Stay Away

by Ike Hamill

  “Damn,” Fish said. “Thanks.”

  “How long did it take us to get here?” Holdty said. “Jesus. It feels like we’ve been walking forever and we’re only at the pond?”

  “At least we know where we are,” Jessie said.

  Exhausted, Jessie crawled by the others, pushing the toolbox down into the snow to stabilize himself as he inched closer to the edge. The quarry dropped off fast into a clear drop all the way down to the water below. Jessie crawled along the edge of it. He was almost afraid to stand up. There was no telling the shape of the rocks beneath the snow. It would be easy for him to trust his foot to a surface that couldn’t bear weight.

  In the dim light, he could see the tracks ahead of him. The person they were following had taken the same way around the quarry. Jessie barely cared. What he was interested in was the road that veered within twenty feet of the edge of this pool. Someone would have to plow that road because it led to the water treatment plant behind the public works building. Even in the winter, someone had to check that facility every week.

  There was a spot up ahead of him where they usually had to climb down the rocks to get past. Right on the edge of the cliff, a thorny bush prevented passage. Jessie had his eyes locked on that spot when the snow went out from under him. As he slipped towards the drop on his left, he realized that the toolbox was wedged next to a rock. He gripped the handle to stop his fall and felt a hand clamp around his wrist.

  “Hang on,” Holdty said. “I got you.”

  His hips swung farther left and his legs were dangling over empty space. It couldn’t be more than ten feet or so down to the surface of the pond, but that surface was frozen. He didn’t want to find out if the ice was thick enough to stop his fall, or what it would feel like if it did.

  Jessie reached up with this other hand and nearly caught Fish’s outstretched hand. When he missed his hand flailed into the snow and swept a bunch of it back into his own face. Shaking his head and spitting out snow, he reached again right when Holdty was adjusting his grip.

  Everything happened at once.

  His glove slipped from the handle of the toolbox, Holdty lost his grip on his wrist, and Fish got a hand on his other glove, doing nothing except pulling the glove off.

  Jessie was falling.

  A branch whipped across his face and he closed his eyes reflexively.

  Blind, he plunged down towards the ice.

  ZINNIA

  “AND WHO ARE THOSE boys?” Zinnia asked. She didn’t recognize anything about them except that they were trouble. They were sitting on the concrete wall in front of the card shop. One of them flicked a cigarette at a passing girl. They both laughed at whatever they said.

  “Aunt Zinnia,” Eric said. His reproach was barely masked in his tone. “The one on the right is Lily’s ex-boyfriend.”

  “Bart?” Zinnia asked.

  “Brett!” Eric and Nicky said at the same time.

  “I would think that either of you know him better than I do,” Zinnia said. “I don’t understand why you want me to talk to him.”

  “He’s petrified of you,” Eric said. “You remember? His father got sued over an accident and he got really angry. There was a lawyer who made his life hell. Their whole family thinks that lawyers are sneaky and powerful. Ever since, Brett has been terrified to get on your bad side.”

  “Oh,” Zinnia said, narrowing her eyes. “Now, I remember.”

  Brett looked different now. When he had come by the house to pick up Lily, he had still been in high school and he had done his best to look presentable. Now, he was letting his true dirtbag nature show. He looked like the kind of boy who would be eager for everyone to know that he was carrying a knife under his jeans, strapped to his leg.

  If she was honest with herself, he could have looked exactly the same as before and she still wouldn’t have recognized him. Once she dealt with a problem and left it behind, she was quick to forget all about it and move on to the next one.

  Nicky and Eric had insisted that these boys would be easily persuaded by a little money. That might be the case, but she guessed that they would fold even easier to intimidation.

  Zinnia got out of the car and gave the door a shove that it didn’t need. The sound of the latch was sturdy and final. She locked her eyes on the boy who wasn’t Brett.

  He made a rude comment that was just loud enough for her to hear.

  “That looks like a fast ride. The car looks pretty good too,” the young man said. He laughed at his own joke. He was probably Lily’s age—about twenty-one—but there was something so juvenile about his demeanor that he could have passed for seventeen. That would probably still be true in ten years. Men like that never really grew up.

  A couple paces from the two of them, she stopped. Her eyes were still locked on the one who wasn’t Brett, but she noticed the uncomfortable way that Brett was squirming in her peripheral vision.

  “You, I don’t need,” she said to not-Brett.

  “You don’t know me well enough then,” not-Brett said.

  “Get lost,” she said, holding his eyes until she saw him fold. As soon as not-Brett gave in, she turned her attention to Brett and waited for not-Brett to leave.

  “I’ll catch you later,” not-Brett said, backhanding his friend on the arm.

  Brett nodded.

  As soon as not-Brett was gone, Brett said, “Hey, Mrs. Carroll.”

  Eric had said that he would be terrified of her. Eric was wrong. He was at least trying to be polite, and she didn’t sense that there was fear under that veneer. If she had to guess, he seemed almost apologetic. In her experience, abusive men who appeared apologetic were some of the more dangerous foes. They led women to lower their defenses, and respond to courtesy with courtesy. Then, when the courtesy was over, there was nowhere to go.

  “I need your help,” she said.

  “Something wrong with Lily?” he asked, straightening up a bit.

  “No. Not exactly,” she said. “It’s actually about her brother, Wendell.”

  “I think I heard something about that,” Brett said. “He ran away?”

  “No. He was abducted,” she said. She waited to see what reaction he would have to that piece of information. His eyebrows went up, but there was almost no change in his eyes. Either he didn’t believe her, or he wasn’t surprised. Plenty of people just didn’t want to believe. It was much easier to think that a troubled kid had decided to run away. That put the blame back on the parents instead of a threat roaming around their community.

  “That’s terrible,” he said.

  “I need you to draw out the man who took Lily’s brother.”

  If she was lucky, he was too dumb to see the naked bones of her ploy. She had framed the situation as a hero’s journey with him as the only possible champion.

  He shook his head. “If you know who took him, why do you want my help? Just go to the cops.”

  “You know about the Trading Tree?”

  Keeping his lips together, he ran his tongue over his teeth. There was no doubt that he knew about the Trading Tree. He was clearly frightened by the thing. All she had to do was figure out how to turn that fear to her advantage.

  “You’re going to lure him out and then I’m going to take care of him.”

  “You think that he abducted Wendell?”

  Zinnia nodded. “I know it.” It was a lie, but confidence was the only thing she could sell.

  “I get the feeling that trades don’t work out so well,” Brett said.

  “You’re not going to make a trade. All you have to do is get him to the table.”

  He didn’t ask what was in it for him. That meant that he was making an assumption about Lily—that she would be so impressed by his bravery that she would welcome him back. That was an uncomfortable assumption for Zinnia to gloss over.

  “You ready?” she asked.

  “Right now?”

  Zinnia nodded.

  # # #

  As they walked back to th
e vehicle, Eric climbed between the seats to sit next to Nicky. Brett took the passenger’s seat without even acknowledging the two in back.

  Zinnia fired up the car and revved the engine once before pulling out.

  “Hey, Brett,” Eric said from the back seat. Zinnia shot him a look in the rearview mirror, begging him to keep quiet. Just because Brett was in the vehicle didn’t mean that he was going to help. Any conversation might lead to an area that could disrupt the delicate truce that they had reached. The last time she had seen Brett she had given him a choice—keep his distance from the family or go to prison. She couldn’t remember the exact nature of the threat, but somehow she had convinced him that prison was in the cards if he crossed her. Now, in just a few sentences, she had dismantled that treaty and tacitly agreed to brand new terms. The last thing she wanted to do was start enumerating those terms.

  She sped down Elm, trying to get to their destination quickly.

  “I thought you moved,” Brett said, directing the comment vaguely over his shoulder.

  “I came back,” Eric said, clearing his throat.

  Zinnia cut up Bickford Street, to come around to Wilson from the backside. That way, they could park in one of the plowed out spots near the cemetery. Mrs. Riday was standing out on her front porch with no jacket on, watching as the car passed.

  They turned right on Wilson.

  “Just tell him you have a trade,” Zinnia said. “That’s all it should take. Right, Nicky?”

  “Yes,” Nicky said from the back.

  “You know how to whistle?” Zinnia asked.

  Brett looked at her and then said, “Sure.”

  “Just whistle when you see him. I’ll be on the other side of that big pile of snow that’s at the corner.”

  “Got it,” Brett said.

  She pulled into a parking spot and shut off the car. Brett was looking at her.

  “If I can, I’ll try to come over tonight and see how you made out,” he said.

  “Yes. Please do,” she said. She was focused on the first implication—he wasn’t going to stick around to see how everything would go with the Trader. As soon as his part was done, Brett was going to take off.

  Brett got out and pressed the door shut.

  Zinnia adjusted her mirror so she could see both of them in back.

  “Eric, you come with me. Nicky, would you hold back and go get help in case there’s trouble?”

  “Of course,” Nicky said.

  “What trouble?” Eric asked. “What are you planning?”

  “I just want to find out what he knows, okay?”

  They both mumbled their answers.

  # # #

  She and Eric waited behind the snow, listening for the whistle. Zinnia had her eyes focused on Eric, convinced that he would hear it even she didn’t. When he grabbed her arm and started moving, she didn’t know if he had heard it or not. She sensed it too—he was there.

  The man was farther away from the tree than she expected. He was standing on top of the snow, nearly at the edge of the road. Brett had his hands in his pockets and his shoulders hunched. As soon as he saw Zinnia and Eric coming, he turned and began walking towards the River Walk. His job was done and he would be by later to collect his payment. That thought buzzed in the back of her head, but it was secondary. There was something more important to do.

  The man took a half-step back when he saw their approach.

  Zinnia’s estimation of him fell as her eyes took him in. He wasn’t supernatural. He was just a regular old man who hung out near the tree. In her experience, people like him got away with things based on nothing more than arrogance and a sense of entitlement. She had the cure for both of those.

  “Excuse me,” she said, pointing a finger at him to pin him in place. “I have to talk with you. Don’t you move.”

  She sensed Eric slowing down. He wanted to keep some distance. That would be the polite thing to do. One didn’t simply rush forward and invade the space of a stranger. Zinnia ignored all that and pressed forward until her finger was a fraction of an inch from his chest.

  He wasn’t even very tall. She remembered him as a towering, well-dressed, authority figure. He was none of those things. Just above the pockets, his jacket was shiny from hands that were probably sweaty half the time. The gold chain that connected his button to his vest pocket had a bad kink in it, and one of the links was about to give way. Nothing about him suggested real affluence or power—nothing but his smile. There was a misplaced confidence in his smile that suggested he had some power that she was unaware of.

  “Where is my son?” she asked.

  “Which?” he asked.

  “Are you asking which one is my son? He’s twelve and he came to see you months ago. He hasn’t been seen since. What did you do with him?”

  The way he tilted his head, he seemed to be listening to some voice other than hers. His smile dropped and then came back even stronger.

  He said, “Ma belle fleur.” and then something she didn’t recognize, although it sounded like it was French.

  Zinnia never let her temper get the best of her. Intimidation worked well as long as it was a concept rather than a physical force. Even as old as this man was, he probably wasn’t going to be frightened by the threat of violence from Zinnia. But, sometimes, rage short-circuited logic for Zinnia. She saw her hands reach out and grab the man’s lapels. Despite his plump shape, he felt light, like she could pick him up and throw him.

  “Listen, I know my son traded with you. What did you do with him?”

  “Oh, that son!” the man said, looking relieved even though he was still in her grip. “I thought you were talking about the son who is drowning over at Davidson quarry.”

  Her fingers and toes turned to ice. Her body was hoarding all of the blood to her core, protecting itself against the assault of the idea that he had just planted inside her head.

  “What?” she whispered.

  “Jessie? Isn’t that his name? I haven’t met him yet. He plunged through the ice about…”

  Looking down through the hands that held his lapels, the man checked his pocket watch.

  “…fifteen seconds ago. I imagine you might reach him in time to see him draw his final breath if you left right away.”

  Deep inside Zinnia, locked away since before she was Jessie’s age, the old fear burst out of its cage and swelled within her. Her fingers tightened on the fragile fabric of his jacket. His suit looked fancy from a distance, but it should have been tossed in a dumpster ages ago. She wanted to discard him in the same way, but first she needed information.

  “Tell me what you know,” she growled.

  The Trader’s eyes went wide. There was surprise and fear in his raised eyebrows. His eyes twinkled though—he was enjoying this in some sick way.

  “He went after his precious motorbike,” the man said. “I fear he may have accidentally tumbled into one of those ponds. The ice is thin, you know.”

  Her mother used to say the same thing. The ice was thin because they were spring fed. Water came up from below at fifty degrees and it ate away at the underside of the ice with its malignant warmth.

  Zinnia shoved him backwards and ran towards the car. She knew exactly where to go. For the moment, the safety of her older son had to take priority—she couldn’t lose one for a chance to find the other.

  Eric stood there, fish-mouthed, as she ran towards him. He snapped back to his senses just as she reached him.

  He turned to go with her and she said, “No! You find out what he knows. I’ll go for Jessie.”

  ERIC

  THE WEIGHT OF HER command landed on him and he staggered under the burden. He had barely kept the courage to watch her and the Trader, and now he was in charge of what she had started.

  Eric turned his eyes back to the tree and saw nothing.

  The man in the ridiculous suit was gone.

  Relief flooded through him until his eyes caught the movement. The foot, disappearing around the sno
wbank and behind the tree, looked like the tail of a black snake. He had the sense that when it slipped into the darkness, it would be gone forever along with the chance of rescuing Wendell.

  Eric didn’t allow himself to think. When he was hitchhiking, he had honed this skill. It had been dormant for more than a year, but it came back in an instant. He let his brain shut off and allowed his body to act on its own. If he thought about it, he wouldn’t be able to bite hard enough to break flesh, or gouge the eyes of an attacker. But when he let his body act on its own, he was capable of doing anything to survive.

  If he had hesitated even a fraction of a second, the opportunity would have been gone.

  Instead, his legs coiled and sprang. He flew over the snow and roots and his fingers clamped down around the ankle and shoe of the Trader before he could disappear forever. The old man cried and kicked, but Eric didn’t let go. He dug into the snow and ice with his knees and pulled backwards. It was like tearing a weed from the dirt. The old man came little by little, while Eric dragged him. He couldn’t make sense of what he was seeing—it almost looked like the man was stretching as he clung desperately to the tree. Eric adjusted his grip and got the man’s shin under his arm so he could pull on the knee.

  Under the thin pants, it felt like the Trader’s flesh was burning hot. Eric could feel it through his jacket and wished that he had his gloves on so he wouldn’t have to touch him directly.

  “Let go!” Eric grunted as he tugged again. He heard tearing a popping that sounded like the Trader’s hands were being torn from his arms.

  “Let go or I’ll break you in half,” Eric said.

  The Trader must have let go because Eric was falling backwards. He landed on the pavement, still holding the leg. Eric opened his eyes, afraid that he had torn the man’s leg off. Instead, he saw the red-faced trader laying in the snow, trying to claw his way back to the tree. Eric clamped down on his grip and pulled him even farther into the road.

  “No! No!” the Trader screamed and cried. “Let me go. You have to let me go.”