She introduced herself. “Hi. My name is Kelly. Kelly Macintosh. Like the apple.” She had a soft accent that was sweet and slow, almost as if she had learned English as a second language. There were some that suggested southern drawls were a second language.
“Andrew,” I said using one of the names I’d seen in Peebles’ wallet.
“Haven’t seen you around here before.”
“Naw. Just moved in last week. We’re staying at the motel down the street,” I lied after having seen the Clarion Suites.
“Looking for a place to rent? You and your…family?”
“Just me and my dad. Yeah, he lost his job and we moved away where he could find work.”
“The chicken processing plant? My mom works there. Maybe she could get him in.”
“No. He’s into construction.” That’s what I remembered from the stuff in DeCarlos’ car.
“You gonna be in Poplar High School?” She looked down as her phone played the old country tune, Hillbilly Rock. “Gotta go.” She wrote her phone number on my napkin and scooted off to join the crowd of teenagers as they left en masse. All I could see was Rachel’s face, her dark eyes and black as midnight hair. I wanted to put my head down on the table and bawl, I didn’t want any girl to think I was fair game or interested in them when my heart was still reeling over her death.
I picked up my garbage, dumped it unnecessarily hard into the can and went out the back door to wander aimlessly down the street. Two avenues over was a strip mall and a Walmart. The parking lot was well-lit with video cameras at the tops of poles. I watched them swivel as they panned the lot but most were too high to record more than general impressions of a face. The cameras inside the store were a different story but I saw and avoided them whenever I could.
Walmart had a good selection of pre-paid phones that didn’t have to be registered. I bought the cheapest smartphone, a 200 minutes’ card and spent an hour in the bathroom charging and re-wiring the cell so that it did more than take photos, make calls or text. In short, I made another quipp that I could use to do any number of illegal things.
I used the browser to look up DeCarlos’ phone number which gave me access to his e-mails, his home PC and his work’s. He was not just in construction, he owned the company. One of the tenth largest in the South called Cherokee Engineering and Construction.
I typed, Leon, your girlfriend misses you. Can we meet? I need money for a new dye job, a funeral suit and flowers for an empty casket. Omikiya yo.
Sent it to his work PC and waited. I didn’t know if he was in his office, on a job site, on his phone or even back to work after the accident. I couldn’t wait in the men’s room much longer, I’d already had two irate men pounding on my stall door and demanding I get out. I gathered up my gear, slung the backpack over my shoulder and wandered through the men's section picking out a change of clothes.
I bought new jeans, underwear, socks, sneakers, two flannel shirts, t-shirts, long underwear and a rain jacket. Then, I had to purchase another backpack to carry it all as the sleeping bag took up most of the room in the other pack. I wanted to get a new sleeping bag but I was afraid to spend more money as the clerk was already eyeballing the roll of bills in my wallet.
After that, I wandered down the street to a coffee shop called Java Joe’s that had free Wi-Fi and computer stations. I sat near one with a large mocha latte which cost a cheap two bucks and surfed the web, checking out the NSA, CIA, and HS sites. Googled Albans and found out that President Hamilton was no longer in office and his ex-wife was not the Director of the CIA anymore. Instead, it was Allan Chase and Dr. Cameron was listed as one of the scientists on his staff.
There was no mention of Rachel Little Bear’s death and nothing on Yahoo about the Casinos or its CEO. I did find several articles on the accident, scores of news blogs on Senator Lourdes and only a bare mention about Michael Faraday returning home to his family estates in Vermont.
My phone vibrated and I touched the screen to open an e-mail from horseofadifferentcolor@gmail.com.
Who is this? How did you get my e-mail address?
I texted back Meet me at the place where sorrow begins. E wang oh ma nee yo. Your kisses suck.
Doha, he texted me. I grinned. For the first time in a long time, I felt a lift of optimism.
Long shadows followed me as I scuffed my feet through the litter and debris in the street gutters. This small town had sidewalks and the businesses that comprised the downtown area were mostly chain places like Rite-aid, dollar stores, and Piggly-Wiggly. Most of the mom and pop places were gone and what remained were Insurance agencies, a few knick-knack places, thrift shops and a hardware shop. Liquor and quite a few bars were next to the empty store fronts.
I didn’t see a police station but that didn’t mean there wasn’t one. There were a few people walking around and the usual crowd hanging around outside the bars smoking in the chill air. A few looked like they could be Dwayne Peebles cousins. One of them wore mechanics’ coveralls. I suspected I seemed a likely target for them with my two backpacks and rough appearance. I looked like I had spent the night under a bush. A perfect mugging victim or bait for chicken hawks.
Time to find a place to hole up until I could get a ride to my meet with Leon. I went inside the Rite-aid, bought myself a cold Pepsi and used the smartphone to find the bus station, its schedule and pay for a ticket to the town of Hartford, Tn. It wasn’t far, just about an hour’s drive upstate, over the border into Tennessee. I then set the phone into GPS mode so that it worked just like a Garmin in a car, although once I had seen the route, I had memorized it and didn’t need the map. Walking through the coming dusk staring at a phone screamed ‘tourist and victim.’
I walked past the bar again on my way back to the bus depot. Three of the smokers got up off the bench, threw out their cigarettes and started to follow me.
“Hey, kid,” one called. He was over six feet, greasy gray long hair in a ponytail with an acne-scarred face. Worn jeans none too clean, Carhart jacket and boots held together with duct tape. “You got any money on you?”
“No.” I kept walking.
“You a runaway? Hey, stop!” He started to come after me. I ran, both packs thumping against my back and knee slowing me down. After a few yards, he stopped, bent over and gasped, his wind gone between the smoking and booze. He cursed me and I threw him the finger until I heard the loud chortle of an unmuffled car behind me. An old rust bucket Firebird in a two-tone orange and gray primer stopped to pick him up and come after me. I ran. Skidded around a corner and nearly fell on the hood of a Mini-Cooper in white and blue racing stripes. The door opened on the rear driver’s side and that girl Kelly yelled to get in. I didn’t waste time, I bailed in head first and she was stomping the gas pedal before my legs had cleared the door.
I landed on another kid’s lap, a lanky boy with spiked brown hair, brown eyes and rings in his lips. He pushed me off his lap and shoved me into the empty seat behind the passenger side.
“Bit of trouble, Andy?” she asked accelerating down a straightaway with old warehouses interspersed with apartment buildings. I caught a few street signs, enough to let me know where I was. We weren’t heading towards the bus station but out of town towards Route 8 where I wanted to go. I turned to watch the back view and didn’t see any muscle car headlights following.
“Relax, those drunks won’t follow us for long,” the boy shrugged. “They can barely remember the way home.”
“Yeah? How do you know?” I snapped.
“Cuz one’s my dad.”
I drew up the image of the group on the bench, compared the facial structure of all and picked out the one closest to the boy’s features. The blocky man in coveralls with Thom’s Garage.
“Thom’s Garage?”
“That’s my hero,” he sneered. “Thomas Healey, mechanic, stock car driver, and weekend alcoholic.”
“It isn’t the weekend,” I said stupidly.
“His weekend starts on Monday morning and doesn’t end until the following Sunday evening. His buddies drink 24/7. Actually, I’m sure old Bernie doesn’t have a license anymore. Those plates on the Firebird must be stolen.”
Just then, I spotted the car and they must have seen us, too because the roar of his muffler doubled as the car leaped forward. He was going to catch us in seconds.
“Oh shit,” Kelly said and twisted the wheel to the right, running a red light and nearly clipping a park bench as she barreled down an alley clearly not designed for an automobile. I saw the street sign. Culver Avenue.
“Turn right on the next road. Pearson St.,” I said and she did as it came up quickly. “Left on Ames. Right on Anderson, right on Jackson, right on Stillway,” I said, the map of the town in my head. She obeyed without question and it brought us to a car lot’s front gate that was unlocked and hanging open. The boy jumped out and opened the chain-link, Kelly drove in and he latched it behind us. She parked in the second inner row of cars where a passing vehicle could not spot her Mini-Coop. the engine ticked as it cooled, the springs settled as he returned to the back seat.
“Andy, this is Rake. Rake, Andy,” she said.
“Rake? What kind of name is Rake?”
“Nickname,” he answered briefly.
“You know your way around pretty well for a dude that just got into town,” Kelly observed. “How’d you know where this place was?”
I showed them my phone with a map of the route I had just downloaded. “How did you find me? Were you looking for me?” I asked her. “Why? Why did you come back and help me?”
“You’re a runaway, aren’t you?” she asked instead.
“No. More of an escapee.”
“Juvie?” He sounded sympathetic.
“Sort of. Mental institution.” I waited to see if that made them nervous but neither blinked an eye. “Look, I need a ride to the bus station. Can you drop me off there?”
“You just got here, Andy. What’s your hurry to leave our beautiful little town?”
Before I could blink, Rake stabbed me in the side with a Taser. The electrical storm that seized my muscles also disrupted the nerve impulses in my brain causing a massive seizure, unlike anything I had ever felt before.
I came awake slowly, my body sore and aching, my brain sluggish and unable to come to grips with what had happened. I remembered a car chasing me and then…a lightning storm. I was tied up, that I recognized. I thought I was back in the special room with Albans but this place smelled different. Almost like a…garage. I groaned and struggled to lift my head. As I opened my eyes, I was stunned to see that I was in a garage and chained to one of those lift things, hanging halfway from the ceiling.
An old Chevy Impala was on blocks in the next bay. On its hood stood the boy named Rake and next to him on the oil-stained cement floor was Kelly.
“Why?” I asked, painfully, memories flooding back into my head. I remembered him tasering me.
“You’re on the Net,” she shrugged. “Big reward for info on your whereabouts, a million bucks if you’re caught unharmed.”
I was silent. “The office of Homeland Security and the NSA are after you. What did you do? You some kind of terrorist?”
“NO! I’m no terrorist! Please, you have to let me go,” I begged.
She held up my cell phone and my wad of cash, the IDs, and Peebles’ wallet. “You kill all these people to get their stuff?”
“No! I stole it off a drug dealer in the woods. Please, let me go,” I repeated.
“Can’t. They’re on the way to get you,” she returned.
“You think they’ll pay you? They’ll snatch me, stiff you or worse---you’ll just disappear,” I said. “They’ll kill you to get me back.”
She snorted in derision. “We’ve got you hidden where no one will ever find you.”
“His dad’s garage? The first place they’ll look for me. Your house, his house and your parents’ places of business. Your friends and your hang-outs. These people are covert spies,” I said with scorn. “You think you’re smart enough to fool spies?”
She spat, turned and walked out slamming the lever that raised me another eight feet into the air so that my nose was only a foot from the insulated ceiling. From the looks of the roof, Thom the Mechanic had raised a few cars too high before. They turned off the lights and I watched the moonlight filter through small cracks in the ceiling.