by C Thomas Cox
"I don’t feel too well," I said. "I'm not sure I can handle taking anybody out right now."
"What do you mean?"
"You know….what you said earlier. You said, we'll take him out."
"Maybe you’re really sick this time." She placed the back of her hand against my forehead.
I brushed her hand away. I didn’t deserve her compassion. "Don’t you remember saying that we'd take him out?" I asked, afraid to hear the answer.
"I'm positive that I didn’t. I’m sure I'd recall saying something so ominous." She gnawed on her lower lip and then grinned at me. "Hey, it’s been a long couple days. Just try to shake it off. I’ll stick with you ‘til we track down this nut job."
"If I'd have had a daughter, I'd want her to be just like you." I put my arm around her, and she rested her head on my shoulder.
"Now let’s get going." I said. "We need to put more distance between us and the cops. It’s time to put an end to Half-Ear's madness."
She agreed, and I pulled out of the lot and accelerated down the road. I was determined to find him, kick him out of my life, and keep him away from my family forever. Of course, I knew neither his name nor his address.
Chapter Fifty
"Are you sure you remember how to get to her house," Liz asked as we cruised closer to our next stop.
"How could I forget?" Although Yen Nguyen's house didn't stand out from her neighbors' homes, the anxiety I felt while, during my first visit, watching anxiously for Half-Ear to emerge burned its image forever in my mind. The ensuing chase made sure I'd never forget the adjoining roads, either.
This time, however, would be different. This time I wouldn't leave the house without information about Half-Ear's whereabouts.
We pulled up against the curb about a half of a block past Ms. Nguyen's home. If we needed to escape, we wanted to be able to drive away without having to pass by her house -- particularly if Half-Ear happened to dwell inside.
"Are you sure this'll work?" I asked Liz as we walked casually toward our destination.
"No idea."
I stopped and turned toward her. "Then why are we doing this?"
She tugged on my elbow. "Come on, grandpa."
"That isn't funny!"
As we made our way down the sidewalk and up the concrete stairs to Ms. Nguyen's porch, we passed a man who was mowing his front yard. He glanced over when we walked by, but didn’t appear to realize that my face had been plastered over the local news. Or, if he did notice, sheering the tops off of the blades of grass was more important than saving the life of an escaped mental patient. Regardless, I appreciated his lack of a response. It gave me hope that Ms. Nguyen wouldn't recognize me from television, either.
Nonetheless, I ground my top molars against my bottom ones so hard that Liz told me to "Cut that out. It'll be fine...I promise."
"You just said you have no idea whether this is gonna work."
"Just keep walking...and keep your mouth shut."
In my hands I clenched the baseball cap with a golf logo that Liz purchased from a sporting goods store on our way over. I had waited in the car while Liz purchased it. Although Half-Ear wasn't wearing a hat while he watched the baseball game, the one I held at least looked like something he'd wear. I prayed that Ms. Nguyen would buy our story. To help her do so, I picked up a handful of the dirt that laid next to her curb and rubbed it lightly on the brim. The hat needed to look used.
I held back while Liz rang the doorbell. My face wasn't going to be the first one that Ms. Nguyen saw...I didn't want to run the risk of her slamming the door against it. Besides, Liz looked innocent, sickly, and kind. What better combination was there?
Within a few seconds, Bradley Nguyen's face appeared in the doorway. He looked right past Liz and focused on me. "Hi, Mr. Umpire, sir." Liz took a step back.
I reached out my hand, and he shook. "Nice to see you again, son."
"I didn't have my best stuff in the last game, did I?"
I grinned. "Everyone has an off day every once in awhile." I mussed his hair and he smiled.
"Who's there?" a woman's voice asked from deep inside the house.
Bradley opened the door wider and waved us into the family room. "My name's Jim Richmond." I replied as I crossed the threshold. "I umped Bradley's last baseball game."
She walked in from the kitchen, and I immediately recognized her face. In contrast to the bitterness displayed by Half-Ear, her warmth shone through. Although she was likely of Vietnamese origin, I was surprised that seeing her did not trigger any post traumatic symptoms.
"To what do we owe the pleasure?" she asked.
"This is my granddaughter," I said, putting my arm around Liz's shoulder. As I said it, I knew immediately that the introduction must've appeared forced. After all, Ms. Nguyen didn't ask who Liz was. Therefore, I was thrilled when Ms. Nguyen merely nodded in Liz's direction before turning back to me.
I held out the hat. "A gentleman left this at the game, and I think he might've been with you."
She glanced at Bradley, and then turned back to me. "We drove to the game together...just the two of us."
"I mean...I think he was there to watch Bradley...not that he rode with you." In fact, I was certain that he didn't ride with them. To this day I can still picture him pulling away in his Pilot...alone.
"Don't think so," she said. "Sometimes my boyfriend stops by the games, but he couldn’t make that one. Right, Bradley?"
He nodded. "Mr. Dylan's a nurse, so he works a lot. But he comes to my games whenever he's off."
"What about your father?"
"He died a couple years ago," he said. "But mom says he still watches every one of my games."
"Oh," I said, "I'm so sorry."
"It's okay," he said, patting me on the arm. "Now he doesn't have to fight to breathe anymore." I wondered if he suffered from lung cancer, too. Ms. Nguyen draped her arms over his shoulders and patted his chest.
I grinned and stood silently. I wasn't sure how to bring up Half-Ear's presence at the game. Liz, however, had no such hesitation. "At the risk of sounding insensitive, Ms. Nguyen," Liz said, taking a step forward, "my grandfather believes this hat belongs to a Vietnamese man who was watching the game. Since no other Vietnamese children were on the diamond that evening, grandpa believes that the man came to watch Bradley play." I sucked my cheeks in and awaited Ms. Nguyen's response.
"I only remember seeing white men," Bradley said.
Ms. Nguyen stared at the ceiling for a few seconds, and then said, "Same here."
"Are you certain?" Liz asked.
"I think I'd remember seeing someone Vietnamese...though I can't be one-hundred-percent certain."
I looked down at the hat, and pictured it on Half-Ear's close-cropped head. Dammit! Who was he, anyway?
"Thanks for your time, Ms. Nguyen. And thanks to you, too, Bradley." Liz said. She waved, and I followed her out the door.
Just after I crossed the threshold, I poked my head back in and looked Bradley in the eyes. "If you see a Vietnamese man with half an ear watching one of your games, be careful."
Liz yanked me by the arm, and I followed her as she shuffled toward the car. "What the hell was that? Be careful?"
"Sorry. I just don't want Half-Ear to hurt Bradley."
"He's not going to hurt Bradley."
"How do you know?" I asked. "I don't think he shares the Pope's morality."
"He doesn't care about anyone else, Jim. The only person he wants hurt is you."
"You don't know that."
"Don't you think that there'd be some mention of a deranged, half-eared Vietnamese man on the news if he was on a rampage in Dairy?"
"Thomas killed near two dozen men, and he didn't make the news."
"Maybe not, but the disappearances of the men certainly did. And I haven't heard about a single act of violence committed in Dairy in a month."
"Maybe you just missed it."
She shook her head. "Working in a diner, I h
ear everything. I guarantee if a rash of murders -- or even minor assaults -- broke out, I'd be one of the first to hear about it."
"You're probably right, but still..."
"Just get in the car," she said. She pointed to the passenger's seat, while she hopped in behind the wheel.
"But your hand," I said.
"I'll be fine. Besides, you're obviously in no shape to drive."
She was right of course, but I still protested. "I'm fine."
"You're not fine. Now get in!" I followed her command and sat in the passenger's seat. After all, it was her car.
Without buckling her seatbelt, she started the ignition and gunned the accelerator. "Where are we going?" I asked.
"You'll see."
I rolled my eyes and buckled my seatbelt. The way she was driving, I wouldn't have been surprised if she plowed into another telephone pole. If I knew where she was taking me, however, I would've gladly chosen a head-on collision.
Chapter Fifty-One
The baseball diamond was empty when we arrived. I had pointed out it’s location to Liz on the way to the Nguyen's, but I didn’t expect Liz to take me there. If I knew she’d do so, I would've kept my mouth shut.
“Why are we here?” I asked.
She told me to get out. I did as she said, praying that she wouldn’t abandon me at the site where my journey had begun. Thankfully, she climbed out and walked toward the field. I leaned my arms on the car's roof and watched her.
“C'mon,” she said as she waved me over.
“I can't.” Just being near the field was painful enough.
“You can and you will.” I remained still. “You need to remember as much as you can about that evening…about him.”
I took my time following her to the diamond. She wasn’t going to leave me alone if I didn’t do as I was told. Besides, maybe she was right. Maybe I would recall something that would help us track him down before it was too late. “Remember...you’re doing this for Claire.”
“You’re right.” I raised my chin and accelerated my steps. I walked past the rusted chain-link fence, over the blurred first base line, and toward my customary position behind home plate. Although the darkness that was beginning to descend made it difficult to see more than a couple hundred feet in front of me, I looked around to make sure no one was watching. I then squatted behind the plate and looked past the fence and bench...at the location where Half-Ear once stood.
"Come up with anything?" Liz asked. She rested her arm on the top of the fence and studied me like a psychologist studies a shy patient. I didn't care, though. I needed to devote all of my energy to remembering.
I shook my head to knock out the dust and kept looking. I needed to picture him...to recall any details of our interaction that could help us find him.
As I stared, his body appeared to materialize in the distance. Although hazy and somewhat translucent, Half-Ear grinned as he glared at me. I blinked hard, but his expression didn't change. His eyes, however, began to glow a fiery red that pierced through the dusk. He pointed at me and laughed without making a sound. I was his plaything.
Without thinking, I ran toward him, ready to take him out with my fists. Terror merged with reality, and I wasn't sure who, if anyone, I was going after.
As I approached his body, Liz dashed toward me. "Leave me alone!" I screamed toward Half-Ear's image. When I reached his smirking face, I hurled punches and expletives at him, but every one of them went right through his fleshless form. His image had begun to dissipate.
Liz grabbed my waist and pulled me toward the first base bench. "He isn't there," she said. When I didn't stop attacking him, she pulled harder and screamed, "It's not him!"
She was right, of course. And after a tumultuous minute, my mind absorbed her words. I fell onto my knees.
She knelt in front of me and let me weep onto her shoulder. I was terrified that I'd no longer be able to trust anything I saw.
My hearing, on the other hand, was a sense that I could almost always trust. I picked up on a rustle in the woods behind Liz, and I looked up to see its cause.
Staring at me from just within the trees was an actual human figure, not the shadow of one. Just to be sure, I blinked hard to make sure my mind wasn't again fooling me. When I opened my eyes, however, the figure was no longer standing there. Unlike the previous time, though, Liz and I both saw him. As he dashed out of sight across the mat of leaves, each step caused the sound of crunching leaves to echo between the trunks.
Chapter Fifty-Two
Liz shot me a knowing glance, and we took off after the man who had watched us from the woods. I couldn’t make out his face in the darkness, but I was certain we were chasing Half-Ear.
Liz illuminated our way with the flashlight built into her phone, and I followed close behind. We hurtled through the leaf piles and fern patches that littered the forest floor. We weren’t going to let him escape this time.
His speed wasn’t what made him elusive, though. Instead, he weaved left and right like a rudderless ship that was about to capsize. I hoped we were the heavy seas that would sink him.
My old legs had trouble keeping up, but Liz was like a pinball. Bouncing from tree to tree, she kept gaining on him. Within a few minutes, she was close enough to pounce.
Just ahead of the man, I noticed a camouflage pup tent toward which he raced. Although the tent wasn't sturdy enough to provide him true safety from us, I was concerned that the tent might house some weapon he'd use to take us out. We couldn't let him get there.
Liz glanced back at me, and I gestured with my hands for her to grab him. She accelerated, threw all of her body weight toward him, and wrapped her arms around his chest…just feet before he reached the tent. He lost his balance and fell forward, and Liz crashed on top of him. I panted as I rushed over.
Just as I arrived, the man thrust his elbows toward Liz. "Get off of me!" he mumbled through the leaves in which is face was buried. I knelt in front of him, grabbed his arms, and held them down. "What the hell's wrong with you two?" he said. He spit out the pieces of leaves that had ended up inside his mouth.
I glanced up at Liz, who was clutching onto his writhing back as if she was riding a mechanical bull. "What's wrong with us?" she said. "You're the one who's been harassing Jim."
While she spoke, I looked down at his head. While it was too dark to clearly see his face -- particularly because only its side was visible -- the close-cropped black hair re-ignited the vengeance I felt toward the man who had caused me so much pain. When I looked closer, however, I was shocked to see that both of his ears were intact.
"Liz, he's not..."
"You're right about that. He's not getting up. We're going to hold him down until he tells us why he's after you and your family."
"No,” I said. “I'm saying that he's not the guy we're looking for. He's not Half-Ear."
She paused, and then leaned toward his head. She peered at both of his ears and then bolted back upright.
"If you're not the guy who stalked Jim, why in the world were you watching us?” He coughed. “And why’d you run?"
"Get off my back and I'll talk," he said. The rasp in his voice made me think he had lit his first cigarette before he turned thirteen. "You're killing my spine, lady."
She slid off of him, and I released his hands. I watched him intently as he rolled over, sat up, and massaged his lower back.
The man before us was nothing like the one I thought we were chasing. His unshaven face bore the wrinkles of an unfairly burdened life, and pouches of skin surrounded his empty eyes. He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a pack of Marlboro's and a lighter, all but confirming my suspicion. "Do you mind?" he asked as he pulled out a cigarette. I shook my head, and he set the butt between his lips and lit it.
After a few puffs, he said, "What's your first question?"
"If you're so innocent, why'd you run away?" Liz asked before I had the chance to speak up.
"I never said I was innocent, lad
y. I ain't the innocent type." With every breath he filled the air with a puff of smoke and the pungent smell of hard liquor. "But Isaiah Smith -- that's me, o'course -- certainly never done nothin' to neither of you."
He reached a hand inside the tent and pulled out a battery-powered LED lantern and turned it on. As the smoke refracted the bright light, it reminded me of the gray plumes that had escaped from Thomas's house earlier that day. "So why were you watching us?" I asked.
"Seemed dark for baseball, but when I heard voices on the diamond I popped my head out. I like to watch the games." He removed the cigarette from his lips, coughed a couple times, and returned it to its place. "When I spotted you back on the field," he said with a grin, "I just had to watch."
"Wait...when I was back on the field?" He nodded. "What do you mean?"
"Saw you umpirin' a couple days ago," he said. "You were getting' all outta sorts."
Liz smiled. "You saw the game?"
"Yeah," he said. "Watched most of it."
I couldn't believe that in this drifter we might've finally found help. I cut right to the point. "Did you notice the guy who kept harassing me? He was missing half of his left ear."
"As much as I drink," he chuckled, "there's lots of guys who look like they're missing half an ear."
I looked to Liz for help. "One of the fans -- a man who appeared Asian, maybe Vietnamese -- kept giving Jim dirty looks. He mouthed silent threats. And near the end of the game he pulled out a knife." She folded her arms across her chest to try to maintain the body heat that the rapidly cooling night threatened to steal. "Did you see that man?"
"I saw the backs of lots of men at that game. But I remember Jim, here, lookin' like he was gonna lose his brains. He kept glarin' at this one dark-haired guy. A guy who coulda had one ear, two and a half ears, five ears…I dunno. A guy that made you get awfully angry." He patted my shoulder, and I involuntarily jerked away. Though I didn't exactly smell like roses -- or even fabric softeners sheets -- I didn't want his stench to rub off on me.