Allegiance: A Jackson Quick Adventure Read online

  “Praying?” George asks me.

  “Uh,” I am surprised by the question. “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Me too,” he says without taking his eyes off the road. “It can’t hurt.”

  We’re driving through the intersection with Polk Street, about to pass the House of Blues ahead on the right when…

  Boom! Wham!

  My neck snaps to the left and then right. My head impacts with something, maybe the window. The SUV spins, and my whole body slams into George, who is pressed into the driver’s side door. The Lexus stops when we hit a car parallel parked on the left side of the one-way street. I’m a little disoriented, but I gain focus in time to see two men walking toward the car. In the distance behind them is their black sedan, its front end smashed. They’re maybe twenty-five yards from the car. I fumble with my seatbelt to unlatch it, but I can’t find the button. My door is crushed.

  “George! Are you okay?”

  He moans and shakes his head. At least he’s conscious.

  “George!” I repeat. “We gotta go!”

  I finally locate the button on the seatbelt and unhook myself. Scrambling into the back seat of the Lexus I stay low and manage to open the back door. I slide to the street, stumble to my feet and start running.

  “Hey!” someone yells from behind me. “Hey, Quick! Stop running!”

  I’m running aimlessly, not sure of where I am going. My head is pounding. My vision is a little blurry. I’m having trouble breathing as I run, but I’m not stopping.

  “Quick!” It’s a second voice. Both men are following me.

  I turn around, continuing to run, looking over my shoulder. Both men are standing at the Lexus. I can’t see George. He may still be in the car, I can’t tell. One of the men, gun in hand, starts to trot toward me. I can see a crowd starting to gather near the intersection, people getting out of their cars.

  I turn back around, still a little dizzy, and keep running. My legs feel heavy. I’m limping on my right leg. I can’t stop. If they catch me, I am dead. I’m on a sidewalk now, running along Polk. I can feel people looking at me as I run past. My right side is starting to hurt. One of the dark suited men is jogging after me. He’s not in an all-out sprint like me, but seems to be keeping pace. Maybe he doesn’t want to call too much attention to himself. Ahead is the Hyatt Hotel. I dig a little deeper and run across Louisiana to the hotel entrance.

  Straight ahead is a bank of glass elevators. I speed walk to the back of the atrium lobby and turn the corner to find the row of elevator doors. Still breathing hard, feeling bruised and exhausted, I press the UP button followed by the DOWN button. Whatever opens first, I’m taking.

  The elevator rings and the door closest to me opens. I get in and press the button to close the door. It takes an eternity, but it shuts and I consider my options. The arrow above the door is pointing down. One button is labeled T. I don’t know what that means, but I push it.

  The elevator lurches downward and stops. The doors open to a sign on the wall directly opposite the elevator. HOUSTON TUNNEL SYSTEM. SOUTH LOUISIANA. There is an arrow pointing to the right directing me to the TUNNEL LOOP. I decide that’s my best option. I turn right and start jogging down a long wide hallway.

  I’d forgotten Houston has a massive underground tunnel system running ninety-five city blocks. It’s two stories under downtown and is full of restaurants and shops. The city built it to keep downtown workers out of the heat in the scorching summer months. It was Houston’s version of the heated sky bridges in downtown Des Moines or Minneapolis meant to keep workers from freezing in the winter.

  The tunnel makes a hard right and a quick left. A sign on the wall reads RELIANT ENERGY PLAZA. I keep moving, not sure of where I am going. I have to keep moving.

  ***

  I’ve made my way to the LOUISIANA NORTH TUNNEL despite the growing pain in my side. My headache has ballooned into a pulsing, vision-altering, migraine-like pain. I haven’t seen or heard anyone following me since I dropped into the tunnel system. I can afford to find a bathroom and assess my injuries.

  I am underneath the Bank of America Center when I find a men’s room. I push on the door and duck inside. To my left is a wall of sinks with a full length mirror above the stainless automatic faucets. To my right are a half dozen stalls and a couple of urinals. I pick a stall toward the end of the row, close and lock the door behind me, and lean against the door.

  Gingerly, I lift my Kinky shirt and look down at my right side. There’s a large circular bruise at the lower edge of my ribcage that stretches a good six inches toward my stomach. There’s maybe some swelling there too, but I can’t really tell. I take a deep, wheezy breath. I may have a cracked rib or worse. The adrenaline that carried me here is diminishing, and the pain is intensifying. My right knee is throbbing, but there’s no visible injury.

  I lower my shirt and turn to open the stall door, looking to the mirror to see if there are any injuries to my face or head. The headache is a bad sign. I spin the lock on the stall just when the bathroom door bangs open.

  “Quick?”

  Holy crap.

  It’s one of the dark suited men. How the hell did he find me?

  As quietly as I can, I slip off my shoes and slide them under the stall to my left. It’s closer to the entrance. I place my hands on the sides of the stall and step up onto the toilet seat. This isn’t going to work. I’ve got no other choice. I’m cornered. There’s a broken handicap rail on the right side. It’s about two feet long and attached to the stall by maybe one rusted screw in a stripped hole. It’s not much to hold and the rail might fall if I’m not careful.

  Why did I stop? Why didn’t I keep running?

  “Quick,” the man calls again, “I know you’re here. I followed the blood.”

  What blood?

  For the first time, I see the droplets of blood on the floor. They are bright red, iridescent almost. I imagine there must be some sort of blood trail that led this psycho straight to me.

  Where is the blood coming from?

  My heart accelerates and the pounding in my head matches its rapid beat. I realize the blood must be coming from my head, and I must be worse off than I thought.

  Bam! The first stall door slams open. I can hear his shoes squeak on the tile floor as he steps.

  “Look, Quick, we don’t need to play it this way. Make it easy on yourself.”

  I can feel the warmth of the sweat on the back of my neck and behind my ears. I try to keep my balance on the toilet seat. It’s getting increasingly difficult.

  Bam! The second stall door slams open.

  “You can’t hide from us, you know.” His voice sounds strained, as though he’s bending over when he talks, looking under the stall doors. “We’ve found you three times now.”

  Bam! The third door is open.

  “We got you on the way from Austin. Thought we had you there.” He chuckles. “Then we found you again at Rice.”

  Bam! The fourth door? How many stalls are there?

  “And now, I’ve got you here,” he says. His voice stretches as he bends over. He’s at the stall where I put my shoes.

  I’ve got to do something. I’m a sitting duck in here. He’s gonna kill me. Sweat drips into my eyes, stinging them shut. I wipe my face on my shoulder, still pressing against the sides of the stall. Balancing myself on the toilet, I reach to unlock the latch to the stall. The door swings inward.

  Bam!

  The stall door next to me slams open.

  “Nice trick, Quick,” he chuckles. “But the shoes aren’t gonna save you.”

  Under the stall I can see his black dress shoes. He’s at my door.

  “Okay,” I say. I don’t really have a plan. I’ve got to buy a little bit of time. I can see him through the crack in the door as I jump down from the toilet and grab onto the loose handicap rail.

  “You’ve got me,” I concede. “I unlocked the door for you. I’m not gonna struggle. Just don’t kill me in a—”

>   Before I finish my sentence, the door flies open. At that instant, almost expecting it, I tighten my grip around the broken rail, pull it from the wall, and swing. Because of the awkward angle, I don’t make great contact. I did get his hand. He squeals and his gun drops to the floor, sliding under the stall next to me.

  The door slams open again, this time surprising me and knocking me back against the toilet. I hit my head on the back wall of the stall. It jars me for an instant and the dark suited man is on me. I try to swing at him with the rail, but I can’t get any leverage. He manages to knock it from my hand and he punches me in the gut. I’m flailing, fighting against his weight without much success. He’s a blur. He’s strong. His hands are thick. He smells like Old Spice.

  I’m gonna die in a toilet at the hands of a cheap bastard.

  I get lucky. One of my kicks caught him in the gut or groin, because he falls back out of the stall and onto the floor. I scramble to my feet and grab the rail again. He’s on the floor gasping for air.

  I raise the aluminum rail over my head and swing down as if I’m cleaving an axe into a log. I hit him in the left knee, which he grabs, gasping for air. He sounds like a leaking tire. I swing again at the same knee, this time getting the knee and his hand.

  I’m about to swing a third time when I start to lose focus. My eyes are blurring and I can’t keep my balance. I almost fall back, but catch myself against the stall. I feel drunk or dehydrated. I’ve been both before and can’t distinguish between the two.

  I drop to my knees. On all fours, sweat drips from the side of my face onto the cement. Why is the sweat red? Sweat isn’t red.

  My head is throbbing. It’s pounding. With each beat, my vision worsens.

  I roll onto my side. There’s a gun somewhere nearby. There’s a killer on the floor next to me. I can’t do anything about either one right now. I want to sleep.

  I’m tired. My head hurts. It’s cold. I’m facing the bathroom door, trying to keep my eyes open. Something inside me tells me if I pass out, I will die. Something is very wrong with me.

  Behind me, the dark suited man moans. He’s getting his breath. He’ll kill me when he can crawl to that gun.

  He’s grunting now. I can feel him slide up against me. I’m too weak to do anything.

  “You’re dead, Quick,” he says as he rolls over me. He’s going for the gun.

  I close my eyes and brace myself for the gunshot. What must have been a second feels like an eternity as time slows, almost freezing.

  My pulse beats at my temple, my breath ripples the small pool of blood on the floor in front of me.

  Click. The chamber. It must be the chamber. There’s a small, cold cylinder pressed against my left temple.

  This is where I join my parents. A calm sense of relief begins to wash over me.

  One last breath. One final beat.

  Pow! Pow!

  Two gunshots. Or one and maybe an echo.

  The weight of the dark suited man drops onto my back.

  Am I alive?

  “I told you you couldn’t go anywhere without me knowing about it,” a voice says, muffled from the ring in my ears. It’s still deep and resonant. It gets louder as he approaches, familiar and frightening.

  “Jackson, you really should be more careful.” I don’t have to open my eyes to know who it is. I smell the licorice before everything goes black.

  ***

  The first time I was bullied, I didn’t know what to think of it. It seemed to be happening in slow motion.

  It was my third day in sixth grade and I was thin and wiry, small for my age. My body hadn’t grown into my arms and legs or ears. I had a full length locker at the end of the hall and I hadn’t memorized the combination to the lock. Most of the other kids had already retrieved their books and headed to class, and the halls were empty.

  “34 right?” I remember mumbling aloud. “Or is it 34 left?”

  “34, 35, 24, 37,” mocked a voice behind me, followed by the laughter of two or three other people. “Baby Jacktard can’t remember how to open his locker!”

  I didn’t turn around. I kept fumbling with the numbers and tugging on the lock. Finally it opened.

  34 left!

  A large hand slammed into the locker door right next to my ear.

  “It is Jacktard, right?” It was Blair Loxley. He was big and strong and mean.

  I turned to face him. The top of my head came to his chin. There was something nasty in his eyes, and a story there I didn’t want to know.

  Loxley’s pimpled face was pale and his hair was shoe polish black. He was broad shouldered with a muscular thickness that belied his age. I knew he’d repeated fourth and fifth grade, and was still much larger than most of the current eighth graders.

  “I asked you a question,” he growled.

  I glanced to his right side and saw the three other boys who’d been laughing their encouragement. I recognized one of them as a kid in my science class, but I’d never seen the other two. All three of them had their arms folded like bouncers protecting the entrance to a Sixth Street bar.

  “I heard you,” I said, trying not to give away any sense of fear. I imagined he was like an animal that could sense any hint of it. “I thought you were talking to one of your stooges.”

  I didn’t really know what the word stooge meant, though I knew enough about Larry, Curley, and Moe to understand it wasn’t a compliment.

  “Stooges?” Loxley said, his tone making it apparent he’d come to the same conclusion. “You’re joking right?” He turned to look at his henchmen. “He’s joking right?”

  They laughed and nodded. I didn’t say anything, just stared into those pained eyes of his.

  “I’m not joking,” I said. I studied his face. I could feel my heart pounding against my chest now. I wasn’t going to back down, and I was sure this would not end well. An unfamiliar, involuntary strength, was coursing through me

  “Neither am I!” he grunted as he dipped his right shoulder and elbowed me in the gut.

  I felt all the air leave my body and I dropped to my knees, unable to catch my breath. I gasped for air, my chest burning, tears welling in my eyes. I tried to stand, but Loxley put his hands on my shoulders and held me down. He was telling the other boys to do something, but I was too focused on trying to breathe to understand him.

  Two of the boys grabbed my arms, one at each elbow, and used their free hands to twist violently against the skin on my forearms. Indian burns. Atomic Indian burns.

  It took everything in me to keep from screaming in pain. Instead of giving in, I squeezed my eyes shut and struggled against them. It only served to make the pain worse until I blindly lifted my right leg and kicked.

  I didn’t connect with anything and so I kicked again. Kick. Kick. Kick. I must have seemed like an infant throwing a tantrum; eyes shut, tears streaming down my cheeks, legs flailing.

  I felt another hard punch to the gut. My eyes popped open and I felt drool trailing from the corner of my mouth. I was out of air.

  “Don’t do it again, Jacktard,” hissed Loxley. “Don’t resist me. Take what’s coming to you and shut up. If you tell anyone about this, the next time will be worse.”

  He shoved his palm against my forehead, slamming it against my locker, then he led the two henchmen away.

  I sunk to the floor quietly. My arms were on fire, my breath was slow to come back.

  I was determined to get even.

  PART II: NOT EVERYTHING IS BIGGER IN TEXAS

  “Future years will never know the seething hell and the black infernal background, the countless minor scenes and interiors of the secession war; and it is best they should not. The real war will never get in the books”

  --WALT WHITMAN

  Chapter 4

  “Jaaaacksonnnn?” The voice is muted but soft and sweet in my left ear. “Jaaaaacksonnnn, baaaaabyyyy? Cannn yoooo heeeearrrr meeeee?”

  It’s Charlie. Her voice is breaking through the fog.

 
My eyes are closed and heavy. I can feel her hands wrapped around the fingers on my left hand, feel the slight squeeze.

  “Jaaacksonnn?” she whispers. “He’s waking up.” She must be talking to someone else now.

  I’m trying to open my eyes, trying to move and wake up.

  Where am I?

  “He should be waking up soon,” says another woman’s voice. This one is gruffer, masculine in tone. “The sedative doesn’t last long.”

  Sedative?

  I’m trying to move but can’t. I’m paralyzed.

  Am I paralyzed?

  A distant beeping noise gets louder and faster.

  “Hear the heart monitor?” It’s the man-woman voice again. “He’s waking up and his heart rate is quickening. He can probably hear us talking about him.”

  “Should I keep talking to him?” Charlie asks, squeezing my hand again.

  “Sure.”

  “Jackson, baby,” she says, her voice soft again and closer to my ear, “you’re safe. You’re okay. You’re here in the hospital with me. Everything is going to be fine.”

  Hospital? Hospital!?

  It all rushes back: the gun shot, the fight in the bathroom, the tunnel, the crash, Bobby’s blood, The Saint, the iPods…

  The beeping, which had slowed, is again loud and fast. There’s an involuntary twitch in my left arm.

  “Jackson, open your eyes. Try to open them a little,” Charlie says.

  My eyes feel like they’re glued shut. Slowly, and with considerable effort, I’m able to open them. At first all I can see is white. As my pupils shrink, I can make out the fuzzy shape of Charlie sitting at my bedside. Apparently my head is turned to left, and she’s been talking to me in my right ear. I’m totally disoriented.

  “Oh, Jackson, I was so scared.” She leans in and kisses my cheek. “They told me you were here, and I rushed to get here.”