Episode 2
A snuffling. The backpack jiggles under my head and wakes me. I jerk up, slam against the locked door behind me. My neck is stiff and a damp night on the concrete stoop has lamed one leg. I remember it’s a pharmacy, and I see that the snuffler is a German Shepard.
“Hey, boy,” I say, hoping there isn’t a policeman attached anywhere. “You hungry? After my sandwich?”
There is Seeing Eye harness attached to him, but a quick look around doesn’t turn up the owner. It’s barely past dawn, Sunday morning in Hackett and too early for church. Or anything else.
Didn’t sleep much. The plan had been to hitchhike at least part of the way but that hadn’t happened. Not a single wild teen ager in his dad’s car, no salesman pulling a red-eye into Hackett. And for sure the little old ladies that I would have accepted a ride from were home snug in bed at 2 a.m. The road was dark and peaceful until it ended at my locked motel, full of out-of-towners covering the investigation.
I unbuckle the pack and unzip the sandwich bag Steve made me take. “You’ll be hungry, so here’s a midnight snack.” Speak for yourself, pal, I never eat after dark in the summer.
Mozart (first German name that popped into my head, courtesy of Steve and his music idol) wolfs down his part of the peanut butter sandwich. I feel sorry for all the allergic people who don’t dare enjoy it. I eat my share while working the tingles out of my foot and the kink out of my neck.
I have a vague idea where the bus station is. I wonder if the dog will follow me. Maybe on the way there’ll be a “Lost Dog” poster offering a reward. At least I haven’t spent any money on breakfast.
We start in the most likely direction. I’m checking the utility poles for something besides old yard sale signs when I hear a faint whistle and a worried voice calling, “Macho! Macho! Here, boy, where are you? Come back, Macho.”
A male voice, probably not searching for a lost kid with a name like that. I stop and the dog stops with me. “You going to answer him, or aren’t you, Macho?”
The voice is coming from the next alley. Macho-Mozart just looks up at me, pink tongue lolling out, hope in his eyes. “Want another sandwich? Sorry but I’m fresh out.”
“Is someone there?” A man about thirty, dressed in slacks and a polo shirt, feels his way into view with a cane. He’s wearing dark glasses, and old Mouse puts two and two together.
“I’m here,” I answer. “And I have Macho. I think.”
“Thank God!” He hunkers and holds out a hand. Macho goes to him. He hooks an old fashioned leather leash on the harness and stands up. “Thank you—?”
His voice asks for a name and I almost say it but catch myself. “No problem.” I start to walk away but the man keeps talking.
“I got a little turned around, I’m afraid. Can you take me to the bus station?”
Even with the dog he looks helpless, and since I’m going there and he won’t know if I make a few wrong turns, I say, “Sure.”
We walk along the deserted streets. I watch for a bus station sign, and he talks my ear off. “Macho’s young and still in training. The last dog I had would never run away and leave me, but he grew old and went into retirement. I miss him, but Macho learns quickly and will grow old with me.”
The man’s name is Al, and he’s meeting a friend at the Morningbird Hotel in Fairview.
I look for buses on the street or parked in a lot. Al says, “I’ve been to the hotel, but it’s been awhile. Do you suppose you could go there with me? I’ll be happy to pay your fare.”
A few things go through my head, but what comes out of my mouth is, “I have a fifteen minute stop over in Fairview.” Steve’s bus schedule has little red circles along a thin red line, all the way to Dentonville, where we’re to meet next week.
“What serendipity! A fellow traveler. How much farther to the station?”
At that moment I spot a bus rounding a corner up ahead, and follow it. “Not far,” I assure him, hoping it’s the truth.
Two more blocks and we’re entering a convenience store with a hand-lettered sign “bus” in the window. I smell coffee and my mouth starts to water, but what I really want is cold orange juice. My friend taps his way to the counter as if he’s done this before, and makes good on his promise to pay the part of my fare that takes me to his destination. I thank him, even if I am returning the favor.
“Bus for Fairview leaves in thirty minutes,” the clerk reminds us.
Al says, “If you want refreshments, machines are around the corner.” Macho guides him to an empty table near the rest rooms. “Bring me a coffee, will you? Black.”
The machines in the corridor dispense coffee, juice, and candy. I take a tray and load it with drinks and five candy bars. It’s brunch time at East Wind and right now my pals are feasting on omelets and pancakes and reading the comics. When I get to Fairview, I’m going to find a diner, so I stuff the candy into my pockets and return to our table. Macho lies at his master’s feet, rolling his eyes at me in that way dogs have. “Chocolate isn’t good for canines,” I tell him.
Al’s left handed. I watch him place and find his Styrofoam cup between gulps. I notice that he’s unhooked the leash and put it in his pocket. I want to ask if he’s been blind all his life, but it seems a nosy question.
A bus pulls in, hissing to a stop out front. The driver changes his sign from Hackett to Fairview. “That’s ours. Do you need any help?”
“Just guide me by the elbow.” Al fumbles and finds Macho’s harness handle, and we go outside with several other people who are leaving town. Nobody has gotten off, and only a handful remain seated for points farther along the route.
I let go of Al’s elbow so he can reach for the grab bar. On his other side, Macho leaps away as if he’s seen a squirrel or a cat and races down the sidewalk. I leap after him but someone grabs the backpack, jerking me to a stop. It’s Al, and I’m confused. I try to see where Macho went, and then I try to see through the man’s dark glasses. It’s hard to know what a person is thinking when you can’t see his eyes.
“The driver’ll wait until I can bring him back.”
“No, I don’t want to cause trouble. Get on. Macho will go home and my neighbor will see that he’s taken care of.”
“But what will you do—”
Al shows our tickets and steers me ahead of him into a seat near the middle. “I’ll be fine, once I’m in the lobby of the Morningbird.”
The bus is noisy and the driver seems to be making up for lost time. We speed around curves that throw Al and me together, first one way and then the other. He stares straight ahead, but the sunglasses are curved and his eyes are hidden. I’ve never known a blind person before, would the lids be open or closed?
His lips smile, as if his thoughts are pleasant. Mine are divided. I worry about Macho, then I worry that maybe Al’s friend won’t show up and I’ll be stuck doing my good deed for another hour before he can get a return bus. I promise myself I’ll stick to the plan and leave the Boy Scouting to the next twirp.
At least I’m clear of Hackett and the dead woman and anybody at East Wind that might realize I’m gone. I lean my head on the seat and doze.
The buzzer sounds, jarring me out of a dream about pancakes. I’m five and it’s my last Christmas with my family. Even then I knew nobody was happy, but I didn’t know why. I still don’t. The bus brakes in front of an old brick building that looks like an apartment complex that got left behind. Weeds grow in cracks in the parking lot, and dirty white paint curls in strips from the wood trim around windows and doors. There are posts but the sign no longer hangs between them.
I’m waiting to see who’s getting off here, when Al’s fingers clamp on my arm and he leads me into the aisle. I’m saying, “This can’t be right! Driver, we’re going to the Morningbird Hotel.”
“This is it, son.” The bus driver revs the engine, a signal to hurry up. Nobody else moves or answers, and Al forces me down the bus steps.
The bus pulls away while I’m trying to make sense of this. “We should have stayed on. It must be miles into town.”
“I know what I’m doing.” Al jerks me along the walkway and up a few steps into the building. “Just stay calm. I’m not going to hurt you.”
Calm? The peanut butter sandwich churns halfway up before it settles into an uneasy knot in my stomach. The lobby is worse than the outside. Dirt and trash everywhere, a dark and ugly place for a dark and ugly deed. I twist my arm to free it, but his grip bruises the flesh all the way to the bone. “You are hurting me.”
He pulls a cell phone from his pocket and speed dials somebody. Now I’m thinking, Damn, old Collie sicked the Feds on me before I can even have breakfast in that diner. I wonder how I could have been so stupid. Steve warned me against making any friends or being noticed by anybody who could give my description to a cop or reporter. I should have run from Al as soon as he came out of that alley. And I know I have to get away from him or go back and be laughed at for the rest of my life, at least the part of it I’ll have to spend at East Wind.
He lets go of my arm, certain that I can’t get help in this godforsaken place. I try to remember if the bus made any major turns between Hackett and here. It must be halfway to noon now. I figure here is closer to Fairview so I’ll have to keep going in the same direction and hope I don’t get lost. Then I start paying attention to what he’s saying.
He paces, the phone to his left ear. “I told you I’d get him and I did. Where the hell are you? I can’t hang around all day. Half an hour, buddy, if you want him. You’d better have the money.”
Half an hour. I can jog that long without being winded. Thankful that it’s not Al I need to worry about, I dash for the door he’s left open. He’s quick and his tackle knocks me to the floor. He’s picking me up by the backpack and I’m yelling, “Stop bruising the merchandise!”
The dark glasses sit crooked on his face, one earpiece bent. His free hand flips them off. He grins at me. “Good to know you have a sense of humor, kid. What’s your name?”
“Al,” I answer. His eyes are wide open, a fanatic pale blue. He laughs. Then he drags me up some stairs and puts me in the bedroom of a 2-room suite. Locks the door between us. The click activates the urge to throw up again but I concentrate on his muffled conversation, he’s losing patience.
“Yeah he’s just your type. You’d better hurry. My time will cost you extra.”
There used to be a slide latch on this side, the screw holes and different paint outline are all that’s left. I look around for possibilities. One window, old fashioned and breakable, but aside from a dresser that was old when O’Leary was a kid, there’s nothing to break it with other than my backpack. I cross to it. Part of an old wooden fire escape clings to the building. There’s a small weedy field with a line of trees beyond. Safe under that dense cover in less than five minutes. If I can get the window open.
Painted a few times, so tugging is useless. It’s gone quiet in the other room and my heart thuds and skips, my nerves shot. Sweat stings my eyes as I run the blade of my pocket knife around the edges, breaking loose the sickly yellow gunk. At last I push the frame up enough to crawl through, thankful there’s no wire screen to deal with, and praying it doesn’t fall on me and break a rib or worse. The fire escape landing outside has rotted away. Jumping to the ground is risky and might send me to the hospital with a broken foot.
I toss down the bulky backpack. It thumps and bounces out of sight. Thankful the builders of the Morningbird Hotel didn’t add a third story, I take off my leather belt with the steer head buckle that I won in the spring essay contest. Straddle the window ledge. Lean out and loop the belt on the lowest bit of railing I can reach. At least this way my hands won’t get infected from the splintery timbers.
In the room behind me I hear the door open. “Hey! What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Running footsteps.
I lean out and take hold of the belt and am one leg over the window ledge when Al grabs my ankle.
“Get back in here! You trying to kill yourself?”
He’s got me by my jeans leg. Hanging mostly upside down, I don’t dare let go of the belt because then he’ll pull me back inside. We struggle for a while and then rest. Time ticks away like the sweat dripping from my hair into my eyes. “Stand off,” I taunt. “Let me go and I won’t report you.”
He laughs again and gives a jerk that nearly tears me in two. I twist the other leg up over the ledge and kick at his hands, unable to reach his face. The sneaker on my captured foot feels like it’s going to slip over my heel. My jeans feel like they’re slipping too. Bracing my free foot against the building gives me leverage to slide Al forward under the window sash. Wishing the thing would fall on him doesn’t work.
Then the cell phone rings in his shirt pocket, startling him just enough that his grip fails and I break loose. Leaving my belt behind, I drop through the broken landing and sooner than I’m ready my feet hit the ground below. I snatch up my backpack and try to think which way to flee. He’ll see me in the field, or on the road, but going back inside I’d be trapped. Especially if the man coming to claim me arrives before I’m clear of this place.
Al has left the window. He has to be coming down the stairs, and the direct route to me is down a main hallway and out the door opening on the pool area. I take a chance and try the door right beside me under the fire escape. It leads down a short dark hallway to what was once a kitchen. The kitchen is next to a dining area, and the dining area ought to be near the lobby. I give Al time to clear the main hallway to the back, then I duck through the lobby, out the front door, and into thick woods across the road.
I fight through underbrush, through little trees close together, then bigger trees with high canopies, then little ones again. Pausing in the underbrush on the far side of the woods, my throat and lungs burn and my knees wobble. My sneaker has worked its way back into place, and I still have my pack. I sit down on it to catch my breath. The candy inside has probably melted all over my clothes. At this point, I’m not hungry and don’t want to find out if that’s the case. There’s another field, beyond a two-lane leading somewhere. Will it take me back to the Morningbird, or will the first car I see coming toward me be Al’s client? I have to keep traveling. Which way?
Then I spot a pickup truck moving along another road at the far edge of the field. I shoulder my backpack and am on the run again.