Root (26 page)

My undies clung like an unshed snake skin. I
peeled them off and picked through the plastic shopping bag holding
the last bunch of T-shirts and boxers that remained clean and
relatively dry.

I dragged myself into the shower and let the
flimsy spray scald and melt the crud that had accumulated on my
skin. I lathered up twice, let steam fill the room and breathed in
deep the essences of the floral soap.

I didn’t bother shaving, figuring whatever
beard I managed to grow might help conceal my identity from my
pursuers. Though, it might have been more effective if I could
actually grow some stubble on my cheeks.

I pulled on a black and silver Oakland Raiders
T-shirt and a pair of cargo shorts that had gotten baggy on me. I
had to cinch up the belt an extra notch.

I needed food. Out the window, across the main
road, I could see some golden arches next to a Holiday Inn. I
trashed my dirty clothes, checked out of the hotel and crossed the
street on foot, leaving the pickup hidden behind that big old Ryder
rental.

I ordered two Egg McMuffins, one side of hash
browns and an orange juice. I skipped the coffee. Some people
seemed to like it, but I couldn’t stand the sour dishwater they
served. Mom had spoiled me with her French Roast cappuccinos.
Mostly, I had done without coffee since we lost the house. I was
plenty alert and wary; my nerves jangled just fine on their
own.

I started wolfing that crap down even before I
was out the door, my body telling me in no uncertain terms how many
calories I’d been depriving it. I was halfway across the Holiday
Inn parking lot, gulping the last of the hash browns when I saw
something that made me choke and nearly heave up my whole
breakfast.

There was an Escalade parked in the
lot—charcoal grey with tinted windows—just like the one that had
pulled a u-ey and come after me the day before. To top it all, it
had Ohio plates. What were the odds?

I stood there and scanned the lot, staring
down some poor guy standing just inside the glassed-in lobby of the
Holiday Inn, who was probably just waiting for a cab.

Was it just my paranoia rearing its nasty head
yet again? Grey Escalades with tinted windows just might be popular
around these parts. As for the plates, the Ohio border was only ten
minutes away.

I went over and peeked into the window,
seeking some clue that would either confirm a threat or ease my
worries. A child seat or some tourist brochures would have done
wonders to calm me down.

It was hard to see through all that tint, but
the back seat was clearly empty. On the dash there was this black
box with wires and antennas coming out of it. I didn’t know what to
make of it. It didn’t look like any radar detector I’d ever
seen.

I pressed my face up against the glass and
there on the floor, peeking out from under a newspaper, was an
empty shoulder holster. Chills took hold and I shook.

Some voices startled me. I dropped to the
pavement. It was just some girls laughing as they passed through
the lot behind me. I waited for them to go by.

As I knelt there on the pavement next to those
sparkling white walled tires, the fancy chromed hubcaps with the
spinners, my fear frittered away and transformed. A slow burn of
annoyance of ignited.

These punks would have been out of my life
already if they hadn’t decided to stiff me. What was the deal with
that? The truck broke down. It was not my fault. Not like I had
missed some scheduled maintenance for radiator hoses.

Three hundred bucks meant a lot to me, a lot
more than it meant to them. To these guys it was peanuts. They
probably lived a lifestyle beyond anything I could imagine. Served
them right that I had made off with their haul. They might think
twice about screwing with the help next time.

I had this urge to mess with them. All I could
think of was scraping my keys against the door. I went as far as to
pull the key ring out of my pocket. I fingered our old house key,
the one that didn’t open anything anymore, except my heart and the
well of memory. It was my talisman.

But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Why
aggravate them any more than I already had? These guys had enough
reasons to torture me.

I got up in a crouch and started to move away,
but I caught a glimpse of the license plate and figured it might be
worth noting for future reference, in case there were more grey
Escalades in my future.

I felt around but found no pens in my pocket,
but the vanity plate was easy enough to remember—8XKLD8. And then I
spotted that blue 2012 Ohio registration sticker in the top left
corner. I still had my keys in hand. On impulse, I reached over and
scraped it off. Maybe some cop somewhere, some day would give them
a hard time.

Two guys exited the Holiday Inn. My heart
lurched, until I got a good look at them. They had black suits on.
One of them had a comb over. They looked like Mormons or coffin
salesmen. No way did they drive this Escalade.

Next time I might not be so lucky. I had to
get the heck out of here and there was no stealthy or graceful way
about it. I just stood up straight and walked away fast. Who knew
who might be watching me from that wall of windows?

I probably looked culpable as heck. But
thankfully, druggies slept late, because when I did sneak a glance,
there was still nothing going on in the lot.

Across the road, however, that Ryder truck
that had screened dad’s pickup from the main drag had pulled out.
There was my Ford, scraped roof and smashed tail light fully
exposed to the world. That wouldn’t do. I had to get the hell out
of here quick. I was glad I had already checked out.

I ran across the street, dodging delivery
vans. I went straight for the driver’s side door and unlocked it. I
looked back across the road and no shit—there were a couple of
dudes walking up to the Escalade with a pair of duffel
bags.

I got into the pickup, started it and pulled
behind the hotel, hoping there might be a back exit. There wasn’t.
A chain link fence separated the Super 8 from some garden center.
The only way out was through the front, directly across from the
Holiday Inn.

I was tempted to turn off the engine and hang
out a while, give those other guys a chance to clear out. But what
if they had seen me? There wasn’t much room to maneuver between the
back wall of the hotel and the fence. They could corner me back
here and I’d be at their mercy, like a raccoon in a
tree.

Panic and claustrophobia got the better of me.
I had to get out of the lot and onto the road. I pulled around the
side of the Super 8 and there was that Escalade, still in its
space, backup lights on. They were taking their sweet time getting
rolling. That was a good sign and all, but I had to get the fuck
out of Dodge.

I pulled out the lot without even looking. I
didn’t care where the road led, I just had to put some distance
between me and that Escalade. Though, I wondered if it mattered. If
they had another freaking GPS stashed on the pickup somewhere, they
could take their sweet time catching up with me. How else did they
get so close to me last night? Luck?

I followed Big Beaver Boulevard south along a
river, spending more time looking in the rear view than through the
windshield. Maybe it was a false sense, but I felt less conspicuous
and safer on the smaller roads. I veered onto the first side street
I came to and it led me to another less traveled road overhung with
trees that sort of led in the same direction.

Those tree limbs overhead felt like arms
shielding me. Their embrace combined with the lack of traffic
helped calm me down. From the knots of fear curdling my gut, it was
safe to say that my death wish was gone. I guess I had something to
live for now.

The idea that Karla was real kept throbbing
through my brain like a pulse. It didn’t matter how thorny her
situation; I don’t care what she said. I had to find her—on this
side of life. I knew if I did I could help her. Whatever her
situation, I could bust her out.

Together, maybe we could salvage something out
of our screwed up lives. There would be no need for either of us to
mess around in Root. We could carve out some niche in this world
that would make getting up in the morning every day worth our
while, not to mention … growing old.

Synapses began clicking in ways I hadn’t felt
in a long time. The possibility of finding Karla filled me with a
buzz I hadn’t known since Jenny invited me to the beach. But this
one went way deeper—to the roots of my soul.

But she lived pretty far away, if my hunch was
right. I would need a lot more cash to reach her. I knew exactly
how to get it, too. I was driving a freaking gold mine.

***

I weaved my way into Beaver Falls proper,
traversing its checkerboard of squared off blocks of the town
through blue collar neighborhoods cheek to jowl with light industry
and office parks.

My path was still mostly random but had a
distinct southward tug. I had Pittsburgh on the brain, but only
because it was the biggest, closest city that had a market for what
I was hauling.

I was in no hurry to get there by any obvious
route. I avoided highway entrance ramps like the plague. I still
clung to the hope that the guys tailing me had only their instincts
to guide them now, no more freaking satellites.

The whole business about getting stiffed still
simmered in my craw. What was the deal? I had gotten to Cleveland
almost on time. It wouldn’t have hurt them to give me the whole
five hundred.

Why punish me? Because they could. They
thought all their money and guns gave them privilege and power. But
I knew better. I knew that beneath all that attitude, that bling,
those wigger clothes, they were losers like me.

Starting out, they had probably been twerpy
suburban potheads like Jared, only now they had a few years in the
biz under their belts. They had no clue what losing a proposition
it all was. It was only a matter of time before they all got their
chests ventilated with lead or were socked away to rot in some
prison. I was happy to take some of the evidence off their
hands.

About an hour out of Pittsburgh I drove
through an obscure little state park with these turn-offs with
graveled lots for hikers and dog walkers. I waited till I found one
that had no cars parked and pulled in. There was a nice row of
scrawny hemlocks between me and the main road that gave me the
privacy to do what I needed to do.

I got out my tool kit, hopped into the bed of
the truck and went to work on the screws holding down the liner. I
still had no idea what exactly I was carrying, how it was packaged
or how much there was of it. It was most likely cocaine, but what
kind? Crack went for ten-twenty bucks a rock in Florida. Powder,
cut, fetched twenty bucks a gram on the street, maybe a hundred
bucks for the pure shit. Even if I carried only a kilogram cut,
what was that? Twenty thou? Enough to get me pretty dang far, if
only I could figure out how to sell it.

But first I had to find it. I undid the first
dozen screws in the bed liner and there was nothing but air and
dust in the spaces closest to the tail gate. As I worked my way
back, though, I struck gold.

I reached under and pulled out a long strip of
heat-sealed polyethylene packets of pure white powder. There were
more strips running down the grooves between the reinforcing ridges
of the bed liners. Maybe twenty strips altogether that I could see.
I pulled out the one and guessed it was probably a half a kilogram.
So, ten kilograms total, that I could see. And the stuff looked
pure—raw material for further processing. This was quite the pricy
treasure I was hauling.

I stuffed that strip under my shirt, screwed
the liner back down and sat there in the bed catching my breath,
waiting for my heartbeat to wind back down.

***

I made it to Pittsburgh by mid-afternoon. I
had no idea where to go, I just cruised around until I found what
seemed like a promising neighborhood—a place called the Hill
District.

I couldn’t park the truck on the street, not
just because of what it carried but because all the damage made it
noticeable. Any cop cruising by would be curious, especially with
my Florida plates.

It took a while, but I found a parking garage,
wound my way to the tippity top, parked on the roof and made my way
down the urine-scented stairwells to the street.

Weird place, this Hill District. Few streets
led into it. It was ringed off like a quarantine zone, the roads
surrounding it forming barriers lined with high stone walls. These
effectively sealed it off from the body of the city, like scar
tissue around an infection. I had to climb tier after tier
stairways to enter its heart.

I’m not sure what made me come here to sell my
wares instead of some fancy suburb, but I might have been guided by
my prejudices. The place certainly fit the clichés. It had the
right critical density of graffiti. Everywhere, there were these
abandoned shops with crumbling brick and boarded up
windows.

Together, these things told me there were
desperate people living here. But it made me wonder how folks so
poor could afford to supply a drug habit. Maybe they were so
desperate, they couldn’t afford not to.