Gecko

by Ken Douglas

  “ This is Washington, I won’t be in today.”

  “ Hugh Washington?”

  “ That’s right.”

  “ God, I’m sorry about your partner, he was a great guy. Everybody liked him.”

  “ What are you talking about?” Hugh felt the lump welling up in his throat. Not Walker, not him. He was young, with a family. He sat on the bed, the phone still at his ear, waiting for the inevitable words he knew were coming next.

  They came.

  “ Walker died early this morning. I’m sorry, I thought you knew.”

  He dropped the phone, buried his head in his hands. He blamed himself. If he would have played it by the book and turned everything over to Homicide, or better yet, stayed out of it all together, Walker would still be alive, but instead he went off half cocked, ignoring all the rules, and Walker had paid.

  And he didn’t know where Glenna was.

  Chapter Twelve

  “ Wake up,” Glenna said, “It’s almost 9:00. You’ve been asleep for over eight hours.” She was backlit against the early morning sun coming in the front window. It basked her hair in a halo, reminding him of how she looked the night before, when she had been lit up by that spot. “We’re going to have to find some clothes for you and get out of here before someone comes.”

  He looked down at what he was wearing and last night came flooding back. It was real, Roma was dead. The car was gone. They were hiding in a dry cleaners and he was sleeping on a pile of clothes in a stranger’s shorts and tee shirt. After they’d decided they had to spend the night, he went foraging through the piles of blue paper covered laundry and struck pay dirt-underwear, tee shirt and shorts.

  He took his find into the small toilet, stripped and gave himself a whore’s bath at the sink, using a roll and a half of paper towels to clean the manure off himself. He grimaced when he remembered holding his head under the faucet, smelling and seeing the brown muck being washed out of his hair and down the drain.

  “ Where do you plan on going?” he asked.

  “ I don’t know. Out of here.”

  “ We won’t get ten feet before the cops pick us up. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to sample the bill of fare in the local jail.”

  “ I don’t care what bill of fare I sample right now. I’m starving,” she said. “We have to get out of here. It’ll be just as bad if they catch us in the cleaners or on the street. Either way, we’re caught.”

  “ I think we should stay here for awhile.”

  “ What are we going to do when Mr. Dry Cleaner shows up for work?” she said.

  “ It’s Saturday. A town this small probably rolls up its sidewalks on the weekends.”

  “ You’re probably right.” She sighed, closed her eyes, crossed her legs into a full lotus and started to breathe, pulling the air deep into her lungs, holding her breath, then exhaling.

  He watched, fascinated. She was serene, her face as worry free as a child’s. The rise and fall of her breasts, erotic. Her hands on her thighs, peaceful. She was contradiction personified.

  He left her meditating and went looking for clothes. He found two pair of Levi’s that fit and stuffed them into a white drawstring laundry bag. He added two denim work shirts, four pair of boxer shorts, two white tee shirts, a Levi Jacket, a pair of dark brown slacks and a white dress shirt. He carried his booty back to where Glenna was sitting in her yoga position and laid it down. He sat next to it.

  She opened her eyes.

  “ What have you got there?”

  “ Clothes, a couple pair of Levi’s, underwear, socks.”

  “ You’re gonna take them? More than you need?”

  “ This from the girl who wanted to break and enter last night.” He was having a hard time understanding her.

  “ But not to take one thing more than we needed and I would have sent the money for what we took when I got home.”

  He dug under the pile of clothes that he had used for a pillow and pulled out Eddie Lambert’s wallet. He took out a hundred dollar bill, reached up and put in on counter. “There, does that make you happy?”

  “ A nice gesture, but it’s pretty stupid.” She arched her eyebrows with a twinkle of laughter in her eyes. “We might need the money. No matter how much you have in that wallet, when it’s gone we might wish we had that hundred bucks. Take it back. We’ll send the money later, when we know we can afford it.”

  “ You’re saying we an awful lot when it’s really just me. Once we’re out of here, you go home, back to your family. They’re probably worried sick right now.”

  “ No way. My mom has a new boyfriend and they’re both somewhere off the coast of Baja on the Love Boat. My dad knows I’m okay. I left a message, remember?” She crossed her arms around her chest.

  “ A message that probably scared him out of his mind. I’m a wanted murderer, remember that? Even if he thinks I’m innocent, he has to be worried about what might happen to you if the police catch up to us. You could get seriously hurt or worse, killed. No, you’re going back as soon as we’re safe.” He hoped he sounded firm.

  “ You’re gonna need me,” she said. “I’ll bet every cop in the state is looking for you. I’ll bet your picture has been all over the news all night long. You think that stupid eye patch you put on last night will fool anyone? And who’s gonna buy food? You? Who’s gonna find a place to spend the night? You? Who’s gonna get us a car? You? And who’s gonna get us out of here? You need me and you know it.”

  He stared at her with clenched fists. It was true, he needed someone. Not her though, not a child, and not a girl. He had friends he could call. He looked up at the phone.

  “ Don’t even think about it,” she said.

  He remained silent, caught in her deep brown eyes.

  “ You’re thinking you can call someone. Well, you’re wrong. The police have already talked to everyone you know. Probably the press, too. I can see your friends on CNN, ‘He was such a quiet man. Friendly, always said hello. He’s the last man in the world you would think would ever do such a thing. It must be because of the war. Come to think of it he always was a little strange. His wife leaving him like that must have pushed him over.’ You call someone like that, they’ll go for the fame and the glory. They’ll turn you in. We’re all you have, me and my dad.” It was her turn to look up at the phone.

  She was right and he knew it and even if she wasn’t, he didn’t want to involve his friends. They had families, kids. The last thing they needed was a call from him. “Okay,” he said, “call your father.”

  She scooted next to him, pulled the phone off the counter, started pushing the buttons.

  “ You remember the number?”

  “ Yeah, I’m good with phone numbers. Tell me once and I have it for life. Go figure. It’s ringing.”

  She asked for her father’s room and frowned. After a few seconds she hung up.

  “ They said he left during the night without giving them notice, but since he paid by credit card, it was okay. Now what?” She didn’t seem as confident as she’d been only a few seconds ago.

  “ Get a laundry bag and stuff a few day’s supply of clothes into it,” he said. “Then we’ll see.”

  He watched as she made her way through the clothes. It took her almost an hour and she went through every article of clothing, both the dry cleaning and the laundry, before she found two pair of Calvin Klein Jeans, two blouses, two men’s tee shirts, white, size small. She refused to use somebody else’s underwear. “I’ll buy some when I get some shoes,” she said, and he thought about that pair of shoes in the bathroom. He bent over and rubbed his feet, he never wanted to put them on again.

  “ Okay, again I ask, now what?” She tossed her bag next to his and returned to her position next to him, behind the counter.

  “ I need shoes too,” he said.

  “ And we need food. And a car would be nice.”

  “ Yeah, breakfast would be good, but there’s nothing we can do about food till to
night.”

  “ You mean we’re going to wait here all day? In the cleaners?” she said.

  “ It’s 10:00 and it feels like a sauna in here,” he said, starting to sweat. “It’ll probably reach into the nineties today. Our feet would burn up on the pavement, and even if we had shoes, we still couldn’t leave before dark, because we’d get picked up before we got out of town. We can’t leave till tonight.”

  “ Then what?”

  “ I don’t know. I haven’t planned farther than going out the back door after dark.”

  “ Great.”

  “ That voice in your head, is it still there?” she asked after a few minutes of silence.

  “ Donna, are you there?” His thought went unanswered. “Are you there?” he asked again and again there was no answer.

  “ No, she seems to be gone.”

  “ Oh.”

  “ I was starting to get used to her.” He leaned against the counter. “I think I’m going to miss her.”

  “ That’s natural. Now you have to deal with your problems yourself.” She was wringing her hands in her tee shirt.

  “ You don’t believe me?” He looked at her and laughed. “You think I’m hearing voices?” He bored into her eyes, looking for a sign and finding none. “Well, I can’t blame you. If I were you, I wouldn’t believe me either. Anyway it’s a moot point, she’s gone.” The sound of his knees creaking filled the silent room as he got up.

  “ I’m going to the bathroom.” He went into the small bathroom, urinated, flushed, looked in the mirror, splashed water on his face. His reflection told him he needed a shave. He hated the way his beard was starting to come in gray. Turning away from his own bloodshot eyes, he left the bathroom.

  “ I’m going to check the office and see if there is anything we can use. Should have done it earlier.”

  He went into the office adjacent to the bathroom. There was a small wooden desk, scratched and covered with papers, an electronic calculator, a matching chair and nothing else. He sat at the desk. The papers were last week’s receipts, apparently the proprietor used the shoe box method of accounting, gather all the receipts, make a pile, throw them in a shoebox and figure it out later. The top two desk drawers filled the shoe box function.

  He found a personal phone book in the bottom drawer. It appeared to list the names, addresses and phone numbers of the cleaner’s patrons. He also found blank paper, pencils and extra rolls of paper tape for the calculator. And in the back, behind the calculator tape, a forty-five automatic.

  “ Are you a welcome sight,” he said. Then he remembered the guns in the trunk of the rented Ford. If the police find those they’ll get real excited, he thought. They’ll call in reinforcements and tear this town apart looking for me. They’ll do that anyway, once they connect the rental car to Edna.

  He picked up the gun, checked the clip and found it full. Eight in the clip, one in the chamber, the safety off. A loaded cannon, ready for action, tucked away in the back of a drawer. A gun out of reach didn’t need the safety off. If you’re going to take the chance of killing yourself with a weapon ready to fire, he thought, it should at least be accessible in an emergency. People didn’t make sense.

  He put the gun back. No point in telling Glenna about it. He would get it later. He pushed himself away from the desk, picked up the phone book, leafed through it a second time, then dropped it on the desk amid the pile of receipts and left the office.

  “ Find anything?” she asked.

  “ Just a phone book with his customer’s names.”

  “ Nothing else?”

  “ No.” He sat down next to her. “I’m going to try and sleep before it gets too hot.” It was a long time since he had to force himself to sleep in adverse conditions, but he still knew how. He closed his eyes and took himself back to the bad days of the POW camp. He drifted off to sleep before he had time to set up the Monopoly board, leaving Glenna alone, meditating in front of an imaginary candle.

  He woke in a hot sweat at noon. Glenna was asleep on a pile of clothes. It was good that she was able to sleep, he thought, because they would probably be up all night. He closed his eyes, sleep took a little longer, he almost made it to Park Place, he didn’t get to pass Go.

  He opened his eyes again at 2:30.

  “ I’m glad you’re awake.” She was in a half lotus now, but as he stirred, she straightened her right leg in front of herself and touched her head to her knee and held the position for over a minute. She repeated the exercise with her left leg, then went back into the half lotus. “I can handle being by myself. I’ve had practice, but I prefer people. Maybe I just haven’t had the life experience to spend prolonged periods in meditation. I can do it, but I don’t enjoy it as much as conversation.”

  They talked, getting to know each other for the next six hours.

  She told him about her old boyfriends, not too many, her girlfriends, some now married with children. How she had been a cheerleader in high school her junior and senior years. What it was like to be homecoming queen. How devastated she was when she brought home that one B in third semester Spanish, shattering her 4.0 grade point average. The difficulties of being both class president in her senior year and head cheerleader.

  He told her about the war, the POW camp, the VA hospital, the Marine Corps. What it was like to get the medal of honor. What it was like to make his first million. How he loved real estate with a passion. It was a way of making a lot of money without hurting anyone. When he bought a property, he made the seller and his family happy and when he sold something, he made the buyer and his family happy. Until two months ago he had the perfect life. Then his wife met Kohler.

  She confessed that her high school career hadn’t been all that stellar. She’d never gotten over being the homecoming queen who hadn’t gone to the prom. No one asked her. She was stiff on a date. She knew that. She didn’t like petting in the back seat. She didn’t like being pawed. She was working on it. She was getting better. She was going to be okay.

  He told her about Roma and how he fell in love with her and how she moved to Miami. How he was heartbroken and married Julia. He thought he was in love with her, but now he had to admit, maybe he married her on the rebound.

  “ I have an idea,” she said. It was 8:30. The sun had been down for about an hour and a half. “Why don’t we get the cleaner’s phone book and call the customers. If someone answers we hang up. If we don’t get an answer, we know they’re not home.” She had a satisfied smile on her face.

  “ I’ll get the book.” He pushed himself off the floor, picked up his laundry bag and headed for the office. “I’m going to change out of these shorts, while I’m at it.” Once in the office he closed the door, took off the shorts and put on a pair of the faded Levi’s. Then he opened the bottom drawer, took out the gun, dropped it in his bag. He picked up the phone book as she opened the door.

  “ Did you get the gun?” she asked.

  “ How did you know?”

  “ I checked the office while you were asleep.”

  “ Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “ I wanted to see how you would handle it. You didn’t want me to know about the gun? I like that. You were trying to protect me from the harsh reality of the situation. Not very smart, but I like it. Please don’t do it again. We should trust each other.” She went to the desk. “Do you want to call or should I?”

  “ You can do it,” he said.

  She sat down and started pushing buttons, calling numbers in the book at random. It took ten calls before she was blessed with no answer.

  “ Here we are,” she said. “Mary Mckinna. 13 Church Street. Great, look at this.” She showed him the phone book. Under the address were the words, Next to the Cemetery.

  “ I was afraid that even if we found someone not at home, we wouldn’t be able to find the house. Guess I worried in vain. We should have no trouble finding a cemetery in a town this size.”

  “ No,” she echoed, “no trouble at all.”r />
  “ Let’s go,” he said.

  “ I’ll get my gear.” She went back to their place behind the counter, picked up her laundry bag. “You know,” she said, “I’m going to miss this place. I feel like I’ve entered a new stage in my life.” Then she walked to the back door, opened it and they stepped out into the hot night.

  Five minutes later they found it.

  “ The Rio Dulce Cemetery,” he read off the sign.

  “ Think there was a river here?” she whispered.

  “ Must have been.”

  “ Where’s the house?”

  “ You don’t have to whisper, nobody can hear us.”

  “ What about them?” She pointed into the cemetery.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “ It has to be that white house over there.” Jim pointed through the cemetery.

  “ Let’s go.” Glenna started walking down the street.

  “ Where are you going?”

  “ Around. Church Street must dead end into the cemetery. We’ll go around the block.”

  “ Car coming.” He grabbed her arm, pulled her into the graveyard. They huddled behind a hedge while the car passed.

  “ It’s the police,” she whispered. The black and white cruiser rolled on by without stopping. “I didn’t tell you something,” she said, lying next to him. They were sandwiched between the hedge, shielding themselves from the street and a row of tombstones.

  “ What?”

  “ I felt something crawl across my foot last night. Just before I went to sleep.”

  “ So?”

  “ It might have been a gecko.”

  “ You think?”

  “ Could have been, have you seen any?”

  “ Yes, in my room at the motel and at the mini market on the other side of the Interstate.”

  “ Well, I’ve been seeing them, too. I shook one off my foot just before you-know-what came creeping out from under my father’s car. You think there’s a connection?”

  “ I hope not, but maybe.”

  “ There are no geckos in California. They live in the tropics,” she said.