Runner (6 page)

I hated everything about my job: the windowless room, the food baked on the pans, the smell of the soap. But most of all I hated the heat. To satisfy Creager, the water had to be just short of boiling. I wore rubber gloves that went up to my elbows, but I could still feel the heat right through them. No matter how cold it was outside, I always stripped down to a T-shirt and shorts when I worked. Even so, I'd be sweating like a pig within five minutes of starting my shift.

I scrubbed those pots until they shined, then scrubbed them some more. After that I rinsed them over and over. The first day I'd worked there, I sent a pan to the cooks that hadn't
been rinsed enough. "Do you eat soap?" Creager had screamed, holding the pan up. "Do you?" When I shook my head, he got right up in my face. "Well, neither do our customers. Never send back a pan like this again. Do you hear me?"

I worked Saturday and Sunday that weekend, from two in the afternoon until ten at night. Through both shifts, all I could think about was the hundred-dollar bill the fat guy had given me. Eight bucks an hour is what I made at Ray's. But I didn't get all eight dollars. After the government took out all the stuff they take out of paychecks, I took home less than seven an hour. Sixteen hours of hard work for what the fat guy had given me to listen to him talk.

Creager came over to me as I was hanging up my apron at the end of my shift on Sunday night. "I won't be needing you until four o'clock from now on, Chance. I'm sorry. I really am. I know things are tough for you and your dad. Around Christmas, business is sure to pick up. When it does, I'll get you more hours. And if anything comes up for your dad over the holidays, I'll let you know."

"Don't worry about me," I said. "I've got a line on another job. The pay is better and so is the work. I'm sick of scrubbing pots, anyway."

Creager stiffened. "When will you know about this new job?"

"I already know about it," I said.

"So when will you be quitting here?"

I hung my apron on the little hook and turned to him.

"That's it. I'm done."

"You sure?"

"I'm sure."

As I walked back to the
Tiny Dancer
that night, the cool evening air somehow didn't cool me. I felt light in the head and wobbly in the knees. I thought about the kids at school, about Melissa. What would they say, what would she say, if they found out that Chance Taylor, the guy in the back of the classroom who never said anything, was a drug smuggler?

As soon as school ended on Monday, I hustled down to the boat and changed into my running clothes. A couple of minutes later I was standing in front of my locker in the utility room, my hands sweating. Finally, I worked the combination and opened it. Inside was a small gray backpack. I stared at it for a while as if it were a bomb before finally picking it up. I pulled the backpack over my shoulders and adjusted the shoulder straps. I took a deep breath and then headed off at my normal pace down Seaview Avenue toward the Ballard Locks.

As I ran, I passed a middle-aged lady wearing a pink Adidas sweat suit with matching wristbands and headband. Next an old guy on a girl's bike rolled by, his black poodle panting to keep up. Two bicyclists flew by on the other side of the street; both were wearing black spandex shorts and canary-yellow shirts. Outside the Juice House a college guy was talking on a
cell phone, a ferret under his arm. The fat guy had been right: nobody was going to notice my backpack.

I did a quick loop through the gardens at the locks, and then retraced my steps, running down Seaview and past Pier B. At the end of the marina, I entered Golden Gardens Park. I ran across the grassy fields—packed with kite fliers and dog walkers in the summer but empty now—and along the boardwalk by the duck ponds until I reached the beach. A good wind was coming out of the north; the wind and sand made the running hard.

When I reached the maple tree, I stopped. I put my hands flat against the trunk and stretched my hamstrings. It was a natural enough thing to do and a natural enough place to do it; I'd often stretched there. But this time my heart raced as my eyes furiously scanned the nooks and crannies in the big rocks that served as a retaining wall for the railroad tracks.

And then, there it was: a black plastic bag stuck between two rocks. My hand was trembling as I reached in and pulled the bag out. Inside was a small brown package, about the size of a shoe box, weighing between five and ten pounds.

I shoved the trash bag and the package into the backpack, hurriedly zipped it shut, and then turned around. Walking toward me was a man who, for a split second, I thought was Mr. Arnold. I froze, and then watched as he threw a stick into the Sound. His big black dog bounded into the water after it. "Loves to swim, that one," the man said, and I saw that he didn't look like Arnold at all. I nodded, and then broke into a jog and started back.

When I reached Pier B, I stopped and walked. My dad, for
the first afternoon in weeks, was onboard. He was sitting in the cabin looking at his charts. I grabbed clean clothes from the storage bin under the bench. "I'm going to shower up," I said.

He looked up. "I'll probably be gone when you get back," he said. If he noticed the backpack, he didn't say anything.

Once I was in the utility room, I shoved the backpack into my locker and carried my clothes to the shower stall. I stuck them and my towel on top of the dressing bench to keep them from getting wet, and then I took a long shower. The whole time I listened for the main door to open, but I didn't hear a thing. When I finished showering, I dried myself and dressed. I couldn't leave without knowing, so I again opened the combination lock and peered inside. The backpack and the package were still there, exactly the way I'd left them.

Back on the sailboat, I was all nerves. I kept thinking about the package, wondering who would pick it up and when. I tried listening to the radio, but I couldn't get my mind off the backpack. Finally I walked the length of the marina just to be doing something. The whole time I was out, nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary. Just another night at the marina. I finally went back to the boat.

It wasn't until eleven that I flicked off the light and tried to sleep, but that was no good either. When my dad came in a little after one, I was wide awake. I fell asleep sometime around two, but even then I slept fitfully, waking up every hour or so, wondering if somehow something had gone wrong.

I was up before six Tuesday morning. I poured myself a bowl of cereal and took it up on deck to get away from my dad. Some of the other live-aboards were stirring, but the marina
was basically quiet. Instead of eating, I stepped off the boat and walked the length of the pier and up the ramp toward the utility room.

The whole time I kept thinking about the locker and the package and the fat guy, and the more I thought, the more certain I became that something had gone wrong. I turned the key to the utility room door and then worked the combination to my locker. Once I heard the
click,
I opened the door. The backpack was there, but the package was gone.

When I came out, the fat guy was leaning against the wall of the utility room, smoking a cigarette. He smiled when he saw me. "Let's walk," he said.

We headed toward Little Coney. "I'm going to make this quick. You get paid every Sunday—the money will be in the front pouch of your backpack. If you see me on the marina, you can nod to me or you can ignore me. I don't care. What you can't do is come into the marina office to talk to me. If we need to talk, I'll come to you. Understood?"

"Understood," I said.

"Good." He smiled. "You're not as dumb as I thought you were, and now you're going to be a whole lot richer."

I wasn't playing a game. This was for real. This was dangerous. Smugglers got busted; smugglers did time in prison. Sometimes, smugglers got themselves killed. I knew it, but somehow I couldn't make myself believe it.

Maybe that's because for a while, nothing happened. Every day I'd run. Every day I'd stop by the big maple and do some stretches. Every day my eyes scanned the nooks and crannies of the rocks. Every day I reached my hand into the deeper recesses and felt around in there. And every day there'd be nothing. Absolutely nothing. There was no package the next day, or the day after, or that whole week.

I got paid, just the way the fat man said I would be. And no packages meant no danger, or at least less danger, so I should have been happy, but I wasn't. I was counting on that money, and I knew nobody was going to keep paying me two hundred dollars a week to do nothing.

At school the following Thursday, the only things I could think about were the fat guy and the rocks and the package and money. By the time school ended, all I wanted to do was run out to the rocks. But when I stepped onto the boat, my dad was waiting for me.

"Put your stuff away, Chance. We're going to the food bank."

"Now?" I said.

"Yeah, now."

"I can't. I've got to run now."

"What do you mean you've got to run now? You can run anytime. Store your stuff down below and let's get going. The bus comes in five minutes."

We caught the bus on Seaview and got off at Twenty-fourth and Market. It started to drizzle as we began the twelve-block walk to the North End Emergency Center. "I think I'm close to having enough money to pay October's moorage fees," I said as we trudged up the hill.

"How?" he said.

"I've got a new job."

He looked over at me. "You quit Ray's?"

I nodded. "I'm picking up and delivering stuff now."

"What stuff?"

"Packages. I get tips too. If you've got any money, we could put it together and probably make it."

My dad thought for a while as we walked. "It'd be good to pay," he said at last. "Keep them off our backs." He put his hand out. "Give me what you got."

A chill passed through me. "I've only gotten one paycheck," I said. I paused. "How about you give what you've got to me, and I'll take care of it?"

He didn't answer. Instead, he lit a cigarette and started walking again. When we reached the food bank, he reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. He counted out six old, ragged twenty-dollar bills and handed them to me. The other twenties—I couldn't tell whether there were two or three—he kept. He caught me looking at them. "A man needs some money in his wallet," he said. Then he pulled open the door to the food bank, and I followed him inside.

By the door stood a silver-haired guy, neatly dressed in a sport coat and slacks, but not wearing a tie. "Good afternoon," he said, smiling as if we were customers at the supermarket. "Boxes are to your left."

Four other people were there—three women and a homeless guy. Two of the women and the man acted just like Dad and me. They moved up and down the aisles picking out spaghetti noodles, cans of soup, jars of peanut butter—stuff like that. They kept their heads down and their mouths shut. But the woman wearing the Washington State Cougar sweatshirt was different. "You got any other crackers besides these?" she called out to the man in front.

"All we have is what's out," the man called back to her.

"How about cookies, then? My girls like Oreos, and I don't see even one package of Oreos."

"Everything we have is on the shelves," the man repeated.

"You must have more stuff somewhere. You hiding it from us?"

My dad and I filled our boxes quickly. "Thanks," my dad said as we headed out the door.

"We'll be open Tuesday and Thursday next week. Regular hours."

The boxes were too heavy to carry the twelve blocks to Market Street. There was nothing to do but wait for the bus, take it to Market, and then transfer to the bus to the marina. It had taken an hour already; it looked like it might take another hour to return.

My dad sat down inside the bus shelter, but I was too nervous to sit. Every few minutes I'd take a step into the street to see if I could spot the bus. I needed to get back. I needed to run. I needed to check the rocks.

When I stepped out for what must have been the tenth time, a blue Jetta came over the crest of the hill. I stepped back onto the sidewalk, but Melissa had spotted me. As she drove past, she tapped lightly on the horn and waved. I managed to wave back.

She turned right at the corner and was gone. Two minutes later I again stepped into the street to look for the bus. But instead of the bus, there was the blue Jetta again. This time Melissa pulled over and rolled down the window. "You need a ride?"

Before I could turn her down, my dad stood up. "We sure do, young lady," he called, smiling broadly and picking up the box of groceries at his feet.

Melissa smiled back. "You can put the groceries in the
trunk," she said, and she reached down to pull the lever that popped open the trunk of the car.

My dad quickly put his box in the trunk. I picked up the second box and loaded it as well. My dad climbed into the back seat, as if he were a little kid, while Melissa and I sat in the front. "I didn't know there was a grocery store around here," she said as she pulled into traffic.

"There isn't," I replied.

I knew what I'd said made no sense to her, but she let it go.

"You going to your boat?"

I nodded.

She drove down to Market and made the turn toward the marina. I wanted to say something, but my mind was blank. In the back seat my father sat staring out the window.

Just after she drove past the Ballard Locks, the sailboats moored in the marina came into view. Behind them was Puget Sound, gray like the sky, and deep in the clouds were the Olympic Mountains.

"It's so beautiful here," Melissa said. "I keep meaning to come down here and run along the water." She paused. "You still run, don't you?"

"Sometimes," I said.

"What are you talking about?" my father said from the back. "You run every day."

"You can let us off up there," I said, pointing to an empty parking spot.

"Shouldn't I pull up closer to the pier?"

"There's never any parking by the pier. This is great."