by P A Vasey
He nodded, and then continued. His face had taken on guileless, sympathetic appearance that I found strangely unnerving. A pounding started in my ears, jungle drums threatening to obscure his softly spoken voice. His grip on my hand increased slightly and he leaned forward, dark eyes boring into mine.
“Your daughter was killed in the Chicago Memorial Emergency Room. You were asked to see a patient and had brought her with you because you had no child minder. A gangland turf battle spilled over and a random bullet punctured her lung and transected her spine. You were also hit, but the police pulled you to safety. Kelly died at the scene.”
I felt my eyes moistening and I stared at him wordlessly. My heart felt like it was gripped in an ice-cold vice, the blood pumping out of it cold and listless. I was unable to speak, my mouth as dry as sandpaper.
“You tried to contact your father, but a stranger picked up the phone and told you that he, too, had died a few months previously, after a short battle with cancer.”
I could feel tears trickling down the side of my face. He reached up and delicately wiped them away with his fingertips. As he touched me I could feel new emotions washing into my consciousness, just as my feelings were about to take me to a dark place.
“What are you doing?” I managed.
“Let me help you,” he said.
Somehow - how, I don’t know - I understood that he was coaxing my liver cells to manufacture anti-anxiolytic proteins that he then pushed into my blood stream and through the blood-brain barrier. I could feel them washing through my cerebral cortex, easing the fear and the sorrow, like a broom sweeping decayed leaves and twigs into the gutter and off the road.
I looked up at him blinking through eyes full of tears.
“What are you?”
He didn’t answer, and was surveying the bar, taking in the soldiers, Harry, the other customers. The music had stopped and the background cheering from one of the games was also muted. There was the clacking of cutlery from the booths and the low hum of bar conversation. All seemed normal, ordinary people, doing regular things.
“Everyone is in danger,” he said quietly.
“What do you mean?” I whispered.
“I will explain, but not here.”
I looked down at my hand, seeing how small and fragile it looked in his grip. I pulled it away, testing to see if he would let go. He did.
“Am I in danger from you?” I said, almost under my breath.
He smiled again, more convincing this time.
“No.”
I came to a decision. “All right then, let’s get out of here.”
I took his hand, and we hustled out the back. The bar was on the corner of 1st and 2nd street, on the north side of the Veterans Memorial Highway. We exited through a side door onto 2nd and I looked around us. The streets were empty of life and shadowy, with the only light coming from the bar windows. There was a red Dodge pickup parked a couple of yards away. No traffic noise was evident despite the close proximity of the highway. Directly across from the bar was a small public park, and beyond that a pedestrian bridge crossed the highway leading to a patchwork of suburbs that spread out for a dozen blocks or more.
I could smell Joey Malone’s kitchen, meaty and oily and inviting, and I realised I’d not eaten since breakfast. My stomach grumbled loudly. I pointed to the bridge. “I live over there, it’s a fifteen minute walk. Are you up to it?”
He nodded. “Yes. Of course.”
At that moment, the door behind us crashed open and disgorged Private Delacruz and his companions. They stumbled out onto the sidewalk, beer bottles in hand, and saw us straight away. The Acne Mountain laughed and pointed at me.
“You left without saying ‘bye!”
His voice was even more slurred than before and he moved away from the door towards Adam, who was standing on the edge of the sidewalk. He seemed to be sizing Adam up, and then sniffed the air disdainfully. “Who the fuck are you then?”
The other two soldiers moved either side of us, stopping on the road in a semicircle facing the bar, trapping us on the sidewalk. I turned to Delacruz and raised my hands. “This is an old friend of mine from the hospital. We go way back…”
“Bullshit, doc,” he said. “I ain’t never seen him ‘round here before today.”
Acne Mountain was now aggressively checking Adam out, feet apart, rocking forward and backwards. I turned to Adam and whispered, “These fuckers are drunk. We should go back to the bar, where it’s safer…”
Adam looked at me and for a brief instant I felt a wave of reassurance being pushed into my mind. A mental arm around my shoulders assuring me that everything was going to be okay. But as quickly as this feeling washed over me I sensed something else, something bubbling under the surface. Something malevolent and pernicious. Something becoming excited by the mere thought of violence. I saw Adam kind of shake his head as if trying to clear it, and then his voice floated into my thoughts.
It is too late.
The three soldiers had all moved closer. Acne Mountain was smacking his lips, not taking his eyes off Adam.
“I can fix this,” I said under my breath, looking sideways at Adam. “Let’s get them all back inside the bar before you get your ass kicked.”
A flicker of green phosphorescence transited between his eyes. His thoughts pushed into my brain, resonating and soothing.
Do not be afraid.
Acne Mountain was now right in his face. He and Adam were about the same height, but the difference in physiology was staggering. The soldier looked like he could wrestle a bear, and snap Adam in half like a twig. The other soldiers had not moved, and Delacruz was looking at me with a confident, evil grin on his face.
I heard Adam wordlessly speak to me.
Events are in motion.
In that microsecond between standoff and violence, I saw Acne Mountain’s eyes flick from Adam to me. His face showed no fear, just a smirk. Without looking he reached out and pushed Adam in the chest, the sort of move most drunken street fights start with. There was no reaction from Adam; no movement at all. Acne looked surprised but regrouped instantly, stepping forward and swung a haymaker into Adam’s face. It never landed. In a move too fast for my eyes to follow, Adam swayed to the left in a fluid motion and caught hold of Acne Mountain’s fist in his own hand.
Adam briefly glanced in my direction and closed his eyes.
Kate, this is for your own safety.
“What…?” I began, and then my throat closed up. I was paralysed. Petrified like stone. I tried to breathe, but my chest muscles would not expand my lungs. Spots started to appear in front of my eyes, and I could feel my heart hammering away in protest. Then my legs lurched and I found myself involuntarily walking backwards, only stopping when my backside touched the fender of the red Dodge. The soldiers surrounding Adam were also frozen like mannequins. Delacruz had been winding up to hit Adam with his bottle, and the beer was now comically dripping into his hair from the upended bottle. Acne was clutching his hand with his other one, and his face creased with pain. The other soldier had backed off a few feet, and was staring at Adam with eyes like dinner plates.
Adam looked over at me, blinked, and the paralysis dissipated. I took a huge breath in, sucking air as far down to the bottom of my burning lungs as I could. Then a high-pitched whine tore at my ears and they popped like I’d been shooting up an elevator. My hearing became muted, like I’d suddenly put earplugs in, or stuck my head underwater. The soldiers were holding their heads, faces locked in rictus agony. Delacruz with his mouth open in a silent scream. Acne shaking, blood beginning to trickle from his ears. Delacruz looked over at me and yelled something but the noise continued and I couldn’t make out his words.
Slowly, the screaming subsided and the pressure in my head eased off. I felt nauseous and acid flowed up from my stomach. I brought my hand up to cover my mouth but then fell forward onto my knees and proceeded to vomit a mixture of bile and dark rum onto the sidewalk. I felt Adam’s han
ds take hold of me and gently pull me to my feet. He walked me a to the passenger seat of the Dodge, and I slumped forward, breathing heavily, still feeling the urge to vomit. The driver’s door opened and Adam got in, eyes ablaze with an emerald glow. The truck’s engine roared to life and it’s headlights exploded, flooding the street in stark white radiance. I could see the three soldiers lying motionless, with pools of black liquid tracking from their heads into the gutters.
“Are they dead?” I stammered.
He didn’t reply, and the truck engaged reverse gear and backed off a couple of yards before doing a fast U-turn over the opposite kerb and accelerated down the street. I noticed in a surreal way that Adam didn’t have his hands on the wheel and hadn’t touched the gearstick. The truck screeched to a stop at the T-junction and turned into 1st street.
“Where are we going?” I said, finding my voice.
“To your home,” he said, looking almost apologetic. The green glow was slowly subsiding from his eyes.
“No. No no no no…” I went to open the door but the lock clicked down before I could touch it.
“Kate. I mean you no harm. Please believe me.”
The truck drove itself to the end of 1st street and turned onto North Frontage Road, and towards I-95. In a hundred yards or so it took the exit ramp and accelerated to match the speed of an 18-wheeler, heading west.
“We will take the next exit and loop back into the town,” he said. “It should only take ten minutes to get to your address.”
“How do you know where I live?” I asked, and it sounded sullen and piqued even to me.
I was sure he raised an eyebrow before answering. “Your thoughts are not closed to me.” He then tried a smile, which wasn’t a bad effort. “I am sorry.”
I sat back in the seat. Took a deep breath. “Are they dead? The soldiers.”
There was an unreadable expression on his face. “I do not know.”
I felt sick again. He looked at me, and his brows furrowed a little. “Kate, they were about to initiate unprovoked violence. On a stranger. You know what they could have done to you.”
I swallowed, my anger bubbling up, “I’ve had to deal with that sort of shit all my life and I’ve always been able to talk my way out of it. And the bar was just there. We could’ve gone inside, easily.”
He gave what I thought was a sigh, “I acted in self defence. And I acted to protect you. I had no control over my response.”
“What do you mean, you weren’t in control?” I said, my mind racing.
“I will try and explain later, but first we must get to your house, and I must change out of these clothes.” He looked at me and this time there was definitely a raised eyebrow. “I believe Major Richard Jackson, US Military Police, left some clothes at your home when he was unexpectedly posted to Europe three months ago.”
CHAPTER NINE
Indian Springs, Nevada
The drive took fifteen minutes and neither of us had spoken further. We left I-95 and turned into the suburbs where the properties thinned out. The roads and houses languished in almost complete darkness, and Adam extinguished the Dodge’s headlights as it turned into McFarland Avenue and followed the road south for a couple of miles to Betty Ridge Court.
We pulled up outside my house, a single-storey property set back from the road thirty yards or more and accessed by a gravel driveway on the right leading to my garage. There was no garden, just desert-y scrubland and a rash of cactus plants leading to a door that looked bleached grey and black in the moonlight.
Adam turned to face me and switched the engine off. “I believe this is your home.”
Did I detect a note of disapproval? I fished in my handbag and brought out a remote key that I used to open the garage. “I know it’s not much, but I wasn’t planning on staying here for ever.”
“Do you own a car?” He was looking up the driveway to the garage, which was empty.
“Thought you could read my mind?” I said, somewhat huffily.
“I am able to access your thoughts at will, but I can choose not to. I decided to allow you some… privacy”
I sighed. “My Jeep’s back at the hospital.”
“Then we need to hide this vehicle,” he said. “It would be considered ‘stolen’.”
“Put it in the garage for now - but it can’t stay there. I’m pretty well known in that bar. It won’t take them long to figure out where we’ve gone.”
He nodded and the Dodge came to life again. He guided it into the garage and I remote-closed the door behind us. I led him through a side door to the kitchen. Lights came on automatically, and I threw the keys into a bowl on a side-table and walked over to the fridge. I brought out a half-full bottle of wine, grabbed a glass from the draining board and held it up, aware that my hands were shaking. “Well I’m going to have another drink. Join me?”
He’d entered the kitchen and was looking around the room, taking everything in, slowly and deliberately. “Where is your dog?”
“How did you … never mind.” This mind-reading thing would take some getting used to. I grabbed a bag of peanuts off the shelf, one of my staples after a long day in the ER. “He’s with a neighbour. She takes him three days a week when I’m on day shifts. Walks him, stuff like that. I’m supposed to pick him up in the morning.”
He walked into the hallway and I followed, pointing to another adjoining door. “My bedroom and the wardrobe is in there, go help yourself.”
Without a word, he walked through to the bedroom leaving me in the kitchen holding the bottle, glass and a large back of salted nuts. I went through to the sitting area that I’d fitted out with a large screen plasma and a 3-piece leather suite. I collapsed into the sofa, reached for the remote and turned on the TV. It auto-tuned into a game show, and I dialled the sound down until it was just audible. I poured some wine into the glass and set the bottle down on a small coffee table. After taking a large swallow, I ripped open the peanuts and popped a handful in my mouth. Chewing, I reached for my handbag and upended it onto the sofa discharging the usual female handbag detritus. I rummaged through the pile of handkerchiefs, lipsticks and pens, becoming more frantic as I realised my phone wasn’t there. I’d left it in the bar.
Fuck.
I put my head in my hands and started rocking backwards and forwards, the fog of fatigue and alcohol preventing me from thinking straight. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Adam standing in the doorway. He was dressed in desert combat military BDUs and untied black army boots. He tightened the belt on the trousers, and the whole ensemble came together quite well. The arms were a little short in the sleeves, as were the trousers, but tucked into the boots it would pass muster. He sat down in the chair facing me and tied the laces, clumsily but effectively. He seemed to be concentrating hard on getting the knots right, and at times his fingers seemed to get trapped in the laces. When he was finished he looked around the lounge. Through his eyes I could see the sparse decorations and the lack of personal items. There were no pictures on the side tables, no vases, no jars with fresh flowers.
“Have you just moved in?” he said, straight-faced.
I took another large swallow of the wine and said nothing.
“You are correct, we cannot stay here,” he said. “The authorities will make the connection. They will be here soon. First thing in the morning, if not tonight.”
I finished the glass and refilled it with the rest of the contents from the wine bottle. There was a not unpleasant fuzzy feeling now permeating my mind as the alcohol took the edge off the day’s events. I offered him the bag of nuts, and when he ignored me I shovelled another handful in my mouth. He was looking at the TV, which was showing a family hugging each other and dancing around ecstatically while a game show host smiled beatifically in the background. The volume was muted, and I could imagine the blandness of the audience’s applause and the clichéd music swelling up to make sure we understood how fabulous life was going to be for the family from now on.
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e caption underneath read: total prize won $1000.
“Is this your life, Kate?” He said in a quiet voice.
“You think you know my life?” I growled. I avoided his stare, and wondered if he could hear the pain in my words, feel the emotion seeping out, perceive the invisible scars that I’d hidden from everyone.
“I know that you are unhappy here.”
I took another drink. “Thought you weren’t going to read my mind? Or is that only when is suits you?”
His face was in half shadow, his cheekbones prominent and gaunt. He leaned forward a couple of inches, crossing his arms on his knees. “I know that this town is not what you were expecting,” he said. “I know that you only came here because your father was based here, and that you grew up here. You wanted re-connect with good memories.”
It was true; the pain was not going away. There were nights when I closed my eyes and tried to sleep and all I could see was Kelly being lowered into a shallow grave, screaming soundlessly at faceless mourners in black standing above. Then there were the mornings I woke up wishing I too was dead and buried, in some afterlife I didn’t believe in, holding my baby daughter again. Tears welled up in my eyes and I brushed them away. I stared at the wine, absently tracing my finger on the condensation that was clouding the glass.
“Did you find what you were looking for?” Adam said, almost in a whisper.
I looked at him, sitting there on my couch. He remained still, like a waxwork figure, his hands on his knees and his head at a slight angle like a dog listening quizzically to his master. I gave a wet smile. “I … I thought coming here would be a good thing, but… I was … I had to get out of Chicago.”
“Would you like to talk about Chicago?”
“What’s there to talk about? You can’t change the past, only the future.”
“The past informs the present, and therefore changes the future.”
He leaned back in the sofa, almost relaxing, but as poker-faced as ever. I took another drink and closed my eyes. My stomach was in knots, tightening like an old fishermen’s rope.