Elvis Cole #7
Fawcett
February 2003
On Sale: February 4, 2003
Featuring: Elvis Cole
320 pages ISBN: 0345435648 EAN: 978034543564 Mass Market Paperback Add to Wish List
At two-fourteen in the morning on the night they left one
life to begin their next, the rain thundered down in a
raging curtain that thrummed against the house and the porch
and the plain white Econoline van that the United States
Marshalls had brought to whisk them away.
Charles said, "C’mere, Teri, and lookit this."
Her younger brother, Charles, was framed in the front
window of their darkened house. The house was dark because
the marshalls wanted it that way. No interior lights, they
said. Candles and flashlights would be better, they said.
Teresa, whom everyone called Teri, joined her brother
at the window, and together they looked at the van parked at
the curb. Lightning snapped like a giant flashbulb,
illuminating the van and the narrow street of clapboard
houses in the Ferengi Hills in the south part of Seattle,
just up from Jessup Bay. The van’s side and rear doors were
open, and a man was squatting inside the van, arranging
boxes. Two other men finished talking to the van’s driver,
and came up the walk toward the house. All four men were
dressed identically in long black slickers and black hats
that they held against the rain. It beat at them as if it
wanted to punch right through the coats and the hats and
hammer them into the earth. Teri thought that in a few
minutes it would be beating at her. Charles said, "Lookit
the size of that truck. That truck’s big enough to bring my
bike, isn’t it? Why can’t I bring my bike?"
Teri said, "That’s not a truck, it’s a van, and the men
said we could only take the boxes." Charles was nine years
old, three years younger than Teri, and didn’t want to leave
his bike. Teri didn’t want to leave her things, either, but
the men had said they could only take eight boxes. Four
people at two boxes a person equals eight boxes. Simple math.
"They got plenty of room."
"We’ll get you another bike. Daddy said."
Charles scowled. "I don’t want another bike."
The first man to step in from the rain seemed ten feet
tall, and the second seemed even taller. Water dripped from
their coats onto the wooden floor, and Teri’s first thought
was to get a towel before the drips made spots, but, of
course, the towels were packed and it wouldn’t matter
anyway. She would never see this house again. The first man
smiled at her and said,
"I’m Peterson. This is Jasper." They held out little
leather wallets with gold and silver badges. The badges
sparkled in the candlelight. "We’re just about done. Where’s
your dad?"
Teri had been helping Winona say goodbye to the room
that they shared when the men arrived fifteen minutes ago.
Winona was six, and the youngest of the three Hewitt
children. Teri had had to be with her as Winona went around
her room saying, "Goodbye, bed. Goodbye, closet. Goodbye,
dresser." Beds and closets and dressers weren’t things that
you could put in eight boxes. Teri said, "He’s in the
bathroom. Would you like me to get him?" Teri’s dad, Clark
Hewitt, had what he called ‘a weak constitution.’ That meant
he went to the bathroom whenever he was nervous, and tonight
he was very nervous.
The tall man who was Jasper called, "Hey, Clark, whip
it and flip it, bud! We’re ready!"
Peterson smiled at Teri. "You kids ready?"
Teri thought, of course they were ready, couldn’t he
see that? She’d had Charles and Winona packed and dressed an
hour ago. She said, "Winona!"
Winona came running into the living room. She was
wearing her pink plastic Beverly Hills 90210 raincoat and
carrying her purple plastic toy suitcase. Winona’s
straw-colored hair was held back with a bright green
scrunchie. Teri knew that there were dolls in the suitcase,
because Teri had helped Winona pack. Charles had his blue
school backpack and his yellow slicker together on the couch.
Jasper called again, "Hey, Clark, let’s go! We’re
drowning out there, buddy!"
The toilet off the kitchen flushed and Teri’s dad came
into the living room. Clark Hewitt was a thin, nervous man
whose eyes never seemed to stay in one place. "I’m ready."
"We won’t be coming back, Clark. You’re not forgetting
anything, are you?"
Clark shook his head. "I don’t think so."
"You got the place locked up?"
Clark frowned as if he couldn’t quite remember, and
looked at Teri. Teri said, "I locked the back door and the
windows and the garage. They’re going to turn off the gas
and the phones and the electricity tomorrow." Someone with
the Marshalls had given her father a list of things to do,
and Teri had gone down the list. The list had a title: Steps
to an Orderly Evacuation. "I just have to blow out the
candles and we can go."
Teri knew that Peterson was staring at her, but she
wasn’t sure why. Peterson shook his head, then made a little
gesture at Jasper. "I’ll take care of the candles, little
miss. Jasper, get’m loaded."
Clark started to the front door, but Reed Jasper
stopped him. "Your raincoat."
"Hunh?"
"Earth to Clark. It’s raining like a bitch out there."
Clark said, "Raincoat? I just had it." He looked at
Teri again.
Teri said, "I’ll get it."
Teri hurried down the hall past the room that she used
to share with Winona and into her father’s bedroom. She blew
out the candle there, then stood in the darkness and
listened to the rain. Her father’s raincoat was on the bed
where she’d placed it. He’d been standing at the foot of the
bed when she’d put it there, but that’s the way he was --
forgetful, always thinking about something else. Teri picked
up the raincoat and held it close, smelling the cheap fabric
and the man-smell she knew to be her father’s. Maybe he’d
been thinking about Salt Lake City, which is where they were
going. Teri knew that her father was in trouble with some
very bad men who wanted to hurt them. The Federal Marshals
were here to bring them to Salt Lake City where they would
change their names. Once they had a Fresh Start, her father
had said, he would start a new business and they would all
live happily ever after. She didn’t know who the bad men
were or why they were so mad at her father. Something about
testifying in front of a jury. Her father had tried
explaining it to her but it had come out jumbled and
confused, the way most things her father tried to explain
came out. Like when her mother had died. Teri had been
Winona’s age, and her father had told her that her Momma had
gone home to see Jesus and then he’d started blubbering and
nothing he’d said after that made any sense. Teri hugged him
tight, and it was another four days before she’d learned
that her mother, an assistant night manager for the Great
Northwest Food Store chain, had died in an auto accident,
hit by a drunk driver.
Teri looked around the room. This had been her mother’s
room, just as this house had been her mother’s house, as it
had been Teri’s for as long as she could remember. There was
one closet and two windows looking toward the alley at the
back of the house and a queen bed and a dresser and a chest.
Her mother had slept in this bed and kept her clothes in
this chest and looked at herself in that dresser mirror. Her
mother had breathed the air in this room, and her warmth had
spread through the sheets and made them toasty and perfect
for snuggling when Teri was little. Her mother would read to
her. Her mother would sing "Edelweiss". Teri closed her eyes
and tried to feel the warmth, but couldn’t. Teri had a hard
time remembering her mother as a living being; she
remembered a face in pictures, and now they were leaving.
Goodbye, Mama.
Teri hugged her father’s raincoat tight, then turned to
leave the room when she heard the thump in the back yard. It
was a dull, heavy sound against the back wall of the house,
distinct against the rain. She looked through the rear
window and saw a black shadow move through the rain, and
that’s when Mr. Peterson stepped silently into the door.
"Teri, I want you to go to the front door, now, please." His
voice was low and urgent.
Teri said, "I saw something in the yard."
Peterson pulled her past a man in a still-dripping
raincoat. The man who’d been loading the boxes. He held his
right hand straight down along his leg and Teri saw that he
had a gun.
Her father and Charles and Winona were standing with
Mr. Jasper. Her father’s eyes looked wild, as if at any
moment they might pop right out onto the floor. Jasper said,
"C’mon, Pete, it’s probably nothing."
Her father clutched Jasper’s arm. "I thought you said
they didn’t know. You said we were safe."
Jasper pried her father’s hand away as Mr. Peterson
said, "I’ll check it out while you get’m in the van." He
looked worried. "Jerry! Let’s move!"
The third man reappeared and picked up Winona. "C’mon,
honey. You’re with me."
Jasper said, "I’ll check it with you." Jasper was
breathing fast.
Mr. Peterson pushed Jasper toward the door. "Get’m in
the van. Now!"
Jasper said, "It’s probably nothing."
Charles said, "What’s happening?"
A loud cracking came from the kitchen, as if the back
door was being pried open, and then Peterson was pushing
them hard through the door, yelling, "Do it, Jasper!
Take’m!" and her father moaned, a kind of faraway wail that
made Winona start crying. Jerry bolted toward the street,
carrying Winona in one arm and pulling Teri’s father with
the other, shouting something that Teri could not
understand. Jasper said, "Oh, holy shit!" and tossed Charles
across his shoulder like a laundry bag. He grabbed Teri HARD
by the arm, so hard that she had never felt such pain and
she thought her flesh and bone would surely be crushed into
a mealy red pulp like you see in those Freddie Kruger
movies, and then Jasper was pulling her out into the rain
as, somewhere in the back of the house, she heard Mr.
Peterson shout, very clearly, "Federal Marshals!" and then
there were three sharp BOOMS that didn’t sound anything like
thunder, not anything at all.
*
The rain felt like a heavy cloak across Teri’s
shoulders and splattered up from the sidewalk to wet her
legs as they ran for the van. Charles was kicking his legs,
screaming, "I don’t have my raincoat! I left it inside!"
The driver had the window down, oblivious to the rain,
eyes wide and darting as Jerry pushed first Winona and then
Clark into the side door. The van’s engine screamed to life.
Jasper ran to the rear of the van and shoved Teri
inside. Clark was holding Winona, huddled together between
the boxes and the driver’s seat. Winona was still crying,
her father bug-eyed and panting. Two more BOOMS came from
the house, loud and distinct even with the rain hammering in
through the open doors and windows. The driver twisted
toward them, screaming, "What the fuck’s happening?!"
Jerry yanked a short black shotgun from behind the
seat. "I’m with Pete! Get’m outta here!"
Jasper clawed out his gun, trying to scramble back out
into the rain, saying, "I’m with you!"
Jerry pushed Jasper back into the van. "You get these
people outta here, goddamnit! You get’m out NOW!" Jerry
slammed the door in Jasper’s face and the driver was
screaming, "What happened?! Where’s Peterson?"
Jasper seemed torn, but then he screamed back, "Drive!
Get the hell outta here!" He crushed past the cardboard
boxes to the van’s rear window, cursing over and over,
"Always some shit! Always some goddamn bullshit!"
The van slid sideways from the curb as it crabbed for
traction. The driver shouted into some kind of radio and
Jasper cursed and Teri’s father started crying like Winona,
and Charles was crying, too. Teri thought that maybe even
Federal Marshall Jasper was crying, but she couldn’t be sure
because he was watching out the van’s square rear window.
Teri felt her eyes well with tears, but then, very
clearly, she told herself: No, you will not cry. And she
didn’t. The tears went away, and Teri felt very calm. She
was soaked under her raincoat, and she realized that the
floor was wet from rain blown in when the doors were open.
The eight cardboard boxes that held the sum total of their
lives were wet, too.
Her father said, "What happened back there? You said we
were safe! You said they wouldn’t know!"
Jasper glanced back at her father. Jasper looked
scared, too. "I don’t know. Somehow they found out."
Teri’s father shouted, "Well, that’s just great! That’s
wonderful!" His voice was very high. "Now they’re gonna kill
us!"
Jasper went back to staring out the window. "They’re
not going to kill you."
"That’s what you people said before!" Her father’s
voice was a shriek.
Jasper turned again and stared at Teri’s father for the
longest time before he said, "Peterson is still back there,
Mr. Hewitt."
Teri watched her brother and sister and father, huddled
together and crying, and then she knew what she must do. She
crawled across the wet, tumbled boxes and along the van’s
gritty bed and went to her family. She found a place for
herself between Winona and her father, and looked up into
her father’s frightened eyes. His face was pale and drawn,
and the thin wet hair matted across his forehead made him
look lost. She said, "Don’t be scared, Daddy."
Clark Hewitt whimpered, and Teri could feel him
shivering. It was July, and the rain was warm, but maybe he
wasn’t shivering because he was cold. Teri said, "I won’t
let anyone hurt us, and I won’t let anything happen to you.
I promise."
Clark Hewitt nodded without looking at her. She held
onto him tightly, and felt his shaking ease.
The van careened through the night, hidden by the
darkness and rain.