“Here. You can have the honor of doing that.” She nods to a box of jet-black hair dye on the counter.
Darkness falls; the crickets are screeching loudly outside. I wish they would quiet down so I can hear any other noises—unfamiliar noises—from the courtyard outside.
John packs the still wet car as his cropped black hair dries. Accidental drips of jet-black dye stain his forehead, and a long one runs down his cheek. The newly acquired short, dark dome of hair shadows his features and dulls the blue of his eyes to gray. He hands me Thor, wrapped in a blanket Sharon has warmed in the dryer, and asks me to meet him in the car. He takes one last look behind him, and I do as I’m told.
John and Sharon whisper privately for only a few short, hurried minutes. Their bodies are rigid, and Sharon keeps her head turned away from John.
John whips around and instantly appears in the driver’s seat. “Ready, baby? Well… we’re finally getting out of here!” He smiles a shaded reaper’s grin.
“What’s Sharon doing?”
“She’s gonna meet us, baby. Don’t worry. She’s gonna catch up to us soon.”
The Safeway parking lot a few blocks away is garbage-strewn, dark, and nearly deserted, except for the homeless man guarding his shopping cart full of cans. Within minutes Sharon pulls up in her aunt’s pale green Valiant. John jumps out of the car to meet her. A white envelope exchanges hands, and he reaches over to wrap his arms around her five-foot-two frame. She is stiff, arms to her side; then she awkwardly breaks free.
Sliding quickly past him, she heads over to my lonely silhouette in the passenger seat.
“Hi.” I show her a brave smile.
“Hi… Well… this is it.” She hesitates. Time is frozen for a minute, like the low, gathering fog, as her brown eyes bore intensely into mine. “I love you, Dawn,” she blurts with a heave of her shoulders, and she reaches in to give me a warm hug.
“I love you too, Sharon. It’ll be okay,” I reassure her.
“I know. Well, good-bye. Take care of him.”
“I will, Sharon. I will. We’ll see you soon.”
John swoops in to hold Sharon’s reluctant small frame once again before she turns away and drives off, profile unflinching, eyes straight ahead.
“John? When will she be coming?” I ask once again.
“Soon, baby. As soon as we get settled, we’ll let her know where we are and she’ll meet us. She needs to close up the house anyway.”
“Yeah.” I believe John, so I don’t question it. I am anxious to be on the way out of LA and to safety.
Driving through the vibrantly lit streets, I recognize Hollywood. “Where are we going, John?” An uneasy feeling churns in my gut.
“Gotta make one more stop before we go.” He flashes me that unsettling grin again.
“No. John. No! We don’t need to stop anywhere! Let’s just go. Please. We don’t need anything.” I panic. Please don’t let him stop for drugs.
“Yes, we do, baby. We need money! Sharon didn’t give us enough! Five hundred dollars? How far are we going to get on that? Not far. We need more, baby. Just one more stop. Besides… he owes me.” His jaw clenches, and he grips the steering wheel till his knuckles whiten.
“Who owes you?”
“Eddie.”
“Oh my God, John! No! He’s gonna kill you! That’s the last place we should go!”
John’s face drains visibly pale in the dark interior of the car, and his voice lowers to a gravelly mumble. “I know… but… I got a plan.”
“Plan? What kind of plan, John? He’s got contracts on you! He wants to kill you!”
“I know; I know. But listen! I need you to back me on this. He knows by now that I didn’t rat him out, that I didn’t give the police any incriminating evidence.”
“Yeah! And he’s gonna make sure you don’t either, John! He’ll shoot you!”
“No. Listen! Not if I bluff him.”
“Bluff him? How?”
“Now listen. Here’s the plan. I’m gonna ask him for a couple thousand dollars. I know he’s got that much handy. I’m gonna tell him that if I’m not back in half an hour, that I have someone holding three letters. These letters… addressed to Van de Kamp, Lange, and the Los Angeles Police Department, have enough evidence—I mean everything—to put him away for life. They’ll be dropped in the mail if I’m not back in half an hour.”
“Oh my God, John! He’s not going to do this. He’s gonna kill you. Let’s just go now! Please!”
“No! He owes me for saving his ass, and he knows it. I didn’t rat on him—and now, by leaving town, I’m saving his ass again! Besides, I got the letters and you. He knows I got you for proof!”
I can’t believe this. John is playing this like a bluff on a bum poker hand with absolutely nothing up his sleeve.
We pull into the DuPar’s Coffee Shop parking lot at the bottom of Ventura and Laurel Canyon. John throws the car in park. His hands run habitually through his hair, and he remembers suddenly it has been cut off and is black now. He checks to see if his hand is stained and, trying to muster some kind of confidence, lets out a long breath.
Inside, he guides me to an orange checkered booth near the pay phone.
“Order us some coffee, babe. I’m gonna make a call.”
I sit trembling, convinced this is a deadly idea, until John returns from the phone. Please don’t let this happen, I pray.
“Well, what did he say?”
“He said to come up.” He stirs cream and sugar into his coffee, then takes a giant gulp, draining the entire cup. “I’ll be back in no more than half an hour. But if an hour goes by… call the police.” He bends to give me a hard kiss on the lips. “I love you, Dawn. Wish me luck.”
The hands on the clock move painfully slowly. With dread, I watch every second tick by. Eddie will be more pissed off than grateful! I yell in my head to no one. What is he thinking? Suspicious eyes keep track of me as I nurse my coffee and jump at every movement and noise. The thirty minutes have passed. John has not returned. Thirty-five minutes pass… no sign. Then forty minutes… forty-five… and a battered-looking John returns. Shaking, he slides into the booth across from me and holds my hands.
“John? What happened?” I grip his hands hard to hold him still.
He can’t speak at first and raises a finger signaling me to give him a minute to gain his composure. “He made me get on my knees,” John finally hisses, then swallows half a cup of coffee hard.
“Did you tell him about the letters?”
“Diles was there. He had him hold a gun to my head. Asked why he shouldn’t just kill me—and my family. He asked me why he should believe I didn’t tell the cops anything. ‘Why should I trust you?’ he asked me.”
“What did you say?”
“I said, ‘If I’m not back in exactly thirty minutes, the letters will be dropped in the mail.’ He didn’t believe me. He made me beg—beg him not to put a bullet through my head. And then… he let me go.”
“Are you all right? Did he give you the money?”
John’s eyelids crease as if he will cry. “He said he would think about it. He said to come back in an hour and check the mailbox.”
“Oh my God. We can’t go back! No! No! Let’s just leave, John. Don’t go. A bomb, a sniper—something—will be waiting, but it won’t be the money. Don’t believe him!” Fear consumes me like millions of bees stinging my skin. Eddie is mad. I want to run as fast as I can, as far as I can, and never come back.
“No, baby. We have to. We just don’t have enough money, and—and I think he’s gonna do it. Finish your coffee. We gotta get out of here.”