The Fall of Alice K. (43 page)

“Thank you for breaking the news to Mai and your mom,” she said when she picked him up.

He swallowed. “It was so hard, you know,” he said.

Bamboo man: he hid his troubles. His tears went inside instead of out. He felt pain and sorrow, all right, but none of it spilled out on other people. They rode around town, comfortable in each other's company and comfortable with the fact that they would soon be a public couple with nothing to hide from anyone.

“I should be helping you pay for the gas,” said Nickson.

The suggestion struck Alice as funny, and she almost reminded him
that she had never helped pay for the condoms, but somehow that little joke would not have seemed all that funny at the moment.

Alice should have driven to the mini-mall where they could have taken a table in the food court and continued their serious talk. Since they had nothing to hide anymore, they could have sat there and talked until the place was ready to close up. And by then they could have ridden around until after midnight.

The mistake she made was accepting Nickson's offer to pay for some of the gas, an offer she was willing to accept because the 150 gas tank was still over half full, and filling it would not be a big money burden on Nickson.

Under the bright lights of the service station, the 150 stood out like a cherry on ice cream. While Nickson was standing next to the 150 with the gas nozzle in the gas tank, Alice saw the car go past with three male figures in it. She saw them glance, then jerk their heads in the direction of the 150 and Nickson pumping gas.

She rolled down her window. “Nickson, stop pumping and get in.”

“We're only up to five dollars' worth,” he said.

“Stop and get in,” she repeated. “We're in trouble.”

“Our troubles are over,” he said calmly and kept pumping gas.

Then his head jerked up and looked to the street. The car with the three males had turned around and was driving slowly past the gas station, all three heads aimed in their direction as it cruised by. If it really was them, all three heads had found new crowns in the forms of black stocking caps.

“See them?”

“I see them,” said Nickson.

“Get in!” yelled Alice.

“I haven't paid,” said Nickson.

“Get in!” she yelled again.

This time Nickson listened, pulled the gas nozzle from the pickup, hung it up quickly, and jumped into the 150. Alice gunned the 150 away from the gas pump, and as she did, she saw the startled face of the gas station attendant staring at her in disbelief as the 150 bolted toward the street.

“That gas station guy thinks I was stealing,” said Nickson. “I owe them seven dollars and fifty-six cents!”

“We have bigger worries,” said Alice.

And they did: the car with the three thugs had made a U-turn and was only a city block behind them. Alice saw the front end of their car lift up with a little jolt when the driver must have given the car quick acceleration. It was a huge gray sedan, maybe a 1990 Buick, and even its headlights had a menacing look, with one light brighter and pointing higher than the other. Their car was as screwed up as they were. So let it be a battle between their sick monster and the pure energy of the 150! Alice put her foot to the floor, and with the surge of the 150's energy both her and Nickson's shoulders jumped back against the seat back.

Alice glanced over at Nickson and saw him reach for his backpack, and it was the first that Alice had noticed that he had brought it.

“It really was them, wasn't it?” she asked.

“Oh yes,” said Nickson.

“How do they dare to hang out around here again?”

“Why not?” he said. “They didn't get arrested the last time, and they looked pretty comfortable dealing in that little South Dakota town. They're the same guys, I know it.”

“The driver has a beard.”

“I can see through beards.”

“What are you doing in your backpack?”

Then she saw what he had. “Not the gun, Nickson!” she yelled, even as she saw the 150's speedometer reach sixty-five on Main Street. “Not the gun!”

It was like watching the birth of a serpent as the big L-shaped thing slithered, shining, from his backpack. He held it by its handle with his left hand, and with his right hand he slipped the sleek cartridge clip into the handle. As Alice refocused her eyes on the road, she heard a sliding and snapping sound of a cartridge going into the chamber.

She stepped on the gas. “They're not going to get close to us. Put that gun away.”

“Be careful. These streets look slippery.”

In her peripheral vision Alice could see the gun and could see Nickson ease the hammer down.

Alice looked in her rearview mirror and saw that the gray sedan was still a city block behind them.

“Nickson. Put. That. Gun. Away,” she said. “I'll ditch them.”

The 150 was hardly warmed up when she took the corner of Main Street and onto the blacktop leading out of Dutch Center. She saw the gray sedan take the same corner, hard, almost skidding out of control. No doubt about it: they were serious about chasing them.

Alice put the spurs to the 150. The Buick was not a lazy car: it was gaining on them even as the 150's speedometer reached seventy-five, then eighty-five. The blacktop road was narrow and had icy spots behind groves. She eased back in tight, controlled pressure on the accelerator, still holding a steady speed on the ice, always keeping two tires on dry pavement when she could. At this speed she expected the sedan to skid, but so far it hadn't. She kept pushing the 150 as the spaced white lines down the center of the road flashed by faster and faster and the hills got sharper, making her stomach leap as she crested them, a roller coaster of sharp hills that made the headlights behind them disappear and pop up again like frog eyes out of a pond. Nickson had his gun pointed at the floor and tried to take quick glances back, but he was becoming more concerned with their speed and stared out the front windshield as the little patch of light in front of the headlights got shorter and shorter and darkness beyond the light kept coming at them faster and faster.

The 150 was going ninety-five when Alice knew they were only a mile from where she was going to turn. She should have lost them by now, but since she hadn't, she would lead them into a testing area that she was sure only she would be able to handle. The 150 reached 105 before Alice lifted her foot, and she didn't touch the brake until she saw the flash of the green street sign where she'd make her turn.

When she did turn, Nickson shouted as if warning her of something she didn't know: “Dead End!”

“It's all right,” she said in a voice that was much more controlled now. “Put the gun away. You're not going to need it.”

Alice planned to lead that hulking gray sedan onto the frozen sandpit that waited for them a mile down the road. If they liked speed so much, she'd see how they liked speed on a really slippery surface. Her confident
hands on the steering wheel were those of a wife protecting her husband and unborn child.

The sandpit, what the community named Crystal Waters, was ten acres of fresh spring-fed water and the favorite and only outdoor swimming area within ten miles of Dutch Center. The temperatures had been so cold that Alice knew the ice was thick, and snow had been so scarce that it would not be deep enough to keep the 150 from getting onto the ice.

The final stretch was bumpy and narrow with packed snow that might make the car behind them lose control, but it didn't. The headlights of the sedan lunged over the bumps, but the driver knew something about driving on ice. The car kept coming, fast and aggressive. The driver probably thought he'd trap them in this dead end.

“Nickson. I really need you to put that gun away.”

“They'll try to kill us.”

“They won't get a chance. Please put that gun away.”

The picnic tables and cement-block dressing rooms came into view—and beyond them the snow-covered bed of ice. Alice aimed the 150 down the gradual slope of the beach next to the dock. They hit Crystal Waters at thirty miles an hour, with the confident sedan a hundred yards behind.

Alice gunned the 150 over the snow-covered ice. When she saw a glaring snow-free area of ice, she headed toward it. Just before she got to the bare ice, she turned the wheel and put the 150 into a skid that sent them gliding sideways down snow-free ice. The driver of the sedan did not try to slow down until he came onto the pure ice, then he put on his brakes, but the car slid straight and went sledding helplessly past them.

She eased the 150 back to the snow for traction, accelerated and pulled away from the sedan before the driver regained control and came back at them. Alice turned the 150's headlights on bright so they'd blind the driver of the sedan if she ended up facing them. What the 150's bright headlights did was light up the limestone embankment on the far end of Crystal Waters.

When the sedan accelerated toward them again, Alice accelerated too, but she put the 150 into a long arcing skid. She did not know if it
was she or the 150 who designed the skid, but they were accelerating even as they angled, skidding but moving in a big calligraphic C across the snow-covered ice, the speedometer reading seventy as they moved at twenty miles per hour across the snow-packed ice. Like a dog trying to cut catty-corner through the arcing pattern of a fleeing rabbit, the driver of the sedan aimed his car to catch the 150 broadside. The unmatched eyes of its headlights came closer and closer before the 150 pulled out of the skid and accelerated ahead fast. The sedan whizzed past. Alice looked to see the brake lights go on and its unlevel lights shining against the embankment just before the sedan crashed headlong into it. The sedan's rear end rose quickly into the air and came down hard on the ice.

“Yes!” screamed Nickson.

The door of the 150 flung open. “Alice! Alice! What are you doing ?”

Alice saw the door on Nickson's side fling open too and she saw the gun in his hand. But she was running, running hard toward the sedan. “Alice! Alice!”

Alice grabbed the door handle of the sedan on the driver's side and yanked at it. Inside were three people coughing in a thick cloud of dust.

Nickson was beside her now and pulled at her arm.

“Give me that gun, Nickson! Give me that gun!”

“Alice! No!”

Alice saw the dark handle sticking out of his coat pocket. She shoved and grabbed at the same time and sent Nickson sliding away from her on the ice. The gun was in her hand. She pulled the hammer back.

“No, Alice! No!” yelled Nickson as he struggled to his feet.

The sight down the barrel was so easy to follow and the weight of the gun seemed to steady her hands. She stood next to the driver's side window and aimed inside. Two of the occupants were barely visible through the dust but looked as if they had their noses buried in their armpits. The driver was the only one who was clearly visible with his face next to the window, looking at her.

Those frightened eyes. That broken front tooth. That flimsy beard. The slim beak of a nose. The black stocking cap, frayed and grease stained. Pointing the gun at him was as easy as pointing a finger.

And then the driver screamed: “Do you know me ? Do you know me ?”

Alice stared at him over the barrel of the gun.

The stupidity of his frightened eyes.

Nickson was now standing beside her but didn't touch her arm.

Alice lowered the gun. “You take this,” she said.

Nickson took the gun, pointed it at the ice, and eased the hammer down.

“They're not going anyplace,” he said. “Let's go.”

43

Alice stopped at the gas station when they got back to Dutch Center.

“We knew you'd be back,” said the attendant. “Seven fifty-six please.”

Alice asked to use the phone. The attendant pretended not to listen as Alice called the police and told them what to look for, and why.

Within a day, news of the sandpit event was so widespread around Dutch Center that no one spoke openly about it. How could they? What the Krayenbraaks were going through was so far outside of everyone's experience that the would-be gossipers could not come up with anything surprising. It was all so obvious that the Krayenbraaks were going broke that it was hardly worth talking about. Their financial woes were just a drop in the bucket of their misfortunes. Then the head of the household had a heart attack. One daughter was in an institution and the other dating a foreigner who led her into that frightful event with those criminals. Those criminals. At least they weren't Dutch. Of course they weren't Dutch. And the mother, what could be said about the mother that hadn't already been said? No matter how strange she was, she had to be strong. There had to be a rock beneath that sea of strangeness. All that could be done about the whole unspeakable situation, really, was to pray and hope for the best. Trust in the Lord.
Zeg maar niks.

The reality at the home of the Krayenbraaks was strangely unremarkable. Her father's surgery was successful and he was recovering nicely, getting a little exercise, and spending a lot of time in his study. Where was money coming from to buy groceries? Alice didn't know. What were her parents planning for her now that they really couldn't stop her from seeing Nickson? Alice didn't know. How was her father's heart attack actually affecting Aldah ? Alice didn't know. What did the Vangs know, and what were they thinking? Alice didn't know. If she could have described
her own state of mind, Alice would have called it oddly tranquil. She didn't analyze the feeling. This may have been what people meant by “a state of shock.” It felt more like a state of invulnerability, a peace that came with sinking to the lowest depths and knowing you were there.