“State,” Nico said as he reached around the console, tucking the maps back into the mesh netting. “Washington State.”
“Yeah, now you’re outta my range. I’m all Northeast corridor and east of Mississippi.” Covering his mustache with his palm and hooking his nose in the groove between his thumb and pointer finger, Edmund slid his hand down, unsuccessfully trying to contain a long-overdue yawn. “Sorry,” he apologized, violently shaking his head to stay awake.
Nico glanced at the football-shaped digital clock glued to the dashboard. It was almost two in the morning.
“Listen, if you still need one of them maps,” Edmund said, “right as we pass I-20 in Florence, there’s one of those Circle ’n Stations with the big magazine sections—they got maps, travel guides, I swear I might’ve even seen an atlas or two. If you want, we can make it our next stop.”
Nico asked the voices what they thought. They couldn’t be more excited.
“Edmund, you’re a fine Christian,” Nico said, staring out at a passing telephone pole. “Your rewards will be bountiful in the end.”
A
s I pull into the parking lot at the back of my apartment building, I feel my phone vibrate and look down at caller ID. Crap.
New York Times.
Surprised it took them this long, I push the
Send
button and brace myself. “Wes here.”
“Hey, Wes—Caleb Cohen. From the
Times
,” he announces with the forced familiarity of every reporter. Caleb used to cover Manning during White House days, meaning he called every day. But these days, we’re in the former-President rotation, which is barely a notch above second cousin once removed. Until right now.
“You have a statement on the escape yet?” Caleb asks.
“You know we never comment on Nico,” I tell him, following years of protocol. Last thing we need is to let some runaway quote rile up the mad dog.
“No, I don’t mean from Manning,” Caleb interrupts. “I mean from you. You’re the one with the scars. Aren’t you worried he’s out there, ready to hit you with something harder than a ricochet?”
He says it to get a rise, hoping I’ll blurt a quick response. That worked once, with
Newsweek
, right after the accident. I’m not twenty-three anymore.
“Nice talking to you, Caleb. And if you want to talk again, don’t print a
no comment
from us either. Just say we couldn’t be reached.”
I slam the phone shut, but as Caleb disappears, I’m swallowed by the haunting silence of the open-air parking lot, which is tucked just behind my apartment building. It’s almost midnight on a Thursday. At least fifty cars surround me, but no one’s in sight. Squeezing between two matching Hondas, I push the
Door Lock
button on my key ring just to hear the noise. It fades far too fast, leaving me alone with the reality of Caleb’s question: If Nico’s out there, what’s preventing him from coming back to finish the job?
Glancing around the empty parking lot, I don’t have an answer. But as I study the tall, slender shadows between the twelve-foot shrubs that surround the lot, I suddenly can’t shake that awkward, stomach-piercing anxiety that I’m no longer alone. Ignoring the skeleton arms of overgrown branches, I scan the darkness between the tall shrubs, holding my breath to listen even closer. My only reward is the droning buzz of crickets who fight for dominance against the hum of the lot’s overhead lampposts. Catching my breath, I take a few steps.
That’s when I hear the tiny metal jingling. Like coins rattling in a pocket. Or someone hitting a chain-link fence. I turn around slightly, scanning between the branches and spotting the fence that surrounds the parking lot and runs behind the hedges.
Time to get inside. Spinning back toward the building, I speed-walk toward the yellow-striped awning that juts out over the back entrance. On my far left, the crickets fall silent. There’s a rustling by the group of hedges that blocks the view to the pool area. Just the wind, I tell myself as I pick up my pace and move even faster toward the awning, which seems almost submerged in darkness.
Behind me, the rustling from the hedges gets louder.
Please, God, just let me
—
My phone vibrates in my hand as caller ID shows me a 334 prefix.
Washington Post.
Last year, Manning, like LBJ before him, had a secret actuarial done to see how long he’d live. The way things are going, I can’t help but wonder the same about myself. And while I’m tempted to pick it up just to have some sort of audio witness, the last thing I need right now is another reminder that Nico’s out there, waiting.
Shifting from speed walk to jog, I fumble through my shoulder bag and search for my house keys. I glance over my shoulder as the leaves continue to shake. Forget it. I go to full-fledged sprint. Under the awning, my feet slide against the blacktop. I ram the key into the lock and twist to the right. The metal door clicks open, and I slip inside, colliding with the shopping cart that people use to move their groceries. My knee slams into the corner of the cart, and I shove it out of the way, hobbling up the narrow beige hallway and into one of the lobby’s waiting elevators.
Crashing against the brown Formica walls of the elevator, I jab the button for the fifth floor and smash the
Door Close
button like a punching bag. The elevator door’s still open. In the hallway, a broken fluorescent light sizzles at half-power, adding a yellow, mucusy pallor to the floor and walls. I close my eyes for some quick calm, but as I open them, the world goes black-and-white, my own personal newsreel. In the distance, a woman screams in C minor as Boyle’s ambulance doors bite shut.
No, that’s not . . .
I blink again and I’m back.
There’s no one screaming.
As the door eventually rumbles shut, I touch my ear as my hand shakes uncontrollably.
C’mon, Wes . . . hold it together . . .
Pressing my back into the corner to keep myself upright, I grit my teeth to slow my breathing. The elevator rises with a lurch, and I focus on the indicator lights. Second floor . . . third floor . . .
By the time I step out on the fifth floor, beads of sweat ski down across my rib cage. Leaving nothing to chance, I check the left side of the hallway before darting out and heading right.
I run for apartment 527, ram my key in the lock, and twist the knob as fast as I can. Inside, I flick on every light I can find . . . the entryway . . . the living room . . . the lamp on the end table . . . I even double back to do the hall closet. No . . . better to leave it off. I flick it on, then off. On, then off. On, then off.
Stop . . .
Stepping backward and crashing into the wall, I shut my eyes, lower my head, and whisper to myself. “Thank you, God, for keeping my family safe . . .”
Stop . . .
“For keeping me safe, and the President safe . . .”
Find a focal point
, I tell myself, hearing the counselor’s voice in my head. “. . . for me and . . .”
Find a focal point.
Pounding myself in the ear, I stumble around, almost tripping over the ottoman from my parents’ old leather sectional sofa in the living room.
Find her.
Sprinting up the hallway that leads to the back half of the apartment, I run past the flea market picnic bench we put in our dining room, past Rogo’s room with the stack of unread newspapers outside the door, past the hallway’s life-size cutout of President Manning with a hand-drawn word balloon on his head that says
I don’t remember how to drive, but I lovey that downwithtickets.com!
and eventually make a sharp right into my bedroom.
Tripping over a pile of dress shirts on the floor, I race for the square metal birdcage that sits atop my dresser. As the door slams into the wall, Lolo pulls back, wildly flapping her beige wings and bobbing her yellow head from side to side. Watching her reaction, I catch myself and quickly find my calm. Lolo does the same, lowering her wings and grinding her beak. Her head sways slowly as I catch my breath. Just seeing her, just the sight . . .
“Hi, Melissa—whattya doin’?” my cinnamon cockatiel asks. She’s got a bright orange circle on each cheek and a pointy yellow crest on her head that curves forward like a feathery tidal wave. “Melissa, whattya doin’?”
The joke’s too old to make me laugh—Lolo’s been calling me by her old owner’s name for almost seven years—but the counselor was right. Focal points are good. Though familiar voices are even better.
“Crap away,” I tell Lolo, who for some reason was trained to poop on command.
True to form, three tiny runny droppings splatter through the bottom of the cage onto the waiting newsprint, which I quickly replace, along with fresh food and water.
The bird was my dad’s idea. It was six months after the accident, when light switches and repetitive prayers were starting to overwhelm me. He’d heard the story from one of his students about a rape victim whose parents bought her a dog so she wouldn’t feel alone when she came home every night. I rolled my eyes. And not just because I’m allergic to dogs.
Still, people never understand. It was never just the bird. It was the need. The need to be needed.
With a quick flick of the lock, I open the cage and offer my left pointer finger as a perch. Lolo hops on immediately, riding it up to her usual spot on my right shoulder. I turn my face toward her, and she tries to bite at my cheek, which means she wants to be scratched. I crouch down to my tan-carpeted floor and cross my legs into Indian position as the stress of the day starts to wash away. Lolo nuzzles in close, her feathers tenderly tickling the grooves of my face. For all their vaunted eyesight, birds don’t see scars.
Her talons loosen their grip on my shoulder, and she lowers her crest, slicking it back Elvis-style. Within a minute, she’s already calmed down, and on most nights, that’d be enough to get me to do the same. But not tonight.
In my pocket, my cell phone vibrates. As I check caller ID, I also see that I got two new messages just during the ride in the elevator. Scrolling down, I see all the old numbers. Current call is
L.A. Times.
Messages are CNN and Fox News. My answering machine at home is no better. Nineteen new messages. Family, friends, and the few reporters smart enough to track my home address. They all want the same thing. A piece of the action . . . piece of the story . . . piece of me.
The front door to the apartment swings open down the hall. “Wes, you still up?” Rogo calls out. His voice grows louder as he turns the corner. “Your light’s on, so if you’re touching yourself, now’s the time to stop!”
Lolo’s talons dig deep into my shoulder. I know exactly how she feels. The last thing I need is another person reminding me about Nico and Manning and Boyle and every other time bomb ticking in my life.
How you doing? How you feeling? How you holding up?
Enough with the damn—
My bedroom door opens slowly. Rogo’s been around long enough to know if he kicks it in, it’ll send Lolo flapping.
I look up from the carpet, just waiting for the onslaught of questions.
Rogo scratches at his bald head and leans his meatball physique against the door frame. “So . . . uh, I rented
Purple Rain
,” he says, pulling the movie from the red knapsack he calls his briefcase. “Figured we could . . . I don’t know . . . order some pizza, maybe just hang—and then, of course, spend some time rewinding the part where Apollonia jumps naked into the river.”
I sit there for a moment, digesting the offer.
“Hi, Melissa—whattya doin’?” Lolo squawks.
“Shut up, bird. I ain’t talking to you,” Rogo threatens.
A tiny smile lifts my left cheek. “Apollonia gets naked? You sure?” I ask.
“Wes, when I was sixteen, I wanted my first car to be a purple motorcycle. Now, who’s ready for some bad pizza and Prince doing that pouty thing with his lips? C’mon, Melissa, time to party like it’s 1999!”
He runs back up the hallway before I can even say thank you.
Florence, South Carolina
N
ico knew they’d have them.
“Maps?” Nico asked, stepping into the gas station minimart and holding up the map of Michigan he took from Edmund’s truck.
“Back left,” a ponytailed attendant with peach-fuzz sideburns said without looking up from the small TV he was watching behind the counter.
Before Nico could even take a step, a loud chime rang from where he crossed into the electric eye of the automated doorbell. Wincing at the sound, he still wasn’t used to being out in public. But the way his heart was jackhammering with excitement, it didn’t slow him down.
Counting three surveillance cameras—one by the attendant, two in the aisles—Nico hit the brakes and eased his pace to a walk as he headed for the spinner rack of maps in the back. It was no different from his old assignments: No need to rush. Don’t look around. Disappear in the mundane.
He read most of the maps from halfway down the aisle. California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware . . .
It was a good sign. But not half as good as stepping in and seeing that the central spine of the spinner rack was made up of dozens of intersecting metal crosses. Exhaling with relief, Nico practically laughed out loud. Of course his map would be here. Just like with Wes. As in the Book, God’s will was always clear.
Tucking his Michigan map under his armpit, he gave the spinner rack a confident whirl, going straight to the end. Sure enough. Second from the top. Right between Washington State and West Virginia. Washington, D.C.
Lightning bolts of adrenaline surged up Nico’s legs. He covered his mouth as his eyes flooded with tears of joy. Even though he never doubted . . . to finally see it after being denied for so long.
The nest . . . the devil’s nest . . . the M Men buried it so long ago. And now the proof was back.
“Thank you, Father,” Nico whispered.
Without even hesitating, he pulled the D.C. map from its metal tower, replacing it with the Michigan map he’d brought from the truck. Fair trade.
Wiping his eyes with the heel of his palm, he took a moment to catch his breath. Slowly heading back for the door, he tipped his baseball cap at the attendant. “Thanks for the help.”