Peter Leonard - Trust Me

"Mom's worried about you."

"I'm worried about me too," Karen said. She'd have to talk to her mother and try to explain things.

Virginia said, "You going to tell me where you're at?"

"Chicago," Karen said. "If two Arabs in barber shirts show up looking for me, tell them I left the country."

Virginia said, "Are you really going to?"

"Yeah, but I need my passport," Karen said. "Will you try to find it and send it to me?"

"It's the middle of the night," Virginia said.

"Not now," Karen said, "in the morning. FedEx it overnight Priority. Send it to-"

"Wait a minute," Virginia said. "You think I sleep with a pen in my hand?"

Karen heard her put the phone down, and heard her open a drawer and rattle what was inside.

"Okay," Virginia said back on the phone.

"Drake Hotel, 140 East Walton, Chicago, 60611. I'll send you some money. I'm sorry I woke you," Karen said and hung up.

It was strange Karen was waiting for the passport again, like the passport was bad luck, a bad omen-holding her here, preventing her from leaving. She looked at the clock on the bedside table. It was 1:20 a.m., Chicago time. She'd stopped at a twenty-four-hour Walgreens on the way to the hotel and bought a Clairol Nice 'n Easy hair coloring kit, chestnut medium brown. Karen knew she had to do something. Her hair was like a neon sign. She went in the bathroom and opened the box and read the directions, which were in English and Spanish. She had never colored her hair. Why would she?

Karen wrapped a towel around her shoulders and got her hair wet and dried it till it was damp. She put on the rubber gloves and poured the colorant into the activating creme. She put her finger over the tip and shook the bottle. The directions told her to part her hair in even sections using the colorant nozzle. She started at her hairline and squirted the stuff through the length of her hair and then rubbed it in with her hands until the red was gone and she was a brunette.

Her eyebrows didn't look right so she rubbed a little brown through each one. There were splotches of color on her forehead and temple. She wet a washcloth and wiped them off. She let the dye set for ten minutes and got in the shower. The kit came with a conditioner. She rubbed it through her hair, waited a couple minutes and rinsed.

Karen dried her hair and looked in the mirror. She barely recognized herself. How would anyone else?

"Are they gone?" Virginia whispered.

"Yeah," O'Clair said. He stood looking down at her on the bed. There was blood on her face and neck and more on her pillowcase. She was naked, on her side, knees curled up to her chest. He covered her with the sheet.

"You're sure?"

"Don't worry," O'Clair said.

"There were two of them," Virginia said in a low voice he could hardly hear. "Arabs looking for Karen."

O'Clair said, "Where is she?"

"Chicago."

He touched her cheek with a warm washcloth and she winced. "Did you tell them?"

"I would've told them anything they wanted to know," Virginia said. "I was begging to tell them."

By the look of her, he was surprised she could talk, surprised she was conscious, surprised she was alive. They'd broken her nose and beat her body with pieces of broom handle. O'Clair saw the straw broom head on the floor and two broken lengths of wood.

They'd pulled the stud out of her lip with a pliers. That's where most of the blood had come from, the wound in her face. They beat her for the hell of it, for the sport. He tried to clean her up before he called 911.

Virginia told him what happened in her quiet voice. How she opened her eyes and saw the barrel of a pistol pressed against her lips and then pushed into her mouth, the second man holding her arms behind her back. This was how she woke up, scared out of her mind.

"The man with the gun had a heavy accent. 'Where is Karen Delaney?' It sounded strange the way he said it, using her first and last name in a formal way. I couldn't answer, the gun was in my mouth. I gagged and I saw his face in the dim light, grinning. When I didn't answer, the second man hit me with something that stung the back of my legs. He let go of my arms and hit me on the bottom of my right foot. Ever been hit there? It hurts more than you can imagine. I said 'You want Karen she's at the Drake Hotel in Chicago.' He hit me again with the stick and kept hitting me till I passed out.

"I woke up and heard the door close downstairs. I saw the card you gave me on the table next to the bed. It was all I could do to pick up the receiver and dial your number. I put the phone on the bed and got my face next to it and listened to it ring ten rings before I heard your voice."

O'Clair said, "Just lay there and don't talk, okay?"

"Do you remember what you said when you answered the phone?"

Yeah, he remembered, but it didn't seem particularly memorable.

"You said, 'This better be important.' Your voice deep and angry."

He saw her try to smile and then make a face, knowing she hurt bad.

"It was the best sound I've ever heard," Virginia said, her eyes holding on him, trying to smile again.

"Don't talk anymore," O'Clair said. He touched her chin with the warm washcloth trying to wipe away some of the blood and she turned her face away from him in pain.

"I'm sorry," he said. He could see right through her lip to her teeth and it made him angry, and he knew if he had any chance of catching them he had to get going. He sat on the edge of the bed, leaned over, and kissed her forehead. "I have to go, but I'll be back soon."

"You've got to find Karen," Virginia said, her sad eyes locked on him. "Promise me you'll help her."

"Don't worry," O'Clair said.

He was in his car now parked across from Virginia's house, watching an EMS van pull up in front, lights flashing. Two med techs got out and went to the front door that was open, and went in. O'Clair considered his next move. It was 4:56 a.m. The Arabs had a forty-five-minute head start. He assumed they were driving. How else could they could get to Chicago with their guns? It was 284 miles. But maybe he could close the gap, make up some time on the road. At seventy miles an hour, it was a four-hour drive. If he drove ninety he could shave an hour off and get there before them.

According to Virginia, Karen was at the Drake on East Walton in downtown Chicago. He'd been to Chicago a number of times and had a pretty good idea where it was-a block from Lake Michigan. O'Clair wanted to find Karen and the money, but his priorities had changed in the past hour and now he wanted the Arabs more. He felt anger he hadn't felt for a long time. Things didn't set him off like they used to. He actually thought he was mellowing till he saw what they did to Virginia and the adrenaline started pumping and hadn't stopped.

What was it about this oddball girl with purple hair and a tongue stud that made him feel so good? He felt something inside, in his gut, and it made him happy, the feeling so new and unexpected he didn't know what to make of it at first, and now he couldn't get her out of his head.

He was on 1-94 passing the exit for Saline when he began to doubt himself. Maybe he was seeing something that wasn't there. What did Virginia, this wacko kid fifteen years younger, see in a fat old guy like him? But in O'Clair's mind it didn't matter, it was right. She trusted him. Who'd she call to ask for help, and to help her sister? She called him.

He was approaching a road sign that said "State Correctional Facility Exit 139"-Jackson Prison, Michigan's largest, housing more than five thousand inmates, and O'Clair thought back to his twenty-seven months in protective custody. He wouldn't have lasted a day in general population after the gangs found out he'd been a Detroit cop.