As soon as the bank opened in the morning, he closed his account. He was moving out of state, he explained to the bank representative, and this bank didn’t have offices where he was going. He agreed that a wire transfer would be the proper way to go, but he didn’t have his new account yet, so that wasn’t feasible. He filled out the necessary IRS forms and took the money in five-thousand-dollar checks, four of which he cashed back on the spot.
Exiting the bank, he rubbed the stubble on the top of his head, which he had shaved down earlier in the day. It would grow out fast, back to his natural, dull color. He would grow his beard back, too, but this time he would keep it trimmer. He couldn’t go the full bad-ass look anymore. Charlotte had civilized that out of him. To a point.
He returned the rental car to Enterprise and got a ride to the Honda dealership in North Hollywood, which had a low-mileage Volvo sedan for sale on its used-car lot. Car dealers don’t like to keep inventory that isn’t their brand, so a smart buyer can get a good bargain. He forked over eleven thousand five hundred dollars in cash, which included tax and license, and drove off the lot in his new ride to the North Hollywood Metro train station, where he retrieved the garbage bags with his belongings from the locker he had stashed them in.
He took the 405 over the pass, got off at Wilshire Boulevard, and drove into Santa Monica. He spent the afternoon in the English Pub. After the obligatory Guinness, he drank Cokes. He needed to be clean and sober, he had a long way to go.
It was time to hit the road, but he had one more stop to make. Amelia’s shift ended at eight. Wycliff knew her schedule because she had left him numerous text and phone messages. What was going on, why wasn’t he answering, was he all right, please get in touch, I miss you, I’m worried. He hadn’t responded to any of them.
He parked down the block from her apartment. He rolled down the window and smoked a cigarette while he waited for her to come home. At eight thirty her little red Civic came puttering down the street and pulled into its spot in the exterior parking area next to her apartment house. Still wearing her hospital scrubs, she got out of the car and stretched. There was enough illumination from the overhead street lamps that he was able to see her clearly. Her face was drawn, her body slumped over from fatigue.
She dug her cell phone out of her purse and dialed, and as he watched, he knew she was calling him. He wasn’t that far from her, he realized; from this distance, she might hear his phone ringing. He grabbed the phone out of his pocket and switched from ring to vibrate just in time, because immediately his phone was quivering. It felt like a live grenade in his hand. He looked at the caller ID. It was her. Of course it was her.
He slouched down and spied on her through the windshield. She was listening to his phone ringing, then his voice message. He could see her talking into her phone to him.
She finished leaving her message, and hung up. One more discouraged stretch, then she took a bag of groceries out of her back seat, closed and locked her car, and trudged on weary legs into her building. A moment later, a light came on in her apartment’s bay window.
He played her message back. Wycliff, what’s going on? Please call me. There was a brief silence. Then she ended it with I love you.
He sat and watched her window and there she was, standing in front of it. She stared out into the street, as if by some miracle he would materialize there.
There weren’t going to be any miracles. He waited until she drifted away from the window, out of sight. Then he started his new wheels and drove away.
He cruised up California Highway 1 through Malibu, past his favorite beach spot at Leo Carrillo State Park, crossing the LA line into Ventura County. The next ten miles were flat-out beautiful, the narrow two-lane blacktop hugging the coastline, the moonlight shimmering on the ocean. He had driven up here before, by himself. He wished Amelia had been with him then. She would have loved it.
He was going to miss her. She was the best woman he had ever known. Loving, kind, honest, everything a man wants and needs. But he wasn’t the man for her. She might have thought he was, but he knew better. She was marriage, a house with a white picket fence, rose bushes, the whole nine yards. He was none of those things. Setting down roots was not in his DNA. He was a wanderer, a loner, a misfit. He definitely wasn’t cut out to be in a permanent relationship. He didn’t have the stamina for it, or the courage.
Amelia would miss him for a little while, then she would get angry, then she would get over him, and in time she would forget about him. Not literally, she would remember him, but as a brief interlude in her life, not as a substantial part of it. She didn’t know that tonight, but eventually she would. She was a good woman. She deserved a better man than him. Someday, he hoped, she would find one.
Once he was past Santa Barbara, the traffic thinned out to practically nothing. The Volvo was equipped with satellite radio. He found a classic rock station, and the music washed over him as he motored up the coast.
Three people were dead because of him. Others – Amelia – were hurt and broken.
He had wanted to be a player, and although he had tried like hell to become one, in his heart he knew he hadn’t made it and never would. He couldn’t deny who he was: a drifter, a petty schemer, a man who, in the end, couldn’t connect.
And yet, he had enabled his dying brother to live his final days in peace and dignity. That counted for something.
He thought back to where he had been only a few short months ago. He had arrived in Los Angeles with nothing more than the clothes on his back, a hot car, and eight hundred dollars of stolen money in his pocket. Now he was driving a legal set of wheels and had over fifteen thousand dollars in his pocket. Maybe he wasn’t a player, but he wasn’t a complete loser anymore, either. From where he had started to now, he was ahead of the game.
The road stretched ahead of him and he followed it through Big Sur and Monterey, up to San Francisco in the darkest part of the night, onward past Mendocino and Fort Bragg, along the rugged coast, wild and beautiful. He stopped at an all-night AMPM Minimart to fuel up, take a leak, and buy a carton of smokes and a six-pack.
Then he was on the road again. The first faint rays of gray-pink pre-dawn sunlight broke through the heavy clouds above the mountains to the east. A sign at the edge of the highway read Welcome to Oregon, The Beaver State.
He had never been to Oregon. He had heard it was nice up there. Maybe he would take a square job. They probably needed qualified plumbers, welders, and painters there as much as they did in Los Angeles.
He would find out, soon enough.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks to Steve Kasdin and Kate Lyall Grant for their support.
Turn Left at Doheny--A tough-edged crime novel set in Los Angeles Page 26