The Rabbit Factory: A Novel (19 page)

Probably the reason that Domino got away was that it probably took a while for Rico to call somebody, being hurt like he was, or maybe somebody from the hospital called for him because of his being hurt, and then it probably took some other police a few minutes to get down there, go inside the emergency room, see Rico bloody, get the lowdown on what was going on, maybe call for some backup, a matter of a few more minutes, and then actually get somebody on the ground down behind the hospital to start looking for Domino. And by that time he had already sprinted out the door and past the old sick-looking security guard who was sucking on another cigarette and across the parking lot and down the hill below the parking lot and across the lower parking lot and had jumped the ditch between there and Graceland old folks’ home and run behind that parking lot and around the end of a tall plank fence and down another hill to a big green-roofed building where Dr. Buddy Spencer had his family medical practice and behind that building and between the young trees that had been planted and mulched and across the far south end of South Eighteenth, took a chance and got on the street long enough to cross the bridge over Burney Branch, then jumped off the street and ran into the woods and sage grass that lined the steep sides of Highway 7.

But he had better sense than to hide. A rabbit ran sometimes because he had to. One short-barreled revolver with no more bullets than the ones in it was no match for all the firepower they could train on him.

He did stop on one knee and lower his head to catch his breath. He was behind some bushes that had turned brown from frost and there were some thick patches of stuff above him that he would have to climb through in order to cross the highway. And the traffic. The traffic was going to be the worst because the cops were coming and some of them would probably be in the traffic.

His breath came out white in the cold air, and he had no plan. His only plan was to get across the highway and then try to get some distance from the road if it meant crossing a pasture or woods or fences. He had to lose them here. It was the only chance to get away.

He wasn’t ready, but he made himself ready. He had his hand wrapped outside the trigger guard and he started forward at a fast clip, wading through the sage grass with his arms high. He bulled through a patch of briars and said nothing when they tore at his cheeks. He squinched his eyes almost shut and felt them tearing at his clothes and almost holding him back so that he had to lunge against them and flatten them down with his feet and turn and twist away from them like a drunk trying to dance and even then they kept trying to hold him. But he tore free and ran toward the foot of the bank. It was steep, and slick with mud from the melted snow. He had to put the gun in his pocket, and pull himself up from tree to tree, grasping at saplings and slipping and sliding in the mud. His breath was coming hard and he looked over his shoulder as a police car with blue lights flashing turned in from Highway 7 and screamed down the curve in front of the Pakistani fried chicken/gas station and he watched the car go across the bridge he’d crossed not three minutes before, and climb the hill toward the hospital.

Another one took squalling the curve at the intersection of South Eighteenth and Belk Boulevard with its blue lights flashing and its siren screaming. It lost traction on the rear wheels and swung wide, and the rear tire peeled up smoke as it straightened and climbed the hill and went out of sight. He didn’t look anymore.

He could see the top of the road, above him. He had to get down on his hands and knees and claw at the ground sometimes, but he kept pushing with his legs and holding on to the trees and in less than a minute his eyes were level with the road. He crawled up onto the shoulder and kneeled there. Cars were coming, but he couldn’t see any blue lights. They were coming at about sixty miles an hour. From the north two were coming side by side, with another one behind them maybe a few hundred feet back. He got up on one knee and waited for the two, and looked down the highway to the south, and he could see headlights coming that way, too. He couldn’t stop on the median. He’d have to go for it.

The two cars got closer. One put on its brights and almost swerved. The other slowed and fell back.

“Come on,” he said. “I ain’t got all night.”

The first car passed him and the other one had slowed to less than thirty, which caused the car behind it to start out to pass.

Domino went.

The front car’s brakes slammed on and he heard a tire squeal and ran right in front of it, thought for a weak moment in his heart it was going to get him, even fancied that he felt the fender brush the back of his pants, but the car only blared its horn and went on up the road. He jumped down into the ditch and ran up the other side and the road was full of cars and trucks coming. There were bright lights on high poles all along the highway. He headed toward the traffic, trotting south down the shoulder, looking over his shoulder to see if blue lights were coming. They were. Fast. And he wasn’t going back to Parchman.

He ran into the traffic and two cars slid wide toward the ditch on either side and another spun with its horn blaring
BWAAAAAAAAA!
and slammed into a pickup that was trying to avoid one of the cars in front and these last two were center-punched almost immediately from behind by a gravel truck that showered them with some of its load when the rear end lifted up and its headlights shattered into bits of flying glass. Tires were screeching all over the place.

He saw a car pinwheel twice end over end above a cloud of dust and a pile of torn metal where lights were aimed crazily and horns were blowing and steam was rising from buckled hoods and twisted frames and in that cloud of dust was somebody up above it, flying with no wings to the side of the road. He ran through the smoke and the shattered plastic, broken bits of red lenses crunching beneath his boots.

He heard a woman say, quite clearly, even calmly: “Mother, oh my.”

Then he was through it and climbing another bank of grass. He clawed his way up it and ran over a low mound of ground and kneeled behind a young tree to look back for a second to see the shit he had done. God almighty. He’d done fucked some people up. Killed some of them maybe. There wasn’t any way to turn back now. The blue lights were pulling in and stopping and more were coming from up the bypass. At this elevation he could see them coming, screaming, and he knew that some of them were probably state troopers. Pissed off, with pump shotguns just itching to shoot somebody like him. He got up and jogged away into the darkness of the golf course, where the short grass made for easy running. He would cross that highway again somewhere south of here. Later.

“Stubbock?”

“Yes, sir.”

“At ease, sailor, look. SEC-NAV wants you over at Camp LeJeune ASAP for a match with this jarhead Johnson from Third MAW. I know it’s a rush job, but Admiral Hoozey called this in. Happens to be a big fan of yours. And I got a lot of shit to do. I may be getting shit-canned right out of this man’s navy for running over a sick whale. That’s some pretty ironic shit, ain’t it?”

“Sir? The admiral? Is a fan of mine?” Wayne said.

The captain nodded.

“The admiral saw you in Philadelphia and won fifteen hundred on you off the army brass. When you knocked out Stevenson two months ago. I picked up three hundred myself. Buys a lot of cold Schlitz, Stubbock.”

The captain had his pen in his hand and it was poised over the papers. How could he tell him he needed to go back to Memphis, not North Carolina? How could he tell him about Anjalee? He tried to stall.

“Sir, uh. That’s not long to train for a fight.”

The captain visibly recoiled and then recovered.

“Let me tell you something, sailor. Sometimes the United States Navy has to fight with no warning at all. Look at Pearl Harbor, sneaky bastards. You can stay on this tin can if you want to. I’m just waiting for retirement anyway. I’m short. I’m so short I can sit on a dime and swing my legs.”

Wayne didn’t know what to say. What about his headaches?

“I’m so short I can walk under a
door.”

“Sir. Uh. I need to get back to Memphis sometime. Would it be possible for me to get some leave after the fight?”

The captain looked puzzled. “You just got some shore leave. Why you want to go back to Memphis? You’re from Ohio, aren’t you?”

He didn’t know what to say. He said it.

“I left something there, sir.”

“Well…”

The captain looked back up.

“What’d you leave? A girl?”

“Yes, sir,” Wayne said reluctantly. And then he stood straight and strengthened his voice. “Yessir. A girl.”

“All right, well…in that case…hmmm…” The captain hummed a few lines of “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” while tapping his fingers and then picked up another piece of paper and scribbled something on it and stamped it and handed it to Wayne.

“Look here. I got a woman in Tampa with tits that’ll make you weep when you have to leave port. You go whip this marine for the power and the glory of the United States Navy and I’ll give you a ten-day furlough. Guaranteed. There’s a colonel at LeJeune I’d like to win some of my money back off of anyway. We were in San Diego together. Asshole used to cheat me at pinochle.”

“Are you serious, sir? Ten days?”

“I’m serious as a heart attack, son.”

“Yessir.”

“Go pack your stuff, then. That chopper’s burning fuel waiting for you and it’s getting dark.”

He had to say good-bye to Henderson quickly. Everything he owned ended up in one olive-drab duffel bag. They stood in the passageway together, and Wayne tried to talk fast, but he just didn’t have time to explain it all.

“Well shit,” Henderson said, shuffling his feet. “You just takin’ off, just like that? I thought me and you’s gonna watch a bunch of movies this weekend.”

“I know,” Wayne said, and then he stopped. “I meant to tell you something. I met a girl in Memphis. And I…we…I’m going back down there. But I’ve got to fight this marine. I got to beat this marine.”

“I want to
see
it,” Henderson said. “I want to be there to
pull
for you, man, you the man with all the
shit,
man, you the
man,
man!”

“You can’t…I’ve got to go to North Carolina…”

“I’ll ask for a transfer.”

“How long will that take?”

“I don’t know.”

Then the captain stepped in between them, suddenly, from out of nowhere.

“What the hell’s going on? You burning taxpayers’ money on that deck, Stubbock. You better get it in gear.”

The captain for some reason had his helmet on. He hardly ever had his helmet on.

“Yessir.”

The captain turned away.

“Sir?”

The captain stopped. The straps of his helmet were swinging. He turned around.

“Can Henderson come, too?”

The captain got hot quick. He hardly ever got hot quick. Maybe the captain was losing his marbles over the whale shit. Maybe he’d been away from those big boys in Tampa too long. Maybe the permanent vacation he was about to get would calm him down some. And a big fat monthly paycheck for the rest of his life. With PX privileges.

“I don’t give a shit! Go pack, Henderson, I’ll send your paperwork later.” He turned away. “Hit a whale. Jesus. Even Nimitz never hit a frigging whale.” And then he wandered on off down the hallway, muttering to himself loudly about how the President didn’t know what a dork Admiral Zumo was.