Ellen shuddered in her husband’s arms, murmuring incomprehensibly. Her neck kept going slack, Ted’s plump hands fussing to keep her head upright.
‘Boss Man is displeased.’ William scratched calmly at the patchy scruff on his neck. ‘That little move of yours, it’s gonna prove costly to him.’
Old cigar smoke had settled into the furnishings, sweet and comforting.
‘I . . . Listen, please, tell him I’m sorry,’ Ted said. ‘I understand, now, the gravity—’
William held up a finger. ‘What did Boss Man tell you?’
‘I can get it all back first thing tomorrow. I swear to you.’
‘What. Did. Boss. Man. Tell. You?’
Ted’s chest jerked beneath his bathrobe. ‘If I did anything to betray his trust, he’d kill me.’
William moved his hand in a circle, prompting, cigarette smoke swirling like a ribbon. ‘How would he kill you?’
Ted leaned forward, gagged a bit, wiped his mouth. His voice came out unnaturally high. ‘Painfully.’ His hand rose, chubby fingers splayed, a man used to resolving conflict, to meeting halfway, to finding sensible solutions. ‘Look’ – his rolling eyes found William again – ‘you can take anything. Whatever this has cost him, I can set right. I mean, he can’t possibly prefer to . . . to . . .’ He sputtered to a stop, an engine winding down.
William and Dodge just stared down at him.
Ted’s tongue poked at the inside of his lip, making that well-trimmed beard undulate. ‘I was in some trouble and made a stupid decision. But I can undo it. I will pay for whatever the costs of the fallout will be. I can take a third mortgage on the house. I have equity in . . . in—’
Beside him his wife keeled over, her bruised face pushed into the cushion. Ted began to weep. ‘Look at her. Let me get her to a hospital. Let me call 911. We won’t say what happened. There’s still time. We can still get everything straightened out.’
William turned the cigarette inward, studying the cherry. Then he ground it out against his front tooth. He placed the butt carefully into a Ziploc bag, which he returned to his pocket, then continued as if there had been no interruption. ‘My uncle used to tell me: All we have is our word. All we have is what we promise we will do. Our employer is a man of his word. And I’m a man of mine. Ethics, see? So we’re in a predicament here. We don’t like hurtin’ folks, but we have to do what we say. Following orders, like in the armed services, or the whole damn thing falls apart. It’s a sad business all around, but that’s how it’s gotta be.’ His close-set eyes never faltered. Strands of facial hair, strawberry blond and wiry, fringed the sallow skin of his jawline. The smell coming off him was medicinal and sour. ‘In our business you gotta make sure a man’s promise to you is upheld. If it’s not, you gotta set precedent. You, Ted, are that precedent.’
Ted thumbed back Ellen’s eyelid. The pupil, dark and dilated. ‘Can you, please, please’ – his hand tightened into a fist – ‘take her to the hospital? She had nothing to do with this. She knew nothing about—’
The gunshot, even muffled, brought him upright on the couch. Ellen’s head bobbed, and then, through the fresh tear in the drop cloth, a single feather floated up from the cushion, flecked crimson. Shock at the sight overtook Ted instantly – glazed eyes, spread mouth, ice-water tremble of his muscles, like a horse flank shuddering off flies. A small, shapeless noise escaped him, a vowel sound drawn out and out.
Dodge leaned over, reached into the unzipped duffel, and rummaged inside. Objects clanked.
‘We need to take pictures,’ William explained. ‘At various stages. So we can show them to the next guy, see, who thinks he can get one over on Boss Man.’
When Dodge’s gloved hand emerged from the duffel, it was gripping a ball-peen hammer.
Ted moaned softly.
William said, ‘I need you to sit over here. So we have room. The angle, you see. No, here. There you go. Thank you.’ Stunned, Ted complied. William stepped back, admired his positioning. ‘Dodge here, he gets impatient. So we’re gonna get going. Dodge, where you want to start?’
Dodge hefted the ball peen, let it slap the leather of his palm.
‘Joints,’ he said.
The white van rattled up the dirt road, veering side to side on wide, trash-littered switchbacks. The ground finally leveled off, the headlights sweeping past an endless chain-link guarding a disused auto-wrecking yard. Vehicles smashed into neat rectangular bales were stacked treetop high, the unlit aisles running as long and true as cornrows. Caught wrappers and plastic bags wagged in the barbed wire. Rust ground into the hilltop dirt had turned the soil an Indian red.
Past the wrecking yard, beyond a massive setback of dead weeds, rose a two-story clapboard house. It had settled westward, resigning itself to the wind. A blue oak twisted up out of the brown earth like something from a painting.
The van halted in front of the house, dust clouding around the tires. The breeze picked up to a faint moan. Dodge climbed out, slammed his door, stretched his spine. It was early-morning dark, the hilltop as desolate as an abandoned mine.
A light clicked on upstairs in the house.
William was a bit slower getting out. Wincing, he fumbled a pill from his pocket and downed it dry, then rubbed at the backs of his legs. He palmed a handful of sunflower seeds into his mouth, his jaw shifting with machine precision, then spit a few hulls in the dirt. He’d started at eleven years old with tobacco dip, but a few years ago someone had shown him a video of people with holes in their lips and cheeks, and so sunflower seeds it was. He had enough problems already without a sieve for a jaw.
He walked around the van, running a hand along the chipped white paint, and opened the back door. Ted lunged out, bellowing, his voice strained through the pillowcase tied over his head. William sidestepped, his wilted leg nearly buckling, and Ted tumbled off the rear bumper into the dirt. He screamed, arms flopping boneless at his sides, shattered at the shoulders and elbows.
He used his chin to shove himself up, shuffling and grunting like a blind bear, then bolted. The pillowcase was spotted red around the mouth where William had punched a knife through to give him some air; it was hard to be precise when they struggled.
About twenty yards away, Ted tripped and fell. Found his feet. Kept on.
William’s brother, Hanley, emerged from the front door and paused on the rickety porch, staring out across the Sacramento Valley. Morning edged over the horizon, a thin plane of gold. Hanley gave a half nod to the new day, stepped down, and peered into the back of the van. A body neatly wrapped in plastic drop cloth, one leather couch cushion seared from a bullet, rags soaked with bleach strong enough to make the eyes sting. When Hanley nudged the couch cushion to explore the bullet hole, the microcassette beside it clicked to life, a few baby squalls escaping until he stopped the recording again.
The footing of the sprawling front yard was uneven, ground squirrels doing their work beneath cover of the weeds. Ted ran, tripped, knee-crawled, ran. He blazed a frantic, meandering path, making poor progress. The three men paid him no mind.
Hanley drew a hand across his mouth, his stubble giving off a rasp. The family resemblance was apparent, though Hanley was clearly a healthier version of his older brother. Well-defined muscles, smooth pale skin, no kink in the posture or tweak in the limbs. ‘Nice work, brother,’ he said. ‘Dodge do his thing?’ Eagerness showed in his voice. This was new for him, and more than a little exciting.
‘He did indeed,’ William said.
Dodge was rooting in the duffel bag. He’d donned a rubber butcher’s apron and slaughterhouse goggles. The apron, pulled tight across his massive chest, held the marks of jobs past. He paused from cataloging his implements and drew himself upright, towering a full head above the van’s roof. That mannequin face, blank as a turned-off TV.
Behind them Ted collided with the trunk of the oak and went down hard with a grunt, vanishing into the waving foxtails. He struggled back up and stumbled onward at a new trajectory.<
br />
William nodded, bunched his lips. ‘We’ll prep the cellar,’ he said.
The brothers started toward the house, Hanley helping William up the stairs.
Somehow Ted had navigated his way across the giant stretch of yard. His ragged breaths carried back on the wind. He was sobbing something unintelligible, trying to form words.
Dodge shouldered the duffel and started calmly after him.
Leaning heavily on his brother, William dragged his lame leg up, one step at a time. They reached the porch, and he glanced down at a plastic-wrapped edition of the Sacramento Bee. He jerked to a halt.
Hanley said, ‘What, brother? You all right?’
William’s cheek twitched to one side, a dagger of teeth showing in the wire of his beard. He pointed down at the newspaper’s front-page photograph. ‘The face,’ he said.
Hanley looked down. Dumbstruck. ‘It’s not possible. It can’t be.’
William’s eyes hardened. He spit seeds across the black-and-white print. ‘Sure as hell looks like it. We’ll find out. We’ll make sure.’
‘And then?’
Down below they heard Dodge catch up to Ted. A crunch of bone and tendon, followed by a thin, wavering scream. A grunt as Ted was hoisted onto a shoulder and then the scrabble of arms flailing weakly against Dodge’s back.
‘Coming,’ Dodge said.
THEN
Chapter 6
‘What’s your name? Can he hear? Is he listening? Hello? Hey there. Your name?’
‘Michael.’
‘Okay, great, kid. Last name? Can you tell me your last name?’
‘He’s in shock, Detective.’
‘You don’t know your last name? How about your dad’s name? Do you know your dad’s name?’
‘John.’
‘Good, that’s good. And your mom? You remember your mom’s name? Hello? What’s your mom’s name?’
‘Momma.’
‘Okay. Okay. That’s fine. John and Momma. It’s a start, right?’
‘I don’t see how sarcasm’s going to help either of you, Detective. Michael, honey, how old are you?’
‘Four. And a quarter.’
‘Good, kid, that’s good. We need to figure out how to get you home. Do you understand?’
‘I think we should give him some more time, Detective.’
‘Time is of the essence, ma’am. Son, do you live nearby? Do you know – Hey, kiddo, over here. Look at me.’
‘I really think I should complete my assessment before—’
‘What town are you from? Michael? Michael? Do you know the name of the town you live in?’
‘The United States of America.’
‘Jesus.’
Chapter 7
The first year passes in bits and pieces, fragments with sharp edges. It is defined by voices. Conversations. Like this one:
‘How about a street? C’mon, help us out here. You must remember a street sign, something.’
And him pointing to the letter X on an alphabet puzzle. ‘Like that.’
‘Hey, Joe, you know any street names start with the letter X?’
‘How ’bout Fuckin’ Xanadu?’
‘I think that starts with a F.’
And this one:
‘My dad’s coming back.’
‘Sure, shithead. My momz, too. All our parents is coming back. We gonna have a big fat Thanksgiving turkey dinner and fall asleep ’round the fireplace.’
There are flashes, too – light and movement, photographs that can be strung together to form herky-jerky story lines. There is the Trip to the Hospital, him trembling in the sterile white hall, terrified that he’d been brought here to be put down like the neighbor’s Doberman who’d bitten a Sears repairman. (Which neighbor? Why remember a Sears repairman but not his own mother’s name?) The doctor comes for him, towering and imperious and breathing Listerine, and leads him to a tiny room. He goes passively to his death. They count his teeth, assess his fine motors skills, X-ray his left hand and wrist to check bone development. Then they give him a birthday.
A week later he gets a last name.
Doe.
A random assignment by a faceless clerk in an unseen office. The fact that a brand like that, a goddamn name could be yoked to him forever seems the punctuation mark on a lifelong sentence he will have to serve for a crime he didn’t commit. Michael Doe. Reborn and renamed and left to build from scratch.
Over the months he has added to the memories here, amended them there, losing pieces to the shock that preceded and followed. He had rubbed the narrative curve to a high polish, like river rock, wearing in contours, revealing new seams in the excavated quarry, until what remained, what he beheld, may not even have been the same shape anymore, until he’d freed a different sculpture from the same marble block. But this – this bastardized fusion of past and later – is all he has. This is his imperfect history. This is how it lives in his bones.
Then there is nothing but a snowstorm.
When it clears, he is six.
A run-down house at the end of a tree-shaded lane. He is kneeling at a bay window, nose to the glass, elbows on the sill, fists chubbing up his cheeks. Waiting. The yellow plaid cushion beneath his knees reeks of cat piss. Waiting. A car pulls up, and his spirits fly to the stars, but the car keeps on driving, driving away. Waiting.
A girl’s voice from behind him, ‘Shithead still thinks Daddy’s comin’ back.’
He has told no one about his mother. That he suspects her dead. His mind flits like a butterfly over poisonous flowers. Did his father kill her? Did he use a knife? What is his bloody inheritance?
He doesn’t turn from the window, but his thoughts have moved to the kids gathering behind him, sneakers shuffling on worn carpet. One voice rises above the others, boy-cruel and high with prepubescence: ‘Get over it, Doe Boy. Daddy didn’t want you.’
Mike tries to slow time. He makes a conscious decision to form a fist, the steps of curling, tightening, where to put the thumb. He will use this, his hand, to smash. But then anger bleeds in, overtakes him. A frozen expression of surprise on Charlie Dubronski’s face as Mike charges. A fist, fatter than his, blotting out the bright morning. A whirl of rust-colored carpet and a dull ache in his jaw. And then Dubronski leaning over him, hands on dimpled knees, leering red face. ‘How’s the weather down there, Doe Boy?’
Mike thinks, Calmer next time.
And then, weeks later, he is in the bathroom at three in the morning, the one time it is unoccupied. He needs a stool so he can lean forward over the sink, to see his face in the dim nightlight glow. Looking in the mirror, he sees a missing person. He examines his features. He does not have his mother’s high cheekbones. He does not have her beautiful black-brown hair. His skin does not smell like cinnamon, and his clothes do not carry the faintest whiff of patchouli as did hers. With the exception of the final imprint, his memories of his father are all good ones, gentle ones. But memories are weighted by quality, not quantity. He pictures his father’s hands gripping the steering wheel. That splotch of red on his shirt cuff.
He cannot help fearing just how much like his father he might be.
He does not know his last name. He does not know in which state he was born. He does not know what his room looked like or what toys he had or if his momma ever kissed him on the forehead like the mothers in children’s books. But he does know, now, that he is sixish years old and being raised in an overcrowded foster home in the smog-draped Valley of 1982.
Daylight. The Couch Mother lays in her hermit-crab shell of corduroy sofa, bleating instructions, giving off great wafts of baby powder and something worse, something like decay. An ashtray surfs of its own accord between formless breast and thigh, adrift on a sea of gingham. Ginger hair done in a sixties flip, easy smile, that Virginia Slims voice rattling after them down the hall: Charlie dear, pick up the bath mat. Tony dear, wash the dishes. Michael dear, empty my ashtray.
The communal dresser. He hates the communal dresser. Hat
es when he’s the last one to get dressed for school and winds up with the salmon-colored shirt that is cruelly mistaken – the day long – for pink. He hoards shirts at night, sleeps with them. But this night, when he gets back from brushing his teeth, his pillow is turned aside; the blue-striped shirt is gone. Dubronski, cross-legged on his bed, is smiling. And of course Tony Moreno, skinny sidekick, is laughing with implausible vigor.
Mike says, ‘Give it back.’
Dubronski holds out his fat bully hands as if catching rain. ‘Give what back?’
This, to Tony M, is high comedy.
‘You can’t even fit it,’ Mike says.
‘Then why don’t you take it?’ Dubronski says. ‘Oh – that’s right. Because I’ll give you a beat-down.’
Something hard and gemlike flares in Mike’s chest. It is blue-hot, but this time as controlled as a pilot light. He leans forward, says, ‘Yeah, but you have to sleep sometime. And my bed is right next to yours.’
Dubronski’s face changes. Tony M stops laughing. Dubronski recovers, quickly, with tough words. He cannot give up the shirt, not now, not with six sets of eyes watching from the surrounding cots. But the stench of his fear lingers in the room after dark. The spell has been broken.
The next day Dubronski limps to school. Mike is the Wearer of the Blue-Striped Shirt.
He is in the bay window as usual. Waiting. Michael dear, go outside and play – you practically live in that window. There is a new kid, skin and bones, with huge feet like a puppy’s paws. When he arrived, his hair was curly and long, but now it is close-cropped like everyone else’s. Head lice make their rounds with such frequency that the Couch Mother has ruled for crew cuts; she wields a pair of clippers with the impersonal proficiency of a bureaucrat denying a request. Function over form, always.
The new kid has a dog name to go with the puppy paws – Shep. Right now Dubronski and Tony M are pummeling him. From his perch on the cushion, Mike watches him get back up, lips bleeding. Another punch. Dubronski’s mouth moving: Stay down, ya little faggot. The neighbor’s kids are at their windows; they are used to the Roman theater that is 1788 Shady Lane. Shep struggles, finds his feet. Dubronski draws back his fist for the fifth or fifteenth time. The Couch Mother’s voice sails from the living room – ‘Diii–ner’ – terminating the day’s festivities.
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