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Chapter 42

Mike blinked back to consciousness in a motel room with a vague recollection of driving for hours to put as much distance between him and Jocelyn Wilder’s foster home as possible. Space, he hoped, would lessen temptation. Snowball II was mashed in his fist, and between his legs was a brown-bagged bottle of Jack Daniel’s, though he had no memory of wanting to get drunk. He sat with the TV flickering across his face, pulling from the bottle, craving numbness, but he’d had no more than two gulps when he vomited in the corner. He saw himself from the outside – one shoe off, belt undone, curled on the coarse carpet. And then Annabel appeared, kneeling over him, hand on his shoulder, saying, It’s okay, I’m here, We’ll get through this together, but when he rolled over, she bled into a surprising blast of light from the high-set window.

He was cold in his bones where the rays couldn’t reach. He thought he should shower, but he found he already was, the scalding water raising streaks on his chest and arms, though he couldn’t quit shivering. Closing his eyes, he retreated into bleached-out memories of his mother. That yellow-tiled kitchen. Looking up as she’d bathed him, her black-brown hair draped along one tan arm. Patchouli and sage, the flesh-warm scent of cinnamon. That spot of blood – her blood? – on his father’s cuff.

A dead patch of time.

And then the room was dark and he was trembling beneath an icy spout, the hot water having long run out.

Next he was wet on the floor, wrapped in a bedsheet, hugging the shopping bag containing the gun and his remaining cash. The room was a mess – splotch of puke, tipped-over chair, sheets pulled onto the floor to form a nest.

The door opened, and a fall of light from the corridor landed on his face, making him blink. Then the door closed, heavy footsteps padded across to him, and a man’s shadow darkened his sight.

They were here, at last, to kill him.

‘Get up,’ Shep said.

A hand lowered into the fuzzy edge of Mike’s vision. Mike considered it with stunned incomprehension.

His voice, hoarse from disuse: ‘How’d you find me?’

‘You called me. You told me what you had to do. Now get up.’

Mike took his hand. Shep hoisted him to his feet.

Shep crossed and set a worn brown paper bag on the crappy kitchenette counter. He removed a sleek black cell, a Batphone replacement, and tossed it at Mike. Next came the Colt.45 and a police scanner, which Shep plugged into the outlet by the microwave: ‘-1080, you got a location? That’s affirmative. I’m on scene at 1601 Elwood, back window looks to be broken. How many units we got in the area?’ He thumbed down the volume, leaving it loud enough to keep an ear on, then unpacked can after can of SpaghettiOs, setting them in a row by the sink.

‘What… what day is it?’

‘Monday. Eight-seventeen P.M. You’re back in California – Redlands.’

Had he really left Kat just yesterday?

‘Her glasses,’ Mike murmured. Pushing a fist to his forehead, he rocked a little. ‘I forgot. She needs a new pair to read-’

Shep opened a can of SpaghettiOs with a pocketknife, stuck in a plastic spork, and handed it to Mike. ‘Eat. We got business to handle in the morning, and I can’t have you all pale and shaky.’

‘Annabel could be dead by now,’ Mike said.

‘Eat.’

‘Tell me which hospital. I need to call-’

‘You can’t-’

‘-just to know.’

‘Then you’re willing to kill her. And us. And Kat.’ Shep grabbed the phone from the nightstand and, trailing the cord, held it out to Mike. A dare.

Mike stared at the phone hatefully. But didn’t reach for it.

Shep set the phone down and extended, again, the SpaghettiOs.

Mike took the can and did his best. Chew. Swallow. Repeat.

He looked around, seeing the mess through Shep’s eyes. The whole room was gravid with sullenness, as if it had been dipped in gray. The SpaghettiOs had turned to sour mush in his mouth. He gagged them down, wiped his lips angrily. ‘Why are you here?’

Shep said, ‘What?’

‘You could’ve told me off when I first called. After how we left things back when. But I knew you wouldn’t. I knew if I needed you, you’d be there in a heartbeat.’ The sentiment was coming out, bizarrely, as anger, a slow boil of a resentment Mike hadn’t known he was harboring. ‘Maybe you want me to be a criminal again. Maybe you were lonely.’

Shep chewed his food. Scooped another sporkful. Paused. ‘Maybe,’ he said.

‘You don’t owe me,’ Mike said. ‘Not for serving three months’ time for you.’

‘You think that’s why I’m doing this?’ Shep was utterly, infuriatingly calm. Thoughtful, even. ‘Because I owe you?’

‘Why else?’ Mike banged SpaghettiOs down on the TV, a blood spray erupting from the can to dot his forearm. There was relief in yielding to his temper, to using the old muscles in the old ways. He needed to strain and hurt and growl into the face of something. ‘Why else?’

Shep took another hearty bite. Scraped the bottom of the can. ‘Never gave it much thought,’ he said, his mouth full.

‘Of course not.’ Mike felt his top lip curling. ‘That would be beneath you. Because you’re guided by unerring instinct-’

‘That one o’ your SAT words?’

‘You’re too pure to think. You’ve always known just who you are. Not like me.’

‘No past,’ Shep said.

‘But I do have a past. I never left it behind. What was a lie was where I thought I was headed. The cover-up over those pipes, that bullshit award – I knew it was wrong. But I went along. And now.’ A growl escaped Mike’s clenched teeth. ‘I don’t know how you fucking stand to look at me.’

‘That’s what you never learned,’ Shep said.

‘What?’

‘Acceptance.’ Shep shrugged. ‘It is what it is.’

‘What is?’

‘Everything.’

‘The hell does that mean?’

‘Take your father. You been holding a grudge against him for how many years now? Black-and-white world. Him playing the role of black. What’s that leave you?’ Shep cranked open another steel can and dug into it, his appetite unhampered. ‘Your father’s betrayal – that’s been your North Star. And now? Leaving a kid behind?’ He held out his hands, a rare superfluous gesture, the spork sticking out of the can, a little white flag. ‘Black isn’t black today. White isn’t white. And maybe it never was. Maybe it’s all a goddamned mess and we do the best we can.’

‘That’s what you’ve done? The best you can?’

‘There was one time I didn’t. I was beaten down and couldn’t get up. And you made sure. You made sure I got up. And I vowed after that moment, I will never stay down again.’ Shep wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and glared at Mike, as if he couldn’t figure out it was a challenge.

All the heat went out of Mike. He took a wobbly step back and sank to the mattress. He tilted his cheeks to his palms and sat there, pouring his face through his hands. ‘I remember when we went to Ventura Harbor to ride the carousel,’ Mike said. ‘She was three, and she wanted the chicken. But these other kids kept getting it. I mean, it had to be the goddamned chicken. Who puts a chicken on a carousel anyway? And we waited and waited, but I couldn’t get it for her.’

‘What are you telling me?’ Shep asked.

‘I picture her in that home and what will happen to her if I fail,’ Mike said, ‘and I think I might die.’

He couldn’t look up, but he heard Shep set down the can, right the chair, and pull it over. An exhale as he sat.

‘I never been responsible to or for anyone in my life,’ Shep said. ‘To take that on, it’s a courageous thing. But you can’t do it now. Not with what we’re going into.’

He leaned forward so his head butted against Mike’s. Same position, same posture, the two of them staring down at the threadbare carpet. Shep shoved a little, solicitously, crown to crown.

‘You want her back,’ he said.

Mike said, ‘Yes.’

‘Safe.’

‘Yes.’

‘Then you have to be nothing. Want nothing. You can’t have them – Kat or Annabel – if you need them. You’re not a husband. You’re not a father. You’re a man with a task. Understand?’

‘Yes.’

‘Get some sleep. We start early.’

Mike cleaned up the room a bit and lay on the mattress. Beside him Shep’s eyes were closed and his breathing regular, but Mike couldn’t tell if he was out or not.

The ceiling was cracked in infinite patterns, a tangle of tree roots.

Mike said, ‘I will never turn my back on you again.’

Silence. Mike figured Shep was asleep, but then he answered, ‘You done with your conscience yet? ’Cuz where we’re going, it’s gonna get in the way.’

They lay there in the darkness. Mike was unsure when he crossed into sleep, but when he awoke to the sound of the shower, the clock showed 4:14 A.M. Shep emerged from the bathroom a few minutes later, towel around his waist, the shower left running behind him like in the old days when they had to cycle six or seven bodies through on any given morning before the hot water ran out.

Mike said, ‘I should probably ditch the car I stole.’

Shep tossed him a set of keys, then crossed and parted the curtains. Gleaming in the front spot was a forest green Saab.

Reluctantly, Mike matched Shep’s smirk. He showered off, then swiped the steam from the mirror. Shep’s Dopp kit was sitting there on the metal ledge, the electric clippers poking up into view. Mike lifted the razor and turned it this way and that, as if reviewing an old photograph. The plastic blade guards were loose in the Dopp kit. He found the right attachment, snapped it on.

Shep called out through the door, ‘Ready?’

The clippers sat heavy in Mike’s hand, like a weapon. The mirror had misted over again, so he cleared it with a washcloth and studied his reflection.

Then he turned on the razor and took his hair down to foster-home length. He toweled off his head and stepped out into the main room.

‘Ready,’ he said.

Shoulder to shoulder, they headed into the parking lot.