-29-
They were in the park.
Pete didn’t know what had gone wrong, or when, but the world in which he moved now was not one he recognized, or liked very much. It seemed everyone he loved had died, or was hurt, or walking through the same nightmare as he was, as if mere contact with him was enough to drag them into the dark. He didn’t want that for Louise, but it was already too late. In the time it had taken her to take care of her “private matter” at the pawnshop, it seemed she’d grown older. She looked sick, tired and old, and he knew it was his fault.
“You drive real good,” she said now, easing herself down onto the park bench beside him. “I’ve seen it, I know. Sometimes I think your daddy taught you to drive before he taught you to walk.”
The mention of his father pained him, and it seemed from her feeble smile that it pained her too. Pete wished she wouldn’t mention his Pa. He wished she wouldn’t mention anything but getting to the girl, so he could be sure what was coming next. So there was a set plan. Because something about her now didn’t sit right with him. It made him uneasy, because he couldn’t tell what it was. Had she called the police on him, or changed her mind about taking him to see the girl? She must have. Why else would she be talking about him driving?
“You can get yourself a car,” she said. “In that lot over there. I know the guy runs it. But I wanted to talk to you first.”
“What’s to talk about?” he asked. “We should just go before the police find us. If they do, I ain’t never gettin’ to the girl, and those folks who hurt my Pa’ll get away.”
“I know that,” she said, and winced as she took her hands in his. Light snow drifted down around them. She was shaking from the cold. Pete drew close, hoping the heat would be enough to warm them both. The park was empty but for the bare snow-laden branches of oak trees and narrow concrete paths rimed with frost.
He looked down at her fingers, her clothes. “You’re bleedin’.”
“No,” she said. “It’s not my blood.”
“What did you do?”
“There’s no time. You’re gonna have to go soon,” Louise told him. “It isn’t safe around here anymore.”
“You’re comin’ too,” he reminded her, the fear already seizing his heart. He could tell by the look on her weary face what she was saying, but refused to believe it until the words took away the choice.
“No, I’m not.”
“Why?”
“All you need to know is that I love you, and I would go with you if I could, but I can’t. It’s too late. Too much has happened, and I need to go where the road is takin’ me. Unfortunately, it ain’t the same road as yours.”
“How do you know?”
“I just do. Trust me on this, okay? Have I ever lied to you?”
He shook his head.
“Okay. Then please just do this for me. I’ll catch up with you in a few days time if I can. And here,” she said, withdrawing Red’s gun from her pocket. “Take this. You might need it, but I sure hope you don’t. Hasn’t exactly brought us much luck, has it?”
He did as she requested, though the weight of the gun felt ugly and unnatural.
Sirens pierced the chill, icy air and she flinched, looked around. Quickly, she turned back to face him, her eyes wide and imploring. “Here,” she said, digging into her coat pocket. Into his hand she stuffed a large wad of bills. Pete had never seen so much money in his life. “Take this, and get yourself a ride. Guy’s name is Mike. He was a regular of mine when I worked in the Overrail. Tell him Louise sent you. Tell him your story. He’ll believe you. You got an honest face. People like him…they recognize honesty, seein’ as how they got so little of it themselves.” She gave him a weak grin, and shivered.
Panicked, Pete grabbed her coat. “You left me before, ’member? Please… don’t do it again. Come with me. I can’t do this by myself. S’why I came to find you.”
She hugged him lightly and stroked his hair. “We’re outta time, Pete.”
The sirens increased in volume, and over her shoulder Pete saw a cruiser swing into view at the far end of the street, lights flashing. “They’re comin’.” He felt Louise nod, then she pushed him away.
“Hurry, now, but don’t run. You don’t want to draw them on you, okay?”
“They’ll follow me.”
“No. They won’t. The only two people around here who’ve seen you with me are dead. You won’t be involved.”
“Why can’t you come with me? I don’t understand.”
“Because I didn’t do things right. I never have, and like always, I gotta face the music now.”
“No, you don’t. Come with me. We can—”
“If I go, they’ll come after me and dog me for the rest of my days. I don’t want that, for either of us. If I stay, they won’t bother with you. There’ll be no reason to.”
Tears in his eyes, “Please come…” he said, one last time, but knew it would change nothing. The pain in her eyes hadn’t been there the first time she’d left him. It was there now and he knew it was because this time it was for good. He would never see her again, and the thought almost crippled him. But the police car was close enough now that he could hear its tires sizzling through the slush, so he bent low, kissed her, and without another word, crossed the street. As he walked, he looked down at his fingers, at the smudges of blood on the tips. It reminded him of the night they’d found Claire. He had held his hands out to the rain to cleanse them, and afterward it had made him feel bad, as if he’d washed a part of her away. Though it was snowing now and he could simply reach down into the slush to clean them, he closed his hands instead. This blood he wanted to keep for as long as he could because although Louise had said she’d never lied to him, he knew now in his heart that she had, just this once, and only to protect him from the hurt.
It’s not my blood.
As he started to turn the corner into the car lot, he cast a final glance back at her, and saw that she was rocking slightly.
In his head, he heard her singing him to sleep.
Despite what she had told the boy, Louise did not believe she had ever found her road. She had only found the end of the one she had stumbled blindly along her whole life. The wrong one. It saddened her to think of so many squandered chances and wasted possibilities. She could have been something, had always known she was meant to be something and had tried her damndest to show the world what she was made of. But in the end, she realized she would not be spoken of in the same breath as Aretha Franklin, Ella Fitzgerald, or Joyce Brant, because none of them had been thieves and murderers. Her singing voice would not be remembered, only the violence, the death, and her frantic attempts to set a boy on the road that might turn out to be his own eventual end, simply because he’d asked her to. It was all he wanted and she had agreed, partly out of guilt, and partly because she’d wanted him to follow his goal to its finish, no matter how misguided a goal it might prove to be.
She began to hum, a sweet melancholy tune that had been with her since her mother had sung it to her as a child. The name seemed so important now, but the fog in her mind obscured it. As her vision grew dim, she raised her head, and wondered if the snow had grown heavier, or if her time was almost at an end. The cold was gradually giving way to warmth, and that at least was good. It allowed her to be calm and focused in whatever time she had left.
She heard the squeak of brakes and the whoop-whoop stutter of the siren as the police car pulled up alongside her. More wails rose in the streets and alleys, a thousand echoes like dogs howling at night. Doors cracked open. Holsters were unclipped, guns drawn. She did not acknowledge those sounds, or the voices that barked at her, filling her ears with commands. She was dying, and had no use for them.