Root (20 page)

Who was I kidding? As if I could ever bring
myself to inflict such harm on the Temple of Roy.

Maybe I should just skip the all the suspense
and turn myself in. Given the likely scale of my haul and the
semi-stolen nature of the vehicle I was driving, that would
probably land me in prison.

Which, in and of itself, didn’t bother me
much, but it would likely cost Jared’s employers a ton of profit.
They probably had people in the pen who could take me down, as an
example to others if not merely for spite.

It looked like I had no way out of this mess.
All of my options were crap.

At least the storm seemed to be easing. Only
the edge of it seemed to have brushed Alford. The main body was
passing north and from the looks of those clouds, those poor
suckers had tornadoes to worry about. I was no stranger to strong
storms in Central Florida, but this thing looked like a different
sort of beast altogether.

I turned up the surface road that led past the
farmhouse with the old lady who had thought I had come to see
Brian. A truck was now parked next to the barn. Apparently, Brian
was home.

It took me a moment to realize, but this
wasn’t just any old truck. The chassis was jacked up high on
monster wheels. Chromed dual exhaust stacks gleamed under the
floodlights. And from that white scripted blue oval smack in the
middle of the tail gate, I was pretty sure I was looking at a late
model Ford 150. Inside that hood was a radiator hose that Brian
wasn’t using at the moment.

***

I snuck up the driveway, keeping tight to the
rain-drenched yews that lined it. I was sopping wet. Every breeze
that kicked up gave me the shivers.

The lights were all dark in the house except
for one dim bulb in the kitchen over the range. I took a deep
breath and darted out from the bushes, diving low onto the damp
gravel, crawling on my elbows under the front bumper.

A calico cat trotted by, stopping in its
tracks when it saw me. It crouched on its haunches and stared a
while before deciding I was no big thing. It sat up, swished its
tail and started licking its paws.

All that ground clearance beneath those
monster wheels was a blessing. It gave me plenty of room to work
from below, though the upper hose was a bit of a stretch. I undid
the clamps with the screwdriver on my pocket knife and yanked. A
gush of warm antifreeze sloshed down the front of my shirt and
splashed all over my face.

That dang stuff tasted sweet. I sputtered and
spit out the traces, remembering someone telling me how toxic it
was.

I was worried that Brian’s F150 might be too
new, its radiator hoses incompatible with Dad’s, but it looked
pretty much the right girth, with bends in all the right
places.

I was about slide out from underneath when the
screen door creaked open.

“
Suzy! Breakfast! Soo-ZEE!” the
second syllable soaring like she was calling hogs.

“
Better go have your chow, Sue,” I
whispered. “Momma’s callin.’”

The cat ran off around the corner of the barn.
I heard the screen door slam. But then a pair of fuzzy, pink
slippers appeared, scuffing along the gravel drive. Threadbare
pajamas rode up swollen ankles.

I squirmed a little farther under the truck,
sliding back under the differential. About halfway down to the road
the old lady stooped and groaned. Gnarled hands reached for a
newspaper in a plastic sheath.

I held my breath as she made her way back to
the house, wedding band clicking on the body of the truck as she
braced her hand on it. She paused at the corner of the barn, turned
and hobbled back slowly, stopping beside a puddle of green
antifreeze.

“
Oh my,” she said. “Oh my, oh
my.”

She trotted back to the house in quick little
steps. The door slammed. Clutching the stolen hose, I scrambled out
from under the chassis and hurled myself headlong down the grassy
sward leading down to the creek, tossing glances over my shoulder
as I fled. A light flicked on upstairs.

I found the Pepsi bottle right where I had
stashed it, filled it with muddy runoff from the ditch and ran my
tail back to the truck, cutting through a patch of
pines.

I popped the hood and jammed the hose on, not
even bothering to tighten the clamps. Two liters of ditch water
were not nearly enough to fill the cooling system, but I wasn’t
about to go back for more.

I hopped inside the cab and turned the key.
The starter only whinnied at first, but a couple hiccups later and
I was rolling down the shoulder getting up to speed.

A barrel-chested guy in boxers came running
down the driveway—Brian, I presumed. He swooped down, picked up a
rock and heaved it. Dang if it didn’t nearly reach my truck. This
Brian had a major league arm. I stomped on the accelerator and made
Alford fade in my rear view.

***

Two exits later, I pulled off the highway. I
probably should have gone a little farther down the road, but I was
hungry and with what little water I had time to add, I didn’t think
the truck could go much farther longer without
overheating.

As the rising sun bled over the clouds in the
eastern sky, I got that hose clamped down tight and filled the
coolant tank up to the brim with a gallon of Diamond Springs from a
Seven-Eleven. The aroma from the pancake shop across the street
made my stomach whine and my mouth weep.

As I was changing my greasy shirt, envisioning
the steaming stack of blueberry pancakes in my future, the phone
buzzed.

It was Jared, of course.

“
What the fuck, James? I go to bed,
get up and I’m seeing you’re still in the same spot. What’s going
on?”

“
Actually, I’m back on the road.
Everything’s cool. I fixed the hose issue.”

“
It’s been like twelve hours! It
took you that long to find a freaking radiator hose?”

“
Sunday night. Everything was
closed.”

“
Jesus, dude! You could have called
me. The guys on the other end are freaking out. They’re sending a
posse after you.

“
A posse? What are they, cowboys?
Listen, the truck’s fixed. I’m on the road again. And I got plenty
of time to make it if I go fast.”

“
Too late. You just stay put. Some
folks are coming down from Raleigh to take over the
job.”

“
Hold on! I can still be in
Cleveland by five. I’ve got this, Jared. I can do it.”

“
No way. You’d have to drive a
hundred the whole way. You just stay put and do what they tell you
when they get there. They’ll be taking the shit off your hands. Oh,
and don’t expect them to pay you. You’ve already got all you’re
gonna get.”

“
What do you mean? You said five
hundred—”

“
That was for getting it to
Cleveland. Halfway means half pay.”

“
Fuck you. I’m getting back on the
road.”

“
No James, these guys,
they—”

I hung up.

The phone immediately rang again. I ignored
it.

No time for pancakes, I ran back to the
Seven-Eleven and got a box of mini-donuts and a carton of chocolate
milk. I ripped the orange sticker off my windshield, stuffed it
down a storm drain and headed for the freeway.

***

I drove four hours straight at
seventy-five—quick enough to make good time, but not fast enough to
draw the attention of a speed trap. Of course, my plate number was
probably all over their databases by now. I might be just as
vulnerable going fifty-five.

The phone buzzed again. This time I answered
it.

“
Yeah?”

“
Okay guy, you lucked out. The
Cleveland folks are pleased with your progress. They’ve called off
the dogs.”

“
That’s … nice.”

“
Um … James … in the future … you
might want to think twice about taking off without permission.
These guys we work for? Wildcats make them nervous. They like team
players. Understand?”

“
Sure.”

“
You got the okay to be a little
late. So slow down. They want you there in one piece.”

“
When they gonna make up their
minds? Do they want me there at five or not?”

“
I’m just saying, you can relax.
They see you’re back on track. No need to sweat.”

“
I’ll get there when I get there,” I
said. “I just want to get this over with.”

“
Okay, man. Listen. I’m going to
text you the address once you get a little closer. Don’t write it
down. I want you to memorize and delete it. Can you handle
that?”

“
Yeah, sure. Whatever.”

Something about Jared’s call simmered in my
craw for the next hundred miles. So they liked their couriers
submissive. Obedient. What was I, some pack animal? That’s right, I
was a mule.

I wondered how my pay compared to the street
price of all the stuff I was hauling. The thousand bucks they were
giving me was likely a tiny fraction of their profit. There must be
a hundred K worth of cocaine beneath that liner.

Karla’s devil of an idea began to sprout. What
if I ran off with this stuff and sold it myself? I sure as hell
wouldn’t need Uncle Ed’s landscaping job to sustain me. I tucked
that option in the back of my mind.

Whenever my thoughts drifted to Karla these
days they tended to stick there. There was something about that
girl. The way it hadn’t even fazed her to lend me her own skirt.
Naked, I wasn’t something to be ridiculed or feared. I was just a
boy without pants.

I couldn’t imagine any Ft. Pierce girls
reacting that way. It took a lot less to set off their weirdness
detectors. They had strict limits as to how one could act, dress
and talk without getting branded a geek or worse. It was like
walking a tightrope.

Ft. Pierce girls spoke in codes and signals
that an out-of-loop homeschooler like me had no chance of ever
emulating or deciphering. That’s what I got for having no siblings
and a mom who had no faith in the Florida public schools. It was
like being raised by wolves.

The possibility that Karla might exist in the
flesh somewhere on this earth seemed too much to ask. She was too
good to be true, and I still had trouble accepting that Root was a
real place.

I chewed up the miles all that morning. Most
of the time I drove ninety, slowing down to sixty-five only when
people coming the other way flashed their headlights or when the
jackrabbits in the left lane slowed abruptly in response to their
radar and laser detectors going off.

North Carolina turned into Kentucky. I crossed
into Ohio about three in the afternoon. I actually had a chance to
make it to Cleveland somewhere near the scheduled time.

I grabbed the phone and called Uncle Ed to let
him know I was on my way. I didn’t care what Jared said about not
using this phone.

I probably should have called Ed before I left
Florida, but no biggie. I was sure he wouldn’t mind me dropping in.
This was my Uncle Ed. It wasn’t like I was some
stranger.

The phone rang and rang, until finally someone
picked up.

“
Hello?” It was Aunt
Helen.

“
Hi, this is James. I was just
calling to say—”

“
Oh. Hi,” she said, flatly. “Hang
on. Let me have Ed talk to you.”

She called into the other room, referring me
to Uncle Ed as ‘your nephew.’

Ed cleared his throat. “Hey James. How’s it
going down there? I’ve been meaning to call but I forgot to ask who
you were staying with.”

“
Actually …. I’m on my way up to
Cleveland. I’ll be there by tonight.”

“
What’s that you said?” His voice
cracked.

“
I’m driving up in Dad’s old truck.
I was wondering … would you guys be able to put me up for the
night?”

“
Uh … well … this is a bit of a
surprise. You know this is not the best weekend. We’ve got the
in-laws coming over.”

“
Don’t worry. I can stay out of your
hair. I can sleep in the garage. You don’t even have to feed
me.”

“
Oh no,” said Uncle Ed. “That’s not
how we do things in my house. If we’re gonna put you up, we’re
gonna put you up right.”

“
So … you’re not gonna put me up at
all?”

“
Wish we could, and we can … but …
like I said, not this weekend. Helen’s parents, they …” He lowered
his voice. “Between you and me … they’re kinda … snooty … if you
know what I mean. They never liked your mom. Not that they like me
any better. But … if you’re gonna be around more than a few days …
once they leave … I’ll talk to Helen and I’ll see if you can stay
in the spare bedroom. How long do you plan to … uh …
stay?”

“
Uh … permanently maybe? This is
more than a visit. I came to see about that job you
promised.”

“
Job?”

“
Landscaping. Remember? You said if
I ever needed work I should come up to Cleveland. I mean, that‘s
the whole purpose of my coming up there.”