Resurrection Blues

by James, Harper

  The driver’s door flew open. Still lying sideways, Evan slammed the shift into gear, stomped on the gas. The van lurched forward. Evan wrenched the wheel hard right, throwing the van into the aisle, the tail end swinging wildly as he kept his foot glued to the floor, trying to shake Tomás loose from the door. The van picked up speed, engine screaming, still in first gear. Tomás hooked his left arm around the window strut, his feet hopping and skipping across the ground, desperately trying to keep upright. He dropped the ball bat, his hand flailing wildly as he tried to reach around to the ignition.

  Evan sat up straight in the driver’s seat, grabbed Tomás’s right wrist with his left hand, pushing it away from the ignition. Clutching the pry bar against the steering wheel in his right hand, he jerked the wheel violently from side to side, the ancient steering column flexing and groaning in protest. The van rocked and swerved, the door opening and closing. Still Tomás hung on, his feet a blur.

  It was stalemate. Evan’s left hand was clamped around Tomás’s right wrist, his own right hand on the wheel, Tomás’s left clinging to the door. They could have gone on like that all day—if they’d been on the freeway. But they weren’t, they were in a crowded parking lot full of distracted shoppers, the T-junction at the end of the aisle approaching fast.

  Thirty yards from the end, the windshield shattered. There was a loud crack, a thousand jagged fractures splintering out from the top-to-bottom fracture Henry’s head had made, the stresses from Evan’s violent abuse of the van finally taking their toll. Light reflected off a thousand broken facets in a thousand different ways, like sunlight off the sea.

  Evan couldn’t see a thing.

  He jabbed the pry bar straight out, punched a hole clean through the crazy, glittering spider’s web, the van swerving as his hand came off the wheel.

  And what he saw through the jagged hole made his heart skip a beat, made every breath feel like his last, catching in the back of his throat before it was choked in a gasp.

  Twenty yards from the end and a young woman in a small compact drove slowly across the end of the aisle. Her attention was divided between finding a parking space and arguing with her mother on her cell phone. Approaching from the left, the passenger side of her car was nearest the van, would take the brunt of the impact. She hadn’t even seen him.

  The little girl in the passenger seat had.

  Evan watched in slow-motion horror. Her mouth opened soundlessly in a scream of pure terror. He saw the gaping black hole of her mouth stretched impossibly wide, heard a pitiful cry before it was snatched away, lost in the whistling of the wind through the broken windshield and a high, keening wail from Tomás. Her hands rose up uselessly to cover her face, her eyes locked on his through her splayed fingers.

  He stomped on the brakes. The van nose-dived. The open driver’s door flew forward, Tomás still hanging on desperately. Evan spun the wheel all the way to the right, his palm slick with sweat, slipping, taking too long. The rear end lost traction, pivoting around in a smooth arc, the squeal of hot rubber on asphalt melding with the little girl’s screams.

  Evan goosed the gas as the back end came all the way around, the van now side-on to the woman’s car as she finally realized what was happening. She hit her brakes, throwing her daughter into the dash as the van shot forward, fish-tailing crazily, the wildly swinging door missing the car by a thousandth of an inch.

  They were through.

  Relief washed over him like a cleansing rain, but if he thought he could take a moment to compose himself, to offer up a silent prayer of thanks for his deliverance from an accident too horrific to contemplate, he was mistaken.

  Tomás’s arm tensed in his grip. He crunched his stomach muscles, brought his knees up, lifting his feet off the rapidly moving pavement under them. He dropped the left one on the door sill. The right one swung behind him, skipping along the ground. Pulling hard into Evan’s grip, he drew his chest and head into the van, his face inches from Evan’s. His breath was hot and sour in Evan’s face, lips pulled back over his broken teeth, sweat flicking from his hair into Evan’s eyes. In the blink of an eye, he’d be all the way in the van, kicking and gouging, biting, punching, like the rabid animal he was.

  Evan pumped out his arm until his elbow locked with a snap. He dropped Tomás’s wrist, gave the gas an extra kick.

  Tomás flew backwards. He looked like a crazy exhibition stunt driver. One foot on the sill, one arm holding the door, the other arm and leg trailing in the wind behind him. Evan switched hands. He grabbed the wheel with his left, swung the pry bar across his body with his right.

  Thwack.

  It caught Tomás on the bridge of his nose, splitting the flesh, the sweet crack of breaking bone and cartilage accompanied by a satisfying shriek. His head swayed back and forth, his eyes losing focus. Evan hit him again, a murderous blow to the elbow crooked around the window frame. Tomás yelled, the sound whisked away by the wind, and lost his grip.

  Suddenly he wasn’t there anymore, just the lingering smell of his breath in Evan’s nose, the corrosive feel of his spittle on his face. Evan leaned over and pulled the door shut, wiping at his face with his sleeve. In the mirror he saw Tomás tumbling along the ground, legs and arms flying everywhere, finally coming to rest against the back wheel of a big old station wagon.

  He stopped and watched a while longer in the mirror, saw him climb painfully to his feet. Tomás dusted himself off, stared at the van. Evan felt the intensity of his hatred burning into the back of his neck as their eyes met in the mirror. He put the shift into reverse, started backing towards him, the engine whining as he accelerated. Tomás turned and ran. If Evan could have caught him and mowed him down before he dodged between the parked cars, he’d have saved everyone a lot of pain further down the road.

  Chapter 15

  NOBODY FOLLOWED HIM as he drove out of the parking lot. He had no idea what happened to Henry, didn’t know if they had a car. Despite that, he made a number of evasive maneuvers to make sure he wasn’t being tailed. He’d made enough stupid mistakes for one day not locking the passenger door. Then he went looking for somewhere to dump the van.

  He didn’t get far.

  A whole-body shudder was the first indication of a massive post-adrenalin-rush let-down. He pulled onto the shoulder as the strength leached out of his muscles, leaving him hunched limply over the steering wheel. Sweat glued his shirt to his skin, the back of his neck clammy. If he’d had time to park somewhere less conspicuous, he’d have crawled into the back and fallen asleep despite the smell and the handcuffs and the toolbox reminding him of the van’s true purpose.

  But it wasn’t thoughts of being cuffed to the rail in the back while a sick pervert went to work with a pair of pliers that crowded into his mind and gave him no peace, made him realize what a close shave he’d had. No, it was remembering the feeling of utter helplessness and horror that had seized him as he hurtled towards a little girl trapped in a car in front of him, his foot pressed uselessly to the floor. It was the image of her mouth stretched into a soundless scream, her eyes wide and wild with terror, never leaving his own, that would keep him awake at night.

  He pushed himself off the wheel and opened his eyes. The image was still there, of course. It would take a lot more than a bit of daylight to banish it.

  Time to go.

  The police would be at the mall by now. If he was worth the shiny boots and the shield sewn onto his shirt, Diggs would give them a description of him and the van. It would be easy to spot with the shattered windshield. He didn’t want to get caught with it, have to answer a bunch of awkward questions about its contents.

  He pulled the keys from the ignition and got out. His legs buckled momentarily as he hit the ground, the last of the adrenalin let-down. He put his hand on the fender to steady himself, looked at the keys in his hand. He shuddered. What other horrors might they unlock? Tomás and Henry would have other places far worse than the van to do what they wanted to do. Like Levi before him, he lo
oked around for a convenient drain to drop the keys down.

  He was in luck. He saw one ten feet away. It was a sign, an omen. As he walked towards it, he marvelled once again at the amount of junk people kept on their keyrings. He was tempted to keep the little plastic Elvis as a reminder of how lucky he’d been. He smiled to himself. He hoped there was something really important amongst all the crap hanging off the keyring in his hand. Something that would really fuck them up when he dropped it all down the filthy drain.

  He stood over the drain, feet either side of it, idly swinging the keyring back and forth, the breeze cooling the sweat on his back. He imagined in his mind their faces as he threatened to do it. He hadn’t heard them speak apart from an urgent shout, but still he managed to hear them beg him not to do it.

  Fuck you, he said to himself and to Tomás and Henry in his mind as he opened his finger and thumb and let the keyring fall.

  He watched it drop as if it was in slow motion, gravity asserting itself, the heavier metal keys dropping fastest, the assorted plastic junk trailing behind them. He hoped all the junk didn’t get caught in the grill. He’d stamp it all through if it did, stomp on Elvis’s head.

  That’s when it happened.

  The awful realization that he’d made a dreadful mistake, the stupidity masked by puerile thoughts about pissing off Tomás and Henry.

  No!

  His foot started moving to intercept the keyring. It was way too slow, dragging through the heavy air as if his pants were nailed to the ground. Not so the keyring, its descent accelerating towards the gaping black hole.

  He didn’t make it.

  The keyring hit the metal grill and wavered, the biggest key slipping easily between the metal bars, pulling the others behind. They were almost through when Elvis got caught sideways, the name tag with Henry on it still above the bars.

  Evan stomped his foot down on Henry, trapping it. Bending his knees, he dropped slowly, carefully, making sure he kept the tag pinned securely under his foot. He got hold of it, worked the keys that had already dropped through back out again. He stood up, the keys safely in his hand.

  Only then did he breathe again.

  That was too damn close.

  He started walking, every wild thump of his heart pounding in his ears as the second adrenalin rush of the day released its grip on his body. He held the keyring so tightly he’d have an imprint in his palm for the rest of his life.

  He did at least allow himself a small smile.

  Not all junk is created the same.

  Chapter 16

  ‘WHAT? YOU FORGET to take Martina’s phone number?’

  They were the first words Guillory said when she answered Evan’s call. He wondered what she was talking about for a moment, then caught on—Officer Martina Perez, the traffic cop. He smiled to himself.

  ‘She’s pretty, that’s for sure. Good figure too. From what I could see in her uniform.’

  ‘I bet you were trying hard, as well.’

  ‘I like a woman in a uniform.’

  ‘Strangely, she was very taken with you.’

  ‘She’s only human.’

  A loud spluttering sound came down the line. It wasn’t a nice noise to have explode at short range in your ear.

  ‘Yeah, right. Anyway, she’s married.’

  He had the sense not to point out that he was too.

  ‘So, what do you want?’ she said. ‘I do have work of my own to do.’

  ‘I need a ride back to my car. I left it at the mall.’

  ‘Take a cab.’

  It would be a reasonable thing to say in most circumstances. Just not today.

  ‘There, uh, might be a slight problem.’

  ‘Hang on a sec . . .’

  You could have heard the penny drop a mile away. He should never have mentioned the mall.

  ‘That wasn’t you in a van that nearly T-boned some woman and her six-year-old daughter, was it?’

  There was only the briefest pause. It was enough for her.

  ‘Jesus, Evan. And now you want me to take you back to the scene of the crime.’

  ‘There was no crime.’

  ‘No? What about the guy wandering around in a daze, looking like he’d been beaten with an iron bar?’

  ‘He’s the one likes to pull fingernails. Don’t feel sorry for him,’ Evan said and told her the whole story. He didn’t mention the part about trying to reverse over Tomás.

  ‘You’re saying it wasn’t your fault?’ she said when he’d finished.

  ‘My fault? I ought to get a medal.’

  The silence that came down the line told him she wasn’t convinced. It was time to make it a whole lot worse.

  ‘I can’t go back there in case they’re waiting for me—’

  ‘One of them won’t be. He’s in the hospital.’

  ‘—so I need you to get the car for me.’

  It took a moment for her to get control of her vocal chords, a strange choking sound taking the place of real words for a minute.

  ‘Hang on, let me get this straight. You want me to drive you over there—’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘Leave you sitting in the comfort of my car—’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘While I sneak back into the parking lot—’

  ‘You got it.’

  ‘Get your car and drive out, around to where you’re hiding from all the mess you made.’

  ‘I couldn’t have put it better myself,’ he said, ducking instinctively even though she hadn’t yet found a way to give his head a slap from the other end of a telephone line. He knew she was working on it.

  She laughed out loud at the sheer audacity of it.

  ‘I can’t remember when I’ve had a better offer.’

  ‘I knew you’d come around to my way of thinking.’

  ‘How much of that bonus from the last job have you got left?’

  He told her the number which still took his breath away.

  ‘Good. Because now I think of it, I don’t even like upstate New York and the mountains. I like sun and sea and—’

  ‘Okay. We’ll talk about it when you pick me up.’

  He was sure she’d been about to add the last word beginning with s that normally followed sun and sea. Sex.

  ‘You need to come in and give a statement about what happened at the mall as well.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘And before you ask, no, it’s not one or the other.’

  The phone went dead in his ear. He slipped it in his pocket and carried on walking, his mind racing. Was she being serious or joking about a trip to the sun? And what would she say about asking Officer Perez if she’d like to come along too? On balance, that was one thought he wouldn’t be sharing with her.

  The blare of a horn jerked him out of a pleasant reverie—one featuring sun and sea amongst other things—as she screeched to a halt at the curb. He jumped in.

  ‘Lookin’ good, Evan,’ she said, peering at him over the top of her sunglasses, her eyes crinkling at the corners.

  He looked down at his shirt, at the spatters of Henry’s blood down the front of it, then pulled down the sun visor to look in the mirror.

  His cheek was swollen, starting to discolour, the continuation of Henry’s blood spatter streaking his face from chin to hairline. He put his fingers in his hair, shook out little pieces of glass.

  ‘Hey! Not in here.’

  ‘Sorry. Anyway, you should see the other two.’ He held his chin up, turned his head sideways, first one way, then the other, inspecting it. ‘I don’t look too bad considering.’

  ‘Matter of opinion. There’s some Kleenex in the glove compartment.’

  He got out a new packet, pulled one out, offered it to her.

  ‘For you, dummy, not me.’

  ‘I know that,’ he said, still holding it out.

  She finally caught on. He saw her bite down on her bottom lip, not hard enough to stop the edges of her mouth from curling up.

  ‘I am n
ot spitting on it for you . . .’

  He grinned, worth a try, and did it himself. He cleaned his face up, then carefully folded the tissue, put it back in the packet when she wasn’t looking.

  ‘Was it all worth it?’ Her tone suggested the correct answer was no.

  ‘I think so,’ he said and jangled the bunch of keys in front of her.

  ‘Keys. Wow! Really worth almost getting caught by a guy who likes to pull out fingernails. And nearly killing a mother and child while you’re at it.’

  He jangled the keys again.

  ‘Look closer. Not just keys.’

  She glanced quickly at the keyring, then back at the road. It was one of the things he liked about driving with her. She kept her eyes on the road. Like a man would.

  ‘Right.’ She nodded enthusiastically. ‘Somebody else’s junk. I can see Elvis. That’s always good. And what’s that? A bottle opener? Sorry, but I don’t keep any beer in the car. You should’ve said. I could’ve picked some up for you on my way. I wasn’t doing anything else.’

  ‘You’re still not looking properly.’

  She glanced across again, finally saw what he was talking about. Her eyebrows went up an inch.

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Exactly,’ he said with a satisfied smile. ‘Ah.’

  ‘And you think—’

  ‘I’m hoping so.’

  ‘I suppose that’d make it worthwhile,’ she admitted.

  ‘My laptop’s in the car. Otherwise I’d have got a cab back to the office.’

  ‘No, really, I wouldn’t have missed this for the world.’

  He’d find out what she meant by that soon enough.

  She pulled to the curb a block away from the mall parking lot and cut the engine. She stuck out her hand. He dropped his car keys into it, getting the first inkling of what she’d meant.

  ‘Thanks, Dad,’ she said and pulled a face. ‘Ugh. What a horrible thought.’

  ‘Drive carefully.’

  ‘You make yourself comfortable,’ she said as she got out.

  He did exactly that, settling down in the seat. After the morning he’d had he was tempted to recline the seat and relax even more. But he knew it wouldn’t go down well when she got back. It would have to be a lot more than two maniacs after his blood to get any sympathy from a hardass like her.