As Derek hustled back to the diner, I walked briskly toward the front entrance, to get a line on the white Buick. It was sitting there, its engine running, waiting for something. I reached the driver’s side, leaned over, peered into the front window. A tall, thin man, quite old, wearing a houndstooth jacket and a tie. He was squeezing the steering wheel with both hands, his back was straight, his lips were moving up and down, though he wasn’t eating or talking.
I knocked gently on the window. The man ignored me. I knocked harder. He kept his eyes forward for an awkward few seconds more and then turned to face me.
I gestured for him to lower the window. After an uneasy interval, he complied.
“How are you doing, sir?” I said.
“Just fine,” he said in a hoarse croak.
“Can I ask what you’re doing parked here?”
“You already did, didn’t you? I’m waiting for someone, though I’m not sure how it’s any of your business.”
“Waiting for whom, if I may ask?”
“Now you’re being impertinent,” said the old man. He pursed his lips, turned forward, and pressed the button to raise the window.
I knocked again and waited. After a long moment, the window came down.
“You still here?” he said.
“I just thought I should tell you, sir, that this might not be the safest place to wait. Things are about to happen of a violent sort, and you’d probably be better off out of it.”
“You’re not telling me anything I don’t know,” said the man. “Why do you think I’m waiting here to begin with?”
“I have no idea.”
“That’s the first thing you said that made any sense. Now, just go ahead and skedaddle on out of here and mind your own damn business.”
“I’m only trying to help.”
“You want to know something, young fellow? I’ve made it seventy-one years without your assistance. Do you know how I did that?”
“No, sir.”
“Then I guess we’re done here,” he said, just as something caught his eye. He turned nervously toward it. I followed his gaze and saw her, coming out of the front of the motel, a small, carpet-sided suitcase in her hand.
Gwen.
She stopped short. “Mr. Carl,” she said. “Thank God.” And immediately she dropped the suitcase, rushed forward, and gave me a strong hug.
“I’ve come to get Julia,” I said.
“Of course you have,” she said. “Why else would you be here? And she needs you, Mr. Carl, she does. She’s in more trouble than she knows.”
“Where is she?”
“Out back. By the pool. With Mr. Swift and the other one.”
“Terrence.”
“That’s him. She says they’re on the run. Like it’s some romantic adventure, like Bonnie and Clyde.”
“Well, her run is ending here and now. It’s only a matter of how.”
“What do you mean?”
“The cops are coming, the FBI. Her car has been blocked off, and so has Clarence’s, so there’s no way out for her. But there’s also a few people showing up who are looking for the money.”
“The money?”
“The money Clarence brought with him. The money in the big black briefcase.”
“What money?”
“He didn’t tell you?”
“That sniveling runt, he doesn’t tell me a thing. To him I’m just the help.”
“Forget about it. Do you want to come with me and try to convince her to leave?”
“I’ve tried already. She won’t listen to me, she won’t listen to anyone but that Terrence. The only reason I let her drag me along was to try to change her mind, but it’s not changing. Maybe you’ll have better luck than I. Bonnie and Clyde indeed. I know the way that story ended, with that handsome Warren Beatty turned to Swiss cheese. I don’t need to see it again. That’s why I called Norman to get me out of here.”
“So that’s Norman.”
“He’s taking me home.”
“Back to Philadelphia?”
“Why would I go back there? With the doctor gone and Mrs. Denniston in a state and the house about to be seized by the bank, there’s nothing in Philadelphia for me now. Norman is taking me back home to Georgia. I’ve earned a rest.”
“Yes, you have.”
She stepped forward and kissed me gently on the cheek. “Take care of her,” she said.
“I’ll try.”
I watched as she made her way around the car and picked up her suitcase. Norman leaned over and opened the passenger door.
“Good-bye, Victor.”
“When you get down there,” I said, “I expect you’ll be picking some pecans.”
“The fattest I can find.”
“Then you’ll be making some pies, I suppose.”
“I have no choice. Norman’s been after me ever since I gave his last pie to you.”
“Lucky Norman.”
“I’ll send you one, I promise.”
“I’d like that.”
She smiled at me and then eased herself into the white Buick, shut the door. Without looking at me, Norman pulled the Buick out of the lot.
I watched the car head toward Skyline Drive and the scenic road south, and then I jogged to the north side of the Mountain Drive Motel. I skulked around the corner and across a scabrous piece of crabgrass. When I reached the black wire fence surrounding the pool, I peered over the top. What I saw stopped me cold.
On two chaise lounges, pressed close together at the edge of the pool, a man and a woman lay side by side in the sun, their heads leaning one against the other, their hands entwined such that their fingertips just barely touched. He was in jeans and a T-shirt, his swollen foot swathed in gauze. She was in dark pants and a loose white shirt, her feet bare. Their eyes were closed, their lips moved softly in hushed conversation. They were in a world of their own, a universe of two, blissful and exclusive, perfect and unyielding. It was a place where nothing could intrude, not another suitor, nor a foul drug addiction, nor a murder or two, nor a sordid chase for sordid wealth, nor a pack of police and a pair of gunmen all closing in. But it wasn’t this vision of steadfast love that stopped me cold.
What stopped me cold was the expression on the face of the third figure in the tableau. He sat on the edge of another chaise just a few feet away from the loving couple, a figure in a tan suit and a bow tie, with his bulky black shoes flat on the ground, his elbows on his knees, his hands wringing one the other urgently, violently. The sun shone brightly on his face, and I could see his features clearly, twisted in unrequited ache as he stared forlornly at the blissful couple, alone together in a foreign land he would never be permitted to enter. And even though I knew him to be the enemy, and I had seen the grisly fruit of his foul crimes, I couldn’t help but empathize with his pain.
Welcome to the club, you murderous son of a bitch.
46
“You’re the worst kind of fool,” I said to Clarence Swift.
Clarence jerked his head up at my words and then shot to his feet. “How did you…?” he sputtered. “Where…?”
“Did you really think,” I said, “that they would ask you to join them in their fatal embrace?”
“I don’t… Victor… What are you doing here?”
“I came for Julia,” I said.
“What have you done?” His head swiveled back and forth. “The police might have followed you.”
“They didn’t follow me, I brought them. But you should be more concerned about the madman who’s trailing Julia. Or the killers following you, who will be here” – I checked my watch – “in a matter of minutes.”
“We have to go,” he said. He reached forward and put his hand on Julia’s shoulder, shaking her. “Everyone’s onto us. Carl betrayed you like I told you he would. We have to run.”
“Victor?” said Julia, pushing herself up off the lounge, her eyes half open. She was calm, languorous, she looked slow, wrong. So it wasn’t just love anymore that was creating for them their own separate world.
“I need you to come with me, Julia,” I said carefully. “I need to take you to safety.”