When Sparrow spoke, it was in a whisper, barely audible even in the sudden stillness of the room.
"Just tell me how I can help," he said.
Chapter 10
The gray clot of clouds was breaking up when Gage parked in a metered spot not far from Erb Memorial Union. The morning dew misted in the afternoon sun, curtains of vapor rising off the nicely trimmed lawns. The air smelled of freshly cut grass; moist clippings lined the sidewalk. It took a little longer for Gage to get what he needed from Sparrow—or to arrange for him to send it to Gage, since the letters and emails were back in Sparrow's Boston office—so he didn't round the corner and approach the steps until five after two in the afternoon. He spotted Zoe right away, sitting on the steps, which was a tremendous relief.
Until he saw Anthony Bruzzi sitting next to her.
It was one of those moments when his expectation was so incongruous with what he was seeing that, at first at least, he simply didn't see it. Or if part of his brain saw Bruzzi, it refused to believe it was him; instead he saw her sitting next to an older male student, he in the shadow of the building, her in the sun, her laughing and him smiling. Gage liked to think that if Bruzzi had a knife to her throat, if he'd been menacing her in any way, Gage would have reacted more swiftly. As it was, though, he took a few more steps before the reality of what he was seeing finally took.
"Hey!" he cried. "Get away from her!"
Heads turned, and not just the two of them. He'd shouted loud enough that the sprinkling of students on either side of the street stared to see what the ruckus was. Bruzzi looked bemused, hurt almost. Zoe, after the initial shock, turned mortified, her body rigid. Next to Bruzzi's hefty frame, she appeared as no more than a ventriloquist's doll. Gage found himself fixed on Bruzzi's hands, especially the one gripping the step between him and Zoe. The big meaty paw was bigger than her head. If he'd wanted, Bruzzi could have gripped her head like a coconut and smashed it on the concrete.
Gage's bad knee picked that unfortunate moment to tighten up on him, so running was out of the question. When that happened—a clench of muscle and marrow that turned his knee into one solid mass—he could barely even walk. As he approached, he relied heavily on his cane, his gate jerky and uneven. Usually, even with the cane, he could pass for the middle aged man he was, one that was much faster and stronger than people often realized, but during these incapacitating moments he became what he hated most: a decrepit old cripple whose bark was much worse than his bite.
Making his walk even more awkward, he switched the cane to the other hand midstride. He needed his right hand free. His shooting hand.
"Heya pal," Bruzzi said cheerfully. "We just been talking about all the cool books Zoe here been reading. She's pretty darn smart."
Seething, Gage stopped far enough away that he would be able to get a shot off before Bruzzi would reach him. At Bruzzi's remark, Zoe's embarrassment was morphing into confusion—her forehead wrinkling, her eyes clouding. Bruzzi's bright Hawaiian shirt was unbuttoned nearly to his naval. The gold cross necklace, buried in the thick forest of his chest hair, glinted in the sun. With his hair slicked back, and his face and scalp strangely moist and pink, Bruzzi looked as though he'd just emerged from a hot tub. It may have been possible to appear more out of place on a college campus than Anthony Bruzzi, but Gage doubted it.
"What the hell are you doing?" Gage said.
"Hey, hey," Bruzzi said, raising his hands, "let's not get all agitated. I was just being friendly and all."
"You know each other?" Zoe said.
It was barely perceptible, but Gage noticed her shifting ever so slightly away from Bruzzi. It wasn't enough to satisfy Gage.
"Get up," he said to her.
"Hey now—" Bruzzi began.
"Shut up," Gage said. "Zoe, get your bag."
The sternness of Gage's tone would ordinarily have been enough to get a rise out of her; this time she mutely did as she was told, clambering up next to him, her backpack slung over her shoulder, a white bag from the school's bookstore in her hand. She didn't look at him. She didn't look at either of them.
Even with them standing and Bruzzi seated, Bruzzi still appeared to tower over them. He was a mountain of flesh, a walrus in tropical clothes. His hair tonic was so overpowering Gage could barely smell the grass.
"I don't like your tone," Bruzzi said. His tone was defiant, but he offered up a smile to go along with it. It was strangely dissonant. "I was just being nice."
"I don't know what game you're playing," Gage said, "but I want to be very clear. I want you to leave Zoe alone. I want you to leave both of us alone. I don't want to see you ever again, understand?"
"Is that a threat?"
"Call it what you want."
"Man, I really don't need this grief. You got no idea what you're dealing with here."
"Oh, I think I know. What I don't know is exactly what you're trying to accomplish. Are you trying to scare me? It's not going to work. And if you have something else in mind, you just name the time and place. I'll make sure I'm there."
Bruzzi glared at him. A fragile person could die in that glare, there was so much heat in it. Gage was fairly certain that lots of people had met their demise seconds after being on the receiving end of that stare. Zoe retreated behind him. Gage watched Bruzzi's hands, waiting to see what he would do. Gage moved his own right hand slowly to his front, closer to the holster within his unzipped jacket. Bruzzi's gaze flitted to Gage's jacket, as if noting it.
Like an elephant, Bruzzi rose—a shuddering effort, the way the fat rippled hinting at layers of muscle underneath. Bruzzi didn't take a step, but the space between them seemed to shrink. Gage slid his hand inside his jacket, his fingers closing around the walnut handle of the gun, his gaze never leaving Bruzzi's face. Bruzzi didn't react.
Behind them, the glass doors of the student union few open and a big black man in a gray and blue uniform emerged—scanning the scene, spotting them, jogging down the steps. He was taller than Bruzzi and heavier, broad in the shoulders and saggy in the middle, like an ex-football player who'd found a second life.
"Hey!" he shouted. "What's going on here?"
Bruzzi didn't look at him; he stared at Gage, his eyes big and dark. As the black man lumbered down to them, he barked something into the radio attached to his shirt. His belly sagged over his utility belt. His baton slapped against his thigh. He had all the trappings of the police officer—lots of pouches and pockets and compartments—with one notable exception: There was no gun.
"What's the problem here?" the black guy demanded. He stopped on Bruzzi's step, slightly winded, a faint darkening of sweat on his collar.
Nobody said a word. Gage and Bruzzi were locked in their private staring war.
"Got a call there was some shouting," the black guy said.
Bruzzi glanced at him, a flick of the eyes so brief Gage would have missed it if he hadn't been staring at Bruzzi.
"Get the hell out of here, nigger," Bruzzi said.
It was as if Bruzzi had spat in the guy's face. He gaped at Bruzzi. They were all so still they could have posed for a nineteenth century daguerreotype.
"Excuse me?" the black guy said.
"You deaf, spook? I said to scram. This don't concern you none."
"Wow," the black guy said. "That's real nice of you, starting off racist like that. Now, I'm just guessing here, but I'd say you're not a student. So I'm going to do what you didn't and be real nice and ask you to leave."
"I ain't going nowhere, monkey boy."
"All right, pal," the black guy said, reaching for Bruzzi's arm, "I'm done being—"
Because Bruzzi hadn't even looked at the black guy since that once brief glance, nobody expected the sudden explosion of movement. With a speed, precision, and efficiency that belied his size, Bruzzi grabbed the black man's wrist and jerked him closer, then delivered a powerful uppercut to the gut. As his target doubled over, Bruzzi smacked his elbow across the black man's face, the sound a sicke
ning thunderclap of flesh. The black man dropped like a corpse rolled out of the back of a wagon. Behind Gage, Zoe screamed.
It all happened in a flurry, more like one continuous motion than a series of moves, and Bruzzi didn't seem to be finished. He was raising his blocky right foot as if to crush the black man's skull. Fortunately, Gage already had the Beretta out and pointed at Bruzzi's face.
"That's enough," Gage said.
Bruzzi glared at him, his foot frozen. The black man moaned—a good sign. His face was already a mess, blood trickling onto the concrete.
"You gonna shoot me over this coon?" Bruzzi said.
In response, Gage turned off the safety. Slowly, Bruzzi lowered his foot. Without looking away from Gage, he smoothed out his shirt and his slacks.
"Well?" he said. "If you're gonna shoot me, get on with it."
"Here's what we're going to do," Gage said. "We're going to wait until this guy's friends get here. Then we'll wait some more until they get handcuffs on you."
Bruzzi nodded, not so much in agreement as in amusement. "Back to jail, huh? Over a nigger?"
"That's right."
"I don't think so."
"You don't really have a choice."
"Sure I do. I can walk out of here. You the one that got the choice. You can shoot me or not."
"Bruzzi—"
"Besides," Bruzzi said, with a wide grin, "don't you think you better go get your girl?"
He nodded toward the main campus street. Careful not take his aim off Bruzzi, Gage glanced in that direction and caught sight of Zoe sprinting away from them, her backpack and white shopping bag in a heap on the sidewalk. She was easy to spot—the few other people on the street were frozen, transfixed by what was happening there on the steps.
"I guess you could say I spooked her," Bruzzi said, chuckling. "Get it? Spooked. All right, Gary, I'll be seein' ya."
He casually stepped over the black man, as if he was simply avoiding a mess left by a dog. He gave Gage a wide birth.
"Don't," Gage said.
"Shoot me," Bruzzi said.
He kept walking, down the steps, starting up the street. There were sirens now, but they were still a few blocks away. Gage lowered his gun, staring at Bruzzi's back.
"What is it you want?" he called after him.
Without turning, Bruzzi said, "It ain't time yet."
He disappeared around the building, just as the flashing blue lights appeared at the other end of the street. Instead of relief that the cops had finally showed up, Gage felt a sagging disappointment—one that immediately troubled him. He realized he hadn't wanted Bruzzi to walk away.
He realized he'd been hoping that Bruzzi would so something—rush him, keep beating the security officer, anything to give Gage an excuse to pull the trigger.
#
The worst part of his ordeal with Bruzzi—other than the severe injuries to the security officer—was the hassle it took to get back on the road. All those witnesses had seen him pull the gun, and permit or not, Gage was still dragged down to the Eugene police station to answer a barrage of questions.
Of course Bruzzi escaped even this fate. The police crawled the streets for hours but never found him. It was another reason for Gage to despise him. While Bruzzi scooted out there without even a parking ticket, Gage had to spend the rest of the afternoon in a windowless box with drab white walls and a couple of fake plants in the corners, drinking bad coffee and repeating the same bullshit story ad nauseam:
No, he didn't know the guy who'd been harassing Zoe. He hadn't wanted to pull his gun; he'd only done it when the argument with the security guy escalated into violence. Who was the guy? Who knows. Some thug with a thing for young college girls.
Gage could have told the cops who Bruzzi was, of course, but he didn't want to deal with it. His wife's former killer was in town harassing his adopted daughter? No way the cops would let them slide out of there once they sank their teeth into that juicy bit of information. There may have been a time to go to the police, but it wasn't now. And it wasn't here.
Fortunately, the statement they got from the security guy confirmed that Gage hadn't pulled his gun before the man attacked. After that, Gage was treated more like a hero than a potential terrorist, and by five o'clock he was heading for the Oregon Coast. Zoe, who had been picked up and dragged down to the station along with Gage, sat in the passenger seat wearing a numb, shell-shocked expression of a war refugee. She hadn't even bothered to put on her headphones.
"I'm sorry about all that," Gage said.
She said nothing. The sun was already down; the sky over the trees lining the highway was a vivid orange. The wind whistled through the cracked open windows. The van grumbled its way up OR-126, hardly a soul on the road. They were the first words he'd said to her since the incident. At the station, other than nodding mutely a few times when they'd asked her if what Gage said was true, she'd retreated into some safe place inside herself. It was the same place she'd gone after her abduction the previous winter. He felt his stomach knotting, just looking at her.
"I didn't tell them the whole truth back there," Gage said.
No response. If she hadn't blinked, he might have thought she was in a coma.
"I haven't told you the whole truth either," he said. "I should probably correct that now. I'm sure you'd like to know who that guy was."
Something he said must have finally penetrated the radio static, because she turned and gazed at him with her glassy eyes. Blinked a few times. Focused.
"What are you talking about?" she said sharply.
He couldn't say he appreciated her tone, but he was glad to see that she wasn't completely catatonic.
"I'm talking about Anthony Bruzzi," he said. "Or Blue Face Bruzzi, as he used to be known back in my old stomping grounds."
"Huh?"
"I'm talking about the man who killed my wife."
He'd said the words evenly, without extra volume or emotion, hoping that the bluntness of the words themselves would act as a smelling salt for her addled brain. Too much emotion and she might slip away.
It worked. The glassy stare vanished. She was fully with him now, focusing on him, trying to comprehend. The shadows of the passing trees rippled across her face.
"What?" she said.
"He got out of prison," Gage said. "Some bullshit about jury tampering got him a new trial, and some deal he made with the police got him a much reduced sentence. It happens."
"What does he want?"
"That," Gage said, "is the million dollar question. My bet is it has something to do with making me suffer for the time he spent behind bars."
"Why didn't you tell the police who he was?"
Gage shrugged. "Same reason I didn't tell you, I guess. I didn't want it to get more complicated than it had to be."
"Complicated! He could kill you! He could—he could kill me!"
She'd taken a one-eighty turn from comaville straight to indignant rage. Despite his best efforts, he felt himself getting defensive.
"That's not going to happen," he said.
"You should have told me about him!"
"I won't let anything happen to you."
"That—that's why you wanted me staying somewhere else," Zoe said. Her face, usually so pale, was flushed a deep red. He saw a sheen of sweat on her forehead. "You thought he might come around. I don't believe this. You lied to my face."
"I didn't lie," Gage said.
"You're an asshole!"
"All right, calm down."
"You calm down! You think you're trying to protect me or something but you're not! You're just making it worse. I can protect myself. I don't need you. I don't need anybody."
"Zoe—"
"Stop the car!"
"Zoe, please—"
"Stop the car right now! I mean it, stop the fucking car!"
In the enclosed space, her shout rang like a fire alarm. Worse than the words was that she started hyperventilating, taking short gasping breaths, clutching at
her throat as if she had something lodged in there.
"All right, all right," he said, pulling onto the shoulder.
Her behavior didn't change. If anything, it got worse, her breathing getting so rapid and so shallow that it panicked him. They were at a bend in the highway, the Douglas firs as tall as mountains, the road a black band under an indigo sky. Before the van had even come to a stop, she opened the door and stumbled onto the gravel lining the road.
The engine still running, Gage hopped out and scrambled around the back. His knee—thank God for small favors—didn't tighten up on him for once. The mountain air was cool and moist, the smell of fir and oak mixing with the van's exhaust. By the time he got to her, she'd crawled on hands and knees into the shallow ravine that bordered the road, gasping for breath among fir cones and crumpled beer cans.
He started down after her. She saw him and clambered up the other side, panic-stricken, black pants already spotted with mud. He called after her. She didn't stop, heading for the darkness within the trees. He slipped, almost went down, caught himself, and cursed his way up the other side. She was still running. He pursued her, but with his lurching gait, catching her was a lost cause.
She stumbled and staggered over the lumpy ground, arms and legs flapping crazily, flailing as if she was drowning at sea rather than running. Her dark clothes vanished into the shadows, leaving him trailing after her ghostly white neck. He passed into the embrace of the forest, the darkness deepening, the air cooling. Wet ferns whipped at his legs; low branches raked across his face. Except for the sounds of their passage—the crunch of their feet on wet ground, their harried breathing—a solemn stillness pervaded.
The rumble of his van receded. He heard the swoosh of a passing car. She was getting so far ahead that he was losing her in the shadows. He called after her again. She didn't answer.
A Desperate Place for Dying Page 11