“Jesus!” He had to restrain himself here, because things could get very dark, very quickly. “One minute,” he said, redialing. “I got disconnected.”
But this clown wouldn't take a hint. He just stood there, arms folded. “Don't I know you?” he said.
“You don't know me,” Peck said, and maybe he did. Was there a motorcycle involved here someplace? “Fuck off.”
“It is Natalia.”
He turned his back on the guy, cradled the receiver-and if he made a move, touched him, anything, he was dead-and tried to control his voice. “Take a cab,” he said. “Wherever you are, take a cab and meet me-”
“Wherever I am? I am in some, some ugly place in your ugly town where you grew up to be a liar and I do not even know your own name. Bridger Martin? The policeman says you are not Bridger Martin. You are not Da-Na. William, does that ring a bell? Huh, William?”
“Hey, man, listen-” The loser was there at his back, but he was nothing because he understood what was going down here, what Peck was radiating, and the discussion was over. “I mean, this isn't your fucking living room, man-give somebody else a chance, you know? “Public.” It's a “public” phone.”
One look for him, one look over his shoulder, the Sandman look, and the guy backed off, taking his fat-laden shoulders and fat wounded ass back to the bar, putting on as much of a show as he could muster. Settling himself on a barstool now, picking up a glass of whatever shit he was drinking and scowling into the mirror in back of the bar as if to remind himself what a badass he was underneath his fat exterior. “Never mind about that, not now. I'll make it up to you, I will-”
“No, you won't.”
“I will.”
“No, you won't.” She paused to draw in a breath. “Do you know why? Why is because I will not be here. I am leaving. I am picking up Madison in the taxi and I am going to my brother because he is not a liar and a crook. You hear me?”
“What did you tell them?” he said. “Did you tell them where we live?”
There was a silence. He thought he could hear her breaking down again. The smallest voice: “Yes.”
“Oh, fuck. Fuck. What's wrong with you? Huh? Tell me. Why would you tell them where we live?”
“I was scared. They are threatening. They say they will-” Her voice fell off. “My green card. They will take my green card.”
He felt cold suddenly, the air-conditioning getting to him, the beer weakening him till he could barely hold the phone to his ear. “What did you tell them about me?”
“What I know. That you are a liar. And a thief.”
He wanted to get a grip on this, wanted to command her, but he couldn't find the right tone of voice and he felt the control slipping away from him. “Please,” he heard himself say. “Please. I'll tell you where to meet me-you can be here in ten minutes. We'll pick up Madison together and-”
“I am going now,” she said, very softly, as if it were a prayer. And then she broke the connection.
He dropped the phone. Let it dangle on its greasy cord. Then he turned and walked the length of the room as if he were walking the gauntlet and when the loser at the bar tried to block his way, tried to say something about a Harley Electra Glide, he just set him down hard and went out the door and into the heat, and if he slammed a shoulder into some drunk in an aloha shirt who was trying to light a cigarette and negotiate the door at the same time, well, so what? He wasn't responsible, not at that moment. Not anymore. And how he managed to wind up with the guy's cell phone tucked away in the inside pocket of his jacket, he couldn't have begun to imagine.
Two
IN THOSE FLEETING FURIOUS SECONDS Peck Wilson spoke to her without words, spoke as clearly and unambiguously as if he were tapped into her consciousness, his internal voice wrapped round her own till it shouted her down and made her quail. He'd lost control. She could see it in his eyes, in his movements, in the look that passed between them like the snap of a whip, and Bridger had lost control too. No matter that he'd lectured her over and over on keeping their distance, keeping their cool, identifying the man and his car and staying clear till the danger had passed and the police could move in and handle the situation-when it came down to it, the sudden proximity was too much for him. They were walking hand in hand through the pall of heat radiating up from the saturated earth, trying to look casual and pedestrian, and then the car appeared right in front of them, pulling into the drive and sliding to a stop just clear of the walk. The engine died. Both doors swung open. And there he was, Peck Wilson, emerging from the car, the rigid barbered slash of hair at the back of his neck and the tapering dagger of a sideburn, his summer suit and open-necked shirt. He had the stuffed toy under one arm and he was looking straight ahead, his eyes on his mother and the little girl standing there on the porch. And then his wife the liar got out too, dressed as if she were going to a cocktail party. Dana froze in mid-step.
That was when Peck Wilson swung his head reflexively to the right and the look passed between them, the first look, the look that went from shock to fear to rage in an instant, and before she could think or act Bridger was rushing him. The toy fell to the ground. The sun stabbed through the trees. There was the sudden clash of their bodies, a dance Peck Wilson knew and Bridger didn't, balletic and swift. And then Bridger was down and thrashing from side to side and Peck Wilson stood over him, aiming his deliberate kicks, and she was screaming, all the air inside her compressed and constricted and forcing its way through the squeeze box of her larynx. He glanced up at her, and there was the whipcrack of that second look so that she knew what he would do before he did, and when he came for her, when he snatched at her wrist, she wasn't there. She ran. She had no choice. Bridger was on the ground. Her blood recoiled and she was gone.
In that moment, she was cleansed of thought: there was nothing in her head but to run. She had no plan, no focus or rationale. Escape, that was all. Get away. Run. Suddenly she was running, and she'd never run harder or faster in her life, unable to hear the ragged tear of his breathing and the propulsion of his footsteps or to gauge where he was, afraid to look over her shoulder, afraid of everything, and why wouldn't somebody stop him? She wanted to cry out but she had no breath to spare. Her arms pumped, her legs found their rhythm and she went straight through the intersection, snatching a glance over her shoulder finally to see him right there, right behind her, sprinting for all he was worth and no quit in him, his eyes cold and dead, his lips drawn tight. She didn't dare look again. Her gaze ran ahead of her, scanning the uneven slabs of concrete for the fatal snag, looking to the old woman shuffling toward her with her shopping bags strung over both arms, calculating her chances at the next light and then the next one beyond that, because there was no stopping no matter what, no hope but to out-run him, out-maneuver him, out-last him. If he caught her he was going to hurt her, swiftly, deeply, without quarter or restraint. He'd told her that much already. And there was no mistaking his meaning.
The van-the white van, the moving wall of it that appeared and stretched and snapped till it was gone-cost her a step, a beat, and his fingers tore at her hair and she felt her head jerked back and she couldn't have stopped if she'd wanted to. Then there was the other car, the force that slapped her, stung her, knocked her to the pavement, his body flung there beside hers and the heat of him rising to her nostrils like some toxin. She was up again, bewildered, dazed, both knees scraped and bleeding and her palms and forearms on fire-“Run!” a voice screamed inside her, “Run!”-but she didn't have to run, didn't have to do anything, because the police cruiser was sliding into the intersection and Peck Wilson was done.