“Come back here. How long will it take?”
“Did something happen to you?”
“Don’t raise your voice to me!”
“I’m expressing concern, not coming back at you!”
My mother sighs. “It was probably nothing. It’s not as if industrial polluters run around jimmying lawyers’ cars.”
“Did somebody fuck with your car?” I can’t keep the panic out of my voice.
“Language!” Then, deep breath, restrained tone. “Maybe someone made a mistake when I had it serviced. Maybe someone nicked the brake line accidently.” It’s as if she’s trying to convince herself. “I just think you’d be safer here.”
You can’t miss the irony, how she thinks I’d be safer playing momma’s boy at home, when the only way she’s safe and I’m off Yeager’s shit list is when I seal the deal with Nicolette.
Only I have to do it faster. This thing with the fire was the warning. Turning a car into a deathtrap is pure intimidation.
Oh Jesus, Don, how could you let it get this far? This is Mom, not some live lizard you roast on a spit over a campfire. You made me watch that, too.
I know what I have to do.
I play my part. “You think I’d be safer with the lady some industrial polluter wants to ice than on my own?” I’m the road-tripping kid who has inexplicably lost all respect and reason. That’s what she believes, anyway. I think, Believe what you want. I’m saving your life.
“Ice, Jack? This isn’t a joke! There was something with the steering column, too. Are you listening to me?”
Who messes with a prosecutor’s car, not even bothering to make it look accidental?
“Do you have security? Good security, not the old guys in the golf carts.”
“The police are treating me like the crown jewels. Sweetheart, there’s nothing to worry about. But you have to get back here.”
There’s plenty to worry about. But she’s got police watching out for her. This buys me some time.
She’s saying, “Jack, be careful!” as I hang up on her.
Part 4
48
Jack
I don’t drive straight back to El Molino.
There are things I have to take care of, steps to take. This requires planning and precision, a time and a place. I drive along the crest of the mountains and onto a service road that barely exists, carved into the precipice. Courtesy of Google satellite images, I’m here.
The pavement of what used to be a parking lot is rutted, the trash cans upended. The NO OVERNIGHT PARKING signs are aerated where they were used for target practice a long time ago. There are no signs of human life, no telltale beer bottles, not a wrapper or a plastic ring that holds six-packs together anywhere.
This is the place.
Ravines and rocks, cliffs, and enough vegetation for cover: it’s harsh, rugged terrain. If you tried to run here, the likeliest thing is you’d go down without any help from me—it’s that rocky and uneven, unstable underfoot.
I map where I’ve been with merit-badge accuracy until I find my spot. Then I stop charting and start memorizing.
I have equipment to take down anything that comes at me. If it has a blade, I’ve got one: ax; bowie knife; camping gadget with corkscrew, box cutter, nail file, and useless little scissors; and a big, dull thing that looks like a machete that hacks through underbrush.
Also, I’ve got what’s in the holster.
The gadget is from my mom, from when I was a Scout. The bowie knife is from my dad. Compare: a gift that would be good for opening a bottle of white wine at a campsite ringed with Winnebagos versus a gift that could decapitate a bear.
I get them both two weeks after my dad hears I’m not coming to his house on his weekend because my Scout troop is hitting the wilderness. He says, “Shit, Bella. My kid’s going into the desert with grown men in shorts?” I can hear him from ten feet away through the receiver my mom holds away from her ear.
My mom says, “It’s Boy Scouts. It’s harmless.”
My dad makes the sound that says he’s glowering.
But my mom knows how to play him when he’s not too far gone. “It’s for survival skills. What’s the harm?”
Two weekends later, when I’m at his house, my dad starts quizzing me on what plant roots to eat if you run out of food, and how to purify water. All I know is what kind of plant not to eat and a couple of birdcalls. He tosses me a survivalist handbook with sidebars about keeping your gunpowder dry and rebuilding a constitutional democracy from the ruins of the US after Armageddon.
He says, “I bought you this. You get stuck out there with those assholes, I don’t want you to die.”
I read the book.
Don reads the book because I got it first.