MIDNIGHT QUEST: A Short 'Men of Midnight' Novel

  For the first time since leaving Portland, Jacko could breathe. That band of barbed wire wound so tightly around his chest was gone. He was on his way home. One stop and then he was heading straight back to Portland, to Lauren, to his child. To his job, to his buddies, to his life.

  It was late afternoon when he stopped just outside Henderson. He was traveling west and the sun was shining directly into his eyes.

  He hadn’t heard Lauren’s voice today. He missed it. He missed her. He told himself he was done with phones, but that was bullshit. Even Lauren’s voice over his cell was better than nothing.

  Maybe he could talk to her now, finally. That huge boulder in his throat that had stopped him from talking to her was gone. But at this point, there was so much to say and he wanted to say it with her wrapped in his arms. Once he finished here, it was about a fifteen-hour drive back up to Portland, if he wanted to respect speed limits. No use getting pulled over and hassled. Fifteen hours was a long time, if you counted how much he missed her. But nothing compared to the rest of their lives.

  Get this over with, put it behind you and go home.

  The GPS brought him right to the sloping lawn of Green Orchards, a little oasis in the surrounding desert. There was minimal security at the gate. Jacko leaned out, pressed a button and a disembodied voice asked him his business.

  “Visitor for Kurt Pendleton,” he said, fully prepared to show documents. But nothing was necessary. He was buzzed in.

  There was easy access to the patients, too. It was a weird feeling for him. Jacko had security tattooed on his brain. It was a vital part of him, like his hands and feet. He frowned at the lack of security. But…there was staff everywhere and a lot of the patients had visitors. From the happy glow on many wrinkled faces, the visitors were very welcome. So maybe making a visitor to someone in a home jump through security hoops every time they came would make for fewer visitors.

  Huh. Security as a bad thing. That was really hard for him to wrap his head around.

  Pendleton was in room 212, Jacko found out by asking the nurse at the desk. The nurse also told him Mr. Pendleton moved in and out of focus, like a shortwave radio. She used longer words, but that was the gist of it. His hold on reality could at times be “delicate” and “sporadic”.

  Ah, Kurt, Jacko thought sadly as he walked down the corridor. The Pendleton he knew had been sharp and present in the moment, and had had eyes in the back of his head. Back in the day, there wasn’t anything happening in Cross, Texas that Pendleton didn’t know about.

  Room 212. The door was ajar and Jacko nudged it open with his knuckle. Pure habit, not leaving fingerprints. The room was nice, the last rays of sun shining in on a slant. A man was sitting in a chair with his back to the door, looking out the window.

  At the sound of the door opening, the man turned around.

  Kurt Pendleton. Jacko would have recognized him anywhere. He hadn’t aged much. Jacko suspected that when he was younger, he looked older than he was, simply because he took on so much responsibility. And now he looked younger than his years, maybe because all of that responsibility was gone.

  Pendleton stood and looked at Jacko, puzzled. Frowning, as if seeing him from a thousand yards. Then his face cleared and joy lit it up.

  Jacko wasn’t a smiling kind of guy, but he could feel a smile coming on. After all these years, Jacko was talking to someone who’d known him when he was a youngster. Everyone Jacko knew he’d met after he was eighteen, as an adult. It was weird to think of Kurt knowing him when he was young. Like he was reconnecting to his younger self through Kurt.

  “Dante!” Pendleton called out, and Jacko’s heart sank. Kurt didn’t recognize him. Or, worse, didn’t remember him.

  He tried to smile. “Not Dante, Sheriff. Jacko. Remember me? From Cross?”

  Pendleton’s eyes narrowed. “Dante?”

  “No,” Jacko said gently and stepped forward into the oblong rectangle of light. Maybe Pendleton’s eyesight had gone. “Not Dante, Sheriff. Jacko. Jacko Jackman.”

  Pendleton frowned.

  This wasn’t going well.

  Jacko opened his mouth to repeat his name when Pendleton stepped forward, hugged him. When he pulled away, he had tears in his eyes. He held on to Jacko by the shoulders. Jacko remembered him as a big man, but now he was looking down on the sheriff.

  “Dante.” The sheriff whispered the name and his voice broke. “I’m so sorry. Can you forgive me? It was too dangerous for you to know. You know what they would have done.” He was searching Jacko’s face for something. For what?

  “Okay,” Jacko said.

  “I kept it from you all those years. I helped keep Sara in the trailer park outside town so no one would see him.”

  Whoa. What?

  “Whenever Villalongo’s thugs were around, I made sure they stayed far away from him. I made sure they never saw him.” Pendleton held on to Jacko’s shoulders tightly, grip surprisingly strong for a geezer. “I protected him as much as I could, I swear. I did everything I could.”

  His eyes turned shiny, voice cracking with emotion.

  Jacko always knew what to do in danger. He had the reaction time of a cobra, his teammates said. Instant and deadly.

  But now? With an old guy whose mind was going, was maybe already gone? What the fuck was he supposed to do? The only thing he could. He patted the old guy’s back awkwardly.

  Under the shirt, he could feel fragile bones covered in loose skin. Pendleton was trembling slightly. For a second, Jacko placed his hand against the old man’s back to provide a moment of support. Against his palm, he could feel Pendleton’s heart racing, fast and weak.

  Pendleton was searching his face. “Your eyes,” he whispered.

  “It’s okay,” Jacko said. What else could he say?

  “They’re different.” Pendleton was frowning fiercely now. “Not—not the same. What did you do to your eyes?”

  Pendleton was tuning in and out of reality. He was also breathing heavily. Maybe Jacko was somehow stirring him up? Reviving memories the old man couldn’t place? Memory loss was the hallmark of dementia.

  Pendleton straightened up, pulled away, hands clasping and unclasping. “I should have told you,” he said. “It was wrong of me not to. But…it was so dangerous, you know?”

  “Yes, of course,” Jacko said gravely, playing along. “I know. Look, why don’t we sit down for a minute?” Before your agitation gives you a stroke.

  Pendleton’s breathing was fast and uneven now, as if he were running a race and not standing stock still in front of Jacko. Agitation was making his chest rise and fall. A vein throbbed in his temple amid the white hairs. He swayed on his feet. Jacko took Pendleton by the elbow, wanting to lead him to the one chair in the room before he fell down.

  But Pendleton resisted, clutching at Jacko’s arm. He kept peering at Jacko’s face, as if seeing him from a great distance. He cocked his head, frowning. “So…you forgive me? Please say you forgive me.”

  “Sure,” Jacko said easily. “I forgive you. No question. Why don’t you just sit down, now? Rest a while.”

  Pendleton blinked. “But—he might be coming. Right now. For you.” And he trembled even harder.

  Fuck. What was the old man afraid of? Was he chasing ghosts in his head? Or was it someone here? In this facility? Was he being abused?

  Jacko looked him over carefully. He didn’t have any suspicious bruises, didn’t look injured in any way. Jacko took Pendleton’s wrist in one hand and with the other, pushed up the shirt sleeve to the shoulder. He examined the arm closely, but there was nothing, no sign of any harm. He did the same to the other arm then examined his neck.

  People were manhandled by the neck and arms. Pendleton showed no signs of it.

  But he showed signs of other things. His shirt was frayed at the neck and the cuffs, the pants threadbare and too big for him. He’d lost a lot of weight and he had to cinch his ancient belt tight to hold up the pants. He was wearing socks and slippers and
Jacko swallowed when he saw a hole in one of his socks.

  That son of his wasn’t doing his job. If Jacko had had a father like Pendleton, that man sure as hell wouldn’t have holes in his socks.

  Pendleton was sitting, looking up at him, eyes pleading. “Promise me you’ll look after yourself. I couldn’t stand it if something happened to you after all these years.”

  That was easy to promise. Jacko folded the old man’s soft hand between his big hard ones. “I promise. I promise to take care of myself.”

  The old man relaxed, the trembling abating. Whatever memories had him riled up were fading.

  Jacko crouched in front of him so they were eye to eye. “Okay, Sheriff. I want you to promise me something now.”

  Pendleton blinked. “Okay,” he said uncertainly.

  Jacko pulled out his card case and placed his ASI card in the sheriff’s hand. He folded the old, wrinkled hand around it. “On there are my phone numbers. I circled my personal cell number. I want you to promise me that you’ll call me if you need anything. Is that clear?”

  The sheriff swallowed, nodded.

  “Repeat that.”

  “I call you,” Pendleton whispered. “If I need you.”

  “That’s right. I have to go now, but I need to know you’ll call if you need something.”

  “Yes, I will.” The sheriff’s expression suddenly turned crafty. He tapped the skin beside Jacko’s right eye. Jacko didn’t like being touched by anyone other than Lauren, but he let it slide. “Contact lenses. That’s it. Am I right?”

  Jacko didn’t sigh though he wanted to. “No, no contact lenses.” He rose, put his hand on Pendleton’s shoulder. “I have to go,” he said again.

  Pendleton nodded, head tilted back to watch his eyes. “That’s okay. I understand.”

  Jacko’s hand tightened. “And before I go, I just want to say how grateful I am you looked out for me all those years. I appreciate it.”

  “They never got you,” he answered. “All those years and they didn’t know. It was the only way to protect you.”

  Jacko heard the words, but his heart was already pointed toward home. There was some kind of mystery here, but solving it was not as important as getting back to Lauren, where he belonged. At some point in the future he’d come back, maybe with her, and he’d try to figure out what was in the smoky depths of the sheriff’s mind. It wasn’t that important. What was important was to head back home.

  “That’s fine,” he said, though, because the sheriff’s face was tight. What he was saying was important to him. Jacko wanted him to know that he was being heard. He didn’t understand but that was okay. The next time they’d talk more.

  He’d accomplished what he’d wanted. He’d told Sheriff Pendleton how important his help had been for the rough youngster he’d been. Pendleton had believed in him and had given him plenty of second chances. It had made a difference to Jacko because back then, nobody had believed in him. He was Sara Jackman’s son and the dregs of the earth.

  Pendleton had seen him, and Jacko hoped that the sheriff realized that Jacko saw him, too. Jacko’d been handicapped by his mom and the sheriff was now handicapped by his illness, but that didn’t mean that debts couldn’t be repaid.

  The sheriff was so diminished right now, it hurt something in Jacko’s chest. He’d been such a big man, powerful in his own right, powerful because he wore a badge he believed in. To see him reduced to a quavering old man was painful.

  Jacko bent to kiss the sheriff on the forehead and left the room.

  Before leaving, he stopped by the admin office. Nurses and other staffers were going in and out. In the middle of a hive of activity was a calm, middle-aged African-American woman who seemed on top of everything.

  Jacko stepped in.

  “Help you, sir?” she asked, looking at him over reading glasses perched on the end of her nose. LaShawna Johnson was written on a nameplate.

  Jack placed his forearms on the desk and leaned in. “Yes, I’d like a word about the patient in room 212.”

  “Sheriff Pendleton,” she nodded.

  “Yes. I left him a little…confused.”

  “Yes. That is very possible. Sheriff Pendleton has a mild form of dementia that is progressing. Sometimes he gets extremely disoriented. We do our best to keep him stable.”

  Okay, this is where it got a little sticky. “I noticed that he’s wearing very old clothes. Is there a reason for that?”

  She regarded him thoughtfully. “Green Orchards prides itself on its treatment of patients. They get the finest care in all senses of the term. Even the food is excellent. Their private possessions, though, are their own.”

  Meaning—if the dipshit son isn’t sending money for decent clothes, it’s not our fault.

  Jacko looked her right in the eyes. “Ms. Johnson, Sheriff Pendleton was very kind to me when I was a kid. Would it be possible to leave some money here to be spent on personal things for him? Things that would make him more comfortable? New clothes, for example? An MP3 player. He used to like music a lot. Country and bluegrass. If he doesn’t have a music player, I’d like for him to have one.”

  “Mr.…”

  “Jackman.”

  “Mr. Jackman, if you leave money for Sheriff Pendleton, I will personally see to it that it goes to making his life more pleasant. Sheriff Pendleton is a good man, a kind man. Any money you leave would go straight to him. If you leave me your email, I will send you photographs.”

  “Perfect.” Jacko peeled off five one hundred dollar bills and left them on the desk, together with his business card. “You’ll find my email and phone numbers on the card. If Sheriff Pendleton needs anything, please call me. I’d also like to send him some money from time to time, if that’s possible.”

  Once, when he was twelve, Pendleton had given Jacko two hundred bucks to cover six months of unpaid bills, otherwise the electric company was going to cut the lights. After that, Jacko started working, doing odd jobs, so he was never without some cash. But that two hundred had saved their bacon during a particularly cold winter.

  Pendleton also used to slip Jacko the odd twenty.

  Now the tables were turned. Pendleton had only what his son sent, which clearly wasn’t much, and Jacko had plenty of money. It felt good to think of making Pendleton’s last years more comfortable.

  “That’s very kind, Mr. Jackman,” the clerk said. “Your money will be put to good use. I’ll make sure of it personally.”

  And she would. Jacko knew how to size up people and LaShawna Johnson had the look of kindness about her, coupled with efficiency. He had no doubt every penny would be spent on the sheriff.

  “Thank you, ma’am.” Jacko shook her hand and walked out of the building, into the soft sunset turning everything a red gold.

  He took in a deep breath, filling his lungs with fresh air. The facility was clean, but there was an unmistakable scent of human decay. Nothing like the field hospitals in Afghanistan, of course—full of gore and trauma and smelling of the slaughterhouse. No, this was more like a winding down, a fading away. Something that happened to everyone. Everyone ages, everyone dies.

  But right now, Jacko was young and healthy and in a great place. He loved Lauren, he loved his job, he was going to be a father. He had his whole life ahead of him. He felt free and light, the painful past shed and discarded, an empty husk behind him.

  He pulled out, heading east for the I-5. To Portland it was going to be another fourteen- or fifteen-hour drive.

  He’d find a decent motel somewhere in California, have a meal, sleep and shower and get into Portland by early afternoon.

  His skin prickled with the desire to get home, but there was no use killing himself. He came back from missions with bruises under his eyes, hollowed out with fatigue. That wasn’t how he wanted Lauren to see him.

  He’d rest because it was prudent to do so, and so he could come back to her relatively fresh. And unburdened. That light, clean feeling, that sense that he was a new man wh
o’d left a hard past behind him, permeated his being. It felt good.

  So he’d drive carefully, rest, and make his way home in a relaxed fashion.

  Because, hell, he had all the time in the world.

  “Honey, are you sure?” Felicity leaned in close, her voice low. No one else could hear. Metal and Joe were in the other room, arguing about the various merits of some kind of fancy new gun.

  Felicity had asked already three times.

  “I’m sure,” Lauren said gently, and put her hand over Felicity’s. They were in the kitchen sipping tea and eating slices of the tarte tatin Isabel had sent over. Metal and Joe had checked every single system she had—the alarm system, the door locks, the motion sensors, every single faucet, TV and radio reception, even the functioning of her freezer—in hope of finding something they could fix for her. Again, Lauren was almost tempted to break something so they could fix it and feel better.

  While the guys did their thing, Felicity sat with her in the kitchen and they talked books and movies and food, avoiding the eight hundred-pound gorilla in the room. Jacko’s absence.

  Felicity was quivering to help. Help for her wasn’t fixing a faucet—she always said she was hopeless at practical stuff. Help for Felicity was tracking down Jacko.

  “Aren’t you curious to know where he is?” Felicity persisted. Her pretty face was scrunched in a frown. Her friend wasn’t usually the prying sort, but she wanted desperately to help Lauren in the only way she could. She’d finally broken down and offered to tell Lauren where Jacko was.

  But Lauren didn’t want that.

  “Yeah, I am.” Lauren looked down at the tablecloth, unable to meet Felicity’s bright blue eyes. Because Felicity could read how very much she wanted to know. After a moment, she raised her head, looked Felicity full in the face. “But it doesn’t feel right. It’s Jacko who has to tell me where he is.”

  Felicity bit her lips. But he’s not telling you where he is. I could do that for you. The words were right there on her face.

  “If you told me, it would be like…like spying.”

  Felicity bowed her head.

  “Wait.” Lauren narrowed her eyes. “You know where he is, don’t you?”