The Night Parade (28 page)

H
ector Ramirez's current gig was hauling eleven hundred cases of Valvoline motor oil from Trenton, New Jersey, to Lakewood, Colorado, a run he looked forward to because it took him through some beautiful countryside. He had been a trucker since he could vote, starting out for a small company based in Utah before cutting his corporate ties and buying his own cab. Now he worked for himself (“I'm an honest-to-God businessman,” Heck said. “CEO, president, vice president, and grunt worker all rolled into one.”). For his fiftieth birthday, his wife, Rita, had surprised him by having his cab airbrushed with the nighttime cityscape of Gotham City, complete with Batman swinging from his bat-rope that filled up most of the driver's door. He was a friendly enough guy whose slender wedding band seemed to be cutting off the circulation of his chubby ring finger, and he talked for nearly the entire duration of their trip like someone who'd just been rescued from a desert island and hadn't seen another living soul in several years.

Before getting back on the road, Heck insisted he have a look at David's injured arm. When David removed the wrapping—the napkins had soaked all the way through and were now as colorful as Christmas decorations—Heck whistled through his teeth, then nodded like a bobblehead doll.

“Yeah, okay. That's a gash, all right. Prob'ly needs stitches. Hold tight.”

Heck slipped through a narrow opening between the front seats that led to a small compartment in the rear of the cab. There was a cot back there, a stack of magazines and books, an open bag of Doritos. A moment later, Heck returned with a first-aid kit. Utilizing a roll of gauze and a few butterfly bandages, Heck wrapped David's arm after first cleansing the wound with peroxide. After he was done, Heck sat up straight, grinning and evidently pleased with himself.

“Not half bad for government work,” Heck commented.

“Better than some Burger King napkins and a rubber band,” David said.

Then they hit the road.

Heck was a talker, the kind of guy who filled the silence with anecdotes about his life and his career, or just random trivia in general—anything to keep the silence from dominating. During the only lull in the conversation, Ellie, who sat perched between them on the bench seat, pointed to a framed photo of a young, dark-haired boy that was fixed to the truck's dashboard. “Is that your son?” she asked Heck.

“Yes, ma'am.”

“What's his name?”

“Benicio,” Heck said. “We called him Benny.”

David noted the past tense. He also noticed the rosary draped around the boy's picture. He touched one of Ellie's knees, but she didn't take the hint.

“How old is he?”

“In that photo, he's about six. Bit younger than you, my dear.”

“I'm eight. But I'll be nine in a couple of days.”

“That's right,” David said. In all the commotion, he had forgotten.

“Well, happy birthday . . . in a couple of days,” Heck said, and tipped his hat at her.

“How old is he
not
in the photo?” Ellie asked. “Like now, in real life, I mean.”

“Oh, well, sweetheart,” Heck said. “My boy, he ain't with us no more.”

“Where did he go?”

“Ellie,” David said.

“It's okay,” Heck said. He smiled down at Ellie, a pleasant enough smile despite the liquid shimmer suddenly visible in his eyes. “Benny passed on.”

“He died,” she said.

“He got sick. Lots of people getting sick nowadays.”

“I'm sorry,” David said.

“He was a good boy.” Heck's gruff voice hit a snag, like a piece of thread from a sweater getting caught on a hook.

“Was it the illness?” Ellie asked. “Some people call it the Folly.”

“It was,” said Heck. “He was one of the lucky ones. He went very quickly. I was on the road when it happened.”

“He was alone?”

“Come on, Ellie,” David said, squeezing her knee.

Heck raised a hand. “It's all right,” he said. “No, dear, he was with his mama back home.”

“Oh.” She leaned forward, scrutinizing the photo of the handsome little boy. “When did it happen?”

“Last year.”

“Do you have any other kids?”

“No,
pepita.
Now we're alone.”

Ellie looked up at Heck. The trucker glanced down at her, smiling, his eyes glassy and red. Ellie reached up and placed a small white hand on the man's broad shoulder. David felt his heart racing a mile a minute.

The big man cleared his throat and said, “You wanna hear me blast this air horn, darling?”

“I heard it when you drove up behind us,” Ellie said. “It scared me, it was so loud.”

Heck chuckled. A single tear spilled down his cheek and merged with a crease at the corner of his mouth. “Well, now, I suppose that's true. You're a frank little lady, aren't you?”

“I guess so,” she said.

“What you got in that shoe box?”

“Bird eggs. Three of them.”

“Yeah?”

“Oriole eggs, I think.”

“Now, where'd you go and find bird eggs?”

“In the bushes outside my house. The mother never came back, so I adopted them.”

“Well,” Heck said. “Isn't that nice. I reckon something like bird eggs is about as rare as a dinosaur fossil these days.”

“I'm sorry your son got sick and died,” Ellie said.

“Thank you, baby. But ain't nothin' nobody could do.”

Ellie's hand slid off Heck's shoulder. She turned her gaze toward David.

I
t was ten after nine when Heck pulled his truck up the paved path that led toward the entrance of Funluck Park. David saw that condos had been built along the road leading up to the park, ugly brick buildings with only a few lights on in the windows. The surrounding forestry was overgrown and poorly maintained.

“Road's a bit narrow,” Heck said. The truck's air brakes whistled.

“We can walk the rest of the way from here,” David said. “Thank you so much, Heck. You were a godsend.”

“One good deed, and all that.” Heck tipped his hat at Ellie. “And it was a pleasure meeting you, little miss. You have fun camping with your old man, y'hear? And take care of them bird eggs!”

“Good-bye, Mr. Ramirez,” Ellie said. She held out her hand and Heck laughed, but he shook it. Then he patted her head.

David climbed out of the truck, then lifted Ellie out. “Thanks again, Heck. You saved our butts.”

Heck leaned across the passenger seat and said, “That really your little girl, Tim?”

David felt the hairs on the back of his neck prick up. “Yes,” he said.

“I ask, because I get the sense that something's a little off-kilter with you both, if you catch my meaning. I mean no offense by it.”

“I appreciate your concern, but we—”

“Campground with no camping gear,” Heck went on. His tone was not accusatory; he was merely commenting on the truth as he saw it. “That gash on your arm you said you got from changing the flat. It would bother me if I didn't say something, you understand?”

“All right, Heck. Then say what's on your mind.”

“For one thing, are you really that girl's daddy?”

“I am.”

“It also seems like you're both in a panic to get to wherever you're going.” Heck chewed on his lower lip, then added, “Or maybe you're just trying to get away from someplace fast.”

“Maybe it's a little of both,” David said. “But I promise you it's for the good of my daughter. I hope you can understand that.”

Heck jerked a thumb over his shoulder, indicating his cargo. “Stuff back there don't mean shit, in the grand scheme of things. Hell, this'll probably be my last trip. Didn't even want to take this one, truth be told, but it's just so darned pretty out here, don't you think?”

Again, David nodded.

“It's takin' care of your family that matters,” Heck said. He glanced down at the picture of his son. “I can give you both a ride to wherever you need to get. No questions asked.”

“That's incredibly nice,” David said, “but this is our next stop. We'll be okay from here.”

“In that case, I wish you luck.”

“You, too.”

“Just hold up a sec.” Heck leaned over the back of the seat and rummaged around in the cramped compartment in the rear of the cab. A moment later, his hand reappeared clutching a balled-up polo shirt. He tossed it out the door and David caught it. “Whatever is going on with you two,” Heck said, “you won't blend in with your shirt smeared with blood like that.”

David just looked down at the polo shirt he now held. When he looked back up at Heck, he said, “I'm really very sorry about your son. It's terrible. It'll haunt me.”

“Nothin' you could've done.”

David wiped at his eyes.

“God bless,” Heck said. He reached out and pulled the passenger door closed with a squeal of hinges. As David stepped away from the truck, Heck released the brakes. The truck grumbled forward, then cut down a fork in the road. David watched its taillights slip between two of the darkened condominiums.

He wondered now if he should have asked Hector Ramirez to wait with them, just to make sure Tim showed up. They were here now at this campground with no car and it was getting cold. If Tim failed to show up, they were screwed.

When he turned back to Ellie, he was surprised to see tears standing in her eyes, too. “Hey,” he said, rubbing the side of her face. “What's the matter?”

“That boy,” she said. “Benny.”

David smiled at her.

“Do you think Mr. Ramirez will be okay?” she said.

“Yes, hon. I think he'll be fine.”

Because what was one more lie on top of all the others?

A
t the top of the hill, the fence surrounding Funluck Park rose out of the gloom—a series of iron pikes capped with spearheads at the center of which stood two wrought-iron gates. The gates stood open, though they were so entwined with vines and ivy that David doubted they'd be able to close. The sign above the gates was missing letters. It now read:

Things arced through the air just overhead as they crossed through the open gates. When Ellie noticed, she cried out jubilantly, “Birds! Birds, Daddy! Look!”

“They're bats, hon.”

The park grounds were overgrown, the grass thwacking against David's shins while coming up almost to his hips. Clouds of tiny insects billowed out of the underbrush with each step. Ellie walked behind him, allowing him to clear the way through the buggy undergrowth. When they came to a snare of thorny branches and desiccated holly bushes, David stripped off his bloodied shirt and stuffed it down within the prickly boughs. He pulled Heck's shirt on over his head and found that it was at least three sizes too big. With some irony, he wondered what proved more conspicuous—a bloodstained T-shirt or Hector Ramirez's XXL polo shirt hanging from him like a parachute. To make it appear less obvious, he tucked it into his jeans, feeling the hem of the shirt bunching up around his waist. He left only the rear untucked, so that it covered the butt of the Glock, which poked out of his waistband.

They came upon a clearing where a half-dozen picnic tables rose up out of the tall grass. The tables were empty, but David could see a few cars parked in the adjacent parking lot. Beyond the lot, he could see the flickering tongue of a bonfire and hear distant chatter. The cabins were no longer there, as they had been when he was a child, but a few tents had been erected in the nearby field, black triangles just out of reach of the sodium lampposts that lined the circumference of the parking lot.

“Where are all the old rides?” Ellie said.

David looked around. “There's some, I think,” he said, pointing to a series of dark humps partially digested by the underbrush. “Come on.”

He took Ellie's hand and led her over to the arrangement of shapes rising out of the ground. They were the bumper cars. Their metallic paint had faded to a dull monochromatic gray, and much of the rubber around the base had rotted away, leaving behind only black, jagged teeth of brittle rubber. He wouldn't have thought it possible that this place could fall into further disrepair, but that seemed to be the case.

David tapped the hull of one bumper car with his sneaker and something small and furry darted from it, squealing like a creaky hinge. Both David and Ellie jumped back, then laughed nervously. The overgrown grass parted as the creature—a raccoon, most likely—carved its way across the field.

He surveyed the surrounding hillside. Deadfalls blocked the path leading to the top of the hill, and much of the hilltop itself was overgrown in forestry. He decided it made more sense to wait for Tim in the parking lot.

On their way back to the lot, Ellie found the plaster face of a clown in the weeds. The face held a hideous grin, all its paint having faded to various shades of gray throughout the passage of years. It looked like something that had once decorated the roof of a carousel.

“Creepy,” Ellie said. She held it up over her own face. The clown mask leered at him.

“Cut it out,” he said. It reminded him of his students, and those terrible masks they wore. “Let's go sit on one of those picnic tables over there.”

She dropped the plaster face and followed him to the assembly of picnic tables. From this vantage, they could keep an eye on the parking lot, the campers around the bonfire in the nearby field, and the dark curtain of trees that bordered the park. Far in the distance, a few windows glowed in the façade of the condos. Otherwise, they could have been camping out in some remote and undeveloped part of the world.

As they sat on the picnic table, Ellie leaned her head against his arm and continued to stroke the bird eggs. She sang to them in a low voice, though not bereft of musicality, and although David could not recall the name of the tune, he knew it had been one of the songs Kathy had sung to Ellie when she was just a baby.

He kept an eye on the parking lot. Two teenage boys stood smoking and gabbing beneath a lamppost, and there was a woman sitting cross-legged on the hood of a prehistoric Cadillac the color of gunpowder, also smoking a cigarette.
Don't let me down, Tim.
If Tim was a no-show, he and Ellie were screwed. They had no transportation, and a guy with a bandaged left arm might draw some suspicion wandering along the shoulder of the highway with an eight-year-old girl.
Nine,
he reminded himself.
She'll be nine in a few days.

Movement in the periphery of his vision caused him to return his attention to the other row of picnic tables, the ones standing against the backdrop of the woods. He thought it might have been the breeze stirring the leaves in the trees . . . but then he caught sight of a figure sitting on one of the picnic tables, a sizeable fellow dressed in dark, nondescript clothes. The guy had his feet planted on the bench, his buttocks on the tabletop. He was staring at David across the expanse of darkness, and David saw that there was something wrong with his face.

Not his face,
he realized then.
A mask. He's wearing a mask.

It was another plain white mask, most likely fashioned out of a paper plate, and for a moment David thought this was the same man he had glimpsed in the field behind the burger joint earlier that day. But of course that was impossible.

As David stared at the man, the man raised a hand. A solemn wave.

Or was it?

“Hey,” David said, bumping Ellie's head from his arm with a hitch of his shoulder. “Sit here for a second, will you? I'm going to talk to that man.”

“Dad—”

“Just sit tight.”

He got up from the table and proceeded toward the next row of tables. As David approached the halfway mark, the man in the mask got up from the table, his heavy bulk shifting beneath the patchwork fabric of his clothes—his shirt looked like checkered flannel, his pants like camouflaged BDUs. He wore large forester boots.

“Tim?” David called, his voice a half whisper so as to not draw attention from the teenagers and the woman in the parking lot.

The masked man held up that same hand in another wave—or possibly to halt David's progress—before stepping around the side of the picnic table and heading in the direction of the woods.

David glanced over his shoulder and saw Ellie still perched on the picnic table where he'd left her, half her body silvered in the glow of the lamplights coming from the parking lot. He could not make out her expression from this distance, but he could tell that she was staring straight at him, and the closed, tight shape of her body suggested she was suddenly afraid.

When he turned back around, he saw the masked man enter the woods, cutting between two large trees dense with foliage.

“Wait,” David said, and hurried after him.

Yet when he crossed through the trees, he could find no sign of the masked man. It was dark enough for someone to hide from him with ease . . . yet why would someone
want
to? Who would wave to him just to get up and hide from him?

He stood there in the lightlessness of the woods, waiting for movement, for the sound of twigs crunching underfoot. But after several seconds, all he heard was his own harsh respiration.

He turned around and went back through the trees. When he stepped out into the clearing, he saw someone walking toward Ellie, who still sat watching him from her seat on the picnic table.

“Ellie,” he said, and broke into a run. He reached the girl and gathered her up off the table and into his arms just as the figure approached.

It was a woman—the one who had been sitting on the hood of the Cadillac, smoking. She had shoulder-length dark hair, a slender build, and was dressed in an unassuming pair of blue jeans and a luminous white tank top.

“Who are you?” he said.

“Easy, buddy. Are you David?” she asked.

He just stared at her.

“My name's Gany,” she said. She had an unlit cigarette between two fingers, which she parked behind one ear now. “Your brother sent me to pick you up.”