The building began as a factory and became a filthy warehouse. Then the property sold cheap, and the investor put loft apartments into the upper stories and The Coffee Corner took over the loading dock and west end, while the backside was reborn as a fashionable courtyard complete with flowerpots and a broken fountain. Lucas was walking past the courtyard’s black-iron gate. Saturday’s run was finished and coffee was finished and he was thinking about the rest of his day, and from behind, Sarah said, “I need new shoes.”
She was talking to him, Lucas thought, turning around.
To her phone, she said, “What kind should I try?”
The odd funny weird thing about the moment was her face. Sarah looked happy, which was different. The smile lit her face and made her eyes dance. She was listening to a voice, and he realized whose voice. Then she noticed Lucas and turned away, suddenly embarrassed, muttering soft little words nobody else needed to hear.
Sarah went through the gate. Lucas followed. The original pavers made the courtyard, dark red and worn smooth by horses pulling wagons. Maybe the horses were coming back someday. It was something to think about as he followed the little woman. A glass door led into The Runner’s Closet, and the owner had just opened up. A few minutes after ten, in October, and his day was starting off fine. He had two customers at once, and the guy had to grin.
Lucas stumbled over names. Tom? Tom Hubble, right.
“He wants me to try the Endorphins,” Sarah said. “The ones with the twin computers and the smart-gel actuators.”
“Good choice,” Tom said. “What size?”
She told him and he vanished into the back room, and then she turned, watching Lucas. She didn’t talk. She was listening and smiling. Then she said, “Lucas is here too,” and nodded as Wade talked. Then she told the living man, “He says you need new shoes too.”
“Yeah, but how does he know?”
“Wade still helps here. Keeps track of who buys what, and you haven’t bought for a long time.”
What was strangest was how much all of that made sense.
Lucas sat on the padded bench, Sarah settling beside him, still talking to Wade. An oval track had been painted on the floor, wrapping around the bench. She listened to the voice, and Tom brought out a box of shoes and put them on her and laced her up and watched her jogging a few strides at a time, smart eyes trying to see what was right and wrong in her step.
Sarah giggled. Not laughed, but giggled.
“I need new shoes too,” Lucas said.
“What kind do you like?” Tom said.
“What I have,” Lucas said.
“What’s the model?”
“I don’t remember,” Lucas said. “Ask Wade.”
Tom nodded, watching Sarah finishing her lap. She said, “Bye,” and touched her phone. “I’ll take them. And he said pass his commission back to me, please.”
“Sure,” Tom said, rising slowly.
Sarah started following him toward the counter but then stopped and looked at Lucas. “You know, I talk to him more than ever,” she said, smiling but not smiling. Happy in her core but knowing there was something wrong, something sick about feeling this way.
Jaeger grabs the cables and drives with his legs, climbing the far side of the swaying bridge. Pete holds his ground, waiting. The four people wait, shoulders squared but the feet nervous. Everything will be finished in another minute. A fight is coming, and the four people on the north bank can only watch, each of them feeling lucky because of it.
Pete’s face tightens.
Jaeger says, “Move.”
Nobody reacts. Pride holds them in place, right up until Pete dips his head, throwing a few words at the others as he backs away.
Masters retreats, relieved.
Not Crouse. He replants his feet. Unimpressed, Jaeger grabs the barricade and jumps, one foot landing where the planks cross. Then he yanks the foot free and drops beside Crouse, saying nothing while staring down at him, and Crouse nearly trips backing off the wooden ramp.
Only Sarah remains. She makes fists inside her mittens and steps forward, waving the fists while sobbing, fighting for breath.
Jaeger pushes past her and runs, vanishing in a few strides.
Pete waves. “One at a time.”
Gatlin goes first. The little body slips under the barricade and runs to the bottom and then up to the far side. Varner chases, every step ridiculously long, the bridge bucking and creaking. Audrey is next, but she won’t let go of the cables and she won’t run. Halfway down, she looks back at Lucas, and he says, “Let’s just leave. We can head back.”
She shakes her head and says, “But what if they catch him?” Just the possibility makes her tremble, and she hurries, finishing her trip down and then up again.
Cupping a hand against his mouth, Pete says, “Are you coming?”
Lucas says, “No.” Maybe he means it. Anywhere else in the world would be better than being here. But he watches himself bend and climb through the barricade, and he lets his legs run. Planks rattle as he stretches out, and then without a false step or stumble, he charges up the far side.
Only Pete waits. He looks in Lucas’s direction. He talks to Lucas, unless he’s talking to himself. “I don’t know,” he says to one of them. “I just don’t know.”
The trail follows the slough to its mouth and then follows Ash Creek again. Cottonwoods stand among the scrub elms and mulberries, and the woods give way to dead grass and a parking lot of rutted gravel. Past the lot is West Spencer Road and another mile-deep slice of parkland. The rest of the group stand beside the lone picnic table, bunched together and silent. A rhythmic shriek begins, cutting at the cold air. Jaeger has claimed the old-style pump, lifting the handle and shoving it down again. A rusty box fills with water and brown water spouts from the bottom into a rusted bowl, spouting even when he stops pumping, bending over to drink.
Once he has his fill, Jaeger straightens, wiping his chin and his mouth. Then he trots to the next trail and stops again, looking back at them.
“He’s waiting on us,” Varner says.
And with a quiet sick voice, Audrey says, “Who’s chasing who?”
Sarah paid for the shoes and left, and Tom vanished into the back again. His voice drifted out of the storeroom—one side of the conversation exchanging pleasantries before asking the real question. Lucas drifted to the front of the store, up where a tall sheet of corkboard was covered with race results and news clippings and free brochures telling new runners how to train for competition. A younger, badly yellowed Wade smiled down from a high corner, holding a famous pair of shoes in one hand. Tom came out with a box while Lucas was picking his way through the news clipping, one word after another.
“I’d pull that old thing down,” Tom said, “but people expect it. I’m afraid customers would get mad, not seeing it there.”
“I wouldn’t,” Lucas said.
Tom examined the clipping. “I was here that day. In fact, I saw the kid snatch up those shoes. Out the door and gone, and Wade came charging from the storeroom to chase him. I told him not to. The kid was on meth. I could tell. But you know Wade.”
“Yeah.”
“I knew he’d catch the thief, and that’s what scared me.”
Lucas gave up reading. It was the photograph that mattered. It was that big smile and the hair that was still thick and blond and the rugged looks wrapped around a crooked nose, and it was how that younger Wade held those shoes up to the camera, no prize in the world half as important.
“That shoe thief had a knife,” Tom said.
“I remember.”
“But things worked out. Wade just kept running him until he collapsed, and nobody got cut.”
Lucas dropped his eyes, watching the floor.
“He was the first salesman that I hired,” said Tom. “Wade was still in college. I had no idea he’d stay here for twenty years. Honestly, I didn’t think he would last that first week. He was too intense, I thought. Too perfect, too dr
iven. The crap he would pull sometimes. God, these are just shoes. The world isn’t going to end if you don’t happen to make that one sale.”
Tom was looking at the same piece of the floor, explaining. “But like nobody I’ve ever known, Wade had a talent for names and faces. For feet and gaits. He was everybody’s first doctor when they got hurt, and he loved selling shoes, and even dead, he’s still practically managing this place.”
“What else?” Lucas said.
“What else what?”
“What stupid crap did he pull? Besides chasing shoe thieves, I mean.”
Tom swallowed, thinking before answering. “He fired clerks for little things. No warnings, just gone. If a customer gave him a bad check, he wouldn’t take another check from that person. Ever. And he couldn’t keep his nose out of private concerns. He had this need, this compulsion, to steer the world toward doing what’s right. You know what I mean.”
“Oh, sure.”
“I was at that party too, Lucas.”
Lucas looked at him.
“I never would have called the cops on you.”
Lucas didn’t know what to say. He tried a small shrug.
Tom was nervous but proud. He thought that he was making a customer for life. “Wade was a good man, but he thought everyone should be.”
One last glance at the photograph seemed right.
“Ithaca Flyers. Is that your shoe?”
“Sounds right.”
“This is the new model, but he says you’ll like it.”
“Well,” said Lucas. “The guy was usually right.”
The group shuffles over to the pump. Masters pulls a little bottle off the back of his belt, sharing the blue drink with Sarah. Pete gives the handle a few hard shoves and drinks, and then the others take turns. Everybody is tired, but not like runners beaten up by miles. They look like cocktailers after Last Call, faces sloppy and sad and maybe a little scared by whatever is coming next.
Lucas drinks last, holding the frigid bowl with his bloodied palm, the water warm and thick with iron.
“Sucking the ground dry?” says Jaeger.
Lucas stops drinking. But instead of standing, he drops down, stretching his legs with a runner’s lunge.
Jaeger turns and leaves.
“Hurry,” Sarah says.
Masters is squeezing the last taste out of a gel-pack.
She says, “Now.”
He nearly talks. Words lie ready behind those big sorrowful eyes. But he forces himself to say nothing, folding the foil envelope and shoving it into his belt pocket before taking a last little swig from the bottle, diluting the meal before it hits his defenseless stomach.
Everybody is stiff from standing, and nobody mentions it. Nobody does anything but run, lifting their pace until they see Jaeger floating up ahead. Sarah is in front, sniffling. A flat concrete bridge carries West Spencer across the stream. Jaeger throws back a quick glance before following the trail under the bridge, hugging the east bank.
“It was him,” Varner says.
Crouse says, “Sure.”
“Wade was our friend,” Varner says. But that isn’t enough. Shaking his head, he says, “Wade was my best friend. He got me into running. Sold me my first shoes, when I was fat. And he was a groomsman at my wedding. Remember?”
With an edge, Pete says, “Yeah, none of us had reasons.”
Sarah slows. “What does that mean?”
They bunch up behind her.
“One of us had a motive?” she says.
Pete drops back to Audrey. “What do you think, princess? Your old boyfriend kill Wade, or didn’t he?”
The trail dives and widens, its clay face pounded slick. The stream lies on their right, pushing past the concrete pilings and dead timber, the wet roar hitting the underside of the bridge before bouncing over them. It is hard to hear Audrey saying, “I never believed he was guilty.”
They come out from under, emerging into the calm. Climbing the slope, nobody talks. Then Audrey says, “Carl is self-centered and stubborn, like a little boy. But he’s never been violent. Not around me.”
Carved by chainsaws, a simple bench sits beside the trail, waiting for the exhausted. They run past and the trail drops again and hits bottom, and Crouse gasps as they climb. “You two dated?” he says.
“Years ago,” she says, ready to say nothing more.
Crouse has to surge to catch her. But it’s worth the pain to tell her, “I don’t see it. I don’t understand. Why is Carl attractive?”
For several strides, nothing happens. The trail twists away from the stream, nothing but trees around them. Then Audrey slows and looks at Crouse, her face pretty and pleased when she says, “Look at that body, those legs. And now guess what I saw in him.”
The man reddens.
She laughs, saying, “Little boys can be fun.”
Jaeger looks back again, holding the gap steady.
“So did he ever talk about Wade?” says Pete.
She keeps laughing. “Carl loved, and I mean loved, how that man kept trying to beat him. It fed him, knowing one person was awake nights, trying to figure out how to pass him at the finish line.”
Nobody reacts.
Then she says, “Lucas,” and comes up beside him. “I don’t think I ever told you. But when you started training with Wade, Carl wasn’t sure how long he would stay on top. ‘Wade found his thoroughbred,’ was what he said.”
Everybody but Pete glances at Lucas. Pete just dips his head, asking the trail, “What about you, Pepper? Is Jaeger the killer?”
Lucas drops his arms and slows. The stream comes back looking for the trail. Suddenly the world opens up, and they chug along a narrow ribbon of earth, perched on a bank being undercut by every new flood. To their right is nothing except open air. A string of bodies are pushing against the brush on the left. Audrey is in front of Lucas, Pete behind. Pete says, “If it isn’t Jaeger, who was it?”
Lucas runs with eyes down, and a quiet, puzzled voice says, “If it wasn’t Carl?”
“Yeah?”
“Me,” he says. “I could have beaten Wade Tanner to death.”
EIGHT
Audrey slows, nearly tripping Lucas.
He says, “Sorry,” and drops his hands on her shoulders.
“Was it you?” says Pete. “No,” Lucas says.
“How can you even think it?” says Audrey. Lucas lets go of her, eyes down, head shaking.
Varner and Gatlin are in the lead. Feeling the others fall back, they pull up reluctantly, and Varner says, “Who’s hurt?”
Nobody answers. Six runners stand on the crumbling trail, flush against the drop-off. Lucas turns his back to the water. “It’s just how things look,” he says to Audrey, to everybody. “If you think about it.”
“Keep talking,” says Pete.
But Masters speaks first. With a voice nobody has ever heard—an angry, sharp, defiant voice—he says, “Wade was an ass.”
Everybody turns.
The man’s face is red, his jaw set. “I’m tired of thinking about the man,” he says. “I’m tired of talking about the man. And I don’t want to have another conversation with that goddamn software.”
“Don’t,” says Sarah. Then again, softer, she says, “Don’t.”
Nobody wants to look at her. It is easier to stare at the madman with the sleek black glasses and the long-built rage.
“Let’s run home,” says Audrey.
Varner and Gatlin return to the pack. “Who’s hurt?” says Varner.
Pete says, “Nobody. We’re just having a meeting.”
“We couldn’t have,” Sarah says. “Nobody here would kill him.”
Which makes Pete laugh. Except his face is flushed and he can’t stop shaking his head, blowing hard through clenched teeth. With one finger, he pokes Lucas in the chest. “Was it you?” he says.
“No.” A spasm rips through Lucas’s body. One foot drops over the soft lip of the trail, and he brings it back again, stepping f
orward just far enough to feel that he won’t fall in the next moment. Then Pete puts a hand flush against Lucas’s chest, not pushing but ready to push, waiting for the excuse.
And now another voice comes in.
“I’ve got a list of suspects,” Jaeger says. “Why don’t you listen to me now?”
The old burr oak stands on the bank, undermined to where a tangle of fat curling roots juts into the open air. Jaeger stands in the shadow of that doomed tree, smiling. Pulling off the baseball cap, he uses the long sleeve of his shirt to wipe his eyes and broad forehead. Then he puts the cap back where it belongs, and he says nothing, the smile never breaking.
“Give us names,” says Pete.
“Okay, yours,” Jaeger says. “And Varner.”
“Why?” Varner says.
“Cause you’re mean boys. I barely know either of you, and I’m pretty sure that I’ve never hurt you. But here you are, chasing me, both of you looking ready to bust heads. All you need is a reason. So maybe Wade gave you a good reason. Who knows?”
Varner curses. Pete gives a horse snort.
“Then there’s the little guy,” says Jaeger. “I’ve got a guess, Mr. Gatlin. But it’s a sweet one.”
“What?” Fast Doug says.
“You ran for mayor when? Three, four years back? And Wade helped. I heard he gave you names and phone numbers for every runner in town. Stuffed envelopes, dropped money in your lap. But then news leaked about some old business back in Ohio. Sure, those troubles were years old. Sure, the girl stopped cooperating with the cops and charges got dropped. But you know how it is. Nothing’s uglier than reporters chasing something that looks easy.”
Gatlin opens his mouth and closes it.
“Did Wade know your sex-crime history?” says Jaeger. “Was he the leak that got the scandal rolling?”
Quietly, fiercely, the accused man says, “I don’t know.”
Jaeger laughs. “But it could have been Wade. We know that. Love him or not, the guy had this code for how people should act, and not living up to his standards was dangerous. He could be your buddy and remain civil, but if you were trying to run for public office and he decided that you were guilty of something, he’d happily drop a word in the right ear and let justice run you over. That wouldn’t bother the man for a minute.”
The Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy, 2011 Edition Page 58
