Tribe (17 page)

“I'm going to fuck you, Janice,” he said, his voice deep and slurred. “You know why? You know why I'm going to fuck you? Because my cock goes everywhere. Just last week your
boyfriend, your Todd, was sucking on this cock—that's right, don't look so shocked, he's the faggot, not me. My cock was in his mouth, and now I'm going to put it right in your pussy.”

It was as if he'd taken an electrical cord and shocked her. Todd? Todd and Pat together? She just lay there, the tequila still burning within her body, Pat's words searing her mind. And he did it. He fucked her. In the end, Janice was just so freaked out that she lay there as passive as a pillow.

When he was done, she crawled out from underneath him and stumbled into the bathroom, where she locked the door. She curled up in the bathtub and cried, and then in the middle of the night she got up, snuck out into the room where Pat was snoring. She took all his money, all of his credit cards, and walked across town to the bus station, where she caught a Greyhound at 5:03
a.m.
She arrived in Phoenix two days later.

When
an answering machine picked up after the fourth ring and announced that she'd reached a particular business office, she recognized the deep voice. Okay, she said to herself, don't be afraid. It's okay. Just sound strong, sound calm. Standing up and starting to pace in the small room, Janice told herself to be brief, to the point.

When the signal came for her to leave a message, Janice put one hand to her forehead, closed her eyes, and said, “Hi, this is Janice Gray calling for Pat. Please tell him there's a problem and that we need to talk.”

She left her phone number, then hung up. Clutching the cordless phone against her breast and wishing it to ring that very instant with a return call, she headed down to the kitchen, where she heated a mug of water in the microwave. When it was hot she dropped in a tea bag and sat down at her small breakfast table, the marble one with the black iron base.

Now all she had to do was wait.

“I can't believe it,”
said Rawlins once Todd had finished telling him the brunt of the story.

“
You
can't? What about me?” Todd hung tightly on to the steering wheel as he drove south on the whitened Xerxes Avenue. “It's just too weird, finding out in a matter of a few seconds not only that I might have a son—in his twenties, no less—but a granddaughter too.”

“It's a strange world.”

“No shit.”

A huge gust of wind and snow belted the car, which caused the entire vehicle to heave to the side. Todd steered back to the right, and he had no idea whether he should be elated or heartbroken. Then again, if Janice didn't even know, how could he?

He heard some chuckling to the side, glanced over, saw Rawlins leaning against the car door, a gloved hand to his mouth.

Todd demanded, “What the hell are you laughing about?”

“I don't know if I would've started dating you if I'd known you were a grandfather.”

“Very funny.”

“Gramps—that's what I'm going to start calling you.”

“Why do I suddenly feel very old?”

“Responsibility does that to a person.”

Not quite five minutes later Todd turned off Xerxes Avenue and proceeded to the rear of Edina Hospital, where he parked in a three-story ramp. Both of them pulled up their collars and then ran through the snow and wind to the hospital entrance. Once inside, the electric doors closed behind them, sealing out the storm, and the two of them brushed themselves off, stomped their feet, and glanced about. Not a soul was to be seen. Even the guard's desk was vacant, a desk lamp on, but no one sitting there.

“God, this place is like a morgue,” said Todd, checking out the halls and empty waiting areas. “Now what?”

Rawlins shrugged. “As my Russian grandmother used to say, ‘Your tongue will lead you to Moscow.' ”

“Meaning?”

“We start asking questions and supposedly we'll find out how to get there.”

“Well, I highly doubt the personnel department is going to be open at this time of night.”

“No, but there's a receptionist right over there. Where's the picture of the young hunk?”

“Don't talk about him like that,” said Todd.

He reached inside his coat, pulled the photograph from his shirt pocket, and stood there staring at it. Okay, so the kid was good-looking. Supposedly bright and pleasant too. But then, as Todd studied the high school picture of the kid that might or might not be his son, he had a terrible realization. Had he known for sure at the time that Janice was pregnant with his kid, he wouldn't have encouraged her to do as she did, to put Zeb up for adoption. Rather, he would have encouraged her, been very persistent, and somehow, he was sure, persuaded her, to have an abortion.

Suddenly the photograph was yanked out of his hands.

“Hey, Todd, come on,” called Rawlins, pulling Todd back to the moment. “Let's see if anyone recognizes the kid.”

It was warm back here in the hospital laundry room. And it was safe. Settled deep in bags of sheets as if they were nothing more than a hill of beanbags, Zeb cradled his baby in his arms and started to doze off. Ribka had the medication she needed, she'd just eaten a full bottle of formula, she even had a clean diaper, which was more, much more than he'd ever hoped for tonight. And, of course, they had a warm place to sleep, all thanks to Brenda, the nurse, who'd fortunately understood his dilemma, or at least as much as he'd been able to explain. Then again, how could you describe The Congregation and have it make sense to anyone who hadn't been there, living on the compound, working in the bakery?

Fuck, fuck, fuck, he thought to himself with a grin, for it felt so incredibly great just to think it let alone say it.

Whispering so as not to wake the baby, he said, “
Fuuuuuuckkkk.”

Those morons at The Congregation would only say “Ghastly” or “Worldly.” Worldly? What the hell did that mean? How stupid. He was so sick of their Bible babble, so sick of them creeping into every part of his life, demanding that he think one way, their way, and always looking at him suspiciously because, after all, he was a “fringer,” someone who wasn't really one of them.

He felt old, not only because here he was, his own baby asleep in his arms, but because everything was beginning to make sense. He finally understood why his mother had left The Congregation over ten years ago. After her closest friend in the group, Louise, had died of skin cancer, Zeb's own mother had lost her faith completely. It had been treatable, Zeb's mom had explained that night as she stuffed him in one of the cars and drove to the Colorado Springs bus depot. Louise didn't die because of a lack of faith. She hadn't given over to Satan, she didn't have the mark of the beast. Plus she'd even been rebaptized when she'd joined The Congregation, making that a nonissue. No, none of those had been a problem. Louise believed, Louise trusted, Louise stood on The Promises. And yet she'd died, even as The Elders had gathered and placed a drop of blessed oil upon her forehead. She'd died not for lack of faith, but because of the ignorance of The Congregation.

“People get skin cancer all the time,” Zeb's mom had sobbed as they rode the bus that morning. “You just go to the doctor and have it treated. Louise spotted it real early. She could have just had it frozen off. Zap—that's it.”

Instead, all the prayers in the world, all the faith in the world hadn't been able to save Louise, and she had died a slow, painful death. Funny, thought Zeb, Louise was the mother of Zeb's wife, Suzanne, the one he'd screwed and been forced to marry. In spite of all the pain Suzanne had experienced over her mother's death, however, she still hadn't wanted to take her own baby to a doctor. The Elders and her father had prevailed, placing a drop of oil on the baby's forehead, and then telling Suzanne and Zeb to pray to God the Father and God the Son. When the child failed to improve, The Elders had asserted that it was their fault, Suzanne and Zeb's. They just didn't have enough faith. They just had to pray more, believe more.

Well, bullshit. Who cared if Suzanne's own father was head of The Congregation, there was no way in hell that bastard was God's Apostle on earth. Hell no. He was Satan. Zeb's baby girl just had a chronic, low-grade infection in her middle ear. That was why she was so cranky and crabby.

“You should have brought her in sooner, because from the looks of it this has been going on for a while,” said the doctor Zeb had taken her to right after they'd fled The Congregation. “What that means is that we're going to be fairly aggressive with one particular antibiotic. It's rather expensive, but we want this to clear up as soon as possible.”

Zeb had wanted to tell Suzanne about his plans to take Ribka to a doctor, he'd thought about asking her to run away with him, but he just couldn't tell what she'd think, say, or do. Supposedly they were married, but he really didn't know her—not what she really wanted anyway. So rather than jeopardize the baby's safety and health—The Elders would have locked Zeb up in the bakery basement if they'd found out he was planning to kidnap the baby—Zeb had kept his plans a secret, encouraged only by his mother in Santa Fe.

He'd done the right thing too. He'd known that when he was less than a mile away from the compound; he was positive as soon as he'd taken Ribka to the doctor. Maybe sometime soon he'd call Suzanne and apologize, but little Ribka was more important than anything, and he hugged her gently, kissed the top of her head. She was getting her medication, the infection was clearing up, and she was fine, just fine, sleeping peacefully, eating well. What a relief. Yes, there was a God. Or there probably was. But it certainly wasn't theirs.

There was just one more problem. After tonight where were they going to sleep?

Okay, so now he couldn't go back to Janice's, and he doubted he could go back to that tiny rat hole of an apartment he'd rented. Brother Paul, that King Kong of a jerk, was in Minneapolis, and if there were other members of The Congregation here, sooner or later they'd find him. Which meant, Zeb realized, that he was going to have to take off, leave Minneapolis completely. Maybe the storm would slow things down, give him a little extra time so he could at least collect his first paycheck from the hospital. Maybe Brenda might even know of a place where he could crash for a while. Sure, he hardly knew her, but she was nice, she probably would help. Just look at what she'd done for him tonight. Not only had she been the one to steal the medicine, she'd also suggested that Zeb and Ribka sleep in the laundry room so they wouldn't have to go back out in the winter storm.

Someone knocked on the door and Zeb immediately stiffened. Two taps, a pause, three taps. Good, all was safe. It was her, Brenda, and he couldn't help but wonder why she'd come back so soon. Dinner? She'd said she was going to try to scrounge up something for him. Maybe she had, and maybe she'd even brought something for herself and he would have some company.

When the door opened, he looked up with a smile and said softly, “Hi, I was just thinking about you.”

She quickly slipped in, pulled the door shut, locked it, and turned to him with a worried expression creasing her brow. Oh, God, he thought. He feared what was up. The Congregation was just that conniving.

“Don't tell me they're here already?” he said.

“I don't know if it's them, those guys from that cult or whatever, but there are two guys upstairs looking for you,” said Brenda, obviously concerned, even scared. “They came up on the third floor and asked some of the nurses if we'd seen you tonight.”

“Oh, no. This is bad, really bad.”

“Yeah, and they even had a picture they were showing around. They asked if I knew you, but I lied. One of the other nurses, though, well, she said she thought she'd seen you around earlier this evening.”

“Shit.” Zeb clenched his forehead with one hand. “I can't stay here. I gotta go, I gotta get out of here.”

“No, I think you'll be okay,” countered Brenda. “I just wanted to come down and tell you so you'd stay in here, so you wouldn't go out in the hall.”

“No, you don't know them. They won't give up until they'll find me. They're like bloodhounds. And if they're this close, they're going to search the whole building.”

“Zeb, I—”

“What if Ribka wakes up and she starts crying? What if one of them is right out in the hall?” Zeb started pushing himself out of the nest of laundry bags. “I gotta get out of here right now.”

“But—”

“Brenda, they'll beat the shit out of me if they catch me. And…they'll take her, little Ribka. That's what they want, what they came for. They'll probably kill me, but they'll take her.”

“What about the police, maybe you should go to them?”

“Yeah, right, and be arrested for kidnapping?”

“But she's your daughter,” pleaded Brenda, “and she would've gotten sicker if you hadn't gotten her away from them.”

“Trust me, I've thought of every angle.”

“So where are you going to go?”

“I don't know. I don't think I can go back to my apartment. If they're all the way out here at the hospital, then for sure they've already been there. I just don't get how they could've found me so quickly.”

“Well,” said Brenda, glancing around, “there's always my place. I guess that'd be okay. I'm here all night, but I don't think my roommate would mind. There's no way they could find you there.”