Around one PM we drove back over to Twin Lakes and returned to Marv’s diner — this time of year our options were limited — and had cheeseburgers and fries and even shared a malt. I played the jukebox, which had some ’50s tunes on it.
When I returned to our table in the corner, she was sitting there in her lemon jumpsuit sipping on her straw on her half of the malt. She looked up at me with those gold-flecked blue eyes and said, “Look at us. Couple of kids down at Pop’s soda shop, listening to the devil’s music.”
“Where’s your poodle skirt?”
She smiled and her gums showed. “I did have one, you know. Did you ever have a pompadour?”
I shook my head. “Just missed that era. I had a soup bowl haircut I thought made me look like John Lennon. My mother said more like Moe Howard. My father said I reminded him of Ish Kabibble. I never knew who that was till Turner started showing old movies.”
She squinted at me, maybe imagining the haircut. “He was a cornet player, wasn’t he? With Kay Kyser’s Kollege of Musical Knowledge?”
“You are older than me.”
She slapped my hand. “Be nice.” She sipped more malt. “Or we could just disappear.”
“What?”
“You round up your money, I’ll round up mine, and we just go south of the border.” She sang softly, “Meh-hi-co way.”
Marty Robbins was singing “El Paso.” Not quite down Mexico way, but close.
“That body will turn up,” I said. “The Chicago glee club will see your partner dead and me gone and you nowhere, and put two and two together, or maybe three and three, and...”
“Come looking.” She nodded over her straw. “I know. How did we get here?”
She wasn’t talking about geography.
I said, “I don’t know.”
“I had a normal life. Regular childhood.”
“Me, too.”
“But events conspired.”
“They’ll do that.”
Those almond eyes looked moist.
“You okay?” I asked.
She leaned in. “We should’ve stopped this shit ten years ago. We could have, you know. If we’d just disappeared then, who would have cared?”
“But we didn’t.” I shrugged. “Maybe this is a second chance.”
“Maybe. But we’re going to have to kill some people.”
I shrugged again. “I’m okay with that.”
She shrugged. Sipped. “So am I. You’ll have to excuse me, Jack. I’m just a sentimental slob sometimes.”
Elvis was singing.
It’s Now Or Never.
I had it in my head she was some kind of superwoman. She certainly had rolled with the punches better than I had, over these past less-than-twenty-four hours of madness.
But she was human, too, and she stripped out of her pantsuit and left on the pop-arty orange bra and panties beneath and climbed into my bed and was asleep faster than I could get out of the bomber jacket.
So I left it on. I wrote a note and set it on the kitchenette counter, in case she woke up before I got back. Didn’t think she would, because she was snoring, really sawing logs.
Made me smile. I liked that she was human. Kind of a nice side benefit.
I got in the Impala and drove over to Wilma’s and pulled in at a pump. Filled the tank, then parked in the small front lot before walking around to the side of the building and up the steps and inside.
The register was unattended — Brenda wasn’t on just yet — but the bar was open. No customers right now, just Charley sitting on a stool behind the counter reading the Lake Geneva News. On the puss of the old hard-ass, that neutral expression seemed like a glare.
He lowered the paper. “Diet Coke, Jack?”
“Please.”
When he delivered the soda, I said, “I’ll be away for a while.”
“One of your lengthy sojourns?”
“Probably not. But at least one night. Maybe longer.”
“Why do you bother with it? Your sideline.”
“Huh?”
His shrug was elaborate. “We make decent money here, Jack. Why fuck with them veterinary drugs, anyhow? You ain’t out and about enough to make much offa that.”
“I told you before. I have people working for me, but now and then a client wants to talk to the boss. That so hard for you to imagine, Charley, somebody who wants to talk to his boss?”
He shrugged. “To each his own.”
“Look, if, uh... you still have that envelope salted away, right?”
“Sure.”
Though no one was around, I kept my voice down. “If I’m not back in a week, or you haven’t heard from me by phone? You know where to get that envelope to. Right?”
He nodded. “Sure. Do I look like an idiot?”
Was that a trick question?
“I just need to know,” I said, “you’ll take care of it. If necessary.”
“Jesus, we go through this every time, Jack! You drop off the edge of the earth, I’m to open the envelope. There’s an address in it and a, what-do-you-call-it.”
“A document.”
He nodded a bunch of times. “Document, right.”
“Go back to your paper, Charley.”
“You pissed at me or something?”
“No. I just remember when a bartender was like a friendly priest you could go to. Or a marriage counselor.”
The rumpled face formed a smirk. “You ain’t married or Catholic.”
I worked on the Diet Coke.
The document was my will. It wasn’t detailed, and I hadn’t used a lawyer. It merely stated that my worldly goods, including Wilma’s Welcome Inn, were to go to my father in Ohio. He was my only living relative, and we hadn’t spoken for years. Far as he was concerned, most likely, I was already dead.
It’s just that if I died without a will — intestate they called it — the authorities would start in snooping.
And for some fucking reason I couldn’t explain to you, the idea that my life would be poked around in after my death, in a way that exposed all the killing, well... I just didn’t like the idea. The media would get hold of it and make me into a monster. I’d be Charles Manson or Ted Bundy or something, and that wouldn’t be fair.
I don’t mean fair to me — when you’re dead, fairness isn’t an issue.
But it wouldn’t be fair to my father, or the occasional decent people I’d encountered in my lifetime. Including some women I’d loved or very nearly so.
Which is why, if you’re wondering, I have written these accounts. I understand they don’t always present me in the best light. But they are honest. They’re the truth. And it’s a way to let you know that I wasn’t just some psycho killer.
I was heading out and almost bumped into Brenda, coming in. She was in her work togs — white blouse and black skirt — and her big feathered brown hair framed her pretty features nicely, the bruised red mouth jumping at me.
“Well, Jack,” she said, blocking the way. “Where’s your hooker gone to?”
“She’s not a hooker, Brenda. She’s an old friend.”
“Old is right.” She brushed by me and got behind the counter and took her position at the register. “Sometimes I think you’re too dumb to know when you already have a good thing going.”
I leaned on the counter. “That would be you, right? The good thing?”
Her head cocked, her mouth tightened. She let some words out. “You really want to risk our relationship over some dried-up prune?”
I laughed. “Relationship? Really?”
“I could go to a lawyer, you know. Sexual harassment, it’s called.”
“Right. Brenda, I’m going to be gone for a day or two, maybe a little longer. I need you to keep an eye on things.”
“Going off with your ancient hooker, are you?”
“Never mind where I’m going. Just do your job. If I’m not back for payday, Charley will take care of you.”