The Eighth Day (33 page)

Something skittered along the wall.

Time slowed down, sauntering past as if it were window-shopping. To say that he was uncomfortable did not come close to the truth. He was hungry, hurt, and scared. The smell of the acetone—laced with hay, laced with manure—was oppressive. Flies dived at his face. No-see-ums sucked his blood. He couldn’t remember what he’d done with the gun and he cursed himself for somehow losing it. With a gun, he might have a chance. . . .

The acetone made him think of Caleigh, who painted her nails with clear fingernail polish, a practice he’d thought of as very South Dakota—until she showed him around the club scene in Pierre, where the prevalent look seemed to be a rhinestone cowgirl version of Vampira.

The thought of Caleigh brought him even lower, plunging him into a pool of longing and self-pity.
How to win her back?
he asked himself. First step: don’t get killed.

But how? Wait until dark. Steal a car or hitch a ride to . . . the border. That’s what they did in movies. They crossed the border, and they were safe—the good guys were always safe. But what good would it do to drive to the border, even if he had a car, even if he knew which way to go? His passport and wallet were in the house—with all the dead people. And the soldiers.

One of whom he’d just killed.

He didn’t want to think about that, but he couldn’t keep the images out of his head. Barzan, gunshot and reeling, crashing into the table. The vase and the roses tossed into the air. The soldier looming into view, the look of surprise on his face, the quick swerve of his eyes toward the gun the instant before Danny fired it. And then the soldier’s head flying apart, the spew of gore and blood.

So driving to the border wasn’t what you’d call a brilliant idea. Because he’d never get through a single checkpoint and, even if he did, he’d never get into Syria or Iraq without so much as a driver’s license. They had visas for that kind of thing, and it was Danny’s impression that Customs officials were pretty strict about it.

Which left the embassy. In Ankara. Same problem, but no borders to cross. Just eight hundred miles of mountains and steppes. If he was lucky—

The fat brown snake with an ugly head slid through the straw toward Danny’s leg, its little tongue fluttering at the smell of blood. Seeing it first in his peripheral vision and then square on, Danny went rigid, white and cold. The snake paused, its beady eyes locked on the space between Danny’s sandal and the blood-soaked cuff of his pant leg.

It was—he could read its mind, no question—thinking about entering that attractive hole, even as Danny was thinking of throwing himself out of the loft to the floor below. So what if he broke his neck? At least—

The soldiers came in on tiptoe, eyes darting left and right, Uzis or AKs (or whatever they were) at the ready.

Danny’s heart threw a rod.

The soldiers spoke quietly to each other as they moved slowly through the little barn, looking for someone or something—probably Danny. So, too, the snake, which raised its head and swung it, first to the left and then to the right and down. Almost idly, it inched closer to his foot, and, as it did, something rose in Danny’s throat.

At first he didn’t know what it was, and then he did. It was a scream.

Which he swallowed.

But then another one was coming—straight from the heart—and it was by no means certain that he’d suppress this one as he had the first. He could feel it, a high-pitched sizzle of neuronic dread so intense that he was sure the soldiers could sense it as easily as the snake sensed his blood.

Then the snake turned away and, a moment later, one of the soldiers said something that made the other laugh. And they tromped out.

Jesus wept.

Danny, too.

EIGHTEEN

He came awake in the dark all at once, the reek of acetone reminding him where he was. It amazed him that he’d been able to sleep, the result, he supposed, of the blood he’d lost and the adrenaline he’d burned. Groping in the darkness for the ladder and finally finding it, he lowered it to the ground and climbed down. Shuffling through the pitch-black quiet of the barn, he moved with his hands in front of him—like a just-made Frankenstein’s monster taking his first steps in the laboratory.

Outside, the moon was an opalescent smear behind a dome of scudding clouds. Standing just inside the door to the barn, he listened for whatever there was to hear. He heard the thin chatter of a radio or maybe a television off in the distance. Otherwise, nothing. No voices. No tramping boots. No traffic. He tried to think—which way to go? Which way was the road?

He had no idea.

Then the moon slid away from the clouds and he saw the tops of the willow trees, their leaves glinting silver in the moonlight. The trees were at the edge of the gravel drive, an allée of sorts. He remembered them from his ride to the dentist. The ride he took with the kid. The big kid—who was now the dead kid.

He set off toward the willows, found the drive, and began to walk along its shoulder, on the packed dirt beside the gravel. Lit by the moon, the drive was easy enough to follow. He’d have run if he’d been able—but he couldn’t.

The end of the drive was marked by stone pillars with rounded balls at the top. When he first caught sight of them, he froze, thinking they were sentries. The way the light came through the trees, the pillars seemed to move—to sway. When he realized that it was just a trick of light, he hurried toward the road at the foot of the drive.

But which way to go? The unlined asphalt veered left and right, disappearing into the darkness. Turning his eyes to the vault of night, he found the Big Dipper and remembered that the handle pointed north.

Or was it south? Or maybe it was east or west.

He went left.

The noise of traffic carried a long way, but he heard nothing as he trudged along on the side of the road. When he finally heard a car—he guessed it was a mile away, the whine of its engine rising and falling as it worked its way through the hilly terrain—he panicked. What if it was the army? What if it was Zebek? Leaving the road, he crouched behind a wall of brush and listened to the car as it closed the distance between them. And then, when it was almost on top of him, he changed his mind and charged down the hillside, waving like a lunatic.

Too late—he cursed himself as a BMW shot past, headlights tunneling through the darkness. He was angry with himself. Because it wasn’t as if he had any choice. He couldn’t
walk
to Ankara. He needed a ride, and there was no way that he could size up every vehicle that came down the pike. He had to take a chance.

Then again . . . he’d killed a soldier. Killed him in self-defense but killed him nevertheless. Danny didn’t know much about the Turkish judicial system—just what he’d seen in
Midnight Express
. He didn’t want to go there—especially with Zebek on his case.

On the other hand . . . he couldn’t be sure that the men at the villa were actually soldiers. Sure, they were wearing uniforms, but that didn’t prove anything. Not really. And now that he thought about it, it occurred to him that his presence at the villa might have been unknown to the men who’d attacked it. Clearly they were looking for Barzan. He was the one they wanted to hit, and he was the one they’d expected to find. As for Danny Cray, well . . . only a couple of people knew he was there, and as far as Danny could tell, they were loyal to Barzan. Or dead.

The more he thought about this scenario—and the longer he walked without anyone coming after him—the more likely it seemed. The confusion at the villa had been so great, with Barzan and the kid shooting back, people running everywhere . . . Danny’s presence probably didn’t register. If it had, he thought, they’d be looking for him. And as near as he could tell, they weren’t. Of course, it was only a matter of time until they found his passport—that would get their attention.

An hour went by, or two (who knew?), before he heard another vehicle. It was a long way off, a truck by the sound of it, and underpowered for the terrain, laboring up and down the hills. He stood and stared, waiting for it to come into view. When it finally did, he saw that it had only a single headlight—and this gave him hope that it was not a military truck. Stepping into the road, he raised his arms, palms out, and prayed.

The truck rattled to a stop about ten yards in front of him, although the driver did not turn off the engine. Whiny Turkish music blared from the radio. Danny stood in the headlight’s glare, heart rocking in his chest. A sweet smell drifted toward him . . .
cantaloupe
. The truck’s open bed, its sides enclosed by sheets of plywood, was heaped with the fruit. The man who stepped down from the truck’s cab was in his late twenties, early thirties. He wore jeans, a T-shirt, and a baseball cap, backward, which he now took off to reveal a thatch of dark hair. He kept his distance, shouted something in Turkish.

“Little help?” Danny yelled, affecting a hapless grin. “Got a big
problemo
!”

The man looked him up and down, frowned, and twisted his hat around. “What the fuck?”

“I’m in trouble,” Danny said, concentrating on getting the right tone of supplication into his words. “I need—” And then it struck him that the man spoke English. Struck him dumb. He stood there swaying on his wrecked feet, staring.

“How’d you get out here, man? Where’s your car? You crash it?”

“You speak English,” Danny said, sounding stunned.

“Yeah. German, too. What happened to you?”

Danny laughed and approached the truck. “Talk about the lucka the Irish!”

“Don’t you know it’s dangerous out here? How did you get here, anyway?” The man glanced around for a car, a bike.

“I—” Headlights swung round a hill in the distance, coming from the direction of the villa. “It’s okay to get in the truck?”

He held his breath until it became clear that the car had gone the other way. At least, there were no lights behind them. The sky was brightening into a predawn gray as Danny finished a cock-and-bull story about how he’d come to be in the middle of nowhere with blood on his sandals and no ID. It was, in essence, a story that he’d read in a Lonely Planet guidebook: A young guy, traveling by train, meets some friendly strangers. They hit it off and have a beer together in the dining car. Two days later, he wakes up by the side of the road. No wallet, no passport, no luggage, no hope.

The driver, Salim, nodded sagely. “I have heard this story many times,” he said. “ ‘The Turkish knockout.’ But, mostly, it is women they go after—and they’re raped.” He glanced at Danny. “You weren’t raped?”

“No,” he replied. “I’m fucked, but I wasn’t raped.”

Salim laughed. “Sometimes, they are using gas. Very bad. You’re lucky to be alive.”

Danny nodded. He didn’t like lying to the guy, but what was he supposed to say? That he’d just killed a soldier in the middle of a massacre?

“This place,” Salim went on, nodding at the countryside, “is not so good to visit these days. Until last year it’s not even permitted to tourists. Even now, no one is coming. Too dangerous.” He pronounced the word as if its last syllable rhymed with
moose
. “This part of Turkey—it’s not recommended.” He looked at Danny with a scolding expression.

“Tell me about it.”

Salim gave him a puzzled look. “I am.”

Danny smiled. “It’s an expression. ‘
Tell
me about it.’ ”

The driver’s puzzlement turned to a frown.

“It’s like this,” Danny explained. “A man is hanging off a cliff—I mean, he’s clinging by his fingernails, okay? And this other guy passes by. ‘You’re in a tough spot,’ the guy says. And the first guy, the one who’s hanging off the cliff, says—”

“—’tell me about it!’ ” Salim’s face exploded in a smile. He laughed, then repeated the phrase as if it were a linguistic treasure, nodding his head with satisfaction. Then he turned serious. “So—they took your passport? Money?”

“Everything.”

“Bummer.”

Danny nodded in agreement. “I figure the embassy will help. It’s in Ankara, right?”

“Yes, you are correct.”

“And these melons—they’re going to Ankara?”

Salim laughed. “No. These melons are going to Dogubeyazit.”

“What?”

“When there were tourists,” Salim explained, “they call this place ‘Doggie Biscuit’. It’s on the plain below Ararat. Near the border with Iran.”

“Iran?”

“Yes, certainly. I’m living there—this is my town. But I will try to find a ride for you to Ankara.”

Danny brightened. “You think you can do that?”

Salim shrugged. “Maybe.”

“I . . .” Danny didn’t know what to say, how to express his gratitude. He thought of promising to send money but sensed that Salim would be offended by the offer. “I will thank you forever.”

“One day, my turn will come to need help,” Salim said.

They bounced along in an envelope of road noise, the truck’s cab dense with the fragrance of ripe cantaloupe. Danny struggled to stay awake as Salim told his own sad story. He’d once been a tour guide, leading groups of climbers up Mount Ararat, but business had fallen off with the “troubles”—the PKK insurrection—when tourists and hikers kept away from eastern Turkey. More recently, he’d lost a bundle in the currency crisis, and his cell-phone distributorship had gone belly up. He was married, had two kids, and now he was driving trucks for his father-in-law while waiting for the economy to improve.

“Well, that sucks,” Danny told him.

Salim shrugged and flashed a smile. “Tell me about it.” He chuckled and adjusted his baseball cap. “I think it gets better, someday. Then we will see what the opportunities may be.”

Dawn arrived and with it the amazing sight of Mount Ararat, a perfect snowcapped conical mountain that looked like Japanese prints of Mount Fuji. But it was huge. The biggest mountain Danny had ever seen. He couldn’t believe the size of it. Salim explained that it was more than five thousand meters high but seemed even higher because there were no foothills—it rose straight up out of the plain. Danny did the math: seventeen thousand feet.

They passed through two military checkpoints before reaching Dogubeyazit. In both instances, Salim cautioned him to pretend to be asleep. He tensed, listening to the unintelligible conversations between Salim and the guards, but no one bothered to speak to him.

In the brightening dawn, Salim skillfully maneuvered the truck into a warehouse loading bay and left it to a team of hardworking men who in rapid order unloaded the cantaloupes into huge baskets. He followed Salim to a cramped office, where the Turk signed some papers. Then the two of them walked a few blocks and stood on a corner until the
dolmus
arrived.

Salim lived in a one-bedroom apartment in a small concrete apartment block on the outskirts of town. The apartment was on the top floor, and the windows were heavily draped to keep out the heat—which was, even at seven
A.M
., eighty degrees and rising. Salim’s shy, pretty wife greeted her husband, bowed to Danny, and made them each a glass of apple tea. Danny sipped his while the two of them held a rapid-fire discussion that turned out to be about the blood on his pant leg.

“Ayala says you need to tend this wound,” Salim informed him. “And she is right.”

Ayala fetched a pair of scissors, a basin of water, and a white washcloth. First she soaked the fabric of the pant leg in water, then pried it away from his skin. Then she wiped away the dried blood with the washcloth.

It wasn’t so bad, really—a clean slice, about three inches long. Going into the bathroom, Ayala returned with a bottle of what turned out to be hydrogen peroxide. “That’s okay,” Danny said. “I don’t need—”

She swung her forefinger like a pendulum in front of his eyes, then opened the bottle and slowly poured about half its contents into the cut. The wound foamed, and Danny felt as if his leg had been cauterized with a blowtorch. It was all he could do not to scream.

Salim chuckled. “Tell me about it,” he said.

When Ayala was finished and the wound bandaged, she made some more tea and retired to the bedroom. While he and Salim sipped their drinks, Danny could hear her voice murmuring to a crying baby and now and then the high, piping voice of a child. After a few minutes she reappeared with the two children—who had obviously just woken from their naps. Salim played a complicated game of patty-cake with the older child while Ayala jounced the baby on her hip, watching her husband with undisguised pleasure. The little boy opened his mouth and tugged one of his teeth. He spoke animatedly to his father, pointed at Danny.

“He wants to know about your silver tooth.” A complicated look came across Salim’s face, but then he shrugged.

Danny was embarrassed. Obviously his host was finding it difficult to believe a Turkish knockout,
plus
some other calamity.

“My cap fell off,” he said, remembering when this calamity had happened to his mother. “You know, I had a porcelain one, but it was cracked or something. This is temporary.” He winced. “Looks great, huh?”

“My son admires it,” Salim said. “He thinks it’s an extra-strong tooth. Supertooth.”

Danny smiled wildly, flashing his tooth, and the little boy hooted with laughter. And then Ayala gathered the kids up, said something in Turkish, and blew a kiss to Salim.

“They go to her parents,” Salim said, “so I can sleep. Also, it’s air-conditioning there. You would perhaps like to bathe? Ayala says this would be good for you.”

Ten minutes later, Danny was in the tiny bathroom, standing before a steaming tub. Everything stung as he lowered himself into the water, the various abrasions obliterating for a moment the pain in his feet, jaw, and shoulder. He didn’t like looking at his feet, which were only now beginning to fade from the eggplant color they’d turned.

It was the exact shade of one of Caleigh’s favorite jackets, a realization that made him wonder what Caleigh was thinking—right then. It was midnight in the States, so she was probably asleep, but . . . she was probably dreaming of him. In bed with Paulina.