They watched as Foerster went in the house.
The oldster crossed the street and walked off down the block.
‘All right,’ Gordo said. He took a deep breath. ‘I guess it’s time to go for it.’
He climbed out of the car and dropped the binoculars on the seat. In his hand he held a pile of religious tracts he hoped to discuss with Mrs. Foerster. The top one, the one Jonah could see, was called THE COMING FIRE.
‘Let’s go over this one more time, OK? Just so we don’t get crossed up out there. When I see an opening and decide I’m going in, what am I gonna say?’
‘God is love,’ Jonah said. ‘I hear that, then I come running to back you up. Fifty yard dash. I’ll be there in about six or seven seconds. When I come through the front door, you’ll be shouting out instructions – upstairs, or back door, or cellar, depending on where he’s going. He’s only been here one night, so he probably hasn’t had a chance to come up with much of an escape route.’
‘Sounds good, right? Workable?’
‘Actually, it sounds about twice as half-assed as yesterday’s plan,’ Jonah said. ‘But given the circumstances, I feel pretty confident about it. At least you’re the one going in first.’
Gordo smiled. ‘OK. As long as you feel good, I’m happy.’
Jonah watched Gordo amble up the block toward the house, tracts in hand. He trained the microphone on Gordo’s wide back. Gordo started muttering under his breath as he walked along.
‘Are you listening, Jonah? Lovely neighborhood they got here. Looks like the tide went out on this place about twenty years ago.’
He arrived at the house. His breathing came a little heavier, a little more labored. He seemed like maybe he was talking to himself now. It was hard to tell. ‘Are you ready kid? This is the test. This is the big test. This is for all the marbles right here.’
He climbed the short steps to the front door.
Inside, Davis Foerster went around in circles with his mother yet again.
She wasn’t happy to see him. Hey, he wasn’t happy to see her either. But when she opened that front door last night and saw him standing there, she might have been auditioning as an extra in a low-grade horror movie. Her jaw dropped, her eyes widened, and overall her face looked as if a creature from the swamp, trailing gore and slime, had appeared at her home. But she had let him in. That she had. What else was she going to do? He was her only son, after all.
She wanted him out as soon as possible, and he wanted to go – more than anything. If it were up to him, he would walk out that door right now and make a beeline for Charleston. Hanging around here gave him the creeps in more ways than one. He kept expecting the angry ghost of his shit-for-brains father to pop out of a closet or from behind the moldy shower curtain in the bathroom. Foerster wanted out before that or something worse happened. But he needed a grubstake to get him going, and she wouldn’t part with the cash.
Oh, she would give him enough for a bus ride maybe as far as Philadelphia and for a Big Mac at a highway rest stop, but that was it. She wouldn’t give him what he needed to get where he was going, to set himself up with a room for a couple of weeks in case the job didn’t come through right away, and to eat like a human being during all that time. His mom was a major disappointment. Then again, he wasn’t surprised at all. Why should he be? This was the way she had always been. You couldn’t pry money out of her with a crowbar.
Now she was sitting across from him at the kitchen table in her goddamn house dress, a hair net on her head, the cordless phone at her elbow like a faithful dog. That was her big hobby, talking on the telephone. Any minute now, she would pick up that phone, dial a number and start her gabbing. She was a world champion talker and not much of anything else. To Foerster, she looked old and tired, like a hag. She didn’t even bother to get dressed anymore. For a moment, he studied the lines of her face. He decided she should have a wart on the end of her nose. That would complete the picture.
‘But Davey, why don’t you just get a job? I’d let you stay here if you were working.’
He reached for the hard pack of Camels he had placed next to her on the table. She didn’t allow smoking in the house. He didn’t care. He slid one out and lit up. ‘No way, Ma.’ He pointed the lit smoke at her. ‘No way, you understand?’ He laughed, and for a moment the depth and breadth of her stupidity, the sheer grandeur of it, delighted him. His mom was the Grand Canyon of dumb, and he could finally see the humor in it.
‘What kind of job am I supposed to get? Everybody’s out of work around here, the whole city’s going out of business, and you tell me to get a job. That’s a big help, Ma. A big, big help. Anyway, I have a job. I told you that already. It’s a good job and it pays good money. OK? It’s just that if I want the job, I have to get to South Carolina, and I need money to do that. What am I gonna do if I stay here, flip burgers for $6.50 an hour, if anybody’s even hiring? How am I gonna live like that? Why would I want to?’
She seemed on the verge of crying. Again, no surprise there. Tears were her favorite weapon. ‘For one thing, you’d be living here, eating my food. That way you could save your money. For another, you wouldn’t be a criminal. I don’t want a criminal in my family, Davey. I can’t stand it anymore.’ She looked up at him, looked into his eyes. ‘Aren’t you tired of dealing with the police? Aren’t you tired of being afraid? I know I am.’
He smiled, a modern Jesse James. ‘I’m not tired, Ma. I’m just getting started.’
With that, he left her. He went down the hall and began climbing the wooden steps to the second floor. He remembered how those steps used to give him splinters when he was a kid. All these years later, and she had never done anything about them. The wood was still raw and rough. Well, at least he wasn’t dumb enough to go around barefoot anymore.
Halfway up the stairs, the doorbell rang. He turned and glanced back down at the door. Doorbells gave him a nervous feeling. They always had, but especially so in the last twenty-four hours.
Below him, his mother shuffled into the foyer, and Foerster continued up the stairs.
His escape set-up here was good – not nearly as good as it had been at his apartment, but good. He had put the whole thing together years ago, and when he looked at it last night, he decided it could still hold water. His room was on the second floor and he had a twenty-foot fire ladder, called the Res-Q Ladder, coiled on the rug by his window. It was a chain link ladder with metal slats. It hooked to the window sill with big iron hooks. If a fire started, you were supposed to throw the ladder out the window. It would uncoil itself on the way to the ground, ready for action in a couple of seconds. He had taken it out of the closet last night as soon as he came upstairs. He had even tested it, and it worked just as it always had.
Fire ladders weren’t just good for fires. As a kid, he used to climb out to go smoke a joint without alerting the parents. Now, if the shit happened to hit the fan again, he would be ready. He hadn’t yet worked out what his escape route on the streets would be, but he still had some time to put that together. He was thinking he would run for the vacant lots down by the waterfront esplanade, maybe even the ferry to Manhattan if a boat was in and the timing was right.
He reached the top of the landing. He listened. His mother was there at the front door now, just chatting away, probably with some crone from down the street.
He started toward his room, relaxing a bit.
Then the old bat screamed. ‘Davey, help! Help me!’
‘God is love!’ a man shouted. ‘God is love!’
Foerster bolted for his window.
Jonah ran toward the house. He went hard and covered the distance in no time, flying across the tiny front yard and vaulting up the three steps.
The door gaped wide and he flew through the opening.
The old woman sat on the floor, her back to the wall. Gordo must have knocked her down. Jonah noticed her thick legs, which had support hose pulled to just above the knees – she had the legs of an elephant. Her hands were splayed out on the floor. Her breath came in sporadic gasps. That worried him. The last thing they needed was a heart attack or a stroke victim on their hands.
‘Ma’am, are you all right?’
