Episode 9
Ernie’s halfway down a long grassy slope, galloping like he’s chasing a runaway dog or something. Low-hanging branches block some of my view of the street beyond, but I can see drivers on the tarmac and businesses across it. I don’t see any pink car, and I figure he’ll be back in a few minutes, but he isn’t.
Well, I have the bedroll with his change of clothes and Hoodoo’s gun strapped inside. But he has any leftover money, so I pick up my duffel and off I go to find him. If he catches up to the Caddy (doubtful), I wonder whether he’ll just gaze at it from afar, wheedle his way into a ride, or steal the damn thing. Make that ‘try to.’
I’m betting on the wheedling, so when I leap off the rock wall bordering the park and spot John gassing up at a small filling station, I’m not surprised that Ernie’s jawing with him like they’re old friends.
The traffic light changes and I saunter over to where they’re opening doors and popping the hood and John’s bragging on the finer points. I want a better look at him, since the glimpses I’ve had so far have left me without a clue what kind of guy he really is. He still looks like an actor, dressed now in jeans and penny loafers, and a pink shirt that’s vaguely country style. Sunglasses hide his eyes. That sends a shiver over me. “Shades of Al.”
I don’t realize I’ve said it out loud until John turns to me. Ernie’s busy stroking the leather seats. I’m not big on cars, like most of my dorm mates, but if I did own one with the power to turn Ernie into a marshmallow, I’d probably tell him to wash his hands before touching it. John looks like he might want to do that, too, and I wonder what’s stopping him.
“Did you ever see anything so sweet?” Ernie finally notices me.
“No,” I answer honestly. Pastel pink with a black top and lower panels, dark gray interior. Not my style, but show room clean. Expensive when somebody drove it home and more expensive fifty years later.
Its owner holds out his hand. I’m floored when he says, “I’m John Collier. You fellows want to take a ride in her?”
His voice is the one I heard only a couple of nights ago when Ernie and I holed up in the shed, I’d swear to it. How coincidental could it be that the Suits in the coffee shop are looking for a John Burand? Are they the one and same, and is this smiling man shaking my hand a murderer?
Ernie’s eyes light up at the offer. Then he shakes his head. “Dad would ground us forever if he found out we got into a car with someone we don’t know.”
“You won’t tell, will you?” John asks me, and I choke up. I wish I had somebody to tell. The friendly smile leaves, but his voice is calm. “Think about it. Not every day you see a lady like this one.”
John goes inside to pay for the gas, and when Ernie doesn’t move, I pluck at his shirt sleeve. “Come on, bro.” I haven’t told him about Al, so he can’t understand the panic I’m feeling.
“He’s right. We’ll never see another, much less ride in it.”
“What’s with you and this car? Sure, it’s neat, but I think he’s lying about his name. Ernie, I saw them bring a body up out of a well near Hackett last week. She was blond, and you heard that man talking to John about the cops thinking he did it. Don’t you recognize his voice?”
John’s coming back. He’ll get in the car and drive away. That’s what Ernie’s dreading, I can tell by his glance toward me, eyebrows questioning, wanting me to agree to climb into the car and take a joy ride with a man who might have bashed his wife’s head in with an axe handle.
“Just around the block,” Ernie wheedles, but I’m not falling for it. Once inside and moving, we’re hostages. Kidnapped and tortured. Never heard from again. I see my face on a Missing Child poster.
“Omigosh.” I DO see a face on a Missing Child poster. Francine’s copied photo, pinned in the middle of a flyer kiosk next to the newspaper boxes and propane gas bottle bin. Ernie’s eyes follow and he goes pale and starts to shake. He walks over to the picture and studies it like he’s never seen her before.
“What?” John sees nothing that scares him. He opens the driver’s door, pauses to give us one last chance.
I have a clear view of the coffee shop two blocks up the hill. The Suits come out and stand on the sidewalk. My heart starts thumping hard. One of them is after John Burand, the other could be after me. If they spot the car, we’re toast. “Mister Collier,” I say, making conversation, “do you have a brother?”
“No,” he answers, “why do you ask?”
One of the Suits lights a cigarette. The other heads down the hill toward his parked car.
“Call me John. Make up your minds. I’m on vacation and don’t want to waste another minute of it.”
The second Suit halts in his tracks, then calls out and motions to his buddy, and I make up my mind. “Ernie! Let’s go!” I toss our gear into the back seat, tumble in after it, and close the door. Ernie doesn’t hesitate. He and John give each other a grin and we’re off. I keep looking for a pursuer until we turn a corner, but we’re not pursued.
John pulls the Caddy smoothly onto an Interstate and we’re heading east. I’m thinking about the Missing Child poster, when a sign stuns me. Dentonville, 50 miles.
“John, you got a road map?”
“Afraid not. I know where I’m going.”
He has the advantage. Don’t know where I’m going, or where I’ve been. “Where are you going? I thought it was ‘just around the block.’” Out of the frying pan, into the fire, I think, already regretting what might be the most dangerous thing I’ve done so far.
“Can’t feel her wings going twenty miles an hour and stopping every few feet for a light.”
The speedometer creeps past fifty, sixty, hovers around seventy. The straightaway reaches to the horizon, and there’s light traffic. When he does have to pass another car, the smooth moves of driver and car impress even me. I’m relieved when a speed limit sign whizzes by. 70 is okay here. He’s careful not to exceed it.
“Just had her at a car show in Taylor,” he’s telling Ernie. “Took first place.” He nods toward the glove compartment, and Ernie takes out a gaudy blue ribbon. There’s no date on it. Why do I suspect he’s lying? Maybe he is who he says he is. The Suits didn’t seem to get exercised over seeing the car. If they did see it. Maybe all the guy wanted was to bum a cigarette off his pal. I relax. A little bit. After all, Dentonville is where I was supposed to go.
But we turn off long before we make that 50 miles.
It’s a rest area, for which I’m thankful since the latte was a large one. We all go inside, and when I come out they’ve gotten into the Caddy, parked as usual in the most sheltered spot away from other vehicles. It dawns on me that he’s not hiding it, but protecting the paint from dings and the doors from dents.
I’m filling up at the water fountain when I notice a blue SUV at the other end of the roadway. Fran jumps out, slams the door, and Hoodoo hangs out his window and yells, “You’re crazy, you know that?”
She yells back, “Somebody might have turned it in. There are good people in the world, asshole.”
Whatever she’s lost, it’s important to her. I hope it isn’t Ernie’s credit card. Running to the Caddy, I argue with myself about whether to tell him they’re here. He’s not going to win any fights with Hoodoo, and I doubt Fran would climb into the car with us even if she and her sweetie do talk trash to each other.
John checks the rear-view for traffic, mutters, “Crap.” Ducks down, jostling Ernie against the door. “Drive.” Ernie says “What?” and John answers, “You want to drive, or not?”
The second Ernie’s out of the way, John’s in the passenger seat, crouched out of sight. I watch Ernie walk around the rear of the car, and my breath stops. One of the Suits cruises by, craning his neck, and he’s not looking for a parking space.
All my fears flood over me. I can’t be sure he’s not after me. He could be the one paid by John’s brother–the one he claims not to have. Why doesn’t he want to be found, unless his name really is Burand and he’s wanted for murder?
Giving me a shrug, not caring why his dream is coming true, Ernie slides into the driver’s seat. He backs into the roadway, smiling. Makes it halfway to the exit when he brakes, throwing me forward into John’s seat. “What the hell?” He’s annoyed.
Ernie’s gaze is locked on Francine, getting into the SUV. I can feel the whirling of his brain, considering and rejecting courses of action. John’s cold voice says, “Drive, damn you.”
Ernie glances down, and I see John’s hand pressing a gun barrel into his ribs. It must have been under the seat, within easy reach. Trembling, I feel inside the blanket bedroll and find Hoodoo’s pistol. My arm has a life of its own. My weapon nudges John’s shoulder and I tell him, “Two can play this game.”
“Put it away, Vinnie.” Ernie accelerates slightly and we pass the SUV without being noticed. We pass the Suit’s car but it’s empty. The Interstate is just ahead, and once we’re rocketing into the unknown there’ll be no turning back.
I poke John’s shoulder gently. “Blink.”
He laughs. Sits up. Smiling, he tucks his gun in the glove compartment. “Gutsy little devil, aren’t you?”
Ernie lets out a sigh. He’s not smiling now, checks the rear view from time to time. There’s no blue SUV in sight.
“Where are we going?”
“I’m on vacation, remember? Thought we might pitch a tent, do some fishing.”
Either he’s crazy, or I am. Tent? Fishing? He acts like we’ve been friends and neighbors for years, that nobody will be looking for us or be concerned when we don’t go home tonight. That much is true, but how can he know?
“The Suit didn’t recognize the car,” I say, puzzled. “But he would know you.”
“Yeah, nobody can connect me to this baby. She’s been laying low.”
“In case of an emergency.”
“You might say that.”
I put Hoodoo’s gun in its blanket nest. My hand’s still shaking.
We pass a sign that says ‘Dentonville - 30 miles.’ What would I be doing now, if I’d managed to go there? Never tried to help Al, or made friends with a crew of ‘hipsies.’ Could I have lied my way into a job, forged parental signatures on work papers? Signed into a motel, or convinced some lady to give me a room in her boarding house? I’ll never know. Wherever that road would have led, it had to be less interesting than what I’m doing now.
Half an hour passes. Scenery remains pretty much the same, concrete stretching to an ever-changing horizon, with glimpses of houses or car lots or restaurant strips dotting the picture. We must be near Dentonville when John speaks.
“Take the next exit.”
Ernie obeys. There’s a campground sign announcing ‘Cozy Bear - 10 miles’ but we turn in the opposite direction.
“I know a back door to the place,” John explains, reading my mind.
We’re out in the sticks now, off a two-lane and into the forest. The road’s paved though barely wide enough for two cars to pass each other. Ernie’s tense, not enjoying the ride as much as he’d thought he would. He’s finally convinced that everything John’s claimed to be is a lie. Didn’t take a gun in my ribs, but then I’m fast learning that you can’t trust anyone.
Well. Almost anyone. Ernie’s on my trust list, for now anyway.
The asphalt ends and we’re winding along a narrow dirt road. John flinches as underbrush rakes the sides of the car, but Ernie’s doing his best and they’re both silent. We come to a gate. John takes a key from his shirt pocket and gives it to me. I push through the brambles to unlock it. Once the Caddy’s through, I secure the gate behind us. The click sounds like the cocking of an old West gun.
John motions me to return the key. Deeper into the forest. So deep I can’t help asking, “Where’s the campground?”
“Around the next curve. Nice little clearing, not far from the best trout stream you’ll ever meet.”
Little clearing is right. Only big enough for the tent John hauls out of the trunk, and a fire ring that’s already there. A shaft of sunlight slants down, coming from the west. Low enough to be suppertime, with night not far behind. There’s fishing gear, too, like he said. Fly rods, bamboo rods, tackle. A cooler. A cardboard box. An old suitcase.
I reach for the suitcase. John waves me aside and closes the trunk lid. “Help your brother set up the tent. Get a fire going. There’s burgers and drinks in the cooler. Buns and stuff in the box. I’ll check out the stream.”
John disappears into the dappled woods. There’s maybe a faint trace of path, the kind you could lose your way on in a hurry.
“Come on, Vinnie, help me figure this mess out.”
“I thought you were good at a lot of things.” My taunt is joking and he takes it that way. We lay out the stakes and poles and ropes, and finally have the tent standing. It’s crisp and new and hard to handle. The fishing stuff looks just-bought, too, so I know this trip isn’t to catch trout or bass or whatever’s in the stream. If there is a stream.
John’s taken the key with him, so we can’t drive the car away. I’m curious about that suitcase he didn’t want me touching. “Okay, bro, time to put your real skills to work.”
Ernie’s lifting a six-pack out of the cooler. “Want a drink?”
“I don’t want to get drunk again. Bring your knife and let’s see what’s in the bag.”
He hunkers at the trunk. Works at the latch. I watch the leafy shadows, hoping John won’t catch us. “Weren’t you scared when he pointed that gun at you?”
“Hoodoo pointing a gun at me would be scary.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Hoodoo’s crazy enough to pull the trigger.”
“And John isn’t?”
“He’s under pressure, but he’s clear-headed. It’s to his advantage not to kill the prisoners.”
I hear the unspoken ending to that thought: until he has to.
“Wish I had Fran’s nail file.”
There’s nothing in my duffel that’s sharper than the pocket knife’s smaller blade. I check the glove compartment but come up empty. I feel under the seat. John’s gun is gone.
“He took it with him,” I tell Ernie. “Gonna shoot somebody, I bet.”
“We’ll hear him if he does. There’s no silencer on that gun.”
Ah! That explains Ernie’s cool. He knew John wouldn’t fire in a public place. But we’re not in a public place now.
The trunk lid slowly rises. “Watch for him.”
“You watch. I want to open it.” I haul the suitcase toward me and snap the old-fashioned fasteners.
Neatly-folded clothing. A plastic bag for shaving stuff. And a brown paper grocery bag, the top rolled tightly down a couple of inches. I pick it up. Not too heavy, not light, packed full of something that gives when I squeeze. Peeking inside, I can’t believe my eyes.
TO BE CONTINUED!