Last shot

Chapter 25

This time, despite the broken latch, Walker knocked on the back sliding door.

"Come in!"

Sam sat in the living room plugged in to a PlayStation, his legs frogged out. He took no note of Walker's entrance.

"Where's Kaitlin?"

"Work." Sam's eyes didn't leave the game. He took his simulated motorcycle down a fire escape, ran over a bystander, and blazed through a police station.

Walker headed back to Tess's room. The laminated Vector visitor's pass still hung on her closet doorknob. He lifted it and walked out, wrapping the lanyard around his hand like a rosary. Sam continued zooming and blasting away on the TV. Walker was halfway out the sliding glass door when Sam said, "I have a bad gene."

Walker stopped. Regarded the back of Sam's head. "How do you know?"

"I just do." The motorcycle reared up, jumping over a carload of baddies. "I'm gonna die, prob'ly."

Walker took a half step back from the threshold. "Me, too."

"I mean, soon."

"Thems the breaks."

"I'm never even gonna have a girlfriend first."

"Girls don't like you?"

Sam's head swiveled at last. He granted Walker a slack-jawed glance that acknowledged the stupidity of the question and said flatly, "I have yellow eyes." He turned back to the game.

For the first time, Walker bothered to take Sam in. Jaundiced skin. Swollen legs folded back under him. Mussed hair. A series of bruises dotting his forearm. He scratched at his shoulder; his skin was bothering him. Walker could barely make out his face in the reflection of the screen.

"Why you taking Mom's card?"

Observant little fucker. "I need it."

"For what?"

"A job. It's for your mother."

"Can I help?"

"No."

"It's not your card."

"You'll have it back when I'm done."

"Done what?" Sam's hands were a flurry of movement around the controller. Levers, dials, and about ten action buttons sprouted from the calculator-size unit, spread along the top, sides, and bottom. Walker recalled his own first video-game experience-Space Invaders, joystick, one red button. He marveled at the kid's hand-eye coordination; he would've put Sam on loader duty in a Bradley before half the shaved-scalp jackasses he'd served with.

Walker said, "What are those marks on your forearm?"

"I bruise easy."

"And."

"This one kid, he hits me in the arm. To watch the bruise. He started a competition at the park. Like who could spray the best graffiti. He calls me Piss-Eyes. I don't tell Kaitlin. She's got enough to worry about. I make things hard. Or my gene does. The one I don't have. I don't wanna wear her out like I did Mom." Sam scratched his head, then his arm, then his head. His sleeve stayed hiked up, revealing a Magic Markered yin above his right biceps.

"The hell is that?"

Sam's eyes clicked over, noting Walker's focus on his fake prison tattoo. He worked at his thigh for a moment with his fingernails but didn't answer.

"Wash it off," Walker said. "It makes you look stupid."

Sam skidded out, his fallen motorcycle throwing up a beautifully animated shower of sparks. In seconds he was reset on a new bike, revving up an alley.

"It used to make her sad. Mom. She'd cry sometimes when we left the hospital. She'd turn her head toward the window so I wouldn't see, but I could still hear her." Sam's voice remained as matter-of-fact as always. "Mom changed my name back, just before she, ya know. I guess she was mad at my dad for not helping. I was Sam Hardy. Now I'm Sam Jameson, just like you."

Walker became acutely aware of his breathing as he did just before a fight. "Don't make me into something I'm not."

"Whatever. I'm just telling you my name."

"Your mother bought me a cross one time, made out of titanium. You know what that is?"

"Like the strongest metal ever."

"She said she had to get it for me in titanium because I break everything."

"Do you?"

"I've ruined my share of stuff, yeah. Didn't stick around to put it back together."

"She should talk."

Walker crossed the room in a single giant stride. Sam yelped, and the controller hit the carpet. "Your mother was a saint."

"You're hurting my arm."

"She raised me."

Sam jerked his bruised arm free. "Wish she stuck around to raise me, too." He picked up the controller, checked it for damage, and started a new game.

Walker went outside and got halfway across the patio before he stopped. His head tilted back, mouth set with frustration. Deep breath. He cursed to himself and returned to the living room. He'd grown accustomed to talking to Sam's back and shoulders. "You want a job?" The amplified roar of the motorcycle was the only reply. "Here. Put this in the coffee tin." Walker peeled two hundred-dollar bills from the roll in his pocket and set them on the coffee table next to the label maker, still sporting the red bow. "Don't tell Kaitlin."

Sam glanced at the bills solemnly, twirled a finger in the air in mock excitement, then turned to the game again. "You gonna come back?"

"Why would I come back?" The sound of burning rubber and screeching brakes followed Walker's exit.