In Between Days Read online

  She’d bristled at this, though she’d known it was true. A few days earlier she had called him up out of the blue and suggested it—suggested that he come down to Houston for a few days and hide out—but she hadn’t actually believed that he’d do it. Even when he’d called her up from the Houston airport the night he arrived and told her he was here, even then, she hadn’t believed him. She’d thought he was joking.

  “Describe what you’re looking at right now,” she’d said, and then he’d proceeded to describe the giant bronze statue of George Bush Sr., and she’d felt her stomach drop.

  That night, as they drove home, he’d cried for the first time since she’d known him. She’d tried to get him to explain what had happened back at Stratham to make him do this, but he said only that things had changed, that Tyler Beckwith had fallen into some type of unconscious state, and that Seung had now agreed to testify against him, and that things were looking worse and worse. He said that he believed his own official indictment was imminent and that he hadn’t known what else to do. He’d panicked, he’d admitted later, and had regretted his decision the moment he stepped onto the plane in Boston, but by then it was too late. By then, there was no going back.

  She’d taken him to her mother’s house first, cooked him an omelet, which he hadn’t eaten, then packed up some clothes and her computer and taken him over to Beto’s, where she was sure she’d find Richard.

  Later, when they returned to Brandon’s apartment, Brandon had made them up a bed in his study, a small room with a desk and a computer and a few bookshelves against the wall. The bed itself was nothing more than an old futon mattress, which Brandon had laid down in the middle of the room.

  After Brandon had gone to sleep, they’d lain there for a long time on the mattress, holding each other. Raja was wide awake, his body filled with adrenaline, his muscles stiff and tense. She’d tried to calm him down, suggested that he drink some water or a beer, but he’d shaken his head. He kept getting up every few minutes to go to the window and smoke. He’d light a cigarette, take a few drags, then put it out. Then he’d come back to the bed and let her hold him. He didn’t want to talk, he said, but he couldn’t sleep either. Finally, he began to wonder whether it was really too late to go back, whether he could maybe call up the Stratham Police Department the next day and turn himself in, promise to come back that evening. Would that be the best thing to do? he’d wondered out loud. Then he’d answered his own question by saying, no—no, it wouldn’t. Technically speaking, he had just broken his bail, and even if he went back now, he’d still have to contend with that, with the consequences, not to mention the fact that he’d be immediately jailed and lose any chance of ever getting bail again. It would be a nightmare, he said. A nightmare bottom line.

  This went on for most of the night, Raja getting up constantly to smoke cigarettes, Chloe sitting there silently, listening. She said very little that night. She knew that bringing up her own concerns would only upset him more, so she’d kept them to herself. It was funny how things had changed, how she’d now become the pillar of strength in their relationship, the stable force. He’d been so stoic throughout it all, so confident and calm throughout everything that had happened back at Stratham, and yet now he was clearly losing it. It worried her, scared her, but also made her feel an even deeper connection to him. It was the first time in her life that she’d felt that someone else was actually depending on her.

  The next day they’d dropped Brandon off at his job at Café Brasil, then taken his car across town to a small sushi place on the other side of Montrose that Chloe used to go to back in high school. Here, over steaming bowls of miso soup, they had sat for nearly an hour without talking.

  Later, when they got back to the apartment, Raja had started to speak. He said that they needed to figure out a plan, that they needed to figure out a logical course of action. He asked her how long she thought they could stay at Brandon’s, and she had said a couple of days, maybe four or five max. He nodded, looked around the room. By now, he said, the authorities up in Stratham would be aware of his absence. They would have taken some action themselves. Maybe called up some airports, sent around his picture, contacted the Canadian and Mexican borders. She looked up at him. It was strange to hear him talking in this way. It felt like something from a dream or a movie. Up until this point she hadn’t really considered their next step, hadn’t really considered where they might go now. In retrospect, she realized then, she had been living only in the moment, but now it seemed that living in the moment wasn’t going to be enough. As Raja paced around the room, she felt the sudden reality of it all finally settling in. This was actually happening, she thought, and it was actually happening to them. She felt her stomach tighten. She looked up at Raja and wanted to say something, but he kept going. He said that he’d taken some precautions himself, that he’d bought two plane tickets, for example, one to Newark, and then another one in Newark to Houston, and that he’d paid for both tickets with cash. This might throw them off for a couple of days, he thought, make it harder for them to find him, but eventually they would. They’d figure it out. And when they did, they’d press her parents, and then they’d question Richard, and eventually they’d find them. It was only a matter of time, he said. Maybe three or four days at the most. That was the window they were looking at. After that, they’d need another plan, or at least he would.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” she’d asked when he said this.

  But he hadn’t answered.

  “I’m coming with you,” she said. “Wherever you’re going next, I’m coming, too.”

  Raja shook his head. “It’s not safe,” he said. And then he explained to her that he wasn’t going to let her implicate herself any more than she already had. It was bad enough that she’d already implicated herself this much. Anything more and she’d be jeopardizing her own future, her own life, and he wasn’t going to let that happen. He was very adamant about this, almost belligerent about it, and for most of the night they had fought about it, Raja insisting that this was his problem now, not hers, and Chloe insisting that she wasn’t going to let him go anywhere without her. The air-conditioning unit in Brandon’s apartment was on the fritz, and it seemed that the more they fought, the hotter the tiny room became. Finally, growing exhausted, Raja had lain down on the bed and closed his eyes.

  “I don’t want to fight anymore,” he’d said, sighing, and then Chloe had lain down beside him on the bed and kissed his shoulder.

  “Me neither,” she said.

  “It’s only because I’m worried about you,” he’d said finally. “Because I don’t want to involve you.”

  “I know that,” she said, and this time kissed him on the lips.

  They made love twice that night in the muggy heat of Brandon’s tiny study while Brandon sat silently down the hall, watching TV. Later, after he’d gone to bed, they took a cold shower together and then returned to the room to talk.

  For the time being, the issue of whether or not Chloe would be coming with him was going to be left off the table. They would resolve that later. For now what they needed to do was figure out a next step. Raja said that he had a close friend from high school who was now living out in California, studying at Stanford. He trusted this friend completely, he said, and was sure that he could put him up for a couple of days, but that wasn’t really a long-term solution, was it? What he really needed to do now was get out of the country. That would be the safest thing. Unfortunately, he’d left his passport back at his parents’ house in New Jersey, which made air travel, train travel, and even buses out of the question.

  “Out of the country?” she’d said. “Are you serious?”

  He looked at her, shrugged.

  “Come on, Raj. I don’t think we’re really at that point yet, do you?”

  He shook his head, then stood up and walked over to the window and lit a cigarette.

  She could tell he felt trapped. She had seen it in his face that morning, and she
could see it again now. Still, she kept talking, wondering whether leaving the country wasn’t a little extreme. I mean wasn’t that essentially admitting to their own guilt? Wasn’t that essentially throwing in the towel? After all, what if Tyler Beckwith recovered? What if the charges were lowered? But the truth was, the thought of him leaving the country, of both of them leaving the country, was simply too hard to process. The thought of them living a life in exile, a life on the run, it seemed insane.

  “You haven’t even been convicted yet,” she reminded him.

  “No,” he said, “but I will be.” And then he reminded her of what the charges would be if Tyler Beckwith didn’t recover, if he died. It was the unspoken word that had never passed between them, the word they never uttered. “I’m just dealing with reality here,” he said. “I mean, that’s the fucking reality.”

  She looked at him and felt suddenly sick.

  “I think you should go back,” she’d said finally.

  He looked at her. “I can’t,” he said.

  “Of course you can.”

  “I’m not going back.”

  “Why not?”

  But he told her it wasn’t an option anymore. Not now. He’d played his cards, he said. He’d made a decision, and yes, it was an impulsive decision, and yes, he regretted it, but what else could he do? What other alternatives did he have? He looked at her for a long time after he said this, and she realized then that he was serious, that he’d made up his mind, and that there was no way that she was going to change it.

  “I mean, do you know of anyone,” he said after a moment, staring at her, “anyone at all who might be able to get me out of the country?”

  She looked at him for a very long time and then finally shook her head. No, she said, she didn’t.

  Of course, had she had an answer to this question then, she would have given it to him, but she hadn’t. It wasn’t until the next day, when she was going through her wallet and came across that small white card from Dupree, a small white card with a beeper number on it, that a thought even occurred to her, though even now, as she sits across from Raja in a small corner booth of the Alabama Ice House waiting for Dupree to return from the bathroom, she wonders if this solution is really a solution at all.

  She had called up Dupree the previous day using Brandon’s cell phone, had entered Brandon’s number into his beeper, then had waited there for almost an hour for Dupree to call back. When he did, he seemed happy to hear from her and not at all surprised that she’d called. She’d told him a little bit about their dilemma, though nothing specific, and then Dupree had suggested meeting up at the Alabama Ice House the following day to discuss their situation in more detail. It would be better that way, he’d said.

  When she got off the phone, she told Raja about it, and though he’d been skeptical at first, he’d eventually come around to the idea. She explained how she’d run into Dupree a few days earlier at Simone’s store, how he seemed like a trustworthy guy, how he seemed to have a lot of connections, and so forth, and though she didn’t know how deep his connections ran, she figured it was at least worth a shot. Raja had smiled at her and nodded. Maybe it was divine intervention, he’d said. Fate. Or maybe, she thought, this is what desperate circumstances could do to a person: cloud their judgment to the point where even the seediest of characters could seem like a savior.

  And, of course, since they’ve been here, Dupree has told them very little, only that he has spoken to a guy who he thinks can help them out. He had arrived almost an hour late, his hair still wet from the shower, and then he had sat down at the table and proceeded to talk for the next twenty minutes. He told them that he didn’t want to know anything specific about their situation. He didn’t want to know what they had done, or who they were running from, or even where they were eventually planning to go. It would be better that way for all of them, he’d said. What he could do for them, he said, was put them in contact with someone who could help them out. Then he’d looked down at his beeper and excused himself to the bathroom, which is where he’s been for the past twenty minutes.

  After he’d left, she looked at Raja, who shrugged as if to say, Let’s just wait and see, and then kissed her. Now, however, he’s looking more and more concerned, and it suddenly occurs to her that they’re putting a lot of faith into a boy they barely know.

  On the other side of the Alabama Ice House, the bartender is pulling sweating bottles of Corona out of an ice chest and placing them down in front of the only other patrons at the bar, three elderly men in Mexican cowboy hats who laugh uproariously at almost everything the bartender says. Chloe watches the bartender as he slices the lime wedges for their beers, sprinkles salt on their bottles. The bar itself is very dark and otherwise empty. Country-western music bleeds from an old Wurlitzer jukebox in the corner, a slow, wistful ballad that Raja seems to enjoy. She reaches across the table and grabs his hand, and a moment later, she sees Dupree, returning from the bathroom with the phone in his hand.

  When he sits down, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a piece of paper and slides it across the table to her. The paper contains only a street address, nothing else.

  “You show up here Tuesday night at midnight, and he’ll take you down to Laredo. Get you across the border. After that, you can catch a bus to anywhere you wanna go.”

  Chloe looks at the paper. “You sure?”

  “I’m positive.”

  “I don’t think I even know where this is,” she says, staring at the address.

  “Downtown,” he says. “Warehouse district.”

  Chloe nods. “How will we know what he looks like?”

  “I’ll be there, too,” Dupree says. “To make the introductions, you know. After that, though, I’m out of there. I can’t be involved with this shit.”

  Chloe looks at him and nods. “Sure,” she says. “Of course.”

  Dupree pulls out a cigarette and lights it. “To be honest, I’ve never done anything like this before. I’m strictly small time, you know. Recreational narcotics. But you two seem like good people, you know, and you’re friends with Simone, so I figured what the hell, I’ll do what I can.”

  “We appreciate it,” Chloe says. “Really.”

  Dupree shrugs and picks up his beer.

  “So how much is this going to cost us?” Raja asks after a moment, looking around the bar cautiously.

  “Yeah,” Dupree says. “I was just gonna get to that.” He sips on his beer. “Just talked to my friend last night and apparently it’s gonna be four grand total. For the both of you.”

  Raja stares at him, his face suddenly filled with concern. “And what about for just one of us?”

  “For just one of you,” he says, “I guess that would probably be half. So what would that be—two grand?”

  “Two grand?” Raja says, shaking his head. “And that’s not negotiable?”

  “Negotiable?” Dupree laughs. “Dude, this guy doesn’t negotiate. And besides, he’s already giving you a discount, you know, because I know him, because we’ve done business before. Normally, it would probably be twice that. Shit, maybe three times.”

  Raja looks at her then, and she can see the disappointment in his face. She knows that he’s spent almost everything he has already, just to get down here, that there’s no way he can get his hands on that type of cash.

  “We don’t have two grand,” he says finally. “I mean, we don’t even have one grand.”

  Dupree looks at him and shrugs. “Dude, I don’t know what to tell you then. I mean, this type of thing isn’t cheap.”

  Chloe puts her hand on Raja’s, then looks at Dupree. “We’ll get it,” she says.

  “What are you talking about?” Raja says.

  “We’ll get it,” she says to Raja. “Don’t worry about it.”

  Raja stares at her, then looks away.

  “You sure?” Dupree says.

  “Positive.”

  “ ’Cause I can’t be flaking out on this dude.”
r />   “Don’t worry about it,” she says. “Honestly. We’ll be there, and we’ll have the money.”

  Dupree nods, then looks again at Raja, who is looking down at his lap.

  “All right then,” he says and stands up. “So, I’ll see you guys Tuesday night then.”

  “Tuesday night,” Chloe says.

  Dupree looks at her then and smiles.

  “You know,” he says, “I don’t know what type of shit you’re in. And, like I said, I don’t really wanna know. But I hope it all works out for you two. I really do.”

  “Thanks,” Chloe says and smiles.

  Then Dupree turns to Raja and shakes his hand. “Adios, mi compadre,” he says, and then he turns around and disappears out the door just as suddenly as he arrived.

  As soon as he’s gone, Chloe turns to Raja and pats his hand. “It’s going to be okay,” she says.

  “How are we going to raise that type of money?”

  “I don’t know,” she says.

  “Then why did you tell him we’d have it?”

  “I’ll figure something out,” she says. “Trust me.”

  He stares at her.

  “I have a thousand or so in my savings,” she says, “and I can get the rest from my parents.”

  “You can’t ask your parents.”

  “Okay,” she says, “then I’ll get it from Richard.”

  He sips his beer. “You think he has that type of money?”

  “I don’t know,” she says. “But I know he’ll give me whatever he has.”

  He looks at the bartender, then shakes his head.

  “We have three days,” she says. “We can get four grand in three days. I mean, it’s not going to be easy, but we can do it.”