At all costs

CHAPTER SIX

Jason Slavka had already cleared the traffic circle and was just a couple of blocks from the station when he heard his call sign requested over the air. He pulled the mike from its clip on the center console and he keyed the transmit button. “Two-Four David.”

“Two-Four David, what’s your status?”

Damn, he thought. Time for an ethics check. He’d hoped to sneak back into the station without changing his status on the board; that way no one would dispatch him on any calls, and he’d be able to finish the pile of paperwork on his desk.

Ah, screw it. “I’m ten-eight, en route back to headquarters,” he said. The answer virtually volunteered him for another call.

“Um, Two-Four David…” He could hear commotion in the background as someone distracted the dispatcher with questions. “Stand by, Two-Four David.”

Jason chuckled and shook his head. “Stand by?” he asked the radio, talking to it off the air, as if addressing a person. “You called me, remember?”

The speaker popped again a few seconds later. “Ah, Two-Four David, what’s the ten-twenty of your passenger?”

“I dropped him off at the hospital. His mother’s having an operation of some sort.”

This time the commotion in the background was louder-much louder, in fact-and Jason distinctly heard the word “shit!” boomed by somebody. If he didn’t know better, he’d have sworn it was Chief Sherwood’s voice. “Okay, Two-Four David.” The dispatcher’s voice sounded like an island of calm in a sea of bedlam. “Stand by to copy.”

“Oh, God, Jake, you’re safe!” Carolyn threw her arms around his neck and hugged him tightly enough to hurt. “I’ve been worried sick about you.” Inside, the place was black, lighted by a single kerosene lantern on the floor. But the work had all been done.

Once the adrenaline kicked in, she’d become oblivious to everything but her mission. She’d flown through the storage bays, collecting their prepacked duffel bags and second-guessing herself at every turn.

She’d finished early-nearly an hour ago-and that’s when the panic had really started to sink in. If family came first, then how come she had everything else done, yet no one to talk to?

Loneliness was a horrible thing-if only for a few minutes at a time-and loneliness in the dark was worst of all. In the dim light of the kerosene lamp, her fears had taken on a physical dimension. She sensed that if she’d tried, she could have reached out and felt her fears with her hands, and the more she’d told herself that she was being silly, the larger and darker the fears had become.

She’d found the pint of Jack Daniel’s without really even looking for it, buried deep in the middle of her duffel. She dimly remembered hiding it there a long time ago-a time when the bottle was her first priority. She told herself that all she needed was a swig-a single pull-to bring everything under control. Well, maybe two. It burned wonderfully as it sought that place in her soul where the body manufactured courage. As the level fell below the top of the label, though, she was jolted by vivid memories of a different monster, and she’d returned the bottle to the spot where it belonged, in the fold of her denim jacket, about a quarter of the way down from the top of the bag.

From the movement of her shoulders, Jake knew she was crying. She smelled of fear and dust and sweat. And, dammit, of booze. His vision blurred as he held her and kissed the top of her head. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered.

The embrace felt magical; hypnotic almost. They’d been through so much together over the years-so much trembling and crying and running-that sometimes Jake wondered if the world could possibly spin without her. The drinking drove him nuts, and the screaming in the night terrified him almost as much as it did her, but she was the only person in the world who knew who he truly was. Even his own son didn’t know-couldn’t know.

The realization hit Jake like a hammer. He pushed Carolyn just far enough away to see her eyes. “Where’s Travis?”

He sat all the way in the back of the school bus, in the corner, right where the teachers and chaperons expected the Farm Meadows kids to sit. He felt ridiculous with his purple eye, and the cheap imitation Oakleys he wore to camouflage the bruise really didn’t hide a thing.

Travis had already been reminded three times-once getting on the bus at the school and then twice more once they arrived at the stupid plantation house-that one more fight would get him thrown out of school. Like that would just friggin’ break his heart.

He was sick of school as it was; tired of always being the new kid-every asshole’s most convenient punching bag. His dad had told him that this move might really be the last one; that this job might be the one to stick. And wouldn’t you know it? After moving every damn year that he could remember, from one dump to another, this butthole of a town was the place his parents decided to sink some roots. Wonderful. If you asked him, the whole state of South Carolina sucked.

To distract himself from his misery, he thought of Eric Lampier, wondering if Pussy Boy was able to breathe through his nose yet. Poor baby couldn’t even haul his butt into school this morning. Travis’s smile triggered a stab of pain in his eye.

Yeah, it was worth it.

The “fight,” such as it was, lasted all of three seconds. After enduring a good two minutes of trash talk in the cafeteria from Eric and his Snob Hill pals, Travis reached his limit when Eric referred to him and his friends as “trailer park shitheads.” He simply stood up, smashed Eric’s nose like a cherry tomato, then sat back down to finish his Tater Tots.

The fountain of blood and snot ignited an explosion of screams, mostly from the Snob Hill girls, with Eric howling right along with them. God, what a mess. It took maybe two minutes for word to travel to the Gestapo. You’d have thought somebody had a gun, the way they swarmed in there. No one even questioned who was the guilty party. While the nurse slobbered all over Eric, the principal, Mr. Menefee, dragged Travis off toward his office. As they reached the hallway, some panicked grown-up shouted for an ambulance. Was that not the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever heard? An ambulance for a damn broken nose!

“I’ve had it with you kids!” Menefee growled. That’s the way it always was. In the minds of faculty, everything a Farm Meadows kid did somehow implicated all other Farm Meadows kids as silent accomplices.

That trailer park kids were unwelcome around there was the worst-kept secret in the world. Best Travis could figure out, J. E. B. Stuart Junior High had been the exclusive domain of the Snob Hill squeaky-cleans until a couple of years ago, when some redistricting bullshit mingled “Farm Meadows trash” with the “Hill youngsters.” He didn’t pretend to understand all the politics-frankly, he didn’t care-but one thing was sure: the teachers and the school administration wanted things back the way they used to be.

For the life of him, though, Travis couldn’t see why people complained so much. From his perspective, having Farm Meadows kids in the school made the business of discipline a no-brainer for everybody. If there was blood on the tile someplace, punish a trailer park kid. It didn’t really matter that it might be the wrong kid, because everybody from Farm Meadows was guilty of something. Every time a Hill kid smoked, cussed, picked his nose, or jerked off, it was because a Farm Meadows kid had talked him into it. Travis thought it was hysterical. Like there was some conspiracy among him and his friends to lure rich kids away from their brick palaces to come live in shit-heap trailers.

At J. E. B. Stuart Junior High, a rich kid got to do or say whatever he wanted. Such were his constitutional rights. For Travis and his pals, though, the Constitution seemed to end at the point where they told the rich kids to fuck off. And to touch one of them-particularly with a fist-was more than the system could bear.

Mr. Menefee- Der Fuhrer to Travis and his friends, thanks to German class-was as pissed as Travis had ever seen him. That’s the word he used, too. Pissed. Travis wondered if he was still going to be “pissed” when he talked to Eric Lampier’s lawyer-daddy. Somehow he didn’t think so. Perturbed, maybe? Acrimonious (a brand-new word to Travis)? Certainly, he’d be something more elevated than pissed.

Menefee had had it with Travis’s antics. He refused to tolerate violent behavior in his school, goddammit, and no, he didn’t give a shit who started it. They should be ashamed of themselves. When Travis mentioned that there was no “they”-that this was strictly between Eric and him-Menefee seemed unimpressed.

“Are you going to yell at Eric, too,” Travis had asked, “for swearing at me and my friends?” For an instant, Travis thought the man might punch him. Instead, he told Travis to mind his own damned business-another expression that was sure to be edited from the Lampier version.

“This is it, Brighton,” Menefee concluded, his face beet red and his hands trembling. “One more time and I’ll toss you out of here forever!”

Big effing deal, Travis didn’t say. In the end, he escaped with academic probation-whatever the hell that was-and a stern warning to review the Code of Behavior. Yet to be decided was the issue of whether or not the Lampier family would press charges-a concern rendered moot later that afternoon while Travis was winding his way through the woods toward Mike Howe’s place to watch some X-rated videos his friend had found in a closet.

Terry Lampier-Eric’s older brother-and two of his high school buddies just materialized out of nowhere, blocking his way. Instantly, Travis knew he was in deep trouble, and he took off in the opposite direction, running as fast as he could. But the jocks had him beat at all levels: height, weight, and speed. They caught up with him after maybe a dozen steps, clotheslining him and bouncing him off the hard-packed dirt path. The details were a little fuzzy after that, but he remembered putting up a valiant defense, all things considered, until an early shot to his balls drove all the fight right out of him. He didn’t even remember what nailed him in the eye. All he knew was, one minute it felt like his guts had exploded, and the next, he was ten feet off the path, under a bunch of bushes.

As he pulled himself to his feet, he’d marveled that everything still worked. He wondered if maybe they thought they’d killed him and then stashed his body out in the woods. Either way, he was grateful to be in as good shape as he was. They could have killed him for real.

By the time Travis had made his way back to his trailer, the sun had started to dip, taking the temperature down along with it. With the whole back and side ripped out of his T-shirt, he felt cold. He felt dizzy for a while, too, and thought that he might have to sit down, but the feeling passed just as he turned onto his street.

Bullet Boobs Barnett was out in her garden as he approached, pretending to mind flowers when in fact minding everyone else’s business. She took one look at Travis and freaked. “Oh, my God, boy, are you all right?”

From the look on her face, Travis figured he must have looked a lot worse than he felt. “I’m fine,” he said. “I fell down. I just want to get home.”

Mrs. Barnett arose from her knees with some effort and waddled toward the boy, pausing to step carefully over the six-inch white wire fence that defined her flower beds. “Fell down,” she scoffed. “I don’t believe that for a minute. Here, let me take a look at you.”

Travis never stopped walking. “Really, Mrs. Barnett,” he said without looking back, “I’m fine. My mom should be home now.”

“You tell her you need to see a doctor!”

He acknowledged her with a wave over his shoulder, then tried to hike his tattered shirt back into place.

I’m doomed, he moaned silently. If he got that kind of reaction out of Bullet Boobs, God only knew how bad his mom was going to freak out. He didn’t have to wait long to see. Apparently, Mrs. Barnett couldn’t contain herself long enough for him to break the news himself. As he turned the last corner, both his mom and his dad came running down the street to meet him.

“Oh, my God!” his mom yelled. “Travis!”

The boy instinctively checked over his shoulder to see if anyone was watching as his folks descended on him.

“My God, what happened?”

His dad answered for him. “He’s been in a fight.” His voice oozed disapproval.

“Who did this to you?” his mother demanded.

“Not here, Carolyn,” his dad cautioned. “Let’s get him home first.”

Thus beginneth the lectures, Travis remembered. They came one after another. First, there was the need to get along in their new community, followed immediately by the one about how the choices he made today could affect the rest of his life. When he tried to defend himself, describing the insults he’d had to endure from Eric Lampier, his mom jumped right in with the two-wrongs-don’t-make-a-right pitch. In the end, though, he got a reprieve when his folks turned on each other over the question of whether or not they should take him to see a doctor. His mom was worried that he might have some hidden brain injury, while his dad maintained that they couldn’t afford to take him unless it was a true emergency.

It was kind of weird. Travis had never thought of them being so poor that they couldn’t afford to protect him from brain injury. Terrified as he was of doctors and the needles they wielded, he decided not to feel insulted. Instead, he just slipped down the short hall to his room and left them to fight it out among themselves.

Now, as the bus swung around the circle in front of the school, he sighed. In three more years, he’d be done with this crap. One thing South Carolina had going for it was their emancipation laws. He’d actually done the research. In three more years, he’d be sixteen, and then he’d be able to quit school forever.

Jake kicked at the floor. “Shit.” He checked his watch without seeing the time. “When’s he due back?”

“Around two.”

This time he moved his watch around in the dim light until he could read the face. “That’s fifteen minutes. How are we doing here?”

“I think we’re about set.” Carolyn picked up the lantern and led him to the back of the storage bay.

Of the two adjacent storage areas, the one on the right housed a strictly forbidden plain white Chevy van. In the five months they’d been in Phoenix, the van hadn’t moved an inch. He hadn’t even cranked the starter. In the eight years they’d owned the vehicle, it had been moved fewer than two dozen times, and then only at night, accumulating just under eighteen thousand miles on the odometer. It’d start, he told himself. It had to start.

The first order of business after renting these spaces had been to cut a doorway between them, thus allowing materials stored in the left-hand bay to be loaded and unloaded from the van without having to go outside.

Clearly, Carolyn had worked like a dog to pack it all up. All the weapons were on board, along with assorted building materials-two-by-fours and plywood, mostly-and a couple of weeks’ worth of canned food, all stacked neatly on the shelves he’d installed and secured with bungees. On the other side of the makeshift doorway, Jake could see the back end of the Celica, all locked up and out of sight.

“You done good, honey,” he said in his teasing hillbilly accent.

She shrugged a little and shook her head. “I just don’t believe we’re doing this. How could it happen?”

He sighed. “Random bad luck,” he said. “It’s so amazing. You plan and plan, and in the end, it’s a bunch of dumb dopers who pull the rug out from under you.” As he spoke, he busied himself by lifting the big Glock-17 from the rubbermatted floor of the van, where Carolyn had left it for him, holster and all. Unzipping his jacket, he unthreaded his belt from the loops on the right-hand side of his Levi’s, then attached the holster high, so the muzzle was invisible below the waistband, the grip tucked securely under his arm. “Is the money already on board?”

Her silence drew Jake’s eyes around. She just stood there, her hands at her sides, staring off at a spot in the dark. “Honey?”

She blinked once, then only her eyes moved. “I don’t think I can do this again,” she whispered.

He flapped his jacket back over the gun and walked two steps closer, taking her shoulders in his hands. As she tried to break eye contact, he wouldn’t let her, moving his body to stay in her field of view. “Carolyn, honey, listen to me. We can’t weaken now. Do you hear? We’ve known all along that this moment might come-hell, that it probably would come-and now it has. I wish it was some other way, but it’s not. We’re out of options now.”

She closed her eyes tightly and sighed again. “Maybe we should just turn ourselves in this time. Let the courts handle it.”

The words from his wife frightened Jake at a level much deeper than anything he’d felt in the shop or in the police station or out along the road. For any of this to work, they needed to be a team-and a strong team at that. “Carolyn, look at me. Please.”

She opened her eyes. They were dry. She knew he was right.

All the same, he needed to make sure. “You know that if we’re caught, there won’t be any trial, right? This has gone too long and too far for whoever’s in charge to let that happen. If they catch us, we’re dead. It’s that simple.”

She nodded. She knew it, all right.

“Think of Travis,” he pushed, selling to the sold. “They won’t know what we told him. He won’t be safe, either.”

She thought about that one for a long time. “Maybe we should leave without him,” she said, measuring her words.

He cocked his head. “You’re not serious.”

“Maybe he’d be safer without us.”

He stared at her for a long time. “Do you really believe that?”

She didn’t know what she believed anymore. She felt adrift in a sea of emotion, and Travis was the root of all of it: fear, remorse, guilt, pity. The years since he’d been born had been their best. And now here they were, rewarding his innocence and his love with deadly lies and mortal danger. These were things he’d never understand; never forgive.

The day she brought his beautiful face into this world, she’d entered into a contract which she believed with all her heart was governed by the will of God. In return for Travis’s smile and his pranks and his love; in return for the sleepless nights of worry over unexplained fevers and colic and messy diapers; in return for unqualified, unquestioning love, the one thing she owed him more than anything else was simply to be there to hold him. In the best of times or in the worst, her job was to be always down the hall when he cried out in the night, or to be always the first on the scene with a Band-Aid for his knee, a tissue for his tears.

But he wasn’t little anymore. He put on his own Band-Aids and shrugged away from her hugs and her kisses. Maybe that made him strong enough to endure on his own.

As if to prove herself wrong, the specter of her own adolescence bloomed large in her memory. She remembered all too clearly the hurt and the doubt and the insecurity, and she remembered how sometimes a willing ear or a special dinner would have mattered every bit as much as a hug or a Band-Aid. No one had been there for her. How could she not be there for him?

The contract, she realized, went on forever-for better or for worse, until the last day of her life. In the end, then, the answer was simple.

“No,” she said at length, “I don’t believe that at all. Let’s go get him.”

Jake watched her for a moment more before he shared her smile. He brought her to him one more time and kissed her. “God, I love you.”

She slugged him lightly in the ribs. “Talk’s cheap. Just prove that you can get us out of here.”

He went to work. Even in the darkness, he seemed to know where everything was. Leaning halfway into the van, he pulled a blue gym bag out from under the left-hand row of shelves. “Here, let me see your wallet,” he said.

She took the lantern around to the front to retrieve her wallet from inside the little fashion purse and was back in no time. “Here.”

“Thanks.” He took the wallet in his right hand as he battled the bag’s zipper with his left. “Can you bring the light around a little?”

He shifted his butt to make room for her, then produced a fistful of identification and credit cards from the bag. He handed over a North Carolina driver’s license and warned, “Take everything out of your wallet and out of your pockets that has anything to do with Jake and Carolyn Brighton.”

“What do I do with them?”

“I don’t care. Leave it on the floor here. We are now Jerry and Carrie Durflinger.”

“ Durflinger? You’re kidding, right?”

His eyebrow danced. “Sorry about that,” he said, smiling. “I couldn’t find any Smiths who fit the profile.” He cleaned out his own wallet, except for the money, and dumped the contents on the floor. “Got everything?”

She took a deep breath, then shrugged. “I guess. Do the license plates match these IDs?”

Jake responded with a look. Of course they did.

They closed up the back of the van, and while he climbed into the driver’s seat, she stood by the overhead door. Even in the yellow light of the lantern, he could see his wife’s hand on her chest, her fingers crossed. He closed his eyes and offered up a silent prayer, then cheered when the engine jumped to life.

“Yes!”

Flashing a thumbs-up, Carolyn lifted the overhead door. Jake pulled out far enough to clear the back bumper, then waited while she pulled the door back down and locked it. As she climbed into the cab, she struggled with the money bag to make room for her feet.

“I’m ready,” she said.

“Let’s go, then.”

As he edged the van out into traffic, he felt like he should be saying something-making some pithy remark that would somehow make all of this better. Try as he might, though, the words just weren’t there. In their place was a sense of dread. Of all the stupid decisions he’d made in his life, he sensed somehow that this was the worst; of all the adventures, this was the last.

As if to emphasize the hopelessness of their plight, he had to wait for two police cars to scream past him, sirens blaring, before he could pull out onto the road.