When I was a kid, I was always searching for remote places my family could set up camp. Becoming the Swiss Family Robinson seemed like a better alternative than what we had going.
But here I am in El Molino with no idea how to extricate myself or anybody else, no exotic island backup plan, nothing. And Don keeps calling to remind me I’m fucked.
I say, “Just a minute,” leave Nicolette in my living room eating lemon meringue pie, and hit the front porch. It’s as if Don has a sixth sense for throwing people off, and I’ve reached the time limit for how long I can ignore him today.
“I thought I told you to pick up!” He’s pissed, resentful, frustrated—a brew of classic Don emotions that spew all over anyone in range.
“I’m in the library. Better databases.” Because what does he know about libraries? Nothing.
“I’m calling time, Jack.” He sounds harder than usual. “It happens right now. Find her and end it.”
Ignoring the Weedwacker to the gut, I say, “Get off my back. It takes how long it takes.”
“Don’t get high and mighty! You know what you have to do. Now do it.”
I think about our relative heights and might. Maybe I’ve descended into the gutter, but he’s in prison, which has to be lower. “You think you can do better? If you weren’t somebody’s slave boy, you could buy me more time.”
I know his anxious, angry breathing from the years of being smaller than he was, when I had to know when to get out of his way or risk drowning in six inches of water in the bathroom sink, groping to break the headlock. I have three inches on Don now, I’m armed, and I have martial arts training he dropped out of at age twelve. But when I hear that breathing, I feel it in the pit of my stomach, and all even a black belt would be good for is wrapping around his neck and pulling.
Everyone has the power of life and death over everyone else. Anybody walking down the street can jab anybody else between the ribs with something sharp. Man’s march out of the ooze toward civilization—a march that passed the Manx family by—is all that saves mankind from a continuous bloodbath.
Through the window, I see how nice Nicolette looks perched on the arm of the couch. She breathes at my discretion.
What happens next?
I can live with moral ambiguity. Grow up with a dad who executes people and a mom who sits there while he pounds on you—grow up loving your mom and your dad and your shit brother who’d sell you out for a carton of cigarettes—and you get moral ambiguity.
I’m eighteen. I’m legally qualified to judge guilt and innocence. If there were a DA stupid enough to put someone named Manx on a jury, I could determine someone else’s fate.
Would I be the lone juror voting to acquit the guy who killed somebody crazy-bad to save his mother, his shithead brother, and maybe himself? Maybe.
Would I acquit the guy if he slept with the crazy-bad girl first, fully consensual, everyone smiling, nobody drunk, victim and victimizer with protection and clean sheets? That guy should burn in hell.
Don says, “Pay attention. If you need reinforcements to do it for you . . .” He trails off. I keep him waiting. “Two more days, and I’m sending in helpers.”
Helpers? This is all I need. The only upside is he doesn’t know where to send these helpers. I don’t have much leverage, but if he knew where to find me, I’d have none.
“Here it comes: threatening Mom.”
“I’m not threatening. For now, we’re in this together. The day you quit, that’s the day you start triple locking your door.”
“I’m not together in anything with you! I’m doing this because you’re ten-feet deep in shit, and you’re dragging Mom down with you! If your guys do anything to Mom, this is over. I drive straight to a police station.”
“Big blowhard Jacky! These wouldn’t be my guys. These would be Yeager’s guys. I don’t control what they do or where they do it. And the police—that’s what you’ve got?” He belly laughs like Santa’s evil twin. “Death certificate. Didn’t Dad teach you anything?”
I visualize Don facing the wall of his cell, his hands cupped over his phone. I take some pleasure in the fact that I can tell he wants to scream but can’t. I’m not proud of it, but there it is.
“If you don’t have what it takes to do this,” he says, “tell me where the girl is, and I’ll get it taken care of.”
“I don’t know where she is!”
“Come on, Jacky. We both know how good you are at fingering people.”
“Shut up!”
Don says, “Open your e-mail.”
My in-box pings with an attachment from an unknown sender with a long string of seemingly random letters and numbers for a name.
Hey bro,
Hope you’re still looking for love on the road. Cuties all over and you only need to find one. There’s some bad news. They found Connie Marino’s body. It’s a sad day. What kind of person would hurt Connie?