“ I think we should stay here for awhile.”
“ What are we going to do when Mr. Dry Cleaner shows up for work?” she said.
“ It’s Saturday. A town this small probably rolls up its sidewalks on the weekends.”
“ You’re probably right.” She sighed, closed her eyes, crossed her legs into a full lotus and started to breathe, pulling the air deep into her lungs, holding her breath, then exhaling.
He watched, fascinated. She was serene, her face as worry free as a child’s. The rise and fall of her breasts, erotic. Her hands on her thighs, peaceful. She was contradiction personified.
He left her meditating and went looking for clothes. He found two pair of Levi’s that fit and stuffed them into a white drawstring laundry bag. He added two denim work shirts, four pair of boxer shorts, two white tee shirts, a Levi Jacket, a pair of dark brown slacks and a white dress shirt. He carried his booty back to where Glenna was sitting in her yoga position and laid it down. He sat next to it.
She opened her eyes.
“ What have you got there?”
“ Clothes, a couple pair of Levi’s, underwear, socks.”
“ You’re gonna take them? More than you need?”
“ This from the girl who wanted to break and enter last night.” He was having a hard time understanding her.
“ But not to take one thing more than we needed and I would have sent the money for what we took when I got home.”
He dug under the pile of clothes that he had used for a pillow and pulled out Eddie Lambert’s wallet. He took out a hundred dollar bill, reached up and put in on counter. “There, does that make you happy?”
“ A nice gesture, but it’s pretty stupid.” She arched her eyebrows with a twinkle of laughter in her eyes. “We might need the money. No matter how much you have in that wallet, when it’s gone we might wish we had that hundred bucks. Take it back. We’ll send the money later, when we know we can afford it.”
“ You’re saying we an awful lot when it’s really just me. Once we’re out of here, you go home, back to your family. They’re probably worried sick right now.”
“ No way. My mom has a new boyfriend and they’re both somewhere off the coast of Baja on the Love Boat. My dad knows I’m okay. I left a message, remember?” She crossed her arms around her chest.
“ A message that probably scared him out of his mind. I’m a wanted murderer, remember that? Even if he thinks I’m innocent, he has to be worried about what might happen to you if the police catch up to us. You could get seriously hurt or worse, killed. No, you’re going back as soon as we’re safe.” He hoped he sounded firm.
“ You’re gonna need me,” she said. “I’ll bet every cop in the state is looking for you. I’ll bet your picture has been all over the news all night long. You think that stupid eye patch you put on last night will fool anyone? And who’s gonna buy food? You? Who’s gonna find a place to spend the night? You? Who’s gonna get us a car? You? And who’s gonna get us out of here? You need me and you know it.”
He stared at her with clenched fists. It was true, he needed someone. Not her though, not a child, and not a girl. He had friends he could call. He looked up at the phone.
“ Don’t even think about it,” she said.
He remained silent, caught in her deep brown eyes.
“ You’re thinking you can call someone. Well, you’re wrong. The police have already talked to everyone you know. Probably the press, too. I can see your friends on CNN, ‘He was such a quiet man. Friendly, always said hello. He’s the last man in the world you would think would ever do such a thing. It must be because of the war. Come to think of it he always was a little strange. His wife leaving him like that must have pushed him over.’ You call someone like that, they’ll go for the fame and the glory. They’ll turn you in. We’re all you have, me and my dad.” It was her turn to look up at the phone.
She was right and he knew it and even if she wasn’t, he didn’t want to involve his friends. They had families, kids. The last thing they needed was a call from him. “Okay,” he said, “call your father.”
She scooted next to him, pulled the phone off the counter, started pushing the buttons.
“ You remember the number?”
“ Yeah, I’m good with phone numbers. Tell me once and I have it for life. Go figure. It’s ringing.”
She asked for her father’s room and frowned. After a few seconds she hung up.
“ They said he left during the night without giving them notice, but since he paid by credit card, it was okay. Now what?” She didn’t seem as confident as she’d been only a few seconds ago.
“ Get a laundry bag and stuff a few day’s supply of clothes into it,” he said. “Then we’ll see.”
He watched as she made her way through the clothes. It took her almost an hour and she went through every article of clothing, both the dry cleaning and the laundry, before she found two pair of Calvin Klein Jeans, two blouses, two men’s tee shirts, white, size small. She refused to use somebody else’s underwear. “I’ll buy some when I get some shoes,” she said, and he thought about that pair of shoes in the bathroom. He bent over and rubbed his feet, he never wanted to put them on again.
“ Okay, again I ask, now what?” She tossed her bag next to his and returned to her position next to him, behind the counter.
“ I need shoes too,” he said.
“ And we need food. And a car would be nice.”
“ Yeah, breakfast would be good, but there’s nothing we can do about food till tonight.”
“ You mean we’re going to wait here all day? In the cleaners?” she said.
“ It’s 10:00 and it feels like a sauna in here,” he said, starting to sweat. “It’ll probably reach into the nineties today. Our feet would burn up on the pavement, and even if we had shoes, we still couldn’t leave before dark, because we’d get picked up before we got out of town. We can’t leave till tonight.”
“ Then what?”
“ I don’t know. I haven’t planned farther than going out the back door after dark.”
“ Great.”
“ That voice in your head, is it still there?” she asked after a few minutes of silence.
“ Donna, are you there?” His thought went unanswered. “Are you there?” he asked again and again there was no answer.
“ No, she seems to be gone.”
“ Oh.”
“ I was starting to get used to her.” He leaned against the counter. “I think I’m going to miss her.”
“ That’s natural. Now you have to deal with your problems yourself.” She was wringing her hands in her tee shirt.
“ You don’t believe me?” He looked at her and laughed. “You think I’m hearing voices?” He bored into her eyes, looking for a sign and finding none. “Well, I can’t blame you. If I were you, I wouldn’t believe me either. Anyway it’s a moot point, she’s gone.” The sound of his knees creaking filled the silent room as he got up.
“ I’m going to the bathroom.” He went into the small bathroom, urinated, flushed, looked in the mirror, splashed water on his face. His reflection told him he needed a shave. He hated the way his beard was starting to come in gray. Turning away from his own bloodshot eyes, he left the bathroom.
“ I’m going to check the office and see if there is anything we can use. Should have done it earlier.”
He went into the office adjacent to the bathroom. There was a small wooden desk, scratched and covered with papers, an electronic calculator, a matching chair and nothing else. He sat at the desk. The papers were last week’s receipts, apparently the proprietor used the shoe box method of accounting, gather all the receipts, make a pile, throw them in a shoebox and figure it out later. The top two desk drawers filled the shoe box function.
He found a personal phone book in the bottom drawer. It appeared to list the names, addresses and phone numbers of the cleaner’s patrons. He also found blank paper, pencils and extra rolls of paper tape for the calculator. And in the back, behind the calculator tape, a forty-five automatic.
“ Are you a welcome sight,” he said. Then he remembered the guns in the trunk of the rented Ford. If the police find those they’ll get real excited, he thought. They’ll call in reinforcements and tear this town apart looking for me. They’ll do that anyway, once they connect the rental car to Edna.
He picked up the gun, checked the clip and found it full. Eight in the clip, one in the chamber, the safety off. A loaded cannon, ready for action, tucked away in the back of a drawer. A gun out of reach didn’t need the safety off. If you’re going to take the chance of killing yourself with a weapon ready to fire, he thought, it should at least be
