Facing the Future

by Jerry B. Jenkins

  Vicki wasn’t sure yet what she thought of Judd. She had heard his story enough that she felt she knew it as well as her own. She was surprised at how similar they were, both having been rebellious kids. But she couldn’t imagine why a rich kid would rebel against a setup like he had: his own room in a huge, expensive home, permission to drive his parents’ cars, the latest clothes, the best gadgets, and never having to work. What was to rebel against? While she had always told herself she hated her parents’ religion and rules, it was really where they lived that she hated.

  Vicki never would have admitted that to a rich kid. In fact, she would have defended the trailer park and its people over the phonies who lived in the big houses and didn’t seem to care about anyone. Sure, her neighbors could be loud and destructive, but look what kind of lives they led. No one could get ahead. They were all working to just get by. Vicki had wanted to get out of that environment, and she had the sinking feeling it would never happen.

  Now, here she was, trying to convince herself she could fit into a different culture. But was it just living in a rich kid’s home that made her look and think and act and even talk differently? She knew better than that. She had grown up overnight, and like Judd often said, the things they used to think were so important weren’t so important after all. Her biggest change, though she looked different, was inside. She didn’t have to apologize for being a trailer-park girl.

  She certainly didn’t feel as if she were somehow from a lower class of people than Judd was. He had treated her nicely from the beginning, and she didn’t get the impression he was just condescending to her. He seemed like a good kid, and he sure was smart. She was too, if she could believe her teachers. They had constantly told her she could do better and that she wasn’t working up to her potential. But the idea of sitting up late at night studying instead of running with her friends almost made her gag.

  Now she felt like a fool. Like Judd, she missed the family she had squabbled with. She wished she had followed her teachers’ advice. If she ever got the chance again, she would. Everything was different now. What a difference a few weeks made. More than that, she realized, the difference had come in an instant. Everything she ever thought or cared about changed when her perspective changed. And nothing could have changed her perspective more dramatically than millions of people—including her whole family—disappearing, just like they said they might someday.

  Vicki shook her head as she thought about it. When you’re wrong, you’re wrong, she told herself.

  “What?” Judd asked, startling her.

  “What what?” she said.

  “Out of the corner of my eye, I saw you shaking your head.”

  “I was just thinking,” she said. “How different you and I are from who we thought we were not that long ago.”

  “I was just thinking the same thing.”

  “Are you scared?” Vicki asked, suddenly changing the subject.

  “About this? Today, you mean?”

  “Yeah.”

  “’Course. Aren’t you?”

  “Yeah,” she said, “but it’s kind of fun, and there’s no way I’d miss it. It’s like being in a TV show or a movie—only it’s real.”

  Several minutes later Judd found the street he was looking for and parked three blocks away and around the corner. “We’ve got to hurry,” he said. “Fogarty doesn’t want us to be around here in case LeRoy or Cornelius comes early to check out the area.”

  TWO

  In Place

  LIONEL had the same fear Judd had, and at about the same time. As he sat at Judd’s house with Ryan, waiting to hear how everything would turn out, he suddenly wondered whether Talia might figure this all out and spill the beans to her brother and LeRoy. She was not a dumb woman.

  Lionel stood quickly. “I gotta get going,” he said.

  “What do you mean?” Ryan said. “You’re not leaving me here alone.”

  “I have to, but just for a little while.”

  “No!”

  “Yes! Now just wait here for me.”

  “Tell me what you’re doing.”

  “If you have to know, I’m going to my house.”

  “What for? What if LeRoy and Cornelius are still there?”

  “They won’t be.”

  “You don’t know that, Lionel. You’re going to spook them!”

  Lionel hesitated. “I think they’ll be gone by now.”

  “You’d better check. Why not call them?”

  Lionel thought a minute. “Good idea,” he said. And he saw Ryan beam. Talia answered the phone. “Hey, Talia,” he said.

  “Lionel?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What’s up?”

  “Thought I’d come and talk to you.”

  “Come on ahead. Nobody here but me.”

  “Really?”

  Now Lionel didn’t know what to do. He hadn’t really wanted to talk to her. He had just wanted to distract her, to keep her from saying anything to LeRoy and Cornelius in case she had realized that they were being set up. It sounded as if she had never given that a thought.

  “Yeah, come on over. I’m real sorry about André. You and your friends think LeRoy killed him.”

  “What do you think, Talia?”

  “I don’t want to think about it. I couldn’t stand it if I thought LeRoy did something like that.”

  “You think LeRoy’s never killed somebody before?”

  “Not unless it was self-defense,” she said. “Anyway, I was in love with André, and LeRoy knew that.”

  “Did André know it?”

  “I hope so.”

  “I don’t think he did,” Lionel said. “You did a good job of hiding it.”

  Now she was crying. “Don’t remind me,” she said. “I was tryin’ to control him, that’s all. I figured if I made everything too easy for him, he would never do the right thing. André was a wild man, you know.”

  “I know.”

  “I wanted him to behave, to act right, to grow up, for me.”

  “He was tryin’, I think. There at the end, I mean. Only somebody murdered him.”

  “Oh, no,” she said. “He just died in that fire, that’s all.”

  “Haven’t you seen the news, Talia? He was found with a bullet hole in his neck, and he wound up bleeding to death. The fire would have killed him, but we pulled him out of there. We knew he was bleeding, but we didn’t know why or where from. If we knew, we might have been able to stop the bleeding and save him.”

  “I’m sorry, Lionel.”

  “That LeRoy did this?”

  “I’m not sayin’ that.”

  “I am. How come you’re alone there anyway?”

  “LeRoy and Connie are in Chicago.”

  “What for?”

  “I don’t know. Some insurance thing. We’re gonna be rich, so they tell me.”

  “I can’t come over then, because I wouldn’t want to be there when they get back.”

  “I think they’re going to let you live here with us when they get a little money.”

  “And how are they getting this money?”

  “Insurance, like I told you. It was Connie’s apartment that burned, you know.”

  “How does that work? The insurance, I mean.”

  “I have no idea. All I know is that my brother was insured and he lost his apartment, so that’s that.”

  “How much is it worth?”

  “I don’t know. Enough for them to risk going back into Chicago when lots of people, and the cops, are looking for them there.”

  “Why are the cops looking for them?”

  “Lots of reasons. I wish they wouldn’t go down there for a while, but when they smell money . . .”

  “But you don’t know how much?”

  “All I know is that it’s a lot, because they have to come there in person.”

  Lionel realized how strange this conversation was. Talia would be looking for some place to live tomorrow. Should he let her stay in his home, whe
re she was now? No, that wouldn’t be good. She had moved in with her brother and his friend, knowing they were up to no good, knowing it was wrong, and knowing it couldn’t last. She would probably be arrested and held until the police determined whether she was in on any of the illegal stuff. Lionel didn’t think she was.

  “Well, I’ll see you, Talia.”

  “You’re not coming over?”

  “Not tonight,” he said. “Maybe I’ll see you soon.”

  Lionel knew he would.

  As soon as Judd and Vicki walked in the door of the storefront with “Thomas Fogarty, Attorney at Law” painted on the window, Tom Fogarty took them to the back, out of sight. He had the answering machine with him. “Here,” he said to Vicki, pointing to a chair. “I need you to record a message.”

  As Fogarty was writing it out, Vicki asked what it was all about.

  “It’s important in a sting to play hard to get,” the sergeant said. “If everything looks too easy for the mark—that’s what we call the victim of the sting—he gets suspicious and might be scared off. We have to get these guys to come to us and keep after us until we arrest them.”

  Vicki recorded the script. “You have reached the law offices of Thomas Fogarty. We will be back in the office tomorrow. Please leave a message after the tone. Thank you.”

  “Won’t this just make them mad and make them not show up?” she asked.

  “The opposite. I’ll be listening in. If they just seem mad and ready to hang up, I’ll pick up and tell them I was just in for a second and heard their call. If they threaten to come and break in if no one’s here, I’ll let ’em. Once they get here, I’ll pretend to be unable to find their file or their check, and you can bet I’ll make them identify themselves thoroughly. They’ll be working so hard to convince me they are who they say they are that they’ll forget about any doubts they’ve had.”

  The other police officers came through the back, and Fogarty briefed everyone on where to be and what to do. Judd was so excited he could hardly stand it. The answering machine was hooked back up to the phone, and Fogarty turned around the Open/Closed sign in the window to indicate his office was closed. The phony secretary’s desk was just messy enough to look real, and, of course, the chair was empty.

  When everyone was in place, they waited.

  “What makes you think they’ll call?” Vicki asked.

  “They’re eager. They want to make sure we’re here and that everything is ready for them. If they don’t call, that’s OK too.”

  But they did.

  Sergeant Fogarty set the answering machine to pick up on the fourth ring, only prolonging their agony. As soon as the message started to play, Fogarty, the other cops, and Judd and Vicki heard LeRoy and Cornelius whining in the background.

  LeRoy swore. “Oh, man, Connie! They can’t be closed! What is this?”

  At the tone, LeRoy yelled into the phone, “My name is Banks, and I had an appointment, so you better be in there when I get there!”

  Judd was afraid Fogarty would be disappointed because he couldn’t get on in time to tell LeRoy he would be there. But Fogarty apparently felt things were going perfectly. “He said ‘when I get there,’ ” Fogarty said. “They’re still coming. He’ll probably call one more time when they get close.”

  They waited several more minutes, and sure enough, the phone rang again. Same message. Same anger.

  “If you ain’t there when we get there, we gon’ trash your office!” LeRoy shouted. “Now you should be expecting us! Don’t make us break in there!”

  Fogarty smiled.

  Not long later, with everyone hidden, they heard the roadster slide up to the curb. LeRoy and Cornelius climbed out, looking enraged. They came up to the window and peered inside, and Judd heard LeRoy shouting and swearing all the way from inside. Cornelius had his hand in his belt, as if on a weapon.

  LeRoy hurried to the car and popped the trunk, pulling out a long metal rod. He approached the storefront with it in two hands, like a baseball bat. With that, Tom Fogarty grabbed a file folder and walked out from the back room into the front office, not looking up, as if he was unaware anyone was even there.

  LeRoy saw him and quickly held the rod out of sight behind his back. “Hey!” he hollered. “You open?”

  Fogarty approached the locked door. “No! Sorry! Tomorrow!”

  “I had an appointment!” LeRoy shouted.

  “Today?”

  “Yes! Today! Now let me in!”

  Tom went to the secretary’s desk and looked at the calendar, then slapped himself in the head, looking embarrassed and apologetic, and hurried to the door. Cornelius stepped in front of LeRoy as LeRoy skipped back to the car and tossed the metal rod in the backseat. “Now we’re in business,” Cornelius said.

  Sergeant Fogarty had LeRoy and Cornelius right where he wanted them.

  THREE

  LeRoy Gets His

  RYAN Daley was glad Lionel had decided not to go to his own home, where Talia Grey was alone. Ryan knew Lionel had intended to go without him, and Ryan had been left alone enough. It wasn’t just that he was afraid, though that was a large part. But there was nothing to be afraid of at Judd’s house. As far as he knew, none of the people who had invaded Lionel’s house even knew about Judd or his place. Ryan felt safe enough there.

  But also, Ryan had no brothers or sisters. He and his parents had been the extent of his family, and he’d had enough alone time when they were alive. That’s why he had spent so much time with Raymie Steele, who had also disappeared in the vanishings.

  Ryan was slowly adjusting to the fact that his parents were gone. They were still on his mind almost every minute of the day, and he often woke up between midnight and dawn, wishing this were all just a bad dream from which he would soon wake up. He had cried until he was sure there were no more tears, and then cried some more. He was embarrassed about that, being the youngest and noticing that the others didn’t seem to cry much. But one night he had woken up with his sad thoughts and heard two of the others—he guessed Vicki and Lionel—sobbing in their beds too.

  There was nothing wrong with that. What could be worse than losing your parents? Only missing out on going to heaven with them, Ryan figured. He put out of his mind the fact that his parents had not been Christians and that unless something very strange and very quick had happened before they died, it was likely they weren’t in heaven now.

  Ryan wandered into the kitchen, where he found Lionel eating a sandwich. “Want something?” Lionel asked, his mouth full.

  “Nah. Just bored.”

  “Wish we were down there for the sting,” Lionel said. “I want to see LeRoy get his.”

  Ryan nodded, and the phone rang. It was Talia. “For you,” Ryan said. Lionel had given her his number the night she had driven him to see André.

  Lionel pointed at the rest of his sandwich and nodded, and Ryan decided he was hungry after all. He finished the sandwich while Lionel talked with Talia.

  Vicki Byrne had been involved in a lot of mischief in her young life, but she decided this was about as exciting and scary as anything she had ever done. She was crouched behind a low table next to Judd. They were in a perfect position to peek over the top and through a huge one-way mirror that gave them a view of the entire storefront and front door. They could hear perfectly because the whole meeting was being taped in that same room by the police. The storefront was full of hidden microphones so Sergeant Fogarty wouldn’t have to wear a wire, as the police called it. In case the bad guys got suspicious and searched him, he would be clean.

  Vicki watched as Fogarty unlocked the front door but opened it only a few inches.

  “You can see there that we had an appointment,” LeRoy said, attempting to come in.

  “I’m sorry, gentlemen. It does say that on the calendar, if you are . . . ?”

  “Banks. Banks and Grey.”

  “Yes, but Miss Diablo must have made a mistake. She knew I was off today.”

  “But yo
u’re here and we’re here, so let’s get this done.”

  “Well, I’d like to, but I have to be in court in half an hour and—”

  “This ain’t gonna take no half hour. We were told you had a check for us, and that’s all we need.”

  “Really, gentlemen,” Fogarty said, still standing inside the slightly opened door, “this would be much more convenient tomorrow or next week—”

  “No!” LeRoy said. “Now we’re here and you’re here and we know you’ve got a check for us, so let’s do this.” He pushed his way past Fogarty, and he and Cornelius planted themselves in chairs at the side of the secretary’s desk.

  Fogarty was playing his part to the hilt. “To tell you the truth, gentlemen, I’m going to need you to refresh me on what this is all about.”

  LeRoy let his head roll back and he sighed as he stared at the ceiling. “Connie here, that’s Cornelius Grey, he rents an apartment, well, he did anyway, on Halsted. It burned down.”

  “Oh yes, and this is about the insurance settlement then,” Fogarty said.

  “Exactly.”

  “And what is your stake in this, Mr., ah . . . ?”

  “Banks. LeRoy Banks. I’ve been paying the rent for Mr. Grey here for several months, so—”

  “And why was that?”

  “What business is that of yours?”

  “Oh, none, I guess. Proceed.”

  “Proceed? You proceed. Your secretary said she had a big check for us, so let’s have it.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, sir. Were you expecting the check itself today?”

  “Of course! That’s why we’re here!”

  “Well, this initial meeting was just for paperwork, signatures, identification, that type of a thing.”

  “So, we’ll sign some papers. Let’s get on with it.”

  “Well, the documents have to be forwarded to the home office for verification, and then the check can be released.”

  “So you’re saying the check hasn’t even been written yet? It’s not here, like she said?”

  “Oh, it’s here, but if it’s released before everything is verified by the home office, then I’m in trouble.”