by Todd Borg
I knew that a connection with a dog could help, so I pressed. “He’s waiting for you to pet him,” I said.
Paco looked at me. “I’m afraid...” he paused.
“You don’t need to be afraid,” I said. “Spot is very friendly.”
“No. I’m afraid I’m going to wet my pants.”
This was new territory for me. I took a moment to think. Ten-year-old kids usually have pretty good control, but this boy may have been holding it since they left Stockton nine hours before.
“Okay, Paco. Just hold it a bit longer and we’ll go into a store.”
I told Spot to stay, and we went inside a sports clothing shop.
“Can I help you,” the purple-haired clerk said, her tone wooden.
“We need to use your restroom, please.”
“We don’t have public restrooms.”
I grinned at her. “Perhaps you’d like to make an exception to your rule, so we don’t damage your carpet.”
She looked at Paco who was doing the rocking motion again, his hand at his crotch.
“Left rear corner of the store,” she said, a touch of alarm in her voice.
“Thank you.”
We found the door behind a rack of ski jackets. Paco looked at me. I wasn’t sure what it meant.
“You, ah, don’t need my help, right?” I said to Paco.
He frowned. “I’m ten years old,” he said.
“Just checking,” I said.
When Paco came out, he looked relieved but still scared. He rotated, looking around the store. I thanked the clerk, and we went outside.
Spot was waiting. “He’s still waiting for your pet,” I said.
Paco looked up toward the mountain and over at the other buildings, then reached out his hand, holding it high. Spot lifted his head to sniff it. Paco raised it higher. Spot lowered his head to sniff Paco’s chin. Paco stepped back. I reached for Spot’s collar.
Paco slowly lowered his hand to Spot’s head.
The moment his hand touched, Spot launched into a pant. It looked like Spot was smiling.
“Ready to go?” I said, thinking that I had to get Paco to a place where I could ask him questions.
“Where?” Paco said. He looked worried.
I remembered that Cassie had told Paco that they couldn’t go to the police. “My cabin. I can make some calls, get you back home.”
“I don’t want to go to a cabin.”
“A cabin is the same as a small house. It’s where I live.”
He took a step back from me. “Cassie said not to go with a strange man.”
“Okay, good rule. Tell you what. We’ll go to my girlfriend’s lab.” I pulled out my cell phone to call Street.
“What’s a lab?” He sounded suspicious. His frown deepened. I was going to have to think before I spoke.
“Lab is short for laboratory. My girlfriend is an entomologist. That means she studies bugs. The lab is where she works.”
“I don’t want to go there. I don’t like bugs.”
“I don’t like them, either. Don’t worry, they’re all in containers. You don’t even have to come inside if you don’t want to. You can stay outside with Spot.”
I dialed. Street answered.
“Hi sweetheart,” I said. “I found the boy.”
“That’s fantastic. Is he okay?”
“Seems like it. Back in town, yet?”
“Just got up a little bit ago.”
“I need your help if you can spare a few minutes,” I said.
“Sure, what?”
I moved a few steps away from Paco, turned a little so he couldn’t hear me. “I have a situation. I don’t know what to do with him. I was going to take him home, make some calls, see if I can figure out where to take him. But he doesn’t want to go. You could probably help with this.”
“And you’re calling me because...”
“Mostly because you’re a woman. And he’s a kid. You’d be better at this.”
“You think women can work some kind of female magic stuff with kids?”
“Yeah. That’s exactly what I think and need. Female magic stuff. I don’t want to call Glennie. She would turn it into a news story.”
“You know I’m not a normal woman,” she said. “No kids. Strange job. No access to the typical village of support.”
“Still a woman.
“Okay, bring him here.”
“Thanks. We’ll be there in a few minutes.” I hung up.
I turned to Paco. “C’mon,” I said. I pointed to Spot. “Bring Spot.”
The kid looked at me like I was nuts.
I pointed. “Take his collar. He’ll walk next to you.”
Paco didn’t move.
I walked over, took Paco’s left hand, lifted it up and put his fingers around Spot’s collar. “He heels. On your left side.”
Paco looked down to his left. “He has paws, not heels.”
“Sorry. I meant that he likes to walk on your left side. Like this.” I reached and held Paco’s hand as he held Spot’s collar. We walked. Spot heeled. I let go. Paco and Spot kept walking, Paco very stiff.
I knew it would be good for Paco to walk with Spot. But he kept frowning.
We walked to the main boulevard. I kept watch around us. No big men caught my attention.
We went into one of the shops. The counter clerk stared at Spot, clearly amazed at his size.
“This is the boy’s service dog,” I said to the clerk.
The counter clerk kept staring but didn’t speak.
I spoke to Paco, louder, so that the clerk could hear me.
“I’m going to leave you and Spot here for a few minutes while I fetch my Jeep. I’ll pull up outside. Don’t let go of Spot for anything. And don’t leave this store until you see me. Spot will protect you.”
Paco’s trauma was still obvious on his face.
“Did you hear me? You’ll stay here until I come back in a few minutes?”
Paco slowly nodded.
I went out and took a different route through the village, into the parking garage and out the back side, found a little-used path that got me behind the commercial district and into the forest.
I got into the Jeep, drove down to Lake Tahoe Blvd., and pulled over in the bus-stop lane. I ran to the store and brought Paco and Spot out to the Jeep. I let Spot into the back seat, put Paco in the passenger seat, and went around and got into the driver’s seat. I put on my belt, started the engine. Paco didn’t move except for shivering from being wet. I turned the heater up high.
“You should put on your seat belt,” I said.
Paco shook his head. “Cassie says they’re dangerous.”
“They protect you if you get in a collision,” I said.
“They trap you in a collision.” Paco’s manner was set. No point in arguing.
I drove over to Street’s lab. Let Spot out. Opened Paco’s door. He stayed in the seat. Spot came up and sniffed Paco.
“I’m not going in a lab,” he said.
I counted to five. “Okay. Stay here for a minute and pet Spot.”
I left Spot with Paco and went inside.
Street looked up. “Hi, sweetie.” She raised up on tiptoes and kissed me. “Where’s the boy?”
“He won’t come in. He’s suspicious. He won’t go to my cabin, either. He was obviously taught not to trust strange men.”
“Smart,” Street said. “But they shouldn’t stop at the strange ones. The ones kids know best are often the worst. Women, too. I’ll go talk to him.” She put on her rain jacket and went outside.
I followed her, but stayed back as she walked up to the Jeep.
Street stood in front of Paco’s open door, her hand resting on Spot’s back. Casual. Friendly. I’m in way over my head when it comes to kids, but it seemed easy for her.
I hung back by her lab door, under the overhang, waiting. A Douglas squirrel started chirping at me from up in the Jeffrey pine above me. He came down the trunk in jerks and s
tarts, his chirps turning to screams as I refused to move. Spot swiveled his head to look, then turned back. Street was still standing in the rain, talking to Paco. She pulled a tissue from her pocket, touched it to the wet windshield to moisten it and wiped the blood from the scrape on Paco’s cheek.
The squirrel advanced on me, upping his volume. I was so impertinent for invading his territory. When he was six feet above my head, I couldn’t take the noise anymore.
“Okay, you win,” I said. I moved away and sat on a boulder under the leaky rain cover of another tree.
The squirrel came down, looked at Spot, then started advancing across the ground toward me, screaming louder than before.
Eventually, Spot couldn’t stand it, either. He trotted over. The squirrel jumped back up onto the tree trunk, went around the back side, screamed some more.
Street finally came over. “Paco understands that he can go with you, that you’re safe.”
“All because you said so and you’re a woman,” I said.
“All because.”
“I don’t know how long it will take to find out where he’s from,” I said. “I don’t suppose you would take care of him in the meantime?”
“Why me?”
“Well,” I said, “the woman thing, I guess.”
“But if I took him, then you wouldn’t bond with him.”
“Why do I need to bond with him?”
“Because it would be good for you,” Street said.
“For me?”
“Yeah. I also found out he’s starving. I told him you would get him a burger.”
“No doubt thinking that lunch would be a good bonding exercise,” I said.
“Partly, yes. And you need to get him warm and dry. I tried to give him my jacket, but he wouldn’t take it.”
“What about the trauma of the shooting he saw? How should I handle that?”
“Don’t think about handling it. Just let it be. He’ll talk about it eventually. You’ll answer his questions. I mentioned it, and he was okay with that. I think that he wasn’t especially close to his foster mother. He’s only lived with her for a year and a half. So it hasn’t hit him as hard as it might have. It’s still going to be very difficult for him. But he’ll get through it with your help.”
“My help? This is something for his family to help him through.”
“Well, I didn’t get his entire history,” Street said. “But it sounds like he has no family.”
“Friends, then.”
Street nodded. “Yes, his friends are going to be critical over the next few weeks. But until you get him back to his friends, it’s you who are critically important.”
“Not my strong suit,” I said.
“Stop thinking like that. Now go. Eat. The rest will come.” Street gave me another kiss, and went back into her lab.
SIX
I turned toward Paco. He was still sitting in the Jeep, door open, probably shivering again. From a distance I could see deep vertical creases on his forehead and the bridge of his nose. If the kid frowned any harder, he’d get stretch marks on his scalp and temples.
Having seen his foster mother shot, he was doing an amazing job of being tough.
I let Spot back into the Jeep, and we drove over to the Riva Grill at the Ski Run Marina. I told Spot to be good, and Paco and I walked into the restaurant.
They gave us a table by the window.
Sitting close to the boy in the enclosed space I smelled the same rich odor that I’d noticed inside the store where he’d used the restroom. It was the smell of un-showered boy, bathed in sweat from sprinting a long distance, and shot through with terror from being chased by armed killers.
“Hey, Paco, let’s go get washed up.”
“Why?”
“Because you’ve got even more dirt on your hands than I do.”
He held up his hands and looked at them. The deep veining of dirt in his skin looked permanent. He shrugged, pushed back his chair.
In the restroom, Paco scrubbed with vigor, but it didn’t appear to make much difference. His hands still looked like they had been dipped in black paint a few days before.
Back at the table, Paco stared at the other diners, looking from one to the next. I realized that he was studying their meals. He reminded me vaguely of a hungry coyote that had been hanging around my cabin, wiry thin, and sufficiently motivated to steal food off my barbecue if I went inside for more than a minute or two.
Paco turned away from the other diners and looked down at the table. He touched a finger to the table cloth, then rubbed the cloth napkin.
A waiter came and handed us menus.
Paco held his, but didn’t look at it.
“What can I have?” he said.
“Whatever you want.”
“I can order anything?”
“Yeah,” I said, wondering if it was a stupid thing to say. I pointed on the menu. “They have an entire lunch section.”
He glanced down at the menu. “Can you read it to me?”
“You don’t read?” The surprise in my voice was obvious.
“Not really. I’m dumb.” He set the menu down and stared at the table.
“Paco,” I said, fumbling, realizing I’d made a mistake, “if you can’t read, that doesn’t mean you’re dumb. It just means that you haven’t learned, yet.”
“All the other kids read.”
“Maybe they had better teachers,” I said.
“We had the same teachers. I’m just dumb. I can’t do anything.”
I was striking out. “You’re not dumb. And you can do lots.”
“Like what?”
“Well, for one thing you do an incredible dodge.”
“What’s that?”
“When you came running down the mountain. You dodged around trees and boulders. You jumped over logs. It was impressive. Even though those men could probably run faster than you, no way could they have caught you.”
Paco looked at me. “I still can’t read.”
“Okay, let’s skip the menu.” I set mine down next to his. “What is your favorite meal?”
“Cheeseburgers.”
“Then let’s order a cheeseburger.”
“At McDonald’s, Cassie only lets me have one little cheeseburger. But I can eat four.” Paco looked at me, waiting for my reaction.
“Burgers here are four times the size of burgers at McDonald’s.”
Paco nodded, thinking. “What if I could eat more than one?”
“Maybe start with one. If you’re still hungry afterward, you can get another.”
The waiter came by. He turned to Paco. “Are you ready to order, sir?”
Paco looked at me, frowning. He said something so soft I couldn’t hear.
“What?” I said.
He spoke a little louder, stress in his voice. “Cassie always orders at McDonald’s.”
“This isn’t McDonald’s. Besides, you are growing up fast. Time to order your own meal.”
Paco gave me a long, hard look. “I get a Big Gulp at 7-Eleven.”
“You can get any drink you want.”
Paco looked skeptical, like he didn’t believe it was true. Then he turned to the waiter and spoke in a soft, tentative voice. “Can I get a cheeseburger with everything on it?”
“Yes, sir, you may,” the waiter said. “What would you like to drink?
“I’ll have a Big Gulp Coke and a large chocolate shake with whipped cream and cherry. And super-sized fries.”
The waiter nodded and turned to me. He was grinning as if he’d heard the world’s greatest joke.
“Same for me but hold the Coke, the shake, half the fries, and add a milk.”
The waiter left, and we waited. I looked out at the boats in the marina. Paco looked at the food that other people were eating. A woman at the next table got uncomfortable at his stare. She eventually changed chairs so that she sat next to the man she was with instead of across from him. Now Paco couldn’t see her eat.
The waiter brought our food. Paco looked at his burger the way a ravenous raptor looks at a rodent. He lifted the bun, shook out a quarter cup of ketchup onto the ketchup and mustard that were already there. I didn’t think his mouth was big enough to get around it, but he showed no mercy as he squeezed it down to a manageable height.
It wasn’t exactly like watching Spot eat, but it wasn’t unlike it, either. Paco had eaten all of his food before I’d gotten especially familiar with mine. He moved his straw in circles to chase the last drop of shake around the bottom of the glass, making a loud slurping noise. The nearby woman turned around and scowled at us. I gave her my best grin.
“You want another burger?” I asked.
Paco shook his head.
I drank some milk.
“Cassie says that milk is for kids.”
“True,” I said. “I like it, too.”
“She says adults can’t digest it right.”
“Works for me,” I said.
“Still not good for you,” he said.
“Cassie has lots of opinions, huh?” I said.
Paco shrugged, then yawned. “I’m tired. I want to go to the van so I can take a nap.”
“We don’t know where to find the van, Paco.”
Paco frowned harder.
“Did you get a good look at the men who drove the pickup?” I asked.
Paco shook his head.
“How would you describe them?”
“I don’t know.”
“Sure you do, if you think about it. Were they tall or short? Big or small? Young or old? Short hair or long hair? Like that.”
“They were like superheroes. They had shaved heads. One was a black guy. One was white.”
“What do you mean, superheroes?” I asked.
“Jus’ superheroes. Like The Hulk. Spider-Man.”
“Why do they look like superheroes?”
Paco shook his head. “’Cause they were, like, real big. And muscles.” Paco made fists and held his arms bent at his sides in a muscleman pose. “And one had a cape like Batman.”
“Did you hear them say anything?”
“I don’t know. Jus’ stuff. They didn’t talk a lot.”
“Like superheroes,” I said.
“Yeah,” Paco said.
“Can you think of any words? Anything specific?”
Paco thought about it. “Yo-pep. One kept saying yo-pep.”