Could I really have killed him? How had this happened? Why had it happened? I was only trying to stop him from calling the police. I was trying to get away. I’d always hated that big, heavy table, so out of place in that room.

  Now there was only one place to go. I needed to get to Nathan’s house. I hardly remembered why, except that it was the only place left. And I hardly knew what direction to go. I just started walking.

  I didn’t care about the police. It would be ten miles, or fifteen or twenty. I walked right down the main roads that I knew. I couldn’t spare the energy to wind through back roads and neighborhoods. I saw plenty of cruisers, but no one stopped. They obviously hadn’t gotten a description out of Eric yet. My torn, polluted clothes and my bruised face were a complete disguise.

  I didn’t know how far I’d gone, and I wasn’t sure I’d make it in one day. Every step got slower and harder. I was starting to forget where I was going. I had to keep awake enough to not get lost. Pain had transcended the sense of feel—it had become an element of existence.

  Sometime in the afternoon I passed a park with a water fountain, but it didn’t work. I had paused, though. Now I couldn’t get started again. I just sat on the park bench and let the afternoon go by.

  What would happen at Nathan’s? Would I kill him, too? What kind of curse was on me?

  I stood up on my feet and walked so the pain would drive the thoughts out of my head. I was still not giving up.

  At sunset I was away from the city. I couldn’t remember how much farther, but somewhere ahead on this road was a village center, and past that was his street.

  But I couldn’t go. It wasn’t a matter of will anymore but of physical impossibility. There was a belt of trees and bushes along the road, and I collapsed into a shadowed ditch.

  And there was a miracle there, an old coat, and I slept under it.

  The coat had probably been in the ditch for a year or more. In the morning I brushed the dirt and spider webs off of it and put it on. I wasn’t thinking at all now, only moving.

  It was still early and cold, and walking didn’t warm me. But the coat helped a lot and I was thankful for it.

  I turned off the main road onto a street with driveways. I found a newspaper still lying in one. Back on the main road I came to a fast food place with tables outside. It wasn’t open yet. I sat at a table and opened the paper.

  MURDERER STRIKES AGAIN

  I just stared at it. I couldn’t even think what it meant; just that it was more terrible
than anything else that had happened. But then I saw the smaller type.

  Doctors Upgrade Eric Boyer’s Condition to Guarded.

  I wouldn’t have let go of that newspaper for a steak dinner. I devoured it for any clue about him.

  He was conscious, as of sometime yesterday. He’d had a concussion. There was no major damage.

  That gave me energy enough to want to read the rest of what was happening. Harry Bright had told the reporter that if they wanted to see brain damage, they should look at Commissioner DeAngelo’s department. Nothing else could explain how his entire Division of State Police could let the most wanted man in the world get past them to attempt another murder. DeAngelo had answered that the police protection had been suspended at Eric Boyer’s request after his police escort had given him a speeding ticket.

  But most of the news was about the hunt. There were now roadblocks around the whole city, watches on all the bus and train and air terminals, at all the ports and marinas. Hotels were reporting anyone vaguely resembling the fugitive.

  There were no police left to look for a tramp sleeping in the bushes. I had to agree with Harry Bright: they weren’t doing a very good job.

  I finished reading. It was time to get on. It had warmed up, and I thought about abandoning my coat, but it was my only friend.

  Then there was another miracle. In the trash was an almost full twenty ounce bottle of soda. I savored the liquid and calories and caffeine. It was enough for the moment.

  It still took me four more hours to get to his house. It was after noon.

  I saw no sign of anyone watching. Nathan would have refused police protection. He had nothing to fear from me.

  Surely he knew. He didn’t think I was the killer. What if he did? He’d give me a chance to explain. Would he believe that it was Fred? I didn’t know if I believed it anymore.

  I went around the block, to the house backing against his. There was a way through to his house that was covered by trees and fence. I made my way slowly into his backyard. Now what? His door would be locked. The house would have alarms on all the doors and windows.

  I’d wait in the bushes for him to get home.

  I sat for an hour, but it got painful. I shifted to bushes against the house. They were smaller, but there was room behind them. I tried a window, but it was locked.