That last night, as with any other night I went out to feed, I had put him to sleep with a few strokes on the forehead and then stayed with him to make sure his sleep was deep. But that last night I had also packed a few things, very few, actually, because I had hoped to take very little of our life together to remind me of him. It had made no difference. I saw his face, his smile, heard his laugh and his voice everywhere I went.
I had known for years that the day of leaving was coming. And many times over the years we were together I thought of telling him about my true nature. But I could never overcome the fear. I feared that if he knew he would hate me, fight me, even try to kill me. I feared that he would find a way to expose those of us like me in the city and around the country. But my biggest fear was that he would never be able to stand my youth as he aged.
I could not have stood the look of his hate and disgust.
At least that was what I told myself. As the years passed since I left him I came to believe that my fear had been a stupid one. But I never overcame that fear, at least not until now.
I know my leaving to him must have felt sudden and without reason. I know he spent vast sums of money looking for me. I know he didn’t truly understand.
But for me I had no choice. During the month before I left, comments about my youth were suddenly everywhere; Johnny and our friends had aged, I hadn’t. I even caught Johnny staring at me when he thought I wouldn’t notice.
Three nights before I left, one waitress asked him, while I was in the ladies room, what his daughter, meaning me, wanted for dessert. He had laughed about it, but I could tell he didn’t understand and was bothered. As again he should have been.
The night I left, hidden in a pile of magazines recycled from his office, I found a book about vampires. A well-read book.
I could wait no longer and I knew then that I could never talk to him about it. I had to go that night and I did so, leaving only a note to him that I would always love him.
I moved quickly, silently, in an untraceable fashion, to the East Coast. But less than a year later, no longer able to even fight the fight of keeping him out of my mind, I returned to San Francisco under a new name and began to watch him from afar.
As with me, he never remarried. Many nights he would walk the streets of the city alone, just smiling, almost content. I paced him, watching him, protecting him from others of my kind and from the mortal criminals. I imagined that he knew I was watching him. Pacing him. Walking with him. Protecting him. I pretended that knowing I was there made him happy. Many nights I even thought of actually showing myself to him, holding him again.
But I never did.
I never had the courage.
FIVE
He stirred under the nursing home sheet and I watched him as he awoke. He opened his eyes, saw me, and then smiled. “Good. I was hoping you were more than a dream.”
“No, Slowboat Man, you aren’t dreaming.”
He laughed and gripped my hand and I could feel the warmth flowing between us. I leaned down and kissed him on the cheek, his rough skin warm against my face. As I pulled back I could see a single tear in the corner of his right eye. But in both eyes the look was love. I was amazed.
And very glad.
I had feared he would hate me after I had left him without warning. I had feared that when I came to visit tonight he would ask the questions about my youth and how I had stayed so young, questions that I had always been so afraid to answer. I had feared most of all that he would send me away.
But he didn’t. And the relief flooded through my every cell. Even after almost thirty years he still loved me. I wanted to shout it to the entire world. But instead I just sat there smiling at him.
In the century I had been alive I had never felt or seen a love so complete and total as his love for me.
It saddened me to think that in the centuries to come I might never find it again.
“I’m glad you decided to come and say good-bye,” he said. “I was hoping you would.”
I gently touched his arm. “You know I wanted to when—”
He waved me quiet. “Don’t. You did what you had to do.”
My head was spinning and I wanted to ask him a thousand questions: How he knew? What he knew?
But instead I just sat beside him on the bed and stared at him. After a moment he laughed.
“Now say good-bye properly,” he said. “Then be on your way. I overheard the doctor telling one of the nurses that I might not make it through the night and I don’t want you here when I leave. Might not be a pretty sight.”
I just shook my head at him. I had seen more death than he could ever imagine, but I didn’t want to tell him that.
A long spell of coughing caught him and he half sat up in bed with the pain. I stroked his forehead and he calmed and worked to catch his breath. After a moment he said, “I loved it when you used to do that to me. Always thought it was one of your nicer gifts to me, even though I never understood just how or what you did.”
Again he laughed lightly at what must have been my shocked look. Even after all these years, even with very little force behind it, his laugh could still gladden my heart, make me smile, ease my worries. Again this time it took only a moment before I smiled and then laughed with him.
“Now be on your way,” he said. “The nurse will be here shortly and I have a long journey to make into the next world. I’m ready to go, you know? Actually looking forward to it. You would too if you had an old body like this one.”
I nodded and stood. “Good-bye, my Slowboat Man.” I leaned down and kissed him solidly on his rough, chapped lips.
“Good-bye, my beautiful wife.”
He smiled at me one last time and I smiled back, as I always had.
Then I turned and headed for the door. I knew that I had to leave immediately, because if I didn’t I never would. But this time he wanted me to go. I wasn’t running away.
As I pulled the handle open to the dimly-lit hallway, he called out to me. “Beautiful?”
I stopped and turned.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t slow the boat down this time.”
“That’s all right,” I said, just loud enough for him to hear. “No matter how long or how short the lifetime, sometimes once is enough. Sleep well my Slowboat Man. Sleep well.”
And as the door to his final room closed behind me I added to myself. “And thank you.”
In the first installments, Seattle Police Detectives Bonnie and Craig, while taking a late night walk on a Scottsdale Arizona golf course happen to overhear a conversation between two men plotting to kill a United States Senator.
At the same time, a young golf professional’s wife is kidnapped. Scheduled to play with the Senator, he must do what they ask or his wife will die.
Bonnie and Craig get the FBI and local police involved. Everything is set and they play with the Senator to help protect him.
Nothing goes wrong, but that night, they see the two men again who they had overheard.
Now, the next morning, starting the second round of golf, everyone waits and watches.
AN EASY SHOT
Part 5 of 8
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Sunday, April 9th
7:02 a.m.
BREAKFAST WITH HAGAR was quick, without much talk about what was going on that day with the Senator since they were in a public restaurant with a hundred other golfers. All Hagar had said was that his men were in place and ready. And that he just hoped like hell this was all going to be just a walk in the sun.
Craig agreed completely.
After freezing for the first hour yesterday, Craig brought a jacket and his gloves this morning. Bonnie had done the same, putting on a jacket and lined rain pants over her shorts, swearing she would never get as cold as she had been yesterday again.
Even with the jacket, Craig felt it was almost as cold. And when they reached their cart, they discovered they were riding together. The Senator’s cart was already gone.
“I wonder why our cart assignments were switched?” Bonnie asked.
Craig only shrugged as he dropped down onto the cold seat behind the wheel. “Disappointed you have to ride with your husband?”
“When I can ride with a cute, older, and very powerful United States Senator?” Bonnie asked, smiling at him. “Of course.”
She sat down next to him and put her hand in his lap. “But on the bright side,” she said, “I can do this all day.”
Craig laughed. “Just wait until it warms up and we get out behind some of those rocks on the back side. You’ll see some groping then.”
“Oh,” she said, giving his crotch a squeeze as he turned the cart toward the driving range. “I can hardly wait.”
“Neither can Hagar and Maxwell’s men. We could put a show on for them.”
“Sometimes you just take all the fun out of things,” she said, pretending to pout, but not taking her hand from his crotch.
“I don’t remember taking anything out of anything earlier this morning.”
She just laughed and kept squeezing his crotch all the way to the driving range.
By the third hole Craig had shed his jacket.
By the fourth hole Bonnie was down to her tight yellow shorts and white blouse, getting a whistle of appreciation from the Senator that made her blush again. Craig loved the fact that he had a beautiful and smart wife. Sometimes he worried that she was going to leave him for someone better, but at times like today he just enjoyed her beauty and the fact that other men found her beautiful as well.
Actually, it turned out that riding together in the cart behind the Senator and Danny was more fun for Craig. He and Bonnie pointed out Maxwell and Hagar’s men to each other, and between them could keep a pretty close eye on the Senator at all times. They made sure that one of them was always standing beside him on every green and tee box.
Plus every time Craig had a chance he touched her and she touched him. By the time this was all over he was going to be hot in more ways than just the temperature.
Craig felt as if they had passed a milestone when they reached the mountain-top tee for the sixteenth hole. Two more holes after this one and a quick lunch and the Senator would be on the way to the airport, out of his and Bonnie’s vacation. He had come down here to play golf, spend time with Bonnie and get away from police work. Even though they had had fun so far, it would be nice to have at least one night to not think about life and death situations and protecting a United States Senator.
Just three more holes.
Craig grabbed a five iron and moved up to stand beside Bonnie and the Senator on the top-most tee box. This hole was so beautiful, he just wanted to stand and stare at the valley and mountains below them. The golf course architect had outdone himself when picking this tee box and putting the green down across the canyon. It would be a golf hole Craig would never forget. And one that would be impossible to describe to his friends back in Seattle.
Danny was up first and with his beautiful swing lofted a short iron into the air that floated seemingly forever before landing on the green pretty close to where his ball had been yesterday. Craig would be happy just to have his shot from yesterday again. It was his best of the tournament so far.
The Senator was up next and hit his first shot into the canyon that cut across in front of the green. Disgusted, he dropped another ball. “I’m going to get one over if I have to use every ball in my damned bag.”
Bonnie laughed. “I’ve got an extra dozen you can use as well.”
The Senator frowned at her joke. “Just watch this, young lady.”
His next shot got into the air and for a moment Craig thought it just might make it over after all, but then it came down with a resounding smack right square in the middle of the wooden cart bridge that crossed the canyon near the right front of the green.
“Bulls-eye!” Bonnie yelled.
The ball bounced a good fifty feet into the air, and as they all watched open-mouthed, landed on the green and rolled up closer to the pin than Danny’s ball.
Hagar and an FBI agent standing on the hillside behind the green applauded that shot, laughing and shaking their heads. Craig almost choked from the laughter, and Bonnie turned red trying to not laugh too hard.
The Senator, who was also laughing, seemed extraordinarily proud of himself. He picked up his tee and turned, a massive smile on his face. “I won’t be needing those extra balls, thank you, young lady.”
That broke them all up again. Craig shook the Senator’s hand and Bonnie gave him a peck on the cheek before moving up to the tee. That shot was going to clearly be the highlight of all their rounds.
Bonnie proceeded to hit three into the canyon before she quit in disgust and with much teasing from the Senator about him lending her golf balls.
Craig managed to get his shot over, but barely, landing it in a pile of rocks far to the left of the green. Two shots in two days over the canyon. He was very proud of himself.
They were getting into the carts, still laughing and joking about the Senator’s bridge shot, when suddenly Bonnie grabbed Craig’s arm and whispered to him. “What if those two men weren’t just passing through the cart shed last night?”
She pointed at the warning signs for the steep cart path they had to wind their way down. Who knew what would happen if the brakes failed on a cart on the way down this cliff face. Nothing good, that was for sure.
“Senator!” Bonnie shouted before the Senator could start off. He glanced back.
“Can we talk with you for a moment?” Craig asked.
The Senator was still smiling from his shot, but when he saw the frown on Craig’s face, he nodded and climbed out of the cart to come back to them.
Maxwell, who had had been sitting in a cart just a few yards behind Bonnie and Craig, came up to see what they wanted as well.
Craig watched the Senator as he came back. Danny glanced around, clearly sweating, then turned back to stare over the valley below.
The little voice in Craig’s head said Danny’s reaction seemed odd.
Very odd.
Maxwell reached Craig’s side at the same time the Senator did.
“What’s going on?” Maxwell asked.
Bonnie leaned over Craig in the cart to whisper to both of them. “I just realized that maybe those two men last night might have been in that cart shed for a reason. I remember hearing the sound of metal clanging on the concrete just a moment before we saw them.”
“A tool?” Maxwell asked.
“Maybe,” Craig said. “Did your men check the Senator’s cart?”
“Just for explosives,” Maxwell said, nodding and glancing at the hill in front of them.
“That’s good to know,” the Senator said, shaking his head at the thought of a bomb in his golf cart. “But I can tell you that the brakes have been working great on that cart. I’m sure it will make it down this.”
“Let’s let Danny take it just to make sure,” Craig said. “Humor us, Senator.”
“I agree,” Maxwell said.
The Senator chuckled. “I suppose after that shot, I could use a little walk. At least it’s downhill.”
“I’ll walk with you,” Bonnie said, climbing out of the cart and moving around the cart to stand beside the Senator.
Maxwell nodded, turned, and moved up to the lead cart. “Danny, go ahead and take the cart to the green.”
“But what about the Senator?” Danny asked, clearly sweating now.
Craig stared at the young pro and could clearly see the slight panic hidden just below the surface. Craig knew that look. He knew it from watching hundreds of criminals get caught in the act. Was it possible that Danny was in on the plan to hurt the Senator?
Maxwell glanced back at Craig. Clearly he had seen the same thing.
“The Senator feels like a walk,” Maxwell said.
“That’s a long ways, Senator,” Danny said, clearly trying to get the Senator in the cart.
“Not with a beauti
ful woman it isn’t,” the Senator said, not seeming to notice Danny’s discomfort.
“Go ahead,” Maxwell said, patting the roof of Danny’s cart as the young man reluctantly slid over into the driver’s seat. “We’ll meet you at the green.”
Danny started off, going extra slow.
“Stay with the Senator,” Craig whispered to Maxwell. “I’ll follow Danny.”
Maxwell nodded and quickly turned and spoke softly into a communications device he had in his watch. Craig saw one of the men on the far hill behind the green start down toward the green at once, with Hagar following.
Craig stayed a good twenty paces behind Danny as they went across the cliff face under the tee box and made the first switchback. Twice the kid looked over his shoulder at Craig with a very frightened look.
Craig only smiled.
Clearly the kid knew something, or was very, very afraid of driving a golf cart.
Craig was betting on the kid knowing something.
After the next switchback the cart path took a sharp drop as it crossed the steepest part of the cliff, then made another switchback seemingly out over space. It was the scariest corner on the hill and the most dangerous. There were warning signs to use brakes and watch speed, and there were bumps built into the path to remind any driver to keep the cart’s speed down. On this cliff face, Craig couldn’t imagine any golfer trying to go fast on purpose.
Or forgetting, for that matter.
Ahead of Craig there was a slight pop from the Senator’s cart and Danny looked suddenly panicked.
Danny’s cart seemed to shoot ahead, as if Danny had put his foot on the gas.
On a downhill slope most golf carts have inhibitors that slowed the cart if it got going too fast.
Danny’s clearly did not, or was suddenly broken.
Danny was almost smashing his head on the roof as the cart banged over the warning bumps. He seemed frozen in panic, holding the wheel with both hands, his arms straight ahead.
Smith's Monthly #22 Page 3