Essential Maps for the Lost (26 page)

“This is it, boy,” Billy says.

So far, so good. Billy shakes his shoulders, tells himself to relax. He's both the trainer and the boxer in the
Rocky
movie. He has plenty of time. There's no one in sight.

The sun is out, and it's warm, and Billy begins to sweat. The glaciers are melting and lakes are forming right in his underarms, but the padlock is cool in his palm. It's harder to do it like this, with the padlock hanging. At home, he always practiced with it in his lap, sitting on his bed.

He sticks paper clip number one into the hole of the lock. Why, why, didn't he just buy a real pick and tension wrench? A store-bought tension wrench wouldn't have bent like this homemade one. Why did it somehow seem more wrong to go out and purchase his breaking-in tools? Now this makes absolutely no fucking sense to him. Either way, breaking in is breaking in. Failing will be much worse than taking his stupid conscience over to Ace Hardware and plunking down a few bucks. He gets it finally—that whole idea they read about senior year. Machiavelli—he's surprised he remembers the dude's name. The ends justify the means. He didn't even do well on that test, but now it makes sense to him. Hell, yeah. Machiavelli would have gone to Ace Hardware.

He straightens the paper clip tension wrench with his thumbs, tries again. He jabs around in there. It's like he's a blind dentist, ha ha. Casper starts to whine. Billy's got to find the pin that will click open the lock. But it's just nothing and more nothing.
Concentrate
, he tells himself.
Special Ability: Blindsight. Operating effectively without vision. Such sense may include sensitivity to vibrations, acute scent, keen hearing.

He wipes his sweaty palms on his jeans and checks up and down the street again. No one, just a crow watching him from a telephone wire, his marble eyes staring and his beak half open like he's a nosy neighbor about to tattle.

Tension wrench in, pick in. Feel around. Stay calm.

And then . . . there it is. There it fucking is! The lock clicks, and the safe door pops open and the bars of gold are all stacked and shiny inside. Look at that, H. Bergman. You are now nothing over no one! Billy wants to whoop with victory. He slips the lock off and edges the gate open. It hasn't budged in so long, weeds and dirt and shit have grown all around it and he has to really shove his weight against it. Casper gives a half-yelp of excitement. No more prison visiting, no more barriers. Casper's at the farthest end of his chain, trying to come to him.

“Casper, boy,” Billy says. He could cry, goddamn it. He could. He has his arms around Casper, and the dog doesn't mind, and this just chokes him up. Casper doesn't flinch or whine; he only leans in. “Good boy. Good big boy.” Billy's voice is high and tight with tears. The dog is smashed up against his legs, and Billy has to feel around down by his big neck for the clasp to that chain.

The crow caws. To Billy, it sounds mean and threatening, but when he looks back at this day he will wonder if it was something else, a warning maybe. Because what happens next needs a warning: two
whoop-whoop
s, two ear-shattering shrieks of authority.

There is no mistaking that sound. No! No, no, no! He wants to fall to his knees. He wants to weep. He's failed. He's failed himself and Mads and Casper most of all, and now he is also in one big shitload of trouble.

Really, God? Really? He deserves this?

He dares to look up from the ground, which he's been hoping will swallow him. The blue light of the police car is not spinning. The cop has his window rolled down, and he leans on one arm, all arrogant-casual. He's got his cop sunglasses on, the mirrored kind, where you can't see his eyes. Billy recognizes him, though. He's seen him around there sometimes, cruising, sitting at that busy street by the school, pointing his speed radar at traffic. The radio in the police car bleats stuff that sounds important but apparently isn't as important as Billy himself at that moment.

Billy's frozen. He may need CPR.

“Son,” the cop says. “You stealing that dog?”

Billy might throw up right then and there. It'll be the grossest arrest the guy ever made. Billy faces a choice. Confess now, or come up with some story when he's clearly been caught red-handed. Don't they go easier on you when you confess? No one ever gets caught stealing the painting from the art museum or the money in the safe or the computer chip with the data that will take down the major corporation with government ties, so he has no idea what to do.

“Yes, sir,” he says.

The cop drums his nails on the window ledge of his patrol car. He gazes for a while at Billy and that dog.

“Carry on,” the cop says. “I didn't see a thing.”

•  •  •

It's so hard to drive, but who cares. Billy's heart is soaring. Soaring! When he gets to Green Lake, the post-kidnapping meeting spot, she's already there. His Mads, his very own partner in crime and adventure, his own Claudia, but without the sibling part. He can barely reach the brake, but he manages. She lets herself in, because it's too hard to do anything with such a big dog on your lap.

“Billy!” she breathes. “Casper!” She has big sweat stains on her shirt. Billy never knew before that sweat stains could be so fantastic.

“We did it!”

She gets right in there, next to him and Casper, who doesn't seem to mind. She kisses Billy, and it's the three of them, him and her and Casper, and Casper's hot breath smells like ham, and the rest of him doesn't smell that great, either, but who cares. Billy can feel the big beast's chest going up and down right next to him and the dog is panting loud in their faces and there are her soft lips, and the three of them are squished and smushed together, but they are
here
.

“I have never been so happy,” he says, practically into her mouth. He wedges one arm out from around Casper and grabs her and pulls her closer.

“Oh my God, I was terrified! I almost didn't make it! I couldn't find his car at first, and—”

“I love you, Mads,” he said. “I fucking love you.”

“Oh, Billy.”

“I do.”

“I've got to tell you what happened!”

“So tell me, but know that I love you when you're telling me.”

She tells him her story, and he tells her about the cop. He loves cops so much right then, too, he wants to sloppy kiss every one of them. And crows, even. Crows are awesome. He wouldn't kiss them, because it'd give him nightmares, but anyway! And sure, she didn't say she loved him back, but so what! It's a hurdle, that's all. When they're done talking, they start making out again. Casper hasn't budged. Billy's leg is falling asleep. Casper's big breath steams up the window, and so does theirs.

They pull apart. Mads holds his face in her hands, and then he can feel her lips in his hair. Those lips are saying something. Not out loud, but still. Her mouth forms the
o
of
love
, and the
oo
of
you
. Heh heh, he's a lip-reader! He knows exactly what those lips just said! Add hurdles to the things he loves. They can seem so cold and mean, you know, but then you're on the other side of them, and you see what a thing of beauty they are. In the distance, those hurdles stand for everything you've learned and everything you now are and everything you had the balls to overcome.

•  •  •

It's kind of a special moment. Not just walking into Heartland Rescue with Casper, but standing at the counter with Mads. Mads and Jane Grace, there in the same room, meeting. Two of his most important people and one of his most important dogs.

“Mads, Jane Grace. Jane Grace, Mads.” He sounds like an idiot.

“It's so good to meet you.” Mads puts out her hand, and Jane Grace takes it in both of hers. It's more of a hand-hug than a shake.

“And who is this?” Jane asks.

“No collar,” Billy says.

“Hmm.”

“I think he looks like a Casper.”

“Casper,” Jane Grace says. The dog's ear twitches.

“We just found him wandering around.”

“I'll bet.”

“Lost,” Mads says.

“Well, not anymore,” Jane Grace says.

•  •  •

One thing's for sure—he's sick of kissing in his mom's truck. Right then, Mads says, “Ow ow ow,” as he leans down and catches her hair on the armrest. Now, trying to right the situation, his elbow clanks on the window, but hell. They kiss some more. Who cares about pain when you want someone that bad?

They shift. The windows are all steamed up again, and the light outside is dusky perfect.

“We should drive by his house. I'm dying to know what happened next,” Mads says, just before his mouth is back on hers again.

Billy pulls away briefly. “I can tell you what happened next.” Billy's voice is husky from kissing and want. “He towed the car someplace. Got a ride home. Probably didn't even shut the gate. That's the thing—you wish they'd hurt a little, but they don't.”

“Okay,” Mads says. Actually, she just says the
O
part before his mouth takes the rest of the word and makes it his. Her fingers are on the buttons of his shirt. This is flowers and fireworks, yeah, like the movies, but it's also majestic ice caps and surging seas and protons and neutrons and the everlasting meaning of the everlasting universe. If he weren't in that car, if there weren't a roof over the top of them, he'd zoom right into the air. He'd hold her hand, and up they'd both go.

Jesus, he needs his secret Plan A. He needs it
now
. But he doesn't have his own house and his own bed yet, and they've
got
to get out of this car. It's crazy and heated here, and even though they've gone to the farthermost spot in the Gas Works parking lot, people are walking past.

“Let's go.” He doesn't even button the top of his pants back up; he just rises off her and shifts in the driver's seat and starts the truck.

“Where?” Mads's cheeks are big circles of red.

“Just trust me.” It sounds good. But what he's thinking makes him nervous as hell. Gran, well, she doesn't exactly go out with friends or go to movies or anything like that. She doesn't
have
friends. But for the last three Fridays, there's been this thing at Swedish Hospital, some bereavement group, some suicide thing. She's there now. It's dangerous. Still, if he doesn't do something quick, their first time is going to be in the front seat of a car, and that would just be wrong.

Of course, it's pretty damn wrong to bring Mads home to have sex when his grandmother is at a
bereavement group.
Billy can barely stand what an awful, fucked-up picture that is. Sex, death, rightness, wrongness—it's one big buzzing, stinging hive.
Will I ever just plain be happy?
he thinks. The answer is no.
Happy
is never a
just
. It's not a destination you reach, a place to finally set down your bags. There are large happys and a million small ones and a bunch of awfuls and daily smashups and successes and droughts and rainfalls and perfect, dewy spiderwebs on a sunny morning and creepy, sticky spiderwebs in your hair in a dark attic. Life is always everything, all at once.

Prepare for the all at once, two lovers in a car.

•  •  •

He's driving like a maniac. Mads even squeals a little, and so do his tires as he takes that corner. He gets there in all of five minutes. Gran probably left a good half hour ago; he's going screaming fast because he wants them to have as much time as they can.

Billy yanks the brake next to the big China Harbor restaurant. Good news—he can't see Gran's Torino anywhere. It's hard to miss, because it's red with a black hood. It used to be Billy's dad's car, but his mom would never drive it and neither would Billy. It might have looked awesome, but it was unreliable, same as Daniel Floyd. It also smelled disgusting, but that was another story, involving his dad and a deer and a gun; a story that's an animal lover like Billy's worst nightmare. Forget it. It's Gran's now because she never really goes anywhere. It can be trusted for about ten minutes, which was also true for Daniel Floyd.

“Here?” Mads asks.

“Come on,” he says.

Billy takes Mads's hand. He runs her down the steps to the dock. He speeds past Glenn and Craig's big sailboat, practically trips over the neighbor's cat. He's hurrying like there's a fire, because it's true; he's all heat.

Ginger is barking her head off. “Shut up, okay?” Billy says through the door. He pats his pockets for his keys.
Oh, Christ, don't tell me.
He may have just locked them in the truck back there. No matter. He upends various pots of flowers until he finds the hidden key. It's black from dirt and kind of rusty, but he jiggles it into the lock.

Mads looks around, taking it all in, as Ginger jumps on her legs. Billy worries it might smell a little like frying burgers in there. Still, he knows that even with Gran's ancient plaid couch and that painting of a leaping whale, people always like the place. There is water right outside the windows, and boats, and little lights blinking on, and shimmery sunset colors reflected from the sky.

They kiss. He walks them backward. They fall onto the couch. His hands are everywhere. Mads seems to have distanced herself a little, cooled down in this new location. The more they kiss, though, the more she returns. He undoes buttons, his, hers. But then he has to hop up for a second. He grabs a nearby pillow, yanks off its case. The case is decorated with a seagull, who's suddenly gone limp. Billy tosses the pillow case over the urn on the fireplace. They should go to his bed, but he can't stand the thought of changing places for what feels like the hundredth time.

“There,” he says.

He lies on top of Mads again. Her face is so beautiful, and he leans back down and puts his mouth on her neck and starts to reach into her shirt.