The Great Escape

by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

  She waited long enough to be sure she wouldn’t run into him outside before she left the bar. The parking lot was full. Since she’d taken his car, she half expected to see that he’d driven off in it and left her stranded, but he hadn’t. He was still taking care of her. Her eyes prickled even though she knew it was better to get their breakup over with now.

  She didn’t want to go home, didn’t want to talk to anybody. She glanced toward the car but couldn’t make herself get in. If she’d had sneakers with her, she could have gone for a walk to clear her head, but her heels weren’t designed for a nighttime hike. Still, the air was warm, the moon full. She picked her way through the cars and around to the side of the bar, harshly lit with a single flood.

  The building perched above an inlet. If she owned the place, she’d have put an open patio back here. Instead, she saw a pair of Dumpsters, an equipment shed, and a broken-down picnic table. Judging by the crushed cigarette packs and litter of butts on the ground, this was where the employees took their smoke breaks.

  She made her way carefully over the uneven ground to the picnic bench and sat. The damp wood was cool against her bare thighs, and the air smelled of lake and cooking oil. She heard the roar of motorcycles, and for a moment, she wanted to believe one of them belonged to Panda, her own Sir Galahad rushing to rescue her from the dismal swamp of her own thoughts.

  She gazed at the lights from the homes across the water. After his blowup with Temple, she wouldn’t be surprised if Panda was gone by this time tomorrow. But what about Lucy herself? How long was she going to stay? She envisioned herself standing on the bluff behind the house, autumn leaves falling around her, then snowflakes. She saw spring arriving; another summer. Years passing. Her hair turning gray, face wrinkling, the strange old lady who’d arrived one summer and never left. Eventually they’d find her mummified body buried under a mountain of petrified homemade bread.

  She shivered. A loud voice intruded. “Hold on. I gotta take a piss.”

  “You always gotta take a piss.”

  “Fuck you.”

  Footsteps crunched in the gravel. A man with an unkempt beard and a bandanna wrapped around his head appeared behind the building. As his companion stopped by the Dumpster, the bearded one spotted her. “Hey.”

  They both wore boots, scruffy jeans, and scruffier hair. These guys weren’t the lawyers and high school guidance counselors who turned biker on weekends. They were the real thing, and from their unsteady walks, they were both drunk.

  Lucy Jorik would have been frightened, but Viper knew how to handle situations like this. “Hey, yourself.”

  “You care if I take a piss?” the bearded biker said in a voice louder than necessary. “You can watch if you want.”

  The man by the Dumpster snickered. “Trust you, man, to find a chick back here.”

  Viper wasn’t easily cowed, but she wasn’t stupid either. The bar was too noisy for anyone to hear her, and she was keeping this conversation short. “I’ve got better things to do.” She rose from the bench.

  Dumpster man swaggered toward her. “He’ll let you hold it for him.”

  As she smelled the liquor on them, her uneasiness grew, but Viper didn’t believe in showing fear. “I couldn’t find anything that little.”

  They hooted with laughter. Even though her knees had started to shake, she loved how tough she was. This summer hadn’t been a waste after all.

  Except her wisecrack had opened the door to a camaraderie she didn’t want, and they were both closing in on her. “I like you,” the bearded one said.

  Dumpster man had a narrow, sloping forehead and a unibrow. “Come on inside and have a drink with us.”

  She swallowed. “Sure. Let’s go.”

  But they didn’t move, and the smell of liquor and body odor was making her queasy.

  “You got an old man?” The one with the beard scratched his stomach like Panda used to, except this was the real thing.

  “An old lady,” she retorted. “I don’t go for guys.”

  She thought she was being smart, but the look they exchanged wasn’t encouraging, and Beard Man’s eyes were creeping all over her. “You just haven’t found the right one. Isn’t that right, Wade?”

  “Yeah, like I haven’t heard that before.” She managed a sneer.

  A fence blocked the far side of the bar, so she’d have to slip past both of them before she could get to the parking lot. She’d always felt safe on the island, but she didn’t feel safe now, and her Viper face was slipping. “Let’s get that drink.”

  “No hurry.” Wade, the Dumpster man, rubbed his crotch. “Scottie, go pee.”

  “Can’t. I got a boner.”

  Their stench made her want to retch. Her heart had started to race. “I need a drink,” she said quickly. “You can come with me or stay out here.”

  But as she tried to slip past them, the one named Wade grabbed her arm. “I like it out here.” He squeezed until it hurt. “You really a dyke?”

  “Leave me alone.” Her voice was suddenly high-pitched, all the toughness gone.

  A man interrupted. A knight in shining armor calling out from the corner of the building. “Everything okay back here?”

  “No!” she exclaimed.

  “Girlfriend’s drunk,” Wade shouted back. “Don’t pay her no attention.” He palmed the back of her head and smashed her face into the reek of his T-shirt so she couldn’t cry out.

  Her knight in shining armor turned out not to be a knight at all, but one more person who didn’t want to get involved. “Okay, then.” She heard his steps fade away.

  She had no Panda to protect her, no Secret Service. Be careful what you wish for. The pressure on the back of her head against his chest didn’t ease. She couldn’t scream. Could barely breathe. She was on her own.

  She started to struggle. Pushed hard against him, twisted, got nowhere. She tried to gasp for air but came up short. The more she struggled, the tighter he held her. She fought harder. Lashed out with her shoe. The hard toe connected.

  “Bitch! Grab her legs.”

  Her head was suddenly free, but as she started to scream, a hand clamped over her mouth from behind, wrenching her neck. One of them caught her legs. Her shoes dropped off as her feet left the ground. She was screaming in her head, a silent scream that did her no good at all.

  “Where do you want to take her?”

  “Behind those trees.”

  “I go first.”

  “Bullshit. I saw her first.”

  They were going to rape her. They dragged her, one of them holding her legs, the other seizing her by the neck, cutting off her air. She clawed at his arm, digging in her fingernails, but the bruising pressure on her windpipe didn’t ease. They pulled her deeper into the cover of the trees. The hold on her ankle loosened. Her foot scraped the ground, and something sharp cut her heel. She felt a hand on her thigh. Heard grunts and curses. She summoned a thread of air, enough for a mewing cry. Kicked out.

  “Fuck! Hold her.”

  “Bitch.”

  “Keep her quiet.”

  “Shut up, bitch.”

  Hands pressing, fingers clawing, and her consciousness beginning to slip away …

  The world exploded. “Let her go!”

  The bikers dropped her to the ground and spun to confront this new threat.

  Barely conscious, she sucked in air and pain. Through her mental fog she saw Panda. He hurled one of them into the dirt. The other charged him. Panda threw a punch that made him stagger, but the guy was a goon, and he came right back. Panda landed a vicious jab to his middle that knocked him into a tree.

  This was no gentlemen’s fight. Panda was an assassin, and he knew exactly what he was doing. The man on the ground tried to get up. Panda slammed a foot down on his elbow joint. The biker howled in agony.

  The other one was still on his feet, and Panda had his back turned. She tried to get up, call out to warn him, but Panda was already spinning, his leg shooting out like a piston
, catching the biker in the groin, crumpling him. Panda leaned down, caught him by the neck, and banged his head against the tree.

  The one with the broken elbow came up on his knees. Panda grasped him by his bad arm, dragged him to the long slope that led down to the water, and rolled him over. She heard a distant splash.

  Panda’s breath was coming harder now. He went back for the other one and started hauling him toward the water. She finally found her voice, a scratchy thready affair. “They’ll drown.”

  “Their problem.” He hoisted the second one over the edge. Another heavy splash.

  He came toward her, his chest heaving, trickling blood from the corner of his mouth. He knelt beside her, and the hands that had been so brutal moved gently along her body from her neck to her limbs to the gouge on her heel. “You’re going to hurt,” he said softly, “but I don’t think anything is broken. I’m carrying you to the car.”

  “I can walk.” She hated how weak she sounded.

  He didn’t argue. He simply picked her up and cradled her against his chest. The images wouldn’t fit together—the lover she knew and the brutally efficient assassin who’d crushed two men.

  He must have had a spare car key because he didn’t ask for the one she’d tucked in her pocket. A couple came out of the bar and stared at them. He opened the passenger door and carefully lowered her into the seat. He took his time fastening her seat belt, still protecting her.

  He asked no questions as they drove home, didn’t tell her what an idiot she was to come here alone or reproach her for being so rotten to him. She didn’t know why he’d returned to the bar, couldn’t think about what would have happened if he hadn’t. She huddled against the door, nauseated, shaken, still terrified.

  “I had a half brother,” he said into the quiet gloom. “His name was Curtis.”

  Startled, she turned her head to look at him.

  “He was seven years younger than me.” His hands shifted on the wheel. “A dreamy, gentle kid with a big imagination.” He spoke softly as they sped along the dark road. “Our mother was either drugged out or on the prowl, so I ended up taking care of him.”

  This was her story, except it was coming from him. She rested the back of her head against the door and listened, her heart rate beginning to slow.

  “Eventually we ended up in foster homes. I did everything I could to keep us together, but things happened, and as I got older, I started getting into trouble. Picking fights, shoplifting. When I was seventeen, I was caught trying to sell half a gram of marijuana. It was like I wanted to get thrown into jail.”

  She understood and said softly, “A good way to escape the responsibility.”

  He glanced over at her. “You had the same kind of responsibility.”

  “A pair of guardian angels showed up in my life. You didn’t have that, did you?”

  “No. No guardian angels.” They passed Dogs ’N’ Malts, closed up for the night. She was no longer shaking quite so badly, and she unclasped her hands. He flipped on his high beams. “Curtis was murdered while I was in juvie,” he said.

  She’d suspected this was coming, but it didn’t make it easier to hear.

  Panda went on. “It was a drive-by shooting. Without me around to protect him, he started ignoring curfews. They let me out to go to his funeral. He was ten years old.”

  If it hadn’t been for Nealy and Mat, this might have been her story and Tracy’s story. She licked her dry lips. “And you’re still trying to live with what happened. Even though you were only a kid at the time, you still blame yourself. I understand that.”

  “I figured you would.” They were alone on the dark road.

  “I’m glad you told me,” she said.

  “You haven’t heard all of it.”

  For months she’d tried to get him to spill his secrets, but she was no longer sure she wanted to hear them.

  He slowed for the road’s sharpest curve. “When Curtis’s sperm donor found out my mother was pregnant, he gave her five hundred dollars and split. She loved the jerk and wouldn’t go to a lawyer. Curtis was nearly two before she realized her big love wasn’t coming back. That was when she started using.”

  Lucy did the math. Panda had been nine when he’d become his brother’s caretaker. A protector, even then.

  “When I got older,” he said, “I found out who the bastard was and tried to call him a couple of times, tell him how bad things were for his kid. He acted like he didn’t know who I was talking about. Told me he’d have me locked up if I kept harassing him. Eventually I found out where he lived and went to see him.” He shook his head. “It’s not easy for a city kid to get to Grosse Pointe on public transportation.”

  Grosse Pointe? Lucy sat up straighter, an odd feeling coming over her.

  “It was a big house, looked like a mansion to me. Gray stone with four chimneys, a swimming pool, and these kids chasing each other around the front yard with water guns. Three boys in their teens. A girl. Even in shorts and T-shirts they all looked rich.”

  The pieces fell into place.

  “The Remingtons,” he said. “The perfect American family.”

  The car’s headlights cut through the night.

  “I’d walked the last couple of miles from the bus stop,” he said, “and I hid across the street. They all had that lean, WASPy look. Curtis and I were both dark like our mother.” The shuttered farm stand whipped by on their left. “While I watched, a landscape crew pulled up at the house and wheeled a mower off the back of the truck. Four kids in the family, and they hired somebody to cut their grass.”

  He turned into the drive. The house loomed, not even a light over the front door to welcome them. “I found another hiding place where I could watch them in their backyard. I stayed until it got dark.” He killed the engine but made no move to get out of the car. “I felt like I was watching a TV show. It was his wife’s birthday. There were balloons and presents, this big glass-top table set with flowers and candles. Steaks on the grill. I was so damned hungry, and none of them looked like they had a care in the world. He had his arm around his wife most of the evening. He gave her some kind of necklace as a present. I couldn’t see what it looked like, but from the way she acted, I figured it cost a lot more than five hundred dollars.”

  Her heart welled with pity for him. And something more. Something she wouldn’t consider.

  “The sickest part is that I kept going back. Maybe a dozen times over the years. It was easier after I got a car. Sometimes I’d see them, sometimes not.” He curled his fingers over the top of the steering wheel. “One Sunday I followed them to church and sat in the back where I could watch them.”

  “You hated them, and you wanted to be part of them,” she said. “That’s why you bought this house.”

  His hand came off the steering wheel, and his mouth twisted. “A stupid decision. It was a bad time for me. I shouldn’t have done it.”

  Now she understood why he refused to change anything in the house. Consciously or unconsciously, he wanted to live inside the museum of their lives.

  He got out of the car and came around to help her. Even though she was feeling steadier, she was grateful for his hand as he led her through the front door and into the bedroom.

  He understood without her telling him how much she needed to wash away the men’s filth. He helped her undress. Turned on the water.

  When she was in the shower, he pulled off his clothes and got in with her. But there was nothing sexual in the tender way he washed her, dried her, tended to the cuts on her feet. Not once did he remind her of what she’d said to him at the bar or criticize her for wandering off the way she had.

  After he’d helped her into bed, he touched her cheek. “I need to talk to the police. The house is locked, and Temple’s upstairs. Your cell is by your bed. I won’t be gone long.”

  She wanted to tell him she could take care of herself, but that was so blatantly untrue that she said nothing. Viper, despite all her tough girl posturing, had prov
ed to be completely helpless.

  Later she awoke to the sound of his footsteps on the stairs. She looked at the clock. It was four-thirty. He’d been gone almost two hours. She flinched as she tried to find a more comfortable position, but her ribs were tender, her neck stiff, her back sore. None of that hurt as much as thinking about what Panda had endured as a child.

  She eventually gave up trying to fall back to sleep and got out of bed. He’d done a good job bandaging her foot, and putting her weight on it barely hurt. She made her way to the sunroom, where she curled up on the couch.

  As the light leaked over the horizon, she turned her thoughts from Panda to her own foolishness—the last thing she wanted to examine. But last night’s ugly experience had ripped away the veil of her self-deception and shown her the absurdity of the false identity she’d created for herself. What a joke—that hard-boiled swagger and pugnacious attitude. She’d never felt more like a fool—the biggest phony on the island. When it had come to protecting herself, she’d failed abysmally. Instead she’d been a helpless, frantic mess who had to be rescued by a man. The truth tasted bitter in her mouth.

  She found her yellow pad. After a few false starts, she wrote a brief note. She owed him that—and so much more. She tossed a few things into her backpack and, as the sun came up, made her way through the woods.

  Her sneakers were soaked with dew by the time she reached the cottage just as Bree was emerging from the honey house. Bree’s hair was uncombed, her clothes rumpled, her sticky hands held far away from her body. But her gasp of alarm indicated that Lucy looked a lot worse.

  Lucy slipped her backpack off her shoulder. “Could I stay here for a while?”

  “Of course you can.” She paused. “Come inside. I’ll make coffee.”