A name.
“—Kerry—”
I almost miss the next step and have to lengthen my stride in order not to fall. I’m out of the building and slip around the corner in a matter of seconds. My car is just on the other side of the railroad. I just have to make it across the parking lot and through a tunnel, but my head spins and I fall back against a concrete wall, fighting to get back control over my breathing, my neck suddenly slick with sweat. “Get a grip, Chris,” I snarl to myself between clenched teeth. Slowly the dizziness subsides and I start toward the car with efficient strides. That name.
Kerry.
Tires on gravel are a bad combination. I probably make deep ruts in the driveway as I rev the engine and speed off. Out of this fucking town. Out of this fucking world of worn-down people and worn-down lives.
Not that the world isn’t full of Kerrys, or little girls, about a year and a half old, wearing pink little dresses, ponytails, and smiles full of trust. I see them all the time. But I’ve been feeling particularly moody the last few days since I got the latest update from my snoop.
It’s been a year. At first, I was sure she’d turn up again. People just don’t vanish from the face of the earth. Then, as time went by, I backtracked and checked with my sources to make sure Kerry and the girl hadn’t been found dead anywhere.
But no. They are just fucking gone.
And with every passing day my anger grows. Who does she think she is? Disappearing with my kid like that! A man has rights. If she’d just stayed in sight, where I could’ve kept an eye on them.
But now…
Her dad is dead, so I can’t squeeze it out of him. Chloe Becker, her former co-worker and the closest thing she had to a friend, didn’t know shit and had to spend a week in the hospital after I’d been convinced. I’ve been tracking her mother, but after a few months it became obvious that they have no contact whatsoever.
So whom does she confide in? Who does she trust? She’s not an island. Every person needs someone, somewhere.
In the beginning I had three men on my payroll, now I’m down to just one. He works on it full time and still the latest report came up with nothing.
I slam my fist on the dashboard and turn right on the I-29, leaving Sioux Falls behind me. In three days I have a meeting in Winnipeg of all places.
Canada.
I turn on the radio. When the static clears an old Simon and Garfunkel tune fills the car. I recognize it immediately. “I am A Rock”. I’m more of a jazz person, but the lyrics are sad and as I flatten the gas pedal to the floor, steering north, they penetrate me and the words come to life carrying a deeper meaning than the two aging musicians could’ve possibly ever intended.
They sing of walls that no one can penetrate. I stare at the road in front of me, but asphalt is not what I see.
I see her before me. Her dark green eyes sparkling with a hesitant flirt, slightly tipsy from the shots of vodka I ordered to befriend her and to make her more compliant.
I liked it, talking to her, it was fun.
I’ve never cared for anybody. I never bothered to get close to anyone. Life taught me early on it was just a giant waste of energy.
I still feel it in my palms, her soft hair caressing them as I cradled her head. The memory of the deep need for her to kiss me, to give herself to me, still rages inside.
Then I went and ruined it all. Destroyed her.
What was her is just gone.
I’m more of a monster than anyone knows. Anyone but Kerry Jackson. She knows. I made her trust me, made her believe in me, in us, and then I turned on her. The shame that rolls over me, remembering what I did to her, burns hotter than the Hell I expect to end up in the day the other guy is faster than I am.
I grip the steering wheel tighter until my knuckles turn white.
I am a rock.
She’s nothing.
Nothing!
So why does everything I am revolve around her?
I pull out the phone and call Salvatore.
“It’s done. I’m going north.”
Kerry
When her bright small talk wakes me I’ve slept three hours, or even less. I remember thinking about Dad, and what used to be. I don’t sleep very well those nights. It still hurts. I have a feeling he is out there somewhere, looking out for us, guarding us. I hope he is. We need it.
She waves to the birds outside the window and tries to chirp just like them. I let her down after checking she’s still got her full pajamas on and hasn’t squirmed out of any parts during her sleep, it’s chilly on the wooden floor. Then I fall into a coma in my armchair for another hour. I dream of Dad. He cries every night because he doesn’t know where we are. Guilt, and the terrible feeling of having done something irreversibly wrong, makes my insides churn. I try to reach him, to tell him I’m still his daughter, that I love him and that I’m still here even though it doesn’t seem so. My hand touches his shoulder and when he turns, he’s not my father. I scramble back so quickly that I fall, and I can’t defend myself. It hurts so much because I could always defend myself, but not with this one. Not with Chris—
She’s standing beside me, caressing my cheeks and toys with some tresses of my hair, sticking them inside my nostrils. There’s a frown on her forehead. I sneeze and give her a sleepy smile.
“Want me to get up, huh?”
“Yes, Momma,” she says loud and clear. “Baba.”
I slip my feet into my thick socks and stumble to the bathroom, carrying her on my hip. Our morning routine is bliss. I fill the bathtub with warm, but not too warm, water, and then we dive in, children’s music filling the cabin from the stereo, matched by splashing water and Cece’s laughter. She loves really simple songs. They make her beam and yodel along. I love Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘Cecilia’. But when I sing along, I tend to alter the lyrics slightly. They change depending on my mood. Today I sing of breakfast.
“Making breakfast in the mo—orning, for Cecilia in o—our house. I get up to make some coffee and when I get back my Cece’s been pouring milk a—all over.”
Her head perks up when she hears her name and then she slams her hands down hard, drowning both us and the walls with a cascade of water. I roll my eyes but then I smile. I’ll have some cleaning up to do, but it doesn’t matter.
When we’re warm and flushed, our need for each other’s skin temporarily sated, and wrapped in thick bathrobes, we make breakfast. Tea, toast, warm milk, cereal. If the weather is nice, we sit on the porch, overlooking the valley, watching the birds collect sticks, and the bumblebees attempting to fly, lazy, not knowing their season is ending. All they know is collecting nectar, flying from flower to flower. Such a blessing to live in oblivion, not knowing the cruelty of the world.
I look at my daughter. Like her.
I tuck away the remains of the meal, leaving the dirty plates for later, then I brush her six little teeth carefully, making up for last night. After we’re done, we dress and prepare ourselves for a walk in the woods. Cecilia toddles around me as we slowly progress into uncharted territory. To her, that is. Every step such an adventure. We’ve been walking here every day, every month, for about a year. It seems as even she has begun to know her way now.
A little hand pulls mine. “Momma, wewentabuth!” I nod and smile. “Yes, love, we’re going into the woods.”
Chapter 18
Christian
The landscape is so boring it turns my hair gray. Just flatlands as far as my eyes can see. I’m not in a hurry, my next hit isn’t supposed to be back in town until tomorrow anyway, so I decide on a little sightseeing, taking another route to Winnipeg. A less trafficked route, leaving the I-29 for 23 that turns into 371, that turns into a number of anonymous little roads but with breathtaking and ever-changing scenery. Much more enjoyable and much less likely to bring my mind into the threatening meltdown.
I’ve just passed the border to Canada. I had my IDs ready, Mr. Whateveritwas, in case there’d be a flying inspection, but it
was just straight ahead. Getting out of the States is rarely a problem.
My phone goes off in my pocket, an angry honking sound I’ve reserved for my uncle. I put him on loudspeaker.
“What’s up.”
“Chris. Where’re you at?” His voice is dark and smooth, well-modulated, a little bit like Nathan’s.
“I’m off to Canada.”
“Right. The wife. How long until you get back? I have a traitor in my ranks, and I have to smoke him out. I want you to make an example out of him. I want your best work. I want the Devil himself.”
“Not a problem. Just point me in his direction. I should be back in a couple of weeks.”
“Are you fucking driving again?”
“It’s meditative. I like it.”
“I want you back as soon as you’ve finished up in Winnipeg. Take a flight.”
“Sure. Talk later.”
I disconnect without waiting for a response. I’m not taking a fucking flight. I’m in no rush to get anywhere. I haven’t got anyone I want to see, nowhere I want to be and I’m not Luci’s lap dog. History has taught me to make my own fucking decisions.
The tank is almost dry, running on mere fumes, and my throat feels no better so I decide for a lunch break at the first place I pass. A sign for Middlebro comes up. That’s my watering hole for today, whatever it has to offer.
Not much as it turns out. It’s rural, to say the least. There’s one main street but it has what I need. A gas station, a small coffee shack and a grocery store right by it. I pull in and groan as I step out of the car. I’ve been driving more than 300 miles straight and my back is stiff and my legs numb. Inhaling deeply, I relish the fresh air. Despite its pathetic town center, this seems like a decent place to live.
At least if you have tuberculosis.
After filling up the car, I park it and march off to the little restaurant, diner, or whatever they call it. My stomach growls in protest from having been denied for so long.
Eggs, beans, bacon swimming in its own grease, a piece of white doughy bread and a large cup of black coffee. It’s not the best meal I’ve had and, for the hundredth time this journey, I long for my favorite Italian restaurant back in San Francisco. The important thing is, though, that it refuels me enough to be able to get the next leg on this journey behind me. I stuff a ten partially under the plate, nod at the woman behind the bar and push open the heavy glass door. Steering toward my car, I then have a change of heart and decide on some fruit, maybe a coke and a newspaper. It’s always good to know what the locals are up to.
Inside the grocery store it’s dusky, and a faint smell of rotten fruit and poorly cleaned floors, lingers in the air. One of the fluorescent lights in the roof flickers annoyingly. Behind the counter stands a heavy man in his sixties. He nods at me with a bored expression but then his face changes and he straightens, smiles. I see the change in him, and now that I get to see him more clearly, I realize he is no more than forty—forty-five.
Unbelievable what humans do with themselves.
“Ahm, how may I help ya, Sir?” His voice is light and rusty, as if he hasn’t used it yet today.
“I could use some fruit, a coke, and a newspaper.” My skin crawls. I don’t want to venture deeper into this stinking hole.
I put just the right amount of demand in my voice and in a New York second, I have him whirling all over the place, gathering items on the counter before me. I cross my arms as I study the man before me, literally having to keep my telltale signs of scorn in place, the lifted eyebrow, the curled upper lip, the cold disdain in my gaze.
He stops before me and holds up two newspapers, black and white, each less interesting than the other. His belly still quavers from the movement he stopped a moment ago.
“Which one da’ ya’ want?” he pants.
I wonder what he’d look like with a gun shoved down his throat the second before I pull the trigger. I know what he’ll look like after. Flesh and blood always looks the same. It takes effort to pull myself out of my reverie. I’m even worse than usual and this isn’t going anywhere. I feel like shit and I need to finish this.
“That one,” I say and point to whatever he’s holding in his right hand. I start sweating as bile rises in my throat and I feel my salivary glands start working overtime. I gotta get out of here. The almost fetid stench, the so-called food from the diner that rolls like heavy stones in my stomach, and the ugly man who’s undressing me with his eyes.
I flick a twenty on the counter, figuring it’ll be enough and swipe up the items in my arms. Middlebro. They’re insane. Fucking insa—
He comes running after me. “Change, mister… ya… change.” He’s wheezing heavily and stops in the middle of the street, an abandoned white blob on black asphalt, as I speed out of his world.
It’s not my kind of place. There’s nothing for me there. It’s not my world. The cold, damp, run-down apartment in Chicago, where I spent the first few years of my life before Mama Bianca started making some real money, flashes before me.
I’m better than that!
I’ve risen above it.
Mrs. Erica Davenport has a well-known name, a husband in high politics, a mansion, private guards and some mighty enemies. She lives behind iron gates on a hill on the outskirts of Winnipeg and I’ve been keeping her under surveillance since Tuesday. That’s four days. Her big blonde bob bounces on skinny shoulders as she makes her way through the small boutique. Her so called bodyguard carries a pair of jeans on his right arm, a Gucci bag, and a couple of glossy paper bags from the previous shop she visited on his left.
Sloppy. Very sloppy.
If she knew the danger she’s in, she wouldn’t occupy him with nonsense like bags and shopping. She’d have him call in three other security details from his company and she wouldn’t leave her house, terrified, her shining hair a mess, her makeup smeared on her cheeks from all the crying and whining. She’d be praying to a God she’s long since forgotten if he exists or not. But she doesn’t. Instead she hauls out her Platinum AmEx for the third time in an hour and pays the little tough-looking, gum-chewing bimbo at the front of the store before she heads out to her limo.
All the easier for me.
Before I hit the road, I give the little twenty-something in the store one more look through the large window. Way too confident. Way too cocky. My pants grow tighter and I squirm as I adjust in my seat. Tempting. But I’m here on a job. Maybe another time.
I back out the car and weave in and out through traffic to get at a working distance to my target. Wonder who wants her dead. She seems to be stepping over corpses on a daily basis and appears anything but likeable so the choices are numerous. Still, there are many of her kind out there, and most people wouldn’t hire a professional.
Most people wouldn’t even know where to find one.
As I follow a couple of cars behind them and watch her park outside her lover’s apartment complex, the thought strikes me again it could be her husband. But remembering he took a little mini-vacation in Toronto with his mistress—his secretary—leaving last night, scheduled to return tomorrow morning, I doubt he would be too upset by her adultery. Disgusting people. All of them.
Waiting, my feet propped on the dashboard, the hours dragging by too slowly, I pick my nails with the tip of my blade and think of Kerry for the hundredth time since I turned off the ignition. She’s out there somewhere. My daughter is out there somewhere, and it’s eating at me. She must be a year and a half now, starting to become aware of her own self, starting to talk I figure, maybe walk. And I’m not there! The blade slips as my hands tremble and I feel a prick at the tip of my index finger. One single drop of fresh red blood forms while I look at it.
I think of death.
Someone’s death. Any-fucking-one will do. A car door slams shut, and I quickly put the finger in my mouth, sucking away the metallic tasting fluid. She’s not particularly likeable, the blonde bitch, and tonight I’ll sate my blood thirst.
It wo
n’t be pretty.
Kerry
We’ve been outside for two hours when it’s time to go back and prepare for lunch. Cece’s beginning to get tired, but I can’t allow her to sleep right away. She needs to eat first, and also she’d just want to nap one more time before evening, and then it would be hell to try to make her come to rest for the night. And maybe, maybe I enjoy her company a little too much to want to be without it. But that reason I don’t really articulate, because it doesn’t sound quite right.
Maybe I’m beginning to feel a little lonely after all?
I swing her up in my arms and stagger. She’s become a lot heavier, but I can still carry her all the way back. Cecilia snuggles up against me, her soft cheek is warm against my cold skin. I kiss her and she laughs and kisses me back. A big, sloppy, wet, absolutely wonderful kiss full of unconditional love.
Ray McGonaghan should be making a delivery today. He’s a funny little man. Rather overweight, lives with his mother, breeds doves, and runs the local grocery store. He supplies me with life’s necessities, like bread, milk, potatoes, meat and books when I ask for them and sometimes just when he thinks he’s found something for me. He has also brought loads of toys for Cecilia. Old, inherited worn stuff, but always clean and fully functional. Legos, blocks, wooden trains, cars I wind up and then watch race across our floor, dolls of all colors, sizes and shapes. I think he might have taken a liking to us and I pray to God he won’t ever come on to me in any way. I’ve tried to make myself as unattractive as possible. I hope it works.
I let her down with a sigh of relief. She immediately sits down, leaning dangerously to the left, and I have to lift her again and place her on one of the chairs on the porch. I don’t want her to catch a cold. I stretch my aching back and flex my shoulders. Before we go inside, I pile up the sticks I’ve collected on the logs by the side of the house. I always try to think ahead. Last winter was tough and there were a few days when no one could come or leave. It was only thanks to my storages we didn’t freeze or starve. There’s no telling what this winter will be like, but it kind of thrills me. It’s back to basics. It gives me real things to focus on instead of the unreal, the surrealistic patterns that have been my life these past couple of years.
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