Then I thought of my Camera Guy, roaring east in a boxcar with Sophia. Maybe they didn’t have a chance, but by God they were going to go down fighting. Resolving to do the same, I eased off the stool and made for the Men’s. Once out of Crewcut’s sight, I raced down the hall and burst through the fire exit. With the alarm wailing, I sprinted around the building, leapt into the Mustang, and squealed away just as Crewcut ran out of the bar.
Evasive maneuvers for a dozen blocks, with no sign of a tail. Confident that I’d given him the slip, I detoured around the marathon and finally reached the freeway. Just as I was merging into traffic, a minivan swerved into my lane. Mashing the brakes, I cranked the wheel hard right, and skidded across the shoulder to slam into the guardrail. The impact whipped me forward but, belted in, I was okay except for feeling like I’d been belted by Mike Tyson.
Turbo-charged by adrenaline, I leapt out of the car and saw that the Mustang had blown a tire and wasn’t going anywhere. I shouldered my bag, retrieved the film from the trunk, then vaulted the guardrail and scrambled up the embankment to the access road.
Fifteen minutes later, I was in Old Town, hiking back toward my neighborhood with no real destination, just knowing that I had to keep moving. Scared and shaking as the adrenaline drained away, I also felt oddly alive, an underdog hero drawing strength from the script slung over my shoulder. Camera Guy was my Excalibur, the One Ring, and if I could elude the dragnet, I might yet triumph in the final reel.
Out of smokes and figuring I’d need cash, I found a mini-mall ATM, but was so frazzled that I punched in my PIN wrong twice in a row and the damned machine swallowed my card just as a black sedan with opaque windows emerged from the Burger King drive-thru.
I scurried around a grease monkey and waited behind a dumpster until I was convinced I hadn’t been spotted. They were closing in now, so I stuck to alleys, desperate to avoid the black sedans that now patrolled every street. Moving in the general direction of my apartment, I no longer felt like a hero destined for happy endings. More like a hunted animal, defenseless, barely able to flash a fang.
Seeking refuge, I scaled the chain-link fence around an auto junkyard. I rooted through glove boxes and found half a pack of ancient Chesterfields. Rationing each precious puff, I settled in the bed of a mangled pickup and considered my options.
Once it was dark, I’d make for the post office up on Midway, where a machine processed mail 24/7. Top priority was getting Camera Guy on the way to Sal, then I’d worry about making my escape. Nothing heroic about that, just a calculated shot at posterity. A hundred years from now, people will still be watching Citizen Kane and The Godfather. It was ego unbound, sure, but Camera Guy aspired to such august company. As for Tim Wolfe? I’d either gone completely bugshit, or was about to be swallowed up by something I couldn’t begin to understand.
“Or maybe,” Jay Max whispered in my ear, “it’s both.”
“Maybe,” I agreed, then fished out the recorder to dictate script notes, editing and casting ideas, stuff the suits always ignore. No matter. The script was the real deal, and it made me proud.
I waited until dusk, then scrabbled back over the fence and started toward the post office. The trek took well over an hour as I moved cautiously, darting from shadow to shadow. They might get me eventually but not, I vowed, before Camera Guy was on its way to Sal.
The post office was deserted when I arrived. Hurry, Timmy, hurry! I scribbled Sal’s address on a Priority Mail envelope, tucked everything inside, and prayed the machine would take my Visa.
It seemed an eternity, waiting for that stamp to spit out, but then it was in my hands, affixed to the envelope and deposited in the box. Camera Guy was now secure in the labyrinthine bowels of the United States Postal Service.
Sighing with relief, I started down the long, dim corridor, eyeing each indented cubby of P.O. boxes for lurking assassins. Halfway to the exit, something taped up in one of the nooks caught my attention. It was a wanted poster, just as Jay had claimed, picturing one Harold Hawkins, a redneck abortion bomber. The next poster wasn’t relegated to the shadows, but was prominently displayed on the inside of the plate-glass exit door.
The fugitive was me.
Not lingering to read the charges, I fled into the night, gnashing my teeth to keep from screaming.
“Now do you believe me?” Jay asked.
I didn’t answer, saving every breath for my flight down Midway, away from that foul, false indictment. Ten huffing-puffing minutes later, I stumbled into a bus stop and dropped on the bench, sweaty and sucking air.
“You can’t run fast enough,” Jay said. “Or far enough.”
I clutched my aching sides. I knew he was right — knew a black sedan would squeal up to the curb any second and it would all be over. Then a question struck me like a thunderbolt.
Why aren’t they here already?
No comeback from Jay, so I got up and staggered on, trying to puzzle this out. The bad guys had always been one step ahead, taunting me all week, forcing me off the road en route to Fast-Foto, slapping up that wanted poster they knew I’d see.
Why all the cat and mouse, when they could have scooped me up whenever they wanted? Maybe the fact that I was still at large meant that they didn’t want me at all. With Jay eliminated, maybe all they wanted was his film. Give it to them, I reasoned, and just maybe they’d leave me alone.
Infused with new energy by this stay-of-execution hope, I marched right down the sidewalk, no longer cowering at the sound of every car. Reaching my apartment unmolested, I hesitated briefly, then crossed myself and went inside.
No cargo net dropped from the ceiling, but I wasn’t anxious to linger and quickly scribbled a note explaining that I’d found the film cans just hours ago.
I’ve no idea what’s on the film, no desire to know. In fact, there never was any film. No oddball with a camera at my door...
I put the note on the living-room floor, under the film cans, then I was out the door and away. But to where, with no wheels and forty bucks in my pocket?
I’d have to go Greyhound. Take the bus, and leave the fleeing to them. The station was downtown, a good five miles distant. Hitching was out; I wasn’t going anywhere near a freeway on foot, so I steeled myself for the long march.
Three hours to reach the station. A skinny young nurse passed me on the sidewalk, snapping her cell phone shut. I turned and eyed her, knowing that if I could just reach Sal, he’d help arrange transportation or wire me some cash.
“Miss!” I called, trotting after her.
“Sorry,” the angel of mercy declared, tucking her purse firmly under one arm. “I can’t spare anything, not with my kid’s tuition.”
“I don’t want money,” I promised, pointing at her RAZR phone. “But one quick phone call could save my life.”
As she gave me the once-over, I realized that I hadn’t shaved or changed clothes in days.
“Sorry,” she decided. “But I’m late.”
“But if I can just reach Sal,” I pleaded, “I might slip under the radar.”
I watched her hurry away, then entered the station and asked for a ticket on the next bus leaving. Didn’t ask where it was going, and the cashier didn’t tell me.
The bus is an hour or so east of San Diego as I write this. Don’t know the exact time because my watch stopped at five minutes to midnight. There’s less than a dozen other passengers on board, so I’m probably safe now, unless the large black woman reading her Bible six rows up is waiting for me to doze off before slipping a curare-tipped knitting needle out of her purse.