Episode 10
“It is him! Here’s Jordan’s money.” Stacks of bills, twenties, fifties, and hundreds, with little paper bands holding them.
Ernie’s not watching the leafy shadows to make sure John doesn’t catch us pawing through his suitcase. He’s gathered sticks for a campfire, like he really thinks this is what we’re doing here. “You want one or two?”
“Gimme two. I already got the million dollars I wished for.”
He adds twigs to his fire and comes to look in the grocery bag. “Nah. Half, maybe.”
I roll the top tight, the way it was, and stow the loot with the clothes and ditty bag. Slide the suitcase to its spot in the trunk. Lower the lid and am relieved when the catch works. “Good thing you didn’t break the latch. He’d shoot you for sure, if you messed up his sweetheart.” I meant the Caddy, but I’m reminded : somebody he called Jordan did mess up his sweetheart. Loaded for bear–not the ‘cozy’ campground kind–John must believe he’s close by.
Ernie lays burgers on the grate. “So does the money convince you there is a guy named Jordan and John’s not the villain?”
I’m not sure what to think. There’s a gory story here, and I’d feel better if we heard it from John’s mouth. “He might be–” Pistol shots. Three of them, pop pop pop. Not far away. Our eyes meet over the smoky fire. Can’t say either of us is surprised, more like I-told-you-so fear.
A rifle answers, just like on tv. Now we’re startled. Did he know someone was out there, and where to find him? More pistol shots, so John’s still in the game.
We wait, twitching with nerves. I want to go see what’s happening but have better sense than to show myself where people are shooting at each other. Ernie flips the burgers with a butcher knife he’s found in John’s gear. He lays buns out on the cooler lid, drinks from his beer can.
“You’re awful calm.” I resist the urge to bounce from foot to foot, or take off running toward the paved road we came in on. “Can’t bullets travel, like from there to here? I’m not ready to die.”
“What do you suggest we do? Hide in the car? Whoever’s shooting that rifle would like nothing better than filling it full of holes. Except maybe to off John.”
Grabbing Ernie’s arm, I pull him down beside me in the dust behind the Caddy. “At least quit skylining yourself.”
“Damn, you made me spill half the beer.” He rolls onto his back. Still calm, even thoughtful.
“Give me a swig. I need it.” Not easy, without a straw. The can’s frosty from the ice in the cooler, and the cold liquid splashes my chin. We listen, but no more shots are fired from either weapon. The burgers are burning.
Ernie crawls to them like a commando and a laugh escapes me. He glances over his shoulder and grins. “You got a death wish, bro,” I say, joking. Then my gut tells me there’s too much truth in the words for it to be funny. ‘Some missions fail’ he’d said, and the humiliation of going home a failure is as unthinkable to him as it is to me. I wonder who he’s unwilling to face. Rather die, than face.
“Smells like supper’s ready.”
I peer underneath the Caddy and see John’s feet in their penny loafers coming back from the fight. As I sit up, my hand clenches the empty beer can, crushing it. Hunkered next to the fire, Ernie uses the butcher knife to pick charred burgers off the grate and lay them on the open buns.
“Fish biting?” Ernie asks.
John leans against his car. “Yeah. Didn’t catch anything, though.”
My mouth opens but what was trying to come out is stupid. Can’t catch fish if you forget the bait. My two companions seem to be on the same wave length, while ol’ Mouse lags a couple of beats behind, as usual.
John takes a can from the cooler and gulps a long swallow, as if he thinks we didn’t hear anything unusual, like guns in the woods. If Ernie’s dying to ask for details, he doesn’t show it. I am, and I do, even if the vibes coming off me are invisible. John cuts his glance at me. “After we eat, I want to show you guys something.”
All I want to see is us on the road out of here. I wonder if he’ll show us the bag of money, and whether I can fake enough surprise so he doesn’t catch on that it’s no surprise. Or will he guide us through the woods to a dead body and make us bury it? Seen enough dead bodies to last me awhile, like forever.
I help myself to another frosty can. There’s only one left. I toss it to Ernie, since it was my fault most of his got spilled. In the burger-chewing silence, I figure out this much: John hasn’t killed anybody. . . Yet.
“Leaving her here?” Ernie gathers up the empties, stuffs them into the cardboard rack. Cleans the butcher knife in the sand.
“Not on your life.”
We’re leaving the tent. Ernie scatters the embers and heaps dirt on them. Two beers must have tipped my wicket, since I hear myself saying, “How’re you going to get this big car through that little path?”
John grinds a half-smoked cigarette under his heel and grins. “Magic.”
They get in. My mouth keeps talking. “If I follow the trail, will I end up where you’re going?”
John swivels his head to look at me, a mixture of amusement and irritation on his face. “Try it and see.” He nudges Ernie to close the back door and guides the car down the narrow passage. The motor runs so smooth I can’t hear it past the first bend. Did John stop to wait for me to come to my senses and catch up to them? Or is he still threading the Caddy toward a turn-off I didn’t notice on the way in, which will land him where this faint track ends?
Curiosity overrides any doubt. I want to know where he went, and guess he’s going there now. I’m jogging through forest with little undergrowth, damp pine needles and leaf mold underfoot, a light summer sky above, the faint rush of a small river off to my left. Pause to take a pee. A few birds flit among branches, and it’s a peaceful moment. I plan to remember it for the rest of my life.
The path’s shorter than I expect. At the wood’s edge, wary as an animal sniffing for danger in the open space ahead, I’m stunned to find a place I know.
A one-story farmhouse, sitting forlorn in a ragged yard surrounded by fallow fields. An unpainted garage. The same shed where Ernie and I took refuge our first night together, and heard John and his mysterious friend exchange words, blows, and a sack full of money.
We’ve been going in circles.
And I still have no idea where I am.
Hunkering behind a bush I can see through, I wait. Nothing moves. What if they don’t come back? My duffel bag is in the Caddy. Everything’s in the Caddy.
No traffic on this road. Ernie and I walked for miles along it, evening and morning, and not a single car passed the whole time. There’s a screened-in back porch on the run-down farm house. The outside spigot where I drank the rusty water. A closed door at the back of the garage, and I hope the front bay is open, in case I have to sleep there again.
Something moves.
About a quarter mile away, where woods and field meet, the bold nose of the Caddy inches forward. Stops. He waits, too, watching before showing himself. “What an optimist,” I say aloud. If I can spot him, so can anyone lying concealed with a rifle. My mouth goes dry and my heartbeat quickens. Curtains covering the windows I can see, don’t move. Evidently the ones on the other side give no alarm either.
The car emerges and quickly crosses the field. Grateful that I’m not alone and will probably sleep in a house tonight, I race to meet them.
John pulls close behind the shed. Ernie gets out and unlocks the overhead door, which creaks up slowly. All safe inside, he rescues our bed roll and duffel. John unfolds a custom cover and they place it over the car.
“You don’t think he’ll come back tonight?”
“He’s tied up with paperwork in the hospital emergency.”
Skid marks in the gravel show he left in a hurry. We climb three wooden steps to the screened porch. The lock’s been broken. I bite my tongue to keep quiet about Ernie’s lock-picking skills. Best if John doesn’t know. He leads us through a kitchen and down a short hall to a living room. “No lights,” he cautions. “Ever.”
For now, there’s enough daylight that I can see this place hasn’t been updated for forty years. Like the last foster home I stayed in, except there are no crying babies or toys scattered everywhere.
Fresh spots stagger across the brown and gold shag rug, a blood trail through the house. Glass litters the carpet beneath a broken front window. Inexpensive brown and gold sofa and two matching chairs, a few side tables with lamps, a console tv, and a wall phone.
Bedrooms on either side, a bathroom next to what’s probably a door to the cellar. Whoever built this place never gave a thought to how dangerous it is to put a bathroom next to cellar steps. That’s how Jerry’s grandmother met her end. A tumble headfirst in the night, when she expected a solid floor under her reaching foot. At least, that’s what he told us.
“Why didn’t she have a night light?” Steve had asked. “Why didn’t she count the doors? She must have gone to the potty a zillion times. She should have known which was which.”
It’s the only time I ever saw Jerry’s eyes fill with tears. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, so just shut up.”
Months later we decided his grandmother had been too sick to remember to switch on the night light before she went to bed. Or medication had clouded her mind. Or maybe the house where she died wasn’t the one she’d been used to. I never told Jerry I finally understood. If the phone works, maybe I’ll do that tonight.
Those glass shards will be the devil to vacuum up. Slouched in one of the easy chairs, I hear long-ago voices. His is soft, hers isn’t. What was her name? She used to wear a loose ‘house dress’ and bedroom slippers all day. I was the oldest, eight or close to nine. It’s where I learned about carpets and windows. She hated those jobs. So did I. Heavy vacuum cleaner, lots of broken glass. When he lost his job, I was sent back to East Wind. This is the first real house I’ve been inside since then.
John brings a large photo album from a cabinet under some built-in bookshelves (empty), and motions Ernie to the sofa beside him. Gotta be the car. Ernie asks questions, makes appreciative noises. John’s wound up, giving the history. I start to realize the Caddy’s more special than I’d thought.
“Even with employee discount, he had to mortgage the house to make payments. Mother nearly left him over it, more than once. When she got that dinky watch as severance for twenty-five years of service in the textile mill, she wanted him to sell the car, but he had only a few installments left. He took another job as a security guard. Kept her scared all the time.”
“What did she cost new, John?” He looks around as if he’s forgotten I’m there, or is surprised that I’m finally showing some interest.
“With the trimmings, tax, and shipping, close to fourteen thousand dollars.”
It doesn’t sound like much. Collins keeps telling me if my grades stay high, I’ll write my own ticket to college, end up earning ninety thousand a year. He never says at what, but I have to hope he’s right.
Ernie stares into space, thoughtful. I can tell it sounds like peanuts to him, too.
“Dad had a passion for that Caddy from the day he first laid eyes on her. Said she was a better investment than money in the bank. And he was right.”
“What’s she worth now?” I join them for a look at the photos, thinking again about the stacks of money locked in her trunk.
Ernie comes out of his trance. “Vinnie, this car’s a legend on the Internet. Rare even in restored condition, and John’s is as near mint as it can be.”
“So that’s what you and Jordan are fighting about?” Again the wrong thing.
John slaps the album shut. “No. I told you, nobody alive can connect me to the car. It’s my only chance to stay a ghost long enough to do what I’m going to do.”
Remembering that wild ghostly wailing that spooked me the other night, I shiver. Now the ghost is sitting here in his old home, calm with rage.
“He charmed Margie but he’ll never get anything else away from me.” John replaces the album in the cabinet. “I’m not through with him.”
Mouse clamps down on the need to blurt out about seeing Margie dragged up from a well naked except for one red shoe, but can’t help asking. “Why would he kill her?”
“Because she married me.”
It goes unsaid that Jordan broke into John’s–or his parents’ house–to search for his getaway cash, which John’s nameless ex-friend had stolen and gave to him in the middle of a night not a week ago. Nice move, John.
Ernie’s voice is reasonable. “You need to tell your side. Let the authorities deal with Jordan.”
“And pay some sleaze lawyer to lose the case? I’d have to sell the car, and I’ll never do that. She’s all I have left.”
Mouse clamps down again to keep from mentioning the loot in the grocery bag. I know John hasn’t forgotten it for a second. So he’s still lying about that. Keeping it secret, anyway. Would he have an explanation if I told him we’d found it? Or would he whip out that pistol and shoot us dead?
I want to trust him. I like him, in fact. Riding in the Caddy is more fun than walking, and wondering where this adventure will take me next keeps me on an exciting edge. Dusk is fast closing in, storm clouds gathering. “Who’s on first watch?”
They look at each other. “I will,” Ernie volunteers. “The kid needs his beauty sleep and you probably could use a snooze.”
John hands him the pistol. “Wake me before you need to use it, if you can.”
He goes into the front bedroom and closes the door.
Ernie makes sure the safety’s on, and lays the gun on a table. I pick up the phone to see if it works, and it does. I could call East Wind. “What did he tell you?”
“Not much. After Margie left him, he sold their home and came here to lick his wounds. That’s why the power’s still on. She’d been gone almost a year when she called him one night and said she was afraid of Jordan.” Ernie wipes his forehead with the tail of his shirt. “Called again two weeks ago. Wanted him to meet her, take her back. He hung up on her.”
Ernie’s thinking of Francine. There’s nothing I can do to help him, or John. We both start for the wall phone.
“You first,” I say, partly to hear who he’s ready to spill to, mostly because I’m not. Any contact with East Wind might send me in a direction I don’t want to go. He lifts the phone, dials a long-distance number, hunkers with his back to me. It rings awhile before he says into the mouthpiece, “Dad?”
While I’m antsy to stay and eavesdrop, his body tells me he wants privacy. I go into the other bedroom.
Twin beds, a single window overlooking the back yard. Two dressers, cheap pictures on the walls, framed 8 x 10 studio portraits of a middle-aged couple on both dressers. It’s too dimly lit to gather much from their faces. Was this always the parents’ room, or did John and his maybe-brother share growing-up secrets? There’s no evidence left of a childhood, if they did.
An ancient central air unit kicks on. That broken front window will make it run all night, easy for a lurker to sneak up on us. I try to raise mine but it’s painted shut. At least no one will get in that way.
An old fashioned radio sits next to a lamp on the stand between the beds. So it doesn’t blare its message to the rest of the house, I turn the volume knob to the left before clicking it on, then adjust so it’s talking only to me.
Tuned to a station playing soft music. I stretch out on one of the beds and close my eyes. Seems a lifetime since Ernie and I broke into the Haw Creek Elementary School, longer since those other nights on the road. This must be number five. By far the most comfortable. My mind starts to relax. Then two things happen.
The first is an idea that comes just as I’m drifting over the edge of sleep. John said, ‘No one alive knows about the Caddy.’ But Margie must have. What if she told Jordan?
I’m off the bed, intending to wake him with this when there’s a newsbreak. A man’s radio voice says “. . . reporting on the twelve-year-old missing from East Wind.”
TO BE CONTINUED!