Laying Down the Paw

by Diane Kelly

  The more expensive tickets probably gave higher payouts, so Dub started with those. He scratched and scratched and scratched, holding the cards over the plastic bag so the residue wouldn’t end up on the floor. Scritch-scritch-scritch-scritch-scritch. An hour later, he had a bag full of losing tickets and scratch-off shavings.

  But he also had a handful of winning tickets worth $865.00.

  Wow. The tickets represented more money than he had ever had in his life. They also represented freedom. Nobody knew he had these tickets, and nobody could tell him what to do with the money. The cash would be his to do with as he pleased.

  Dub gathered up the tickets and trash and returned to the kitchen. He glanced at the clock on the stove. Two thirty. He’d better cash these tickets before his mother got home and before the store owner could report them stolen and have them voided.

  Dub tucked the winning tickets into the ankle of his high-top basketball shoes, grabbed his keys, and went back out the door. Rather than risk running into Marquise, Gato, or Long Dong in the parking lot, he stuck close to the wall so he could exit through the back way by the laundry room. Luck was with him. He saw none of the guys. They were probably in their apartments drinking and smoking their take.

  The neighborhood around the complex was still without electricity, but Dub could see lights on in a strip center a half mile down the road. He jogged to the shopping center. Good. The end space was taken up by a convenience store with a lottery decal on its front window.

  Dub ducked around the back of the building and pulled out $150 worth of cards. The clerk might become suspicious if Dub tried to cash all the winning cards at once. Better to cash them at several different places.

  He removed his hoodie and turned it inside out so the Gainesville State School tornado logo wouldn’t be visible. He’d been stupid to wear the identifiable clothing on the looting spree. Of course, having no other clothing, he’d had no choice. With the cop standing twenty feet away, she probably hadn’t been able to read the words printed on the sweatshirt. Even if she had been able to read them and the police figured out he’d been one of the looters, how would they find him? Nobody had any idea where he’d gone after running away from Trent and Wes’s place and, if the police decided to contact his mother for information, they’d have a hard time finding her. The apartment and phone service were in Dub’s aunt’s name. After defaulting on rent and payday loans and bouncing a dozen checks, his mother’s credit was shot. She’d used her sister’s name and Social Security number to apply for the lease. And even if the police traced his mother to Taco Bell, he doubted his mother had used her real address on her job application. Like Dub, she trusted no one. If the police confronted her at work, she’d lie and say she hadn’t seen Dub since he’d been arrested way back.

  Yeah, Dub and his mother were virtually untraceable.

  Still, he knew that somehow, some way, his father could find them.

  Would find them.

  It was only a matter of time …

  Forcing the thought from his mind, he stepped up to the checkout stand and laid the tickets on the counter. The guy behind the counter looked from Dub to the tickets then back to Dub. “Got lucky, did ya?”

  “Yeah. Very lucky.”

  The clerk ran the tickets through the machine to verify them. Once he’d made sure they were all legit, he opened the register and counted out the cash.

  “One-twenty, one-forty, one-hundred-and-fifty,” he counted as he slapped the last bills onto the counter.

  “Thanks.” Dub scooped up the cash and tucked it into his wallet, the chain that attached it to his pants jingling with the movement.

  He left the convenience store and continued down the road, cashing in several more tickets at a car wash, a few more at a large grocery, and the rest at a couple of gas stations.

  The $865 in his wallet, he turned to head back to the apartment. He’d walked quite a ways by then, probably two miles or more, and it would get dark soon. He’d noticed a bus go by a few minutes earlier, so it looked like mass transit was running again, at least in this neighborhood. He was headed to the nearest westbound bus stop when he saw it.

  An old van sat in the fenced lot of a car repair shop. Its black paint was scratched and scuffed in places, but the words painted on the side in bright yellow were intact. PLUMBING PROBLEMS? CALL (817) 555-CLOG. Next to the words was a smiling cartoon man wielding a toilet plunger.

  Dub stepped over to the fence to take a closer look. The van had four bald tires, a single dented hubcap, and a cockeyed front bumper. Expired registration and inspection stickers, too. But it also had the words $400 OBO written on the windshield in white shoe polish.

  One of the doors to the three-bay auto repair shop stood half open, a light on inside. Dub let himself in the unlocked gate and walked to the open doorway, ducking to look inside. “Hey!” he called to a man in coveralls working under the hood of a white car. “This van out here. Does it run?”

  The man looked over at Dub and stood. He pulled a greasy rag from his pocket and wiped his hands on it. “Yeah. It runs. You interested?”

  “Maybe,” came out of Dub’s mouth, though his mind screamed Hell, yeah! If he bought the van, he could use some of his remaining cash to buy lawn care tools and a ladder. Then he could make money raking leaves and trimming bushes and cleaning out gutters. Once the grass began to grow again in spring, he could buy a mower and cut lawns.

  It was a short-term plan. He knew it. But his life had never been stable enough to think beyond the immediate future. Or at least it hadn’t been until he’d been placed with Trent and Wes.

  But his mother needed him. And she was the only family he had left. He couldn’t turn his back on her. Besides, she seemed to have pulled herself together now.

  Maybe there was hope for her. For him. For the two of them to be a real family.

  The man walked over, ducked under the door, and pulled a set of keys from his pocket. “Want to take it for a test drive?”

  “Yeah.”

  Dub didn’t have a driver’s license, but he’d practiced enough to know how to operate a car. Luckily, the man didn’t ask to see his license. Looking older than he really was had worked in his favor.

  The man handed him the keys, slid open a wide panel in the fence, and walked around to the passenger side. Dub climbed into the driver’s seat. The van sat much higher than Wes’s Civic, but was similar to Trent’s Hummer. He should be able to manage it.

  Dub stuck the key in the ignition and turned it. The engine hesitated a moment, came to life for a brief second, then sputtered out.

  “Pump the gas pedal a couple of times,” the mechanic said.

  Dub did as the man had told him to and this time the engine roared to life.

  The man pointed down the road. “Drive out onto the street and hook a left.”

  Dub slid the gear into drive and pushed lightly on the gas pedal, not sure how much pressure to give it. The van lurched.

  The mechanic huffed. “You gotta release the parking brake.”

  “Oh. Right.” Dub looked around but saw no hand brake.

  The mechanic pointed to a lever under the left side of the dash. “There. Give it a pull.”

  Dub pulled back on the handle and noticed the parking brake light go out on the dash. He drove slowly forward, stopping at the edge of the drive, and waited for cross traffic to pass before pulling onto the road.

  The engine sounded louder than it should and the van trembled like it was having a seizure, but it made it down the road and around the block without stalling. It even had a quarter tank of gas left in it.

  Dub pulled back into the lot of the repair shop, barely missing the fence support.

  “Watch it!” the mechanic cried.

  “Sorry,” Dub said. “I’m not used to driving something this big.” He pulled to a stop and turned off the engine. “How about three-fifty for the van?”

  “The price is four hundred,” the mechanic said.

 
; “Four hundred or best offer,” Dub said, pointing to the OBO written on the windshield. If anyone had offered the seller four hundred the van would have been gone already, right? And OBO meant there was room to haggle. Dub might only be fifteen years old, but he’d seen enough movies to know how these things were supposed to go.

  The mechanic frowned. “I put nearly three hundred dollars in parts in the engine. Plus, there’s my time to think about.”

  “Three-seventy-five then,” Dub said.

  “Nope,” the mechanic replied. “Four hundred or nothing.”

  Dub felt his face go hot with anger. Again, he felt cheated and powerless. He wasn’t going to put up with this shit.

  “I’m walking.” Leaving the key in the ignition, he opened the driver’s door and climbed out. He thought the mechanic would change his mind, say something. But the man said nothing.

  Dub slammed the door behind him and walked to the gate. He looked back to see the man slipping back under the half-closed bay door.

  Dammit!

  Frustrated and humiliated, Dub turned and stomped back to the door. He bent over to holler under it. “Three ninety-nine!” Asshole.

  The mechanic chuckled and waved him in. “Close enough.”

  Dub ducked and went inside, where he counted out the money from his wallet. Dub gave the cash to the man and the man handed him two sets of keys for the van.

  Dub started to go when the man stopped him. “Hold on, there. You’re forgetting your title.”

  The man retrieved a small rectangular certificate from a metal filing cabinet and handed it over. Dub looked down at the paper. It had the word SALVAGE printed on it. He wasn’t exactly sure what that meant, but for three hundred and ninety-nine dollars he didn’t much care.

  Dub folded the title in half and tucked it into his back pocket. “Do me a solid and put a new inspection sticker on it.”

  “That wasn’t part of the deal.”

  “Don’t be a dick.”

  The man chuckled again. “All right.” He walked over to a drawer, pulled out a current inspection sticker, and handed it to Dub. “You’re on your own for the registration.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  LENDING A HAND

  Megan

  My cell phone buzzed with an incoming text from Seth. Working overtime. Rain check for tomorrow?

  So much for our romantic Valentine’s dinner plans. Damn tornado.

  I responded sure and sighed. I supposed I shouldn’t be surprised about the rain check. It was all hands on deck after the devastation the storm had caused. In fact, Derek had informed me that all day-shift FWPD officers had been ordered to stay out on patrol until further notice. Still, after the run-in at the liquor store, I’d love the comfort of Seth’s strong, safe arms around me. I hadn’t even had a chance yet to tell him what had happened.

  I motioned to one of the K-9 teams working a pile of cinder blocks, mortar, and glass that, only an hour ago, had been a nail salon. “There’re search-and-rescue teams in the area. They’ve asked me to head west and see if I can hear anyone in the rubble.”

  As usual, Derek seized control of the situation. As weary as I felt, I didn’t mind, for once.

  “I’ll work the north side of the street,” he said, gesturing to our right. “You take the south side.”

  We retrieved our bullhorns from our cruisers and made our way around the vicinity, calling into demolished buildings and running our gaze over the wreckage, looking for any signs of a buried body, a possible survivor. I hoped that if I did spot a body part it would still be attached to a body. I wasn’t sure I could handle finding a severed limb.

  Though the debris had yet to be removed and emergency vehicles could not get into the immediate area, multiple teams of EMTs with portable gurneys swarmed about, some of them carrying injured down the street to ambulances waiting at the edge of the debris field, others running with their equipment to help dig survivors from under collapsed walls and roofs. The constant wail of distant sirens and the flashing lights in the distance made the area feel like some type of warped carnival midway.

  I stopped in front of a dry cleaner that was missing the top half of its four brick walls. The only things still standing were half a sign that read VER & SON, the countertop in the customer service area, and a huge pressing machine. Garments in clear bags had been tossed around like items at Neiman Marcus Last Call, the protective plastic covering torn. So much for dry clean only.

  Though it would be a miracle if anyone who’d been in the store had survived, I pushed the button on my bullhorn. “Fort Worth PD. Anybody in the cleaners?” Or in what remained of the cleaners?

  I cupped a hand around my ear and listened, feeling like Horton trying to hear a Who.

  Nothing.

  Just in case there was a Who in Whoville who had not yet spoken up, I tried a second time. “Anyone in there?”

  When I cupped my hand around my ear this time, I heard a faint sound, a female voice calling “Here!”, the word carried on a cry.

  “I hear you!” I hollered into my bullhorn, the resulting sound so loud it caused me to cringe even though I’d caused it. “Call out again!”

  Another faint, “Here! I’m here!” came from behind the countertop.

  I grabbed the walkie-talkie from my pocket and pushed the button to activate the mic. “I’ve got a survivor at the dry cleaners.”

  One of the male search-and-rescue team members responded. “What’s the closest cross street?”

  I looked over to where the street sign should be but it was gone, evidently torn away by the winds. I pulled out my cell phone. Thank goodness mobile service was still operative. After checking my current location on the GPS app, I relayed the information to the team.

  “On my way.”

  I looked around for something to tie Brigit to, but none of the structures looked stable. I ended up tying the end of her leash to the door handle of an upside-down Mercedes in the parking lot. “Stay here, girl.”

  Brigit’s eyes shined bright with anxiety but she obeyed, sitting down on her haunches with only a small whine in protest. I gave her a quick kiss on the snout. As scary as today had been, it would’ve been worse if she hadn’t been with me.

  My partner now situated, I began making my way through and over the rubble to the counter, talking the entire way, partly to reassure the person buried under the wreckage, partly to make sure I wasn’t stepping on someone else buried under the debris. “Here I come!” I called. “Almost to you!”

  Scuttling and crawling over shifting debris wasn’t easy. Bricks slid and smashed my fingers twice, and a piece of drywall I’d mistaken for concrete gave way under my foot, jamming my ankle against an unforgiving strip of metal roof flashing. It felt as if I were in some type of carnival fun house—minus the fun.

  When my eyes spotted one of the rescue teams heading our way, I raised my arms and waved them. “Over here!”

  The man rushed over to the edge of the debris field, unclipped the leash from the collar of his golden retriever, and issued an order. The dog scurried onto the pile, quickly sniffing and snuffling his way past me, having a much easier time balancing on the shifting debris with his four legs than I’d had on my two. He stopped behind the counter, his nose shoved into the rubble, his back end sticking up in the air. A second later he raised his head, looked back to his partner, and barked. Ruff! Ruff-ruff-ruff! His tail wagged vigorously. To humans, search-and-rescue work was a matter of life and death. To the dog, his work was playtime, an elaborate game of hide-and-seek. Still, despite the differences in approach, human/canine partners made amazingly effective teams.

  The man, whose embroidered name badge read J. REED, ordered his dog to continue his search for other survivors while he joined me in trying to get to the buried woman. Reed had an easier time than I’d had, having been trained for this type of work and also being equipped with knee pads, shin guards, heavy gloves, and other protective gear.

  He began to pull bricks off the pil
e and stack them on the counter. “Careful,” he advised. “The last thing we want to do is make things worse.”

  One wrong move and the stack of debris could tumble down like a house of cards or blocks in a game of Jenga, but with devastating consequences.

  After three minutes of careful digging, Reed pulled away a section of uprooted floor tile to reveal a tiny white woman cowering against the back of the counter. Her gray hair was matted with blood, her face crisscrossed with deep scratches, her pink sweater soggy and stained.

  “Thank God!” she cried. She reached up to grab me, nearly pulling me into the hole with her.

  Reed and I helped her to her feet, and she looked around in horror. “Where’s my son?” she said, softly at first, her words escalating to a shriek as the enormity of the damage sunk in. “Where’s my son? Where’s my son!?!”

  The retriever had moved twenty feet back, indicating he’d found another person. But whether that person was still alive was unknown. The area where the dog stood contained an even deeper, denser pile of remains, including heavy machinery that had been tossed and toppled like children’s toys.

  Reed helped the woman to the top of the counter. “Stay here until we complete our search.”

  He radioed for paramedics to come tend to the woman.

  As we turned to head to the back of the space, his eyes met mine. From the expression therein, it was clear he thought the chances of anyone surviving in the wreckage would be nothing short of a miracle.

  It took us a full five minutes to reach the dog, another ten to figure out how to unearth the buried person with the risk of dropping machinery on him. Two large washing machines were counterbalanced at odd angles on top of the ruins. One wrong move and we could cause an avalanche that might not only crush the man trapped below but us as well.