Darius said, “Damn it, goddamn it…”
Jason ignored him. “Gibby, get the rest of the guns. Put them on the bed.” I did what he said. “Good. Grab those corners.” I pointed at the blanket, still numb. “It’s a lot to ask, I know. Gibby, look at me.” Jason raised his eyebrows, nodding once. “If Dad’s here, then other cops are coming. Understand? Gunshots. Men down. He’ll call it in.” As if to confirm, the pounding below us grew louder. “This is all I have in the world, little brother, what you see on that bed.”
“Shit, man…”
“Pick ’em up. Let’s go.”
He shoved the pistol into his belt, and I helped him drag guns and cash off the bed. A couple of dead men would have weighed less.
“Down the stairs. Out the back.”
We dragged guns and cash down the stairs, then through a narrow hall to concrete steps that took us into the alley. I stumbled on the last step, and a rifle clattered on the ground.
Jason said, “Leave it. Just get us to the van.”
We made it to the van, and none of it was real: the alleyway damp, the stink of gun oil and grease as we shoveled guns and cash. A brick of fifties split open, and Jason raked the bills like leaves. “Do you hear that?” A far-off siren, and then others. Jason rolled the door shut, then put his hands on my shoulders, and tried to steady me as Robert often had. “Decision time, little brother.”
“What decision?”
“Come with me.”
I looked the length of the alley, then back. “You told me to stay away.”
“That was then, and things have changed. I can’t come back here, not ever.”
“Where are you going?”
“There’s a place up north. It’s what the money’s for. A dozen acres of rocky coast, a fishing boat and room to breathe. It’s beautiful. Trust me.”
“Where up north?”
“Only if you’re in. Only if I know.”
“But the guns…”
“Escape money, pure and simple. Pay for the land. Pay for the boat.” His hands were like steel, the sirens closer. “Ticktock, little brother.”
I hesitated because he looked like Robert, but that was mostly bone and skin and the color of his eyes. He saw the decision before I could get the words out. “Hey, kid, I get it. We don’t know each other anymore, not really.” His hands fell away. He stepped back. “You have a life. I shouldn’t have asked.”
“It’s not like that,” I said.
“Sure it is, and it’s cool. Take care of yourself. Tell Dad I didn’t kill her.”
“Jason, wait…”
But he didn’t. He sprang into the van, keyed the engine, and rolled down the alley without once looking back.
* * *
Jason took a right and gunned it from the alley, then hung a left and felt the back end slide. After that, he was hammer down, buildings flicking past as he checked for cops, and hung a second right. He drove faster, and saw light bars flash at an intersection two blocks west. More lights split the night ahead, so Jason cut down an alley, left paint on a parked car. At the next street, he clipped a phone pole, and overcorrected, tires screeching. The street was a three-lane, so he took it down the middle, the needle passing sixty-five, then eighty. Two cruisers drifted onto the street four blocks back, so Jason braked hard, cut right, and killed the headlights. He gave it a block, took another right and thought he was out clear; then a third cruiser locked up the brakes as it flashed under a red light one street over. Jason didn’t need a radio to know the cops were talking.
Three cars close.
More coming.
Lights still off, he accelerated until dotted lines blurred on the street. At ninety-five, the engine maxed out. Another mile, and he thought he was out clean—nothing behind or in front. He gave it two more blocks, then dropped to forty, turned on the lights and tried to look normal as the road dipped, then rose. He crested the hill, then light speared down as a helicopter thundered overhead, spinning to put the light in his eyes. It matched his speed; banked when Jason cut right. For an instant, the van was in front, but Jason was screwed and knew it. Four turns, another hill, and cars came in from every side, six of them and then a dozen. Jason’s run ended where two roads met and streetlights burned, high and white. His foot an inch off the pedal, he watched the cops spill out, weapons up.
He couldn’t go back to prison …
Better to die here and now …
After years of war, the thought was an old friend, and all else, white noise: yesterday, tomorrow, the whole of it, white noise. But then he saw his father. Cops were holding him back, but he was fighting, too. “Don’t do it! Jason! Don’t!”
Jason looked down at the gun in his hand.
MAC-10.
Fully loaded.
“You don’t have to die, son! No one has to die!”
Did Jason even care? He’d killed so many men …
“Think about your brother! Think about Gibby!”
Jason didn’t want to, but did, picturing him as he’d hung on the side of an inner tube, far out in the quarry. He’d needed something then, but Jason had been distant and angry and ungiving.
Swim away, little fish …
That’s the face Jason saw, all hurt and need and little boy.
“Well, shit…”
Jason lowered the weapon, and showed his hands.
It seemed his father knew him after all.
16
I learned about the arrest at three that morning. “Dad?” The word escaped before I even registered the noise that stirred me from the sofa: a hum and a rattle, the garage door going up and then back down. Rising, I reached the back hall as he entered the house.
“Not now, Gibby.”
He showed me his palm, but I trailed him to the kitchen. “Where’s Jason?”
“It’s late, son.”
“You followed me. You used me.”
He stopped, at last. “Because you lied to me. You left me no choice.”
“That is bullshit.” He sighed; I hated that. “Did you arrest him?”
“I need to speak with your mother.” I blocked his way, and thought, at first, he would argue. Instead, he said, “I’m sorry, son. I truly am.”
That’s when I knew for sure.
* * *
As the sun rose hours later, I heard my father leave the house. For some time after that, I lay in bed thinking of Sunday mornings and church and how it used to be. For all my childhood, we’d attended as a family, but that ended when Robert was killed, and we sank into this strange half life without smiles, vacations, or Sunday service. Today, that bothered me, so I showered and gave myself a rare shave. I dressed with exceptional care, and went to church on my own, arriving a few minutes after the start of the early service, and slipping into a pew at the back, all of it so familiar: the dark wood and the people, the organ and the colored glass. I opened a hymnal, but didn’t sing along. Afterward, there were readings that made sense to me, but then the minister took the podium to speak of war and sacrifice and salvation for all people. With one brother dead and the other arrested, I found his words so hollow that I almost left. I actually rose to my feet, but then I spotted Becky Collins four rows down, seated across the aisle with Dana White’s family. Her hair was up—which I’d never seen before—and the curve of her neck struck me as the most vulnerable thing, pale as it was, and fringed by a spill of small, soft hairs. She must have felt me staring, for she turned and saw me and blushed. Dana’s father turned as well. He stared at me for long seconds, then stood and squeezed past his family, working his way into the aisle. A large man with wide, rough hands, he was a foreman at the Freightliner factory, a man used to telling others what to do and how to do it.