David Koepp - Cold Storage

Mike—he was still Mike back then—came across Luke 12:48 the day after she’d brought the baby home from the hospital. “But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.”

Clearly, God was not screwing around this time. He was demanding an Isaac-in-the-desert-type sacrifice, and Mike Snyder just had to figure out what it was.

The advantages of joining the Peace Corps were numerous—escape, the chance to serve his fellow man, escape, a settling of accounts with the Lord, and, oh yeah, escape.

Sadly, they rejected him. Turns out the Peace Corps looks for college graduates with decent résumés and real skills. You know, people who actually have something to offer. Who knew?

Service Brigade, Inc., however, would take just about anybody, provided you were not currently under indictment in your country of origin. The brigade had a contract with the Ugandan government to build affordable housing for a modest fee, which in local terms meant a fee that was highly inflated and heavily kicked back to the government officials who distributed it. Whatever, Mike was out of a bad situation at home, Service Brigade was willing to pay him a decent amount under the table, and his family thought he was a saint, so he took it.

Within a few weeks of his arrival in Uganda, the local workers he was teamed with started calling him Muni, short for Muniyaga. He liked the sound of it, so even after he found out that Muniyaga means “one who bothers other people” in some goddamn African language or another, he stayed with his new name.

He was Mooney. It was a fresh start.

He’d returned home to Atchison just a few months ago, was given a hero’s welcome and drawn into the uncomfortably tight embrace of his family once again. He’d regretted coming back almost the minute he got there, as soon as he felt their brimming eyes on him, judging the living shit out of him, telling him they forgave him for everything, for his weakness, for his cowardice, for what had turned out to be his complete lack of artistic ability.

They’d tried to get him to take an interest in his daughter, to at least go see Sarah, but that wasn’t going to happen. Her mother, sure, that’d be hot, but not the kid, never the kid. But Naomi wouldn’t see him at all.

Three days after coming home, Mike had started planning how to get out again. Maybe he’d meet his buddy Daniel Mafabi back in Budadiri, where Mafabi had worked out a sweet deal with the Ministry of Works and Transport to build schools all across the country at double cost. There were a lot of Ugandan shillings sloshing around the budget since Nakadama took office, and Mike knew the people who knew the people. Another couple of years over there and he’d be sitting on enough cash to split on his family for good, to never ever have to hear that they’d forgiven him again.

But God was another matter. Those eyes followed him wherever he went, so tonight he needed to get his ass to St. Benedict’s, make his apologies, and call this awful night to an end.

He got in the car, turned the key, and it clicked.

Of course.

He tried again.

Not even a grind, just a click. Dead starter. He got out of the car and slammed the door as hard as he could. It bounced open, so he slammed it even harder, then kicked it square in the middle, leaving a good-sized dent. One more thing for the insurance report. He looked around, assessing the middle-of-nowhereness of it all.

The car at the bottom of the hill caught his eye again. It was parked near the entrance to the storage place, just under a mercury-vapor light that lit up the parking lot. In the yellowy haze of the light, he could see the rear end of the car, a ten-year-old Toyota Celica. It rang a distant bell somewhere in his mind. He started walking down the driveway, toward the car, and as he got closer he saw a sticker on the back left bumper. Closer still and he could make out what it said.

PROUD PARENT OF AN AHS HONOR ROLL STUDENT 2012.

Unbelievable. He knew that car; it was Naomi’s parents’ car, or it used to be. It was probably hers now. He’d had some good times in that car. He started to smile and walk faster, drawn to the car as if by the ghosts of make-outs past. He’d heard she was going to school and working nights someplace; evidently she was here, right here where he needed her, when he needed her, and if that wasn’t Providence speaking to him, what was? Mike took a deep breath of the moist night air, feeling better now, definitely better, thinking more clearly—

go inside and find Naomi, that’s what I’ll do, find Naomi, find Naomi

—growing more comfortable in his body and mind, improving by the minute. He walked faster, stretching out his neck.

Everything was going to be okay. Naomi would be so happy to see him.

Things were clarifying.

Teacake and Naomi had reached the bottom of the ladder, and damn it felt good to put his feet on solid ground again. The flashlight in his pocket had been shining upward the whole way and Teacake had long since settled into a kind of trance, his body moving mechanically—step down, slide hands, step down, slide hands, step down, slide hands—no use looking down since it was all just a big black inky puddle down there. Step down, slide hands. He’d hesitated briefly when they reached the gray door for SB-3, but Naomi hadn’t even bothered to look down, and if she had he would’ve grinned and kept on, knowing perfectly well neither one of them would settle for anything less than making it all the way to the bottom at this point.

So they’d continued on, and that’s when the climb got long. Really long. From the schematic he would have guessed the lowermost floor to be about a hundred feet below SB-3, but now that he thought about it, that section of the drawing had been broken by a jagged line with a space through it, which must have meant a whole lot of earth was left out. Step down, slide hands, keep going. His mind had gone for a little stroll, a pleasant one this time, since the only thing that was illuminated in the area was above him, and the only thing he could see clearly up there was Naomi’s backside. He refrained from calling it or thinking about it as her ass, it was her backside, and it was a very nice one, but hang on, that’s exactly what he was trying not to think about, out of respect.

He wondered what they would do if they went out on a date, since she didn’t drink. Truth was, he didn’t like alcohol as much as he used to; it made his moods unpredictable. He’d get mad when he shouldn’t, happy for no reason, and wasted people bugged him more as he got older. Plus there was the waking up in the night—he couldn’t sleep twelve hours at a time like he could even a few years ago. Too bad, he missed those days, but he’d noticed the mornings when he was 100 percent clearheaded were kind of cool. So, okay, that’s all right, but when people don’t drink or get high, like, what do they do around here?

He imagined the two of them jacked out of their minds on coffee, but who wants that?, and then he pictured them working out together and she was very sweaty and glisteny man was she put together tight and whoops, hang on, things were headed off in that direction again, so then he saw them taking her daughter to the movies. And maybe the kid got scared at one point and jumped in his lap, and he’d say that’s okay, you’re okay, kid, turn your head away, hide your eyes and I’ll cover your ears, I’ll tell you when it’s safe to come out, I’ll protect you, and Naomi would look over at him and she’d smile, he was good with kids, he didn’t mind them after all, maybe he could actually—