Sky's Shadow

by Ted Galdi

“You won’t. It’s just a trap. You won’t show up. Instead, the FBI will.”

  She crosses her arms. “As enraged as I am at him, that just…he’s still my husband. I can’t betray him like that. What he did to those people was…I mean, whew. But to me, he was nothing but good.”

  “That can be a problem for you.”

  “How?”

  “I was with him today. At his warehouse. He seemed convinced you were kidnapped by a Mexican gang.”

  “What?”

  “I didn’t get it either. Anyway, I could tell from how he talks about you that he…really loves you. With someone like him, that’s dangerous. When he eventually learns you weren’t kidnapped, he’s going to search for you.” A couple firefighters run through the crowd toward the hotel, one bumping into Tommy’s shoulder. “He’s obsessive. He won’t just let you go.”

  “Are you saying he’s going to hurt her?” her mother asks.

  “No. Not physically at least. But think about the mental burden of having a high-profile fugitive in your life.” He gazes at Cora. “He’ll hound you to move overseas with him. To some hut in the woods of a non-extradition country. Is that where you want to raise your child?”

  She cups her chin with her hand. Peers at the ground and shakes her head no.

  “If your husband isn’t stopped, he will get to you,” Tommy says. “But you can prevent that. I understand if you don’t want to actively participate in a trap. You don’t need to contact him. Just talk to me. Any information would be helpful. Anything that might point to where he’s hiding.”

  She’s silent for a while. “I don’t know where he’s hiding. But I do know something else. It might be obsolete by now, though.”

  “Tell me.”

  Fifty-Nine

  Tommy holds Cora’s phone to his ear, last night’s recording of her husband and Archer radiating through the speaker. When it ends, he hugs her, says, “Thank you.”

  “You think they’re actually going to do that? Tonight?”

  “Yes. And because of you, the FBI is going to stop them before it happens.”

  “Are they going to…kill Glen?”

  Tommy, unsure how to reply, says nothing.

  “I know the news is making him out to be a monster,” she says. “But he’s also a man. Make sure they don’t forget that. Will you do that for me?”

  “They already know who he is.”

  She tightens her lips as if not happy with that answer. “I need to find a place to sit down.” Her gaze sweeps the crowded lawn. “Huh. Did you do all this? Just to get me outside?”

  He looks away for a second, then back at her. “Good luck, Cora. With everything.”

  “Yeah. You too.”

  He waves, marches through the flock of guests toward the parking lot. He calls Jordana. Her phone rings for a bit, then goes to voicemail. After the beep, he says, “It’s me. I know we kind of got into it before. Can we forget about all that for a second? I found Cora. What she gave me is…huge. Brent and Archer have something planned tonight. And I know where and when. Call me, Jordana, call me.”

  He tucks the phone back in his pocket and crosses the asphalt toward his car. A voice over his shoulder says, “Excuse me, sir.”

  He turns to it. A Black cop stares at him, his White partner behind. “Where you headed?” the Black cop asks.

  “Just to my car.”

  “Where you going in your car?”

  “I…why does it matter, officer?”

  “Please answer the question, sir.”

  “I don’t see you asking the question to anyone else in the parking lot.”

  The cop eyeballs the cut on Tommy’s bicep. “You all right?”

  “Just a nick.”

  “From what?”

  A pause. “I was helping a friend move. Edge from a coffee table.”

  “Ouch. When did you leave your friend’s house to come here?”

  “I don’t remember exactly. Why?”

  “You’re a guest here?”

  “Visiting one.”

  “Another friend?”

  “You could say that.”

  “Seems like you have a lot of friends in Newport. You live here?”

  “Vacation.”

  “From where?”

  “Why?”

  “From where?”

  “New York.”

  “Got some ID?”

  “I…my license…I don’t have it on me. I misplaced it earlier.”

  “That sounds inconvenient.”

  “It is. Tried ordering a beer at the lobby bar and they wouldn’t let me.”

  “You’ve got a youthful face. Take it as a compliment. How old are you exactly?”

  “What does that matter, officer? I’m still not sure what all this—”

  “Answer the question, sir.”

  “Thirty-one.”

  The cop glances at his partner, then turns back to Tommy, asks, “And your name?”

  “Tommy.”

  The cop looks at his partner again, holds his gaze on him longer, then turns back to Tommy, asks, “Tommy what?”

  “Dapino.”

  The cop grabs Tommy’s wrist and puts it behind his back. “Don’t move.”

  “What is this shit?”

  Hotel guests gape at the policeman cuffing Tommy. Gripping his elbow, the cop leads him toward a cruiser. Pushes Tommy’s torso over the hood and searches his pockets. Sets his cellphone and keys on the car.

  “What’re you arresting me for?”

  No reply.

  “What did I do wrong?” Tommy yells.

  “Your photo, height, and age just came through the police computer system. Every cop in California has been authorized to arrest you if spotted.”

  “For what crime?”

  “Murder.”

  A chill courses through Tommy’s stomach. The cop pats him down for weapons. Tommy wonders how this is possible. Maybe they found out he pulled the fire alarm and some unlucky guest was trampled during the evacuation. Or maybe they found out he locked Cora’s father in the closet and he slipped and snapped his neck trying to escape.

  No and no. Both situations are too unlikely. And even if one were true, the accusation would be manslaughter. Not murder. Something else is going on here. And he can’t wait around to find out what. Not tonight, not with mere hours to go before Brent and Archer’s next slaying.

  The White cop opens the cruiser’s rear door. Says to the observers, “Nothing to see here, folks.”

  His partner guides Tommy toward the backseat. “Head down.”

  Tommy drops to the ground. Rolls under the car.

  “Shit,” the Black cop says.

  Tommy’s hands trapped behind his back, he uses only his legs to push himself to the left, his chest grinding against the pavement. He shimmies out from under the car on the opposite side of the officers, sprints toward the parking-lot exit.

  The smack of footsteps behind him. The crackle of a police radio. He hears the Black cop say, “Suspect just left the Grand Bay Resort on foot. Turned north on Vasco Highway.”

  Tommy dashes along the edge of a four-lane road, bay-front homes on one side, high-end businesses the other. In the rear windshield of a parked car, he sees the reflection of the pursuing policemen. He has about fifty feet on them. But realizes backup is on the way. If he stays in their sight, he’s done.

  He scans the passing storefronts. After typical business hours, almost all have dark windows, seem closed. He keeps running, the motion awkward with his hands stuck behind his back. His thighs and calves burn.

  A restaurant. An active valet stand out front. This place is open. Tommy cuts across the highway. The shriek of a horn. An Audi hooks around him, its driver flipping him off.

  Tommy runs onto restaurant property. A trio of fiftyish women in skimpy cocktail dresses stares at him, then behind him as if at the cops.

  “Sir?” a valet says.

  Tommy blows past him into the entrance. Dim lighting. Piano play
er at a baby grand. About three dozen well-to-do-looking citizens at tables. They gawk at the outsider in handcuffs. The soothing piano music progresses. Tommy winds between waiters, busboys, chairs.

  “Stop there, Dapino,” the Black cop shouts.

  Tommy kicks open a service door, barrels into the kitchen. Cooks in greasy white aprons. Steaming pots and pans. Rap music.

  “Yo, you good G?” a cook asks him.

  “How do I get out of here?”

  The cops enter.

  “Dammit,” Tommy says. He scuttles ahead, looking for a door. He slams into a server holding a tray. The sting of piping-hot sauce on Tommy’s neck, his forearms. Their bodies fall tangled to the floor.

  “You dick,” the server says. He throws a lobster tail at Tommy’s head.

  A shattered plate beneath Tommy. A shard must’ve clipped his bicep cut. It’s re-opened. He rises to his feet. To his right an “EXIT” sign. He rushes toward it. Boots the door open. Staggers outside.

  A long strip of alleyway runs to his left and right. If he took off either way, the cops would have an easy visual on him. Ahead is a hill. At the top is the side of some large one-story facility. He’ll try hiding in there.

  He charges up the hill. It steepens. He has an urge to grip bushes for support, the shackles preventing him. His abdominal muscles ache. His breathing accelerates.

  The surface beneath him changes from dirt to asphalt. He takes in the building. A large sign at the opposite end of the lot says, “Briar Road Middle School.” He bolts to the first door he sees. Kicks it. Doesn’t budge. He hooks his foot under the handle, pulls it toward him. Still, no budge.

  He peeks through a window. Shadows drape a vacant hallway. August. The school must be closed for summer. He kicks the glass. Doesn’t break, feels thick. He whacks it with his metal cuffs. Again. Again. His wrists throb. Again, again. The sound of a crack.

  He kicks the fissure. It widens. Once more. Widens more. Once more, his foot crosses through. He hits the edges with his heel, enlarging the space. He maneuvers his head through it. Shoulders. Torso. Legs.

  A sense of accomplishment flows through him. But fades when he realizes he hasn’t accomplished much. He still is wanted for murder. He still has not given Jordana all the Cora intel.

  A voice in his head tells him he is in danger, that he should call 9-1-1. His scattered mind needs a second to remember the people on the other end of a 9-1-1 call are the ones after him.

  The cuffs. Get them off. Focus on that. Once his hands are free, his options won’t be so limited. He could go down to a main road. Try to hitchhike to the FBI office, tell Jordana the intel in person.

  He knees a locker. An echoing clang. “You dumb asshole,” he says to himself.

  He regrets not giving her all the details about tonight’s attack in his voicemail. Instead he kept it vague. He wanted her to have a reason to call him back, wanted to hear her voice again, wanted a chance to make things right between them.

  Something sharp. That’s what he needs to focus on right now. To cut through the shackles. Maybe the school offers a shop class.

  He roams the hallway, eyeballing signs on the doors. On the walls between them are motivational posters. He remembers similar ones from his middle school.

  Good Things Happen to Good People

  If You Can Dream It, You Can Do It

  Work Hard and You Will Succeed

  Kindness Is a Superpower

  You Are Invincible

  Smile

  Blood streams down his bicep. Also his face, the cut on his head must’ve re-opened too. More doors, more signs. Woodshop.

  “Hell yes,” he says. He angles his back to the door, turns the knob with his hand. A high-ceilinged room with dark overhead lamps. The dull shine of metal machinery. The scent of sawdust.

  On the wall a corkboard with tools hanging off. He butts his shoulder against a table, pushes it against the wall, and hops atop. Grabs a saw. He of course lacks the range of motion to cut the shackle chain with either hand. He needs some additional implement.

  At the edge of the table is a vice. He sets the saw on it, twists a handle. The jaws tighten on the blade, secure it in place. He positions the handcuff chain on the saw’s teeth. Drags it forward, back. Forward, back. A soft, high-pitched scraping noise.

  “Ah ha,” he says, his voice resounding. It’s working.

  He continues dragging. A louder noise overtakes the scraping.

  A police siren. Then a second. The cops and their backup must’ve scoured the area within a reasonable radius of the restaurant. And spotted the broken window. No time to keep hacking away at the cuffs. He needs to get out of here.

  He hustles to the front of the room. Peeks into the hall. No movement in any direction. The sound of a door to the right. He goes left, careful to keep his footsteps quiet. The sound of another door. To the left. He turns right. Cops, three of them, SWAT gear.

  Turns left. Same sight.

  “On your stomach scumbag,” one shouts.

  “You got the wrong guy,” Tommy says. “I didn’t murder—”

  The cop drills him in the stomach with the butt of his rifle. Tommy topples to the floor. The police swarm him.

  Sixty

  Glen peers out the Prius window at the darkening sky. The front of his scrubs top is splattered in another man’s blood. “Let me ask you something,” he says.

  Bo, driving, doesn’t reply.

  “Bo?” Glen says.

  “What?”

  “You all right?”

  “Not really.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  Bo swallows. “You didn’t have to do that back there.”

  “You know how much that’s going to help us later?”

  “I get that. But the…way you did it. You didn’t have to do it like that.”

  “What does it matter how I did it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Glen nods toward the window. “We’re leaving all this the day after tomorrow. Turning into new people in Morocco. It doesn’t matter anymore. None of it matters. Isn’t it…freeing?”

  “Let’s just…let’s just make sure we make it overseas.”

  “Why won’t we make it overseas?”

  “No reason. Just…saying.”

  “You still didn’t answer my question.”

  “What question?”

  “What I wanted to ask you.” Glen opens the glove box. Takes out the baggie of cocaine. Pours the remainder into two lines on the back of his hand. Snorts them both. “At Hawks’s house, you said I was the bravest guy you know. Remember?”

  “I remember.”

  “Did you mean that?”

  “Yeah. Of course I meant it.”

  “What’d I do that was so brave?”

  A pause. “You manned up in Iraq.”

  “So did a lot of guys.”

  “Yeah. But not like you. You had…grit.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Not just money?”

  “What?”

  “The last six months. Cost me a lot of money.”

  “For a good cause. What does that have to do with you fighting in Iraq when you were what, nineteen? You didn’t have any money then. What’re you getting at?”

  “Nothing.” A pause. “Dapino thinks I scare easily. Remember when he said that, in the warehouse?”

  “No.”

  “Stop lying.”

  “Why would I lie about that?”

  Glen points at a swath of sandy terrain along the highway. “Reminds you of over there, doesn’t it?”

  “Iraq?”

  “Iraq.”

  “A little.”

  “I remember sitting out on a lawn chair at base. Around this time of day. Sky a similar color to how it is now. Everything around quiet like how it is now. And I asked myself why we were over there. You ever do that?”

  “We all did at least once, no?”

  “They told me it was for democracy in the Middle East. That the p
oliticians in America cared so much about regular people in these foreign countries that they decided to send all that money and all those troops over there to give them democracy.” A moment. “When I was young I actually believed it.”

  “So did I.”

  “What’s the real reason? Why did we go over there in the Nineties and keep going?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Neither do I.”

  Silence for about a minute.

  “Pull over,” Glen says.

  “What? Why?”

  “Pull over.”

  “We need to keep moving. Get back to Hawks’s. We—”

  “If you don’t pull over, I’m not going to pay for your passport.”

  Bo takes a deep breath, eases off the gas. The Prius coasts to the side of the empty desert road. Glen opens his door.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Bo asks.

  “You think I’m a pussy, don’t you?”

  “When did I say that?”

  “You didn’t have to say it. I’ll show you who I am. Show you right now.”

  “If a car passes, someone could recognize your face. Get back in—”

  “I’ll cover my face.”

  “Why’re you…what’re you trying to do?”

  “You already guessed it. Waiting for a car to pass.”

  “For what? To steal it? We already have a car. We—”

  “Just watch.”

  “Am I going to have to come out there and knock your head off your shoulders?”

  “There he is. There’s the real him. You wouldn’t say that to me if you respected me. Would you say that to Hawks?”

  Bo rubs his temples. “Glen…just get in. Let’s talk in here.”

  A car materializes on the horizon. “Ah. Here we have it.”

  “Glen. Get in.”

  “What do you think the average reaction time is for an American driver to process an unexpected event on the road?”

  “I don’t know, man.”

  “Whatever it is, I’m sure it slows down out here. Hardly any other cars around. No sudden cautions to be ready for. Can’t you see a driver just…relaxing? Finding a lull with the road. Almost like a dream.” Glen hides behind a bush.

  “What are you doing?”

  Glen watches the incoming car, a small SUV. “You think the driver is in a dream?”

  “I don’t know. Let’s talk about it in here.”