A Cool Breeze on the Underground (22 page)

“You hurt my baby!”

Neal tried to push her off with his left hand, but she had a death grip on the inside of the window. Neal glanced at the rearview mirror and saw Colin hobbling toward him, a stick in his hand and blood in his eye.

Crisp felt ashamed as he looked out the window. Here was the love of his life and his best friend doing desperate battle in the street. And here he was, two stories above the fray, snug and safe. “I’ll save you, Vanessa!” he yelled, and went looking for a way to make that good.

“Nessa, offa car,” Allie said sweelly but thinly from her less than commanding position in Neal’s lap. “Jes’ goin’ for a ride.”

Vanessa was trying her best to pull the driver’s door open and vent her full fury on her love’s attacker, but Neal was at the same time holding the door shut and trying to start the car and was doing a pretty remarkable job of it, considering the bashing he was taking. But it wasn’t working. So Neal let go of the gearshift to get leverage, leaned back, and popped Vanessa square in the chops with an overhand right. This girl can really take a punch, he thought. He had to give her that.

Colin reached for the passenger door to get his hands on that bitch Alice before he beat her new boyfriend into bread pudding. He had the door half open …

“Okay, nessa, have it your way,” Allie said, her patience exhausted. She wanted to go for a ride. Squeezing herself onto Neal’s lap, she shoved her left foot down on the clutch, yanked the shift into first gear, and stepped down hard on the accelerator. This Keble did just what Daddy’s Keble always did. It took off like a rabbit on Dexedrine.

Neal was surprised when Vanessa suddenly dropped from sight as glass shattered all over the roof of the car. He didn’t have time to think about it, though. He just had time to grab the wheel as the Keble suddenly surged forward.

Which action presented colin with a clear choice: let go, or lose his arm. He took the former course, and only rolled fifteen or sixteen times before coming to rest in the street.

“Sorry, vanessa!” shouted Crisp, whose aim with the gin bottle had been off by
that much.
He threw another one at the fleeing car.

The keble zoomed off into the night with its two fugitives. Neal gripped the wheel and played with the gearshift. Allie slept soundly against the door.

Then the damnedest thing happened. It started to rain.

The sky had been saving up all summer for this one and now it really let go. It didn’t take Neal more than four or five minutes of frantic fumbling to figure out the windshield wipers and another minute or so to roll up the windows, by which time he was soaked down to his shoulders. He pulled the car over to the side of Camden High Street to check the map. The route had seemed simple when he’d memorized it earlier, but everything looked different on the ground, especially when you had a split lip, a blossoming shiner, and couldn’t see a thing through sheets of rain in the dark.

He decided to take the Seven Sisters Road to the A406 and the A406 to the M-11, the major thoroughfare north.

He didn’t even notice that he didn’t have any trouble slipping into first gear and easing out onto the street.

Colin hissed with pain as he straddled his motorbike. Rain? he thought.
Bloody rain?
It hasn’t rained in three months and now it has to come down in great awful buckets? There is a God, he thought, and he’s a ball-stomper. Well, there was nothing to do but head off after them and see whether his luck was changing. He turned up the throttle.

The kid at the gas station was thrilled to death to see Neal pull up.

“I need gas. Fill it up,” Neal said.

The kid spit a mouthful of water out and answered, “if it’s gas you want, go to the States. We have petrol here.”

“Whatever it is that makes this car run.”

“Cars are on a train, mate. Over here we call it an auto.”

“You want to stand there getting soaked or you want to hold a comparative linguistics seminar?”

“Money first. Then the petrol for your auto.”

Neal handed him a ten-pound note.

“How do I get on the A406?” he asked when the attendant had finished pumping.

“Roundabout straight on. Second right.”

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”

The kid was even more thrilled when some moron on a motorbike roared in.

“Little sports car pass by?” the biker shouted above the din of the rain.

“Didn’t pass by. Stopped for petrol.”

“Where was he going?”

“I don’t know where he was going, but he was using the A406 to get there.”

“How—”

“Roundabout straight on. Second right.”

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Neal took it nice and slow in the rain. Allie was peacefully sleeping and he was in no particular hurry—until he saw a single headlight in the rearview mirror, coming on fast.

Neal slowed down. If it was Colin, he might as well find out now instead of letting him follow them and blow another safe house.

He was going about forty when Colin pulled up along the driver’s side.

“Pull over!” Colin shouted.

Neal tapped the gas pedal and the Keble shot ahead.

Colin kept up with them.

“Pull over!” he shouted. He was soaked, flushed, and furious. His white suit clung to him.

Neal tapped the accelerator again, forcing Colin to speed up. Neal knew the bike was no match for the Keble.

Trouble was, he was afraid to go too fast, in this rain. Colin could probably win a game of chicken. Oh well, he thought, what the hell.

He stepped on the pedal again, getting a good head of steam and bringing Colin speeding up beside him. Then he hit the brakes.

The back wheels skidded and turned out and the car sped sideways for a good hundred feet. Colin sped right past it, twisted the brake handle, and flipped the little bike over the top of himself.

Neal remembered that old driving-school bit about turning in the direction of the skid, but didn’t remember what it meant, so he just kept spinning the steering wheel back and forth until the car pointed ahead again and came to a stop. He looked in the mirror and saw

Colin disentangling himself from the bike—very slowly. He fought off an insincere urge to go back and see whether he was all right. Then he put his foot on the gas and took the Keble for a ride as fast as he dared.

All this action actually woke Allie up for a second.

“We there yet?” she asked.

“Just looking for a place to park.”

Colin watched the taillights of the little car disappear over the hill. It had been a very bad night. He had lost the book, the money, the dope, Alice, Neal, his bike, and about a pint of blood. He was well and truly fucked.

Neal eased off on the pedal until the Keble slowed to something less than the speed of sound. Now that he didn’t have to shift, he felt okay driving the thing, his heart was settling back into his chest, and he was headed for a place he could actually hear it beat.

Part Three
A Place You Can Hear
Your Heartbeat

25

Simon’s cottage was made of stone.

Neal felt stupid when he thought about the third little pig who was safe when the big bad wolf came huffing and puffing, but figured he was glad to be thinking at all, tired as he was. Allie was asleep as he pulled the car slowly up the dirt trail that led through the moor and up to the cottage. Far below and behind, the chimneys of the small village peeked above the last line of trees. They had driven north out of the rain, and the ground beneath the wheels was hard and firm, so he had no trouble pulling up to the cottage.

Leaving Allie in the Keble, he got out, stretched his sore legs and back, and looked around him. He’d never been anyplace like this. The view commanded miles of the barren moor. The cottage sat on a plateau beneath a sharp, rocky slope. The moor ran fairly level to both his left and right, and in front of him, the hill ran down to a small stream and a copse of frees, and a mile or so beyond that, the village. Faint purple heather, scrub grass, and rock covered the ground. It was windy up here, and the cool breeze that dried the stale sweat on his face felt wonderful. His eyes ached from fatigue, and as he took a deep breath of the fresh air, he knew he wanted sleep … needed sleep.

He looked back to make sure Allie was still asleep, and then walked up to the cottage. It was a two-story affair, gray stone built around thick wooden beams. He found the old skeleton key under a rock, right where Simon had said it would be, and let himself in. The first floor was low-ceilinged, and he stooped even though he really didn’t have to. A large fireplace dominated the front room, which had a stone floor, an old wooden table, and two old overstuffed chairs. A small bedroom ran off to the left. It was filled with books, no surprise there, and a small bed covered with old quilts and a thick army blanket. A kitchen of sorts ran off to the back. It had creaky wooden counters and a few shelves and cupboards, and a wood-burning stove. There was a basin but no tap. A narrow wooden door opened onto the slope of the hill and a stone retaining wall. Someone had made a weak attempt at gardening out back, and a sad rose trellis marked the effort. A narrow staircase led from the kitchen up to the second floor, which contained three bedrooms. Each was furnished with quilted beds and cane chairs.

The whole place had that comfortable discomfort of the beloved getaway. Old framed photos of Simon and family and friends decorated the walls and bedside tables. Cheap paperbacks and slightly moldy hardcovers lay scattered about. Neal went back downstairs and out front. He found the generator shack, read the carefully printed directions thumbtacked to the wall, and started it up. He might as well, he thought, have such comforts as electricity. An outhouse stood near the generator shack, and a cottage. He solved the mystery of water when he noticed the well about thirty yards in front of the cottage. He cranked the handle and, sure enough, a bucket of water came up, just like in the old movies when the city slicker goes to the country and learns real values. He took a sip of the water: It was clean and cold and tasted great. He hoped he wouldn’t die from it. A true New Yorker, he believed that water should come out of faucets.

Hmm, well water, outhouses, a bathtub set in the open air. He could get used to this, he thought. And the quiet. He noticed it just then. The complete and utter absence of mechanical or human sound. He listened. Way off in the distance, perhaps over the hill, he could hear the faint sounds of what might have been sheep. He could hear the soft gurgling of the brook below him. That was all. That was it. He could hear his heartbeat. This was all new stuff to Neal Carey, who thought he had seen it all.

Remembering why he was up here, he walked back to the car and opened the passenger door. Allie was curled up, her head resting on the top of the seat. She was sticky with dried sweat and her face was puffy and pale. The next few hours would be bad, Neal thought. But he had to get it started. No more candy for baby Allie.

“Hey, wake up,” he said, shaking her. She mumbled a few dark threats and cuddled up into a ball.

“Alice, c’mon, up.”

“Donwanna.”

“I don’t give a shit what you wanna,” said Neal, who was damned if he was going to carry her anymore. He still hurt from last night.

He pulled her out of the seat and let go. She tumbled out onto the ground.

“Hey!” she said, with more indignation than wit. She sat on the ground looking up at him, and then looking around. It took her only a minute to realize they weren’t in downtown London.

“Where the
fuck
are we?”

Which reminded Neal of an old joke about pygmies that he didn’t bother relating.

“We’re ’on the lam,’” he said. He watched her search her memory. He watched real carefully. How much did Allie remember?

“Where’s Colin?”

“I don’t know.”

She got up from the ground and brushed herself off. “I want to go back to London.”

“No.”

“Right now.”

“Forget it.”

She brushed past him and headed for the driver’s door.

I didn’t want to do this, Neal thought. He grabbed her by the elbow, stuck his foot behind hers, and threw her down. She got over her surprise in about half a second and started to get up, but he lifted her up by the shoulders and tossed her down on her back. She landed hard but got up and headed back toward the car. He stood in her way and she took a swing at him, a clumsy, looping swing that he caught easily, turning her wrist and bending her arm in back of her. He grabbed her hair with his other hand and forced her to her knees. He bent her over until her face grazed the ground.

It shocked him that he wasn’t sorry, that this felt good, and he wondered whom he was so goddamned angry at, and he wondered where his mother was and whether she was even alive, and he wondered whether Allie was the only fucked-up person on this barren, beautiful hill, and why he had taken this job in the first place.

He lifted her up and turned her around so that they were face-to-face. It didn’t help. He wanted to hit her. Hard. In the face. He wanted to tell himself that he would do it to settle her down, to get her in the house, part of the job and all, but he knew it wasn’t true. He wanted to hit her because she was a woman and a junkie and a whore, just like the girl who hadn’t married dear old Dad. That knowledge sickened him, tired him out more than everything he’d been through. He let go of her shoulders.

She knew, though. He saw in her eyes that she had seen it in his: the rage, the violence. She had flinched and braced herself for the slap she knew was coming. He saw that to her he was just another man who beat up women.

The slap didn’t come. They stood on the windy hill staring at each other. Neal could hear his heartbeat all right; it pounded along with his lungs reaching for breath. Finally, he said, “I ripped Colin off. He thinks you helped me. I let him think that—”

“Jesus … you asshole … who told you to—”

“Because I don’t want you to be with him anymore. I don’t want you shooting smack anymore.” The words came out between gulps of air, and it was as close to telling the truth as he could go right then. He walked past her into the cottage.

Allie caught her breath for a moment and then walked to the car.

Neal was trying to build a fire when she came back in. The afternoon had turned suddenly cold. He wasn’t having much luck and thought that maybe he should have joined the Boy Scouts instead of Friends of the fucking Family, when she came through the door.

“Where are my drugs?” she demanded.

“Somewhere on the M-11.”

“You sleazy cocksucker!”

“‘People who live in glass houses …” He touched the match to the old newspaper and it caught flame. He blew gently on it, as he’d seen in the movies, and had a modest success. “Don’t you think it’s cold in here?”

“It’s fucking freezing!”

“That’s because you’re starting into withdrawal. It’ll get worse. There are some wool sweaters upstairs in a wardrobe. I suggest you get a couple.”

“I suggest you get me some dope, or I’m driving right back to London.”

“Good idea. Call Colin when you get in. I’m sure he’d love to see you.”

He let her draw her own conclusions.

“Thanks for fucking up my life!”

“You’re welcome.”

“You at least owe me some dope!”

Neal added a small piece of wood to the fire and almost smothered it. He shifted things around with the poker and the fire came to life. He was concentrating hard on making the fire. It settled him down.

Then he took his shot. Carefully, because he knew that she wouldn’t be lucid much longer.

“What I owe you,” he said, “is ten thousand pounds. I figure that’s more than fair, seeing as you didn’t do a goddamn thing to earn it. But that’s not your fault. What I owe you is a chance to get off the junk and stay off, because that was also part of our deal. No more junk, no more dates.”

“What deal? We didn’t make any deal.”

“Yeah we did. Feeding the ducks. There are all kinds of ways to make a deal, Alice. Sometimes it’s on paper, sometimes it’s in words, and sometimes it’s just understood. We had an understanding, and you know it.”

“You’re crazy!”

“Okay. How crazy am I? I have the books and I have you. I cool out here for a while, then go back to the States. I call the buyer, he gets on the next plane, and I get twenty thousand pounds. Crazy? Okay.”

He poked the wood around a little more, as he’d seen in the movies. He could feel Allie thinking behind him.

“Now let’s ask how crazy
you
are,” he said. “I’ll give you …
give
you … half the money … ten thousand pounds. All you have to do is get off the stuff, come to the States with me, and still be clean when I make the sale.”

Her hands were starting to shake. Soon her whole body would start in.

“Why?” she asked. “Why would you do that for me?”

She wasn’t grateful, she was suspicious. That was okay with Neal; suspicion was easier to deal with.

“I’m not doing it for you, I’m doing it for me.”

“I don’t get it.”

“What a surprise. Listen, you didn’t think I was going to trust Colin to hide me out and keep me safe, did you? Why would Colin take half when he could get it all? He’d stab me in the back— literally—the second I turned it on him. I was
always
planning to screw him, just like he was always planning to screw me.

“I didn’t plan on … liking … you. I didn’t want to leave you behind to be on the street for Colin until he used you up and booted you out. So I took you. We can say it was against your will if that’ll make you feel better, but we both know the truth.”

“Maybe
you
think—”

“Shut up and listen. So now that I’ve got you, what do I do with you? We have some time to spend together up here, and I don’t want to have to tie you up and all that shit, I don’t want to have to worry about you running off to the cops screaming that you’ve been kidnapped, and I especially don’t want you deciding that heroin and hooking are your true lifestyle and getting to a phone and taking your chances with old Colin.”

“Yeah, so …”

“Yeah, so I’m making you my partner. I want you to have a rooting interest in my survival. There are going to be a lot of angry people looking for me over the next few months, and I don’t want you standing there, pointing and saying ‘He went that-away.’”

“I wouldn’t do that.”

“Let’s just say I’m giving you a little motivation.”

She tried to come up with her best spoiled-brat smile, the same one he’d seen her use with Colin. “Motivate me with some smack.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I need to trust you, and I won’t trust a junkie. Junkies will do anything. You get the money if and when you’re off the stuff.”

She was starting to shake but she was also listening. It took an effort. “So you think you can buy me.”

“Sure. Ten thousand pounds. Current exchange rate … about sixteen thousand dollars. You could be a very comfortable runaway for a long time on sixteen large, if you don’t have a habit to support. It’s called a fresh start, and they don’t come around too often. Not this easily, anyway. I’d take it if I were you.”

Her eyes were starting to tear up. Pretty soon, her knees would start to rattle and her ears would hum, and it would be no good talking to her. The, smack would do all the talking, and she would listen. It was starting already.

“What if I don’t take your ‘deal’? What if
I
say no?”

“You won’t. I’m only doing what you told me you wanted. Keep you off the smack and off the street.”

She put her hands over her ears and shook her head. Thinking was hard—her junkie body was telling her brain to get out of the way. “I can’t get off the junk, Neal. I can’t. I thought I wanted to, but I can’t!”

“I’ll help you.”

“What do you mean, help me?”

He turned away from the fire to look at her. “I mean help you. Couple of hours, things are going to get bad for you. You’re going to get pretty sick. I’ll help you get through it.”

She looked scared. It surprised him. He’d never seen her look scared before. She said, “Who are you, Marcus Welby?”

“I know a little bit about this stuff.”

“You were a junkie?”

“No, I wasn’t a junkie. I just know about it.”

Yeah, okay, Diane. More secrets, more holding back. More not trusting. Fuck you. Why is every woman in my life coming to visit just now?

Allie started to pace around the room. She ran her hands over the stone walls. “You bastard. You prick. You got me into this! Why couldn’t you just leave me alone?” Good goddamn question.

“I don’t want to quit!” she continued. Her pacing picked up. Neal saw she was starting to panic. “I can, I just don’t want to! I like it, all right? Who the
fuck
are you to do this to me?” Another good goddamn question.

Neal stirred his coffee. Allie sat on the floor. She wrapped her arms around her knees and hung her head on her hands. She started to rock, slowly at first, then faster and harder, back and forth. Neal barely heard her crying, and when he looked over, he had to look hard to see the tears wetting her face. The pain in his chest felt like his heart breaking.