Watcher

by Andrew Weis

  “You slammed the stupid car door!” I said in a strong whisper.

  “Oh, sorry. It’s a heavy door.”

  I shook my head as we shuffled along the wall to the body shop’s back door. A large stack of crates, once containing car engines and transmissions stacked against the wall, reached up to a large, crank-out window. I climbed the boxes to get a better look through the window.

  Years of automotive exhaust, paint and other petroleum-based products, smeared the window and prevented me from getting a clear view.

  I tried cracking open the window with its untold number of paint layers, but it was impossible. I climbed back down to Daniel as I brushed off my hands.

  “The windows are painted shut. Try the door,” I said.

  Daniel yanked the back door as if trying to tear it off its hinges.

  “Easy, boy,” I said.

  “Will you chill and let me do this?” he huffed. “I wouldn’t want you to break a nail or anything.”

  “Why don’t you try pounding on it with a sledgehammer? Let me try.”

  I gripped the doorknob and twisted it. The door rubbed against an aluminum weather strip with a labored whoosh, but it opened. I pushed open the door further. I saw no one.

  “Come on and be quiet,” I whispered.

  Daniel tailgated me as we scooted our way into the deserted workshop. The barrels that toppled over remained scattered on the floor. The sandbagged alcove still held the blown apart mini vault door.

  I stepped to the worktable and checked out the tools. A slight detectable sulfur odor lingered, like that from Reggie’s failed rescue in the Middle East desert.

  “See anything?” Daniel asked in his normal voice. I lowered my head in disbelief.

  “Will you keep quiet?” I demanded. “My God. I don’t believe you!”

  At that moment, his cellphone shrilled. I clenched my eyes in disgust.

  “Dammit!” I bellowed.

  “Sorry!” Daniel said, then answered his phone. “Hello? Hey, Nemo. There ain’t nobody here. What? Okay.” Daniel put away his phone.

  Although the moment wasn’t right, I couldn’t help but notice his muscular pecs as he slid the phone into his back pocket. The boy grew into a man over the last two years.

  “Well, don’t leave me in suspense,” I said, shaking my head to help me focus on business and not dwell on Daniel’s lack of covertness or his stud-like build.

  The workshop’s steel door creaked open. Reggie and Akio walked in, then froze in their tracks upon seeing us. In an instant, Reggie threw an elbow into Akio’s jaw, which knocked him to the floor. Akio’s gun tumbled out of his hand. Reggie scooped up the gun and made a beeline for us.

  “Come on!” Reggie said as he bolted past us.

  We dashed outside to the car.

  “Who got the keys?” Reggie bellowed.

  “I do,” Daniel said, struggling to fish them out of his pocket.

  “Better let me drive,” Reggie said, snatching the keys from Daniel.

  Reggie cranked the GTX’s engine. When the car roared to life, its power awoke in spectacular fashion. It gave her all when Reggie punched the accelerator. In his haste, we slammed into Akio’s Camaro. Reggie put the gear into drive, then floored it.

  We cruised down Western Avenue and blended with what little traffic there was. My heart still pounded after our escape and I wondered what new thrills Tyrone or Coz would bring upon hearing of our rescuing Reggie.

  “Who are you, girl?” Reggie asked.

  “Abbey. I’m glad to meet you,” I said.

  “What the hell you two thinking by busting in like that? Are you crazy?”

  Did Daniel’s family ever show gratitude for anything? I guess the words ‘thank you’ never factored into their vocabulary.

  “Ask him, proud papa. It was his idea,” I said. “He wouldn’t listen to me.”

  “Daniel, you can’t take risks like that. They ain’t going to hurt me,” Reggie said.

  “Dad, I had to get you out of there.”

  We stopped behind a mobile home-sized CTA bus. I looked around, paranoid as hell that someone might spot us. Seconds later, our car slammed into the bus, lunged us forward, and we struck our heads on the dashboard. I was a little dazed, but I managed to look behind us and saw Akio’s green Camaro.

  “Hold on!” Reggie said.

  Reggie shifted the car into reverse and pushed the Camaro back enough to give us room to get around the bus.

  “Watch your speed, man, you’ll hit someone,” I said.

  “Buckle up,” Reggie said.

  Reggie burned rubber while fishtailing the car around the bus. The Camaro wasn’t far behind but gained on us. The speedometer needle swayed to the right. I saw a sign for the Eisenhower Expressway, then Reggie turned onto the ramp.

  “Are you crazy? It’ll be a parking lot,” Daniel shouted.

  “Not at this hour,” Reggie said.

  The GTX shot up to ninety miles an hour in a matter of seconds. He weaved us through cars with NASCAR precision, yet the Camaro rode our bumper like a wolf chasing a rabbit.

  We approached the end of Congress Parkway and spun out making the turn to head north on Columbus Drive. Once Reggie got the wheels under us, he gunned it and we sped north. Reggie put distance between us and Akio, but when bullets struck the back of the car and punctured the rear window, Reggie hit the gas again. We made it all the way to Grand Avenue, hung a left turn and bored down toward Michigan Avenue.

  Reggie blew through a red light and we got clipped by a city maintenance truck, which spun us onto the sidewalk. After Reggie regained control and got his bearings, the Camaro got beside us.

  “Get down!” I shouted as the pop of bullets struck the doors. We raced south on Michigan Avenue, crossed the river, then jerked a sharp right turn onto Wacker Drive and headed west.

  We wound around Wacker Drive along the river and approached Wells Street. Perfect. Akio followed us down Wells with the El tracks overhead. Reggie lured him closer, weaving through the steel track columns. Akio dogged us, but when Reggie made a sudden left onto Jackson, Akio spun out and struck an El support splitting the car in half. The impact launched his body through the Camaro’s windshield.

  Reggie stopped the car, and we all looked at the wreckage. For a few critical moments we looked back at Akio’s body. Reggie and Daniel couldn’t see it, but I watched as Akio’s spirit staggered for a moment before it melted down into a black ashen vortex. I didn’t remember walking around like that when I died.

  “Guys, uh, no time for sightseeing. We have to go,” I said.

  As the sirens grew louder, Reggie got us rolling again, and we drove out of the Loop without anyone on our bumper.

  With Akio gone, there was one less obstacle in our way. Although Reggie got the credit for saving Daniel this time, that didn’t lessen my responsibilities.

  Yeah, figuring out humans and helping save them from themselves proved to be nothing more than a labor of love and I wasn’t feeling much love for any of them lately.

  .

  Chapter 20

  REGGIE DROVE US back to his house, with our eyes on the lookout for anyone who may appear to be following us. They must’ve found Akio’s body by now, and they’d trace him back to Englewood Rails in no time.

  We had to get the car back fast. I hoped that nobody saw Reggie or Daniel in the car at any point on our little jaunt. I wasn’t hopeful that nobody spotted the license plate. A vanity plate reading HASZIP wasn’t hard to forget on a black 1967 Belvedere GTX.

  While a minimal amount of calm ruled, I broke the silence to ask a question that irritated me for a long time.

  “We heard about your bomb. Is it really silent?” I asked.

  Reggie jerked his head to look at me. He then looked at the road ahead.

  “You know any chemistry?” Reggie asked.

  “No.”

  “Okay, in easy words, I made a formula that blows outward at first, but then collapses on itself,”
Reggie said. “The blast waves are eliminated and the surrounding environment ain’t compromised.”

  “Amazing.”

  “I thought so too.”

  We made it back without incident. Reggie parked the car on the street in front of the house and shut off the engine.

  “What are you doing? This’ll be the first place anyone will look,” I said.

  “I have to get a few things from my shop the cops will need,” Reggie said.

  “Hurry up. With Akio gone, Tyrone and company will make a beeline for us,” I said.

  “No problem.”

  Reggie trotted up to the house. Daniel slid over and sat behind the wheel. I didn’t like the idea that we were sitting ducks. To prepare for any needed getaway, I asked Daniel to start the engine. He gripped the wheel while I pursed my lips, waiting for the inevitable police car sirens.

  Now that Tyrone hunted us, I wasn’t sure if I could do enough to finish my ARV, let alone keep Daniel or his father safe.

  Daniel rested his arms on the top of the bench seat. His gorgeous brown eyes shot back and forth at me in the rearview mirror. He turned his head toward the front door of the house, looking for his father. I picked broken auto glass off my clothes, then scooted up on the seat toward him.

  “Question?” I asked, while keeping an eye on the house.

  “What are you? I mean, you can do things people can’t. Like, the way you flew at Double N and what you did to that carjacker. People can’t do that stuff. Are you like an angel or something?” he asked.

  Daniel asking me that question was my fault. I made the mistake of letting him see me use my angelic abilities; not that I had a chance to hide them. Falsehoods knotted me up, so for my own sanity, I broke protocol.

  My upbringing prevented me from living out a lie, and the facade on my appearance started crumbling. Arlen told me I couldn’t disclose who I was or why I did what I did. He said nothing about what to do if people figured out I was an angel versus me admitting I was an angel, so I knew I toed a fine line.

  “Something like that. Is that a problem?” I muttered.

  Daniel studied my face like a child marveling at a new toy.

  “No. Not a problem,” he said. “I’ve never seen one before. I guess I thought you’d be scary or something. Hm.”

  “What did you expect?” I asked. “Flowing white robes, halos, big feathered wings?”

  He shrugged.

  “You seem so normal,” he said. “You’re like, anyone. Can you do, like, a miracle?”

  “I’m not here for your entertainment, all right? Jeez.”

  I looked back at the house.

  “What’s taking him so long?” I said in a subtle move to distract him.

  Daniel looked at the house, then at me.

  “Something about you seems familiar. It’s like I can smell it or something. Maybe it’s your perfume or that stuff we can detect but can’t see.”

  “You mean pheromones?” I asked.

  “Yeah, that’s it. Hey, aren’t angels supposed to be happy all the time? You always seem pissed off about something.”

  “It’s not like you think,” I said in a monotone.

  “Don’t you like being an angel?”

  “Hey, like regular people, I have rules to follow.”

  “Why are you unhappy?”

  “Never mind.”

  “Were you once alive like me?”

  “Here we go.”

  “What happens when you die? Is there a bright light or a tunnel or just plain nothing?”

  I didn’t expect an interrogation, nor was I prepared for one either. Then again, I was the one who started this inquisition. Despite the rules, I could answer certain specific questions but in the most basic terms.

  “It’s fast,” I said. “Dying is easy. It’s all the emotional crap leading up to that moment that sucks.”

  “Does it hurt?”

  “No. All of that lovely terror happens before death. At the moment of death, there’s pure peace.”

  “Then what?”

  “In my case I went to Heaven.”

  Daniel got too much alone time with me, which enabled him to go off on a question-asking spree. Where the hell was Reggie?

  “That’s cool,” Daniel said. “What does Jesus look like?”

  “Couldn’t tell you. I never saw him and nobody ever mentioned him.”

  “There weren’t any pearly gates or guys in robes or stuff like that?”

  “Yeah, I guess, but not in the way you think.”

  “How did you, um, die?”

  My mind raced while anger boiled inside me.

  “I betrayed someone,” I said, breathing faster.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Death is a personal thing, and I don’t want to talk about it anymore. So, before you ask why I don’t, it’s because I’m an angel now. My time as a human doesn’t matter anymore.”

  “Boy. It must’ve been someone close to you to make you that mad,” he said.

  “What?” I asked in snappy frustration.

  “I mean, look how worked up you are. Whoever keyed you up that much must’ve messed you up bad.”

  Even though I didn’t have a human body anymore, all my lifetime experiences stayed with me. Now, they overwhelmed my mind at the worst time.

  “Yeah, it was someone I knew,” I said. “It was someone who didn’t deserve what I did, but I never got the chance to explain.”

  “I guess you never should’ve done what you did. Sounds like you weren’t true to yourself.”

  I snapped my angered face toward him. He did the same damn thing to me that jerk! If he was true to himself, he could’ve done something besides watching me get turned into mashed potatoes by a Metra train.

  He looked at the analog clock on the dashboard, then turned toward the house. I climbed out of the car and leaned against the heavy door.

  “Where are you going?” he asked.

  “Your dad’s taking too long,” I said.

  Daniel followed my lead. He closed the driver side door and ran up beside me. We dashed up the porch steps, then stepped inside the house.

  “Dad?” Daniel shouted.

  The kitchen light was on, and I noticed the back door was open. I leaned an ear outside and heard the unmistakable rumbling of a well-known Chevelle as it faded away.

  I closed the back door and locked it. Daniel returned from the basement.

  “He wasn’t downstairs,” Daniel said.

  “They must’ve waited for him here. They left a minute ago,” I said.

  “Who?”

  “Coz. I should’ve gone in first. Damn it!”

  “Why didn’t you stop them?”

  “I can’t leave you. Besides, Reggie’s too valuable for them to hurt. He’ll be fine, for now.”

  Since I couldn’t be in two places at once, I hoped my estimation of Tyrone’s intent held until I got Reggie back.

  “What do we do now?” Daniel asked. “We can’t wait around here scratching our butts.”

  “No, we can’t do that. But I’ll bet Nemo and Nero can help us.”

  “Great, let’s go,” he said, yawning wide.

  “Look, it’s three in the morning. You should try to get some rest before we continue our mad dash. Our days will get busier here on out. You should sleep while you have the chance.”

  Daniel trudged up the stairs to his room, then crashed on his bed. I looked at him with loving eyes. He tilted his sweet head as he raised his eyebrows. Every urge to stroke back his smooth brown hair battled my angelic directive not to get too involved with him.

  “When I thought an angel would look out for me, I never expected it’d be a girl like you,” Daniel said.

  “What do you mean? Your parents are a mixed-race couple. That’s not a rarity anymore,” I said, crossing my arms.

  “That’s not what I meant. I thought my angel would be a guy who looked like The Rock or someone like that. I never expected you to be the prettiest gir
l I’ve seen since, well, in a long time.”

  Be still my heart. Was it possible he didn’t hate me after all? I didn’t let myself gush with hope, so I played it straight as much as my love-starved heart allowed.

  “Well, you can’t always get things to go your way. Why do you work for Coz? That guy is a certified crazy man,” I said.

  “I never worked for him. Because Coz and I are family, he couldn’t muscle me like he did with Akio, Henry or his other soldiers. After Tyrone kidnapped my father to get his bomb formula, they forced my hand.”

  Daniel’s own family out-gunned him and drafted him for their selfish criminal purpose. No wonder he was so conflicted.

  “I guess you couldn’t just shoot them,” I said.

  “Nope. I ain’t going to prison for Coz, but—”

  “But what?” I said with acid in my tone.

  “Never mind,” he said, rolling onto his side.

  His breaths settled into a regular rhythm while I watched him curl into a fetal position. Since he did nothing to stop my death, he got himself a nice guilty conscience in return. I dragged a comforter over him and let him sleep. We couldn’t keep on like this much longer. Something had to give.

  I went downstairs to think. Through the front room window, I saw the GTX on the street. It couldn’t stay there overnight, so I moved the car into the garage. After closing the garage door, I returned to the living room couch.

  The photos in the room seemed to call me. The portrait of Daniel’s family on the walls showed a strong closeness I once shared with my family. Reggie seemed like a cool guy. Daniel’s mother’s death must’ve hit him hard like it hit me when my dad died, so we had that pain in common.

  For me to get my promotion, Arlen said I had to protect him from impending death. There wasn’t any way someone could kill him with me around, but if anyone tried, they’d fail. Still, my being here made me think harder about what I’d save him from. Was it Coz, Tyrone, someone else? I still didn’t know.

  I removed Daniel’s high school picture from the wall then plopped down onto the sofa. The picture had to be his senior portrait. He looked so handsome and mature. I caressed his image and remembered how he used to smile at me. Then, I realized I’d never have a senior portrait of my own. I wondered if anyone from my school even thought of me anymore.