The Undertaker

I didn't sleep long, but I did sleep well. This was the first time we had slept together in something that wasn't narrow, moving, or bouncing down the road smelling of lettuce and avocados. You would think that moving from a narrow bunk no more than four feet wide to a huge king-sized bed might gain a tiny bit of separation. No. Even when Sandy was sound asleep, if I moved, she moved with me, up, down, across, and right up to the edge of the bed, never losing contact. The girl was like Crazy Glue. Obviously, she would take some getting used to.

The sun was up when I woke the first time. I was lying at the left edge of the bed and she was laying half on top of me, sound asleep. Our room was on an upper floor and we hadn't bothered to close the drapes on the bay window at the foot of the bed. They were wide open and the morning sun streamed in across the bed and across us. Lying there, I was able to look up and out the window to the high blue sky. Instinctively I looked for Terri, and that was the instant I knew she was gone, and she would not be coming back. Surprisingly, that sudden realization did not terrify me, fill me with grief, or rip my heart out, because I understood this was what Terri had always wanted.

At 9:30, I woke again to find Sandy standing next to the bed. She still wore the high-speed, karate-kicking Reeboks, but her light-brown hair had been combed-out and styled soft and full. She wore soft, pastel makeup, and she was wearing a brand new outfit — an attractive, light gray pants suit with a dark blue blouse and pearls. The effect was stunning. The sharp-edged sales clerk I followed up North Michigan Avenue was completely gone now. She had an older, more professional look, like an ad out of Vogue.

“I couldn't sleep, so I took some of the cash from the gumba in Boston and hit a couple of stores down the street.” She tuned slowly around for me to see. “You like?” She asked proudly.

I looked her over, head to toe. “What I see, is the glowing, relaxed look of someone who has been getting laid way too often.”

“I'll be the judge of that.” She grinned from ear to ear. She opened a bag and put my new clothes on the bed for inspection. There was a pair of pleated, light gray, men's dress slacks, a white silk shirt with French cuffs, and a dark-gray striped sports coat. With the blonde hair and clear sunglasses, the new look should work for me, too.

“You want me to try them on?” I asked.

“Actually,” she said as she began unbuttoning her blouse, “I thought I'd take mine off. See, the train doesn't leave for two hours...”

“And we wouldn't want to get them wrinkled… being new and all.”

“It's amazing how fast you catch on now.”

And it was amazing what that girl could do in an hour when she wanted to.

Packing and checking out were very quick, and we walked outside into a delightful New England summer morning. The sun was shining and the sky was clear. The train station was less than a half mile away, so we walked, passing a Starbucks where I stopped for a cup of real coffee and a pay phone.

“You're calling Billingham again?” Sandy asked.

I nodded as I dialed his office number and began dropping in coins. This time I got a real person and asked for his secretary. When I told her my name, she immediately replied, “Oh, yes. Mr. Billingham is expecting your call.”

It was less than a minute before I heard a thick, friendly, baritone voice at the other end of the line. “Mister Talbott, you have been a busy fellow these past few days.”

“A rolling stone gathers no bullets, Mister Billingham.”

“An excellent point. What can I do for you?”

“It's important that we talk, important to both of us.”

“Important, eh? Well, I have this line swept three times a day, so go on.”

“No, face-to-face. I have some information that might interest you.”

“Interest me? I doubt that.”

“I guarantee you won't regret it.” There was a long pause at the other end of the phone. “How about later this afternoon?” I asked. “Not in your office, some place outside, with wide open spaces.”

“Here in Manhattan? My, my, you do roll,” he chuckled. “Assuming you are familiar with the city, perhaps Washington Square, under the arch at say, 5:00 PM?”

“I'll find it, but I thought your office was on Sixth Avenue, in Midtown?”

“Excellent. I appreciate a man who does his homework. My office is indeed up in Midtown, but I have a 3:30 class down at NYU.”

“Really? What are you taking?”

“No, no, Mr. Talbott,” he laughed. “I'm teaching, not taking — Advanced Criminal Procedure, and it usually draws a pretty good crowd, if I do say so myself.”

“I saw you on TV a couple of days ago.”

“What a monstrous waste of time. Well, if you watched, you'll know I am fat and jolly, completely bald, and I'm never without a big smile or a couple of large bodyguards. So don't get any peculiar ideas, Mr. Talbott, or try to do anything but talk.”

“Me? I'm a pussy cat, Mister Billingham.”

“That's not what the Boston Globe said about you this morning, or the Chicago Tribune the day before. And I guess the Columbus papers the day before that, but who's counting, eh?”

“None of that stuff is true.”

“Of course not. I'm a defense attorney, remember? That's what all my clients tell me,” he chuckled. “But if you really are part of the innocent, tiny minority, that's all the more reason for you to be careful. 5:00 PM is a long time from now and like most pussy cats, you've already used up most of your nine lives… and “ciao,” Mr. Talbott.”

Two doors down from the Starbucks was a bookstore. We ducked inside and I bought a copy of the Boston Globe, curious about the story Billingham mentioned. I opened it and groaned. This time we had made page one. They had my photo again, with the headline, “Torture Slaying in Back Bay, Midwest Cop Killers Believed in Boston,” and they had enough of the details and the twisted background to convince me it was more of Ralph Tinkerton's handiwork. This time, they had Sandy's photograph too. Mine was the same old California driver's license mug shot they used in Chicago, but Sandy's was even worse. Her black hair looked dirty and uncombed, not stylishly “messy,” her skin was pale and fleshy, and she wore black lip-gloss and eyeliner. With a pair of dull, dead eyes and dark bags underneath, she must have been in her Goth phase. I turned the paper and showed her.

“Which was it?” I asked. “A horrible hangover or Halloween?”

She stared at the picture without saying a word and I could see the tears start to form.

“Hey, I'm sorry,” I said. “I was only kidding.”

“You should keep that,” she pointed at it and managed a whisper. “You can pull it out any time I get moody or piss you off, or you don't think I appreciate you enough. That was me, about a year ago, after I hit bottom. Like I said, you need to keep it.”

“Well, one good thing,” I said, as I gave her a hug. “That sure isn't you anymore.”

The ride down to New York's Pennsylvania Station at 34th Street and Seventh Avenue in Midtown took about three hours. When we crossed into Connecticut, I began to relax. With all the local crime in New York, the newspapers in the Big Apple would have more than enough of their own news without needing Boston or Chicago stories for filler. By the time we reached central Connecticut, the sky had turned gray as fresh showers came up the Atlantic coast to meet us.

The station is underground, and Sandy and I joined the flow of bodies heading for the narrow escalators. The old, granite, neo-classical train station had been torn down and replaced by the Madison Square Garden sports arena. The railroad waiting room and ticket windows were in the basement, complete with the usual array of homeless, Hari Krishnas, panhandlers, bag ladies, and three-card Monte dealers. In the middle, we found a large, confusing map that showed the complex array of bus, train, and subway routes that overlaid the five boroughs.

“Looks like the wiring diagram for the space shuttle,” I mumbled, trying to orient myself to the big map.