The Four-Night Run

by William Lashner

  “It depends on what the guilty did. Ten psychopathic murderers running around loose is a frightening prospect.”

  “And if the innocent man convicted of a crime is you, Mr. Scrbacek, and you are forced to spend the remainder of your life in a six-by-eight cell with a three-hundred-pound murdering rapist named Bubba, what then? Would that change your opinion?”

  “Does he sing?”

  “Oh, you’d find out, Mr. Scrbacek. Believe me, yes, you would.”

  DeLoatch?

  “Criminal defense attorneys are always asked the eternal question,” intoned DeLoatch from his lectern. “How can we defend the guilty? I can see that very same question work its way over Mr. Scrbacek’s simple features. Your keen moral sense is outraged at the idea of it, is that not so, Mr. Scrbacek? What kind of morally corrupt monster can defend the guilty?”

  DeLoatch ran his hand through his handsome mane of gray hair, pausing as if he had never before considered the question.

  “First, I’ll ask how, pray tell, Mr. Scrbacek, you are so certain of your client’s guilt? What if she says she’s innocent? Is it your job to prove her a liar? And even if the evidence shows her guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, how certain then is your certainty? You weren’t there, things might have been rearranged, things might have been doctored. It has been known to happen, Mr. Scrbacek. Yes, indeed.

  “But what if you do know for certain. Defense attorneys don’t usually ask the key question—they purposely don’t want to know. But what if your client blurts it out, what if he says, ‘Yes, I killed that man.’ What then, Mr. Scrbacek? Stand and tell us. What then?”

  “You tell the client to get another lawyer.”

  “Well said. Sit down. Wrong again, Mr. Scrbacek, wrong again.”

  General laughter.

  “No, still you fight. How? Why? On what moral ground? On the very foundation of this country’s system of law.

  “We can’t determine what is truly just. That is for God, and God alone, to decide. And so we create an approximation, where no single man stands in for God. It’s no damn good, our approximation, we know that. Man is lousy at approximating God’s work—man’s approximation of food is Spam—but this legal system is our best chance, a system of law and due process that requires all to do their part. The judge. The jury. The prosecutor. The defense attorney. One part breaks down, and the system goes awry. One actor takes the role of God for himself, and the approximation is ruined. Bad people will go free, yes. Good people will be convicted, yes. Justice will be defeated at every turn, yes, yes, yes. But the system itself will prevail. We take our solace in the system, we take our courage from our best efforts, we take our hope from the fairness and equal protection that we promise to every person in this great nation. If you believe in America, then you play your role with a song in your heart and a prayer on your lips that our approximation is close enough to find favor in God’s eyes.”

  DeLoatch rubbed his mouth for a moment. “Well, you do,” he said finally, “unless you’re Mr. Scrbacek, in which case you simply throw your hands in the air and say, ‘What the hell.’”

  DeLoatch.

  What a bastard he had been, the imperious Professor Drinian DeLoatch. He had mocked Scrbacek through the whole first year as an example of petty moral righteousness and had treated him with undisguised contempt. When the ethical questions in the casebook became ever so difficult—questions of cannibalism, insanity, abuse—DeLoatch regularly pulled Scrbacek to his feet and roasted his assumptions to the vocal amusement of the class. DeLoatch was like a never-satisfied father to Scrbacek’s dim-witted son.

  If maybe Scrbacek’s own father hadn’t up and croaked on him, he might have shrugged off the abuse like any other student and headed for the rich green meadows of corporate law for which he thought he was destined. But Scrbacek’s father had died when Scrbacek was ten, and now DeLoatch was there, sheathed in his shabby suits and his air of authority, showering Scrbacek with not just attention, but attention of the most sarcastic and humiliating sort. For the whole of that first year, Scrbacek had hated Professor DeLoatch with an intensity that was akin to a son’s hatred for his domineering father, but at the end of the year, to his strange dismay, Scrbacek found he wanted nothing so much professionally as to practice criminal law—and not as a prosecutor but as a defense attorney.

  Just like DeLoatch. Just like dear old DeLoatch.

  He also dreamed of fucking DeLoatch’s wife till her nose bled, but then she was actually DeLoatch’s third wife, blonde and bouncy, thirty years younger than her husband, and so we shouldn’t read too deeply into that nasty little fantasy, should we?

  Or should we?

  DeLoatch.

  So maybe it was DeLoatch who had sent him scurrying to the criminal bar, but was that the choice the Contessa’s cards had spoken of? Was the mere practice of criminal law enough to put anyone at risk to be hunted unmercifully through the slums of Crapstown?

  He was still considering it all, the water turning tepid as it pounded at his neck, when the bathroom door opened.

  Scrbacek’s body seized in alarm. Through the opaque curtain, he could see the bare flicker of a shadow. Visions of Janet Leigh, Anthony Perkins in a wig, black ink swirling down the drain—twisted visions flitted through his consciousness. He backed into the corner of the stall and called out, “Is that you, Jen?”

  No answer.

  “Jen?”

  Still no answer.

  Three days ago he might have stayed in the corner of the stall, cowering, but Scrbacek had learned fast and hard that cowering didn’t work, that cowering only made you an easier target for the sadistic thugs bent on taking you apart. His shoulder still hurt from bounding into the Worm, but he remained alive while others were dead. So instead of cowering he tensed his body, stepped toward the opaque curtain, flexed his knees, and, in a violent thrust, twisted the curtain aside and yelled so as to get the jump on whoever the hell was coming for him.

  At first he saw no one, and then he realized that his sight line was too high. He stopped his war cry and lowered his gaze. There, sitting on the toilet, with his pants down around his Velcro sneakers, facing this naked yelling man, was a boy. A young boy with shiny black hair and tawny skin, a boy with the sharp dark eyes of his mother.

  The boy stared impassively up at Scrbacek from the toilet, as if finding a naked man dripping wet and shouting in the shower was nothing more unusual than finding there a bottle of shampoo.

  “Who are you?” said the boy.

  A fair question, thought Scrbacek, fair indeed. But also he knew, with some primordial instinct, that the bigger question in that little room foggy with steam was not who the hell was Scrbacek, but who the hell was that little boy?

  23

  NEWCOME

  Scrbacek yanked closed the curtain, turned off the water, reached from behind the curtain for a towel, and wrapped it around his waist. When he again opened the curtain, the boy was still sitting on the pot.

  “Who are you?” repeated the boy.

  “A friend of your mother’s.”

  “What kind of friend?”

  Scrbacek tilted his head in bemusement at the question.

  “Are you a friend friend,” said the boy, “or are you a stay-over, use-the-bathroom, make-me-stupid-breakfasts-in-the-morning-while-my-mom-is-sleeping kind of friend.”

  “A friend friend.”

  “When did you come?”

  “This morning.”

  The boy looked up and down at Scrbacek in the shower. “When are you leaving?”

  “This afternoon.”

  “For good?”

  “Yes.”

  The boy stared at Scrbacek for a moment more and then nodded his head as if everything now was satisfactory. Scrbacek found another towel and wiped himself dry. His heap of clothes, filthy and bloodied from his race through the tunnel and the fight behind Ed’s Eats, was gone. Only the boots were standing side by side on the bathroom floor. A terrycloth robe was hang
ing from a hook on the door.

  “What happened to your arm?” said the boy.

  “I tripped on a rock,” said Scrbacek, putting on the robe.

  “Must have been a big rock,” said the boy, still on the toilet. “Must have been like a boulder. I saw this huge flaming boulder fly through the air once. It went as high as an airplane and then came down right next to me and missed me by about an inch.”

  “A huge flaming boulder?”

  “Well, maybe it wasn’t on fire or so big, but it came down right next to me, like I said. My friend Connor from school threw it.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Sean Ling.”

  “And how old are you, Sean Ling?”

  “Five. Can you wipe me?”

  Scrbacek took a step back.

  “Sometimes,” said the boy, “I don’t do it so good.”

  “Well, first of all, you don’t do it so well. And second of all, I think you should wipe yourself, Sean.”

  “Yeah,” said Sean as he unrolled a long line of toilet paper and wadded it together into an unwieldy clump. “That’s what my mommy tells me all the time.”

  “Where does your father live?”

  “In California.”

  “Really? Does he visit much?”

  “All the time. He comes all the time and takes me to the movies and stuff. When he can. He lives in California, and it’s a long drive. And he’s important there, but still he comes all the time.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Newcome. Newcome Ling.”

  The boy finished wiping himself and then pulled up his pants, flushed the toilet, headed for the door.

  “Bye,” he said with a quick wave of his hand.

  “Don’t forget to wash your hands.”

  “My mommy says I don’t have to.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Scrbacek.

  The boy stopped, looked at Scrbacek for a moment, went to the sink, stood on a stool, turned on the water, pumped soap on his hands, washed until the long sleeves of his shirt were soaked, and then, without turning off the water, stepped down, touched a towel, and left, closing the door behind him.

  Scrbacek had stuffed the pills Squirrel had given him and the remaining money from the casino in his boot before he showered. Now the bottles of pills stood beside the sink, their labels read and insides examined, no doubt, with utter care by Jenny. She had always been suspicious by nature, but completely honest, so there was no need to check that the money was still there.

  He opened the bottles and downed the prescribed amount of antibiotics and double the prescription of pain reliever with codeine. Jenny had left a box of Band-Aids, a new toothbrush, still in its plastic box, and a disposable razor beside the sink. Carefully he gripped the tabs of a Band-Aid and pressed it over the deep slice in the bridge of his nose. He brushed his teeth long and hard, until the foam in his mouth turned pink. He lathered his face with shaving cream. One side was already clear-cut to the bruises when Jenny poked her head in the door.

  “I have to go to work. You can sleep in my bed, if you want.”

  “Thanks,” he said, still shaving, looking only at her reflection in the mirror. “And thanks for the robe and the toothbrush.”

  “I’m cleaning your clothes. They needed it. And I put out the food like you asked. The charges for everything will show up on your bill. Local calls are seventy-five cents.”

  “I’m not planning on using the phone.”

  “Good idea. I didn’t see any cigarettes. You still don’t smoke?”

  “Disgusting habit.”

  “So at least our time together wasn’t a total waste.”

  “No, not a total waste.” He stopped shaving. “I met Sean.”

  “Oh, did you?”

  “Good-looking kid.”

  “Thanks. I have to get him to school.”

  “How old is he?”

  She waited a moment before answering. “Four.”

  “He said his father was in California.”

  “Is that what he said?”

  “Said his father’s name was Newcome.”

  “He did, did he? I have to go, or he’ll be late. Sleep tight.”

  She closed the door, leaving Scrbacek staring at his own face—half-covered in white, with the corner of the foam mouth gaily turned up, half-clean-shaven, bruised and scowling—a face like one of those drama masks, half-comedy, half-tragedy.

  24

  A PATCH OF SKIN

  Her bedroom was their old bedroom. Her bed was their old bed. The walls were a different color, and the duvet pattern was frillier, but the room was furnished with memories.

  He needed to think about the men out to kill him and the big money behind them. He needed to think about the man out to indict him for murder and the evidence that was building against him. He needed to think about where he was and to where he ought to run. He needed to think about the boy, about the boy, oh Christ, the boy. He needed to think, but he was too tired to think. So instead he lay on her bed, still in his robe, his head resting on her pillows, surrounded by the fragrance of her shampoo, and let his mind drift to a small patch of flesh.

  There was a spot on Jenny Ling’s body, a small patch of skin on her side, just beside the bottom curve of her right breast, where she was extraordinarily sensitive. He had discovered the patch on their first night together, after all the hesitations and false starts, the earnest discussions in dive bars where he tried to convince her of his earnestness, the secret late-night hand-in-hand walks after study group so their friends wouldn’t know. That night, when they finally grew sick of talking about it and fell into doing it, after a quick bout of pent-up screwing that was silvery and magical, he had endeavored to gently kiss his way up the lovely course of her body, starting with the curves of her feet and moving to the line of muscle on her calf, to the hollow beneath her knee, to the soft of her thigh, gently working his tongue, tugging at her skin with his teeth. He was atop her like a predatory cat, held aloft by his arms as he bowed his head to her flesh. She wrapped his body with her legs in slow constant motion, and stroked with her soft hands his neck and ears and hair, and let out light contented moans that rose and fell with every breath. He was waylaid for a time too long to remember by the richness of her scent and the very taste of her, the combination driving him to roar out loud, but then he gained control enough to continue on, to the thin and willowy stomach, the hard curves of her ribs, the taut line of skin at the base of her breasts, first one, then the other, then the ambrosial space between. He licked the flavor from her areolas, dark as cinnamon; he played her nipples, soft like taffy, between his lips. But when he reached that spot on Jenny Ling’s body, that small patch of skin beside the bottom curve of her right breast, her legs squeezed his waist, her grip on his hair tightened, her back arched, and the contented moans were trapped along with her breath in the back of her throat.

  “You want a cigarette?”

  “God, no. Disgusting things.”

  “There’s nothing better after sex than a cigarette. Try it.”

  “Take a look at yourself, Scrbacek. Your clothes, your aspirations, even your postcoital cigarette. You’re a walking cliché.”

  “I thought I was profoundly original.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Even that thing with my tongue?”

  “Well, maybe that. But to be frank, you have an utter lack of originality. I think that’s why I find you attractive. You balance out my sparkling inimitability.”

  “Let’s not be so frank. Frankness is, frankly, overrated.”

  “Don’t get pouty.”

  “I’m going to have a cigarette.”

  “Not in my bed you’re not.”

  “Oh, come on.”

  “No, no, no. It’s filthy, it smells, it leaves ashes all over the place.”

  “But see, if it was reefer, you’d be all for it. If it was reefer, it would be, ‘Fire it up, big boy. Let’s get mellow.’”

 
“You have reefer?”

  “No. Never.”

  “Why not? Because it’s against the law?”

  “Because when I do reefer, I end up curled in the corner, thinking every person in the world is laughing at me, and that’s a very hard position from which to pick up chicks. What’s wrong with my aspirations, anyway?”

  “‘Oh, I’m going to work for some big firm and make lots of money and spend my life doing corporate debentures for really rich people so they get even richer.’”

  “Yeah? So?”

  “It doesn’t seem to you a little . . . shallow?”

  “Absolutely. But I’m a shallow guy.”

  “You only wish you were.”

  “All your public interest friends think I’m shallow. What do they call me? The Republican?”

  “The Republican Asshole, to be precise.”

  “But you just watch. I bet all of you end up at big firms, representing R.J. Reynolds and the NRA, blaming it on your student loans.”

  “Not me.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “Go to hell.”

  “Okay, you won’t. Instead, you’ll work for legal aid and help feed the multitudes and be beatified by future generations for all your good works.”

  “Now you have it.”

  “But that’s after you pay off your student loans.”

  “What’s a corporate debenture anyway?”

  “You’ll be finding out soon enough.”

  He found himself consumed by that small patch of skin, entranced by the smoothness of the flesh, by the swell and sag of the breast, by the subtle striae of the ribs.

  She was a hard woman to know, tight within herself, shielded by her sarcasm and mocking laughter, but he imagined somehow that by discovering that point of sensitivity he had discovered a way beneath her protections. It was a passageway, that patch of flesh, to a place secret within her, that edge of existence only reached in the richest moments, when everything held tight is thrown loose, a passageway waiting to be unlocked by his caress. He would stroke it with his hand, swirl it with his tongue. In the bath they would lie together, interlocked left legs casually resting on the edge of the tub, his arms covering her breasts, his lips on the lobe of her ear, on the hollow of her neck, and then down, down, stretching his neck as he lowered his lips to that soft plot of skin, her chin suddenly rising as if on a string.