by Clint Kelly
“And if you don’t?”
“The outcome is bad.”
A German-Labrador mix jumped onto the chair next to Fran, tongue flopping out one side of its mouth in a silly grin. She stroked its muzzle and it lay down, head content upon its front paws. “The bombing was one of these messages?”
“Yes.”
“The bus shooting?”
“Yes.”
The shy owner of the German-Lab approached the table. A tall Ukrainian girl, she played basketball at the mission. I’d seen her there before. “I’m sorry if Precious bothered you, ma’am,” she said and blushed. She couldn’t make eye contact with me.
“No bother, Rachel. Y’all have done well gentling this one.” To me she said, “Eight weeks ago, Precious was a handful. We almost named her Tornado, didn’t we, hon?”
Rachel nodded. “She sleeps through the night now, right at the foot of my bed. I don’t think she’s afraid anymore.” Miss Francis smoothed the girl’s cheek. “We’ve nothing to fear, dear. God has seen to that!” Rachel kissed her hand and tore off, with Precious bounding at her heels.
“We got a restraining order against her father. He can’t beat her anymore.” She waited, and when I said nothing, she said, “There’s a realm we cannot see, but in it Satan bargains for us with God and we are tested. You’re under the test, Jimmy. God’s in your camp but you’re no superman. Pray for the right to sleep at the foot of his bed.”
She watched the controlled chaos that was Wednesday night socialization. I watched her watch, and I saw in her gaze an assurance. She might not save all these people or their dogs. Could not save them all. What she could do was give Satan a go for every one of them.
14
I handed the girl the satin fashion doll from the box of toys Chase had sold me. She eyed it dubiously. Turned it this way and that. Scrunched her mouth and nose into a grimace usually reserved for Limburger cheese. “Kinda frilly, ain’t it?” Jessie thumbed the one suspender still attached to her denim overalls and held the doll by the feet, head down. The doll’s stylish pink satin dress fell away to reveal long, plastic Caucasian legs.
Jess, a native of Haiti, blew out a gust of air. “Thanks.”
“You don’t like it,” I said.
One ratty blue tennis shoe standing on the other, carefully braided hair shining ebony rich in the overhead fluorescents, Jess shrugged. “I’m a tomgirl.”
“You mean tomboy,” I said.
“Tomgirl,” she repeated. The force of that second syllable said this was not the first time she’d had to defend her word. “I like boy stuff and gettin’ dirty, but I like makeup and boy bands too. Kinda a mix, ya know?”
I did. Jessie was new in town and I’d see her at Safari, a day here, a day there. She was pretty put together for a seven-year-old. Big heart for kids without much. And it had been clear from that first sighting that she preferred her own path. At the time, she was dismantling a broken space heater and puzzling over what would make it run again.
“Ta-dah!” I whipped my other hand from behind my back. In it was the little pirate ship, with Jolly Roger flying high.
The sudden light in Jessie’s eyes was breathtaking. She unceremoniously handed back the doll and cradled the ship against her Oshkosh-clad chest. “Does it float?”
“Would I be your first mate if it didn’t? Try it out in the sink.” She hugged my leg with a fierce grip before running to the wash station where we cleaned and disinfected gently used plastic toys for donation. She pulled a little stool from beneath the sink, hopped onto it, plugged the drain, and turned on the faucet. Her eyes widened when it grew deep enough to float the pirate marauder, which with pretend guns “blazing,” took immediate command of the surrounding sea. When a sippy cup with clown decal floated too near, the pirate vessel, thanks to Jess’s vigorous sound effects, blew it to smithereens.
“Let me show you something.” I reached into the sink and pressed a button on the side of the buccaneer. The sound of surprisingly loud cannon fire boomed from a speaker set into a watertight battery compartment on the poop deck.
“Cool!” Her smile exposed teeth as neat and white as pickets in a freshly painted fence. Following another pitched battle that sent a wayward sponge to the bottom of Davy Jones’s locker, Jess said, “They should make a doll of my mom. She’s so beautiful, I’d love it all the time.”
I had yet to meet her mother, but from how many times Jess referred to her in our two previous encounters, and now a third, I guessed she was a special lady in at least one little girl’s eyes.
“So when do I get to meet this gorgeous mother of yours?”
With a chorus of “Ahoys!” the girl let the water out of the sink. “I think she’s picking me up tonight instead of my dad,” Jess said. “You could meet her then. I think she’ll be in a movie someday. Not a comedy. More like an adventure.” She patted the ship dry with paper towels. “She’d make a great pirate princess.”
I didn’t doubt it. Hollywood liked to paint pirate princesses as ravishingly beautiful compared to their scurvy crews.
“Are you looking forward to school this fall?”
She brushed a hand over her face like an adult with too many bills. “I guess. I hope they can keep me stem-elated. I test kinda high and it’s hard to keep me interested. That’s what my mom says.”
I scratched my head until it hit me. “Ahh, you mean stimulated.” Jess nodded. “Well, don’t worry. They’ve got ways to figure all that out. Your teacher will help you.” Maybe I could volunteer a few hours a week at school and help you myself. “Where did you go to school before you moved to Seattle?”
“We lived in another country—“
Before Jess could finish her answer, Bill crossed my mind unbidden, head torn by bullets, crimson blood gushing from mortal wounds. Blood thick and sticky upon me, blood impossible to remove.
The room spun.
I stumbled and grabbed for a coat tree and held to it like a survivor clinging to shipwreck debris. I don’t know if for a split second I passed out, but I had the impression of being awakened by my own moaning.
“Mr. Carter?” Jessie put down the pirate ship, patted my leg, and looked up at me. Her expression belonged to an old soul. “Whatsa matter?” Her cheeks were jeweled with tears. “Mr. Carter?”
I couldn’t answer. Nausea welled at the back of my throat. Bill’s blood, Bill’s life, would not come off.
A swirling vortex tried to suck me from the coat tree. It tore at my clothes. Down its throat, down deep where it wanted to drag me, was an awful clot of mangled limbs and broken planks and cold steel weapons. Wild-eyed thugs waited at the bottom, playing death tunes on boom boxes made of seaweed, shells, and the bones of men.
Feet running. Hands reaching. The hard floor under my back. A jacket wadded beneath my head. Something damp across my forehead. The scent of aloe shampoo and something acrid in my nostrils. The coppery smell of blood.
Lots and lots of blood.
15
I waited for God to make the next move.
He chose not to.
I packed a suitcase and got out of Dodge. Destination: the Sea Brine Motel in Lincoln City, Oregon.
Just a night or two. Back in time for the tying of the knot for Doomie and Stella on Saturday.
If I came back at all.
Ruthie and I loved our occasional long weekends at the resort town with the D River, world’s shortest. The river began on the east side of Highway 101 and ended maybe one hundred fifty feet later in the sea on the west side of the highway. That, of course, depended largely upon the tides. An extreme low tide lengthened the river to more than four hundred fifty feet to make it the second-shortest river in the world.
It’s what keeps the Chamber of Commerce up at night.
Lincoln City has it all. Great seafood restaurants. Spacious beaches. Tide pools teeming with benign ocean creatures for the touching. A small live theatre. A multiplex cinema. Bookshops and fudge shops and kite shops and b
akeries. A midsized casino with penny slots. And cottages for sale to drool over.
And drool we did. Wouldn’t it make the perfect place to retire? To write? To garden? To open our own whatchamacallit store? To worship with collectors of glass floats and makers of taffy. To think and reflect, a place where we could volunteer, one without big-city crime and congestion. Summer weekends were bad, with escapees from Portland heat fleeing to the sea, but there were only a dozen of those weekends a year.
And so we dreamed and schemed and by the end of the money made the long, monotonous drive over I-5 back to Seattle. We would never make good on our dreams, but we sure had fun playing the game.
The Sea Brine was like a hundred other low-budget motels along the coast’s “20 Miracle Miles”—two beds in a box. We always got two queen beds so each of us could stretch out and not bother the other. Ruthie could sleep through a category-five hurricane, whereas I felt every twitch of my mate. While on vacation, we carved out our own spaces. Should the air blossom with romance, I knew where to find her.
We read. We snacked. We slept late. We left responsibility to the rabbis, as they say.
It was a summer weekday, and to my surprise, the Sea Brine had a vacancy. I only required one bed, non-smoking. My needs were simple, a working TV and a fridge for my smoked jerky from Karla’s in Rockaway and pepper-jack cheese cubes from the Tillamook Cheese Factory. A box of multi-grain crackers and a carton of two-percent milk and I was in business.
Worn out from the weirdness in Seattle and from driving the rental all day, I fell asleep to reruns of The Lucy Show and didn’t wake up until the next day’s Cooking with Julia Child. No nightmares of blood or anything else for that matter.
I’d left the windows open, and the room was refreshingly brisk with salt-scented marine air. “Maybe today I’ll make good on our dreams, Ruthie,” I said aloud. “Why not? What’s keeping me in Seattle? Want to go bungalow shopping with me this afternoon?”
The thought filled me with inexplicable joy. I was smart to get out of Seattle. Best thing for me was a change of scene.
A belly full of Chinook salmon, tongue on alert thanks to a handful of pepper jack, sun streaming down San Diego–strong, I ventured forth. I’d ask the desk clerk for a good lunch recommendation, someplace new, drive down to Newport to the aquarium afterwards, then settle on the beach with my chair and the latest thriller.
As with many of the smaller motels, the Brine was a mom-and-pop operation. Bob Winslow was out changing the sheets. Patty Winslow met me at the desk, asked if things were to my liking and if I’d spent a restful night, extolled Ruth Anne’s virtues and expressed regret over her passing (had it been that long since we last checked in?), and said a newer eatery called Captain Jack’s was making waves at the south end of town near Siletz Bay.
“Try the seafood bouillabaisse,” said the matronly proprietor. Simone the inscrutable Siamese cat sat sleepy-eyed by the phone as if expecting a call. “That dish won second prize in this year’s county cook-off, and only its first year out. The chef was trained in some Italian seaport known for fine fish preparation. I haven’t yet gotten away to try it myself but the mister brought me back a spicy seafood cocktail from there that was the food of the gods. And ask for the smoked-cod appetizer. Folks tell me it’s buttery sweet and melts in your mouth.”
I was about to ask her what was showing at the Cineplex when a boy of maybe twenty-one and a girl of no more than sixteen crowded into the tiny office right behind me. He wore brown penny loafers, no socks, khaki shorts, and a faded blue T-shirt that showed off his biceps, she rather plain in yellow print blouse, white slacks, and white flip-flops. Her brown hair was held in a ponytail; his flyaway blond hair should have been. I’m not sure why, but they didn’t seem to go together, almost as if they’d met in the parking lot for the first time today. The corners of their eyes were tight with tension, like maybe they’d been fighting on the way in.
I would drive by the Cineplex and see what was showing. “Thanks for the lunch tip, Patty. I’ll bring you back some of that cod.” She flicked a hand in acknowledgement, but I caught the pleased look on her face. I imagined that in summer she was chained to the desk much of the time.
The young couple stepped up to the desk. I squeezed past and let myself out.
I thought it strange they had no luggage, no car keys in hand, no car waiting in the driveway outside of registration. Who walked up so early in the day to a resort motel for the night? Was the girl even legal?
The couple quickly faded from my thoughts as I made for the rental. Visions of tomato-rich bouillabaisse, loaded with shellfish and scallops, danced in my head.
I hit the unlock button on the key ring and suddenly felt myself propelled forward by a hard-muscled shoulder. “Walk to the driver’s side, say nothing, give nothing away.” It was the boy from registration. I smelled perspiration mixed with fear. His and mine.
Was that a gun in my ribs?
On the opposite side of the car, the teen girl popped into the back seat as if I were taking her to the mall.
“Get in,” the boy said, his voice cracking. “And remember that I’m right behind you and so is my gun.”
I sat in the driver’s seat. He sat in the back seat directly behind me and next to the girl. I cursed having rented a four-door sedan like we always did, Ruthie. Easy loading and unloading, sure, but now I saw that included for criminals too. I checked the rearview mirror but didn’t see the gun.
“Don’t look at me!” the boy growled. “Just drive. Drive!”
“Which way?” I tried to keep my voice low while backing the rental out of the parking stall. I didn’t want to excite any action on his part.
He said nothing, so I pulled onto 101 headed north.
“No, no!” the boy yelped. “Depoe Bay!”
The tires squealed into a fishtailing U-turn that earned me the wrath of a guy in an RV big as a semi. “I said don’t give anything away!” the boy shouted.
I thought all I’d given away is what a lousy driver I was, but was smart enough not to mention it to the gunman. Dear God, please let Patty be watching this craziness.
Now I was sending messages without my permission.
Depoe Bay is another small resort town twenty miles south on the way to Newport. “World’s Smallest Harbor.” Those commerce guys again.
I tried to still the panic inside. Two incongruous thoughts collided: I am no longer hungry and this is what it feels like to be kidnapped.
I prayed for peace and experienced a calm two degrees below panic. It was a start.
“You don’t have to do this. Put away the gun. We turn around now and I don’t press charges. We get you the help you need.”
“Your wallet, your wallet!” The kid’s arm snaked around my neck, his hand making “come on, fork it over” motions in front of my face.
I suddenly knew where the gun was. Its muzzle dented the flesh just below my right ear. I fished my wallet out of my hip pocket and slapped it into his hand.
“Keep that thing out of sight.” The girl whimpered. “I said no guns but now we’ve committed some kind of felony. I told you we should just go home. My father will understand. We don’t have to do this!”
“Your dad will kill me.” The boy’s voice trembled. “With his bare hands. I took his precious kitten across state lines.”
“You from Washington State?” I said as he rifled the cash and tossed the wallet back.
“Yeah, what of it? We’re not here for conversation, so shut it.”
“Don’t tell him where we’re from,” the girl said, the whine in her words building.
“That’s OK,” I said. “It’s such a pretty state, don’t you think?”
“Yeah, pretty, so pretty.” I hoped he didn’t drip sarcasm on the upholstery. “So pretty is Washington that we’re on the run in Oregon. Her dad thinks I’m a loser.”
“Well, you did just steal this guy and his car and his money,” the girl said.
“Sh
ut up!” he shouted. I wanted to say the same thing but decided against it in case Bonnie then told Clyde to cut their losses and dump me in a blowhole at Devil’s Punchbowl just down the highway.
“Nice, Shirl, now you think I’m a loser too.”
“Don’t use my name! Now he knows my name!”
I chanced a glimpse in the mirror. Their body language was decidedly chilly. Their love had gone sour. They’d done a hugely stupid thing. They didn’t know any way out.
It might have been comical but for the fact that it was a very real gun barrel pressing against my neck.
“Yeah, pretty state, Washington. God made a real gem when He made Washington.” Even to my ears, I sounded like an idiot. I was in a car with two desperate kids and a gun and I’m babbling about Washington’s scenic wonders.
It was the strangest thing. The more I babbled, the more peaceful I became.
“I just love Mt. Rainier,” the girl said. “They say it’s volcanic and could erupt at any time, but whenever I see it, like on a really, really clear day, all I see is this old friend watching over Seattle, ya know?”
“I know. And whenever I think of all the fish and elk and mountain lions that make their home there, I thank God for letting me live nearby.” I was also thankful that the muzzle of the gun no longer pressed against my head but did not bring that up.
“What is this, a PBS nature special?” The kid sounded on the verge of tears. “I don’t believe you two.”
“It’s gonna be OK, Richie. I think it is.” In the mirror, she tried to touch him but he flinched back.
“You said no names, Shirl.”
“Well, you used mine.”
“I’m James Carter, kids,” I interjected, hoping they’d feel less cornered now that all introductions had been made. Somewhere I heard that knowing such information personalizes the abductee and makes him less an object to be thrown into a blowhole.
The girl glanced in the mirror, frowning. I flicked my eyes back to the road.