Their previous morning had been harrowing, their trip long, their evening eventful and revealing, the hours prior to their final Chicago dawn emotionally and physically exhausting. They’d slept. They hadn’t gotten away in the morning, or in the afternoon. They’d gotten away at eight o’clock that night.
Natasha had driven south to the Eisenhower Expressway, swinging east to bore through the lower end of downtown Chicago, then south again. They’d just passed the 35th Street exit when Lockington said, “Would you pull over for just a moment?”
Natasha said, “Why—is something wrong?”
Lockington said, “Nothing that I can’t fix.”
She whipped the Mercedes onto the shoulder, stopping. Lockington got out, leaning against the car, looking back to the north. There she stood, the old whore—Chicago. She was silhouetted against the starless night sky, wearing her glittering diamond tiara of skyscraper lights, her long gray skirts of smog concealing her disease, her crimson sores, her seeping pustules. Lacey Lockington lifted his hand to her. He’d never come back, he knew that to be a fact. He just didn’t love her anymore.
A southbound blue-and-white slowed to pull behind the Mercedes. A policeman shoved his head through the window. “Trouble, buddy?”
Lockington swiped at his eyes with the back of his hand, Chicago memories billowing over him. He said, “No problem, officer—I was just saying goodbye to Mrs. O’Leary.”
The cop said, “Mrs. O’Leary?”
Lockington opened the door to the Mercedes. He nodded. “Yeah—Mrs. O’Leary—she owned a cow—”