Omorphi (79 page)

“Genovese Avenue,” Jorge answered.

“You’re going to hear about a horrible accident on Genovese Avenue tonight, but don’t worry. I’m okay. Jake and Sophia are at the hospital with Jake’s mom, and Jake’s dad is with the police and the FBI. I’m out….” Michael swallowed the lump in his throat. “I’m out looking for Christy with Jorge. I lost my cell phone, but Jake’s dad has Jorge’s number. Don’t worry. I’m okay. I’ll check in with you. I love you, and tell Dad I love him too.” He hung up.

Jorge slowly turned into the alley and stopped. “She’s going to flip out.”

Michael didn’t hear Jorge’s words. Yellow police tape cordoned off the area where the alley ended at a concrete wall, and Michael’s nervous system skyrocketed. He jumped from the car and headed toward the tape, ignoring the pain in his leg.

“Michael!” Jorge left the car running and jumped out to follow him.

Michael stopped just short of the tape. White chalk outlined the frame of a small person on the wall, and blood coated the wall from the thigh area down. What looked like vomit made a puddle where the blood trailed from the wall to the pavement. “No, no, no,” Michael whispered as hysteria rose within. “The son of a bitch ran him down!” Michael wailed.

“He still got away, Michael, look! Look at the dumpster!”

Michael followed the blood trail up a pile of wooden crates, over the top of a covered dumpster, and up the chain link fencing that topped the concrete wall.
Oh my God, he got away!
Michael jumped up the crates to the dumpster and slipped in Christy’s blood before grabbing the chain link and climbing despite the astronomical pain in his leg and back.

“What are you doing?” Jorge shouted.

“Go around the block and meet me at the other end of the alley!”

“You can’t climb that fence, Michael! There’s razor wire at the top!”

“Go to the other end of the alley!”

Jorge stripped his sweatshirt off. “Throw this over the wire!” He threw the shirt up to Michael and headed back to the car.

Michael caught it and tossed it up to cover the razor wire. Thank God, Jorge was a big guy. The sweatshirt covered enough of the wire for Michael to climb over it. Halfway over the wire, he stopped. Semidried, tacky blood coated the wire. Agony tore through him as he realized that Christy had climbed the wire no matter the danger to himself. He could only pray that Christy hadn’t severed something vital. He made it over the wire and clung to the fence as he looked down. The alley was uneven, and the drop to the ground on this side of the fence was at least twelve feet. He bit his lower lip as he wondered how Christy had managed the drop given his small size and hurt legs. He glanced up at Jorge’s sweatshirt and tried to tug it off the razor wire. Forget it. It was now permanent decor on the fence. He looked around for something to drop onto. Nothing. “Here goes.” He closed his eyes and let go, doing his best to land with most of his weight on his good leg.

He cried out in agony as his bad leg hit the ground and gave way. He lay there, stunned, in unspeakable pain and tried to breathe through it. It eased only a fraction, but he didn’t care. He had to find Christy. He slowly rolled to his hands and good knee and managed to get to his feet. He stood there on one foot, panting as blood rushed to his swollen knee and caused even more pain. It was almost too much. He closed his eyes.
Come on, dude. You don’t have time for this. Keep it together
, the little voice encouraged
.

He took a deep breath and opened his eyes slowly. Searching the alley for a blood trail, he found it along the right side of the alley. Christy’s handprint lined the alley wall every foot. One bloody shoeprint followed each bloody handprint. He looked around for more police tape and found none. Why hadn’t the police cordoned off this area? “They don’t know you got away,” he breathed.
What a fucking shoddy piece of police work.

He limped down the alley, following Christy’s trail and doing his best to keep weight off his bad leg. At one point, Christy had stopped in the sheltered doorway of an establishment. There was a lot of blood on the doorstep, and Michael’s worst fear threatened to overwhelm him. Christy was bleeding to death. He continued down the alley until he reached the sidewalk where Jorge waited at the curb. He looked around and couldn’t find where the blood trail continued.

“What are you looking for?”

“Blood trail. He’s bleeding badly, Jorge.”

Jorge got out of the car and came around to where Michael stood. “You okay?”

“Yeah. See where it ends?” Michael pointed, nearly breathless from pain.

Jorge touched his fingers to the bloody shoeprint and looked around. “They picked him up. No, wait. There.” He pointed to the curb about four feet away, where a puddle of blood made a nearly perfect oval and blood drops carried into the street.

“How’d he get over there without making a shoeprint?”

“I don’t know, but he did, and he waited for traffic to clear before he crossed.”

Michael stepped into the street, where the blood drops continued, and a car honked and swerved around him.

“Michael, watch out!”

Michael leaned against the front of Jorge’s sedan. He sure as hell wasn’t going to find Christy if he got himself run over.
Shit.
“I need to follow the blood across the street!” Michael yelled to the heavens.

Jorge looked back at oncoming cars. “Wait a minute. There’s hardly any traffic. I’ll block the street for you. When you get to the middle, stop, and I’ll hang a U-turn and block the other side so you can follow it.”

“Okay,” Michael breathed and leaned against a parked VW as Jorge pulled away from the curb. Whatever the nurse had given him for pain was starting to wear off. “Fuck the pain, Michael. Keep it together,” he swore at himself.

“Okay, Michael, now!” Jorge yelled out the window as he made a slow, deliberately awkward departure from the curb, blocking what little oncoming traffic that there was.

Michael limped to the center of the street, following the dots that glistened black beneath the sodium streetlights. When he reached the broken double yellow lines, he stopped and waited for Jorge to go around him and block traffic in the other direction. The blood drops made a sudden jag to the left, telling the story of Christy’s dangerous trek across the street as he dodged traffic. Tears pricked Michael’s eyes as he imagined the sheer madness Christy must have felt as he struggled to escape persecution for the first time in his life, alone, in a foreign city, whose rules and laws were unknown to him.

Michael collapsed when he made it to the other side of the street and hit his elbow hard as he went down on the sidewalk. He clenched his jaw and gritted his teeth. He would not cry out. If Christy could deal, he could deal.

“Michael!” Jorge yelled through the open window as he pulled up to the curb and got out of the car.

“I’m okay, I’m okay,” Michael panted as he rolled onto his hands and good knee and tried to get up.

Jorge pulled him to his feet. “You can’t do this, Michael.”

“Yes! Yes, I can!”

“Michael, the blood stops here. They picked him up,” Jorge said somberly.

Michael spun on one foot and almost fell. “Where?”

Jorge kept him upright. “There.”

A swath of blood stretched the sidewalk where they had dragged Christy into the car. Michael looked around frantically. “You sure?”

“Yeah, Michael. I’m sure.”

“Fuck!” Michael yelled to the heavens.

“What do you want to do?”

“Whitey’s. Get me to Whitey’s.”

“I can’t do it, man.”

“Why not?”

“I’m Mexican.”

“So, what?”

“It’s a white supremacist bar.”

“Screw that. It’s Lisa’s family. Just get me there.”

Jorge only shook his head and helped Michael into the car.

“M
ICHAEL
,
you’re sweating. You look like you’re going to pass out.”

Michael glanced over at Jorge as he drove. “I’m fine. Just get me there.”

Jorge pulled up in front of the bar, careful to avoid any number of Harleys that haphazardly decorated the front lot. “This is as far as I go, Michael.”

Michael’s head lolled toward the bar and a biker who was dismounting his bike. He rolled the window down. “Hey!”

The biker turned.

“C’mere, man.”

The biker walked over, leaned his arms on the door, and peered in at them. “A little young, aren’t you?” he said with a laugh.

“Smitty. Get Smitty,” Michael breathed.

The biker continued to laugh. “Who?”

Michael grabbed the guy’s shirt and yanked it so hard that the guy’s forehead hit the window frame. “Tell Smitty that Michael, Baby’s friend, is here,” Michael spat into his face.

The guy looked down at Michael’s blood-covered hand and frowned. “Yeah, sure.”

“Don’t screw with me, man. I’m not in the mood,” Michael warned and shoved the guy away.

The guy walked away, glancing back at Michael once before he entered the bar.

They waited for ten minutes, and nothing happened. Michael shoved the door open and began to get out of the car.

“Where are you going?”

“Inside.”

“It’s not safe, man.”

“I gotta go inside. Smitty’s the only one who has what I need to find Christy.”

“You can’t go in there. You’re not twenty-one.”

“Watch me.” Michael hauled himself out of the car by the doorframe. He stilled as pain filled his swollen leg and shot up his back.

Jorge swore in Spanish as he got out of the car and came around to help Michael. “My parents will never forgive you if I die tonight.”

“Just get me inside and go home.” Michael breathed through the pain.

Jorge helped Michael hobble to the wooden door and opened it for him. They stepped inside, and the bar quieted as all eyes turned to them in the smoky haze. More than half the bar patrons rose from their seats in challenge.

“I need Smitty!” Michael yelled.

“Don’t know who you’re talkin’ about. Go on home, kid,” the bartender said solemnly.

“Babylicious!” Michael yelled at the top of his lungs. His shout hung in the air for what seemed an eternity before Lisa stuck her head out from behind the swinging kitchen door.

“Mike? Oh my God!” She ran to him and supported the side Jorge didn’t have. Michael moved forward, uncertain that his leg would hold, and leaned on Jorge hard. “Tell everybody to leave Jorge alone.”

“Back off! They’re friends!” she shouted. “Uncle Smitty!”

Smitty stepped through the same kitchen door, and all it took was a look from him and everyone sat down. He held the swinging door open in a silent command to Lisa to bring them into the back.

“J
ESUS
,
Mike. What’d you do? Leave the hospital before they took care of you?”

“Yeah, I need to find Christy.” Michael was nearly delirious with pain as he lay on the cot in Smitty’s office. Or maybe it was a communications room. Speakers squawked and several people changed frequency dials on various panels and made notes. “Where are we?”

“Smitty’s office. We’re looking for Christy. We caught the news, and Smitty’s been trying to find Christy ever since. Let the nurse take care of you.”

“What nurse?” Michael groaned as pain threatened to overwhelm him.

“Shhh” was the last thing Michael heard before he passed out.

W
HISPERS
sounded like hisses in Michael’s ears, and he fought to make out the words, but they were nothing more than sounds on the air. It was as if white noise filled his mind, overriding the voices in his head. The only words that resonated within were
find Christy
. He tried to open his eyes, and his lids felt like lead. He concentrated, but they wouldn’t open. He tried to reach out, but his arms were too heavy to move. He tried to move his legs, but they wouldn’t move either. It was as if someone had put him in an iron cast. He swallowed and found his throat on fire and too parched to speak. He summoned every ounce of his strength and shouted “Christy!” It came out in a whisper.

“He’s awake,” someone said softly.

“Mike?”

“Christy!” he tried again. Nothing but a whisper.

Someone put a straw to his lips and lifted his head. “Drink, Mike.”

He drank deeply, and the relief to his throat was monumental.

“You’re at Smitty’s. Do you remember coming here?”

Michael thought hard. No, he didn’t remember, but the voice sounded familiar. “Lisa?”

“That’s right, Mike.”

The last thing he remembered was Christy’s blood on the sidewalk. “Christy’s blood,” he managed to eke out.

“That’s right. You and Jorge tracked Christy. You’re at Smitty’s now. Can you open your eyes?”

“Jorge,” he breathed.

“Right here. It’s all good, Michael.”

Michael fought to open his eyes, but his lids were like lead shields. “So tired.” Then everything came roaring back again. “Christy!”

“We’re trying to find him.”

“Where is he?”

“Don’t know yet, but we’re close. We had to knock you out so the nurse could work on you. Your kneecap was dislocated, you needed about a thousand stitches in your hands, we had to brace your elbow, and you need your kidneys checked out. You’re in bad shape. Can you sit up?”

He couldn’t open his eyes; how could he sit up? “Help.”

“Open your eyes,” Lisa cajoled.

Michael concentrated and managed to open them to slits. The room was dim. Lisa sat to his right, and Jorge sat at his feet. “Sit up,” he croaked. Lisa helped him into a sitting position and put a straw to his lips again. “Drink.”

His head felt so heavy, as if it had all of a sudden gained a thousand pounds. “Christy?”

“We’re looking for him, Mike.”

She helped him sit up straighter, and he found his leg in a full cast. “My leg—”

“Yeah, Mike, your kneecap was dislocated. We put it back together.”

Michael slowly took inventory of his body. His right arm was wrapped in some stiff material in an L position, which he didn’t understand at all. His hands were bandaged in gauze, and he didn’t understand that either.