Our Man in the Dark (38 page)

“Listen to you, Mathis. Still toting the line after what they've turned you into.”

“I was wrong. It wasn't them—I was the problem. I see that now. And it's liberating.” He stands. “But I wasn't the enemy, John.”

“So what are you now? Are you the enemy now, Mathis? What are you here for?”

“I'm still trying to help you. You're the problem—just like me—and I'm here to put you out of your misery.” He points his pistol at me. “Let's go. We have to make this quick. I've got to go see about a girl. You first.” Mathis and the gun watch me get out of bed and put on my pants. He makes sure that no one is in the hallway before following me out, about
two steps behind with the gun at the small of my back. We leave the hotel room, and then he checks inside the elevator. “Get in,” he says. He keeps the gun on me but glances at the buttons and presses the one for the service entrance. The elevator groans and begins its descent. I try to think of ways to get out of this.

“What about Pete? He's looking for you, Mathis. He wants his daughter, but he's looking for you.”

“Let him come,” Mathis says.

“The man doesn't know where his daughter is, Mathis.”

He looks at me with his slightly rheumy eyes and smirks. He lifts his arm and points his gun at me, higher now, chest-level. “Is that such a bad thing? You've seen what type of person Pete is. Is she better off with him than with me? I saved her from him. We were tailing this kid in the Klan—dumb kid, about twenty. He was taking weapons across state lines into Mississippi. That's federal, but we thought we could turn him. When I pull the kid over, I see that he's got a trunk full of weapons, and a front seat full of beautiful.”

“Lucinda.”

“Yeah, Lucinda. I told the kid I'd give him a break. Georgia's off limits, you can go anywhere else, but the guns and the girl are coming with me. It's a long drive from Mississippi to Georgia, enough time to get to know someone. The crazy thing is, it felt like she already knew me. I told her about my wife, and she told me about Pete. She didn't have to say it, but I could tell the guy's a weasel. What type of example does that man set? He has a daughter who needs love, and he's running around in the woods burning crosses. The sad thing is, he's not even a man of conviction. If he was dedicated to this life—to these beliefs—as a man, you might respect him. A man who lives by principles, no matter how twisted they are, deserves some respect. But at the first sign of trouble, what does Pete do? He bends. He was even easier to turn than you.”

“Mathis, maybe you're looking at it in the wrong way. Doesn't that redeem him? You threatened him with jail. If he had not turned, who would have taken care of Lucinda?”

“I'll always take care of her.”

“You didn't know her then. Doesn't that count? Pete did it for her, Mathis.”

“I think you're giving the man too much credit.”

“Maybe so, but he is out there looking for his daughter. Some part of you must sympathize with that. Try to understand that man's fear—not knowing where his child is.”

“You're sounding desperate, John. Stop it. You wear empathy like bad cologne. It stinks on you.”

The elevator stops at the service entrance, and we enter the alley behind the hotel. Mathis's black sedan is waiting. The air is muggy, and the streets are glossy black from one of our copious summer rains.

“Get in the front. You're driving,” he tells me. “Wouldn't want to look suspicious.” The barrel pokes my lower back as I get in. Mathis keeps his gun on me while I drive. “Just keep driving. I'll tell you when to stop.”

I drive through the city, slowly. Mathis has entered a quiet spell, but everything he doesn't say tells me where he's taking me. The woods. I realize that escape is not possible. When this car stops, so will I. No, my life has not flashed before my eyes. But the many missed opportunities of flight do. All my neglected, life-preserving decisions flutter in my mind, frame by frame, like a rapidly regressing film reel. And then I see it. The place that allowed me to make so many escapes. A sign? No. I am beyond invoking religion. It's just the natural course of my evolution. A creature of the shadows learns to see in the dark.

The streets are empty.

I make a sudden U-turn.

The car tilts and the tires scream.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“You'll kill me in those woods for sure, but I may survive a car crash.”

I make another sharp turn as a gunshot pierces the windshield. I close my eyes, anchor my foot to the accelerator, and drive into the gilded doors of the Royal Theatre.

I don't remember the impact. After coming to, I check myself for injuries. My nose is busted and my shoulder feels like I've used it to pound pavement. I look in the backseat and see that Mathis is unconscious but breathing. I get out of the car and feel the ball of fire in my shoulder—then I see the head of a young man lying on the hood. A jolt of panic shoots through me, but I realize that it's the head of a pharaoh, and one of the sphinxes that adorn the building has been decapitated. I look for a place to run to. The door to the theater is locked. The car damaged it some, but it didn't do enough to break the bolt and chain that secure it. Mathis lets out a groan, and I make my way into the alley next to the theater. Trying my best to develop some speed, I look over my shoulder as those taillights grow faint, and I go behind a building and into an alley that parallels the viaduct. “Hey!” I hear someone shout behind me. I turn around and all I see is a man obscured by distance and shadow at the end of the alley. It's not Mathis, but it's too far away for me to make him out. I don't stop moving either way. I see some steps that lead down near the entrance of the tunnel. It's dark and the train tracks are barely visible. I think about resting down there, just catching my breath until sunlight. Maybe then, things will be different. Maybe Mathis will give up and go to that motel and see that little girl of his—Pete's little girl. But then I hear those desperate footsteps, and I know they have a bounty on me.

I stumble down the last of the steps and enter the dark tunnel, staying far to one side so that I can rely on the wall to guide me and keep me from tripping over the tracks.

Into the darkness, only the sound of the echoing voyage of water—runoff from the earlier rain—my brace, and those menacing footsteps behind me. He calls out my name. I stop, but then I tell myself to keep moving. Never stop, no matter what.

Mold, decay, and rust. The excavation has released the smells of a tomb. Darkness and more darkness. Darkness persists until I come upon a service light. It is only in that brief moment of illumination that I realize how far down I've gone. In front of an ancient general store, covered in a blanket of cobwebs and neglect are the bones of an abandoned animal. Possibly a dog or a pig, I don't know. How long did it wait down here before it realized no one was coming, and it had waited too long to escape?

Gunshot.

It echoes past me, and my shoulders spring to my ears.

Footsteps. And then nothing . . . except my own breathing.

“
Estem!”

My name echoes throughout the tunnel, punctuated by another bullet that ricochets so close that I feel stone fragments hit my back. Then I see another service light and a platform of some sort. I hope it's not a dead end. I wait in the darkness. I hear the scratch of flint, and then I see a new source of light—a glowing orb approaches, casting a pistol-wielding shadow along the forgotten storefronts, seeking me out, inching toward me, closer and closer . . .

It is then that I step out into the light, trying my best to make it through to the other side before Mathis can get another shot at me. I am too slow. As I fall through the shaft of light, his bullet hits me in my already wounded shoulder. In that moment, awareness and acceptance crystallize from the pain. I'm not going to run anymore. He's going to kill me, but I won't give him the pleasure of fleeing like an animal. He'll have to look me in the eye. The squeak of my brace breaks the silence as I lie on the ground exhausted.

“Estem?” Mathis calls out into the darkness. “Stop hiding. For once in your life, show some courage.” He steps into the light, sees me lying here, and I foolishly anticipate a bit of mercy. “Don't worry,” he says, “it'll be all over soon. Get up.” I know he intends to instill a sense of dread with that comment, but it only summons relief. From somewhere behind Mathis, I hear the ominous preparation of a shotgun. Mathis
turns when he hears it too. It's not my imagination.

“She's just a little girl,” says a voice coming from the darkness.

Mathis points his pistol toward the shadows. “Who's there?” his head dances about, searching for the source.

“You know good and goddamn well who it is. She's just a little girl . . .”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Maybe there's more than one. Maybe you've got some sort of problem, fella. I guess Lucinda don't mean nothing to you—'cause there is just so many girls you done raped.”

The word “rape” sobers me. I can't see him, but I know the routine.

“She's just a little girl,” he says again. Finally, the man steps into the light. Pete, no longer cloaked, no longer hooded, points the barrel of his shotgun at Mathis. “What makes you think you have the right? Do you think you own me?” Pete thumps his chest, letting his gun drift. Mathis twitches at the opportunity, but Pete resets his aim. “Do you think you're entitled to take from me—to violate my child? As if she don't even belong to me no more. Like she's yours for the taking? Where is she?”

Mathis clasps the butt of his gun with both hands, raising it eye-level. “She's in a motel room in Macon. I told her to wait for me. She's safe. Pete, you're pointing a weapon at a federal agent. I'm completely within my rights to shoot you if you don't drop that gun by the time I count to five. One,” counts Mathis.

“Go ahead and count all you want, son of a bitch. You'll be dead before five.”

“Two. Drop the gun, Pete.”

“That don't scare me none. If I talk to them boys up in Washington, and tell them how you been raping my little girl, they'll understand what I've done. Some of them got to have children of their own.”

“Three.”

“Goddamnit, stop counting.”

“This isn't about you, Pete. It's about her. Killing you would make having her a whole lot easier. Four.”

“Five.” Pete pulls the trigger. The blood from Mathis's knee splatters my face. He doesn't scream. He only fires his pistol as what used to be his knee buckles. Pete gasps, grabbing his throat as blood pushes through his
fingers. He drops the gun, his free hand reaching for Mathis as he falls.

Pete must have followed me to the hotel, just as Mathis followed me in here. Count was right—I was in control the whole time. They were just flies caught in a web I'd spun. I wait until the last sounds of life fade into the gloom, and then I stand. Mathis's wound, visible in the dim pool of light, looks as if it had been caused by some ravenous animal. I don't want to see it. I walk away from it, farther into the tunnel. I don't know how long I walk. It seems like days, but I won't give up now. I am determined to see the other side.

I reach another service light, and then I see them: chimeras—half shadows, half men—scattering and scurrying like monstrous rats. But what I thought were hallucinations are actually people, vagrants who have made this place a home. They run past me, but their foul odor stays behind.
Help!
I plead, but they keep running. Who knows if I only thought it and never said it aloud. Who knows what they'll think of me when they come upon Mathis and Pete. As I get closer to where they were sitting, I see the weapons of street life: Saturday-night specials, brass knuckles, ice picks and homemade shanks, the occasional pistol. The darkness seems to lose a layer of dismal, becoming lighter and less soulless. Then sounds of the abyss give way to the sounds of life: squealing tires, breaking glass, and pointless screams. I've found the way out. Thick overgrowth obscures the abandoned train tracks and the tunnel's opening. When I finally emerge, I see young men, Negroes, holding down their corners. The do-rags, the undershirts, the clench-jawed toothpicks—all turn and look at me in disbelief. I've just crawled out of the earth, so it's understandable. Then their faces shift from shock to menace. Now I realize why those weapons are down there. That's where they've hidden their cache from the police that patrol the area. I don't say anything. I just walk past them and onto the main street. After all I've been through, I think I've earned it.

Once again, the night has found something in me worth saving and granted me clemency. Few are so fortunate. I think of poor Lucinda, alone in that motel room. When her lover doesn't show up, she'll be expecting her daddy to come and save her. I walk through the night streets, clumsily trying to find my way home. Sounds, some unfamiliar, echo inside my head until I realize their source. When I was a child, some bullies made fun of my limp, so I made fun of their inability to read, halting
stammer and all. They took me out to the creek behind the school and beat me badly. I was fine with the beating, I was used to that, but they took my brace and left me there, helpless. I cried for hours, but no one came for me. It was starting to get dark, so I had to find a way home. I crawled around on my belly like an animal until I found a fallen branch that was strong enough to support me, yet small enough to control. One step at a time, I made my way out of the creek and onto the city streets. Maybe that's how my brother did it. I was exhausted and it seemed like it took forever. It did. But all I could think about was how disappointed my father would be when he saw how someone got the best of me and how that would be the likely pattern of my life. When he opened the door, he looked at my swollen face and gimp leg covered in scrapes and scratches, but then he looked at the branch that I'd used as a crutch. He took it from me, held me up with one arm, and with the other, he held up the branch. “At least you made it home,” he said, squeezing me tightly. “You made it home.”