Life or Death

by Michael Robotham

  8

  Audie doesn’t catch the first available bus. Instead he wanders the streets of San Antonio growing accustomed to the blur of movement and the noise. The high-rise buildings are taller than he remembers. Skirts shorter. People fatter. Phones smaller. Colours duller. People don’t make eye contact. They push past, hurrying somewhere: mothers with strollers, businessmen, office workers, shoppers, couriers, schoolchildren, delivery drivers, shop assistants and secretaries. Everybody seems to be trying to reach somewhere or to be running away from it.

  He notices a billboard perched on top of an office block. Two images, side by side: the first shows a woman in a business suit, spectacles, hair tied up, working on a laptop computer. The second shows her in a bikini on a white sand beach, with water the colour of her eyes. Underneath are the words: Lose Yourself in Antigua.

  Audie likes the look of the islands. He can picture himself on that beach, slowly going brown, rubbing suntan oil into some honey’s shoulders, letting it dribble down her back into the nooks and crannies. How long had it been? Eleven years without a woman. One woman.

  Each time Audie resolves to catch a bus, something distracts him and another hour passes. He buys a cap and sunglasses, along with a change of clothes, a pair of running shoes, a cheap watch, shorts and a hair trimmer. At a phone shop an assistant tries to sell him a sleek, rectangular prism of glass and plastic, talking about apps, data bundles and 4G.

  ‘I just want one that calls people,’ Audie says.

  Along with the cell phone he buys four pre-paid SIM cards and stows his new purchases in the pockets of a small rucksack. Afterwards he sits in a bar opposite the Greyhound depot, watching people come and go. There are soldiers in uniform carrying kitbags, transferring in or out of one of the military bases dotted around this part of Texas. Some of them are chatting up the pavement princesses, who are hooking out of nearby motel rooms.

  Studying his cell phone, Audie contemplates calling his mama. She’ll know by now. The police will have visited. Maybe they’re bugging her phone or watching the house. After his daddy died, she moved in with her sister Ava in Houston. It’s where she grew up and couldn’t wait to escape, but now she’s right back where she started.

  Audie’s mind wanders. He remembers squeezing through the window of Wolfe’s liquor store at age six to steal cigarettes and packets of gum. His brother Carl had lifted him up to the window and caught him when he jumped out. Carl was fourteen and Audie thought he was the coolest older brother a boy could have, even though he was rough sometimes and a lot of kids were scared of him. Carl had one of those rare smiles that you come across only a handful of times in life. In an instant it came across as reassuring and likeable, but the moment that smile vanished he became another person.

  When Carl went to prison the first time, Audie wrote him letters every week. He didn’t get many replies, but he knew Carl wasn’t much of a reader or a writer. And later when people told stories about Carl, Audie tried not to believe them. He wanted to remember the brother he idolised, the one who took him to the state fair and bought him comic books.

  They used to go fishing in the Trinity River, but they couldn’t eat anything they caught because of the PCBs and other pollutants. Mostly they snagged shopping trolleys and dumped tyres while Carl smoked dope and told Audie stories about the bodies that were sunk in the murky depths.

  ‘They weigh ’em down with concrete,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘They’re still down there, trapped in the mud.’

  Carl also told stories about famous gangsters and murderers like Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker, who grew up less than a mile away from where Audie was born. Bonnie went to the Cement City High School, which had been renamed by the time Audie sat in the classrooms, looking out on different factories but the same houses.

  ‘Bonnie and Clyde spent barely two years together,’ said Carl. ‘But they lived every damn minute like it was their last. It was a love story.’

  ‘I don’t want to hear about the kissing,’ said Audie.

  ‘One day you will,’ said Carl, laughing at him.

  Leaning forward, talking softly, he recounted the final ambush as though telling a ghost story around a campfire. Audie could picture the misty predawn scene, the isolated road outside of Sailes, Louisiana, where police and Texas Rangers ambushed the couple on May 23, 1934, opening fire without warning. Bonnie Parker was only twenty-three. She was buried in Fishtrap Cemetery, not a hundred yards from where Audie and Carl grew up (although later they moved her body to Crown Hill Cemetery to be with her grandparents). Clyde was buried a mile away at Western Heights Cemetery, where people still visited his graveside.

  Carl went to prison the first time for mail fraud and cash-machine scams, but drugs were his undoing. He developed a habit at the state penitentiary in Brownsville and never lost the taste. Audie was nineteen and at college when Carl got released. He drove to Brownsville to pick him up. Carl walked out wearing a green-striped shirt and a pair of polyester trousers and a leather overcoat that was too heavy for the weather.

  ‘Aren’t you hot in that?’

  ‘I’d rather wear it than carry it,’ he said.

  Audie was still playing baseball and had been hitting the weight room.

  ‘You look good, little bro.’

  ‘So do you,’ said Audie, but it wasn’t true. Carl looked washed out, gaunt and angry; needing something that was out of reach. People said that Audie got the brains in the family – making it sound as though intelligence arrived by FedEx and you had to be home on the day or the package got returned. But it’s got nothing to do with intelligence. It’s about courage, experience, desire and a dozen other ingredients.

  Audie drove Carl around the old neighbourhood, which was more prosperous than Carl remembered, but there were still strip malls, chain stores, derelict buildings, drug dens and girls hooking out of cars on Singleton Boulevard.

  At a 7-Eleven, Carl stared at a couple of high-school girls who came in to get Slurpees. They were wearing cut-off denim shorts and tight T-shirts. They knew Audie. Smiled. Flirted. Carl made some comment and the girls stopped smiling. That’s the moment Audie studied his brother and recognised something new in him: a sharp, almost fearful streak of self-loathing.

  They bought a six-pack and sat beside the Trinity River, under the railway bridge. Trains rumbled over their heads, on their way to Union Station. Audie wanted to ask him about prison. What was it like? Were half the stories true? Carl asked him if he had any weed.

  ‘You’re on parole.’

  ‘It helps me relax.’

  They sat in silence, watching the brown currents swirl and eddy.

  ‘You really think there are bodies down there?’ asked Audie.

  ‘I’m sure of it,’ said Carl.

  Audie told Carl about his scholarship to Rice University in Houston. They were paying his fees, but he had to cover his living expenses, which is why he was working double shifts at the bowling alley.

  Carl liked to tease him about being ‘the brainiac in the family’, but Audie thought his brother was secretly proud.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ asked Audie.

  Carl shrugged and crushed a beer can in his fist.

  ‘Daddy says he can get you a job labouring on a construction site.’

  Carl didn’t reply.

  When they finally drove home, the reunion was full of hugs and tears. Their mama kept grabbing Carl from behind like he was going to escape. Their daddy came home early from the garage, which he rarely did. He didn’t say much, but Audie could tell he was happy to have Carl home again.

  A month later, Audie started his second year at college in Houston and didn’t get back to Dallas until Christmas. By then Carl was squatting at a house in the Heights and doing various unspecified jobs. He’d broken up with his girlfriend and was riding a motorbike that he was ‘minding for a friend’. He seemed on edge. Jumpy.

  ‘Let’s play poker,’ he suggested to Audie.

  ‘I’m t
rying to save money.’

  ‘You could win some.’

  Carl talked him into it, but kept changing the rules, saying it was how they played in prison, but all the changes seemed to favour Carl and Audie lost half the money he’d been saving for college. Carl went out and came back with beer. He also had some crystal meth and speed. He wanted to get blasted and couldn’t understand why Audie chose to go home.

  The following summer, Audie worked at the bowling alley and at the garage. Carl used to drop round, trying to borrow money. Their sister Bernadette had started dating a guy who worked for a bank downtown. He had a new car and nice clothes. Carl wasn’t impressed.

  ‘Who does he think he is?’

  ‘He’s not doing anything wrong,’ said Audie.

  ‘He thinks he’s better than we are.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You can see it. He acts all superior.’

  Carl didn’t want to listen to anyone telling him that some people worked hard to live in a nice house, or drive a new car. He preferred to resent their success. It was like he was standing outside someone else’s party with his nose pressed to the window, watching the swirling skirts and pretty girls dancing to the music. He didn’t just watch with envy. His eyes were questioning. Indignant. Hungry.

  Late in the summer Audie got a call about ten one evening. Carl was in a bar in East Dallas. His bike had broken down. He needed a ride home.

  ‘I’m not coming to get you.’

  ‘A guy mugged me. I don’t have any money.’

  Audie drove across town. Parked out front. The bar had a glowing Dixie Beer sign and wood floors covered in cigarette burns that looked like crushed cockroaches. There were bikers playing pool, hitting the cue ball so hard it sounded like a whip cracking. The only woman was in her forties, dressed like a teenager, drunk dancing in front of the jukebox while a dozen men watched.

  ‘Stay for a drink,’ said Carl.

  ‘I thought you had no money.’

  ‘I won some.’ He pointed to the pool table. ‘What do you want to drink?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Have a 7Up.’

  ‘I’m going home.’

  Audie started to leave. Carl followed him into the parking lot, angry at being shown up in front of his new friends. His pupils were dilated and he missed the door handle with his first two attempts. Audie drove home with the windows open in case Carl got sick. They travelled in silence and Audie thought Carl had fallen asleep. But then he spoke, sounding like a lost child.

  ‘Nobody is going to give me a second chance.’

  ‘Give it time,’ Audie told him.

  ‘You don’t know what it’s like.’ Carl sat up straighter. ‘All I need is one big score. Then I’d be set. I could blow this place and start somewhere new with nobody prejudging me.’

  Audie didn’t understand.

  ‘Help me rob a bank,’ said Carl, making it sound obvious.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I can cut you in for twenty per cent. All you got to do is drive. You don’t have to come in. Just stay in the car.’

  Audie laughed. ‘I’m not going to help you rob a bank.’

  ‘You only have to drive.’

  ‘If you want money, get a job.’

  ‘That’s easy for you to say.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘You’re the blue-eyed boy, the favoured one. I wouldn’t mind being the prodigal son – give me my share early and you won’t see me for dust.’

  ‘We don’t have shares.’

  ‘’Cos you got it all.’

  They went back to their folks’ house. Carl slept in his old room. Audie woke up thirsty during the night and went looking for a glass of water. He found Carl in the kitchen, sitting in the darkness except for the refrigerator door that was propped open. His face was shining.

  ‘What have you taken?’

  ‘Just a little sumpin’ to help me sleep.’

  Audie rinsed out his glass and turned to leave.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Carl said.

  ‘What are you sorry about?’

  He didn’t answer.

  ‘World hunger, global warming, evolution, what are you sorry for?’

  ‘Being such a disappointment.’

  Audie went back to Rice and topped nearly all of his classes that second year. He worked nights at a twenty-four-hour bakery and came to lectures with flour dusting his clothes. One particular girl, who looked like a cheerleader and walked like a catwalk model, gave him the nickname ‘Doughboy’, which seemed to stick.

  When he came home that following Christmas he discovered his car was missing. Carl had borrowed it and hadn’t bothered bringing it back. He wasn’t living at home any more. He was at a motel off the Tom Landry Freeway, living with a girl who looked like a hooker and had a baby. Audie found him sitting by the pool, dressed in the same leather overcoat that he wore when he left Brownsville. His eyes were glazed and crumpled beer cans were scattered beneath his chair.

  ‘I need the keys to my car.’

  ‘I’ll bring it around later.’

  ‘No, I want it now.’

  ‘It’s out of gas.’

  Audie didn’t believe him. He got behind the wheel and turned the key. The engine died. He threw the keys back at Carl and caught the bus home. He picked up his baseball bat and went down to the cage and hit eighty pitches, taking out his frustration.

  It was only later that Audie pieced together what happened that evening. After he left the motel, Carl had filled the tank with a can of gas and driven to a liquor store on Harry Hines Boulevard. He took a six-pack of beer from the refrigerator and picked up packets of corn chips and chewing gum. The attendant was an old Chinese man, wearing a uniform with a name on the badge that nobody could pronounce.

  The only other person in the store was in the far aisle, crouching down, looking for a particular flavour of Doritos that his pregnant wife wanted. He was an off-duty police officer, Pete Arroyo, and his wife Debbie was waiting outside, eating an ice cream because she was craving something sweet as well as savoury.

  Carl walked up to the attendant and pulled a .22 Browning automatic from his overcoat and held it against the old man’s head, telling him to empty the cash register. There were lots of pleadings in Chinese that Carl didn’t understand.

  Pete Arroyo must have seen Carl in the disc-shaped mirrors angled above the aisles. Creeping closer, he reached behind his back and took out his pistol. He crouched, aimed and told Carl to put his hands in the air. That’s when Debbie pushed open the heavy door, her baby bump sticking out like a jack-o’-lantern. She saw the gun. Screamed.

  Pete didn’t fire. Carl did. The officer fell and squeezed off one round, hitting Carl in the back as he climbed into the car and it drove away. Paramedics spent forty minutes working on Pete Arroyo, but he died before he reached the hospital. By then witnesses had given police a description of the shooter and said there could have been somebody with him, sitting behind the wheel.

  9

  The bus leaves for Houston at 7.30 p.m. Audie boards at the last possible moment and takes a seat near the emergency exit. He pretends to fall asleep, but watches the concourse through cracked eyelids, expecting to hear sirens and see a blaze of flashing lights.

  ‘This taken?’ asks a voice.

  Audie doesn’t answer. A fat man manoeuvres a suitcase into the overhead rack and dumps a bag of takeaway food on the tray table.

  ‘Dave Myers,’ he says, extending a big red-freckled hand. He’s sixtyish with sloping shoulders and a roll of flesh instead of a jawline. ‘You got a name?’

  ‘Smith.’

  Dave chuckles. ‘Good as any.’

  He eats noisily, sucking salt and sauce from his fingertips. Then he flicks on the overhead reading light and unfurls a newspaper, snapping the pages.

  ‘I see they’re gonna cut the border patrols again,’ he says. ‘How they gonna keep illegals out of this state? Give them an inch and they’ll take t
he whole nine yards.’

  Audie doesn’t respond. Dave turns the page and grunts. ‘We’ve forgotten how to fight a war in this country. Look at Iraq.’ (He pronounces it Eye Rack.) ‘If you ask me they should nuke the whole lot of them Muslim countries, know what I’m saying, but that ain’t gonna happen with a black man in the White House, not with a middle name like Hussein.’

  Audie turns his face to the window and looks at the darkened landscape, picking out the dotted lights of ranch houses and navigation beacons on the distant peaks.

  ‘I know what I’m talking about,’ says Dave. ‘I fought in Nam. We should have nuked them slant-eyed gooks. Agent Orange was too good for them. Not the women. Those gook girls could be mighty fine. They might look twelve but they cum like flapping fish.’

  Audie makes a noise. The man pauses. ‘Am I bothering you?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘My wife is Vietnamese.’

  ‘No shit? I’m sorry, man, I didn’t mean no disrespect.’

  ‘Yes you did.’

  ‘How was I to know?’

  ‘You just insulted an entire race of people, an entire religion and women in general. You said you wanted to fuck ’em or nuke ’em, which makes you a racist and a scumbag.’

  Dave’s face grows red and his skin tightens as though stretched over a bigger skull. He stands and reaches for his suitcase. For a moment Audie thinks Dave could be looking for a gun, but he moves along the aisle, finding another seat, where he introduces himself to someone new and complains about the ‘intolerant assholes’ you meet on long-distance coaches.

  After stopping at Seguin and Schulenburg, they reach Houston just before midnight. Despite the hour, the concourse is populated by random clusters of people, some sleeping on the floor and others lying across seats. There are buses marked for LA, New York, Chicago and places in between.

  Audie goes to the restroom. He turns on the tap and splashes water on his face, scratching the stubble on his jawline. His beard is growing too slowly to give him a disguise and sunburned skin is starting to peel from his nose and forehead. When he was in prison he used to shave every morning because it filled five minutes of his day and showed that he still cared. Now he sees a man in the mirror instead of a boy: older, skinnier, hard in a way he never was.