Linda Robertson - Wicked Circle

Will the kid be scared of me with all these tattoos?

From the driveway, he studied the house. In the morning light, the beige aluminum-sided ranch, with black shutters and a brick-red front door, seemed smaller than it had in the dark last night. It was cute and well kept; the many trees were bare, but the lawn had been raked and the leaves tended. The bushes were trimmed, the flowerbeds mulched and ready for the snow that would soon fall.

He shut the car off and dropped the keys in his pocket.

Toni opened the front door before he could knock. “Have a seat. I’ll get him.”

Johnny entered a modest living room with two chairs and a small love seat, as she’d said. All were dark brown and worn. He sat on one of the chairs and noticed that the oval coffee table showed signs of wear and tear on its edges. He understood why when he saw the bin of Hot Wheels under the coffee table.

He swallowed, hard.

“Evan! Come here,” Toni called.

“I’m playing!”

“There’s someone I want you to meet.”

“Who?”

“Come here and I’ll introduce you.”

Silence.

More silence.

Toni rolled her eyes and started forward, but Johnny touched her arm. “May I?”

She blinked. Nodded. “Sure.”

Johnny walked down the hall with his heart pounding. The walls and ceiling seemed to be closing in on him, though he told himself it was just a small house. The vroom-vroom sounds of a boy at play met his ears, and he eased into the doorway as if his world was in slow motion.

The room was a sunny yellow with framed posters of sleek cars. The twin bed was primary red and shaped like a Ferrari. The bedspread was also red. Though there was beige carpeting, a small area rug, made like a city with roads, lay next to the bed. It seemed the rug city was under construction—dump trucks and backhoes were placed along the streets.

The boy lay in the middle of the city on his stomach, feet kicking up and one sock half off his foot. He was positioned away from the door, his attention riveted to some Hot Wheels setup. The boy— Evan —was guiding cars into a motorized area that caught the cars and sent them speeding through loop-de-loops. When the cars crashed, he laughed delightedly. “All right!”

Maybe this will work out after all.

“So you like cars?” Johnny asked.

At his voice, the boy turned, and his big brown eyes started at Johnny’s shoes and rose unhurriedly upward. “You’re really tall.”

“Yup.”

“Why are you wearing makeup?”

Great. “I’m not.” He pointed at his face. “These are tattoos.”

“Why?”

“Because I used to be in a rock-and-roll band.”

The kid hit a button that switched off the motorized part of his toy. He sat up, cross-legged. “Who are you?”

“My name’s John. You’re Evan?”

“Yeah.” He scratched at his brow. “Why are you here?”

“I . . .” Johnny’s mouth opened and shut. He couldn’t just blurt out Because I’m your dad. “I heard you like cars.”

“So?”

Johnny bent and picked up one of the cars. “This one. Do you know what this is?”

Evan studied the car. “Ferrari. Like my bed. Only that one’s light blue.”

“What do you know about Ferraris?”

“They’re cool and they go fast.”

Johnny dropped to one knee. “This one happens to be a 599 GTB Fiorano. Do you know why they go fast?”

Evan blinked.

“This Ferrari has a V12 engine. That means it has twelve cylinders. . . . Do you know anything about engines?”

“No.”

Johnny asked, “Would you like to?”

“No.” Evan jumped up, snatched the car from him and left the room.

What did I do?

Evan dashed straight to Toni in the living room.

Johnny followed behind him.

“Who is that guy, Gram?”

Toni glanced past Evan to Johnny. “He’s someone you need to know.”

“I don’t want him touching my cars.”

“Then, just say so,” Johnny said.

Evan spun around, and in doing so, he scanned the front picture window. His head snapped back to the driveway. He eased forward and put his nose on the glass. “Whoa. . . . Is that your car?”

“Yup.”

“Wow. What is it?”

“It’s a Maserati Quattroporte.”

“Does it have a twelve-V engine, too?”

Johnny laughed. “No, it’s a V8. It only has eight cylinders.”

“It still looks cool.”

“Would you like to go for a ride?”

Evan’s eyes lit up. “Could I?”

“If Toni says it’s okay.”

“Can I, Gram? Can I? Can I?”

Toni regarded Johnny steadily. “Can I talk to you privately?”

“Sure.”

“Evan, go to your room.”

“But Gram—”

“Get your shoes,” she said. Evan scurried off. As soon as he was out of earshot, she seized Johnny’s arm. “Don’t you dare try to take him from me yet!”

“I wouldn’t!” Johnny realized what she’d thought. “I wouldn’t steal him. He doesn’t even know me yet.”

She released his arm.

“I don’t know where to start. He obviously likes cars. So do I.” He shrugged. “You can come with us.”

Toni sat in a chair. “No,” she sighed. “Go for a drive, just the two of you.”

Evan returned with his shoes on, laces flopping. “Tie those or you’re not going,” Toni told him. “No speeding.” She pointed her finger at Johnny. “And he has to sit in the back.”

“We’ll be back in twenty minutes. You have my word.”

After letting Evan sit in the driver’s seat for a few minutes, Johnny told him to get into the back—Evan crawled over the console—and put on his seat belt. Johnny revved the engine a few times while in the driveway, and Evan giggled gleefully.

He backed onto the road and headed back the only way he knew to go. Soon, Evan was begging, “I want to go fast!”

“Toni said not to go fast.”

“She said no speeding . The speed limit is higher on the highway. That’s why they call it the high way. Geez.”

Johnny saw a sign for NY-3. He followed it, heading west. He punched it up to the allowed forty-five. “So, tell me a little about yourself, Evan. Do you get good grades in school?”

“School? Bleh.” Evan stuck his tongue out. “Can we go faster?”

“No.”

“Not even just a little?”

“Well. Tell me about school and I’ll go a little faster.”

“I like recess and gym. Art class is fun.”

“What else?”

Evan sat up like he was trying to see the speedometer. “Are we going faster?”

“A little.”

“How fast?”

“Forty-eight.”

Evan sat back in his seat with arms crossed. “That’s not fast.”

“I’ll do sixty-five in a straight stretch if you tell me about your spelling tests.”

“I do okay. Not As, but no Fs either.”

“What about your teacher?”

“Seventy-five?”

“Your teacher is seventy-five years old?” Johnny asked incredulously, teasing.

“No. Can we go seventy-five?”

A straight patch stretched before them and there were no other cars around except the one about eight car lengths back, so Johnny slowed down to thirty, then punched it so it would feel more dynamic to hit seventy-five.

Investigator Kurt Miller was following the Maserati as nonchalantly as possible for a quiet Sunday midday. Most folks were in church now. The roads were empty.

And it seemed John Hampton was heading back to Cleveland.

Kurt followed him, wondering if he could even make an arrest based on a warrant for a suspect identified as human. He decided to leave that to someone else to decide. The real question was, How am I going to stop him while he’s still in my jurisdiction?