by Jim Heskett
My breath hitched. “Somebody shot at me this morning. I have a little bit of buckshot or birdshot lodged in my shoulder. I thought it was all done, that life was going to be normal, but it’s not like that at all. It started when I saw a guy watching me at the hotel, then I went to Austin and someone shot at us, then I met with the CEO of the company at a different hotel in this little town called Kirby, then we were with these meth-heads, and that’s when things got really crazy.”
“Meth-heads?”
“You don’t want to know. I wouldn’t even know where to start.”
“I’m calling the cops.”
“No, Grace, don’t do that. They’ll find out. They’re everywhere, and if you call the police, it’s just going to put you in danger again. I can’t let that happen.”
And if they were everywhere, were they listening to this phone call right now? Were they hiding outside the house, just waiting for the right time to pick us off with sniper rifles? Maybe, maybe not.
“What are you going to do?” she said.
“You remember my dad’s daughter Susan? She wants me to come see her in Brownsville. She says she can keep me safe and explain everything.”
“Do you trust her? That sounds too good to be true.”
“You might be right about that, but it may be the best choice I have. We’re supposed to meet a coyote tomorrow to get Omar across the border. But she says to leave him here and come meet her.”
Grace sniffled, and I could almost hear the tears in her thickening voice.
“I wouldn’t trust this woman. Maybe you should just come home. I can’t stand the thought of anything happening to you.”
I looked through the living room window, at the truck. I couldn’t see Omar, but I knew he was ducked down out there. “What do I do about Omar?”
“Can he get himself across the border?”
I hesitated. “I don’t know. Probably not. He’s kind of lost, you know, with his brother gone. He’s not what I would call a high-functioning person.”
She paused a few seconds, and the dead air between us was like a weight. “Then you have to help him. I’d stick with the plan, get Omar safe, and then come home immediately. Forget Susan and the will. You’re going to be a dad in a couple months, so you have to get home to us safe, please? Little Candle is going to need you.”
The pain in her voice made me want to cry. “Okay, I’ll do that. I’m going to come home, and it’s all going to work out. I’ll go get a prepaid cell so I can call you.”
“I love you, Tucker Candle. Please be careful. You can handle this. Just be safe and get home as soon as you can.”
“I love you too.”
I slipped the cordless phone back into the cradle and felt the bottom of my stomach fall out. After everything I’d gone through to get Grace back, I had the paranoid thought that I’d maybe never speak with her again.
But I had to. I had to get back home to my wife.
I went outside, knocked on the truck window, and Omar jerked up in the seat. I nodded, and he got out of the car. What had Susan meant when she said it was dangerous to be around him? Because he was dangerous, or because of the people after him?
We hadn’t seen anyone from IntelliCraft in two days. No indication that they were still following us. Maybe they really weren’t camped out there with sniper rifles.
I walked Omar into the house and led him to the bathroom so he could take a shower. When he left me alone, I snooped around Dad’s house. Not much in the way of personal effects. The only remarkable thing I found was a framed picture of him and some woman I didn’t recognize. They looked to be about the same age, and his arm was around her. Girlfriend, probably.
In lieu of a television, he had a piece of art hung on a canvas on the wall opposite the living room couch. I sat and studied the thing. Something abstract and blurry, but after staring at it for two minutes, I started to think it was supposed to be fish swimming in the ocean. There were blue wavy lines and green specks among them. But I could have been wrong, because I know basically nothing about art.
And then I wondered why I’d spent so much time trying to figure it out. Was I attempting to understand Dad by understanding his art? Why did I even want to understand him?
I went into his bedroom and opened a few drawers. Not sure what I’d expected to find, maybe a better hint of who this man had been, this man who’d left me and my mother when I wasn’t even yet a teenager. The man who’d become sporadic letters and gifts at birthdays and Christmas.
Next to the bed, I found a nightstand with two drawers. In the first drawer: a couple paperbacks, and a pack of condoms. But, in the drawers below that, I found a pistol and a box of ammunition. I dug through the closet and until I found a messenger bag, then stashed the gun and the bullets inside it. I looked through Dad’s clothes. He was a size bigger than me, but I needed the clean clothes.
I changed into a pair of his slacks and a button down shirt. Dad apparently didn’t share my casual style, as I found nothing without buttons on it.
After I’d changed, I checked out myself in a full-length mirror in the closet. Wondered what Dad felt like in these clothes. If he used to take stock of his appearance and tell himself he looked good. If he gave himself pep talks in front of this mirror before important meetings.
“Did you talk to yourself too?” I said.
Then I wondered what the falling out between Kareem and my dad could have been, and if that was the incident that started all of this destruction.
Susan had said they’d founded IntelliCraft. Why had I never seen that on any of the company literature anywhere? Why hadn’t they felt the need to mention that to me when they’d recruited me to work for their company? You’d think that would come up.
I hadn’t known that Edgar Hartford was the current CEO, and I hadn’t ever been told anything about the company’s origins. The amount of secrecy had always seemed normal to me, because I was there to do my job and cash my paychecks. Only now did it seem so bizarre that no one ever spoke about the past.
A few minutes later, Omar joined me in the bedroom, wearing only a towel. “If you need some clothes,” I said, “there are drawers full here. I’m not sure what will fit you, but he’s not going to need any of this stuff anymore. Take what you want, because the government will be here soon to seize it all for back taxes anyway.”
He wrapped a second towel around his head. He made a distasteful face, probably at the thought of wearing the snake Heath Candle’s clothing. “I will look. What do we do now?”
“We can’t meet the coyote until tomorrow, so I guess we wait.”
***
Omar gave me his ATM card and his PIN to withdraw five thousand dollars in cash to pay off the coyote. Since there were exactly zero edible things in Dad’s fridge, I also got us some food.
I had to visit four different ATMs to withdraw enough money. I didn’t know where Omar’s resources came from, and I didn’t much care. If this could get him to safety so I could get home, that was all that mattered.
While I was out, I thought of texting Zeke to ask if he was okay, but I couldn’t remember his phone number. That number was stored in my cell, which was back in Three Rivers. Maybe Zeke was fine, following that White Widow band on tour somewhere, chugging energy drinks and dancing to the music.
Back at the house, I set out the Chinese takeout and watched Omar dig into a box of gooey sesame chicken while he hummed some unrecognizable tune. I offered him a beer from the case I’d bought, but he shook his head.
“I don’t drink anymore.”
Fine, more for me.
“Did you know that Kareem founded IntelliCraft?” I said.
He nodded. “And it sounds like you also now know this. He was only one of the founders. The board forced him out several years later in a very nasty situation. He did not like what they were doing.”
“What were they doing?”
Omar dipped his head and spooned some rice onto a plate. “I should not
discuss it. It will only bring you trouble.”
“You keep saying things like that, but how can I help you if I don’t know what’s going on?”
“I am sorry. I must remain silent, for now, at least. When I am across the border and no longer in danger, maybe then I will tell you, my friend.”
Were we friends? We’d been through a lot over the last few days, but I didn’t know much more about this man than I’d known about his mystical brother. But saying that word was a significant step.
“What will we do tomorrow?” he said.
“It’s about a three-hour drive to South Point. The coyote told me to meet him at sundown, which should be at about 5:30. Then we give him the cash, and he takes you with him. Then I go home, back to my wife.”
Omar’s big black eyes appeared wistful. “These long days traveling make me so very tired.”
“I know you’re scared about what comes next. But this is the way it has to be.”
“Will he take me by car?”
“I don’t know, Omar. Probably not. I’d guess they’re going to put you on a boat and sail around to Mexico. It’s not far, I think. I’ll bet the complicated part isn’t actually crossing the border, it’s looking out for border patrol once you’re across. You probably have to go far south before you’re out of danger.”
“I wish there were another way,” he said as he tore open the package of a fortune cookie. He ripped the cookie in half, read the fortune, and smiled.
“What does it say?”
He stashed the slip of paper in his pocket. “If I tell you, it will not come true. But it is something to help us on our journey.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
I let Omar sleep in my dad’s bed because the thought of resting my head in the same spot as Heath Candle seemed too weird.
Was I excessively hostile toward my father? Definitely. Even I could recognize that. But unlike the anger I experienced after my mom passed—which was anger at the situation, and not at her—I couldn’t seem to let go of this resentment toward him. And even though I knew the bitterness hurt me and not him, it still lingered.
I had no way to resolve it. No way to get any closure on his death. Maybe I’d thought coming to Texas to deal with his will would move me in that direction, but I didn’t feel any different now than I had the day Kareem informed me Dad had died.
I decided to sleep in the guest bedroom, something that hadn’t been touched in a decade, it seemed. Military-style turndown on the bed, with perfect angles on the sheets. A housekeeper must have done this a long time ago. A layer of dust lined the top of the lone dresser in the room. I pulled open the drawers and sifted through a collection of extra bedsheets and blankets, until I found something underneath a pile of pillow covers.
A little box.
I opened it and found a necklace inside, a small coin-like circle with the impression of a man in robes. Under the little engraved man, the words St. Christopher.
I flipped it over, and written on the back:
Stay safe in your travels, my love.
Had this come from my mother? I looked closer at the necklace, thinking back. Envisioned my father at family dinners, nursing a drink on the couch after one of his business trips.
Memories formed. I could indeed remember my dad wearing it at times, remembered seeing it around his neck in the summer time when we were at the pool.
Thinking of the necklace made me feel six years old again, looking up at my father, him being so tall and so strong and so wise, answering my endless questions about why cows chewed grass and why the thunder and lightning were sometimes seconds apart. The necklace was a bright silver coin dangling below his neck above the mound of chest hair. As a little kid, looking at that chest hair, I wondered when I would start to grow some of my own.
Back then, I knew who he was. He was my protector. Now, I had no idea if he’d ever even been that. Maybe he’d been a snake who never cared about me at all, and I’d been too innocent to see it.
I decided to go out and look in the kitchen cabinets for a nightcap, maybe some leftover bourbon or whiskey from long ago.
When I stepped out into the hall, the door to the master bedroom was open, and I saw Omar sitting on the edge of the bed, his back straight and his hands on his knees.
“Omar?”
He looked up at me, with tears in his eyes.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he said.
I stood there, waiting for him to change his mind. “You can tell me,” I said.
“I was thinking of Kareem and the last time we saw each other, perhaps four months ago. It was not a fitting goodbye for the two of us. I was angry then; bitter about many things. But if I had known I was never to see him again…”
He trailed off, and I entered the room and sat on the carpet in front of him. He was in pain, grieving, and needed to be heard.
“Why don’t you tell me about it?”
***
Omar Qureshi shifted on the concrete bench, unable to find a sitting position that didn’t make his tailbone sore. Two other men occupied the holding cell. One of them paced while the other sat in the corner, running a shaky hand through his hair.
“Why the fuck were you speeding?” the standing one said. “Did you not realize we’re in Cop Country, Texas? How the hell did you think that was a good idea, with what we had in the tru—”
“Oh my god, shut your mouth right now, you idiot,” the seated one said.
Omar had been here for nearly a day, or so he thought. He didn’t have access to a watch or a clock. Getting arrested late Saturday evening meant no judge until Monday, so he had been eating the trays of food, sleeping on the concrete bench with a lump of cotton they’d claimed was a pillow, and watching a collection of Americans and Mexicans filter in and out of the holding cell. Most of them were bailed out within a few hours. No one was coming to bail out Omar. They told him the judge would appear first thing in the morning, and he would have a chance to speak to her through the bars of the cell. Not even allowed to change his clothes.
He sighed, feeling the remnants of his hangover still pummeling his brain and his split lip throbbing every few seconds. He was able to open his right eye, but it caused him a moment of pain each time he blinked.
One of his cellmates, the one sitting, leered at him. “What’s your story?”
“I have no story,” Omar said.
The man flexed his biceps and cocked his eyes at Omar. “Two tours in Afghanistan, that’s mine.”
“Congratulations,” Omar said, closing his eyes.
The American jumped to his feet. “What’d you say to me, you fucking Haji?”
A guard yelled out, and the cell doors rolled open with a jarring clank. And there, standing in a business suit, was Kareem, a deep scowl darkening his face.
“Omar, time to go,” he said.
Omar stood, feeling the shame squeeze his insides. He hadn’t seen his brother for two years or more, not since he’d attacked his roommate in the trailer during Kareem’s visit.
“Why are you here?” Omar said.
Kareem waved an impatient hand. Omar left the cell as the angry American seethed. Kareem led him to a desk, where a uniformed officer gave Kareem a plastic bag containing Omar’s clothes and the other items he’d come into the jail with.
“Thank you, officer,” Kareem said. Kareem nudged Omar, but he refused to offer his own thanks. The policeman paid no mind.
Omar took the bag and walked the yellow line painted on the floor to the bathroom to change, then he and Kareem followed the green line which would lead them out of the police station. When he pressed open the door, he wasn’t surprised to find the sun had already set. He’d guessed correctly, it had been nearly a day.
“You are welcome,” Kareem said, joining him on the front step of the police station. “Do you understand what I had to do to get them to drop these charges?”
“I did not ask you to come here,” Omar said. “I did no
t ask for your help.”
Kareem gritted his teeth. “I cannot believe you, little brother. After everything that has happened, you must still make complications?”
Omar laughed and pointed a finger at Kareem’s chest. “And you used to be the one always in trouble. Is it not poetic?”
“Drinking. Brawling in a bar. Why?”
“I had a bad day. Drinking after a bad day is a traditional American custom, do you not know that? I have been in this country long enough, I thought I might try to adopt a few of their customs.”
Kareem pursed his lips.
“Why are you here, Kareem? Why have I not seen you for years, and now you have appeared as my white knight to save me?”
“I was already in the country. I was looking for someone.”
“But not me,” Omar said. “You were not looking for me. You do not care enough about me to come looking for me unless it serves your interests.”
“Omar,” Kareem said, reaching out to his brother. A blue car sped past, then a police cruiser across the street flashed its lights and took off after it.
“No,” Omar said, slapping Kareem’s hand away. “I will no longer be your dirty secret. I am going to walk away now, and I wish not to see you again.”
“At least let me take you home, little brother. Where are you living now?”
“I need nothing from you. No further help.” Omar stepped close to Kareem, just inches away from his face. “And when the truth about what happened all those years ago comes out… the truth about the things we did in Dallas… I will require no help from you at that time, either.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
I tried to fall asleep, but ended up only shifting around in the bed, unable to find the right angle. I attempted to avoid looking at the electronic clock on the nightstand, but I couldn’t resist. 11:30. 12:05. 12:50. Time ticked on, and I didn’t sleep. If I’d had my phone, maybe I could have watched some streaming video or played some mindless video games. But the phone was back in Three Rivers with that crazy redneck Jed.