by David Bell
A light came on above the stove, and I saw Colter’s bulky form moving toward the door. The light above the door came on as well, and a few late-season moths and gnats appeared instantly, drawn to the light and warmth. I heard locks untumbling, then a chain, and with some effort he yanked the door open.
His body filled the doorway, lit by the faint light behind. He didn’t come out, but stood there on the step, his arms at his side.
“Does she ask about me?” he asked.
I still felt shaky. Something hot roiled in my chest. “You’re a pig,” I said.
He took two steps down so that we were on the same level. He was shorter than me, stockier, with a wrestler’s body gone to middle-aged fat. “What are you here for?” he asked. “Are you here to shoot me or beat me? Do you want to kill me?”
I moved forward. My mouth was dry, but I worked my tongue around. When I thought I was close enough to him, I spit. It wasn’t an impressive job, but some of it hit him in the face, making his head jerk back.
He kept his eyes on me while he brought his arm up and wiped his face.
“Okay,” he said. “Is that out of the way?”
My heart pumped like an overworked engine, but I also felt foolish, my anger abating. A grown man spitting on another grown man.
He went on. “Because I don’t think that’s what you really came here for, is it?”
“You called me back here.”
“And you showed up at my window. With reinforcements. So. .” He spread his arms wide. “How’s she doing?”
“No, no. You don’t get to talk about her. You don’t get to know anything about her.”
“I know one thing about her. She won’t testify against me.”
“Give it time.”
He shook his head. “I love her. And more importantly, she loves me. That’s why she’ll never testify. Ever.”
“Is that what Tracy Fairlawn thought about you?”
He made a quiet snorting noise, a form of a laugh. “I see she’s been running her mouth. She never did understand the value of keeping quiet.”
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know. Probably run off. Partying somewhere.”
“If you love my daughter so much, why did you make her leave?”
He hesitated a moment, looking at the ground. Light from the bulb above the door spilled over his feet. He still wore the slippers. “I see you met little Jasmine. I guess that’s how you all ended up out here tonight.”
“Why did you send Caitlin away?”
“And what do I get out of talking to you?” he asked. “Are you going to forgive me? Grant me a pardon?”
“You. . owe me.”
“What?”
“You heard me,” I said. “I. . gave her to you. I let her walk the dog in the park. I let her out of my sight for too long. Let me guess-you went up to her in the park. You’d seen her walking there. And you went up to her and you asked her something about the fucking dog, right? Something inane and stupid. Maybe something that made her laugh or giggle. . and you had her. You had what you wanted. And I didn’t.”
I stopped. My hands shook and were cold, so I rubbed them together.
“I really shouldn’t be talking to you,” he said. “For all I know, this could all be a setup. You could be wearing a wire.”
“I’m not,” I said. “I don’t care about any of that. I really don’t. I want to know why she came back to us. Why?”
He considered me. I thought I saw real concern, real pity in his eyes. He shrugged. “I don’t really care if you are wearing a wire, I guess. It wouldn’t stand up in court, and I don’t really plan on sticking around to see the judge.” He kicked at a pebble on the ground. “At the time, I thought Caitlin needed to go. That stuff showed up in the paper, that stuff Tracy was saying. The sketch of me. I thought about just hightailing it out of here, packing the car and starting over somewhere else. But I didn’t want to be on the run all the time. People wouldn’t understand the two of us. We could pass ourselves off as father and daughter for a while. Caitlin was getting older, too. I thought maybe she needed a better life than the one I could give her. It was just me and her. I couldn’t teach her about being a woman. Not everything anyway. I could always start over with a new girl, a younger one. Jasmine maybe.”
“Did Caitlin want to come back home?” Just asking the question made me feel weak, like I was a beggar. But I couldn’t not ask. I needed to know.
“No, she didn’t.”
Don’t send me away. Don’t send me away.
“How did you get her to go?”
“I told her I’d turn myself in. I’d call the police if she didn’t leave. I forced her hand. I remember that night. .” He paused again and stared past me, off into the darkness. “You know what it’s like to have a parting of the ways with someone you love. There were tears. It almost broke my heart-it really did. Before she left, she swore to me she’d never tell what we did together. I guess she hasn’t, or you wouldn’t be here.”
“What happened between you?”
“Now that’s private, isn’t it?”
One corner of his mouth ticked up, and one eyebrow as well. It set me in motion. I charged forward, trying to bury my shoulder in his midsection and knock him to the ground. But he handled me expertly. I was quickly spun to the ground, his thick forearm locked around my neck. He didn’t apply full pressure to my throat. I could still breathe. But he applied enough to let me know he could do more if he wanted.
Buster came to the edge of the house and stopped. I heard his shoes against the driveway, but he remained in the dark.
“Easy now,” Colter said. I didn’t know if he’d meant it for me or Buster. He said it again. “Easy now, fella.” Colter was still on one knee. I saw Buster’s shape out of the corner of my eye. “Just stay there,” Colter said to Buster. “We’re calming down now, real easy like.”
“Let him go,” Buster said.
I tried to talk, but I couldn’t. I hoped Buster would stay back. I hoped he could see Colter held control of my airway. Apparently he did. He moved back a little, giving Colter some space. “You just go right on back where you were,” Colter said. “We have a few more things to talk about here.” He eased the pressure on my neck so I could speak.
“Go,” I said. “It’s fine.” My throat was raw, like I’d swallowed thumbtacks.
“You don’t look fine,” Buster said. “You look like you’re fucked-up.”
“Back off,” I said.
He did. He took slow steps backward until his form cleared the side of the building again. When he was gone, Colter released the pressure even more.
“Are you going to act right?” he asked.
I nodded like a fool.
He let go all the way and stood up. I fell to the ground, my face almost hitting the pavement. I reached for my throat and gulped air. It took a couple of minutes for me to feel right and push myself up. When I did, the night tilted a little like I might pass out. But I didn’t. My legs came back to me, and I cleared my throat, making sure I could speak.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Fuck you.”
“I showed you mercy,” he said. “I could have crushed your throat.”
“You’d never see Caitlin again.”
“I can see her anytime I want. I can snap my fingers and she’d be here.” To emphasize his point, he snapped his fingers in the air. “You can’t even deny it. I’m showing you mercy. I’ll let you say good-bye to her, before she comes with me.”
“I’ll call the police. I’ll tell them what you said. You confessed.”
“Hearsay.” He laughed a little. “But I guess I did make a little mistake with Caitlin. She isn’t like the girls I typically date. Look at you-she comes from a good family. Good parents. You care. There are a lot of girls in the world without that. When they go away, no one notices. When they come back and go to the police, they get ignored. Still, this is all dependent on whether Caitlin wants to rat me
out or not.”
He was right. There was little I could do unless Caitlin testified. “Why show me mercy then? Why do anything for me?”
Colter looked me up and down. “Because she’d want me to. She loves you, so I’ll do this favor.”
“Did she talk about me? Did she remember me-?”
A sound from the house cut my words off. The back door was pulled inward again, and the light revealed an older woman, close to seventy, wearing a kerchief on her head and a housecoat. Her face was long and thin, unlike her son’s, and the skin around her jawline hung loose.
“What’s going on out here, Johnny? Who is this man?”
“He’s a friend, Mom.”
“Is he a cop?”
“No.”
“I’m not a friend,” I said. “I’m Caitlin Stuart’s father.”
The woman raised her hand to her chest and gathered the loose folds of the housecoat tighter against her body. She looked stricken, almost ill. She’d put her house up to secure his bond, and if he left town before a trial. .
“What are you doing at our house?” she asked, but she didn’t wait for an answer. “Johnny isn’t. . He just can’t be seeing people, any people, right now.”
“Did you know about this, Mrs. Colter? Did you know about Caitlin?”
She moved back into the shadow of the doorframe. “Johnny, you come inside now. It’s late.”
Colter walked toward the house like an obedient child. Before he went inside, he looked back. “Remember what I offered, Mr. Stuart. A chance to say good-bye this time.”
Chapter Forty-six
Buster didn’t say anything until we were buckled in the car and pulling away from the curb. “What was that about? Colter said he offered something?” He kept his eyes on me and the car weaved across the road. That scared me even though it was late and there were no other cars out.
“Watch it.”
“What were you two talking about?”
I watched out the window at the passing houses. They looked dumpy and run-down, but I envied the residents their certainty, their comfort. They were likely sleeping the quiet sleep of the just.
“Tom? Tell me.”
I didn’t turn to face him. “He wants to see Caitlin again.”
“I bet.” He laughed.
“He says he loves her, and he made a mistake when he let her go.”
“Bullshit. Is he crazy? Is the guy fucking crazy?”
I kept my eyes straight ahead, but the side of my face burned. His eyes were on me.
“No, no, no,” he said. “No.”
As we reached the base of the on-ramp to the interstate, Buster jerked the wheel to the right, forcing the car to the side of the road. He hit the brakes hard, skidding a little. My body jerked forward, and I used my hand to brace myself against the dashboard.
“You’re going to do it? You’re going to take your daughter to that man?”
“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” I said.
“You don’t know? That’s not an answer.” He raised his finger in the air. “There’s only one answer, and the answer is no. That’s it. End of story.”
“Just take me home.”
“She’s your little girl.”
“She’s not so little, is she?” I said. “She’s able to say she loves that guy. She’s capable of feeling that, of thinking that. I know what the shrink says. I know about Stockholm syndrome. But, Jesus, what can I do with all of this? They were fucking, Buster.”
“He fucked her, not the other way around.”
I rested my hands in my lap. I turned them over and over, knotting the fingers together and twisting them until the knuckles hurt. “Did you see him?” I asked. “Did you see his fucking face? He’s a fucking pig. And a loser. Living with his mom. She was with him for four years. We lost four years. That kills me.”
“He took her, Tom. Do you understand that? He took her. He’s a criminal.”
What happened to me. The words cycled through my head, but I could no longer apply those words simply to Caitlin. They applied to me as well.
What happened to me.
I rubbed my eyes. “I want to go home. It’s late, Buster.”
“Not until you drop this,” he said. He turned to face me in the small car. The glow from the display panel lighted his face, turning it a pale and alien green. I could feel his breath. “Tell me right now you won’t do it.”
I watched occasional cars passing on the highway, their headlights creating bright white cones in the darkness. “It’s not your decision, Buster. She’s not your kid.”
“She is my kid. We came out here in the night. We came together, side by side. As brothers. That means she’s my kid. She doesn’t just belong to you.”
“You don’t have kids. You don’t know.”
“Oh, fuck that, Tom. You know, I’m tired of your sad-sack routine. The ‘Nobody loved me’ bullshit. I stood by you throughout our childhood. I was there for you. And now you throw it back at me and treat me this way. Fuck you, Tom.”
I took a short, futile swing at his face in the dark. I meant to hit him hard, to drive him back and hurt him. But he ducked away.
He reached back and pushed his door open. He didn’t say anything. He came around the front of the car, his body passing through the headlights, and then he stopped at my door, pulling it open.
I didn’t have time to react or think. He opened the door and reached in, taking me by the front of my shirt.
“What the fuck?” I said.
He kept pulling, the fabric of my shirt digging into the back of my neck, until I stopped resisting and allowed myself to be brought out into the night air. I tried to knock his grip free, but couldn’t. He held on; then something jolted the side of my face. It took a second for me to realize I’d been hit, that Buster had punched me in the left jaw. I fell back against the car, but he pulled me forward and hit me again, stunning me. My knee joints loosened and I started to crumple. As I went to the ground, he swung a last time, catching me in the back of the head and knocking me flat to the ground beside the car. The ground was cold. Dirt and gravel pressed against my face. I didn’t try to push myself up.
Buster’s shoes came into my line of sight. He was wearing work boots for some reason. I knew what might come next, and it did. He drew one of the boots back and kicked forward. I managed to curl up a little, and the boot struck me just below the rib cage on my left side.
“You’re lucky I don’t kill you,” he said.
The pain seared through me, radiating out like an electric charge, into my back and down my left leg. I couldn’t talk.
“I’m through with you,” he said, the words falling upon me like spittle.
I thought he’d kick again, but he didn’t. He shoved my door closed; then the shoes disappeared around the front of the car. I managed to roll away, putting a few feet between the car and me. He dropped it into gear and hit the gas hard, sending a spray of gravel into my face and over my body. And when he was gone, I just lay there on the side of the road, curled up in the dark like a broken and terrified child.
Chapter Forty-seven
I lay on the side of the road for a long while, staring at the stars, waiting for the pain in my side to go away. The stars and winking satellites offered no comfort or conclusions, nothing I could orient myself by or make sense of.
When the pain eased, I pushed myself up. The landscape whirled and tilted before me, the lights on the nearby highway blurring together and swimming. I thought for a moment I was seriously hurt, concussed or wounded in such a way I’d need to call for help. But after a couple of minutes on my feet, as I gathered my senses and balance, the world steadied. My equilibrium returned, and only the pain in my side remained.
I didn’t have anyone to call. To wake up Abby would invite questions and examinations about how and why I’d ended up in that neighborhood in the middle of the night. To call anyone would invite such questions. And the only other person I could call had just left
me here on the side of the road.
The walking did me good. Five miles to home, moving at a snail’s pace. I worked the painful muscles loose, the ones that were clenched and stretched while not just one but two different men assaulted me. I tried to understand how I’d come to be in the place I was. The wheel of fortune had spun, and the arrow had landed on me: I’d been the guy whose daughter was taken. And then the wheel spun again, an even more unusual and perhaps crueler fate: I’d also been the guy to get his daughter back. Was it a mark of my confusion that I still couldn’t decide which was the worse fate to suffer?
By the time I reached the house, the sky was turning gray with first light. My feet hurt, and all I wanted to do was fall asleep in my own bed. But the wheel of fortune would turn one more time.
I saw Ryan’s car out front. It was just six-thirty, way too early for him to be there unless something was going on.
I thought I knew. Buster. He’d called them and told all. The girl in the cemetery, the trip to Colter’s, my interest in dealing with the man who’d taken my daughter.
Having nowhere else to go and no energy with which to do it, I went up the steps to face the music.
Ryan and Abby were in the living room. Abby was dressed, but I could tell by her hair that she wasn’t showered. When I entered the room, their heads turned in unison, as though they were part of a well-rehearsed stage act.
“Where have you been, Tom?” Abby asked.
“I was out taking a walk.”
“You’ve been gone for hours.”
“I couldn’t sleep.”
“Are you hurt, Tom?” Ryan asked, sizing me up.
“I fell.”
Abby looked away, fixing her eyes on the coffee mug she lifted to her mouth and sipped from.
“Did you land on somebody’s fist?” Ryan asked.
I stood near the door, let my weight rest against its frame. I ignored him.
“I’m here about your brother,” Ryan said.