Last Stop (4 page)

Next foot.

I was completely off the train now. I turned to my left and started walking slowly.

A squeaky noise. A skittering in the shadows.

I froze up.

Rats.

I hate rats.

Hold on.

The card was within reach. I leaned down and picked it up.

“David!”
Heather’s voice called out.

SMMMMACK!

The sound of the sliding metal door startled me.

“HEY! KID!”

I turned. The glare of a flashlight blinded me.

Behind the light, I could make out the shape of the subrail pug. He was leaping onto the platform, heading right for me. “WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?”

Just what I was asking myself.

I backed away.

My right foot slid on the grime. Wind-milling my arms, I fell face first.

I hit the floor with a muffled thud.

Grit flew into my mouth. My eyes stung. I started coughing like crazy.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see my friends peering out the window of the car. Dumbfounded.

A hand gripped my shoulder and turned me around.

I was facing a holstered gun.

“Young man,” the guardian said, “you are under arrest.”

We’ve lost him.

“A
ND
I
WANT TO
make clear,” said the chief subrail guardian, pacing his office, “that pulling the emergency brake recklessly and trespassing on FCSS property are
both
misdemeanors—”

I sat forward in my seat. “But I didn’t pull the brake—”

“And
both
are punishable by law!” the chief boomed.

Mom was glowering at me. She looked angry, but her eyes were all teary and her lips were starting to quiver.

“I understand,” I muttered.

I was a criminal.

A
filthy
criminal. The soot I’d fallen into was like paint. If I wiped it, it just spread. The chief had to put a plastic cover on the seat before I could sit on it.

My future passed through my mind: a small cell…ankle chains…dates checked off on a stone wall…

“What—what’s going to happen to him?” Mom asked.

“Juvenile court is the usual step,” the chief replied.

“But he’s never done anything wrong before!” Mom pleaded.

The chief walked behind his desk, sat down, and sighed deeply. “Son, I knew your dad. His department worked with ours. He was a good man. You must miss him.”

I bowed my head. Mom choked back a sniffle.

“I’m going to let you go,” the chief went on. “But with the strongest possible warning. What you did was not only illegal but extremely dangerous.”

I nodded.

“Thank you,” Mom said. The chief nodded. “Now go home and take a good bath, young man.”

Mom was not in a cheery mood as we left the FCSS headquarters.

“Do you know how lucky you were just now? Don’t you
ever
do something stupid like that again. Why were you on that train? Who gave you permission to leave the house?”

“Mom, I’m thirteen—”

“So that means you’re free to go out and disrupt the entire subrail system?” She was practically screaming.

“I told you I didn’t
do
that!”

“You could have been killed!”

“I know!”

“I’ve already lost
one.
Do I really need to lose you, too? Because of your own stupidity?”

Enough. I had had enough.

Enough of being yelled at. Laughed at. Framed for something I didn’t do.

“I’m not stupid!”
I shouted. “I only went out there because of
him
!”

Fool

Idiot.

Loudmouth.

“Who?” Mom asked.

I wasn’t going to say it.

But Heather knew.
All
my friends knew now.

Mom was bound to find out sooner or later.

I took a breath. “Dad,” I mumbled.

“You were with Dad?”

“No. See, I thought I saw Dad. On the platform.”

Mom stopped short. “You mean—like a homeless person, living on the tracks?
Oh, David, why didn’t you tell me
?”

“No. No. It wasn’t him, Mom. It wasn’t anybody. It was a hallucination.”

Mom’s whole body seemed to cave in. “David Moore, are you making this up?”

“No!”

“Are you just
pretending
you thought you saw Dad? Like that would make me forgive you for walking onto that platform? Like, ‘The stress made me do it, Mom’?”

“Forget it—”

“Do not play with me, David. I have not slept for months. I jump when the phone rings. I feel as if my insides have been pulled out and dragged across the country. And as much as I love you and try to understand how you’re feeling, I will not let you use your father as an excuse to behave like a monster!”

Mom’s words were furious, but her eyes told a different story. They were saying,
Tell me it’s true.
Behind the fear and confusion and numbness was hope, like the gray light before a sunrise.

I couldn’t speak. That hope was doing something to me. Pulling me inside her. For a moment, I felt the shock of Dad’s death all over again. Through her eyes.

Pictures flashed in my mind—the old pictures in our hallway. Dad as a skinny young guy with a ponytail and a muscle shirt. Pointing to his crew cut in mock horror after he joined the force. Kissing Mom at their wedding. All images of Dad before I knew him. A stranger, really.

My own mental picture of Dad was so different. He was older, grayer, and heavier.
That
was the dad I had lost.

In a way, though, Mom had lost
all
those men on the wall. Every single one.

I realized she was feeling pain I could never know.

And now she was looking to me for an answer. For hope.

Well, I knew something about hope now. It transforms you. It’s like a mirage in the desert. You see it where it doesn’t exist. On a TV show. In the blank expression of a detective.

On a rotting subrail platform.

And just like a mirage, it lets you down. Hard.

I couldn’t give that hope to Mom. It wasn’t fair.

If I was cracking up, I didn’t need to drag her down with me.

“It’s stupid, Mom,” I said, looking away. “Just…like a hallucination or something. I haven’t been feeling right lately. That’s all…”

My voice trailed off. For a long time, Mom didn’t reply.

Then I felt her arm around my shoulders.”David,” she said gently, “I think we both need a vacation.”

What I needed first, however, was a shower. Which I took right away when we arrived home.

Afterward I headed straight to my room. I carefully closed the door, then dumped onto my desk the contents of my pocket—a Yumm-E wrapper, subrail tokens, keys, two rubber bands, a jumbo paper clip…

The sky-blue card was tucked into a folded-up homework assignment.

My stomach started to flutter.

Hope.

No.

Get rid of it. Don’t even look.

I ran to the bathroom and lifted the toilet seat.

With one hand I grabbed the flusher. With the other hand I held the card over the bowl.

And I read the words.

This was not part of the plan.

In order to get closer,

You sometimes must fall behind.

THE SKY’S THE LIMIT

Environmental Consultants

* Miles Ruckman *

Administrative Assistant

9972-7660

My heart stopped pounding.

The name didn’t ring any bells. Neither did the company

Just a guy. A normal guy.

A guy whose business card had floated onto the subrail platform yesterday.

I pulled the card away from the toilet. What if Miles Ruckman needed it? Maybe it was his last one.

Call him.

I had to. I had to hear his voice and know he was alive in Franklin City. Not off in some phantom world.

I snuck into Mom’s bedroom and picked up the voicephone.

“David?” she called out from the kitchen. “Any lunch requests? I’m going to the food shop!”

“Uh…hot dogs?” I called out. “Ice cream? Chocolate-stripe cookies?”

Mom chuckled. “Okay, well, stick around while I’m gone, okay?”

“Sure.”

I waited until I heard the front door close. The ding of the elevator bell.

Alone.

I held up the business card and reached for the voicephone.

BLEEEEEEP!

I nearly hit the ceiling.

I grabbed the receiver.
“Hello?”

“What’s wrong?”

Heather. It figured.

“Nothing’s wrong! What do you want?”

“What’s it say? The card?”

“Why should I tell you?”

“If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t have gotten it.”

“If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have been
arrested
!”

“True. But you’re only thirteen. They just scared you and slapped you on the wrist, right?”

“How do you know?”

“I watch TV. So, what does the card say?”

I exhaled. No use fighting a force of nature. “Some guy’s name. I was about to call him before you interrupted.”

“Was it the guy who disappeared?”

“No one
disappeared
, Heather.”

“Oh, yeah, right, it was a hallucination. I forgot. So why are you calling him?”

“To tell him he lost his card, okay?”

“I’ll be right over.”

Click.

I waited for the buzz tone. Then I carefully tapped out the number printed on the card.

“This is The Sky’s the Limit,” came a recorded voice. “Our regular business hours are—”

Ding-dong-ding-dong-ding-dong-ding-dong!

I slammed down the receiver, ran to the front door, and opened it.

“That was fast,” I said.

“Is this it?” Heather blurted out, grabbing the card from my hand as she barged inside. “Let’s call.”

“I just did. The company’s closed. We can’t talk to him until after the weekend, I guess.”

“Duh.” Heather went straight to the kitchen, took a residential directory off the shelf, and leafed through it furiously. “Here it is! ‘Ruckman, Miles…9766-1848.’ ”

Sometimes I can’t stand smart people.

I called the number.

But I reached another recorded voice, stiff and dull-sounding: “This is Miles Ruckman. I’m unable to answer your call right now, but if you’d like to leave—”

“Auuuugh.”
I hung up again. “He’s not home, either.”

“That proves it!” Heather exclaimed. “He
did
vanish.”

“He could be anywhere. Out shopping. In the bathroom.”

“Okay, we’ll wait and call again.” Heather was fiddling impatiently with the business card now, turning it around. “Hey, what’s this?”

She held the back of the card toward me. On it was a scribbled message:

“Great speller,” I commented.

“Yyyyyyes!” Heather leaped up and began dancing. “Between Booker and Deerfield! That’s where the Granite Street station is.
Right here in his own handwriting
!”

“He wrote down the location. Big deal. Heather, lots of people like to gawk at the station.”

“And then they just toss their business cards out the door?” Heather stuffed the card in her shirt pocket and glanced at the directory again. “He lives at 37 Bond Street. We can ring his buzzer. If he’s not there, we can stay until he arrives.
If
he arrives. Are you with me?”

“You’re crazy. That’s…that’s stalking!”

Heather started for the door. “I’ll go. I’ll let you know what happens.”

“Wait!” I said.

Heather turned around.

“There’s a cool vintage comic book store on Bond Street,” I mumbled. “Maybe I’ll go down there with you.”

We took the subrail. The phantom station was as empty and dark as usual.

Thirty-seven Bond was a rundown apartment building, close to the river. A rusted fire escape zigzagged down the front of it, and a few garbage cans stood empty on the sidewalk.

Near the front door was a list of names and apartment numbers, each next to its own black push button—just like my building, where you ring a buzzer to someone’s apartment and that person buzzes you inside.

Right away we spotted M. RUCKMAN 3E.

Heather pressed his buzzer, then raised an eyebrow. “Comic book store, huh?” she said slyly.

“Uh, well, I’ll just see if he answers,” I said. “Then I’ll go.”

We waited a few moments, then Heather pressed again.

“No one home,” I said.

“Guess I’ll have to go inside and wait by his apartment door.” Heather began pressing all the buttons on the board.

“Hey!” I protested. “What are you—?”

BZZZZZZZZ!

Heather pushed the door and it swung open.

“See? If you buzz them all, someone’s bound to let you in,” she said. “Coming?”

I followed Heather into a dark hallway with a worn-out tile floor. The air was stuffy and smelled of fried food. At the end of the hallway, we climbed a dark, lopsided stairway, passing gray windows that were permanently shut by years of caked paint.

Apartment 3E was at the end of a long, narrow hallway. At the other end, the doors to apartments 3A and 3B faced each other in a small alcove. We could hide there, unseen by Miles Ruckman when he returned.