Authors: Peter Abrahams
ALL AT ONCE, THE ROOM,
a normal-size bedroom, seemed too small, hardly big enough to hold the three of them. Wyatt had never experienced this sensation before, people overwhelming their physical space, obliterating it. Wyatt could feel danger, like a toxic contaminant escaping from the walls. He backed away from Sonny. What was Sonny doing here? That thought was quickly pushed aside by the sight of Sonny’s messed-up face. Both times Wyatt had seen him—the only times he’d seen him in his life—Sonny had looked good, but he didn’t look good now.
“What happened to you?” Wyatt said.
Sonny smiled. One of his two front teeth was gone; the other was chipped in half. “Not as bad as it looks,” he said.
But it looked bad. Sonny’s left eye was swollen almost shut and his left cheek, under the eye, seemed hollower than the right one, as though the bone around the eye had caved in; Wyatt had seen that happen to a kid who’d been hit by a pitch. His upper lip was swollen, too, and there was lots of blood on
his khaki inmate shirt, now torn and missing buttons.
He stepped out of the closet, wincing slightly.
“Were you in a fight?” Wyatt said.
“Hector and his boys went a little overboard,” Sonny said.
“Oh my God,” Greer said. “That guy with the Jesus tattoo?”
“He’s actually quite religious,” Sonny said. “Just one of those misunderstandings.”
“About what?” Greer said.
“Nothing. The wrong look, the wrong word, the wrong stance—inmate stuff. What would be nothing in the outside world, is I guess how to put it.” He looked around the empty room, went toward the edge of the window, shot a quick sidelong glance outside. “Cops gone?”
“Yes,” Greer said.
“Good job,” Sonny said. “Both of you.”
Wyatt hadn’t done any job at all, hadn’t known Sonny was in the house. But Greer had. He turned to her.
She seemed to know what he was thinking. “He came to the window maybe two minutes after you left. I hid him as soon as I heard the sirens. What did you want me to do? Turn him in?”
“Of course not.” But almost at once Wyatt had second thoughts about that—what had the police chief said?
Escapees never get away, but they often die trying.
So what was the right thing to do?
“No need to give that a second thought, either of you,” Sonny said. “I’m planning to turn myself in.”
“You are?” Greer said.
“After I take care of business.” Blood appeared at the corner of his mouth. “This sure feels good, can’t tell you—first time outside those walls in seventeen years.”
“What kind of business?” Wyatt said.
“Funny question coming from you,” Sonny said. “You’re the one who unsettled me. I told you—I was content. Now I’m not. I intend to prove my innocence.”
“But how will this help?” Wyatt said. “Don’t you need a lawyer?”
“We’re long past the lawyer stage,” Sonny said.
“So what are you going to do?” Wyatt said. He was aware of his voice cracking, like a pubescent kid’s.
“What I should have done long ago,” Sonny said. More blood seeped out of the corner of his mouth; he felt there with his fingertips. Wyatt noticed again how strong and well shaped his hands were. And something else: they were completely unmarked, unscratched, unswollen. Hector and his boys must have jumped him, overwhelmed him; he hadn’t landed a single blow.
“What do you want us to do?” Greer said.
Sonny smiled at her, a once-nice smile now made ugly; with the blood and swelling, there was even something animal about it. “You, sweetheart?” he said. “I want nothing from you. And from Wyatt—I’d just like to borrow that sweet pony for a short time. The two Cs might come in handy as well.”
“Uh,” said Wyatt, “I spent twenty.”
“Yeah?” Sonny sounded surprised. “On what?”
“Gas.”
“A necessity,” Sonny said. He paused, as though waiting for something. Wyatt took out his wallet and handed over the $180. Sonny tucked it away in his waistband. Wyatt saw that his khaki inmate pants—now wrinkled and bloodstained—had no pockets. “You’ll get it back, I promise,” Sonny said. “With interest.”
“I don’t want it,” Wyatt said.
“We’ll call it a down payment on all the birthday presents you never got.” He approached the window again, took another sidelong glance. “What a beautiful day.” It was raining harder than ever now, the sky a solid roof of low, dark cloud. “Hear that sound? Rain on the roof? You forget there are sounds like that.”
The three of them stood silent in Greer’s father’s old bedroom, listening to the rain. Sonny dabbed with his sleeve at the corner of his mouth.
“Maybe you want to take a shower or something,” Wyatt said.
“No water,” said Greer.
“How about some ice?” Wyatt said.
“No fridge.”
Sonny laughed, a strange sight with his teeth the way they were, hard to get used to. “I’m all right, kids.”
“I could go out for ice,” Wyatt said.
“I’ll do it,” said Greer.
“No,” Sonny said, his voice suddenly sharp. Then, softer, he went on, “I’m all right, really. We’ll just lie low here until dark, nice and quiet.”
“And then?” Greer said.
“Then I’ll hit the road in that borrowed pony.”
“Hit the road for where?” Wyatt said.
“Probably best if we stay away from the specifics.”
But there was one thing Wyatt absolutely had to know. “Are you going to see my mother?”
“No.”
“Is she the person you’re protecting?”
“No, for the millionth time.”
They gazed at each other, an uncomfortable second or two for Wyatt; he couldn’t help focusing on the swollen eye and bashed-in cheek.
Sonny put his hand to his heart. “I swear. Your mother had nothing to do with this. It’s just not in her. She’s a good person, through and through.”
“Then who is it?” Wyatt said. “Who are you protecting?”
“No one anymore,” Sonny said. “Took me a long time to learn, but it’s true what they say—you can’t protect people from themselves.” He put his hand on Wyatt’s shoulder, the first time they’d touched. Wyatt felt a tremor, very slight, pulsing inside Sonny. “I want to prove my innocence and that’s all.”
“How?” Wyatt said.
“Still got time to think about exact measures.” A little more blood leaked from his mouth.
“I’ll go get some ice,” Wyatt said.
Sonny paused for a moment, then nodded and said, “And maybe some paper towels.” Wyatt turned to go. “Don’t be too long.”
A remark that first struck Wyatt as almost parental, the kind of thing his mom might say: but as he drove away from the foreclosed house another possibility—that Sonny didn’t quite trust him—rose in his mind.
He found a convenience store about a mile down the cross street. There were no other customers. The clerk was watching a TV mounted above the scratch tickets. An onscreen reporter stood in front of the visitors’ entrance at Sweetwater State Penitentiary, the volume too low to be heard. Wyatt took a five-pound bag of ice from the freezer, grabbed a roll of paper towels, and went to the counter.
“Got any sandwiches?” Wyatt said.
“No more sandwiches,” the clerk said. “New policy. You could try the Lunch Box.” He pointed down the street.
Wyatt drove a few blocks farther, bought three turkey sandwiches and a six-pack of soda. The TV at the Lunch Box was tuned to a business show; numbers and symbols streamed across the top and bottom of the screen. Wyatt went back to Greer’s old house. No one was on the street or at any of the windows in the nearby houses, two of which also had bank-sale signs on the front lawns. Wyatt parked, walked to the front door, and knocked.
The door opened, whoever was doing the opening staying out of sight behind it. Wyatt went in. “That was quick,” Sonny said, closing the door. If anything, he now looked worse than before, a thin sheen of sweat on his upper lip.
Wyatt handed over the bag of ice. “I’ve got sandwiches, too.”
“Great,” said Sonny.
They went into the kitchen. No appliances, but the sink was still in place. Sonny pounded the ice bag in the metal basin, wrapped a few chunks in paper towel, pressed them lightly against the bashed-in side of his face and his swollen eyelid.
“Ah,” he said. He leaned against the wall, closed his good eye, took a deep breath.
Wyatt snapped two sodas from the six-pack. “Greer upstairs?” he said.
Sonny’s good eye opened. “Actually, no,” he said. He pushed himself off the wall, stood straight. “She left.”
Wyatt, almost at the door, turned back. “Left?”
“She got a call,” Sonny said, “and two minutes later she was out the door.”
“A call from who?”
“Don’t know. But, uh…”
“What?” said Wyatt. “Tell me.”
Sonny exhaled a long, slow breath. “I peeked out through the window upstairs. Some guy came to pick her up.”
“What guy?”
“Didn’t get a good look at him,” Sonny said. “He stayed in the car.”
“What kind of car?”
“A Lexus, I think, something fancy like that. Haven’t kept up with cars all that well. But I caught the plate number, one of those vanity plates, easy to remember—
VAN
1. I didn’t get the impression she was coming back.”
Wyatt set the two soda cans on the counter, very gently, as though they were fragile. He just stood there, feeling hollowed out inside. Either Greer had been outright lying to him or she’d been going back and forth in her own mind, playing fair with nobody. Was there a third possibility? None that he could see.
He felt Sonny’s hand on his shoulder. “There’ll be other girls, son. Maybe with a more honest approach, if you don’t mind my opinion.”
Wyatt turned, stepped away. “What does that mean?”
Sonny sighed. “Take the arson, for example—that was her.”
“But you told me it wasn’t.”
“Probably a mistake, in retrospect. But I didn’t see myself as the bad-news messenger, not when we were just getting to know each other, you and me. Plus she pretty much begged me not to tell, one time in the visitors’ room. The truth is she might have been a little impulsive, but she was only trying to help her old man.”
“What about Freddie Helms?”
“Who’s he?”
“The firefighter who got his face practically burned off.”
“I didn’t know about that,” Sonny said.
There was a long silence. The ice in the paper-towel ice pack melted and water ran down Sonny’s face.
Wyatt had a sudden thought. “What if she tells Van you’re here?”
“She won’t do that,” Sonny said. He went to the sink,
prepared another ice pack, held it to his head. “Do I smell turkey?” he said. He went to the counter, opened the bag. “Is one for me?”
“Yeah, sure.”
Sonny took out a sandwich and unwrapped it. “Real food.” He picked it up. Wyatt wondered: how was he going to eat it with his teeth like that? But he managed, no problem. “How about you?” Sonny said between mouthfuls.
“I’m not hungry.”
Sonny cracked open a soda, drank it down in two swallows. “You okay with lending me the car? I’ll bring it back, promise.”
“Before you turn yourself in?”
“Exactly.”
“What if you get spotted?”
“A risk I’ll have to take,” Sonny said.
“I’ll drive,” Wyatt said. “I want to help.”
Sonny bowed his head. “Thank you.”
“Where are we going?”
“Millerville.”
“And then?”
“I’ll explain on the way,” Sonny said. “Right now I’m going to grab a little shut-eye. You should, too.”
“I’m not sleepy.”
“Suit yourself.”
Sonny turned, went upstairs. Wyatt heard him moving down the hall toward Bert Torrance’s old bedroom.
A few minutes later, Wyatt realized that in fact he was very tired. He entered Greer’s old bedroom, gazed at the mattress on the floor, finally lay down on it. After a while he took out his cell phone and called her, without the slightest idea of what he would say. He got sent straight to voice mail, and left no message. Rain hammered on the roof.
WYATT SMELLED GREER,
opened his eyes. It was dark, and for a moment he had no idea where he was. Then it came back: Greer’s old bedroom, no Greer.
He got up, rubbed his eyes, looked out the window. Dim lights shone in the windows of a neighboring house or two; other than that, nothing but darkness and the rain falling steadily. He flicked a light switch and nothing happened.
Wyatt left the bedroom, moved carefully down the dark hall and into the kitchen, slightly lit by a streetlamp halfway down the block. The bag of ice, split down the middle, still lay in the sink, most of the ice melted. He dipped his cupped fingers in the bag, splashed cold water on his face. The rain slanted past the streetlamp in black streaks. Wyatt flipped open his phone, checked the time: 7:13. He was hungry. He opened the sandwich bag and found it empty.
Wyatt climbed the stairs, walked down the hall to Bert Torrance’s old bedroom. Light from the same streetlamp came through the window, somewhat brighter than downstairs. Sonny lay on the floor in the corner, curled in the fetal
position, the undamaged side of his face showing. As Wyatt watched, Sonny shifted slightly and let out a sound very close to the whimper of a dog.
Wyatt, standing in the doorway, said, “It’s getting late.” Sonny showed no reaction; his chest rose and fell with his breathing.
Wyatt went closer, stood over him. A small pool of dried blood had formed on the floor, under the bad side of his face. He made the whimpering sound again. “Dad?” said Wyatt. The word came out all by itself, shocked him. Sonny slept on, chest rising and falling, a sleep so deep and intense it was almost palpable, a thickness in the air.
Wyatt bent, reached down, touched Sonny’s arm. And got his second shock: before he realized what was happening, Sonny had sat up and grabbed him by the wrist—a grip so hard it hurt—and was cocking his other hand into a fist, a wild look in his good eye. Then, at the last moment, recognition dawned in that eye, and he seemed to deflate, his grip on Wyatt’s wrist relaxing, his other hand opening, sinking to his side.
“Christ,” he said. “Sorry.” He gave himself a little shake. “Force of habit,” he said. “Bad, bad habit. I’m not used to…to…” He extended his hand. Wyatt took it and helped him up. He felt his father’s physical strength renewing as he came to his feet.
There was hardly any traffic on the Millerville highway. The rain still fell, perhaps no harder than before, but the wind had picked up, driving it sideways across their path, almost horizontal.
“You’re a hell of a driver,” Sonny said. He sat beside Wyatt, his hands folded in his lap, the bad side of his face showing.
“Thanks.”
“I mean it—a natural.”
Wyatt sped up a bit.
“But let’s not get crazy,” Sonny said.
Wyatt laughed, came off the pedal an eighth of an inch or so. Sonny laughed, too. Their laughter sounded—to Wyatt’s ears—much the same. It petered out together in a comfortable way.
“No craziness tonight,” Sonny said, his voice going quiet. Headlights appeared—in the distance, but coming fast. Sonny shrank down in his seat. The headlights came closer, with a reflector strip glowing up above: a truck. It flashed by, buffeting the Mustang and sending a wave of water across the windshield, but doing nothing to disturb Wyatt’s sense of complete control. “Hell of a driver,” Sonny said, sitting up.
A wild night outside; inside, a small zone of warmth and quiet. “When are you going to tell me what happened at thirty-two Cain Street?” Wyatt said.
“How’s never?”
Wyatt whipped around to stare at him.
“Just kidding,” Sonny said, touching Wyatt’s knee.
In the green light from the dashboard indicators, Wyatt saw that Sonny’s hand was damaged, the knuckles skinned and swollen and one fingernail snapped right off, the flesh beneath dark with congealed blood. Sonny must have put up
a fight against Hector and his boys after all, although Wyatt didn’t remember seeing these wounds before, must not have looked closely enough.
Sonny removed his hand, sat back. “In all this research you’ve been doing—Wertz, the newspaper guy, all that—did the money come up?”
“What money?” A road sign flashed by, blurred by the rain.
MILLERVILLE
—10
MILES
.
“The drug money—whole point of the exercise. Turned out to be thirty grand, more or less. No time for a careful count, but I had it in my hand, outside that window. A small fortune, I realize now, or maybe no fortune at all, but at the time it was like striking it rich.” He gazed through the windshield, where the wipers could barely keep up with the rain. “So what’s your next question? Maybe what happened to the money?”
“Yeah,” Wyatt said, thinking:
Outside the window.
Mr. Rentner had been right.
“My guess is it got used for a down payment,” Sonny said.
“On what?”
“A bar, but that’s not what bothers me.”
“What bothers you?”
“Nothing. Shouldn’t have said that. What would I have done in the same place? Who’s to judge?” He went silent. The dim glow of a midsize town rose in the distance.
“The same place as the person who got away, is that what you’re saying?” Wyatt said. “The one you protected?”
“Yeah.”
So that was that: absolutely no way Linda had anything
to do with this. She had no interest in bars, didn’t go to bars, hardly ever even had a drink.
“But,” said Sonny.
“But what?”
“But even in that person’s place,” Sonny said, holding up one finger, not quite steady, “there’s one thing I’d never have done.”
“What’s that?”
“Hook up with a rat.” Another sign:
WELCOME TO MILLERVILLE, A KIDS-COME-FIRST COMMUNITY.
Several of the letters were missing; that reminded Wyatt of the current state of Sonny’s mouth, a crazy thought. “Let’s go pay a call on the rat,” Sonny said.
“We’re talking about Doc Vitti?”
“You’re a real smart kid. Can you get me to where he lives?”
“What are you going to do there?”
“What you’ve been asking me to do—prove my innocence.”
“And hurting him wouldn’t do that,” Wyatt said, glancing at Sonny, the bad side of his face unreadable.
“Right you are—wouldn’t help the slightest goddamn bit, would only hurt my chances, if you want the truth. But he’s the key to getting the statement we need.”
“From the other person, the one you protected?”
“You’re way ahead of me.”
“But I still don’t have the name.”
“I’ll have to think about that,” Sonny said. “Don’t want you involved in any legal ramifications.”
“I don’t understand.” Wyatt came to an ill-lit street lined by shabby houses, the street that led to the trailer park, and turned onto it.
“Even though I’m innocent and will prove it,” Sonny said, “the fact is I’m kind of AWOL right now, in a legal sense.”
Wyatt thought about that as they came to the entrance to the trailer park. “What would have happened if you hadn’t gotten into the fight with Hector? You’d just have stayed there, getting old in jail?”
“No idea. But seize the day.”
Wyatt didn’t quite buy that explanation, but the time for questions was running out. He slowed down as they entered the trailer park. “He lives somewhere in here.”
“What’s he drive?” Sonny said.
“An old pickup, Dodge Ram, black.” The pickup appeared in the headlights, parked in front of a silver trailer on wheels, the kind that could actually be towed.
“Cut the lights,” Sonny said. “Stop the car.”
Wyatt cut the lights and stopped the car. They gazed through the rain at the trailer, a glow showing in a side window.
“Pop the trunk,” Sonny said.
“What for?”
“I’d like to borrow your tire iron. Just for deterrence—never hurts to be prudent. Doc, at least in the old days, had pigheaded tendencies.”
The trunk didn’t open from the inside. They got out, into the pelting rain, and walked around to the trunk. Wyatt unlocked it, raised the hood.
“Well, well,” Sonny said, peering inside. He reached in and took out Wyatt’s bat. “What a beauty.” He assumed a batting stance—a very good one, balanced and comfortable—and swung the bat gently two or three times. “You’ll get it back, I promise,” he said. He lowered the bat, held it loosely in his left hand, extended his right. “This is good-bye,” he said, “at least for now.”
“Good-bye?”
“Shh. Can’t have you implicated—in case anything goes wrong. You haven’t seen me, know nothing about this.”
Wyatt hesitated.
“Don’t worry,” Sonny said. “If all goes well, I’ll be down at the police station in an hour, presenting my evidence.”
“The police station here? In Millerville?”
“Sure.” Sonny smiled his broken smile. His lips were wet with a mixture of rain and blood.
“Your evidence meaning the twenty-two that was never found?” Wyatt said. “Is that why we’re here?”
Sonny laughed. “My kid the genius,” he said. “Take good care of yourself. I’ll call as soon as I can.”
“But—”
Sonny’s smile vanished. “Hey, Wyatt—please don’t mess this up. I’m trying to get my life back here.”
Wyatt nodded. They shook hands. Sonny’s grip was strong and warm—almost hot, in fact. Then, as Wyatt stepped around the car, a powerful light flashed on from a point ten or fifteen feet from the trailer, framing Sonny in a white circle. Doc—his rough voice instantly recognizable to Wyatt—called out: “Don’t fuckin’ move, Sonny. Got a
twelve-gauge pointed at your head.”
But Sonny did move—so fast Wyatt wasn’t clear exactly what was happening—diving out of the white circle and at the same time hurling the bat at the source of the light. Wyatt caught the gleam of the spinning bat, and then came a thud and a cry of pain, and next the beam pointed wildly in several directions and finally went still, aimed straight up at the sky. Sonny was already on the move, running toward the light and the dark form beside it, shaped like a man on his knees. The man on his knees was reaching for something on the ground, but before he could get it, Sonny was on him. Another thud, another cry of pain, and then Sonny rose. Wyatt went closer, close enough to see Doc lying on his back, bleeding from the side of his head, blood and mud clotting in his long graying hair; and Sonny standing over him, one foot resting on Doc’s throat, the shotgun in his hand.
“Can’t say the years have been kind to you, Doc,” Sonny said. “You look like shit.”
Doc gazed up at him, eyes full of hate. “Seen yourself lately?”
Sonny flashed his messed-up smile. “All fixable,” he said. “Just part of the plan—a disguise, you could call it.” He took his foot off Doc’s throat and said, “Up.”
Doc rolled over, got back on his knees, then suddenly bent forward and puked.
“That’s just the fear talking,” Sonny said. “You’re not hurt that bad.” He grabbed Doc by the collar and pulled him up. “Let’s get out of the rain,” he said.
At that moment, Doc noticed Wyatt. He blinked. “You?”
Sonny glanced at Wyatt. “Weren’t you on your way, son?”
“But—”
“Doc and I need to go inside and straighten things out, and there’s only so much time. I’ll be in touch, like I said.” Sonny smiled. His face was hard, and shiny with rain.