Envy the Night

“Tires.”

“What?”

“They shot the tires on the police car.”

She rolled over and chanced a look back at the door, expecting to see him there, surveying the scene. There were only shadows, and she finally found him across the room, a long ratchet in his hand.

“How do you know?”

“You could hear them pop.”

Could hear them pop? She’d heard nothing but the shots, was still hearing the shots, rattling around in her ears as though the bullets remained active, floating out there somewhere, looking for a destination, for her.

Frank crossed the room, the ratchet dangling in his right hand, but his walk was unconcerned. He reached for the dead bolt, and she hissed at him in shock.

“What are you doing?”

“They’re gone,” he said and opened the door. Nora braced for more gunshots, but none came. Frank stood in the doorway for a second, and from the floor she could see past him to the police car, which now rested on its rims, the tires reduced to cloaks of flabby rubber. The back door of the car stood open, and Mowery’s body was slumped behind it, only his legs visible to Nora.

“Make that call,” Frank said, and then he stepped outside.

She’d left the phone on the stool by the office door when Mowery arrived, and when she reached for it she saw the ugly red marks on her wrist. The pain in her arm and shoulder seemed to pulse faster now. When the 911 operator answered, Nora’s explanation came out in a voice she’d never heard—too fast, too high, on the edge of hysteria. She brought it down with an effort, explained what had happened to Mowery, and then disconnected despite the operator’s attempt to keep her on the line. She went to Frank, walking to the open back door, one she passed through countless times each day, now looming like the most treacherous of gateways.

Frank was kneeling beside Mowery, and there was blood on his jeans. He’d stretched Mowery out on the gravel, and the cop made neither motion nor sound. Frank turned to her.

“Ambulance on the way?”

“And the police.” She took a single step outside, pulling against the strings of a fearful desire to cling to the safety of the building. The parking lot was empty except for Mowery’s car.

“They’re gone?” she asked.

“Yeah. Probably not far, though. No cars in the parking lot except this one, and the only one I saw on the street was empty, so that’s not where the second guy was waiting.”

“They came in a Dodge Charger the first time.”

He looked up. “New model? Kind of sporty-looking thing?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that’s what was parked out front, but it was empty when I got here. So I don’t know why the first guy went after you alone. Where was his friend? Why’d he wait on the cop before he decided to help him out? Doesn’t make sense.”

He said all of this while working on Mowery, checking his pulse and loosening his shirt collar.

“Is he okay?” Nora asked.

“He’s not going to die, but he’s not going to feel or look right for a while, either.”

She rocked up on her toes to look past Frank’s shoulder at the cop, and when she saw him her eyes seemed to swim out of focus, everything a blur of red. She sucked a breath in through her teeth and forced herself to look again. His nose was almost unrecognizable, turned into a bloody smear across the right side of his face, and shredded lips revealed broken teeth.

Frank pulled his own shirt off and used it to wipe gently at Mowery’s face. Then he sat back on his heels with a frown, studying the unconscious cop before leaning forward to move him again. He tilted him off his back and onto his side, tucked the shirt under his head, and worked on the angle of his neck until Mowery’s face was pointed slightly down, toward the pavement.

“Shouldn’t you leave him on his back?” Nora said.

“I don’t know how well he can breathe. There can’t be much air going through his nose, and if he’s on his back all that blood goes into his throat. I want it to drip away from his throat.”

Nora looked away again and took the door frame in her hand, squeezed it tight.

“I almost missed that phone call,” she said, and if Frank heard her he didn’t respond. He wouldn’t know what she was talking about anyhow. Wouldn’t know that the Lexus had been one ring from being bound for someone else’s body shop, someone else’s life.

Report a routine assault, and it takes a while before the cops finish sorting it out. Report an assault on a cop, and watch that time frame expand.

Frank told the story six times to three different cops—everybody seemed to want to hear him run through it twice—after Mowery had been taken to the hospital. He was semiconscious when the ambulance got there, but in no state to explain the attack to his police brethren. That put it back on Frank and Nora, who had an intensely interested audience. Seemed to Frank that it must have been a long time since someone bloodied up a cop in Tomahawk.

They started at the body shop, walking two of the cops through it step by step, then went to the police station to explain it to a third, this time on tape. By the time they were done, the sun was gone and the small town was quiet, moving on toward nine in the evening.

One of the officers dropped them both off at the body shop. The groceries were still sitting on the sidewalk out front. Probably not a good idea to try that milk, Frank thought. Man, what a day. Twenty past five, you’re worried about keeping your milk cold. Five thirty, you’re worried about staying alive.

“If I hadn’t promised you a ride,” Nora Stafford said, staring at his groceries, “I wouldn’t have been here when that asshole showed up. I would’ve been home already.”

“Sorry.”

She shook her head. “No, I’m just thinking. If I hadn’t promised you the ride, I wouldn’t have been here, right? But if I hadn’t promised you the ride, you wouldn’t have been here, either. And if you didn’t show up . . .”

Neither of them said anything for a minute after that. Nora shook her head, snapping away from all those possibilities.

“My point is, you still need a ride, don’t you? And I’d say it’s the absolute least I can do.”

She managed a smile at that, and Frank felt better. She’d handled the first round well enough, better than most would have. It was the second, that guy rising up out of nowhere and taking Mowery down, that had shaken her.

They walked back into the rear lot—you could see Mowery’s bloodstains on the gravel, but Nora kept her eyes high—and out to a little Chevy pickup with the Stafford Collision and Custom logo emblazoned on the side. Frank opened his Jeep and got to work transferring his belongings into the bed of the truck. Nora helped silently. When everything had been moved, Frank paused to get a fresh shirt out of a suitcase, the blood-soaked one having departed with Mowery. Then he was in the passenger seat and Nora was behind the wheel and they were northbound, headed out to the Willow twelve hours after he’d expected to arrive.

“Temple the Third,” Nora said as they pulled away from the last stoplight in town.

“What?”

“I heard you give your name to the cops. Frank Temple the Third. Sounds fancy.”

He looked out the window. “Not really.”

“If you have a son, would you feel obligated to name him Frank Temple the Fourth?”

“No,” Frank said. “I certainly would not.”

He wished she hadn’t overheard him with the cops. He’d gone through the internal bracing that he always did when he gave his name, watching the cop’s eyes and waiting for recognition. There wasn’t any, though. It had been a few years since his father made headlines.

“You up here by yourself?” she asked.