The Unwilling

by John Hart

  Reece withdrew an envelope full of Polaroid photographs, and handed it over. “We did it like you said.”

  X opened the envelope, removing the photographs. “Chronological order?”

  “Beginning in the driveway outside of her condominium.”

  X took his time with the pictures: the girl in the car, then chained, then dead. “How long?” he asked.

  “Five hours, once we got her up.”

  “She was conscious throughout?”

  “I took the usual pains.”

  X had no doubt. Reece was immaculate in the execution of his passions. Going through the stack a second time, X culled out a few photos and handed them to Reece. “You know what to do with those?”

  “No fingerprints. Untraceable.”

  “As soon as possible, please.”

  “I have the address.”

  X returned the remaining photos to the envelope, and passed them to Reece. “There’s an inmate on cellblock C, Francis Willamette. These are for him. Use appropriate discretion.”

  Reece would, of course. He knew the guards, the protocols. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

  “You saw Jason, of course.”

  “I did.”

  “Good.” X sat, and offered Reece a second chair. “Tell me what you saw. Leave nothing out.”

  14

  Burklow took me home, and stayed late at the kitchen table, nursing a beer, and deflecting questions. “You’ll need to ask your father that.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Dealing with stuff.”

  “When will he come home?”

  “He’ll be here when he gets here.”

  “Tell me about Tyra.”

  “Forget it, kid. I mean it.”

  When lights finally appeared in the driveway, he told me to sit and wait, then went outside to meet my father. I didn’t sit. And no way in hell was I waiting. I crept to the front door, and watched Burklow argue with my father, poking him in the chest not once, but twice. I’d never seen him show such disrespect, but my father took it, responding in a fierce, quiet whisper that looked like pleading. When Burklow turned away, red-faced and still angry, my father followed like a whipped dog.

  “Ken. Buddy…”

  I missed the rest, but they looked nothing like buddies. For five full minutes they argued, and when it ended, it did so badly, Burklow’s voice rising as he towered over my father. “I don’t care about that. You should have told me at the scene. And don’t tell me I’d do the same thing, because I wouldn’t, not on a case like this.”

  “You say that now—”

  “Don’t. No.”

  “You don’t have kids. You can’t understand.”

  Burklow turned away, and I lost what came next. I stepped off the porch to hear better, and my father noticed without actually looking my way. He raised a finger, stopping me where I stood. He said something else to Burklow, who said, “No. Hell no.”

  “Another day, twelve hours…”

  But Burklow was done talking. He got in the car, slammed the door, and left rubber on the driveway. My father stared after him for a long time, then came to me, looking utterly worn. “Did you hear that?”

  “Some of it. Not much.”

  “Whatever you heard, forget it.”

  “Was that about me? I heard him talk about your son. I saw how Martinez was acting.”

  “It’s not about you. Don’t worry about Martinez.”

  “It’s hard not to.”

  He nodded once, but bleakly. “I need to speak with Jason.”

  “That’s what this is about?”

  “He may have information I need.”

  “About Tyra?”

  “I can’t talk about that.”

  “Martinez and Smith are homicide cops.”

  “Son…”

  “Is she dead?”

  “I told you, son. I can’t talk about that!”

  The explosion pushed me back. The look in his eyes. The lines in his face. It was easy to forget that he hunted men for a living, but I saw it now, like he could chew me up, spit me out, and not taste a thing. I stepped back on instinct, and it was a bad moment between us, his hands rising once before dropping like leaves. I had nothing else to say, and neither did he; and when he turned for his car, there was a drag in his step. I watched his taillights fade, then took my hand from my pocket, considering the scrap of paper I’d carried there since the quarry.

  On it was a phone number.

  It was local.

  Inside, the house was eerily quiet, so I went alone to the kitchen, and lifted the phone from its cradle on the wall. The cord was long enough to reach the pantry, so I shut myself inside, and dialed. On the other end, the phone rang nine times before someone answered. I heard laughter, loud music.

  I asked for my brother.

  Eventually, he came.

  * * *

  It took forty minutes to find the area Jason described, and again it felt like a scene from a movie, a grim night in some larger city. I cruised one side street and then another. When I found the right building, I knew it by the motorcycles and the women and the noise.

  Lots of chrome and plenty of skin …

  Just like Jason said.

  I found a place to park, and backtracked two blocks to where a row of motorcycles angled in at the curb. I was out of place there, and everyone knew it. Bikers gave me the dead-eye or blocked my path or streamed smoke in my face. A crowd milled near the door, and as I squeezed into it, women crowded me back, and touched me and laughed.

  Hey, sugar …

  Hey, baby boy …

  One hung on my shoulder and cupped me between the legs.

  “Excuse me,” I said, and she laughed again.

  At the door, a biker stopped me. Muttonchops. Long hair streaked with white. “Members and ladies,” he said.

  “I’m looking for Jason French.” Nothing moved on his face. A beer bottle went up and down. “He’s waiting for me, I promise.”

  “Well, if you promise…”

  His voice rose on the last word, lips twisting. Problem was, I wanted inside, and he wanted me to try. It was a tense moment until Jason appeared behind him, and dropped a hand on his shoulder. “Take it easy, Darius. He’s with me. Come on, little brother.”

  I followed Jason into a dark room, then through another crowd to a metal staircase at the back wall. Upstairs, Jason led me into a square room with brick walls, sparse furnishings, and a massive safe that looked as if it had been there forever. Jason saw my reaction to it. “Diebold cash safe—1905, I think.”

  I smoothed a hand across the steel door, the enormous hinges. “It must weigh tons.”

  “Three or four, at least. This place was built with steel beams in the floor to carry the weight. You can see them from a storage room downstairs.”

  “What’s it for?”

  “Originally? Payroll, I’d guess. Records, maybe.”

  I sat at the table, and he leaned against the wall with his arms crossed. “What’s in it now?” I asked.

  “What makes you think I know?”

  “There are a million rooms in this city, but you’re in this one. Plus, you said originally. That implies that the safe, now, has some other purpose.” I rolled my shoulders. “Words matter.”

  Jason looked at me strangely after that. He didn’t answer my question, but poured whiskey into shot glasses. “You’re a sharp kid, Gibby. Let’s drink to that.”

  He handed me a whiskey. It burned going down.

  “So why are you here?” he asked.

  “I think maybe Tyra’s dead.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Seriously.”

  He was unconvinced, so I told him how Tyra had gone missing, and how Martinez and Smith had rolled up to the condo, hot, distrustful, and angry as hell. That led to a description of Dad and Burklow, of how they’d rolled up the same way, bundled me into a car, and argued, later, about things they did not want me to hear. “Murder c
ops,” I said. “All four of them. It has to mean something. I think it means that Tyra’s dead.”

  I’d hoped to see his face in an unguarded moment. Instead, I got a raised eyebrow as he poured another whiskey. “None of that means Tyra is dead. It could mean anything.”

  “I don’t know, man. They were arguing hard, and Dad looked pretty scared. He’s looking for you, too. I thought you should know as soon as possible.”

  “That’s why you’re here?” Jason frowned, and lowered the whiskey, untouched. “Why, exactly, do you think I should know something like that as soon as possible?”

  “You know, in case they show up here.”

  “You could have told me on the phone.”

  “You’re my brother. I wanted to come.”

  Jason’s eyes narrowed, and the frown deepened. Standing abruptly, he checked the street, left and right. “You should have stayed home, Gibby.” He closed the blinds; checked the stairwell. “These people. This place…”

  “Are you angry?”

  “Only with myself.” He snatched a duffel bag from the closet, stuffing in clothes. “This is a dangerous place. You shouldn’t be here.”

  “I can handle myself.”

  “No, you really can’t.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “Listen, kid. You think you know me, but you don’t. You want to be in my life, and I think that’s cool. I wanted to be in your life, too, but I’ll drag you down, you give me half a chance. I see that, now. Hell, I’ve already done it. Tyra. The cops. I mean, damn. If they raided this place right now, with you here…” He pinned me with those cold, bright eyes. “You should be hanging out with Chance or some other kid or that pretty girl from the quarry. That’s your life, and I should have left you in it.” He tossed the bag on the bed. “I shouldn’t have come home at all.”

  “I can help you. Whatever this is…”

  “Jesus, kid. You won’t listen!”

  He stormed across the room, and I followed him. “What are you doing?”

  “Making my point the best way I can.” He braced one hand on the safe; spun the dial with the other. “You tell me words matter, and that’s true, they do. But actions matter even more.” The door swung wide, and I saw dark metal as Jason stepped aside. “Now, do you understand?”

  I did. I didn’t want to.

  He pulled out a rifle, cleared the action, and tossed it to me. “That’s an M16A1 rifle, fully automatic and highly illegal. I have thirty of them.” He pointed at other weapons. “Those are CAR-15s.” He pointed again. “Thompson submachine guns, very hard to come by. Those are AK-47s, Russian-made, the good stuff, Colt 1911s, of course…”

  “Slow down, man. I don’t understand.”

  He dragged a satchel from the safe, rolled back the zipper, and showed me all the cash inside. Thousands of dollars. Tens of thousands. “This is what I do,” he said. “It’s who I am.” He took the rifle from my hands, and racked it with the others. “I’m not a good person. You shouldn’t be here.”

  * * *

  In bed that night, I dreamed of brother Robert. He stepped from the deep jungle, and I saw the hole in his chest, the shattered bone and the ruby-dark stain. When I whispered his name, he looked up, and blackness filled the place his eyes should be. He tried to speak, but his tongue was gone, too; and when he fell at my feet, I knew in the way of dreams that I should lean close, so that’s what I did. I ignored the smell of him and the empty sockets, the night sounds and the grass and the speckled sky. I poured my soul into knowing my brother, but none of that mattered. His last breath was gone, and the knowing of him with it.

  I woke from that dream with tears in my eyes, then dressed in the quiet, and slipped outside to cool air and light that was watery and gray. In the car, I thought how strange it was to be born with two brothers, yet be so ignorant of both. I was a child when Robert died, and missed the chance to know him man-to-man. Jason was a mystery, too, and determined to stay that way. That left a distant father and an unknowable mother, the whole situation so fucked up and faceless that when I drove, it was to the quarry, where I hiked to the cliff’s edge, and stood alone to watch the day break as a red sun rose.

  I thought this was the time to do it. Robert had died hard, no matter what the government said, and standing there, I felt the same emotions that had driven Jason to enlist and take action. My father said once it was a stupid war for stupid reasons, but he’d been drunk at the time and had never said anything like it since, so I thought maybe Jason was right to fight and kill and get even.

  I stared into the quarry, a hole in the world still filled with the darkness of night. At my feet, the stone was sunrise red, but only as far down as a tall man could reach. Beyond that was the blackness, like there was no water at all, and maybe I would fall forever. Stripping off my shirt and shoes, I pictured Robert’s perfect dive, the way he’d hung and fallen and risen beside me, laughing. Let the Vietcong touch that, he’d said; but they’d killed him, anyway. I thought of Jason, who’d made the dive, too, but wanted nothing to do with me. For a long time I stared into the pit.

  “Just dive,” I said, but did not.

  I wasn’t like my brothers.

  I was afraid.

  * * *

  Later that day, I was in my room when Chance walked in. “Dude, what the hell?”

  I looked up from the book I’d been reading. “Is there a problem?”

  “Batting cage. Duh.”

  “Oh, man.” I closed the book, and got up off the bed. “I’m sorry, Chance. I totally forgot.”

  “Ahh…” He waved a hand, and his features softened. “Don’t sweat it.”

  But I did. Chance loved baseball with a passion. He wasn’t very good at it, but Saturday at the cages was ritual.

  “You sick or something? Hungover?” He said it with a glint. I shook my head. “So let’s take a walk. Maybe the twins are out.”

  He meant the Harrison girls down the street. Seventeen. Seriously cute. “I’m kind of waiting for my dad. How about some TV instead?”

  “Yeah, sure. Whatever.”

  We stretched on the floor and watched Star Trek reruns. Once, I went downstairs to see if my father had returned. “Bring beer,” Chance said, but was joking, sort of. In late afternoon, we did go outside, but the Harrison girls were nowhere to be seen.

  “You have plenty of time,” Chance said.

  “What?”

  “You keep looking at your watch.”

  Guiltily, I looked down at my wrist. I didn’t remember checking the time, but I didn’t remember leaving the yard, either. “I just want to see my dad.”

  “I know better than that.” The same grin twisted Chance’s face, so I stopped beside a telephone pole that smelled like creosote and hot wood. “Becky Collins,” he said.

  “What about her?”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “No. Seriously. What?”

  Chance squared up on me, disbelieving. “You forgot your date with Becky Collins?”

  “That’s today?”

  “Seven o’clock at Dana White’s house.” He looked up as if the sky had caught fire. “You mean you forgot? Like … for real forgot?”

  “I guess I did.”

  “But it’s Becky Collins.” Chance closed his eyes, repeating himself.

  Becky … freakin’ … Collins …

  He could go for a while like that, so I sat on the curb to wait him out. Of course, his confusion was legitimate. I’d had a crush on Becky since forever. Everyone crushed on Becky. She was smart and pretty and different from other girls. The confidence. That steadiness.

  “You want to tell me what’s going on?” Chance settled at last, standing above me, looking down. “You’re inside all day. You forget batting practice, then a date with the hottest girl in school. What’s wrong with you?”

  “I don’t know. Family stuff. I don’t really want to talk about it.”

  “Do you want to kiss the girl?” I met his eyes, and they show
ed his amusement. “Come on, Cinderella.” He pulled me up. “Let’s get you ready for the ball.”

  * * *

  In the shower, I tried not to dwell on Jason or his guns or the chance he might go back to prison. Instead, I thought of Tyra, thinking she might really be dead. I imagined blue skin and a metal table, all the cops on the city beat, frustrated and smoking cigarettes and driving around town.

  In the bedroom, Chance had clothes laid out on the bed. “Seriously?” I asked.

  “What? I can’t help you get laid?”

  “It’s not like that with Becky.”

  “Not yet.”

  “Chance…”

  “I’m kidding. Come on. Take this.” He handed me a shirt, and tried to coach me as I dressed. “Remember. Becky’s poor, but sophisticated. That means smart and ambitious and not into your typical bullshit.”

  “I know Becky Collins as well as you.”

  “No, you don’t. So listen.” He riffled through my shoes, speaking over his shoulder. “She’s a cheerleader but doesn’t care about sports, same with the Latin Club and Young Entrepreneurs and student government. She does those things, but don’t depend on them for conversation. She’s been counting on a scholarship, so some of it will be window dressing. You’ll need to figure out what really matters to her. Don’t make assumptions.” I looked at him sideways, and he shrugged. “What can I say, man? I’ve been mind-stalking that girl since fifth grade. Here, put these on.”

  I put on the shoes, and checked the mirror. “Disco, baby.”

  “Don’t use that word, not ever.” Chance looked at his watch. “Almost time. You have condoms?” My jaw dropped, and he laughed. “God, you’re easy. Relax. Shake it out.” I tried, but was nervous. “She’s only a girl. Say it out loud.”

  “She’s only a girl.”

  “She’s lucky to have you. Say that, too.”

  It went like that for most of the drive. I put Chance’s bike in the back seat, and took him home the long way, his request. Eventually, he was making jokes, telling stories. By the time we reached his street, I wasn’t thinking of Tyra or my brother or all the years I’d had a crush on Becky Collins. The top was down. We were laughing.