Tears washed over Aaron's face as he pedaled his bike south through the downtown neighborhoods. He rode hard, flying on and off sidewalks, jumping railroad tracks, potholes, and puddles, gulping the crisp night air, his heart in his throat, feeling as if he could explode with tension. He rode to lose himself in the anonymity of the city, to shake off the weight bearing down on him, to mute the angry voices shouting at him from within his aching head.
He passed endless rows of apartment buildings, some with lighted windows behind which he pictured families having dinner or watching TV by the fire. He wondered how many of the families were happy and how many were as messed up as his, and he seriously considered stopping and knocking on a few doors to see if any of the households were functioning smoothly enough to take in a feral teenager.
At last he arrived at his destination: the city's waterfront, the dominion of the criminally inclined and the criminally insane. He skidded to a stop under a mercury-vapor streetlamp that cast a tawny light upon a vast cliff of rusting corrugated-steel siding the length of a city block, The Alton Brothers Fish Cannery — aka the hideout. Rebuilt in 1907 following the 1905 fire, the cannery had been in operation for more than a hundred years before it was condemned in the mid 1990s.
Aaron took a couple of slow, deep breaths. His head still hurt, but the pain in his stomach was easing a bit. He took out his cell phone and fired off a text message.
– Willy was working on his second cheeseburger when his phone beeped. It was a text from Aaron:
I'm at the cannery. Can you come down?
Willy rubbed his nose and read the message again — neither one of them had been down to the hideout in months, and he had assumed that Aaron had gone home mad. He glanced at the clock on the restaurant wall and entered his reply:
It's past your bedtime you big baby.
Aaron laughed and texted Willy back:
I couldn't sleep. Are you coming or not?
Willy took the last bite of his burger, washed it down with his drink, and thumbed in his reply:
Okay, Boss. I'm coming.
Aaron smiled and pocketed his phone. He had loved Willy as a friend over the years not simply because he was innocent, fun loving, and loyal (Willy would cut off an arm for Aaron), but because Willy was crazy; he was Aaron's alter-ego — the Mr. Hyde to his Dr. Jekyll. Willy encouraged Aaron to do things he would never do on his own, to act in ways unnatural to his shy, withdrawn personality. Willy liberated Aaron from himself, and Aaron was addicted to Willy like a drug.
This year, for instance, the boys had first-period biology together, and their teacher — in addition to being a jerk — was missing the thumb on his right hand. "This guy's a bit of a wanker," Willy had concluded (he was fairly well Americanized by then, but occasionally the British slang he picked up from his grandfather slipped out). So, whenever either of them raised their hand to ask a question, they folded their thumb in, and when the teacher was out of the room, Willy might hold up four fingers and make an announcement like, Attention class! You have five minutes to finish your test! In fact, Willy was so highly skilled, he was easily capable of sending Aaron, along with an entire classroom full of students, into fits of uncontrollable laughter whenever the urge struck, and laughter was something Aaron craved, something he wished he could do more of, especially at home.
– Willy dumped his trash in the nearest receptacle, grabbed his pack, and walked out of the restaurant. His beach cruiser was locked to a pole by the entrance; he unlocked it, strapped his pack to his back, hopped aboard, and stomped the pedals.
– Aaron felt around on the cannery's steel siding and found their secret entrance: a loose panel to the right of the large, steel roll-up door (retrofitted in 1965) that opened into the main warehouse. He pulled the panel open and ducked inside, dragging his bike behind him.
Slatted light from the streetlamp lit a cavernous space filled with the dusty conveyors, tables and miscellaneous machinery of a once thriving fish-packing business. The familiar smell of fish guts still hung in air, and Aaron wondered why after all this time — the cannery had been closed for years — it had not gone away. He also noticed that it was unseasonably warm, hot even, but it didn't seem important so he let it go.
He leaned his bike against a post and unzipped his sweatshirt, then threaded his way through the junk maze until he came to the back of the building and a flight of rough, wooden stairs which he ascended to the second floor.
He stepped off the landing onto the long, wood-planked balcony that led to the cannery's office. On his immediate right was a steel door marked MAINTENANCE; he opened it and stepped inside, closing the door behind him.
He felt around in the dark for the candle and lighter he and Willy had left on a shelf months ago, and as he lit the candle, two mice, startled by the flame, took off in opposite directions and disappeared.
The small space was packed with the essentials of building maintenance: tools, cleaning products, old buckets of paint, wire — all blanketed with a thick layer of dust. Aaron brushed the cobwebs aside and made his way to a large, unpainted, wooden cabinet in the back of the room. He opened the cabinet doors and pulled an old tweed suitcase out from the bottom shelf. He laid it on the floor, then knelt next to it and flipped open the latches.
The case was stocked with basic hideout necessities: a stack of comics, some playing cards, a spare candle and matches. Beneath the stack of comics was a small, royal-blue satin box. Aaron lifted the little box from the suitcase and held it in his hands for a moment, then opened the lid.
Inside was a small photo; he picked it up and held it toward the light.
It was a one-of-a-kind shot of his mother hugging his real father, Daniel Quinn. Aaron had taken the picture himself with a disposable camera during a family vacation while his dad was home on furlough the summer before he was killed in action overseas. Taken in an alpine meadow just before sunset when the light was perfect — the priceless photo represented the last days they spent together as a family; and whenever his heart was heavy, Aaron turned his thoughts to that wonderful summer. He took a moment, then carefully tucked the dog-eared picture into his wallet.
Suddenly Aaron heard the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs to the second floor. A chill ran through him — it wasn't Willy in his sneakers. It sounded more like two or three men in leather soled shoes. He quickly slid the case onto its shelf, and closed the cabinet. Then he held his breath as the footsteps crossed the stair landing and moved past the maintenance room toward the office at the end of the balcony.
He blew out the candle, then crept to the door and opened it a crack, in time to see three large men in business suits file into the office, leaving the door slightly ajar. Aaron stayed where he was and listened.