Liberty or Death (22 page)

I hated Kalyn especially, since last night she'd acted like we were on the same side. Had that just been a trick? A trap to see what I'd do or say? Kavanaugh had told me not to trust anyone. It looked like she was right.

I'd added a backache to my list of complaining body parts.

A backache and a headache. I lay on my bed, letting the fan blow over me, staring up at the ceiling and counting the cracks, feeling light-years away from the brave woman I'd woken up as this morning. I was so full of helplessness and frustration and humiliation and rage that my empty stomach was tied up in knots. I wanted to pack up and leave, even if it meant admitting that Jack was right. If I couldn't do any good here, I might as well go home and knit baby blankets. If only that didn't mean letting Hannon win.

As I wallowed in my cornucopia of bad feelings, I realized that this was what Andre was going through, too. The same people. The same didactic idealism which allowed them to behave toward fellow humans with such indifference and cruelty. He would be experiencing the same fears and the same constraints. He couldn't be foolishly heroic, couldn't take chances, because he had to think of me and the baby. I groaned and pulled the pillow over my head. I could run away, back to someplace where I would be safe and protected, and let someone else do it. I could stop trying to help out here, because it was hard and it was scary. Andre couldn't.

Someone knocked on the door. I ignored it. They knocked again. If it was the bad guys, they'd break down the door if it was important to them. And there weren't any good guys. I went back to staring at the ceiling. Counting the cracks. It was a demanding job, so many cracks it was hard to keep track. The knock came again. I ignored it again. But I'd lost count and had to start over.

"Come on, Dora, I know you're in there," Kalyn called. "Open the door. I've got my hands full."

We all had out hands full. Why should she be different? "Go away."

"Clyde said you didn't eat. He sent you up some breakfast."

"Go away," I said. "I'm not hungry."

"Look, Clyde's worried about you..." To this I had no printable reply. "He is," she said, "really." She banged on the door again. "If you don't let me in, I'll have to go get him," she said.

"And then what?" I yelled. "He breaks down the door to make me eat breakfast? Where was all that door-bashing courage when I needed it?" This was too ridiculous for words. "Just take the Goddamned breakfast away and leave me alone!"

"Dora, please..." She sounded close to tears. "Just open the door and let me in. I really need to talk to you."

My head hurt. The pounding made it worse and she didn't seem to be giving up. It seemed the lesser evil to just let her bring the tray in and have her say. Then maybe she'd go away and leave me and my aching head alone. I crossed the room, unlocked the door, and jerked it open. In her surprise, she practically tumbled into the room. Good thing she was an experienced waitress. The tea in the cup didn't spill. She looked around for a place to put it and chose the bedside stand. Then she stood back, her hands on her hips, and met my eyes defensively.

"Look, this is probably hard for you to understand... but..." She stopped, tried again. "What did they do to you, anyway?" Of course I wasn't going to answer that. "Look, it can't be as bad as..." But suddenly, she changed her mind about whatever she was going to say. What she did say surprised me. "This isn't any easier on the rest of us, you know, living in a world that's gone all topsy-turvy. This used to be a nice place... Dora, I'm so sorry about all this. You don't know... can't know... what you've walked into the middle of... and it's... well, we're just a big bunch of cowards, that's all. We're letting them pick on you and doing nothing about it 'cause they're a bunch of paranoid assholes and we've let them scare the pants off us."

I sat down on the bed and stared up at her. Kalyn was spunky and refreshingly honest and she'd been nice to me. I had no reason to expect a young woman who worked in a restaurant to have the courage, or reason, to stand up to these guys. I just didn't have much use for cowards. Part of my own pathology. "Look," I said, "it doesn't matter. It's just... thought I was coming here to get away from stuff like this... the violence, the bullying." I stopped. I was tired of the lie. If anything, I'd come here to get
to
stuff like this—the violence and the bullying. My choice, so why was I complaining?

"Don't mind me," I said. "I'm just so sick of being scared all the time. It was nice of Clyde to send up breakfast but honestly, I'm not hungry." That, at least, was the truth.

She stood her ground, the whole, taut, five-foot-three of her. Not a wasted ounce anywhere. The biggest thing about her was her hair. "Clyde doesn't know about the baby," she said. "...He just worries about you... about people. He's sweet that way. But you do have to eat."

I closed my eyes, shutting the world out for a moment, wondering what else she knew. What Theresa and Cathy knew. If they knew all my secrets or just this one. I felt even more vulnerable and intruded on than I had from my encounter with Kendall Barker. I couldn't believe I was so transparent but maybe that was because I could barely admit the pregnancy to myself.

"Are you okay?"

I shrugged. "Just trying to make it through life without the whole Goddamned world sticking its nose in my business. The part of the world that's not putting its Goddamned hands all over me."

"Pregnancy's kind of a hard thing to hide."

I thought I'd done a pretty good job. "Does everyone know?"

I couldn't stand it that she was being nice to me. Kindness made me homesick for Dom and Rosie, homesick and vulnerable, things I had no time for. Feelings that wouldn't work in this place, that made me less safe. Here I needed to be like that cop Hannon thought I was. Always with my antennae up. Cautious and wary.

She shook her head. "Theresa's too busy running around tryin' to keep the business going to notice, Cathy's got her head up her ass, trying to see in the dark, and Clyde doesn't notice things like that. Most men don't. But once you've been there..."

Against my will, I was drawn into the conversation. "You have kids?"

She shook her head again. "Lost it. Miscarried. Nearly broke my heart," she said. "I told you the story, you'd understand." End of conversation. As neatly as if she'd drawn a veil, that subject was dropped. "You'd better eat before it gets cold."

I turned toward the tray, picked up my toast, and took a bite.
Don't do this to me, Kalyn,
I thought.
Don't be nice. Don't tell me your stories. We can't get close. Real relationships are based on truth; Dora McKusick is a lie. And once I get what I want, I'm outta here.

"Who are you, anyway?"

My hand froze in midair. I stopped chewing. "What do you mean?"

"It's just... you know... like I know you're running away from your husband... and I sure can relate to that, but sometimes I see this attitude, kind of like 'to hell with all of you' peeking through and I know you won't stay here. You'll get it together and go away and do something with your life."

"I'd like to," I said. "Before all the bad, confusing things happened, I was ambitious. I used to think I was going to save the world. Then I got into a relationship where there was a lot of stress and danger. Now I'd just like things to be normal and peaceful again." I could hear the longing in my voice.

She nodded. "Yeah. I knew you weren't always a waitress. Not that you aren't good at it."

"I'll never be as good as you," I said. "You've got eyes in the back of your head. So what about you? What do you want to do with your life?"

"Ride off into the sunset with Andy," she said. But she didn't mean it. Andy and the motorcycle were the business she put between herself and what she didn't want to deal with. I knew about that. After David died, I started working seven days a week. Keeping busy was the only way I could cope.

She shrugged, resigned. "Theresa's about the hardest-working person I've ever seen, but she can't do it alone." A quick grin came and went. "Sure, she thinks she can, but she's not so young and running a restaurant's hard work. Cathy could help out more, but she's so stuck on herself, and so damned selfish. And Theresa's been good to me..." She caught my look. "I know what you're thinking... what you've seen... but it isn't always like this. You're catching us at a real bad time. Ever since..."

"Ever since what?"

"That cop got shot..." She looked down at her strong, thin arms, her rough, red hands. "I don't mind the work, I'd just... I don't know... like to do something more."

"Like what?" I asked.

"Work in an office maybe? Wear a dress and use my head? I can type..." She stopped. "What did they do to you, anyway, Hannon's goons?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

She shook her head sadly. "Hard to believe Clyde's one of them, isn't it? He's such a good man."

I shrugged, still angry. "He didn't help, did he?"

"Usually he's kind. But he's..." She hesitated. "He's one of them—militia, I mean—and that kind of thinking scares me. Not that they haven't got a point... got a lot of points... government's not always right in the way it treats people, but guys like Hannon. I don't know. There's something evil there, like it's not about making the government rethink some of the stuff it's doing. With him, it's about power and control and not caring who gets hurt in the process. His guys, they'll do anything... even deliberately... uh... hurting people to make a point."

She shot me a quick look, swallowed hard, and stared down at her feet. "I should go. Let you eat in peace." But instead of leaving, she sighed and sat down in the only chair, her face suddenly serious. "Look," she said, "can I trust you?" She spread her hand over her stomach like a fan. " 'Cuz I've got this thing eating me up and I need to tell someone."

"Trust me?"

"Yeah. To keep your mouth shut?"

She couldn't, of course, if she was going to tell me something relevant to Andre or the militia. I felt a matching twinge in my own stomach—the part of me that hates lying. In an instant, it felt like the air in the room had changed. "I think so," I said. "I'm pretty good at keeping secrets. Besides, I don't know anyone around here to tell."

"That's right," she said, "except Theresa and Clyde. And you wouldn't." She swallowed hard and took a deep breath. "Look. I'm serious. This is heavy stuff. It's about..."

"Kalyn. Kalyn, can you come down here and help out, please?" Theresa's voice had an angry whine that brought Kalyn to her feet. "Guess I gotta go." She was gone in a flash, her feet thudding down the stairs, leaving me alone with my cold breakfast, cursing Theresa.

I forced down some toast and eggs and drank my lukewarm tea, staring toward the window and the rooftops beyond. "What?" I said aloud. "What the hell's going on here? What terrible thing has happened that has you all so scared?"

 

 

 

Chapter 15

 

Lunch was a whole lot like breakfast, with all the same curiosity and questions about Jed Harding. At least none of Hannon's men paid me a visit. Except for the usual wear and tear on my feet and back, I escaped unscathed. Still, the backache and headache didn't seem to be getting any better. I was ready for horse liniment and a rubdown. I spent my meager two-hour break going through the shelter census and then driving around on some nearby back roads, but I didn't learn anything except that collecting junked cars and broken farm equipment seemed to be a common hobby. Apart from Kendall Barker, whose place I couldn't find, an Adeline Peters who might be related to Bump, and a Terrence McGrath who might be related to Theresa, none of the names were familiar.

Half a lifetime later, the dinner shift was in full swing. My back was aching, my feet were killing me, and I was making my millionth trip into the dining room with a tray that weighed a ton when I spotted Roland Proffit and another trooper I didn't know sitting at one of my tables.
Good timing
, I thought. I never had gotten a chance to call Jack. There wasn't a pay phone in town that wasn't dangerously public. I delivered the fish and steak and spaghetti I was carrying to a hateful family with three whining children, two demanding adults, and a sulky German au pair, pulled out my pad, and approached their table.

"Evening, troopers," I said. "Know what you'd like or do you need a little more time?"

"Got any trout left?" Proffit asked. He was a great actor. It was clear we'd never seen each other before.

"I think so."

"Good, I'll have the broiled trout, then, with rice and salad."

"Dressing on your salad?"

"Honey mustard." I wished I could ask him what he was doing here.

"I'll have the swordfish," the other trooper said. "Baked potato and salad. Blue-cheese dressing. Sour cream. Lots of sour cream. And lots of butter." He was short and sturdy, with crew-cut sandy hair and an intelligent face.

"Anything to drink?"

"Iced tea."

"Coffee. Black."

Across the room, three scruffy middle-aged guys in faded camouflage pants and T-shirts were standing in the door of the bar, staring at the troopers rudely, and murmuring among themselves. As I opened the kitchen door, one of them said, "Hey, why don't you guys just let Jed Harding go, huh?" His T-shirt read: remember randy weaver!