Chapter 64

 

Donna returned to her condo in Punta Gorda. As she exited her car, she uttered a passing hello to her landlady who was tending her miniature rose garden in front of the condo unit. Unfortunately, as was typical, the landlady wanted to talk with Donna about the weather, the economy and all sorts of things that were boring and banal to Donna. Donna remained polite to the lady only because she didn’t want to irritate her in any way. This was a good hideout and she didn’t want to spend any time trying to find a comparable one, which she might be forced to do if she blew her top having to listen to the useless life of this insignificant human being. Donna generated a false smile and nodded in agreement with all of the meaningless statements that were made during the woman’s ramblings. 

Donna’s anger was soaring, and she was just about ready to strangle this useless person when she regained control and made an excuse that she needed to go inside for an important call. As she left the woman, she said, “It was so nice talking to you.” But what she was thinking was far removed from ‘nice.’ 

Polish was sitting on the sofa absorbed in a rerun of In the Heat of the Night as she entered. “Damn!” he said. “Can you believe that Carroll O’Connor was the same guy that played Archie Bunker in All in the Family? What a fucking great character actor he was.” 

Donna ignored his fixation with Carroll O’Connor; she had other more important things on her mind. She thought that anything, anything at all would be more important than his mindless ramblings. To her he wasn’t a hell of a lot more interesting than her idiotic landlady. 

“Polish, we have to get rid of that old busybody outside; she’s really getting on my nerves.”

“Donna, take it easy. we won’t have to stay in this shitty place forever. Seems to me, when you get rid of Fred and his lovely wife, we can go elsewhere and start enjoying life. I was just watching the Travel Channel and it looks to me like Paris would be a good place for us to live. Did you know it was never bombed by the Nazis since Hitler wanted to keep it in pristine shape for his headquarters after he won the war? Damn lucky the French. The Brits did a lot more to fight the bastard, but look what happened to their homeland.” He rambled on. “The weather is not too bad in Paris, maybe a bit of snow in the winter.” 

He suddenly shifted his thoughts to how they would pay for their new life. “By the way, I recall that you said Atwell had been doing well financially and you suspected that he was using his powers to make a few million. It seems to me that you could use your skills equally as well. Yes, Donna, I think it would be a great idea for us to relocate to Europe or some place like that where you wouldn’t be known and we wouldn’t have to hide out anymore.”

“Good idea, we’ll do that,” Donna lied. She might go to Europe all right, she thought, but not with this guy. He had no idea that she had stored a million bucks inside of her car and that would be all she needed to start a new life alone. His usefulness to her was close to ending.

“Before we even think about going to Europe, I have to take care of Fred. I’m no longer even going to worry about killing Maureen. I did check Fred out, and it appears you’re correct; he no longer appears to have the device in him. He’s as vulnerable as he can possibly be. He still seems to have some limited natural ESP skills. I’m sure they have always been with him, but I can easily defeat them.”

“When are you going to go after him so we can plan our life together? And, in fact, why even bother with him at all?”

“Because you idiot, that bastard is the one responsible for me spending four years in that hellhole of a prison. And I swore each day in those four unbearable years that I would get even. Tomorrow will be soon enough. I’ll check him out after he returns from work. And when he’s home, I’ll make sure he’s unprotected and then I’ll strike.”

“Right after that you and I can go to Europe, huh, babe?”

“Yes, Polish. Just you and me and Europe.”