Steady Trouble

by Mike McCrary

“Cops questioned you?”

  “Yeah, they were all over the place after all the crazy shit calmed down. Now, I can only assume that was you. I came out after the shooting stopped. Wait, shit, that reminds me.” He runs off back into the house.

  What the fuck is this kid doing?

  Should I bolt now and leave this dead weight behind?

  He comes running back with his own bag. It matches mine. “This was there at the condo for me. I dropped it off in the living room when I got here. Wow, it looks just like yours.”

  “No shit.”

  “Did yours have money?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Credit cards?”

  “Can’t remember.”

  “Guns?”

  “Look, Skinny Drake. We can compare our Halloween candy bags later. What did the cops ask you?”

  “Basic stuff, really. Did I see anything? Did I know anything about what happened? They didn’t know anything, or at least they didn’t seem to.”

  “You say anything about me?”

  “No. Honestly I forgot all about you until I saw you in there—” He stops. Puts up a single finger, then throws up.

  Hard.

  I wait. It takes a while.

  He wipes his mouth across his sleeve and says, “I just remembered watching those two people in there getting killed. I don’t do this. I don’t like this. I’m not like you. Do you think I killed that guy in there?”

  “You think I do this all the time? I’m not enjoying this shit either, man.”

  “Sorry. You just seem better at it.”

  I know he didn’t mean to, but his last statement sticks me. Like a punch to the gut. Has everything made me so callous that what just happened in there hasn’t fazed me? At all? I watch Skinny Drake and he’s legitimately shaken up. His hands are trembling. Eyes full of water. Hell, he just threw up.

  I hold my hands out.

  Steady.

  “This car you said you took here? A cab, you mean?”

  “No. It was a car that was parked down the street from the condo. Like a black car. Guy said it was a limo service. I figured with all the money I just got I would roll with some class.”

  My mind clicks. That’s how they found us.

  “Did you recognize the two guys in there?”

  “Who?”

  “The guys who were trying to kill us. You killed one of them.”

  He looks away, dry heaves. I realize that was a cheap shot.

  “Sorry. Did you recognize them? Were they with the car you took?”

  “No. I’ve never seen them before.”

  Before I can discuss this anymore, I see an Audi and a Yukon kicking up dust, hauling ass toward us. I fall into the front seat of the Porsche, jam in the key and twist. The engine roars.

  I don’t even have to tell Skinny Drake to get in.

  He’s already got his seatbelt on.

  Kid’s learning fast.

  Part 3

  “Happiness is good health and a bad memory.” -- Ingrid Bergman

  Chapter 27

  The tires shred-spin, cutting up earth at a blistering pace.

  I whip the wheel and punch it. There’s only one road in and out of this house and we’re hauling ass straight toward and an Audi and a Yukon full of assholes at an alarming rate of speed. The road is surrounded by trees and cows to the right, and to the left is a field of some kind of crop. Rows and rows of a tall bushy something.

  I push down the pedal harder. Bugs hit, splatting across the windshield like a country carwash. The carloads of assholes are getting closer and closer.

  “What are you doing?” Skinny Drake asks.

  I don’t bother responding. Knuckles pop as I squeeze the wheel tighter and tighter. Jam it in second. RPM dips, MPH rises. One asshole pokes his head out from the passenger side of the Audi. He’s got a gun.

  Of course he’s got a gun.

  Skinny Drake slides down onto the floorboard best he can, treating the floorboard as if it’s some form of womb. We’re getting so damn close to them now. I can almost make out the vehicle registrations on their windshields.

  “You might want to get a seatbelt on,” I tell him.

  “What?”

  A shot blasts from the gun-wielding asshole hanging out from the Audi.

  He missed. He’ll try again.

  We’re seconds from impact.

  “What the hell?” Skinny Drake screams.

  I’m fresh out of good ideas.

  Cutting the wheel hard left we catch some air as the Porsche lifts off the road and over a small ditch that separates us from the field of whatever the hell. Landing hard, Skinny Drake bounces like an unpopped popcorn, slamming his head under the glove box. He’s been flipped around, his head on the floorboard and his legs in the air. He’s screaming something. I can’t be bothered with his bullshit at the moment.

  It’s damn hard to steer when running ripshit through a field of six-foot high bushes. The windshield is immediately splattered, covered with a buckshot of red and purple. We’re tearing through a field of berry bushes and I can’t see a damn thing. The wheel is whipping back and forth, slipping and sliding through my sweaty palms and fingers. I fight like a bastard to hold on.

  Twap, twap, twap of the bushes gives a strange rhythm to our little detour. It’s loud as hell but oddly soothing at the same time. I try the windshield wipers. They only create a modern art disaster that’s constantly evolving as it spreads across the windshield. The blades strain to swing back and forth in the berry mixture that’s quickly becoming a thick paste of sorts.

  I keep the pedal down.

  I roll down my window and try sticking my head in and out to get a look at where the hell I’m going. Can’t see much but a series of green blurs. Occasionally I mistime things and catch a branch tagging me flush in the face. Feels like Indiana Jones landed a whip-strike across my forehead. Stings like crazy. Skinny Drake has managed to get himself upright and now has his seatbelt fastened across his chest.

  “They following us?” I yell-ask. “Can you see?”

  He spins around, trying to get a look out the back window. “Don’t see ‘em.”

  I make a quick glance back. There’s nobody back there, only the open path we’ve created through the fields of berries. Can’t help but feel bad about destroying this farm’s good work, but then I remember Berry Farmers United having their conference at the hotel and their lust for Sandy.

  My bad feelings subside.

  I can make out a bit of an opening up ahead. A sliver of daylight cutting through a thinning of brush. A road? A highway?

  Shit.

  We blast out from the field into the front yard of a farmhouse. I slam on the brakes. We swerve and sway as control of the Porsche is quickly leaving me. The tires are fighting to find enough traction in the dirt to stop our ramming speed that’s sending us headlong toward the house. I give the wheel a hard tug, hoping we’ve slowed down enough so we don’t flip. While standing on the break I cut wheel with all I’ve got. So much so that we’re sliding sideways along the loose dirt, but at least away from the house. As we slide, in this odd state of suspended animation I see a little girl in the window with her father. Our world has hit slow motion. I can see them clear as day. They are looking out at us. I make eye contact with the little girl. Her eyes are bright. Wide. Full of wonder and life. She smiles and waves.

  She thinks this is cool.

  So do I.

  I wave back.

  Once we stop, I straighten the wheel and punch the gas. Our tires spit up more dirt behind us. It was unnecessary on my part, but I bet the little girl dug it. I see them coming out the front door, father and daughter watching us speed off down their driveway and back onto the main road. The father puts his arm around his little girl and squeezes.

  I love this car.

  Chapter 28

  At this speed, driving with your head out the window is not as fun as it may sound.

  I don’t have any sunglasses so
the wind and earthly elements are taking a toll on my eyeballs. Not to mention my face is being pelted by bugs and shit. But when your front windshield is rendered useless by a soup of berries and brush, you have to make lemonade.

  We’ve been driving for miles without saying a word. Mainly because I’ve got my head out this window like a slow-witted Labrador, but also because I need to think. I’ll admit it’s not doing much good. My head is a mess on a good day, and today, obviously, is not a good day.

  All the pieces are swimming around but not connecting. Gordo, the McCluskeys, the money, the trust, Lizzy, the poor gorgeous dead Diego, and now Skinny Drake riding shotgun with me while we terrorize farmland.

  We blaze past a gas station with a self-serve carwash. I drop back down into my seat and make a hard U-turn. I make Skinny Drake go get us some quarters. This old, deep-woods, country carwash setup doesn’t take plastic. I watch him shuffle across the blazing-hot parking lot toward the convenience store.

  I’m trying really hard to remember if I’ve seen this guy before. If I know him from the bar or a card game or anything. Maybe he was one of the pervs who tried to get a cheap feel when I was working the princess gig. Those fuckers I remember, every one damn of them, and I cannot for the life of me remember this guy.

  Skinny Drake. Big question mark.

  I should haul ass the hell out of here and leave him far behind.

  Take all this loot and get gone. I don’t need to stay here. I don’t need him. Proven to be pretty damn useless, that’s for sure. Except, of course, he did save my ass back at the house.

  How soon we forget.

  With every car that passes by along the highway my heart rate rises a little bit, but then falls back down as they keep driving by. I’m wondering if they will stop. If our new asshole friends from Lizzy’s house will pull in here, or worse, if there’s a new carload of assholes we don’t know about yet. Gordo and Jonathan were right. These people aren’t the sort to give up. I get that now. They will not stop until I’m dead, and now, I’m guessing Skinny Drake falls into that same slot.

  “Got five bucks’ worth, that work?” he says.

  I’m kicked out of my daze as I see Skinny Drake walking toward me holding a pile of silver in two hands.

  “Yeah, that should be fine.”

  He nods and moves over to the passenger side looking like a sad puppy.

  “You okay?” I ask.

  “Yeah, I guess. No, I’m not okay at all.”

  “Yeah, me neither, man.”

  Chapter 29

  After we scrub and rinse the car off for a while we decide to move on down the road to a country diner.

  We’re starving.

  Fear and fleeing can work up a mean appetite.

  We didn’t get the car spotless by any stretch, but I can at least see out the window now and that’ll do. I also didn’t want to spend a whole helluvalot of time out in the open like we were. So we got the car good enough, filled up the tank and got out on the road.

  I decide to get off the main highway and cut down some back roads that I know. We’re not too far from my parent’s house. A few miles, maybe fifteen, twenty or so, but not that far. There’s a great, tiny country kitchen joint out here where I know I can park the car in the back. There’s a parking spot behind the dumpsters and I back the Porsche into it, safely out of sight from the road.

  I love this place. A lot of old country charm. Wood, wood and more wood. A rusty bell above the door that dings when people come and go. Red and white checkered, semi-clean tablecloths and they keep these little wood peg games on the tables. The kind with simple instructions but difficult to master.

  I stop in here sometimes while traveling back and forth between my parents’ place and Austin. Taking refuge from the bar, the card games, the sin of the big city and the stresses of being a princess.

  Since I really don’t know the past all that well, I sometimes make up things to fill in the gaps. I come up with fact-based fantasies that could be true. They aren’t, but in my mind they are plausible and I don’t know the truth, so they become truth. I have this idea that I used to come here, to this restaurant, with my parents every Sunday after church. We never missed lunch here after a good service. Now, in reality, this place is not convenient to my parents’ house and it’s not even vaguely near a church we might have attended, but I’d like to believe we’d come here together. Same table. Daddy would get a Denver Omelet, Mom the French toast and me a stack of pancakes as big as my face.

  One of the few benefits of not knowing the past is that you’re able to recreate it as you see fit. The way you think it could have been. Should have been. The way life was in your mind until it was taken away from you. It’s the only upside to my situation I can think of and it’s something I’ve learned to live with. I’m okay. Not perfect, but I’m dealing. At least I think so. Regardless, I feel as though I’ve earned the right to create a happy version of the past.

  “I used to come here with my parents,” I tell Skinny Drake.

  “Oh yeah? It’s a nice little place.”

  “Every Sunday.”

  “Church folk?”

  “What?”

  “Your parents? They take you to church a lot?”

  “Every Sunday.”

  “My mom didn’t see the need.”

  “Yeah? How about your dad?”

  “Didn’t know him. Still don’t, I guess. My mom liked to pretend I was adopted, that I came from a place like Annie would live in, ya know?”

  I smile, digging into my pancake plate as big as my face.

  “The truth is my mom had a one-night stand that turned into a kid who stuck around for many, many nights. As she tells it.”

  “Sorry,” I say, feeling bad about bullshitting the guy about my happy childhood.

  “Don’t be. She’s a good woman, far from perfect, but she did the best she could.”

  He looks down and focuses on his chicken-fried steak and fried eggs, cutting into it like it was the last meal on Earth. There’s a certain sadness behind those brown eyes of his. He’s a cute guy, nothing to write home about—I guess I’m not either—but Skinny Drake is too damn, well, skinny for my tastes. Not completely sure what my tastes are anymore. I just know it’s not him.

  Now Diego I could— poor Diego.

  Romance has taken a backseat in my life. After I cleaned up and stopped using sex for comfort I haven’t had the same thirst for it. Like to have some company around, sure, but I don’t want it the way I used to get it. My body in exchange for an uncomfortable breakfast conversation is not a good trade. The therapist I saw for a while said my want and need for a companion would come back, maybe not in the same way, but it would be back. That I’ve been through a lot and my body and brain need to reset and find some stable ground.

  Stable ground.

  Not looking like there’s a ton of that in my future. This ground, the one I’m on, is a trampoline in the middle of an earthquake.

  “You dating anybody?” he asks me.

  “I’m sorry?” I say with a spike in my blood pressure. Can feel my face warming up.

  “You seeing anybody special? A guy? A girl?”

  “No. Not really.”

  “Staying open. Loose. That kinda thing? Makes sense. You’re hot. If I were a hot chick I’d be throwing it around like a football, too.”

  “No. No. I’m not throwing it around. Not looking to either if that’s where you’re headed, Skinny the horn-dog Drake.”

  “Just asking. Making some getting to know you chitchat. Sorry.”

  He looks back down at the food, cutting and stuffing it into his mouth while avoiding any and all eye contact with me. His delivery was for shit, but he didn’t mean anything by it. I did fire off a bit.

  We’ve been avoiding talking about the obvious. The only subject that really matters at the moment. The subject of what in the hell is going on. The little matter of people trying to kill us. I guess I got sucked into the hominess of this pla
ce. The illusion of safety a stack of pancakes can provide.

  Enough. I push my plate forward. “Okay. Now that we’re all friendly-like, can we talk about what’s happening?”

  He sets down his knife and fork. It’s obvious he’d rather keep pretending none of this is happening, but he says, “Sure.”

  “How did you know to come to that condo?”

  “This guy named Gordon showed up at the coffee place I work at.”

  A chill runs up my spine. I check my gun behind my back.

  “He invited me to New York. I’d never been there, always wanted to go, but I was a little creeped out. Ya know, this older man asking to fly me away. I’ve seen the news. Sexual deviants and younger men. I’m not into that scene.”

  “You didn’t know Gordo before that day?”

  “Do you know him?”

  I nod.

  His eyes go wide as he nods back.

  The door dings. An elderly couple walks in.

  “Did you go to New York?” he asks.

  “I did. You?”

  “Like I was saying, I was little creeped out by him so I told him no, then my apartment was broken into and these thugs kicked the piss out of me.”

  I know the end of this story before he even says it.

  “Then, out of the blue these guys show up and save me. Gordon, Gordo I think you called him, was outside with a big SUV waiting to take me to New York. Told me I wasn’t safe where I was.”

  I lean back in my chair. My stomach twists. Feels like I’m falling off a building. Pushed off, actually. I’m falling faster and faster. Is any of this real? Tell me this is another fact-based fantasy I’ve created. I know I haven’t. I wish like hell I had. I remove the gun from my jeans and place it on the table, covering it with my napkin.

  “McCluskey?” I ask.

  Ding.

  Two hillbillies the size of elephants walk in dressed in construction garb. I move my hand to my gun. A waitress hugs them, talking to them as if they come in all the time.

  I slip my hand back.

  Skinny Drake leans in. “Yeah, yes, went to McCluskey’s place in New York. Nice place. Real nice place. That cool elevator that goes right into the living room? You been there?”