Breaker

by Richard Thomas

  “You need something?” her father says, his arms around her waist, her sneering at me, as if a dog just took a crap in her yard.

  “Oh, sorry, never mind.”

  I close the door and step back into my apartment. Great. So it’s going to be like that today. All I need is the universe working against me. There’s enough shit in my life without rolling in it just to make sure I stink.

  I hear them head down the stairs, and I place my head against the wall, where I can barely hear Natalie singing. She usually leaves right after them. I put on my coat and shoes, ready to walk with her, to let her know what’s going on.

  Her door slams, so I open up my door and step outside.

  “Hey, Natalie.”

  “Hey, Ray,” she replies. “Man, you look like crap. You okay?”

  I take a deep breath.

  “Not really. In fact, that’s what I need to talk about. Can I walk you to school?”

  She tilts her head and smiles at me.

  “That’s sweet, Ray, but maybe not. I…um…how can I put this? My parents aren’t too thrilled with you right now. The police here at the apartment, hearing about you getting picked up, all of the talk about white vans and gangbangers and fight clubs. They don’t know what’s going on, but they definitely have some strong opinions about you.”

  I nod my head.

  “If they found out we’ve been spending so much time together, you training me, giving me all of these weapons,” she says, shaking the backpack at me, “well, they might lay down the law.”

  “I understand,” I say. “But we need to talk. It’s important. Tonight, after school?”

  “Sure, that’s cool,” she says. “I’ll be fine walking to school,” and she pulls up her sleeve to take a peek at a pink Swatch. “Shoot, I gotta run. The girls should be out in front, or already going. I’d rather hang at the back of the pack than walk totally alone.”

  “I know. I understand.”

  “Don’t worry, Ray, I always keep an eye out; I’m not stupid.”

  “Okay,” I say. “Go on, don’t be late.”

  She smiles at me, and then dashes down the stairs. She might know how to throw a punch, or when to run, even how to kick a grown man in the nuts, but she doesn’t have a hard shell. She’s too soft on the outside, and I worry it may be her downfall.

  I pray that my father will leave her alone.

  I head down the stairs anyway, just to take a look, a glance outside, and when I get to the foyer I see a group of girls, maybe eight or ten, heading north up the sidewalk, with Natalie at the back of it all, headphones on, her hands in her pockets, pretending to be indifferent, but her neck on a swivel, checking the street, keeping an eye out for any car or van that might slow down around her. She wears a scowl on her face that I’ve never seen before. Her game face, I assume.

  Maybe she’ll be okay after all.

  Her parents were oddly chummy—which makes me feel a little better. Maybe there’s something I can do for them as well. I pull out my cellphone and read the signage on the building, the number for my landlord. I’ve never met him; I just send in a check to some anonymous address, MariCorp. They own several of the buildings in the area. I tell the girl on the other end of the phone that I want to play Santa, and she figures out which apartment I mean, next door to me, and gives me the address of their rental office.

  “How much for a year?” I ask.

  She gives me a number—$14,400—and I ask her how she’d like it.

  Fifteen minutes upstairs, counting the money, fights going back several years, more than I thought, but still a finite amount. I sort out $15,000 and wrap it with a rubber band, put it in my coat pocket, and head out to find the office. It’s just down the street, and a little bit west of here, not that far of a walk.

  The cold lifts as the sun comes out, and I hide behind my sunglasses, black gloves and black sweatshirt, blue jeans, and black boots, my usual uniform.

  The currency exchange at the corner is happy to charge me a large fee for the cashier’s check, the girl behind the glass eyeballing me, rubbing a special marker over every hundred-dollar bill.

  In no time I’m at the office, pulling open the door, a bell ringing, the girl at the desk looking up with a slightly startled expression, a few men at their desks turning their eyes to watch me lumber in.

  “I called earlier,” I say.

  She smiles big.

  “Santa?” she whispers.

  Against all odds, I smile back.

  “Not what you were expecting, huh?”

  “What you’re doing is really nice,” she says in a hushed tone, as I approach the desk. “Are you family—a brother or uncle or something?”

  “Something like that,” I say.

  “And what should I say if they ask who paid for their rent, what’s your name?”

  “It’s not important,” I say. “Let’s just say I have a vested interest in the girl, Natalie. I guess you could say I’ve been her teacher. I want to make sure she’s okay. Can we leave it at that?”

  She looks at me, squints a bit, and shrugs her shoulders.

  “Sure.”

  I hand her the cashier’s check, and she takes out a large leather book, flipping the pages over until she comes to our building, running down the columns until she finds the right tenant. She fills out a receipt and hands it to me.

  “You know, you’ve restored my faith in humanity.”

  I grin, and pull my gloves back on, taking a breath.

  “That makes one of us,” I say, and turn to leave. I can feel her eyes on me, questioning everything, trying to make sense of it all. I turn my head back to her as I approach the door.

  “But thank you for saying that,” I mutter, and I push the door open, the bells ringing again, and I know that I’ve done at least one good thing today.

  Chapter 43

  Today is all about the Benjamins, I guess. I don’t have much to pack, and only a few more errands to run. I place the money on the kitchen table and it’s just a touch over $60,000, even after the money for Natalie’s rent. There is so much to do today that I hardly know where to begin. A cup of coffee, the gun in my jacket pocket just in case, and I’m outside again, a guide to the local bus lines in my back pocket, a backpack on, just filled up with cash—not all of it, but quite a lot.

  I text Eddy again, asking him about a car. He sends me to a lot over on Fullerton. I hand the guy $6,000 in cash and he gives me an old beige Camry. Oddly enough, there’s a lot of legroom. He tells me it’s an easy car to drive, blends in, gets good gas mileage, and can probably get me to 200,000 miles. It’s currently at 102,000 and change. I step in the back for the paperwork, and he fakes and forges everything I need—insurance card, title, but he won’t do the license. Tells me to get a real one, much easier to look legit with an actual driver’s license—even with a few tickets, at least you’re in the system.

  So I hop in the car, the tank full of gas, and drive north on Milwaukee Avenue up to the DMV over on Elston. My father used to take me out at night, and we’d spin around parking lots. Living in the city, I never really needed a car, but I need one now. I park the car and head inside, a long line of people, a ticket taken, my number 134, and when I look up at the digital screens over the terminals it’s only on 95.

  Jesus Christ.

  I close my eyes and try to relax. There’s nothing I can do about this; I have to interact with the real world. I don’t get many stares here, among this odd mix of housewives and men in flannel shirts and work boots, women in coats with matching scarves and hats. A few kids seem nervous, pimply and flushed, early twenties but looking as if they were thirteen. A few cats in blue that squint in my direction, but I don’t see any phone calls being made—nobody comes over to whisper in my ear with an ice pick. They’re all so young, they should probably be in school. I avert my eyes and try to blend in. Some of the construction workers are as big as me, their jackets splattered with paint and concrete. One man mumbles through his hea
vy beard, every now and then sipping at a pint, until security comes over and asks him to leave. His voice starts to rise until a second fake cop slides up next to the first one, and the man quiets down and lurches out the door. For once, I’m not the biggest freak in here, which is a great relief.

  I’ve already passed the written exam—easy-peasy. My number finally gets called, and we head outside, the driving test a breeze, the instructor an overweight Hispanic woman with a hint of a mustache who stares at me the entire time. She doesn’t look at the road once, merely barking out instructions.

  “I don’t bite,” I say as we pull out into traffic.

  She doesn’t smile.

  “You look so familiar,” she says.

  “I get that a lot. George Clooney, right?”

  She frowns and then cackles, pointing me toward the parallel parking. When I’m done, she tells me I pass. On the way inside she says something else.

  “Be careful out there,” she says.

  When she opens her jacket up, I see a blue bandana tied around her neck.

  “Nothing’s black and white,” she says. “Shades of gray, you know?”

  I nod.

  “Or blue.”

  She nods and walks away, as I go to get my picture taken. I stand in front of the camera, the photographer asking me to sit lower, lower, until I’m hunched over and the skinny pale kid starts sweating, taking the picture three times, still chopping off part of my head.

  “Fuck it,” he mumbles, and fifteen minutes later he calls out my name, and I take the license—so much still left to do.

  Natalie is a minor, and as I sit in the bank parking lot reading a handful of brochures about safe deposit boxes, joint accounts, and even some flyers on wills and trusts for a lawyer just down the street, my head starts to spin. Minors can’t be on the safe deposit box, and checking or saving accounts—you can’t just drop $50,000 in without arousing suspicion. Wills and trusts may be the way to go, but where to stash the money, the cash? I keep running around in circles. I see Sandy walking around inside the bank, but I don’t go in.

  Frustrated, I drive home, the backpack still heavy. I’m trying to do it all right, help set up Natalie for the future, but maybe in the end she gets a shoe box, filled with stacks of dirty money.

  Chapter 44

  Out of ideas, and out of time, fearful that my father is still watching me closely, waiting for me to do something stupid, waiting for the police to show up on my doorstep, worried about drawing attention to Natalie, I sit at the kitchen table with an old shoe box in my hands, filling it up with cash, as much as it will hold, not even sure how much it is. It will never feel like enough, my leaving her alone with a black cloud hanging over my head. My only hope is that I drag that cloud with me, out of town, and out of the city, down I-55 south, uncertain of my final destination. Will I stand out in New Orleans, or will I be just another tall, pale freak with cloudy horizons in his eyes? Down in Florida, could I wrestle alligators for money, buy a shack out in the swamps, and disappear?

  None of it has any appeal. All of it has appeal.

  I flicker back and forth between ecstatic—the idea of change, something new, holding the promise of unknown rewards—and tortured, walking out on friends that might need me, turning my back on a predator who shows no sign of stopping.

  Can I get a message to Delmar and Williams? I hold a card from Delmar in my hand, with his cellphone number on it. Call me with any news, he said—anything at all. I haven’t heard from them since my recent conversation down at the station. Does that mean they are still looking, still trying to follow the trail that my father left behind, or are they lost? What would I even tell them—that my father came by, that he’s the man they want, give them a description, knowing he’ll be changing his disguise, with no idea where he is in the city, or what he looks like now?

  I wrap the box in festive holiday paper, green and red and shiny gold, tiny elves frolicking in a winter wonderland, pine trees and a bright North Star.

  There’s a knock at the door. I put the last piece of tape on the package and stand up, easing to the door to let Natalie in.

  It’s the cops.

  “Ray. Can we come in?”

  Delmar and Williams.

  Shit.

  “Where did you park, out front?” I ask.

  “No, a few houses down,” Delmar says.

  “Get in here, quick,” I say, and they look at each other and step inside. “Here, back to the kitchen, away from the windows.” I close the drapes and blinds at the front of the living room and head to the back of the apartment, closing the drapes in there as well.

  “Look, you guys have to get out of here. I’m being watched,” I say.

  “Who?” they both ask, like a pair of demented owls. “What’s going on?”

  “My father. He came to see me.”

  They look at each other.

  “Holy crap,” Delmar says, taking out a notebook. “That’s what we were here about. We wanted to warn you that we thought he might be in the area. We got a hit on the blood, the DNA—it was his sample that we found at the crime scene. We found him in the system in a few places, Fairbanks, Williston, and then the trail went cold. We called a few past employers, a few police departments up that way, and while he had a few minor run-ins—fistfights and public intoxication—there was nothing else on record.”

  “Look, he told me that if I talk to you, he’s going to track down the people I know, anybody I care about, and…”

  They look at each other.

  “Shit,” says Williams. “Okay, we’ll get out of here. We’ll take the back stairs, and work our way around to the car.”

  “I’m worried about the girls in the area, especially Natalie, next door,” I say.

  The both nod their heads.

  “Just give me a quick description,” Delmar says.

  I describe my father, his real identity, as well as the disguise. I explain how he got the jump on me, and what he told me. I tell them about the USPS truck, and they say they’ll look into it, see if any have been stolen recently, anybody jumped or missing from work.

  “I…I’m leaving town,” I say.

  “Ray, that may not be a good idea,” Delmar says.

  “Guys, I don’t know anything. I want him arrested or dead as much as you do, maybe more. But I have no idea where to look. He has the drop on me, and I can’t bring his lunacy in closer, not with Natalie next door. I may not come back, but you have my cellphone. I want to get out of town and leave this to you.”

  “Can you stay in state?” Delmar says. “If you just go to a hotel in town, he could follow you and think something’s up. But if you drive a few hours out of town, at some point he’ll probably turn around and come back, if Chicago is where this sick fuck wants to be. If he tails you at all, that is.”

  I think about it.

  “Peoria. I’ll take 55 south to Peoria—it’s close enough that I can get back here quickly, and far enough that he won’t follow me all the way down there. Will that work?”

  Delmar nods. “Yeah, that should work.”

  “You guys need to get out of here, though. The longer you’re here, the better the chance that he runs across your car. Up the street, maybe he won’t question it, but if he is scoping out this apartment…”

  “Okay,” Delmar says. “If you hear anything, call me. I can’t believe he’s figured out how to tap your phone, but take a walk just in case he’s got any listening devices planted in the apartment. Or use a pay phone.”

  I nod.

  “Can you guys do me one favor?”

  “What?” Williams says.

  “Can you put a car on the apartment, unmarked? You being here now, my leaving, just for a few days until he sees that I’m gone.”

  “No problem,” Williams says. “Not a bad idea to case the apartment anyway, in case he shows up again.”

  I open the back door, and they file out.

  “Ray, call me if you hear anything,” Delmar
says.

  “You too,” I say.

  And then they’re down the stairs like a herd of elephants, a trickle of sweat running down my armpits. One day they’re on my side, asking for help, the next they’re trying to put me away for life. Can’t say I blame them.

  A knock at the front door and my stomach lurches. I close the back door, lock it, and head to the front. Opening it, I find Natalie. Do I warn her, or will that make her act suspicious, and draw attention to herself?

  “Hey, come in,” I say. “Got a little something for you.”

  She’s bundled up, her face pale but her cheeks rosy.

  “Okay,” she says.

  “Be right back,” I say.

  When I step back into the living room she smiles at the box, which glows like an ember in my hands.

  “What’s this, Ray?”

  “Just an early Christmas present. I might be out of town for a bit. Don’t open it in front of your parents. And hide it good.”

  “Okay,” she says, grinning. “Why?”

  “They’d just ask questions.”

  “But, shouldn’t I get you something?”

  “The only present I need from you, Natalie, is for you to be careful, for you to keep going to school, and to not lose your good attitude.”

  “Aw, you big lug,” she says, wrapping her arms around me, as far as they will go.

  I can’t help but feel like I’m abandoning her, but I know that I have to leave. If I stay, he’ll come after Natalie for sure; if I go, maybe she’ll be spared. My stomach is in knots, and nothing feels like the right choice.

  Chapter 45

  Natalie

  After her parents have gone to bed, Natalie stands at the front window of their apartment and stares out into the night. She thinks of her day, and her skin goes cold. She knows how prepared she is, how much she has trained, and yet she looks at the box in her hand, the one she found in her backpack, the tiny little ring box that none of her friends will admit to giving her, and feels powerless. She retraces her steps back and forth, her locker at school always closed and the combination that only she has. She goes over it all again, not willing to tell Ray unless she’s certain what it means. He worries too much as it is.