by Ken McClure
He was about to return to Kathleen to tell her that it was safe when he heard a car slow down on the road outside and turn into the grounds. He pressed himself back into the shadows to watch the new arrival pull up outside the front office. The driver got out and walked towards Reception. Avedissian's heart missed a beat for he recognised the man. It was the man he had seen at the stadium in Chicago. It was Innes! He had come to find Reagan.
Avedissian was caught in two minds. His hand closed over the butt of the pistol in his pocket. Should he kill Innes in cold blood when he re-emerged or should he return to Kathleen and the boy? He heard the sound of raised voices coming from inside Reception and moved to a position where he could see through the glass. Innes and the slob were arguing heatedly about something. The slob's wife joined him and Avedissian heard the word 'police' mentioned as the slob picked up the phone. He could see that Innes was still trying to reason with the man but with little success. There had been too many strange enquiries from people with foreign accents in the middle of the night and a bomb had gone off earlier at the Plaza Hotel.
Avedissian decided that he was not going to be given the chance to get Innes on his own and the thought of the police being called to the motel sent him scurrying back along the row. He paused outside each chalet to look through the windows of the car parked there. Then he saw what he wanted to see. One had been left with the keys in the ignition!
Avedissian climbed into the driving seat and turned the key. The engine turned noisily on the starter but did not fire. Sweat broke out on his forehead as he tried again, his foot stabbing at the accelerator, but still nothing. A face appeared at the chalet window but Avedissian was committed. He held his foot hard down on the pedal and tried again. The engine turned over with declining enthusiasm then fired with a roar of noise. At the same moment he saw Kathleen and the boy running towards him.
The car lurched forward and Avedissian leaned over to open the passenger door. Kathleen flung herself inside clutching the child to her. As Avedissian turned the car in a noisy and clumsy three-point turn he caught a glimpse of a man appearing at the chalet door; he was pulling on his trousers and yelling something after them. They screeched out of the gate and Kathleen looked back to see Innes emerge from Reception. For a moment he was framed in the light from inside, then she saw him run to his car.
TEN
Avedissian had no idea at all where they were going, only that they were going there fast. He checked the dials on the facia and found the fuel gauge; it registered half full. That was the only one that mattered right now. His foot went down hard on the brake as they came to a large, green signboard and Kathleen had to slam her free hand against the dashboard to stop herself being flung forward. Her other hand held the boy.
'Fasten your belt,’ said Avedissian.
'When I get a chance.'
Avedissian read the sign then wrenched the wheel over to the left and screeched off again down the slip road and out on to the inter-state highway.
'The speed limit is fifty-five,’ said Kathleen as she saw the needle climb to eighty.
Avedissian, whose nerves were at fever pitch, wanted to snap angrily at Kathleen but saw that she was right. There was no point in attracting the attention of the Highway Patrol. He eased back on the pedal until their speed dropped to sixty and the tightness in his throat wore off. 'Can you see anyone behind us?' he asked.
Kathleen turned and looked. 'No, no one,’ she replied.
They came to an interchange and slowed. 'If you were Innes what way would you guess at?' demanded Avedissian.
'East,’ said Kathleen.
'I'd say west… so we'll choose neither.' Avedissian circled through the interchange and nosed the car out on to the north-bound carriageway.
'What's to the north?' asked Kathleen.
'Very little. We need breathing space.'
An hour had passed when Avedissian turned on the radio to break a silence that he was beginning to find oppressive. 'How is the boy?' he asked.
'Sleeping,’ replied Kathleen.
The simple exchange of words served to lessen the tension in the car. Avedissian moved in his seat and altered the position that he had maintained rigidly for the past hour without realising it. Kathleen kneaded her fingers into the back of his neck and whispered, 'Is that better?'
'Much.'
'What do you think?' asked Kathleen, glancing behind.
Avedissian was reluctant to tempt fate but he replied, 'I think we're safe for the time being. I reckon we gave Innes the slip.'
Kathleen leaned forward and changed the radio station to something more soothing than the avant-garde jazz that was grating on her nerves.
'I've been thinking,' said Avedissian. 'If we can still get the money transferred, we can deal with Kell for your brother.'
'Do you mean it?' asked Kathleen.
'Assuming we get out of this alive, I don't see why not. But he's not getting it all. Some of it is for the boy.'
'Did I tell you that I love you?' said Kathleen.
'No,’ replied Avedissian with a smile. 'You never did.'
'Well I do.'
'That could be a very mutual arrangement,’ said Avedissian.
Another hour on the highway and Avedissian said, 'We need petrol.' He pulled off the freeway at the next service area and filled the tank. He was paying the cashier when he saw the reflection of a police car in the glass screen in front of him. He watched it crawl into the station like a cat stalking birds.
‘There you go,’ said the cashier handing him his change, unable to figure out what Avedissian was so intent on.
Avedissian took the money without diverting his eyes. He saw the patrol car creep past and park on the other side of the station outside a building marked 'Hank's Diner' in red neon. He pretended to count his change, but watched the two officers out of the corner of his eye as they got out of the car and stretched their limbs. They adjusted their caps and gun belts before walking towards the diner and opening the door. A blast of juke box sound escaped into the night before the door closed again behind them.
'Good-night,’ said Avedissian to the cashier.
'Safe journey,’ said the man with a puzzled look.
'I thought we were done for,’ said Kathleen as Avedissian got back into the car.
‘They couldn't have looked at the licence plate,’ said Avedissian. 'I suppose cars get stolen all the time in Kansas City.'
‘Thank God,’ said Kathleen. They drove on.
Despite the sentiment Avedissian could not help but feel that they were pushing their luck to unreasonable limits. On impulse he decided to leave the freeway where they would be less likely to meet highway patrol cars. What they needed, he decided, was a place to lie low for a couple of days. Time enough for Innes and NORAID to lose the scent. Time enough for him to try for the transfer of the money.
'Do you know where we are?' asked Kathleen.
'Somewhere in Iowa.'
The night was ending. The comforting glow from the instrument panel, which had made it the centre of their world for the past few hours, was getting unfair competition from a huge sky.
'I've never seen anywhere so flat,’ said Kathleen as she looked out at cornfields stretching to the horizon in all directions. Half an hour later the sun was up, bleaching the world yellow under a perfect hemisphere of blue.
Avedissian parked the car discreetly round the side of a diner near the outskirts of the city of Des Moines and Kathleen woke up the boy. 'Breakfast time, my prince,' she whispered in his ear. The boy awoke with a look of alarm on his face but it quickly disappeared at the sight of Kathleen although he reserved a more baleful look for Avedissian.
Kathleen took the boy to the toilet while Avedissian ordered food for them from a waitress who sucked the tip of her pencil before writing each item down on her pad. She read back the order and Avedissian nodded.
'We have washed our face and are feeling a lot better this morning,' said Kathleen, returning with
the boy, who now seemed wide-awake and hungry. Avedissian smiled at both of them. 'Eat up,' he said. 'We'll all feel better.' He was right, they all did feel a great deal better with a large breakfast inside them.
'Are we going to stay in the city?' asked Kathleen.
'No, we'll skirt round it, I think. But I would like to go to the bank in the city. They must have a branch here and the sooner we do it the better. I want to go alone and I don't want to take the car into town in case we get spotted by some eager-beaver patrolman. That means we have to find somewhere for you and the boy to stay till I get back.'
'We could ask the waitress,' suggested Kathleen.
The waitress sucked her pencil while she thought and then said, 'Old Mrs Lehman, she runs a rooming house about two miles north of here. She can probably fix you up.'
'Sounds ideal,' said Kathleen, listening intently while the woman gave more detailed instructions on how to find the Lehman place.
Avedissian paid and gave the waitress a large tip for her help. 'You're English aren't you?' she said as they went out the door. Avedissian wished that she hadn't.
They found the Lehman house without much trouble and Avedissian was pleased to find that it was well back from the road. The house itself was a wooden building, three storeys high and painted white, although it had been some time since the last painting and large areas were bare where the surface had flaked off. An old woman they took to be Mrs Lehman came out to meet them and Avedissian explained that they wanted a room for a couple of days to break their journey. They hated staying in the city.
'I feel the same myself,' said Mrs Lehman in a strong German accent. 'All that noise and fuss.'
They were shown to a bright, airy room on the first floor and were pleased with it. Avedissian paid in advance and brought in what little they had from the car. It consisted solely of what Kathleen had been able to grab with one hand when they left the motel in such a hurry, but they managed to disguise the fact from Mrs Lehman. Kathleen chatted to her downstairs while Avedissian pretended to carry up their 'luggage'.
‘The boy doesn't say much,' said Mrs Lehman, noting that he seemed immune to all her attempts to make a fuss of him.
'He's very shy,' lied Kathleen. There was probably no need to be evasive but it had become a state of mind.
'We should be safe here,' said Avedissian when they were alone. Kathleen agreed as they looked out of the window to the waving fields of corn. It seemed unlikely that either NORAID or Innes could find them here. 'When will you go into the city?' she asked.
'I'll check on the bus situation with the old woman then go as soon as I can. If we can get it all done today we can lie low here for a couple of days then make for Chicago and a flight home.'
'Wherever that is,' said Kathleen ruefully.
Avedissian put his hands on her shoulders and said softly, 'We'll find somewhere and we'll be together. All right?'
Kathleen nodded and said, 'Go ask Mrs Lehman.'
'You have just missed one,’ said the old woman when Avedissian asked about buses into the city. 'Next one is not for two hours. It stops at the end of the road.'
Avedissian thanked her and returned upstairs.
'Do you know what I'd like to do?' said Kathleen when Avedissian told her of the delay. 'Go for a walk. I feel as if I've been in prison for the last week.'
'We'll all go,’ said Avedissian.
They walked along the dirt road leading from the house to a local farm, with the sun on their backs and a soft breeze drifting through the corn. The child, who had continued to cling to Kathleen at all times up till now, relaxed his grip on her hand for the first time and skipped a few paces ahead of them. Kathleen looked at Avedissian and smiled. 'I think he's getting over it,’ she said.
‘I’ll get him some toys when I'm in the city this afternoon,’ said Avedissian.
'What's going to happen to him in the long run?' asked Kathleen.
'It all depends on where he came from,’ replied Avedissian.
'Where could he have come from?'
'My guess must be some kind of home or orphanage. I can't see any parents being duped into letting their child be used for something like this, can you?'
'I can't see any home or orphanage doing it either,’ replied Kathleen.
'Sometimes the situation with children in care is a bureaucratic mess,’ said Avedissian. The kids get bundled around from one branch of the social services to the next. If, as I suspect, the boy has no living relatives, he would be a real problem for them because of his handicap. Being a deaf-mute would not make him a good bet for adoption.'
'So you think that Bryant exploited some mix-up in the system?' asked Kathleen.
'Or created it,’ said Avedissian bitterly.
'If it does turn out that he has no relations…’ said Kathleen uncertainly.
Avedissian could see what was coming. 'Y-e-s?' he said with a smile.
'Do you think he could possibly…?'
'Why not?' said Avedissian. 'We're all in the same boat. Maybe we should stick together.’
Kathleen took Avedissian's arm and hugged it. Avedissian checked his watch and said, 'We'll have to start back.’
The bus was ten minutes late but Avedissian had been able to watch it coming for the last five minutes because of the dust cloud it had created in the distance. He climbed aboard and paid the driver, who asked him if he was staying at the Lehman place. Avedissian said that he was and the driver proceeded to tell him what a fine woman Rosa Lehman was and how she had two fine boys who had gone East to pursue careers in the professions. Lawyers, he thought, or maybe one of them was a doctor. He always did get mixed up between the Lehman boys and the Miller boys down in Twin Forks.
'Rosa's boys are both lawyers,’ prompted one of the other three passengers on the bus. 'It's Johnny Miller who became the doctor.'
'Thank you, Martha,’ said the driver without turning his head. 'You staying long?' he asked Avedissian.
'A couple of days.’
'You're English, aren't you?'
'Yes.’
'Don't get too many Englishmen in these parts,’ said the driver. It had been a cue for Avedissian to say what he was doing there but Avedissian just looked out of the window and, to his relief, the driver did not pursue the matter.
The journey took forty minutes and Avedissian stepped out in the centre of Des Moines in the early afternoon. He asked the driver about a return bus and was given details of when and where he could pick one up. 'Have a nice day,’ said the driver.
'You too,’ said Avedissian.
He found the main branch of the bank he was looking for without much difficulty, for all the banks seemed to be clustered together in the heart of the city, and walked in through the impressively tall doors. It was cool inside the main banking hall, thanks to air-conditioning. It was just a question of approaching the correct window for his purpose. There seemed to be more than twenty and all were manned.
Seeing that he appeared indecisive, an armed guard approached Avedissian and asked if he could be of assistance. The words were polite but the face was stone.
'I want to open an account,’ said Avedissian.
'Number fourteen, at the end,’ said the guard, pointing with his finger.
Thank you.'
'Welcome.'
As he walked across the floor to window fourteen Avedissian wondered if he were walking on real marble or whether it was just a very good imitation. The support columns in the hall appeared to be made of the same, endowing the place with an aura of Greek grandeur. A nation in search of a heritage, he thought, as he smiled at the lady in the window.
'How may I help you?'
‘I’d like to open an account.'
'Checking?'
'No, deposit.'
The woman took a form from the collection to her left and started writing. 'How much would you like to deposit, sir?'
'What's the minimum?'
'A dollar.’
'A dollar,’ sai
d Avedissian.
The woman looked up briefly at him before exercising a professional control over her features and carrying on with the paperwork.
Avedissian said, 'Am I right in thinking that all details relating to this account will be kept confidential?'
'Yes sir… your dollar is safe with us.’
Avedissian thought the teller was being impudent until he saw that she was pointing to the bank's logo. 'Do you have a branch in London?' he asked.
'London, England?'
'Yes.’
'I'll have to check.’
The woman went to confer with a colleague sitting at a computer terminal. Avedissian saw the colleague pick up a blue-covered book and flick through the pages before nodding and pointing to an entry.
'Yes sir, we do,’ said the teller.
'Is it possible to have an account transferred between here and England?'
‘I’ll have to ask again.’ She asked. 'Yes, sir, it's possible. When the time comes you just fill in the appropriate form and we will transfer the account.’
'I'd like to fill it in now,’ said Avedissian.
'Now, sir? You want to transfer an account of one dollar?'
'I want to fill in the form just now. I don't want the account transferred till Friday. I'm expecting a large sum of money.’
The teller brought the appropriate form and Avedissian completed it. He handed it back saying, ‘Is there anything else I have to do?'
'No, sir, that's everything.’ The teller handed Avedissian confirmation of his one dollar deposit and the all-important account number that he had come to get. 'Have a nice day.’
Avedissian stepped out into the sunshine and felt that things were going his way. He paused at a news-stand and bought a paper before going to a nearby cafe and ordering coffee and doughnuts.
The story on page three destroyed his sense of well-being. His spine tingled as he looked at the photograph of the motel chalet where a man had been murdered. Police were looking for an English couple who had made their getaway in a stolen car. The description and licence number of the car were given. The worst news was that a gas station cashier had reported seeing an Englishman driving a car similar to the description a few hours after the murder. He had been heading north on the freeway.