No one challenged him, the place was deserted, the planes lined up like soldiers in the night. He shut off the engine and listened to the quiet. Off in the distance rolling tires hissed by on damp pavement as late night travelers journeyed home.
Out of the van now, he slid open the door, then opened the passenger door of the plane, glad he had sun protectors covering the windows. The body had moved during the trip. Now Virgil was on his back. Horace pulled the body to the door.
He squatted, slid his arms under it, careful to keep the belly wound away from the expensive bomber jacket. The body was limp and that surprised him. He’d expected rigor to set in like in the movies, but it hadn’t. With strength he didn’t know he had, he stood, got his balance, then staggered to the open door of the plane and slid his dead brother into the passenger seat.
Trying not to look, he pulled on the shoulder harness, cinching the seatbelt tight. Finished, he closed and locked the door. Now all he needed was a motel room, so he could get some rest away from Ma for a couple of days and some cement.
Chapter Nine
Maggie rolled over, rubbed her eyes against the light sneaking in the bedroom. She pulled the blankets up to her chin, scrunched herself up in their warmth, pulled her knees to her chest.
“Nick,” she mumbled. Again, “Nick.” She wanted him to pull the shade, the way her father used to come and turn out the light when she was a little girl and too comfy to get out of bed and do it herself. Her father had always been there, but Nick wasn’t, and all of a sudden last night came pouring back.
She ran her tongue over dry lips. She was thirsty. She had to pee. And Nick still hadn’t come home. She pushed the blankets away, forced herself to sit up. “Ouch.” She put her hands to her temples. Her head hurt. She felt like she could drink gallons. She felt like she could pee gallons.
She checked the digital alarm clock on the nightstand. Quarter to seven. The last time she’d looked it said 4:45. Great, she’d only managed to get two hours of fitful sleep and now she had a hangover. And Nick hadn’t come home at all. He’d never done that before. Then it hit her. Yesterday was Saturday. How could he film a high school drug bust when there wasn’t any school?
“If it’s that redhead.” She dropped her legs over the side of the bed, stood and closed her eyes to keep the room from spinning. “Never again.”
She took a deep breath, steadied herself, padded into the bathroom. The toilet seat was down. There was the proof. He really hadn’t been home. Bastard. She sat, peed, then at the bathroom sink she lowered her head and drank.
The water was a river in her mouth, flooding through the cracked desert of her lips and tongue. So cool. She sucked it down, animal-like, greedy. She stopped after a bit, wanting more, but she’d get sick if she continued.
She studied herself in the mirror. She slept in the nude and nude she was. So she hadn’t been so drunk she couldn’t get undressed. She put a finger to the welt on her forehead. It looked like it should hurt. She poked it. It did.
She cupped her hands under the running water, splashed some on her face. It wasn’t enough to make her feel human, so she stepped into the shower, ran the water cold, to wake.
Images from last night rushed through her mind.
Those two men had been after her. They’d recognized her in the Safeway and had been waiting for her on the beach. If it hadn’t been for those homeless men under the pier, who knows what could have happened? That Virgil was big.
She faced into the spray, drank more water. She needed a clear head. She needed to run. She shut off the shower, dried off, jumped into Levi’s and a sweatshirt. She stuffed twenty bucks into a back pocket, in case she was hungry as she jogged by the donut shop. It happened sometimes.
But once outside, she decided to jog down to the beach, where she could run full out. She started as soon as she hit the sand and she poured it on when she got to the place where those men, Horace and Virgil, had tried to trap her the night before. She glanced at the pier, thought about stopping, remembered the disappearing bottle of wine and decided against it. She took a look at the pool. The glass walls glowed orange, reflecting the rising sun. It was no threat now.
Past the pool, she saw the country and western bar. She ran to it, ran past it, through the Safeway parking lot, then the sprint home. In front of the duplex, she doubled over, hands on her knees, dripping sweat. The headache was gone. She was still thirsty, but this was an honest thirst, her body craving the water she’d lost as sweat.
She turned on the garden hose, drank, then sat on the front steps. It was Sunday, still early. The neighborhood was quiet, save for a cat across the street. She watched while it prowled under a car, looking for God knows what. Then it crossed the street, slinked under Gordon’s old Ford and all of a sudden it was out of sight.
Gordon’s car reminded her of the garage out back. Part of their rental deal with him was that they got the garage, Gordon parked out front. He didn’t seem to care. Besides, nobody in their right mind would ever think of stealing his car. What could they get? Maybe fifty bucks.
Nick stacked the old newspapers in the garage. Every other month or so he called somebody to come and collect them. Till then he kept them stacked by paper, filed by date. He said he kept them that way in case he ever wanted to go back and check a story, but Maggie knew it was because he was an obsessive organizer.
That Virgil had said something about her being in the paper. Maggie felt as if she were back in the frozen foods section. Goosebumps shivered up her arms.
The garage seemed huge without cars. Nick still had her Mustang. The newspapers were stacked up against the wall that butted up to the house. Maggie skipped over the Times. She read it faithfully. If what she was looking for was there, she’d have seen it. But she never even glanced at the Long Beach Press Telegram. Nick hardly did either. Still, it was a newspaper and as such, Nick felt he should subscribe. He was a newsman, after all.
She took the top paper off the stack, leafed through it, leaving it in a pile on the cement floor when she was finished. To heck with Nick. Thirty papers followed. She gasped when she opened the thirty-first, because the girl staring out at her from the second page had her face.
She’d half expected it. Had been hoping for it most of her life, but had given up thinking about it after she’d married Nick.
She read the caption under the photo,
This time Huntington Beach resident Margo Kenyon struck out in her petition attempt to keep convicted child molester and murderer Frankie Fujimori behind bars. Ms. Kenyon declares, Fujimori is sure to kill again.
She devoured the article, learning that Margo’s ex-husband, attorney Bruce Kenyon, had defended Fujimori seven years earlier. A month after an innocent verdict, Fujimori had raped and murdered a four-year-old child. Fujimori was declared mentally incompetent. Two years ago Margo had started a petition campaign, which gathered over a hundred thousand signatures and convinced the parole board Fujimori wasn’t ready for society. However, on his next attempt at parole, the board ignored Margo’s petition and released him.
“Margo,” Maggie whispered.
She closed her eyes and pictured her birth certificate. Box number 5. Twin, born second. She had an older sister. Dead just days after her birth, lost to the deep when the small plane her mother had supposedly taken her on had crashed into the ocean halfway between San Diego and Los Angeles. But somehow, like Maggie, her twin hadn’t been on that plane.
She sighed and flashed on the Sunday before high school graduation. She’d gone down to Huntington Beach with a bunch of friends to celebrate. They’d been playing in the sand and the surf since noon, but her fun had been dampened because she’d been worried about her best friend’s blouse. She’d borrowed it, washed it with her red sweatshirt, turning the once white blouse pink. She’d been waiting all day to tell her and just as she was about to a hunk had come up to her, kissed her on the cheek and said, “Nice suit, Margo.” Then, “See you at the dance
