David was dead. Roma and Julia were dead. The Lamberts, whose only crime had been trying to help him, were dead. Kohler, who should be dead, was gone and Washington wanted Jim to come back to L.A. with them and give himself up.
“ It would look better,” he’d said, and Jim agreed, but he had other problems. Donna was still strapped in a hospital bed somewhere in New Zealand, about to become part of some macabre sacrifice. He had a week to get halfway around the world to find and save her.
For the fifth time in the last hour he sat up and looked at the picture on Eddie Lambert’s passport. With his long frizzy hair, bushy beard and that eye patch, he looked like a wild man. Jim slid the eye patch over his eye and looked at himself in the mirror above the bureau. The patch was the same. They both had blue eyes, but there the similarity ended. Eddie’s face in the photo seemed harsh, like he had a permanent chip on his shoulder. The face in the mirror had a satisfied, self made look about it, even with the patch. The man in the photo had a bag under his good eye, the man in the mirror did not. But still, Jim decided, if an immigration officer didn’t look too closely, it might work.
There was a gentle knock on his door.
“ Jim, it’s Glenna.”
“ What are you doing here?”
“ Can I come in?” She spoke in a soft, halting voice. She was smiling.
“ Sure.” He opened up and she came in, walked over to the double bed and sat down.
“ You’re not going back with us. You’re going to try and find her, aren’t you?”
“ Yes.”
“ Is she there now?”
“ Yes.”
“ Have you been, I don’t know how to say it, talking, I guess?”
“ No. Not since earlier tonight. Since she made me snap out of my grief and cut your father loose.”
“ Then how do you know she’s still there?”
“ I just know.”
“ Would you ask her a question for me?”
“ Sure.”
“ Ask her if it’s okay if we make love.”
“ What?” Jim was shocked. Her question was the last thing he expected. She was a nice girl, but that’s what she was, a girl. And even if she wasn’t, he’d just lost his wife, her throat cut and her body still smoldering in that gray house. Even if he wanted to, he probably couldn’t.
“ Tell her it’s okay,” Donna thought.
“ No, I won’t. It’s not okay.”
“ She needs you. You owe it to her.”
Glenna watched the struggle going on inside of him. The back and forth written on his face. There was nothing she could do except sit on the bed with her hands folded in her lap and wait. Wait and count on Donna to understand.
“ No, I don’t, and how can you think I do?”
“ She saved your life and now she’s asking you to save hers. It’s fair. A life for a life.”
“ What do you mean?”
“ Ask her.”
“ Why? Why me? Why now?” he asked Glenna.
“ What did she say?”
“ It’s not relevant.”
“ What did she say?” Glenna insisted.
“ She said it’s okay, but that’s not the point.”
“ I knew she’d understand.”
“ I don’t understand.” Jim was perplexed.
“ When that man raped me he took something from me and I haven’t been able to get it back. On the surface I pretend I’m this superwoman that can handle anything. It’s out of my mind, I tell myself. I’m over it, I tell myself. All men aren’t like that, I tell myself. But dammit, it’s not out of my mind. I’m not over it and part of me thinks that all men are like that. I’ve never had real sex and I’m afraid that I never will. Now I’ve met you, another man besides my father who I can believe in. I need help. I want you to help make me whole.”
“ Even if I wanted to, I don’t think I can.”
“ Let’s see,” she said, her liquid brown eyes on the verge of tears as she lifted off her tee shirt. Her bare breasts were caught in the early light, copper globes casting perfect shadows. He knew he’d be able to do what she wanted and he knew that it was right.
Once again he was entwined with Donna as they watched Glenna kick her shoes off. He felt Donna sigh as Glenna slipped down her jeans and he felt Donna’s strong sexual desire as Glenna opened her arms and beckoned them. For the next hour the three of them made slow gentle love. They kissed and touched and embraced and when finally Glenna started to move her body beneath him, approaching her climax, they were brought along with her, riding a roller coaster through a carnival of delight.
“ I’m there,” she thrilled, wrapping her arms around Jim and squeezing tightly. “I’m there and it’s wonderful.”
Chapter Eighteen
Frank Markham, the Weasel, turned and ran back down the hot hallway. The house was on fire and he was trapped like the bees he used to put in jars and burn when he was a boy.
He felt the fire at his back. His clothes were burning now. He smelled meat cooking and realized it was his own burning flesh. He dashed to a side window. It was barred. Frantically he sought the safety release. Found it and pushed. The bars popped out and he threw himself out the window, his fall cushioned by the roses below, their thorns slicing through his charred flesh.
He screamed as he rolled through the bushes, further cutting and ripping himself, his body a searing mass of pain, his mind wailing against the injustice. Everything was going so smoothly, it wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair. Out of the roses, he rolled on the cool grass toward the cliff, struggling to get away from the fire. Through it all he clutched the gun, like a lifeline. He was still clutching it when he climbed over the back fence and jumped over the cliff.
In his crazed, pain filled world all he wanted was an end to the hurt. But instead of a beautiful ride into the night sky with the release of a quick painless death on the beach below, he went bouncing and screaming down a steep, jagged incline. More cuts, abrasions, ripped flesh and torture. The loose dirt on the bouncing ride down doused most of the flames, but the loose rocks rolling with him continued to batter against his bruised body on his slipping, sliding, dropping ride toward the bottom.
And still he held on to the gun. His mind screamed, but it didn’t shut down. If he was still alive when the carnival was over he could use the gun. A quick blast from the cannon and no more hurt.
He slammed into a large rock jutting out from the earth. The wind was knocked out of him as he went up and over it, only to land again on the sloping earth, face first. He felt his nose break, tasted his blood, mingled with dirt, sweat and burnt skin. He wailed as his body bounced and flipped over, his head pivoting on the hard surface, leaving facial skin and scalp in his wake.
He landed on his back and continued the slide, feet first as the mountain ripped into his legs, buttocks and back, his skinny thin shoulder blades acting like twin rudders, keeping him on a straight track down to the dark sea below. Then he hit bottom, still breathless, and he rolled in the sand, killing the remaining flames, but not the hot, ice pick pain. He scrambled to his feet and made a mad dash for the sea, his flesh blistering, charred skin combining with polyester and cotton to form a putrid puss.
He knew he’d made a mistake as soon as he hit the water. The saltwater engulfed his legs. The stinging torture sent a banshee cry from his lips, telling the night that a pain that couldn’t get any worse-got worse. He tried to stop his forward momentum. He had to get out of the ocean. He failed, stumbled and fell in the surf. He fought the oscillating ocean and somehow managed to get a purchase on the bottom. He moved his feet like a swimmer that had seen a shark. He struggled against the waist deep water, frantic to get out.
Back on the beach, he collapsed on the wet sand, a blistering, bleeding, blob of pain, still clutching the gun, but his tortured mind had thrown away all thoughts of suicide. He got up like a rummy drunk on a Saturday night and stumble blundered toward town. Two or three agonizing steps, then he fell. He picked himself up, took a few more steps and fell again, but he continued on that way, a long, screaming, walking crawl toward town.