Kick, Page 6

  “What, you’re gonna turn yourself in to the cops? Now I know you’re shitting me—you had me going for a minute there, I swear.”

  “And one more thing,” I said again, with more emphasis.

  “Sure Mike,” he said, smiling, playing along. “Anything for you.”

  Looking at him directly, I lowered the gun and said, “When I’m sitting in my cell, locked away from the world under a million tons of steel and concrete, watched by guards and cameras and everything else, I promise you: I can still get to you. If I take this pistol and stick it to my head and pull the trigger, I can still get to you. If you think I’m still the Mike Nichols you knew yesterday, you’re wrong. That man is gone. I’m the man who can get to you. Now, look me in the eyes and tell me I’m lying.”

  Dave looked at me all right, mouth agape as I sat there spouting nonsense at him. Craziness. Some kind of tough talk meant to scare him. That’s what his reason told him. But I could see something else at work behind his eyes telling him otherwise, warning him to be cautious. Here echoed a memory of quiet scratching from the closet. Here was a reason to dread the night.

  “So what’s the other thing?” Dave said, breaking my gaze, trying to remember he was the Howlers club president.

  “Leave the women alone,” I said. “Kids too. And throw in grandparents, brothers and sisters, and long-lost neighbors while you’re at it—anyone who isn’t connected directly to your world. If you agree to that I’ll do what I said and let you leave here alive.”

  Dave snorted, clapping his hands.

  “Man, you’re so full of shit it’s almost convincing.”

  Still clapping his hands, he faked the last clap and went for his gun, hoping to get the drop on me.

  I didn’t want to kill him—really, I didn’t. So I threw my gun in his face, hard, knocking him off balance and toppling him from the chair. He still got a shot off but it didn’t hit me. I ducked back to the living room and flattened against the wall, then pulled my other gun. Between us, some drywall and the refrigerator offered a measure of protection.

  “Fuck!” he said. Then his gun went BAM! BAM!

  I wondered what he was shooting at.

  “Dave!” I shouted, around the corner. “What are you doing? This is ridiculous. All you had to do was give me your word.”

  “Like I believe you, the crazy shit you’re saying? Did Stump give you his word, too?”

  “I honestly don’t think Stump knew that many words. He was an animal. More of a paramecium, really. You’re a bit better—more like a chinchilla. Cute, cuddly, with tiny pointed teeth. Means we can work together.”

  “Jesus, listen to you!”

  “Dave, I’m joking, lighten up. Just put the gun down.”

  “Can’t do that—I need it to kill your crazy ass.”

  Things were tense and Dave seemed to be having a bad day. I kept that in mind as I made my final argument.

  “Dave, here’s the thing. If you don’t put that gun down and talk this out with me, I’m going to kill you and leave Tammy alone with all those Howler maniacs—with no tough biker dad to protect her. Linda too. You want that? Your wife sounds like sort of a hardass, probably made a lot of enemies along the way. They need you alive. You’re seriously going to risk everything for some twisted, anti-snitching policy?”

  He didn’t say anything, but I’d take that over shooting things and calling me names.

  A cool two minutes went by without a peep. I wondered when he’d try to surprise me. Another minute passed and I shook my head.

  This wasn’t the first time I had tried to reach someone—pull them from whatever hole they’d dug for themselves. It almost never worked. People don’t really listen, especially the ones who need to the most. Over time, I’ve learned when someone’s really screwed-up it takes a hard slap in the face to show them what they’ve become. I should know, having received the mother of all such slaps back when all this started.

  I held the gun close and readied myself for the most important game of dodgeball anyone had ever played.

  Halfway into launching around the corner, guns a’blazin, Dave said, “She’s my sister.”

  Surprised, I barely checked my momentum.

  “What? Who is?”

  “Linda. She’s not my wife—she’s my sister. Sandy died years ago, of cancer. You went to her funeral, man. Linda never made it home in time, but said she’d raise Tammy. Why you acting like you don’t remember? Why you doing this?”

  Glad as I was to be talking instead of shooting, I wasn’t about to tell him the whole truth.

  “Like I told you, I’m not the Mike you knew. Now can we get back to the table? Keep your gun, just don’t shoot it anymore.”

  A moment later, Dave said, “Fine. Let’s get this bullshit finished.”

  Together, we each walked the three feet to the table, warily eyeballing each other, though neither of us pointing our weapons. Then, as one, we put them away.

  Dave looked at me. I mean really looked at me, as if digging a well through my head with his eyes.

  “I got a club member gunned down behind me, another one stuffed in a freezer. Both by you, someone I trusted like a brother. Tell me why I’m even considering this deal of yours.”

  “Were you friends with Billy?” I said. “With Stump?”

  “Yes I was.”

  “Did they deserve to die?”

  He shrugged.

  “Yeah, I suppose. But, in a way, don’t we all deserve to die? I mean…if we didn’t, we wouldn’t.”

  “Can’t argue with that logic.”

  I held out my hand. After a brief hesitation, he shook it, saying between shakes, “I’m gonna need your cut.”

  “What?”

  “Stump’s too, and Billy’s.”

  Noting my puzzled expression, Dave said, “Are you serious about this—what is it—amnesia? Some kind of multiple personality thing? You’re not faking it?”

  “I’m sorry, no. I’m not faking it. What the hell’s a cut?”

  He leaned forward, disbelieving, and tugged my vest.

  “Your cut, man, see? I need it. It belongs to the club.”

  Sighing, I leaned back.

  “Dave, you’re not thinking straight. If you take them you’ll have evidence tying you to the shootings. You’re also going to have to keep this from your club members. That’s why they call it a secret.”

  Dave grew angry then—almost as angry as when he thought I wanted his daughter.

  “Listen,” he said, “you’re out of the club. You’re dead if we see you again, deal or no deal. Keep it for now, just don’t go riding around with it.”

  “I’ll keep it in the closet.”

  He shook his head in disgust.

  “So, you’re going to turn yourself in. In what, three weeks?”

  I nodded.

  Dave stood up and looked for the last time upon the crumpled heap that used to be Billy the Howler.

  “Take care of Billy,” he said. “I gotta get back to the charity ride. And if I ever see you again we won’t be sitting at no table shaking hands and shit.”

  He barely glanced at me as he pushed past. Leaving me alone in a blighted house with two shot-up corpses. Wanting to get out of there myself, I retrieved the gun I’d thrown at Dave, then set to work cleaning up the mess.

  ***

  The following day, I decided I needed a change of scenery. After the events at Stump’s house, I wanted to get as far from Memphis as I could in case Dave reconsidered our agreement, or in case the cops got wind of something.

  Having access to something as cool as a motorcycle is great if you’re into scenic drives. Since I am into scenic drives, I spent a week exploring along the Natchez Trace Parkway after talking to a gnarly dude that morning while getting coffee. The drive took me from Mississippi clear to Alabama. On the gnarly dude’s advice, and with the help of some space-age camping gear I picked up at the mall, I avoided hotels and camped out under the stars.

&nbs
p; The guy had mainly described the scenery, but that was enough for me to go. He couldn’t have been more right: endless miles of deciduous forest broken up by lovely green fields and shining lakes, and not too much traffic. But what he didn’t mention, which I learned from the blessedly sparse road signs, was there were ancient American ceremonial mounds at various locations along the way. I stopped at every one of them.

  It was a good trip. I didn’t kill even one person.

  Returning to Memphis had always been part of the plan. By my count, I had a week and a half, two tops, before the real Mike started to claw his way back from wherever people go to when I enter them. Incidentally, I’ve often considered contacting someone I’ve ridden and let live and quizzing them about the experience, but so far I haven’t. I’m half convinced that doing so would result in the universe exploding or something—like matter and antimatter colliding, or going back in time and shaking hands with yourself, or mixing Coke and Pepsi.

  I spent my last night on the Natchez Trace camped next to a creek about fifty miles outside Nashville. When I arrived, an African American family stood together along the bank, fishing. I made sure to smile and wave and busy myself with setting up the tent a ways off so as not to worry them. Even without my cut, Mike still looked plenty scary-looking given his choice of tattoos.

  If they were worried, they didn’t show it. They stayed and fished for the rest of the afternoon, then packed up and left just before dusk. I didn’t ask them if they caught anything.

  Chapter 10

  When I finally returned to the hotel I found the money still hidden safely under the mattress. I combined it with the rest from the saddlebags. Altogether, my ill-gotten worth had dropped to about $7,200. Realistically, I couldn’t use it all in the time I had left. Other than memories, it really is true what they say about death: you can’t take it with you.

  Starting that day, I began giving it away in hundred-dollar increments to various people: waiters, the maids who cleaned my room, homeless people. I also took a few tours in the city—museums and the like—and stuffed any number of donation boxes with money.

  On another trip to the mall, I played a game where I dropped $20 bills on the floor when nobody was looking, then watched from a bench the various ways they disappeared. Some people looked around before picking them up. Others didn’t even break stride, swooping down like dive bombers and soaring away.

  One middle-aged lady acted as if she were casing the place. Casually, she walked a circuitous loop around the area, casting covert glances at the bill while edging her way closer and closer to it. After an agonizing minute where she pretended to look at her watch from about ten different angles, she eventually felt safe enough to cover the bill with one of her bags. Then she pretended to call someone. Minutes later, call finished, she untied and then retied her shoe. Finally, mercifully, she lifted the edge of the concealing bag and deftly recovered the $20. After that, she fled the scene as if chased by demons. I felt half-tempted to run after her shouting, “Thief! Thief!” But I’m just not that cruel.

  ***

  My life is necessarily one of solitude. I have no friends at all. Except for the people in my former life, I don’t even know anybody. That’s because there’s nothing about me fit for a long-term relationship. Other than the occasional friendly encounter with someone in a coffee shop, most of my interaction with other people involves a receipt with my change. I won’t lie and say I’m fine with it. I like people—more now than I ever did before my death—but what can I do? Any friend I make will be gone within a few weeks, a month at the latest. Even if I manage to make a friend in that time—maybe a world-famous supermodel or a sleekly seductive Russian assassin—did I really want her looking in the newspaper the day after my bloody exit and learn the person she went to the movies with was some sort of killer? And let’s say I didn’t kill myself. Let’s say I screwed up and waited too long and got ejected back to the Great Wherever. Chances are she’d come looking for me, only to discover I’d undergone a horrible personality transformation. The results of such an encounter are too awful to imagine.

  But what if one day it all ended? I try not to torment myself too much with the possibility, but it’s there all the time. There’s this idea I have. One day, instead of popping from body to body doing the bloody work of the Great Whomever, I’ll find myself in the body of someone and get to stay. Maybe I’ll end up in the body of some other suicide—one who goes brain dead under a surgeon’s care but is miraculously resuscitated. But when he wakes up, it’ll be with my personality. This particular fantasy is a personal favorite because it solves the moral dilemma of stealing a body from someone who deserves it more than I do and the practical problem of being stuck in the body of a criminal.

  ***

  The morning after my games at the mall, I got kicked.

  This feeling I refer to as a “kick” is the only warning I receive that my ride among the living is nearing its end. I imagine it a little like being pregnant, only instead of the host having a baby at the end of it, it’s me that’s pushed out. Usually, I have a few days to wrap up matters before that happens.

  I couldn’t think of anyone else to irritate or kill, so I spent the rest of that day at a bookstore catching up on the Harry Potter series. Later that night, I went back to the steakhouse.

  I’d been hoping to see the girl from that first night again and here she was, sitting at the same table near the bar. I cast a suspicious glance skyward. It seemed like a sign. I just couldn’t tell if it were Go or Stop.

  She looked remarkably pretty, sure, but pretty alone didn’t make me want to have a conversation with her. When she talked to her waiter, she did it with her full attention, laughing and joking with him, making me wish I could take his place. When the waiter left, she tapped her hands and rocked a little to some tune only she could hear. Something told me it wasn’t some cheesy Sarah McLachlan song. I imagined something from The Drifters or Marvin Gaye, back when a song sounded good no matter how many times you heard it.

  “Will that be it?” Ted said.

  I’d been tipping him and his friends a hundred bucks a night since my scenic drive on the unlikely chance the woman came back. I’d also worn my fancy new dress shirts to hide Mike’s tattoos. What with fresh shaves and clean, combed hair, I looked like a normal person. Other than being obviously more comfortable for me, all of this was by design.

  Resting on the table beside my empty plate spread a fan of twenties totaling $1,000. Ted’s eyes just about bugged out of his head when he saw it.

  “Listen,” I said, quietly, and was promptly listened to. “I need your help with something.”

  I described what I needed and watched with a sinking feeling as I detected a fierce resistance brewing behind his eyes.

  “I can’t do that sir, I’m sorry. I could get fired and for all I know you’re…” He stopped himself. “What I mean is…”

  I made a placating gesture.

  “I know what you mean,” I said, “and you’re right to be concerned. I would too. But I swear, I don’t mean her any harm—and neither does my client. We just want to know who she is, that’s all.”

  “So you’re saying she’s some sort of a con artist?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to find out. If I could just get a good look at her ID, that might help us answer a few questions back at the dealership.”

  The story I’d spun—of bounced checks and forged documents used at a Honda dealership—wouldn’t withstand the scrutiny of a vigorous mind, and that’s where Ted came in. And the money helped too.

  “Ah man, I don’t know…If I do it, wouldn’t I be breaking the law?”

  That’s the problem with casual bribery in America—it’s all but extinct. Politicians and government contractors do it every day, but if a sixteen-year-old tried to bribe his way into a rated R movie the cashier wouldn’t know what to do. Even with a thousand dollars sitting right there on the table, Ted couldn’t tell me yes.

  �
��Look,” I said. “It isn’t breaking the law if she gives it to you freely—that’s standard Common Law under the Habeas Corpus Act of 1876.”

  Ted just nodded.

  “But I can understand how you’d be worried—hell, I would too in your shoes, and I do this every day. So here’s what I’ll do.”

  I laid down another thousand, all in twenties, which I’d counted out and wrapped in rubber bands back at the hotel. Ted’s eyes just about popped out of his head when I did that. Honestly, I began to worry he might be part frog.

  In a shaking voice, as if everything in his life depended on it, he said, “Ok, I’ll do it—but half up front.” Quick as that, Ted was an old pro at this.

  I pushed one of the piles over to him so he could pick it up himself. Then I explained what I wanted him to do.

  “Ok, right, give me a few minutes,” he said, then left.

  Watching the girl from my seat, I noticed that her former waiter had been replaced by a visibly embarrassed and conciliatory Ted. After finishing her meal, she paid with a credit card. It had been a gamble she’d use one at all—for all I knew she preferred cash. Just as Ted stepped away from the table, he turned around as if he’d overlooked something important. Then he said what I told him to say—that they were doing spot identification checks because of a stolen credit-card ring in the area. She seemed taken aback, but he looked so embarrassed and bothered for asking that she smiled like an angel and handed over her ID.

  Minutes later, Ted stopped by my table and held the card down low so only I could see it, all while trying to appear professional. The picture on her ID showed her with shorter hair and a big, cheery smile. Her name was Elizabeth MacKeigan, and she had renewed her Tennessee license three years ago. I carefully read the Memphis address.

  One day, if I ever woke up in the body of a miraculously rescued suicide, maybe I’d come live in Memphis.

  “Thanks Ted,” I said, not even looking at him. I mean, what kind of guy sells a nice lady’s personal information like that?

  Dismissively, I sort of flicked the other thousand over to him. I doubt he even noticed we were no longer best friends. He just snatched it up, stuffed it into his pockets and left.