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Now the weak VW heater is going full blast and my teeth are chattering along with the windshield wipers. A road sign tells me Otter Creek is six miles ahead.
Three miles later, I swing off the highway at a roadside rest area and crawl into the back of the van. I towel off and put on dry clothes: white jeans and a blue polo shirt (Bagley’s), and a blue windbreaker jacket (also Bagley’s).
Along with the clothes, there’s a wallet in Bagley’s duffel. A wallet stuffed with identification for one Elton Kirby: Colorado driver’s license, library card from Littleton, social security card, and three credit cards (Chevron, Texaco, Montgomery Ward). I surmise that either Bagley found these, or possibly had them made. It’s the type of scam Dan was famous for. I can see it all now, after murdering Schmidt and me, Dan would have had to disappear and become someone else.
People along the pipeline know of Bagley and Schmidt but they don’t know me from Jimmy Buffet. I can easily become Elton Kirby. The license photo is badly blurred and the height, weight and hair color are close enough. I might have a problem with the blue eyes, though.
I get myself nice and dry, stash the forty-five kilos in various places in the van and get back on the road. On the outskirts of Yankeetown, I spot a small motel, with a diner a few yards away.
Elton Kirby gets himself a room at the Friendly Haven Motel with color TV and refrigeration. After showering and smoking, he wanders over to the diner for a bite, his stomach growling.
The light is dim in Elly’s Café and the paint is faded green, like pea soup. There is one plump waitress in a brown uniform. Her face is furrowed and she’s wearing a hairnet. In the kitchen, I presume, is a cook. Only other person in here is a good-looking blonde girl wearing blue jeans and a blue T-shirt. She’s sitting at the end of the counter drinking coffee and looking nervously out at the road, occasionally biting a fingernail.
If I wasn’t so tired I might be interested in her. She’s pretty, with cloudy blue eyes and a sculpted nose and chin, but she looks a little haunted. I take a seat in the middle of the counter and grab a menu from behind the napkin dispenser. Right away I see what I want.
When the waitress plops the chicken-fried steak with mashed potatoes and gravy in front of me, I temporarily lose interest in the girl. I wolf down the chow and barely have enough strength to limp back to my room. Once inside, I double lock the doors and flip on the tube. The room smells of mildew and pine-scented cleaner. I pull back the green chenille bedspread and collapse onto the crisp white sheets. At least they’re clean. The TV picture is black and white with some streaks of color on the edges of the screen, what passes for color TV at the Friendly Haven Motel. I find a rerun of Starsky and Hutch, where Huggy Bear goes undercover as a pimp, and let the drone put me to sleep.
I dream that I’m running in slow motion through a field of tall grass. It’s like one of those television commercials where the man and the woman are approaching each other, arms extended. You see the anticipation on their faces as they get nearer, each stride carrying them closer to true love and intense joy.
But my dream is a little different.
I see my wife Carole gleefully bounding toward me in that pretty little flowery sundress she wore at our Las Vegas wedding. As she gets closer, I’m trying to see into her eyes. But the harder I try to focus, the more the face blurs. Then when we’re nearly together, I extend my welcoming arms and it’s not Carole’s face at all, but that of some unknown teenager with buckteeth and a pimply chin. I stop running and stare at her and she changes into old Mrs. Olson and all of a sudden I’m four years old and sitting on the little hill by the swing set in the backyard of my childhood home. It’s a bright sunny day but it feels cold. My mother is hanging up wash. Some part of my brain is telling me I’ve been through this before, as Mrs. Olson stands on her back porch calling to me: “Keith, Keith honey... do you want to come in and play? There’s quite a wind out today. Come in and have something warm. I’ve baked some of those ginger cookies you like.” I look over to ask my mother if I can go but she is no longer there.
Mrs. Olson and I walk up the flight of brown stairs, holding hands. At the top of the stairs I stop and look back for a second and wish it were warmer out. Then I go inside and see Mr. Olson sitting at the white kitchen table in his white strap undershirt, reading the morning paper. It’s dark in there but still he’s reading. Mrs. Olson takes my hand and we walk toward the bedroom and I feel a strange excitement.
The scene changes again and now I’m in the dinghy from the Larson E, floating helplessly in the middle of the ocean. I’m dying of thirst, the sun is beating down on me and I’m alone, no food or fresh water. I rub my hand across my chest and feel a warm liquid. I look at my hand and it’s covered with blood.
My heart is bleeding.
I’ve got a fuckin’ bleeding heart.
My eyes jerk open and I sit up straight in the tiny motel bed. Gray light of dawn is creeping in above the curtains. I try to crawl out of the bed but my body is leaden. I fall back down and sink into a deep dreamless sleep that’s like smoking good hash and lying in the sun with the radio on.
The green plastic clock on the veneer bed table reads ten after ten when I finally put my feet to the worn, green carpet. I rub my eyes and the severity of my situation plunges down on me like a bucket of blood.
Dread and Fear push me into the shower and kick me in the ass when I get out. I dress and become resplendent in Bagley’s khaki shorts and blue polo, tan L.L. Bean boat shoes filling out the picture. I feel like a model in a catalog.
I walk over to the diner and everything is eerily the same as the night before, same waitress and the same thin-faced blonde sitting at the far end of the counter. This time I change the scene and sit down with only one faded blue-green stool between the blond and me. I smile at her nicely, and much to my surprise, she gives me a Mona Lisa smile in return. She’s a true country beauty. Shoulder-length blond hair, milky complexion, blue eyes, and a certain kind of softness about her. Daylight has pushed the haunted look out to the edge of her face, revealed only by a slight pinching of the skin. She’s wearing a yellow sleeveless blouse that buttons up the front, faded blue jeans and open sandals with a low heel. Nice rounded rear end. She’s drinking coffee and smoking a Winston, the flattened pack lying next to her white coffee cup and saucer.
The waitress comes and pours coffee in my cup and in a couple of minutes, I order. I can’t help but notice two things. One, the girl isn’t eating anything. Two, she keeps looking over at me, the worried look back on her face. I drink some of the coffee and get the urge for a cigarette. More coffee, coupled with the smell of the smoke from the girl’s cig, makes the craving grow stronger. I search my pockets, fidget on the stool for a moment then turn to the blond.
“Excuse me, miss,” I say politely. “Could I bum a cigarette from you? I’m afraid I left mine in the room—and I’m dying for one. Pathetic, eh?” And then, as if someone else is doing the talking: “I tell you what, I’ll buy you breakfast in exchange for a cigarette.”
The sweet young thing gets up off her stool, moves next to me and hands me the nearly empty pack of Winston’s. I pick it up and slide one out.
“Thanks a lot,” I say, smiling at her.
“No problem,” she says, her pursed lips rising slightly on the corners. “And you don’t have to buy me breakfast just for one cigarette.”
“No, really, I’d love to. I just saw that you weren’t eating and thought I’d offer. In case you ah... in case you needed something to eat or something. Just trying to be friendly. I mean, I saw you in here last night and you didn’t seem to be eating then either. So I thought, well... you might be broke or something. God knows I’ve been in that situation myself enough times. I didn’t mean to imply that—”
“Slow down, honey,” she says, looking in my eyes and grinning slightly. “You don’t have to explain. You’re a nice guy, aren’t you?”
“I try to be—but sometimes it’s hard. Where I come from, that’s the way we try to treat people.”
“And where is that?”
“Minnesota.”
“You’ve got kind eyes,” she says. She looks down at her coffee cup, turning it in the saucer with her long fingers. “For someone with eyes like that I can eat breakfast.” She glances over at the waitress, who’s standing with her hand on her hip by the order window. “Mary Ellen, fix me up a steak and eggs with a tall OJ and a side of grits, would you please.”
“You like those grits?” I ask, trying to grasp what it is about a soggy pile of white slop.
“Yeah, they’re good for you. I used to eat’em with sugar when I was a kid. So whattaya doin’ in Florida, Mr. Kind Eyes?”
“I live down in Clearwater.”
“No shit—excuse my French. Whattaya do there?”
“Not much. I used to be a tennis pro until I broke my leg.”
“You must’ve made a lot of money.”
“No, not really. I was a teaching pro, not a guy like Jimmy Connors or John McEnroe.”
“You make a habit of buying breakfast for strange women, Mr. Kind Eyes? What is your name, anyway?”
“Keith. Ah—Elton. Keith Elton. No, I usually only buy breakfast for those I’ve slept with the night before.”
She gives me a wrinkled up nose and then directs her attention back to the coffee cup. “Well, Keith Elton from Clearwater, by way of Minnesota, pleased to meet you.” She sets down the thick cup and holds out a slender hand, nails bitten down.
I shake it lightly.
“So, what’s your name and where’re you from?” I ask, looking in her eyes and finding myself being drawn in.
“Dory Lanigan. And I’m from Tennessee by way of Las Vegas.”
“Now that’s a tough one. So you were born in Vegas?”
“No, just outside of Knoxville.”
“Oh, so you moved to Vegas. What brings you to Florida, then?”
“I had a lot of bad trouble in Vegas,” she says, turning solemn. “My boyfriend was murdered. And my dog, too.”
“What? You’re kidding me, right?” She shakes her head to the negative. “No? Jesus. Who did all that?”
“People I’d rather not talk about. Some of my boyfriend’s business associates. I found both bodies in the trunk of my car. Jimmy and Sammy. Sammy was the dog. Couldn’t stay in Vegas after that, so I bought a junker and took off driving as far as my money would take me.”
“No shit? What did you do with the bodies?”
“I called the cops and everything, and they came out and hauled the bodies away. That was a couple months ago. After that, I just had to get out of there, y’know? I knew the cops wouldn’t protect me. I knew they knew who did it, but they wanted me to help them. Talk about my boyfriend’s business and shit—and I wasn’t going to say anything, so I ran. Just couldn’t handle it. Had to get outta Dodge.”
“They killed your boyfriend and your dog? Jesus.”
“My boyfriend—Jimmy—was into some things.” She pauses, staring at the coffee cup. “How could anyone kill a nice sweet dog?” She puts her hands to her eyes and sobs briefly, then snaps to as if nothing happened.
“Yeah. I mean—I don’t know.”
Then the waitress comes along with a steaming plate and sets it down on the counter in front of Dory Lanigan, who proceeds to tear into it like tomorrow is Judgment Day. Like cigarettes and coffee and sugar packets have been her staples for a while. Five minutes later, she wipes the thick white plate with the last hunk of toast, jams the soggy bread into her mouth and washes it down with orange juice and more coffee, making a slurping noise.
Now I’m having the thought that the wise thing to do is to get out from under while I still can. But something in me doesn’t want her slipping away quite yet. I pay the bill. Which leaves me only one wrinkled twenty in my wallet. Elton Kirby’s wallet.
Keith Elton’s wallet.
“Do you need any money, Dory?” I ask anyway, my ‘kind eyes’ looking into her baby blues to see what I can find.
“I can’t take your money, Keith, after you’ve been so nice to me and all. But if you could give me a ride down the road a-ways, it would help me out a lot. I’d feel safe with a man that has kind, smart eyes like yours.”
“Sure, no problem. Where you need to go?”
“About ten miles south of here, at Crystal River. My car’s getting fixed at a gas station there.”
“Sounds good. Where you headed after that?” I give her my soulful look.
“I don’t really know for sure. Might even come back here to the motel. Old lady who owns the place has been letting me crash in one of the rooms in exchange for some cleaning. Guess she got sick of cleaning the lousy little rooms after a million years in a row.”
“For sure. That must be it. So what’s wrong with your car?”
“I think they said the timing belt... timing gear... something like that.”
“Isn’t that an expensive job?”
Her thin lips curl down at the corners, her blue eyes drenched in pathos and vulnerability. “I don’t know,” she says. “They didn’t tell me. Seemed like nice boys, though.”
She’s an attractive girl and I’m feeling needy. I can use some companionship. Always been a sucker for a sad-eyed lady. And there’s something real nice about Dory. Also something else, but I can’t quite figure out what that is. Sometimes she seems a little slow but that doesn’t exactly define it. Drifty. Maybe that better describes her. Sometimes I get the feeling we aren’t walking on the same earth. But come to think of it, I get that feeling around most women.
Now you’re probably thinking it’s crazy to invite a stranger into my vehicle—or should I say Bagley’s vehicle—given what else is in there at the moment, as well as what just happened on the beach. And you’d probably be right. But it seems I just can’t resist a pretty face. The possibility of mystery and adventure in Dory’s melancholy baby blues prove too strong an attractant.
“You can ride along with me as far as you want to go, Dory. I’ve got a Volkswagen bus and there’s plenty of room. Why don’t you get your stuff and meet me out front of the motel in twenty minutes? I just need to get my things from the room. What do you think?”
“I think you’re sweet. And I really appreciate this.”