If She Wakes

by Michael Koryta

  “Sir, we really do need to get going.”

  “Yes. One moment.” Head down, tapping away. Then he said, “Did you ever have a nickname?”

  “Pardon?”

  He looked up and smiled. “You know, something only a good friend calls you, something like that? Or were you always just Tara?”

  She started to say, Just Tara, thanks, and now let’s get a move on, but reflex took over and she blurted out, “Twitch.”

  “Twitch?”

  “My sister, Shannon, called me that because I was a jumpy kid. I spooked easily, I guess. Scary movies, in particular—I always jumped.”

  When Tara was little, the nickname was just Shannon picking on her. But later on, it became affectionate. Shannon liked how much Tara cared about fictional characters, how emotionally invested she became in their stories.

  “We really should be—”

  There was a rustling sound behind them, and they whirled at the same time, Tara with a startled jerk that offered a live-action demonstration of the childhood nickname. Her response was still more composed than Oltamu’s, though. He gave a strangled cry, stepped back, and lifted his hands as if surrendering.

  Then Tara saw the dog in the bushes and smiled. “That’s just Hobo.”

  “What?” Oltamu backed farther away.

  “He’s a stray. Always around the bridge. And he always comes out to bark at the morning train. That’s how I spotted him. If you come by often enough, he’ll get to know you. But he doesn’t let you catch him. I’ve certainly tried.” She knelt, extended her hand, and made a soft sound with her tongue on the roof of her mouth. Her rush to get Oltamu to the venue was forgotten in her instinct to show affection to the old stray, her companion on so many morning runs. He slunk out of the darkness, keeping low, and let Tara touch the side of his head. Only the side; never the top. If you reached for him, he’d bolt. Not far, at least not with her, but out of grasping distance. He was a blend of unknown breeds, with the high carriage and startling speed of a greyhound, the floppy ears of a beagle, and the coat of a terrier.

  “He’s been here for a long time,” she said. “Every year people try to catch him and get him to a rescue, but nobody ever succeeds. So we just give up and feed him.”

  She scratched the dog’s soft, floppy ears, one of which had a few tears along the edge, and then straightened.

  “Okay,” she said. “We’ve got to hurry now. I can’t get you there late. So let’s—”

  “Hobo?” Oltamu was staring at the dog as if he’d never encountered such an animal.

  “It’s just what I call him. He likes to chase the train. Anyhow, we have to—”

  “Stay there, please. I’d like a picture of him.” He knelt. “Can you get him to look at me?” he asked as he extended his phone.

  I’ll tell Christine to look at his phone, Tara thought. I have exculpatory evidence now. “Do you see, Christine? He made me stop to take pictures of a stray dog!”

  “His attention?” Oltamu said. “Please? Toward the camera?”

  Tara raised her eyebrows and pursed her lips. Oookay. Then she turned back to Hobo and made the soft clucking sound again. He looked at her but didn’t move. Oltamu was a stranger, and Hobo didn’t approach strangers.

  “Very good,” Oltamu whispered, as entranced as if he were on a safari and had encountered a rare species. “Excellent.”

  The camera clicked, a flash illuminated the dog in stark white light, and Hobo growled.

  “It’s okay,” Tara told him, but he gave a final growl, gazed up the hill at the dark street beyond, then slipped back into the trees.

  “All right,” Tara said, rising again. “We really have to—”

  “I need you to do me a favor. It is very important. Crucial.”

  “Please, Doctor. They’re waiting on you at the auditorium, so—”

  “Crucial,” he said, his accent heavier, the word loaded with emotion.

  She looked at his earnest face and then across the river at the lights of the campus. Suddenly she felt far away from where she belonged, and very alone. “What’s the favor?”

  He moved toward her, and she stepped back, bumping into one of the bike racks. Pain shot through her hip. He reached out, and she recoiled, fearing his hand, but then she saw that he was extending the phone to her.

  “Please put this in your car. Somewhere secure. Can you lock the glove compartment?”

  She wanted to object, or at least ask him for a reason, but his face was so intense, so worried, that all she did was nod.

  “Put it there, then. Please. I’m going to walk across the bridge myself. I’ll find my way.”

  What is happening here? What in the world is he doing?

  “Please,” he repeated, and Tara took the phone from his hand, walked hurriedly past him, and opened the passenger door. She leaned in and put the phone in the glove box. It took her two tries to lock it, because her hand was trembling. She heard him move behind her, and she spun, hands rising, ready to fend him off, but he was just watching to see that she’d done what he’d asked.

  “Thank you,” he said. “I don’t mean to frighten you, but that phone is very important.” He looked up the hill, then back to her. “I will walk from here alone. You should drive.”

  She hadn’t spoken throughout this, and she didn’t now. She just wanted to get away from him. Driving off and leaving him here was fine by her.

  “Thank you, Tara,” he said. “It is important. I am sorry you are afraid.”

  She stood motionless, hands still raised, watching him as warily as Hobo had.

  “Please go now,” he said. “Take the car and go. I will walk across the bridge when you are gone.”

  She moved. Going around the front of the car would have been quicker, but she would have passed closer to him, so she made her way around the back. She’d just reached the driver’s door when she heard the engine behind her.

  She glanced in the direction of the noise with relief, glad that she was no longer alone with this bizarre man, expecting to see headlights coming on. Instead, there was just the dark street. The engine grew louder, and with it came the sound of motion, but she saw nothing, so she just stood there dumbly, her hand on the car door. Oltamu had also turned to face the sound. They were both staring into the darkness when Tara finally saw the black van.

  It was running with no trace of light. It came on down the road like something supernatural, quiet and dark but also remarkably fast.

  She had only an instant to move. Her guiding thought was that she wanted to be away from the car, even if that meant going into the river. Down there, she thought she might have a chance.

  She was scrambling away from the CRV when the van hit it squarely in the rear passenger door, pinning Oltamu against the side of the car, and then the CRV hit her, and though she got her wish of making it into the river, she never knew it. She was airborne when the front of her skull connected with the concrete pillar that marked the railroad bridge as a historical site, and by the time she entered the water, she wasn’t aware of anything at all.

  2

  When the flight from Portland to Detroit arrived and her asset didn’t walk off the plane, Lisa Boone moved from the gate to the Delta Sky Club and ordered a Johnnie Walker Blue.

  “Rocks?” the bartender asked.

  “No.”

  “Water back?”

  “No.”

  An overweight businessman in an off-the-rack suit with a hideously mismatched tie and pocket square turned on his bar stool and smiled a greasy, lecherous smile.

  “The lady knows how to order her scotch.”

  Boone didn’t look at him. “The lady does,” she said and put cash on the bar.

  “Have a seat.” He moved his laptop bag off the stool beside him. The laptop bag had not one but two tags identifying him as a Diamond Medallion member. Wouldn’t want your Sky Club status to slip under the radar.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Oh, come on.”

/>   “I’m fine,” Boone repeated, but already she knew this guy wasn’t going to give up so easily. One didn’t become a Diamond Medallion member without some dedication.

  “Humor a fellow traveler,” he said and patted the leather-topped stool. “I’ve been drinking Budweiser, but I like your style—scotch it is. Have a seat, and put your money away. I’ll buy the drinks.”

  Boone didn’t say anything. She breathed through her nose and waited for the bartender to break the fifty she’d put on the bar, and she thought of Iraq and the first fat man she’d killed. You weren’t supposed to admit such a thing, but she’d always taken a little extra pleasure in killing fat men.

  “I hope this doesn’t seem too forward,” Diamond Medallion Man said, leaning toward her and deepening his voice, “but you are absolutely stunning.”

  The bartender put her change down, and Boone picked up most of the bills, leaving a five behind, and turned to Diamond Medallion Man. He gave what was undoubtedly his winningest smile.

  “I hope this doesn’t seem too forward,” Boone said, “but do you know the difference between Bud and Bud Light?”

  His smile wavered. “What?”

  She reached out, grasped the flesh under his chin, and pinched it hard between her thumb and index finger. “That is the difference,” she said and released him as he went red-faced and wide-eyed. “You might consider switching it up.”

  She picked up her scotch and walked away from the bar, chastising herself. The fat man and the bartender were both staring, and that meant at least two people would remember her now, the polar opposite of her goal today. She’d known better, of course, should’ve just shrugged the lech off, but her temper could get away from her when she was forced to be passive.

  All she could do right now was sit and wait and hope that her man had taken a later flight.

  She went to the monitors and studied the arrival times. Maybe it wasn’t trouble yet. Maybe he’d just gotten delayed or had overslept. There was not supposed to be any contact today, so even if he’d missed his flight, he wouldn’t have reached out. She had no choice but to wait. The next flight in from Portland was in three hours. Then there was a final flight at nine p.m. If he wasn’t on either one, it would be a very bad sign.

  Of course, his last messages had been a bad sign. Cryptic and scared.

  Am I being followed? If so, tell them to back off.

  Nobody was following him. Nobody should have been, at least. That was by his own insistence too. He was out in the cold, unprotected, going through his last week of free movements as had long been agreed upon. He could not attract attention, and he thought that canceling an established speaking tour would launch a signal flare into the blackness.

  Or what they hoped was blackness.

  She wasn’t allowed to call him, wasn’t allowed to make contact. Just pick him up in Detroit and go from there. All week long, she’d waited as he went from stop to stop, and she’d wanted protection on him the whole time, but it had been refused. The last stop had seemed the safest, though. A small town in Maine, an hour of speaking at some overpriced liberal arts school for kids with Ivy League trust funds but SEC brains. Hardly hostile territory. One night in a hotel on campus, a drive to the Portland International Jetport that morning, then a flight bound for Los Angeles with a layover in Detroit, and in Detroit he would disappear.

  But the magic trick wouldn’t work if he never stepped onstage. A man who never appeared couldn’t disappear.

  Boone left the flight monitors and walked through the lounge, past the sitting area with the crackling electric fire and the dark paneled wood that strove for the feel of an elegant home library in a place where every minute you spent was one more than you wanted to spend, and on out to a row of chairs facing the glass walls that overlooked the concourse. She sat, crossed her legs, sipped her scotch, and stared at the crowds hurrying for the tram.

  Two more flights. Two more chances.

  If he didn’t walk off one of those planes, she’d have to call it in. If he didn’t walk off one of those planes, there were going to be big problems.

  Come on, Doc, she thought. Don’t let me down now. Not so close to the finish line.

  She withdrew her secure phone from her purse, pulled up his last message, and read it again, as if it might tell her something she’d missed before.

  ASK THE GIRL.

  What girl? Ask her what?

  Boone put the phone away, swirled her scotch, and silently begged the next flight from Portland to deliver her man.

  3

  On the day before negligent-vehicular-manslaughter charges were filed against him in Maine, Carlos Ramirez bought a plane ticket to Caracas under a name for which he had both a driver’s license and passport and waited for the kid to pick him up and take him to the airport.

  The kid was late, and Carlos had a feeling that was intentional. The kid looked barely old enough to buy cigarettes, and he didn’t say much, but he always had this faint smile that suggested he was laughing at you, the kind of smile that made you want to check to see if your fly was unzipped or if there was food stuck in your teeth. That was annoying shit from anybody, but from a child, it was begging for an ass-beating.

  Carlos didn’t think he was supposed to touch the kid, though. In fact, he had a feeling that would be a terrible mistake. He didn’t know why the kid was so protected, but it was clear that he was, and so Carlos dealt with that bullshit smile and the mocking eyes. He’d have to do it only once more. If the kid ever showed up in Venezuela, it would be a different story.

  Twenty minutes after he was supposed to be picked up and just as he was beginning to worry that he’d miss his flight and everything would be fucked, Carlos stepped outside to have a cigarette and stare up the street, as if he could will the car into appearing.

  The car was already at the curb.

  He stared at it, shook his head, and muttered, “Can’t you come up and knock on the damned door,” under his breath.

  The kid spoke from behind him.

  “I was told to meet you on the porch.”

  He was sitting in a plastic lawn chair with his back against the house, one foot hooked over his knee, looking for all the world like an old man relaxing and watching the neighborhood pass by.

  “The hell are you doing?” Carlos snapped. “How long you been here?”

  The kid took his cell phone out. Studied it. “Twenty-six minutes.”

  “You fucking kidding me? You just sat there?”

  “I was told to meet you on the porch,” he repeated, unbothered, and pocketed the phone. All of his movements were slow, but there was a quality to his slender muscles that promised he could move fast if he was so inclined. He had a couple inches on Carlos and a longer reach, but Carlos would have liked nothing more than to step inside that reach and lay some good shots on his body, let the little prick understand that respect was not unimportant in this business.

  Just get to the airport. Stay cool long enough to get your cash and get on the plane.

  The cash was at the airport, and the kid was the ride. These were the rules.

  Carlos said, “Let’s get moving, you…” He stopped himself before saying little asshole. “Let’s go.”

  “You?” The kid raised his eyebrows with patient curiosity, as if he weren’t offended, merely intrigued. “You…what?”

  “Nothing. Let’s get moving. I can’t miss this flight, man. You know that.”

  The kid didn’t stand. He still had his foot resting on his knee, his posture relaxed, in total contrast to his pale blue eyes. They danced around until they locked on you, and once they did that, you wished they hadn’t. It was an empty stare. Vacant. It reminded Carlos of men he’d fought in dingy gyms in Miami. They were always the guys who didn’t seem to mind being hit.

  The kid adjusted the bill of his baseball cap, bending it slightly with both hands. He always had that damn hat, which was jet-black with no logo and a line of metallic thread tracing the front seam. Tha
t was no doubt supposed to add flair, but instead it seemed to provide a target for anyone who wanted to stitch a line of bullets through his skull. Carlos would have happily volunteered for that task.

  “I hate unfinished sentences,” the kid said. “People do that all the time. Leave a thought floating in the air, and then you’ve got to guess at what it was going to be.” He lowered his hands and his eyes flicked to Carlos and held on him in that creepy way he had, like he was deciphering something written in a foreign language. “That can cause misunderstandings.”

  Carlos beckoned to him with his right hand, because his right hand had risen despite himself, and now he needed to do something with it that didn’t involve smacking the shit out of the kid.

  “Come on. Get up. This is serious.”

  The kid didn’t move. “Finish your thought.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Otherwise I’ll keep guessing at what it was going to be. Then I’ll be distracted on the drive. That’s not safe. You, of all people, should be familiar with the risks of distracted drivers.”

  “You’re a piece of work, man.”

  “Is that what you were going to say? ‘Let’s get moving, you piece of work’?”

  “Sure.”

  The kid made a show of pondering this with a thoughtful frown, and then he mouthed the sentence without giving voice to the words and shook his head. “That doesn’t sound right.”

  “How about ‘you little asshole’?” Carlos said, finally losing his temper. “Does that sound better?”

  The kid went back to the thoughtful frown, and then he mouthed this one too: Let’s get moving, you little asshole. He snapped his fingers and pointed at Carlos.