Quiver

by Peter Leonard

  He took off running and was surprised when he came to a clearing-but it wasn’t a clearing. It was a county road cutting across the peninsula a few miles west of the cottages. He was all turned around. He’d gone in the wrong direction.

  DeJuan was listening to Keak do “White Ts, Blue Jeans, and Nikes,” scanning the tree line, driving by in Scarface, doing twenty, exhaust of the Malibu popping some rumble. Thinking how fast a situation could change. Thirty minutes earlier he was going to be rich, counting the money. But he wasn’t going to get nothing, they didn’t find the kid, find him quick.

  Looking out at the hood he needed a carwash, had pine needles and shit all over his custom gold metalflake paintwork, color called Aztec bullion, motherfucker had real gold in it-straight up.

  DeJuan was driving slow, creepin’, glancing at the wall of trees to his right. Saw something up ahead, dude appear coming out of the woods, running toward him, moving his arms like he trying to signal him. Was the kid, and as DeJuan drove up, you should’ve seen the look on the kid’s face, he saw who it was.

  Kid took off now, going back in the woods. DeJuan jammed on the brake, skidded to a stop. He grabbed the shotgun off the passenger seat, got out, went after him, running through the trees on this irregular ground, wishing he’d laced up his Nikes.

  Caught the dude though, pushed his punk-ass down. Now DeJuan, breathing a little, racked the slide on the shotgun, a semiautomatic Remington Wingmaster twelve-gauge. Said, “Hear that? That’s doom herself talking at you. She saying, fuck with me, fuck with me-don’t fuck with me.”

  Little man got the message. Stood up looking scared, shotgun being a powerful communicator. DeJuan noticed the kid had mud on his pants, wondering now how he was going to protect his white leather seats. Had the hides dyed to match his Zegna suit. Connolly motherfucking leather was some high-profile skins. Shit smell like money. Uh-huh.

  The black guy made Luke sit on a blanket he got from his trunk, worried, he said, about Luke getting his ride all full of dirt. It was a strange car with these cheesy white seats and the word Scarface inlaid on the wood dash in chrome script.

  “Like it? That teakwood,” the black guy said, “come from Indonesia.”

  Like he was looking for Luke’s approval.

  He reached his hand out, rubbing it over the lacquered surface.

  “Feel it, go on.”

  Luke stretched his arms out and touched the wood with his cuffed hands. It felt smooth and warm.

  “Know what that motherfucker cost?”

  Luke turned his head, looking at him.

  The black guy grinned. “Twenty-five hundred dollars. Believe that? What they get for custom anymore.”

  Luke couldn’t believe it. It was so tacky. Why would anyone pay that much to make their car look like that?

  The black guy turned up the stereo.

  “Twenty-four Bose speakers. What you think?”

  He could feel the heavy thump thump of the base. They were listening to a rap song, the black guy talking to him, but Luke could only see his lips moving the music was so loud.

  He turned it down and said, “Know Keak?”

  Luke said, “What?” He could barely hear him.

  “Keak Da Sneak, motherfucker, you deaf?”

  Luke shook his head. Who was Keak Da Sneak?

  “Born name Kunta Kinte. Mean ‘warrior’ in Swahili.”

  The black guy took a long uneven joint out of a compartment in the console and lit it with a gold lighter. Luke watched him take a deep drag, hold it in till he looked like he was going to explode and let it out, blowing a stream of gray smoke into the windshield, engulfing him in a cloud of hydroponic herb. Luke coughed.

  “Yeah, that’s some good shit, ain’t it?”

  He extended his arm, handing the joint to Luke. “Want some?”

  Luke looked at him through the smoke and shook his head.

  “How you going to expand your consciousness, take your little punk-ass mind to another realm?”

  He hit the joint again, held it in till his cheeks puffed up, till the smoke came out like it was under pressure. He turned the music up and started singing, rapping with the rapper, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel as he drove.

  “ Two outs, two strikes livin’ in the ninth innin’, smack over the gate, I hit the plate now I’m grinnin ’.”

  He stopped when they pulled in the yard in front of the cottages, shut off the car and it was quiet, Luke’s ears ringing like he’d been to a concert.

  “My man, Ted going be thizzing over this. Fool has a temper, as you seen. Don’t say nothing, see maybe I can chill him.”

  He was right, Camo was mad. Camo said, “I got mosquito bites all over my neck ’cause of you.”

  Good, Luke thought.

  Camo came at him but stopped, faking like he was going to hit him.

  Camo said, “Lookit him quiver like a little sissy.”

  Luke relaxed, let out a breath. Now Camo turned and hit him with a punch that stunned him and he went down. Camo kicked him in the ribs with his steel-tipped motorcycle boots. He looked like he was going to do it again when the black guy came in the room and stopped him.

  “Yo, Ted, want to ease up on my man? Time to collect. Don’t fuck with the merchandise. See, he like an expensive vase or something we trying to sell, want it perfect-no chips or scratches and such.”

  Camo said, “The hell you talking about?”

  TWENTY — THREE

  “Sorry,” Jack said. “I lost track of time. I was running down the driveway after you, hoping you’d see me.”

  He was standing right there as she got out of the car.

  He said, “Where is it?”

  “I don’t have it,” Kate said. She closed the car door and moved toward the lodge.

  “What do you mean? It wasn’t there, or they wouldn’t give it to you?”

  Kate opened the front door and went inside, Jack right behind her.

  He said, “Want to tell me what’s going on?”

  That’s what she wanted to know. She took her coat off and hung it on the back of a chair in the breakfast room. She went in the kitchen and got a glass out of the cupboard, opened the freezer, put a handful of ice cubes in the glass, poured some bourbon, and took a sip. She wasn’t going to offer him one.

  Jack said, “You’re kidding about the money, right?” Trying to sound calm. “You’re jerking my chain, aren’t you? It’s in the trunk, isn’t it?”

  “Why’re you so concerned about the money?”

  “ ’Cause you need it to get Luke back,” Jack said. “Why do you think?”

  His eyes stayed on her, waiting for a response, but she didn’t give him one. Now he turned, took a rocks glass out of the cupboard and poured bourbon in it and drank it straight, fixing his gaze back on her.

  He said, “Where’s my key?”

  She took it out of her pocket and threw it to him. He caught it, put his glass down and walked out of the kitchen. She heard the front door open and heard it close when he came back in a few minutes later. He was tense, trying to hide it, but he couldn’t.

  “Okay, where is it?” Jack said. “Tell me what’s going on?”

  “I’ve got a better idea,” Kate said. “Why don’t you tell me?”

  Jack said, “What the hell’s gotten into you?”

  “Giving the money back, the fifty thousand, makes sense now,” Kate said. “With the ransom you’ll make a lot more, won’t you?” Kate had connected the dots and they led right to Jack. Who else? He knew the problems she was having with Luke. Knew Luke had taken off and they’d be at the lodge, the perfect place to pull it off-remote and isolated. Knew if he gave her the money back she’d think she could trust him, and it sounded like he was acquainted with the kidnappers-his comment about them “spending too much time to fuck it up,” like he had inside information. But it was the stolen Lexus that brought it all together, proved Jack was still a crook and got her thinking.

  “You’re
all stressed,” Jack said. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

  She looked right at him and said, “Where’s Luke?”

  “How do I know?”

  He was lying, she could see it in his eyes. “You’re the only one who could’ve pulled it off.” She walked to the breakfast room table, bent down and took the Beretta out of the pocket of her jacket, racked a round in the chamber, and pointed it at him.

  Jack said, “Put it down. This isn’t Guatemala. You’re not going to shoot your way out. These people are pros. They’re good at what they do.”

  Kate aimed the Beretta at him. “How many are there?”

  “Three. Listen to me,” Jack said, “if you don’t come up with the money…”

  He didn’t finish what he was going to say, but the implication was clear.

  Kate said, “Where’s Luke?”

  “He’s okay,” Jack said. “That’s all you need to know. Give them the money and you’ll get him back. It’s that easy.”

  “Them,” Kate said. “Like you’re not part of it, huh?”

  “They were going to do it anyway,” Jack said, “with or without me.”

  There he was-making excuses, as always.

  “Let me ask you something,” Kate said. “What’s your share?”

  “What difference does it make?” Jack said. “It’s not going to change your life one way or the other.”

  “It already has,” Kate said.

  He swallowed the last of his drink.

  “You’ve been at it all along, haven’t you? Since the day you left me.”

  He poured more bourbon in the glass and looked at her.

  “Never really stopped except for my time in stir,” Jack said.

  He was confessing now like there was truth serum in the booze. He told her about his thirty-eight months in the Arizona Penitentiary.

  Kate listened, not surprised by any of it.

  “I’m the way I am,” Jack said. “And I don’t see myself changing. That much I’ve figured out.”

  “I came to that same conclusion about an hour ago when a sheriff ’s deputy pulled me over for driving a stolen car.” She told him what happened.

  He said, “Cop know who you are?”

  “If he did, there’d be a fleet of white Crown Vics parked out front with their lights flashing.”

  She was in the breakfast room and he was in the kitchen, two feet of counter separating them, looking at each other.

  Jack said, “Maybe they haven’t found him yet.”

  “Haven’t found him? He’s right there on Dumas Road, a hundred feet from the main highway, handcuffed to the steering wheel,” Kate said. “I’m the one they’re going to be looking for.” She thought about the consequences of what she’d done, but it seemed trivial in light of her current situation.

  Jack said, “Where’s the money at?”

  “In a safe place.”

  “As long as you have it.”

  Kate said, “How’s it going to happen? Are they going to call again?”

  “You’re supposed to give me the money,” Jack said, like he was trying out the line. “I’ll take it to them and bring Luke back here. That’s what we agreed to. That’s why I got involved-to make sure nothing happened to him.”

  “That’s why you got involved, huh?” Kate shook her head. “To help a kid you don’t even know. Why am I having trouble believing that?” She squeezed the grip of the Beretta.

  “I’m being straight with you.”

  It sounded weak, like he didn’t believe it either.

  Kate said, “Do you really think I’m going to trust you with two million?”

  “You don’t have a choice in the matter,” Jack said. “They want the money first.”

  “No way,” Kate said. “First, I want to see my boy.”

  “I’ll do what I can.”

  “You better do more than that,” Kate said. “Tell them to bring Luke here, I’ll give you the money. Tell them that’s the way we’re going to do it.”

  He said, “I just want you to know I’m sorry about all this.”

  “Is that right? I want you to know something too-this kid you’ve kidnapped and put up for ransom is yours.” She let that sink in before she continued. “You hear what I’m telling you? He’s your flesh and blood. You may recall I thought I was pregnant when you left town. Well, I was.”

  Jack grinned. “Come on?”

  Kate said, “I figured you’d say something like that.”

  “If it was true you’d have told me before now.”

  “You think I’m making this up?”

  Jack’s face went pale all of a sudden, like he might be sick.

  “You telling me your husband didn’t know Luke wasn’t his?”

  “Sure he knew,” Kate said.

  “And he didn’t care?”

  “Owen knew it before he asked me to marry him and raised Luke like he was his own. Never said a negative word about it.”

  Jack looked out the kitchen window and then back at her.

  “Why didn’t you have more kids?”

  “I couldn’t,” Kate said.

  “Why not?”

  “What difference does it make?”

  “Look at it from my point of view,” Jack said. “It’s hard to believe.”

  “That’s because you don’t want to believe it,” Kate said. “Then you’d have to admit responsibility and you’ve always had trouble with that.”

  “Whatever,” Jack said.

  Jack went outside and stood on the gravel drive, thinking about the bomb Kate just dropped on him. He never wanted a kid and didn’t want one now. Why’d she tell him? So he’d make sure nothing happened to him? Nothing was going to anyway.

  DeJuan suggested the kidnapping, although it had been stewing in the back of his brain too. Jack liked the idea ’cause it sounded easy and it solved a major problem. He could get Teddy and DeJuan off his back and make some money and cruise for a while. Kate was rich-it wasn’t going to change her life one way or the other.

  The plan: they’d split the take, return Luke to his mother and go their separate ways. Kate would never even know he was involved. They were going to grab Luke at the house the day he left: Teddy and Celeste would go in, get him after school, bring him to Teddy’s place in Clawson, keep him in the basement till Kate got the money.

  Jack’s job was to keep Kate away from the house, then keep her calm, make sure she got the money and didn’t call the police. He also had to tell them when and where to find Luke. Without him, it wouldn’t have happened.

  Luke taking off threw a wrench in the works for a couple days, but definitely made it easier in the long run. The remote location turned out to be an advantage too.

  Now things were a little more complicated, but still workable. He’d get his share of the money and take off just like he planned. He didn’t see that changing.

  DeJuan was expecting the phone to ring and it did, but still surprised him. Heard 5 °Cent doing “Candy Shop,” his ring tone:

  Give it to me baby, nice and slow

  Climb on top, ride like you in the rodeo

  DeJuan recognized Jack’s number, said, “Yo-got the money, I hope is why you calling. Going to be right over with it.”

  Jack said, “There’s been a change in the plan.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “We get the money when she gets Luke.”

  DeJuan said, “Don’t sound like you got control of the situation. I hope there be no more surprises.” He didn’t like the sound of this. They were telling her how it was going to be. She wasn’t telling them.

  Kate watched him from the kitchen window. He took his cell phone out and made a call, his face animated like he was arguing with the person he was talking to. After a couple minutes he closed the phone and put it in his pocket and just stood there, looking out at the woods.

  TWENTY — FOUR

  “They’re here,” Jack said, coming in the kitchen.

  S
he heard them drive in the yard and looked out the kitchen window. There were two cars, an old Z28 Camaro and another one she could only identify as a customized mid-eighties Chevy. It had a custom paint job and rims and a landau top.

  “Don’t go out there with a gun,” Jack said. “They might get the wrong idea. Give it to me or put it on the counter. Let’s not have any trouble, okay?”

  “No, it’s not okay,” Kate said. She walked past him and moved through the main room and out the front door.

  She watched Luke being lifted from the trunk of the Camaro and it made her mad, made her want to raise the gun and shoot them. She was conscious of the black guy who held a shotgun across his body like he was getting ready to shoot skeet. He was on her left about thirty feet away. Jack was to her right, half that distance, and Mullet, Luke and the girl straight ahead on the gravel drive.

  Luke’s hands were cuffed behind his back like a criminal. They looked at each other, made eye contact and he tried to come toward her, but Mullet held him in place with a chain that was looped around the cuffs. She could see his face was bruised and he looked thin and weak standing there. “Luke, honey, are you okay?”

  The girl aimed her pistol at Luke. She said, “He ain’t going to be, you don’t drop the automatic. I’ll shoot the little asshole and wouldn’t that be a shame after we’ve been so patient?”

  They all looked familiar. Kate remembered Mullet, the creep from the bar, sitting across the table from her with his greasy hair and confident grin. She remembered him saying they’d probably see each other again because he knew they would, the kidnapping had been planned by then.

  She remembered the girl too, thinking she and Mullet didn’t go together. It seemed even more apparent now, as Kate studied her in her black pointed-toe pumps and bootleg jeans, sweater hanging below her tweed fitted jacket, the outfit displaying a mix of fabrics embellished with beads-like she just walked out of an Anthropologie catalog.

  The black guy looked familiar too. She remembered the cornrow hair and the gold warm-up and the letter D hanging from a heavy chain around his neck-anodized bling. She’d seen him somewhere before, she was sure of it. But where? It was his gold metalflake Chevy that jogged her memory. She remembered it from the gas station in Grayling. He was filling up next to her. Asked her for directions, which seemed odd now, if he was following her. She remembered seeing him at the house, too. He was the DTE man dressed in a blue uniform, checking the meter in the backyard.