The Tower (1999) (34 page)

Jade turned to check on the Atlasias and was almost blinded by the stream of light from the projector. He caught a quick glimpse of Darby's face and she looked terrified. Thomas had his arm around her and he was pulling her down the row away from the aisle, just as Jade had instructed. In case of emergency.

Jade couldn't move in one direction or the other until he saw the figures entering the theater. Now he was yelling at the girls. "Get out of the way!"

They stood still, frozen in fear. Behind him, the theater filled with the sounds of angry viewers.

Jade felt as if he was moving in slow motion. The only thing he could hear was the pounding of his heart. It seemed to fill the whole theater, drowning out even the people behind him.

He swung back to his right and saw the person entering the theater. It was the fat man who had left to go to the bathroom. A figure flashed into view to his left and then disappeared behind the two girls. It was a male.

Jade could taste the sourness of his panic along the sides of his tongue. He had to move. Whether he was right or wrong, he had to move now. If that person got past him, it could be too late.

He jumped up onto the ledge that ran in front of the screen and sprinted toward the left side, his dark figure racing across the flickering black and white of the film. Light swirled across his body like tattoos. The two girls remained in their awkward half crouch, their mouths open. A few women in the audience screamed.

The man was moving quickly up the aisle and Jade leaped over the heads of the two girls, targeting the man's back. He hit him at the waist about five feet up the aisle, swinging one arm under his shoulder and across the back of his neck, and locking him instantly with his cheek smashed to the sticky floor. He rolled him over, his fist reared back, ready to slam down. It wasn't him. It wasn't Allander.

The audience was in an uproar, yelling and swearing and running. The lights came up and the film shut off. A manager's recorded voice boomed over the speakers. "Please exit the theater calmly and slowly. We are experiencing some technical difficulties. Do not push and shove."

The man looked back at Jade, confused terror glazing his eyes, but not a hint of anger. Jade stood quickly, shoving himself up off the man's back. People ran by them on both sides and Jade started pushing his way back to the Atlasias.

I'm not going to lose them, he thought.

A large man purposely blocked his path. Jade didn't see him at first through the crowd and his face collided with his chest. A large football stretched across the man's shirt with the number 22 underneath it.

Jade looked up at the huge, unshaven, football player. Probably a college lineman. He had a confident smirk on his face and a cowering blonde girlfriend to one side. He was out to look impressive.

Jade punched him once in the stomach, dropping his shoulder so his fist would hit just under his ribs, on the rise. The football player coughed loudly and staggered forward, bent at the waist. Jade brought his elbow down in a full swing, cracking him on the back of his head. He crumpled heavily to the floor.

Shoving the girlfriend out of the way, Jade blazed through the rush of people, up the aisle. He cut down one of the rows and jumped off a seat back. It bucked wildly under his weight, but he managed to stumble into another jump, landing off balance, next to the Atlasias. He pushed them roughly behind his back and turned, shielding them with his body.

The agent disguised as a security guard burst through the entrance, flattening a pair of teenaged boys against the door frame.

Jade waved him off. "We're covered in here. Concentrate on the front."

The agent nodded and held up his arm to stop the other agents who were heading toward him. He glanced back at Jade, then disappeared into the stream of people leaving the theater.

Jade had instructed the other agents to clear the area in case of an incident, and he was angry that they had wasted time by checking on him.

Darby's nails pried into his biceps as she held her balance. The three of them waited together, breathing heavily as the theater emptied. After a while, the sound in the lobby died down.

Jade was drenched with sweat. Wiping his arm across his forehead, he cursed himself out loud. He had panicked and ruined the plan.

Darby started to say something, but Thomas shook his head, catching her eye. They stood quietly, holding on to Jade's arms, which were spread behind him protectively like a pair of wings.

Finally, Jade led them out of the row and down the aisle. They walked from the dark theater toward the bright light of the exit.

Chapter
45

T H E Y sat in the living room, silently surveying the dark brown carpeting. Darby wore a glazed expression, her mascara smeared across the top of her cheek. Thomas was in his usual spot near the fireplace. With his wrinkled clothes and weary demeanor, he looked like a recently fired executive in the middle of a drinking binge.

Jade sat with his head lowered, his forearms on his knees. He had kept the windows down as he'd driven to the Atlasias', to cool himself off. He had put the FBI cars back out front for the time being. Thomas and Darby were safe again, at least for now.

A glass dangled loosely in his hands. He raised it to his lips and shook loose a piece of ice, which slid into his mouth. Lowering his head, he crunched the ice slowly.

Darby had lost her voice answering questions following the incident at the theater. Local police, FBI, press, even the fire department had been drilling her from all sides while Jade met with the other agents to see if he could uncover anything useful about the evening's events. After enduring more than twenty minutes of questioning, Darby had weaved her arm through Thomas's and had raised her head to the group of men and women interrogating them. Something in the majesty of her expression had caused the pens to stop scribbling on the notepads.

She had spoken, her words coming in fragments as her voice faded in and out of hoarseness. "You know," she'd said softly to the throng of listeners, "we're more than this." She'd swung an open hand around to indicate the throng of listeners, the bright lights, the police cars. "We're more than just this."

As she had turned to go, McGuire had stepped forward and placed his hand on her shoulder, but she'd shaken it off and kept moving. McGuire had done nothing. Jade had just returned to retrieve the Atlasias, and if McGuire had decided to detain them further, he had been prepared to step in to prevent it. Thomas had followed his wife to the car, his eyes on the ground.

Once again, they had been subjected to a terrible ordeal, and Jade had been the one to do it. All for a failed plan, he thought as he looked at Darby, collapsed on the sofa, exhausted and drained. He crunched another ice cube and his eyes hardened. All Allander needs to succeed, he thought, is for me to do nothing. I'd burn any bridge to get to him.

He stood up and headed for the door without facing them.

"He knows now," Darby said, "that I've betrayed him."

Slowly, Jade turned around. "Yes," he said. "He does."

"I'm glad you're in our corner."

Jade looked at her for a long time. "So am I," he said.

He walked quietly to the door and left.

The two men crowded against each other as soon as they saw movement at the gate. A figure scaled the fence right next to the big gold letters that formed the arching Midland Hills Cemetery sign.

"Could be him. Could be Atlasia," the shorter agent whispered to his partner on lookout. He whipped out his binoculars and tried to focus them through the trees.

The other agent leaned against him, one hand resting on the walkie-talkie looped through his belt, the other on his gun. "Is it him?" he hissed.

"Think so. He's heading for the grave." He waited as another tree trunk blocked the figure from view.

The other agent strained his eyes through the dimly lit cemetery. "It's him. He's at the grave site," he whispered impatiently. He unholstered his gun and started to step from cover. "Call it in," he said.

He got three steps from the small grove of trees when the shorter agent called to him in a hoarse whisper. "Wait! Come back. It's not him."

The other agent backtracked. "What do you mean it's not him? Who is it?"

The shorter agent grinned. "It's Marlow."

"Jade Marlow?"

He nodded.

"What the hell's he doing here?"

"See for yourself."

The agent took the binoculars and peered through them.

Jade stood before the grave, his head bowed meditatively. His eyes were open and his face wore a tight, serious scowl. His lips moved, offering jumbled phrases to the silent cemetery. For an instant, his face softened, and he ran his thumb across his bottom lip.

The agent lowered the binoculars and smiled at his partner. "Holy shit! It is him. Should we approach?"

"No way. Not unless you wanna lose a limb."

"So what should we do?"

"Just watch him, I guess. Make sure he doesn't dig them up or anything." He laughed, a short, hiccuping giggle.

The taller agent raised the binoculars back to his eyes. Jade was nowhere to be seen.

He drove along the streets, prowling in his bullet-riddled car. He didn't want to go home, but he wasn't sure exactly where it was he did want to go. He turned on the radio and a news brief blasted from the speakers.

"--today at The Cutting Floor. At least one male was injured and--"

He clicked it off and drove in silence, listening to his tires clatter over the sewer grates. After a while, he wasn't sure where he was.

The pounding started in his head, like a vise tightening incrementally around his temples. The throbbing increased until he could almost hear it. He reached into the glove compartment and pulled out a bottle of Advil. With his left hand on the wheel, he couldn't get the top off, so he banged it against the dashboard and the round pills spilled everywhere, clinking against the windshield and scattering across the passenger seat and the floor. He scooped four of them off the seat and swallowed them.

Shaking his head and pressing one hand to his face, he kept driving, still with no apparent destination. All of a sudden, he was in his garage. He stumbled from the car and into the house.

Somewhere deep inside him, he heard the singing start again.

He staggered to the study as if he were drugged, and there he collapsed into his chair. His hand groped for the drawer, knocking the lamp off the side of the desk. It swung from the cord, light twirling around the room. Without looking, he opened the drawer and pulled out a small music box. All he could hear was the rhyme in his head, even over the tune of the music box.

Eenie meenie minie moe.

Catch a retard by the toe.

Make him holler blow by blow.

Eenie meenie minie moe.

The music box stood open, the top of the circus tent long chipped away. His hand came down firmly over the lid of the box, trapping the music inside.

An eight-by-ten picture of Allander lay on the desktop. The music box covered part of it, but Allander's brown eyes leered up at Jade as if tracing the lines of his face. They were alive, his eyes. Even here, even now.

Jade ran his hands over his face and through his hair. The pain was not subsiding. He couldn't remember it ever lasting this long. He closed his eyes tightly, pressing his thumb and finger to the top of his nose.

The circus tent on top of the little music box spun to him in the darkness. Sounds echoed in his head.

The bang of a screen door as the thirteen-year-old boy ran from the house. A crying mother collapsing against the door frame.

He's going. He's going to see Mr. Hollow.

He ran down the street.

The retarded boy finally reached Mr. Hollow and he stepped over the neat circle of rocks to see him, reaching his hand to touch the golden hay sticking out from under the loose clothes. He was mesmerized by the scarecrow--so much so that he even forgot about the boys from whom he was fleeing. Mr. Hollow would protect him from anything, he thought. His mouth hung open as he paid homage to the great scarecrow. The pounding of footsteps stirred him from his trance, and he turned to face the four boys who circled him menacingly.

The thirteen-year-old boy sprinted down the road holding on to his cap so it wouldn't fall off. He turned off the road into a large field of waving foxtails and cursed as he saw the trampled trail leading through the high weeds. Running full speed, he disappeared into them.

Eenie meenie minie moe

In the crack of a gunshot, he was back above himself, sprinting through the waving field of foxtails. He ran with quick, expert steps, leaping over furrows, weaving past dirt mounds and gopher holes. His arms pumped furiously at his sides, and the sun fell over his shoulders.

Catch a retard by the toe

He could barely make out the chanting of the children, but as his vision cut ahead and he saw his younger brother still holding dumbly on to the straw that he probably thought was a hand protruding from Mr. Hollow's sleeve . . .

Make him holler blow by blow