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wiped
something that looked like snot from the passenger seat. "I can't believe
you're doing this, Nolan. Are you leaving just to get away from me?"
    "No,"
he said. "Jesus, Carrie, I haven't had a real vacation in ten years. Give
me a break, would you?"
    "I
will," she said. She got in the car and started the engine. "What
should I do with your mail?"
    They
both knew he didn't get any, maybe the occasional newsletter from the fire
department or a reminder from his dentist to come in for a checkup. His checks
went directly into his account.
    "I'll
call you when I get there and give you the address," he said.
    "You
do that," she said with a sniff. Then she backed out of the drive.
    Nolan
was glad. She looked awful when she cried. He walked back into the house to
find more tearful females. The bigger one—she was nine or ten, Nolan couldn't
remember which—was wiping her eyes and trying to look tough. The little one,
five or six, was boo-hooing with fervor. He was tempted to return to the yard,
but Vic asked him for help in hauling out three suitcases and a dozen bulging
sacks.
    "We
can't take all those," Nolan said, pointing to the sacks. "What's
inside?"
    "Toys,"
Vic said. "Girls, pick out one sack apiece. The rest we'll leave for the
Salvation Army truck."
    More
sobbing ensued.
    An hour
later the Buick was loaded down and Nolan was behind the wheel. "I figure we
can take 1-35 to Wichita and then head west," he said to Vic.
    "What
day is it?" Andy asked from the back.
    "Saturday,
dummy," Christa answered.
    "No,
I mean what day. Where will we be when it's the fourth of July?"
    "That's
Monday, honey," Vic said. ''We'll be at Dad's place by then."
    Nolan
asked: "Does everyone have their seatbelt on?"
    A flurry
of activity followed his query. When Nolan was satisfied that squirming bodies
were buckled in, he backed down the drive and said a silent and unsentimental
goodbye to Kansas City , for the time being, anyway.
    Twenty
minutes later they were in a gas station on the edge of town letting Andy pee.
    Forty
minutes after that, both girls were snoozing in the back seat, each of them
straining in her seatbelt to lean over and use the other as a pillow. Nolan
wished he'd thought of bringing one along. He glanced over at Vic and saw the
same worried expression that had lined his friend's face for the last year. He
remembered a different Vic. He remembered a laughing, practical-joking guy with
an oncoming beer belly and a great future with Kansas
City 's finest.
    Now Vic
was skinny, withdrawn, out of a job, and broke. Connie's cancer had done it.
The hospital and doctor bills, the medication, the mortgage payments and just
watching his wife die used up everything in him. Nolan knew why Vic stole
confiscated coke and sold it. He knew why Vic took cash from certain members of
certain gangs to look the other way. Vic from Vice had needed the money.
    There
wasn’t enough evidence to bust him, but he was kicked off the force and told to
take a long hike. Nolan knew how it worked, because he'd joined the police
academy with Vic over a decade ago. Nolan lasted only five and a half years on
the force. Three bullets from the gun of a ten-year-old on crack had taken care
of him, leaving him with permanent nerve damage in his right leg, a gouge in
the left cheek of his ass, and a dangerous attitude toward other human beings.
    They
took his badge away after his second psychiatric evaluation and told him adios.
After the initial anger he decided he didn't blame them. Vic was a different
story. Nobody understood. Nobody cared about the why. And now, just ten months
after Connie's death, Vic's father was dead. The guy couldn't get a break.
    Nolan
glanced over again and caught Vic looking at his bandaged hands. The gauze was
dirty and needed to be changed. Soon it would begin to stink.
    Nothing
like the smell of pus and fried flesh in the morning," he joked.
    “Hurt
much?" Vic asked.
    "Like
a sonofabitch."
    Where
was the lab? Did they make the