Flashback

Val realized that he was panting and weeping at the same time. His arms were shaking.

The Old Man leaned forward, but not to grab the gun. He opened the passenger-side door.

Val pulled the pistol back from the window as the door opened. The muzzle was aimed up under his own chin now and his finger was still on the trigger with the safety off.

“Get in,” said Nick. “Be careful with that thing.” He did reach for the pistol now, but only to push the safety lever back down. He didn’t take the gun away from Val as the boy collapsed into the passenger seat.

Nick pulled out of the park onto South Downing Street and drove north.

“I know what you read in my cubie,” he said, “but I didn’t kill your mother, Val. I could never have hurt your mother. I think that down deep, you know that.”

Val was shaking and concentrating on not throwing up in the car. The air from the open window helped a little bit.

“You’re the one I hurt,” continued Nick. “I’ve spent the last five and a half years with Dara under flashback and I completely fucked up every responsibility I had toward you. Sorry doesn’t come close to covering it, but I am sorry, Val.”

Val felt the hatred surge up into his chest again. He could have shot his father in the head at that moment—the rage would have allowed it—but his arms were totally without strength. He couldn’t lift the heavy Beretta if his life depended on it.

Approaching Speer Boulevard, there was a tremendous roar and both Val and the Old Man looked up as a massive Osprey III VTOL roared overhead, its wings and turboprops shifting into level flight. Canvas covering the high Denver Country Club fence that ran hundreds of meters along the street there vibrated and tried to tear free of the wire.

“What the fuck?” said Nick.

“Japs,” muttered Val. “Dottie and Harold Davison said that there are thousands of Jap soldiers in the old country club here.”

Nick didn’t ask who Dottie and Harold Davison were. Watching the Osprey fly off to the west, he said softly, “It’s illegal for the Japanese to bring troops into this country.”

Val shrugged. “Can we go to the old neighborhood?” he asked. Maybe, he thought, if he could just see the old house, the memory of his mother standing on the porch waiting for him the way she did every day he walked home from school would help him lift this pistol, aim it, and squeeze the trigger.

“We don’t have enough charge,” said Nick, turning west onto Speer Boulevard. “I have about nine miles left on this piece of crap and it’s four miles to Six Flags Over the Jews.”

“Six Flags…,” repeated Val, looking at the Old Man. Had his father gone completely nuts?

“K.T.’s left us a car there… a real car,” said Nick. “At least I hope to God she has. You remember K. T. Lincoln? My old partner?”

Val remembered her… a dangerous lady, from a young kid’s perspective. But his mother had liked K.T. for reasons young Val hadn’t understood.

“Anyway,” said Nick, “the same people who worked so hard to create that grand jury frame-up you read about are out to get me right now. They might hurt you and Leonard if you don’t get out of town. This gelding’ll be lucky to get up the street to Six Flags where the car’s waiting, but once we get there, you take the car K.T.’s parked there and get Leonard the hell out of town.”

“I don’t know how to drive,” said Val.

Nick barked a bitter laugh. “Leonard told me before he got his sedative that you wanted to get an NIC Teamsters Card so you could drive big rigs.”

“It was all bullshit,” muttered Val. “Everything is bullshit.”

“I won’t argue there,” said Nick. “Leonard said you had some NICC counterfeiter guy’s name and address. Show it to me.”

Feeling as drugged as his grandfather, Val poked through his jacket pockets—filled with extra magazines and loose rounds for the useless Beretta—and found the card. He handed it to Nick.

“Yeah, I know this guy,” said Nick. “K.T. and I sent him up for five years when you were a baby. He lives deep in reconquista turf now. You’d have a hard time getting there today.”

“I don’t have the money anyway,” said Val. They were passing the Hungarian Freedom Park with its Bonus Army of single homeless guys. There were police cars and vans parked along the curb and a lot of uniformed cops in riot gear. It all seemed a million miles away to Val. “I’d need two hundred bucks for the new card… old bucks.”

“I’m sorry I don’t have it to give to you,” said Nick. “A few days ago I did. But I blew it on bribes and on paying a pilot to fly me from Las Vegas to L.A.”

Val stared. “L.A.? Why did you go there?”

“To find you.”

“Bullshit,” barked Val.

“All right, it’s bullshit,” said Nick. “I blew it all on gambling in Las Vegas. I don’t care what you think. But I couldn’t give you the two hundred now even if I had it.”

“Why not?”

“I’d use it as a down payment in getting Leonard this valve replacement surgery. He needs it to live and Medicare won’t get around to paying for it until he’s been dead for a decade or two.”