Collie moved with the restrained energy of a predator, slid forward in his seat, did a little rap-a-tap on the glass. He grasped the phone and first thing let loose with a snorted, easy laugh. He looked all around until he finally settled on my eyes.
He usually spoke with a quick, jazzy bop tempo, sometimes muttering out of the corner of his mouth or under his breath as if to an audience situated around him. This time he was focused. He nodded once, more to himself than me, and said, “Listen, Ma hates me, and that’s all right, but you, you’re the one who broke her heart. You-”
I hung up the phone, stood, and walked away.
I was nearly to the door when Collie’s pounding on the glass made me stop. It got the screws looking in on us. I kept my back to my brother. My scalp crawled and I was covered in sweat. I wondered if what he’d said was true. It was the best trick he had, getting me to constantly question myself. Even when I knew he was setting me up I couldn’t keep from falling into the trap. I wondered if my mother’s heart really had broken when I’d left. I thought of my younger sister, Dale, still waiting for me to read her romantic vampire fantasy novels. My father on the porch with no one to sit with. My gramp losing his memories, fighting to retain them, now that there was nobody to stroll around the lake with and discuss the best way to trick out burglar alarms.
Collie kept on shouting and banging. I took another step. I reached for the handle. Maybe if I’d made my fortune out west I would have found it easier to leave him there yelling. Maybe if I’d gotten married. Maybe if I’d raised '1e q;d raisea child.
But none of that had happened. I took a breath, turned, and sat again. I lifted the phone.
“Jesus, you’re still sensitive,” he said. “I only meant that you need to stop thinking about yourself and go see the family-”
“I’m not going to see the family. Why did you call me here, Collie?”
He let out a quiet laugh. He pointed through the huge glass window off to the side of us, which opened on an area full of long tables. His gaze was almost wistful. “You know, we were supposed to be able to talk over there. In that room, face-to-face. On this phone, talking to you like this, it’s not the way I wanted it to be.”
“How did you want it to be?”
He grinned and shrugged, and the thousand questions that had once burned inside me reignited. I knew he wouldn’t answer them. My brother clung to his secrets, great and small. He’d been interviewed dozens of times for newspaper articles and magazines and books, and while he gave intimate, awful details, he never explained himself. It drove the courts, the media, and the public crazy even now.
And me too. Words bobbed in my throat but never made it out. The timeworn campaigns and disputes between us had finally receded. I no longer cared about the insults, the torn pages, the girls he stole from me, or the way he’d run off on short cons gone bad, leaving me to take beatings from the marks. It had taken a lot of spilled blood to make me forgive him, if in fact I had. If not, it would only matter another few days.
On the long night of his rampage, my brother went so far down into the underneath that he didn’t come back up until after he’d murdered eight people. A vacationing family of five shot to death in a mobile home, a gas-station attendant knifed in a men’s room, an old lady beaten to death outside a convenience store, a young woman strangled in a park.
None of them had been robbed. He hadn’t taken anything, hadn’t even cleaned out the register at the gas station.
It wasn’t our way. It had never been our way. I thought of my grandfather Shepherd again. One of my earliest memories was of him telling us all around a Thanksgiving dinner,
Collie turned on the charm, showed me his perfect teeth, and said, “Been a long time, Terry. You look good. Trim, built up. You’re as dark as if you’d been dipped in a vat of maple syrup.”
“I work on a ranch.”
“Yeah? What, busting broncos? Roping cattle? Like that?”
“Like that.”
“Where? Colorado? Montana?”
That question made me frown. I’d been eager to know how he’d managed to track me down. I’d been off the grift for years, living under an assumed name, doing an honest job. I thought I’d covered my tracks well, but four days ago, after coming in from digging fence posts, I’d received a phone call from a woman whose voice I didn’t recognize. She’d told me Collie wanted to see me before he died.
“You already know. How’d you find me?”
“I put in a call.”
“To who?”
“Who do you think?”
He meant our family, who had connections all over the circuit. I’d half-expected that they’d somehow kept tabs on me. They must’ve gotten in touch with the people I’d bought my fake ID from and shadowed me through the years. I should have realized my father wouldn’t let me go so easily.
But that voice on the phone didn’t belong to anyone I knew. I wondered if my other identity had been completely blown and I’d have to start over again, rebuild another new life. How many more did I have left in me?
“It’s been good seeing you, Terry. I’m glad you came. We both need a little more time.”
I’d barely slept over the last four days, and all the miles gunning across the country suddenly caught up with me. I felt tired as hell. “What are you talking about, Collie?”
“Come back tomorrow or the day after. They gave you shit at the door, I can tell. Rousted you, strip-searched you? If they try that again, tell them to fuck themselves.” He raised his voice again and shouted at the screws. “Dead man walking has at least a couple of extra privileges!”
“Listen, I’m not-”
“Take some time to settle yourself.”
“I don’t want to settle myself. I’m not coming back tomorrow, Collie.”
“Go home. Visit the family. I’ll tell you what I need when I see you again.”
I started breathing through my teeth. “What you need. I’m not running drugs for you. I’m not icing anybody on the outside for you. I’m not sending around a petition to the governor. I’m not coming back.”
It got him laughing again. “You’re home. You’re going to see the family because you’ve missed them. You’ve been gone a long time and proven whatever point you had to make, Terry. You can stick it out on your own. You’re your own man. You’re not Dad. You’re not me.” He cupped the phone even more tightly to his mouth. “Besides, you love them and they love you. It’s time to say hello again.”
Life lessons from death row. Christ. I felt nauseous.
I stared hard into my brother’s eyes, trying to read a face I’d always been able to read before. I saw in it just how plagued he was by his own culpability. He was shallow and vindictive, but he rarely lied. He didn’t often deny responsibility and he never cared about consequences. There was absolutely nothing I could do for him.
“I’m not coming back,” I told him.
“I think I need you to save someone’s life,” he said.
“What?”
“Tomorrow afternoon. Or the day after, if you want. And don’t be late this time.”
I hung up on his smile and let out a hiss that steamed the glass.
Already he’d bent me out of shape. It had taken no more than fifteen minutes. We hadn’t said shit to each other. Maybe it was his fault, maybe it was mine. I could feel the old singular pain rising once more.
I shoved my chair back, took a few steps, and stopped. I thought, If I can get out now, without asking the question, I might be able to free myselfnd qree myse. I have the chance. It’s there. The door is three feet away. I can do this. I can do this.
It was a stupid mantra. I’d already missed my chance. I’d turned back once already, and I was about to do the same thing again. I knew Collie would still be seated, watching me, waiting. I turned back, grabbed the phone up, stood facing the glass, and said, “The girl in the mobile home.”
He almost looked ashamed for an instant. He shut his eyes and swung his chin back and forth like he was trying to jar one memory loose and replace it with another. He pursed his lips and muttered something to his invisible
