Chasing China White

by Allan Leverone

  In short, the Toyota would be invisible in a city the size of Boston, assuming for a moment Derek was even able to get the damned thing out of the lot. For that to be the case, he would need three things to go his way: at least one door would have to be unlocked, the key would have to be inside the vehicle since Derek had not the first clue how to hotwire a car, or even whether modern cars could be hotwired, and of course the engine would have to start and then remain running.

  Fulfilling the third requirement would seem the most unlikely, given the general disrepair of his target vehicle, but Derek had no better alternative so he got to work. He approached the Toyota as casually as possible, still feeling dopesick but now also conspicuous and out of place.

  Still nobody in sight.

  He moved to the driver’s side. Reached down and pulled on the handle. And to his utter, unadulterated shock, the door opened. It screeched like a hungry baby, but goddamned if it didn’t open.

  Derek froze in shock, but only for a moment. Then he slipped into the driver’s seat and felt his eyes widen in surprise for the second time in a matter of seconds.

  The key was sitting in the ignition.

  A fuzzy off-white rabbit’s foot keychain hung from the damned car key, looking ridiculous, and Derek had the absurd vision of some asshole counting on the good luck of the rabbit’s foot to keep his ride safe in one of the worst sections of Mattapan.

  It was lunacy.

  It was also exactly what he needed, and he felt his eyes begin to fill with tears of undeserved gratitude to the asshole with the rabbit’s foot keychain. His head was pounding and he was shaking like a leaf in a hurricane and now, thanks to some stranger’s foolishness or carelessness or whatever the hell it was, he at least had a shot at putting his desperate plan into motion.

  He blinked the tears out of his eyes and shook his head to clear it. Then he reached for the ignition, suddenly as nervous as he could ever remember being. Sure, if the car didn’t start he could step out of ancient piece of shit, walk away and continue searching the parking lot for another possibility, but really, what were the odds he’d find a second unlocked car with the keys inside?

  Slim to none, that’s what they were, and Slim just left town, Derek thought. It was an old joke and he’d considered it the funniest thing he ever heard when he was a kid. Now, as the thought flashed through his head, it didn’t seem funny at all. It seemed like a damned good idea. Be like Slim and beat feet.

  His breath rasped in his ears as he clutched the key, suddenly afraid to turn it. He closed his eyes and said something like a prayer, fully aware of the incongruity of a junkie asking a God he didn’t believe in for help boosting a car so he could then steal money in order to buy a syringe full of mind-altering poison and go on the run, but he did so nevertheless, whispering, “Please, God, please make this car start. I know I don’t deserve a damned thing from you, but please make it start.”

  And then he turned the key.

  And the car started.

  Derek leaned forward, eyes closed, until his forehead rested against the steering wheel, thinking about something his father had said once when Derek was a little kid. He couldn’t have been more than five years old at the time, so young there was no real context to his father’s remark, but Derek remembered the old man seeing a car drive by and him saying, out of nowhere, “One thing those Japs know how to do is build a fucking engine. Those Toyotas, boy, you just can’t kill the damned things.”

  The memory flashed through Derek’s head, bouncing crazily around his pounding skull. His head felt like some midget was inside his cranium going to town with a jackhammer. He knew he should be driving out of the lot immediately, putting as much distance as possible between himself and the Toyota’s owner—for all Derek knew, Rabbit’s Foot Guy had only stepped out of his car for a second, to grab a coffee or something—but at this very moment, he just needed to relish the notion that for once in his miserable life, something had actually gone his way.

  He thanked God for the help, thanked his father for the dead old bastard’s automotive wisdom, and then lifted his head and looked carefully in all directions, as any good driver should, before easing out of the parking lot and turning toward his brother’s home.

  3

  It took awhile for Brenna to realize she was no longer alone in the house.

  Between picking up after breakfast, crying, and trying to figure out how the hell she was going to save a relationship that had once been the source of her greatest happiness but was now crumbling before her eyes—or whether it was even worth saving—she was simply too preoccupied to focus much on her surroundings.

  So when she looked up from the dishwasher and saw Greg’s brother standing in the hallway just outside the kitchen, she gasped and dropped the water glass she’d been drying onto the floor. It smashed into a million pieces, the shards exploding outward in all directions.

  And she barely noticed.

  She barely recognized Derek.

  He was pale and dirty, his clothes at least a week overdue for the laundry, and she doubted he’d shaved since he last washed his clothes. Even from across the room she could see his whole body shaking, which was strange since he was the one who’d broken into her house, not the other way around. She should be the one shaking, from fear and rage at the fact this man had entered without her knowledge or an invitation, but right now she was too shocked to be afraid.

  It wasn’t like she and Greg were so close to Derek that it would be normal for him to stop by for a visit, much less stroll right inside. Brenna doubted she’d met Greg’s brother more than a handful of times, and even then it was only for a few minutes here, an hour there. She tried to recall the last time she’d spoken to him and could not.

  And the smell. Ugh, he smelled like sweaty armpits and dirty feet and…

  “Wh-what are you doing here, Derek?” She spoke without thinking and winced inside at how bitchy the question made her sound. But still, it was a question that needed to be asked, and ugh, the smell. And he was standing in her house without an invitation.

  And for that matter, how the hell had he gotten in? She was sure she’d heard Greg lock the front door before leaving. She’d been hyper-focused on him as he got the hell out of the house and recalled with vivid clarity the sound of the deadbolt lock thunking shut.

  Without waiting for an answer to her first question, she moved on to her second. “How did you get in here, anyway?”

  Then to her third. “And what…what do you want?”

  He chose to address the second. The answer was simple and straightforward and heartbreaking. “Greg gave me a key after you bought the place.”

  He said it without a moment’s hesitation, and Brenna knew instinctively he was telling the truth. She felt her face redden from anger and shame. Without asking her—hell, without even telling her—the man with whom up until a short time ago she’d thought shared everything had handed out keys to their home like spare change to a vagrant.

  And that was damned close to the truth. Brenna knew Greg’s relationship with his brother was a sore spot for her husband. He hated talking about Derek. But he’d said enough over the years to clue Brenna in to the fact that Derek Weaver had had issues for years with drug abuse and criminal behavior. At one point he’d been homeless and maybe still was.

  Judging from the way he looked—and smelled—homeless seemed like a pretty good guess.

  And he was standing in her kitchen, hands jammed into his pockets, shuffling his feet like a kid who’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

  She took a deep breath. “What do you want, Derek?”

  He glanced at the floor and then looked up. His face was bruised and swollen. And was that blood on his clothes? “I need to see Greg. Where is he?”

  “Is that blood on your clothes?”

  “Where’s Greg?”

  “Derek, is that blood on your—”

  “Where’s Greg?”


  Derek’s tone was harsh and impatient and he was nearly shouting, and Brenna took an instinctive step backward. She was dimly aware of a lightning bolt of pain shooting through the heel of her left foot and she knew she’d stepped on a shard of glass, but at the moment that seemed like much the lesser of two problems.

  “He…he left for work a few minutes ago. What’s wrong, Derek?”

  “Get him back here.”

  “What? He’s halfway to the city, I can’t—”

  “Get him back here.”

  Derek had stopped shuffling in place and his eyes lasered in on hers with an intensity she’d never seen. He stared at her without speaking and everything stopped. It was probably for ten seconds but it felt like ten minutes. She tried to muster up some decent outrage but couldn’t quite manage it.

  Finally Derek broke eye contact, and for just a moment Brenna thought he was going to forget about his request and backtrack down the hallway and out the front door, and that would be just fine with her. He would still have a key to the house, but the minute Greg came home from work tonight she would light into him with the righteous fury she couldn’t quite manage now, and he would goddamned well go out and find his brother and retrieve the key, and that would be that.

  But it didn’t happen. Derek didn’t backtrack down the hallway.

  Instead, he moved forward, into and then across the kitchen, passing right in front of Brenna, who backed up further until her ass struck the counter and she had nowhere to go. She didn’t think she’d sliced up her bare foot any worse but couldn’t be sure.

  Derek walked straight to the stove, glass crunching under his boots. Then he reached out and plucked a steak knife from the butcher-block set Brenna had placed next to the stove for easy access when cooking.

  Then he turned and faced his sister-in-law. He didn’t threaten her with the knife, but he didn’t have to. It glittered in the sunlight streaming through the window over the sink, glinting dangerously as he twitched and shook.

  “Get Greg back here,” he said again. He spoke quietly and calmly, and that was even more frightening than when he’d been shouting.

  She stepped to the phone, staying as far away from the knife as she could, knowing it was pointless—he could lunge forward and skewer her easily if he wanted to, and she would be helpless to stop him—but doing it anyway. Blood from the gash in her foot smeared the floor as she walked and she wondered how many other cuts she was getting that she couldn’t feel at the moment thanks to the adrenaline flooding her system.

  Then she made the call.

  4

  The traffic on the Southeast Expressway was a pain in the ass, as Greg had known it would be. He’d grown up in the area, and for as long as he could remember this particular stretch of highway had been known as the “Southeast Distressway,” a moniker that was depressingly—and reliably—accurate.

  But knowing the traffic would suck was not the same thing as accepting it, and Greg had never been what anyone would consider a patient person. Between the shit show with Brenna at breakfast and the fact Greg was already running late because he’d overslept, his nerves were thrumming like guitar strings even before his cell started ringing. Seeing HOME on the caller ID didn’t make things any better.

  He glanced at the phone and back to the road. Thought about ignoring the call. What the hell could she want that she couldn’t have mentioned twenty minutes ago? She sure hadn’t been interested in talking then.

  He realized he was grinding his teeth and forced himself to stop. Then he swore softly and picked up the phone. “What is it? I’m fighting the traffic here.”

  Silence on the other end of the line.

  “Hello? Brenna?”

  “Yeah…uh, it’s me.”

  She sounded strange. Hesitant. Like she was preoccupied. Or maybe afraid. What the hell? “I know who it is. What do you need, Brenna?”

  “You…you have to turn around and come home.”

  “What are you talking about? I just left. I have a busy day today, I can’t just come home because you decided—”

  “It’s your brother.”

  “Derek? What about him. Is he okay?”

  “He’s here. He got in with the key you gave him.” Her anger was evident, as was her hurt, as she emphasized the words “you gave him.”

  So okay, she was pissed. But why would she be afraid?

  He sighed. “I’m sorry I never told you about the key, but it didn’t seem like a big deal when I did it, and then it slipped my mind. But I can’t miss work just because my brother stopped by for a visit.”

  “He’s holding a knife on me, Greg, and my foot is bleeding and you need to turn the damned car around and get back here.”

  He pulled the phone away from his ear and stared at it as if waiting for it to explain itself. When it didn’t, he stuck it back against his head. “A knife? What are you talking about? He stabbed you in the foot? I don’t understand.”

  “He walked in the front door and surprised me and I dropped a glass on the floor. Then I stepped on the glass when he picked up a knife and threatened me. Now you’re all caught up on current events. Get back here.”

  The tears had started on the other end of the line, Greg could hear Brenna sobbing, and he still had no idea what the hell was happening. “Put my brother on.”

  “Can’t you please, for once just—”

  “Put him on, Brenna.”

  She mumbled something that sounded like a swear, one of the biggies, one of the words he rarely heard her use.

  Then there was a loud clunk as the phone hit the floor, and about three seconds after that a voice said, “Greg?” The voice was shaky and oddly strained, high-pitched, but it was definitely his brother’s.

  “Derek? Are you holding a knife on my wife? Dude, what the fuck is wrong with you? Put the fucking knife down right n—”

  “I’m in trouble, Greg.”

  “Damn right you are. I’m going to kick your sorry ass when I see you, but for now get the fuck out of my house and leave Brenna alone.”

  “No can do.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me.”

  “Maybe I’ll just call the cops on you, what do you say about that, genius?”

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you. You won’t like what happens next if you do that.” Derek’s voice was quiet and calm and…something else. It took a second for Greg to put his fingers on what that something else was, but then it came to him. Derek’s voice was cold. Devoid of human emotion.

  Greg had never heard such iciness out of his brother. Or out of any human being. Then the almost robotic voice continued. “I’m in real trouble and I’ve got nowhere else to turn. I need money and a reliable ride, and then I’ll go away. But for right now, you need to get back here before I have to hurt Brenna.”

  “Hurt…are you fucking kidding me? Touch my wife and I’ll fucking kill you, you fucking junkie asshole.”

  “Just get back here. Now.”

  Greg was ten seconds into his description of what he was going to do to his brother before he realized the son of a bitch had hung up on him. He was red-faced and sweating, furious, and he squeezed his Mustang into the left travel lane, moving at stop-and-go speed but not about to stop, not even when the old fucker in the Honda next to him leaned on the horn and flipped him off.

  He returned the salute and added a few choice words. When he’d wedged himself far enough into the gap he had created, he wrenched the wheel left and hit the gas, laying rubber before blasting onto the median strip, scattering field grass in his wake.

  The Distressway leading away from the city would be wide open until later this afternoon, when all the corporate zombies fighting each other to get to work right now would be forced to fight each other in the opposite direction going home. Greg manhandled the Ford, telling himself he was concerned for Brenna’s wellbeing and not just pissed right the fuck off at Derek.

 
; He got home in no time.

  5

  The first thing he noticed when he walked in the front door was the shattered glass scattered across the kitchen floor. Even from the other end of the hallway, a distance of probably fifteen feet, the shards glittered like tiny diamonds in the sunlight streaming into the room.

  That was what finally clued Greg in to the seriousness of the situation. Even after hearing his wife say his brother was threatening her with a steak knife, even after being consumed with fury on the drive home, somewhere in the back of his mind Greg had figured it was all some kind of big misunderstanding. A fucked up, scary misunderstanding, but a misunderstanding nonetheless.

  The thousands of pieces of broken glass convinced him otherwise. They lay on the floor refracting the light, bright and shiny and dangerous, and it occurred to Greg that whatever was happening was really bad, even in the context of his fuckup brother, around whom bad things seemed to happen with disturbing regularity.

  The house was deadly silent. No radio playing, no TV newscaster babbling in the background. Nothing. Jesus Christ, that stupid son of a bitch carried through on his threat to hurt Brenna. I’m too late and she’s lying somewhere dead or dying, and—

  He shook his head to clear it of that ridiculous thought and hurried down the hallway and into the kitchen, and there they were. Brenna stood with her back to the kitchen counter, crying softly, as Derek faced her, knife—goddammit, he’s actually holding a knife on her—gripped tightly in his hand.

  Greg thought the top of his head was going to explode. He could feel the blood throbbing in his temples. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” he spat as he crossed the kitchen, aware he’d already asked his brother that exact question and equally aware he was no more likely to get an answer this time than he had last time.

  Derek wheeled to face him. He raised the knife and shouted, “Stop! Right now, Greg. I don’t want to hurt you but I will if I have to.”