Christina Page started dialing as soon as Rick hung up. It took her three calls to find out the twins had gone to the movies with friends and wouldn’t be back for a couple of hours. She couldn’t find out which movie and she couldn’t spend all night calling movie theaters. They were with a group of girls, in a crowded cinema, they’d be okay till she returned with J.P.
He must be so frightened, she thought. Sitting in that restaurant all alone. His father dead. It was all so hard to believe.
She thought about leaving a note for the girls, but she was only going to be gone a short time. They wouldn’t worry and besides, she’d be back before they knew she had been gone.
She left the house and made her way to her car with her mind in a whirl. Rick’s call, telling her that her friends were dead, tore at her heart, and the thought of J.P., afraid and alone, ripped at her mother’s instincts. She fought to hold her feelings halfway between sorrow and rage.
She started the car and drove, mentally stabbing herself for agreeing to do what Rick asked. She should have called the police straightaway. She made up her mind to do so as soon as she picked up J.P. If he saw the man who killed his father, he should be telling the cops. They were the ones who should be handling this, not her.
Then she thought that whoever is doing this has been able to find some people who are very good at covering their tracks. There isn’t exactly a who’s who of bootleggers available in the local library. Danny, Evan and Tom had been living a sort of underground existence for the last twenty years. Like her, they had no credit cards, no bank accounts, no jobs, no listings in the phone book. They would be damned hard to find, unless you were a friend.
But someone found them, she thought.
Twenty minutes later she exited at Colorado. She’d made good time. Within an hour of Rick’s phone call she was parking her car in the same parking lot where Tom Donovan’s new wife had been murdered.
She looked both ways, then ran across the street against the light. J.P. saw her the second she came through the door and in an instant he was off his stool and into her arms, crying.
“ It’s going to be okay now, J.P.,” she said, knowing it would never be okay for him again. Danny, Evan and Tom, she thought, what had they gone and gotten themselves into? Who did they piss off?
“ I’m glad you came.” He had his arms wrapped around her, clutching as only a frightened child can.
“ Come on, J.P. I’ll take you home.”
“ Can we stop by the Holiday Inn and pick up my bird, cuz I gotta have Dark Dancer.” He wiped the tears from his eyes.
“ Sure we can, but you’ll have to be careful when we get it home, the girls have a new kitten and we wouldn’t want it to eat your bird.”
“ Oh, it wouldn’t do that,” he said. “Dancer’s a tough pigeon. And besides, he’s got a good cage.”
Thirty minutes later Christina turned into the parking garage, ducking her head as she went down the circular ramp.
“ That’s silly,” J.P. said. “You got lotsa room, besides you’re in the car.”
“ It’s an old habit, hard to break,” she said.
“ Wow, full up,” J.P. said as they circled the first floor on their way down.
“ There must be a convention in town.”
“ Lots of the record meet people stay here,” J.P. said.
“ This is a big hotel. I doubt that would fill it. There must be something else going on,” she said as she passed through the second floor, heading on down to the third.
“ Stop,” J.P. yelled.
Christina slammed her foot on the brake.
“ Sorry, ma’am,” one of the men she’d almost run down said. “We should have used the stairs.”
“ What’s going on?” she asked. Two of the men had open beer cans in their hands.
“ Homicide convention,” one of them said. “Homicide detectives from all over the world, swapping lies upstairs. Right now this hotel is probably the safest place on the planet, must be over three thousand cops milling around.”
“ Not so safe for you three, I almost ran you over,” she said. They laughed and waved as she drove on to search out a parking place on the lower level. The only parking spaces left were on the far side of the garage, away from the elevators.
“ We’re way out in left field,” J.P. said.
“ Not that far. Let’s get your bird and go. I want to be back before the girls get home from the movies.”
“ I hope he’s okay, he hasn’t had any food or water for a whole day.”
“ I’m sure he’ll be fine.” They rode up to the sixth floor in silence, but when the doors opened, J.P. shot out of the elevator and ran down the hall. By the time she reached the room, J.P. had the door open and was inside.
“ He’s okay,” J.P. said. “I’m gonna get him some water from the bathroom.” He was back in a few seconds with a plastic cup. He poured some of the liquid into Dancer’s water bottle and Christina watched while the bird drank.
“ He looks big for a pigeon.”
“ He is, it’s cuz he’s a racing homer. They’re bred to fly far and fast. He’s got lots more muscles than commies.”
“ Commies?” she asked.
“ Regular, everyday pigeons are called commies.”
“ Oh,” she said. He started to pick up the cage and she asked, “Do you have any clothes?”
“ Oh yeah.” He set the bird back on the bureau, went to the closet and tugged out two suitcases.
“ You don’t travel very light,” she said.
“ I was gonna stay with my dad for awhile.”
“ I’m sorry.” She looked around the room. “Where’s your father’s things?” She knew Tom always traveled with his tapes. She didn’t want to leave them to cause unnecessary questions later.
“ Next room.” J.P. opened the connecting door. Apparently they went straight from checking into the hotel to the record meet, because they hadn’t started to unpack. She found two suitcases at the foot of the bed. She opened one and seeing it full of female things, set it aside and opened the other.
“ That’s your dad,” she said to J.P. One change of clothes and about a hundred tapes. “They can’t all be Zep.”
“ Mostly,” J.P. said “But he was into Pink Floyd too. Probably lots of Floyd there. We should take this with us. His customer list is in there.” He pointed to a ledger wedged in among the tapes.
“ I was thinking the same thing.” She closed the suitcase and carried it into J.P.’s room. “Okay, time to go.” She carried two suitcases. J.P. carried one and the bird cage and they made their way to the elevator.
She still felt like calling the police, but she was starting to think if she did, she might get Rick into trouble. If the boys were up to something, she didn’t want to be responsible for getting Rick sent to jail.
It seemed like forever before the elevator showed and when it did, it wasn’t empty. They rode down with two couples that had been drinking too much in the rooftop bar and a large black man who looked like he’d rather be wearing anything else then the new suit he had on.
“ What kind of bird is that?” One of the men asked.
“ Racing homer,” J.P. said. “He’s fast.”
“ I had racing homers when I was your age,” the black man said.
“ Really? Any five hundred milers?” J.P. asked.
“ Some. You’re going to let him go?”
“ I was gonna but-”
Christina squeezed his shoulder and he bit back the sentence. She smiled at the black man, who got off on the third level.
“ Gonna let him go and he’s gonna fly away home,” one of the women said. It didn’t sound like a question and J.P. didn’t answer. Christina didn’t think those people should be driving, but she was a strong believer in minding her own business. She nodded at them when they acknowledged her, but when the elevator door opened, they were out of her mind.
“ We’ll leave the stuff here and go get the car.” They set the suitcases and the birdcage by the elevator and they started toward her car, with Christina leading J.P. by the hand.
A can clattered across the garage, but Christina barely heard. She was in a hurry to get home to the twins, and once again she wondered what Danny, Evan and Tom had been up to. She didn’t think it was drugs. She knew that Evan did coke, but Danny and Tom never touched the stuff. Tom didn’t even smoke cigarettes. But whatever it was, it had to be big and there had to be a lot of money involved for someone to kill them all in such a way. She hoped Rick had no part of it, but she was afraid that maybe he did, otherwise why hadn’t he told her to call the police right from the get go?
“ Christina, look,” J.P. said. She felt his hand tighten on hers as she followed his pointed finger.
“ Shit!” She stooped to look at the front tire. “Someone cut it up good.” She ran her hand along the slice. “Son-of-a-bitch!”
“ And the back one too. Someone with a big knife.” He was trembling. “The Ragged Man.”
“ The other side as well,” she said, then asked, “What Ragged Man?”
“ He’s a killer with a sharp knife, a Jim Bowie knife. I think he’s the one who killed my dad. I-”
Tires screeched around the ramp, heading up, cutting off J.P. Words. The sound echoed in the underground garage. Christina wanted to call out, but it was too late, the two couples from the elevator were gone. She looked over the tops of the cars. The elevator was across the garage. It didn’t seem like a short walk anymore.
“ Listen,” J.P. whispered.
“ What?”
“ No noise,” he said. “No sound, it’s like when the Ghost Dog walks in the woods. I gotta get Dancer.” He started to tug away, but she closed her hand on his, holding him fast.
“ What are you talking about?”
“ The Ragged Man’s dog,” he squeezed her hand back. “The Ragged Man, you know, what I said, the man who killed my dad.”
Somebody kicked another can and the rattling across the concrete electrified the silence.
“ Down!” She pulled him to the floor behind the car. He was shaking and tense. She felt his sweaty, child hand in hers, and she started to get angry.
She let go of his hand and opened her purse. J.P. grinned when he saw the gun in her hand.
“ We should be okay now. The Ragged Man doesn’t have a gun.”
“ He could have bought one.” Her whisper was forced and clipped. She didn’t understand what the boy was talking about and this wasn’t the time to be humoring him. They were in serious trouble and she needed all her concentration.
“ I can’t let him hurt Dancer.”
“ We can see the cage from here. If he gets anywhere near it I’ll put his eyes out,” she said.
“ Does he look okay?”
“ He’s fine,” she said.
A wine bottle came flying from out of nowhere and smashed on the wall behind them, exploding with a shattering sound that made her scream. This time J.P. did the hand squeezing and she calmed down.
She wanted to jump up and shoot the bastard, but there was nobody to shoot at. Maybe J.P. was right, she thought, maybe he didn’t have a gun.
Then the lights went out.
“ He knows where we are,” she whispered into his ear. “We have to move.” She shifted the gun to her left hand and gave him a reassuring squeeze with her right. “We can’t take the elevator, we’d be too much of a target, so we’ll use the stairs.” The stairway leading up was adjacent to the elevator. “We’re going to crawl along the cars. I’ll go first, you stay right behind me.” Without waiting for him to answer, she started crawling along the row of parked cars.
More glass shattered behind them. Another wine bottle, she thought. She was tempted to let loose a few rounds, but didn’t. She didn’t want to let whoever was out there know she had a gun, because despite what J.P. said, he might have one, too. The last thing she wanted was bullets flying in all directions.
Then the man started moving. His hard shoes ricocheted off the concrete floor, each step, a thunderclap in a hollow cave, and the steps were coming toward them. She reached back and grabbed J.P.’s hand and started crawling faster. The steps stopped and she did, too. He was listening. Trying to find them in the dark and now the dark was as much their ally as their enemy. If they remained quiet he’d never find them and sooner or later someone had to come.
A can clattered behind them and she stifled a scream. It was what he wanted. Another rolled off to their left, the noise reverberating throughout the garage, ripping through her nerves. Icicles scattered out from her spine and she tightened her hand on the gun as they continued creeping toward the stars.
A car door opened. She bit into her lip as the door slammed shut, a cannon to her heart, sending her pulse racing. Was he leaving? Was he not after them, after all? Why had he done this?
The elevator doors opened and standing in the middle of a box of light was the black man in the new suit. The man squinted into the dark garage. The light from the elevator casting a Twilight Zone glow into the dark and J.P. saw the cage.
A car started.
“ I’m gonna get Dancer,” J.P. twisted free from her hand and ran toward the bird.
Tires screeched.
“ No!” Christina screamed, grabbing for him, but she was too late.
The black man saw the boy, heard the car and moved like an athlete. He darted for the boy as the headlights of the oncoming car captured him in their light, the boy’s face shining whiter as the car closed on its prey.
The big man dove for the boy, catching him and dragging him out of the way as the car screeched by, circling up the driveway to the street above. The car was gone by the time her nerves stopped shaking.
“ J.P.,” she screamed from across the garage.
“ He’s all right, ma’am,” the black man said.
“ That man, he was after us,” she said.
“ Gonna kill my bird,” J.P. said, clutching the cage to his chest.
“ It’s okay now, he’s gone, but I got a good look at him and I never forget a face.” He pushed the button for the elevator and the door opened wide, again shedding some light into the garage.
“ I can’t thank you enough,” Christina said.
“ You can put the gun away now. I’m a police officer,” the man said. He led them into the elevator. He was reaching into his pocket for identification as the doors were closing and he handed it to her.
“ Captain Hugh Washington,” she read. “Long Beach.”
“ Yes, ma’am,” he said as she handed it back. “I came back down because of the bird. When the boy said he wanted it to be a five hundred miler I got to thinking what’s five hundred miles away from here and then it hit me.”
“ What?” she asked.
“ Where I’d seen the boy before. Tampico.”
“ I remember you,” J.P. said. “You were on the beach that day. You waved to me when I let Dancer loose.”
“ That’s right,” Washington said. “I heard about what happened that day. I should have stayed. I saw the homeless man on the beach, but I didn’t think anything of it. I was sort of on leave when I was up there and my mind wasn’t as open as it should have been.”
“ That man sliced my tires,” Christina said.
“ It’s the times,” Washington said. “We catch them and the courts put them back on the streets.”
“ I guess I’ll have to get a taxi.”
“ What kind of car?”
“ Toyota.” She said.
“ I think I can help there,” he said and Christina and J.P. found themselves escorted to the convention hall where Hugh Washington enlisted the aid of several homicide detectives from throughout the world. When Christina and J.P. left the underground parking garage they had four new tires and four rented Toyotas had slashed spares in their trunks.
And all the way home she wondered why she hadn’t spilled her guts to Captain Washington. She was still wondering when she pulled into the driveway. It was dark, the lights weren’t on and the girls were still out.
She looked over at J.P. He was asleep. He’d had a rough day, a terrible yesterday and faced an uncertain tomorrow. She felt sorry for him. Asleep, he looked so vulnerable, with his head leaning against the passenger window and his arms wrapped around the cage that held his favorite bird.
“ Home again, home again, jig-a-de-jig,” she said, opening the passenger door.
“ My mom says that.” J.P. blinked away the sleep.
“ All moms say that, I think.”
“ Is Rick gonna come soon?”
“ I think he’ll be here in the morning.” She took the caged bird from his lap and he followed her to the door. She wanted to take him by the hand, to hug him, but she was afraid any sign of affection would throw the boy into tears. He was trying so hard to be a little man and fighting hard to hold on to his sanity. He was trying to be strong and she didn’t want to weaken him. There would be plenty of time for tears after the shock had worn off. She opened the door and J.P. followed her inside.
“ Oh wow,” he said, running across the living room and stooping to pick up a white kitten.
“ She’s only six weeks old. Swell brought her home yesterday.”
“ What’s her name?” he asked, holding the kitten to his cheek and stroking her fur.
“ We can’t decide.”
“ Can I name it?”
“ Sure.”
“ Can she sleep with me?”
“ Of course.”
She put J.P. to sleep in the downstairs den with his bird in its cage on the writing desk opposite the bed and the kitten locked in his arms. She sat in an antique rocker next to the bed, determined to stay with him till he fell asleep. She didn’t have long to wait, he was asleep inside of five minutes and the kitten hopped off the bed and scurried into the kitchen in search of milk.
Christina rose from the rocker, went to the phone and called the motel, only to find they were full, but would have a vacancy in the morning. Then she saw the blinking light on the answer machine. It was a message from the girls, they were going to a friend’s after the movie and would be home by midnight. They hadn’t left a number. Well, there was nothing for it, but to wait till they got back.
So she locked up, then tried to read, then tried television. Sometime around 11:00 she wrote a note for the girls, telling them about J.P. being in the guest room and asking them to wake her when they got back. They’d be safe enough tonight, she thought, but when she went up to bed, she left her purse downstairs, the gun inside it too.