White Birch Graffiti

by Jeff Van Valer

  “Get us out of here,” Ted said. “Will you, please?”

  The back window shattered, and the engine roared. Muzzle flashes came from the van, just above the driver’s side-view mirror. In front of the Trans Am, and closing on them with ever-increasing speed, a guardrail covered with black and yellow arrows dictated the kid’s only choice: a hard right. The kid skidded through the turn, which led him back to the main drag. The Trans Am howled after the ninety-degree curve, and Ted felt a G-force worthy of his dad’s old GTO. A loud Clink! broke through the chaos in what must have been a bullet hitting the right fender.

  “Jesus, mister!” the kid yelled as they reached Main Street. “What the hell!”

  To the right the street would take them toward the funeral home and past The Saloon, the dark alley, and, to Ted’s great concern, Trashcan Face.

  “Turn left!” Ted said, just as the kid turned right. “Turn left!”

  The engine roared again after the right-hand turn. Despite a little peaceful snowfall, the tires squealed in what the Honorable Roy Gables was fond of calling V8-Majesty. They headed back toward The Saloon and Brodmann McArdle.

  As the kid gained speed, Trashcan Face emerged from the alley’s dark mouth. The kid’s headlights lit him well. The chunk of red flesh swinging from his chin was right out of a horror film or video game. Dripping blood, the mangled face was stark and livid.

  Trashcan Face took a gunman’s stance.

  CHAPTER 28

  The Trans Am’s windshield suddenly changed. It was as though a spider on amphetamines had woven a chaotic web where the glass had been. The bullet hole, dead center in the window, made clear what had happened to the glass. Ted and the kid both ducked, and the kid floored the gas pedal, speeding blind down Main Street. In the next second, four more holes appeared in the glass, two on Ted’s side, and two on the kid’s.

  The muscle car sped past the alley, freezing winter air blowing in jets through the cobwebbed bullet holes. The kid made another turn before Ironman’s van even made it onto Main Street. Ted watched out the shattered back window, his scattergun pointed in that direction. Surely, the van would slow to pick up Trashcan Face. The kid made another turn, this one left, down a narrow street. Ironman swerved off Main Street toward them in enough time to see the kid make the turn. The Trans Am growled down the sleepy, residential street, and the van, now somewhat distant, followed.

  “Turn off your lights!” Ted shouted, and the kid turned off the lights. “Don’t touch the brake pedal.”

  “Mister, I’m gonna hafta use my brakes.”

  “Just… I know. Do what you can. And thank you.”

  The kid did what he was told and kept making turns, actually slowing some. He rolled about thirty yards down another little street and drifted without brakes through another left, then two quick rights. That was when a gravel alleyway afforded Ted a view to the next block down. Through that alley, he saw the van speed away, in the opposite direction. The kid took what seemed like countless, random, right-angle turns in the next few seconds. He was beyond a doubt an area local. As though going off Ted’s script, the kid parked in an empty carport, turning off the engine. Ted’s ears rang from the shotgun blasts. When the kid twisted the stereo knob and turned down the Metallica, Ted’s knee throbbed. The imaginary pit bull bit into his lower left side.

  Peaceful snow fell. Ted worked the shotgun’s pump and ejected four rounds just to count how many were left. With knowing ease, he slid them back into the tube. Working the pump once more, he chambered the first round and clicked the slide to safe.

  Get the hell out of my car, asshole, is what Ted expected to hear, but the kid said nothing.

  “Are you hurt?” Ted asked him.

  The kid shook his head. They stared at each other for a moment, and the kid finally said, “Are you?”

  “Not too bad.” Ted wondered what he would do, or even say, next. “Thank you,” he said again.

  Not too bad, Ted thought. But by then, he knew he’d been shot. The stinging clamp squeezed the flesh about two inches up from the left iliac crest of his pelvis. He palpated the wound and found it had an entrance and an exit. No obvious retained foreign body. The bullet had entered and found its way out. Trashcan Face had shot him in the alley. The wound was just skin deep but hurt almost as much as the knee. For a second, Ted regretted not blowing Trashcan’s head off.

  Thank you, he’d said to the kid. What an inane couple of words for the circumstance.

  Thank you was for someone who gave you a ride home from a calm visit to the library. A little something more is in order for someone who’d just saved your life, sacrificed his car, and asked if you were okay. Ted reached for the door handle and said, “I’m so sorry about your car. I can pay for—”

  “Who are those guys?” the kid asked. “What’d you do to them?”

  “I was just at the… nothing. I didn’t do anything to them. I don’t know them.”

  “They seem to know you.”

  It was a good question. Who were they? Ted scanned through the peaceful winter evening, the obvious questions drifting down to his imagination like the ambient snowfall. Are they the ones who… They’re the ones who killed Kathryn. What do they want with me? What did they want with HER?—(it was your truck, Ted). In a fresh blast of paranoia, Ted spun around and looked out the back for headlights, spinning lights, or quiet men in gunman stances. He saw nothing and no one but the kid. He gripped the shotgun so forcefully his fingers ached.

  “You came out of the alley,” the kid said. “Where were you?”

  “It’s not important.”

  “You smell like beer.”

  Oh, crap.

  “Are you from around here?” the kid asked.

  “No. Look. Thank you for your help. You saved me. What’s your name?”

  “Jason.”

  “Okay, Jason. I’m going to pay for your—”

  “Where you gonna go if you’re not from around here? Do you know anybody in this town?”

  Nope.

  The kid was full of good questions. Ted had no idea where he was going to go, and no, he sure didn’t know anyone. At least no one he could trust or wanted to see. It wasn’t as though he could have the kid just drop him off at the Radifords’. Or at his car at the funeral home, either. Ted shook his head and reached for the door handle, his wits unspooling.

  “Where you gonna go?” the kid asked, hand ready to twist the keys in the ignition.

  Ted hesitated, and the kid started the car. Ted flashed with anxiety but had nothing to say.

  Backing out of the carport, the kid said, “I lost those guys at least ten turns ago. They ain’t gonna find us.” He grabbed the gear lever and said, “Not before I get you to the police.”

  “No,” Ted said.

  Jason looked at Ted, the shotgun, back at Ted, then through the shattered windshield. “No?”

  “It’s not a good idea, is what I mean. I don’t know who those guys are. But like you said, they know way too much about me. They knew my work schedule, where I was going to be. Time after time. They’ve been following me.”

  “What are you in town for?”

  “Look,” Ted said, “These guys are crazy enough to ambush us outside a police station. I’ll call the police, but I need to go somewhere safe first.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know.” He thought for a second. “Where’s a good place? Where’s the interstate?”

  “If somebody sees my car…”

  “Tell them I had a shotgun and you had to do what I said.”

  Acute dread crossed Jason’s face. Fixated on the shotgun, he asked, “Come on, man. This is gonna end up… okay for me, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Ted said. “It is. I’m not threatening you. Matter of fact, I’m thanking you. I just don’t trust anybody.”

  “No? You better trust me, mister,” the kid said with some edge in his voice. He dropped the gear lever into drive. “I deserve that much.”

&
nbsp; Ted set the shotgun on the floor.

  The kid idled down another street, turning randomly and clearly sparing the use of the brake. In under thirty seconds, he pulled onto a long, straight county road. He sped up to around fifty-five and switched on the lights. They headed out of town, and Ted approved. Jason had to lean far to his left to see through the windshield. At their speed, the outside cold stabbed through the bullet holes. The Trans Am purred through the snowy darkness, quiescent farm fields on both sides. A distant oasis of light appeared after they crested a swell in the landscape. Ted leaned forward to use his side-view mirror to steal a look behind them.

  “Up there’s a truckstop,” Jason said. “Interstate’s right after that.”

  “Go there.” Ted put pressure on his gunshot wound as something distant appeared in the mirror.

  Hugging the lonely road’s edge, a single headlight floated toward them.

  CHAPTER 29

  After two quiet minutes and a hundred yards shy of the light splashing out of the oasis, Jason slowed his car and made a gentle right turn. Ted was sure the car’s appearance alone would prompt nine out of ten people to dial 911 on the spot. On the outside, he figured, the Trans Am must look like a Dillinger escape vehicle. A shriek of fear paralyzed him as he faced down the old county road. The one-eyed vehicle was nowhere to be seen.

  “Stop here, Jason,” Ted said, pointing to the empty, unlit parking lot in front of an abandoned gas station.

  “Huh?” the kid said, already completing the turn. “You don’t want me to pull on up and park in front of the store?”

  “Is that sarcasm?”

  Jason rolled slowly to the darkest corner of the lot. Dead clumps of grass, growing up from the old pavement’s cracks, scratched at the car’s undercarriage.

  “Pretty much,” Jason said. He turned off the ignition.

  “I guess I can respect that.”

  Kid’s sarcastic. Calm under pressure. Dry wit. He should be an emergency doc.

  “I suppose now,” Jason said, opening his door, “you might think we’d better get away from the car before somebody sees us.”

  Yes. Let’s get the hell away from this rolling crime scene.

  Ted opened his door and got out. Shotgun in hand, he winced in pain. His knee felt about double its normal size. The wound on his left flank might as well have been the entire pit bull hanging by its clenched teeth. “You’re right. ‘Before somebody sees us.’ Especially them. Your car’s gonna be the first on their list.”

  Jason shut his door and backed away from the car.

  “I’m not the only one they know about,” Ted said.

  “What?”

  “They’ll learn plenty about you from your license plate. They might already know where you live.”

  “Nobody lives there but me.”

  “Good.” Ted chewed the inside of his lip for a second, and then said, “Let’s get up to the store.”

  Through the heavier snow, he and Jason walked quickly toward the oasis. Ignoring his pain as best he could, Ted limped up to the edge of what looked like a retention pond. Holding the gun by its barrel and magazine tube, he stood at an imaginary home plate. Then he eased into a full swing, releasing his grip. The gun helicoptered into the darkness. Ted thought for a second it might skip across a surface of ice, but to his relief, it splashed instead.

  They resumed their trip to the store, quickening when the light revealed them fully.

  “How old are you, Jason?”

  “Twenty-four.”

  Jason shivered as they walked. Ted took off his overcoat and dropped it onto the kid’s shoulders.

  “You saved my life, young man.”

  The kid pursed his lips and shrugged.

  A sign beyond the truck stop said I-75. The darkness behind it was inviting. Steam drifted from parked semi-trucks’ exhaust pipes. A handful of late-night car travelers pumped gasoline. One man entered, and two people exited the store. Once Ted and Jason were in the thick of activity, Ted felt as though he could release his breath. He took another look around him, and they walked inside. The brightly lit place bustled with people and movement. A ten-foot rank of coffee spigots topped with brown and orange triangular handles gleamed in their shiny chrome, next to the cashier. Hotdogs on rollers beneath an orange heater (smelling, of course, like Lloyd’s flesh sizzling on the coals) nauseated him.

  “Gotta piss,” said the kid, who disappeared down an aisle of fan belts, fuzzy steering wheel covers, and terrible air fresheners shaped like pine trees. Ted tested his left knee’s flexion and pocketed his hand to hold hidden pressure on his wound. The knee was tight and painful, but it worked. If a patient in the ER had the same problem, Ted would order ice and an x-ray for it. The gunshot wound would need a little more immediate care.

  A man standing by the candy bars cursed at his cell phone’s little screen. “Roaming,” he said, flipping the phone shut with the other hand. At one of three tables, a gaunt old lady sat, brooding over what had to be lottery tickets. She lifted her head and did a double-take at Ted. Her bony fingers stilled the ticket-scratching nickel for a second, but then she got back to work. A little girl made a long face and hugged her mom’s leg when Ted walked by.

  Ted checked himself over, ran his fingers through his hair. One of his pant legs was torn at the ankle. Mud and withered, brown grass caked his shoes. Frayed threads poked out of his suit jacket’s bullet hole. All in all, Ted felt like the Trans Am. Nine out of ten people might call 911 when they saw him. And Jason. That coat would be covered in mud.

  Had anyone else seen them?

  He scanned the place. Next to stacked boxes of work boots and a rack of belt buckles, four pay phones hung on the wall. Ted stepped past the coat rack and neat piles of folded jeans. Still not sure what to do, he slipped toward the phones. Maybe the gunmen were headed to Blue County Hospital, ready to dress as doctors or something, bent on hurting Dad and Suzanne.

  “You look lost,” a deep voice said. Ted almost hit the floor in a reflex before facing a stocky, middle-aged farmer or truck driver. The casual-looking, bearded man wore his own tattered coat over a flannel shirt and a baseball cap bearing a Dekalb flying corn patch. He appeared for the moment to be coat-shopping. “And like you’ve had a bad night.”

  What the hell do you care?

  “You might say that,” Ted said.

  The man’s smile went away, and Ted thought his own voice had sounded clipped, or even sarcastic. “Please forgive me,” the man said. “Didn’t mean anything by it. Just figured maybe I could—I don’t know—lend a hand or something.” Then he shrugged and dropped his gaze. Already backing away, the trucker added quietly, “Driving home from Jacksonville. Stopped to stretch my legs, get a coffee, wake up a little. Just thought I’d say something. No big deal.”

  “Thank you,” Ted said, feeling the need to answer in some way. He recognized an old, nagging feeling. He’d spent most of his life immediately distrusting strangers and most of that time admonishing himself for it. His life-platform of deception and his repeated failure to be honest with the most important people in his life may have cost him dearly. Two of those he did trust, one a perfect wife and the other a best friend, were dead. Ted was well on his way to blaming himself for their deaths, but he hadn’t yet had the chance.

  Dad’s dying. Ted knew he’d blame himself for that, too, when it happened.

  He was also sure, somehow, his big, thirty-year lie had landed him exactly where he stood, late at night, his knee throbbing, trying to hide a gunshot wound in public, face-to-face with a loquacious stranger, and feeling exactly the way he must have looked: tattered, exhausted, sad, and afraid.

  The man asked quietly, “Are you in some kind of trouble?”

  Ted scanned the store again. It seemed the more he said to the trucker, the more attention it would bring him. People were beginning to stare.

  “Look…” Ted said, as the man pulled off his Dekalb hat, scratching his head.

  CHAPTER 30r />
  About the time Mr. Gray was sure the Trans Am had lost them, Lewis decelerated to neighborhood speed. Another couple of turns and quiet blocks later, they accelerated down a county road, heading out of town. The windshield was cracked from the shotgun blast the doctor had given it. Mr. Gray could hardly believe what had happened. If mercenary killing were a public sport, Mr. Gray and his partner would be famous, like world-champion boxers or something. They’d been undefeated. Until they went up against the doctor.

  Lucky bastard neutralized us both. And made off with my shotgun.

  In the sport of killing-for-hire, this was the upset of the century. He wondered for more than a few seconds why the doctor hadn’t shot him. But he dismissed any thoughts of the goodness-of-humanity for another conclusion.

  Pussed out’s what he did. Just couldn’t do it.

  But still, Mr. Gray couldn’t help but feel a little lucky over the incident.

  Because man-oh-man, am I gonna FUCK that doctor UP.

  Mr. Gray’s tongue on broken teeth jabbed hot needles into his skull base. He took a hard look toward the driver side. In the soft shadows, the muscle above Lewis’s ear wiggled like worms in a bag as he seemed to chew on something.

  “You are now leaving Pissbucket, Ohio,” Mr. Gray said, testing the mood. “Please come back again soon, yuh heee-uh?” He thought better of bringing up the concept of sloppiness showcased like Diana Ross in a spotlight. Talk about sloppy. If the two of them hadn’t been so pissed off and in so much pain, the whole situation would look like a comedy show.

  Lewis didn’t so much as blink at Mr. Gray’s comment. But in a minute, he said, “There’s a car up there by that gas station or whatever it is. Might be them.”

  Mr. Gray wiped blood from his right eye. All he saw was the glimmer of industrial lights on tall posts. His left eye was watering horribly. He felt the trashcan smash into his face again. It throbbed in a way that made him wish he’d met a proper blade instead. He pulled down the sun visor mirror to view his new face for the first time. The right eyebrow lay gaping open, as did the bridge of his nose, and the left corner of his mouth. He sopped up blood with his unbuttoned shirt.