Even Steven (31 page)

The atlas was right where it was supposed to be, on the shelf in the living room, and he found Virginia by running the alphabet song through his head until he got to the V's. Sure enough, there was Clinton, Virginia, just outside of Washington, D.C. It looked like maybe a four-hour drive. He checked his watch. If he moved quickly, he could be there and then back to West Virginia in no time at all. He'd make the midnight deadline easy as pie.

But then what? Suppose the nosy nellies-the Martins-didn't go back to Clinton, Virginia? Suppose they--

What? What else could they have done? He remembered how scared they were out there in the woods, and he knew that people who were that scared do only one thing-they go home. He'd find them there, and then what?

You get revenge.

"Jacob?"

Get revenge. Isn't that what Jacob would have done for Samuel?

He'd already thought about that. He'd get revenge on the nosy nellies who'd shot his brother.

And he and Jacob could get back to the game with the boy. The game that Samuel never fully understood. Usually, when they went out to do a job, it was a snot-pounding and then maybe a shooting, but it was always with adults. They only snot-pounded bad guys. Jacob would never hurt a little boy. He'd never hurt anybody that Samuel liked.

It bothered him that the kid-Samuel was pretty sure his name was Justin-didn't really want to play their game. And what a harsh game it was! Jacob called it hide-and-seek deluxe, but no matter what they called it, that hole looked pretty scary. Even scarier than the gunnysack, and that had to have been pretty scary, too.

Once Jacob pulled the Simpson guy over and showed him the badge, Samuel's job had been to say nothing while they approached the car. Jacob had insisted that they watch rerun after rerun of Cops to make sure they had the walk down just right. Then, once the punching started, Samuel was to throw the burlap sack over the kid's head and tie him up real tight.

"Just relax, little boy," he'd said as the kid wriggled and squirmed and screamed. "It's only for fun. We're not really gonna hurt you or nothing. We'll be really, really nice if you'll just shut the fuck up." But it was as if the kid didn't understand English or something. The first time Samuel knocked the bag against the ground, the kid just got louder. Same thing the second time. By the third knock, though, he'd settled down to a quiet little whimper, and he stayed that way.

It was a long drive-every bit of two hours-and Jacob was in one of his quiet moods. As the roads deteriorated and they bounced around the interior of the cab, Samuel noticed the clinking of the baby-food jars as they rattled against each other in the back. "Why did you buy such tiny jars of food?" he asked, if only to break the silence. "There's not much in them."

"That's baby food, you idiot. Nobody buys big jars of baby food. A little kid would explode if you tried to stuff a whole jar of apple sauce down his gullet. Jesus."

Samuel tried to picture that in his mind, and he didn't like what he saw. "So, is that food all for little Justin?"

"Every bit of it."

"Wow, he must really be hungry."

This time, Jacob laughed, and Samuel remembered how refreshing a sound it was. A good laugh always made Jacob more pleasant to be around. "He's not going to eat it all at once, dum-" Jacob cut himself off before he said the word, and Samuel really appreciated that. "He's going to be out here for a while."

"In the woods? By himself?"

"He's got his house," Jacob said, referring to the hole they'd dug, "so he'll be safe from animals down there, and the food will keep him from starving."

Samuel winced at the thought and rubbed the back of his neck. "I don't know, Jacob. That doesn't sound like much of a game to me. Sounds more scary than fun."

Jacob got quiet for a while and then said, "Well, you know, Samuel, there are different kinds of fun. Sometimes you have to think that something's fun just because it's more fun than doing something else that's really not fun. Does that make sense?"

Actually, it didn't, but Samuel said yes anyway because he was too tired to hear it explained.

Finally, they arrived at the spot they'd so carefully prepared. It was quite a hike from the road to the little clearing, through thickets and briers. Samuel carried the sack with the kid inside, but it wasn't very heavy, and even though the kid moved around a lot, he kept his mouth shut, which was just fine. The woods were spooky enough in the middle of the night without adding the sounds of a screaming kid to it all. Samuel carried the jars of food, too, all stuffed into a backpack that weighed a ton. Jacob carried the water and the flashlight.

"Here we are,' Jacob announced, setting the water jug down on the ground. He shined the flashlight on the rectangle they'd cut out of the ground. Samuel moved closer and peered into the hole. It looked deeper at night than it had during the day. "This just doesn't look very run," he mused aloud-

"Remember what I said, Samuel. Trust me, this is a lot more fun than some of the other games we could have played."

"It looks like the boxes you built for Mama and Daddy. The coffins."

Jacob's patience was thinning. "It's not a coffin, Samuel. It's much, much bigger than that. For a kid this size, there'll be plenty of room for him to crawl around and get his food and stuff."

"Jeez, Jacob, I don't know ..."

Jacob moved quickly around to the other side of the hole. "Besides, look here. You see? I built a lid for the box that has a big air vent in it."

"But you're gonna put dirt on top."

Even in the dark, Samuel could see Jacob roll his eyes. "I'm not going to put dirt on the vent, for Christ's sake. I'll put the dirt around the vent, so the kid will be able to breathe. It's nothing like a coffin, Samuel. Nothing at all like a coffin, so just get that thought out of your mind."

He heard what Jacob was saying, and he knew that his brother wouldn't lie about stuff, but it sure seemed like a coffin to him.

Jacob changed the subject. "I want you to take care of the kid for me, okay, Samuel? I want you to let him out of the sack and put him in the hole and maybe even get down there with him for a little while and show him where you put his food and all. He won't have much light to see with, so he'll need to know how to feel his way around."

"Where are you going?"

"It's dark out here. I need to get some firewood so we can see what we're doing."

Samuel didn't like the sound of that; no, sir, not one bit. "You're not going to go far, are you?"

Jacob gave him one of those looks. "There's nothing out here that can hurt you, Samuel. There's nothing to be afraid of."

"But you're still not going far?"

Jacob laughed. "No, I won't be going far."

"How long will you be gone?"

"Just a few minutes, okay? Relax."

Yeah, right. Relax. Easy for Jacob to say. He understood things. He knew when there were things to be afraid of, and when there weren't. For Samuel, it was always a guessing game, and right now, he was guessing that maybe his brother didn't know what he was talking about. Before Samuel could say any of these things, though, Jacob was gone, leaving him out here in the dark woods all by himself. Just him, the kid, and a flashlight.

Well, at least he left the flashlight. That was better than darkness.

Moving cautiously, Samuel approached the burlap sack and nudged it a little with his toe. "Hey, kid," he said in one of his stage whispers. "Hey, Justin, are you still there?"

The boy didn't say anything, but the bag moved. Samuel thought Justin must be nodding.

"Okay, kid, I'm going to untie the bag now, okay? I'm going to show you where you'll be playing. But you've got to promise not to make all that noise like you did before, okay? Noise makes me real nervous, and when I'm nervous, I, well, I just get nervous."

Part of him wondered how much the boy could understand of what he was saying. The kid was pretty little. And it couldn't be much fun to be inside that bag. He figured that Justin would probably like it if he let him out.

So, that's what he did. No matter how he moved, Samuel had trouble staying out of his own shadow, making untying the knot more complicated than it should have been, but once he got it, he pulled open the bag, and there was the boy. Red streaks stained his face from where he'd been crying, and his eyes seemed to take up the whole top half of his face.

"You look scared, Justin." Samuel reached out to pet the boy's head, but the toddler recoiled, making Samuel jump, too. "Oh, you don't have to be afraid of me. We're just going to let you play out in the woods for a while, that's all."

The boy stared. His lip trembled some, but he never made a sound. It would have been better almost if he had. Some sound to indicate that he at least heard what Samuel was saying.

"Are you cold? Is that why you're twitching like that?"

Dressed as Justin was in those heavy pyjamas with feet-the kind that only children got to wear, even though grown-ups got cold, too-it was hard to tell how he must feel.

Okay, Justin, Jacob says I need to show you your new playhouse, so why don't you come with me?"

The boy's eyes got bigger still, and he scooted back a little more.

Samuel stood and held out his hand. "Come on, Justin, I'll show you."

Justin's lip trembled even more, and finally tears started to flow. He started to cry, making that loud, little-boy crying sound that just filled the woods.

"Hush, Justin!" Samuel hissed. "Shut up! You want everyone to hear us?"

But the boy kept on wailing. The tears tumbled out of his eyes and down his cheeks, where they combined with snot and drool to form a wet, slippery mess on his chin.

"I said shut up!" Samuel took a quick step forward, and the boy shot to his feet, trying to run away. But Samuel was faster, catching the kid around his middle, and picking him up effortlessly. Justin squirmed and kicked and did all those little-kid things that Samuel had seen spoiled-rotten kids do in the stores, but he only tightened his grip around the boy's tummy.

"Here you go, kid. Here, see your new playhouse." Samuel tried to lower him gently into the hole, but he was moving around so much that Samuel's grip slipped, and Justin ended up falling down the sides of the excavation and down onto the wooden planks, landing with a hard thump.

And then the screaming started for real, pouring out of the hole as if someone had cranked a volume control all the way up.

"Shh," Samuel said again and again. "Shh, you've got to shut up." He knew that Jacob would worry about other people hearing the kid, but Samuel was much more concerned about Jacob himself. If he heard how much noise the kid was making, then he'd start in with all that talk about "I give you one stupid little job to do, and when I turn my back, you fuck it all up." Samuel didn't need to hear any more of that.

So, he jumped down into the hole with Justin and gathered the boy into his tightest bear hug, trying his best to avoid the flinging knees, elbows, and head. "Please stop, Justin," he begged. "Stop making all that noise. Just look around, will you? This could be fun. We'll give you food and all kinds of stuff, but first you've got to shut up. I don't want to have to drop you again."

The boy did get quiet, and then--

And then Samuel couldn't remember any more. The next image he could see in his brain was Jacob standing over the hole yelling things at

him. "You stupid fucking idiot! I give you one simple job to do, and you fuck it all up!"

Samuel remembered that he'd had to stifle his pride that he'd predicted his brother's words exactly. He'd hit the nail on the head. Right on the money. Word for word.

And then the chase started and Jacob got killed.

Now, Samuel was alone forever; no one to tell him what to do or how to do it. No one to help him with hard decisions. A sense of gloom seemed to grow out of the ground and surround him in a sticky black shroud, and as he tried to shrug it away it only wrapped tighter around him.

Revenge was the way to break the bonds. He knew this, even without Jacob telling him. Once he paid those nosy nellies a visit, he'd feel better. And when he returned the boy, The Boss would be happy.

Maybe then everything would be all right again.

RUSSELL CURSED UNDER his breath as he slid the heater control on the dash to off. Again. Never in his life had he been in a rental car where everything worked properly. Today, the gremlins resided in the heater, which cycled between only two settings: sweat and freeze. It's the little things, sometimes, that make life most miserable. The good news was, he was almost there.

Somehow, in the crush of Washington's suburban sprawl, time had eluded Clinton, Virginia. Neat, trim clapboard houses, each with its obligatory three-foot fence (white pickets, of course, or black wrought iron), led the way to a downtown commercial district consisting of three restaurants, a self-consciously rustic general store, a Baptist church, and more trinket and specialty shops than Russell could count.

This was the shopping hub of the surrounding horse country, where people paid big bucks to live in a color-coordinated, Disneyfied vision of small-town America. The residents here couldn't quite afford to live among the old-money foxhunters in Leesburg or Middleburg, but this place teemed nonetheless with all the trappings of nouveau wealth.