Savior by Anthony Caplan Read Free Book Online Page A

against the wall. Through the crowd, Al saw Coconut Juan's American girlfriend inside crying as a policewoman hugged her around the shoulders. He turned around, and there was Newman still in his bathing suit, his wizened, brown, shirtless, sagging chest heaving as he stood on his toes in his flip flops to get a view inside. A wailing ambulance came around the corner and screeched to a stop behind the police jeeps. There was mud spattered on the windshield. The back door came open, and the paramedics hopped down and stretched their legs.
    ¿ Que pasó ? Al asked a stoutish gentleman in a button-down, short-sleeved shirt and a Suchitepequez FC baseball cap.
    Parece que un hombre fue asesinado por arma blanca.
    ¿ Quien?
    Parece que el dueño. El Juan este del Coco.
    Ah. Gracias.
    Pobre señor. Que nos cuide Dios.
    Hey, Ricky.
    What?
    Let's go.
    What happened?
    Coconut Juan's dead.
    Ricky didn't say anything, clearly thinking, trying out this new idea. Newman looked at them both from a distance with a strange, expressionless face that Al interpreted as fear. It was already starting. He took Newman's fear to possibly be a reflection of his own. You could create your own reality if you put your mind to it. But the reverse could also be true, that your fear could transmute into a collective nightmare of the highest order , even though the individual's soul could never be extinguished or even altered, for that matter. That fact calmed him again. Or maybe it was Ricky. He was a pretty cool customer. His legs churned up the road and he darted to avoid the motorcycles that zoomed by.
    That's them again, Dad.
    Who?
    The Santos .
    Why do they all ride motorcycles all day?
    It's the best way to get around here.
    The car rental business was an air-conditioned island of calm. The man behind the desk got off his cell phone and smiled.
    We need a car.
    For how many, eh days?
    I don't know. Probably three, said Al.
    The man took out a form and started to fill in the boxes. Ricky was starting to wander around. Al thought of Mary and had a sudden feeling of being out of time, floating in an endless vacuum. He could almost swear she was right behind him and he turned, half hopeful that she would be, that her presence would wipe away the nervous tension he felt. There was nothing there, yet the feeling of her presence was still almost tangible. He spoke to her, echoing the words in his mind, the last words he had said to her at the hospital.
    You'll be here in my heart and watching over Ricky through my eyes. Don't you worry, Mary.
    We have the Suzuki or the Hyundai.
    The Hyundai is fine.
    And, Ricky? His body was tugging him in all sorts of different directions. This might be the last time they would spend together before he was off on his own life to somewhere different.

Four —The Klondike
     
    They were married in Castle Rock, New Jersey across the road from the house Mary had grown up in. There was a cupola in a neighbor's field that in the late 19th century had been intended as a setting for amateur theatrical productions and the like. In the distance, beyond the field, were the Cumberland County Fairgrounds and Union Lake. The neighbor had leased the field to Mary's parents for the day. They had set up a large tent beside the cupola for the food. Mary's college roommates were dressed in green and yellow dresses and Al had his attendants in tuxedos, his best friend Joe Limosa up from Florida from Aviatrix and his brother Tony from Burlington, where he still worked in those days. Mary's father, who worked as an accountant for a Philadelphia media company that published magazines for equestrians, water skiers, and other specialized outdoor enthusiasts, walked her down the path in the field to where they waited. The guests sat in the cupola and cheered her in her white dress that had taken her months to make. Her mother, a woman who was in disgrace in her family because she had forced a divorce so that she could go overseas and teach English,