by Nikki Wild
We’d just passed a black van on our way off Main Street. It had been parked at the end of a curb. Dealer plates on the back, nothing in the front. I could tell you every car we’d passed since leaving the Piper. It was my job to remember shit like that.
Now, not two miles after Main Street, it was behind us. Tinted windows. Keeping its distance. Could be nothing, but I had a sense for these things. I hissed out a breath and hunched over the seat, taking a turn we didn’t need to take. The van went by, didn’t turn. Good. I went around the block and waited a minute before turning back onto the right street.
“What was that?” Misty asked.
“Nothing,” I said. Except maybe it wasn’t nothing. Because there was the damn van again. Ahead of us. But I’d put enough time between us that it should have been a mile ahead of us, not the couple hundred feet that it was. It was waiting for us. Shit.
“That van…” Misty said, pointing.
“Yeah,” I said, and gunned the engine. I spun us around another corner and kept going this time. I knew three ways to get to Millions’ old homestead. The first way put us at risk with the cops. The second one was off the table now that the black van was trying to tail me. The third would take us an extra twenty minutes, but it was so damn twisted and out-of-the-way, it was our best option. I didn’t quite relax, but I did force myself to stop gritting my teeth.
“Costa Rica,” Misty mused. She was scratching at her fingernails, looking out the window, watching the scant suburbs turn rural mile by mile.
“I’ll tell you one thing, baby,” I said. “You’d look hella good in a bikini with a coconut drink in your hand.”
She gave me a wan smile.
“My dad always talked about Costa,” she said after a moment. “Did you know that?”
“Doesn’t surprise me,” I said. “That was supposed to be his retirement plan.”
“He said that if shit hit the fan, we’d go there. Guess they’re not especially friendly with the U.S. Marshals.”
“That’s true,” I said. “They teach it in Con Life 101.”
“He even got me extra Spanish lessons when I was in school.”
“You remember any of it?”
“Si, hablo un poco. Suficientemente.”
That got me smiling. She sounded good in Spanish. I don’t know why, it just sounded sexy.
“Considering it?” I said.
“Maybe,” she replied, turning her gaze out the window again. “If you think we could make it.”
I grabbed her hand, ran my thumb over her knuckles.
“Baby, I’ll take you anywhere. You’re lucky you fell in love with a driver instead of a safe cracker.”
“What would you pick?”
“What?”
“As your name,” she said. “Your new name.”
I’d thought about that before. You’ve got a lot of time to think about a lot of shit in prison.
“Kit,” I said, smirking.
“Kit? Kit? Why?”
“You’ll laugh.”
“No, I won’t.”
“You ever seen the movie Badlands?”
She laughed.
“See? Liar,” I said, false hurt in my voice.
“No,” she said, and finally I thought I could see a sparkle in her eyes. “I like it. I can be Holly. If you want.”
“You know what happens at the end of that movie though, right?”
“We’ll rewrite it,” she said. “Without all the killing, and we stay together, and make it to the border and live the rest of our lives drinking coconut drinks on the beach.”
“And having seven million babies,” I added. She laughed again, and looked at me with surprise.
“Really, Rev? I didn’t peg you for the fatherly sort.”
“Me neither,” I admitted. “But you know they say a good woman can change a man.”
“Guess I’ll have to think about getting off birth control.”
I took my eyes off the road, forgot almost everything as I looked at her. Imagined her glowing and round and carrying my child. I almost pulled the damn car over right then and there, screw the money and the future. I wanted her.
“Hmm,” she hummed, looking out the window, a bright blush on her cheeks. “We’ll see.”
So we would. But before we could run for the border, before we could change our names, before we could leave all this shit behind and have our family of seven million Irish-Italian babies, we had to make it to Millions’ place. I revved the engine and went a little bit faster.
Chapter 32
Misty
It had been a long, long time since I was out there.
After the business with the black van, we had the road to ourselves. And when we pulled up to my childhood home, that sense of being alone magnified. Dad’s house, where I grew up, was set on the outskirts of the outskirts of town. The cabin had seen better days. I mean that in both the physical sense, and the poetic sense.
With nobody left to keep it up, it looked like a dump. Especially with the junkyard beside it. That was Dad’s front for money. Dad took meticulous car of the junkyard when he was alive, keeping it neat and orderly behind the chain-link fence so it wouldn’t take away too much from the lush forest behind and around it. Now, the tire pile had fallen over, the fenders and chassis were collecting rust, stoves and fridges were caving in and forming homes for squirrels and owls. It was clear people had picked through the place for anything worth carrying away. I sighed. It was the only thing I could do.
Why hadn’t I been back here? When Dad first went away, I came around once a week to weed, garden, and keep the house from falling apart. And then a year went by, and another. Somewhere along the line the place started to depress me, and I knew my dad’s chances of getting parole were as good as zero. I closed up the door one day and never came back.
I always figured I’d go out the next weekend, or the next weekend, or the next. But I hadn’t, for three years of weekends. Even when he died, I was in no rush to go. His will was simple. His wake was a party at the Piper. Everything - his house and everything in it - was left to me. Just like my plans to come around and clean up the place while he was alive, my plans to come out and go through his things - our things - kept getting put on hold. Now, I regretted it.
“Let’s go, Misty,” Rev prodded, putting his hand on my lower back. I was naval gazing, and we didn’t have time for that. I took his hand and stomped across the overgrown lawn, past the birdbath with its dark rainwater deposit, around the corner of the house to the backyard.
I noted the kitchen window was busted open, and wondered what kind of kids could be out here throwing rocks. And then, of course, I realized it wouldn’t have been kids throwing rocks. Jackie would have sent men out here, too. Tramping all over my childhood home. Ripping pictures of me off the walls. Going through my dead father’s things. Their dirty hands were probably all over my memories, ripping up my childhood mattress, the photo albums, the Christmas ornaments.
“Wait,” I said. “One minute.”
I pulled away, but Rev squeezed my hand, sending me a look that said no time.
“There’s time for this,” I snapped, and ripped my hand away. The key to the back door was still under the heart-shaped rock. They could have looked a little bit and found it, lazy fucks. I slipped into the kitchen. It looked like a war zone.
I ignored the clenching in my chest and went straight to the cabinets; there, on the very top shelf, where even now I had to climb on the counter to reach it, was the false panel. Opening it, I found the cigar box, intact.
The box held my grandfather’s ring, a photograph of my mother, my father’s burnished gold pocket-watch, and a lock of my baby hair, among other sentimental treasures. I put it under my arm, headed back for the door, and stopped. The kitchen clock ticked. I knew it would only hurt to go into the living room. I knew what I wanted might not even be there. But I had to see. In case it was, I had to see.
Wouldn’t you know it, there it was. Th
e glass was broken now, the frame useless, but it was there. The two pictures I wanted. In one, I was sitting on my father’s shoulders, we were both giving peace signs. We were in the Smokies. In the other, my father and I, with all his “friends”. The picture taken long before they became enemies. Before they betrayed him, and me. My stomach turned, I grabbed the pictures from the frame, slipped them into the cigar box, and went back outside.
“See? Just took a minute,” I said to Rev’s impatient glare. “Come on.”
The fairy house tree was thirty yards into the woods behind the house. There was still a hint of a trail leading there. These woods were my playground, growing up. I knew them by muscle memory. The jagged rock that gave me the scar on my shin, the log where I got sprayed by a skunk. The fairy house tree was still standing. And Dad’s squirrel barrier was intact. My heart pounded as I lifted its angry hinges, looking inside.
Everything was just as I remembered it. The pizza-table. The thimbles. The tiny, tiny tea set. The little stick-sided frame with my school photo inside. The miniature bear, and his cow friend. My throat was dry, tongue swelling. Where was the money? I didn’t see…
Oh. Taped to the “ceiling” of the fairy house was an envelope. A thin envelope. My brow furrowed as I looked at it; surely that couldn’t be the money that caused all this bullshit? A stick cracked behind me and I jumped, turning.
“Sorry,” Rev said; he was pacing a bit, looking back at the house, standing guard. I thought I heard something else in the distance, but chalked it up to my imagination. I grabbed the envelope and pulled.
“Jesus, Dad,” I sighed. Rev was torn between keeping his eyes on the house and the road beyond, and coming to my side to see what I’d found. “What did he think? This would be a fun little scavenger hunt for me?”
The envelope held a piece of paper, telling me to walk thirty paces east and look for “the dogwood.” He put that in quotes. The money was buried underneath it.
“We need a shovel,” I groaned. “There’s one in the shed.”
“Here,” Rev handed me the gun from the Bel Aire; it’d been tucked away on his person ever since he saved Purrloin, a million years before.
“You need it more than me,” I said, confused.
“Baby, if I need it, and I don’t get to use it in time, it won’t do you any good,” he said. Before I could protest, he was trotting through the woods. And I was alone, listening to the birds and the creaking woods, all the sounds of the earth, dull and lively and ignorant of all this human pettiness. Ignorant of the tyranny of money. Rev disappeared. I played with the gun, shifted the cigar box from one arm to the other. Thought better of it, and leaned down to tuck it behind the tree. We could pick it up on the way out.
Rev came back into view, holding the shovel. He was trotting. No, he wasn’t, he was running. Shit. Shit. Shit!
Chapter 33
Rev
One bullet cracked into the tree next to me, and my lungs burned cold as I pushed myself faster. I saw her now, through the trees, standing slack-limbed and staring. The wood of the handle dug into my palms, the shovel was slowing me down, but it was also my only weapon.
“Rev!” I could see her eyes now, she sprinted forward, gun raised past my shoulder. “Rev!”
“Go, go…” I sacrificed precious breath to shout at her, but it was useless. Another bullet zinged at my heels.
“Stop! I’m gonna shoot! Stop!” Misty screamed. Whoever was behind me was close enough that I could hear them crashing over the log that had nearly tripped me up. I hadn’t gotten a good look at my chaser, being a bit distracted by avoiding another bullet wound. All I knew was that we hadn’t lost that black van after all. The next gunshot came from ahead of me, and a grunting skid had me finally turning, finally slowing. That, and reaching her. I grabbed her arm, momentum pulling me forward.
“We gotta go, Mis…”
“What the fuck are you doing, Michael?” Misty still held the gun out, aiming at the figure I could now see on the ground. I could see, but I couldn’t believe. God damn. There wasn’t anything sacred anymore. Misty licked her lips. “Stay down.”
“Did you get him?” I asked, my first instinct to go and help him. What kind of man lets his best friend bleed out in the middle of the woods on a beautiful day?
“I don’t think so,” Misty said. “I think I just spooked him, and he tripped.”
“Don’t shoot,” Big Mickey yelled from his place on the ground. He rolled up, onto his knees. His gun hung lazily in his fingers.
“Put the gun down,” I hollered. “What’re you doing, Mick? Put that damn thing away and tell me what you’re doing.”
“What’s it look like I’m doing?” Mickey barked. “I’m trying to save her ass.”
Save her? From what? Misty shot me a glance as confused as my own mind. He wouldn’t drop that gun.
“Tell him to drop the gun,” I said, thinking he might listen if the order came from the girl with her sights on him. Before she could say a word, he was talking again.
“Misty, you gotta come with me,” he said. “Jackie’s on his way here, and if we don’t put some miles under us before he arrives, we’re both dead.”
“Why are you shooting at us?” Misty yelled. He was just far enough away to make shouting necessary. I didn’t like that; if anyone else was waiting in that black van, if anyone was on their way, they’d hear us well enough to find us blind. I held the shovel’s handle in both fists, ready to swing it if that turned out to be a feasible defense maneuver.
“Tell him to drop it,” I hissed again.
“There is no us, Misty. He’s with Jackie,” Mickey shouted. “Misty, Rev’s not on your side. He’s never been.”
“Bullshit,” I barked, taking a step forward, anger making my blood rush to my head. “Fuckin’ lying-ass, traitor-ass motherfucker!”
“What are you saying, Mickey?” Misty asked. I whipped around to look at her. She wasn’t buying that. No way she was buying that. It was obviously bullshit. Mickey came out here to shoot us both - except we’d gotten the upper hand, and now he had to figure out something else.
“Misty,” I said, taking a step forward, anger making my shoulders bunch, my knuckles white around the shovel. Her eyes were wide, and she glanced at my hands briefly before she looked me in the eye.
“Jackie hired him,” Mickey yelled. “Hired him to get close to you. You led him right to the money, Misty. You were damn good at your job, Rev.”
“Shut up,” I shouted, moving toward Misty. Mickey flinched, clutched his gun and aimed it at me. Only the fresh memory of my last encounter with a bullet got me to stop moving. Mickey and I both turned back to Misty. She was shaking a little, her eyes glancing from me to Mickey and back again. Shit. Shit.
“Rev…” her voice quivered along with her lips.
“He’s lying,” I argued. “He’s lying, Misty. It’s so obvious. How could I be working for Jackie? The cops are after me! I got shot!”
“There aren’t any damn cops after you,” Mickey shouted. “You got her out of town so they could torch her house, and you brought her back so she’d lead you to the money. He’s a crafty bastard, Misty. But he’s a killer. Don’t let him get any fucking closer. He’ll hit you with that goddamned shovel… Rev, if you touch a hair on her head I’ll shoot your fucking dick off so help me God.”
“How the hell would you know any of this, Mickey?” Misty asked. “Don’t tell me Leathers was involved in this shit, too!”
“Leathers likes money as much as anyone else,” Mickey yelled.
“And you?”
“Misty, don’t listen to him, please, for chrissake…”
“I always liked you,” Mickey said, humbling his voice now, his shoulders melting a bit. Putting on one hell of a show. “You know, if it wasn’t for your pops…well, I just couldn’t see all this shit happening to you and not stop it. They’re gonna kill me, Misty. They’ve already tried. We’ve got to get out of here now. I’ve gotta shoot him. Y
ou understand? I have to, Misty…”
“Misty!” I turned away from Mickey and dropped the shovel to the ground.
Yeah, I just turned my back on Mickey, but what the hell. If she didn’t believe me…if, after all this, she still didn’t trust me….maybe I was better off shot in the back by my best friend, in front of the woman I loved. I know you don’t end up in jail by being good, but I couldn’t imagine what I’d done that was so bad I deserved this. I couldn’t live knowing Misty took his word over mine. I couldn’t live knowing that her mistake got us both killed. Cause he would kill her; sure as shit, he would.
“Please,” I said, my final plea, her eyes on mine, just a little bit wet, her mouth twisted. I was struck, one last time, by the way she reminded me of a doe. In the woods, especially, it was uncanny. Beautiful, brown-eyed, hair moving in the breeze, only scared enough to stay alive. Sprung and ready to jump away, soundless and surefooted. If she was the last thing I ever saw…
“Rev! No…”
Two shots. I didn’t feel anything. Not a thing. Not cold, not warm. Not pain. Certainly not pleasure. I crumpled forward on my knees, waited to start feeling something. Whatever I felt, I was sure it’d be the last thing ever. I hoped it wasn’t too bad. Misty was running fast to my side. She was saying something, but I could only hear my own ears ringing.
“I love…”
“Get up, stupid!” Her muffled scream reached me as she yanked on my arm. Poor thing. She didn’t understand. I couldn’t get up. I was shot in the back. I was dying. I was…
“Let’s get this fucking money and go,” she snapped, and somehow lugged me to my feet. I still didn’t feel anything. At least, nothing unusual. I looked around my shoulder, saw Mickey’s body crumpled over, his face in a fern. Misty was pulling me, reaching down to grab the shovel.
“We’ve gotta find this the dogwood tree…”
Sound was coming back to me, slowly. And slowly, I was beginning to come to terms with the fact that I was not dying. Not even close. I wasn’t even shot.