Authors: William Lashner
I watched while Derek pulled my car behind the Beemer and the Volvo, blocking their exit. Just that quickly, the desperate run of Julia and Terrence was over.
As Derek hustled back to the diner, I walked briskly toward the front entrance, to get a line on the white Buick. It was sitting there, its engine running, waiting for something. I reached the driver’s side, leaned over, peered into the front window. A tall, thin man, quite old, wearing a houndstooth jacket and a tie. He was squeezing the steering wheel with both hands, his back was straight, his lips were moving up and down, though he wasn’t eating or talking.
I knocked gently on the window. The man ignored me. I knocked harder. He kept his eyes forward for an awkward few seconds more and then turned to face me.
I gestured for him to lower the window. After an uneasy interval, he complied.
“How are you doing, sir?” I said.
“Just fine,” he said in a hoarse croak.
“Can I ask what you’re doing parked here?”
“You already did, didn’t you? I’m waiting for someone, though I’m not sure how it’s any of your business.”
“Waiting for whom, if I may ask?”
“Now you’re being impertinent,” said the old man. He pursed his lips, turned forward, and pressed the button to raise the window.
I knocked again and waited. After a long moment, the window came down.
“You still here?” he said.
“I just thought I should tell you, sir, that this might not be the safest place to wait. Things are about to happen of a violent sort, and you’d probably be better off out of it.”
“You’re not telling me anything I don’t know,” said the man. “Why do you think I’m waiting here to begin with?”
“I have no idea.”
“That’s the first thing you said that made any sense. Now, just go ahead and skedaddle on out of here and mind your own damn business.”
“I’m only trying to help.”
“You want to know something, young fellow? I’ve made it seventy-one years without your assistance. Do you know how I did that?”
“No, sir.”
“Then I guess we’re done here,” he said, just as something caught his eye. He turned nervously toward it. I followed his gaze and saw her, coming out of the front of the motel, a small, carpet-sided suitcase in her hand.
Gwen.
She stopped short. “Mr. Carl,” she said. “Thank God.” And immediately she dropped the suitcase, rushed forward, and gave me a strong hug.
“I’ve come to get Julia,” I said.
“Of course you have,” she said. “Why else would you be here? And she needs you, Mr. Carl, she does. She’s in more trouble than she knows.”
“Where is she?”
“Out back. By the pool. With Mr. Swift and the other one.”
“Terrence.”
“That’s him. She says they’re on the run. Like it’s some romantic adventure, like Bonnie and Clyde.”
“Well, her run is ending here and now. It’s only a matter of how.”
“What do you mean?”
“The cops are coming, the FBI. Her car has been blocked off, and so has Clarence’s, so there’s no way out for her. But there’s also a few people showing up who are looking for the money.”
“The money?”
“The money Clarence brought with him. The money in the big black briefcase.”
“What money?”
“He didn’t tell you?”
“That sniveling runt, he doesn’t tell me a thing. To him I’m just the help.”
“Forget about it. Do you want to come with me and try to convince her to leave?”
“I’ve tried already. She won’t listen to me, she won’t listen to anyone but that Terrence. The only reason I let her drag me along was to try to change her mind, but it’s not changing. Maybe you’ll have better luck than I. Bonnie and Clyde indeed. I know the way that story ended, with that handsome Warren Beatty turned to Swiss cheese. I don’t need to see it again. That’s why I called Norman to get me out of here.”
“So that’s Norman.”
“He’s taking me home.”
“Back to Philadelphia?”
“Why would I go back there? With the doctor gone and Mrs. Denniston in a state and the house about to be seized by the bank, there’s nothing in Philadelphia for me now. Norman is taking me back home to Georgia. I’ve earned a rest.”
“Yes, you have.”
She stepped forward and kissed me gently on the cheek. “Take care of her,” she said.
“I’ll try.”
I watched as she made her way around the car and picked up her suitcase. Norman leaned over and opened the passenger door.
“Good-bye, Victor.”
“When you get down there,” I said, “I expect you’ll be picking some pecans.”
“The fattest I can find.”
“Then you’ll be making some pies, I suppose.”
“I have no choice. Norman’s been after me ever since I gave his last pie to you.”
“Lucky Norman.”
“I’ll send you one, I promise.”
“I’d like that.”
She smiled at me and then eased herself into the white Buick, shut the door. Without looking at me, Norman pulled the Buick out of the lot.
I watched the car head toward Skyline Drive and the scenic road south, and then I jogged to the north side of the Mountain Drive Motel. I skulked around the corner and across a scabrous piece of crabgrass. When I reached the black wire fence surrounding the pool, I peered over the top. What I saw stopped me cold.
On two chaise lounges, pressed close together at the edge of the pool, a man and a woman lay side by side in the sun, their heads leaning one against the other, their hands entwined such that their fingertips just barely touched. He was in jeans and a T-shirt, his swollen foot swathed in gauze. She was in dark pants
and a loose white shirt, her feet bare. Their eyes were closed, their lips moved softly in hushed conversation. They were in a world of their own, a universe of two, blissful and exclusive, perfect and unyielding. It was a place where nothing could intrude, not another suitor, nor a foul drug addiction, nor a murder or two, nor a sordid chase for sordid wealth, nor a pack of police and a pair of gunmen all closing in. But it wasn’t this vision of steadfast love that stopped me cold.
What stopped me cold was the expression on the face of the third figure in the tableau. He sat on the edge of another chaise just a few feet away from the loving couple, a figure in a tan suit and a bow tie, with his bulky black shoes flat on the ground, his elbows on his knees, his hands wringing one the other urgently, violently. The sun shone brightly on his face, and I could see his features clearly, twisted in unrequited ache as he stared forlornly at the blissful couple, alone together in a foreign land he would never be permitted to enter. And even though I knew him to be the enemy, and I had seen the grisly fruit of his foul crimes, I couldn’t help but empathize with his pain.
Welcome to the club, you murderous son of a bitch.
“You’re the worst kind of fool,” I said to Clarence Swift.
Clarence jerked his head up at my words and then shot to his feet. “How did you…?” he sputtered. “Where…?”
“Did you really think,” I said, “that they would ask you to join them in their fatal embrace?”
“I don’t…Victor…What are you doing here?”
“I came for Julia,” I said.
“What have you done?” His head swiveled back and forth. “The police might have followed you.”
“They didn’t follow me, I brought them. But you should be more concerned about the madman who’s trailing Julia. Or the killers following you, who will be here”—I checked my watch—“in a matter of minutes.”
“We have to go,” he said. He reached forward and put his hand on Julia’s shoulder, shaking her. “Everyone’s onto us. Carl betrayed you like I told you he would. We have to run.”
“Victor?” said Julia, pushing herself up off the lounge, her eyes half open. She was calm, languorous, she looked slow, wrong. So it wasn’t just love anymore that was creating for them their own separate world.
“I need you to come with me, Julia,” I said carefully. “I need to take you to safety.”
“Both of us?” she said.
Clarence’s head spun, like he had been slapped.
“I’ll take Terry, too,” I said. “I’ll even take Clarence.”
“What about Gwen?” said Julia.
“She’s gone already. She left with her boyfriend.”
“With Norman? She left without saying good-bye? Where to?”
“Home, to Georgia. But the rest of you I need to take across the street. Right now. To Detective Hanratty.”
“He’s across the street?” whined Clarence. He turned to Julia. “He’s across the street. We have to get out of here. We need to go.”
“You need to, all of you, turn yourselves in. Before the shooting starts.”
Clarence swiveled his head back toward me. “Shooting?”
“You didn’t think you’d get away with it, did you, Clarence? You didn’t think Gregor Trocek would just shrug resignedly and go on back to Portugal, leaving you with your million point seven, free and clear, did you? Really?”
“With the information I’ve been feeding the government, it’s only a matter of time before Immigration takes him out of the picture.”
“Trust me when I tell you it won’t be soon enough. Who else knows where you are?”
“No one.”
“Your mother?”
His eyes widened. “What does it matter?”
“Trocek reached her to find you. Now she’s in a coma and he’s on his way.”
“He’s coming? Here? That can’t be. Do you know all I’ve done to get that money?”
“Yes, actually.”
“We have to stop him.”
“We can’t,” I said. “He’s a more vicious snipe than even you. So let’s all get the hell out of here before he shows.”
“Shut up, you miserable crumb,” said Clarence. “You’ve been meddling from the start, but no more. You’ll learn like the others, cross me and pay the piper. Julia, we’re getting out of here. My car’s parked in front. Go to the car, I’ll get the money.”
“What about Terry?” she said. “I don’t know if he’s ready.”
“Then leave him. We have to go.”
He started running, stiffed-backed and awkward, toward the gate leading to the motel.
“Clarence, stop,” she said.
“Just get in the car,” he called out before he disappeared into the motel.
I watched him go and then turned back to see Julia kissing Terry full on the lips for an obscene amount of time. Terry remained immobile, his eyes remained closed. It was as if she were kissing a corpse. As if she were kissing a killer’s corpse good-bye. She said something, and he barely nodded before she rose from her chaise and walked slowly toward me.
“What have you done, Victor?” said Julia, now just across the fence from me. She was unsteady on her feet, her dark eyes were hooded, her hopelessly pretty mouth was smiling kindly, as if she were smiling at a puppy.
“I’m trying to save your life,” I said.
“Why?”
“If you want a pep talk about every life being precious, you’re not going to get it from me. What did you take?”
“Only a little. Just a taste.” She turned to look at Terrence. “Sometimes I follow him to be close.”
“You should have left him on the balcony,” I said.
“He left me on the balcony. But I’ve remained true to myself. Love, if it matters, if it’s real, is forever.”
“Maybe, but relationships end. That’s what they do. Some end quickly, some end badly, some end in death, but they all end. It’s the nature of the beast. At some point after they end you have to move on.”
“But then I’d be like everyone else.” She reached out and gently touched the bruise beneath my eye. “Do you ever wonder how we would have been?”
“Incessantly.”
“Do you think it would have worked?”
“Not with him around.”
She laughed lightly. “We didn’t need him to screw it up, Victor, we had each other. I thought I was ready to move on this time and leave him behind. I thought I was going to be free of it.” She turned her head to stare at Terry. “But I was wrong.”
“He’s a leech.”
“He’s my leech,” she said, and I noticed then there was something strange about her manner, something other than the drugs.
“Come with me,” I said. “Now. Let’s get away from here. Now. Give me your hand.”
“I can’t leave him.”
“Don’t let him drag you down anymore. Don’t let him kill all your hope.”
“Hope? You were always so sweet.”
“There’s nothing you can do for him anymore except turn him in.”
She placed the back of her hand lightly against my cheek. “Thank you for trying, Victor. But when Clarence comes back, we’re going to run, all of us, run as far as they let us and then face what comes together.”
“There isn’t going to be any running. There’s only going to be bullets and blood,” I said.
“That’s what Gwen said, too. Maybe you’re both right, and if
so, I’m ready. I’ve begun to think that
Romeo and Juliet
was mislabeled as a tragedy. I don’t think the ending is sad, I think it’s just right.”
“They die in the end.”
“We all die in the end, but they do it on their own terms, with their love still untainted. I think dying with love’s sweet poisoned kiss still on your lips is about as perfect as we can hope for.”
It was then that I realized what was strange about her. She was happy. For the first time since I had known her, she was truly happy. Just as that realization dawned, Clarence stumbled out the rear door of the motel, clutching at his head as blood leaked down his scalp.
“He took it,” shouted Clarence, collapsing on the ground, arms still around his bleeding head. He tried to rise and failed. “He took all of it. He took my money. Stop him.”
Julia and I both stared at Clarence without moving to rush and help, as if we both were rendered paralyzed. There was something cold in the way we stood and stared at the bleeding, babbling man. She had been driven to indifference by the drugs; I had been driven to it by the sight of Margaret in the freezer.
“There’s the blood,” I said.
Two shots rang out from someplace distant, a scream, then one shot more.
“And there’s the bullets. It’s from the front of the motel.”
“My money,” wailed Clarence.
From over the fence, I grabbed hold of Julia’s arm and began to pull her toward the gate that faced the rear entrance. “Let’s go,” I said. “Let’s get out of here.”
She didn’t fight me, she was too high to fight me. But as I pulled her along, she looked back at Terry, who was now sitting up, dazedly, on his chaise.
“What’s going on, love?” said Terry, his voice dreamy and weak.
“Nothing, baby,” she said.
“What’s he doing here?”
“He’s just leaving.”
“Give him some money, that will shut him up.”
“Okay, baby.”
“Do you think we should get on our way?”
“In a minute,” she said.
As I listened to all this toddler talk, and tried to keep from puking, I held on to her arm and edged her toward the open gate. Just as I pulled her through, the motel’s rear door swung open and a small, angry man rushed out, a huge black briefcase in one hand, a snub-nosed automatic in the other.
Sims.
There was blood leaking from a dark crease on his neck, his hair was mussed, his expression was slow and dazed, like he had just come out of a midday porn film and was blinking at the afternoon light.
He stopped when he saw us and pointed his gun at me.
“What a surprise,” said Sims, putting down the bag and touching the neck wound with his hand. He moved with an exaggerated, even frightening, air of calm. He checked his hand, rubbed his thumb across the blood that was smeared thickly over his fingers. Still looking at the blood, his face betraying no evident concern, he said, “I thought you’d be rotting in jail by now.”
I wanted to say something smart and witty, but I was too busy clenching my bowels.
“Chasing her, I suppose,” he said, waving the gun now at Julia. She staggered just a bit to the left but otherwise didn’t seem affected by the sight of the barrel pointing at her heart. “Didn’t I warn you from the start? Didn’t I give you my best, heartfelt advice? But a foolish romantic, I suppose, will never learn. If I had time, I’d have some fun with both of you, but you’ll have to excuse me for a moment while I take care of a quick bit of business.”
Suddenly he pointed the gun down at the still-kneeling Clarence Swift, pointed the gun right at his head.
“All right, you sniveling little piece of crap,” shouted Sims with an uncharacteristic loss of control, spittle flying from his lips, his voice now a vitriolic shriek that sent birds into flight and insects burrowing. “Talk now or lose the top of your skull. Where the hell is it?”