Like a track star, Walt digs in on the homestretch. Even with that hard suitcase slamming his knees, he reaches the front door at least twenty paces ahead of us. I watch him pull a set of keys from behind an ice machine, open the door, and step inside. Caleb is only feet behind me now. I will my burning legs through the entrance, hear Walt slam and lock the door behind me just as Caleb flings himself against the double-paned glass. And like that, the cool and collected Caleb is gone, replaced by some zombie-eyed maniac pounding his fists against the door, gasping for breath, raging-bull mad.
I turn in a circle, trying to catch my own breath. The gas station is dark and empty, still closed for the day. “Walt, what are we doing here?”
“Obeying,” says Walt, bouncing on the heels of his feet. “He said run. Run and let him know. When there’s trouble, I have to let him know.”
I take a second to catch my breath, letting Walt’s bizarre statement sink in. “Who?”
Walt bends at the waist, setting his suitcase and Rubik’s Cube on the tile floor. He turns toward the refrigerated section, pulls out a Mountain Dew, pops the cap, takes a long swig, then wipes his mouth with the back of his sleeve.
“The karate kid,” he says.
21
Rooftop Revelations
BLIMEY, THIS KID’S full of surprises.
“The what?” Only it’s more like, the-hell-you-say???
He looks at me with a blank expression, tilts his head like a dog.
“Walt?”
Nothing. At all. And then—everything at once. He tosses the empty twenty-ouncer into a trash can, throws his suitcase over the checkout counter, hops over after it, and disappears around a back corner.
Like I said . . . surprises.
I throw my bag over the counter and jump it myself. These last couple days have been tough on my poor leg. At this rate, that cut will probably heal into some horrible disfigurement. Just add it to my list of medical oddities.
Around the corner, I spot Walt’s green Chucks on the top rung of a ladder, now disappearing through a trapdoor in the ceiling.
“Wait up, Walt!”
Caleb has stopped banging on the front door, which is unsettling, to say the least. I picture him crawling like a snake through the ductwork—hissing, spitting, eagerly calculating an alternate point of entry.
After scurrying up the ladder, I emerge through the same trapdoor and climb out onto the roof. It’s still morning, but the sun is out in full force, beating down on the gravel and cement. Broad pipes, ventilation fans, and all manner of rusty eyesores sprout up like weeds every five feet or so. Planted right in the middle of the gas station roof is a massive tank; it’s circular, like an aboveground pool, only taller. Standing at least eight feet high, it takes up more than half the surface area of the roof.
“Where is he, Al?”
I follow Walt’s voice around the side of the tank and find him standing next to a 340-pound whale of a man in aviator sunglasses. The guy is lounging shirtless in a folding chair, sipping an umbrella drink. He’s frightfully pale, a condition magnified by dark oil stains smeared across his face. Layer after folding layer, his stomach hangs down over his swimming trunks.
“Walt”—I point toward the fat guy—“you see him, too, right?”
The man’s blubber shakes as he laughs. He sips his daiquiri through a crazy straw, looks from Walt to me. “Nah, I’m just a figment of your imagination, kid. What, you were expecting a hookah-smoking caterpillar?”
Walt, ignoring us both, bounces up and down on the heels of his feet. “Where is he, Al, where is he?”
I cross the roof, joining them in the partial shade of a fake palm tree, doing my best not to throw up on the Pale Whale’s third circle of blubber. “Walt, we gotta get off this roof, man. We’re sitting ducks up here.”
“Who the hell are you?” asks the Pale Whale.
An image, from the most vivid quarters of my imagination: a car changing this man’s oil. “Mim,” I say. All I can muster.
“Ma’am?!” he blurts. “What kind of name is that?”
I find it hard to believe this man could criticize anybody’s anything. “You find the bottom of that daiquiri yet? What is it, eight a.m.?” I turn to Walt. “Listen. We don’t have time for this. Caleb’s insane. It’s only a matter of time—”
“That’s just bad manners, see.”
Spinning, I see Caleb round the circular tank, holding a sizeable hunting knife. A trickle of blood drips from his hands onto the gravel roof. He coughs, then pulls a cigarette from his back pocket and lights it. “Sorry, Al—had to bust a double-paned window to get in.” Inhaling, his eyes dart around. “Where’s your boyfriend?”
Gas station plus boyfriend.
“Karate class in Union,” says the Pale Whale, smacking his lips around the straw.
An odd smile spreads across Caleb’s face. He steps closer, the sharp end of the hunting blade shimmering in the light of the morning sun. “Like a fuckin’ six-year-old,” he mumbles.