The Son of Every Man

Chapter 1.4

The trunk of the car was loaded up once again, pregnant with fresh product. Just below him lay goods worth a total dollar sum he chose not to estimate. It was far better not to think about it. One thing he could be sure of was that he would soon receive a better car for the job. The car was nothing at all, an afterthought: For centuries, ships had borne unspeakable treasures across the sea, worth ten times—one thousand times—their own weight in scrap wood and metal. This was the same.

Gabe remembered distinctly how exciting it felt the first night he had done the run alone, just two weeks after his father died. It was irrefutable proof, for the first time in his life, that he was truly trusted. He had earned the confidence not only of his father, but now also Eddie, the alluring enigma, his new mentor. The two had privately convened and agreed that Gabe was capable enough to successfully convey something that was not his, something of tremendous value. It was a source of stress for Gabe, but also of genuine power. He longed for this powerful feeling when squeezed in the grips of the off-hours, cooking, or cleaning, or rising late in the hot morning to the wailing of his mother through a gap in the balcony door.

;-;

Half an hour later he was on the highway, fast approaching the edge of town. Because much of the land to the east was part of the reservation, the city began suddenly: massive blocks of suburban housing, mountainous Eastbrook Mall, the park-and-ride (where he would later return the car) and Sunbird Boulevard, building toward its ten-lane glory, split down the center by the dormant, gleaming tracks of the Orange Line.

By now, Gabe's route had become well-worn; shredded semi truck tires and battered mileposts greeted him like old friends. Along it, nearly everyone slept, as they did in uptown, and in the two other boroughs that slammed against the shores of the Paiute Freeway. He entered the freeway now via onramp, northwest-bound, proceeding quickly through the gears, setting cruise control at seventy miles per hour. He thought of Otero's earlier revelation that some of the officers were on his side. It rattled him still—though it should not have. The days of Gabe's innocence, of his belief in the sanctity of any organized group, including the Las Sombras Police Department, were long behind him. He wondered now how far this collusion reached, whether it included officers who trailed their long fingers through the endless trenches of downtown, or even farther south, in the mix of decay and rebirth that was old town. Could it even have sullied the royal-blue-uniformed men in the heart of the mild southern boroughs, where his mother had now surely gone to sleep?

Warm night air spiraled all around him in confused, manic gusts, whipping his black hair in and out of his vision and waking a carpet of dust from the dashboard. He slowed the car, exited and then flew west over the freeway via elevated connector onto the Odinberg Expressway, straight toward the ocean. Odinberg was the last urban borough before the city fell away once again to the northern suburbs. It was one of the largest by population, boasting its own police force. Eddie had relatives through marriage who lived here, and he insisted it was every bit as vanilla as the sprawling suburb he, Lydia and the kids called home. Tall buildings, narrow alleyways, a million places one could hide, sure, but what had he called it? A bedroom borough—that was it. Nothing ever happened in Odinberg, which was exactly why a storage location had been chosen within its bounds.

Gabe arrived at the warehouse once again, in the heart of a sleepy marine shop district, just a few blocks from the water. He believed that Miguel did not live far away from it, because one time (and only one time) Miguel himself was late to unlock and raise the overhead door which barricaded the narrow, deep garage. As the car had idled with Gabe waiting nervously at its helm, Miguel had come running from the direction of an adjacent neighborhood, breathing hard, beads of sweat forming on his brow. His dark brown hair shed a drop or two, not of sweat, Gabe had realized, but of water, and he bore the mildly soapy scent of a recent shower.