Restitution

CHAPTER 2

Chapter 2“Move it or lose it, buddy!” the stocky man with short, dark hair and a round face yelled out his window. He used a deeper, more exaggerated voice than his natural one, as if he were enacting a scene from a movie. His meaty hand laid on the horn. “We’ve got places to go . . . people to meet!”

“Easy, Dusty” a short, thin man advised from the passenger seat. Bald up top with trim hair on the sides, he shook his head in irritation. His eyes averted upward as he rubbed his knuckles along his scalp. “It’s a crosswalk, and you took us right into a school zone.”

Dusty folded his lower lip into a pout. “It was an accident, Chief.”

“I know. And for the twentieth time, we’re not in Winston anymore. We’re in Vegas, so no more of this ‘Chief Lumbergh’ stuff. I’m just Gary.”

A man’s tattooed arm extended from the driver’s side window of the ’70s model black Camaro idling in front of them. His forearm went vertical, as did his middle finger. A reply to Dusty’s horn.

Dusty winced. “Well, that was uncalled for, especially in front of the school kids.” He turned to Lumbergh. “Hey, can you arrest him for that?”

“No.”

“Write him a ticket?”

“No.”

Dusty nodded. A few seconds floated by. He scratched his pencil-thin mustache with his finger. “Maybe the issuing of a stern warning or something?”

“God,” Lumbergh moaned, his shoulders slumping. “You know what, Dusty? It’s hot, and it’s been a very long trip. Do you think we could just hold off on the talking until we get to the hotel? I just want a shower and a nap before—”

“Hey, check out this old guy,” Dusty interrupted, pointing his finger through the dirty, insect-riddled windshield of the ’94 Oldsmobile Cutlass Cruiser.

An elderly man with glasses, a baseball cap, and a wrinkled red face came into view. He slowly made his way across the street in front of them. Holding a Stop sign in one hand, he smiled as he motioned a sea of elementary aged students over from the sidewalk. Some of the kids wore backpacks. Others carried lunch pails.

Lumbergh sighed. “This is going to take a while.”

“I thought we weren’t talking,” said Dusty.

Lumbergh’s head dropped forward.

Dusty leaned forward with him, turning his body and twisting his head to more closely assess the expression on Lumbergh’s face. His foot slipped off the brake and the car sprung forward.

“Dusty!” shouted Lumbergh, eyes wide as the back of the Camaro grew larger.

Dusty slammed on the brakes. A loud thud from the back seat rattled the entire vehicle.

“f**k!” came a gravelly voice from behind them. “Hell’s going on?”

Sean’s head rose from the rear of the car, eyes blinking and face stretched in annoyance. He’d begun to stir from all the noise up front, but the sudden stop had jarred him wide awake. His narrow eyes shifted between Dusty and Lumbergh.

“Sorry,” said Dusty.

Lumbergh glared at Sean, his wide eyes and scowl telling a silent story of the aggravation he’d been put through while Sean was napping.

Sean grunted and took a breath, turning to Dusty. “It’s fine,” he said, stretching his broad back to a pop.

The rear of the vehicle wasn’t built for comfort, especially not for a man of Sean’s size. At six-five and close to 250 pounds, the last few hours had been a pretty rough rest. Still, rubbing his eyes with his large fists, he couldn’t help but be amused by his brother-in-law’s undeterred irritation with the driver. When Lumbergh shook his head, a chuckle escaped Sean’s lips.

“Did you get any sleep?” asked Lumbergh.

“Yeah,” said Sean. “No thanks to you two old ladies bickering back and forth. We almost there?”

Dusty erupted into obnoxious laughter, causing Lumbergh to jump in his seat. “Old ladies . . .” he snorted, nostrils flaring above multiple chins.

Lumbergh rolled his eyes and glared at Sean.

“He grows on you,” Sean mouthed to Lumbergh, offering a wink. He glanced in the rearview mirror, meeting his own hazel eyes and short, dark hair matted down from his nap.

“It’s too hot for this s**t,” mumbled Lumbergh, glancing back at the air-conditioning dial before returning his attention to Sean.

Unlike Dusty and Sean, who wore T-shirts and shorts, Lumbergh was in a shirt with a collar and khakis, a decision he was regretting.

Dusty loudly cleared his throat. In an artificially deep voice, he began to sing Jim Croce’s “Time in a Bottle.”

Lumbergh sighed. “You really owe me,” he mouthed to Sean.

Sean’s face straightened. “Like hell I do,” he said aloud, breaking their discretion.

“What?” asked Dusty, bailing out of the song. He edged the car a few inches forward before locking the brakes again.

“Don’t worry about it,” said Sean before returning to Lumbergh. “Hey, I’m paying for your hotel. I don’t owe you anything.”

“What are you talking about?” Lumbergh asked.

“I’m a Winston taxpayer, aren’t I? Isn’t that who’s picking up the tab for your little PD ass-kiss convention?”

Lumbergh let some air escape his mouth, shook his head, and returned his back to Sean. “Again . . . it’s a national law enforcement convention for chiefs of police,” he said matterof-factly. “It’s a learning and instructional opportunity that—”

Sean interrupted him with a blaring kissing noise, delivered through his puckered lips. The gesture drew another loud laugh from Dusty.

“Anyway,” Lumbergh continued once the unpleasant sound fizzled. He took a breath. “You, personally, are probably only paying for about ten cents of it. I saved the people of Winston a heck of a lot of money by catching a ride out here with you two instead of flying.”

“A simple ‘thank you’ would have worked,” Sean said, his lips curled.

A few seconds floated by before a chuckle begrudgingly fell from Lumbergh’s mouth. “Fine. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” said Sean, grinning. “And don’t tell me you aren’t looking forward to helping us celebrate Dusty’s last days as a single man.” He leaned forward and slapped the driver on the shoulder. “A lot of women are gonna be heartbroken once this guy’s finally off the market.”

All three men grinned, exchanging glances. It was the first real levity they’d shared since a few miles outside of Green River, Utah. Dusty’s performative, overbearing personality had already been wearing thin on Lumbergh by then, but when the car blew a tire and it was discovered that the spare had been removed from under the rear floorboard to make room for party supplies that Dusty used for his job, Lumbergh had about lost it. Luckily, hitchhiking with an armful of balloon animals evoked either enough sympathy or curiosity for a family to pull over, and take the least threatening-looking of the three—Lumbergh—to a mechanic’s shop in Green River.

The tension didn’t ease, however, when Dusty gave Lumbergh grief after not passing on his business card to the family. Sean, to the surprise of both Dusty and Lumbergh, had taken the incident in relative stride. He’d learned a lot in recent months about not sweating the small stuff and turning over his life stresses to a higher power. He’d also learned about making amends with those he’d hurt in the past—a long list of individuals that included the two men he was traveling with. The lessons had come from a multistep program he’d enrolled in, at the urging of his family, to help deal with his alcoholism following a relapse that had begun a year earlier. He had remained committed to the cause, making the time to attend meetings when he wasn’t taking on contract security work.

Sean could tell the program was genuinely helping. He’d managed, after all, to keep his cool in an enclosed space for nearly seven hundred miles. The old Sean Coleman would have tossed Dusty out of the car before they’d ever reached Grand Junction.

But there were times when his patience was still tested, and a second wave of students crossing the street ahead, without a single car being let through first, was starting to feel like one of those tests.

“What’s the holdup here?” asked Sean, lowering his head and peering through the windshield.

“Just . . . school zone chaos,” answered Lumbergh. “We came the wrong way at the wrong time.”

Sean’s eyes narrowed. A sour feeling tugged at his gut. “Wait,” he said, leaning farther forward. “Where are we?”

Dusty turned to Sean, squinting. “Las Vegas,” he said.

“No s**t, Magellan,” Sean said, drawing Lumbergh’s attention back. “I’m sorry,” he immediately added, tempering his tone. “I’m asking what road we’re on.”

“Oh, uh,” Dusty began before Lumbergh cut him off.

“Wilmington. What does it matter?”

Sean’s stomach clenched. His eyes shot wide and his pulse ticked up. “Are you shitting me?” His head swiveled between windows. His eyes shifted back to Dusty. “Did you come this way on purpose, asshole?”

Dusty’s face tightened in confusion.

“Sorry,” Sean caught himself again. “You’re not an asshole, but . . .”

Sean let his remark dangle, gazing out the side window at a single-story brick building across the street. A large American flag hung high in front of it. Scores of students walked in every direction in the grassy area below a raised sign that read, “Patricia Bell Elementary.”

“Wait, you are an asshole!” Sean shouted at the back of Dusty’s head. “What, do you think this is some kind of joke?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” said Dusty.

“What’s going on, Sean?” asked Lumbergh.

Outside, there was lots of smiling and laughter—kids excited about the start of their weekend. Some ran up to parents and shared hugs.

It was a sharp contrast from the tone inside the car.

“We need to get going,” Sean said, out of breath. He turned to the long line of cars idling behind them. “Seriously, Dusty. Why did you come this way?”

“I missed a turn. And I already said I was sorry. Geez.”

“Sean!” Lumbergh said with some volume, as if he were trying to wake his brother-in-law from a hypnotic spell. “What’s happening? What’s the problem?”

Sean felt his arms trembling. “The problem is that we’re supposed to be at a blackjack table, or yanking on some slots, or doing some Vegas-y thing. Not stuck in a damn car in front of a school, in f*****g ninety-degree weather.”

Sean’s eyes slid back and forth across the moving crowd. He wanted to look away—to force his eyes to the floorboard, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to. And just as he had about convinced himself that the law of averages wouldn’t allow for a face from the past to present itself at that very place and time, it did. And it was a pretty face at that.

Clad in a sleeveless white dress with a coach’s whistle around her neck, a woman with glimmering blonde hair and an athletic build waved to a couple of students as they passed by. He knew the woman to be in her mid-thirties, though she still didn’t look a day over twenty-five. When she leaned down to talk to a younger child who had approached her, seemingly with a question, the bright smile that formed on her lips stole Sean’s breath and slowed down time.

“Whoa!” said Lumbergh, sitting up in his seat, his head now turned in the same direction as Sean’s. “Is that . . . is that Lisa?”

Just hearing her name had always brought butterflies to Sean’s stomach, but seeing her in the flesh had left him speechless.

“Ooh! Who’s Lisa?” asked Dusty, peering around Lumbergh’s shoulder.

Sean and Lumbergh answered at the same time, Sean saying “No one,” and Lumbergh saying “His ex-girlfriend.”

“Ex-girlfriend?” Dusty shouted, his wide eyes taking up the rearview mirror. “Here? Where?” He leaned to the side, his left hand blindly searching for the automatic window lever.

“Don’t worry about it, and don’t you open that goddamn window,” Sean growled. “Pay attention to the road. As soon as the kids are across, get us to the hotel.”

“Is it the Spanish lady?” Dusty asked as Lumbergh’s window steadily lowered at his command. “Hey!” he yelled, trying to grab the wrong woman’s attention.

In a flash, Sean’s arms lunged forward, one large hand going under Dusty’s chin while the other pressed against the back of his head. With clenched teeth, he squeezed Dusty’s skull as if he were trying to juice it.

Dusty wailed and snorted, his reddening round face shriveled like a prune. His hands left the steering wheel and latched onto Sean’s wrists, unable to loosen his assailant’s grip.

“Dusty, I’ve been kicking ass in recovery for almost five months and just drove seven hundred miles with you . . . without incident,” Sean said. “Don’t f**k it all up now. You wanted your bachelor party in Vegas, and I’m here because you’re my friend. Don’t repay me by being an asshole.” He let a few more seconds tick by before he released Dusty, whipping his hands away.

“God!” Dusty barked, some drool dripping from his lips. He let out a couple of coughs as some color returned to his face.

The crossing guard waited on the last child to cross, waving to her as she passed.

“Sean, it’s okay,” said Lumbergh, his spread fingers facing Sean to urge calm. “She didn’t see you. Everything’s fine. There’s no sense in getting any more worked up. We’re going to go out and have some fun tonight, and forget everything else.”

“Hundreds of thousands of people pass through this city every goddamn day,” said Sean, as if he hadn’t heard a thing Lumbergh had said. “And this dipshit . . . Sorry, you’re not a dipshit, Dusty. But you drove us right up to the one person I wanted to avoid, and shouldn’t have had any trouble avoiding. I mean, what are the odds?”

“I don’t know,” said Lumbergh. “But it’s a small world and things like this happen.”

“Sounds like fate to me,” said Dusty, his eyes wide and his face still regaining its color.

“Jesus Christ, Dusty. Shut up!” snapped Lumbergh.

Sean saw Dusty follow up the remark with a wink through the mirror. He answered with a stiff slap to the back of his head.

“Gah!” Dusty moaned, his arm covering up his head.

“Sean,” said Lumbergh.

The physical exchange caught the attention of the elderly crossing guard, who stopped on his way back to his post, lowered his head, and gazed through the windshield with a crinkled nose.

“Just get out of the road already,” Sean pled, knowing the man couldn’t hear him.

The man continued his way back toward the sidewalk, and Sean’s head spun to Lisa again. She had just been approached by a young man with dark, perfectly combed hair and a chiseled chin. He wore a bright smile and held the hand of a little blonde-haired girl in a bright red dress who couldn’t have been much older than one year.

The man appeared to ask Lisa a question. When she turned to face him, he leaned forward and kissed her directly on the lips.

“Oh God,” muttered Lumbergh, his eyes shifting between the two and Sean.

Sean’s heart stopped. His mouth dangled open, and he felt for a second as though he was going to vomit. His eyes lowered to the little girl. She had a button nose, pursed lips, and she squinted from the sun in her face. Lisa leaned down and hooked her hands under the girl’s arms, lifting her up in the air and planting a kiss on her plump cheek.

“So . . . it’s not the Spanish lady?” asked Dusty.

When a car horn honked behind them, Lisa and the man swung their heads to the street. Sean’s back snapped flat against his seat. His eyes shot forward where there were no longer any pedestrians in front of the car.

“Go!” he demanded.

“Dusty, get going!” Lumbergh shouted.

“Okey dokey,” Dusty said calmly, turning his attention to the road and pressing on the gas.

The car lunged forward and Sean sank deeper into his seat. His face was pale and he was having trouble catching his breath.

“So . . . when did you and her . . .” Dusty began.

“Nope,” said Lumbergh. “Not another word. Just get us to the hotel.”