Gecko

by Ken Douglas

  “ It would look better,” he’d said, and Jim agreed, but he had other problems. Donna was still strapped in a hospital bed somewhere in New Zealand, about to become part of some macabre sacrifice. He had a week to get halfway around the world to find and save her.

  For the fifth time in the last hour he sat up and looked at the picture on Eddie Lambert’s passport. With his long frizzy hair, bushy beard and that eye patch, he looked like a wild man. Jim slid the eye patch over his eye and looked at himself in the mirror above the bureau. The patch was the same. They both had blue eyes, but there the similarity ended. Eddie’s face in the photo seemed harsh, like he had a permanent chip on his shoulder. The face in the mirror had a satisfied, self made look about it, even with the patch. The man in the photo had a bag under his good eye, the man in the mirror did not. But still, Jim decided, if an immigration officer didn’t look too closely, it might work.

  There was a gentle knock on his door.

  “ Jim, it’s Glenna.”

  “ What are you doing here?”

  “ Can I come in?” She spoke in a soft, halting voice. She was smiling.

  “ Sure.” He opened up and she came in, walked over to the double bed and sat down.

  “ You’re not going back with us. You’re going to try and find her, aren’t you?”

  “ Yes.”

  “ Is she there now?”

  “ Yes.”

  “ Have you been, I don’t know how to say it, talking, I guess?”

  “ No. Not since earlier tonight. Since she made me snap out of my grief and cut your father loose.”

  “ Then how do you know she’s still there?”

  “ I just know.”

  “ Would you ask her a question for me?”

  “ Sure.”

  “ Ask her if it’s okay if we make love.”

  “ What?” Jim was shocked. Her question was the last thing he expected. She was a nice girl, but that’s what she was, a girl. And even if she wasn’t, he’d just lost his wife, her throat cut and her body still smoldering in that gray house. Even if he wanted to, he probably couldn’t.

  “ Tell her it’s okay,” Donna thought.

  “ No, I won’t. It’s not okay.”

  “ She needs you. You owe it to her.”

  Glenna watched the struggle going on inside of him. The back and forth written on his face. There was nothing she could do except sit on the bed with her hands folded in her lap and wait. Wait and count on Donna to understand.

  “ No, I don’t, and how can you think I do?”

  “ She saved your life and now she’s asking you to save hers. It’s fair. A life for a life.”

  “ What do you mean?”

  “ Ask her.”

  “ Why? Why me? Why now?” he asked Glenna.

  “ What did she say?”

  “ It’s not relevant.”

  “ What did she say?” Glenna insisted.

  “ She said it’s okay, but that’s not the point.”

  “ I knew she’d understand.”

  “ I don’t understand.” Jim was perplexed.

  “ When that man raped me he took something from me and I haven’t been able to get it back. On the surface I pretend I’m this superwoman that can handle anything. It’s out of my mind, I tell myself. I’m over it, I tell myself. All men aren’t like that, I tell myself. But dammit, it’s not out of my mind. I’m not over it and part of me thinks that all men are like that. I’ve never had real sex and I’m afraid that I never will. Now I’ve met you, another man besides my father who I can believe in. I need help. I want you to help make me whole.”

  “ Even if I wanted to, I don’t think I can.”

  “ Let’s see,” she said, her liquid brown eyes on the verge of tears as she lifted off her tee shirt. Her bare breasts were caught in the early light, copper globes casting perfect shadows. He knew he’d be able to do what she wanted and he knew that it was right.

  Once again he was entwined with Donna as they watched Glenna kick her shoes off. He felt Donna sigh as Glenna slipped down her jeans and he felt Donna’s strong sexual desire as Glenna opened her arms and beckoned them. For the next hour the three of them made slow gentle love. They kissed and touched and embraced and when finally Glenna started to move her body beneath him, approaching her climax, they were brought along with her, riding a roller coaster through a carnival of delight.

  “ I’m there,” she thrilled, wrapping her arms around Jim and squeezing tightly. “I’m there and it’s wonderful.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Frank Markham, the Weasel, turned and ran back down the hot hallway. The house was on fire and he was trapped like the bees he used to put in jars and burn when he was a boy.

  He felt the fire at his back. His clothes were burning now. He smelled meat cooking and realized it was his own burning flesh. He dashed to a side window. It was barred. Frantically he sought the safety release. Found it and pushed. The bars popped out and he threw himself out the window, his fall cushioned by the roses below, their thorns slicing through his charred flesh.

  He screamed as he rolled through the bushes, further cutting and ripping himself, his body a searing mass of pain, his mind wailing against the injustice. Everything was going so smoothly, it wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair. Out of the roses, he rolled on the cool grass toward the cliff, struggling to get away from the fire. Through it all he clutched the gun, like a lifeline. He was still clutching it when he climbed over the back fence and jumped over the cliff.

  In his crazed, pain filled world all he wanted was an end to the hurt. But instead of a beautiful ride into the night sky with the release of a quick painless death on the beach below, he went bouncing and screaming down a steep, jagged incline. More cuts, abrasions, ripped flesh and torture. The loose dirt on the bouncing ride down doused most of the flames, but the loose rocks rolling with him continued to batter against his bruised body on his slipping, sliding, dropping ride toward the bottom.

  And still he held on to the gun. His mind screamed, but it didn’t shut down. If he was still alive when the carnival was over he could use the gun. A quick blast from the cannon and no more hurt.

  He slammed into a large rock jutting out from the earth. The wind was knocked out of him as he went up and over it, only to land again on the sloping earth, face first. He felt his nose break, tasted his blood, mingled with dirt, sweat and burnt skin. He wailed as his body bounced and flipped over, his head pivoting on the hard surface, leaving facial skin and scalp in his wake.

  He landed on his back and continued the slide, feet first as the mountain ripped into his legs, buttocks and back, his skinny thin shoulder blades acting like twin rudders, keeping him on a straight track down to the dark sea below. Then he hit bottom, still breathless, and he rolled in the sand, killing the remaining flames, but not the hot, ice pick pain. He scrambled to his feet and made a mad dash for the sea, his flesh blistering, charred skin combining with polyester and cotton to form a putrid puss.

  He knew he’d made a mistake as soon as he hit the water. The saltwater engulfed his legs. The stinging torture sent a banshee cry from his lips, telling the night that a pain that couldn’t get any worse-got worse. He tried to stop his forward momentum. He had to get out of the ocean. He failed, stumbled and fell in the surf. He fought the oscillating ocean and somehow managed to get a purchase on the bottom. He moved his feet like a swimmer that had seen a shark. He struggled against the waist deep water, frantic to get out.

  Back on the beach, he collapsed on the wet sand, a blistering, bleeding, blob of pain, still clutching the gun, but his tortured mind had thrown away all thoughts of suicide. He got up like a rummy drunk on a Saturday night and stumble blundered toward town. Two or three agonizing steps, then he fell. He picked himself up, took a few more steps and fell again, but he continued on that way, a long, screaming, walking crawl toward town.

  Washington woke to the sun’s rays streaking through the blinds and thought about the fish
bowl he lived in. People crammed next to each other, seeking privacy by not knowing their neighbors. That was no kind of life.

  He should have moved back north years ago. This was the kind of place he should have brought Glenna up in, but Jane was an L.A. girl. She would have been lost without malls, perfect year round weather and a thousand and one different movie theaters. To move up here was to lose Jane. But eventually he lost her anyway and still he lived in the city, where your neighbors didn’t want to know you. Where if you were a little too loud on a Friday night they called the police, called him. He set his jaw and made a decision. He was home. He wasn’t going back.

  He had a little money saved. After he split it with Jane he might have enough for a down payment on a small cottage outside of Palma or Tampico. One with a brick fireplace, where he could sit at night and listen to Bob Dylan or Billie Holiday in front of a roaring fire. He wouldn’t have a television. No outside influence, no cop shows, no news about politicians stealing tax dollars and making senseless wars, no game shows, no sitcoms, just good music and a hot fire.

  There must be some kind of job up here for an ex-cop. He would ask Susan. She’d know and she’d help. They went way back and they didn’t come any better. Where else could you walk in on someone you hadn’t seen in over half a lifetime and ask them to alibi you, like he’d asked her, and know they’d do it, no questions asked? That’s the kind of people he remembered. That’s the kind of people who live up here.

  Robert Frost was right, ‘Home is where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in,’ but he could go Frost one better, ‘Friends are people who, when you have to ask, have to help.’ This was his home, it always had been. He had friends up here, friends like Susan Spencer. He’d look them up and he’d start today.

  He pushed the covers off, sat up, reached toward the ceiling and yawned. He swung his legs out of bed, forcing his body to gingerly follow. He groaned, stood, stretched and yawned again. The morning was cool, but he knew the day would be hot, that’s the way it was in the Pacific Northwest in the summertime.

  He had no need to tell anyone he wasn’t going back, well Glenna, but no one else. Jane had apparently found happiness with another, his job was kaput and if he never went back to that apartment it would be too soon for him. He thought about it on the way to the shower, he would have Glenna pack his things when she got back, give the required thirty day notice on the apartment, turn off his utilities and send his stuff up on the bus. He was staying. Now and forever. He wanted to finish out his life in this place. He wanted to die in this place.

  He stepped out of the shower and toweled off, happier than he’d been in years. He went to the window and peeked out at the day. The sun was up, bright and orange. The town was starting to come to life. The fog was lifting. Everywhere he looked-green. Green, green and more green. He brought his eyes from the trees beyond the town, looked across the street and frowned. He spied Jim Monday and Glenna coming out of the diner. They were walking arm and arm. Monday was smiling, she was too, and she had the kind of smile on her face that he hadn’t seen since that horrible day. She was happy and it looked like she was in love.

  His first impulse was to run outside with nothing on but the towel and wipe that shit eating grin off Monday’s face. Who did he think he was messing with Glenna? But he pulled back the reigns on his temper and studied his daughter’s face as they waited for a car to pass. She was radiant and who was he to judge. She was a smart girl, old enough to know her own mind, and if he had any doubts, all he had to do was run down there with his mouth flapping and she’d damn well tell him. That’s the way he’d raised her.

  He shifted his gaze back to Monday as they stepped into the street. He was happy too. And the way he had his arm around her was more protective than possessive. Had Glenna told him about that horrible day? The way he held her, looked both ways before stepping off the curb, watching the big man get out of a beat up brown Ford Granada on the other side of the street, like any unknown man might be a threat to her, and the way his eyes crinkled when he looked at her, told him that maybe Monday wasn’t so bad for her after all. True, he was older, he was white and he was a lousy dresser. Washington laughed to himself, but he was a man and despite how hard Glenna had tried to hide it, he didn’t think she would ever be happy with any man.

  “ Take what you get and make the best of it,” he told himself out loud. But he was her father and he was still concerned. So he jumped into his Levi’s. What could it hurt, a little talk. He’d be calm, not lose his temper, he thought as he laced up his running shoes. Problem, how to bring it up? He could say he saw them arm in arm leaving the diner, but what if they said, ‘So what? That doesn’t mean anything. We’ve been through a lot together the last two days and we’ve grown close, nothing more.’ Of course, he knew there was more, but he could hardly say she was wearing the look of a happy, satisfied woman, could he?

  No, better to say nothing. He would wait, he decided. With his mind made up he went back to the window and peeked out in time to see them walking away from the motel, arm and arm, like lovers out for a morning stroll.

  He jammed the room key into his pocket, strapped on his shoulder holster, pulled on his sweatshirt and hustled out the door and down the stairs, following. He saw them down the street, turning the corner at Kennedy, heading toward the beach. What’s wrong with you, he thought, they’re going to the beach, not eloping. Mind your own business. But he couldn’t help himself, he continued to follow, allowing them a generous lead.

  Kennedy ended at Mountain Sea Road which paralleled the beach beyond. The pair stopped for traffic, then crossed the street. They weren’t arm in arm now, not even holding hands. Just two people out for a walk on the sand. Why couldn’t he leave it alone? Obviously he’d read the signs wrong.

  They started up the dunes beyond the road. Soon they would be going down the other side and be out of sight. He should go back. It’s wrong to chase after her like this. He turned and took a few steps away from the beach, but he changed his mind. He couldn’t continue to follow, because once he crested on the top of the dunes they would see him. But what if he got ahead of them. He could run along the road for a couple hundred yards and climb up a sand dune and wait. If they did happen to see him, he could say he’d been out walking for some time and fancy meeting them here.

  But which way? Left or right, north or south? He picked south and took off at a slow trot. Two hundred yards and he crawled to the top of the dunes to see if he could see them coming. He saw them going. They had left their shoes behind and were jogging on the wet sand. He had come up behind them.

  He slid down the dune and started running south, the dunes between him and the couple he was following. He poured it on for another quarter mile then climbed to the top of the dunes again, only to find them even with him and still jogging. Damn, Monday couldn’t be in that good of shape. He’d have to quit sooner or later, preferably sooner, Washington hoped, huffing like a locomotive.

  Now it was a matter of pride, he was determined to get ahead of them. He started jogging along the street for another quarter mile, till Mountain Sea Road turned and wound up into the hills. He kicked off his shoes. He could pick them up on the way back. Now he was jogging barefoot on the sand, still keeping the dunes between himself and them. Dismissing any thought of climbing back up the dunes to check their progress, he kept on, heart racing. He knew Glenna. She would want to prove she could stay with Monday, and Monday’s male pride wouldn’t let him quit till she did. Washington was afraid that he was in for quite a workout.

  He continued running for another quarter mile, till he didn’t think he had anything left, then he put on a burst of speed that reminded him of his track days in college. He was running toward an imaginary tape and when he passed it he raised his arms in an imaginary victory. But like his college victories, this one had taken its toll. His heart was thumping. He was sweating up a storm. He bent over, hands on his knees, sucking air and looked up at the sand dune.<
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  Then he started up it, hands pushing on his knees, feet slipping in the sand, sand oozing between his toes. He huffed his way to the top and vowed he’d never smoke again. The beach was farther away than he’d remembered. The bay curved away from the road and the straight track he’d been running along. There was no sign of them, just another sand dune, and after that, another.

  He should go back, he told himself, but to have come this far and to have to admit he hadn’t been able to keep up, that he was out of shape, that he was too old, no, he couldn’t do it. So he slid down the dune, then climbed the next and slid down it, and climbed the next. He was rewarded with a cool ocean breeze coming off the sea when he reached the top of the fourth dune. He lay down on top of it and smiled. Jim and Glenna were coming toward him, walking and talking, two friends, not lovers, Washington thought. He’d been such an old fool.

  Frank Markham stumbled and jerked along the beach, holding the gun in a charred claw that used to be a hand. Shards of suffering shot to his brain from all points on his body, interrupted only by blasting bolts of pain.

  The fire had scorched off his scraggly hair. His left ear had been removed in the slide down the cliff. He had third degree burns on most of his body. His clothes had either been burned or ripped off. It was impossible for him to walk upright. He had no sense of direction. He had been wandering back and forth, fighting to stay alive for over three hours. It had taken a super human effort, supported only by steaming hate and sizzling stabs of agony.

  He was reaching the outer limits of his malice-fueled strength. It was time for the raging animal in him to admit defeat. To lie down and die. To let the worms reclaim him for the earth. The thought of worms eating at his eyes sent him the determination to lumber along for a few more agonizing minutes, but even hate can’t carry a body forever. He straightened up in one huge electric shock of shooting pain and tried to rage at the sky, but his vocal chords had been burnt out and no sound came.