Alex

by Adam J Nicolai

  "Oh!" Curtis said. "Kelton. What was his first name? That jaggoff friend of his, he tried to get him a job here. What was it?"

  Ian felt dizzy. He put a hand on the desk to keep himself steady. "Kelton?" he repeated, trying to keep up.

  "Yeah," Ed said. "Can't remember his first name. He'd drop by here like he owned the place. Skinny guy. He and Leroy would go around back and toke up on his lunch break, like they didn't think anyone knew. Didn't Leroy call him Kelly sometimes?"

  "That's -" Ian put a hand to his temple, trying to calm his breathing, his spinning head. "That's got to be it. Do you know his first name, or how I might get ahold of him?"

  "That had to be six years ago, now," Ed grunted. "I doubt he even knew the guy anymore, Leroy didn't seem like the kinda guy to keep friends around."

  "He tried to get him a job here," Curtis said again, nodding. "Shit, I bet you..." He pivoted his chair toward an ancient metal file cabinet, ran his fingers down the drawers. Ian watched, tense, quiet, as Curtis backed up to the second drawer, labeled "Apps", and thumbed through the files.

  "There!" Curtis announced, tearing out a thin folder. Inside was a single sheet of paper. "'Tim Kelton'. April 2004. I knew he'd tried to get a job from me." He scoffed. "What a joke! I was about ready to fire Leroy, and he tries to get his loser friend in here." He was grinning.

  "'Tim Kelton,'" Ian repeated, disbelieving. "Did he leave you an address, or a phone number, or anything?"

  "Well, I can't give you that, you know."

  "Right." Ian's heart thundered in his ears.

  "And it was - what'd you say, Ed? Six years ago? Guy's probably not even there any more, anyway."

  "Maybe." Ian licked his lips. "A hundred bucks," he said.

  Curtis' grin froze on his face. "What?" he said, incredulous.

  "A hundred bucks," Ian repeated. "Come on, what do you care? You said yourself the guy was a jackoff."

  The grin melted away. "What, does he owe you money or something?" Curtis tossed the folder on the desk and crossed his arms over his bulging gut. "Get out of here, pal."

  Ian's fingers twitched. He looked Curtis in the eyes and saw Justin: smug, defiant, challenging.

  Fuck that.

  Ian snatched the folder. Curtis saw him going for it - his eyes widened and he started to reach out - but Ian was too quick. He pelted for the open door.

  "Hey!" Curtis screeched. "Hey!"

  Ian tore across the parking lot, hurled himself into his car, and turned the engine.

  "Get back here!"

  Ian peeled into the street, his blood screaming in his veins.

  131

  He drove without a plan, eyes glued to the rearview mirror, just trying to put as much distance behind him as possible. He kept expecting to see Curtis coming after him in some beat-up old F-150, or the lights of police cars cresting the hill. Neither happened, and finally, he slowed his racing mind enough to think it through.

  Curtis wasn't chasing him. As far as Curtis was concerned, Ian was just some nutty old friend or enemy of Kelly's, trying to find the guy. He wouldn't call the cops - and even if he did, they wouldn't give a damn. A six-year-old, most likely out-of-date job application had been stolen. So what? It didn't matter; wasn't that exactly why Ian had been so pissed at Curtis lording it up in the first place?

  A sign ahead said, Southside Park. He pulled into the lot, his breathing finally calming, and took out the application. It was an old generic thing, dark blue with white printing and light blue fields, pocked with grease smears.

  Timothy S. Kelton. Date of birth: August 17th, 1967. A phone number in the 952 area code. An address in Lonsdale. A signature smudged beyond recognition. No cell phone number, no e-mail address, no picture.

  Compared to what Ian had had to go on before, it was an absolute treasure trove.

  He thumbed the phone number into his cell, then imagined Kelly seeing Ian Colmes pop up on his caller I.D. Part of him wanted that. He wanted Kelly to see his name, to know that Ian was coming for him. He wanted him nervous, even panicked. The thought of Kelly's blood running cold when the name popped up made Ian feel like a predator. Or an angel of justice.

  But he didn't want Kelly running. So he went into town instead, hunted for nearly half an hour to find a payphone, and called from there.

  "Hello?"

  A little girl's voice. Ian felt his heart sink.

  "Hi, I'm looking for Tim Kelton. Is he there?"

  "Hello?" the girl repeated. She couldn't have been older than four.

  "Who is it, sweetheart?" a woman said in the background. "Give it here."

  "He's looking for his kitchen," the girl said. Ian heard the scuffle of a phone being reclaimed.

  "Hello?" the woman said.

  "Hi, hello, I'm looking for a Tim Kelton?" Ian said. "Does he live there by any chance?"

  "You have the wrong number."

  "Ah - my information is a few years old, sorry about that - can you at least tell me, did he maybe used to live there?" Pause. "Is this number in Lonsdale?"

  "This number is a cell phone. I've had it for two years, and no, I've never heard of him. You have the wrong number."

  Shit. "All right," Ian said. "Thanks anyw -" he started, and she hung up.

  132

  He considered going home. It was already after two in the afternoon, he hadn't had anything to eat all day, and he could use the time to sit down at his computer and plan his next move: look up the address, run Tim Kelton through the old amateur internet research routine. But he felt close, for the first time, and he wouldn't be able to get home and back to Lonsdale before dark. So he went into the gas station, got directions ("You can take 19 right in"), and hit the road.

  The drive was about twenty minutes. When he got into town he stopped and bought a map book, but it still took him another twenty minutes of driving around before he found the place.

  He parked across the street and took a minute to look at it. The house was a 50's cream-colored rambler. In the front yard, a big willow sagged and a plethora of weeds broke the snow cover. A sidewalk ran past in the front. The other houses had been shoveled out; this one hadn't, and the driveway was likewise unshoveled, though a pair of beaten tracks indicated that at least someone was still using it. All the shades were drawn.

  "Is this it?" Ian said. He glanced around the empty car, but Alex wasn't there, and the cat wasn't talking.

  Ian's hand started shaking again as he reached for the glove box latch, but he got the compartment open and pulled out the .22. The safety was on. He shoved it in his waistband and covered the bulge with his coat. Then he crunched through the snow to the front door, his rapid breath rolling in front of him. The bell was busted, so he knocked.

  Thunderous barking greeted this intrusion. The door shuddered; Ian heard claws scratching at the other side. He imagined a massive pit bull, with a head like a battering ram, and fought the urge to rest his hand on the gun.

  A muffled, "All right, all right," came from within the house. "Jesus Christ, it's just the door." A lock clicked, deadbolts rolled back, and the door opened to reveal a grizzled, mangy man in a bathrobe and ratty slippers, with one hand on the knob and the other clutching the collar of a straining black lab. "Yeah?" he grunted.

  The breeze died; the world held its breath. That's him. Ian's hand twitched toward the gun, stopped. He grabbed Alex. "Timothy?" Ian said as his head buzzed.

  "Who wants to know?"

  Don't fuck with me, Kelly. But he spat out something he'd heard on MPR. "Census. Are you Timothy Kelton?"

  "He ain't lived here for years." The dog strained against the man's fist, wheezing, its face contorted with a snarl.

  "Where is he?"

  "Fuck if I know. He used to rent here, but his mom died and he got her place. Still owes me almost two grand."

  "Do you know where his mom lived?"

  "No idea." The man peered at him. "Ain't the census over with?"

  Ian let out a shuddering breath, at onc
e relieved and despairing, every nerve in his body jangling. "Thanks," he said, and went back to his car.

  133

  The drive home took nearly an hour, the sun sagging low on his left. He went through a Burger King and got some food - his first meal of the day - but barely tasted it. He kept looking in the back seat, hoping to see his son.

  He hadn't found Kelton today, but he had learned the man existed. It was a huge victory, a revelation, and yet he felt completely empty. He hadn't seen Alex since witnessing the boy's kidnapping on the way to work, and he was growing certain that the cryptic farewell they had shared that morning had been final.

  As he opened the front door he caught himself holding his breath, hoping to hear the boy cry his name or come bounding around the corner, grinning hugely, but the living room was silent. He went into Alex's room, but it, too, was empty.

  For the millionth time, he tried to flip the switch, but the light it was connected to was dead as ever. It suddenly occurred to him that there had never been a more succinct analogy for what had become of his life: standing in an empty room, impotently flipping a light switch, knowing that he was trying to interact with a thing that was dead but doing it anyway, over and over again, always mildly surprised when it didn't react.

  Even if he found Kelton now, his son was gone. Alex would never know the peace he had come seeking.

  He sank to his knees in his son's darkening room, and wept.

  He wept because he didn't understand Alex's request sooner. He wept because he had locked the boy in his room, because he had screamed at him and berated him, because he hadn't spent enough time just listening to him while he had been back.

  He wept because he missed him. God, he missed him.

  That's all any of this has ever been about, of course: how badly you miss him. And everything that's happened has been in your head. You know that. There is no afterlife; there are no spirits. You saw what you needed to see, because it gave you a chance to tell him how sorry you were, and an opportunity to believe there was still something you could do.

  Tim Kelton had been an old friend of Eston's. Eston might have even called him "Kelly" in front of other people, just like Ian had seen in his hallucination.

  But Ed hadn't been sure of that, and the two hadn't been seen together for six years or more. No one else Eston had worked with had ever seen him with a friend of any kind.

  It was something for you to pursue, to feel like you could make a difference. That's all. And it's done now.

  He remembered the kidnapping: how Kelly had scooped Alex up from the street after knocking him out with some kind of chloroform.

  That was in your head, Ian. That didn't really happen.

  He remembered Alex staring past Eston in the basement, and Eston saying, "Don't look at her. Look at me."

  Her. You see? Your hallucinations don't even match up with reality. You were looking for a woman when you set out this morning, remember?

  He winced, put his hands to his face and pinched his eyes shut. "Alex," he whispered. "Tell me what to do." But the boy didn't answer. He was gone.

  You aren't going to kill a man based on your hallucinations. All you know about him is that he used to hang out with the man who killed your son. That's not enough. Is it?

  A cold, firm clarity settled into Ian's mind at this thought.

  Maybe it was.

  When Alex had been kidnapped, Ian had stayed at home despite the urge to hunt for his son, waiting for a ransom call that had never come. When the investigation's resources had been diverted to searching for Jarrid Kalen's daughter, he'd listened to his wife and his mother and everyone else who assured him that the police were still searching just as hard as they were before, instead of trusting his instinct and taking matters - somehow - into his own hands.

  In the last month he had guaranteed that his wife would leave him, he had blackmailed his boss, and this morning, he had lost his job - all for this belief that somehow, he was doing what Alex wanted. Now even the boy had disappeared.

  What was left?

  Maybe the question wasn't, "Is there really a good reason to kill Tim Kelton?"

  Maybe it was, "Is there really a good reason not to?"

  134

  He went downstairs and turned on his computer. For the first time since that morning, his hands had stopped shaking. Despite not having slept in nearly 36 hours, his mind felt clear.

  Compared to the hours of painstaking research he had done on "Kelly", finding Tim Kelton was laughably easy.

  His mother, Martha Kelton, had died on November 26th, 2004. Her home had been located at 1541 W. Hill Road in Shakopee, MN. On the Shakopee city website, he was able to confirm the current owner as Kelton, Timothy S.

  He stared at this information for maybe two minutes - waiting for the phone to ring, or Alex to appear, or a mysterious window to pop up that said, "Don't do it."

  Then he printed out directions, grabbed his gun and his stuffed cat, and got back in the car.

  135

  The clock in the dashboard read 4:17 PM. It wasn't dark yet, but it was drawing close; by twenty to six it would probably be pitch black outside. He could wait an hour, head to Kelton's house under cover of darkness, but he didn't want to. He wanted it to still be light out. He wanted Kelton to see his face.

  A gentle snowfall began as he eased on to 169. He drove in silence for nearly ten minutes, then turned on the radio. It was set to the Current, and they were playing Dessa again: some haunting, a cappella piece he had heard before but didn't know the name of. It matched his mood perfectly, so he listened to it until it ended, and then he was almost there.

  West Hill Road was at the southwest edge of town, past the main drag and the more newly developed areas, surrounded by broad fields and slowly freezing creeks, and not far, he noted distantly, from O'Dowd lake. The street sign hung from its pole at an angle, faded with age, at the base of an aptly noted hill dotted with snow-shrouded trees. He flipped on his signal and angled up the street toward the hill's crest. There were no driveways on the incline, but ahead he saw a battered minivan turning out of a cross street and heading down the hill.

  As it passed him, he caught a glimpse of the driver. He was short and gaunt. His black baseball cap blended into the gathering murk of the vehicle's cabin, and Ian wouldn't have even noticed it if it hadn't sported a stitching of a pair of glaring, bloodshot eyes just above the brim. For a split second, the driver met his gaze; then he was gone, disappearing into the distance of Ian's rearview mirror.

  Daddy, I don't like that black hat.

  His calm evaporated, boiling away like dew from morning grass.

  The eyes are scary on that black hat.

  "Jesus Christ."

  He slammed on the brakes, his feet moving faster than his brain, and cranked the emergency brake into place before jumping out of the car, craning his head down the hill.

  At the bottom, he saw the rear bumper of the minivan turning out of sight. It was going right, into town.

  Every instinct screamed to follow him: to jump back in the car and tear down the hill, maybe ram him off the road. But the guy might see Ian coming, he might have a weapon - or even worse, someone else might see the vehicles collide and try to get involved, maybe even keep Ian off him.

  No. He couldn't chase him. But he knew where the man had come from. He'd probably come back.

  Ian got back in the car, groping for some sliver of his previous calm, but the sight of the man's hat had completely undone him. He released the emergency brake and rolled up the hill, his eyes locked on the outlet the van had rolled out from. The mailbox came in to view, shrouded by the surrounding trees, but his lights caught the number. 1541.

  The man with the black hat was Tim Kelton.

  136

  He started to turn into the driveway, but stopped and backed out. He wanted to catch Kelton by surprise. If the man came home and saw a strange car in his driveway, that wouldn't happen. So he rolled past maybe a quarter mile, an
d parked in a shallow shoulder, brimming with dead leaves. He still hadn't seen another driveway.

  He stuffed the .22 in his waistband again, and hesitated for only a bare instant before grabbing Mowsalot. It was like clutching a chunk of dry ice.

  "Fuck!" He snatched his fingers back and shook them, stunned, then hunted for some gloves. He found an old, unmated one in the trunk, put it on, and used it to stuff the toy under his arm. Then he hiked back up the road to the house, his heart hammering in his ears.

  1541 West Hill Road had a long, dirt driveway, winding through a wooded lot; it ended in a wide loop in front of an old rambler. All the windows were shaded and dark. A rusted metal swing set sat decaying in the front yard, like the bleached skeletal remains of some old dinosaur.

  It made Ian's stomach turn, but it wasn't the last thing to catch his eye. A utility pole stood just before the tree line, and near the top of it jutted a tornado siren.

  The black hat. The tornado siren. Ian's stomach did lazy pirouettes.

  Alex must have been here. He must have heard the siren. His references to it had been attempts to explain where he had been - where Kelton still was. They had to have been.

  He darted to the front porch, tried the front door. He wanted to wait in ambush for Kelton from within the house, but the door was locked.

  He stole around to the side and found a window, but it was barred. The next was the same. But in the rear corner of the home was a third window. On the other side, within the house, it was covered by some kind of wooden plank; Ian couldn't see through it to the interior. He broke the glass anyway, then reached through and tried to pry the plank aside.

  It wasn't a plank nailed across the window. It was something like a bookcase. It started rocking as he jostled it, until finally it tipped, spilling into the house with a crash.

  He froze, Mowsalot burning with cold beneath his arm, his breath whistling in his lungs as he listened for a shout of surprise from inside. After thirty seconds he heard nothing but the dull whine of an engine on the road beyond the trees, its headlights flickering between the boughs as it passed. The ghostly light was a reminder. He'll be coming back. Hurry.