“I raised the Beretta and fired twice. I remember how loud it was and birds squawking into the sky. I hit him both times, center chest, but he kept coming, the momentum of his body driving him into me, knocking me over. He landed next to me, and as I sat up, the skinny cop grabbed the barrel of the Beretta, trying to take it out of my hand, and I pulled the trigger. The round hit him in his left shoulder and he let go of the gun and fell back. The second time, I aimed higher and shot him in the forehead. He went down, fell on his back and didn’t move.”
Owen drank his beer, never taking his eyes off her.
“I unlocked the handcuffs and followed the trail through the jungle back to the Jeep that said Policia on the side in white letters.
“I drove back to the outskirts of San Pedro and ditched it in heavy ground cover and walked into town. I knew I was on my own. The Peace Corps couldn’t help me now. No one could. I went home and got money and my passport. I had seven hundred US dollars and another hundred in quetzals. I took a final look at my house that I loved, knowing I’d never see it again and went to Marina’s. We took a bus to Guatemala City and from there, flew back to Michigan.”
He said, “Jesus.”
They stared at each other.
Owen said, “They rape you?”
Kate said, “Does it matter?”
He reached over and held her hand.
“I think they were too drunk,” Kate said. “Angry ’cause they couldn’t get it up, I guess and beat the hell out of me.”
“I think you got even,” Owen said.
“I don’t look at it that way,” Kate said. “It was them or me.”
Owen said, “Where’d you learn to shoot, or are you a natural?”
“My dad liked guns. He used to take me to the Metamora Gun Club and teach me how to shoot. He had a Walther PPK and a. 45 Colt and a Smith amp; Wesson. 357 Magnum.”
Owen finished his beer and looked across the table at her.
He said, “What’d the Peace Corps do?”
“Asked me why I left.”
“What’d you tell them?”
“Guatemala was weird and crazy. I couldn’t handle it.”
“They find the cops?”
“Marina’s mother sent the newspaper from San Pedro, describing the execution of two policia, kidnapped and taken into the jungle and shot.”
“That’s how they spun it, huh? Incredible.”
Kate said, “Now what do you think of me?”
“I like you even more,” Owen said.
Kate and Owen got married five months later. Her only regret was giving up her name-Morgan-for McCall. She liked Morgan better, but McCall wasn’t bad. Kate’s dad asked why they were getting married so fast, what’s the damn hurry?
Kate gave birth to Luke four months later, answering his question.
THREE
“Conned the parole board, didn’t you? Well, you ain’t going to con me. Found religion, my ass.” T.J. Hughes grinned, his thin weathered face partially hidden in the shadow of his Stetson, lower lip protruding behind a knot of chaw. T.J. arcing a brown stream of tobacco juice into a waste can next to his desk. “Been one way your whole life, found the Lord in the last two months. That sound about right?” He turned his head, spit again. “What were you doing, sucking the chaplain’s cock? That get you parole consideration?”
“I think God worked a miracle for me,” Jack said. He tried to gesture with his hands, forgetting they were still cuffed to the bellychain.
“He did, huh?” T.J. grinned and spit.
“He said, ‘Jack, I need your help. I need you to turn your life around and make something of yourself.’” These were the chaplain’s preachy lines Jack had memorized and now delivered with his own inspired conviction.
“He come down from on high, appear in your cell, or’d you just hear his voice?”
“All I know is,” Jack said, “with the help of Almighty God, I can do it.”
“Well, dude, you got six months to keep your nose clean, and I don’t think you can.”
“Thanks for your support,” Jack said. “I appreciate your faith in me, Mr. Hughes.”
“You getting smart with me, boy?”
Jack furrowed his brow, gave him a look of Christian innocence. Who, me?
“God, I hope not. That would be a mistake, I guarantee it.”
He talked tough sitting behind a desk in an office building. Jack wondering how this wrinkled prune of an ex-cowboy-who must’ve been close to fifty- would handle the outlaw bikers in Central Unit. He’d like to see that. “No, sir. What I was trying to say- with the Lord’s help, I have been able to banish that evil part of me.”
“Let me tell you the way it’s going to be,” T.J. said, “so there’s no misunderstanding.”
He pushed the brim of his hat up, and for the first time Jack could see his dark, beady little eyes.
“I’m going to be checking up on you when you least expect it. I’ll want to see your pay stubs. You don’t have ’em, you’re going back to Judy.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger.
“I’m going to be asking for u-rine samples. You give me a hot UA, you’re going back to Judy. You know your warden’s a lady, right? Judy L. Frigo. Got a degree in ball busting, I understand. What tickles me, a little girl’s in charge of keeping all you hard-asses in line. That’s a good one.”
T.J. was a wiry 170-pounder in lizard-skin boots, tight Levis and a western shirt with pearl buttons and piping around the pockets.
“Eighty-two percent of you assholes revoke,” T.J. said. “What’s called recidivism, the return to crime after a criminal conviction. You going to beat the odds, Jack? It’s a real crapshoot out there.”
“The portents of doom aren’t going to deter me,” Jack said. “If that’s what you’re asking.”
T.J. got up, hooking his thumbs on the inside edges of his belt buckle, a heavy brass number with a star embossed on it. “Portents of doom, huh? Where’d you come up with that one? That’s some big words for a convict.”
Jack was a spectacle when he’d arrived an hour earlier to the parole supervision of Mr. T.J. Hughes-legs chained, making short hopping moves, getting used to how far he could step, hands cuffed to a belly chain, people staring at him as he got out of the van and was escorted into the Regional Reentry Center in Tucson after serving thirty-eight months for armed robbery at the Arizona State Penitentiary in Florence.
Under oath, in a court of law, he told the judge he didn’t know the names of his two accomplices. He said, “Your Honor, ever see the movie Reservoir Dogs?”
The judge said, “This better be relevant.”
Jack’s court-appointed attorney, Joe Mitchell, said “Your Honor, in the film, five strangers are hired by a crime broker to rob a bank. They meet for the first time and don’t know anything about each other. No names are used. Each one is given a color. Mr. Blue. Mr. Green. Mr. Brown. Like that.”
“Life imitates art, is that what you’re telling me, Counselor?”
Joe Mitchell said, “That’s right, Your Honor.” Assuming the judge got it.
“I saw the movie,” the judge said, “thought it was preposterous.”
Jack got the maximum for a class-two felony-five years. His unexpected parole, the result of befriending the prison chaplain who stopped by his cell one day and said, “Will you come and visit me? I’d like to talk to you about joining our Bible study program, part of my Prisoners of Christ ministry.”
Jack grinned ’cause it sounded funny and was about to say, “You got the wrong guy.” But paused, looking at the future, seeing eighteen more months of mind-numbing sameness, and started to panic-when a lightbulb went on in his head. Wait a minute. Maybe this was his way out.
The chaplain was a tall thin hawk-faced man named Ulrich Jonen. His prison ministry program was called New Beginnings.
“What’s done is done,” Uli said. “You cannot change your past transgressions, but you can start anew and you can do it today. God enables us to have a second chance, and more, if necessary. We’re all human beings and human beings make mistakes.”