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The deputy looked like he wanted to argue, but then he sighed. “I’ve got a slim jim and gloves.”
Using Muntz’s big Maglite, they walked across a dike above rice fields and found the blue Dodge Avenger parked in the weeds where the farmland gave way to dense woods and swamp. The doors were locked. The deputy proved handy with the slim jim and opened the door, which triggered the car alarm.
“Shit,” Muntz said. “Now everyone’s gonna know we broke in and tampered with—”
“Grow a set, Deputy,” Aaliyah said. She pushed by him and reached under the dashboard, felt around until her fingers found a cluster of plastic electrical connectors. She yanked at wires that fed into them, felt them budge, and then one tore free, and then another. The third shut off the alarm.
Straightening up, she peered around inside the car, scanning, trying to catalog everything in plain sight. There were Diet Coke cans in the cup holders. On the passenger seat, there was a bulging white bag with its mouth rolled shut and grease bleeding through its bottom.
Aaliyah unlocked the other doors, went around to the passenger side, and opened it. The bag smelled of hamburger and fries, and when she unrolled the top, she saw the remnants of the meal and several smashed coffee cups. The glove compartment held nothing more than the rental agreement. And the storage in the central console was empty.
“Can we button this up now?” Muntz asked. “There’s nothing in there or in the backseat. I looked through the window.”
Aaliyah was about to tell the deputy to pop the trunk when she noticed something stuck down between the console and the driver’s seat.
“Gimme your flashlight please, Deputy,” she said.
Muntz reluctantly handed it to her. She shone it into the crack and saw several papers stapled together and folded. She got hold of them and exited the car before opening them up.
Aaliyah scanned the papers, seeing a smudged receipt for a $2,129 payment in cash and a two-page disclaimer of liability. The fourth and last page stopped her cold, and she didn’t know why at first.
“What is it?” Muntz asked.
“A bill,” she said. “For lading …”
Something clicked, and her hand shot to her mouth before she barked at the deputy, “Close it. Lock it. We’ve got to get out of here and find Cross. He needs to see these papers right now!”
Part Five
CHAPTER
88
I CLIMBED FROM THE GTO amid the ruins of Arabi.
Lester Frost was pissed off because his mother had insisted he give me his brand-new red high-top Converse sneakers, which fit surprisingly well. In the backseat, Madame Minerva had her chin up and was slowly drifting back and forth as if divining.
“You swim?” she asked.
“Why’d you say that?” I asked.
“The cradle is water,” she said. “And this is just the first step in your water journey.”
I had no time to ask her what that meant; I just nodded and shut the door. The address Sunday had sent me was down a block to the west. In the first light of day I walked past city lots bulldozed clean, others grown over with weeds, and still others haunted by the crippled skeletons of low-income houses.
Madame Minerva and Lester were right. Though there were new mobile homes here and there, Arabi did feel like a place for ghosts, and memories.
As I walked on, specters of my own memories flew before me. Nana Mama was in the kitchen, making pancakes and laughing at a joke Damon had told. Jannie and Ali were in the front room watching The Walking Dead and trying to convince me it was the greatest show ever. Bree and I were dancing at a club shortly after we met, and my heart was just beginning to melt for her.
I got closer to the address on Pontalba Street and forced the ghosts of those precious memories back into my mental cabinet and locked it. This could easily be an ambush. This could easily be Sunday’s endgame.
I slowed and scanned the area around me in the gathering light. Did Sunday have my family in one of these condemned buildings? Or in one of the double-wide trailers? Were they here at all?
When I was able to see the actual wreckage of the house at the correct address, I stopped and watched and listened. Even in the gray light, I could see that the front wall of the baby-blue bungalow had buckled inward and was twisted like an old man suffering hip pain. The windows were boarded up. And I could make out a sign of some kind on the door, probably the condemnation notice.
Nothing moved.
In the distance I heard the tuba-deep braying of a ship’s horn. But nothing moved.
