Authors: Ken Douglas
“
Hey, you got a new car.”
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Yeah.” She hated neighbors, especially Harvey, couldn’t understand why they couldn’t mind their own business.
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Nice.”
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Thanks.”
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You gonna come over Friday for the potluck?”
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No, Harvey, I’m going to be out of town.” She gave him a glare. He invited her to some neighborhood function at least once month. She always declined, but he never stopped inviting.
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Maybe next time,” he said as she keyed the door.
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Maybe.” She went in, closed the door after herself, but dammit she wasn’t closing Harvey out, because she was going to have to face him when she opened the garage to move the car in. In the garage, she hit the button for the garage door, went out to the car and there he was, standing next to it, leaning on his cane as he ran run a hand over the hood.
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Harvey!” This was a violation of her space and she didn’t like it. He belonged over on his porch, not in her driveway.
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There was a time I’d’ve loved a car like this. One like your Jag, too. That’s quite a car.”
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Yeah, it is.” She looked into his eyes, tried to intimidate him with a stare, but instead she was the one who was being affected. She’d never really looked at him before. He was just that old annoyance from next door. But now, for the first time, she was seeing old Harvey Weinstein and he was a man covered in sad.
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I suppose you think I’m a bother, that maybe I need a dog or something, because I’m always minding everybody else’s business, like I got no real friends.”
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A dog might be good,” Lila said.
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I been thinking about one. Not a girlie dog, something big, like a German Shepherd or maybe a Rottweiler. A dog would be a good companion and if I had one maybe I could keep to myself a little more, not bother everybody so much.”
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Tell you what, Harvey, I’ve gotta be on the road in an hour, I’ve been up all night and all I have time for is a quick shower and a fast breakfast. If you could fix something up and have it ready in twenty minutes or so, you’d be doing me a big favor.” Whoa, stop, what was happening here? Had she just invited herself over to Harvey’s?
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Bacon, eggs, sourdough toast, fried tomatoes and potatoes, that okay for you?” His smile was a block wide. “You’re not a vegetarian are you?”
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No, Harvey, I’m not a vegetarian.”
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Okay, you take that shower and leave breakfast to me.” He hustled back to his house, was inside in a flash. Maybe he wasn’t such a bad old guy, after all, she thought as she pulled the car into the garage, where it was going to have to stay, because when she left, she’d be taking her Jag. It was like an old friend, one she could count on.
Showered, Lila knocked on Harvey’s door with a little trepidation. Why? She was a stone cold killer. She wasn’t afraid of anybody or anything. Maybe she’d been a little afraid of Izzy Eisenhower, kind of hard not to fear a woman who couldn’t die. But Harvey Weinstein was an old man. Maybe it was because she lacked certain social graces.
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Hey, come in.” He was still wearing that smile as he answered the door.
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I will.” She followed him into the house and into a neat kitchen with a small table and chairs straight out of Leave it to Beaver. “Kind of retro,” she sat at the table.
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I’ve had the set a long time.” He went to the stove, heaped bacon and fried potatoes onto a plate. “I’m doing the eggs over easy, just take a minute. And that’s all it took. Lila couldn’t remember how long it had been since someone had cooked for her and she found she enjoyed the experience.
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So, Harvey, exactly how long have you lived here?” The neighborhood was a good one. Lila had only been in it a year, preferring to rent and move on after a couple years. She didn’t like roots.
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Twenty-five years.”
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That’s a long time to be in one place.”
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Yes it is.”
And during the course of the next thirty minutes she managed to get his life story. It wasn’t long and it was sad. He’d been a major in the Marine Corps in Vietnam. While there he met and married a local woman, who’d been killed by a landmine a week later. And a mere week after that he’d been shot through the right femur, turning him into a permanent cripple.
Some had called it a million dollar wound, but that, combined with the death of the woman he loved, had turned him into a recluse. He’d spent the next couple years in and out of the VA, feeling sorry for himself. He’d done more drugs than anybody ever should, got caught, got caught again, and spent thirteen years in prison.
Sentence served, he moved to Reno and bought a house with some money left to him by his mother, who’d died when he was behind bars. He spent the next twenty-two years drunk, until one day he’d killed a deer on 395, which he could’ve avoided, had he been sober. It could’ve been a person, a child.
He hadn’t had a drink since. Quit cold turkey. Quitting the cancer sticks had been harder, took him a year on and off, took him another year to realize he was worth a shit. He’d been clean and sober for three years, hadn’t had a smoke in two and had been wearing a smile for one.
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Basically, I wasted my life.” He didn’t sound sad, wistful was the right word. Lila felt sorry for him.
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And you’re telling me this, because?” she said when he finished.
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Because I was you, back when I got home from the war. The experience changed me, ruined me, ruined most of the rest of my life.” He was still smiling and Lila had never seen a man look more sincere.
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I’m not drinking. I don’t do drugs. I don’t feel sorry for myself. I’m not wasting my life.”
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Maybe you’re not drinking yet, but you’re wasting your life. I can see it in the way you walk when you think nobody’s looking, with your head down and your shoulders hunched. And when you think somebody is looking you give them that defiant stare.”
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You’re pretty direct.” She was surprised she wasn’t angry.
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It’s new for me,” he said. “If I could relive my life, I’d do everything different, but you don’t get a second chance at this game, so the next best thing is for me to help keep someone else from winding up a loser like me.”
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You’re not a loser.” Funny she should say that, because that’s what she’d thought of him, till just a few minutes ago.
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Yes I am,” he said. “But you gotta go.”
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Yeah.” She pushed away from the table. “You wanna talk some more when I get back?”
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I’d like that.”
Back home and at her laptop, she logged on, surprised she hadn’t done it as soon as she’d walked in the door. Boy, that Harvey had really, was really, throwing her off her game.
She checked the tracker on her Crown Vic and found it on the move, doing seventy on 395, going northeast, ten miles from Susanville. Only seventy miles away. That’s just about what she’d figured. Had she not showered, changed and had breakfast with Harvey, she’d be hot on Izzy’s tail, but she’d needed the shower and had enjoyed talking to Harvey, which was nice, because it had been a long time since she’d enjoyed anything. Besides, Izzy was burdened with the two sleepers, who would be out of it for some time to come.
She went to her gun safe, opened it, studied the contents, took out a pair of Glocks. This was going to be her last mission and she wanted a safety, a backup gun. She stuffed one of the weapons and several clips into her overnight bag, the other she slid into a shoulder holster.
She thought about the dart gun in the car, she’d keep it with her, too. It hadn’t worked on Izzy, but you never knew when you might want to put someone out without killing them. She’d never had that opportunity before. True she only had two darts left, but you never knew, she could find herself in a situation where two darts would be better than none.
Next she took out her reserve. She kept a hundred thousand dollars in the gun safe. Ten bundles, a hundred hundreds banded per bundle. Her emergency money. Her escape money. Her just in case money. She put it all in her bag, because something told her she could be moving into a just in case kind of situation.
She shut the safe, spun the dial, went to her bedroom, stuffed a couple changes of clothes into the bag with the spare Glock and the money. Her bag packed, she put on the shoulder holster. Then she put on a duster she’d gotten in New Zealand a couple years back. The coat went down to her ankles, made her look like a girl from down under, but it hid the holstered Glock and it kept her warm when she was zipping along with the top down on days as cold as this.
She picked up her laptop, went out to the garage, where she stashed it and her bag behind the passenger seat in the Jag. She got in the car, lowered the top, thumbed the garage door opener and was on her way, feeling like the loser she was and had been ever since she’d been raped all those years ago in Susanville.
* * *
Coming into Susanville, Izzy slowed to sixty-five. She saw a McDonald’s on the left, turned into the parking lot. She was famished. Inside she ordered a half dozen Big Macs to go. Back in the car, she drove a block to the Thunderbird Motel, where she asked for a room off the street.
The sun was coming up, but the parking lot was quiet. She found her room, backed up to it, slipped the card key into the door and was surprised to find the room was much better than she thought she’d be getting for less than a fifty bucks.
Satisfied that everybody was still asleep, she popped the trunk, carrying first Alicia, then Amy into the room and depositing them on the double bed, while the dog stood guard. They looked peaceful.
“
Hungry, Hunter?” She opened the bag, unwrapped a burger, handed it to him and smiled at how quickly he wolfed it down. “Not a picky eater, I see.” She handed him another and it disappeared just as quickly. Then another and it was gone, too. “Okay, I get one now!” Like the dog, she wolfed it down. She had her second one, gave Hunter his fourth.
She eyed the phone. Much as she didn’t want to make the call, she had no choice. She’d tried in the past to get in touch with her son, but Roxanne had always stood in the way. Still, it had been a long time.
She picked up the phone. Called the number. Got a recording. Roxanne’s voice.
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We’re not home. Please leave a message.”
Izzy hung up. She hadn’t counted on that. Still, maybe it was better this way. She desperately wanted to meet her grandchildren, but even if Roxanne would have relented, she could hardly see them like this, with the years melted away.
She thought for a minute, then picked up the phone.
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Hello,” she said after hearing Roxanne’s message again. “This is Izzy, I’ve got Amy and a friend with me and I’m at the Thunderbird Motel downtown. The girls have been drugged, shot with a tranquilizer dart and I suspect they’ll be out for a while. I’m in trouble and can’t stay. The girls are in trouble too, though not because of anything they’ve done. Someone wants to use them to get to me and that someone may hurt them if I don’t do what they want.”
She paused for a second, trying to think of what to say next.
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I can’t do what they want. It’s not possible. So, Johnny, you need to step up and be Amy’s dad. You need to keep her and her friend out of sight till I call and say it’s safe. I hope it won’t be too long. Bye.”
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Izzy, don’t hang up.”
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Roxanne?”
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We don’t need to get involved in your trouble.” Same Roxanne, mean spirited. A sour person.
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I’m writing you a check for fifty thousand dollars.”
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What?”
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These girls need to be kept safe and out of sight for two months. I’m post dating this check for December First. If you and Johnny have kept the girls safe for that long, you can cash it. If not, I’ll stop payment.”
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You said two months.” Roxanne sounded a little less hostile now.
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I’m writing another check for a hundred thousand dollars and dating it January First. If the girls are still safe and out of sight, you can cash it.”
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Well, if it’s for Amy’s safety.” Roxanne actually sounded not bitter.
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One more thing,” Izzy said. “My will. I’ve left each of your daughters, my grandchildren, who you’ve not allowed me to see, a trust to pay for their education. If they go to college, they get it paid for, living expenses, tuition, the whole bit. If they don’t go, they get a hundred thousand dollars each on their twenty-first birthday. I’ve split the balance between Amy and St. Catherine’s.” She paused for effect. “If these girls are safe on the New Year, I’ll change my will, cutting out St. Catherine’s and dividing my estate between Johnny and Amy. I’m an old woman and we’re talking about an awful lot of money.”
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Thank you.”
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I don’t like you, Roxanne. You’re a control freak who has completely taken over my son and probably warped my grandchildren’s minds against me. But if you keep these girls safe, you and Johnny will get your money. If any harm comes to them, I will make sure your fate is the same as theirs, no matter what it costs.”
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I’ll do what you say,” Roxanne said.
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Fine, come now. I’ll be gone before you get here.”
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You can trust me,” Roxanne said.
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I hope so.” Izzy hung up and smiled as she wrote out the checks. She had eight hundred dollars in the account, give or take a few bucks. Roxanne had been sticking it to her for a long time, it was about time she got some back.