Nathan's Run (1996)

by John Gilstrap

"So your hand got caught under the wheel itself?" Tad asked as he gently turned the hand over in his own, trying for the sake of argument to match the purported mechanism of injury with the damage done to Bailey's hand.

  "Sure did:' Mark said, his body tense and ready to take back his hand if the doctor broke his promise not to hurt him.

  Tad noticed his patient's uneasiness and smiled kindly, tenderly resting the injury back on Mark's chest. "Relax:' he urged softly. "The last thing I want to do is to hurt you."

  Now that he was back in sole control of his pain, Mark did, indeed, relax. "You're right, Doc:' he said. "You didn't hurt me a bit. Kinda nice, for a change."

  Interesting turn of phrase, Tad thought. "Oh, really? How do you mean?"

  "How do I mean what?"

  "You said it was a nice change that I wasn't trying to hurt you. I was just curious what you meant."

  Mark was exhausted, mentally and physically. He didn't even remember saying that, but now he had to come up with something to cover it. "Did I say that?" he stalled.

  Tad pretended to be distracted by Mark's chart. "Mm-hmm. Somebody been hurting you, have they?"

  Mark laughed at the very thought of it. "Nobody but myself, Doc. I guess I meant doctors. You know, even when they're trying to help you it still hurts."

  Tad nodded and smiled. "Really no such thing as a painless shot, is there?" He finished jotting his note on the chart, and flipped it closed. "Here's what we're going to do with that hand," he explained. "We're going to put you under a light general anesthetic, and we're going to have to set the bones. Looks like somebody might have already tried to do that, but made a bit of a mess of it." He looked to Mark for a reaction, but none showed.

  Tell me about it, Mark thought. His stomach turned all over again at the memory of sitting there on the filthy floor of the Hillbilly Tavern, grinding his own bone ends together as he brought the fingers back into alignment. It was the only way to even begin to walk out of there. Despite the initial agony, his efforts had reduced the sharp, electric pain to the dull throb that currently wracked his entire body.

  "Once we've got that taken care of," Tad continued, "we're going to put you in a soft cast for a couple of days just to make sure we've got the swelling under control, and then we'll do a hard cast for probably ten to twelve weeks. How's that sound?"

  "Just peachy?'

  "There's also a chance you'll need surgery," Tad finished. "The x-rays show some possible involvement of the metacarpals-the little bones in the back of your hand that run from your wrist to your fingers-and that can mean tendon or ligament damage that can't be fixed as easily as bone. We won't know for sure, though, for another couple of days. There's been a lot of bleeding in the hand, making damage assessment by x-ray a little more complicated."

  "So you're gonna have to knock me out?" Mark asked. There was an edge of hope to his voice.

  Tad nodded. "It'd be pretty tough getting bones set any other way." It was time to push. "Why do you suppose only two fingers got broken instead of your whole hand?"

  Even through the haze of his pain, Mark instantly spotted the hole in his story. Shit. He suspects something. But suspicions were different from knowledge, and he was in too deep to change his story now anyway. "I have no idea," he said. "Just lucky, I guess."

  "You can do without too much more of that kind of luck," Tad joked, his eyes probing Mark's face for the truth, and getting a "kiss my ass" in response. "It's interesting, too, that the fractures angulate in different directions. If I didn't know better, I'd swear that your hand was deliberately broken." That was smooth as gravel, he chided himself.

  "Well, you're the doc, Doc. Maybe you can write me up in a medical journal or something."

  "You're sure that's how your hand got broken-a jack fell on it?"

  Stick with medicine, Doc, Mark thought. This police work just ain't for you. "A jack? God, no. The whole goddamn car fell on it. You don't think I'm lyin' to you, do ya?"

  Tad stared just long enough to convey his true thoughts. "Of course not. No sane person would lie to his doctor. To do that would just delay recovery."

  Piss on it, Tad thought, its your hand and your life. I've done my part. He clicked the ballpoint back into its casing, and stuffed the pen into the breast pocket of his lab coat.

  "Rest quietly for a little longer, Mr. Bailey. The orthopod will be here in a minute to work on you. I'll see you later."

  It was just after seven-thirty, and Monique Michaels was surprised to hear the sound of Warren's car in the garage. Most nights he didn't get home until nearly seven, and she'd assumed that his investigation of the Bailey thing would keep him much later than that. After fourteen and a half years of marriage, she could tell just by the way he slammed the door of his patrol car that he'd had something less than a good day. Having heard a good portion of The Bitch that morning, followed by continuing coverage not only of the Bailey boy's escape but of his media appearance as well, she couldn't blame him if he was a little cranky. Plus, it had been a long time since he'd had to play policeman for real, and he probably was exhausted.

  The meal of the day had been spaghetti, and the kids had snarfed up all but a thimbleful of what she fixed. Even as the doorknob turned, she was already pulling a frozen Mexican dinner out of the freezer.

  Warren's look said it all as he entered the kitchen. Rigidly well-postured by nature, and normally energetic even in the evenings, he looked as though he'd slept fully clothed in a windstorm. Monique nearly laughed at the sight of him. "Boy hunt getting you down, dear?" she teased.

  A wry smile brightened his face. "Don't you start with me. I'm getting too old for this shit."

  "Is my baby tired?" Monique mocked in a little-girl voice as they hugged and kissed. "Not enough sleep last night?"

  As part of a well-practiced ritual, Warren went directly to the cabinet over the stove and pulled down a gray lockbox, the kind secretaries normally used to store their petty cash, and thumbed the combination. When it opened, he slid his .38 caliber Police Special, holster and all, off of his belt and deposited it in the box. He still preferred the five-shot snub-nose over the bulky cannons selected by most of his subordinates. Next came the speed loader he carried in his suit coat pocket. After locking the box again, he placed it back in its assigned spot over the stove. As a young, newly married police officer many years before, he'd balked at the notion of being separated from his weapon. In the end, Monique had prevailed, of course, and in the succeeding years, he had come to be far more satisfied knowing that the kids couldn't become a statistic than he was paranoid that he wouldn't be able to repel an attack on his family.

  There just was no denying it anymore. He had become the old fart he'd always feared.

  "It's been a zoo, hon," he explained as he put his weapon away. "Just an absolute zoo. You'd think Al Capone had escaped, instead of some kid."

  "Do you think you'll catch him?"

  "Oh, we'll catch him, all right," Warren said. "Once we figure out where to start looking for him."

  Monique led her husband into the living room and sat him down on a chair, where she moved around behind him and began massaging his shoulders. "I guess that means you don't have many leads."

  "Leads," Warren snorted. "It's not that we don't have many leads. We don't have any leads."

  "What about your man Thompkins?" Monique teased. "He seems hard-charging enough to turn up some clues."

  Warren dramatically dropped his chin to his chest and rubbed his forehead. "You heard that, did you? Could you believe it? He was supposed to get their permission, not beat them into submission. What a bonehead."

  "Now, Warren, I'm sure he was just trying to do his job and make a good impression."

  Warren snorted again. "Yeah, well, so was Barney Fife. And I can assure you that Patrolman Thompkins made an indelible impression on a lot of people. The county executive even called me today and asked me to send his regards. I have a meeting scheduled tomorrow afternoon for just that purpose."


  Monique hugged him from behind and kissed his ear, crossing her forearms under his chin. "Now, you go easy on him. It wasn't so long ago that you were a stupid rookie."

  "I was never that stupid," Warren grumped.

  "Oh yeah? How 'bout that time you shot at yourself in that lady's house?"

  Warren's head sagged even further. He laughed. He reached up and rubbed the back of her head as she rested her forehead on his shoulder. "You just don't forget anything, do you?" That incident had occurred fifteen years before, when he was in the process of tracking down a prowler in an old woman's house. As he swung into the bedroom in a full crouch, he saw a man crouched down on the other side of the door, aiming a pistol directly at him. Not until Warren had squeezed off three rounds did he realize that he was facing down his own reflection in a full-length mirror. The woman nearly had a heart attack, and he was suspended for a week while Internal Affairs did an investigation. Worst of all was the merciless ribbing to which he fell victim for years after the incident. Unbeknownst to him, the ribbing continued to this day, only now it was always behind his back.

  "Tomorrow should be interesting," Warren said, changing the subject. "I understand Petrelli's taking the radio station to court tomorrow with an emergency petition to compel release of the telephone records:'

  "Do you think it will work?"

  "Hell, no, not a chance. I'd pay a thousand dollars, though, just to see Petrelli get trashed one more time in front of the cameras. The only good thing about my day today has been the thought of how really shitty a day he's had."

  Monique slapped his arm playfully and stood up straight again. "You're terrible," she scolded. "What happens if the judge says no?"

  "Then we're left with plain old police work. I think the kid's holed up somewhere. He can hang loose for a day or two, but sooner or later he'll have to move, and when that happens, he'll start leaving another trail. That's when we'll get our next good shot."

  Monique came around the chair and kneeled down in front of her husband, resting her elbows on his knees. "Do you think he killed that guard-or supervisor, or whatever-in self-defense?"

  Warren shrugged and closed his eyes. "Doesn't really matter right now. He still has to go back."

  "But what do you think?"

  "Honestly? In my heart of hearts?"

  "Yes."

  "I really don't care. I think it's a red herring, something I have no business thinking about. At least not until we get him back in custody and he goes to trial for killing the supervisor. The escape and the murder are separate issues."

  From out of nowhere, their conversation was interrupted by the thunder of footsteps coming down the stairs. "Daddeeee!" His seven-year-old, Shannon, turned the corner into the living room at full tilt, and vaulted into his lap, followed closely by her sister Kathleen, two years her senior. A round of hugs and kisses followed, along with a couple of tickles.

  "You're home early!" Kathleen proclaimed, genuine delight twinkling in her eyes. "Mommy said you wouldn't be home till late."

  "Well, if it makes you feel any better, I probably shouldn't be home till late, but I just couldn't stand the thought of not tucking you two characters into bed for a second night in a row." He kissed her on the cheek.

  "Can I ask you a question, Daddy?"

  "Any time at all."

  "Are you trying to put Nathan in the electric chair?"

  Warren shot a look across to Monique and got a shrug in return. Incredulous that his daughter considered herself on a first-name basis with an accused murderer, Michaels leaned back in his chair and gently repositioned his older daughter on his lap so that she was facing him directly. "What kind of a question is that?"

  "I was playing with Benny Parker today, and he said that you were going to kill that boy on television by putting him in the electric chair."

  "And what did you say?"

  "I told him that he was a liar, and then I popped him in the nose.

  Warren laughed in spite of himself. "Kathleen!" he scolded, embarrassed by the pride he felt at his petite little girl punching a kid the size of Benny Parker. "You can't hit people just for saying something you don't like."

  "It is a lie, isn't it?" From the look in Kathleen's eyes, Warren suddenly was not sure who was scolding whom.

  "Honey, they don't put children in electric chairs."

  "So what's going to happen to Nathan?"

  Warren fought the temptation to lie. It would have been easy to give her a fairy-tale answer, but he had long believed that truth was the only way to maintain credibility with his kids.

  "That's really not for me to decide, Kathleen. That's why we have courts. My job is to arrest Nathan and bring him back to the Juvenile Detention Center so that a judge can decide what ultimately happens to him."

  "But Nathan says that people tried to kill him in the Juve .. . whatever that place is. Are you going to send him back to that same place?"

  Warren looked to his wife for some help. Monique gave it a try. "Kathleen, sweetie, this boy Nathan isn't like boys in your school. He was in jail for stealing, and he killed a man to get out of jail. That makes him a bad guy. And bad guys go to jail."

  "The kids don't think he did anything wrong," Kathleen protested.

  Warren's patience for all of this suddenly evaporated. "Well, he did do something wrong!" he erupted, far more loudly than he had intended. "He killed a man, and you can't go much more wrong that that! My job, Kathleen, whether you like it or not, is to put murderers away in a place where they can't harm other people. Just because he's a kid doesn't make him any less dangerous!"

  Both girls fell silent and slid down off his lap, disappearing back upstairs. Kathleen looked as though she might cry; whether for herself or for Nathan, he couldn't tell. When the children were out of sight, Monique returned to Warren's shoulders and started massaging them.

  "Did I overreact?" Michaels asked.

  "Mm-hmm," she replied, leaning over to gently bite his ear. "You always overreact when you lose your sense of humor. Remind me in a couple of hours and I bet I can help you find it again."

  It was nearly ten now, and it was dark, inside as well as out. Nathan put the finishing touches on his note to the Nicholsons-he'd found his hosts' name on a magazine-and walked from the kitchen into the garage. His stomach was in a knot again, but he knew there was no turning back now. The one thing he needed more than anything else was distance between himself and the JDC. The fulfillment of his need lay just on the other side of the garage. The seat and the steering wheel were already adjusted, and he'd killed an hour or so in the afternoon memorizing the locations of all the important levers, switches and buttons, so that he could make the BMW do as he commanded, even in the dark.

  On the outside chance that he might do something stupid, such as locking the keys in the car, he'd kept them in his pocket all afternoon. He moved cautiously now, in the dark, as though someone might be home, even though he'd been in and out of the garage a dozen times that day. He winced at the click the car door made as it opened, and was startled when the inside light came on. He moved quickly, the better to get the door opened and shut without anyone seeing him. Once comfortably in place in his seat, he fastened his seat belt, held his breath, and started the engine. He'd barely turned the key when the motor roared to life. He reached up and pushed the button on the sun visor to raise the garage door, working quickly, because he had seen in a movie once that you can die if you run the car engine indoors.

  With the movement of the door came an explosion of sound and light, a stark contrast to the otherwise still evening. Nathan was certain that every neighbor in a two-block radius was on the phone calling to report the theft of the Nicholsons' automobile. As the garage door reached the top of its climb, he slipped the BMW into reverse and turned in his seat to guide himself down the long, steep driveway. When he turned, though, all he could see was leather head rest. He jammed on the brakes and lurched to a halt. The stupid car wasn't built for twelve-year
-olds. How was he going to see where he was going?

  It took a moment for him to reason that once you've broken into somebody's house and stolen their car, it really didn't matter a whole lot if you drove over a bit of their lawn. He let the brakes slip again, and he slid further down the driveway, pausing halfway to lower the garage door again. Nervous glances out both sides of the car revealed an empty street-clear passage for him to begin his journey in earnest. When the back wheels bottomed out at the end of the driveway, he cut the wheel hard, slipped the transmission into Drive, and gently stepped on the gas. The Beemer lurched forward to the end of the street, then lurched to a stop at the stop sign, flinging Nathan against his seat belt. He remembered from his previous driving adventures that steering wasn't the hard part, really. The tough part was making the car move smoothly. But he'd gotten the hang of it before, and he was confident that he could do it again.

  While he'd plotted his trip carefully on a Rand McNally map he'd found in the glove compartment, he still didn't know exactly where he was, and now he was faced with his first critical choice. He could go left or right. The lady or the tiger. On the logic that left and lady began with the same letter, he turned left in hopes of finding the road that would lead him out of the neighborhood.

  After about ten minutes, and only one real mistake in navigation, he found himself on the Cannonball Parkway, whose name he recognized from his months with Uncle Mark. He knew for sure that the Cannonball Parkway intersected with Prince William Road, not too far from where Uncle Mark lived. From there it was a straight shot out to Route 66, which in turn would take him to Route 81, and from there north toward Canada. The digital compass in the Beemer displayed SE, and he was once again faced with a left-right decision. Knowing that he ultimately needed to head west before he could go north, he turned to the right. Happily, the SE disappeared from the display and was replaced with w. He beamed with pride.

  The Beemer handled smoothly, and he felt well in control of the vehicle, except a couple of times when the road turned sharply at the same time the headlights from an oncoming car hit him in the eyes. After another fifteen minutes or so, the scenery along Cannonball Parkway began to look familiar to him. On the left was Oliver Wendell Holmes Middle School, the last one he had attended before becoming a ward of the state. About a mile up the road, he knew, was the intersection with the 7-Eleven and the McDonald's, marking the road that led to Uncle Mark. Just sharing the same air with that place brought back memories he'd hoped he'd never face again.