“Room 304.”
Joe picked up the phone. His hello was guarded, frightened. We’re all afraid, Shank thought. Afraid and running, running scared. No way to do it.
“Greyhound station,” Shank said. “Fast as you can. Don’t waste any time.”
Joe rang off without reply. Shank walked to the ticket counter where he obtained the information that a bus was leaving for Chicago in less than an hour. He bought three tickets one-way.
He entered the Post House and ordered a cup of coffee. It was bitter, weak. He drank it anyway and went out to the waiting room. He felt conspicuous.
Joe and Anita came. They walked like somnambulists, their eyes open but sightless, their feet leaden. Shank told them they were going to Chicago. They nodded vacantly.
Anita sat on a hard wooden bench and stared at nothing. Joe took a paperback novel from his blue jeans and began to read.
The bus left on time. They were on it, nervous, waiting, headed for Chicago. The night was black and the sky was starless. The bus raced to Chicago and they raced with it. It went fast but not fast enough.
“Joe—”
He looked up. Anita was speaking to him. She had said hardly a word in days. She had lowered a copy of the Chicago Tribune to talk directly to him.
“He killed a man, Joe. In Cleveland. That’s how he got the money for the tickets. He stuck up a man and shot him six times in the back. He used the same gun he got from the cop in New York, He killed him, Joe.”
Joe had guessed as much. He wished Anita hadn’t said anything. It was bad this way. Best to forget it, to sink gracefully into immobility, to bury your head in the sand. Shank was out now. They were waiting for him in the hotel room that in effect reproduced the rooms in Buffalo and Cleveland.
Now Shank was looking for someone named Bunky. Bunky would give them money, or a connection, or something. Bunky would save the day. Then the trio would be safe again; the three could stop running. Joe wondered how it would feel to stop running. They had been running for a long time.
“He’s a killer,” Anita persisted. “He didn’t have to kill that man, Joe. He didn’t have to kill the cop, either. He could have let him live. He meant to kill him. You don’t shoot someone six times unless you want to kill him. He’s a murderer.”
“We’re all murderers.”
“Maybe,” she said. “Maybe we are. I don’t know any more. We were going to live clean, Joe. Do you remember? Our own apartment on 19th Street near Gramercy Park. All by ourselves. You were supposed to have a good job and I would be keeping the apartment nice for you. So wonderful. It would have been so wonderful.”
“A dream, Anita.”
She looked at him.
“A dream,” he continued in a monotone. “Everything’s a dream. No apartment, no clean. No anything. Just running.”
“Can we ever stop?” Anita’s voice climbed higher.
“I don’t know.”
“They’ll catch us, Joe. He must know that. You can’t get away from murder by crossing a state line. You just can’t do it. They’ll catch us.”
“Maybe.”
“And then what? How far can we run? How fast? They’ll kill us. Just like he killed the cop. And just like he killed the man in Cleveland.”
Joe was silent.
“What next, Joe?”
“I think he wants to get out of the country.”
She laughed. Her laughter was low, bitter, humorless. “Of course,” she said. “Out of New York, out of the state, out of the country. Run like a rabbit and wind up dead as a doornail. Where to?”
“Mexico.”
She was all eyebrow.
“I think that’s what he wants to do,” he explained. “Connect with this Bunky. A guy he knew in Frisco or something. Connect with Bunky and get some bread together. Then head for Mexico. He thinks we’ll be safe in Mexico.”
“Until he shoots somebody. Then what? Guatemala? Brazil? Spain? Where next?”
“If we get to Mexico—”
“We won’t get to Mexico. We won’t get anywhere. We’ll be killed.”
Joe lit a cigarette. “You can still walk out,” he said “Shank won’t mind, he won’t even know where you went.”
“Don’t be silly.”
“I’m not being silly,” he said reasonably. “Chicago’s a big town. You can walk out on us and disappear. You’ll be safe. The cops know about you, sure. But they don’t know who you are. They don’t have your picture. You can find a niche for yourself and be safe.”
“Do you want me to do that?”
He glanced away from her. “I don’t know. I want you to be safe. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“Joe—”
“I really don’t know,” he said. “I think I…this is silly, Anita. So silly.”
“Go ahead, Joe.”
“I still love you, Anita. Isn’t that silly? All washed up, the whole world, all falling in. And I just plain love you. I don’t understand it.”
“I love you, Joe.”
“Don’t talk silly. I ruined you, loused you up. You had a life.”
“It was an empty life.”
“This one’s worse.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe everything is the way it is and we can’t do anything about it.”
“Run, Anita. Before he gets back. We’ll make out. Shank and I. We’ll manage.”
“I can’t, Joe.”
“Leave me, Anita. I’m no good. I can’t move. So I’m impotent without you—so what? Leave me.”
“I can’t, Joe. I can’t.”
He took her in his arms. “There ought to be a way out,” he said. “Some way. There honest-to-God ought to. This is a mess.”
She stroked his forehead. He was sweating.
“What do we do, baby?” Joe said, hopelessly.
“I guess we stick together.”
“But how do we get out of this?”
“I wish I knew,” she said. “God in heaven, I wish I knew.”
They held each other and waited for Shank. Shank’s entrance was something special.
The door swung open. A second or two later Shank came through, his shoulders hunched, his white face more pale than usual. His eyes had a hunted look. He closed the door, slid the bolt home. He turned to face them. The smile on his lips did not include his eyes.
“I found Bunky,” he said.
They stared at him.
“It was tough,” Shank said. “Had to turn the town upside-down. Big city, Chicago. I figured Bunky would be on the North Side. I combed that North Side. Went to all the hip hangouts, all the places a cat like Bunky would probably hang. Took time. Too much time.”
“What happened?”
“I found him.”
“And—”
Shank sighed. “Good old Bunky,” he said. The smile grew but the eyes became more dead than ever. “He was glad to see me. Auld lang syne. That type of scene.”
They waited.
“Something funny,” he said. “Never would have expected it. Big change in Bunky. Fundamental difference from old Bunky. Big change.”
Why didn’t he get to the point? Anita and Joe wondered. He had connected with Bunky. The three could leave the country. Why did he have to drag it out forever?
“Funny,” Shank said. “You know what it is about Bunky? Funny. It makes a poem.”
They stared at him.
“Bunky is a junkie,” he said. “Bunky is a junkie with a forty-pound monkey. It rhymes, dig? Isn’t that funny? Isn’t that the funniest thing you ever heard?”
Chapter 11
“Junkie Bunky,” Shank said. “No good at all to me. Horse is his whole life. Forty dollars a day. Forty dollars a day to put in his arm. He couldn’t give me a connection.”