Author: Peter Sargent
Category: Suspense
Go to read content：https://onlinereadfreenovel.com/peter-sargent/page,13,22515-the-dead-reckoner-volume-one-absolution-and-desolation.html
heads around. Jason was eying a heavy plastic crate sitting in the back of the truck. Metal bands wrapped around each side, secured with padlocked clamps. A bright four-color fire diamond label covered most of the end facing them.
“See Mom, each of these colors means something.” said Jason, pointing to each of the four diamonds inside the larger one, “The blue says the health hazard, the yellow is reactivity-”
“Yes, I know.” said Ruth. “I've seen a hazard label before.”
She shot John a look.
He said, “It's a hypoxic air safe.” John shrugged. “I don't know what's in there; I was just asked to deliver it. What I do know is that box is the most expensive fireproof safe you can buy.”
“A fireproof safe with a fire hazard warning?”
“Not fire hazard. Chemical exposure.” said John. “It has a liquid nitrogen backup.”
“That won't spill.”
“It costs a fortune so no, it won't spill. I guess that answers your question about whether I have a job today.” He shrugged. “I was supposed to take this thing in, along with some other stuff, but I agreed with another guy at Judge to exchange it.”
“So you could chase your dad's ghost?”
John got very close to Ruth and spoke in a low voice. “The man sends letters to my sister all the time. He's no ghost. He's not even gone.” He gripped her shoulders. “Now I want that bastard to be gone and leave us alone forever, so I've got to find him first.”
“Not today, John.”
Ruth did admire his desire to protect his sister. Their father had abused them and, it seemed, was still doing it. John knew he had a habit for obsession and control. He wore his breaks and bumps like they were forever burning a hole in his skin. John was a man exposed. Ruth liked his authenticity, but he often needed encouragement to direct that on more worthwhile endeavors. She looked him in the eyes and sent him a message. Even in his worst moments, she didn't worry about him being the guy with the baseball bat. Not when it came to her. She could crunch him in her teeth and he knew it.
John released his grip.
“I'd never put the kid in danger. I'll take care of him.”
She believed him. If he could protect Alice, he could protect Jason. Ruth had no idea how often he had trouble protecting Alice, especially from himself. While his treatment of Jimmy may have been the reason John went to see a psychiatrist, it was his treatment of Alice that the doctor ordered him to take the Sorter test. Ruth knew nothing of how John wondered if some day he wouldn't become the nice guy no one expected to walk into a grade school with a loaded gun.
When Ruth sighed a complicit agreement, John grinned. Then he spoke a little louder, so that Jason could hear. “After the job, I was thinking maybe we could take one of the harbor ferries.”
Jason stopped to the van door, saying, “Can we go to George's Island?”
George's Island sat in Boston Harbor and was the home of Fort Warren, a civil war military base. The T ran a ferry out there for ten bucks round trip and Ruth must have taken Jason about a dozen times now. She shook her head.
“Not this time.” By habit, she opened her mouth to give a reason, but she decided to rely on mother's prerogative. She was in no mood to wind John up again. The truth was, she had a gut feeling that made her want to keep her family closer to home. She'd had that feeling a lot since Yancy and the school burning, but today something she couldn't quite put a finger on was bothering her. Today she just didn't want any more surprises. John wouldn't understand that, so she said, “Maybe that's something the three of us can do together another time.”
John turned to Jason and said, “Your mom's right.”
Then Ruth saw John offer her son a little wink. Jason, of course, missed the cue entirely. Jason never noticed those things. But Ruth saw it. She knew it meant that maybe John would take him there anyway. What she hoped was that if he tried, Jason would remind him of what his mom had said. Jason was good like that. Once he understood the rules, he was good at following them – no, he was insistent. The rules gave him a structure that he craved.
“So,” said Ruth, “Where's your job today?”
“Polymath, down by the waterfront.”
Ruth tried to hide her surprise and growing fear. “Oh, is that where that box is going?”
“I've got some other work to do there, but yes. What's the matter?”
Ruth wasn't used to people reading her expressions. On the job, she was good at keeping her feelings to herself. At home, she was less guarded because she spent all of her time around her parents or Jason. She trusted her parents with her thoughts, and her son wouldn't know what his mom was thinking unless she wrote the words on her forehead. John, on the other hand, was more perceptive than she was used to. She didn't like to admit this, but typically the people who could read you like a book got that way while learning to survive. Add that to John's unpredictable and explosive temper and the evidence was mounting that his troubled past wasn't going to stay there.
Ruth said, “Are you sure you can take a kid with you into a job?”
John shrugged, “Either they will or they can reschedule.”
“Your boss doesn't mind?”
“Judge doesn't care, because he's off shining his billy with some chick that's not his wife.”
Yancy wasn't the only one who wouldn't leave Ruth alone. It seemed Reginald Binder and his baby were after her too. Ruth was never as prone to cooking up conspiracies as John was, but a part of her was fearful of what this meant. Binder had come to see her after the school burning. He had spoken to her son. There must be a reason.
John said, “I can still blow it off.”
He could, but how would that end? She didn't like the idea of them sailing out George's Island just now, and she sure as hell didn't like the idea of John dropping in on Keller with Jason in tow. It was unlikely he'd get to see the lieutenant, but the only meant John would go pick up his new friend and wind down some other path he though led to his lost father. Was Polymath really the lesser of all these evils?
“No.” said Ruth. “Call me when you get there.”
“You want to check in on me?”
“So long as Jason's with you, yes. That's all it is.”
John gave Ruth a hug and walked back to the front his truck, calling for Jason to sit down and buckle up. As he pulled open the door, his phone blinked without a noise. He pulled it out of one his utility holsters and Ruth tried to get a peek. She half expected to see the stone cat face, but it was a calendar reminder. John ignored it and put the phone back.
“Hey,” said Ruth. She got close to John and put her palms on his face. “Thanks.”
She was standing close enough to get a look at the phone's screen through the clear plastic cover of its holster. The calendar reminder was for a counseling session he was supposed to attend this afternoon, with Dr. Sophie Lane. Ruth wondered if that's why he was so eager to take Jason out after his job. It gave him a legitimate excuse to avoid it. She checked her watch. She had less than half an hour to get to the courthouse.
“It's not a problem.” said John. “The boy's in good hands, trust me.”
Then she noticed another icon appear on John's phone. It was the familiar Sorter picture. She wondered if it had a message for him that was anything like the cryptic message it had given her. There was no time to ask; John closed the truck door and drove off.
NINE
COMMENCE PROGRAM ASSET FIVE
Dale put his phone away when he got the sense that someone was watching him. He turned around and saw a man leaning against a white van marked with the words “Judge Network Solutions.” In one hand he held a shiny metal box labeled Camel Rares and in the other a cigarette. A kid of about ten or eleven sat cross legged on the sidewalk nearby. He stared at the ground and rocked back and forth.
“Hi Dale Benedict.” said the man. “Did the Sorter ruin you too?”
Never
in Dale's life had someone he didn't know greeted him in this way. This man could be trouble for him. Though he was thin, he was muscular. Dale, on the other hand, was already getting junk mail from AARP. He looked up and down the street. It was busy with commuters. This offered some consolation.
The man with the Camels smiled. “I know your name because it said so in that app. You have it set with giant old person font. I could've read it across the street.”
Dale relaxed a little and tried an insincere laugh. “I think the Sorter helps people.”
“Oh so you're an apostle?” Camels pushed his back against the van, propelling himself in Dale's direction. The kid didn't look up or stop swaying. “This building.” he said, pointing with the bright end of the cigarette, “There used to be something else here. My dad worked here once.” He waved the cigarette at Dale. “You know I quit years ago. These used to be my favorites, but the old man liked to steal them from me.”
They stood in front of a newish looking brick building. Whatever it had been in the past, it was now a pricey apartment complex with store fronts on ground level. One such store front was the home of Flour, a South End sandwich shop for which Dale had been waiting to open when Camels had accosted him. He'd come here to meet his daughter before heading off to Polymath.
Camels said, “I just got a message from my psychiatrist. I was supposed to meet her later, but she just couldn't wait to tell me the good news. Do you want to know what