by Peter Craig
He left the highway, past the bright beacons of gas stations and all-night diners, into a snowy town of crossing power lines, sprawling junctions of wires now piled with frost, past the border of dim streetlights to where the road was unplowed. They passed a school where the chain-link fence was a clotted strainer of ice. Jerry fishtailed around turns. He skidded into a supermarket parking lot, bouncing a tire over the curb, where he spun doughnuts around the streetlamps, grinning at the centrifugal force in the car. Holding the bandoleer of his seat belt, Kevin put his head back against the seat and closed his eyes.
With a last forward slide, Jerry stopped the car and stepped outside, leaving the door swung open. The sound of rigs sizzled on the wet highway. When Kevin stepped outside, the air was still, a layer of cold settled down heavily upon the ground, rich with the acrid smell of chimneys. They were alone except for shopping carts of caught snow, and the campfire flickers of televisions in distant windows.
His father took off his jacket and draped it over the hood of the car, then began rolling up his sleeves. He stuck his glasses into the crust of snow still on the roof, lenses outward like a lone spectator.
“Now that you think you’re such a tough motherfucker, let’s see something.”
Kevin lolled his head back and groaned. “Oh Jesus, Dad! Come on.”
He walked right up to Kevin, tilting his face in front of his nose as Kevin stiffened back against the car. His father’s eyes had blackened and the skin on his face looked as if it had stretched tighter over his bones and teeth.
“You want to talk to me like I’m some kind of bitch, then you got to show me something. Come on, you little pussy—show me something. Show me you got something better than crying.”
“I don’t want to do this—it’s ridiculous.”
“And it’s not ridiculous for you to sit there and pick me apart like some spoiled fucking princess? Hell, you’re going to be sixteen years old in a few weeks. We got to start planning for that debutante shit. You’re going to need a gown and a fucking tiara.”
Kevin jammed his hands into Jerry’s shoulders, trying to push him away, but his father’s weight barely shifted. He smiled so broadly that the streetlight caught in his teeth. “What are you doing, trying to give me a backrub? Tell me that’s not the hardest you can push, because that shit ain’t even going to get the tension out of my neck. What do you want, huh? You want to give me a kiss instead?”
Kevin reeled back and slugged him as hard as he could in the chin. Jerry stood up straight, holding his hand over his mouth and nodding, like he was sampling a swig of wine; then he shook his head, and with a sudden, blurred look in his eyes, shouted, “You just made it into the Girl Scouts with that one!” He threw a jab into Kevin’s shoulder that sent a shiver to his legs and head, his whole body caving around the spot. Kevin had no idea people hit each other that hard. Bent sideways, he started to walk away from the car, and Jerry stalked along his side. “Tickles, doesn’t it? What do you have to say now, huh? Want to try the other shoulder? Even it out a little bit?”
“I’m going to fucking kill you in your sleep with a steak knife,” said Kevin.
“Just the sort of chickenshit I thought. Where you going, you running away?”
Kevin turned and charged him, grabbing him around the waist and driving forward until Jerry hit the car with a thud.
“That’s it! Good boy. Use the legs. All those wheelies, you got good strong legs—that’s where the power is. You can hook your legs behind mine to get me onto the ground—not now, I’m expecting it.”
While he was still talking, Kevin threw his fist straight up, landing an uppercut under his jaw that made a sickening clack on his father’s teeth. As if his mouth were full, Jerry said, “Ah, fuck, I bit my tongue.” Seeming more frustrated than angry now, he grabbed Kevin’s shoulder blades like handlebars, steered him sideways, then threw him down. Kevin lay on the ground and watched Jerry rub his cheek. “Get the fuck up, Kevin! You don’t ever lie down in a fight. Get up! Your ribs would all be broken by now. You’re fighting like this is some after-school special.”
Kevin rose and drove at him again, locking around his waist, and Jerry said, “Okay, drive with your legs. Good—you got a grown man’s legs. You got to hold on tighter than that or I’m going to pry your arms off and tear you in half. And what if I did this?” He poked right into his kidney, which flared so painfully that Kevin tasted a mouthful of bile. “See! You got to tie my hands up if you’re going to stand a chance! Don’t lunge into me like that and leave my hands free—that could’ve been a shank in your side. You’re thinking there’s rules to this, kid—and there’s no rules. Protect your neck and your nuts and show the other guy he’s got to kill you to win. Don’t plan your moves either—you fall into a pattern. You got to be unpredictable.”
Kevin stepped back and saw his father crouching down for another charge. This time Kevin led with the crown of his skull, knocking right into Jerry’s chin with such a click that he worried he’d smashed his teeth. He slid his arm up behind the shoulder blades to pillory his father’s hands. Jerry said from a smudged mouth, “Better! Good head butt!”
They stopped. They stayed in a tangle of arms, with Kevin bent down and his face at his father’s sternum, and they became still enough that Kevin smelled tobacco and sweat. Jerry was waiting, hovering in this strange, straitjacket hug against the body of the car, a calm pace to his breathing. The lull came so suddenly that Kevin was disarmed, and despite all his efforts, he was crying against his father’s shirt. He expected Jerry to peel away and throw him into the snow again if he heard it, but instead his father stayed locked in the hold, listened, and let Kevin cry for a long time. Finally he pulled his arm loose and draped it around his back. He said, “No, no, you’re not such a punk.”
Kevin took a few slick breaths, heard his father’s heartbeat, barely raised. When his father unthreaded his other hand, they stayed tilted against each other.
“I understand, kid. It’s all out in the open,” he said. “We’ll leave this behind us.” He breathed a dip in his chest. “I’ll tell you something though—with a woman like that, a woman like her—I know. Some things hurt and you can’t do anything about it. The best thing is to get up, fight like hell, and don’t look back. You might lie down bleeding on the concrete someday, or lose a few years of your life to some bullshit charge you don’t even remember, but you’re just numb for that. Nothing ever hurts much worse than this.”
Kevin stepped back and stared ahead at him, their breath evaporating in clouds. Jerry smiled at him and wiggled his top tooth, a tint of blood over his teeth and gums.
“Promise me something, Kevin: this will be the last time we say a word about her. Swear on it. Because I loved her too, kid. She broke the bank, but I loved her too.”
THE WEDNESDAY INTERROGATION
By evening, Kevin was breathing on his own in short swallows of air. In the post-op recovery room, the blinds were opened onto wide skies, a few helicopters circling in the dark. In the corridor beyond his open door, Kevin heard the changing of shifts with passing good-byes, laughter, conversations trailing in different directions. Detective Daniels was telling a story to a group of laughing nurses and interns; but Kevin could hear them teasing him as he began to complain about his assignment.
After a silent interlude, Kevin heard Daniels greeting some of the newly arrived staff, sighing to each about his boredom.
“You mean he hasn’t tried to escape yet, Chief?” asked a passing voice.
“Don’t you start in on me now.”
Kevin found what he thought was the TV remote, but it began raising the bed. Daniels heard the mechanical sound, and hustled into the room. “There we go. Frankenstein. He’s alive.”
“Barely,” said Kevin in a soft, hoarse voice.
“Time to answer some questions.”
Daniels made phone calls, and less than a half hour later, two plainclothes detectives joined them in the room, Hartwell and Gonza
les. Hartwell was a heavy, pinkish man with prematurely thinning hair, and Gonzales had a large mustache that drooped over his lips and seemed saturated with coffee droplets. Kevin said he wouldn’t make a statement without a lawyer, and they proceeded to pull chairs around his bed anyway.
Gonzales held up a picture of one of Kevin’s father’s associates, Lenny Hutsinger, who had been brought into the team at the last minute, and who irritated Kevin with his sloppiness. In the mug shot he looked drunk, facing ahead with his long, greasy hair and sideburns. “I don’t know his name,” said Kevin. “He’s an idiot, though. I hope he gets twenty years for whatever he did.”
The next picture was of the collusive girl from the hotel staff. It was hard to recognize her right away without the uniform, and because her eyes were swollen and her face looked blotchy. Kevin said, “I have no idea who that is.”
“She described you perfectly. She said there was a kid there in his late teens or early twenties probably, with black hair and a great big scar on his cheek. Does that sound familiar?”
“I’m sure there’s lots of people in that hotel with scars on their cheeks.”
Gonzales showed the picture of one of the buyers, the kid with the long, sleek goatee. “This kid got shot in the leg and he’s over at County USC right now. Probably talking about you.”
“Well, either you guys shot him or his own friends shot him—because I have no idea who he is.”
“Last picture.” He showed a young man on a slab at the morgue, the wheezing kid, the one who had lost his mind that afternoon. Kevin tried not to react at all. “This kid didn’t make it.”
While Kevin evaded questions, Daniels moved to the side of the bed and began taking his prints, rolling his thumb and then fingertips across the ink blotter. There was a sporting quality to the interview, since they were trying not to reveal whatever they already had. Kevin knew his fingerprints would unravel a great deal of information, so he gave his list of aliases up until he’d fled his arraignment one day, years ago, in Minneapolis. Accidentally, they gave him a piece of information in return. Hartwell asked, “You have any idea the location of the girl?”
“Which girl?”
“The one who left you here.”
Gonzales put his head down and took a deep, aggravated breath.
“No, I don’t know where she is,” said Kevin, smiling despite himself.
“Don’t fuck with me, kid. We got a witness saying that two people car-jacked him in the alley outside his restaurant—a man and a woman, both soaking wet, both smelling like shit. The guy was bleeding all over the place. I’m going to assume that was your blood too when we found his car, so I think it’s obvious we got you on at least grand theft auto even if you can’t remember a goddamn thing. Now—why don’t you at least tell us who shot you?”
“Did I get shot in the back?”
“I don’t know. What was going on up in that hotel room? A drug deal?”
“No, no drugs,” said Kevin. “There was a deal, but it was—complicated. I would just call it a big family disagreement.”
BOOK THREE THE RAP SHEET
1985–1986
SEVENTEEN
Midnight at a truck stop where an electronic billboard flashed the going rate for diesel, sirloin, and a shower, they celebrated Kevin’s sixteenth birthday with a meringue pie and a chorus of waitresses. Christmas passed in a hotel lounge in Rawlins, Wyoming, as they exchanged gifts of cash and watched baton twirlers on a mounted TV. In a casino, dodging blowout party favors, Kevin picked eight pockets on New Year’s Eve, 1985, while Jerry remained at the bar rallying investors for his phony patent (a fireproof building material made from recycled ice coolers). By the end of February they were still running short cons between the Rockies and the Sierras, crossing the high desert of snowy yucca and tumbleweed, past the mountain storm floods sitting like pooled mirages. They headed toward distant casinos that contorted on the horizon, elongated in haze, like ships flying unknown colors.
The scams were as effective without Colette, but the daily routine never recovered. Kevin had forgotten how prone his father was to mishaps, like running out of gas on the salt flats, where Kevin had to walk all day along the roadside, expecting any moment to hear the cinematic screech of a vulture; or how often they arrived past dark in towns overloaded with conventions, loan officers or beef wholesalers, not a vacant bed until dawn. This basic disorganization of their lives worsened Kevin’s superstitions, and Jerry found it absurd and torturous that his son needed fresh oranges in the middle of distant windswept deserts, or how, if deprived entirely of his rituals, he would sit for hours in the front seat picking and re-picking the same padlock as if in a trance. It only worsened the problem when Jerry tried to get his son to go “cold turkey.” Kevin’s suitcases now needed to be composed as if each article was a vital organ in a living creature; and his “symmetry fetish” intensified until he could lose a half hour adjusting the height of his socks. So Jerry never again questioned the sanctity of a lunatic’s breakfast, and whether in freezing campgrounds or hunting lodges or over an oil drum beside the forgotten monolith of a drive-in movie screen, his father would grease a pan and pour out globs of flapjack batter with a cigarette in his mouth.
While Kevin appreciated his father’s efforts, he was often frustrated by Jerry’s inability to distinguish his eccentricities from his real interests. For instance, throughout the spring Kevin had plumbed through flea markets and pawnshops to find a magnetic reader and encoder, finally discovering the stripped-down subassembly of a credit card swiper in a science surplus warehouse outside Boise. In each motel room, under the fluorescent bathroom lights until dawn, Kevin hovered over this gadget as if it were the Holy Grail. Jerry thought it represented a final breakdown, an obsession with the smashed remains of a toy. At the public library in Salt Lake City, Kevin studied the manufacturer in the North American Technical Directory, along with books on magnetic flux reversals and programming languages, and he experimented to discover the use of five wires coming off the assembly; soon he could connect the swiper to the joystick port of an IBM PC Jr., writing a simple Turbo Pascal program to read the card. Jerry was not impressed with the weeks of binary gibberish Kevin sucked out of the backs of credit cards, even when Kevin tried to explain his enthusiasm for deciphering a fantastic new language. “There are three magnetic tiers in that stripe back there,” he said as they drove toward Reno with a trailer rattling behind them. “Tracks one and two are all of the information about the cardholder and the account, and everything else.”
“So what, Kevin? Why do you need to go into all that to use somebody’s card?”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Dad. You can reprogram that. You just need a magnetic encoder. The card can have anything you want on the front—your name, my name, anybody’s name. And you could redo the magnetic stripe to send the charge to another account. What I’m saying is, you can use one alias to put charges on a thousand different cards, come home every night and reroute the bill in another direction. It’s better than white plastic, Dad—you don’t even need a clerk. All you need are the numbers.”
Jerry nodded at the road ahead of him, looking faintly seasick at the thought of yet another new frontier. As if Kevin were becoming a mad scientist whose obsessions his father needed to escape, Jerry began once again to buy adjoining rooms and aggressively seek companionship at night. With an abandon Kevin hadn’t seen since the early days, he threw himself into flirting with any dirndled waffle-house hostess or sarcastic short-order waitress with a pencil stub behind her ear. Kevin rarely paid attention to Jerry’s spiels or the women who joined them in diner booths with the sudden squeak of bare hamstrings across Naugahyde; but it did bother him that the fiasco with Colette had caused such a nosedive in the average IQ of his dates. Dozens of women commented that Kevin was “smart and fascinating” (meaning “serious and strange”), mostly because a palpable look of dread came over him whenever he heard an inane giggle at one of his father�
�s corny jokes.
Once it became clear that Kevin could ruin any potential date (by, say, lecturing a casino cocktail waitress about the randomization process of slot machines), Jerry had to resort to bribery. They established a “courtship fee” in which Jerry paid Kevin twenty dollars to act like a normal sullen adolescent. For months this price didn’t vary, until one night in Reno at the end of spring, when Kevin returned from the computer lab of the university, his father ushered him quickly into the hallway to offer him a hundred dollars. The toilet flushed behind them. Kevin was curious to see any woman who could raise the rate so abruptly, but Jerry guided him all the way to the elevator. “Where’s your skateboard? Go reprogram Miss Pacman or something. Just let your old man have a little of his own fun once in a while.”
Twenty dollars had seemed a reasonable amount, enough to be useful while still preserving the tone of a joke; whereas a hundred felt off balance, like a buyout. From his new room Kevin called them, and when the woman answered, he pretended to be a confused room-service waiter. She had a voice so babyish it sounded falsetto, and she broke into laughter at Jerry’s mumbles in the room: “Sto-ha-ha-hop it, baby—it’s ro-hoo-hoo-hoom service.”
Kevin hung up the phone and stayed on the edge of his bed for a while, staring at the floor. He had no idea why he felt so defeated. He splashed water on his face, then skated along Virginia Street, weaving through pedestrian traffic and picking several wallets off easy targets (men in pleated slacks with their arms draped heavily around their girlfriends). He hid for a while in a gas station bathroom, culling the cash out from among the receipts and cards. As souvenirs he kept the weathered pictures of babies and basset hounds, a grinning couple, a woman in a dim kitchenette toasting with a Styrofoam cup. After counting just over six hundred dollars from the night, he expected some greater sense of accomplishment; but he felt only sluggish, as if he had gorged himself on tasteless food. He missed Colette and hated her for leaving.