A Man Came Out of a Door in the Mountain (16 page)

Behind them, Vincent had managed to extricate Markus, whose now-familiar moan rent the night air behind Tessa. A kind of inquisitive bellowing followed as Vincent cursed and tried to hush Markus. The sound might just as well have come from her; she felt it strike deep in her belly. And even as the figure before her advanced with eerie certainty, she fled. She ran straight back to the P&P, feeling a damp breath on her neck, the man's smoke pinching her lungs. She flew so fast, she ran right out of one shoe, leaving it among the wood-chip mulch that bordered the motel's walkway. She arrived at the door Vincent was opening, oh, brilliant embrace of light, the blinding fluorescence, just in time to ease under Markus's good arm and stagger with him into what, at that moment, surely must have felt like safety.

“Yeah,” Markus crooned, “oh yeah, baby.”

His eyes would not fully open, but a dumb smile crept onto his face and stayed there even as he drifted away again.

Vincent dumped Markus on the bed, ignoring his new cast—hadn't they all seen worse. That was as far as he planned to go, it was clear.

“Keep him quiet, will you?” he told Tessa.

“He'll have to be out of here by eleven tomorrow, unless one of youse pays for another night,” Vincent told her, as if she were in charge.

Oh, sure, Tessa thought. Once Vincent scuttled away, she locked the door and put the chain up and, after a moment, also pushed the single unbolted chair against it. Vincent's remark had reminded her of the money in her pocket—not tissues, stupid!—and she tried to squirm it back into Markus's pocket but he'd rolled onto his good side by then, and his broken arm covered the other pocket. She thought about sticking it under his pillow or setting it on the nightstand, but what if he didn't see it there? She pushed the money back into her own pocket for the time being.

Oh, to go home. She wanted desperately to go home. She tried the phone, imagining she could call her feckless sister, but the line was dead, and she couldn't—she couldn't—face the man outside again. A charge was still racing through her, but the screaming pain in her cheek was much diminished. The room swooned thick and sour with the day's heat, but she didn't dare crack a window, imagining a familiar wrinkled hand, grayed to ash, suddenly clutching the sill from the outside. A fan switch on the wall produced no result.

She held her ear against the door, and in the brief, heartrending interlude before Markus began to snore, she heard footsteps—oh, the lightest, most assured of taps—passing in the open corridor. Markus was already insensible to the world. He wasn't going to hurt her tonight. Gazing at his tousled hair, the white gleam of his pale face, that openmouthed, uncluttered expression, she felt oddly sure of that. First sign of dawn, she'd get out of there. For now, all she could do was wait. She flicked off every light and curled up as best as she could in the room's only chair, the vinyl bucket with a long, curved crack in its back she'd managed painfully to drag against the door. She was determined to wait out the hours to sunrise, but was so exhausted she soon fell into a deep hole of a dream, one that might have carried her well past midday if, sometime around eight that next morning, a heavy banging had not begun on the door—a violent, boot-kicking frenzy that not only yanked her by the back of her neck from the nightmare ravine she'd fallen into but also sent her flying, a rag-doll weight, from the slick vinyl chair against the bed with such force, she continued banging first against the night table, then the wall beyond, until she came to rest (if one could call that broken pose “rest”) directly beneath the stained bedspread that Markus in his restless sleep had thrown to the floor. The entire action occupied mere seconds. Whoever engineered the broken door, the soaring chair, apparently missed Tessa's own flight. Neither did anyone notice her landing. Momentarily, the fall crushed Tessa. Even so, she had the presence of mind to reach out two fingers and snag the bottom edge of the bedspread and draw it closer as she swiftly rolled beneath the bed that was the only defense between her and whatever new rage had catapulted her to this spot.

“Hey, asshole,” a male voice boomed as the bedsprings above her bounced inches away from her stiff, sore face. “Wake up. Where's the fucking money?”

Half eight in the morning and Norbee and his pals were howling like banshees. In the kitchen, my mother's cousin Trudy was shoving raw eggs and brewer's yeast and, with tongs, the bristled ends of nettles into a blender as my mother hustled down the hallway to stand at the end of my bed and shake one of my toes hard until I jolted awake in pain.

“Leo,” she said. “Get up. Go stop that racket.”

No use to complain, to point out whose dogs they were. No, my mother had no use for any arguments I'd give. My mother wanted me up. She and Trudy had the blender tonics to fix and, with any luck, to get down Uncle Lud before she'd go to work. And more: she had to bathe Uncle Lud with downy cloths dipped in warmed-up holy water; make up the bed beneath him with fresh sheets dried with seven dryer sheets then hung out on the line just long enough to get wind-blown and sun-soaked, sweet-smelling and soft enough, she reckoned, not to chafe his newly delicate skin; and, last of all, murmur her secret, incantatory, and customized Catholic prayers into the open nest of his two hands. She had no time to waste on any nonsense arriving from my direction. So she monitored the hallway, her crossed-arm pose hustling me from bed to washroom to kitchen and straight out the back door before I was fully awake.

Outside, Bryan crouched on the old picnic table, mere yards away from the howling dogs, who gradually shushed at my approach as if ceding this dangerous intruder into my care. If Bryan glanced in my direction as I slid on the bench beside him, I didn't notice. Bryan's attention seemed pinned on my mother's animal graveyard. Norbee, who longed for nothing more than to dig in that semi-sacred spot, wandered to the end of his chain and stared with us toward the newest grave, heaped high and decorated, as all the others, with a nice flat hunk of mountain shale.

“I never noticed all that before,” Bryan said. “Is that what they call a rock garden?”

“Not exactly,” I said. “It's my mother's . . . project.”

“What's she growing?”

“You couldn't knock?” I said.

Bryan seemed to come more awake then. He cocked his head toward the driveway, where Trudy's Monarch sat behind my mother's dented station wagon. Well beyond, the tailgate of his old truck was visible. He'd parked all the way at the end of the driveway, pointing downhill for a quick getaway.

“Didn't want to bother your mother and her cousin.”

Trudy scared the hell out of Bryan. He was convinced from local rumors and folks who knew her from the fire station that she could read minds and see the future. She'd once summoned a fire truck to an old sawmill a good five minutes before a blaze actually sparked. The truck arrived as the manager was beginning his frantic dialing for help. Bryan had been there. Fucking eerie, he said. No, Bryan kept his distance, oblivious to how he was riling Trudy and my mother by stirring up the dogs.

“Scared she'll read your evil mind,” I tried to joke, “this early in the morning?”

I yawned, stretching out on top of the picnic table and taking a deep breath. That simple act undid me. I flew up and bent over into a hacking fit as if I were a pack-a-day man. I finally managed to catch my breath and shot Bryan an accusing look.

“What've you been doing out here?” I said.

Bryan shrugged. “It's not me, man,” he said. “Check it out.”

He gestured toward the southeast and the dying hills studded with the reddish-brown boughs of dead jack pine. I could see now how heavy and low, how beleaguered the sky was, as if it were straining to contain the smoke we couldn't fully see rising from the hills. The mountains to the south and east had all but disappeared under that lowered sky, the two pressed together. Even while folks had been eating themselves up alive with all kinds of new self-inflicted sickness down here in town, a mass of pine beetles had been at work in the forests as if to show them how destruction's really done. It doesn't take much, we'd learned, to ignite catastrophe among the weak. I could taste ashes, and I wondered aloud how long it would be before they closed the camp down the other way and Jackie would be back in town, taunting both the police and every local hoodlum she could before their own possible evacuation alert arrived.

“Looks like a bad one, eh?” Bryan seemed weirdly pleased. “That will empty the hills.”

“Jackie,” I said, shaking my head. I could guess what she'd have to say about Bryan's plan.

I laughed as if I had heard her voice, crooning from an open car window in the made-up accent she used to mock:
Hey gangsta, hey baby. Where's da boyz at, eh?
Gone ta do a roundy wit out ya?
Bryan's old friend Dean had been a wannabe. That was before he had all those babies and succumbed to Religion—which warranted a new epic tattoo (Jesus on the mountain) to finish the sleeve on his left arm (his two babies' names and likenesses decorated the other arm)—and spent every free moment he was not at a meeting playing video games in the basement or selling for Flacker and the Nagles. Jackie sometimes felt guilty for how she got on him, considering his piss-poor prospects. That didn't stop her from getting up into even crazier faces, like the Nagle brothers, who everyone knew were using Dean. She didn't like that Dean sold pot for them at the little kids' school and really hated that Bryan took over for him sometimes. She didn't know the half of it, but she guessed, and she put on her Big-Bad-Girl-Don't-Piss-Me-Off act the moment they entered the vicinity, spitting on the sidewalk like a guy. At least once, they actually understood she was ranting at them.

“You gonna get yourself killed one day, bitch,” GF Nagle finally said to her when he saw her alone at the Sub-Rite. “And it ain't gonna be a pretty passing.”

“Jackie's already left the camp,” Bryan said. “I saw one of the fallers getting coffee this morning at the service station. She's probably sleeping away the day in her own bed. I would be if I were her.”

Looking up toward the hazy hills, I inhaled another harsh breath, and my eyes teared as if the fire had already begun to race toward town. With the camp closed, I realized, and Jackie already back in town, Hana Swann must be here as well, all gleaming and subdued. I couldn't imagine such a sight on Fuller Street. Thinking of her made me glance at the Band-Aid on my finger, my trigger finger.

“I'll grab the gun,” I told Bryan.

“Leo,” he said with a sigh, “you are the dumbest smart guy ever. Didn't you see those hills?”

But Tessa,
I wanted to whine.
What about Tessa? How will I see her today?

“No way we're heading to the refuse station today with that fire. Ursie doesn't even know how long she'll have to stay. We heard all the camps have to close. She thinks she might be up at the P&P through the evening, getting the place ready for the crowds,” Bryan said. “Auntie will be there, though. She'll bring her home tonight. Even stay with her if I'm not back.”

“Back from where?” I said.

“Listen, your dad still go fishing?”

“Not in a while.” I grimaced, waiting for the joke. My father's idea of fishing was to dynamite a section of river and scoop up whatever surfaced with a net, a technique that never failed to elicit downright ridicule from Bryan and Ursie.

“I need to borrow something of his from the shed then, yeah?”

“You'll get it back before he gets home?”

“Oh, sure,” Bryan said, sliding off the table.

Not that my father would notice much even when he did get home again. Years ago, he might have inventoried that shed on every return, practically counting the nails and the spray cans. It had been a long time, though, since he'd showed much interest. He kept a few tools in the mudroom—old tools he designated for my use—since he'd kicked most of the chores my way, leaving detailed lists about firewood and caulking guns as if he imagined my mother and I were totally ignorant.

Bryan was already fiddling with the shed door by the time I found my feet again, an empty sack he'd been sitting on clutched in his hand. As Bryan retrieved the hidden key and unlocked the padlock, Norbee starting going apeshit again, and I had to go over and fill the dogs' water bowls and throw a handful of kibble into the grass to shut him up.

By the time I came back, Bryan had already locked up the shed, key hung back on the cup hook, and he was hoisting his sack of borrowed goods into the truck bed. The set of his jaw reminded me of those months Bryan would leave school midday to take his mother to her doctors' appointments.

“You ready?” he said.

“For what?”

Bryan climbed into the truck without answering, and a moment later, I followed, slumping onto the tattered bench seat even as the truck rumbled alive and began hurtling down Lamplight Hill. Something else was different.

“The truck's not screaming anymore,” I said.

Bryan nodded. “I tightened the fan belt finally. Yesterday.

“Stealth mode,” he added, laughing.

We passed the corner of Fuller and Craig—vacant, of course. I knew I was being stupid. Tessa would have looked up toward the disappearing hills and known right away none of us would be heading to the refuse station. She was always miles and miles ahead of me. But I wanted her beside me so badly for a moment I was sure I glimpsed her racing down a side street toward our corner. I swiveled around and peered out the window, coughing again, so overcome I didn't notice where we were heading, until the truck jumped the curb and Bryan manhandled it, backing it into a space right in front of the Sub-Rite.

Ours is the sort of town that can feel empty even as cars snort through intersections. The Sub-Rite's parking lot almost always felt desolate despite a steady trickle of squabbling kids and dazed young mothers weaving through the lot to dodge the whey-faced, unshaven men in trucks that couldn't ever seem to stay in the empty, narrow lanes. Nobody paying attention. It's an illusion, of course. We are
always
watching one another. All of us in our private worlds, peering out as if no one can see us, but
we've
got the front row, you bet. As Bryan came to a stop, I could imagine him gearing up that minute for a nasty bit of business and half the parking lot taking full note of it.

Not that anyone would try to stop him.

“Ah, c'mon,” I said. “Don't tell me you got another plan?”

“Sure do,” Bryan said, “I'm going shopping. A few last particulars.”

He pulled a couple of plastic Sub-Rite sacks from behind the seat.

“Your dad send something?”

Bryan grimaced. “Yeah, you bet he did, Leo. And Gerald Flacker invited us over for a beer and party snacks.”

“You wait here,” he said as he hopped from the cab. “Don't let this sucker stall, or that mob will probably loot it.”

“I might loot it myself,” I told him.

Then I watched Bryan saunter between the clusters of Sub-Rite shoppers, all of them seemingly in a hurry, flat blind to everything but the ashy clouds above and their own fiery demands.

My mother had chased me off before I could so much as pinch a slice of bread. I rummaged through the pockets of my jeans looking for something—gum, a Tic Tac, anything to silence my stomach's long, unwinding growls. Although I knew better, I even started to search Bryan's glove box and found only a wad of notebook paper folded into thirds. They looked like the notes my mother used to write to me, inspirational letters that she'd slip into my pants pocket or beneath my keyboard, winsome, pep-talk notes like girls wrote to one another in a school yearbook:

Never give up, my son
, she'd write.
Be true in Your Spirit.

Life is hard, Leo
, she always seemed to add,
but you are a Strong Boy with a Fine Mind
.

Oh, yeah. Oh yeah, I thought.

Dumbest smart boy ever, now slumped behind the wheel of a truck he can't drive, revving the stalling engine and waiting for his best friend to finish his petty larceny. I could barely bring myself to unfold the papers, and when I did, I was stunned to see each page covered with a string of taunts, all aimed, it seemed, at Gerald Flacker. But Bryan couldn't be so crazy, could he? Didn't he know what would happen if the Nagles happened to catch sight of these? Or, what if Mitchell Flacker stopped him, unraveled these notes, and called him out? The back of my neck began to sweat.

It was only then that I noticed just how packed the parking lot was. The road, too, was streaming tight with cars and trucks. Too early in the day for this crowd or this heat. The truck cab was sweltering as if it, too, were under unusual pressure.

“Get over here. Get over here now!” a woman screamed as two kids loitered by the bubblegum machines. “We got no time for that.”

She didn't seem to realize that she and her overburdened cart were smack in the middle of the main thoroughfare, holding up an ever-growing line. And no one had time for her troubles either. One truck began to weave around her, coming dangerously close to sideswiping another car. A motorcyclist revved up the side, nearly hitting one of the kids. And the mom didn't even notice. Finally, everyone actually in his own world. A perfect situation for what I finally realized was Bryan's intent. I let the truck stall out, manhandled the gearshift into first, and followed him into Sub-Rite.

It was the Nagles who'd taught Bryan how to shoplift.

First and only rule:
It all belongs to us. Or should.

You could say a lot about the Nagle brothers, but you'd never call them shifty. They claimed space; proud beyond all reason of themselves. Even—maybe especially—when they were in the thick of a bad piece of business, they cocked their heads up and chests out. It was their calling, their world; it fucking belonged to them.

Up and down every aisle. No Bryan. He must have been practicing every bit of Nagle wisdom, I thought, because he was flat invisible in that crowd of equally purposeful shoppers. I couldn't find him anywhere. One of Jackie's sisters was working a register, scanning items with a speed that seemed downright violent. I might have taken my chances and asked her for help if I hadn't finally glimpsed Bryan through the clouded gray front glass of Sub-Rite. He was outside already, crossing the parking lot with that borrowed headlong white-boy gait, as if all the bits of knowledge he'd gleaned from his criminal brushes had attained perfect reason: a skill set for a mission I couldn't imagine he'd really go through with. Not one head turned upward, and no one chased behind Bryan either as he tossed four full plastic bags nonchalantly, one by one, into the bed of the truck.