Next, she was in a sleazy motel room, on her stomach, and Romeo was rubbing unguent into her wounds.
Next, she was above the toilet and Romeo was holding on to her as she retched tiny drops of green bile. She was surprised that he could hold her so firmly; he must be stronger than she had thought. He carried her back to the bed and set her down carefully. He wiped her face with a cloth.
She said, “You know what, Romeo? I could fall for you. I think I could frikkin falling fall for you.”
At some point she woke up and Romeo was on the phone with somebody, and he was arguing and crying, and then there was a long silence. A light flared in her eyes, and Romeo got her to sit up. He made her drink. Then he placed her laptop before her. She didn’t understand what he wanted.
He said, “You have to write something.”
“What?”
“You have to write about your pain. Before you forget.”
The computer was at her MySpace page.
“Log in,” he prompted. “And then go to your diary.”
“No, I’m too sleepy.”
“You have to.”
He woke her again. He spoke more insistently: “Log in, Clio. We have to hurry. It’s almost time.”
She logged in. Her diary page appeared.
He said, “OK, write something.”
“I can’t.”
“Then I’ll write it. Just tell me. How did it feel up there?”
“It felt like I was floating above the Wick.”
He typed that. He asked, “Did it hurt?”
“Yeah.”
“How bad.”
“The worst,” she said.
He wrote that. “How does it feel now?”
She wanted to say, “Now it’s better.” But she fell asleep before she could speak.
When she awoke, he was still writing in her diary.
He said, “I’m writing about the pain.”
He seemed to be on the verge of tears. He was the strangest man she had ever met. Also the kindest. Kind and wise and an old soul.
Then she was asleep again, and he was shaking her. “Clio. Wake up. You’ve got to stay awake.”
“Why?”
He said, “It’s worse than you thought.”
“It can’t be,” she said. “It can’t be worse than I thought.”
He said, “Everyone needs for you to die.”
She knew this was sad news, but she didn’t understand why. She was kind of foggy.
He said, “Tara particularly needs you to die. She needs it. I’m sorry. We have to do this.”
She stared at him, not comprehending.
“And Shaw?” he said. His voice gluey with tears. “Your lover? He also needs you to die. Oh, God, Clio. He needs you to show them there’s a price for what they’ve done. And you’re it. You’re the price. It’s not your fault, but that’s what you are. Come on; let’s just do it; let’s just make it as quick as we can, OK?”
MONDAY
Tara woke with Shaw standing over her. Still dark out. He told her to get ready; they were going on a ‘family expedition’. That’s all he said. He didn’t say where they were going.
He’d already woken Mom and Dad and Jase, and now he hustled the whole family down to the Liberty. Trevor assigned a few convoy bikers to ride with them, to ward off the news jackals, but the jackals never even stirred. When Tara pulled out onto Oriole Road, it was quiet. She followed Shaw’s instructions, and went north on the Rt. 25 Spur. After a few miles, the Liberty was the only car on the road. Clearly there would be no pursuit. So Shaw waved off the bikers. The Liberty went on by itself.
Tara had never been so tired in her life.
Shaw read to her from a sheet of directions. “Take the spur, cross over I-95. Go three miles, then left on 99.”
She did that.
“Then right on Cooper Pasture Road.”
Here at the edge of town were a few sprawling developments — Oglethorpe Estates, Georgian Majesty Villas — that had gone belly-up in the real estate crash and were now abandoned, choked with weeds, already haunted. After that, there was nothing. A few trailers, quiet as crypts. Scrub pine. Cow pastures. Tara checked the rearview mirror: Mom was sleeping soundly with Jase’s head on her lap, but Dad was as vigilant as ever — she saw the gleam in his eyes.
“Left on Green Swamp Road.”
Was this going to be some picnic thing? Were they going seining again? Or crabbing this time, or bass fishing? But Shaw kept mum, and the blankness of his features got under her skin. It was a game for him, keeping her in the dark like this. It was too cruel. To be in thrall to this bastard, at his beck and whim, day in and day out — it was too hard.
But she knew she couldn’t show what she felt — she needed his mercy. For Nell’s sake she had to keep it steady, keep a distance, float above this.
Green Swamp to Butler, Butler to Honeygal.
Then Shaw read, “300 yards to farmer’s road on right.” Intoning the words as though he had nothing to do with them, as though they were some kind of disembodied decree. But it’s you, she thought. It’s your plan, you cowardly fuck. Whatever it is, I know it’s yours.
They were on an oystershell road that wound through a hummock of pine and palmettos and Spanish moss. Oak branches scraped the roof. The forest closed in, darkened. A banana spider fell onto the driver’s side mirror and perched there, defiantly, big as a hand. After a hard turn, and twenty more ragged yards, they broke abruptly into a clearing, a bluff that overlooked a marsh creek. There was a car here already, and Tara recognized it, and her heart became a fist. It was Clio’s car. Someone, a woman, was leaning against the front fender. She wore a shawl, and kept her face down — so for a moment Tara could pray that she wouldn’t be Clio.
But the woman raised her head, and of course she was Clio.
Standing there looking lost, hugging herself as though she were cold — though the morning was already hot and sticky. Oh, my Lord, thought Tara. Please my Lord I know what I deserve but please don’t let it be Romeo who brought her.
“Turn off the engine,” said Shaw.
Tara obeyed. Silence. Then Romeo appeared. He went and leaned against the car, next to Clio, and drew her hand into his own.
Tara still praying: please don’t let this be what it is.
From the back, Daddy asked Shaw, “What’s she doing here? Why have you got Clio?”
Romeo called to them: “Everybody out. Don’t talk, don’t waste time. Just everybody get out of that car.”
They all emerged from the Liberty. Clio cried out happily and opened her arms for an embrace. But Romeo held her and murmured, “No, you stay here.”
Dad said: “Why is she here? Shaw, what are you doing?”
Shaw gazed at the ground and said nothing.
Romeo said, “There was a price. OK? The price was posted. You knew the price.”
A heaviness in his voice, a slogging rhythm, as though he were reciting these words from memory.
Dad asked him, “What do you mean? What are you saying?”
Romeo unfolded a sheet of paper. He read aloud, “Hon I’m going to tell the FBI.”
Dad made a guttural moan in his throat.
Romeo kept on. He read like a schoolkid, stressing each word, pronouncing the like thee, making the a’s long as well, and coming to a full stop at the end of each sentence: “I’ve been thinking a lot. I don’t trust that Burrus. I know I did the right thing lying to him, but the FBI won’t be fools. They’ll track the calls that Shaw makes. They got GPS on cell phones now, so therefore they’ll find Romeo easy and catch him. And Shaw too. They’ll kill them clean.”
Dad said, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have written that.”
Romeo looked up from his paper.
“It was so stupid,” said Dad. “I’m so sorry. Oh my God, I’m sorry, Shaw. I didn’t do anything though. I swear to you —”
“Just listen,” said Romeo. He read, “Dad, I know how much you hate him. I hate him wors
e. When he opens his mouth I get sick. He thinks now he’s some kind of prophet but people only love him for the money and he’s a coward. But once he gets the money he’ll try to run and that’s when we’ll call the FBI. He won’t get away!”
Tara knew it was her turn to grovel now. But it felt as though the muscles of her jaw had been fused shut by rage. Now, when she most needed to surrender, she couldn’t. She just looked at her father as he implored, “Please! Shaw! It wasn’t Tara’s fault! It was mine, and I don’t know what I was thinking, but Shaw! Please —”
“I can’t help you,” said Shaw. “I warned you but you wouldn’t listen. Now it’s Romeo’s call.”
Dad turned to Romeo, “Oh my Lord, sir, I’m sorry, I’ll never —”
“There was a price,” Romeo repeated. “The price was posted.”
Then from his pocket he produced a little amber bottle. He made Clio hold out her hand, and he poured a dozen pills into her open palm. Then he handed her a flask of something. Whispering, “Take them.”
Dad said, “What are you doing?”
“Do it,” said Romeo.
Dad started toward them, but Romeo raised his pistol. “If you come any closer, I’ll kill your kids. Which one do I start with?”
Dad’s mouth came open. But no sound.
Romeo grabbed Jase by the neck. “This one?”
“No!” Dad sank to his knees. “Please, no! Don’t hurt my son! Do what you think is right, sir, you know what’s right. But don’t hurt my boy, please!”
Tara thought she should be doing as he was: kneeling in the dust, pleading. Why couldn’t she? She was putting them all at risk. What was the matter with her?
While Romeo kept prompting: “Come on, Clio. We’ve got to save her. Remember how we save Tara?”
Clio lifted the pills to her mouth. Took a drink from the flask and swallowed them. Dad cried out, “NO! DON’T DO IT CLIO! FOR GOD’S SAKE, YOU’RE KILLING HER!”
Romeo said softly, “That was very brave, girl.”
Tara saw the moisture in his eyes. As he drew two more amber bottles from his pocket, and filled Clio’s palm again. Twenty or so this time. Blue pills, yellow. Gesturing: take them.
She did.
Mom was sobbing, and Dad made those tortured noises. But Tara just stood there, frozen.
Again Romeo replenished Clio’s palm.
But now Clio had turned ghostly pale. She whispered, “More?”
Romeo, holding her wrist, gently raised her hand. “You gotta be brave.”
She put them in her mouth. She drank.
Romeo turned to Tara. “Now we wait. Tara, you gotta say goodbye. Say goodbye to your friend who loved you so much that she gave up her own life as a warning to you. Say goodbye to her.”
But something snapped in Tara. Those words, Say goodbye to her — released her. She told Romeo, “Fuck you.” And went up to Clio and said, “Come on, let’s go.”
Romeo said, “Get away from her!”
She disregarded the order. With everyone watching, she put her arm around Clio’s shoulders and helped her take a few uncertain steps toward the Liberty. Clio tried to flow out of her arms, saying, “Honey, if it’s OK, I’d rather, I’d rather just, just lie down right here, just, sleep for a little —”
“Sleep later,” said Tara. “Come on.”
Romeo commanded: “Stop!”
But Tara didn’t even look at him. She drew Clio along.
He cried, “I’ll start killing!”
She said, “Kill me first. You’ve already killed Clio. It’s my turn.”
“I’ll kill your brother!” Romeo shouted. “I’ll kill your mother! Everybody! Whatever I have to do! I’ll kill your father right now!” He pointed the pistol at Dad. Tara saw this movement in the corner of her eye, but she didn’t stop. She opened the Liberty’s back door, and helped Clio get in. Waiting for the shot. Any second, any second.
Then she heard Shaw say, “Let them go.”
Romeo, confused: “What?”
“Put the gun down.”
“There’s a price,” Romeo insisted. “The price was posted.”
“It’s paid,” said Shaw. “Now we need mercy. Let’s get her to the hospital.”
He helped Dad to his feet, and told Tara, “I’ll drive.” Everyone climbed into the car. Tara turned to look back at Romeo — one long look into his eyes. Then Shaw started the engine and they roared off.
Shaw pushed 70 mph on the dirt of Honeygal Road, but when he hit Rt. 341 he cranked it to 90. The tires sang on the turns. He tossed his cell phone back to Patsy and said, “Call the hospital. Tell them to be ready for us.”
He came barreling down 341 and approached a red light with traffic idling before it. He veered, and lurched up onto the curb and skirted around the line of bleating cars, shooting through the intersection. Every second was precious. Clio’s life dangled by a thread, and all that kept her in this world was Tara, Tara talking her through the valley of death. Shaw pounded the horn and slammed the accelerator, and the blocks ticked away. He turned left at Community Road and right on Altama, following the H sign.
A time to punish and a time to forgive.
He took a left at Shrine Road and swept into the ER bay. Nurses were already waiting. They wheeled Clio away on a gurney and allowed Tara to come with them.
Shaw checked the clock on the dashboard. Only fourteen minutes since they’d left the creekside. So she ought to have a chance.
He and the Boatwrights went to the waiting room, and sat, and in half an hour Clio’s mother came running in, nearly incoherent from fear. Some attendant escorted her into the ER.
Nurses and orderlies kept coming around to gawk at Shaw and the Boatwrights. One even got up the courage to say, “You’re the jackpot people, aren’t you?”
Patsy nodded.
The nurse said to her, “The spirit of the Lord is upon you.”
The receptionist murmured, “Amen.”
Romeo was trudging through the white heat. Green Swamp Road had looked cool and shady on the map, but in the event it turned out to be just a straight track of brutal sun and whining katydids forever. And his brain felt swollen, full up with that look that Tara had cast him.
The sun took up most of the eastern sky. Round his head was a halo of gnats. After a few miles he thought he could walk no farther, so he sat down beside the road.
A long time passed.
I should get up and move out of the sun, he thought.
After sudden wealth there’s a rush of demons. Always. Flocks of demons. Wheeling. And he among them. The beast, circling. And who to oppose him, that girl? But she had hollowed herself out, and taken in the suffering around her; and now she was ready to fight him.
An ancient bronze Cadillac eased up beside him. The window was lowered ceremoniously and an old black man asked, “Would you care for a ride?”
“I would,” he said. “Thank you.”
He got into the car. The man said, “Which way you headed for?”
“Brunswick?”
“All the way to town? Would a been a long walk.”
“Yes sir. I had given up.”
“Get yourself a drink, son. Reach in the cooler back there.”
Romeo thanked him, reached over the seat back and opened a Styrofoam ice chest. There were a few cans of soda floating in an inch of murky water. Romeo took a can of Shasta Creme Soda.
The man said, “I got them sodas for my grandkids.”
“Would you thank them for me?”
“Sure. How come you ain’t got no car?”
“Well. I went to a party with a girl. In her car? But she went off with somebody else.”
“Oh. Well, I know that feeling. You feel bad?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t doubt. How long you been going with this girl?”
“I wasn’t going with her. I was supposed to kill her. But everything got fucked up, because I was afraid, and they knew it. Now I don’t know what to do.”
As they drove, Romeo kept seeing that one thing: that look of Tara’s.
Well, OK, he thought. You’re so good with suffering, I’ll give you as much as you can stand.
Shaw and the Boatwrights waited in the hospital for two full hours. Finally Clio’s mother came out from the ER and told them Clio was going to be OK.
Patsy embraced her; they both laughed. Patsy told her how Shaw had raced here so heroically. The woman took Shaw’s hands into her own, and kissed them, saying, “When I saw you on TV, I knew you were a good man.” Her eyes brimmed with tears.
Jase said, “I never seen no one go faster ever. Not even Dale Jr.!”
Everyone laughed. Clio’s mother said, “Sir, you are a saint.”
They went outside. Already there was a crush of TV crews and reporters:
“Shaw! Why are you here?”
“Shaw! Is it true you saved a girl from killing herself?”
“Shaw! How did you know about her?”
“How did you locate her?”
“Shaw!”
“Shaw! Is it true that the voice of God led you to her?”
Burris went on duty at three o’clock. As was his custom, he pulled up behind the stand of oleander on Rt. 17, and lay in wait for speeders. But he felt drained and whittled-down, and his thoughts were ugly. He recalled his meeting with Mitch Boatwright, and what a fool he’d been. He considered the patch of frizzled hair on his forehead and wondered why he didn’t just give up and shave the thing off. Then he wondered why the hell was he thinking about the hair on his forehead? All he ever thought about were stupid things. Did Nell love him, would the Chief ever respect him, should he shave his head, etc. Why couldn’t he think about things substantial, spiritual, weighty?
Well, maybe because he was only a joke.
Possibly he was only a joke that the Chief was telling at Trudy’s Café — some long pointless story about a clown cop who thought he’d find some dignity in the world but the world kept knocking him down and pissing on him. You, dignity? Deppity Dawg? And at the end of the story everybody was laughing their jawbones loose, everybody in town.
He sat in the cruiser. The traffic swam by. He sat there for an hour, and caught no one because he pursued no one.
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