کتاب 09-11

11

Harper stretched out in the dark beside Renée with the cat nestled between them, in the space behind three rows of fire extinguishers. Allie and Nick had settled under the hoses in the other compartment. Harper’s face was buried in Mr. Truffle’s fur and with each inhalation she smelled the last nine months of his secret cat life: must, dust, grave dirt, basements and tall grass, beach and drainpipe, Dumpster and dandelions.

The truck droned and thudded. They were on South Street now, Harper could tell by their slow progress and all the swaying. There were a lot of curves on South Street. They hit a pothole and her teeth banged together.

“It used to be five hours to Machias. How long do you think it takes now?” Renée asked softly.

“We don’t know what the interstate is like. The fire last fall burned from Boothbay Harbor to the border. Thousands and thousands of acres. Who knows if we’ll be able to drive the whole way. If we have to walk some or most of it, it could take us—well, a long time.”

Mr. Truffles’s purrs echoed in the wooden cabinet, a rhythmic rattling that made Harper think of someone playing a washboard in a bluegrass band.

“But if the road is clear, we could be on the island tonight.”

“We don’t know how long they’ll need to process us. Or how often they send over the boats.”

“Wouldn’t it be something to take a shower in hot water?”

“That’s crazy talk. Next you’ll be daydreaming about food that doesn’t come from a can.”

“Have you slept with him?” Renée asked, out of the blue.

The fire truck shifted gears and began to accelerate. They were off South Street now and on Middle Road. The blacktop was newer under the tires, Harper could tell from the smoothness of the ride.

“No,” Harper said. “I mean—we’ve been in bed together, but we’ve only ever just held each other. His ribs. His bad arm.” She didn’t know how to explain about the other woman who was always in the room with them, the one in the flames. “More recently, I’ve been very pregnant.”

“I guess you can straighten that out when you’re on the island.” The fire truck rocked and clattered. “I wish Gil and I had that. I wish there had been a way—but the Mazz was always watching, always in the room with us. I know I’m not so much to look at. I mean, I’m fat and I’m almost fifty. But he had been in prison a long time, and—”

“Renée, you are adorably fuckable,” Harper said. “You would’ve rocked his world.”

Renée clapped a hand over her mouth and quivered helplessly.

The fire extinguishers clattered and rang, chiming against one another.

When Renée had control of herself again, she said, “You’ve kissed him, though? And used the L-word?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Gil never said it to me, so I never said it to him. I didn’t want to say it and have him feel like he was obliged. I wish I had now. Risked it, I mean. I don’t care if he said it back to me. I just wish he had heard it from me.”

“He knew,” Harper said.

The sound under the tires changed, became deeper and hollow somehow. Harper thought they might be on the ramp, climbing to I-95 now. Any minute, she thought. Any minute. Any minute. When they went up onto the bridge, it would make a steely, rushing roar. There would be no mistaking it. The checkpoint was located a third of the way across the bridge.

“I wish I had said it to him this morning. If they stop us and find us, I might not get a chance,” Harper said. Her pulse quickened as the truck sped up. “I do very much love you, Renée Gilmonton. You are the most thoughtful person I know. I hope I can be like you when I grow up.”

“Oh, Harper. Don’t ever be anyone but yourself, please. You are perfect just as you are.”

The bridge began to ring under the tires and the truck was slowing.

With her eyes closed, Harper could visualize it: the bridge was six lanes wide, three going south and three going north, with a concrete island separating the two. In the old days one swept right across into Maine without pause, but the governor had thrown up a security checkpoint back in the fall. There would be something blocking two of the three lanes headed north: police cruisers, or Humvees, or a concrete barrier. How many men? How many guns? The air brakes squealed. The fire engine rocked to a halt.

Boots clanged. She heard muted conversation, followed by an unexpected outburst of laughter—John’s, Harper thought. More chatter. Harper noticed she wasn’t breathing and forced herself to exhale a long, slow breath.

“Can I hold your hand?” Renée whispered.

Harper reached blindly through the dark and found Renée’s warm, soft palm.

The door at the rear of the compartment opened a quarter inch.

Harper caught her breath. She thought: Now. Now they look in. She and Renée were completely still under their blanket, in the space behind the fire extinguishers. Harper figured it was simple. If they looked behind the fire extinguishers, everyone died. If they didn’t, they would all survive the morning.

The cabinet door crept open another quarter inch, and Harper wondered—with a kind of irritation—why the fuck the dude didn’t just throw it wide.

“Oh God,” Renée said, understanding before Harper by a fraction of an instant.

Harper sat up on her elbows, her pulse jumping in her throat.

It wasn’t someone outside opening the door at all. The door was being opened from the inside. Mr. Truffles stuck his head out and stared into the bright morning. He brought his shoulders forward, nudging the door open another six inches, and hopped down. Thanks for the ride, kids, this is where I get off.

Renée was squeezing Harper’s hand so hard, Harper’s fingers ached.

“Oh Jesus,” Renée whispered. “Oh God.”

Harper pried her hand free and sat up on her knees to look over the tops of the fire extinguishers. She saw a slice of glorious blue sky, fading to white in the distance, and the gray curve of the bridge bending back down to New Hampshire soil.

Wrecks lined the breakdown lane, stretching all the way to the foot of the bridge and beyond. There were maybe a hundred empty vehicles back there: all the cars that had tried to run the blockade and failed. Bullet holes cobwebbed windshields, punctured hoods and doors.

Voices drifted back to them from the front of the truck. Someone was saying, “You’re kidding me. When was the last time it saw service?”

Harper gently lifted one of the fire extinguishers and moved it aside. It clinked softly.

“No, Harper,” Renée whispered, but Harper wasn’t taking a vote on this one. If the cat stepped into view it would draw attention to the rear of the truck.

She moved another fire extinguisher. Clink.

“Oh, we usually bring it out t’garage every Fourth of July. We blast the kiddies with the hose, knock ’em right off their feet, they think it’s a scream.” A laconic Down Easter was speaking toward the front of the truck. His voice was vaguely familiar. “They wouldn’t think it was such a scream if we put it on full pressure. There’d be six-year-olds flyin’ up into the fackin’ trees.”

This was met with a ragged bellow of appreciative laughter, half a dozen men at least. It came to Harper in that instant who was doing the talking. The droll old salt running his yap was the Fireman, putting on his Don Lewiston voice.

She pushed open the door and stuck her head into the day.

The air smelled of the river, a sweet mineral scent with a just slightly rotten odor beneath it. No one was in the road behind the truck. The sentries were standing up by the cab. A white booth with dusty Plexiglas windows stood empty to the immediate right. A CB mounted to the Formica desk crackled and spat.

“Your front end looks pretty banged up. You hit something with it?” asked one of the sentries.

“Oh, that was a couple months ago. I struck what I thought was a fackin’ pothole. Turned out I went over a Prius with a couple burners in it. Oops!”

More laughter and louder this time.

Mr. Truffles looked up from the road at Harper, narrowed his eyes, yawned, then lifted a rear leg and began to lick his furry balls.

“I don’t see you on my checklist,” one of the sentries said. He didn’t sound unfriendly, but his voice wasn’t exactly quaking with laughter, either. “I got a list of all the approved trucks headed north. I don’t see your plates.”

“Can I look?” asked the Fireman.

Papers ruffled.

Harper put a foot down on the blacktop, eased herself out over the bumper.

The line of shot-up wrecks went on and on, following the edge of the road all the way down the bridge and out of sight. Harper saw a station wagon with half a dozen bullet holes in the sagging windshield. There was a child seat buckled in back.

“Ah, there,” said the Fireman. “This one. There’s my love.”

Harper thought his accent had slipped for a moment, wondered if anyone else had noticed.

“The 1963 Studebaker? I’m no expert, but this fire truck doesn’t look like something from 1963.”

“No, it sure doesn’t. It’s not a ’63. It’s a ’36. They flipped around two of their numbers. Wrong fackin’ license plate, too. What you’ve got here was probably the old plates. They were swapped out for antique plates three—fuck, four? At least four fackin’ years ago.”

The guy sighed. “Someone’s going to eat shit over this.”

“Yeah. You can count on that,” said the Fireman. “Ah, fuck it. If someone has to get in trouble, it might as well be me. How they going to yell at me? If someone wants to bitch me out, they’re gonna have to come north to Maine and find me. Give me your pen. I’ll write in the correct license plate.”

“Would you do that?”

“Yep. I’ll even initial it.”

“Hey, Glen? You want me to call it in on the CB?” someone else asked. He sounded young, his voice almost cracking. “I could clear this up in five minutes with the town office.”

Harper picked Mr. Truffles up in both hands. He mewed softly. She started to pivot back toward the fire engine, then froze, staring into the empty booth.

A video camera, mounted under the eaves, pointed back at her. She could see herself, a little out of focus, on a blue-tinted TV screen on the counter inside the booth.

She was still gaping at herself on the security monitor when one of the guards walked into view, stepping into the space between herself and the dusty kiosk. He was barely more than a kid, with close-cropped, carrot-colored hair and an M16 on one shoulder. His back was to her. If he had looked over his shoulder he would’ve been staring right at her. If he glanced into the booth, he would see her image on the monitor. But he did neither. The sentry was gazing toward the front of the fire truck. He gestured with one thumb at the booth.

“I know all the guys in Public Works,” he said. “They’ve got a list of all the approved vehicles and there’s always someone in the office—Alvin Whipple, maybe, or Jakob Grayson. They could tell us what to do.”

Harper pushed Mr. Truffles up into the cabinet. She lifted her foot carefully, stretching her leg as high as she could, and pulled herself into the back.

“Good idea! Do that,” the Fireman called out. “No, wait—shit, come back here. You’re going to want your clipboard so you can call in the correct plate.”

Harper peered out through the cabinet door, still open a crack, and watched the redheaded boy jog back toward the front of the truck. In a moment he had trotted out of sight.

Harper eased the door shut.

She handed Mr. Truffles to Renée and rearranged the fire extinguishers to hide them . . . an unnecessary task, as no one ever opened the back compartments, and in another moment they were moving. Harper laid herself flat. A muscle twitched nervously in her left leg.

Mr. Truffles purred softly. Renée ran her fingers through the fur on the crown of his head.

“You want to know something, Harper?” Renée asked softly.

“What?” Harper asked.

“I don’t think this is my cat,” Renée told her.