Wrong Thing (18 page)

It was now around eleven. The Kid's intentions were simple. He was going to try to sleep and hope he didn't die in his sleep. When he woke, he was going to talk to Miguel, if Miguel showed. If Miguel didn't show, he would have to make another plan, but that was all he had right now.

He was shivering, huddled in his jacket, arms wrapped around himself. He could hear coyotes howling. He wondered if they would eat him if he died there. He wondered if he would be able to sleep in such cold, but as he wondered that, he felt the shivering stop and the drowsiness come. He knew that should frighten him; he had read somewhere that people who freeze to death feel like they're pleasantly falling asleep. He knew it should frighten him but it didn't. If this was a taste of the grave, it wasn't bad, it wasn't bad at all.

He fell asleep.

And when he woke up he was cold, but he was alive.

He looked at his watch. It was seven in the morning. He stood up, stretched, pissed. He wished he had a book to read, something to pass the time. He was still tired, but not tired enough to sleep any more, and too cold to keep still. He walked around in the woods, sometimes jogging a little, until he was warm. He wasn't hungry, but he was very thirsty.

He wondered if Miguel would come. He wondered why he had told him nine o'clock, rather than earlier or later. It had just come out of his mouth like that. Just before nine, he headed back to the spot where Miguel had fallen. He wondered if Miguel would remember exactly where it had happened.

Then he heard Miguel calling his name.

His first thought was that he shouldn't show himself, that Miguel might have been followed by the cops, or that they might have forced him to lead them to him. Then he told himself that Miguel would never do that to him, and there was no place for the cops to hide while they followed him up here.

“Hey,” he yelled back. A second or two later, Miguel came in sight.

They stood there in the grass among the trees and looked at each other, Miguel in his suit and tie, the Kid in his bloody jeans and jacket.

“Jesus Christ, man,” Miguel said.

“You hear what happened?”

“Yeah. I didn't know what the fuck you were talking about when I got your message last night, but it was on the news this morning. Three people, shit . . . Did you really do it?”

“Yeah.”

“What for, bro?”

“I don't know.”

“You don't know. You just kill three people but you don't know.”

“One guy clamped my car . . . ”

“Yeah, it said so on the news.”

“And then I robbed the 7-11. But I really don't know.”

“I don't even know what to say.”

“Thanks for coming here.”

“Fuck you. What am I supposed to do, just forget about you?”

“I didn't know if you would.”

“That's because you don't know shit.” Miguel started to cry.

“I need clothes,” the Kid said.

“I brought you some, like you asked. They're in my car. Wait here and I'll get them.” Miguel walked to the road, got a backpack from his car, walked back into the woods. The Kid was now sitting on the ground. Miguel dropped the backpack in front of him.

“Thanks,” the Kid said.

“You better head for Mexico. There's no way you can beat this. They got you on video at the 7-11, and they got a body laying next to your car. White people. You're looking at death row for sure.”

The Kid didn't say anything.

“Get to Mexico. You can just disappear there, they'll never find you. The narcos'll cover your ass if you work for them. But go. You gotta go.”

“I know. I'm gonna go.”

“How?”

“I'll steal a car.”

“You know how to hot-wire?”

“No.”

“You gonna kill somebody to get a car?”

“I don't know. Maybe.”

Miguel was crying hard. He took out his car keys and threw them at the Kid. “Asshole. Asshole. Take my fucking car.”

“Miguel . . . ”

“Shut up. Take the fucking car. I'm still paying it off, so I guess insurance'll cover it, maybe. I'll wait a couple days before I report it stolen. At least you won't get pulled over driving a hot car.”

“Thanks. You know the cops'll probably figure it out that you helped me.”

“Fuck them. They got to prove it.” Miguel sat down on the ground beside the Kid. “Asshole. What happened? I thought I was gonna be best man at your wedding for sure.”

“You would've been.”

“I know. And you would've been my best man. Oh my God. My God.”

They sat there together for a few minutes, not looking at each other and not saying anything. Miguel stopped crying, wiped his face with his tie. Then the Kid said, “Hey, Miguel?”

“What?”

“Listen, it's gonna be all right. I'm gonna be all right.”

“Sure you are.”

“No, I mean it. I don't want you to be worried. I don't want you to worry about anything. It'll be all right.”

Miguel stood up, and then the Kid did the same. The Kid held out a dirty, bloodstained hand, and Miguel took it and squeezed it. “You gonna be in touch sometime?” Miguel asked. “At least let me know you made it?”

“Don't worry about anything.”

“You got money?”

“Yeah.”

“Shit. You got it from the 7-11.”

Miguel walked away. He didn't look back.

The Kid opened the backpack and searched inside it. There were two pairs of jeans, two T-shirts, a thick shirt, a wool jacket, boxer shorts, socks, a pair of running shoes. He stripped off his own clothes, the cold making his teeth chatter, and put on Miguel's. The shoes were a little bit too big, but they would do. He spat several times on the shirt he had taken off, and used it to wipe his hands and face. He bundled his discarded clothes together and hid them under a bush. Then he picked up the backpack and walked to the road.

Miguel's car was a white Camaro. The Kid got in and looked at himself in the rearview. There was still some dried blood on his face and in his hair. He licked his fingers and rubbed it off his face, then ran his fingers through his hair, brushing the red flakes away. Then he put on his sunglasses and started the car.

As he drove down the road into the city, he saw Miguel, who was walking quickly. As he drove past him he honked the car horn, and Miguel waved a little. The Kid watched him in the rearview until he couldn't see him anymore.

Driving the car was strange at first. It was hard to figure out how the lights, the locks, all these things, worked. But after he'd driven it for an hour, it was so familiar that he felt like it was his.

He wanted to go and get Catboy, but he knew he couldn't. The cops might be watching the apartment, and, even if they weren't, they would certainly have forced their way in by now. They would either have taken Catboy to the pound or just ignored him, in which case he would be on the street again. The Kid fought a temptation to drive around and look for him.

He knew he'd better get out of town right away. At first he thought that the cops would think he'd left by now, so it might be safer to stay put and hide. But where would he hide? Too many people knew what he looked like and might call the cops as soon as they saw him. He knew there would be many vatos getting pulled in for questioning and fingerprinting on the off-chance that they might be him. Once he was far away from Santa Fe and Albuquerque he'd be safer, and safer still when he was out of the state. They'd be looking for him to head for Mexico, but that was okay with him because he wasn't going to Mexico. At least not yet.

He drove at the speed limit to Albuquerque. The car had a quarter tank of gas left. He wondered whether it would be safer to stop at a busy gas station there in town where he might be recognized but probably wouldn't be noticed, or in a quiet one outside of town where he was less likely to be recognized but more like to be noticed and remembered. Somehow it felt as though a gas station in town would be safer, but he just didn't want to get out of the car, so he got on the I-40 going West, and filled up with gas at a place about ten miles out of the city.

T
wice he saw cop cars on the highway and waited for the flashing lights to come on, but nothing happened. He kept going for a few hours, not stopping until he reached Gallup. He got some gas there and picked up some food at a drive-through fried chicken place. Back on the highway, he steered with one hand and used the other to eat. It was starting to get dark, and somehow that made him feel safer.

The highway was busy. There were signs instructing slower traffic to stay in the right lane, which he did. He gazed at the barriers at the side of the road, and wondered about the men who had placed them there, the men who had built the road. He wondered how many men it had taken, how they had done it, how much they got paid, what they were doing now. He wondered if they liked building the road and what it felt like to them when they drove on it. He didn't know why he wanted to know about them, because he had never wondered about them before.

He kept thinking about his apartment, about the things it contained, his cooking equipment, Catboy. His life with Vanjii. He wished he had asked Miguel to take care of Catboy.

In the early evening, he crossed the Arizona state line. When he reached Flagstaff, he got on the I-17 and headed south, until the pines gave way to cactus.

When Vanjii got home from work, she was pleased to see that the little girl who played tetherball had gotten a real ball. Because she had a ball, she now had friends, two other girls were playing with her. Vanjii smiled at them as she walked past, but they didn't pay her any notice.

Louise told her that her dad had called twice. Vanjii called him back, and he told her what he had seen on TV. Vanjii yelled at him, then she said she was sorry. She hung up. Then she looked for Miguel's number, called it and talked to him. Miguel didn't want to talk, because he was afraid his phone might be tapped. He didn't tell Vanjii that, he just said he had to go out somewhere. She was angry with him, but he called her from a public phone about ten minutes later and they talked for a long time.

It was around eight in the evening when the Kid reached Phoenix. He was aiming for downtown, but he lost his bearings and ended up driving east. He passed Tempe, then Guadalupe, though he didn't see Guadalupe because a mile-long wall had been built by the freeway so that drivers wouldn't have to look at how the people there lived. When the Kid saw the exit for Ahwatukee, he knew for sure he was going the wrong way, so he pulled off the freeway, intending to turn around.

He saw a strip mall along the street and realized that he was very hungry. He drove into the mall and saw that there were a few restaurants. He parked the car and got out. The heat of the night hit him as soon as he stepped out of the car's air conditioning.

There was a Japanese place called Sakana. There were no unoccupied tables, so he went and sat at the sushi bar. He'd never tried sushi before. He ordered smoked salmon, eel, and a spicy tuna hand roll. He sat there and drank a beer and watched the sushi chefs prepare the food. He had never seen anything like it before, how fast and fluid their movements were, chopping and rolling and folding. He wanted to ask them where he could learn to do that, but he didn't.