Root (Book One of The Liminality)

“You’re a fuckin’ weirdo. You know that?”

  “Yeah.” I sighed. “So I’ve been told.”

  We crossed into Maryland and Tonio slurped the last of the Big Gulp he had gotten from the Seven-Eleven before we left Pittsburgh.

  “Shit, this is a long drive,” said Tonio. “Why couldn’t you fly from Pitt?”

  “Too much money,” I said. “If you guys came up with the cash you promised, maybe it wouldn’t have been an issue.”

  “Say what?” he squeaked. “You got more than two grand if you count that check.

  “Yeah, but you guys also ended up with a truck.”

  “Which they was gonna get anyway.”

  “Listen, you all got a good deal. Admit it.”

  “’You all?’ Pedro and Robert got the deal. You think I’m gonna see any of that? I’m just their go-fer. And as for how good it is, we’ll see how good once the shit comes down. If they had asked me, I would’ve said no. Whoever you got that shit from, that’s some big machotes we’re messing with. I wish they had just stuck with the small stuff.”

  “You guys’ll be fine,” I said. “They’re never gonna know if you just sit on it a while. Wait till things cool down. Sell a little at a time. It’s not like the stuff is perishable.”

  “So why didn’t you do that instead of giving it up like a fire sale?”

  “No time,” I said. “I got places to go, people to see.”

  “Yeah? And who’s that? Who’s so important you gotta dump a shit load of prime blow to run off to Europe?”

  “A … friend.”

  Tonio giggled. “Oh, don’t tell me it’s some bitch.”

  “Yeah, she’s a girl.”

  Tonio rolled his eyes. “Puta madre! Them fucking bitches get you every time. Every man’s downfall.”

  “You got a girlfriend, Tonio?”

  “Um, nah. Not at the moment. I’m in between.”

  “Not a bad place to be.”

  “Unless you want to get laid.”

  “So what the deal with you and the other guys?” I said. “I assumed you were equal partners.”

  “Yeah, right. I’m just their lookout. Fucking errand boy.”

  “Hey listen. If you want to stop and get something to eat. Go for it. It’s on me.”

  “Mighty big a you,” said Tonio, with a bit of sarcasm.

  “I mean it,” I said.

  “Thanks. I ain’t that hungry.”

  ***

  As we hurtled through the outskirts of Frederic, I studied the AAA map I had found in a side pocket. Tonio was counting on me to do all the navigation. He had never driven this far outside of Pittsburgh before.

  “You want 15 South,” I told him as we whizzed past a mill dam with a rampaging spillway. “We need to cross the Potomac.”

  “But the sign says DC that a way.”

  “We don’t want that. Dulles is in Virginia.”

  “Say what? You mean I don’t get to see the Capitol?”

  “You can do whatever you want once you drop me off,” I said. “But the airport is this way.”

  Tonio gawked at the river as we crossed the steel frame bridge at Point of Rocks. Despite his grumblings, I think he was enjoying this drive. The scenery sure was pretty, with all these rambling fields and barns.

  Traffic got a bit heavy in places and slowed us down. I had expected to have reached Dulles by now, but it was only a little after five. Still plenty of time.

  As we crept through the center of Leesburg’s business district, Tonio got a little antsy.

  “Man, where the fuck you taking me?”

  “Short cut,” I said. “Trust me.”

  A couple blocks farther, a big sign for the airport redeemed me. We turned onto 267, a toll road that cut straight down to Dulles.

  I went to gather my things, but there was not much to gather, just that CVS bag, the passport in my shirt pocket and a boarding pass.

  As we closed in on the airport, Tonio’s cell phone buzzed and he answered it. At first he was all calm and loosey-goosey—it sounded like he was talking to Chinstrap. But then all of the jokiness went out of his voice, and his face set like Bondo.

  “Yeah? No shit? Shit. Fucking Christ. Yeah. No Problem.” He threw me a worried glance. “I can handle it.”

  He jerked the wheel and pulled onto a ramp one exit too soon.

  “Wait! Where are you doing? It’s not this exit, it’s the next.” We sat behind a line of cars leading up to a toll booth.

  “The guys … they want me to run this errand … first.”

  “An errand? What the fuck? Can’t it wait? We’re almost at the airport.”

  “Don’t worry, we got plenty of time. Your flight don’t leave for four hours yet. That right?”

  “What kind … of errand?”

  “Uh … they just want me to drop something off … you know … while I’m down here.”

  Tonio was a horrible actor. His idea of nonchalance was to stiffen every muscle of his body and avoid eye contact. And yet he kept glancing my way. And the more nervous he got, the more nervous he made me.

  Something was wrong. What possible errand could they want him to run? And why wait to tell him until after we’ve been driving four and a half hours? We were only a couple miles from the airport. It made absolutely no sense.

  I had this vision of Tonio turning into an abandoned parking lot and there’d be this grey Escalade waiting for us.

  The line crept forward. We were one car away from paying the toll.

  “Tonio, drop me off here. I can walk.”

  “No man. I can take you. Just let me do this one errand.”

  “No. That’s okay. I’m gonna walk.”

  Tonio slipped a hand into his hoodie and pulled out a gun. His hands were shaking. “I can’t let you do that. Sorry man.”

  But I didn’t hesitate. I snatched the plastic sack holding my last possessions and was out that door in a flash, tearing through a fringe of trees and onto a grassy sward, heading for an office park tucked among the highway cloverleaves.

  Chapter 25: Dulles

  I ran down the embankment to a parking lot surrounding a huge office park. Angular, glass-sheathed buildings sprouted from the sea of pavement like alien crystals. Three steps across, I hesitated—the architecture too stark to feel like a refuge.

  And then I heard this little engine rev up to a shrill whine. Tonio’s car bolted free from the toll booths like a sprung colt.

  I had often complained about movie scenes where someone is fleeing from bad guys in a car down the center stripe of some, probably just because the director thought it looked cool. Well, it’s just plain stupid and enough to make me lose all sympathy with the characters (not to mention, dragging me out of the story—wink wink).

  So I didn’t run across that lot. I doubled back into the trees where Tonio couldn’t reach me with his car. I ducked down behind a patch of blackberries as his car came whipping into the lot, weaving back and forth, creeping down each row of parking spaces, hunting for me.

  But I couldn’t stay put so close to the scene of my escape. The toll booth was just the other side of a long row of pines. So I followed some power lines deeper into the woods, skirting the edge of a bulldozed area where they were putting in more parking lots and office parks.

  All in all, I had made out well. I had a ticket to Rome and a good fifteen hundred bucks in cash stuffed in my pockets. With more time and patience, I could have done even better, but if the deal had taken any longer to set up, those Cleveland guys would have nabbed me in Pittsburgh.

  It shocked me how quickly they had homed in on Chinstrap and Soul Patch. Apparently their network had its fingers in every pie. I felt sorry for those two. I hoped nothing horrible happened to them. Maybe the bad experience would steer them out of the drug trade, or … lead to better business opportunities. Whatever.

  As bad as I felt, I obviously had no intention of giving the money back or making it easy for Tonio to find me. I plunged deep int
o the woods, crossing muddy sloughs and fighting my way through patches of brambles that ripped at my clothes.

  When the woods ran out, I found myself on the edge of a series of cornfields separated by windbreaks—narrow strips of oaks and junipers. The corn was only chest high, so I used the windbreaks to screen my traverse, keeping to the side away from the main road. There was a long drive leading to a farmhouse behind me, but I could spot any cars coming that way before they spotted me.

  Planes came howling down one after the other, each about two minutes apart, locking their landing gear right over my head. It heartened me to see how close I was to the airport, only a couple miles north of a major runway. Hard to believe I would be sitting on one of those planes only a few hours from now.

  The windbreak led me to a stone wall running along a larger road with some light but steady traffic. No way around it, I was going to have to expose myself and cross. But for now, I rested in a patch of spongy moss, sitting with my back against a fallen tree.

  I turned my head and was struck by how the fields behind me caught the slanting light of the setting sun. It would have looked amazing in a painting or postcard.

  Experiencing beauty in such moments confused me. When I was depressed, walking down a beach surrounded by all these golden dunes, feathery clouds and glittery waves—it just didn’t seem fair. The world had no right to flaunt its prettiness at me like that. Why couldn’t my surroundings match my moods?

  I turned my attention to the residential complex across the road, planning my next move. They were condo and townhouses mostly, pretty upscale for being directly beneath the landing pattern of a major airport. The buildings were densely packed but nicely landscaped, with patches of grass to walk your dog in and plantings of dogwood and oleander, all of it nestled in this pocket of woodland.

  I went over the wall, waited for a gap in the traffic and darted across. I worried this move would bring an Escalade full of gangsters with Uzis after my ass, but nothing happened. The traffic just kept whizzing by.

  I entered the complex, which seemed eerily quiet for a weekday afternoon. No kids anywhere. No toys in the yard or even playgrounds. I trained my eyes on a couple of suspicious cars lurking in the visitor’s spaces, but they weren’t even occupied.

  Twilight fell. Street lights flickered on. I tried to make it look as if I belonged here, swinging my shredded CVS bag as if I had just taken a stroll to the corner drugstore and was headed back home for an evening of sitcoms and cop shows.

  I could see the forest looming on the far side of the complex—the last obstacle between here and the airport. It would be no fun stumbling around those woods in the dark, but what choice did I have? At least there was no way I could get lost with that endless train of jet planes coming down to point the way.

  I snaked my way through a curvy grid of streets, heading for the far corner. One street over, there was a guy standing under a street lamp, talking on a phone.

  Checkered shirt! It was Tonio! That sucker didn’t give up easily.

  I turned the corner and sprinted into this recreation complex. I jogged past a bank of windows—a zoo of people on treadmills, plugged into white ear phones, gazing through the glass with unseeing eyes.

  Behind the gym, there was a chain link fence with a locked gate leading to a dirt road that undulated through the piney woods, narrowing as it rose, disappearing into the shadows beneath a tangle of branches. I slipped through the gate and into the dark.

  ***

  I lost the trail almost immediately and had to plow my way through some thick underbrush and slog through a swamp, but the lights of the planes and runway markers kept me pointed the right way. I eventually blundered back onto the road, which was barely wide enough for a single jeep to pass. From the well-worn grooves, patrols of some sort seemed to come through regularly.

  After a half hour of splashing through puddles and tripping over rocks, the trail finally met the perimeter of the runway. A twenty foot fence topped with razor wire bounded a no-man’s-land of closely mown scrub. Far down the other end, the glowing tower and terminals of Dulles beckoned.

  The jeep trail dumped me out onto a commercial vehicle access road lined with hangars and warehouses. I paused a moment to catch my breath before continuing onward.

  I hadn’t gone a hundred feet before a security van with lights flashing came careening off the main terminal road, stopping with its high beams in my face. I froze like a jack-lighted deer.

  One of the cops stepped out, arms loose at his side. “Lost?”

  “Just trying to get to the airport. My ride broke down at the toll booth one exit back. I decided to walk. I’ve got a flight at eleven.”

  “You walked all the way from exit eight?”

  “Um … yeah.” It was exit seven, actually—the one before. But he didn’t have to know that. My story was weird enough already.

  “Put down that bag and step away.”

  “I … I have a boarding pass,” I said.

  “Show me.”

  I pulled out the card and held it high. He clicked his flashlight on and directed the beam at it.

  “Bring it here.”

  I slogged over, muddy water squishing out through the lace holes of my sneakers.

  His partner got out from the other side of the van and came up behind me, poking around the stuff in my bag.

  “Ethiopian? Really?” he said, squinting at the boarding card.

  “Hey, it was cheap.”

  “Why are you going to Rome?”

  “To meet a … friend.”

  “Just random junk in here,” said the other cop, poking through my bag.

  The first cop eased his posture. “Jeez, kid … what are you doing crashing through the woods in the dark? Why couldn’t you just call a cab?”

  “I don’t know. Saw all those planes coming in, thought the airport would be closer than it was.”

  “You have no idea how dangerous it is to be pulling stuff like that post 9/11.”

  I shrugged. “Sorry. I thought it would be obvious that I’m not any terrorist.”

  The officer clucked his tongue. “Look at you, all filthy and sopping wet. Hop in. We’ll give you a lift.”

  Now, he sounded like my Dad.

  ***

  The rent-a-cops took me back to their headquarters, which was tucked away down an alley behind the main terminal. There, they fingerprinted me, snapped my picture and photocopied my passport and ticket.

  “You gonna book me?”

  “What for?” said the cop who brought me in. “I mean … we could … for trespassing. But nah, this is just precautionary.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “Take a cab next time. Okay?”

  I couldn’t be more thrilled about this turn of events. What more could I ask for than an armed escort straight into the terminal? Whoever might be watching the main entrances would have never seen me enter.

  I was hoping this would count as a security screening and they would send me directly to the gates, but when I went through their little side door, I found myself in the ticketing area. I guess even they couldn’t supersede the mighty TSA.

  I checked the departures screen to make sure I was in the right terminal. My flight would be leaving from the H gates, whose planes apparently had no direct connection to a concourse. I would have to ride this bus-like contraption to get out to the actual plane. No biggie.

  I took my place at the end a very long line at the security checkpoint. I tried to blend in as best as I could, but people gave me lots of space in that line. It was no wonder. I smelled of swamp water and rotting vegetation. I kept picking bits of leaf and twig off my clothes. I pitied whoever had to sit next to me on the plane.

  I got a little excited when I realized that once I got past the scanners, there was nothing anybody could do to me. It was a safety zone. You couldn’t even smuggle toothpaste past these guys.

  The line moved so slowly. I was going to have to take off my shoes
and run them through the scanner. That was gonna be embarrassing. My socks were completely waterlogged and stinking of mud.

  This guy strolled past the line, looking everybody in the face. He looked to be in his thirties, wearing a sports coat over a tight T-shirt. There was a cocky, angry element to his body language that disturbed me.

  A minute later, he came back the other way. This time he was on his cell phone. I tried not to look at him directly. Hopefully, he was just an air marshal or undercover cop of some sort.

  The line inched forward. There were still about ten to fifteen people in front of me. Scads of hand luggage crowded the belt. A young couple wrestled with a baby stroller that refused to fold.

  Someone bumped me hard from behind.

  “Hey! Watch it.”

  It was the guy in the sports coat. He had cut into line behind me.

  “You and me need to talk,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Remember me? Cleveland?”

  Shit! He was one of the guys from the garage. In fact, he was the one who had handed me the envelope.

  My instincts told me to run. But we were only ten feet from a couple guards with automatic rifles, along with a whole slew of TSA types. They wouldn’t dare kill me here, would they? Was he bold (or dumb) enough to carry a concealed weapon into an airport?

  “How’d you find me?”

  “Wasn’t hard. We got friends in Pittsburgh. Now all I want you to do is stay calm and follow me outside. There’s a man outside wants to talk to you.”

  I took a giant step forward to make up the gap that had formed in front of me.

  “About what?”

  “Stop with that shit. You know exactly what I’m talking about. You fucked up, Jim. Come on. Don’t cause a scene. Come on and get this over with.”

  “What do you all want from me? You know I don’t have the truck anymore, right?”

  “Mr. Sergei wants to talk to you. He wants an apology.”

  “For what? I did my job. You guys stiffed me.”

  “Listen, kid. You’re lucky. You’re a newbie. Maybe he’ll cut you some slack. He probably just wants to see you show him some respect. Apologize. Make sure you understand there’s no way you will ever pull that shit again.”

  “Tell this Sergei to go fuck himself.”

  The guy rolled his eyes and sighed. “Kid. You’re just digging yourself a deeper hole. Now, I won’t tell him you said that. So come on. It’ll just take a minute.”