Prowlers - 1 (6 page)

"Hmm?" Kate mumbled. She glanced at Molly, then looked at Jack in the rearview mirror. "Oh, sorry. Lost in thought. He's a great guy. Very my type, I think. But..."

"But?" Artie asked, obviously fishing.

Molly smiled. Her guy had never been one for subtlety.

"Well, what'd he say about me?" Kate asked. She smiled sheepishly. "Okay, I know how high school that sounds, but freakin' sue me! I'm still in high school for two more months, I'm allowed!"

Molly's eyes went wide and she stared at Kate, th started to giggle. "Whoa. Relax."

"He thinks you're, and I quote, Very cool.' He liked you. That's a good thing, right?"

Kate smiled. "Right."

They drove for a little while, Molly fiddling with the radio while Artie stretched out in back, resting his eye He might have been sleeping; Molly couldn't be sun Artie could take a fiveminute nap just about anywhere

"So what's Jack's story?" Kate asked, her voice low as though she thought Artie might be sleeping and wanted to keep the conversation between herself and Molly.

"How do you mean?" Molly asked, also keeping her voice low. "You know his story. We all went to school together, but he didn't go to college so he could help manage his pub."

"I know, I know. But how did he get to that point? I mean, what happened to his parents?"

Molly pursed her lips. She did not like getting into other people's personal business, and these were questions that Kate herself should have asked Jack On the other hand, this way Jack would not have to tell his story again.

"Nutshell?" Molly asked.

Kate nodded.

"His mom and dad opened Bridget's in the late seventies, bought the building, everything. In the eighties, his Dad got them into a bad financial hole, then took off with some waitress. I don't really know the whole story,

but the guy skipped town and hasn't been heard from since. Jack's mom—that was Bridget—she made a go of it on her own. To hell with the old man, right? Bridget turned it all around; the place began picking up business. She dug them out of the hole, or at least started to."

Molly paused, glanced out her window at the streetlights flashing by and at the flat, claustrophobic overcast sky.

"What happened to her?" Kate prodded.

"Jack was ten and in the fifth grade at the time. He and Artie were already close, and Artie remembers it really well, I think. There was some kind of school play or a pageant or something. Mrs. Dwyer got coverage at the pub so she and Courtney, Jack's older sister, could go. On the way home they were going through an intersection when a drunk driver jumped the red light and plowed right into the driver's side of their car."

"Oh, my God!" Kate whispered, glancing over at Molly in horror, then back at the darkened road ahead.

"Jack's mom was killed. Courtney's leg was badly mangled. She still has to use a cane. And Jack walked away with a little cut over his eye. You can still see the scar there, if you look for it. I think he's always felt kind of guilty about that, actually."

'About what?" Kate asked.

"That he wasn't hurt worse."

On the drive through Boston's labyrinthine streets out to Dorchester, Artie did nod off a bit. From time to

time the car would bounce through a pothole or one of the girls would laugh loud enough to jostle him awake. Then, contentedly, he would again burrow against the locked door, his body skewed beneath his seat belt in a way that could not have been covered by the safety testers. As he drifted back off he would hear a snippet or two of conversation. Prom. Graduation. Old Orchard Beach for the Fourth of July. Six Flags sometime in June. Summer jobs.

Plans. Molly and Kate had a lot of plans for the summer, for their lives. All of Molly's involved Artie, and he didn't mind at all. Whatever she wanted to do was all right with him. It was not simply that he was too wrapped up in his own world to make decisions about such things, though that was part of it. For the most part, though, his flexibility could be attributed to one thing: he felt lucky as hell to have Molly as his girlfriend and if his wearing a white dinner jacket to the prom made her happy, that was enough reason for him to comply.

Half-asleep, the other thing he noticed from these snatches of conversation was that they had stopped talking about Jack That was good. Whether or not things worked out with Jack and Kate wasn't really Artie's concern. He just wanted everyone to be happy, be cool with one another, so there would be no awkwardness if they all got together at a party or just went to the movies together.

With those thoughts floating around his head, his eyelids fluttered and he slept again. The next time he

opened his eyes it was to the ding-ding-ding that the car used to remind the driver that one of the

doors was open while the engine was still on.

Molly was getting out.

"Hey, lazybones. You want to ride up front, or is Kate supposed to chauffeur you home?"

Artie looked up to see Molly leaning over the seat in front of him. Her door was open—dingding-ding—and she had a silly grin on her face.

"No, no, I'm good. Just resting a little bit. You guys were talking, I just figured I'd rest my eyes." He unbuckled his seat belt, popped open the rear door and practically tumbled out of the car.

The car was parked under a streetlamp, and Molly's red hair shone in the light. With a soft smile, she stepped into his arms and kissed him deeply. "Call me in the morning?"

Artie was fully awake now. He gazed into Molly's eyes and laid his forehead against hers. "Sure you don't want me to stay?" he asked. "It's not like you have school in the morning?"

"I have church in the morning," she chided him. "I'd take you with me, but the place would probably fall down if you walked through the front door. Never mind that I somehow doubt my mother would be pleased to find you at the breakfast table."

"Ah, high school girls." Artie sighed.

Molly whacked him on the arm and he chuckled. "Go home," she said.

"Some time tonight!" Kate called from the car.

With a last kiss, Molly turned and headed up to the door of her building. Artie watched until she was safely inside—it was a pretty rough neighborhood—then slipped into the front seat next to Kate.

"You set?" she asked.

'All except the radio," Artie told her. As Kate maneuvered a three-point turn in the middle of the street, he fiddled with the stations. "That's the one thing I'll never understand about you two. Okay, one of several million things. I mean, hello? There's more on the radio in this town than Kiss 108, y'know? Not that there's anything wrong with pop, but spin down the dial, check out something different once in a while, or God forbid click over and listen to NPR. There's still magic in radio if we give it a chance."

Kate snickered.

"What?"

"Sometimes I wonder what planet you're from," she told him.

"What's that mean?" Artie asked, a bit hurt.

With a shake of her head, eyes still on the road, Kate reached over and patted him on the leg.

"Just that you're lovably unique, Artie. It's a good thing, trust me."

'All right, then," Artie replied, nodding with satisfaction. "So what do you think—NPR?"

"If you put on National Public Radio the car might explode in protest. Why don't we play it safe and stick to some kind of music, all right?"

"Coward."

They both laughed at that, but their good humor was short-lived. The most convenient way in and out of Molly's neighborhood was through a section of Dorchester that looked almost as though the apocalypse had come and gone and nobody had bothered to tell the rest of the world. Artie had been asleep on the drive out, but now that they were headed back into Boston, he glanced around anxiously.

"How could anybody live here?"

"Easy, if they don't have any other choice," Kate told him. "Or if they need to be as close to a crack house as possible."

'Aren't you Little Mary Sunshine," Artie muttered. He watched the boarded-up or shattered windows and the darkened doorways, and saw a few homeless people around. Down one dark alley they passed he saw a bunch of younger kids standing around a metal trash can with a fire burning inside.

Then they were through; the homes they were now passing were dilapidated, the property uncared for, but this was a far cry from the almost surreal danger of the neighborhood they'd just passed.

"Lovely place," Kate said. "Thank God Molly's going away to college in the fall."

"No kidding," Artie agreed. He glanced over at her. "Listen, Kate, thanks for driving tonight. If you don't want to go all the way back to Emerson, you can just drop me at a T station."

"Nah, no problem. Just don't forget my tip."

Artie smiled.

Without warning, the windshield shattered. The rock that had struck it was the size of a Softball, and it hit Artie's shoulder even as he instinctively turned away.

Kate screamed, threw her arms up, too late to protect her face. The car pulled to the left, drifted, bumped up over the curb, and plowed into a telephone pole. Artie heard Kate scream again, and then the scream was cut short and the horn was blaring and it wouldn't stop, and he realized that he had slammed his head on the dashboard and blood was streaming down his face.

His vision was out of focus and his eyelids fluttered as he tried to get his bearings. He felt dizzy even though he was sitting. With effort, he managed to focus enough to figure out which direction the steering wheel was in. Kate was slumped forward, her weight straining at the seat belt. The horn was still blaring, but she wasn't leaning on it. Something had happened under the hood when they crashed, and now the horn was stuck.

Artie shakily wiped at the blood that stung the corners of his eyes and tried to look out through the shattered windshield. Just dark out there. No streetlights. Just the glass and the telephone pole. The horn blaring.

It stopped. Sudden as the rock through their windshield, the horn was cut off midscream. Artie wiped at the blood again, frowned painfully, and glanced out. Something moved in the dark outside the car.

"Help?" he croaked.

Kate's nose was smashed and bleeding, and she was unconscious. They needed an ambulance.

He asked for help again.

Frustrated, still moving in slow motion as though he were under water, Artie fumbled with his seat belt and managed to free himself. He reached for the door handle, pulled it, and tried to get out.

Without the strength or equilibrium to stand, he tumbled to the sidewalk. The side of his head thunked on the paved walk, but he barely felt it. His eyelids drooped, and he must have lost consciousness for a moment.

When he opened his eyes again he felt the pain. His skull felt as if it were made of shards of jagged glass and he was almost afraid to move. Artie Carroll whimpered there on the ground. He winced as he reached up to wipe the blood from his eyes again. He thought of Kate, but dared not lift his head to look for her.

He croaked her name weakly.

No sirens. He wanted to cry at that. How long since they'd crashed? A minute? Three? No sirens.

Something moved at the corner of his vision. He turned his head just a bit, and the pain jabbed