Episode 19
The driver turns the car slightly, so we’re not seeing it head-on. Stops. Like some fashion model, angling to show off her dress. I wish I’d brought my camera, but I left it on the hall table after we’d all snapped shots of each other at lunch.
John explodes — into laughter. A quick startled look at him, then I see the Caddy in all its glory ten feet away. It’s not the same car. Ernie laughs, too, but his glee is short-lived. John lunges for him, and Ernie takes off running.
The driver gets out and Ernie jumps in. He locks the doors and John beats on the window, then slaps the hood. “You better hide, you little shit. I’ll get you for this.”
Men standing around don’t seem to know whether to cheer or haul John away. I break the tension. “So where’s the pink one?”
Head honcho answers without taking his eyes off John, who’s by now kicking the tires and threatening to rip off the driver’s door. He and Ernie are still laughing. “It’s in a safe place.”
“That’s what Ernie said.”
“Who?”
His question confuses me, but I don’t follow up since in spite of John pounding on the windshield, Ernie’s creeping the car toward the open bay. He brakes and unlocks the doors long enough for me to dive into the back seat. John moves to block our path. Ernie honks the horn, cranks down the window, yells, “Get in old man!”
When we’re on the road again, there’s total silence except for air whooshing through the windows. The route back is more direct, through a busy part of town, then past a big hospital, a park, and a school. We enter a gated community not much different from East Wind, and three blocks later we’re at Ernie’s front gate.
While the electronics open it, Ernie says, “I couldn’t resist.”
“Joker. Just you wait.”
We drive through, and Ernie stops his Caddy on the brick parking area outside the glass patio doors. Above, his old-fashioned curtains flutter like white banners.
“So, where is she?” There’s no anger in John’s voice. There is an edge.
“Locked in one of the storage units.” Ernie gives him a key attached to a small plastic disc with a number on it. “Until you need her.”
John ponders. “How does a kid like you learn how to do so much?”
Ernie goes around, opens John’s door. “Necessity.”
The missing puzzle piece. I’m positive it has to do with the determination to earn his dad’s approval. Maybe his gold has always been tarnished, and Francine was the final straw, beyond fixing. He will go with us, at least until the fall, when classes begin.
On the way into the house, John says, mildly, “I guess finding a Caddy like this in a few days by phone is easy for a rich boy wanting to pull a prank.”
“Didn’t buy her just to fool you,” Ernie tells him. “Two years ago, I rescued her out of a cornfield. Having money helped with the restoration though.”
John looks at him with fresh respect. “You do have good taste.”
“Thanks.” He turns to me and asks, “So, Vinnie, want to work up an appetite?”
“Tennis? Sure.” I hated tennis as a P.E. class, but this might be my only chance to play on a private court. He takes the stairs two at a time and clatters down with a couple of racquets and a can under his arm. He should be in whites, but he’s not. A headband corrals his hair, and he shoves another onto my head. Over my eyes. I adjust it, following him along the hallway and down to the fence. I pick one of the racquets. John picks a shady bench and lights up a fresh cigarette.
I know I can’t win against Ernie, but give it my best shot. We race about, letting off steam, entertaining ourselves as well as John, who laughs at our antics, and I’m hungry long before dinner is to be served in the dining room. He doesn’t throw the game, and I’m grateful. I take more pictures of us down at the courts.
“Dinner and a movie,” John muses, his thoughts far away in his past.
“Yeah, pick one while the kid and I clean up.”
He lets me go first, while he makes some calls on the cell phone he’s brought from the boat, and afterward I try on knee shorts and another crisp shirt from his closet. This could become a habit. When he’s done with his second shower of the day, I have to ask, “How come you don’t use the air conditioning?”
“Irresponsible use of refrigerants will be the death of the planet. Besides, I don’t like being cold either.”
“Then we better steer John away from Canada.”
“I’ve just been doing that.”
“What do you mean?”
“My dad’s on the case. He’s pretty sure he can clear John of any charges.”
Panic rises from the pit of my stomach. “And your dad is—who?”
“You’ve never heard of him, but he’s got pull. Thomas Gordon, Atty.”
Seconds pass before I can think straight and remember that ‘Atty’ is short for ‘attorney.’ I’ve seen it written, but never heard anyone say it. Never expect to again. So it wasn’t a fancy lunch that had him sweating. It was the prospect of calling on his father for help. “You told him everything?”
“Not everything. I put him on Jordan’s trail, and it’s leading straight to a murder conviction.” He combs his hair and then takes a whack at mine. “Don’t mention it, it’s not a done deal yet.”
This warning sticks with me through a dinner fit for a shark lawyer’s son and his friends. John comments, “Now this is a man’s meal.” He digs into the steak. Gravy, dinner rolls, vegetables, and a red wine that Ernie withholds from me, saying, “You know what happened last time, Mouse.”
“Yeah, after half a bottle,” I counter. Settle for springwater, with the promise of coffee with dessert.
Dessert is coconut cake. I swear I see tears in John’s eyes when the maid sets his in front of him. I take a bite of mine and understand what ‘bliss’ means. Freshly grated coconut, layers juicy with real coconut milk, foamy white icing.
A dim memory struggles out of the past. A hammer striking something hollow. Peeled pieces in my hand, crunching under five-year-old teeth. There’s a trimmed tree, lights blinking. I almost see my mother’s face, then it’s gone.
“My mom used to make cakes like this,” John says. I don’t say anything.
“Save room for popcorn with the movie,” Ernie tells us.
Too late. At least, I think that until we head for the entertainment center. A familiar aroma wafts through the door when a server opens it. His cart is stocked with carbonated drinks. There’s an actual theatre popcorn machine, and the hot cardboard box in my hand reminds me of Saturday afternoons spent in the Hackett cinema. When I became a Middle, no dorm master was willing to field trip us anymore, so it’s been awhile.
John’s choice is Talladega Nights. Ernie wants Dead Poets Society. He shows me Chariots of Fire, and I’m impressed that he knows me so well. We watch them in order (John sleeps through Ernie’s), and six hours later we stagger out, bleary and stuffed with food and film. Ready for sleep, a late wake-up call, breakfast under the pergola.
Alone in Ernie’s room, I try to recapture my mom’s face, her voice, her laughter. But all I’m left with is the taste of sugary coconut cake and salty tears. Even so, I decide this is the best night of my life. John’s case is as good as won, Ernie’s on better terms with his dad, and the promise of escaping with friends to a new life of adventure lulls me into dreamland.
For a long while I toss and turn, planning how to disguise my appearance and what I’ll do about school, and imagining where we’ll all end up living. But I’ve fallen asleep because something jars me awake. Tense, I listen to silence.
Was I dreaming? If I was, the dream wasn’t pleasant and the sound I think I heard scares me. It was the ring of a tire iron on bricks.
Rolling off the bed, I run to the open windows and look out. The security light shows me the black Caddy, and damned if the hood isn’t raised. I open my mouth to call something rude to Ernie, but the person tinkering with the car must sense he’s been spotted and straightens up. Hoodoo!
Drawing back so he doesn’t see me, I figure by the time I alert John or Ernie, he’ll finish whatever he’s doing and be out of the neighborhood. His gun is still in the bedroll, there on Ernie’s big leather chair, and the cartridges are still in Ernie’s shirt pocket, there on the floor. I pull on Ernie’s knee shorts and fill the magazine. My hands are shaking but I’ve seen this stuff in movies and a loaded gun puts me in charge. Creep down the stairs. Open the glass door and step onto the bricks. He’s easing the hood shut so it doesn’t make any noise, and can’t see me in the shadow of the patio roof. “Hold it right there, Hoodoo.”
Startled, he races to the picnic area and starts climbing the pergola, toward the top of the brick wall.
I don’t intend to let him invade Ernie’s home and get away with it, so I run forward, aiming for his legs and praying to hit one of them. I squeeze the trigger. The world explodes. Something smacks my face hard near one eye, something else delivers a stunning blow to the back of my head. Did Hoodoo have another gun? If I’m shot through and through, there must be an afterlife because I’m still conscious. Numb and dizzy. A tingling in my hands warns me moments before shocking pain shoots through them. The eye is wet with what must be blood and I’m afraid to open it, the other shows me Hoodoo scrambling over the vine-covered woodwork.
Another shot, behind me. Hoodoo screeches and grabs his leg and rolls off the roof. John’s on him like a tv cop, holding him down, shouting for help. Then Ernie’s pressing a wadded cloth against my head and yelling, “Call 911! Call the police!”
“I’m okay.” But I don’t think he hears me, because people come out of the house, and a middle-aged man ties Hoodoo’s hands and ankles with a piece of electrical wire. The maid’s on a cell phone, trying to make the 911 operator to listen instead of asking stupid questions.
John’s kneeling beside us. He says, “Where are the keys?” Ernie says, “On my dresser.” John orders, “Get him in the car.”
Ernie doesn’t argue. He scoops me off the ground, and the man who tied up Hoodoo opens the door for him. John’s in almost as soon as we are, and we’re backing down the driveway toward the front gate. Ernie holds me on his lap, pressing the cloth so hard against my head I’m afraid my brain is showing. My head doesn’t hurt yet, there’s a truckload of cotton between my ears.
We race through the winding blocks of dark silent homes, flashes of street lights like strobes in my good eye. I close it, and can hear faraway sirens through the cotton. “Cops or ambulance?” John doesn’t have to stop at the community gate, it’s already open for emergency vehicles, whenever they arrive. Ernie answers, “Both.” We pick up speed. A lot of speed. John says, “We’ll be at the hospital while they’re still looking at house numbers.”
Flashing lights pass us, two sets, screaming toward Ernie’s house. I’d like to be there, to see if the cops and EMS fight over who takes Hoodoo. The big efficient looking hospital buildings are maybe a dozen or fifteen blocks away, and figure I’ll probably live to tell this tale after all. Until the whole car starts to shake and there’s a clatter of metal on metal. John mutters, “Uh, oh.”
What has Hoodoo done? I forgot to tell them he was messing under the hood.
I don’t have time to say anything before there’s a giant WHUMP and I hope we haven’t hit a dog, or worse, a person crossing the four-lane on foot. “Oh God!” John cries as the Caddy takes a screeching nosedive and the rear end rises into the air. “Hold on-!”
“What hap—” Ernie begins, but we’re in a full somersault and he’s shielding my head with his arms when we fly off the back seat and crash against the dashboard. Slow motion, just like I’ve always read about. But we were going at least eighty, so when the Caddy smashes upside down on the tarmac, the doors spring open. Without seat belts, we’re all thrown onto the grassy median.
It’s strangely quiet. The sirens fade into the distance. Then one of them makes a U-turn and screams back on our side of the highway. I want it to be the EMS, rescuing us, but it isn’t. Badges and guns flash in the headlights and an authoritative voice strides toward us. “What the hell? Is anybody hurt?”
John’s alive because he answers, “The kid’s been shot. Get him to the hospital.”
There’s another unfamiliar voice, a cop, closer to me. “This one isn’t moving.”
I wave my bleeding left hand but I’m on the dark side of the car, and suddenly whether he sees me doesn’t matter. A huge pain in my chest and shoulder blots out all thoughts except the fear that my back is broken.
“He’s breathing,” the first badge says, and I hear them slapping someone’s face and asking stupid questions. It isn’t my face, so they probably think Ernie’s the one shot. It’s a relief to know my companions aren’t dead. Before I can make the officers aware of me, all the lights go out.
TO BE CONTNUED!