by Marnie Perry
Olivia did as she said and sat on the sofa. Adela watched her as she moved about the kitchen. She asked, ‘did anything happen, did anyone come knocking?’
Olivia shook her head, ‘no. But it seems like hours since you went.’
Adela smiled, ‘I know, there’s nothing worse than waiting for something or someone, I’d rather be the doer than the waiter.’
Olivia returned the smile a little tremulously.
When they were each seated with their tea, Adela tried to take Olivia’s mind from the last few hours or so by going through the bags, showing Olivia what she had bought and asking if she liked her choices.
Olivia shook her head and Adela’s face fell, ‘oh I'm sorry, I just thought they might suit your colouring, well the colour you’ll be when we’ve dyed your hair.’ She gave a nervous little laugh.
Olivia was quick to reassure, ‘no no, Adela, they’re lovely, perfect, it’s just that…’
‘Just what?’
‘Just that you shouldn’t have gone to this trouble and spent so much money on me like this. I know these are designer jeans, a cheap pair and a top would have done.’
Adela was relieved, ‘what, and deny myself the pleasure of clothes shopping? What a spoil sport you are.’
Olivia smiled and Adela said, ‘well, go and try them on, see if they fit all right.’
Olivia rose picked up the bags and went into the bathroom while Adela leaned back in the armchair and let out a long breath. Despite her outward calm she had been frightened today. Frightened that Olivia might leave while she was gone and get caught by those two goons. Frightened that she would meet them herself in the town, or worse still in the woods. She was relying on the thought that if she did meet them they would not recognise her from the other night. Her accent giving her away did not worry her, she knew what she would do if that occasion arose.
Olivia came out of the bathroom in the jeans one of the T-Shirts and the trainers, they all fitted perfectly. She did a little twirl.
Adela smiled, ‘that’s better, now you look like a woman instead of a giant in dwarfs clothing.’
Olivia chuckled, ‘the other things fit too. Thank you, Adela.’
‘You’re very, very welcome, Olivia,’ Adela replied softly and for the first time since they’d met Olivia’s lips trembled as she fought back tears.
Adela leapt to her feet and said cheerfully, ‘so now the really fun part,’ she picked up the hair dye, ‘off with the old and on with the new.’
It worked and Olivia rolled her eyes and the trembling lips turned up in a grimace, ‘come on then, let’s get it over with.’
They went into the bathroom and Olivia sat in the wicker chair while Adela began to cut her hair. Olivia’s shoulders were very tense and Adela had the feeling that this time the tension was not caused by the thought of those two men showing up. She laughed, ‘please, Olivia, relax, I’m not going to hack it to pieces, neither your hair nor your ears.’
Olivia said, ‘have you ever done this before, cut someone’s hair I mean?’
‘Of course. I cut my mother’s all the time. Although of course she was unconscious or drunk most of the time so didn’t really care what she looked like, but I quite like the buzz cut.’
Olivia swung round to look at her and saw the dancing lights in Adela’s eyes, ‘oh you’re funny.’
Adela laughed, ‘come on, doubting Thomasina, let me work my magic. Olivia gave her an impatient look.
When she had finished Olivia stood and looked in the bathroom cabinet mirror which hung on the wall above the sink. Adela asked, ‘well, what do you think.’
Olivia looked through squinted eyes at her hair then her eyes opened wider in surprise. Adela had cut her hair into a bob that came just below her chin and grew shorter at the sides and even shorter at the back. It was very modern. She said, ‘oh, oh it’s nice, I like it, yes, I like it a lot. You’re a jack of all trades, Adela.’
Adela was grinning very pleased, ‘see, oh yea of little faith.’ Olivia’s smiling face reflected back to her in the mirror as she moved her head from side to side letting her new hair swing gracefully back and forth.
Adela said, ‘right, now for the piece de résistance.’ She snapped on the gloves then opened the first box which contained a solution that would strip the black from Olivia’s hair; this had to be done before the brown colour could be applied. While they waited Adela laid out the rest of her plan.
‘The first thing we have to do is drive the hire car over the state line, I don’t want to risk a taxi, the less people who see us and can be questioned the better. But the only problem with that is that is I can’t drive, well, I can but I don’t have a licence, and you need either a drivers licence or credit card to hire a car. It’s possible to pay with cash but a lot more difficult and there will be a delay while they check my credentials. I don’t want to risk being pulled over by the police and asked awkward questions, but I’m willing to drive if I have too. I don’t suppose that this Glissando person ever allowed you to have a licence.’
Olivia was silent for a moment then said, ‘look there in my old clothes.’
Adela did and to her amazement found a passport and drivers licence. She looked at Olivia, ‘but how and where did you get these?’
‘I had them done just before the last time I ran away, a man I knew and trusted did them for me.’
Adela looked inside the passport and saw that it was made out to Orla Rushkova as was the driver’s licence. She asked, ‘who is this person?’
‘She’s me, or was going to be, and maybe now still will be.’
‘But this man who made these for you, who I take it is a forger, are you sure you can trust him, how do you know he won’t give you up and Glissando won’t be checking the airline manifests for this name?’
‘Glissando knows nothing about them; I managed to hide them from him last time because I had two passport’s and drivers licences in different names. He found one set, but not this one.’ She gave a small smile, ‘I planned ahead just in case.’
Adela was impressed but still uneasy, ‘but how can you be so sure this forger won’t betray you.’
Olivia looked down at her hands and her voice was very low as she said, ‘’because he’s dead.’
‘Oh I’m sorry.’ When Olivia did not elaborate Adela asked, ‘did…did Glissando kill him.’
Olivia nodded, ‘he found the passport and discovered who had done them. I tried to tell him that he was wrong but it was no good. I think he would have killed him even if he had not been the one who helped me, just to make a point that anyone he even suspected of aiding me would pay dearly.’
‘Good God, that man is evil.’
‘Adela, you have no idea.’
Adela said nothing to this. Sometimes when her mother ranted and raved and said awful, horrible things to her she had thought that her evil, but this Glissando was in a league all of his own. She said, ‘so you have a passport, a driver’s licence and a new name, that makes things much easier. I’m afraid my knowledge of creating new identities is cutting and dyeing hair and buying clothes. I wouldn’t know where to start with false papers.’
‘And why should you. I bet when you set of on this vacation you never expected to meet someone like me did you?’
Adela managed a smile, ‘well, I’ll be better prepared next time.’
Olivia laughed and Adela said, ‘I’m relieved I must say that you have that licence, it would have been hard enough to drive anyway, but on the wrong side of the road would have been almost impossible for me. So we just need the car to get us out of the state. I’ll hire the car in my name and we’ll drive to say, Tennessee. My guess is that Glissando will think you’ll go for the quickest and easiest route out of the country and you’ll head for Mexico. But we’ll fool him by going the other way, north.’
She stopped speaking because Olivia was looking at her in consternation. Adela said, ‘I’m sorry, I’m doing what that man did and organising your life for y
ou, I just thought this would be the best way. But I’m sorry I…
Olivia interrupted her, ‘no, no, Adela it’s not that.’
‘Then what?’
‘It’s just that you keep saying “we.”
‘Yes, that’s right, we, as in you and me.’
‘But surely you don’t intend to come with me.’
Adela smiled, ‘not to wherever it is you’ll eventually end up, but to Tennessee? Yes, of course.’
Olivia shook her head emphatically, ‘Adela, you don’t know what you’re saying, you can’t do this, you can’t break into your vacation time like this and travel across the country with me. And much more importantly it’s dangerous, if they catch us, they’ll…they’ll…
It was Adela’s turn to interrupt, ‘I can’t let you go alone, Olivia, and what’s more I’m not going too. I have to make sure you get away safe and sound, otherwise I’ll never have another moment’s peace,’ she smiled, ‘and you wouldn’t want that would you?’
But Olivia did not smile in return instead she looked angry and snapped, ‘what is wrong with you, did you not hear a word I said? Did you not hear what I told you about Dashiel? He’s a mad man, a lunatic, a psychopath.’
Adela’s smile vanished and she said softly but seriously, ‘I heard you, Olivia, but it changes nothing I’m going with you and that’s all there is t it.’
Olivia leapt to her feet and yelled now, ‘don’t you get it, he’ll kill you, he’ll hurt you and take great pleasure in it, then he’ll kill you, slowly, as an example, to me, to anyone that might be thinking of turning against him, just like Grady, the passport guy. Would you like me to describe what he did to him just as Dashiel described it to me?’
Her voice quietened but remained hard, ‘this isn’t one of your crime novels, Adela where the good guys come to the rescue at the last moment, there are no good guys, just two women, one scared to death and running for her life, the other too innocent and too naive to see that this is real and not some story. No private investigator is going to come to our aid, there is no Fenn Llewellyn just waiting to leap to our defence.’
When Adela said nothing but stared at Olivia her face pale and wounded she sat down next to her on the bath and said softly, ‘please, please understand, you can’t come with me, Adela. If anything happened to you because of me, because you helped me, I’ll never know another moment’s peace.’
Adela looked into Olivia’s concerned frightened eyes for several seconds then said, ‘Olivia, why don’t we go to the police, or better still the F.B.I. If you have something on Glissando you could help to bring him down and put an end to him once and for all. They’ll protect you, put you in a witness protection programme, give you a new identity, keep you safe.’
‘Adela, I’ve told you, he has the police on his payroll, even federal agents. How do you think they found me so easily last time?’
‘He can’t have all the federal agents in the country in his pocket. Surely his reach doesn’t extend to say New York or Washington. Yes, we can go there, to the FBI offices in Washington. They have special departments that deal with cases like yours, I’ve read about them.’
‘Even if they believed me they wouldn’t get him anything on him, he’s too clever, they couldn’t protect me, someone would betray me and he’d track me down eventually.’
Adela said placatingly, ‘all right, don’t get upset, it was just a thought that’s all.’ She stood up, ‘look, it’s time to wash your hair; we’ll talk about the subject of my coming with you later.’
Olivia stared at her then shook her head in frustration but stood up and let Adela wash her hair. Adela took out her hairdryer and blow dried it, fluffing it up as she did so.
When she’d finished she said, ‘right, are you ready to look?’
Olivia seemed uncertain but blew out her breath and stood and once again looked in the mirror. She stared then leaned forward towards the mirror as if uncertain who she was looking at, then she giggled, then she began to laugh, a real laugh, the first real laugh she had made in a long, long time and thought she had forgotten how to do.
Adela turned to her in complete amazement then she too began to laugh and they fell against each other as though they would never stop. It was a while before either woman realised that their laughter was just a little hysterical.
CHAPTER 8.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern had been in Alban all morning asking questions, and were now sipping coffee in the same café that Adela had frequented two days before, being served by the same waitress. They were hot and frustrated, and although neither would admit it to the other, scared witless.
They had spoken to a lot of people today but of the ten people…not including Jonas Lando…that Adela had spoken to since she’d been in Alban the two men had questioned only seven of them, none of whom had seen or heard of an Australian woman staying in the town or near by. And luckily for Adela and Olivia not one of the eight had thought to mention that, although they had not seen an Australian woman, an English woman had frequented the shops and café’s nearby, maybe because they never thought of it or perhaps they unlike the two men did not consider the two accents similar in any way.
They men had pulled in every marker and favour they could think of in both their old department in the F.B.I and assorted police departments in Alabama, but as yet no one had come through, Desi had simply vanished.
Rosencrantz said, ‘my gut tells me that she didn’t wander far from the town we almost had her in, she had no money and no means of getting about.’
‘Well, give Mr. Glissando a call and give him that really useful piece of information,’ said his friend, ‘I’m sure he’ll be just as pleased as all hell’
‘You being sarcastic, you fuck?’
‘Who me? Sarcastic?’
‘Well that ain’t helping, partner.’
Guildenstern sighed, ‘sorry, partner.’
‘Okay.’
‘You know, I’m damn sure that was her we saw with the hat, my gut tells me that she’s her somewhere, hiding out. Wanna try that weird guy again, put some pressure on him, see how he likes looking down the wrong end of a Glock?’
Rosencrantz shook his head, ‘much as I’d like too, Mr. Glissando said to play it cool, be nice.’ They both laughed.
Jill the waitress came over carrying a pot of coffee and asked if they wanted a refill, they both nodded.
Just then the door opened and Sammy Know It All entered. Jill said, ‘be with you in a tick, Sammy.’
Sammy smiled and said, ‘no problem, Jill honey, I ain’t in no hurry today.’
‘You ain’t gone and got yourself fired again, Sammy?
‘No nothing like that, Jill, just running errands for Mr. George, he said to take my time.’
Jill smiled to herself, she knew why George told Sammy to take his time, the more time he spent in here the less time he spent at the ranch.
Sammy was a great guy, funny and kind and sweet, but he was slow and simple and over eager to please, getting in the way and causing more work for everyone else. George Monday was a good man, a kind man, who should have let Sammy go a while back but he didn’t have the heart so gave him easy jobs and told him to take his time. Sammy spent hours in the café. The people sitting at the table closest to Glissando’s two goons, a man and a woman with a child finished their drinks left their money on the table and said goodbye. They were at the door when the women came running back saying, ‘I’d forget my head if it weren’t fastened on.’ She picked up her hat from the chair and looked at Jill who returned her smile. The woman put on the hat as she joined her husband and son on the pavement.
Sammy said, ‘that’s made me think, Jill, ain’t seen that lady in here again.’
‘Which lady?’
The foreign lady.’
Jill frowned perplexed and Sammy said, ‘ya know, that lady, she was hot.’
Jill poured Sammy’s coffee and said, ‘now, Sammy, that ain’t no way to talk about a lady, foreign or
not.’
Sammy looked at her not understanding then blushed bright red as her meaning came to him. He spoke very quickly, ‘no, Jill, no, I meant hot as in hot from the sun, she walked a lot she said, came in all hot and bothered, was wearing a real pretty hat, said she was doing a tour or some such.’
Jill laughed and said, ‘I know, Sammy, I was just fooling with ya. But I remember who you mean, nice lady, English.’ Jill would certainly remember the twenty dollar tip the English woman had left that was for sure. ‘No, I ain’t seen her since that day either.’
‘Maybe she moved on to the next place on her itinry.’
‘Itinerary. And yeah, probably.’
She moved away to the next table and Sammy sipped his coffee looking forward to an afternoon of ease. Neither of them noticed the two men at the next table listening intently to their conversation nor the glances that passed between them.
Guildenstern opened his mouth to speak but Rosencrantz shook his head, took out his wallet, dropped ten dollars onto the table, stood up and walked to the door. Guildenstern following almost at a run.
Once outside Rosencrantz grabbed Guildenstern’s arm and pulled him down the side of the building out of sight, once out of earshot of any passer-by he said, ‘a foreigner, an English woman wearing a pretty hat. That woman in the alley, the one who called out to us that night, she must have been English.’
‘I thought you said she was Australian.’
‘Whatever, they both sound the same to me. And Tallahassee is only ten miles or so from here.
Maybe the English bitch brought Desi back here and it was her we saw yesterday wearing the ill fitting clothes and the hat. If the woman is staying around here she might have run back to her.’
‘But we’ve questioned lots of people here and no one remembers seeing her.’
‘That’s because we were asking about an Australian woman you stupid prick.
‘Well at least they knew the difference which is more than you did, so who’s a prick now.’
‘Do you want to get into it or do you want to find Desi?’
For a moment Guildenstern looked as if he might go for the former but then shrugged and said, ‘we have to question some of the town’s people again. Ask for an English woman this time.’