Full Circle (20 page)

The low-rider came to a shuddering halt.

‘Back up!’ Graham yelled.

Graham’s new friend Manny’s brother Eddie, the driver of the car, muttered an obscenity, but Manny said, ‘Back up, man!’ so Eddie did.

‘Whoa!’ Manny said, upon seeing what had gotten Graham’s attention. ‘She’d be hot if she wasn’t crying,’ he said.

‘Shut up, man!’ Graham said through clenched teeth. ‘That’s my fourteen-year-old sister! Let me out!’

Graham opened the door and Lotta moved to let him out. He ran to Megan who threw her arms around him, sobbing.

‘He got her! He got her!’ Megan screamed.

‘Who?’ Graham demanded. ‘What’s happened?’

‘In Grandma’s car! Hurry!’ Megan ran to the low-rider and jumped in, Graham and Lotta following. Megan straddled the hump in the middle of the back seat, leaning over the back of the front bench seat. The cousin riding in the middle of the front seat had been shoved to the side so Manny could ‘help’ the newest arrival.

‘Go fast!’ Megan wailed. ‘They got like a three-minute lead!’

‘Megan, what in the hell’s going on?’ Graham demanded, trying to pull her back from the front seat, either to get her attention so she’d tell him her story, or to get her away from Manny. Not even Graham was sure of his actual motive.

‘First make him go fast!’ Megan shouted. ‘Then I’ll tell you what’s going on!’

‘For God’s sake,
culo
!’ Lotta said. ‘Make this piece of crap move!’

Eddie stopped the car, did something under the dash, and the low-rider moved upward, into the position of a normal car.

Hitting the accelerator, the Chevy pulled several G’s, knocking those in the back seat against the tuck-and-rolled leather upholstery.

Graham grabbed his sister’s arm. ‘What’s going on?’

‘He kidnapped Liz!’ she said.

‘Who did?’ Graham demanded.

Megan looked at her brother for a long moment. Then, sighing, she said, ‘Aldon.’

E.J., THE PRESENT

‘Get Elena Luna!’ I said for the umpteenth time. Still no one listened. ‘She knows who I am.’

The officer who had arrested me clung harder to my right arm. I’m going to bruise, I thought. Get pictures, I told myself. For the lawsuit.

He roughly pushed me up to a fenced-off area with a window-like hole in it. A uniformed woman in her fifties was looking down at papers in front of her when I hit the shelf in front of her.

She looked up, frowning. ‘Watch it!’ she said.

‘He did it!’ I told her. She ignored me. I wondered for a moment if my vocal cords had weakened. No one seemed to hear me.

‘Whatjagot, Ralphie?’ she said, elbows on the counter, looking beyond me to the man holding my handcuffed arms behind my back. Like I was going to miraculously break through the cuffs if he hadn’t been holding my arms!

‘I told you, Velma, no Ralphie. Just Ralph, OK?’

She smiled at him, showing two rows of yellowed, crooked teeth. ‘Sure, OK, Ralphie,’ she said.

He sighed and shoved me at the counter – again. ‘Book her on resisting arrest, speeding, reckless endangerment, and anything else you got back there, ’K, Velma?’

‘You got it, Ralphie, I’ll throw the book at her, as they say.’ And she giggled. It was amazing.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a familiar sight. I turned roughly in Ralphie’s arms. ‘Luna!’ I shouted.

There was something wrong with my vocal cords, all right. Luna didn’t seem to hear me at all.

GRAHAM, THE PRESENT

‘So what do we do?’ Leon asked.

‘This guy’s not in Black Cat,’ Graham said. ‘It’s too small. He knows we’d find him here. I say we go into Codderville—’

‘Not the bowling alley again!’ Leon said.

Graham shuddered. ‘God no! If I never see that place again it’ll be too soon.’

‘Huh?’ Hollister said.

Graham shook his head. ‘Never mind. No, I think we look for low-rent places he could—’

‘Nothin’s lower rent than the bowling alley,’ Tad said.

‘I’m talking for him to stay at. Like sleazebag motels, trailer parks, pay-by-the-week places,’ Graham said.

‘Makes sense,’ Leon said.

‘So how do we find places like that?’ Hollister asked.

Graham took a sheet of folded paper out of his back pocket and shook it open. ‘I Googled them,’ he said.

ELIZABETH, THE PRESENT

It looked benign enough. There weren’t that many people inside the bowling alley and most of them looked like employees. One group of old people was bowling at the end on the right, but that was it. They certainly didn’t look like bikers. They were making some noise, laughing and cutting up like teenagers – very lame, if you ask me – and there was a jukebox playing oldies really loud, but mostly it was quiet, even if that does sound weird.

There was a little restaurant thing at the front and I thought that would be a good place to sit and watch as people came in. I knew I’d recognize him this time, even if the last time I saw him he was dressed as a girl.

I pointed my head towards the restaurant. ‘Y’all want something to drink?’

Confused faces turned knowing after just a moment. After we’d sat down and all ordered drinks, I asked Lotta, ‘Don’t you have to be at work soon?’

‘I was supposed to be there half an hour ago.’ She shrugged. ‘I’ve never not shown up before. It should be OK.’

‘Why don’t you call?’ Megan asked.

‘I don’t want to go to the bathroom here. That’s where I saw the sign for a phone,’ Lotta said.

‘Here, use my cell phone,’ Megan said.

‘Cool!’ Lotta said, taking the phone. ‘Do you all have cell phones? I know Graham always has one.’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Our parents want to be able to get hold of us at any time.’

‘Do they have those GPS things in them?’ Alicia asked, eyes huge. ‘I saw that on TV.’

Megan smiled. ‘No. Ours are old. No GPS.’

‘Cool,’ Lotta said, and began dialing the KFC.

E.J., THE PRESENT

‘I swear to God, Luna, you keep ignoring me and I’m going to sic the neighborhood association on you!’ I yelled.

‘Did she just threaten a police officer?’ Velma asked Ralphie.

‘Believe she did,’ Ralphie answered.

Luna sighed and came over. ‘What did she do?’ she asked Ralphie.

‘What
didn’t
she do is more like it,’ Ralphie answered.

‘I was going after the girls!’ I shouted. ‘They’ve gone after the stalker! Myra’s killer! Four of them out there in a low-rider cruising Codderville looking for trouble! I was following them!’

‘Guess who found trouble first,’ Luna said.

‘I tried to explain to this—’

‘Watch it,’ Luna said.

‘Officer what was going on and to call you but . . .’ I faltered.

Turning to Officer Ralphie, Luna asked, ‘What do you have on her?’

‘Speeding, resisting arrest, leaving the scene, and vehicular menace,’ Ralphie said.

‘Leaving what scene?’ Luna asked.

‘The scene of me giving her a ticket, that’s what scene!’ Ralphie said indignantly.

‘Ralph, there’s no such thing as vehicular menace,’ she said.

Ralphie grumbled, ‘Well there should be.’

‘At what point did she resist arrest?’

‘She just took off in the middle of me giving her a ticket!’ Ralphie said.

Ralphie was getting pissed and I was delighted. Luna had my back!

‘Give her an extra ten on the speeding ticket. That work for you, Ralph?’ Luna asked.

‘Ten what?’ I demanded.

‘Ten miles over,’ Luna said. ‘Ralph?’

‘Make it twenty,’ he countered.

‘I’ll go fifteen,’ Luna said.

‘Hey!’ I said and was generally ignored.

‘Fifteen,’ Ralphie agreed.

‘Wait now!’ I said as Ralphie leaned down to undo the handcuffs. ‘That’s like twenty-five over the speed limit! That’s a lot of money!’

‘You know how much resisting arrest is?’ she asked me.

‘No,’ I admitted.

‘It can’t even be counted in money. Actually, it’s counted in months. Sometimes years. Do you still want to bitch?’

I sighed. ‘Not at all. Thank you, Officer Ralphie—’

‘Burgess!’ he all but shouted. ‘Ralph Burgess!’

‘Sorry, Officer Burgess. And Detective Luna, I thank you—’

‘Where’s your purse?’ she asked, grabbing me by the arm.

‘I got it,’ Velma said, handing my purse through the window area of her fence-wall.

Luna grabbed the purse and hauled me away. ‘Where are we going?’ I asked.

‘To my car. I’m off duty. We’re going to go look for the girls.’

And with that, we were off.

BLACK CAT RIDGE, TEXAS, 1999

Willis and I stood in the small observation room next to the interrogation room. We watched with Luna’s boss while she interviewed Larry Douglas, the man who had gone upstairs after our kids. The man who’d accosted me at the Lesters’ house.

Luna moved so quickly I jumped. She lunged at Douglas, her face only inches from his. ‘Who paid you to off the Lesters? Who paid you to hit the house last night?’ She knocked the cigarette from Douglas’s mouth. ‘Who?’

‘Swear to God I don’t know shit about Lester. Whoever the hell he is. I just come along last night with Clyde, see. Me and Clyde were in the joint together. I seen him at Scooters yesterday and he says he got a job for me. Pay me five hundred bucks to go to this house and rough up some people. He didn’t say nothing about offin’ nobody. I swear to God.’

Luna sat down in the chair opposite Larry Douglas. ‘You know something, Larry?’ she said. ‘I believe you. ’Cause I don’t think even Clyde would be stupid enough to tell you anything important.’

‘Fuck you, bitch!’ he said.

Luna laughed. ‘Jeez, with a vocabulary like that, maybe you should become a jailhouse lawyer, Lare. Whatcha think?’

Luna left the interrogation room and we met her at her desk. The first thing I asked her was, ‘How’s Clyde? Is he going to be able to talk anytime soon?’

Luna snorted. ‘His jaw’s wired shut. He has a concussion, a lacerated left eye, had to have twelve stitches in his forehead, and three in his scalp, his nose is busted, and his left ear had to be partially sewn back on. But other than that . . .’

‘What’s wrong with his jaw?’ Willis asked.

Pointing a thumb my direction, Luna said, ‘She broke it.’

TWELVE

W
hy would she go in the bowling alley? That’s so dangerous! It’s those other girls! They’re a bad influence on my Bessie! I have to get her away from them! Correction: I have to get
them
away from
her.
That I can do. No sweat.

ELIZABETH, THE PRESENT

We sat and watched as people started arriving. Lotta knew a couple of guys who came in. They waved to her, said, ‘Hey, Lotta! Where’s Graham?’

‘He’ll be here in a minute,’ she said smiling.

They moved on. Alicia said, ‘Graham’s coming?’

Lotta shook her head. ‘No. But if I didn’t say that, those two would be over here in a flash trying to hit on all of us.’

‘Me too?’ Alicia said, her eyes huge.

Lotta looked at her. ‘Yeah, hon, you too. What? You think guys don’t look at you? They do.’

Alicia shook her head, making her long hair cover her face even more.

Lotta said, ‘Megan, get a brush and a hair fixer out of my purse,’ as she turned Alicia’s chair around and began pulling back her hair.

‘No, that’s all right . . .’ Alicia began.

‘Hush,’ Lotta said, taking the brush from Megan and using it on Alicia’s hair.

‘No, really . . .’Alicia said.

That’s when I saw it. I’d never known it was there. A scar on Alicia’s face that ran from her hairline to the corner of her eye. It was thick and red and ugly.

‘You got some make-up in that purse?’ I asked Lotta.

‘Yeah,’ she said with difficulty, the hair fixer firmly between her teeth. ‘Meg?’

Megan rummaged through Lotta’s large bag until she came up with a smaller bag full of make-up. I opened it, found some concealer and foundation and went to work on the scar. And while I was there, I just kept on going. By the time Lotta and I were through, there was a different girl sitting in the chair. A girl with a pretty face and striking eyes, a strong chin, and a turned-up nose. Who knew?

‘My God, Alicia,’ Megan said. ‘You’re hot!’

The skin under the foundation make-up turned red, but you could barely tell with all the goop I had on her.

‘You’re gorgeous!’ Lotta said.

‘You should wear your hair back all the time!’ Megan said.

‘I can’t,’ Alicia said, her voice soft.

‘Oh! You mean that scar?’ Megan said. ‘That’s nothing! Look at these freckles! Some as big as a dime!’

‘No one asks you where you got the freckles,’ Alicia said, head down and voice soft. ‘But everyone asks me where I got the scar. That’s why I wear my hair like this.’

‘Is that why you wear those jumpers and sweaters all the time? Do you have more scars?’ Lotta asked her quietly.

Alicia shook her head. ‘No. They’re just all the clothes I got,’ she said. ‘It’s an outfit that goes together. I know it’s hot out, but it goes together.’

I could feel tears springing to my eyes. I’d known Alicia for months and never knew about the scar, or about the lack of clothes. She didn’t just have a lot of those jumpers and sweaters, she just had the one ‘outfit’. And washed it over and over. I turned away to get myself back together, and said, ‘Well, you need to mix and match. Specially in the summer months,’ I said, trying to find that inner spunk my mother had. ‘Tomorrow we’ll go through my closet and see what goes with that jumper. And maybe add some shorts.’

‘I’ve got a whole bag of clothes that don’t fit me anymore,’ Lotta said, ‘and I don’t have any little sisters or cousins to hand them down to. I’m the only girl. So, we’ll pretend you’re my little sister, OK?’