Nobody Move

by Philip Elliott

  “Say it again!”

  “Kaya White.”

  “Say it again!”

  “Kaya White! Kaya White! Please, Dakota, I didn’t mean to, don’t fucking shoot, Jesus Christ.”

  Dakota stared at him. “Goodbye, Eddie.”

  Eddie swallowed. “I love you, Dakota.”

  Dakota’s expression softened momentarily.

  “I hate you,” she said.

  Eddie closed his eyes, accepting what was about to happen. No more running. It was what he deserved, and he doubted he could live with himself much longer anyway.

  A feeling of peace descended over him.

  The sound of the restaurant’s doors crashing open behind.

  “Drop the gun,” came a woman’s voice. The detective. Eddie wasn’t sure if he felt disappointed or relieved. But he wouldn’t let her arrest Dakota.

  Dakota said, “Stay out of this. He murdered my—”

  “Your sister. Kaya. I know.”

  Confusion settled across Dakota’s face. “How do you—”

  “You’re Indian, right?” The detective’s voice was louder, closer, her footfalls approaching. “I’m the homicide detective investigating your sister’s murder. We know from D.N.A. tests that Kaya had a Native American parent, and we know that a young Native American woman was asking around for Kaya at the club she used to work at. It didn’t take me long to connect the dots.”

  “Then you understand why I have to do this.”

  “I understand it,” the detective said, right behind Eddie now. “But it’s too easy a way out for him. What’s death next to a life behind bars? Having to live with your mistakes day after day, forever. That’s hell. Killing him is mercy.”

  Dakota swallowed, her face tight with concentration.

  “You can keep that bag,” the detective said, “I never saw it. And I never saw you. No one knows you were here. No one will come looking for you. Just let me arrest this man. It’s the only way I can let you go and forget you were ever here.”

  Eddie said, “It’s a good deal, Dakota. Live your life and be free.”

  “You shut up!” Dakota roared, pressing the cold metal further into his skin.

  “You don’t want to become a killer, Dakota,” the detective said. “Death will follow you home.”

  Dakota’s face contorted with rage and the gun trembled in her hand. Eddie shut his eyes, sure a bullet would come, but instead the gun broke contact with his skin.

  He opened his eyes. Dakota was crying, the gun at her side. She let it clatter to the ground.

  “I hate you, Eddie,” she said, looking into his eyes. “Never forget what you did. Because I won’t.”

  She spun on her heels and jogged down the alley, a million dollars over her shoulder. The moonlight faded into shadow near the mouth of the alley, swallowing Dakota as she passed through it onto the street.

  She didn’t look back.

  “Hands behind your head,” the detective said.

  Eddie’s heart sank deep down inside him like an anchor to the lightless ocean floor.

  Cold steel clamped around his wrists.

  Sirens sounded in the distance.

  The sky was black and eternal.

  Epilogue

  Charlie stared out the open window in the passenger seat, the wind tossing his hair back, mesmerized by all the bison, hundreds of them, maybe thousands, roaming the green and yellow fields of South Dakota’s seventy-one-thousand-acre Custer State Park. Taking the highway through the park was a slightly longer route to their destination but Alison had taken it for exactly this reason. At eleven years old, Charlie was moving out of his animal-obsessed phase, and it would only be so long before his child’s sense of awe and wonder became replaced by teenage apathy. It made her smile to see him so enthralled, and she was quite enthralled herself: the infinite beauty of this part of the country was beyond anything she had imagined when they packed up the car and left Los Angeles. And the air—so pure. It smelled of freedom. And, at the moment, manure.

  “This is cool, huh buddy?” she said.

  “This. Is. Awesome!”

  Charlie tapped at her phone from its holder on the dashboard and selected another song from her ’80s playlist, the subject of his latest fascination (they hadn’t left the decade yet since leaving L.A.). A bass synth and drum machine introduced “Out of Touch” by Hall & Oates. Alison turned it up and accelerated, enjoying the sensation of the hot sun washing over her face as the wind blew back her hair.

  It felt good to feel good.

  One hour later they arrived at the northwest corner of Pine Ridge Reservation and shortly after that a large building of pretty orange and brown brick. The building looked new, because it was. Less than three years old, in fact.

  Alison switched the engine off. “Okay buddy, five minutes in here and then we’re back on the road to Rapid City where we can get a room for the night.”

  “What’s this place?” Charlie said.

  Alison pointed at the sign. “‘The Kaya White Women’s Center for Trauma Recovery.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “It means that this place helps women who’ve had bad experiences to live happy lives. Come on.”

  They exited the car, Alison startled again by the silent serenity of this vast state. They reached the front doors of the Center and went inside.

  An Indian woman at reception smiled at them, looking a little puzzled.

  “Hello there,” she said. “Are you lost?”

  “We’re here to see somebody.”

  “A patient?” the woman said, looking confused.

  “Ms. White, actually.”

  “Ah. Do you have an appointment?”

  “No, but it will only take a moment, and we’ve come a long way.”

  “Can I get your name?”

  “Alison Lockley.”

  The woman picked up a phone and relayed the details.

  “Ms. White will be with you in a moment,” she said, and clicked at her computer.

  Alison took Charlie by the hand and wandered around the reception area. Photographs of women smiling in clusters, most of them dark-skinned but not all, hung on the walls. A few of the women exuded the professional confidence of doctors. A doctor—that’s what she should have been. Saving lives rather than avenging them.

  “What’s that?” Charlie said, pointing at a scarlet banner over the entrance doorway. In the center of the banner eight white triangles pointed outward in a circle like the rays of a sun. A thick blue band bordered the banner.

  “That’s the flag of the Oglala Tribe, on whose land you now stand,” said a woman’s voice behind them.

  Alison turned to see Dakota standing beside the reception desk.

  “The red symbolizes the blood shed by my people in defense of this land. The circle of eight tepees represents the eight districts of the reservation. And the blue represents the United States, which borders us and which we are part of. Hello Alison. And who is this?”

  “This is Charlie, my son.”

  “Hello, Charlie. He’s a handsome one, isn’t he?”

  Charlie’s cheeks turned red as the flag. He hadn’t yet managed to take his gaze off Dakota, probably falling in love with her.

  “Let’s talk in my office,” Dakota said. “Piama here will take good care of Charlie.”

  Dakota’s office was pretty, and unlike any other. It had all the usuals—desk, chair, computer, phone—but potted plants hung from the ceiling, the plants growing down out of the pots and reaching for the window, and Hollywood movie posters dotted the walls: Pulp Fiction; Kill Bill: Volume 1; L.A. Confidential; Jaws; The Shining; Chinatown; The Good, the Bad and the Ugly; Thelma & Louise; Seven; True Romance.

  “You like movies,” Alison said.

  “I live for them. Please, sit.” Dakota gestured toward the chair opposite the desk as she dropped into her own.

  Alison sat into the seat. “I’m not here on police business, if that’s what you’re thinking
. Actually, I’m not a cop anymore.”

  Dakota said nothing.

  “I’m not here on any business. We’re moving to New York State, Charlie and I, to build a new life, start fresh. This place was on the way, kind of, so I thought I’d swing by.”

  A question came to her. “Which is the fake name, Dakota or Ramona?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Not really, but it would be nice to know your real name.”

  “Ramona is my birth name. People here have only ever known me by that name.”

  Alison nodded. “It’s nice what you’ve done with the money. I guess some good came from all of that, in the end.”

  “Yes, our anonymous donor was very generous,” Dakota said, a smirk at the corner of her lips. “I’m happy. It feels good helping people in need.”

  “What do you do here, exactly?”

  “We help young Native American women fleeing from sexual and other abuse in their homes, or elsewhere. Not just Native American women, we don’t turn away anyone here, but mostly. Many of them are addicted to substances, and we help them with that too. Most of the women come from the reservation, but, as word has spread of our existence, some women from cities across the country have arrived, seeking shelter and counseling. We give them therapy, but we also educate and train them to help them reintegrate into society, and find—and hold onto—jobs more easily. We teach them how to be independent and resilient in the face of discrimination and everything else they will face outside those doors.

  “Some of the stories those women have told me would break your heart, but watching them grow as individuals while they’re in here, seeing them finally walk out those doors as confident, strong women, optimistic and ready to face society head-on—that’s the best feeling in the world.”

  “I have to say, I’m impressed,” Alison said. “I thought you’d be living in a villa in the Mediterranean. But then, about a year ago, I read about this place, and knew you were involved even before I saw that ‘Ramona White’ was the name of its director.”

  Dakota smiled. “Well, some of our anonymous donor’s money helped to repair the community and improve living conditions, but otherwise every cent went toward the Center. I live in the same home I always have. I might have a pretty big TV to watch movies on, but that’s all.” She winked.

  Alison chuckled. “I think you’ve earned that.” She stood up. “Well, I just wanted to say hi and see this place for myself. I best get Charlie some food before he gets moody.”

  Alison hesitated. “I’m proud of what you’ve done here.”

  Dakota had remained seated and looked up now at Alison with glistening eyes. “Thank you … for doing what you did.”

  Alison smiled. “Don’t mention it.”

  She tossed Dakota a wave and left the room to find her son and the open road and the promise of a better life.

  Eddie stared at himself in the mirror. The wig (to mask his buzz cut) looked ridiculous, and would distract from the credibility of his performance. But the knee-length white tunic and purple cloak over one shoulder looked good, authentic. So did the sandals. Ordinarily the stark white walls of this hellish place were anything but inspiring, but, today, wearing his costume before the first dress rehearsal, they helped Eddie get into character.

  He watched himself recite some of his lines: “‘Nay, an I tell you that, I’ll ne’er look you i’ the face again: but those that understood him smiled at one another and shook their heads; but, for mine own part, it was Greek to me.’”

  Eddie saw the door open behind his shoulder and Skinny Pete slunk into the room—the man slunk everywhere he went, looking out the sides of his eyes like a serpent—carrying his own costume. They’d arranged to practice their lines together before the dress rehearsal. Some of the other inmates—the ones not involved in this production of Julius Caesar for Shakespeare at San Quentin—would be watching the rehearsal, and, since they were going to be laughed at anyway, Eddie and Skinny Pete had figured they may as well not maximize that laughter by totally messing up their lines.

  “Eddie,” Skinny Pete said, shutting the door behind him.

  “Skinny,” Eddie said. He’d had to give the guard a pack of cigarettes for the privilege of the man waiting outside the door rather than inside the room, but it was worth it. Few things are more off-putting while reciting Shakespeare than a prison guard staring at you, smirking.

  “You nervous?” Skinny said, dropping his costume onto a table and quickly undressing. A tattoo across his flat belly screamed “LIVE FREE.”

  “Not really,” Eddie said, which was true, more or less. He couldn’t give a shit about what the other inmates thought of him. He already didn’t get along with most of them, largely because he kept to himself and signed up for every course and extracurricular activity available. But he was nervous about what Ms. Summers, the young theater director at the helm of Arts in Corrections and Shakespeare at San Quentin, thought of his performance. Maybe it was just a fantasy from serving three long, womanless years of a thirty-year sentence, but he thought he saw a spark in her eye whenever she looked at him. Even if he was wrong, she was a nice lady, kind and nonjudgmental, and he wanted to do her proud. They all did.

  “Yeah, me neither,” Skinny said, scratching his forearm anxiously. He pulled his tunic over his head.

  “Yo, can I ask you something?” Skinny said.

  Eddie turned to face him.

  “Is it true you represented yourself in your trial before you got here?”

  “Who told you that?”

  “I heard some of the blacks talking ’bout you in the yard. They call you ‘Saint Eddie,’ you know that?”

  “I heard it was ‘Eddie the Martyr.’”

  “Either way they think you’re up your own ass. Yo, I’m just tellin’ you ’cause you need to watch your back in here. For real, bro, they don’t like your style.”

  “Too bad for them.”

  “Is it true?”

  “What?”

  “That you represented yourself and plead guilty.”

  “That’s correct, Skinny.” But it’s not like he’d had much choice. The police had extracted his D.N.A. from a hair on his belt that he’d tied Kaya’s hands with and stupidly forgotten to remove before burying her, and two witnesses had identified him: the concierge of the condominium building, and the kid who’d looked him in the eye when he, Floyd and Sawyer had stumbled out of the bushes after burying the bodies. Not to mention the testimony of the detective who’d arrested him. (She hadn’t said a word about Dakota, and claimed instead that she’d overheard Eddie admit to the murders before the shit hit the fan in Saul’s restaurant.) But, regardless of all that, it was true that Eddie hadn’t wanted to deny anything.

  Skinny grabbed his own head in both hands. “You crazy, bro. Who does that? You’re fuckin’ nuts.”

  “Maybe, but I’m also at peace with myself and the decisions I made.”

  “Why you’d do it? I gotta know.”

  Eddie sighed and faced the mirror. “It was the only way I could show the person I loved that I was truly sorry.” He watched himself speak, hating how little words meant, in the end.

  “They forgive you?”

  “I doubt it.”

  Skinny shook his head, grinning stupidly. “Yo, you the only guilty person in here. We all s’posed to fight the system together.”

  “We’ve been fighting the system our whole lives and look where it got us.”

  Skinny was out of responses, it seemed.

  “What is it you’re innocent of, Skinny?”

  “Armed robbery. But it wasn’t me, bro. Cops pinned it on me. Racial profiling and all that shit.”

  “You’re white as fuckin’ snow, Skinny.”

  “Yeah, and the cops who arrested me were spics.”

  Eddie shook his head. Some people would blame the starving kids in Africa before they’d blame themselves.

  “‘Nay, an I tell you that, I’ll ne’er look you i’ the face
again: but those that understood him smiled at one another and shook their heads; but, for mine own part, it was Greek to me …’”

  Acknowledgements

  Writing a novel has been a dream of mine for as long as I can remember, literally—I attempted to write my first crime thriller at ten years old. In those early days I never got much further than eight pages. Sixteen years later, I’ve finally managed to finish one. If it wasn’t for the support of my parents, who, over the course of my life, always encouraged and supported my artistic endeavors, I could not have reached this point in my career which has allowed me to scrape together enough ability and dedication to write, and finish, a novel. Thank you, Mam and Dad.

  This novel could not exist without the unwavering support of my wonderful wife, Alex, who often during the process of writing this novel was the primary source of our income, working difficult serving shifts late into the nights and early mornings. Thank you, Alex, for never once complaining about us having to live extremely frugally while I typed word after word about a bunch of people who don’t exist.

  Thanks to my brother, Patrick, for being the best sibling and friend, and for being a truly good person and the kind of younger brother I often look up to and could turn to for anything.

  Thanks to my good friend Heath Brougher for his limitless support and kindness since the day we met, and for the infinite passion he has for Into the Void, as well as the stellar job he does there as poetry editor. Thanks also to Amanda Gaines and Laura Halpin for being the best nonfiction and flash fiction editors respectively that Into the Void could have. Heath, Amanda and Laura have been with Into the Void virtually since the beginning, and I’m so proud of what we have accomplished thus far.

  Thanks to both my dad and punk rock for teaching me the value and importance of working hard and doing things myself, on my own terms. For teaching me how to believe in myself.

  As an homage of sorts to film, books and music, Nobody Move couldn’t exist without the art that inspired it. To that end I thank every daydreamer who created something out of nothing and helped make our planet a less lonely and more interesting and fun place.