by Jon Jacks
He glances over at me, his smirk caught in the light of a lonely streetlamp we’re passing under.
‘So there you have it kid; Bobby wasn’t there that night, because our hero had to actually call him.’
‘Call him for what exactly?’
He looks at me strangely.
‘Kid, you telling me you really don’t know?’
I don’t want to shake my head, don’t want to look like I don’t know things I obviously should know.
‘I’m just saying it still ain’t adding up to me,’ I say. ‘Why’s this limey making such a big deal of things when everyone else is saying she’s fine that night? José Bolaños, what about him? He called nine thirty, said she was fine.’
He smirked, snorted back a smothered laugh.
‘Yeah, so fine, kid, she says she’s gonna tell him something that’s gonna “shock the whole world”!’ Now he really laughs. ‘Something so amazing he ain’t even got around to telling us what it is yet!’
‘Could be he’s scared. Could be he’s had someone shooting at him.’
‘Kid, way he tells it he’s probably got the entire US Marines chasing after him! He’s a fantasist kid, living in a fantasist’s world. He’s told the papers she and him had plans to co-produce a movie. Plans even for a secret marriage they’d be having down Mexico way. Thing is, his mom didn’t know anything about it. You know any Latino who ain’t gonna tell his mom he’s getting married to a nice girl?’
He’s switched off the main beams. Now he’s moving real slow, the engine only purring, a cat creeping up on a wounded bird.
He draws up outside a house that’s right at the very end of the road. Just behind it, there are cliffs, stretching up through the darkness to any height imaginable.
The house is small, single story, overlooked by dark fir trees that crowd around three sides of it like they’ve decided to box it in. There’s no light on.
Even though it’s all just a mix of shapes in various shades of black, I get the impression it’s ain’t exactly well looked after.
‘Make yourself at home kid – I guess you’re gonna be staying here quite a while till the excitement dies down.’
He switches off the engine, takes out the keys
‘This your place?’ I say, not looking forward to sharing any more time than I have to with him. Even if my life depends on it.
He chuckles, like it’s some huge joke I’ve just cracked.
‘Nah kid, this ain’t my place. This is what we call a safe house, a place where people can hide out until we find somewhere more permanent.’
‘More permanent?’ How long’s this guy think I’m gonna be hiding away?
‘I don’t know what you’re up against yet kid; I’m just playing safe for the moment.’
‘Can’t we just tell someone what we know? Make sure there’s no reason for anyone to be after me anyhow?’
‘What do we know kid? I don’t even know what it is you’re supposed to know that’s made you a target! Besides which, look at your history kid – no one’s going to be seeing you as the perfect witness now, are they sonny boy?’
He opens the sedan door, begins to slide out of his seat. He pauses, looks back at me.
‘Fact is, I don’t even know who’s targeting you kid. And until I know that, we can’t trust anyone!’
*
Chapter 17
‘It’s not great,’ he says.
Thing is, he’s wrong – it is great.
When you’re used to living in the dumps I’ve been shuffled around all my life, a place with walls that ain’t peeling gets ten out of ten far as I’m concerned.
Sure, it’s dusty, and it obviously hasn’t had a decent clean since the Wright brothers took to the air, but hey – my Mom being a cleaner, she never liked bringing her work home with her.
The kitchen’s what Agent Orange calls ‘a filthy tip not fit for rats to eat in’, and what I call a taste of home.
He’s switched the lights on, not that anyone outside would know – the drapes at every window are so thick they’re more like hanging carpets. I reckon they must hang a good foot either side of the glass too.
Agent Orange sets down the paper bag of groceries he’d picked up off the car’s rear seat before we’d made our way up the partially overgrown path. (The door, at least, was well cared for, the lock and hinges so well oiled that it opened noiselessly.)
He checks that the water’s running. Picks up a box of matches, lights a small boiler above the sink.
He begins to take the groceries out of the bag, placing them on the kitchen’s small table; Mr Big Celo bread, Maltex cereal, Chun King Chow Mein, a Mother's cake, Johnston Cookies.
Stuff I’d only ever dreamed of eating when I’d heard them advertised on the radio, or seen them in the stores.
Mom never went big on spending on groceries. The quality of her smokes, that was all she really cared about.
‘When’d you have time to shop?’ I ask.
‘Before I rescued you kid. Got this in for myself, before I realised I was going to be in the rescuing business today.’
‘Gee, you eat well,’ I say, saying anything to avoid thanking him for saving me.
‘Think so kid? Eating on the hoof ain’t my idea of fine eating.’
He pulls out a book from the bag, handing it to me. The Catcher in the Rye.
It’s obviously not a new book; it’s scuffed along the cover’s edges. The pages are curled and warped.
‘Guess you ain’t much of a reader kid, but here’s your chance to learn – you ain’t gonna be getting out much for a while.’
‘I’ll keep my head low.’
‘Way low kid; I don’t want you stepping outta this house till I say so.’
‘I can’t go out?’
‘You kidding me? I bust a gut setting all this up, and you think it’s some holiday inn you’re staying at?’
I look at the book. He notices I’m not impressed.
‘See, you might like it kid, on account of it being all about a stroppy kid who deserves a good slap. Banned when it was published. This is my very own copy I’m letting you have here.’
‘There’s no TV?’
I say it knowing what the answer will be. He shakes his head.
‘If it looks like you’ll be here a long time, I’ll see ’bout getting you an old set.’
‘A long time?’
I look around my surroundings with a newfound loathing, like it’s suddenly been transformed into a prison cell.
‘How long? What’ll my Mom think?’
‘Your mom’s dead kid.’
He says it like he’s telling me I need to wash my hands before eating. I’m not even sure he means it.
‘Dead? What’d you mean, dead?’
He looks at me like I’m some pathetic little five year old who ain’t facing up to the fact he’s just dropped his ice cream into a pile of dog mess. No pity. Just a stare that tells me it’s time to grow up.
‘Two cops were killed today and you were there. Whoever killed them will have come looking for you. They don’t find you, they give you a message you’re gonna have to keep running to stay alive. Your mom’s that message kid.’
I feel like banging my fists hard against his chest, telling him he’s lying, telling him to tell the truth. That’s what he’s expecting.
‘Yo…you could’ve brought her here!’ I say.
He shakes his head.
‘You telling me your mom would’ve just come along without asking for reasons that would’ve just delayed us? We were already risking it going back there kid. I told you I wanted you to say your goodbyes.’
‘I…I didn’t know you meant that sort of goodbye!’
He shrugs, like I should’ve known.
‘You were saying goodbye to your old life kid. You should’ve realised that the day you couldn’t keep your trap shut.’
>
*
Chapter 18
Reports on the radio are making out the cops must’ve been shot close up. That’s how these things usually happen.
Guy gets pissed for being stopped by the cops; something like a busted taillight, but he don’t know that. Guy gets his gun out, not in the mood for talking. Guy thinks he’s been spotted holding up a store or gas station. Guy pops the cops and drives off, griping that these days folks like him can’t make a decent living without being harassed every moment of their lives.
Well, the reporters ain’t gonna waste time considering how a couple of average cops might have been taken out by a trained sniper. Mess a bullet like that’s gonna make of someone’s head ain’t gonna look much different from your average Joe’s popgun at close range.
I only noticed just before he’d left that Brad’s suit was splattered with blood. (‘Just call me Brad,’ he’d said when I’d finally got round to asking him his name.)
The blood had darkened as it had dried, not showing up too well on the dark material.
Perhaps that’s why all these goons wear these dark suits; a means of cutting down on the Agency’s dry cleaning bill.
Perhaps that’s why he’d been so particular about giving me a list of instructions I’d thought were way over the top at the time.
‘No phone calls, not even pick ups, got it?’
‘Don’t open the drapes, don’t open the windows, no matter how hot it gets in here – no one is living here as far as the rest of the street is concerned.’
‘No going outside, not even if the place catches fire.’
‘No loud noises, the radio playing real low if at all.’
‘Don’t answer the door unless you hear me knock like this,’ he’d said, rapping on the table
I’d grinned nervously, thinking it was like a scene out of a Bogart movie. The scene where he’s with someone you just know ain’t gonna make it to the end of the movie.
He must’ve thought I was grinning because I’d found it amusing.
‘This ain’t no joke kid,’ he’d growled. ‘My life’s in danger here, let alone yours. This game, you trust no one. Not even grandpops knocking at your window, waving tickets for the Hollywood Park Race Track, got that?’
Life like that, locked in a house with nothing much to do, you begin reading anything you can get your hands on. Old magazines stacked on a small side table in the main room. Grocery packs, finding out more than you’d ever need to know about Real Gold Orange Base and the Campbell Soup Co.
You read The Catcher in the Rye.
Brad or somebody has written a strange little poem in the front, like it’s in some weird foreign language.
‘Gin a body meet a body
Comin’ thro’ the rye
Gin a body kiss a body
Need a body cry?
Ilka lassie has her laddie
Nane, they say, hae I
Yet a' the lads they smile at me
When Comin’ thro’ the rye.’
The story ain’t much better. Sure, I ain’t too hot at this reading business, but way I see it this guy ain’t anywhere near as cool as he thinks he is. What’s the big deal about him that got this book banned?
So he’s got a dorky roommate. So he’s got a dorky guy in the next room at his dorky prep school.
Sure that makes him a rebel, but only to a guy who irons his socks every morning.
Thing is, when Brad comes round late one night, bringing me fresh clothes – Howards, and Keds Shoes, like he’s wanting me to look like these dorky guys in his book – and more groceries (he’d told me I should start eating the wallpaper or the soles of my shoes before I decide on going out), all he wants to know is how I’m enjoying his book.
‘Cool I say,’ like it’ll get him off my back.
Some hope.
‘You’re not reading it right kid.’
He almost snarls this at me, your least favourite teacher with a hangover and too many hang-ups.
‘Haven’t you cottoned on yet that this guy – Holden Caulfield – is pissed with the phoniness of everyone he meets? I’d’ve thought that was right up your street kid!’
I shrug. I hadn’t read it like that, but I’m not going to let him know.
‘Way this Caulfield sees it, kid,’ he continues, ‘everything is soiled. Innocence is lost. Doesn’t that click any switches in your head, make you think, “Wow, that’s me sure enough”?’
‘I can see he’s got girl problems, if that’s what you’re getting at,’ I say nonchalantly. ‘And stuck in this house, I’m with him on that one.’
He looks at me, smirks.
‘Like you were Hollywood’s very own lady-killer before you came here, eh kid?’ he sneers.
My protector, the guy who treats me like dirt on his shoe.
‘You telling me I ain’t noticed you were smitten with her kid? Our Miss Monroe, I mean. And sure, who ain’t gonna think they’d got a chance with her kid? Somehow all childish innocence but sexy with it too, know what I mean kid? Meaning she comes across as all vulnerable, needing your protection, that right kid? And what sorta reward you expecting for that protection kid? See where I’m going with this? But let me tell you, you weren’t her type by a long shot. You don’t believe me? Take a look-see at the jerks she married, kid. All these guys older than her, more staid than she was. All father figures, you ask me, on account of she’d never really had any real pop and mom to look after her, to protect her, see?’
He’s not a guy to pull his punches, old Brad.
‘You know that schmuck Arthur Miller? You know what he told me when I had a quiet chat with him ’bout whether she was capable of suicide or not? He told me nothing but destruction could’ve come from their marriage, his own destruction as well as hers. He chose to save himself. Some father figure, huh?’
He pulls out a jar of Nash’s coffee from the grocery bag.
‘You like coffee or not kid?’ he says casually, like he’s just been discussing the weather.
Still, when he leaves I’ve got to admit I feel kinda lonely.
I make myself some of the coffee he’s brought, chew on some Beechnut Gum. Being alone again, it gets me thinking.
Bobby Kennedy?
Why the heck did Mom’s ‘friends’ think it was Bobby there that night?
Why’d that limey Lawford say he called him?
‘Kid, you telling me you really don’t know?’ Brad had said that with that all-too familiar sneer in his voice – like it was something I should know, but didn’t.
Was it something Marilyn had been keeping from me?
Why would she do that?
The phone in the small hallway rings.
I ignore it, as Brad said I should.
It keeps on ringing, somehow seeming to get shriller every second it rings.
I walk into the hallway, looking at the phone, like just studying it in this way will give me an idea of who’s calling me.
It rings and rings and rings.
There’s another sound behind it now, a sound just as rhythmic as the ringing but one I don’t recognise.
The door behind me splinters and shatters, the rhythmic sound suddenly much louder. Shards of wood are sent flying over my shoulder and down the hallway.
I throw myself to the floor, recognising at last the clatter of bullets ripping apart the kitchen I’d just stepped out of.
Glass, crockery and even the sink crack violently. The coffee flask explodes. Cupboards disintegrate, walls crumble. It all sends a cloud of plaster and small wood chips swirling around the room.
I rush along the hallway in a hurried crawl, all sorts of sh– shooting over my head like a hailstorm.
The phone is still ringing, like it’s trying to outdo the sound of the machinegun’s destruction.
Then a line of bullets begins shredding the table it’s standing on, the phone jumping and jerking. It finally explodes with a sharp crack as it re
ceives a direct hit.
The ringing ends.
The machine-gunning continues, the door behind me now little more than slivers of wood loosely hanging off the hinges.
Outside, I hear a sharp blast, like someone’s dropped a grenade out there. I hear the last of the glass of the kitchen window splinter, hear what sounds like a full bottle shattering.
When I take the risk of peering round, I see that fire is spreading across the table and cupboard tops.
There’s another sharp blast, and then another, now sounding to me more like a shotgun being fired. Abruptly, the maddening clatter of the machinegun becomes muted as its attention is turned on something outside.
The shotgun blasts again. The machinegun goes quiet.
I’m wondering if it’s safe to get to my feet. I lift my head off the floor, glance around.
Suddenly, the side door begins pounding faster and harder than my heart!
It’s been hammered viciously from the other side, so violently it’s beginning to crack.
A shotgun blast blows out a huge hole near the door’s huge bolts.
Seconds later, a hand curves up through the hole, swiftly pulling back every bolt like the guy outside knows exactly where they are.
The hand vanishes, the door jerks as it’s struck harder than ever – and, with a loud crack, the door swings open.
*
Chapter 19
It’s Brad, resting the shotgun’s butt on his hip like he’s John Wayne.
He’s got the long overcoat too. Open down the front, flowing out behind him.
‘We’ve got to get out of here kid,’ he barks. ‘I don’t know how many more of ’em are out there!’
He rushes over, grabs me and pulls me to my feet. Plaster and other sh– falls off me to the floor.
Then we’re rushing out the door. Rushing down the overgrown path.
*
His sedan is parked by the kerb, the driver’s door already wide open.
He more or less throws me in through the door, sending me sliding across the seat.
He jumps in after me, guns the engine into life.
He swerves out into the road without bothering to close the door or switch on the beams.