The Object: Book One (Object Series) (10 page)

BOOK: The Object: Book One (Object Series)
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Drake and Kate were seated on the floor nearby, Drake flipping through a book about aliens and UFOs, Kate focused intently on a children's book.  Lillia leaned in close and whispered, "This is
Kentucky
,
Sherman
.  Nobody will take a second glance at me, but you?  A black man walking down the street carrying a white baby?  You could get hurt . . . or arrested."

He sighed.  "Young lady, you're much too wise to be sixteen."  Then, "Will you at least take the gun?"

"No," she said, standing.  "I want Kate and Drake to be safe."

"I'd feel a lot better if you took it with you."

"Even though I've never shot a gun?  I'm better with rocks anyway."

"Rocks?"

"Yep."

Lillia crossed over to the end of the counter, where earlier she'd noticed a glass paperweight in the shape of an apple.  She returned to
Sherman
's side, looked about the library, and pointed to the top of the staircase.

"See that vase up there?"

Sherman
stood and squinted.  "I see it," he said.

She took aim and pitched the paperweight.  In less than a second, the vase exploded, startling the children and inspiring exclamatory curses from
Sherman
's mouth, for which he immediately apologized.

Lillia stared in disbelief--not at her accuracy but at her newfound speed.  That paperweight had left her hand with the propulsion of an arrow from a crossbow.

"Whoa, Nelly, oh goodness,"
Sherman
breathed.  "Okay, okay, yeah, I'll keep the gun."

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

Jaquon tried to hide his tears, but Andre and Terryl kept grabbing his shoulders and shaking him.  He sat on a bench in the trash-littered dog park across the street from the supply house, where Ray and T.J. and the rest of the older guys kept watch while Jaquon, Andre, and Terryl wandered around the park selling crack.  "Cheer up, Jay, don't let that shit mess with yo head," Andre said.  "We gon' get that sum'bitch."

"My muh'fuckin' grandma, yo," Jaquon murmured.

Andre stepped back from the park bench.  Across the street, he saw Ray coming out of the house.

"Yo, Ray comin'," he said.

Jaquon sniffled hard and wiped the tears from his cheeks.  He stood up just as Ray was crossing the street.  Ray did not look happy.  "The hell y'all niggas want?" he said, stepping up to them in the shade of the massive oak tree.

Terryl said, "Some junkie-lookin' piece of shit run Jaquon's grandma over with a bus."

Ray curled his brow.  "A junkie drivin' a bus?"

"Yup," said Andre.

"Was I talkin' to you?"

Andre dropped his head and shuffled his feet.  Ray stared Jaquon down until he looked up from his own feet.

"What you want us to do about that?" Ray said.

"I want that nigga dead," said Jaquon.

"So kill him."

"Andre and Terryl know what he look like.  Just so happened to have whipped his ass couple weeks back."

"Same junkie," Ray said.

"Yup," said Andre.  Ray stared him down and he looked away again.

"I'm a ask you simple-minded niggas again: what do you want us to do about it?"

"I don't know," Jaquon said.  "Put some people on it, I guess."

"You guess."

"Yeah, man.  I don't know nothin' 'bout trackin' people down.  All I know is slingin'."

"Did he do that shit on purpose?"

Jaquon shook his head.  "Nah."

"Shouldn't have been drivin' no bus," Terryl said.

A black sedan rolled to a stop in the middle of the street and a white man in a suit stepped out, smiling behind an expensive-looking pair of sunglasses.

Ray stepped around the bench to approach the man.  Jaquon and the others fell in behind him.

"What you need, hoss?" Ray asked.

The white man smiled.  "I'd like to speak to your supervisor."

"Supervisor?"  Ray laughed.  "I believe you lookin' for somebody else.  I ain't got no job."

The white man said, "Raymond Stewart.  Born November 3rd, 1986.  Convicted of possession with intent to distribute in 2005.  Paroled in 2010."

Ray pulled his .9mm and held it at his hip.  "Who are you?  Police?  What do you want?"

"I want to speak to your supervisor," the man said again.  He reached into both his pockets slowly, and as Ray raised his gun, the man said, "Careful, Ray.  My gun is on my ankle.  No cause for alarm."

From his pockets the man pulled two bundles of cash.  He tossed them on the ground at Ray's feet.  Then he pulled two more, tossing them diagonally in either direction.  Then two more, two more.  When he was done, the ground was littered with more money than Jaquon had ever seen--even more than the time Ray brought him into the back room of the liquor store, where a pale, skinny white kid was counting out piles of crumpled five and ten dollar bills.

"What's that shit?" Ray asked, pointing at the ground with his gun.

"One-hundred-thousand dollars," the man said.  "Tell your boss to meet me at the bank on the corner of Sixth and Muhammad Ali.  Four o'clock."  Then he turned and started back for his car.

Andre bent to pick up a stack of bills and Ray yelled at him.  "Yo, leave that shit be.  Hey!  White boy!  You police, ain't you?  What the hell is that thing in the sky?  Is it the end of the world or what, nigga?"

"Sixth and Muhammad," the man repeated.  "Four o'clock.  If he's late, I'll already be gone."

Ray began to approach the car.  "Hey!  Did you kill Wally?"

The man smiled through his rolled-down window and then sped away.

 

Mergers

 

Kate cried when Lillia left to take the baby to the hospital, but after a few minutes of
Sherman
reading to her, she fell asleep.  Drake soon followed, passing out opposite his sister on a sofa in the upstairs reading lounge, where
Sherman
had taken them.  Here he could sit at a table and peer out over the balcony at the main lobby and the front doors.  He didn't expect anyone to try to come in, especially since he'd locked the
place up
.

He was almost asleep himself when the glass on the door shattered.

Drake shot up off the couch and ran over to the rail.

"Get down,"
Sherman
whispered, sliding out of his chair and crouching.  He turned to Kate and put a finger over his lips.  She nodded, chin tucked into her chest.

Sherman
took the gun off the table and watched as a man ducked through the opening, unlocked the door, and let in another man and a woman.  The woman pointed toward the office
and s
aid, "Somebody's been in there!  Oh my God, Charlie."

The two men inspected the office, emerged shaking their heads, and rushed over to collect the woman when she collapsed on the floor sobbing.
 
"My baby!" she bellowed.

One of the men comforted the woman.  The other man began to wander around the lobby, and when he stepped under a tall lamp,
Sherman
noticed the revolver holstered on his hip.

"We should tell them," Drake said.

"Shh,"
Sherman
whispered.  "Don't say nothin', Drake."

"But she just wants her baby."

Sherman
shook his head, awkwardly conveying authority.  He'd never dealt with children
before.

Drake began to fidget. 
Sherman
tried to stay him with a stern look, but Drake had already broken eye contact.

Sherman
remembered being Drake's age, when all boys come into that stage in their lives defined by an irresistible urge to defy authority--a stage that, for many, even Sherman, lasted well into adulthood.

Stay put, boy.  Just stay put.

A hopeless thought.  Lillia wasn't much bigger than Drake and yet he obeyed her most of the time, but
Sherman
was useless when it came to telling others what to do.  He'd never been in a position to do so.

One of the men was leading the hysterical woman toward the door.  The other peered up at the second floor, overlooking them in the darkness.

Then s
uddenly
Drake
jumped to his feet
and said, "Hey!  We know where your ba--"

Gunshots rang out
.
 
A deafening sequence of thunderclaps reverberating from the high ceiling and muting
Sherman
's very thoughts. H
e
fell away from
the rail and flat on his back.
Lying there in the dark, eyes closed, waiting for the pain to stab his chest or stomach as his brain caught up with the bullet wounds he'd no doubt
acquired.  You don't get shot at twice in two days and not get hit.  No one's that lucky.

When the echoes dissolved,
t
he only sound in the library was that of Kate sobbing--and
the
clicking
of a firing pin

Sherman
sat up, patted his chest and stomach with his hands, and took a deep breath.  Then he
stood and pointed his gun down at the man who'd
fired on them
.  The man continued to pull the trigger but made no move to reload, which meant he probably hadn't brought along extra ammunition.

"Drop the gun!"
Sherman
shouted.

The woman
bawled at him:
"Where's my baby!
  What did you do to my baby, you sick bastard!
"

"Your baby is just fine, ma'am,"
Sherman
said.

"Liar!  Where is he!"

"The hospital.  We found him.  I got kids with me myself."

He turned to point at
Kate
, who
was wailing
and slobbering on the couch.  Then
h
e
glanced
at Drake and the gun dropped to his side.

Drake was
sprawled out on the floor, blood spurting from his chest.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

This cat understood him.  It had thoughts--complex ones. Roger was pretty certain Sprinkles possessed the same consciousness of a human being.  He hadn't slept since Sprinkles brought him this discovery along with a tube of Neosporin, and despite utter exhaustion, he couldn't even think about
taking a nap
.

"What the hell do you want?" he yelled, sitting on the edge of the sofa.

Danny was long gone, which had taken a load off Roger's mind, but ever since then Sprinkles had been standing at the door, meowing incessantly.  He wanted something, and nothing Roger could think to say would shut him up.

"Look, I'm blown away, Sprinkles, I really am.  You're a cat and you know exactly what I'm saying to you.  That's absolutely the craziest thing I've seen in my life."  He pointed upward.  "Even crazier than that.
 
But I don't know what the hell
you want.
"

Sprinkles purred--what sounded like the cat version of a grunt--and jogged over to the couch, where he jumped up on the coffee table and stared at Roger.

Roger sighed.  "Okay, work with me here.  We'll play Twenty Questions.  One meow for yes, two meows for no.  Sound good?"

Meow.

He laughed
and slumped back on the couch
.  "
Well, i
t's working
so far.  Okay, first question."  He thought a moment.  "
Do you
. . .
want to go outside?"

Meow.

"
Okay. 
Where do you want to go?"

Sprinkles hissed at him
and batted the air with a paw.

"
Hey, w
hat's that supposed to mean?  Where do you
w
--oh, damn.  Not a yes or no question.  Sorry.
"  Roger sat forward again.  He looked around the room, finally meeting with the cat's gaze.
 
"You know,
I took Spanish in high
school.  They didn't offer Cat
at
Bullitt
County
," he said.
 
"
Anyway, n
ext question
, next question
. . . um . . .
I don't know.  D
o you need to use the bathroom?"

Meow meow
.

Roger sighed. 
"I have a litter box for that, dumbass
.
"

Meow.

"Are we going to walk to this place
, wherever you want to go
?"

Meow meow.

"
So okay
," Roger said, "I'm going to drive you?
"

Meow.

"
No, no, see, h
ow
will
I
figure out
where
I'm going
?  I know you can't answer that, but think about it.  I mean, s
h
ort of you meowing at me to tell me to go left or right."

What Sprinkles did next took Roger a few moments to understand.  The cat turned his whole body ninety degrees to the left, meowed, then spun around completely to face right, meowed again, and returned to look directly at Roger.

"You
've
got to be joking," Roger said
after a pause
.
  "No offense, but a cat for a GPS doesn't sound too great. 
You don't e
ven know where you are
.
  You've lived your life in this apartment."

Once more, Sprinkles hissed at him.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

"Mr. Schafer, good morning."

Barry smiled at the bank teller and continued walking across the room along the mahogany divider separating the two men in the quiet lobby.  At the end of the long row he raised up the hinged countertop and stepped through to the Employees Only area.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Schafer," the teller bumbled, "you can't--I'm afraid it's not allowed, sir.  Sir?"

Barry pulled his gun out and settled it at the teller's midriff level.  The teller skipped backwards and covered his stomach with his hands, letting out a shrill yelp like that of a Pomeranian.  "Oh no, oh no, please," he said.

"Don't shit yourself," Barry said.  "Just do what I say and we'll keep this brief."

"Are you going to kill me?"

"No questions.  Let's walk."

"Where?"

"That's a question."

"Oh no," the teller said.  "I'm sorry."

"Let's go."

"
Really, Mr. Schafer, I didn't mean to ask--"

Barry raised the gun and pointed it at the teller's face.  The teller cowered, began to cry.

"Not another word," Barry said.

"Okay."  He bawled then, gasping and covering his mouth, certain this was his end and too terrified to beg.

Barry snickered.  He covered his mouth with the arm that held the gun, then used it to motion the teller to the hallway.  "The vault," he said.

Without a word, the teller scurried into the hall, almost jogging but with short, choppy steps, as though he had to pee.  Barry followed him into the safety deposit room, where yesterday Barry had collected a hundred grand in cash, only to throw it on the ground in some ghetto dog park
.  On the far wall in this room stood the heavy iron vault door, upon which was what looked like a pirate ship's steering wheel.  The teller moved to the right of the vault, where he reached up to punch in a code in the security panel on the wall.

"Stop," Barry said.

The teller snatched his hand back and stepped aside, watching, frightened, as Barry approached the panel.

"Give me the code."

"But," said the teller.  "Am I allowed to speak now?"

"Only the code.  Say anything else and you're dead."

"Star three one four one five nine two."

Barry punched in the code.  A red light on the panel turned green.  He moved over in front of the door.  In the middle of the big wheel was a combination lock with a rotating dial.

"The combination."

"
Left to sixty-five.  Right a full turn past sixty-five to thirty-five.  Left directly to nine."

The door gave off a soft click.

"Swing the wheel to the left until it stops.  Then pull it open."

Barry stepped back.  "I'd have to put my gun down.  You do it."

The teller hugged the wall and scooted over to the door.  He opened it slowly, watching his feet, and when the vault's automatic light system kicked on, Barry laughed aloud and pushed the teller inside, where he made him count out one million dollars and stuff the bundles of money into a bag.

When the bag was full, Barry said, "Stay right there.  Don't move."  Then he headed for the door.

"You can't lock me in here," the teller said.  "It goes dark when you close the door.  There's no food or water.  Please, Mr. Schafer.  I have to go to the bathroom."

"Don't piss on the money," Barry said.

He closed the vault door
, silencing the pleas of the teller
.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

The waiting room in the
Emergency
Center
was packed with the homeless.  No seats were empty and there was hardly any standing room left.  Some people lay asleep on the floor; others yet argued back and forth, spoke to themselves, or announced their impatience to whomever would listen.
  From the back corner came the sound of an old woman singing a hymn.

Lillia stood in the middle of the aisle with people sitting to her right and more crowded all around her.  She held the sleeping baby upright against
her chest and rocked him slowly.  He might wake up any moment and contribute his cries to the already suffocating rowdiness of the room.

She didn't know what to do.  She couldn't push her way through the crowd.  Everyone was bigger than her.  Not long after she came in, at least ten more people had piled in behind her, blocking her from the exit.  She was trapped.

BOOK: The Object: Book One (Object Series)
2.22Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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