Cornerstone 02 - Keystone

by Misty Provencher

  Zane opens the door for me and Zaneen scoots in ahead, with a thank you thrown over one shoulder. Garrett’s right behind me, but Robin scoots between us and I sigh.

  The shop smells just like the floor looks: smeared, greasy, brown. There are piles of metal things and rubber things and things that look like they’d never be of any use to anybody, everywhere. Even in the middle of the floor. Zane walks right up to one heap and extracts a small arrow-shaped thing, which sends a million other rusty, sharp things clattering to the floor.

  “I haven’t been able to find one of these in ages!” he squeals.

  “It’s sixty-five bucks,” a man says as he emerges from a swinging door behind the counter. There’s no doubt that he’s the slouchy boy in the picture, with around thirty years added to his skin, fallen out from the crown of his head, and stuffed into a pair of dirty gray overalls. Clint wipes his fingers off on a greasy rag that does less cleaning than smearing, before dumping the rag on the counter, beside a dirty cash register. He raps his filthy knuckles on the register’s read out. “Considering that you’re still in the hole with me for about eighty, Middleditch, you can just leave that back where you got it.”

  “Nice to see you too, Clint,” Zane says, dropping the sharp thing back into the heap. Clint just snorts.

  “Any of you got money to spend or is that all you wanted?” He turns back toward the swinging doors, but I step up to the counter.

  “Hello, Mister…um, Clint,” I begin. He turns to me; his eyes narrow at his name on my lips. “My name’s Nalena, I’m…”

  “I know who you are,” he growls. My hand freezes in my pocket. Whoever he is, he glares at me like I’m already an enemy. I glance at a car manual, open on the counter and a letter flies right out of the binding. M-POP! Another comes, right after the first, so fast, I almost shut my eyes to avoid them being pierced. But I don’t.

  A-pop-N-pop-K-pop

  -they blur before they explode-

  I-pop-N-pop-D-pop

  I take a deep breath and my feet feel steady in the bottom of my shoes. I pull the photo from my pocket and hold it up so he can see it. Garrett steps up to the counter on one side of me and Zane is on the other. Zaneen, Robin, and Deeta crowd behind us.

  “We don’t mean to bother you,” Garrett says.

  “Well, ya are,” Clint tells him. “I’ve got a business to run.”

  Despite the fact that we’re the only ones in the shop and the only other cars outside are rusted out junkers, Garrett nods and starts again.

  “We’re here because Nalena found an old photo with you in it. I know you’re busy, so if you could take a look and tell us who else is in the photo, I’d be happy to pay Zane’s tab in full.”

  Clint scrubs the stubble on his chin with his brown fingertips.

  “The tab plus fifty,” he says. “And I got to have the money first.”

  “Sure,” Garrett reaches into his back pocket and pulls out his wallet.

  “Can you spot me the sixty-five while we’re at it?” Zane whispers out of the corner of his mouth. “That’s a Hydrohome for the ball. Like a homing device. If the thing gets caught in a draft and pulled out of range, we can still find it. C’mon, brother, they’re rare.”

  Garrett groans, but he pulls out a credit card and hands it to Clint. Zane slips the Hydrohome into his pocket.

  “Was hoping for cash,” Clint says. “But I guess this’ll do.”

  He rings up the sale and swipes Garrett’s card through the scanner. The register sputters to life and beeps as the numbers go through. Clint picks the photo up off the counter and squints at it. The wrinkles around his eyes grow soft and then hard again as he flips the picture back down on the counter. It lands facedown.

  Clint taps his fingers on the card-reading machine. The silence is uncomfortable as the register spits out a receipt, as Garrett signs the slip and as Clint deposits it in the drawer of his crusty register.

  When it’s done, Clint reaches for the picture and flips it face-up on the counter.

  “This one,” he says, tapping his own younger face with a grimy fingernail, “is me.”

  He skips his finger to the opposite end of the photo and pokes each face in turn. “That one there we called Minxy and the guy next to her is Rustacuffs.”

  “We need real names,” Zane says and Clint shoots him a sour glare.

  “For fifty bucks, you get what I know, not everything I know.” Clint points to my parents in the center. “You know who your mother is.” He pauses. “And the bastard that’s with her.”

  “Ease up,” Robin snaps from the back.

  Clint lifts a nostril with an indifferent snort.

  “And this one here,” He hits a finger right on top of the face of the girl standing next to him in the picture. “She’s nobody.”

  “Could you just give us her name?” Deeta squeaks.

  “Nope,” Clint says. He looks me in the eye this time and I’m met with a sledgehammer glare that just dares me to ask who the girl is again. Instead, I take the picture and slide it back into my pocket. I pull out the business card and hold it up so Clint can see the message on the back.

  “Do you know who Ig is?” I ask.

  “Anybody with that name’s a nobody.”

  “So it is somebody’s name?” Robin asks.

  “Nope. It’s nobody’s name.” Clint says. I study the lines on Clint’s face. As I focus on them, they deepen around his eyes until they seem like trails instead of wrinkles. His brow droops, his eyes sag, and his jaw has an extra quiver when he speaks. The more I focus, the more Clint face becomes a sad pencil sketch of a weeping clown.

  “What did my father do to you?” The words slip out of me and Clint’s eyebrows pop in momentary surprise.

  “Everything.” His voice is rooted, strong, angry. “I’m not in the business of telling stories, little girl, and I don’t owe you Ianua retards nothin’. I’m Simple, and what do ya know…I’m pretty damn happy with it.”

  He turns and pushes open the swinging door.

  “He killed my mother,” I blurt and Clint turns back with his narrow stare again. I add, “And then he killed himself.”

  “Good.” Clint gives an approving nod. “Good that he offed his own sorry self. He got what he deserved. You better not be comin’ here thinkin’ that I owe you that car as an inheritance. What he left here is payment. And it still ain’t as much as he owes me.”

  “Whoa now,” Zane jumps in. “What car, Clint?”

  “It’s payment.” Clint growls.

  “That’s fine.” I say. I’m desperate for Clint to hear how much I mean it. I don’t care about any car. “Whatever it is, I swear I don’t want it. I don’t want anything that belonged to Roger.”

  “But that’s just the thing,” Clint leans on the counter, his dark fingernails spread like he’s going to vault across on them. My field clicks and whirs inside me, ready to spring open. “It didn’t belong to Roger. It belonged to your granddad.”

  “Well then,” Zane steps in front of me, a goofy smile on his face even as he stands nearly nose-to-nose with Clint. “We’re going to need to see it, buddy.”

  “Back off,” Clint says, but Zane only pokes his head off to the side, to see around Clint’s back.

  “No can do,” Zane says. “Simple or not, inheritance is still inheritance. So whachya got in the back that belongs to Nalena’s Gpop?”

  Clint flexes his fingers on the countertop before he pushes himself away. He folds his arms across his chest.

  “I told you, it was a car,” he finally says. “The one in the picture.”

  “I’ll make you a deal,” I say. “If you just tell me why you have it, you can keep it.”

  “I can keep it anyway,” Clint drawls.

  Zane makes the time out sign with his hands. “Whoa, what are you doing, Nal? That car belongs to you. Even Clint knows that.”

  “It’s hers to give if that’s what she wants,” Garrett says.

  Zaneen adds f
rom behind me, “C’mon, man, it’s no skin off your rear to just tell her how it got here.”

  Clint rubs his chin with a greasy paw.

  “I have it because Roger used it as a getaway car,” he shrugs. “After he killed your Granddad, he drove it over here. I agreed to hide it away until things calmed down. I was actually friends with the bastard back then.”

  “He never came back to get it?” Garrett asks.

  “Oh no, he came back for it.” Clint’s laugh could peel the lining from a stomach. “After I stored the thing for five years. He come back and said he didn’t want it neither. Just wanted to hang out. He needed a place to lay low. He was in with the Fury, but he didn’t want in all the way. His best friend was in it, but Roger never did like to commit to nothing. He thought he was too good for all of it. He just wanted the best of everything.

  “I actually thought he was a good guy back then, so I let him crash at my place. I thought it would give him a chance at getting away from The Fury. And while I was working, while I was out making a living and doing what I was supposed to do, Roger helped himself to what was mine.” Clint rolls his tongue in his mouth. “If you want to know what kind of dad you had, girlie, that’s the kind. A cheating, no good sonofabitch that would screw over a friend that was helping him.”

  “What did he take?” I say. “Maybe I can pay you back.”

  Clint just throws his head back and laughs at me. Zane cuts in.

  “Okay, back on track then. The girl in the picture is?”

  “She ain’t nobody, I said.” A droplet of spit sprays from Clint’s mouth and lands on my cheek. He looks out over my head, through the dusty windows.

  Clint looks down at me again and he suddenly seems to double in size as he leans on the counter again. He puts his face in mine and my field doesn’t hold back this time. It explodes around me. My body is still, smelling Clint’s breath being blown across my cheeks, but my shoulders square up and every muscle I have forms a wall against him.

  “I’d soon as cut your throat, if I knew it would hurt that bastard,” Clint snarls under his breath. His eyes fall back to mine like stones. “But seein’ he’s dead, the least I can do is keep his car. I can drive it by her house, so at least she can be crazy all the way. I can do that for her.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” I say, but Clint’s eyes are roving over my head again.

  “If you’re lucky,” he mumbles, “They might kill you faster, instead of leaving ya around to rot, like he did to her.”

  We all spin around, looking through the dusty windows at a caravan of vehicles, all racing toward the shop from every direction. Robin screams, “He traded us out! Move! The Fury’s coming!”

  Chapter 12

  CLINT TURNS AND BOLTS THROUGH the door leading into the back of the shop.

  “Follow him!” Garrett shouts. He plants a hand on the counter top and vaults over sideways and I don’t know how I do it, but I go over right behind him and everyone else comes right behind me. Robin’s shouting that she has Deeta and Zaneen and for maybe the first time ever, I don’t hear Deeta squeal with excitement or Zaneen complain. They’re dead silent.

  We pour into the back room, which is a maze of metal shelves, stacked with rusty metal things, and I catch the side door swinging closed.

  “There!” I point as I shout it, but my voice comes out all low and controlled, even though inside my head, I’m blasting out the words like an atomic bomb. I’m in the lead, running toward the same door that Clint just barreled through and Garrett’s right on my tail.

  “I got keys!” Behind us, Zane rattles what sounds like 800 of them as the shop’s front door bursts open. There’s a tremendous clatter and a woman’s voice screams, “They’re not hiding in the piles of garbage, you idiot! They went through the back!”

  I hit the back door and it flings open, leading into the huge, dirt yard. The outside looks like a bigger version of the inside, with mounds of car seats, stacks of crushed cars, heaps of tires and pieces of things I can’t even identify. I catch a glimpse of Clint, running toward the back of the lot, down a row of amputated engines.

  Zane pops through the back door and hollers, “I got it! Go right! Look for the tin roof!”

  I have no idea what he means, but I don’t hesitate, shooting off to the right, even though it’s in a different direction than Clint. It runs through my mind that Clint would know the best ways out and that maybe we should follow him, but I go with my gut and listen to Zane instead. Garrett’s at my side and then Deeta overtakes us and speeds ahead.

  I know the Alo’s one defense is their ability to run, but I’ve never seen it in action. Deeta’s going so fast, she’s kicking up dirt on us as we follow her. We dodge the piles of parts and garbage as The Fury blows out of the back of the shop.

  “Shoot, dammit, shoot!” A man yells and the guns fire. Two of them, one firing after the other. Zane drops back with Zaneen and Robin, breaking away from us, veering off on different paths through the yard. Another shot fires with an echo and Garrett grabs my upper arm, yanking me to the side. His touch is as good as a phone cord and I understand what he wants me to do. We speed to one side and then back, snaking a path, intersecting with Zane, Zaneen and Robin, while Deeta pulls so far ahead that I don’t think the bullets could even reach her.

  And then Deeta jumps. I watch her launch herself right up into the air and gravity pulls her down and she disappears. And at the same second that I’m trying to make sense of what I just saw, I see it.

  A glittering, metal roof covers only one half of a massive hole. The opening is closest to us and the roof is on the other half, butted up to a tall fence. And then I have to jump. Without jumping, there’s just a steep slope down into the hole that would require a lot of tumbling and ankle snapping. I launch myself before reaching the edge, having to jump far enough to avoid the slope and short enough to avoid splattering on the silver roof.

  Garrett and I jump together and even though I land solid, the impact sends a shock wave up each of my legs that rattles my brain.

  “You alright?” Garrett asks and before I can answer, he gives me a shove. Zane and Robin and Zaneen land right where we were standing. Zaneen is on Zane’s back and his teeth are clenched as she hangs onto his hair as if he’s an angry pony.

  “Dang it, Neener! Let go of my hair!” He dumps her off his back. “I should’ve just let them shoot you off.”

  “Hey, that’s the car from the picture!” Deeta shouts, pointing beneath the overhang of the roof. She’s right. It’s the black car from the picture, rusted and dusty now, its tarnished chrome still reaching back to the taillights. My grandfather’s car.

  “You got the keys for it?” Garrett calls to Zane. Even if we do, I wonder if it even runs.

  “Looks like,” Zane rifles through the keys and pulls up one. “This. Ford Fairlane Victoria.”

  He holds up the key on the massive ring as another gun shot sounds. It hits the roof over our heads.

  “Let’s get outta here!” Zaneen hollers, pulling on the door handle. The door opens with a creak and we all pile in, climbing over one another to fit. I land in the front seat, between Garrett and Zane. Looking over the dash, there’s no way out. There’s only a wall of garbage in front of us.

  Zane plugs the key in the ignition and pumps the gas pedal, but the engine doesn’t turn over.

  “C’mon,” he grumbles.

  “How are we going to get out of here?” Deeta squeaks. Her hand is on my shoulder, pulling at my shirt.

  “C’mon,” Zane grumbles again and gives the key a hard twist.

  From overhead, there is shouting and I twist around to see out the back window, just as someone falls into the hole. The man that fell in is still lying on the ground as a woman jumps down on top of them. Twisted until it hurts, I see the woman scurrying toward the back of the car, bringing up a shotgun. She aims right down the center of the seats. She’ll hit Deeta or me or both.

  Protect.

 
The surge in me is immediate. I jump backward, twisting over the seat to shove Deeta’s head down as the engine roars to life. The exhaust blows up a black cloud over the woman.

  “HANG ON!” Zane shouts as he stomps the gas. The force of it smashes me against all three girls in the back seat, Deeta trapped below me and howling. We blast through the wall of garbage and the trash rains down over the back window, bouncing off the trunk as we speed away. The fence that bordered the hole on top crashes down, blocking the opening and blotting out the light. The woman that was behind the car fires in the dark.

  Zane stomps the gas again and the car bolts forward again, pressing us into the back seat. We roar out onto the road and I see Zane’s car, still parked in the junkyard parking lot, surrounded by other cars and people streaming out of the front of the shop. We speed away down the dirt road, kicking up a huge cloud of dust behind us.

  “You can let go of her now,” Garrett says. I climb off of Deeta and back into the front seat. Deeta sits up, red faced, but smiling.

  “Are you okay?” I ask her.

  “I’m fine!” she bubbles. Her hair sticks out from her head, crazier than ever. “Just a little suffocate-y from being under you.”

  “Nice reaction,” Robin says. Her one visible eyebrow arcs, like she’s actually impressed with how I bent Deeta in half, like a folding chair. Robin gives me a little grin and a nod of approval. “Good instinct on the Alo.”

  Zaneen doesn’t congratulate me. Her head is craned out the back window.

  “Zane…” The quiver in her voice pulls my gaze out the window too. Garrett turns on the seat beside me, our bodies bumping together. We watch as cars and trucks and vans stream out of the junkyard. Dozens of them come from the sides and the back of the lot, like a mall letting out at Christmas. The cars just keep coming, aimed for us, gunning their engines to catch up.