The Cold Spot

kid.”

“What? With who?”

“Another foolish woman.”

“Yeah, but who?”

Jonah said nothing for miles. Then, “Are you going to try me?”

“What?”

“She asked you to, didn’t she?”

“Why didn’t you just let her go?”

“She could’ve left anytime. But I need Kylie. Blood is important.”

As if the names on his scarred arms actually meant anything. “Since when?”

“Forever.”

“Do you love anything?”

The old man’s gaze held him in the mirror. You could spend your whole life trying to figure out what Jonah knew about love and grief, and you’d never get an answer.

Chase thought he should’ve tried harder to help Angie, to dissuade her from taking a run at Jonah, at least with a.32. Maybe a.44. Maybe Chase should’ve drawn on him. Yanked a gun or thrown at least one good punch if nothing else. Whatever happened afterward, it might’ve been worth it.

But then he remembered his grandfather gripping his hand in the doc’s office. That meant something. Anyone else, you might say it was a gesture of the heart. But the old man would always be beyond him. And always inside of him.

10

J onah didn’t plan to stay. He packed the van with his gear and kept pulling out whatever belonged to Angie and leaving it on the side of the garage. There wasn’t a lot. The little pile became a slightly larger little pile as he added a belt, a scarf. All that was left of the woman’s history, besides her child somewhere in Florida, could be fit into a shoe box.

Popping a handful of pills the doc had given him, Chase swallowed them dry. Painkillers and antibiotics, but they didn’t seem to be doing much good so far. He’d reached his limit and was covered in cold sweat. His bandages had soaked through and needed changing.

He leaned against the hood of the Chevelle, almost ready to drop, staring up at his grandfather through his damp hair.

Jonah said, “It’s a nice house. You shouldn’t sell it.”

“It’s over for me here. I’m leaving.”

“Any idea where you’ll go?”

“No,” Chase said. “But I’ll get you your money.”

“Forget that.”

Chase had been through a lot these last few weeks, but his grandfather’s voice now, the words he spoke, nearly took out his knees. He wavered.

“What?”

“After what I nabbed from Fishman the fence and scored off the crew, I made out all right.”

“The crew? When did you score them?”

“There was ninety grand in the closet of their motel room,” Jonah said.

“When did you have a chance to dig around in their room?”

“Before I pulled you out of there.”

Which meant that while Chase was dying in the lot bleeding out, and everyone in the crew was dead, and the Superbird was still roaring with a corpse’s foot jammed down on the pedal, the car wedged into the front of the room having crashed through the wall, Jonah had staggered around with two in the back after having just killed the mother of his child and dug among the bodies to find the cash.

The old man had finished packing the van.

He got to the door and said, “You know how to get in touch with me if you need to.”

Same thing he’d said ten years ago when they’d split up.

And then his grandfather pulled out of the garage and drove off past the Nicholsons’ house and was just as gone.

The Jonah inside Chase’s head said, Don’t ever trust me. I’m going to kill you one day.

11

T he weakness overpowered him for the next two days, but the next morning he felt much stronger. He got out of bed and cleaned up the blood in the Chevelle. He took more of the pills the doc had given him. Throughout the day he had freezing fits where he shook uncontrollably. His heart slugged against his ribs. The lung would work fine for a while and then his breathing would grow ragged and come in bites and gasps where he couldn’t get enough air.

He should’ve cut the car loose of it by now. The businessman and the hooker had seen it at the motel, but it was a long shot anyone had grabbed the license. The car owed him and he owed the car. You don’t soup this kind of muscle and not use it. The dark energy inside it still wanted out. He knew he’d have use of it farther on down the line.

He called a real estate agent to put the house up for sale. She showed up the next day and walked around the property, took measurements of the rooms and made lots of notes on her clipboard. They settled on a starting price, which was higher than Chase had expected.

Somebody finally got worried about Mrs. Nicholson and went over there and called the cops. It blew wide. The prowl cars stacked up in the road and the police canvassed the area. They came to his door and asked him questions about the Nicholsons. Animal control came along later that day with just as many vehicles as the cops had. It took four guys twenty minutes to round up all the cats.

The police wouldn’t be able to cross all the T’s but they’d have enough to satisfy them. They’d find out what Timmy Rosso’s real name was and discover he was just a bartender posing as a criminal. They’d figure correctly he was double-crossed by wiser minds. There wouldn’t be a high premium on the old lady and her retarded son.

In the morning, Morgan showed up at Chase’s front door. He stared into Chase’s eyes for a while and noted the bandages and the cast and said, “You look like shit.”

“Feel that way too.”

Staring some more, the hard-ass cop in Morgan wanted the entire truth, but didn’t want it that badly. He’d already figured most of it out anyhow. How could he not? It was more or less a straight line from his own desk to the motel.

Morgan nodded at the FOR SALE sign on the lawn. “You leaving?”

“Yeah.”

“Soon?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. Get the fuck out of here. Go far away. I don’t ever want to see you again.”

“You won’t,” Chase said.