The Fort (18 page)

“Shut up, would you?” Her face was paling by the second, and her eyes were sparkling with greasy-looking tears. “Just shut up!”

“You need to tell the truth, Becca. She’ll die if you don’t.”

“I
can’t
,” she said, backhanding the tears from her eyes and glaring at him. “I
can’t.
It’s terrible…we’d be in so much trouble. Mom and Dad would, like, I don’t know, disown me, or send me off somewhere.”

“You guys weren’t at the movies at all, were you?”

Becca shook her head back and forth, tears streaming down her face. Tim knew that now that she was started she’d tell him the whole thing, she’d be desperate to blurt out every sordid detail of what had really happened Monday night. For better or for worse, Tim was going to get the truth.

“They threatened me, said that if I told anyone, I was done at the high school. If I was lucky they’d just kick my ass, or maybe even something worse would happen.”

“Why did they not want Molly found?”

“Tim, you don’t get it,” said Becca, exasperated with him. “That happened before we went out. All the threats, the
don’t tell anyone, ever
—all that happened before Molly was gone, before we were even there.”

“What are you talking about? What were you doing?”

Becca adjusted herself on the bed, managing to look both comfortable and miserable at the same time. “Go check the door,” she said. “Make sure Mom’s not out there, and if she’s not, shut it quietly.” Tim did, and when he came back, he sat at the foot of the bed. “The older guys called it fishing. A bunch of girls dress up really skanky, and then they drive us down to South Division Street, the bad part. The girls get dropped off, and the guys go to a couple of motel rooms, except for a couple of them, who stay in the alley to protect us.”

“But what were you doing?”

“We were pretending to be hookers,” said Becca matter-of-factly. “And when a guy picked one of us up, we’d tell him to go to the motel because we have a room. The customer or whatever comes up with the girl, and once he’s in the room, a bunch of the guys jump him and take all of his money. He can’t call the cops because he was breaking the law, and we all split the money up.

“I did it, like, once. My shirt got ripped when the guy I brought up grabbed me. He was super pissed and really scary. Anyways, Molly got picked up and never showed up. Then we heard that cops were coming on the police scanner that Tyler brought, and we all had to leave. I figured she just got to the motel after we had to leave and got arrested, or had to do, well, what the guy wanted.”

“Becca, what
is
a hooker, exactly?”

“Jesus,” she said. “You’re such a baby. It’s someone who has sex for money. That’s how we knew all the guys would have cash. They were going shopping, just not for groceries.”

Tim let it all sink in. He understood most of it but didn’t want to feel stupid by asking too many questions. “So this guy could be anyone?”

“Yep,” said Becca. “And whether that’s Molly by the drive-in or not, there’s no way she’s still OK.”

“Unless we can find who took her,” Tim said. “It’s someone from this neighborhood. You guys might have been downtown,
but he came back here. You know how I can prove it? When we saw his gun, Luke shot him in the leg with Scott’s stepdad’s rifle.”

Becca snapped to attention. “You really did see them—like, for real?”

“That’s what I’ve been saying. Why the hell would we make it up? Not only did we see them, we hurt him. Now we just need to find out who he is.”

They were both quiet for a long minute, staring at each other without really seeing each other. Then Becca said, “Well, it’s been raining a lot. Everybody’s lawn is going to grow a ton. If he really did got shot in the leg, there’s no way he’s mowing his lawn.”

Tim’s mouth dropped open, and then a banging on the door made them both jump. “Tim, get out of your sister’s room and go pick up everything outside,” said their dad. “Storm’s coming.”

“One more thing,” said Tim, quietly. “You said there were people watching to make sure you guys were safe, right?” She nodded. “You need to see if they can tell you the type of car Molly got into. We know he lives around here.”

“I’ll try, but I’m grounded from the phone.”

“Just try,” pleaded Tim. He stood and waved to his sister, smiling sadly. She gave the same look back, because Molly really was in trouble, and Becca had to know that it was her and her friends’ fault.

36

The wild beeping of Scott’s watch alarm shocked him awake and sent him scrambling to silence it. His mom and Carl were just across the hall but, impossibly, didn’t stir. Heart hammering, he eased out of bed, pulled on dirty clothes as Tim had suggested, removed his window screen, and slid to the earth, thankful that he didn’t have a second-floor bedroom.

The air was cooler than it had been the night before, and Scott was briefly sorry he hadn’t brought a sweatshirt with him. He reached the fort in no time, though. He threw his Coke cap down, noticing that tonight he was the third man to the party. He scrambled up the ladder and threw himself over the threshold at the top to find his friends grinning and waiting for him. “Glad you could make it, slowpoke,” Tim teased, and Scott faked a punch at him before sitting. “Any news?”

“Nothing on my end,” said Luke. “I sat in the fort all day and didn’t see anything.”

“I talked to my sister,” Tim said, and then began to relay what she’d told him. The fake-prostitution trick, the way Molly had really been taken, the tip about looking for little signs in the suburban neighborhood, like unkempt lawns, and finally, the idea to
have her try to figure out the make and model of the car the man who took Molly had been driving. He went through it breathlessly, racing to relay the information.

“OK, that’s some really messed-up shit,” said Luke. “Like really messed up. You guys are under house arrest and I had to run away from home for a little bit, but your sister and her friends have gotten away with robbing people? It’s no wonder that Van Endel dude didn’t believe us. I’ll bet he knew they were lying to him too.” Luke shook his head and frowned. “That’s messed up, like, big-time.”

“I know,” said Tim. “It is messed up, but at least we know the truth now. We know more than anyone else about what’s happening, and if anyone is going to save Molly, it’s going to be us.”

“Are you sure we can’t just go to the police?” Scott asked. “I know they don’t believe us, but it seems like it would be worth a try. After all, we’re grounded. How are we supposed to go looking for this guy?”

“That’s just it,” Tim said. “We’re grounded. So how are we supposed to have figured out all this stuff we’re going to tell the police? Our folks’ll send us to military school or something if they find out what we’ve been up to.”

Scott rolled his eyes at the military-school part, but he had to admit Tim had a point. “I suppose,” he said. “But that lawn thing—it’s neat and all, but we just shot that guy. It will be two weeks, minimum, before we’ll be able to notice who isn’t mowing their lawn. For all we know, he could even be better by then.” He shook his head. “I just don’t see this plan working, unless your sister can come through with more information on the car, and that doesn’t seem very likely.”

The three boys brooded in silence for a few minutes, until Tim broke the spell. “Look, we knew this was going to be hard. We can’t get discouraged by that. We just need to do what we can and hope that it’s enough.” Scott and Luke were both nodding at that, and Luke said, “So what’s the game plan for tomorrow?”

Tim said, “I’m going to find some way to distract my parents so that Becca can make a quick phone call.”

“I can try and borrow a pistol from Carl’s stash tomorrow,” Scott said. “It won’t be easy, and I’d really hate to be caught with it, but damn, we’re going to need something. Hey, I forgot to tell you guys, Carl actually believes us.”

“Seriously?” Luke asked. “Then why are you grounded?”

Scott grinned. “Because my mom is so gung ho about me being punished that Carl just kind of had to be like, ‘Fuck it, she wants the kid punished, I’ll punish him.’ It put him in a pretty bad spot, and I actually felt bad for him. It still sucks, but at least one adult believes us. It’s better than nothing.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” said Luke. “I’ll just walk around and see if anything looks out of place, I guess. I’m going to need to go home soon too, though. My mom will clear her head out eventually and come looking for me, and if I’m not at either of your two houses, there’s really only one place to go.” He rapped twice on one of the walls. “Aside from the mosquitoes, it’s been pretty nice staying up here. Better a few mosquito bites than hanging out with my sisters.”

“So are we good, then?” Tim asked. “The sooner we’re home, the less likely it is that we get caught.”

The three boys stood, and Tim and Scott left by ladder, taking their bottle caps with them and leaving one lonely Sprite cap all by itself.

37

Hooper was alone. He was running through the jungle with his M16, and the VC were everywhere. Explosions were going off left and right, and all he could hear around him was the crackling of AK fire, along with Charlie screaming at him. Hooper didn’t know where he was running, only that he was alone and that he was in the middle of a death trap. They’d fallen for one of the VC’s favorite tricks: set up a patrol to look like it was lost, and when the good guys went after them, spring a trap of tiger pits and snipers. Hooper had been in a few ambushes before, but nothing like this.

It was almost impossible to believe he’d lived this long in the shit. He had no idea where the good guys were, or even if there were any left. He felt like he was behind enemy lines, but he had no idea who was bombing whom. Not that it was impossible for some general to have given wrong coordinates to some gunner or pilot, but there was an insane amount of shit going off. Hooper just wanted to be away from the killing, away from this hell on earth.

Somehow, in an instant that made zero sense, Hooper knew that a sniper was glassing him from behind, getting the reticules of his rifle lined up just right on Hooper’s back, adjusting for
windage and elevation, and readying to pull the trigger. Hooper heard the crack of the rifle over all of the other noise. It didn’t make any sense, but above the screaming, AK fire, and explosions, the crack of the sniper’s rifle was the sound of an angry but faraway God. Pain erupted in his right calf, dropping him and tearing a scream from Hooper’s throat.

When Hooper woke up, it was the middle of the night and he was covered in a slick sheen of sweat. He ignored the clock; time didn’t matter right now. His leg was killing him, and he wasn’t going to be able to sleep, possibly ever again, until he got the damn metal out of his leg.

He’d been dreaming about Vietnam. It had been years since that had happened. Some guys let that fuck up their whole lives, but not Matt Hooper. His bad dreams had stopped when he’d started snatching and stabbing prostitutes, and they weren’t going to come back, not ever. He cursed under his breath, then stood and walked to the bathroom.

He pissed, then opened the medicine cabinet, took out the aspirin, and ate six of them, washing the bitter powder down with water cupped in his hands from the sink. His leg had been feeling fine before he went to bed, but now it was more painful than ever.
Calm down, Hoop. You knew as soon as that happened that that bullet had to come out of there. You’ve just been lying to yourself about it.
Hooper tried grunting away the internal voice of reason, then accepted it. The bullet needed to come out, and there was only one person who could help him. Hooper left the bathroom, walked to the kitchen, then filled a pot with water and set it on the stove. He turned the burner all the way up and walked to the garage.

His fishing and camping stuff was all in the rafters, lying on an old door. Hooper’s interest in the outdoors had faded years ago, so there was no need to make it more readily accessible. As he wrestled the folding ladder off of the wall, he regretted that decision more than almost any other that he’d ever made. When
he finally had the ladder set up next to the Dodge, he rested and glared up at the rafters. There was going to be no way to do this without putting pressure on his injured leg. It was the only option. Hooper took a deep breath, released it, and began to climb.

Hooper discovered after the very first rung that he’d grossly underestimated the pain that would be involved in this business. He accepted that and went on with it anyway, grunting and squealing as he made his agonizing way to the rafters to retrieve the tackle box. With every step, his leg felt as though it were being worked over with a knife. The worst part was knowing that as bad as this was, the extraction was likely going to be far, far worse.

With his good leg on the fourth rung of the ladder, Hooper could just reach the bottom of the door. Sweat was pouring off of him in what felt like rivers, and his hands were slick with it. His whole body felt as though it had been dipped in oil. He struggled up two more steps, his body tense as a parachutist’s static line, all but ready to rip open and fly apart. Hooper placed his left hand on the door, and then the right, pulling on it to take some of the strain off of his hurt leg. He rummaged blindly atop the door until he located the ancient tackle box with the very tips of his roaming fingers. He strained and scratched at it until he finally found enough purchase to inch it closer and closer. At last he reached the handle and dragged it to the edge.

Hooper set the box on top of the ladder and took a moment to rest and enjoy this minor triumph before setting to conquering the ladder in reverse. He managed to descend two rungs, but then his injured foot clipped a rung and he was airborne, the tackle box still firmly gripped in one hand, his other scrabbling futilely for a hold on the ladder. The moment didn’t last long. Hooper went from flying to landing with a teeth-rattling crash on the hood of the Dodge, the tackle box’s contents exploding across the garage.

The world flashed from black, to black and white, to black again. When Hooper opened his eyes, he was lying on his back on the hood of the Dodge, his leg, back, and head screaming. He
pulled himself to a sitting position and then slid from the car and collapsed on all fours onto the garage floor.