To Sleep Gently (26 page)

To his left, a narrow wall extended out into space about five feet, then dropped down and down again, like long, precarious, paper-wide steps. They continued out past the roof of the bottom-floor and just ended in mid-air, above the sidewalk.

The drop from this level to the next was farther than the previous one. He couldn't risk jumping. Too much chance he'd break something. He fired at the balcony on the right and heard the sound of breaking glass. With the suitcase in his right hand and his gun in his left he stepped up onto the wall.

Another gunshot. The bullet whizzed by his head and he teetered as his eyes took in the sight of the long fall. He caught himself, and made it to the edge. The step was further down than he'd thought. Crouching, he set the bag on the wall, hopped and turned around over it, landed on the next step. He lost his footing but managed to hold onto either side of the suitcase, which acted as a hook over the higher wall. The .45 dangled from his ring finger.

More gunshots. He couldn't fight back now, just had to get out of there. He got his footing and moved as quickly as he could to the next step, then to the next.

One at a time, he told himself, just take it one at a time.

More bullets slammed the wall and whizzed by him.

He was almost at the edge. He tossed the suitcase to the sidewalk. Then he was at the edge. He lowered himself as far as he could for the drop.

From above he heard a window shatter. He saw someone come out onto the roof from where he'd started this crazy climb. He heard the gunshot as he fell through the air. Then he landed hard and fiery pain crackled up through his feet and legs and for a moment everything went black. The streetlights faded. The moon was blind. The darkness seemed to last forever. Then he opened his eyes and hadn't even settled onto the sidewalk yet.

Aching, scrambling up, he hefted the suitcase and ran with a semi-limp as fast as he could towards the County Clerk's Office, hoping Evan had really parked there and hoping even moreso that the police hadn't yet blocked the area. Not more than ten minutes had gone by since he saw the flashing lights from the lobby.

There was one gunshot, and then everything went quiet behind him.

The Pontiac was there. It was also locked. He smashed the driver's side window with the butt of his gun, unlocked the front door and got under the wheel, telling himself "Yellow to red, yellow to red."

"Hey," he heard somebody say from somewhere high above. "Someone's stealing that car."

Then came the sound of sirens once more, unrelated to what the voices had just said, but still related to him.

The Pontiac started. Dempster put it in reverse, backed it around in a half circle, switched to drive and drove as fast as he could in the opposite direction of the original escape route. He drove for a very long time and very out-of-the-way to get where he needed to go, and made a serious habit out of checking the rearview mirror.

He lifted the left side of his jacket at one point and saw there was blood on his shirt.

Chapter Sixteen

Sandra was staring out the front window of the bar when he pulled in. Rather than park in a space, Dempster stopped the car out front and waved at her. She couldn't see him through the tint of the Pontiac's windows, though. He hadn't smashed any of the windows on the passenger side, which faced the bar. Leaving the car running, he opened the door and stepped out. When she saw him her eyes lit up. He climbed into the passenger side and waited for her to take care of whatever she needed to in the bar.

Two minutes later she came out, saw he wasn't behind the wheel, beetled her brow, and got into the driver's seat.

"What happened?" she asked, and saw his hand at his side.

"You gotta drive," he told her. "Touch as little of the car as possible."

She looked down at the instrument panel, confused because the car was running. "Where's the key?"

"Just drive. Go to the McDonald's and we'll get our stuff. Then we gotta go back to the mall and get your car."

"Why?"

"Can't keep driving this thing. It's hotter than hell."

"Hopefully my car's still there."

"It's still there, don't worry."

She put the Pontiac in drive. "You're bleeding."

"Only a little. Just got nicked by a bullet, ripped some flesh. No big deal."

"Are you okay?"

"Just drive."

"There's broken glass in here."

"So be careful."

"Whose car is this? Why don't you have your car?"

"Things didn't go quite as planned."

"That much I've figured out," she said, and got onto Cerrillos Road.

"It's the exact reason I didn't want to keep our stuff in the Civic," he said. "They're probably stripping the thing apart right now."

"Your fingerprints will be in there.
My
fingerprints will be in there."

"I wiped it down, the whole thing. It's taken care of. When we get to the mall we'll wipe this one down too."

"You might have missed a couple places."

"I might have," he said, "but I don't think so. Just keep track of what you touch in here."

Sandra looked cautiously around herself, then leaned low over the steering wheel and brought the car to fifty.

"Slow down," he told her.

She threw him a glare, then eased up on the pedal and their speed slackened to forty, five miles over the limit.

She said, "Did you get anything at all, or was it a complete bust?"

"I got it all," he told her, and closed his eyes. "I got it all." He saw Harold falling into the stairway. He heard the security guards scream, heard the
brekebrekebreke
of a fucking machine gun. He saw the front of Clark's body being ripped apart. He heard Freddy tell him, "Please try not to kill anybody...it's gonna be a big deal, we don't wanna make it any bigger."

The car slowed and made a turn. Opening his eyes he saw McDonald's. Sandra pulled the car around to the back, near the dumpster, and stopped.

"I don't know how to shut the car off."

"Don't," he told her. "Just kill the lights."

They got out, found their stuff behind a box wedged between the rear of the dumpster and the building, right where they'd stashed it. They put everything into the back seat with the suitcase. When Sandra saw the suitcase her eyes lit up, though not the way they did when she saw him at the bar. Rather it was as though she'd just been slapped in the face once more with reality, and she stared at the bag, frozen, transfixed.

"Let's go," he said, and climbed back into the car. He waited patiently, knew she was debating with herself. Everything had been so romantic to her, getting together with a real life criminal, the idea of living on the run, traveling all over the world. Even seeing him bleed heightened the romantic drama in her eyes; but seeing the suitcase there in the back seat brought home what it was all about, much like when she'd gotten mad at him at the hotel. So much, and in the end, it wasn't about anything important at all.

"Are you coming?"

She stood outside the car a couple seconds longer, then got in the driver's seat and closed the door. She slouched, facing the wheel, her eyes directed to the side and back, either at him or at the presence of the suitcase. He didn't know which.

Finally she said two words: "Stop it."

He didn't say anything, just waited out the silence.

She brought her face up and looked at him. "Do you love me, Jack?"

He thought this might happen. He didn't think it would happen now.

"Yeah."

"Do you love me so much that nothing else in the world matters?"

He looked into her beautiful brown eyes. "Yes."

"Then stop it," she said. "Don't do this anymore."

"I don't want to do it anymore," he told her. "I'm done." He allowed her to check his eyes and see that he was sincere. "Let's go switch cars," he said.

She started to say something, held it back, then turned on the headlights and put the car in drive. There was no talk between them. They didn't look at each other until they pulled up beside the Nissan in the parking lot of the mall five minutes later.

They made the transfer of personal belongings and stolen goods from car to car, then Dempster spent some time wiping down the interior of the Pontiac, making sure to get everything Sandra had touched. He didn't know what time it was but the stars were fading just the slightest bit. Another hour or so and the sun would be coming up. He got out of the car, thought about taking Evan's, Clark's, and Jimmy's stuff out of the trunk, then decided against it. There wouldn't be anything in there to tie him in with them. The only people at the hotel that got a clear look at him were now dead.

He was free to go.

Sandra was sitting on the hood of the Nissan, looking at him. When he approached, she reached out and took his hands. She drew him close, then their lips were kissing, soft and tender, and when they parted she smiled, and her eyes glistened with held-back tears.

They got into the car.

"Where am I going?"

"Get on the Interstate and go south," he told her.

He watched the buildings dwindle in numbers as they made their way out of town. He felt the heaviness of his eyelids. He yawned. "In about forty minutes look for Exit 242, Rio Rancho and Placitas. Get off there and make a right, then wake me up."

"You going to sleep?"

"Maybe," he said. "Or maybe I'll just stare out the window, think about a little cottage in Maine."

She smiled. She wiped tears from her eyes. "We'll work as grocery baggers," she said. "Or maybe I'll work in a greenhouse."

"We'll spend our nights reading to each other."

"We'll drink wine and make love," she said. Her tone was lighter now, more like the girl he'd first met. It comforted him and he needed that comfort very much right now.

"You can cut up all the sheets," he said, "and you can draw on the walls as much as you want. You don't even have to draw hieroglyphs." His mind faded out, faded back in. "You can use finger-paints, you want."

"And you'll make me tea while I do."

He felt his lips shape a smile. "You can write your novel," he told her. Then he yawned again, and slumped further into his seat and closed his eyes.

"Sleep gently," she told him.

Chapter Seventeen

"My father used to pick blackberries out here," Jack said. "Told me when he was a kid a lot of this land was an apple orchard, loaded with apples and blackberries and other things."

"That's all gone now, I guess."

"Yeah, I wonder what happened."

They walked hand in hand amidst oaks, poplars, and maples. The setting sun cut between the leaves and branches in fragmented patterns, broken visuals like a partially completed jigsaw puzzle, half vibrant, half shadow, the light wind playing tricks on the eyes when it fluttered everything about.

"He and his brother used to spend hours out here playing hide-and-seek and war games and stuff," he said as they made their way up the lush, forested trail.

"That's cute," Shelley said as a gray rabbit hopped up and stopped a couple of yards in front of them, its nose rhythmically bobbing up and down like clockwork. They took a cautious step forward, and the rabbit hopped away.

"I've never been hiking here," Shelley said. "It's beautiful."

"My dad used to take me fishing on the lake," he told her. "And sometimes we'd go fishing in a pond not too far from here, over that way." He pointed. "Mostly we caught bass, but sometimes a good bluegill or pike would come up. People say there's catfish. I never saw one, though."

The trail veered to the left and sloped down. Deep grooves showed where rain had made paths for itself. A woodchuck zipped across the path and vanished as a hawk circled the sky overhead, and in the far distance ducks quacked.

They passed under a large low-hanging branch. When they came out the other side tension suddenly clogged the air.

"So why are we up here?"

Jack gave her an expression of uncertainty, then looked down to the grooves in the trail. He kicked at a stone. "I dunno. I guess I thought that maybe we could talk."

"If there's anything to talk about," Shelley said with a voice that quavered.

Jack asked her if she'd told her parents.

She shook her head. "No, not yet. I don't really know how to tell them. What about you?"

"No. I don't know what to say either."

"What about Mike?"

"What
about
Mike?"

"He won't even talk to me."

"Can you blame him?"

"He should at least talk to me. He's a part of this too."

"Do you know how this is gonna look, Shelley?" His own voice was strained and trembling. "Not only are you sixteen, but you don't even know who the real father is."

"I don't care how it looks, and I think it happened for a reason. And no.no, I could never live with myself if I got rid of it."

"You have to get rid of it, Shelley."

"No, I don't."

"Yes, you do. Think about it. Think about the kind of life the child will have. Think about what it's gonna do to your life. What it's going to do to all of us, especially the baby's."

"I will love my baby with all my heart," she said.

"That's not entirely the point. Even if you love it with all your heart, how are you gonna provide for it? Do you think your parents will help you?"

"You guys will help me. We'll all get jobs and care for the baby together. I'll see if I can have my summer job at the Dairy Queen full-time."

"But one of us is innocent, Shelley. You can't bring us both in on something like this when only one of us is responsible."

"You both had your choice that night. You both took the responsibility then. You shouldn't have put it in me if you didn't know or like the consequences."

To the left was a patch of wildflowers, mostly blazing stars. Jack stopped and studied them, allowed their beauty to fill him, then closed his eyes and spoke. "You're right," he told her. "You're right, we should have known what might happen going in." He paused again, then said, "But I need to tell you something else."