“We can make it there,” Iris repeated, making a hard left and a right at the next crossing. Sixty seconds later, she pulled into a small fenced courtyard, cut the lights and the engine. We listened for sirens. They seemed to be going off all over the place, but none were close for the moment.
“Let’s go.”
Iris led us through a doorway into the building and up the stairs to the second floor. There was just one door on the landing. It opened into a tiny foyer, which was the sharp point of a “V” created by two corridors. Of these, we took the one on the right and followed it until it turned left again. Iris’s place was full of doors, turns and muffled voices. It was dark, the only illumination coming from rare, painted-over light bulbs. Behind one of the doors we passed a rock band seemed to be rehearsing. Lloyd constantly glanced over his shoulder. At some point he had put the gun away.
We came to the sharp point of a V on the other side of the building. Iris unlocked a door, leading us into a small, two-room apartment. The living room had a kitchen, a couch and piles of books.
“Don’t turn the light on,” said Lloyd. He went to the window and peeked around the side of the blinds. Iris nodded and went to the next room.
“This place is crowded,” said Lloyd.
“No one keeps track who comes and who goes,” she replied, unseen. There was a sound of running water.
While they made small talk, I stood glued to the door. The slowing of the pace was causing everything to catch up with me all at once. A cop nearly shot me. Iris came back with a car. Lloyd had a gun. I almost got killed. Just like that. For buying and carrying a new silver-colored phone. And Lloyd had a silver-colored gun. My eyes found his silhouette in the dark, but he began to talk before I could get the words out of my open mouth.
“I followed you,” he said. “What you do is your business, but I was hired to do a job and I was going to do it. Or at least try to do it for as long as possible. So I was around the corner when the cops showed up. Thought you were dead when he shot you, but then you blew right by me like your ass was on fire. So I popped a few rounds in their direction before going after you, but I guess I misjudged how fast both of us could run. I saw your shadow disappearing behind a corner, and it didn’t look good for me keeping up. Still, I ran after you while the cops were wasting their time shooting the place up, but after about a block I saw no sign of you. That’s when a car caught up to me.”
Iris’s form appeared in the doorway.
“You see I live real close by where we were. We had a car — everyone in the building uses it if they need to — so I figured I’d give you a ride. You weren’t where I left you, but then I saw the police cars and followed them. Then I almost ran over Lloyd, and then I almost ran him over again, when I saw that he had a gun.” Which brought me back to my open mouth. I made a sound.
“I’m a bodyguard,” Lloyd said. “I have a gun, all right? Move on.”
“You shot at the cops?”
“Yes, I did.”
“I didn’t hear the shots.”
“You ran fast. And I guess the gun is pretty quiet, for a gun. Anyway, why would I lie about shooting at cops?”
“I don’t know. Why would you tell the truth about shooting at cops?”
“Why don’t you have a seat?” he said. “You sound like you’re about to lose it.”
The room flashed red and blue, as a police car rolled by right under the building, past the entrance to the courtyard and the parked Civic. I sat down on the couch. Iris opened the fridge and brought us bottles of water. Lloyd put his bottle on the floor and pulled out a metal flask from his jacket. He also pulled out a small orange bottle of pills.
“Relax,” he said, dropping the last two capsules on his palm and catapulting them into his mouth. “These are just for my PTSD.”
He proceeded to chase the pills from the flask, then offered the flask to me.
“Want some? The pills are shit. Don’t work without vodka.”
I did begin to want some just then. It burned, but it helped a little. I even asked Lloyd how he got PTSD. He scowled.
“Where’d you get your depression from?”
“Sorry. Wait, does everyone really know about that?”
“If someone wants to take a shower,” Iris said, “the towels are in the little closet.”
Both, Iris and Lloyd looked at me when she said that, which I found rather curious. Then I remembered that I haven’t showered since I threw out my pills three days earlier. And I also couldn’t help recalling some of the things that happened during those three days.
“Guess I’ll go first,” I said.
When I came out half an hour later, the light was on in the living room. Lloyd was chewing on a sandwich. Its brother was on a small table set in front of the couch. Being my breakfast, the ham sandwich tasted about as good as Chef Brunot’s Lobster Thermidor. Things were looking up again.
“I used your new phone to call a friend of mine,” said Lloyd with his mouth full. “I hope you don’t mind.”
“No, of course not.”
“After I was done with the call, I broke your new phone into little pieces.”
“Why?”
“The passive approach almost got me killed, so I decided to take initiative. I couldn’t talk you into it, so now I’m trying to force you to trust me and not run off looking for another bullet, at least until we meet this friend of mine.”
“You know, it occurred to me in the shower, that the cop only shot me because he thought my phone was a gun.”
He almost choked on his food, began to raise his voice, but then took a deep breath instead. He almost smiled at me.
“I don’t want to argue about it. Can you do me a favor? Give me twelve hours? Or am I supposed to stay awake all night making sure you don’t decide to go out and get shot?”
“Is this the friend who knows things?”
“It’s not the friend, but he probably knows a good deal more than I, and can tell it a whole lot better.”
“Can’t we go now? We have a car, and things seem to have calmed down out there.”
“No, they didn’t. My friend thinks we shouldn’t move until about five or six o’clock in the morning.”
“Is Iris just going to let us stay here?”
“She’s your friend, why don’t you ask her?”
“You’re the one who wants us to stay.”
“It’s fine!” Iris shouted from the next room. “That couch unfolds into a bed.”
Lloyd beamed. “Ready when you are.”
I stood up and walked over and knocked on Iris’s doorway.
“Yeah, come in.”
Inside was a smallish bed, a computer desk, an easel and some paintings. Iris closed her laptop.
“Nice place,” I said.
“What’s up, Luke?”
“I think it’s a little creepy how you let two strange men, armed and on the run from police, stay the night at your place.”
“Didn’t seem like such a big deal, considering I already helped you escape the cops.”
“Yeah, why did you do that?”
“I did it, because you needed help, and I was in a position to provide it.”
“So what, you help everybody?”
“No, it’s impossible to help everybody. But if I’m there, and someone needs help, and I believe they deserve it, sure, I’ll try. Is that so strange?”
“It is, when by helping them you’re putting yourself in serious danger.”
“I try not to let fear get in the way of doing the right thing.”
“But how do you know it’s the right thing?”
“How does anybody know? Either they tell themselves it’s the right thing, or they let someone else tell them what the right thing is. I prefer my own judgment. But maybe I’m wrong. After all, you’re a TV star! Maybe my judgment has been impaired by your charisma. If I believe that, I’ll stop helping. For now, I believe you. Also, the pills you stopped taking are a matter of personal interest to me. And you seem like a great research subject.”