The one question on her mind: could Courtney swim?
Rune could – about as well as any Midwest girl who never saw a body of water with waves until she was ten.
Hell, she could just hold on to Courtney – picturing her now, screaming and waving her arms in panic -and kick to the far pier. How many yards was that? Maybe thirty or forty?
And, God, the Hudson was gross and yucky…
But that didn't matter. If they didn't get out now they'd be dead in three minutes.
She tore the door to the storeroom open and lunged, vaguely aware of a sudden rush of activity behind her in the living room. Footsteps, voices. She slammed the door and turned the skeleton key lock. "Court, wake up."
The little girl didn't stir.
Rune pressed her back against the thick wood and began to untie her boots, which were laced up tight through dozens of eyelets. She knew she'd drown if she didn't get them off. She shouted, "Courtney."
"Juice," a weak voice said.
"Wake up!"
Maybe some of the toys would float. There was an anemic balloon tied onto the wall. Rune grabbed it and looped it around the girl's wrist. "I'm sleepy," Courtney said.
Rune had one boot off. She started on the second.
With a huge snap of cracking wood the door crashed inward, catching Rune on the shoulder. She flew into the far wall and lay still. Jack Nestor stepped into the room, narrowing his eyes against the darkness. He looked around and walked toward Rune.
When he got to her she sprung.
It wasn't much of an assault. The only damage: Her shoulder caught him in the cheek, and he jerked back, blinking in surprise, as a tooth cut into his tongue or the flesh of his mouth. "Little shit!" he muttered. She pounded him with her hands, knotted into small fists. But he was resilient as hard rubber. And strong too. He just picked her up, stuffed her under his arm and carried her out into the living room.
She screamed and twisted and kicked.
Nestor was laughing hard. "Whoa, this one's a hell-cat." He dropped her into a wrought-iron butterfly chair. She kicked him in the thigh. Flinching, he said angrily, "Settle down."
"You son of a bitch!" She leapt out of the chair, making for Boggs. Nestor roared, "Settle down!" He grabbed her like a receiver snagging a sixty-yard bomb and tossed her into the chair again. She bounced once, the breath knocked out of her. She wiped at her tears. "You bastard." Looking into Randy Boggs's evasive eyes.
Boggs said to Nestor, "You got yourself wheels?"
"Sure do. Some kind of Hertz shit. But it'll do. Damn, you look good, for somebody who ain't seen but prison sunlight for three years."
Boggs said, "You look ugly as you ever did."
Nestor laughed and the men did a little good-natured sparring. Boggs landed a left hook on Nestor's chest and the fat man said, "You prick, you always were fast. You hit like a pussy but you're fast."
"You'll see a bruise the shape of my knuckles there, come morning."
Nestor looked around. "We gotta blow this joint."
"I'll vote for that."
Rune said to Boggs, "You did it? You really did it?"
Nestor was speaking to Boggs. "Let's take care of business and get on our way." He pulled the gun out of his waistband and glanced at Rune.
The smile left Boggs's face. "Whatcha aiming to do?"
Nestor shrugged. "Pretty clear, wouldn't you say? Don't see we have much choice."
Boggs was looking down, avoiding both their eyes. "Well, Jack, you know, I wouldn't be too happy, you did that."
Rune stared at the gun, afraid to look into Nestor's face. He seemed to be the sort who would kill you sooner if you looked him in the eye.
"Randy, we gotta. She knows everything."
"I know, but, hell, I wouldn't want that to happen. It just wouldn't be right, you know?"
"'Right'?"
Her hands were shaking. Sweat popped out on her forehead, and she felt a trickle run from under her arms to her waist.
Boggs said, "The thing is, she's got a kid. A little girl"
Nestor's face darkened. "A baby?"
"This little kid."
"In there?" Nestor looked at the storeroom. "I didn't see her."
"You can't do the kid, Jack. I won't let you do that."
Meaning it's okay if he shootsme! Rune began to cry more seriously. Nestor was saying, "I wouldn't do a kid anyway. You know me better than that, Randy. After all we've been through, I hope you do."
"And what's the kid going to do without a mother? She'd starve to death, or something."
"She's pretty young to be a mother."
From somewhere Rune found the voice to say, "Please, don't hurt her. If you… do anything to me, please call the police or somebody and tell them that she's here. Please."
Nestor was debating.
Boggs said, "I really gotta ask this one, Jack. I really gotta ask you to let her be."
Nestor sighed. He nodded and put the gun into his belt. "Shit, that's the way it is, that's the way it is. Okay. I'll do it for you, Randy. I don't think it's a good idea, I just want to go on the record and say that, but I owe you so I'll do it. But…" He walked to the chair and took Rune's face in his onion-scented fingers. "You listen up good. I know who you are and where you live. If you say anything to anybody about us I'll come back. I get to New York all the time. I'll come back and I'll kill you."
Rune nodded. She was crying – in pure fear, in pure relief.
And from the worst pain of all – betrayal.
Youbelieve him? Piper Sutton had asked Rune such a long time ago, as if she was talking to a chid. Youbelieve him when he says he's innocent?
Nestor said brutally, "You hear me?"
She couldn't speak. She nodded her head.
They used lamp cord and tied her into the chair and gagged her with an old wool scarf.
Boggs knelt down and tested the wires. He smiled shyly. "I suspect you're right upset and I don't blame you. You helped me out and I repay you this way. But sometimes in life you've gotta do things just for yourself. You know, for your own survival. I'm sorry it worked out this way but you saved my life. I'll always be thankful for that."
She wanted to sayFuck you! orGo to hell! orJudas! A thousand other things. But the gag was tight and, besides, no words could convey the undiluted anger she was feeling for this man. So she stared into his eyes, not blinking, not wavering a millimeter, forcing him to see how much hate welled up and overflowed between them. How she wished Prometheus was still chained to rock, being eaten by birds.
Boggs squinted for an instant. He swallowed and finally looked away.
"Lessgo, boy," Nestor called. "We got a date with the road."
Then they were gone.
Man, man, man, there's nothing like driving, Randy Boggs was thinking.
There's not a goddamn thing in the world like it.
The way the tires make that hissing sound on asphalt. The way the car dances over beat-up pavement. The way you know the road'11 always be there and that you can drive forever and never once cover the same spot twice, you don't want to.
The Ford Tempo, Jack Nestor driving, had left Jersey and Pennsylvania way behind and was cruising down the highway into Maryland. Heading south.
Motion is like smooth whisky. Motion, like a drug. Randy Boggs kept up his meditation.
And the best part of all – when you're driving, you're, a moving target. You're the safest you can ever be. Nothing can get you. Not bad love, not a job, not your kin, not the devil himself…
"Crabs," Nestor said. "Keep an eye out for a crab place."
They couldn't find any and instead got cheeseburgers at McDonald's, which Boggs preferred to crabs anyway and Nestor said was better for him because he was on a diet.
They drank beer out of tall Double-Arches waxed cups they'd emptied of soft drink. They drove the speed limit but at Boggs's request had rolled down all the windows; it seemed like they were racing at a hundred miles an hour.
Randy Boggs lowered the passenger seat and sat back, sucking the beer through a straw, and ate a double cheeseburger and thought again about freedom and moving and realized that was why prison had been so hard for him. That there are people who have to stay put and people who have to move and he was a mover.
These were thoughts he had and that he believed were true in some universal way. But they were thoughts that he didn't tell to Jack Nestor. Not that Jack was a stupid man. No, he'd probably understand but he was somebody Boggs didn't want to share much with.
"So," Jack Nestor asked, "how's it feel?"
"Feels good. Feels real good."
"How 'bout that little girl back there. She's a pistol. You get any?"
"Naw, wasn't that way."
"Didn't seem to have any tits to speak of."
"She was more like a friend, you know. Wish I could've leveled with her."
"Did what you had to though."
"I understand that. Couldn't've stayed Inside for any longer, Jack. I gave it my best. But I had to get out. Somebody was moving on me."
"Spades?"
"Nope. Was an asshole from, I don't know, Colombia or someplace. Venezuela. For some reason he didn't take to me. Got cut."
"Cut, huh?"
"Two weeks ago. Hardly hurts anymore."
"Yeah, I was cut once. I didn't like it. Better to get shot. Kind of more numb."
"Prefer to avoid either."
"That's a good way to thinks," Nestor offered. He was in a good mood. He was talking about restaurants down in Florida and fishing for tarpon and the quality of the pot they had down there and this Cuban woman with big tits and a tattoo somebody'd given her with his teeth and a Parker pen. Talking about the heat. About a house he was buying and how he had to live in a fucking hotel until the place was ready.
"How long to Atlanta?" Boggs asked.
"Tomorrow. Then I'm going on to Florida. You interested in coming with me, you'd be welcome. You like spic women?"
"Never had me one."
"Don't know what you're missing."
"That a fact?"
"Yessir. One I's telling you 'bout? Man, she could probably do both of us at once."
Boggs thought he'd pass on that. "I don't know."
"Well, just keep 'er in mind. So you gonna pick up that money?"
"Yessir."
"You got the passbook with you?"
"Got her good and safe."
Nestor said, "Funny about how that works. You just let some money sit in the bank and there she be, earning interest every day. They just throw a few more dollars into the till. And you don't do nothing."
"Yeah."
"Bet you made yourself another ten thousand dollars."
"You think, no foolin'?"
"For sure. I think that account earns maybe five, six percent."
Boggs felt a warm feeling. He hadn't remembered about interest. He'd never had a savings account to speak of.
"You know, there's something you ought to think about. You hear about all those bank failures?"
"What's that?"
"A lot of savings and loans went under. People lost money."
"Hell you say."
"Happens a lot. Last couple of years. Didn't you watch the news Inside?"
"Usually was cartoons and the game we were watching." Boggs was tired. He put the seat way back. The last car he'd owned was a big '76 Pontiac with a bench seat that didn't recline. He liked this car. He thought he was going to buy himself a car, a new one. He lay back, closed his eyes and tried not to think about Rune.
"So," Nestor said, "you might want to think about investing that money."
"I'll do that."
"You have any idea what?"
"Nope. Not yet. I'm going to keep my eyes peeled for the right thing. You got money, people listen to you."
"Money talks, shit walks," Nestor said.
"That's the truth," Randy Boggs said.
Three hours later Courtney woke up and wanted some juice.
The little girl sat up slowly and unwound herself from the cocoon of a blanket that had twisted around her as she slept. She eased forward and climbed over the edge of the rolled-up futon like Edmund Hillary taking the last step down from Everest, and then sat on the floor to put her shoes on. Laces were too much of a challenge but the shoes didn't look right with the white dangling strings, so after staring at them for five minutes she bent down and stuffed the plastic ends into her shoes.
She climbed carefully down the stairs, sideways, crablike, then walked up to Rune, who was tied into the butterfly chair. She looked at the cords, at Rune's red face. She heard hoarse, wordless sounds coming from behind the scarf.
"You're funny, Rune," Courtney said then went into the galley.
The refrigerator was pretty easy to open and she found a cardboard carton of apple juice on the second shelf. The problem was that she couldn't figure out how to open it. She looked at Rune, who was staring into the kitchen and still making those funny noises, and held up the carton in both hands then she turned it upside down to look for the spout.
The carton, which, it turned out, had been open after all, emptied itself onto the floor in a sticky surf. "Oh-oh." She looked at Rune guiltily, then set the empty container on top of the stove and went back to the refrigerator.
No more juice. A lot of coldpizza, which she was tired of, but there were dozens of Twinkies, which she loved. She started working on one and then wandered around the small kitchen to see what she could find to play with.
Not a lot. There was, however, a large filleting knife on the counter that intrigued her. She picked it up and pretended it was a sword, like in one of Rune's books, stabbing the refrigerator a few times.
Rune, watching this, was making more noise, and started jiggling around, rocking and swaying back and forth.
The girl then looked into drawers and opened up some pretty-much-unused cookbooks, looking for pictures of ducks, dragons or princesses. The books contained only photos of soups and casseroles and cakes and after five minutes she gave up on them and started playing with the knobs on the stove. They were old and heavy, glistening chrome and trimmed with red paint. Courtney reached up and turned one all the way to the right. Way above her head was apop. She couldn't see the top of the stove and she didn't know what the sound came from but she liked it. Pop.
She turned the second knob. Pop.
Rune's voice was louder now though the little girl still couldn't understand a word of it.
With the thirdpop she got tired of the stove game. That was because something else happened. There was suddenly a red glare from above her head, a hissing sputter, then flames.
Courtney stepped back and watched the juice carton burn. The flaming wax shot off the side of the carton like miniature fireworks. One piece of burning cardboard fell onto the table and set a week-oldNew York Post on fire. A cookbook(A Hundred Glorious Jell-O Desserts) went next.
Courtney loved the flames and watched them creep slowly along the table. They reminded her of something… A movie about a baby animal? A deer? A big fire in a forest? She squinted and tried to remember but soon lost the association and stood back to watch.
She thought it was great when the flames quickly peeled away the Breeds-of-Dog contact paper Rune had painstakingly mounted on the walls with rubber cement.
Then they spread up to the ceiling and the back wall of the houseboat.
When the fire became too hot Courtney moved back a little farther but she was in no hurry to leave. This was wonderful. She remembered another movie. She thought for a minute. Yeah, it was like the scene where Wizardoz was yelling at Dorothy and her little dog. All the smoke and flames… Everybody falling on the floor while the big face puffed and shouted… But this was better than that. This was better than Peter Rabbit. It was even better than Saturday morning TV.