Nathan's Run (1996)

by John Gilstrap

  As he finished up and tucked himself away, his attention was drawn to a collection of three spindled handbills that had been stuffed into the handle of the screen door.

  I wonder.

  By taking four steps out into the yard, he could see the front doors of the neighbors' houses, and none of them had any handbills on their doors.

  Nathan, you're a genius, he congratulated himself. To confirm his suspicion, he tiptoed up to the garage door. By standing on the metal handles he could peer through the small-paned windows into the darkness of the garage. Just as he'd hoped, there was an open spot. Better yet, there was a second car still there-a Honda, it appeared. He pumped his fist in the air. Yes! he cheered silently.

  After making a mental note of the house number-4120-he jogged back to the Beemer and drove away. The first order of business was to ditch the car. He remembered passing a church just before turning into the development that would suit the task perfectly. He paid special attention to street names and the looks of his surroundings as he exited Little Rocky Creek, hoping to simplify the task of finding his way when he returned on foot.

  Again, his sense of distance had betrayed him. "Just before the turn" worked out in reality to be about a half mile down the road. By the time Nathan drove the Beemer into the church lot and parked it in the furthest space out, the eastern sky was already beginning to burn red. He had no idea that dawn came so early. It wasn't a time of day that he frequently witnessed firsthand. To his growing list of obstacles, he now had to add time.

  Once out of the vehicle for the last time, he hid the keys under the mat on the driver's side, locked the door, and closed it as quietly as he could. He hoped that maybe it really wasn't stealing if you gave back the keys.

  Sprawling before him was Saint Sebastian Catholic Church, looking more like a grounded flying saucer than it did a house of worship. For a brief moment, Nathan considered going inside for a brief chat with God-and Saint Sebastian, for that matter, if he was in the mood to listen in-but thought better of it. He was running out of time. Besides, God seemed to be listening so far.

  About the time that Nathan was watering the plants, Denise Carpenter was pacing her kitchen, waiting for the limo to arrive. Enrique sat with her, propped up in a hard-backed chair, wishing with all his might that he could trade his boss in for one who was sane. For the past hour and a half he'd issued positive reviews for no less than six different outfits, this on the heels of a previous hour rating hairstyles. If he'd told her once, he had told her a thousand times that she was a beautiful woman, that it didn't matter what she wore because she looked good in everything. It was close enough to the truth that no one could call him a liar.

  More by default dictated by the ticking of the clock than by rational decision, Denise had settled on a very professional, understated kelly green suit with a gold bead necklace and matching earrings. She decided to wear her professionally straightened hair pulled back in a tight ponytail, which Enrique didn't particularly like, but he would have cut his tongue off with a pair of scissors before he'd have said anything. Besides, she didn't listen to any of his fashion opinions anyway, which led him to consider the option of just shooting her and moving on to a better job.

  "Maybe I shouldn't have pulled my hair back," Denise whined.

  Enrique lowered his head onto the kitchen table and closed his eyes. "Jesus Christ, Denise, why don't we just shave you bald and you won't have to worry about it at all anymore?"

  Her eyes shot darts, but they never got through the force field of her producer's exhaustion. "Come on, Rick," she begged. "Stay awake with me. Here, have some more coffee." She refilled his mug, emptying their second pot since midnight.

  Enrique sat up straight again and gently gripped her elbow. "Den, listen to me," he said lightly. "You look great. You're going to do great. The only thing you have to worry about is staying awake through your radio show. America is just going to love saying good morning to you."

  Denise smiled and ran her hand through Enrique's hair. "Thanks, Rick," she said. "You're such a good friend to put up with me."

  His reply was a warm, if tired smile.

  "The red outfit looked better, didn't it?"

  Enrique's head made a loud thunk when it fell back onto the table.

  As the darkness lightened and the shadows turned gray, traffic started to pick up, and Nathan was forced further from the roadside and deeper into the woods. Another planning failure. He had no business being outside in the daylight where people could see him and recognize him. At least he wasn't driving anymore, he consoled himself.

  It took him every bit of forty-five minutes to make the trek back to Little Rocky Creek. Deadfalls, creepers and briar bushes all conspired to slow his progress.

  It wasn't yet six o'clock, yet the air was thick with humidity and the temperature was approaching ninety already. His clothes were soaked with perspiration, his hair matted to his forehead and the back of his neck. The hike was taking long enough that if he hadn't just driven the route, he would have sworn that he'd made a wrong turn.

  Finally, through the underbrush, he could see the turn for Little Rocky Trail. He turned parallel to the new road and soon was crossing behind back yards. It was the time of morning when people let their dogs out. One of them, a German shepherd, spied him through the slats of his fence and barked ferociously, baring its teeth and lunging against the pickets, thus igniting a chorus of barking dogs throughout the neighborhood. Nathan barked back at the dog and flipped him off. Nothing like a six-foot oak barrier to help a guy feel brave.

  Back yards seemed to stretch on forever as he traipsed through the woods. Even in the comfort of his borrowed Reeboks, the cuts and bruises on the soles of his feet were reasserting themselves. In time, he reached the end of the existing construction, and could see before him where a new section of townhomes would be built. At that spot, the woods ended, opening up into a huge open swath of dirt, excavated basements and construction materials.

  Forty-one twenty was at the end of the cul-de-sac located on the other side of Little Rocky Trail from where he was right now. His plan had been to make entry from the rear of the house, accessing it by walking in a big circle through the woods until he wound up where he needed to be. Now, he realized, the construction made that impossible.

  He faced a new set of choices. If he crossed through the construction zone, he'd be sure to be seen, probably by some security guard, and this game would be over. He rejected that option first. Another possibility would have been to stay in the woods and walk all the way around the periphery of the construction cut until he ended up where he needed to be. Problem was, he couldn't tell how long or how far that would take him. From where he stood, he couldn't see the far edge of the construction.

  Nathan decided it was time to be bold. He straightened his shoulders, combed his hair with his fingernails, and just walked out of the woods, looking for all the world like he belonged there.

  Todd Briscow tossed the wad of paper towels into the kitchen trash, then stared at his hand as though to figure out where to throw it out next. His wife, Patty, was busy looking for the carpet stain remover while their six-year-old son and one-year-old Labrador cowered together across the room.

  "Dammit, Peter," Todd cursed as he washed his hands in the kitchen sink, "how many times have I told you to put away food after you use it?" The dog had just barfed up an entire jar of strawberry preserves that young Peter had left out on the counter after fixing himself some toast. And, of course, because they were finally able to afford the Persian rug they'd been saving to buy, that was the precise location the dog had selected as its vomitorium.

  Peter wisely chose to say nothing, staying well out of range, and well protected by his only friend in the family right then.

  When Patty returned from the basement with the stain remover, she was lockjawed with anger. Todd checked his watch for the hundredth time this morning and said exactly the wrong thing, not because he wanted to, but because he had
to.

  "Patty, I've really got to go. It's nearly six, the Reischmann proposal begins at eight, and I've still got view graphs to print."

  "Why, of course you have to go," Patty replied icily. "There's work to be done around the house, isn't there?"

  Her words were a blatant attempt to pick a fight, leveraging the neverending argument centered around the you-never-do-anything-I'm-always-stuck-with-the-rotten-jobs theme. The premise of the argument was as true as it was false. His work as an account executive for the telephone company kept him working most nights and weekends, but he tried his best to factor in family time. It was the major frustration of his life that he no longer controlled his time-the one element he valued most over all the others. What time he had left after doing his job was controlled by Patty and her assigned chores. To be sure, there were hours left at the end of each day, but his body demanded that he dedicate those to sleep.

  He declined to take the bait, choosing instead to ignore her comment. She was as stressed as he was, and that damned rug meant a whole lot to her. When he bent down to kiss her goodbye, she turned her face away. He kissed her on the neck anyway.

  "I'm really sorry, Patty, but I've got to go," he said. He picked up his briefcase and walked toward the garage, pausing for a moment at the door. "I hope you learned something from this, Peter," he said to his son, who remained silent on the far side of the room. "And Patty?"

  She looked up from her task, her eyes still hard.

  "Please don't kill the dog." Through the mask of anger, he saw the faintest glimmer of a smile. He blew her a kiss and left.

  The garage was like a sauna, the unmoving air instantly bringing beads of sweat to Todd's forehead. Even as the overhead door rumbled open, there was no relief, not the slightest trace of a breeze. It was on days like this that Todd wondered how he ever grew up without air conditioning.

  As he backed down the driveway, he admired his landscaping efforts from the previous weekend. After three months of watching the house rise from its origins as a plot of dirt, and only four weeks after closing on the mortgage, the house was beginning to look like a home, like someone actually lived there. He half hoped that Patty and Peter would appear in the window to wave goodbye, but a glance back caught no evidence of a curtain parting.

  Little Rocky Creek was turning out to be a terrific place to live. The neighbors all knew each other, and everyone seemed to be at the same stages of their lives: young professionals struggling to establish themselves, and every month barely scraping together the cash necessary for the mortgage payment on these, their starter homes. There were lots of kids in the neighborhood, no crime to speak of, and a strong community spirit that bonded everyone together.

  Who's that?

  A boy, maybe twelve, thirteen years old, was crossing the street in his direction. The face looked vaguely familiar, though he couldn't place it with any of the families in the neighborhood. But then, Todd didn't know too many of the folks who lived up in the first section that was built. He was a good-looking kid, long and thin with disheveled blond hair, but there was something in the way he carried himself that made Todd think he was up to no good.

  By the time Nathan saw the car approach, there was nothing he could do. His first instinct was to run and duck out of sight, but his last opportunity to do that without being seen came and went in the two seconds it took to consider the option. All he could do was try and blend in. He didn't even alter his stride as he crossed the street, though he did change his course to head back toward the front part of the neighborhood. No sense showing this guy where he was going.

  The Chevy approached from behind him on the left, slowing ever so slightly as it passed. Nathan smiled politely and waved.

  Todd waved back. The kid looked normal enough, and he certainly wasn't trying to run away. Just a tired kid on his way home from whatever a kid that age could be on his way home from at this hour of the morning. One thing was for sure, Todd thought: When Peter got to be that age, he was going to be kept on a tight leash.

  As he accelerated toward the end of the street, Todd's thoughts turned to the Reischmann proposal, and the details of how he was going to structure his presentation. He never even looked back in the mirror.

  As soon as the Chevy was out of sight, Nathan made a right-angle turn and headed back for the woods, suppressing his urge to run. Once back in the comfort of shade and obscurity, he leaned his back against a tree and slumped to the ground, taking a minute or two to collect himself.

  "That was stupid!" he declared in a whisper, banging the back of his head against the tree bark. "I never should have gone out in the open! What'll I do if that guy recognized me?"

  Just one more thing to worry about over which he had no control. He hated himself for making so many mistakes. In the past twenty-four hours, luck alone had pulled him through every challenge. One of these times, luck was going to look the other way, and he was going to have to engineer his own solution. His head told him that it was useless to worry about things he couldn't change, but these were things that could get him thrown back in jail, or even killed. That was why you needed grown-ups, he figured, to help keep it all in perspective. That was why he was so lonely without one around.

  He felt like he was stuck in quicksand. Everything he did to get himself out of this mess just got him in deeper and deeper. Killing was wrong, stealing was wrong, breaking and entering was wrong, yet he'd done all of them. These were things you went to hell for, yet he was planning to do most of them again.

  And how could he stop? One way or the other, his future was sealed. Either he was going to get out of the country successfully, or he was going to spend a very long time in prison for doing what he'd already done, even though he'd had no real choice. How much worse could it be getting caught doing more of the same?

  As these thoughts ricocheted through his brain, energy drained from his body. He needed sleep, and the brighter outlook that rest always brought. With an enormous effort, he gathered himself to his feet and embarked on the last two hundred yards of the night's journey.

  Ten minutes later, he had gained entry to 4120 through a ground-level basement window, made his way to the master bedroom, stripped down to his borrowed undershorts, and fallen fast asleep.

  Chapter 18

  For Enrique, the biggest surprise of all was his continued surprise at Denise's ability to suck him into her crises. All night long, through the endless hours of rehearsal and hand-holding, the single thought that propelled him through the agony was that of the sleep that would be his reward after the limo finally picked up Denise to take her to the studio.

  Then, somehow, he found himself with her in the limousine, and now in the wings just off-camera, waiting for her satellite interview to begin.

  He had to hand it to her, though. In the presence of others, she handled herself like a pro. Calm and articulate, she carried herself as though she'd been born in a television studio. The difference between her real self and her stage self was near schizophrenic. She was born for this line of work, just as he seemed born to the task of helping her access the TV star that was hidden deep down inside a paranoid single mother who never came to grips with the depth of her natural talent, and who feared unemployment more than anything else in the world.

  The ABC staffers in Washington went to great lengths to make Denise comfortable as she was prepped for the interview. Her job, it turned out, was to sit quietly while she was serviced. Makeup was applied by a professional artist in a very comfortable, if Spartan, dressing room equipped with all manner of junk food. It occurred to her that a doctor would have a field day bringing the blood sugar and caffeine levels of television people under control. The issue of her hair had been settled by the hairstylist, who told her that ponytails on black women made them look hard and unattractive. Under different circumstances, Denise might have taken offense, but she found that the prospect of facing millions of people made her extraordinarily receptive to suggestions. With far greater speed and ef
ficiency than she had ever experienced in a hair salon, her "do" was transformed into a much more stylish, professional bob. Enrique seemed relieved when he saw it for the first time.

  With seven minutes left before she was to talk with Joan, or maybe Charlie-there was still some problem with the scripting in New York-Denise was seated in a well-worn though surprisingly comfortable chair, in front of some cheesy faux-glass blocks through which the audience was supposed to believe you could see the Capitol building. Up close, the scenery wouldn't fool anyone, but in the monitors, sure enough, it looked convincing. Presently a technician was fitting Denise with an earpiece, the coiled cord for which ran under her hair and was clipped to her collar in the back, and from there joined the tangle of cables and cords that covered the floor. A tiny microphone was clipped to her lapel, and the technicians stepped away, allowing her to see herself for the first time as she would appear on network television. She was not at all displeased with what she saw.

  "Ms. Carpenter?"

  The voice, from very close by, startled her until she realized it came from her earpiece. "Yes?" she said, as though she were calling across a room.

  "Hi, Ms. Carpenter, I'm Allen, the director of this segment. Do you mind if I call you Denise?"

  "No, not at all."

  "Good," Allen said, even as she gave her permission. For just an instant, Denise wondered what would have happened if she had answered: Yes, I mind. "You look great," Allen continued. "Couple of things to think about before we go on-air. First of all, you don't have to shout. Even if you mumble, that mike will pick up everything. Shouting just gives headaches to us folks in the control room.

  "Okay," Denise said. "Sorry about that." It was a common mistake to new radio jocks as well.

  "No problem," Allen laughed. "Now we can put our headsets back on and not have to worry about nosebleeds. This should be really simple stuff. There was some kind of scheduling problem in New York, so they've expanded your segment by ninety seconds to four minutes. That might not sound like much time, but trust me, it's plenty of time to get the whole story out, okay?"