The question came out of nowhere. Jerry stumbled around a few moments, pacing the room in his underwear and bare feet holding the cell phone to his ear, trying to get his bearings. “What? No. Course not. She’s a fucking skank, like you said. She fucking wanted to kill me. She wanted me dead. I’m the one who is putting her in prison.”
And he wondered for a moment what he was doing, rescuing that same woman. Still loving that same woman.
“What time you gonna be home?” Jade asked.
“Couple days. I’ll make it to around Charlotte tomorrow. I’ll call you along the way. Okay?”
Jerry wondered if she was buying anything he was saying. There was something about the tone of her voice . . .
“I have to get going. I need to get some sleep.”
“I can’t wait to see you,” Jade said.
“Me too,” Jerry said, and he didn’t have to fake the sentiment. He did miss her.
After Jerry hung up with Jade, he called Holly. It was quarter to three.
“I’m on my way,” Jerry said. “Be waiting for me out front.
Look out for any strange cars parked in front of your house.”
“Strange cars?”
“Fox.”
“Oh, Jesus.”
“Okay,” he said. “See you in a few.”
“Hey, Jerry?”
“What, Ja— ah, Holly?”
“What? Jade? That whore–”
“No, please, Holly,” he said, “stop it. I’m exhausted and hyperventilating at the same time.” He sighed. “So what? What did you want to say?”
It was her turn to sigh.
“I was going to say,” she said, “I love you.” That surprised him. “Jerry?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I heard you. I love you too. See you in twenty.”
He hung up the phone, clutched his suitcase, and rushed out the door.
It took Jerry fifteen long minutes or so to make it to Northview Lane keeping exactly to the speed limit the entire time. He drove all the way down to the end of the street and turned around in a driveway. There were only a couple cars parked along the street, but none of them looked occupied. Fox was not there. Jerry pulled along the curb in from of 320 Northview and his heart raced when he saw Holly step out the front door carrying a small suitcase.
Jerry reached over and opened the door and Holly got in. She turned around and deposited her suitcase on the backseat. Before he was able to put the car in gear and get on with their journey, she leaned over kissed him.
“I meant what I said, Jerry,” she whispered. “I love you.” Jerry leaned in and kissed her. “Let’s get out of this fucking town.”
“Alright,” she whispered. Someday, Jerry hoped to trust her again. Someday.
Jerry managed to drive twelve straight hours, stopping only twice to piss and once to grab burgers for both of them, before he had to stop just south of Columbia, South Carolina. Holly kept him awake with her constant chatter about movies and acting and the Anonymous Man and once, briefly, how sorry she was for doing what she did to him. For her affair with Jeff.
She fell silent for a time after telling Jerry that.
“Do you love him?” Jerry asked. The sun had just come up and everything was bathed in a gray hue.
“No.”
“Did you?”
“I thought I did. Maybe.”
“You plotted to kill me.”
“That was all Jeff,” she said.
“No,” Jerry said. “You brought it up.”
“No,” she assured him. “You— you heard it wrong. I— I started out loving him but then I grew afraid of him. Jeff is, well, a little off, I think. He—he enjoyed killing that body guy. Enjoyed it.
“I tried to talk him out of it, you know. But he said we couldn’t leave any witnesses behind.” Holly sighed. “I’m so sorry, Jer. But all that is behind us. We’ve got each other now. We’ve gotten back what we lost.”
But then, Jerry thought about Jade.
Chapter Forty-Two
Finally in Kissimmee, Jerry helped Holly settle into a room at a decent enough motel along Route 192 and then told her he had to go see Jade.
“Okay, Jerry,” she said. “You gonna tell her about me or what?”
“Not just yet,” he said.
“Aren’t you gonna fuck me again?” she asked and gave him a mischievous grin.
Jerry laughed. “My dick is going to fall off, girl,” he said.
He laid down next to her and brought her to him. She was thin and subtle and looked so much like Jade. A tug of something suggested that he start kissing her, but he resisted. He had to go home to Jade.
“This is short-term,” he told Holly. “In a couple of weeks, you’ll be in your own apartment. You’ll get used to it. I’ll take care of you. I’ll see you.”
“How are you gonna juggle her and me?”
“Let’s just settle in,” was his response. “Take it one day at a time.”
She got quiet and moved away from him and laid back.
Staring up at the ceiling, she said, “Okay, go then. Go to her, your precious Jade.” She said the name, “Jade,” like it was crap.
“C’mon, Holly,” he tried to reason with her, but he knew that if the roles were reversed, he’d be feeling the same way. Vulnerable, left out.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” she said. “I left everything back there. Everything. My parents, my sister, my baby brother. I’ll never see them again, will I? I wasn’t the one who was supposed to become anonymous.”
“Would it have been better to see them in jail?” he asked. “And maybe, somehow, we can get word to them, when the dust settles. You’re a fugitive, not dead.”
As Jerry held her, he considered blowing off Jade, calling her and telling her the car had broken down or something. But as he had told Holly, Jade was no dummy. She would see straight through that story, and both he and Holly might be on the street, with no one to interact with the world for them. While they might be able to last for some time without identities, Jerry believed that they ultimately needed some kind of cover.
Although he could likely find someone else, man or woman, to stand in as their front, he truly cared for Jade and trusted that she wouldn’t squeal him out. They had a relationship beyond her being his front. She loved him, and he loved her, although his feelings for her had admittedly been muddled now that Holly was back in his life.
“I really have to go,” Jerry told Holly as he slid away from her. “And at some point, I promise you, I am going to figure this Jade thing out.”
She turned to her side and looked up at him. “Go then.”
But as he went out the door, Holly did not say goodbye. And he was long gone by the time Holly opened the door to the motel room, peeked up and down the deserted parking lot, and walked out into a bright, clear afternoon. She walked toward the lobby, constantly alert for someone on her heels, looking back every few steps.
Holly left the lobby, walked across the street and entered the foyer of a diner. She sighed with relief when she saw the pay phone. She picked up the receiver and placed a call. At the other end, Jeff’s cell phone chimed.
Chapter Forty-Three
The moment Jerry pulled the Corolla into the garage, Jade was out there, on him. She smothered him with kisses as he stepped out of the car but Jerry suspected she was sniffing for the scent of another woman on him rather than seeking romance.
“I missed you, hon,” she said and hugged him close. “Let’s fuck.”
“Let me take a shower first,” he laughed.
Jade let him go and Jerry took a long, hot shower. As he stepped out of it, Jade was waiting there in the bathroom holding his boxers.
“You've been with her,” she said, not a question. Jerry bowed his head.
“I smell her stink all over these.” She nodded to the laundry basket in the walk-in closet. “On all your fucking clothes.”
Jerry wrapped the towel around himself and sulked as he lea
ned against the double sink cabinet.
“Yes,” he admitted and looked up at her. “She came back with me. I – I didn’t know what else to do. I couldn’t send her to jail.”
“You fucking asshole!”
Jade ran at Jerry and slapped at his bare chest. He grabbed her wrists and started to twist them around.
“Jade! Jade!” he cried. “Let me explain. Please.”
She yanked free of him and backed away into the bedroom in tears. She turned her back to him and took a few long breaths trying to regain her composure.
“You’re a sick, weak fool,” was all she said. “You keep fooling yourself that you’ve changed, become a superhero, but you’re still a fat, scared little boy.”
Jerry walked over and sat on the edge of the bed. He had chosen the wrong fork in the road and it was too late to turn back because he had run out of gas. But in the next moment, Jade surprised him by walking over, plopping down next to him, and placing his head on her bosom.
“No, you’re not,” she said. “You’re not weak. You still love her, don’t you?”
He let her console him for a time, rocking gently in her arms on the edge of the bed. But no, he couldn’t leave it at that. He broke out of her arms and stood.
“No, I’m fucked up,” he said and seemed to have reached a sudden, irrevocable conclusion. “I can’t do this. I can’t have both of you. What was I thinking? Look. I can never trust her again. Our love is over. The first night she screwed Jeff, it was over. And now, I love you. Only you.
“I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking. It was as if she bewitched me back there. You were right, I should never have gone back. What was it for? All I need is you, the treasure you are.”
Jerry leaned forward and kissed Jade. And she kissed him back. There was no doubt in his mind that she loved him. Not a shred of doubt.
“I need to do something about her.” He looked away from Jade, cursing himself. “Why did I fucking have to bring her here? To spoil us?”
“It hasn’t spoiled us, hon,” Jade said. She looked deep into Jerry’s eyes. “It’s brought us closer together. Made us realize what we have. She made you realize who you are. Who you love.”
Jerry nodded.
“I have to get rid of her,” he said. “Tell her it’s not going to work out between us.”
Jade was shaking her head. “Just call the cops on her,” she said. “There must be a warrant out for her arrest by now.”
“Yeah, sure.” Jerry's eyes went wide. “Yeah, I could do that. Blow her in. They’d come to the hotel and pick her up and I’d never have to see her again.”
“And we live happily ever after.”
“But that would be such a coward’s way out,” Jerry said.
Jade laughed and reached over and pulled him down to bed with her.
“Yes,” she said, “but what sweet revenge.” Jerry laughed.
“You are one evil bitch,” Jerry said. He rolled on top of her and straddled her hips. “An evil whore is what you are.”
She giggled and let him kiss her. “But I can't do it,” he said softly.
“Well then go cut that bitch a break,” Jade said. “But I think you will be sorry. Real sorry.”
Chapter Forty-Four
With Holly having fled, all hell broke loose. McGraw had to go to Judge Pratt and get an order revoking her bail and obtain a bench warrant for her arrest. Stauber got wind of it and brought a motion to lower Flaherty’s bail. Jeff was out of the county holding pen in less than an hour.
“You got any idea where she went?” Chief Reynolds wanted to know after Fox stopped by his office and broke the bad news.
“No,” he said flatly. “Not a clue.”
“Christ,” Chief Reynolds said and scratched his chin for a time. “What about that Gordon fellow?”
“I checked it out. Gordon is some schlep living in Queens. Some accountant. He did go to school at SUNY Binghamton and he knew Holly Shaw and Jerry Shaw for that matter. But he hadn’t seen them since college.”
“And you haven’t come up with how he, the guy you interviewed, came up with that name?”
“I have no clue on this one, Chief. I really don’t. All my years, I never been this baffled.”
“So where do we go from here?” the Chief asked.
“The speedy trial clock is ticking. If they don’t bring Flaherty to trial in six months, the case gets dismissed. But going to trial without Holly Shaw is as good as a dismissal anyway. At least, that’s what Miller thinks, and he was speaking for McGraw. It’s my opinion as well.”
“What a disaster,” said the Chief. And it’s all my fault, thought Fox. “Flaherty made bail,” Fox added.
“So?” asked the Chief. “That good or bad?”
“Maybe good,” Fox said. “He might just lead us to Holly.”
“You think they’re that stupid?”
“Why not?” Fox said.
“Alright,” said Chief Reynolds. “Tail Flaherty. See what happens and we’ll reassess in a week from now.”
Jeff Flaherty looked both ways the moment he stepped out of his apartment. He hesitated momentarily, then walked gingerly down the hall to the steps leading to the parking lot of his building. In his right hand was a duffle bag. Of course, he had no idea that Jack Fox was in the lot, staking him out, settled in the past eight hours in an inconspicuous rented compact sedan.
Flaherty was still looking around as he got into his silver Lexus, the same one Fox had seen him driving to and from the Shaw residence within a few days of Jerry Shaw’s funeral. He pulled out of the lot and drove toward the Thruway entrance. Fox stayed a safe distance behind him. He gave himself a symbolic pat on the back for having planted a GPS device on the inside of the Lexus’ front wheel well not a half hour before Flaherty had come down from his apartment to go wherever he was going.
Fox stayed beyond the rearview mirror field of Flaherty’s Lexus and used Global’s GPS system to monitor his speed and direction. What it told him was that Flaherty was heading south a few miles per hour over the speed limit. To Holly.
Seven hours later, Fox was yawning and in serious need of sleep as Flaherty entered Virginia on Interstate 77.
“I think he’s heading to Florida,” Fox told Chief Reynolds.
He was holding a cell phone to his left ear. “Florida? How do you know that?”
“Just a feeling,” Fox said. But it was a strong one.
“You think he’s driving straight through?” Reynolds asked. “To Florida, or wherever he’s going?”
“Wouldn’t you?”
“I guess,” said Reynolds.
“And he’s younger than me,” said Fox. “When I was his age I could drive straight through to California if need be.”
“Well,” said the Chief, “if you’re feeling sleepy, stop. We got the GPS.”
“At some point,” said Fox, “he’s gonna wonder about that, I think, if someone did that. Like us. I’m surprised he hasn’t already. He’s a smart guy.”
As if on cue, in the next moment, Fox got a report from the GPS system that Flaherty’s car had exited the interstate at a rest area. “And I think maybe he’s finally done that,” Fox told Chief Reynolds. “Figured it out. He’s stopping.”
“Or maybe he just has to take a leak.”
The Chief was right this time. After the pit stop, Flaherty's Lexus entered the interstate, then sped up to seventy-five, and kept heading south. But not ten minutes later, Flaherty exited at an exchange and pulled into the first gas station. A couple minutes later, Fox exited at the same exchange and stopped in McDonald’s across the state road onto which the exchange exited. He waited there for fifteen minutes, sipping a cup of coffee, wondering why Flaherty was taking so long. Finally, he decided to chance it and walk across the state road to the gas station, see if he could sneak around and spot the Lexus.
But the Lexus was nowhere in sight. Flaherty was gone.
Fox ran back across the street, almost getting hit i
n the process. He switched on the GPS and got nothing. It was dead, kaput. Shit! Fox said to himself as he sped out of the McDonald’s lot, almost getting broadsided by a van. “Shit,” he shouted. “Shit!”
Fox got back on the interstate, southbound, and sped up to eighty-five, then ninety. But there was no silver Lexus in sight.
Fox slowed down to around seventy and kept driving. After a time, he called Chief Reynolds.
“What is it?” the Chief asked.
“Chief, “Fox said, “we really got a cluster-fuck now. One major league cluster-fuck.”
Chapter Forty-Five
When Jeff found the GPS tracking device, he cursed himself for being so stupid as to have not checked for it earlier, way back when he had taken off on this trip from the parking lot of his apartment.
Yesterday, not fifteen minutes after finally getting bailed from the rat hole that was the county holding center, he received a frantic call from Holly. She was calling from a pay phone in a diner down in of all places, that tourist trap, Kissimmee, Florida. Jeff had been there a couple times as a kid when his parents had driven him and his younger brother down to spend their hard earned money at Disney World.
“What the fuck you doing down in that shithole?” Jeff asked.
She told him how Jerry had watched the couple days of the trial, in the back of the courtroom and then he approached her. It was Jerry who convinced her to cop a plea, that it was her only ticket to freedom. She apologized profusely and Jeff let her sob for a time. While she cried, he thought back to the first day when he had glanced back to the guy who had walked in during the middle of the medical examiner’s testimony. The guy had looked so goddamned familiar but back then he had not been able to place why. Now, he knew and he nodded briefly, impressed now all the more, thinking again that he and Holly had underestimated the size of Jerry’s balls.
“Do you love him, Holly?”
“How could you ask me that?” she said. “I called you. I’m helping you.”
“Help me? You wanna explain how you’re doing that?”
The Anonymous Man Page 21