At Risk of Being a Fool (29 page)

Mechanically, she walked into the middle of the classroom. Her cheeks were fever-hot. They all stared at her, even Dillon.

“I just want to know one thing.” Was that her voice? Cracked and strained. “Why does it matter that there’s a train track behind Jeanie’s house?”

Nobody said a word.

“Come on, guys. Nothing’s happened yet. I just don’t want her to get hurt. She’s a friend of mine. Why does it matter about the fuckin’ train?”

Into the silence came the rattling roar of a motorcycle.
Fuckin’ lawyer
, she thought absently. Every time he saw her, he gave her that look, like she was crap. She ought to stab his tires for him. He had it coming. His bike’s rattle ebbed for a moment as he turned the corner. The motor gunned, and the bike roared past the building. The classroom windows rattled with the vibrations.

Dillon glanced at the window. She followed his look. The blinds swayed, knocked against the window, eased their movement, and were still.

“Oh my God,” she said. “It’s the rattling. The train would set off the damned bomb. Oh, crap! You mother-fuckers, if she’s hurt, I’m gonna
kill
you
!
”

Sorrel ran, slamming the door behind her. Where did Jeanie park her fuckin’ car? Sorrel careened out the side door. She paused a moment, letting the door fall into place. What if she was wrong? She forced herself to slow down, approach Jeanie’s car at a walk, as if nothing was happening.

Jeanie’s butt was sticking out, while she rummaged through the jumbled contents of the back seat. Jeanie kept an orderly classroom, an organized desk, but the back seat of her car was a mess.

“Hey, Jeanie? You’ve got a phone call.”

“I’ll be there in a minute. I found Rosalie’s papers, so Dillon’s have to be here somewhere. Looks like Rita randomized them for me.”

Sorrel strove for a casual tone. “It’s your sister. On the phone.”

Jeanie popped out the car. “Michelle? From
Germany
? Is she okay?”

“I think so. She’s still on the line,” Sorrel lied. “Come on.”

“Oh, well, I guess I should, just for a minute.”

Jeanie started to slam the car door, but Sorrel intercepted her, closing it with a small click. In the distance, she heard the motorcycle approaching again, this time on the street behind the building. Damned idiot, must of forgot his briefcase. The roar made her nervous, but that was stupid. The vibrations couldn’t set off a bomb, if there was one in the car. Not vibrations from a motorcycle, anyway.

There’s no bomb, there can’t be a bomb.
Strangeness descended on her, threatening her, shaking her, forcing her to listen. Michelle thought there was danger, because of things Jeanie wrote to her. Michelle could describe, to the tiniest detail, what a girl was wearing half a world away. There was danger somewhere, and it centered on Jeanie. But not here, not now. Wasn’t that the whole point of the train behind the house? That he could leave a bomb there, to explode in the night, set off by the rumble of the train?

She had time to warn Jeanie. She’d get a security guard to check out that car, just to be sure. She’d talk to Randy and Kherra. Maybe they could talk Jeanie into moving for a few days, until it was safer. She could sleep at the Nest in a spare bed. It would be all right, she’d found out in time.

The relief was enormous.

Sorrel skipped up the steps to the back door and opened it. She looked back impatiently. Jeanie was still leafing through the papers in her hand, looking puzzled.

“Come on. She’s waiting,” said Sorrel, as irritated as though her lie were the truth. She’d have to get in there, and take the phone off the hook. She’d pretend they’d gotten disconnected. “Move it, Jeanie, it’s long distance from
Germany
, for God’s sake.”

Jeanie trotted towards the door. Sorrel held it halfway open, tapping her foot.

The car exploded with wrenching shrieks of metal and a ball of fire.

“No!” screamed Sorrel. Waves of rolling heat enveloped her, blocked by the door. The car was in flames, spitting glass shards and metal chunks into the air. Jeanie fell forward onto the steps and stopped moving. Sorrel threw the door back, and jumped forward, the furnace that had been the car searing her flesh. She grabbed Jeanie’s unresisting arm, dragged her inside, and yanked the door shut. The spreading explosions beat on the door with the hypnotic sound of a heavy metal rock band.

Frantically, Sorrel ran her hands over the still, bloodied form, fingers searching for injuries, as Kherra had insisted she’d learn. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she screamed into the empty air.

“You fuckin’ son of a bitch, I’m gonna kill you!”

~*~

Rosalie stood transfixed as the reverberations shook the room.

Dillon shot out of his chair. “Holy shit!”

He tore through the door. To the right, a door closed to the sound of Sorrel’s curses. Dillon bolted the other way. Sudden comprehension hit Rosalie, and she flew after him. She raced down the hallway, rounded the corner, passed him, and threw herself against the front door to the building, blocking his exit. She leaned there, quivering with fear.

“Get out of my way, you fuckin’ bitch.”

“No.” She could scarcely hear herself over the pounding of her heart. “You did this, you hurt her, you killed her.”

“Move, or I’m gonna kill
you
.”

His huge hands approached her throat. She watched them, mesmerized, a deer caught in the headlights before certain death. She could see the callous ridges at the base of his fingers, the webbing spread between his fingers and thumb, the slicing scars across the palm of his right hand.

“No. You are a bad man,” she whispered. In the midst of her fear, a sunburst flashed in her mind.
Daddy, I love you
. “My father would say so.
Un cabrón
,” she said with soft certainty. She was going die; she knew it, even as his arm drew back sharply for the punch that would break her neck.

The fist came towards her, lightning fast, curved, and slammed into the wall next to the door. Unbelieving, Rosalie watched Dillon drop to the floor on his knees, head and neck bent, a coiled spring ready to free itself. For a long moment, nothing happened.

He sat back on his heels, dug into his pocket, and ripped out his cell phone. “Randy.” The voice was harsh. “Get the fuck over here. Tell Grandma I didn’t do it.” A strangled breath. “Shit, Randy, move your ass. I need you.”

He disconnected and held up the phone. Numbly, she touched it. He released it and let his hands fall.

From around the corner bolted a frantic ball of fur, mewing hysterically at the piercing pain in her eardrums. Rita skidded to a stop, scrambling up Dillon’s knee. Automatically, he cupped the cat safely against his shirt. He half-turned in the direction she’d come.

“Who the fuck let the cat out?” he bellowed.

Rosalie’s call was the third received by the 911 dispatchers.

~*~

Jeanie lay in the hallway. Sorrel crouched over her, her hair a curtain around Jeanie’s face. One hand, slippery with blood, pressed Jeanie’s throat gauging her pulse, as the other tossed folds of Dillon’s trench coat over the still form. She avoided looking at Jeanie’s right thigh where Mackie worked frantically, applying pressure to the gaping wound. Blood spattered Dillon’s trench coat. Dillon leaned against the wall, head down, thumbs hooked into the top of his belt. Randy stood next to him, shoulder to shoulder.

“I’m gonna kill you,” said Sorrel. They were nearly the only words she’d spoken in the last ten minutes. She spoke solely to the dark-headed kid standing on Randy’s other side. “Soon’s she’s safe, no matter how long it takes, I’m gonna kill you.” Her chant grew ragged and rose to a shriek. “Don’t you got no clue what she does for us? She plants acorns, for God’s sake, so they’ll turn into oak trees. You bastard!”

“Wasn’t me,” said Tonio. The words, repeated too many times, enraged her.

“You
knew
about the train. You cased her house, didn’t you, fucker?”

“Why you figure that?” The words were even, unemotional.

“Because,” Sorrel’s words skidded to a halt. She studied Jeanie’s face in her confusion. The freckles stood out like peppercorns on cottage cheese. She must be in shock, like Kherra talked about. Where was the damned ambulance? “Bastard,” she muttered.

“She knows ‘cause I told her,” said Brynna. Sorrel’s eyes flew up. “And I know, ‘cause you told me so. You’ve been everywhere, Tonio, haven’t you? Didn’t tell me that, but I can guess. Out at the courthouse, over at Quinto’s place.” Brynna’s eyes dropped to Jeanie’s head. Her face hardened. “At Futures, too. And everywhere the damned bombs were, that’s where you were. First.”

Tonio moved, shoulders tensing. Brynna stepped back. Tonio’s glance flickered from face to face: Randy, Dillon, Mackie, Quinto. He relaxed, and leaned back against the wall.

“Prove it.”

“I don’t have to prove it,” Sorrel said viciously. “I know. And they won’t be able to prove anything against me, dipshit, the day they find you in an alley, carved into little, tiny bits. They won’t even be able to identify you, because you won’t have a face left.”

Their eyes locked, power and threat shooting from one set of eyes to the other.

“It wasn’t Tonio,” Jeanie whispered. Every gaze pinned itself to the battered form on the floor.

“You hush, Jeanie girl,” said Sorrel, in an unconscious blend of Kherra and Jeanie herself. “You’re gonna be all right. He didn’t get you. The ambulance will be here real soon. You just don’t understand mother-fuckers like him, blow up anybody gets in the way of his precious drug sales.” Her gaze flicked to Brynna, and then away. “It’s okay, Jeanie. It’s good you’re talking, you’re going be all right, you hear? Mackie says so, she’s got her First Aid card.”

Jeanie stirred. Sorrel’s hand loosened, and smoothed the hair out of Jeanie’s eyes.

“It’s not Tonio,” Jeanie said. “It wasn’t, was it? It didn’t have anything to do with drugs, or the lawyer, or even that escaped convict. You know it, and I know it.” Her eyes were closed, but she seemed to be talking to someone. “Come on. You know it wasn’t Tonio. You can’t let him do this. He’s protecting his homey. Isn’t he?”

The hallway was still for a long moment.

“Yeah,” said Quinto.

CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN

Sometimes at night, along about August, Tonio watched the shooting stars, bright and fierce, disrupting the pattern of the night sky. He tried to follow them, tried to see the pattern, where each one came from, and where it went, knowing all the time that the next flash would appear out of nowhere.

He was a shooting star, Ricardo was. He’d always been, from the beginning. Tonio had followed, with the rest of the homeboys, hypnotized by the flashing brilliance of a man with fire in his veins.

Tonio had been a kid, only fourteen, when they’d locked up Ricardo. He’d felt blinded, imprisoned, like he’d been cut off from the sky, living without Ricardo. He’d grieved for that brilliant grin, the wild look Ricardo threw as he ran, daring the rest of them to follow. Quinto was only twelve then. To him, his brother was a god. Ricardo laughed as he punched the kid on the shoulder. Some day, he’d promised, some day, you’ll keep up with me. Go home now; take care of Mama.

A year or two passed without him. Tonio was the gang second, the organizer. Life was safer and tamer, but the thrill vanished with Ricardo. Quinto kept eager tabs on him, all agog over Ricky’s exploits in D-Home, MacLaren, and the treatment centers. At first the fights, the stories, were legendary, a tiger ripping his way through the rabbits, the deer, and the small scavengers. Then, all of a sudden, everything changed. Ricardo turned a new leaf, they said, was cooperative and eager to learn. The early suspicion of the wardens, the counselors, faded as the change seemed permanent, covered with that magnetic smile of which Ricardo was master.

One time, some teacher hauled Tonio and a bunch of kids to the
Portland
zoo. Tonio, the quiet kid, memorized the animals, and matched them up with lessons he’d learned. The tiger had camouflage, black lines to dull the outline of the orange muscle-bound predator.
And if someone cages a tiger in a small box, with no room to run, he’ll pace, and pace, and pace, and make a beautiful picture for others to see. Inside, he’s crazy-mad, biding his time, waiting until the cage opens and he can kill his captors.

Quinto’s gang membership was only a matter of time. The homeys loved his artistry, despised his witlessness, but ultimately protected him, as their last connection to Ricardo. Quinto whispered the messages, of the ways Ricardo had found to sneak out, earn some money, get some drugs here, sell them there, acting as a middleman. The money wasn’t the big thing. It was the thrill of escape, the secret laughter as he snuck back in, to play innocent for another day.

There were close calls, even for Ricardo. He’d snowed Bryce Wogan and Danny Rivera, but not that old buddy of his, Vic Dunlap. Dunlap stirred up trouble. Rivera was only half-convinced, but Ricardo saw the writing on the wall. He quit using Rivera’s job sites as drug drops. Ricardo told Mackie he wasn’t happy in construction, and she’d found him a different job. No reflection on Danny Rivera, of course. There were back slaps on all sides, and Ricardo’s charming, self-deprecating grin allaying Danny’s fears, even as he said good-bye. In the back of his mind, Ricardo had marked the name, Vic Dunlap, as a score to settle. Ricardo sailed through his sentence and probation, and returned to
Portland
like a boomerang, to his white-collar job and connections on the legit side.