Stuart Kaminsky - Bright Futures

“Just Diet Coke.”

“I’ll have that,” he said, looking at me and not at the girl, who got the message and moved away.

She had forgotten to ask if I wanted a refill or something else.

“Why?” I asked.

“Why what?”

“Why are you and Greg friends?”

“He’s smart and we get along. Sometimes you can’t explain things like friendship.”

“I think I can explain it,” I said. “How much does Greg’s grandfather pay you to take care of his grandson and pretend to be his friend.”

Winn put his head down and then brought it up, adjusting his glasses again.

“Mr. Corkle pays me fifteen hundred dollars a month in cash.”

“How long has he been doing this?”

“Since Greg’s sixteenth birthday party. My father lost his job when I was fifteen. He had a drinking problem. He was sixty-one when he lost the job. Since then he’s made some money at home on his eBay trades. Some money, but not a lot, and my mother stands on her feet eight hours a day selling clothes at Beals. I need a scholarship. I need Bright Futures. I need fifteen hundred dollars a month. Wherever Greg goes to college, I’ll go to college so the money won’t stop.”

“What else would you like?”

“I’d like it if Greg didn’t find out about his mother and Ronnie and about me taking money from his grandfather.”

“You think I’ll tell him?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

“I won’t tell him. You own a pellet gun?”

“No, why?”

“Someone’s been trying to shoot me with one.”

“If I were trying to shoot you would I tell you I had a gun?” he asked.

“Good point. People sometimes admit things they shouldn’t.”

A man in his late forties or early fifties and a woman who might have been his daughter came in the back room. He was wearing a business suit and tie. She was wearing less than she should have been. The man looked at Winn Graeme and me. Then the two of them sat on a sofa in the shadows under the speaker.

“You know that girl?” I asked.

“Why?”

“She nodded at you.”

Winn shook his head before saying, “I know her. She graduated from Riverview last year. She was a cheerleader. Her name is Hope something.”

“Small town,” I said, looking at the pair, who were whispering now, the girl shaking her head.

“That’s not her father,” Winn said.

“How do you know?”

“That’s Mr. Milikin, lawyer downtown. Wife, four kids. He’s on the board of everything in the county.”

I looked at the couple. Mr. Milikin looked as if he were perspiring. His eyes darted toward the archway leading into the other room. He didn’t want to see any familiar faces.

“Ronnie’s going to be like that if he lives long enough,” Winn said.

“Like Milikin?”

“No.”

“Horvecki,” I said.

“We didn’t kill him.”

“We?”

“Greg and I. We tried to talk to him a few times. So did others. Didn’t do any good.”

“You went to his house?”

“Once. He wouldn’t let us in, threatened to call the police if we didn’t go away. He said he had the right to bear arms and protect himself, his family, and his property. He said, ‘Under my roof, we know how to use a gun!’ ”

“And?”

“We went away. Is that all?”

I looked at him and he forced himself to look back for an instant before giving his glasses another adjustment.

“That’s all,” I said.

Winn Graeme stood up, started to turn, and then turned back to me to say, “Don’t hurt Greg.”

“That a warning?”

“A plea.”

He didn’t look toward Mr. Milikin and the former cheerleader as he left. The girl glanced at him, but Milikin was so busy pleading his case that he didn’t notice. He just kept perspiring.

I had almost enough information now. There was only one more person I had to see. I paid the waitress, who said, “He’s a fantastic basketball player. Jumps like a black guy. You know where he’s going to college?”

“Yes,” I said and went around the tables and through the door.

I was careful. I could have been more careful. Ann Hurwitz would know why I didn’t exercise more caution. Pellets might fly. I might catch one in the eye like Augustine. I was reasonably sure of who the shooter would be, but Augustine was the person who could make it a certainty.

The shot didn’t come until I opened the door to get into the Saturn, which was wedged between two SUVs at the far end of the lot, a few spaces from the exit on Webber.

The shot didn’t come from a pellet gun.

The first bullet shattered the driver side window showering shards on the seat. I turned to look in the direction from which I thought the bullet had been fired.

Something came at me from around one of the SUVs. It hit me, knocked me backward to the ground, and landed on me. I panted for breath. A second shot came but I didn’t hear it hit the ground or my car or the pavement.

I lay there for a beat, the weight on my chest and stomach, an arm covering my chest, and looked up to see, inches from my nose, Victor Woo.

“You all right?” he asked.

I tried to answer but couldn’t speak. He understood and rolled off to the side. I started to get up but he held a hand out to keep me down. He listened, watched for about half a minute, and then helped me up.

“He’s gone,” he said.

The shooter wasn’t trying to frighten me off anymore. We had gone beyond that, to murder.

“I followed you,” Victor said at my side.

“Thanks,” I said trying to catch my breath.

“That last shot might have killed you,” he said.

“Might have, yes,” I acknowledged.

“It would have hit you.”

He was trying to make a point, but I wasn’t sure what it was. He turned around so I could see where the bullet had entered his right arm through the red Florida State University sweatshirt he was wearing, the arm he had draped over my chest. There was remarkably little blood.

“It ricocheted off the ground before it hit me,” he said.

“I’ll drive you to the ER.”

“No,” he said. “I’ll stop somewhere, clean it, put on a bandage and some tape. The bullet just scratched my arm. It’s not inside me.”

Cliches abound from old movies. “It’s just a flesh wound.” “I’ve had worse bites from a Louisiana mosquito.”

“Suit yourself,” I said.

“I want to go home,” he said. “I saved your life. It is all I can do. It doesn’t make up for killing your wife, but it’s all I can do.”

“I forgave you for killing Catherine.”

“But when you said it before, you didn’t mean it,” he said. “This time you do. I’ve been away from home too long.”

I reached out to shake his hand. He winced as he briefly held my grip.

“My bedroll is in my car,” he added. “I’m leaving from here. If I can ever be of any service…”

“I know where to find you,” I said, but we both knew I would never call.

“You know who’s trying to kill you?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Stop them,” he said.

And he was gone. I held up my hands. I felt calm, but my hands were both shaking. Can the body be afraid when the mind isn’t? I knew the mind could be afraid when the body of a policeman went through the door of an apartment where a crazed father held a gun to his ten-year-old daughter’s head, or when a fireman made a dash into a burning building where he heard the cry of a cat. It was a question for Ann.

When I opened the car door, I saw the folded sheet of paper with the words:

I whisper your name in the book of one more tomorrow knowing your yesterdays were filled with sorrow.

Migrating birds soar South then North again.