Dodgers (20 page)

“You shot your brother,” Walter said bleakly.

“He was losing his shit.”

“When we shot that judge, what, six hours ago, I didn't think we were going to jail. Now I do. For a while, everything that got in our way, we were on top of. But now it's a losing streak. And we ain't got your lucky brother to fall back on.”

“He ain't lucky.”

Walter said, “You can say that again.”

They took up spots behind the hedge. Through the gap, they could watch the cars coming, look without being looked at.

Two cars came at once. First a van, tinted out, green, heavy, anonymous. Ideal, East thought, but impossible, for right behind it was a little Suzuki or Isuzu or something, a woman at the wheel, some sort of earring glinting near her ear. Right up smack behind the van, a witness. She missed seeing them entirely. But her child, a stout little thing with red on its chin, stared them through.

“I don't think this joint got a camera,” Walter said. “I think we could stand right up in the back if we wanted.”

“And what?” said East. “Just turn around and go out the way we went in?”

“That might work.”

The next, a pickup, held two men and a boy. A full gun rack in the cab. “Not that one,” Walter said.

“No.”

The following car showed up so suddenly, it seemed as if East had been sleeping on his feet. Impossible, but maybe. Walter touched his arm, and he saw. Light brown Ford with after-market mud guards and golden seat covers. An old black lady, alone.

“She looks nice,” said Walter.

“I ain't making that lady get in a trunk,” East muttered.

The Ford pulled abreast and waited at the window. Suddenly Walter pushed through the hedge, the trimmed branches plowing at his clothes. He straightened his sweater and held his hand up in greeting. Like this was his great-aunt.

Crazy. East shivered. He had half a mind to run.

The old lady turned her head. Pouted, appraising him, through gold-trimmed glasses. Slowly her old power window whined down, and she said, in a high, chipped voice, painstakingly clear, “Do you two young men need some sort of
rod
somewhere?”

“Ma'am?” said Walter.

“I said, are you young men waiting for a
ride
?”

Walter said, “Yes, ma'am. Thank you, ma'am.”

The lady's sunny expression dimmed a bit as she peered around Walter at East, still hiding in the hedge.

“You with him?”

“He's my cousin, yes.”

A silent
humph
. “Well, come on.”

Walter pivoted, shaking his face at East. “Come
on
.”

East wavered, then squeezed through the hedge. Squeezed his eyes shut like a kid jumping into water. The little branches tugged and ripped at him. Walter was twice as wide, but he'd come through easier.

“One black lady in the whole state,” he whispered, “and you gonna steal her car.”

“She
offered
,” Walter hissed.

Across the roof of the car, the drive-through window folded open on a white girl with a round, pimpled face. “Good morning, Martha!” she hollered. “How are you?”

“Oh, I'm fine, fine,” said the old woman. The cashier girl took the lady's money cheerfully and handed her down a dozen-doughnuts box with a gold seal on top. “Have a nice weekend—till next time!” she shouted. Sparing Walter and East one odd glance.

East stood at the back door, and the locks hammered up. The old lady set the box of doughnuts next to her on the seat, and she peered out at Walter again.

“Was you coming?”

“Yes, ma'am.” Walter nodded vigorously. “Let me talk,” he murmured at East.

“You better,” East said.

Already Walter was taking the front seat, chirping his thanks. East lowered himself into the clean-swept interior. Extra rubber mats, one floral umbrella on the seat. The faint smell of lubricating oil. He reached for the belt; it clunked as he unrolled it. The old spring was soft and would barely click in.

In his pants, Ty's gun. A spur.

“What is your name?” the lady inquired, not going anywhere, not quite yet.

“Walter, ma'am.”

Just like that, thought East, real name. Why not?

“A,” said East. “For Andre.”

“My name is Martha Jefferson,” the lady said. “And where are you two headed today?”

“We'll just ride, ma'am,” Walter said. “If it's all right.”

The lady paused. She had that grandmotherly pout for thinking. “In my experience, a young person doesn't just ride. A young person has a good idea
where
he's going.”

“We've been going, but we're just stuck here,” Walter said. “We need to get along.”

“You in trouble?” said the woman, narrowing her eyes. “Or
are
you trouble?”

“We hope we're not in trouble,” Walter said.

She laughed. This pleased her. “Are you runaways?”

“No, ma'am,” Walter said.

“Hoboes?” Her giggle a creak, like an old wooden chair.

“No.” Walter giggled back artfully.

“Are you college students?”

“Yes.”

“No you're not. Too young!” But at last, with this interrogation, she put the car in gear. Old but not simple, East observed. “Are you robbers?” she asked merrily.

“No, ma'am,” said Walter again.

“Not here to rob me. Well, what, then?” Martha Jefferson said. Like sweethearts flirting, East thought.

“Together we could rob some other people if it helped you out.”

The old lady creaked with mirth. “Aw, no,” she said. “I be all right.”

Now she'd put her sauce on.

“This morning,” declared Martha Jefferson, “I am headed to the airport in Des Moines. I don't know if that helps you. But I can take you to the highway if you don't want the airport.”

“We would ride all that way with you,” said Walter. “With thanks.”

Formally, Martha Jefferson agreed, “Then I will take you.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

East looked out. They were passing the Denny's. Police cars all up and down the lot. Then Martha Jefferson turned at the junction, and it all fell behind them: that van, that everything. East did not turn to look back.

“Chilly day for just a sweater, Mister Walter,” the woman said.

The box of doughnuts wafted their smell into the car's box of air. Was she ever going to break into them? East thought rudely. Walter broke open his box of granola bars and offered one to Martha Jefferson first before passing one back. East unwrapped his and let a first, dry bite moisten in his mouth slowly, feeling it as much as tasting it, the chunks of it coming apart, turning to starch on his tongue. How something plain could open up like the whole world when you were starved. He was asleep before he could take a second bite.

He awoke. The little digital clock stuck to the dash said 9:20. No idea when they'd begun. Outside, the highway flowed by. They'd come through here before on this highway, heading east in the dark.

Walter was saying: “I'm going to study electrical engineering. Electronics. Wiring. Installing. You know. If I'm good, I can get a degree and begin to design. I could work up in Silicon Valley, you know. Not programming but helping on the engineering side. And if not, I can just install and repair. Computer. Cable. Alarm systems.” On and on.

“You got it all figured out,” said Martha Jefferson, admiringly.

“I'll come out okay either way,” said Walter.

“It's that kind of world. You have to plan for either way.”

Walter said, “Amen.”

“My grandson lives in California too,” she revealed.

The highway sang under them, and the two of them talked, like relatives, like people sure of their homes, till East felt himself falling away again. Walter was a good boy. East dreamed he was alone in the van, alone in a storm where he could see nothing ahead of him, knew there was nothing ahead of him. No one had seen Walter. Walter was a good boy. He slept until he felt the gentle lift of a ramp, and again he awakened, and a parking garage surrounded them now. Outside, the airport sky, cluttered, gray. A plane arced up behind a gray-windowed tower.

“Let me get it for you,” Walter was saying. “Here's forty to cover it.”

“No, no,” said Martha Jefferson. “I'm only gone the two days. It ain't but five a day.”

“Gas too, then,” winked Walter. He tucked the twenties into her purse, and again she
humphed
silently.

What was the act now? East had missed the whole conversation of lies. Keep his mouth shut.

“I knew,” the lady said, “you was good people.”

Walter. A good boy. East's stomach felt hard and scraped out. He felt as if he'd been punched in the chin with force. He wondered how he smelled. Shuddering, the old Ford pulled into a space near a ledge that looked down two stories. Walter leapt out, fetching the old lady's weekend bag from the trunk.

Then East was trudging behind him, the dumb cousin. The airport. Wasn't this what Walter had said to stay away from? The world was a gray smear. The patterned carpet running forever reminded him vaguely of the casino. Dog-tired on an invisible leash, he just followed.

People crossing his path were thin, wore black and gray, ears clipped to their phones. Long yellow and white lights blared above: they told him nothing.

“You're meeting at the gate?” Walter was saying.

“My sister? Yes, dear. But we couldn't get seats in the same row. Couldn't get that,” the old lady said. “She's right in front of me, though. Oh. Oh, goodness.” She stopped with a jolt. “We forgot the doughnuts.”

Walter stopped too and grinned.

“She gonna have a fit!” he scolded Martha Jefferson.

Martha Jefferson laughed aloud. “She will!”

Walter turned on East in mock fury.

“Andre! Why didn't you bring the doughnuts!”

Andre.
Right. Wearily East regarded Walter.

Either it was exhaustion or it was being on the outside, but he could see what they were playing at. As if a pair of sunglasses had been removed and now the light of day was bright and strange. Playing three black people, comic and noisy in an airport. Like a skit in school, the boys playing wolves, the girls playing lambs. Acting out what all these people expected them to be. Better than what they were.

He understood it, and yet did not know his lines.

Martha Jefferson said, “She'll be so
frustrated
with me.”

“I could—” began Walter.

The old lady, with searching eyes, asked, “Would you?”

Walter said, like a faithful nephew, “I will. I'll go right now. Andre, walk Mrs. Jefferson through to security now. I'm gonna be back before you go through the line. But you can't go through the line—you're not a passenger. Got it?”

East's stomach rolled. He nodded. Walter took Martha Jefferson's bag off his shoulder and traded it for her key ring.

“Andre. You can't go in the line,” Walter said. “You hear me?”

“I won't go in the line,” East murmured.
Jesus.
The lady was looking him up and down. Again East wondered how he smelled.

“I can carry your bag if you like,” he offered.

“Very kind,” said Martha Jefferson, but she kept it on her. He was the one she didn't like the looks of. All right.

Together they trudged off toward the security line.

A smattering of people funneling into line. They paused and shuffled, eyeing phones or conversing in low voices. Steering their luggage, casual but alert, along the switchbacks. East and Martha Jefferson came to a stop just outside the cordoned area.

A few of them watched the old, stern-faced Negro lady and her ragged boy. East was bilious. Acting sleepy was the best he could do.

“You can't go through, you know. Through the security. Not unless you have a ticket,” Martha Jefferson reminded him.

“I know,” he responded dully. “Walter said.”

How long was the fat boy going to be?

He understood that he was standing by her now not to be quiet and kind, but to hide behind her. He was raw. He could barely stand. And Walter was dashing about, carrying things. Out in the parking lot now without him, a set of keys in his hand. Inventing things. He was standing by her to be the sort of boy who traveled with his great-aunt, who didn't have blood on his shoes. Late coming to the play, but happy to be in it.

As long as Walter came back.

A black couple inched forward in the line, one midsize son with his face in a video game and a little girl in braids, up on her father's shoulder. She eyed East with dread.

“I hitchhiked one time,” Martha Jefferson reminisced. “I'll never forget. Course, it was in Louisiana, long ago.”

East was going to say
Oh,
but he hiccupped instead.

“You okay?” said Martha Jefferson.

“Fine.”

“You don't look fine,” said the lady. She stepped back, and East lacked the strength to argue. There wasn't anywhere to go. The little girl stared sideways. She closed her eyes and became the Jackson girl.

His stomach flipped, and instinctively he turned toward a trash can. He fought his jaw muscles, but they pried themselves apart, and he vomited into the cups and wrappers with a long, despairing cry.

“Oh, Lord,” the lady was saying. “Look at you now.”

Yellow heat in his mouth. He spat out the rest and felt in his pockets for something to wipe his face. Nothing. Just a granola bar wrapper, a key, a fold of twenties, and a gun. He cleaned himself with the back of his hand.

“I
told
you,” said the lady. Though she had not told him anything. But he saw that she was not speaking to him; she was speaking to the people in line, now gazing from their cordon at this small misfortune. He saw that she was not going to help him out like a grandmother might. She stood back, marking their distance.