“ You went to a POW camp for all those years and my boy came home to me,” Edna said. “I can never thank you enough.”
Jim saw her genuine smile and the tears welling up in her eyes. He took the envelope and slid it into the inside pocket of Turnbull’s coat. Then he took the pistol from her and opened his arms. Edna fell into his embrace, hugged him like a mother about to lose her son to war.
“ I think I better take the pistol,” Roma said.
“ But why?” Edna released her hold on Jim.
“ Woman’s pistol champion, NRA, State of California, three years in a row, second in the nationals last year. She hits what she aims at,” Jim said.
“ Do you have an old handbag?” Roma asked. “I left mine in the car.”
“ Yes, I do.” Edna scurried from the room, returning seconds later with a small designer purse. “Will this do?”
“ Fine.” Roma took the purse, dropped the pistol into it. “Now a sharp knife, a steak knife will do.”
“ I have my Swiss Army knife.” Edna went back to the top drawer, withdrew a red pocket knife. “I keep it sharp.” She handed it to Roma.
“ Good.” Roma cut a small hole into one side of the leather purse. “Now I can fire the gun while it’s still in the bag, sort of a special surprise in case we run into those big nasties again, because I really don’t like running away.”
The door burst open. Two men filled the opening. Jim pushed Roma aside, snatched the purse from her, shoved his hand in it, grabbed the gun, started pulling the trigger. The pistol shots boomed throughout the living room, sonic booms to his ears, as he emptied the weapon, sticking each man with three shots in the chest.
“ Two dead nasties,” Roma said, shaken. “I’ve never killed anybody before. I thought I could do it, but I couldn’t. How did you know?”
“ Killing isn’t easy,” Jim said. “Most people can’t do it, and the ones who can, usually regret it for the rest of their lives.”
“ But you can do it?”
“ It wasn’t easy at first. Now it’s instinct. I kill to survive. I don’t question it. I just do it.”
“ It seems so cold.”
“ It was the war.”
“ Oh, yeah.” Her voice trailed off and she had a glassy look in her eyes.
“ Roma, listen to me!” Edna said in a stern, motherly voice. “You can’t go into shock now. Do you hear me? Stay with us.”
Jim went to Roma and put an arm around her shoulders.
“ No time for that. Pull the dead man inside,” Edna said. Jim released her and turned to look at the two men lying on the floor. Both were on their backs, eyes open in death, both chest shot. Heart stoppers. One was half in the house, half out. Jim pulled him inside, shut the door.
“ We have to go. The police will be here any second.” Edna took Roma by the hand, led her through the kitchen, the laundry room and out into the backyard. Jim followed.
“ Wait here. I forgot my keys.” Edna rushed back into the house, came back a full minute later, a large purse in one hand, the shotgun in the other. “Sorry I took so long,” she said. “I got those boy’s guns in my purse. Figured we might need them.”
She was smiling as she went to the front of a single car garage. She keyed a padlock, unlocked it and opened the door.
“ Come on, get in,” she said. “I know it doesn’t look like much, but it will take you anywhere you want to go.” It was a two door, faded green and rust covered 1972 Dodge Charger.
“ You sure that runs?” Jim said.
“ Time’s wasting,” Edna said. “Let’s get a move on.”
Jim opened the passenger door, helped Roma into the back, before getting in the front. Edna climbed behind the wheel, put in the clutch and started the car.
“ Four on the floor,” she said, as she backed down the drive way. She put it in first and slowly drove to the corner, made a right onto Cherry Avenue, where she had to pull over, because of the sirens of two approaching police cars.
“ Looks like we left in the nick of time,” she said as the cruisers screamed by. Then she eased the car back into traffic and headed toward Signal Hill and the freeway. “Where to now?” she added, holding the wheel with white knuckles.
“ Tampico,” Roma said from the back.
“ Don’t know it,” Edna said.
“ It’s up north,” Roma said, “on the coast, past Eureka.”
“ That’s over five hundred miles,” Jim said. “Why there?”
“ Julia went there with Dr. Kohler. They left first thing this morning. He has a house there. I had the phone number and address in my purse, but I think we can find them. She said it was a big house, on Mountain Sea Road, overlooking the ocean. How hard could it be?”
“ Why?” Jim asked.
“ She wanted to get away.”
“ With him?”
“ Yes, with him.”
“ No offense,” he turned to Edna, “but when you said this car would take me anywhere I wanted to go, you didn’t have five or six hundred miles in mind, did you?”
“ No, I didn’t.” She clutched the wheel.
“ We need another car. Edna, when you get to Spring Street, turn right. We’ll rent a car at the airport.”
It was noon and sprinkling when Edna parked in the overnight parking garage at the Long Beach Airport. They started to get out of the car when she spoke up.
“ You two wait here. I’ll rent the car and come back. We can’t be carrying a shotgun through the terminal, now can we?”
“ You’re right,” he said.
Twenty minutes later she beeped the horn of a new Ford Explorer. She stopped the SUV in front of her Charger, put it in park, but left the engine running and got out.
“ Let’s move it,” she said. Then she added, “I always wanted to say that.”
Jim tossed the shotgun in the back.
“ Shotgun, I call shotgun.” Edna was laughing as she got in the front seat on the passenger side. “I always wanted to say that, too.”
“ Tampico, here we come,” Jim said as Roma got in the back.
Ten minutes later they were on the freeway. An hour later they were leaving the Grapevine and moving onto the long straight road that is Highway 5. After another hour both Roma and Edna were lulled to sleep by the rolling wheels and the warm sun and Jim was fighting to stay awake.
“ I can appreciate that you’ve got heaps of problems, but can we take a bit of time to worry about mine now?” Donna interrupted his thoughts.
“ I forgot about you.”
“ It doesn't look like I’m going anywhere.”
“ No, I guess it doesn’t.”
“ I’m somebody too, at least I was until this started. The last thing I remember is driving up from Auckland with my parents for my brother’s wedding. We checked into a motel, because it was late and they wanted to surprise him in the morning. I went to sleep. Then I woke up in your head. I hear what you hear, see what you see, feel what you feel.”
“ Pain or emotions?” Jim asked.
“ Both and it’s creepy. It’s like I’m involved in some kind of super movie, but it’s not a movie. It’s your life and I’m just along for the ride. But it’s better than I thought it would be.”
“ What?”
“ At least there’s something, it’s not just all over. The essence of me, my mind, is still intact. I have my memories. It could be a lot worse.”
“ What are you talking about?”
“ Don’t you know?”
“ No.”
“ Death. I’m dead. That’s the only answer. I died and somehow my soul got trapped in you.”
“ Give me a break.”
“ Do you have another answer?”
“ Yeah, a real simple one.”
“ What?”
“ I’m going crazy, Looney Toons, I’m losing my fucking mind.”
“ You don’t have to swear.”
“ Now I know I’m losing my fucking mind.”
“ Really, if I have to be here, can we watch the language? I can take a lot if I have to, but I draw the line at swearing.”
“ Okay,” Jim smiled, “but if you’re right and you are dead, then you don’t have a problem.”
“ What do you mean?”
“ All your problems are solved. You’re dead. It’s all over.”
“ But I’m here?”
“ That’s right, you’re here and we’re just going to have to accept it for now. You’re here, trapped in my life. Mine, not yours. So if we accept your thesis, then my problems, at least for now, are the only ones that count.”
“ That’s cruel.”
“ Look Donna, you may be dead, but I’m not. I’m alive and right now I’m trying to stay that way. I’m fifty-five years old. I’m out of shape. I’m scared. The police are after me. People keep trying to kill me. I miss my wife. I miss my life. I miss David. I really miss David.”
“ Okay, you’re right. I’ll put my problems away and we’ll find out who’s trying to kill you and stop them.”
“ I don’t need your help.”
“ Two heads are better than one.”
“ I make the decisions.”
“ Of course, it’s your body.”
“ You won’t keep interrupting me?”
“ Only if it’s important.”
“ Fair enough.”
“ Jim,” Roma said, yawning herself awake, “how are you doing?”
“ It’s a little before 3:00 and we’re about twenty miles from the Collinga off ramp. We can stay at the Inn at Harris Ranch. We’ll get some rest, have dinner, spend the night in comfortable beds and get an early start tomorrow.”
They drove on in silence and Roma fell back asleep, leaving Jim to concentrate on the never ending white line and the painting of the pretty girl on the rear of the tanker truck ten car lengths ahead. She was holding a glass of fresh white milk, sitting atop the words, Milk drinkers make better lovers.
The women woke when Jim took the off ramp.
“ Where are we?” Edna asked.
“ Halfway to San Francisco,” Jim answered as he backed into a parking space. They checked into the hotel, using Edna’s credit card, taking two rooms, one for the women, one for him.
“ We’re going to need some things,” Edna said after they got their keys. “You know, a change of clothes, toothbrushes, toothpaste, Jim needs a razor and I need solution for my contact lenses. And since I’m not the least bit tired, I’ll go and get them while you two rest.”
“ I’m going to get a wake up call for six, for dinner, any takers?” Jim asked. Both women nodded their assent. “Fine, I’ll see you then. Right now I have to get these shoes off, my feet are killing me, and I need to get some sleep.”
Jim and Roma each went to adjoining rooms, while Edna took the car into town.