*
We were out by seven. Alice took the wheel as far as the New York metro area, then turned the driving chore over to me, with obvious relief. I got us across New Jersey and into Pennsylvania. At the welcome area just over the state line, we changed places again. The wound in my side was seeping again, and before we stopped for the night – at another off-the-grid motel – we’d have to pick up more gauze. I was going to be okay, but I was going to have one hell of a battle scar to go with my half-missing big toe. And no Purple Heart this time.
That night we stayed at Jim and Melissa’s Roadside Cabins, 10% Discount For Cash. The following day I felt better, my side not so stiff and painful, and I was able to do some of the driving. We stopped on the outskirts of Davenport, at a ramshackle motel called the Bide-A-Wee.
I had spent most of that day thinking and deciding what came next. There was money in three separate accounts, one of them accessible only to me as Dalton Smith, an identity that was (by the grace of God) still clean. At least as far as I knew. There would be more in the Woodley account if Nick came through, and I thought he would. His Roger Klerke problem had been solved, after all, and to his great financial benefit.
Before she went into her room, I hugged Alice and kissed her on both cheeks.
She looked at me with dark blue eyes I’d come to love, just as I’d loved Shan Ackerman’s dark brown ones. ‘What was that for?’
‘I just felt like doing it.’
‘Okay.’ She stood on tiptoes and kissed me on the mouth, firm and long. ‘And I felt like doing that.’
I don’t know what my expression was, but it made her smile.
‘You’re not going to sleep with me, I understand that, but you need to understand that I’m not your daughter, and my feelings for you aren’t in the least bit daughterly.’
She started away. I wasn’t going to see her again, but there was one more thing I needed from her. ‘Hey Alice?’ And when she turned back: ‘How are you doing with it? With Klerke?’
She thought it over, running a hand through her hair as she did it. She was back to black. ‘I’m getting there,’ she said. ‘Trying.’ I decided that was good enough.
That night I set my phone alarm for one A.M., long after she would be asleep. When I got up, I checked the bandages. No blood and hardly any pain. Pain had been replaced by the deep dry itch of healing. There was no stationery in the Bide-A-Wee, of course, but I had a Staples pad from the Gerard Tower in my suitcase. I tore out a couple of pages and wrote my goodbye letter.
Dear Alice,
By the time you read this, I’ll be gone. One of the reasons I wanted to stop here is because of the truck stop, Happy Jack’s, half a mile down the road. There I’m sure I can find a long-haul independent who’ll let me ride along with him for a hundred dollars. It’s got to be west or north, either of those will be okay, just not south or east. I’ve been there and done that.
I am not deserting you. Believe it.
I rescued you when those three bad and stupid men dumped you on the side of Pearson Street, didn’t I? Now I’m rescuing you again. Trying, at least. Bucky said something I haven’t forgotten. He told me you’d follow me as long as I let you, and if I let you, I’d ruin you. I know he was right about the following part after what we did at Klerke’s estate in Montauk Point. I think he was right about the ruining part, too, but I don’t believe it’s happened yet. When I asked you how you were doing with Klerke, you said you were trying. I know that you are, and I’m sure that in time you will succeed in putting that behind you. But I hope it won’t be too soon. Klerke screamed, didn’t he? He screamed that it hurt, and I hope those screams will haunt you long after you’ve gotten over my going. Maybe he deserved to be hurt after what he did to the girl in Mexico. And his son. And the other girls – them, too. But when you administer pain to someone, not little pain like the healing wound in my side but a killing shot, it leaves a scar. Not on the body but on the mind and spirit. It should, because it’s no little thing.
I need to leave you because I too am a bad man. This was knowledge I pushed away from my heart before, mostly with books, but I can’t push it away any longer and I will not risk infecting you more than I already have.
Go to Bucky, but don’t stay with Bucky. He cares for you, he will be kind to you, but he is also a bad man. He will help you start a new life as Elizabeth Anderson, if that is what you want. There is money in the account of a man named Edward Woodley, and if Nick comes through there will be more. There is also money in the Bank of Bimini, in the name of James Lincoln. Bucky has both passwords and all the account information. He will give you advice on how to manage the flow into your own account and put you in touch with a tax advisor. That part is very important, because money that can’t be accounted for is a trapdoor that can open under your feet when you least expect it. Some of the money is for Bucky. The rest is yours, for school and for a start in life as a fine independent woman. Which is what you are, Alice, and what you will be.
Stay in the mountains if you want to. Boulder is nice. So is Greeley and Fort Collins and Estes Park. Enjoy your life. At some point, perhaps when you are in your forties and I’m in my sixties, you may get a call from me. We can go out for a drink. Make that two drinks! You can toast Daphne and I’ll toast Walter.
I have come to love you, Alice. So very much. If you love me as you have said, then bring that love into the world as a real thing by living a fine and useful life.
Yours,
Billy
PS: I’m taking my laptop – it’s an old friend – but leaving the thumb drive with my story on it. It’s in my room, along with the keys to the SUV. The story ends when we left for Montauk Point, but perhaps you could finish it. Certainly you must be very familiar with my style by now! Do with it as you will, just leave the Dalton Smith name out of it. And yours.
I folded the note around the key to my room, printed her name on it, and pushed it under her door. Goodbye, Alice.
I slung my laptop over my right shoulder, picked up my suitcase in my right hand, and left by the side door. Half a mile down the road I stopped to rest, and to do one other thing. I opened the suitcase and took out the two guns – my Glock and the ACP Marge had shot me with. I unloaded them and threw them as far as I could. The bullets would go into one of the trashcans at the truck stop.
With that taken care of, I started walking toward the lights and the big trucks and the rest of my life. Maybe even toward some kind of atonement, if that’s not too much to ask for. Probably it is.
CHAPTER 24
1
It’s November 21, 2019, a week from Thanksgiving, but the occupants of the house at the end of Edgewood Mountain Drive aren’t in a Thanksgiving frame of mind. It’s cold outside – colder than a welldigger’s belt-buckle, Bucky says – and snow is on the way. He has lit a fire in the kitchen stove and sits in one of his rocking chairs dragged in from the porch with his sock feet up on the fender. He’s got an open laptop, rather scratched and battered, balanced on his thighs. A door opens behind him and footsteps approach. Alice comes into the kitchen and sits at the table. She’s pale and at least ten pounds lighter than the first time Bucky saw her. Her cheeks are hollowed out, giving her the look of a half-starved fashion model.