Nameless Night

by G. M. Ford

  He held his breath and listened intently. After a moment he heard footsteps and the squeak of a shoe as it approached his hiding place. The noise stopped. He hoped the outline of his body wasn’t visible from above. The air beneath the plastic pool was rancid with mold. His nose began to twitch. He wanted to sneeze but forced himself to hold on. After what seemed like a week, the footsteps moved on. He waited, counted ten, and then lifted the edge of the pool just in time to see the back of a figure letting himself into the lanai, kicking around in the clutter of the place, and then, apparently satisfied it was empty, walking up the back stairs into the kitchen. The voices were louder now.

  Wes was talking. “It was nothing really. I just sort of overreacted. You know…this guy came to the door, you know, asking for Wes Howard, and I sort of freaked out. It was like—”

  An unfamiliar voice asked, “And you’d never seen him before?”

  In unison, Wes and the woman said they hadn’t.

  “Do you recognize this man?” the voice asked.

  A moment of strained silence ensued.

  “Well?” the voice prodded.

  “Hard to tell,” Wes offered. “Might be.”

  He must have stuck the picture in front of her face.

  “Could be,” she said. “It’s really not much of a likeness.”

  Randy began to sweat. What did they have? Some kind of drawing of him? How would they get something like that? These guys were scary.

  “What was he driving?”

  “He was on foot,” Wes answered. Another voice, probably the guy who’d come in from the backyard, said something inaudible. “I didn’t see a car,” Wes said.

  Randy didn’t hesitate: he rolled out from beneath the abandoned pool. His entire body was coated with sweat. He smelled like a footlocker. The cool night air caused him to shudder as he double-timed it around the corner to the gate and let himself out.

  28

  He must have stayed awake. The minute Randy’s knuckles hit the door, bare feet started slapping on the floor inside the room.

  “It’s me, Acey. Open up.”

  Nothing.

  “Open the fucking door,” he growled.

  The door opened. “I thought we weren’t using that word.”

  Randy hurried into the room. “Get your stuff. We’re getting out of here.”

  “Where we goin’?”

  “I guess I’m gonna take you to your mama.”

  The kid stood still. “I tried to call her, but she don’t answer.”

  “Hurry,” Randy said as he zipped up his bag.

  “I thought we was gonna stash the bag and shit.”

  “No time now; hurry up.”

  The kid sat on the floor with a thud. He pulled on his socks as Randy made a quick sweep of the room. “Wassup?” he asked as he laced his shoes. “You bring the heat back wid you?”

  “It won’t be long.”

  “How come?”

  Randy reached down and grabbed the kid by the shirt, hauling him to his feet. “Let’s roll.” The kid didn’t move.

  “Where’s my bathing suit?”

  “We don’t need—”

  “I want my bathing suit.”

  Rather than argue, Randy dashed into the bathroom, pulled the wet suit down from the shower curtain rod, rolled it up in a towel, and hurried back out. “Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Randy dropped to one knee, looking the boy directly in the eye. “So here’s the deal,” he said. “I left the car at a car dealer about three blocks from here.”

  “Smart.”

  “These guys are scary.”

  “Wait’ll you meet Tyrone.”

  “Different kind of scary, Acey. These guys could find us on the moon.”

  “What you sayin’?”

  “I’m saying it might be better if I left you off downtown by the bus station. That way you could—”

  “I ain’t no punk.”

  “I didn’t say you were.”

  “You said you’d take me to my mama’s.”

  “Might be better…”

  The kid’s eyes were hard as rivets. “Might be better we got the fuck out of here.”

  Inside of two minutes, they were out on the street, Randy with his Nike bag swinging from his hand and Acey with the towel tucked up under his arm, looking for all the world like a father and son on their way to the beach…at midnight.

  Five minutes and Randy couldn’t decide whether or not he was relieved to see the Mercedes still sitting there in the car lot with a paper sign tucked under the wipers. NO CREDIT—NO PROBLEM, it read.

  Acey liked it. “Slick,” he proclaimed. “You da shit, dog.”

  They dashed for the car. Randy opened the doors, started around to the driver’s side, and then suddenly slid to a halt. “What?” Acey yelled, but Randy’s attention was riveted to the back of the silver Cadillac Escalade parked next to the showroom door. The license plate was canted at a twenty-degree angle.

  He smiled, hurrying across the pavement to the Escalade, whose license plate easily came off into his hands. One of those magnetic plates dealers use to ferry around unlicensed vehicles. He stopped at the rear of the Mercedes and placed the dealer plate over Berry’s plate. When he turned back, Acey had removed the banner from the windshield and was strapping himself into the seat.

  The multicolored pennants, strung from pole to pole in the yard, began to hum to the tune of a fresh breeze off the ocean. The silver streamers along the front of the dealership began to stretch themselves and spin. Overhead a pair of gulls dropped beneath the wind, swooping just above Randy’s head as he jumped in and started the car.

  He accelerated quickly over to the end of the lot and then slowed to a crawl, at the same empty display space where he’d entered earlier, easing one tire at a time over the concrete divider, gritting his teeth as the front of the Mercedes scraped hard on its way over, then repeated the whole process on the curb before finally making it to the street.

  The midnight streets were deserted. From the look of things, a squall was brewing. The air smelled of salt water. The palm trees swayed like hula dancers. Bits of litter waffled through the air on the wings of the wind. Randy checked the mirror. Nothing. A thin mist began to hiss down upon the car.

  Randy rolled up the windows and kept the Mercedes at the speed limit. The mist thickened; he put the wipers on intermittent. Acey was stretching his neck, trying to look everywhere at once, when, two blocks up, the white panel truck backed out in front of the car, blocking both lanes. No hesitation, no checking both ways, like maybe the driver wasn’t used to traffic at this time of the morning. Randy braked.

  “Hey.” Acey’s voice interrupted his thought process. The kid jerked a thumb toward the rear. Randy checked the mirror. A silver-gray sedan was way too close to the back bumper for comfort. Worse yet, the car was full of guys wearing sunglasses at midnight. Randy’s eyes narrowed. He flexed his fingers around the wheel and then slowed even more. The panel truck hadn’t moved. The door opened. The driver was wearing a dark suit. In his hand was a…

  Randy put the pedal to the metal and veered left, bouncing up over the curb, barely missing a fire hydrant, cutting the corner on his way over the lawn, finding the far curb blocked, bumper to bumper with parked cars, cutting left up the sidewalk. All the way to the corner before finding a gap big enough to squeeze the car back into the street, airborne, landing with a crash and then turning hard left, going the wrong way on a one-way street with the headlights bobbing up and down a hundred feet back.

  Randy floored the Mercedes. The big car leaped forward, growling as it gained speed. The road went on to the vanishing point. In the distance, traffic lights guarded the intersections. He checked the mirror.

  Whatever they were driving didn’t have the guts of the Mercedes. In less than a mile he’d gained half a block. They went airborne at the first intersection, coming down hard, losing something metal to the street. The first traffic light loomed in the dist
ance.

  Randy kept the car floored. They were doing eighty-five now. Ninety.

  Up ahead on the arterial, cars crossed in front of them. Randy tapped the brakes, watching the intermittent flow of traffic, trying to pick out a spot where they could cross against the light…and then the light turned green and they were airborne again as the shape of the road sent them flying up and over the beam. Banging once and then a second time before regaining traction and tearing off.

  Randy flicked one quick glance at the mirror. He’d lost some ground. The intersection up ahead suggested he was about to lose some more. He tapped the brakes again. The traffic was thicker now. A metro bus rolled by. A couple of cabs and then they were nearly there and a tandem eighteen-wheeler was moving into view.

  The driver saw him coming. The air horn tooted twice. Randy slowed the car. The guys in the sedan were twenty yards back now. The truck driver locked up the brakes. Clouds of blue smoke rose from the tires. Randy floored the big car.

  Acey couldn’t help himself. “Ooh, ooh,” he was chanting as they entered the intersection on the fly, passing in front of the truck with so little to spare that the truck’s bumper clipped the back of the car, sending it fishtailing down the road, its rear end swinging wildly back and forth…and then bang…the big-time bam as the pursuit vehicle slammed into the side of the trailer. And then silence as the scream of brakes went quiet and the Mercedes righted itself on the road and roared away from the steaming pile of debris littering the road behind them. “You da shit, dog,” Acey breathed.

  29

  The Grove,” they called it. Thirty square blocks of misery that should rightly have been located in Tampa but which, through skillful manipulation of voting districts, remained technically part of Yrba City, a hundred and forty acres of filth whose sole raison d’être was to provide Tampa with a place to store those unfortunate trappings of post-industrial civilization deemed too dangerous, too carcinogenic, or too morally reprehensible to be contained within the borders of their fair city.

  Acey’s house was down at the end of Garber Street. The wrong side of the tracks of the wrong side of the tracks, only two potholed lanes of traffic from the railroad tracks themselves, located hard against a tire factory and an ice plant.

  They were sitting in the Mercedes two blocks over, watching Acey’s place from between houses. The building might have once been white…or maybe gray, it was hard to tell. Dawn was a couple of hours away. The place was dark. What appeared to be a blue blanket was tacked up across the front window. The gate hung from a single hinge.

  “Place looks deserted,” Randy said.

  “She doan get up till noon.”

  Acey reached for the door handle. Randy put a hand on his shoulder.

  “I’ll go with you,” he said. “Where can we leave the car and not attract any attention?”

  Acey pointed out in front of the car. “Over there,” he said. “Round the odda side of the building.”

  Randy dropped the car in drive and eased forward, bumping over the iron rails and into the dusty factory yard beyond. Acey directed him around the corner, into the employee parking lot on the far side of the ice plant, where Randy squeezed the Mercedes between a battered Ford pickup truck and the wall of the building. The fit was tight enough that they both were forced to get out the driver’s side.

  In the distance, a train whistle moaned. “We better hurry up,” Acey said. “These fuckin’ trains go on forever.” Before Randy could comment on the language, Acey waved him off. “I know, dog. I know.”

  Randy followed the boy across the yard and then over the tracks. They crossed the sandy access road separating the house from the railway and crept around the back, where a narrow porch filled floor to ceiling with cardboard boxes ran the width of the house. The screen door was devoid of screens. Even from a distance, the place smelled of mold and sewage.

  The screen door squealed on rusty hinges as they let themselves in. The back door was open. Somebody had kicked it in, splintering the wood along the doorjamb. They walked into the kitchen together. The place was trashed. Torn to pieces by somebody looking for something. Acey started to cry. “Mama,” he mumbled as they crunched their way across the floor, stepping carefully, avoiding turning an ankle on the debris-covered floor. Randy bent and whispered in the boy’s ear. “Where’s she sleep?” he asked. Acey pointed up the narrow stairs on the right. “Go see,” Randy said.

  He stood in the hall, watching Acey pick his way up the stairway. He pushed open the door on his left. A bathroom. The medicine cabinet had been torn from the wall and now rested partially on top of the toilet. He could hear the sounds of Acey’s feet shuffling through the refuse covering the upstairs floor.

  Randy moved forward, stepping carefully, trying to avoid as much of the broken mirror and as many of the upturned nails as possible. Big old cast-iron bathtub with claw feet. No shower. He knew right away what the smell was…that metallic odor a bit like copper or maybe even steel. He stood still, holding his stomach in his hand.

  An hour ago they’d stopped for breakfast. The scrambled eggs and toast that had tasted good now threatened to end up on his shoes. He swallowed hard and searched along the walls for a light switch, then groped around in front of himself until he found the string hanging from the light fixture. He swallowed a couple more times and pulled the string. Minute his eyes adjusted, he wished they hadn’t.

  His stomach heaved twice and then righted itself. He stood with his hand clapped over his mouth. She lay on her back in the bathtub, one oozing, fingerless hand thrown above her head. The other hand was hidden beneath her body, but Randy was willing to bet those fingers were missing, too. This was fairly recent. Within the past few hours anyway. In this climate, after four hours you were a science project.

  The sound of Acey descending the stairs forced him to get a grip on himself. He tore the shower curtain from the rod and patted it down around her body, straightened up and pulled the string, sending the bathroom into darkness before stepping outside and closing the door.

  Acey appeared at his side. “She ain’t there,” he said. “Maybe she…” He reached for the bathroom door. Randy grabbed his wrist. He shook his head.

  “No,” he said.

  Acey read his eyes. He sobbed and tried to push his way past Randy, who held him at a distance. “No,” he said again.

  “Why you got to—”

  “She’s not coming back.”

  Acey scowled.

  “Not now. Not ever,” Randy said.

  Acey shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Part of him knew what Randy was saying. Another part didn’t want to believe it. Tears rolled down his smooth cheeks. He opened his mouth to speak and then started bawling. That’s when the place lit up.

  Headlights bounced to a halt outside the house, sending shafts of light here and there through rotten curtains, through every crack and cranny in the walls, creating a surreal world of light and shadows within the interior.

  A movement to his right pulled Randy’s eyes toward the back door. He watched the black guy in the parachute pants snap the curved clip into place with a wicked snick. The shape was all he needed to see. AK-47. The guy pulled back the bolt and leveled the weapon at the back door. Randy was off and running.

  He snatched Acey off his feet and made a dash for the bathroom. The first volley of automatic fire tore through the house just as Randy flopped into the bathtub on his back, clutching Acey to his chest. He pulled the boy’s head to his chest and closed his eyes. Wasn’t until the first brief break in the gunfire that Randy remembered the corpse beneath him. The skeleton popped and cracked as it absorbed their collective weight. His stomach heaved as the slippery corpse tried to slide up the side of the tub, like it wanted to be on top. Randy rearranged his limbs so that wasn’t going to happen and pulled the boy closer. A couple of her ribs cracked from their combined weight. Mercifully, the shooting began anew as another gun, being fired at right angles to the first, opened up and
began to spit ammo through the walls. And then both guns at once, filling the air with the buzz of superheated metal, as the house first began to shake and then began to crumble from the fearsome onslaught of the cross fire.

  Parts of the ceiling fell onto the backs of Randy’s hands. Somewhere in the house a slug had cut through a water pipe. The sound of rushing water mixed with the pop of an exposed electrical wire. Then the toilet exploded and the sound of rushing water got louder in the seconds before the big cast iron tub began to vibrate from the volley of slugs tearing through the walls and clanking against its formidable sides, the power of the metal hitting metal pressing Acey and Randy deeper into the tub, setting them to using their hands to cover their heads and shield their ears from the terrible hail of gunfire and the rain of debris falling from above, shards of wood and Sheetrock, bits of wire and glass and a veritable snowstorm of yellow fiberglass insulation filling the air inside the room like a blizzard. The firing went on and on. Acey held on tight.

  And then…just as it seemed the roaring of gunfire might never end…it did. The car lights wavered and then bounced a couple of times before disappearing altogether.

  They stayed put. Breathing. Waiting. Just in case. Randy could feel the boy weeping. He hugged him tighter and stayed where he was.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  Acey said something but Randy’s ears were still full of the sound of slugs hitting the bathtub. “What?”

  Acey said something else but Randy couldn’t hear that either.

  Randy lifted the boy high enough to clear the rim. Acey set his feet carefully amid the debris. Randy climbed out and stood beside him on the littered floor. He kept his body between the boy and the bathtub and looked around. The place was shot to pieces. Major portions of the ceiling had fallen. Sparks cascaded like fireworks in the kitchen where the overhead light fixture had been completely destroyed. Randy pushed the boy out into the hall and eased the door closed behind himself.