Abundance

by Fine, Michael;

  “I’m still your only ticket out of here,” Julia said. “You need to treat me a little better than this.”

  “You ain’t nothin’,” Jonathan said. “And you gonna stay nothing until somebody who knows their ass from a hole in the wall calls me back.”

  “I don’t want to vegetate,” Julia said. “Put me to work. Let me look at your soldiers when they get sick or if they get hurt. Then get me south.”

  “What makes you think I care about what you do? You think I have time to worry about the sick or wounded? You don’t understand what’s happening here, do you?”

  “I understand that you’re in way over your head,” Julia said. “That you are only smart enough to know that you’re not smart enough to get out of here alive without me. And that you just might have to dump all these nice people just to save your own worthless skin.”

  Jonathan jerked one arm and smacked Julia with the back of his hand. She fell into a club chair that had boxes stacked on top of it.

  Julia stood up and shook her head to clear it.

  “You don’t have a clue, do you?” Jonathan said. “You do what I tell you to do. Nothing more and nothing less. I own you. For the moment, you’re alive. That’s more than you deserve.”

  “You know who I am, and you know what I’m worth,” Julia said. “Get me to Buchanan.”

  “Take her away, Daniweil. I don’t care to babysit some spoiled California princess,” Jonathan said.

  He turned to go and then turned again. He raised his hand.

  “You don’t have the stomach for Africa,” he said.

  Then he hit Julia again.

  This time, Julia’s head snapped backward, but she didn’t fall. She planted her feet, leaned in and punched, quick and hard. She swung from her back foot and put all her weight behind the swing. She hit Jonathan in the middle of the neck.

  “You little white bitch,” Jonathan said. He grabbed Julia’s right arm with his big left hand and with one motion, swung her arm behind her back, spinning her so she was facing away from him, and then the blade engraved “Winchester” was on her neck. Jonathan’s heavy warm thumb pressed into Julia’s neck, all that was between her skin and the knife’s blade.

  “There are no wounded,” Jonathan said. “There won’t be any wounded. You are useless to me. Just useless.”

  He pulled her left arm toward her right shoulder to hurt her. But Julia didn’t cry out. Jonathan loosened his grip on her left hand.

  “I’m staying here until morning,” she said. “Then you are going to get me to the hospital in Buchanan so I can get back to work.”

  “Talk is cheap,” Jonathan said. “I own you. Not the other way around.”

  Then he let Julia go. He reached into a pocket, pulled out a red bandanna that was moist with his sweat and tossed it to Julia.

  “Think what you want,” Jonathan said. “Just don’t bleed on the upholstery. Danu, she’s yours tonight,” he said, looking straight at Julia, “after I’m done.”

  He turned and was gone, out the door to where the helicopters were parked on the tarmac.

  Julia put pressure on her nose and stopped the bleeding, as Daniweil wrapped his hand around her left arm, his fingers digging into the muscle. He pushed her through the back door.

  The ping-pong table and pool tables were gone.

  There was no one around the swimming pool now. Just stacked crates. An empty place where no one would see. The old ping-pong paddles lay on one of the crates, and there was a pool cue still leaning against the wall.

  Daniweil pushed Julia over one of the crates and jerked the back of her jeans from behind as he unbuttoned his pants.

  “You asshole,” Julia said, and turned so she was looking at Daniweil.

  Daniweil caught both Julia’s hands and shoved her down on the crate. Then he pulled her to the ground. Julia arched her back. She kicked Daniweil as she went down, her knee catching him in the stomach, and he hit her in the face with the back of his hand, hard enough to turn her face to the side and make her nose bleed again. This is what they taught me to do, Julia said to herself. I can do this. I can beat this asshole to a pulp.

  And then she was on the ground on her back and Daniweil was on his knees between her legs, his hands pinning her arms and hands to the ground.

  He leaned over her to put his body on her chest so he could keep her flat while he pulled her jeans down. But Julia found Daniweil’s left shoulder with her right hand. She pushed hard, locking her elbow and throwing all her weight behind her arm. She threw Daniweil back, and then she twisted to the right. She tucked in her left shoulder, raised her left knee, locked her left foot, and then pushed hard against the ground with it, twisting her body out from under Daniweil as he lunged for her throat.

  Before Daniweil’s hands reached her, Julia pushed again, harder, away from him, bent her knees, put one foot on each of Daniweil’s hips, and pushed him back again, throwing him off balance, backward, which gave Julia enough time to kick. Right leg. Hard. Left leg. Harder. She missed his groin the first time, but she found his belly with the kick and he groaned and reached out for her blindly. The second kick landed, hard, under his chin, and it threw him backward. The third kick, harder yet, found his groin.

  And then Julia had the pool cue in her right hand. She slammed the cue into Daniweil’s groin, which left him bent over on his right side, protecting himself. Then Julia knelt over Daniweil’s head. She held the pool cue in both hands in front of her. Daniweil rolled to his left, into the untrimmed boxwood hedge.

  But Julia was on him before he could turn over. She caught his neck with the pool cue, her hands on either side of his head. She pulled the pool cue into her knee, which was behind his neck, as hard as she could.

  Daniweil gagged, struggled for a moment, bucking, and then he went limp. The yellow bandanna came come off his head and was lying crumpled in the dirt. Blood from Julia’s nose dripped onto his forehead and eyes.

  Julia released her grip. She could have pulled harder, right then, and collapsed Daniweil’s windpipe, and maybe could have broken the bones of his neck. She knew how it felt to break bones, the sound and feel of the crunch bone makes as it collapses under pressure, from all the times she had beaten on the chests of dying little old people who got CPR when all they wanted to do was die.

  She backed off, breathing hard and sat for a moment to catch her breath. She took the yellow bandanna from where it lay on the ground, and wiped the blood dripping from a cut on her face and still dripping from her nose and then jammed it into a back pocket.

  Then she stood and walked into the clubhouse.

  It was dusk. The evening rain had come and gone, and the ground was wet. The trucks were coming and going in the front of the clubhouse. Men were shouting and calling out. Daniweil would recover, once he got his breath back. But he sure has hell wasn’t going to try any of that shit again, and, she guessed, neither was Jonathan or any of his man-boys.

  They needed each other, Julia and Jonathan. But Julia was going to do this on her own terms.

  Live free or die, indeed.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Carl Goldman and William Levin. Providence, Rhode Island. July 18, 2003

  CARL RAN OUT OF THE RESTAURANT AS THE RAV WAS MAKING A U-TURN. HE LOOKED AT the other cars in the street and at the space that was where he had left a car. Then he saw the RAV moving away. There was a parking space where his rental car had been. He’d seen the RAV moving from the restaurant window. It didn’t add up. Then it did. “They stole … someone’s taking … that’s my car,” Carl said, almost to himself.

  “THAT’S MY CAR!!!” he shouted.

  The RAV sped toward the corner as Carl walked into and then out of the parking spot where it had been.

  Levin came through the door of the restaurant, smashing the bells together as he jerked the door open.

  “THAT’S MY CAR!” Carl shouted again. “He stole my car!” He started to run after the RAV, which was now at the stop light, but
the RAV didn’t stop—it screeched around to the right.

  “POLICE! Call the police!” Carl shouted.

  “Fuck the police. They’re useless. Which car?” Levin said.

  Levin ripped off the duct tape holding the door of his banged-up Subaru, threw himself inside, jammed the key into the ignition, gunned the engine, and spun the car around. “The red car. At the corner.”

  “Get in. This one’s mine. We’ll run that motherfucker down,” Levin said.

  Carl was running down the street in the direction of the RAV, which had just turned the corner. Levin hit the gas, reached over as he drove, and threw the passenger side door open.

  “Come on!” he said.

  Carl looked at the open door and at the red RAV disappearing down Cranston Street. He caught the roof of the Subaru with his right hand and swung himself into the car as Levin hit the gas and turned the corner. Carl slammed his door shut at the same time as Levin’s door swung closed, pulled closed by the force of the right turn.

  The traffic light at the next corner went yellow just as the RAV went through it. Levin hit the gas again. They sped through the intersection but they didn’t get any closer to the RAV, which also sped up as it hit a stretch of road that ran next to a baseball field where there were no traffic lights.

  “They hit this car a couple of months ago,” Levin said. “I should have dumped it. But you can’t buy a used four-wheel drive in Rhode Island anymore. They’re all getting bought up and shipped to Africa. That bastard. He doesn’t know we’re here. I’ll catch that sucker. He won’t ever steal a car again.”

  The RAV turned left.

  “He turned,” Carl said.

  “I’m on it,” Levin said.

  They went through another yellow light and swung onto a broad but quiet street lined by big trees and low brick garden apartments.

  It was summer and hot. People sat on lawn chairs next to the street or on the hoods of cars, some of which were missing wheels or had windows smashed. Some cars had their hoods open as men in tee shirts worked on them.

  The street curved left, and they lost sight of the RAV. Levin sped up, and they saw the RAV turn.

  “Made him,” Levin said, as the car spun around the corner.

  They were on Broad Street going south. They passed a cemetery and tried to pick up speed but there were cars in their way.

  The RAV was almost two blocks ahead of them. Levin passed one car and hit the gas. They passed a bus. Then they were just a block behind, stuck at a light.

  The light changed. Levin hit the gas again. They gained on the RAV, passing a truck loaded with fruit and a bus. Then they were behind the RAV, only four or five car lengths back.

  But another bus swerved into their lane, stopping in front of them to pick up passengers. Levin had to break for the bus and let the truck go by him. He paused, swung behind the truck after it passed, went around the bus, and then swung back into the right lane to pass the truck on the right.

  The RAV was gone.

  Levin wheeled the car around, making a quick U-turn in the middle of the block, and then made a right at the first street.

  No RAV.

  “Let’s prowl,” Carl said. “Let’s go down to the waterfront. You said something. No four-wheel drives in Rhode Island. Everything getting bought up and shipped to Africa. I know something you don’t know, which is the bush in Liberia is crawling with old four-wheel drives without mufflers. They come from somewhere. They can only get to Liberia by sea, right?”

  “And Providence has a port, right?” Levin said. “And the port is half a mile from here, and that RAV is a four-wheel drive, right?”

  “So my rental car with four-wheel drive got pinched so it could be shipped to Africa,” Carl said. “And somebody in Providence, Rhode Island, has a racket, stealing four-wheel drives and sending them to Africa from the Port of Providence. So if we want to find that car, we find the wise guys who are running this racket before that car gets on a boat.”

  “I’m on it,” Levin said. “Eyes peeled. Look for a courtyard or a parking lot. They’ll have to stash your car out of the way until a boat docks. There are only so many streets in South Providence and only so many little parking lots. We’ll nail that bastard in no time. At least we can get you your car back.”

  “We’ve got to do way more than that, brother,” Carl said. “She’s out there. We’ve got to go out there to get her, and we’ve got to bring her back.”

  “Let’s see if we can get your car back first,” Levin said.

  “We’re going to find a way to get the car and Julia back,” Carl said. “Find a way or make one.”

  The port was just a few blocks away. It smelled of grease and diesel fumes. They drove between mountains of metal scrap. They heard the crunch and roar of front-end loaders and cranes scooping the scrap and dropping it into the hold of a freighter. Every time Levin saw tail-lights turning a corner, he hit the gas.

  They didn’t see anything. They left the port and nosed down Public Street, behind the Blue Bug, a sculpture of a giant termite that sits on the roof of a building next to a highway—the sign for an exterminator. Then Levin made a right onto Allens Avenue and drove past the sign for the Russian Submarine, a decommissioned Russian sub docked improbably in Providence as a tourist attraction. They made a left on Terminal Drive, drove almost to the water, and then swung right on Shipyard Street.

  They made a right on Harborside, drove up next to an old hotel that had been made over into a college dorm, climbed a hill, and then they were in Edgewood, where the streets were straight and the lots were perfect rectangles—the homes of working people and junior faculty.

  They swung right and left and right again and drifted through a neighborhood of old brick factories and older mill houses. Levin drove slowly enough that they could see into the driveways and yards. They looked down each side street as they drifted by.

  The houses were tired, with rotting porches or peeling paint. Many were boarded up. Most of the cars were burned out. There was broken glass and beer cans everywhere. The streets were full of potholes, so the Subaru shuttered and groaned as they traveled.

  Then they were on Broad again, again drifting north.

  That was when they saw him. On Broad. Almost to the middle of the block. Headed south. Just as they sped up to go through a yellow light.

  They saw the RAV at the same moment.

  Levin wheeled the car around.

  “The …” was all Carl said. He was thrown against the passenger door by the force of the spinning car.

  The light was red. Levin stopped and looked and went through it. Then he hit the gas.

  The RAV was in the middle of the next block, in the left lane, and they lost sight of it for a moment when a bus pulled between them. They passed the bus, sailed through a few lights, and gained ground.

  They crossed the highway on an overpass. There was a park on their right, with streets and no traffic out of the park, so Levin hit the accelerator and they jolted forward. They were six car lengths behind. The light at the corner turned red with the RAV on the other side of it.

  Levin stopped, checked the side street, and went through the light.

  The RAV turned left.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Thomas Johnson. Providence, Rhode Island. July 18, 2003

  THOMAS WAS NOW IN THE EXPORT BUSINESS, AND HE WAS GOOD AT IT. IMPORT IS HARDER. They check everything coming in, and you need false compartments and a double set of books. You have to remember who is just a little corrupt, how they are corrupt, and who is just asleep at the wheel, if you want to do import. Every once in a while you are going to get caught so you have to have a sharp lawyer who is likely to be a bigger crook than all of them. Unless you want to run drugs. But that is a more dangerous game. You can make import work if you do your homework and follow the golden rule—he who has the gold makes the rules. Even so it is a lot of work. You have to stay on your toes and always look over your shoulder, always watch your own bac
k.

  Export is easier, particularly to Africa. No one cares about Africa. Ships leave the ports at Providence and Davisville empty since no one in the U.S. makes anything anymore, and because no one in Africa can afford the grain and corn, the beef, pork, and chicken, the fruits and vegetables that America’s factory farms produce. The ships go back empty unless you fill them with things America doesn’t want or need—old cars, used clothes, or hazardous waste that is too expensive to dump in the USA. Thomas knew, someplace in the back of his mind, that a different kind of export had happened once before, two and three hundred years before—sugarcane from the Caribbean to Rhode Island to be made into rum. Rum to Africa. Africans slaves to the Caribbean, and then sugarcane picked by slaves back to the Port of Providence—and that trade had made some men in Rhode Island rich—but that was hundreds of years ago, and this was different. Export was now just a way to make a living, a way to find use for what America didn’t need, things that people back home could use. Mostly it was a way to make a living. Easier than import. But still, you have to be quick on your feet.

  Thomas had come to the U.S. early, in 1980. He escaped Liberia by the skin of his teeth. He came first as a student. USAID sent him to Wyoming. Two years as a black man in Wyoming was an education all by itself. An associate degree in accounting from Cheyenne Community College wasn’t good for much in the U.S. but was good for something in Monrovia, so he went back and got himself a good job in the Ministry of Trade; a job where he didn’t have to do much and that let him buy and sell American cars on the side, bringing in “lightly used” Lincolns, Thunderbirds, and Cadillacs. He was well placed to ensure that customers did not have to pay the ridiculous import duties. Very well placed.

  The ministry job had almost cost him his life, though. Doe came in and started executing big Congomen on the street. Thomas came from Congo people, though when Doe came in Thomas was not that big yet. Thomas was willing to be bigger and was waiting to be bigger, but then he was plenty-plenty happy that he wasn’t big enough for Doe to want to find him in the first few days when they were tying Congomen to telephone poles and disemboweling them. But Thomas was just big enough for Doe’s men to come looking for him a few days later, so he got small-small in a hurry, for a few days and nights, and then he got just big enough again to be on an airplane to Accra, and then just big enough to start over in Providence, where he had a sister, but where his associate degree in accounting wasn’t good for much at all.