Redemption Road

21

Faircloth Jones could not remember the last time he’d felt so fine. It was the purpose, he decided, the warm-in-his-bones belief that people needed him.

An old client.

A pretty woman.

He watched her across the rim of his glass. She was worn out. “Can I get you anything else? Another drink? Are you hungry, yet?”

They were in big chairs flanking the cold fireplace. Elizabeth had her shoes off, her feet drawn up beneath her. She smiled, and the old man felt another flutter.

“I think I’ll sleep,” she said. “Just for a bit. Will you stay?”

“Do you know what should happen?” He leaned forward, put his glass on the hearth. “A gathering.”

“There are just the two of us.”

“Exactly.”

He stood, grinning.

“Are you going?”

“Adrian should be here.” Faircloth removed a quilt from the cabinet and clutched it to his narrow chest. “It’s five o’clock now. You sleep for a few hours. Take a shower if you like. I’ll rescue Adrian from the tragic ruins in which I am certain he sits and collect takeout on the way back. We can have the dinner we should have had before. A celebration of life.”

“I’m not really in the mood to celebrate.”

“Yet even the most put-upon must eat.” He spread the quilt on her lap and lowered himself beside her. “You’re safe here. There’s nothing you need to do. No one is looking for you.”

“What about Channing?”

“Your young friend is beyond our reach for now; but tomorrow is another day, and her father’s lawyers are very skilled. I’ll approach them in the morning and suggest a council of war. There is a path, my dear. I assure you of that, and of every possible effort.”

“Thank you, Faircloth.” Her eyes drifted shut. “Thank you so very much.”

The old lawyer crossed the drive, his cane snapping out as the limousine driver climbed from the car. “A short drive,” Faircloth said. “A few more hours, then I’ll have you home to your family.”

“No family.” The driver opened the rear door. “No rush at all.”

“Very well.” Faircloth settled into the soft leather. “Highway 150, then north.”

The driver worked the back roads to Highway 150, then circled the city and followed directions to the blacktop that ran to Adrian’s farm. Faircloth watched the sun flash red in the gaps between the hills, the shadow and light like days flicking past. “Just over the next hill. A long drive on the right.”

The limousine crested the hill, slid down the back side until the road leveled. “Sir?” Faircloth leaned forward as the driver pointed through the glass. “Is that what you mean?”

Faircloth saw the drive, a half mile of crushed gravel that ran through the fields and under trees. Hints of the ruined house were just visible. The car, however, was crystal clear, a gray sedan that blocked most of the drive. Faircloth was pretty sure he’d seen it before.

The driver’s foot came off the gas. “What do you want me to do?”

“Pull up behind it. Right on the bumper.” The driver did as he was told. They could see men in the sedan, the driver watching in the rearview mirror. “Let’s sit tight for a minute. I want to see what they do.”

The moment stretched. No one moved.

“Sir?”

“All right.” Faircloth pushed his door open. “Let’s see what this is all about.” He got a single foot on the ground before the sedan’s engine caught.

“Careful,” the driver said, but his voice was nearly lost as an engine revved and the sedan surged onto the blacktop.

Faircloth choked on dust as it sped away, the metal of it glinting beneath a falling sun. “That was interesting.” The lawyer settled back into the car.

“I got the plate number if you want it.”

“Good man. Hold on to it for now.”

“Down the drive?”

“Indeed.”

The limousine moved slowly over cattle guards and washed-out gravel. It crossed a creek and passed beneath an oak tree larger than any other Faircloth had ever seen. The ruined house was desolate in the gloom. Faircloth saw a hint of fire, and then Adrian, very still in the place a wall had once stood. There was no welcome in his face.

“I’ll tell you what.” Faircloth handed the driver $50. “Go get yourself some dinner. I’ll call when I’m ready to leave.”

“Thank you, sir.” The man accepted the money. “You have my card?”

The old lawyer patted his coat pocket. “I’ll call you.”

“Sir?”

Faircloth hesitated, one hand on the door.

“Are you sure about this?” The driver meant the gloom and the ruins, the car they’d chased away, and Adrian’s murky form. “It’ll be full dark soon, and he doesn’t seem the most trustworthy sort. No offense if I’m wrong, but this doesn’t feel like the right place for a man like you.”

Faircloth looked at Adrian, scarred and thin in ill-fitting clothes. “It’s the perfect place. You go have a nice dinner.”

“Yes, sir.” The driver nodded with great hesitation. “If you say so.”

“Go ahead, now. I’ll be fine.”

Faircloth climbed from the vehicle and watched it leave. When the dust settled, he hunched above the cane and watched Adrian approach. “Hello, my boy. I thought I’d find you here.”

“Where else would I go?”

“It’s a large world, is it not?” Adrian moved out from beneath the trees, and Faircloth met him on the edge of the drive. “I should think you, of all people, might dislike how history lingers in places such as this.”

“Maybe I have unfinished business.”

“Do you?” Faircloth lifted an eyebrow in what he knew from long years at trial to be his most penetrating gaze. “Perhaps we should speak of that, as I just saw the same, gray car stationed at the end of your drive.”

“I’m sure you did.”

“Do you know who it is?”

“You honestly think I should tell you?”

“You’re upset.” The old lawyer was genuinely surprised. Adrian carried tension in his shoulders and in the line of his jaw. The normally warm eyes were anything but. “We’re friends, are we not?”

Adrian’s head turned, and Faircloth watched him stare across the choked-out fields. The hardness was all in him, as if he’d somehow frozen solid. But, there was sadness, too, the bitter reflections of a deeply wounded soul. “You never visited.”

“I tried…”

“Not the first month, Crybaby. Those were dark days, my choice. I mean the thirteen years, after. You were my lawyer, my friend.” No forgiveness was in his voice. What he said was fact, indisputable.

“I was too old for that level of appellate work. We discussed as much.”

“Were you too old to be my friend?”

“Listen, Adrian.” The old man sighed and faced him straight on. “Life changed for a lot of us when you went away. Liz threw herself into life and the living of it. For me, it was the opposite. I didn’t care to see colleagues or be with friends. I didn’t care to care. Maybe, it was depression. I don’t know. I felt as if the sun had cooled or the blood in my veins had somehow thickened. I’ve become adept at analogies and could offer a hundred. Yet, it was my wife, I think, who said it best. She stuck it out for two years, then told me that, even at seventy-two, she was too young to live with a dead man. After she moved out, I barely left the grounds. I had my food delivered, laundry taken out. I drank, slept. Until this week, I’d barely left the house in ten years.”

“Why?”

“Why, indeed?” A ghost of smile touched Faircloth’s lips. “I think maybe I was heartbroken.”

“Not over me.”

“Over the law, perhaps, or the irretrievable failings of a system I could not improve. Maybe I lost faith. Maybe I just got old.”

“I sent letters asking for help. Heartbroken or not, how could you ignore me?”

“I didn’t.”

“You did.”

“You misunderstand, dear boy. I never got any letters.”

Adrian thought about that; nodded once. “The letters were intercepted.” He nodded again. “Of course, they were intercepted. They would have had to do that. Stupid. Stupid.”

He was talking to himself at the end. Faircloth keyed on something else.

“Who do you mean when you say they?”

“Don’t look at me like that.”

Adrian flashed the dark eyes, and Faircloth thought he understood. He knew prison; had other clients take the long walk. There was always a certain amount of disassociation and paranoia.

“I didn’t imagine it,” Adrian said.

“Then, let’s talk about it. The letters. This mysterious car.”

Adrian stepped more deeply into the gloom. Faircloth saw his back, the tilt of his head.

“Adrian?” The old man shifted above his cane. “My friend?”

Adrian ignored the question and looked out at the gathering dark. Without living it, no one could grasp the full truth of what had happened inside. Even Adrian lost track of what was fact and fiction. Was the sky really so dark? Was the old lawyer even there? He thought the answer was yes to both, but he’d been wrong before. How many times had he felt green grass and a warm wind only to open his eyes and find the blackness inside a boiler? The cold and close of a half-frozen pipe? Even friendship itself smelled of false promise. His wife had left him. His colleagues. His friends. What reason did he have to trust the old lawyer’s intent?

Only the guards were real.

Only the warden.

Adrian thought again he should kill them. How could he live if they lived, too? How could he ever heal?

“Where are you going?”

Adrian stopped walking; unaware he’d even started. “I’m not the best company right now, Faircloth. Give me a few minutes, okay?”

“Of course. Whatever you want.”

Adrian didn’t look back. He walked into the field because the sky was largest there, the night’s first stars the brightest. He thought the openness would help, but it made him feel small and voiceless, a forgotten man in a world of billions. Even that was okay for a moment. He understood voicelessness and knew more than most about being alone. Survival boiled down to resolution and will; and when such things failed, it hinged on stillness and Eli’s words, on the simple act of going away. But Adrian didn’t want to do that anymore. He wanted his life back, and to confront the ones who’d carved it down to such a thin, poor thing.

What would that look like?

A conversation?

He doubted it; and doubt was the reason he spent his hours in the shell of what had once been a proper life. The rage was so great it was a living thing, a creature in the cage of his chest. He wanted to hurt and kill, and then bury it all.

But, there was this thing.

This memory of what he’d been.

Adrian pushed into the field and felt grass on his skin. He’d been a decent man, once. Not perfect. Far from it. But, he’d done the job as best he could; he’d been a friend, a partner, a mentor; he’d loved one woman and failed another. It was a complicated life that seemed more so now, when all he wanted to do was kill five men and plant them so deep in the ground only the earth would remember.

What would Crybaby say about that?

Or Eli?

That was the other thought that kept him from violence. Eli Lawrence wanted Adrian to walk away and build a life. Such was the purpose of every lesson he’d ever taught-to make it through the day, the yard, the rest of his sentence.

No sin in survival.

Adrian woke each day with those words on his mind; fell asleep with them on his lips.

No sin.

But walking away felt wrong. The warden had been at Central Prison for nineteen years. How many inmates had died in that time? How many had gone insane or disappeared without a trace? Adrian couldn’t be the only one, but he didn’t kid himself about the risks, either. The warden. The four guards. Adrian knew their names and where to find them; yet they showed no fear at all. They’d appeared at court, and after the boy was shot; they’d followed him to the lawyer’s house, and then to his own farm. Did they really think him so weak and broken?

Of course they did.

They were the ones who broke him.

“That’s not me, anymore.”

But it was.

Memories. Nightmares.

“Stop it.”

It could have been a scream, but wasn’t. Awake or asleep, it could happen anytime. Memories marched in from the dark: the table and the rats, Eli’s death and the questions that came over and again. It was part of being broken, how the horrors rose like water.

“That’s not my life.”

But it felt like it.

When the final wave receded, Adrian was still on his feet, alone in a field he’d known as a boy. There were no walls or ceilings or cold metal. It should have been over, then; that was the pattern.

But then he saw the car.

It rolled past the field and flashed red where the road met the drive. He heard the engine, the tires. Then it went dark.

“Motherfuckers.”

He cut through the field without thinking, and when he reached the road, he stopped. They wore plainclothes, but he knew them. Stanford Olivet and William Preston. Adrian recognized the haircuts, the movements, their faces when a cigarette lighter sparked. They brought it all back, and for an instant, the memories almost rode him down: their smiles like a flicker, their thick hands on his wrists and ankles, holding him as the straps cinched tight, then reaching for the blades, the needles, the sack of rats that moved as if it had a life of its own.

Adrian wanted to pull them from the car, to pound their faces and break his hands doing it if that’s what it took. He told himself to move, to do it now; but another image rose. He saw the same men and the same faces, but there when he’d spilled like a dead man from the boiler in subbasement two. Something like pity had been on their faces, a whispered Jesus Christ as they’d shaken rats from his skin and carried him to a place with light and air and water.

Poor bastard, they’d said.

Poor sorry, stubborn son of a bitch.

Suddenly, it was too much, the rage and fear, the weight of submission.

Do what you’re told.

Eyes down.

And that was just regular fear, regular prisoners. Adrian’s damage ran deeper, and only now did he grasp its magnitude. He was a free man, yet nothing that mattered had changed. He saw their faces turn his way, their eyes as they recognized him. Olivet said something, and Preston smiled again, a thick man with pale lips and small, round eyes. The smile was knowing, and why not? He knew every inch of Adrian’s body, the smell of his blood and the sound of his screams, the places cut and uncut. Adrian felt a rush of blood, then a click as some part of him shut down. Heaviness. Numbness. He saw the car doors open, but from a distance. The world went nearly black, and when light returned, Officer Preston had a retractable steel baton in his hand. “What are you doing, prisoner Wall?”

Prisoner…

“You think you can just walk up on us like that? You think you’re entitled to that choice?”

Adrian’s lips moved, but no sound escaped.

Preston tapped Adrian’s chest with the baton. “I want to know what he told you.” He raised his voice the littlest bit. “Eli Lawrence. You know what I want.”

“We’re just supposed to watch him,” Olivet said. “Just in case.”

“Quit whining.”

“This is not the place, man. Come on. Cars could come by. Witnesses.”

Preston flicked his wrist so the baton snapped out. He swung it in a blur; struck Adrian in the neck, then hit so hard on his kneecap that everything went away but the pain. Adrian ended up on the ground with gravel in the back of his head. He wanted to move but couldn’t, tried to breathe but his lungs were frozen solid.

“Damn it, Preston,” Olivet’s voice came down. “We’re supposed to watch him.”

“Just hang on.” Joints popped. Adrian saw Preston’s face, and a thick hand that came in to slap his cheek. “Are you in there? Hello. You in there, you stupid bastard?”

“Come on, man. This is just pitiful.”

“Hey!” Two more slaps. “Where is it? Huh? What did Eli Lawrence tell you?”

Adrian rolled on his side. Preston put a foot on Adrian’s throat. “Inside or out, it doesn’t matter. You talk to me when I say.”

Adrian felt the pressure, but it all seemed distant. The stars. The pain. The man was right. Inside. Outside. There was no winning.

“He’s dying, man.”

“No, he’s not.”

“I think you crushed his throat. Look at him.”

The foot backed off, and air leaked in. Adrian was spread in the dirt and unmoving, his vision down to a spot of color.

“I’m tired of this Mickey Mouse crap.”

Pressure returned, and as Adrian’s heels scraped in the dirt, a part of him dug for the fighter he’d once been. He used to fight. On the block, in the yard, the first time they strapped him down or shoved him in the pipes. He believed in the fight, but this time he was dying; he felt it.

But the world, it seemed, was not entirely done with him. Crybaby Jones hobbled from the dark like the ghost of brave old men everywhere.

“You leave that man alone!”

His cane swung up and down, hit Preston on the nose and burst it like a plum. He swung again, and Olivet danced back. Crybaby tried once more but there was no third chance against men like these. The old lawyer was almost ninety and dropped like a dead man from a single blow.

“Jesus!” Preston cupped his gushing nose. “Where did he come from?”

“That’s the lawyer.”

“I know it’s the lawyer, you stupid shit! He didn’t get out here on his own.” Preston pulled a gun from his belt and pushed it at Olivet. “Check the house. Make sure there’s no one else. Take the car. Hurry.”

Preston pressed a handkerchief against his nose, then dragged the lawyer from the drive so the car could speed past. Adrian felt the dust, the gravel. He tried to crawl to Faircloth’s side, but he was choking.

“Stay put.” Preston put the boot on Adrian’s throat.

The car was back in seconds. “No one there.” Olivet slammed the door. “It’s all burned out and empty.”

“Give me the gun. Take him.” The boot came off, and Adrian watched helplessly as Preston took Faircloth by the ankle and dragged him down the drive. The old man was conscious, but barely. One hand came up as he disappeared into the gloom, and Preston’s voice rose. “You’re the one worried about cars, Olivet, so let’s go.”

“Go, where?” Olivet asked.

“Just bring him.”

Olivet dragged Adrian to his feet. The night stopped spinning. “Don’t make me use this.” Olivet flashed another baton. “You know how he is when he gets like this.”

“Crybaby…”

“Don’t talk. Just move.”

A hand settled on Adrian’s back and shoved hard enough to make him stumble. He kept his feet the first time. The second push took him down; after that, Olivet dragged him, too.

It wasn’t far.

Preston had the old man on his back, twenty yards down the drive. “See. No cars. No worries.”

“What are you doing, Preston?” Olivet dropped Adrian on the drive. “This is not what the warden wants.”

“Ask me if I care.”

“He won’t talk. You know that. We’ve been down this road before.”

“We didn’t have the lawyer before.”

“Come on, man.” Olivet stepped forward, but Preston was already on his knees with a thick arm around the old man’s neck. “We’re just supposed to watch. Just in case.”

“Look at him, though.” He meant Adrian. “Look at him and tell me I’m wrong. He’ll break for the lawyer.”

“I’ll kill you.” Adrian found his knees. “Crybaby…”

“Hold him,” Preston said. “Make him watch.”

Olivet brought the baton across Adrian’s throat and held him up. Five feet away, Preston did the same thing to the old man. Crybaby struggled, but it was feeble: thin legs dragging in the dirt, spotted hands on Preston’s arm. Adrian tried to say his name, but Olivet had all his weight on the baton.

“We’ll start slow.”

Preston took the old man’s pinkie in his fist, and Adrian watched Faircloth’s face as the finger broke. He knew how much it hurt, but the old man didn’t scream.

Adrian drew in a blade of air, managed, “Stop it. Don’t.”

Preston took another finger.

“I’ll tell you.”

“I know you will.”

The second finger broke, and when Crybaby screamed, Adrian did, too. He kicked and struggled as Olivet threw his full weight on the baton, and the night went red, then black, as Adrian choked and clawed and went down in the dark.

When he came to, he was alone where he’d fallen. No baton on his throat. Breath scraping in. He had no idea how long he’d been unconscious, but it felt like a long time. Ten minutes? Longer? His throat was dry; blood sticky on his lips. He rolled to his knees, heard voices, and looked up. Olivet and Preston stood above the old lawyer, who was twitching in the dirt, both eyes rolled white as his heels drummed and spit gathered at the corners of his mouth.

“I don’t know, man! I don’t know!” Olivet looked scared. “A heart attack? A fucking seizure?”

“How much longer will he do that?”

“I don’t know.”

“He’s freaking me out. Make him stop.”

“You’re kidding me, right?”

“I can’t watch it anymore.” Preston pulled a gun and pointed it. “I’ll kill him right here. I swear to God I will. I’ll shoot him in the head. I’ll fucking kill him.”

He cocked the hammer, and it was as if the lawyer heard. The legs stilled. The hands stopped twitching. The old man gasped three times, and a final shudder rolled the length of his spine. Adrian saw it happen, and the silence behind that final breath slammed the door on thirteen years of fear and submission. His legs were still numb, but he didn’t give a shit. Life. Death. All that mattered was Preston’s face and the weight of his own gathered fists. The guards turned when he stood, and for a moment showed an utter lack of fear. They thought him the broken man, and why not? After years in the pipes and on the metal bed, it’s all they’d ever known of him, the screams and withdrawals, the dark holes of the prison and the faint scratchings of a forgotten man. He was the inmate who maybe knew a secret, and that’s how they saw him still-a final mistake-for there was no prisoner left in Adrian’s soul and nothing where he stood but the fighter.

“Preston?” Olivet understood first, looking once at Adrian, then stepping back. “Preston?”

But Preston was slow to understand and slow with the gun. He didn’t see the rage or hate, so Adrian opened his throat and let it out. He howled as he charged, and though Preston managed two shots, they both flew wide. Then Adrian was on him, driving hard enough to lift him from his feet and move him through six feet of empty air. The gun spun away when he hit dirt, then there was only the fight and the fighter, the spray of blood and teeth as Adrian gave and gave, then went after Olivet and gave some more.