Stay Away

by Ike Hamill

  He sat down on the floor next to the dresser and stretched his legs out so he could reach forward to touch his toes.

  “I just ran back from Dottie’s. I guess I’m out of shape.”

  “No,” Reynold said, “you’ve just been working your muscles all the time instead of your lungs. You need to balance out.”

  “Don’t encourage him to start running all the time,” Zinnia said. “He was as skinny as a spaghetti noodle when he came back. He’s just now starting to fill out again.”

  “Speaking of spaghetti,” Jessie said. “Lily is going to get us China Town tonight. I’m going to get some of that Chinese spaghetti.”

  “Lo mein,” Reynold said.

  “Hey, you know what I was thinking?” Zinnia asked. “How about after dinner we set up in the living room like we used to do and play Monopoly?”

  Reynold and the kids burst into laughter. Zinnia was pretty sure that she had made herself the butt of a joke, but she didn’t care as long as they were laughing.

  # # #

  By the time the kids had all gone up to their rooms, Zinnia wanted nothing more than to stay on the couch and watch the embers of the fire die. Reynold was getting more frustrated with each passing hour.

  “I should have gone over there and made sure that they did something,” he said. “I should have known that they would drop the ball.”

  “We don’t know that,” Zinnia said. “You’re just assuming that they didn’t get any information. Give them some time. They’ll find a way to learn what he knows.”

  “I don’t know why you suddenly trust that police department. They’ve done nothing except point the blame back at us.”

  Every time he paced by the end table, he picked up his beer bottle and tipped it up again. It was still empty.

  “Jim was nothing but helpful today,” Zinnia said. “He saved our son, Reynold. And he didn’t freak out that you had basically abducted a man.”

  “That you know of,” Reynold said.

  He finally took a seat.

  “Why didn’t he call?” Reynold asked.

  “I’m sure he hasn’t had a chance to yet.”

  When they heard the knock on the door, Reynold jumped back up.

  “That might be Brett. He said he would try to come by.”

  Zinnia straightened herself up and removed the blanket from her legs. She folded it and put it over the back of the couch before she got up. She heard her husband welcoming someone into the kitchen. It didn’t sound like Brett, but it was an easy guess as to who it was.

  She joined Reynold as he directed Jim to sit down at the kitchen table.

  “Coffee? Tea?” she asked.

  “A cup of tea would be great,” Jim said. She took a good look at him before she turned towards the stove. He looked exhausted and sheepish. Those weren’t good signs.

  “So? What did you get out of him?” Reynold asked.

  When there was no immediate answer, Zinnia turned around, the teapot forgotten. Jim was looking down at his own hands. He finally looked up and met Reynold’s eyes.

  “I’m afraid we didn’t get the chance, sir,” Jim said.

  Reynold was halfway out of his chair in a blink. “What? What happened?”

  Zinnia moved quickly to get behind Reynold so she could nudge him back down to his seat. At least if he was sitting he wouldn’t be trying to assault a police officer.

  “I’ve been trying to figure that out,” Jim said.

  Reynold was shaking his head and trying to get up. Zinnia kept her hands firmly on his shoulders.

  “You assholes fucked this up too?” Reynold said.

  Jim looked back down at his hands.

  “It’s my fault. I don’t know how it happened. The doors to the cruiser don’t open from the inside when they’re locked and I’m certain that everything was locked. And, of course the windows were up. I would have known if they weren’t. It would have been freezing in there.”

  “Jim,” Zinnia said. “Slow down. Tell us.”

  His eyes flicked up and then went back down again. After a deep sigh he said, “I left here, radioed that I was bringing in a suspect, and I headed up Elm. When I stopped at the intersection, I looked in my mirror and he was there. I’m sure that he was there. Somehow, by the time I put on my signal to turn into the station…”

  Jim shook his head.

  “What the hell are you staying? You didn’t even get him to the station?” Reynold asked.

  “I don’t know,” Jim said. “I called in and I didn’t get a response, but I was pretty much already there. I ran inside and explained. A bunch of us went right back out and searched but then we were called in because of another disturbance. As soon as I could, I went right back to looking.”

  Jim shrugged and shook his head again.

  “I just… I don’t know what to say.”

  Reynold shrugged out from under Zinnia’s hands. She was so stunned by what she had heard that she settled into Reynold’s seat as soon as he vacated it. He paced back and forth in the living room while she tried to make her numb tongue work.

  “Jim… You lost him?”

  Jim looked up. She tried to remember that the sad eyes that were looking back at her belonged to the man who had stretched across the ice to save her son earlier that day.

  Jim nodded.

  Zinnia reached towards him, but he shrank back from her. “Jim, he said he knew about Wendell. He wanted to trade for the information. All we had to do was find someone to trade with him and we would have learned where he took Wendell.”

  “He wanted to trade with me,” Reynold said behind her. “Why didn’t I do it? Instead I let numb nuts lose the old pervert? I could have just beat the information out of him if you hadn’t stopped me.”

  “Okay, it’s okay,” Zinnia said. “We know where he is going to be. All we have to do is go there again, right? Maybe we have to find someone who hasn’t traded with him yet. I guess Brett might be out now, but maybe that other guy?”

  “What are you talking about?” Reynold asked.

  Zinnia realized that there was a lot about the day that she hadn’t shared with him yet. In fact, she realized that she hadn’t told him much of anything. Reynold hadn’t told her much either.

  “If you’re thinking about kidnapping that man again, I would recommend against it,” Jim said. “You should tell me what you know and let me take care of it. I can get one of the guys to help me out and we won’t get in trouble, you know?”

  “Hold on a second,” Zinnia said. “Just hold on.”

  She put up her hands and Reynold stopped pacing for a moment. She just needed a moment to really think about things—there was a thought that was trying to break through from the back of her head.

  When it came to her, she couldn’t believe she hadn’t recognized it before.

  “Reynold, put your shoes on. I’ll be right down.”

  Zinnia jumped up and strode for the stairs.

  # # #

  “Lily was still awake. I asked her to look after the house for a few minutes,” Zinnia said as she herded the two men towards the door. “Your vehicle is blocking us in, Jim. That means you’re going to drive.”

  “Where are we going?” Reynold asked.

  She answered his question with a glance. He was going to have to trust her. She didn’t want to say anything more about it. Reynold seemed to understand. Jim was still confused but he went along with it anyway.

  In the car, she directed where he should drive.

  When they were across the bridge and a mile upriver, she sensed that Jim wasn’t going to go much farther. Jim wanted to appease her, but that would only take them so far.

  “Okay, you can pull over,” she said.

  Jim pulled over into the little park near the boat landing. He flipped a switch so the interior lights of the car came on after he shut off the key. Jim turned to see how Zinnia would explain their sudden trip. In the back seat, Reynold was ready for an explanation as well.

>   “Hear me out,” she said. What she really meant was, “Keep your mouths shut and your opinions to yourself until I’m finished.” They seemed to understand.

  “That man—that Trader—isn’t just a regular old guy who wants to trade food for furs or whatever,” she said.

  “Lueck,” Reynold said. “That’s what he called himself.”

  “Great,” she said, giving him a look to remind him to hold his comments. “I remember him from when I was a kid, a million years ago. Believe me, he looked exactly the same then as he did today. There’s something weird about him. You know I don’t believe in anything I can’t lay my hands on, but I believe in him. I’ve met him before and there’s something not right.”

  “Yeah,” Jim said. He put his hand over his mouth after the word leaked out.

  “Part of what’s odd about him is that nobody, and I mean nobody, really seems bothered by the whole thing. I mean, think of how many people have seen him and made trades with him and nobody is wondering where the old guy lives or if he pays taxes? It’s not like we’re living in the deep woods. If he had a cabin out behind the cemetery, we would know.”

  “Maybe,” Reynold said.

  “Seriously?” she asked. “You tell me where you think he lives.”

  “Maybe he lives in Richmond or Bath. Maybe he commutes here,” Reynold said.

  “Tell me you seriously believe that.”

  “I didn’t say that I believe it, I just said that it’s a possibility.”

  “Fine,” she said. “That’s possible, but maybe it’s also possible that part of what keeps him out of danger is that he has the ability to somehow fly under the radar. He exudes some sort of aura that makes him completely forgettable. You interact with him, but then moments later you don’t even think about it, regardless of how strange the whole thing was.”

  “We’re talking about him now,” Reynold said.

  “For the first time,” Zinnia said. “Even though we have been together all evening, each of us possessing information about things that happened that we should have been talking about, this is the first time we’re actually talking about him.”

  “Lueck,” Reynold said.

  “Sure. Whatever you want to call him.”

  “No, that’s what he said his mother called him. To your point, I never would have remembered that a few hours ago. We were playing Monopoly and Jessie bought Oriental Avenue. I remember thinking that it reminded me of something—maybe the way that Chinese people have trouble saying Rs and it occurred to me that his mouth made a strange shape when he said Lueck. I’m not even coming close to the way he said it. It was odd because when I thought of that during Monopoly, I could barely remember who I was thinking about, you know? It was like I was trying to remember a friend from grammar school even though I had just talked with him in the basement a few hours before. You’re right—I could barely remember him until I was drinking and pacing.”

  “Right! Yes, so you understand,” Zinnia said to her husband. “I’m starting to think that there’s some sort of fog in our neighborhood that makes people forget about the Trader. That’s how he’s able to survive in plain sight, you know? They either don’t remember or don’t want to think about him. It’s a selective amnesia.”

  “I should have followed Jim to the police station and waited for the results of the interrogation. Instead, I just sat around with Jessie and Lily for hours,” Reynold said.

  “Because that’s what he wanted,” Zinnia said.

  Reynold shook his head. “I’m not so sure I buy into that completely—like that he has some sort of mind control over us—but there is something weird going on. I have to admit that. As soon as I saw that guy and grabbed his arm, I knew there was something unnatural. We should go right back to that tree.”

  “If we can,” Zinnia said. “What if we go home and we immediately lose our resolve to do anything? What if the fog overcomes us again?”

  “Gas masks,” Reynold said. “You must have some of those at the police station, right? If it’s something in the air, maybe that would help us keep our heads clear. Or maybe now that we’ve recognized it, we’ll be okay. What do you think, Jim?”

  They both turned to him. It seemed like he had been silent since they stopped the car to talk.

  “Mrs. Carroll, I… Uh…”

  “You think we’re both crazy, right?” Zinnia asked. “I understand how this must look. I really do. Your girlfriend’s crazy parents are talking madness all of a sudden. You saw him though. You could see that there’s something weird about him, right? Didn’t he offer to trade you for information about Wendell?”

  Jim looked down at his hands and then back up. His eyes looked glossy in the interior lights of the car. Zinnia was shocked silent.

  “It’s not the first thing he offered to trade,” Jim said.

  # # #

  “Jim? What is it?” Zinnia asked.

  “Jim,” Reynold said. He almost sounded angry. Zinnia wanted to turn to her husband and remind him not to jump to any conclusions.

  Jim cleared his throat and turned to face forward again, gripping the steering wheel.

  “He was….” Jim started and stopped again, blinking until he regained his composure. “He was never going to trade with me for information about Wendell.”

  Jim stopped again. His fingers clenched the plastic wheel hard enough to make his skin scrunch against it.

  “He offered to trade with you,” Reynold said. His low voice was filled with mistrust.

  “We already had a deal. I already traded with him,” Jim said. He lost control of the tears that had been trying to fall from his eyes. “I’ve been trying to pay it back for a year, but I was too loose with the terms. It was just stupid. I mean, who would have thought that he would hold up his end of the deal, right? I never thought I would really need to…”

  Jim tilted his head down and covered his face with his hand.

  “You let him go,” Reynold said. “Is that what you did?”

  Jim nodded.

  “What? Why?” Zinnia asked. She wasn’t exactly following. Or, more accurately, she understood what he was saying but couldn’t bring herself to really believe it. “You knew that he could tell us what happened to Wendell and you let him go anyway?”

  Jim nodded.

  “And he knew that I was going to tell you. He made me promise that I wouldn’t.” Jim uncovered his eyes and looked through the windshield towards the river. The river was a black sheet, only really visible when a chunk of ice drifted in the current. Jim whispered the next part, like he was suddenly uncertain that the three of them were alone. “I think maybe he knew that you were going to bring us out here.”

  “What did he do for you, Jim?” Reynold asked.

  “I never thought it was serious,” Jim said.

  “Just tell us,” Zinnia said.

  When he glanced at her, she opened her eyes wide and nodded, communicating that it was okay. Sometimes, when clients came in to her office, the other partners would bring her in to get people to open up. Just looking at them with wide open eyes got them to believe that if they were just open and honest, everything would eventually be okay.

  It worked on Jim.

  “I saw him. He looked suspicious, so I went to talk to him, thinking maybe he was a vagrant. He said he would trade and I said that the only thing I needed was for my brother to go away. My brother was in debt to some guys from out of state. Every time they showed up and demanded money, he would get involved in shady shit to pay up. It was only a matter of time before I was going to get sucked into that. I was sick of having to choose between my brother and my job.”

  “So you asked the Trader to send your brother away?” Reynold asked.

  “And it worked,” Jim said, hiding his face again. “I saw the Trader again and he wanted payment. I said it was a coincidence, but the day I tried to renege my brother called me and said he would be coming back to town, just like the Trader said he would. He controls things. I don�
��t know how, but he does.”

  “And today he wanted more payment?” Zinnia asked.

  Jim nodded. “It’s not a trade. It’s extortion. Once I let him into my life, he had his hooks in. Now I can’t shake him.”

  “Wait a second,” Reynold said. “You said that he knew you were going to tell us?”

  “He made me promise not to.”

  “But he knew,” Reynold whispered to himself. “That means that he knows about your relationship with our family. He probably knows about you and Lily. Take us home.”

  “What are you going to do to him?” Jim asked. “I’m just thinking that…”

  “Shut up, Jim,” Zinnia said. “You’ve lost the right to contribute to this conversation.”

  Jim chewed on some words but kept them to himself. He started the vehicle and put it in reverse so he could back out of the spot. As he turned to see where he was going, Zinnia saw the look that passed between Reynold and Jim. There was going to be trouble between them. She would need to smooth that over a little, just so Reynold didn’t get into trouble with the police.

  When they were facing the right way, Jim turned his attention down to turn off the interior lights. The vehicle began to roll backwards, slowly, and then gaining speed.

  “Jim?” Zinnia asked. They were rolling down the boat ramp, towards the river.

  “Jim!” she yelled. She reached out towards the shift lever and Jim flinched back like she had tried to hit him. His hand shot out and bashed her hand away. It was hard enough to really hurt.

  “Goddamnit,” Reynold said from the back. “We’re rolling, Jim. Put the brakes on.”

  “They are,” Jim yelled. He looked down at the wheel with turned up hands, like it was his first time in the driver’s seat.

  “Get out, Zinn,” Reynold said. She saw him go for his door handle and then start to slam his shoulder against the door. Carefully, with complete composure, Zinnia reached out for her own handle. It was so different from the handle in her little German car. She had time to wonder why they were all so different. Couldn’t the industry settle on one type of door handle for the interior of cars? Wouldn’t that make it so much easier?

  Next to her, Jim was beginning to flail at the controls. He tried to turn the wheel and crank the key again for some reason. His feet were stomping on the pedals, mashing them to the floor. The shift lever sticking out from the steering column was raked up and down by his right hand. Nothing that Jim did seemed to have any effect.