Bombed Page 21

  But Wes was searching the other side of the road, and she’d looked all around this side. She told Bull, and he shouted, “Heads up, campers! Michael’s missing again!”

  Then everyone was gathering around, bringing their beers. The guys out in the bean field pocketed Wes’s partner’s phone and left him there looking steamed. Bull explained that Michael was older so might have a more developed sense of propriety than some others here. “Not any trees around and a lot of women. He might’ve taken quite a hike before unzipping his lizard.”

  So how far could he have gone? No one had seen him leave.

  Then Wes was beside Annie again saying Michael’s car was gone too.

  “I know,” she said. “But he never drives it. He think it’s . . . haunted or something. I asked Wheeler to take it home for me.”

  Except now she saw Wheeler with the guys who had been playing keep away with Wes’s partner’s phone.

  She went over to ask him, “Did you tell someone else to take care of Michael’s car?”

  Wheeler was so confused by this, he had to check for himself that the Volkswagen was no longer here. Then that fact rippled through the group.

  “So Michael drove himself home? Isn’t that okay?”

  “No, Annie’s upset. It’s not okay.”

  “No problem, we can catch up with that old Beetle.”

  Wes came up beside her and said urgently, “Don’t let them go after him.”

  “Why not? They’re right, Michael’s car is slow.” And now it did look like he must have driven it. He must have decided the car was okay since she’d driven it, and he’d become impatient to get home.

  But then there was no reason to go after him. She shouldn’t be concerned at all. Except she was. And Wes, maybe it was only another ploy, but he looked close to panic.

  “Don’t let them do it,” he said. “Remember what I told you about the FBI?”

  “Of course, I remember. But they’re wrong. Michael’s not a bomber.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. But they were here, and now they’re gone too. I’m afraid they took Michael with them.”

  “The FBI were here?” Then she understood. “The insurance salesmen.”

  “Right, the golf shirts. Maybe Michael didn’t drive his own car. Maybe one of them did, and they took Michael in their Jeep.”

  Bull was saying, “We’re on it, Annie. We’ll find him again wherever he’s gone.” People were loading into the pickups.

  “Don’t let your friends get mixed up in this. Come with me. We’ll go after him,” said Wes.

  “Wait!” Annie yelled this as loudly as she could. Luckily, Bull repeated it in his bullhorn voice. Everybody stopped and looked at her.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “No, it’s not okay. But I can handle it. We can handle it.” Had she decided to trust Wes now?

  “You sure?” said Bull.

  “No, but yes.” She couldn’t let these good-hearted but sometimes volatile drunks take on the FBI. Wes was the only one here who might be able to do that.

  *

  “But why would the FBI take my uncle now?” Annie asked once she and Wes were in his truck headed toward town. “Do you think they arrested him?”

  “No.” He was driving insanely fast, never looking away from the road, his face hard and a grimness in his voice she’d never heard before. “They have no reason to arrest him yet.”

  “Then I really don’t get this. If they’re watching him, why not just keep on watching him?” She felt her mind was racing just about as fast as the truck, but she didn’t seem able to keep up with what was happening. Only a few moments ago she’d found her uncle tied up in a trunk. And then he’d been safe. And now?

  “I recognized them. They recognized me.” Wes’s voice had gone even more harsh. “I’m afraid they took him because they thought we might interfere with his plans.”

  “We might interfere with his plans.” She repeated this slowly, trying to parse what it might mean. “We might interfere with him setting off a bomb? Wouldn’t that be good?”

  “You would think that, wouldn’t you?” and each one of these words came almost viciously hard.

  She sat back and looked out at the road rushing under them. “They want his friends,” she realized. “They don’t care about him. They’re using him.”

  No answer from Wes.

  They were using her uncle the way Wes had tried to use her.

  And her rage surged up again for what he’d done and the lies he’d told. But then it faded into the rushing of the road, the racing of her thoughts, and the so recent memory of wiping blood from her uncle’s face. It was awkward being here with Wes, being so close to him when she used to love to lie with him in that easy intimacy—never suspecting.

  But now he was helping her find her uncle. And he seemed the only one who could.

  He didn’t say anything more. He just kept pushing the truck, a vein pulsing at his temple, his jaw clenched. She didn’t have anything more to say either. She thought about her uncle and held herself still as if she might shatter if she let go.

  She kept watching for the VW. Or the FBI’s Jeep. But they made it all the way to town without seeing either of them.

  Or Fleep for that matter. He must have gotten a ride.

  Wes broke the silence. “They may have expected us to come after them. They may have taken some evasive turns.” And he backtracked. He tried a couple of side roads, taking them at speeds that seemed reckless although he carefully stayed in his own lane. Then he went back into town and cruised all those streets, searching them in a grid. “I did this when I was looking for you. It didn’t work then either,” he said.

  “That little Beetle is easy to hide,” she said.

  Eventually, he pulled up in front of her house. “I don’t know where else to look.”

  “Thank you,” she said. He’d tried. As well as anyone could. Although no telling why he’d done this instead of going after Russ and Char. His partner had seemed to know who they were. Wes had even agreed to use this truck, knowing that would keep his partner from following Russ and Char.

  So did he really care about her?

  But he’d made no attempt to make up with her this time. No more Cocker Spaniel eyes. No more talk about love. He’d been just coplike and grim. She got out of the truck, not expecting him to come with her into the house.

  But he was right beside her. He didn’t touch her though. He seemed to deliberately leave a universe of frigid air between them. “I’d like to see if there’s anything here that might help us find Michael,” he said.

  “Sure.” She stood in the living room while he went on to Michael’s bedroom, and she listened to the silence of the house. It was such a cold empty silence, so different from the way it felt when Michael was here, even when he was only resting on his bed.

  But then it didn’t sound so empty. She heard crunching in the kitchen. She went in there and found Lisa hunched over a bowl of dry cat food. Michael didn’t usually give her dry food. He spoiled her with tuna and table scraps. Annie picked the cat up and found she smelled of tuna. She’d had her usual evening tuna and was just cleaning her teeth with the dry food.

  But this bowl was brimming full of the stuff. Her water dish was full too. Her pink tongue whipped out and licked what tuna was left from around her mouth, and she purred in Annie’s arms.

  Wes was just coming back from the bedroom. “It’s hard to tell if anything has changed in there,” he said. “Did you know your uncle collects empty toothpaste tubes and aftershave bottles as well as junk mail?”

  “He’s been here,” Annie said. “He’s been here and given Lisa enough food and water to last her a while.”

  Wes took that in solemnly, making no guess what it might mean. She wondered, had the FBI been so considerate that they’d brought Michael here? Before taking him where? Or had Michael really driven his own car?

  But then wouldn’t he still be here?

  “Let’s look at his computer again,”
said Wes.

  So they looked at more disturbing websites about bombs, but in Michael’s history they also found a number of YouTube videos of the Johnson Fourth of July Parade. There were sweeps of makeshift bands, people dressed up in outlandish costumes, and bizarre-looking handmade floats. Sometimes the videos made Annie smile, remembering the times when she’d gone to the parade, but mostly they left her even more troubled. In fact terrified.

  “What is all this wacky stuff?” asked Wes.

  “It’s tomorrow morning,” she said.

  Chapter 30

  Fleep eventually got a ride from a woman who said she would never leave anyone out on the road so late at night. She was chubby and middle-aged with several chins, and she wore pink sweats that reminded him of his grandmother. Plus her pickup was spic and span. He put her in the Mormon category of the people who lived here, and by the time she’d stopped for him, he’d rubbed a raw spot on his left heel and another on his right little toe. So he thought he was appropriately appreciative, charming, and polite—almost as charming and polite as he would have been if he’d been trying to get her to invest money with him.

  But the illusion that she actually cared about him the way a nice grandmother would was spoiled by the way she kept touching the left side of her seat every thirty seconds or so. He began to suspect she kept a pistol there. Which was just like a Mormon.

  So by the time she dropped him at the Caterpillar Lounge, possibly going out of her way to do that, he gave her only a surly, “Thanks,” and slammed the door. Teach her to be such an untrusting bitch.

  By then the Caterpillar Lounge was closed, but Meg was still cleaning up. He waited in a nearby alley where he could take off his shoes and examine the ugly red spots on his feet. He checked his phone too. Annie had texted she would deliver the gold, but she hadn’t left any more messages. Of course, she couldn’t deliver the gold until Meg left.

  Eventually, that happened. Meg drove off in her boring Taurus. Fleep got the hide-a-key from where Buzzard had told him it would be behind the electric meter by the back door. Then he replaced the key so Annie could find it, and he lay down on the cot Meg kept in the green room to wait for his gold to show up.

  *

  There was no way Annie was going to sleep that night. She stared at the ceiling. She stared at the clock. She kept listening for Michael to come home.

  How could his new friends have persuaded him to bomb the Johnson Parade? Or bomb anything!

  She still couldn’t believe that was true. But then why didn’t he come home?

  After she’d found him in Buzzard’s car, she should never have left his side. She should have taken him with her when she’d gone to say good-bye to her friends—and ask them to detain Wes’s partner.

  She thought about Wes too.

  When they’d been leaning over Michael’s computer, sometimes forced to touch each other in order to both see the screen, every time she would graze his arm, or his hand would brush hers reaching for the mouse, she’d felt a shock, some leftover short in her wiring. Or it was like a cough that will linger long after you’re over the flu.

  Or with Michael gone again and apparently involved in some awful bombing plot, she wished someone would touch her, hold her the way Wes used to do.

  Maybe she wasn’t as tough as she’d thought.

  She hated him, but she didn’t seem able to stick with that thought all the time. She had to get him completely out of her life! She had to never see him again! Then she would forget him.

  But he’d said he would be back in the morning. He’d said he wanted to go to the parade with her. And when she thought about her uncle and a bomb and thousands of innocent people, she was glad he would be coming to the parade with her.

  *

  Michael crawled into the backseat of the VW and found it even smaller than the trunk of Buzzard’s car, but there was nothing for him to do right now but try to get some sleep.

  His car was parked back off the street beside the storage unit where the float was waiting for the parade. The men who had been with Annie’s friends had been right that he’d wanted to come here. He’d forgotten about the float, what with everything that had happened with Buzzard and Fleep and all. Then Wes had been arguing with his friend, Michael had stepped away, and those two men had offered him a ride.

  They’d reminded him Hank and Smith were counting on him, and they’d been willing to take him home first so he could feed Lisa. Then they’d brought him and his car here.

  He hadn’t asked how they knew Hank and Smith. It was hard to believe, judging from the way they looked, that the four of them were friends. The younger of these two men had been very easy-going and had smiled a lot.

  But Michael knew he still had much to learn about friendship, although tonight, in the trunk, once he’d fought down the fear and convinced himself Annie would come—and Annie had come—in fact, Wes had come too—anyway, while he’d been there all alone—just trying to think about Lisa but with all sorts of other thoughts coming to him in the dark—he’d understood better than ever before what it meant to be a friend and be yourself too.

  So now he tried to get comfortable in the little VW, and he did doze some, until the morning began to grow light. Then he crawled out of the back and into the driver’s seat.

  He sat there with the engine not running and just listened to the car. He wasn’t sure what he was listening for. He wasn’t sure if he heard it. The car smelled odd, but the man who had smiled so much had driven it here. The odd smell might have come from that nice young man. Annie had driven it too, which was why Michael thought the car might be okay in spite of its odd smell.

  He started the engine and listened some more. Then slowly, staying diligently attuned to every squeak and rattle and rumble, he pulled out to the street and headed for the 24-hour Wal-Mart.

  *

  Noises out in the main room of the Caterpillar Lounge woke Fleep. He didn’t want to confront Annie. He would wait until she’d left the gold. Then he would text her where to find her crazy uncle. But he slipped to the door of the green room and peeked out.

  It wasn’t Annie. It was Meg doing something behind the bar. Daylight streamed in through the windows. He’d been so wiped out by his forced march last night, he’d slept right through Annie’s delivering the gold?

  He was in only his socks due to the damage to his feet, but he had to keep Meg from finding the gold. He charged out of the green room.

  Meg said, “Fleep?” a puzzled look on her face, but that look quickly changed. “You thieving scoundrel!” She reached under the bar and came up with a shotgun.

  He raised his hands. She didn’t shoot. She just growled, “I’m not sure you’re worth trashing my bar, but unless you’ve got ten million dollars to hand over, you’d better run.”

  “No, I need to stay.” He kept his hands held high while looking all around. He didn’t see any large packages that might be his gold. “Maybe it’s not here yet,” he said. “I’m waiting for . . .” Then what she’d said penetrated his still sleep-fogged brain. “Hey, are you one of the fund’s contributors? I’m really sorry, if you are. It was an honest mistake.”

  The shotgun, which had been casually aimed at the ceiling, swung downward.

  “I’m going to make it good! I’m getting it all back. In fact, that’s what I’m doing here!”

  She leveled the shotgun at his chest.

  He ran.

  *

  Buzzard was sitting on the couch drinking a cup of coffee and a beer with his breakfast. He needed both because he was eating leftover pizza, and that was making him think of Michael. The old guy was gutsier than he’d thought. Buzzard believed there was a good chance Michael had come out okay. Still, he couldn’t help wishing his roomie wasn’t quite such a jerk when the jerk himself stumbled in the door.

  With only socks on his feet.

  “Your shoes got repoed too?”

  “Don’t mention my fucking shoes,” said Fleep. “Don’t mention m
y fucking feet.”

  Michael wasn’t with him.

  “How’s Michael?” Buzzard asked.

  “Don’t mention him either. And don’t eat all the pizza.”

  “Naaa. I’ve had enough.” Buzzard shoved the rest of the pizza aside. “Gary and Mercedes are coming by soon. We’re going to the parade.”

  Fleep started scarfing pizza. Buzzard watched, thinking his roomie looked more stressed than he’d ever seen him, and lately Fleep had been looking sensationally stressed at times. Clearly, his plan hadn’t worked. He didn’t have ten million dollars’ worth of gold. He didn’t have his car. He didn’t have his sweet job, his TV, or even his shoes. And Michael must have gotten away.

  At least that was good.

  On the other hand, Fleep was looking so bad Buzzard couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for him. “You should come with us,” he said. “Get your mind off things. The Johnson Parade is always good for some laughs.”

  “Laughs. Shit. I’m a dead man.”

  That seemed extreme even for Fleep. “You really should come with us.”

  “I can’t go anywhere. I can’t show my face. The whole town is gunning for me.”

  “I thought it was only a few old hippies that you’d screwed.”

  “I did too! But you’d be amazed how many old hippies there are in this town, and every single one of them put money in that fund!”

  “Then wear some kind of costume disguise sort of thing. Lots of people wear goofy costumes to the parade.”

  Chapter 31

  Annie looked a wreck when Wes arrived the next morning. Of course that didn’t matter anymore, what she looked like for him. Still, she couldn’t help noticing he looked good with his beard a little rougher than usual.

  “We’re going to take care of this,” he said.

  Did he know enough about this sort of thing to make that come true? It was going to be a hot day and yet he wore a light jacket, more than likely to conceal a gun.

  The drive to Johnson was through the Palouse, rolling hills of brilliant green tinged with gold in the morning light, but in the quiet of his BMW—or the DEA’s, or whoever’s it was—still worrying about her uncle, fearing what he was doing now, she felt closed away from all that beauty. At one point Wes interrupted the quiet and futile cycling of her thoughts to say, “I grew up in farmland.” It was the first glimpse he’d given of his personal life, and she didn’t know what to do with it. Being this close to him was giving her those leftover shocks again, but other than that odd remark, he was still just businesslike and grim.