This Dark Road to Mercy: A Novel (17 page)

I dropped the gearshift into reverse. It was still full dark in Gastonia, North Carolina, but in less than three hours the sun would be rising over Charleston.

Easter Quillby

C H A P T E R   17

I
n the middle of the night, I woke up with Ruby beside me, but Wade’s bed hadn’t been slept in yet. He stood by the window, peeking between the curtains with the light from the parking lot shining on his face. I whispered his name, and he looked over.

“Did you hear something too?” he asked.

“No,” I said.

“What woke you up?”

“I don’t know.” He looked out the window again, and then he let go of the curtains and they closed. Two chairs sat beside the door, and one of them faced the window. I knew that’s where Wade had been all night. He turned the chair around toward the bed, and then he sat down and crossed his legs.

“You not going to sleep?” I asked. He held a finger to his lips, and then he pointed at Ruby. I kicked the covers off and got out of bed and went and sat in the other chair. Wade grabbed one of the legs and pulled my chair closer to his. We’d gotten our nightgowns out of the trunk, and I had mine on. I pulled my knees up to my chest under my gown. “Are you not going to sleep?” I asked again.

“No,” he said.

“Why not?”

“Because I’m not sleepy,” he said.

“Are you worried?”

He smiled. “What would I be worried about?”

“That the police are going to find us,” I said. “Or maybe he’ll find us first.”

“That’s not why I was looking out the window,” he said. He put his legs out in front of him like he was stretching, and then he crossed his ankles.

“Then why were you looking out there?”

“I already told you,” he said. “I thought I heard something.”

“What?”

“I don’t know. Could’ve been anything: a ghost, a vampire.” He pointed to the bed. “The kind of things that wouldn’t bother you if you were asleep.”

“I’m too old for that to scare me,” I said.

“You’re too smart for that, aren’t you? You’re starting to remind me of your mom.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really,” he said. “You’re starting to look like her too.”

My new brown hair hung over my shoulders. I picked up a piece of it and looked at it up close in the dark room. “Not for long,” I said.

“It’s not your hair that’s making me say that,” he said. “Your mom was tough—tougher than me—and you’re just like her. The things you’ve done?” He shook his head. “I couldn’t have done any of that when I was your age—taking care of Ruby like you have. I can barely take care of y’all now.” He smiled. “And now you’ve got a boyfriend?”

I could feel my face getting hot, and I looked down. “I think so,” I said.

“You think so?”

“I think so,” I said again.

“How’d y’all meet?”

“At school. He’s in my grade, but he’s in another class.”

“What’s his name again?”

“Marcus Walker.”

“Marcus Walker,” he whispered. “Trying to steal my little girl away from me.”

“No he’s not,” I said.

“Serves me right if he did,” Wade said. “Your mom was only seventeen when I met her.”

“How’d you meet her?”

“She never told you?”

“No,” I said. “She didn’t like to talk about you.”

“I can’t blame her,” he said. “I wouldn’t have liked to talk about me either.”

“Then tell me now,” I said. “How’d you meet her?”

“I was playing ball in Gastonia for the Rangers when I met her. I guess it was probably the ’eighty-four off-season. A bunch of guys I played with that year decided to go up to Alaska and work these terrible jobs to make as much money as they could before the season started back up in the spring: canning work, refinery, oil field—all kinds of cold, miserable jobs. Dirty jobs too. But you could make good money fast, and that’s all we cared about.

“I worked in an oil field outside Anchorage, and my first day at work some of the guys took me to a little restaurant that was supposed to have the best hamburgers in the world.” He smiled. “And that’s where I saw your mom for the first time. She was working as a waitress that summer; I think it was probably the first job she’d ever had. I can tell you I ate more hamburgers that fall and winter than I’d ever eaten in my life. When it was time for the season to start, I convinced her to come back to North Carolina, and the rest is history. You were born about a year later.”

“And when did you leave?” He looked surprised that I’d asked him that, but I’d never had the chance to ask him before, and I didn’t know for sure if I’d ever have this chance again.

“I don’t know,” he finally said. “I don’t know when the first time was. I think I did a lot of leaving during those years when you were growing up.”

“There’s a lot I don’t remember about you,” I said. “Same with Ruby. She was little when you finally left for good.”

“I know,” he said. “But it’s probably a good thing that y’all don’t remember much about me. I’d forget it all myself if I could. I did a lot of things I’m not proud of, but all that’s behind me. Behind us.”

“But what about the money?”

“What money?”

“The money under the bed.”

“What are you talking about?” he asked.

“I found it today,” I said.

“Okay.”

“Is it his?”

“Whose?”

“The guy looking for you. The guy who came to my school.”

“No,” Wade said, sighing. “It’s not his. I don’t know why he’s out there looking for me, but we don’t need to worry about him. I’ve already told you that. And I’ve also told you that we have to start trusting each other. You shouldn’t have been going through my stuff.”

“I can’t trust you,” I said. “Because that money’s not yours, is it?” I knew it wasn’t, that it couldn’t be. He seemed ashamed to have to answer that question, and I could tell he was thinking of what to say.

“I asked you to tell me the truth about calling Marcus last night,” he said, “so I guess I’d better tell you the truth too, right?”

“Right.”

“It’s not my money,” he said, “but I took it anyway. I don’t think it even belongs to who I took it from. I don’t know whose it is.”

“Why’d you take it?”

He looked past me at Ruby where she slept, and then he reached out and took my hands into his. “Easter, I’ve only ever wanted two things in my whole life. The first was to play baseball, and I was good at it—real good—but I screwed up. I did stupid stuff and I didn’t work hard enough, or maybe I didn’t want it bad enough. I don’t know what happened, but something got in the way.”

“Did we get in the way?”

He squeezed my hands a little. “No, not at all. You and your sister are the second thing I want, something I never thought I’d have. When y’all were born, my dream changed, and I wanted to be a good dad, but I screwed that up too.” He let go of my hands and leaned back in his chair. “And then here comes this money,” he said, closing his eyes like he was picturing it. “When I took it I thought that at least one of those dreams could still come true.” He opened his eyes and looked at me. “My dream is here. It’s you. You and Ruby. I just want a normal life, a normal house, a normal family.”

I wanted to tell him that I’d always dreamed of having the exact same thing.

A few minutes later I got back into bed and pulled the covers over me. I looked over at Wade where he still sat in the chair. “When are you going to sleep?” I asked.

“Soon,” he said. “Any minute now.”

I laid back and closed my eyes, and before I knew it I was asleep. In the morning, when I woke up, Ruby was asleep beside me. Wade was still sitting in that chair. He’d turned it away from us to face the window, but he was still there.

Brady Weller

C H A P T E R   18

I
 was a divorced father with almost no relationship with my teenage daughter, and I’d been forced to resign from my job after more than twenty years on the police force. But I never felt like I’d hit rock bottom until the first time I owed money to a guy named Roc. He was a pretty reliable informant back when I was on the force, and I still leaned on him from time to time whenever I had to deal with a deadbeat I figured he’d know. He worked as a fry cook at a dive restaurant called the Fish House. His real name was Pete, and he was an overweight white guy in his midforties who wore black skullcaps and spoke in hip-hop slang and chewed on Philly blunts. If you let it, it could really bother you to owe money to somebody like that.

I’d been wrong about McGwire going homerless Tuesday night—he’d actually hit two—and now $250 of my hard-earned money would be finding its way into the dirty kitchen of the Fish House and right into Roc’s greasy hands.

The Fish House sat by some abandoned railroad tracks on the edge of downtown. I pulled into the parking lot a little before 9
A.M.
The place was only open for lunch between 10
A.M.
and 2
P.M.
, and the parking lot was empty except for a few old cars on the far corner of the lot by the broken sidewalk.

Just as I stepped out of my car, the kitchen’s side door flew open and slammed against the outside wall. Roc, wearing black sunglasses and his black skullcap and oversize white T-shirt, dragged a trash can from the kitchen toward a set of Dumpsters beside the restaurant. He stopped pulling the trash can and fished a lighter from one pocket of his sagging blue jeans and a cigar from the other. He lit it and went back to dragging the trash can across the pavement. He looked up and smiled when he heard me close my car door.

“Oh, snap,” he said. “What up, playa?”

“Nothing,” I said. “What up with you?” I walked up to him and he shook my hand and pulled me into one of those half hugs guys like to share when they pretend to be “homies.” I felt the grease on his fingers where they wrapped around mine, and when he turned my hand loose I put it in my pocket and wiped my fingers on the lining. I looked down at the trash can. “You need a hand?”

“Hells yeah,” he said.

He took one handle and I took the other, and then we half dragged, half carried the trash can to the Dumpster, where we heaved it up, tipped it over, and poured the garbage inside.

“You watch the Cardinals Tuesday night?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “It’s bad luck, but looks like it didn’t matter. I know what McGwire did off Hernández.”

“He did it off Pall too,” he said.

“I know,” I said, “but I only owe you for Hernández.”

“Damn,” he said. “I thought I’d try anyway.”

I pulled a bank envelope from my back pocket and counted out the bills and handed them over.

“My man,” he said, smiling. He counted the money quickly, and then he pulled a wad of bills wrapped with a rubber band from one of his front pockets. He unwound the rubber band and shuffled through the bills like he’d already marked out a spot for the money I’d just given him.

“You’re killing me,” I said. “I’m down, like, what—four hundred dollars?”

“More like four-fifty,” he said, smiling, still thumbing through the bills. “But I ain’t mad at you, baby.” He fitted the new bills into the spots where they must’ve belonged, and then he started counting all the money in the roll. A guy like Roc always knows exactly how much money he has on him at any given time, but he also wants you to see just how much money there is, how much money one could make running a small gambling empire in west Gastonia out of the Fish House’s dirty kitchen.

“Can I ask you something?” I said.

“Shoot.”

“You ever run numbers on the Gastonia Rangers back in the day?” He stopped counting his money and looked at me over his sunglasses.

“Why?”

“Just want to drop a name on you,” I said. “See if it means anything.” He stared at me for a second, and then he went back to counting his money.

“Go ahead,” he said, smiling. “Anything for my best customer.”

“Do you remember a guy who played for them about ten years ago named Wade Chesterfield?”

He stopped counting the money and put his head back and forced out a loud, fake laugh. “Hell yeah, I do,” he said. “Rowdy? You needed a game fixed, you called Rowdy.”

“Rowdy?”

“Hell yeah,” he said again. “That’s what they called him.”

“Why?” I asked.

He wrapped the rubber band around the wad of cash and dropped it back into his pocket. “Because,” he said, “when that dude couldn’t pitch no more they made him play the mascot: Rowdy. You know, man, the damn Ranger—Rowdy the Ranger. After he got the yips, that’s all they’d ever let his ass do, and he’d do it just to keep getting paid, to stay around the game. But damn, when he was playing—he could fix it for you. Old Wade Chesterfield.” He laughed again.

“The yips?”

“Yeah,” he said. “The yips. He plunked this guy in the face one time, and the dude just lost it and charged the mound. Beat. Wade. Down. It was bad; nobody could stop him. Dude just went insane. After that, Wade couldn’t throw a strike to save his life, whether he had a batter or not. He didn’t last long after that.” He spit onto the cement and rubbed it in with the toe of his boot. “Why you asking about him?”

“Because he kidnapped his two daughters from a foster home on Monday night,” I said. “I’m looking for them.”

“Damn,” he said, like he was impressed. “I never thought ol’ Wade had something like that in him.” He sighed and looked down into the empty trash can, and then he looked up at me. “You know, Wade played with Sosa before Sammy got called up to Texas.”

I’d completely forgotten that Sosa ever played in Gastonia, but I nodded my head at Roc like I remembered it well.

“Good thing Sammy got out of here when he did,” he said. “He’s got old teammates snatching up they kids, and him out there chasing Maris with Big Mac.” He shook his head like it was the most profound thing he’d ever thought, much less said.

“Do me a favor,” I said. “Let me know if you hear anything about Wade Chesterfield.”

“Some birdies sing for they supper,” he said, rubbing his fingers together and smiling.

“We can do it that way,” I said. “But only if there’s any songs worth listening to.”

He smiled and took a drag off his cigar. “You want to put something on Sammy getting number fifty-seven against the Pirates Friday night?”