Apaches - Lorenzo Carcaterra [89]
“Not to burn the eggs,” Mary said.
In the shadows of the quiet room, they held each other tight, kissed, and slid farther under the blankets, finding warmth and comfort with each touch.
• • •
THE MULE SPOTTED Erica standing with her back to a newsstand, a small cardboard sign printed with the word STEVENS across it. She walked over, gave the woman a quick smile and a nod, and handed her the baby boy.
“Your plane’s at the next terminal,” Erica said. “Two stops on the tram.” She was dressed in a black pants suit, the jacket with too much shoulder padding. A thin shawl rested around her neck. She wore open-heeled slides and favored her right leg when she walked. She carried the baby in the crook of her left arm, more like a sack than an infant.
“I hate airports like these,” the mule said, picking up the pace, scanning the state-of-the-art mall interior of Atlanta/Fulton County with a disdainful look. “It’s like being inside a spaceship.”
“You get used to it,” Erica said, shrugging her shoulders and bouncing the baby higher up against her chest. “And you can shop while you wait for your plane.”
“You should go,” the mule told her, waiting for the doors to the computerized train to open. “Just in case you get caught in traffic.”
“Anything you want me to tell Leo?” Erica asked.
“That I need a vacation,” the mule said without a trace of a smile. “They’ve run me ragged these last three weeks. I can barely stand up.”
“We’re in the middle of a gold rush,” Erica said. “There’s too much money to make to let up now.”
“We won’t be making anything if we slip up,” the mule said. “And that’s all that can happen when we’re this tired.”
The train pulled into the stop area and a prerecorded voice alerted passengers as to their destination. The mule stepped aboard, grabbed a handrail, and looked at Erica, giving her a tired smile.
“I’ll be back Tuesday,” she said. “By then Leo should have a new baby for me. This one’s starting to get more than a little ripe.”
The mule turned her back as the doors closed, leaving behind two late-arriving passengers.
Erica stayed on the platform and watched her go, holding the baby and the $125,000 in cash sewn into the empty cavity of his body.
• • •
GERONIMO SAT ON a damp block of wood on the deserted beach, listening to a series of ocean waves batter the soft sands of the shoreline. His legs were crossed and his arms folded; his head was tilted up toward the star-packed sky. A rush of cold wind blew through the back of his dark blue sweater and sent thick strands of his hair slapping across the front of his face.
This small strip of land had become Geronimo’s favorite spot, a private beach nestled quietly away from the large clapboard homes of Ocean Parkway, down a side ramp from the Brooklyn/Queens Expressway. It was his refuge, a place to come, hole up and clear his head, re-energized by fresh salt air and marsh breezes. A place where he could feel safe and disconnected from the pressures of his life.
Geronimo was slow to recover from the multiple wounds he had suffered at the drop of a grenade from the hands of a madman. On a Brooklyn street, surrounded by caked blood, streams of smoke, and frightened screams, he had left behind a shattered stomach, chunks of his liver and kidney, and all of his small intestine. The months of rehab were painful and frustrating, and a man with less inner strength would have found it easy to quit. But Geronimo had actually thrived under the weight of such a battle, especially one so personal, and he made it his business to come out of it as whole a person as possible.
Barely able to digest even soft foods and cool liquids, he had to learn how to eat all over again. The early surgeries to piece his stomach back together were ineffective and painful. Still Geronimo would not give in, mixing weekly visits to an army of specialists with nightly sessions with a Native American mystic whose form of medicine knew no age.
Geronimo believed in the healing ways of the past and the recuperative powers of long-dormant ghosts.