John Miller - Upside Down

As Marta and Arturo drove away down the street, Marta looked into a cluttered yard and saw a bulldog standing up on its hind legs, its forepaws on its smiling master's stomach. In her mind the dog became a rail-thin, filthy, dark-skinned waif who was kneeling to unzip the trousers of a porcine policeman while a young, hungry boy watched from the window of an abandoned car nearby. She shivered involuntarily.

I had to do what I had to do, to survive.

Faith Ann spent three hours at the Audubon Zoo, wandering here and there, visiting her favorite animals, unable to take comfort from the familiarity. Occasionally she almost managed to forget what had happened that morning, but those terrifying memories kept returning, each time accompanied by gut-gripping fear and nausea.

She counted the money she had taken from her mother's safe and discovered that she had a thousand dollars. She bought herself a green cap advertising the zoo, curled up the bill, and kept it tugged down low to her brows. At four-thirty, as the sky turned gray and the wind picked up the scent of moisture, Faith Ann left the zoo. She put on her yellow poncho, covering her backpack. She unlocked her bike, climbed up on it, and started pedaling off just as the first drops of rain fell.

At six o'clock, after buying a Walkman at a Rite Aid, Faith Ann balanced herself on her bicycle at the pay telephone station, the last one of three mounted on the outside wall of the drugstore, and opened the yellow pages. The overhang protected her from the rain. Her heart sank. There were pages and pages of guesthouses. She didn't have any idea which one Uncle Hank and Aunt Millie were staying at, because her mother hadn't mentioned a name to her. How could she find them? A name floated into her mind. Rush Massey. A warmth filled her as she thought about her friend-sighted or not, perhaps the best friend she had. Maybe Rush or his father knew where Hank and Millie were staying. If anybody did, she decided, they would.

Normally she and Rush communicated via computer using instant messenger or sent e-mails. Rush's computer was set up to vocalize his messages so he could respond on the keyboard. Faith Ann had visited with him on the telephone but all she could remember now was that his area code was 704. She took out her mother's cell phone and put her finger over the buttons, trying to recall which buttons she had pressed to get him. 704… 79… 704–795… And then her fingers remembered the entire number and she turned on the unit and pressed them for real. Leaning against the wall beside the pay phone, she listened as the cell phone rang.

“Hello?” the soft voice answered.

“Mrs. Massey, it's Faith Ann Porter. Is Rush there?”

“Well, yes, just a minute, Faith Ann.”

After a few seconds, Rush's voice came on the line. “Hey, Faith Ann!” he said excitedly. “Did Hank tell you I said hey?”

She felt suddenly like she was on the verge of breaking into tears. She fought back the emotion. “No. Rush, I can't go into it right now, but I really need to find Uncle Hank right away. He's here in town, but I don't know where he is staying.”

“He isn't staying at your house?”

“No. And I don't know how to find out where they are. I hoped you might know, because there's about a million places.”

“Daddy and Sean were with them today before they left. I can ask if they know.”

“Please,” Faith Ann asked tightly. This felt like her last chance-a long shot.

Faith Ann wished she could tell Rush what had happened, but it wouldn't do any good. And she couldn't risk that he might tell his father. She didn't want to get Rush's father involved. Rush had lost his mother, like she just had, and he'd lost his sight in the airplane accident that killed her. At the moment, the fewer people who knew about all of this, the better. Hank could tell Mr. Massey later, when it was over. She only had twenty-eight hours before Horace Pond's execution. Hank could do something by then.

“Faith Ann, Sean doesn't know the name of it, but she said Millie said it's near Audubon Park. Does that help?”

“Yes.” Faith Ann disguised her disappointment by infusing a positive lilt to her tone. “That will help a lot. Thanks and thank your mo… stepmom.”

“Sure,” Rush said happily. “Anytime. Sean says you and the Trammels are going to come visit us in Washington this summer. We can do all kinds of stuff. Make sure they say they'll bring you, okay?”

“I'll call you again really soon,” she promised, hating to break off the conversation. It was the first time since early that morning that she had spoken to someone who cared at all about her. But she didn't have time to talk.

“Bye,” she told Rush.

She ripped out the pages listing the guesthouses. She folded them and put them and the cell phone into the pouch in the front of her hooded sweatshirt.

A hand gripped her shoulder, causing her to lose her balance and slide down the wall as the bike's tire turned at a severe angle to the wall she was against. Her cap slipped so its bill covered her eyes.

“Well, well. What have we here?” a faintly familiar voice above her growled.

“A little criminal, right in our laps,” a female voice added.

Gripping the bike's crossbar, Faith Ann pushed her cap up and found herself staring directly up into the faces of the two patrol officers who had been guarding her home earlier. Both were wearing rain slickers, and their peaked caps had what looked like plastic shower caps on them. Their cruiser was parked behind them. She'd made a terrible mistake. She hadn't paid any attention to the cars coming and going around her. They had her.

“Destruction of public property,” the male cop said triumphantly.

“Vandalism,” the female said. “We could run you in for that, young man. Put you in jail. What if somebody needs those pages for an important call?”

They don't know who I am!

“I'm sorry,” Faith Ann said meekly. “I can put them back…”

The cops both laughed out loud.

“Glue them in?” the woman said, snickering.

The male cop released Faith Ann's shoulder. He patted the top of her head. “Go forth, son, and sin no more,” he pronounced, cutting the Sign of the Cross into the damp air.

“Thank you,” Faith Ann said. She righted her ten-speed and, almost falling down as she started unsteadily away, rode off as fast as she could pedal.

For two hours, Paulus Styer sat in his stolen Rover as motionless as a turtle on a log taking sun. He was parked so he could watch the Park View Guest House, a three-story yellow and white mansion located beside Audubon Park, diagonally across St. Charles Avenue from Tulane University. As he watched, he monitored the conversations around Hank. The rain that had begun at four had fallen without letting up.

According to conversations he had overheard, Styer knew that Hank and Millie had stayed at the guesthouse on a prior visit to the city. Millie loved its tall ceilings, its ornate moldings, and the rooms decorated with antiques.

Nicky Green had brought the two Trammels there directly from the airport, and for half an hour he and Hank had sat outside on the front porch talking about old times and mutual acquaintances, but for reasons of his own Styer found it all of interest. Styer used his pocket telescope to watch them. Nicky wore the brim of his cowboy hat down to where his eyebrows should have been. He kept chewing up the tips of toothpicks then spitting them into the yard and putting in fresh ones.

Styer was listening to the conversation when Nicky said, “I couldn't help but notice that you're packing a handgun, Hank. You think that's smart?”

“I feel naked without it. You know. New Orleans can be a dangerous place.”