Running the Risk (5 page)

“Now we go for a walk,” I said. “I'll walk you all the way home. It'll help clear your head.”

“What's with all the walking?” she asked.

“Only form of transportation available, I guess.” I was playing it stupid. But I was staring at her breasts now.

“What about the car in the driveway?”

“My father's Mustang?”

“Yeah.”

“He'd kill me.”

“But you'd drive me home if I asked. You'd do it for me, right?”

My god, she had a look just then. And she leaned forward, put her hand on my leg and kissed me again, a softer kiss this time. And one that lasted a long time.

“Yes,” I said, losing a battle in my head. I'd had one glass of wine. I didn't have a license. My father had let me drive the family car out in the country on some dirt roads a few times. But he'd never ever let me drive his old reconditioned Mustang.

“Yes,” I said. “I'll drive you.”

I hadn't driven a car with that much power before. The Mustang was old but my father kept it in perfect condition. Dark metal-flake blue, eight cylinders, leather bucket seats. A muscle car, a mean machine, a true gasguzzling destroyer of the environment.

The car was the one thing about my father that showed any sign of impracticality or recklessness. But when he drove the car, he babied it. As far as I knew, he never screeched the tires or drove over the speed limit.
Maybe he did that on the sly, when he was away from home and none of us could see him. But I doubted it.

Jeanette sank down in the seat and looked tired. Sleepy but sexy. I had to reach across her to put her seatbelt on when it looked like she wasn't going to do it for herself. My hand accidentally touched her breast, and she suddenly seemed more awake—she held it there for a second and then let go. Life was getting more interesting by the minute.

We were still parked in our driveway in front of my house. I was sure the nosy neighbors would be watching. “I've got to get you home,” I said, sounding a little too much like my own father. A man doing the right thing.

I put on my own seatbelt, started the car and then slowly, oh so carefully, backed out of the driveway. Jeanette started to sing something I thought I'd heard on the radio. She was in a dreamy, faraway state. In some ways, I envied her. I wanted to be there with her—far away, light-headed, the two of us alone in a fantasy world.

But that wasn't going to happen. I had to stay focused. Ten blocks there, ten blocks back. Put the car in the exact spot. No one would ever suspect a thing. I was actually a little pleased with myself that things were going to be fine. I got that little buzz again. Here I was, breaking the rules, living a notch closer to the edge. What was that silly thing my grandfather used to say? “If you see an open door on an airplane, just jump out. You'll find a parachute on the way down.” He was joking, but I understood now what he meant.

Jeanette kind of rolled her head side to side as she sang. Oh boy. I was hoping her parents weren't home.

When we passed the police car stopped by the side of the road, I kept my eyes straight ahead. I didn't notice if there was actually anyone in the car. But I knew better than to look suspicious. Drive sensibly, I kept telling myself. Stay cool. Be alert. Pretend you've been driving for years.

I would have done just that if Jeanette hadn't put her hand on my leg. That's when I ran straight through the stop sign.

I held my breath, realizing what I'd just done. Then I let out a big exhale when we were across the street. No cars had been coming. We were lucky. The parachute found me.

Or not.

It took a few minutes for the police car to catch up. I saw it approach in the rearview mirror, praying that the cop hadn't seen me roll through the stop sign. No such luck. The flashing red lights came on and my heart leaped into my throat. I gently took Jeanette's hand off my thigh and she giggled.

As I slowed and pulled over to the curb, I said, “Jeanette, I need you to act very, very cool right now.”

“What?” She turned and saw the police car and the flashing lights. “Oh, crap,” she said way too loud.

“Crap is right. Sit up and look normal.”

“Oh my god. I think I'm going to have another panic attack.”

“Just sit there. Don't say anything.”

So now this once groggy girl was suddenly
looking wide awake and scared to death. “My parents are going to kill me,” she said.

“Shh.”

The man who got out of the police car was not wearing a uniform. That seemed a little odd. I rolled down the window and, without looking up at him, heard a voice say, “Step out of the car, please.”

So I stepped out of the car. That's when I discovered it was the cop who had questioned me about the robbery, Detective Solway. I could tell he recognized me right away.

Before he said anything, he leaned past me and looked in at Jeanette. Jeanette was just staring straight ahead and breathing funny.

Detective Solway straightened back up and gave me a hard look. “Umm,” he began, “I saw you run that stop sign...Sean, right?”

I nodded.

“Sean, they put those stop signs there for a reason.”

“Yes, sir,” I said. Part of me was really scared. Part of me wanted to run away from
there, but another part of me found this scene both challenging and exhilarating.

“Did you do it on purpose or were you distracted?”

“Distracted.”

He tilted toward the girl. “I can see why. She okay?”

“She's fine. I was just driving her home.”

“Can I see your license?”

“Not really.”

“Don't have one?”

“Nope.”

“Your father's Mustang?”

“Yep.”

“He's gonna be royally pissed.”

“You better believe it.”

Solway turned away for a minute and then turned back. “Sean, I'm not officially on duty right now. Just stopped by the house to pick up something. But when I saw you run through that stop sign, I figured I better try to serve and protect, you know what I'm saying?”

I nodded.

“I remember our little interview. I put the pieces of that Burger Heaven robbery together. Given what happened that night, I reckon you did the right thing. You held it together and you might have saved a couple of lives.”

“What do you mean?”

“Last night there was another robbery at a convenience store in the north end of town. The woman there—an old woman who owned the place—refused to hand over the hard-earned cash, and she got shot. She's in the hospital but she'll recover. Description of the thugs sounds like they were the same ones who held you up.”

I suddenly had a flashback to that night: the door opening, the gun, the adrenaline rush. Handing over the cash. And then looking into those eyes—the crazed eyes of the one pointing the gun straight at me with two hands. It was like a high-definition photograph. And then something clicked. I'd seen those eyes somewhere before.

I stood silently. My mind was somewhere else.

“Look,” Solway said, “let's pretend this didn't happen. I like you. At least I think I do. And I've got enough on my plate right now. You have to promise me, though, to stop for every goddamn stop sign you ever see again in your life.”

“I promise,” I said.

“Then you drive this girl home and put your daddy's car back right over the oil stain in the driveway. And stay off the road until you have a license.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And if you have any other bit of information, any tiny sliver of a detail you forgot to tell me about that night at Burger Heaven, you call, okay? We don't have a lot to go on—nothing is matching up with past offenders.”

“I'll do that.”

“Good. Drive safe.”

Jeanette didn't speak to me the next day at school. I waved once when I saw her down the hallway, but if she saw me, she didn't wave back. When I had a chance to think about her—and I had lots of time for that during a totally boring math class—the rational part of my brain was telling me she was nothing but trouble and I should stay away. But the other part of my brain—the one that now ruled—was saying she was nothing but trouble and that was what I was so attracted to.

I tried to catch up with her after school, but just as I did, she was getting into a car. Her mother had come to pick her up. This probably meant she got some grief when she had arrived home the day before. Looked like I was on my own.

My father hadn't noticed that I had driven the Mustang. I had parked it in the same spot and returned his keys to the key rack. That part had been almost too easy.

I couldn't face the thought of just going home and watching tv or doing homework. Ever since the robbery, I'd been restless. I used to be happy to play video games or watch tv, but not anymore. I thought about my grandfather again and how much I missed him. I wondered if I was anything like he'd been when he was growing up.

I decided to head back downtown and see if I could find Priscilla.

I knocked on the door of the shelter and asked about her. “You a relative?” the woman who answered the door asked.

“No. A friend.”

“Sorry, you can't come in.”

“I know. I've been told that before. Is Priscilla here?”

“She was this morning but she's probably out on the street by now. Are you the one who brought her back yesterday?”

“Yes.”

“Priscilla gets some rough treatment out there sometimes. People make fun of her. Say rude things.”

“Can't anybody do anything about that?”

She shrugged. “Nah. No one pays attention to people like Priscilla.”

“Does she find her way back each night?” I asked.

“Not all the time. Sometimes one of us goes looking, but we don't always find her.”

“Where does she sleep?”

“Wherever she decides to lie down.”

“I'll go take a look,” I said. I was haunted by the image of an older woman like Priscilla just sleeping in a doorway or among the
trash somewhere. I'd seen stories on tv about street people being beat up or even set on fire. I wondered if that could happen here. As I walked away, I looked around at the trash on the street, at the closed storefronts and the graffiti. And I thought, yeah, anything could happen here.

I walked three blocks east and then doubled back west on a parallel street. There I found Priscilla knocking on the door of a dilapidated brick house. A rather angry-looking bald man was opening the door as I approached.

“I'm home,” I heard Priscilla say.

“You're not home,” the man said. “This is my home, not yours. Now go away.”

“But this is my home,” she said in a shaky voice.

“Priscilla,” I said as I walked toward her.

She turned but didn't recognize me at all. I saw the fear now in her face.

“It's me,” I said. “Doyle.”

“You're not Doyle,” she snapped back.

“What the hell is this?” the man asked me.

“Why is she here banging on my door?”

“It's okay. She's just confused,” I told him.

“She's not confused,” he said angrily. “She's crazy. This woman should be locked up.” He turned and went back inside and slammed the door.

Priscilla put her face in her hands and began to sob. I touched her shoulder to try to walk her back down the steps, but she pulled away. “You're not Doyle,” she repeated. “Doyle's dead.”

“I know. I'm sorry. But we met before, remember?”

“No.”

“The sandwich. The chips.”

She looked up and I could see her face was wet with tears. It took a couple of seconds but then something clicked. “I do know you.”

“Yes.”

“You were that boy.”

“Yes.”

“The polite one.”

“Right. My name's Sean.”

“Sean.”

I could see the homeowner's ugly face in the window now. He was waving at us to go away.

I gently guided Priscilla down the steps and back toward the street. “Here,” she said, opening her purse. “I want you to have this.” She handed me a toy truck. “I found it,” she said. “Boys like to play with trucks.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I like it. Are you hungry?”

“I used to be.”

“Would you like something to eat?”

“Pie. I would really like pie.”

“Okay. Pie it is.”

Back on Queen Street, I found a little restaurant called Phil's. But apparently Phil had also had some trouble with Priscilla before. “She's not allowed in here,” Phil said. I knew his name because he wore a baseball cap that said
I'm Phil
on the front.

“Please, Phil,” I said. “She just wants a piece of pie.”

“The last time she came in, she peed on the seat.” He said it as if Priscilla wasn't there
at all, as if she didn't matter. A few customers turned and looked at us.

“If she causes any trouble, we'll leave right away, I promise.”

“No,” Phil said. “I've tried being nice to her before. It always comes back to bite me in the ass.”

Priscilla looked hurt again. Rejected. Like a little girl who'd just been slapped. She was ready to cry again.

I could see Phil was damn serious. I held out a five-dollar bill. “Then it's pie to go, please,” I said, although I wanted to tell Phil where to shove the pie.

Phil dropped his guard ever so slightly. “Apple or pumpkin?” he said. “That's all we got.”

“Apple,” Priscilla said. “Two pieces of apple pie, please.”

Back on the street, I looked for a place to sit down with an old woman who wanted to eat apple pie. I carried the Styrofoam container in one hand and held on to Priscilla's arm with my other hand. It was a slow parade to the little triangle of a park on the corner. We found an empty park bench covered in graffiti and carvings. It wasn't much of a park—no grass, just packed dirt, no swing sets, no flowers. Trash scattered around all the weary-looking shrubs.