Brambleman (70 page)

“I’ve got it under control.”

“You must have a concussion. Honestly,
Charlie, I don’t understand how you survived.”

“I haven’t survived yet.”

“How can a human take a beating like
that?”

“Don’t know.”

“Why you?”

Charlie felt a loose tooth with his tongue.
“My turn, I reckon.”

He watched the street move sideways in front
of him. A pair of headlights shone directly in his eyes as a horn
blared. He adjusted the car out of the way of oncoming traffic.
“We’ll be there soon,” he said.

“If by there you mean the hospital, I believe
it.”

“Be a man. Answer the phone.”

“I … didn’t hear a phone,” Tawny said.

Somehow, Charlie made it to Castlegate.

“Do you live in a hotel?” Romy asked as they
pulled into the garage.

“No,” Charlie said. “These are
apartments.”

He parked and limped toward the elevator as
his passengers followed. He felt the pistol against the small of
his back; he couldn’t remember putting it there. When he glanced
back at the car, he saw a bullet hole just above the gas cap
door.

Tawny touched Charlie’s back, where welts
from his chain whipping were rising. He winced and pulled away.
“Thank you for taking us in.” Tawny stood on tiptoe and kissed his
cheek. Unfortunately, there no longer seemed to be a place on his
body that didn’t hurt.

Charlie cleared his throat. “No. Thank
you
. They were going to kill me.”

“They were doing a pretty good job, better
than those guys that shot you.”

When they got off the elevator, Charlie’s
hand trembled so badly he couldn’t unlock the door. Tawny took the
key and got them inside the apartment.

The kids walked gingerly across the concrete
floor. “This is all one room,” Wyatt said. “But it’s a big
room.”

Charlie limped into the kitchen. He pulled
off—or rather, extracted—his fancy spectacles and put them on the
counter. Then he went to a corner by the bookcase and pulled out
the kid-sized sleeping bags and mats he’d bought for Beck and Ben’s
stay. “Make yourselves at home.”

Wyatt moved toward the TV. “You’ll have to
eat and take a bath before you watch that,” his mother told him,
then turned to Charlie. “Food?”

“Uh. Sure. Cheese sandwiches and apples.”

“Thanks. You should clean up and assess the
damage.” She reached up to touch his face, but she winced at the
sight of him under the kitchen lights and pulled back her hand.

“Are those nail holes? I think that’s what
got your eye. My God, can you see out of it? It’s swollen shut. Try
opening it.”

“No.”

“You should go to the hospital.”

“I’ll be all right,” Charlie said, although
he didn’t see how. He didn’t see much of anything, but there was a
numbness coming over him that seemed to be killing part of the
pain.

He realized that a beautiful woman had come
to spend the night, and he was in the most pitiful shape of his
life. His crotch ached up to his diaphragm. His brain was a
cabbage. In his condition, he was more likely to piss blood than
have sex. He wished he could just crawl into his cave and get well
or die. Didn’t matter which, as long as it happened quickly.

He pulled the pistol from his jeans and
examined it. Amazing. A prostitute with a gun had saved his life.
There were so many bad lessons to be learned here. He swallowed
hard. Dragging his right leg, Charlie limped over to the bookcase
and placed the revolver on a high shelf beyond the kids’ reach,
gasping in pain when he stretched. Now he knew what broken ribs
felt like.

Tawny drew a bath while the children ate.
Afterward she put them in the tub together.

Meanwhile, Charlie checked his face in the
living-room mirror. One hell of a beating he’d taken. He looked
like a boxer following a career-ending bout. He felt like he was
trapped in a dim tunnel with a dull echo and a slow train coming.
He was lucky he hadn’t bled to death; instead, he’d coagulated
nicely. There was dried blood where the tracks of tears should be.
His left eye remained swollen shut and throbbed mercilessly. His
cheekbone might be cracked. His nose, broken and disjointed, had
stopped bleeding. He was pretty sure he would lose at least one of
his teeth. His right knee, like his thighs, had been punctured
several time. He suspected that the nails from that nasty
two-by-four had pierced his skull. He was sure he had a major
concussion and wondered if they’d damaged his brain—part of that
small percentage he used. He also suspected some damage would be
permanent. His overall assessment: He really should feel worse; in
fact, he should be dead. Now he
really
knew what Lincoln
Roberts had felt like.

He didn’t want to sit down for fear he
wouldn’t get back up.

“Be a man. Put a Band-Aid on it,” he
muttered, and then took some Advil and washed his wounds in the
kitchen sink, splashing water on his face. He plastered bandages on
the lacerations he could see, even putting a large square Band-Aid
over his left eye. His jeans were torn and bloody, so he slipped on
a new pair behind the counter. With a single, loud cry of pain, he
put his nose back in line—more or less.

Then he put on his old pair of industrial
glasses, so he could see out of one eye, at least. He collapsed on
the counter to take the weight off his legs. He coughed and spit
blood into the sink, then wondered what part of his body it came
from.

Tawny marched the towel-wrapped kids out of
the bathroom. She pulled some clean clothes from her backpack while
the kids danced around. They dressed in front of the TV. Charlie
slipped
Toy Story
into the DVD player. Romy and Wyatt
slipped into sleeping bags to watch the movie while their mother
took a shower. Charlie thought they’d adjusted to their new
surroundings quickly. Then again, this was a calm and secure place,
unlike what they’d endured for the past … actually, he had no idea
how long they’d squatted in the church, or where they’d been before
that.

Tawny emerged from the bathroom wrapped in a
towel. “I feel better. But I’m exhausted. I need to lie down.”

“You want one of my shirts?” Charlie limped
to the armoire and pulled out a blue T-shirt.

When she put it on, it hung almost to her
knees. She smiled and said, “You’re a big man.” The towel dropped
to the floor and she picked it up, then tossed it toward the
bathroom. She collapsed on the bed and gave Charlie a winsome
smile. She could be a model, he thought. Why shouldn’t he love
her—that is, when he was able? She’d proved herself. She’d saved
his life. There was no longer any need to judge.
I’m no better
than her. All right, then. I’ll do something about it just as soon
as I quit pissing blood
.

He sat on the couch for a while, staring at
the movie. Tawny fell asleep. Wyatt did, too. Then Charlie took a
shower, washing away the blood and street grime. When he returned
to the sofa in gym shorts and a T-shirt, Romy watched him with her
all-seeing eyes.

“Don’t you like the movie?” he asked.

“I’ve seen it before.”

“Can I turn it off?”

“OK.” She wriggled out of the sleeping bag
and sat beside him.

“You should go to bed,” he said.

“I will. Can I ask you something?”

“Go ahead.”

“Can I play with your daughter sometime?”

“That would be nice. But I don’t see her
much.”

“Did they take her away?”

“Yes.”

“I hope they bring her back to you. Then I
can play with her.” She stood on the couch and hugged his neck.
“That’s what I’ll pray for,” she whispered. “Thank you for being
good to us. I missed you not coming around. I’m glad you came back.
I knew it was you, and you were in trouble. I went outside to help
you.”

“Well, thank you. That was very dangerous.
You’re very brave. How did you know it was me?”

“I know these things.” She gazed into his
good eye. “Don’t cry, Charlie. Don’t cry.” She patted his face,
managing to find a spot that didn’t hurt.

“I can’t help it. My eyes hurt. You go to bed
now, sweetie.”

“OK.” She slipped off the couch and went to
her sleeping bag, arranging it on the mat just so. “I like you. Are
you going to take care of us?”

“I like you, too. I’ll find you a place to
stay, and … things are going to be better.”

“You can sleep with Mommy if you want to.
That’s what men do.”

There was nothing he could say to that.

He sat still for a couple of minutes, then he
remembered the prescription painkillers left over from January’s
shooting. He got up and swallowed a couple. He sat in the darkness
and listened to the children’s gentle breathing. Its familiarity
was soothing. He felt a little better already.

He realized he’d survived only because a
little girl thought he was worth saving. Otherwise, he would have
ended up in the Dumpster like Shaundra. There was a word for what
he’d experienced, but his enfeebled mind couldn’t think of it right
then. Something he’d received, a gift he’d done nothing to
earn.

“Hey,” Tawny said, sounding groggy. “You need
to rest. Come be with me. I won’t bite. Unless …”

Charlie limped to the bed, then fell beside
her. He listened to her breathing, no longer afraid of anything she
might give him now that she’d given him his life.

“Hold me,” she said.

It took awhile to find a way to snuggle that
didn’t hurt. Tawny laid her arm across his chest and whispered, “I
kept hoping you’d come back. I mean, I know we had a fight. But
that doesn’t matter anymore, does it?”

“No.”

“Just promise me—”

She paused to look at his ruined face. The
painkillers had kicked in. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow’s good,” he said.

Charlie stared at the ceiling and realized
he’d be leaving this place soon. Moving to where, he didn’t know.
He would miss this ceiling. Of all the ones he’d stared at in his
life, this one was the best, with its train shadows that danced in
the middle of the night. Thinking of trains reminded him of that
DVD out there by the tracks. He cleared his throat and mumbled
drowsily, “I saw you before I ever met you. On my computer once.
With a basketball team.”

“A basketball team?” Tawny groaned. “Oh,
that
.” She chuckled. “So … what did you think of my
performance?”

“Changed my life,” he murmured, then drifted
off to sleep.

Charlie woke from a terrible nightmare—Beck
was being crushed in a machine, and he was selling tickets for the
event—to the sound of ear-splitting screams. Half the visible world
was gone; his left eye, swollen and crusted shut, produced a ball
of clarifying torment to match the piercing sound in his head. His
body played a reveille of misery. For an instant, he didn’t know
where—or who—he was. He was a new man in a strange place, born of a
grinder into a world of pain, awakened from lifelessness by blows
from a baseball bat.

Endure
, he told himself, and focused
on the screaming: It came from a child in meltdown. The little one
was at the door, trying to get out. Struggling to his feet, still
in shorts and a T-shirt, Charlie staggered toward the brown girl
with the mophead curls. Romy. That was her name.

“Mommy left us! Mommy’s gone!” She turned to
Charlie, sobbing violently, tears streaming down her face,
hyperventilating. “I want Mommy!”

“When did she leave?” Charlie asked, his mind
dulled by equal parts sleep and trauma.

Romy shook her head furiously and kept
babbling.

“It’s all right,” he said. “I’ll bet she went
downstairs to the bakery to get you something to eat.” He glanced
toward the kitchen and noticed his wallet lying open on the
counter. He limped over to check. He wouldn’t begrudge her money
for breakfast.

Two hundred-dollar bills were gone.
Whoops
. That was more than a couple of muffins and a quart
of juice. His Visa card had vanished, too. His good eye darted
about wildly. The Volvo keys? Not where he’d left them. He glanced
at the hook by the door. The BMW and loft keys were still there.
Then he saw a note on the legal pad. He rubbed his right eye,
blinked several times, and read:

Charlie,

I can’t take care of Romy and Wyatt anymore,
so I’m going away. I don’t plan to come back. I’m sorry for taking
your things, but they’re just things. Please let me use your card
and don’t call the police. I won’t charge a bunch of stuff. I just
need a new start. I know you’ll take good care of the children.
Wyatt is a great kid, and my girl is special. You’ll see. You’ll be
better for her than I am. I’m leaving their documents with you.
You’re their only hope. Tell them I love them. This is a blessing
for you. You’ll see.

—T

P.S. You should go to a hospital. Maybe they
can help you with that asshat problem of yours, too.

Beneath the pad, she’d left a manila
envelope. He opened it and saw Social Security cards and birth
certificates. Neither had a father’s name written on them.

No. This can’t be happening
. “I’m
going to check on your Mommy,” he told Romy, who had fallen to the
floor and was curled up, sobbing rhythmically. He grabbed his keys.
Wyatt was still asleep. She popped up and held out her arms. “OK.
OK. Come with me.” He picked her up and walked out the door,
locking it behind him. He wanted to run down the hall, but he was
slowed by a punctured knee, broken toes, and a three-year-old
around his neck, so he was reduced to hobbling to the elevator.

To his horror and dismay, the Volvo was, in
fact, gone. He stomped the garage floor in anger and frustration,
aggravating the pain in his foot where he’d been spiked. He limped
over to the vacant space and gently lowered Romy to the floor. She
sucked her thumb while he stooped like an Old West tracker,
balancing himself upon fingertips on the oil-soaked concrete. He
grunted. Each passing minute diminished the chance of her return.
No way of telling when she’d left or which way she’d gone. He stood
and sighed, brushing his hands together as he stared at the
entrance.