by Steven Gould
It was Henry's eyes that hurt. "They came for us in California," I said. "I got away but Mum and Dad-" I took another breath. "Anyway, that's the only thing I wasn't honest about, if you were wondering."
"Here, boy, let me take that for you," one of the guards said, taking hold of my bag. The one with my passport took hold of my upper arm, firmly. Pretty much like the other guard had taken my suitcase.
"If you'd care to come this way, sir," he said to Cousin Harold.
Henry said, "Someone killed your parents? Who did that?"
I shook my head. "It's complicated."
They took us through a door with a punch-button combination lock, then down a hallway toward a bank of lifts. Ahead on the right was a double set of doors with the universal pictograms.
I pointed. "Need to use the loo. Urgently."
They looked at each other and the one holding me shrugged. "Right, then." He pushed the door open and said, "Take off your coat and turn out your pockets." Cousin Harold and Henry stayed in the hall with the other immigration officer.
"What?"
"Come on-you want to use the lav, do what I say."
I took the coat off-it was my favorite jacket, a leather one-and handed it to him. I put my wallet on the counter and a handful of French coins. "That's it. Why?"
"Routine. Don't want you doing yourself an injury. Show me your ankles."
I pulled up my pant legs. "No knives. No guns," I said. I gestured at my thin wallet and the coins. "All right?"
He nodded and pointed at a stall. "Help yourself."
The minute I locked the stall door behind me, I jumped.
It was a sloppy jump, unfocused, and pieces of porcelain and water splashed across my shoes and the limestone floor of my Hole. I hated to think what the stall looked like. Bet he heard it. I pictured his steps pounding-no, splashing-¦ across the floor and his opening the door to see the shattered toilet, maybe toilet paper strewn everywhere.
And no me.
Chapter Nine
Shattered Tiles So, it had to be the passport. They'd scanned it on my way to France. Someone had noticed and the alert was put in the system. It could've been just the normal authorities. Surely the consular people had got involved when my parents were killed. After all, I'd gone missing. I should never have gone through customs. I should've jumped past, instead, or directly onto the boat in the night. On the way back, I shouldn't have even used the boat.
And now they'd watch Henry. They'd watch the health club where I took karate.
When will you learn, you git?
I moped around the Hole for a few days, then jumped back to London. I was ultra-careful, popping into the field in Oxfordshire and doing the rest by train. No jumping. It was the weather for coats, fortunately, freezing rain, and I wore a big anorak with the hood pulled well forward.
Henry came out of the health club after evening class and headed for the Knightsbridge station. His head was down and his shoulders were rounded. No after-class cuppa. I followed, distantly. There were several other people going down the street toward the station and I decided against going in. Cabs were scarce, because of the cold rain, but I lucked into one dropping a fare at Harrods and had him take me straight to Russell Square. Henry exited ten minutes after, as did several others. Two men in identical dark green overcoats followed him all the way back to St. Bartholomew's.
One of them was Kemp, the man from Bristol, the man who'd been there the night my parents died.
I nearly jumped on the spot.
Whoa, boy. You want to confirm that you're hangin' about?
I headed in the other direction, toward Holborn Station, and ten minutes later stepped onto an eastbound Central train and rode it all the way to the end of the line at Epping.
I walked out into the car park shrouded in the rain and hesitated. No, if they could feel me jump sixteen miles away from Henry's school, I didn't care. Nothing to tie me to Henry, even if they could feel it. And I was sick of the rain.
I basked on the beach in Phuket the next morning. I was chilled through-I thought it was the dampness of the cave, but even on the beach, in the hot sun, I felt cold. The water looked unappealing as a result but ultimately it was the cure.
It felt like a bath after the freezing rain in London. Not exactly hot, but certainly warm. Later I got breakfast from a street vendor, fresh pineapple and grilled garlic sausages and sticky rice, and ate it in the sticky shade of a mango tree.
At the Kinko's in San Diego, I wrote:
Hey, henry,
I'm sorry you got caught up in my stuff. I did lie to you about my parents being alive but i had to lie to the dojo, too. The people who killed them are still after me. I look at this and it sounds ridiculous, paranoid as hell, but that doesn't make it any less true. I started to visit you and they were there, following you.
So, it's been real. Keep on top of your math. Say good-bye for me.
Your friend,
Griffin I posted it from way the hell out in Buckinghamshire, at the Chesham post office. I had my doubts about it. If they saw it, I hoped they'd understand I wouldn't be seeing Henry again. If they didn't intercept it, I hoped he'd understand that-well, I just hoped he'd understand.
I'd almost said, "Say good-bye to Tricia and Martha." Then I'd amended it to, "Say good-bye to the girls." And I thought about Kemp and his lot watching them, following them.
As I said, I hoped Henry would understand.
Obviously, I stopped going to karate. And I laid off London completely for a while.
This didn't mean I stopped doing karate. I worked on my katas and I bought a dozen makiwari, practice boards you plant in the earth with padded striking surfaces covered in rope about shoulder high. I scattered them around the Empty Quarter, up and down the gully.
Now if I'd been doing regular strikes, I could've gotten along with just one target. You just stand in front of it and whack it, after all-punches, knife hand, elbow, and kicks- but I wasn't doing it like that.
I started the strikes while I was still yards away. It was like that time in Birmingham, when I punched Wickes, the tournament cheat. Begin the strike, jump, and connect.
Except when I didn't.
I scraped my shin and forearm, cut knuckles, and once I bloodied my own nose. I'd jumped too close, clipped the board with my fist but shot past, and it sprang back full in my face.
I nearly gave it up right then, but I was back the next day, swollen nose and all.
I bought one of those solar showers, the plastic ones for camping, and hung it from the south side of an ahuehuete tree in the jungle behind Bahia Chacacual. Depending how much overcast there was, I'd shower sometime between midday and the afternoon. I tried not to leave it too late. If it was cloudless, it got too hot and I had to add cold water. I'd always jump it back to my Hole and refill it from the spring when I was done, then hang it back so it would be ready the next day.
Except for the odd rainy day, it worked out well, and if I was desperate, I'd wash in the rain. I didn't have to worry about memberships or people messing with me and I could see the bright Pacific through the trees. And you didn't want to linger, because the mosquitoes could be bad, especially at dusk.
I took a train from Saint-Malo, jumping to the car park at the ferry, changing some American cash to monnaie frangais in the terminal, then walking to the train station. Besides the cash and an oversized coat, all I carried was my sketchpad and some pencils, which was a damn good thing. The streets swarmed with tourists and I would've hated to be carrying a bag. As it was, I was hit several times by others' luggage.
Doing it like this, there were no customs agents, no passports scanned, no checkpoints. I was nervous about it, wondering if they'd posted anyone there. I thought Cousin Harold's place in Pontorson was more likely being watched, but I sat in the corner of a car and looked for familiar faces, green trench coats, anyone watching me, but the only persons who paid any attention were the conductor and my seat mates, an old French couple and a n
ervous Spaniard with no French or English.
Like me, he was going to Paris and was worried he was on the wrong train. While he talked funny (I thought) with his Castillian grathias, he had no trouble understanding me so immediately asked all sorts of questions to which I didn't know the answers. I spent the ride acting as a conduit between him and the elderly French couple, as they had the answers and were more than happy to tell him about his train transfer in Rennes and the best subway stop for his hotel in Paris. They showed pictures of their children and grandchildren. The Spaniard showed a picture of his parents and his sisters and his sisters' children. By the end of the hour trip into Rennes my throat was dry and my espanol was becoming ethpanol.
The couple said au revoir in Rennes and I helped my Spanish friend to his train. His transfer was imminent but my train didn't leave for two hours-the penalty of buying the tickets that day instead of reserving ahead. He thanked me effusively upon boarding. I waved and walked away feeling both relieved and sad.
I ate the plat du jour in a creperie in the next block over from the train station. After, I walked a bit and sketched. I boarded my train in good time, found the seat, and after having my ticket punched, slept the two hours into Paris.
The Gare Montparnasse was all glass and people, end-of-business-day crowds swarming to catch trains out of Paris. Still half asleep, I found a restroom and, very carefully, jumped home.
This time I didn't break the toilet.
It isn't hard to get fed in Paris if they think you're French, but it is amazing how hard it is to get served otherwise. My accent was apparently improving enough and, it seemed, kids were wearing similar enough clothes that I fit in.
I sketched a lot-the bridges over the Seine mostly, and interesting faces, if they were sitting still. One day, in a cafe, I began drawing a random head, no live subject in mind, and the outline of the head, particularly a sharp turn between the forehead and the top, felt familiar. I kept scribbling, faster, and faster, more an impressionist caricature than my usual style, but I captured it, that feeling of familiarity.
Only then did I realize it was Kemp, the Bristol-accented bastard who'd been there in San Diego, who'd been there in Oaxaca and London. I tore it out of the sketchbook, my hands spread to crumple it into a ball, but I stopped myself.
"C'est bon. Votre pere?" The waiter, passing by, surprised me.
I was angry. The drawing didn't look anything like me!
"Non. Un homme mauvais." A very bad man. Definitely not my father.
The waiter shrugged. "Monpere est un homme mauvais." He moved on before I said anything.
Perhaps if my father had been a bad man, I wouldn't miss him so.
When I left, I carefully put the loose drawing in the back of my sketchbook.
I stole some plywood paneling from a construction site, six sheets, four feet by eight, and leaned them against the wall of the cave. There wasn't anyplace to pin up my drawings otherwise. The limestone was often damp and never flat, and my refrigerator, the little twelve-volt job, wasn't exactly magnet heaven. One drawing overwhelmed it. I put six plywood sheets up, five of them as edge to edge as the irregular surfaces allowed.
The one on the end, separated by a good yard, became the villains' gallery-as far from my bed as possible-and while the rest were lit with lamps that were part of the regular circuit, I put in a separate light and switch for that end panel.
I started with Kemp.
I tried others-the woman who'd been there the night my parents died. The man I'd shot in the eyes with the paintball gun. The man I'd shot in the bollocks and then hit several times with the gun. But even though I could remember the woman's voice, the visual memory wasn't there. I tried but it was like drawing made-up comic book characters-no real basis in reality.
The big guy, from Oaxaca, the one I'd scared over the cliff-him I managed. It was that surprised and panicky look as he flinched over the edge. I also managed Senor Ortiz from the Agencia Federal de Investigation, though I didn't really count him as one of them. More of a minion- support staff, if you will. And I drew a good head shot of Mateo the bellman as I'd seen him that night at the fiesta de Navidad.
They could feel it when I jumped. They were dangerous. They wanted me dead. Maybe Ortiz did, too, but he wasn't the same level of threat.
I put the big man and Mateo up with Kemp. Ortiz I put down below. I scribbled stuff on the edges: where, when, and who, if I knew it.
Later I added a biggish world map. I used little Post-its for "named" ones. Kemp got one in Oaxaca and San Diego and London. Ortiz, the big man, and Mateo got one in Oaxaca. Then I put two pins in London for the guys who'd found me in the subway. I couldn't remember them well enough to draw them. Three other pins went to San Diego for the woman and the other two men who'd been there with Kemp.
That made seven, not counting Ortiz. Yet they'd detected me in London, so at least one had been stationed there, or traveling through, but it made sense, if they had enough of 'em, to station a "Sensitive" in major cities.
I wrote "Sensitives" on a big scrap of drawing paper and pinned it above the drawings of Kemp, the big man, and the bellman, Mateo. On another scrap I wrote, "Minions," and pinned it below, above Ortiz.
Then I went back to the library in San Diego and got printouts from the microfilm collection of the newspapers, the News Daily and the Union Tribune-the stories that told about that night, the murder of my parents.
On the side of the El Centro Ranch Market, there's this mural of women doing laundry in the river. One of them wears only her underwear-it's not exactly explicit but I still liked looking at it.
From the pay phone in the front of the store, I called Sam's number and, as usual, asked for Rosa in espanol. Sam's voice was hoarse and instead of using either of the code phrases ("numero incorrecto" or 'Wo la conozco") he said, " Griffin, I need you here now. They've got Consuelo."
I drew breath to say "Who?" and another voice came on the line.
"Come on, Griffin. Don't make me hurt 'em." That thick Bristol accent was unmistakable. How on earth did he keep it? Didn't Kemp ever watch BBC as a kid?
"Let them go," I said. "Leave them alone."
"Don't waste their time, boy." He hung up.
I took a step to the left and lashed out, kicking the trash barrel over violently; my foot came down in the Empty Quarter, sand and trash swirling around me. I felt like throwing up.
I jumped to the Texaco petrol station and used the phone there, starting with 911. "There are men with guns holding Sam Coulton at his ranch house. They're torturing him- they're trying to get his bank account access numbers from him. No, I won't give you my name."
I hung up. They'd know where the call came from, of course, but the petrol station was a long way from nowhere.
The next number I had to get out of the phone book. When they answered I spoke in Spanish. "There are coyotes with guns at the ranch of Sam Coulton. They have thirty illegals and are waiting for their transport to meet them. If you hurry-" I hung up, not even waiting for the questions. I jumped to the turnoff-the place on old Highway 80 where the county dirt road joined the asphalt-and began walking. It was over seven miles to the ranch house but I didn't want them to feel my arrival and, if my calls worked, I might be able to hitch a ride.
An INS helicopter roared out of the east, probably coming from El Centro. They came in low, maybe seventy feet, obviously following the highway, then banking hard at the turnoff. I thought for a moment they were doing that for navigation, but I realized they wanted to spot any fleeing vehicles. This was the only road out.
I crouched off the road, in the mesquite, when I heard them, well before they flashed by overhead. I shook my fist in the air.
Go, go, GO!
I started running but that didn't last. I was still over five miles away and it was hot and the sun was like a hammer. The road ducked up and down, over a set of low ridges, and I couldn't see or hear anything. Well, I heard something.
I got behind a sta
nd of cholla before the sheriff's car came over the ridge behind me. It was followed almost immediately by an SUV in INS white and green and then an INS passenger van.
For my imaginary illegal aliens.
They bunched up and slowed, bumping through a washed-out section of the road on the way up the next ridge. I was out into the road and running, crouched low, trying to get behind the van before they noticed me in the rearview mirror.
I didn't have to worry-the patrol car, in the lead, should've brought up the rear. Three INS agents piled out of their SUV to push the patrol car past the point it was bottoming out.
I considered jumping into the interior of the van, but found I could crouch on the box receiver of its trailer hitch and hold on to the spare-tire rack. Good. Didn't want to jump-didn't want to clue in Kemp and his bunch.
Just let Sam and Consuelo be all right.
I dropped off the van while it bounced across a particularly nasty pothole and then rolled sideways into the brush. I got stuck by a prickly pear, hiding in a tuft of brown grass, but the van didn't stop, so I guess they didn't notice.
I scrambled through the brush, headed for the back of the stable.
The first thing I saw was one of the INS agents going by with an M-16 assault rifle. I ducked back into the brush. The second thing I saw was another INS agent.
He was dead. Very clearly dead. His head was half off and the blood was worse than-it was worse than that night. I gagged and moved carefully back into the bush, breathing through my nose, but finally, I couldn't help it-I vomited into the sand.
There was a big green SUV I didn't recognize-not Sam's and it certainly wasn't an official vehicle. It also hadn't passed me on the dirt road. Kemp's people must've come in it.
He's still here?
I came up behind the car from the county sheriff's department. There was an officer talking on the radio, but he wasn't seated. He was crouched on the ground, shielded by the open door. "-forensics for sure, and body bags-uh, two for the residents and there were six INS guys on the chopper-five agents and the pilot."