life was fair? His thoughts pierced his heart.
“ There it is, slow down,” she said.
He tapped the brakes, slowed the car as he took the off ramp on the right. He was sorry to lose the steadying comfort of the big truck that had been leading him through the night. He turned right at the top of the ramp and drove by an all night gas station. It was one of those places where you went inside, paid, then pumped your gas. Nobody trusted anybody anymore.
There was one car at the pumps, a brand new looking yellow Porsche Boxter, and a young teenager pumping gas into it. He saw a girl in the car. Must be bringing her back from a date. She probably had to be in by midnight. Christ, where did a boy take a girl out here? Necking somewhere, probably.
He pulled over and parked in the dark, a little past the station.
“ I’ll pull in when they leave. You’ll have to go in and pay, then pump the gas. I’ll stay in the car.” He handed her two twenties.
Jim watched while the boy finished filling the tank. That car looks like it can fly, he thought. Boy probably has rich parents. It was the kind of car every teenage kid wanted. The boy replaced the pump when he finished, got back in the Boxter, started it and Jim heard the unmistakable rumble of a car that was more at home at a hundred on the highway than thirty in the city.
He envied the kid. Then he saw the red lights in the rear view mirror. He shut the engine off.
“ Now what?” she asked.
He reached into the side pocket of Turnbull’s filthy jacket and withdrew the eye patch. Which eye, he thought, the left or the right? Have to take a chance. He slipped it on and covered the left eye.
“ Right eye,” Donna thought, and he moved the patch over.
“ Step out of the car please.” An amplified voice said from the police car.
Glenna opened her door, stepped out and was caught in the spotlight. Her long curly hair caught the light rays giving her an angelic appearance. He blinked and his heart fluttered. She was stunning. He opened his door, without taking his eyes off of her, and hesitated. He had to think of something to say. Would Eddie’s license work? Would it fool a pair of small town cops? How to explain his appearance? He was in the shit now, both figuratively and factually. He spent another five seconds drinking in her face, smiled, then slid out of the car.
He felt the spot moving from her to where he stood. In another instant the light that made her glow would rake over him and his filthy appearance and it would be all over. He had no story to explain away how he looked. He might as well just call it quits. He was too old to be running around like a TV private investigator bent on revenge. Better to give up, get a warm bed in a quiet jail, and sleep. Let the authorities handle it.
He started to raise his hands, but the Boxter squealed out of the gas station before the light played over him, rear wheels smoking like a dragster’s, the roaring engine cutting up the night. The car slid out of the driveway onto the access road, laying a hundred foot strip of black rubber on the pavement as it shot toward the Interstate and the spotlight stopped its arc.
The police car screamed into life and bolted after the hot rod. In a flash of an instant both pursuer and pursued were out of sight, swallowed up by the Interstate.
“ Let’s get out of here!” Glenna jumped back in the car.
“ We won’t get very far without gas.” He eased himself back in the car, felt the sweat on his palms as he slid his hands over the wheel. It had been a close call. If the youth in the Boxter would have waited a second longer before stomping on the gas, he would have been caught in the spot and he might have intrigued the police more than a spoiled teenager on a hot Friday night.
He started the car, pulled up to a pump. Glenna ran into the office, laid down the forty dollars, came out and pumped the gas. The Explorer ate thirty-seven dollars and seventy-six cents worth of fuel. They left without going back for the change.
“ Turn right,” she said. “Let’s see what this town has to offer.”
He looked at her, but said nothing.
“ You need something to wear as soon as possible,” she said. “Oh my gosh, I think I just felt my heart slip.” She turned and locked onto his eyes. “What I’m about to say goes against everything I believe in. I’m a policeman’s daughter. I believe in the law, right and wrong. But difficult times require difficult solutions, so we’re going to see if we can’t get you some clean clothes.”
“ At this time of night?”
“ We’re going to steal them. There, I said it and lightning didn’t strike.”
He turned right and a mile from the Interstate the two lane road turned into the main street of a small town. Two blocks of small shops surrounded by a residential community of less than a thousand. The street was poorly lit, two out of three street lights out, and poorly kept, a third of the stores were vacant. Jim Monday wondered if the town had ever seen better times-was it a dream waiting to happen or a dream that died?
“ Look, there!” Glenna pointed.
He drove slowly past a men’s store called Today’s Man. It was dark, like the rest of the town. The street was bare. Doors were barred. Blinds were drawn over locked windows. A tumbleweed blew across the street in front of them.
They rolled past a used clothing store, Yesterday’s Clothes, on the right, a pharmacy, The Doctor’s Drug Store, on the left, past a shoddy Chinese restaurant, a shoddier Mexican restaurant called Francisco’s, which blared the slogan in faded yellow paint, La Comida Mas Fina, and between Francisco’s and The Handy Laundry and Dry Cleaners, was a small dirt parking lot.
“ Pull in there.” She pointed and he obeyed.
“ We have two choices, the used clothing store or the men’s shop. Me I prefer the used clothing place. Less chance of an alarm.”
“ You’ve done this before?” he asked, nervous.
“ No, never.” She sat and stared at Francisco’s fading yellow sign, like she was looking for courage. After a few seconds she found it. “Scared?” she asked.
“ A little. You?”
“ Terrified. Let’s go.”
They got out of the car, walked half a block back to the used clothing store. He scratched his head, then his side. They stopped, looked in the window, straining to see in through the dark, but all he could see was the reflection of the barren street with its ghostly shadows and it sent a tingling feeling through him.
“ Let’s go around back,” she whispered.
She led the way, squeezing between the store and the Chinese restaurant. He didn’t like being cramped between the two buildings. The weeds and loose dirt crunching under his shoes only served to remind him how tight they were and how much his feet hurt.
“ Look.” He pointed, once they were at the back entrance. “Alarm tape on the windows.”
“ Do you know how to get in without setting off the alarm?” she whispered.
“ No.”
“ Let’s try the men’s store.”
“ Let’s get out of here.” He was in enough trouble, serious trouble. It would be plain stupid to get picked up for breaking and entering in a dump like this. If they got caught, they’d probably be shot on sight. Everybody in this kind of town had a gun and knew how to use it.
“ As long as we’re back here, let’s try the men’s store.” Once again she led and once again he followed, scratching himself along the way.
He felt like he was back in Vietnam, with lice crawling around his body. He itched between his legs. He could feel the dirt underneath his nails and the sweat pouring under his arms. A hot wind blew by and he felt nauseated by his own smell.
He hurried to catch up to Glenna. She was at the back door of Today’s Man by the time he caught up to her, staring at the silver alarm tape around the back window and the sign that said, Protected by Signal Security.
“ Time to go.” This time he took the lead. “I don’t know why I let you talk me into this. We can check into a motel. You can get the rooms, so nobody has to see me, and tomorrow you can go out and simply buy me some clothes.” The answer was obvious, he should have seen it earlier.
“ Of course,” she said, obviously ignoring him, “a laundry. It was staring us straight in the face.” She took off at a slow jog and as much as he wanted to scream at her, to tell her they could get clothes and shoes tomorrow,
