The Last Child

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Steve worked the van through town. He passed storefronts and columned mansions, the parklike town square with its canopy of twisted oaks and the statue erected more than a century ago to honor a proud county’s Confederate dead. Johnny saw a brush of mistletoe in a tree, and thought of a girl he’d once dared to kiss, whose face now he could barely recall.

A different life.

Once past the square and the sun-dashed campus of the local college, Steve turned onto the four-lane that led to the mall. It was Ken’s mall. He owned it. “Where are we going?” Johnny asked.

“I have to stop by work. It won’t take long.”

Johnny sank into his seat. Steve sensed it. “Mr. Holloway won’t be there,” Steve said. “He never is.”

“I’m not scared of Ken.”

“I can take you to my place first.”

“I said I’m not scared.”

A half laugh. “Whatever.”

Johnny forced himself to sit up. “Why does he care so much about my mother?”

“Mr. Holloway?”

“He treats her like crap.”

“She’s the prettiest woman in this part of the state, or hadn’t you noticed?”

“It’s more than that.”

Steve shrugged. “Mr. Holloway doesn’t like to lose.”

“Lose what?”

“Anything.” Johnny’s confusion showed, and Steve saw it. He narrowed his eyes and pushed smoke through his lips. “You don’t know, do you?” He shook his head. “Christ, almighty.”

“What?”

“Your mom used to go out with Ken Holloway.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“Well, you’d better.” Steve took another drag, drawing the moment out. “She was eighteen, maybe nineteen. Just a girl, really.” He shook his head, pursed his lips. “Hotter than a three-dollar pistol, your momma. Could have gone to Hollywood, maybe. New York, for sure. Never did, of course, but could have.”

“I still don’t believe it.”

“He was older, but even then he was the richest man around. Not like he is now, mind you, but rich enough. It’d be hard for a pretty girl to resist the kind of attention he could apply if he set his mind to it, and your mother was no different from most other girls. Flowers. Gifts. Fancy dinners. Anything he could think of to make her feel important.”

“She’s not like that.” Johnny was angry.

“Not now. But young people like to feel bigger than the place they come from. It lasted for a few months, I guess. But then your dad came back to town.”

“Back from where?”

“The service. Four years. He’s what, six years older than she is? Seven? Anyway, she was just a kid when he left, but that changed.” Steve laughed and blew out a low whistle. “Boy, did that change.” Johnny stared out the window, and Steve continued. “Your old man fell for her like a ton of steel.”

“Her, too? For him I mean?”

“Your mom was like a butterfly, Johnny. Pretty and light and delicate. Your old man loved that about her, cherished it. He was as gentle and patient as you’d need to be for a butterfly to land in your hand.”

“And Holloway?”

Steve stubbed out the cigarette, spit out the window. “Holloway just wanted to put her in a jar.”

“And she figured that out about him?”

“You should have seen him when she said she was leaving him for your father.”

“Angry?”

“Angry. Jealous. He pursued her hard, tried to change her mind, but three months later your folks were married. You came a year later. It was as sharp a rejection as I ever saw, and I don’t know that Holloway ever got over it.”

“But dad did work for Holloway. All those houses he built. Holloway was over all the time.”

“Your daddy sees good in all people. It’s part of what makes him so fine. But Holloway was just waiting to bury him.”

“Dad didn’t know?”

“I told him as much, but your daddy always thought he could handle him. He’s prideful like that.”

“Confident,” Johnny said.

“Arrogant.”

Blacktop slid under the truck. The fan belt made a sudden, screaming noise. “You work for Holloway.”

“Not all of us have a choice, Johnny. That’s a life lesson for you. Free of charge.”

Steve stopped the van at a light. In the distance, Holloway’s mall rose like a battleship. Johnny watched Steve’s face, and when he spoke, it was of his mother. “Did you want to date her?”

Steve’s eyes were as flat as a snake’s. “Hell, son.” The light turned green. “Everybody did.”

The parking lot was slammed, which reminded Johnny that it was Saturday. Steve parked near the employee entrance at the back. When he opened the door, his mirror splashed sun into Johnny’s eyes. “Come on,” he said.

“Can I wait in the van?”

“Too dangerous back here. Homeless. Drug abusers. God knows what else.” Johnny watched as Steve touched the objects on his belt: Mace, radio, cuffs. “Come on. I’ll show you something cool.”

Inside, a key card granted access to a narrow door, metal stairs, and a third-story hallway that led to an office marked SECURITY. Steve swiped his card and leaned a shoulder against the office door. “Kids never get to see this.”

The security office was large and complex, with a bank of video monitors that covered an entire wall. Two guards sat in black swivel chairs, hands on keyboards and joysticks, changing images on the screens, zooming in and out, observing. They turned as Johnny stepped in, then did a double take.

One of them was twenty-something and fat, with hair mowed short and a razor-burned face. His smile was at once awe filled and dismissive. “This the kid?”

Steve put a hand on Johnny’s back, propelled him farther into the room “My nephew. Sort of.”

The fat guard offered a meaty hand, and Johnny studied it warily before shaking it. “Good job, kid. Wish I could have been there.”

Johnny looked at his uncle, who offered two words. “Tiffany Shore.”

The guard made a shooting motion. “Pow.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Johnny said.

But the guard was eager. “You see this?” He whipped a newspaper from the counter. “Front page. Check it out.”

The picture was of Johnny, taken through the window as he sat in the front seat of his mother’s car. His hands still gripped the wheel. His mouth hung open, face shocked and empty. Blood sheeted everything, dark where it had dried, bright where it wept red on Johnny’s chest. Feathers and rattles shone black on his skin, the skull as yellow-wet as a stone soaked in honey. Tiffany angled across the seat beside him, sun so fierce on her face that it shattered in her eyes. Men with clean clothes and long arms reached through the door to pull her out, but she was fighting, mouth tight, fingers desperate on Johnny’s arm.

The caption ran below the photograph: “Stolen Child Found, Pedophile Killed.”

Johnny’s voice came in a choked whisper. “Where did they get this picture?”

“The security guard at the hospital took it with his cell phone. They’re using the same picture on CNN.” The fat guard shook his head. “Probably paid him a fortune.”

Steve stepped in front of Johnny and pushed the paper away. “He doesn’t need to see that.”

The guard shifted as he took in Johnny’s face, saw how shadows multiplied in the hollow places. “I didn’t mean nothing.”

“Is the boss in?” Steve interrupted.

The guard hooked a thumb at an office door but kept his eyes on Johnny. Johnny followed Steve’s gaze and saw a window and white blinds sheathed in dust. An eye peered out and the blinds snapped shut. “Shit,” Steve muttered. “Has he been looking for me?”

“Should he be?”

Steve shrugged, but looked nervous. “Anything exciting?”

“One shoplifter. Two D-and-Ds.”

Steve explained. “Drunk and disorderly.” He tapped Johnny on the shoulder and crossed the room. “Come here,” he said, and Johnny followed him past the bank of monitors to a wall of glass that was nine feet high and twice as long. The view was onto the Food Court. Steve tapped the glass. “Mirrored,” he said.

Johnny peered through the windows and could see everything spread out below: storefronts and food stands, escalators, people. The fat guard ambled up, cupped both hands and breathed deeply. “This must be what God feels like.” Johnny wanted to laugh at the absurdity of the comment, the sheer smallness of it.

Then he saw Jack.

Red-faced, humiliated, awkward-looking Jack.

He stood at the edge of the crowd, a small, tan boy with a shriveled arm and no meanness in his entire body. He stood, taking it, because fighting back would get him nowhere, and because walking away would imply that he actually cared about the shame that was being heaped upon him. His tormentors were seniors, lean, muscled kids with self-aware smiles.

Johnny cringed when he saw spit go down the back of Jack’s shirt; but his anger spiked when he saw Jack’s brother, who stood ten feet away and did nothing to stop it. He was surrounded by fawning girls, four at least.

Johnny pointed. “Do you see that?”

Steve leaned forward. “Gerald Cross? Yeah, I see it. The girls have been like that ever since he signed with Clemson. He’ll go pro in a year. His contract will be ten million, minimum.”

“Not him.”

“Then what?”

“Can I go down there?”

Steve shrugged. “Go. Stay. I’m not your daddy.”

Johnny pounded down the stairs, through the security door and into the crowd. He smelled pizza and scorched beef, the crush of overheated bodies and, somewhere, an unchanged diaper. He angled for Jack and heard his name whispered. Fingers pointed.

That’s the guy.

It took Johnny a minute to understand, but then he did.

The story was everywhere.

By the time he crossed the Food Court, a dozen people were watching him, but he didn’t care. One of the seniors was snapping rabbit punches at Jack’s bad arm, hitting beneath the meat of the shoulder, right where the hollow bone had the least protection. Jack was trying to hide it, but Johnny saw that his friend was about to cry.

Johnny bulled his way into the group and punched the senior as hard as he could. He connected with the kid’s mouth, felt whiskers, teeth, and the ripe softness of a burst lip. The guy stumbled left, caught himself, and his hands came up, fisted. He drew back to throw a punch, then recognized Johnny. “Holy shit,” he said.

Johnny stared at the startled brown eyes, the stained teeth, and the long hair spiked with gel. The kid spit blood and stepped away. “Damn freak.”

Johnny shook with rage, with a long year’s silence and with all of the things he’d repressed since waking in a hospital room stained red. The senior mistook the trembling for fear and started to smile, then looked over Johnny’s head at the suddenly watchful crowd. He lowered his hands, tried to laugh it all off. “Easy, Pocahontas.”

No one else laughed. Johnny was a celebrity of the darkest kind, a strange, wild kid with eyes that were savage and black. He’d seen things no boy was supposed to see. He’d lost a twin, found Tiffany Shore, and maybe killed a man.

He was war paint and fire.

Insane.

Johnny held up a single finger, then looked into his friend’s bright, brimming eyes. “Let’s get out of here.”

He started to leave, then saw Gerald, who stood three rows back, tall and broad, with sandy hair and skin the color of fired clay. Johnny pulled Jack into his wake, and the crowd parted. He stopped in front of Gerald and saw how the pretty girls stepped back, how naked Gerald looked without them.

Johnny dragged Jack from his shadow and draped an arm around his neck. He did not see how his friend lowered his eyes and rolled a curve into his spine, did not see the shame and the fear and the quick, nervous twitch. Gerald towered over Johnny, ten inches taller, a hundred pounds heavier. He was summer sweat and green grass, a hero in the making, but no one watching could doubt who was in charge.

Johnny held up the same finger, stabbed Gerald in the meat of his chest. “He’s your brother, you dick. What’s wrong with you?”

The boys stalked through the press of silent people. Johnny looked straight ahead and tried to avoid eye contact, but he did see one person he recognized, another senior, tall with white-blond hair and wide-set eyes. It was Detective Hunt’s son, Allen. From the river. Alone, in steel-toed boots and a jean jacket, he leaned against a column near the back of the crowd. A toothpick rolled between his teeth, and he guarded his eyes. When Johnny looked at him, he neither blinked nor moved. Just the toothpick. Side to side.

The security door accepted the key card that Steve had given him. The door clicked open and Johnny pushed through, into a cool, open space that smelled of damp and cement. Stairs rose to the right and beneath them was a low, gray space. Jack threw himself onto the floor, back against the wall, feet drawn up. Johnny sat next to him. Chewing gum made dark marks on the floor. One of Jack’s shoes was untied, and his jeans, at the knees, were stained with grass.

“Well,” Johnny said. “That sucked.”

Jack put his face on his knees and Johnny looked up. His fingers explored a rivet, then a weld line. When Jack’s face came up, Johnny saw wet spots that turned the grass stains black.

“How did you get us in here?”

“Uncle Steve.”

Jack sucked in two quick breaths, smeared mucus along the back of his bad arm.

“Those guys are dicks,” Johnny said.

Jack sniffed. “Shit munchers.”

“Yeah. Asswipes.”

Jack laughed, a nervous expulsion, and Johnny relaxed. “What was that all about?”

“He wanted me to say something,” Jack explained. “I wouldn’t do it.” Johnny looked the question and Jack shrugged. “Jocks rule. Gimps drool.”

“Fucking Gerald. How’s your arm?”

Jack rotated his arm at the shoulder, then pressed it across his chest. He pointed at Johnny’s chest. Bandages were visible above the buttons. “You’re bleeding, man.”

“I tore some stitches.”

Jack stared at the bandages. “Is that from the other night?”

The bandages darkened. Johnny pulled the shirt closed.

“I should have gone with you, Johnny. When you asked me for help, I should have gone.”

“It wouldn’t have made a difference,” Johnny said.

Jack beat a fist on his leg. “I’m a bad friend.” The fist sounded like a hammer on meat. “I am”-he paused, hitting again-“a bad friend.”

“Stop that.”

“I didn’t do anything for Alyssa.”

“You couldn’t have.”

“I saw it happen.”

“There was nothing you could do, Jack.”

But Jack ignored him. “I didn’t do anything for you.” He hit again, hard.

“Stop it, Jack.”

Jack stopped. “Is it true?” He looked at Johnny. “The stuff that they’re saying about you? You know?” He made a motion over his face, fingers wiggling.

Johnny knew what he meant. “Some of it, I guess.”

“What the hell, Johnny?”

Johnny looked at his friend, and knew, without a doubt, that Jack could never understand Johnny’s desperate need to believe in something more powerful than his own two hands. Jack had never felt the loss or the fear. He had never lived the nightmare that had become Johnny’s life, but he wasn’t stupid, either.

Johnny had to tell him something.

“You remember that book we read in English? The Lord of the Flies? About those boys on the deserted island and how they go feral with no adults around to tell them different. They make spears and blood paint. They run wild through the jungle, hunt pigs, beat drums. You remember?”

“Yeah. So?”

“One day they were normal, then one day the rules didn’t matter anymore. They made up their own rules, their own beliefs.” He paused. “Sometimes I feel like those boys.”

“Those kids tried to kill each other. They went insane.”

“Insane?”

“Yeah.”

Johnny shrugged. “I really like that book.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“Maybe.”

Jack picked at a thread on his jeans, looked around at the concrete and stairs. “I thought you hated your Uncle Steve.”

Johnny explained about DSS, Detective Hunt. “That’s why.”

“I wouldn’t do anything special for that cop,” Jack said.

“What do you mean?”

He waved a hand. “Stuff I hear from my dad. Cop stuff.”

“Like what?”

“Like he’s sweet on your mom. That they’ve been… you know.”

“Bullshit.”

“That’s what my dad says.”

“Well, your dad’s a liar.”

“He probably is.”

A silence fell. They were awkward together for the first time. “You want to spend the night?” Johnny asked. “It’s just Steve’s place, but, you know-”

“My dad won’t let me hang out with you.”

“Why not?”

“Lord of the Flies, man. He thinks you’re dangerous.” Jack tipped his head against the wall. Johnny did the same. “Dangerous,” Jack said. “Dangerous is cool.”

“Not if we can’t hang out.”

They fell into another long silence. “I really loved your dad,” Jack said. “He made me feel like the arm didn’t matter.”

“It doesn’t.”

“I hate my family.”

“No, you don’t.”

Jack wrapped his arms around his knees and his fingers went white where he squeezed them. “You remember last year? When I broke my arm?”

The arm was weak; it broke easily. Johnny remembered at least three times that Jack had been in a cast. Last year, though, had been a bad one, with breaks in four places. Fixing it took more surgeries: screws and pins and other bits of metal. “I remember.”

“Gerald’s the one that did it.” The small hand danced at the end of its narrow wrist. Jack’s voice fell down a well. “That’s why my dad gave me the new bike.”

“Jack-”

“That’s why I never ride it.”

“Shit, man.”

“I hate my family.”