by P. J. Tracy
Gloria and Edith both gave him smug smiles, and walked toward the monster furnace in the corner and pointed behind it. ‘There it is. Come see for yourself.’
Emil eyed them suspiciously. ‘You’re messing with me. And if you’re thinking of going all Hansel and Gretel on me, you’ve got another think coming.’
‘Come here, Emil.’
He lowered his head with a frustrated sigh and stalked over to the furnace – the path of least resistance seemed like a wise choice at this point. ‘Okay, okay, show me …’ His voice trailed off when he peered behind the furnace and saw a large metal door with a padlock. ‘What’s that?’
‘The coal chute we’ve been trying to tell you about,’ Gloria said wearily.
Emil narrowed his eyes. ‘So there really is a coal chute?’
‘Of course there is. Do you think we’d make something like that up?’
Emil decided it was probably best not to answer that. ‘Yeah, so? There’s the coal chute. It’s locked.’
Gloria slithered behind the furnace and yanked on the padlock, which fell wide open. At that moment Emil swore he heard a choir of angels singing. ‘It’s been broken for years. If you keep it closed, no one notices.’
‘Whoa. Let me take a look.’ Emil squeezed behind the furnace, opened the creaky door, and poked his head up inside. The chute was blacker than the coal it had once fed to a long-ago boiler, but at the very top, he caught a glimpse of moonlight glancing off the old tin. They’d never blocked it off. Ticket to Paradise. ‘I’ll be damned,’ he muttered.
‘Hardly,’ Edith said.
Emil pulled his head out of the chute. ‘It looks pretty steep.’
Edith nodded. ‘It’s difficult, but not impossible.’
‘You’ve actually been up there?’
Gloria clasped her hands together joyfully. ‘Oh, yes, many times. We had to be certain we would be ready when the time came.’
‘And, of course, we had to clean it,’ Edith added.
‘You cleaned the coal chute?’
‘Spick and span. It’s still stained black, but the black doesn’t come off. We certainly couldn’t risk soiling our raiment, could we?’
Emil felt a smile break on his face while his thoughts did happy cartwheels. ‘I can just walk out of here,’ he whispered incredulously. ‘Right now. Cross the desert tonight, put my thumb out in Vegas by morning, be in LA by nightfall …’ He looked at the sisters. ‘Do you know what this means? No jail. No nuthouse. No mop and no bedpans, hallelujah!’
‘Yes, hallelujah,’ Gloria said, shoving the third magi costume at him. ‘Now put this on.’
Emil stepped out from behind the furnace. ‘What? What are you talking about? I’m not putting that thing on.’
‘You have to wear it,’ Edith said firmly.
‘Uh-uh, no way. I don’t do drag, especially not in Vegas, which is going to be stop number one.’
Edith eyed his scrubs critically, and Emil suddenly got it. ‘Oh, right. This is supposed to be a disguise, huh? Way better than what I’m wearing now. Good thinking.’ He tore the dry-cleaning plastic off the costume and was hit by the smell of mothballs, which reminded him of his Grandpa Moses’ closet. And, just like that, he took a trip back in time.
He was six years old, sitting on the floor of that closet, smelling mothballs, the lingering remnants of cologne from the clothes that hung above him, and polish wafting off the single pair of dress shoes with fancy little perforations all over the leather, arranged neatly in a metal rack on the floor, as if they were a couple of diamonds in jeweler’s velvet. The shoes were obviously special, because Grandpa only wore them to church on Sundays, and Emil vowed he would own a pair one day, maybe even two pairs, and he’d take care of them just as well.
‘Emil?’ Edith asked worriedly.
‘Yeah? Sorry.’ He started slipping on the gown, but it had obviously been made for a more petite figure because he couldn’t force it over his clothes. ‘Turn around, ladies, I need to strip down.’
Edith and Gloria turned obediently in a full circle to face him again.
Emil lowered his head in exasperation and clamped his aching temples, trying to coax out some patience on this very important night of his exodus to freedom. ‘Oh, man, you two are something. Don’t turn all the way around, just halfway. Show me your backs, okay?’
Gloria wrinkled her nose in irritation, but both the sisters complied, and Emil stripped down to his boxers fast. He panicked a little when he saw the glint of gold from Ralph’s Rolex on his upper arm, and put on the costume even faster.
There was a fez in the bag, too – purple velvet to match the gown, with a gold tassel and a veil attached. He was going to look like the biggest jackass in Vegas. ‘Do I have to wear the hat, too?’
‘That’s the most important part,’ Edith said solemnly. ‘It’s your crown. It connotes your royalty.’
Emil shoved it on his head, thankful there wasn’t a mirror down there. Of all the indignities he’d suffered in the past twenty-four hours, this took the cake. ‘Okay, I think we’re good. You can turn back around,’ he said, trying to figure out how to negotiate the voluminous skirt of the costume. ‘I might need a little help with the hat, though.’
Gloria and Edith turned and gasped in unison. They stepped back, utterly transfixed.
‘What? I look stupid, don’t I?’
‘You look like a king,’ Edith said, her eyes welling with tears.
‘Yeah? All this purple, I was thinking I probably looked more like Prince.’
‘Oh, no, Emil, you’re not a prince, you’re a king.’
‘I meant … Never mind.’
Edith started fussing with his veil, arranging it so it draped beneath his chin. She stepped back and smiled, blotting her eyes. ‘It’s time now. Time for us all to fulfill our purpose on this earth.’
Emil started hiking up his skirts. ‘Yep, just what I was thinking. Time for me to boogie is what it’s time for – Wait! Gloria!’ He watched as she scrambled up into the coal chute. ‘Hey, wait a minute!’
Edith was right behind her. He ran over and tried to grab her leg, but she was already out of reach. ‘What do you think you’re doing? You’re not going. I’m going!’
‘We’re all going. That’s what the book says.’ Edith’s voice echoed down.
‘Oh, no, hell, no. This kind of trouble I don’t need. If you think I’m going to drag two old ladies across the desert in the middle of the night –’
‘Too late, Emil. We’re almost out. Come on, there isn’t much time.’
‘Stop it! Get back down here – I’m serious! It’s cold out there – there’s coyotes and snakes and poisonous lizards, stuff you two can’t handle!’
Edith paused and looked down at him. ‘That’s why we must be three. We’ll take care of each other. Besides, we’ve packed supplies.’
‘Oh, great. You got a tent under that outfit so we don’t all die of hypothermia?’
‘We’ll be safe, Emil. Have a little faith.’ Edith turned away and continued climbing.
Emil sagged against the wall and put his head into his hands, having a serious one-on-one with his conscience. The way he figured, he had two choices: the first was to act responsibly and do the right thing.
Use your best judgment, Nurse Griffin’s voice taunted him. Yep, the right thing was to call Nurse Griffin and make sure the ladies got out of that coal chute and back into their room. The unfortunate part of that plan was how the story would end: his only truly viable escape route out of this place would be permanently shut down before he could use it. Which meant another 363 days in this dump.
‘Are you coming, Emil?’ Edith called down. ‘Or are you going to let two mentally disturbed old women die in the desert?’
Emil started scrambling up the coal chute. He couldn’t let that happen, could he?
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Emil was leading his little tribe single-file across a dark wasteland of sand and rock, helped only by
a full moon and the lights of Vegas in the distance. He figured if you threw in a few camels, they’d all look like a Christmas card with their costumes silhouetted against the moonlight.
As ridiculous as the costumes were, they were probably saving their lives right about now. The fabric was heavy enough to keep out the night chill, and the headdresses preserved their body heat. It would be a different story when the sun came up, though. What protected them tonight might cook them in their skins tomorrow.
For the first hour of their trek, the sisters had clipped right along, as anxious to find the baby Jesus as he was to disappear into the Vegas crowds, but now they seemed to be walking in slow motion. At this rate, they’d be lucky to get to the city before the next millennium. He stopped and turned. ‘You two got to kick things up a notch.’
‘I beg your pardon?’ Edith asked.
‘Shake those booties. We’ve got to move. If they catch me this time, they are going to fry my ass until there’s nothing left but a pile of cinders. I got to get myself in a car and westward-ho – and I’ve gotta get you two someplace safe. Can’t you walk any faster?’
Gloria shook her head. ‘No. We’re old.’
‘Then we’re going to have to part company real soon, you hear me?’
‘Emil, you can’t leave us until we find the Christ child in the City of David. We have to be three,’ Edith begged.
Emil felt his patience unraveling and threw up his hands in frustration. ‘FYI, the Christ child would be about two thousand years old by now and no way a child.’ He jabbed a finger toward the lights of Vegas. ‘And that is not the City of David. That’s Vegas and, trust me, that is the last place anybody in their right mind would go looking for baby Jesus … Oh, man, what am I saying?’
Edith folded her arms across her chest and gave him a stern look. ‘Then why did you come out here?’
‘Because I’m escaping! I’m an escaped convict, don’t you get it?’
Gloria tipped her head thoughtfully. ‘John was a convict. And Peter. And Paul.’
‘Yeah, and what happened to them?’
‘Let’s see. John was beheaded, Peter was executed upside down –’
‘Exactly!’ Emil sputtered. ‘That’s my point!’
‘Nothing bad is going to happen.’
‘Of course it won’t,’ Gloria seconded. ‘And we’re certainly not going to let anybody behead you.’
‘Well, that’s a load off my mind.’ Emil took a few deep breaths and tried to calm down. ‘Okay. Okay. Let’s just take a little rest. Maybe that’ll help. You got something to drink in that bag?’
‘We brought Ensure.’
‘Great. You two drink some Ensure, we’ll rest a few minutes, but then we have to keep moving. People are going to come after us when they figure out we’re gone and they’re not going to care about any Christ child.’
***
In retrospect – and too late to do anything about it – Emil figured the point of no return had been about three hours into their journey. By then they were closer to Vegas than they were to the loony bin, and that was just about the time the sisters’ stamina had really gone south. They were dragging big-time now, and in the pre-dawn light, their lips even looked a little blue. Just what he needed – a couple of manslaughter charges to add to his sheet.
‘The sun’s starting to rise, Emil,’ Gloria said, her voice weak and shaky.
‘Yeah, I see that. Listen, you two don’t look so good. We’ve gotta find some shelter, warm up.’
Edith didn’t seem to hear him. ‘It’s getting light, Gloria. I can’t see the star anymore.’
‘Well, I never could see the star. What if we’re going the wrong way?’
‘Silly. It doesn’t look like a star when you’re this close. All you can see is the glow.’
‘They didn’t say anything about that in the book. It doesn’t say the wise men followed a glow. It says they followed a star.’
Emil cleared his throat. ‘Uh, ladies, we need to find a place –’
‘They couldn’t put every little detail in the book.’ Edith continued her conversation with Gloria. ‘It’s condensed, like the Reader’s Digest. Are you all right, dear? You look a little peaked.’
‘Yeah, Gloria, you look a little peaked.’ Emil tried to sound calm and rational.
‘Well, I’m very tired,’ Gloria confessed. ‘And I think I have a blister. Emil, we need to rest for a bit.’
Emil wiped his hands down his face. ‘That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. But we can’t rest until we find some cover, okay?’ He pointed to a rock overhang in the near distance. ‘Think you can make it to those rocks up there?’
Gloria and Edith both squinted in the direction his finger was pointing. ‘Yes, I think so,’ Edith said.
‘Fantastic. Now, once we stop, we’re going to have to stay put until dark because they’re going to have eyes all over this sky.’
Edith and Gloria blinked at him.
‘Choppers. You know. Helicopters. Airplanes.’
Edith’s eyes widened in sudden understanding. ‘Of course! They’ll certainly be looking for us by now. How clever you are to think of that, Emil! Whatever would we do without you?’
Gloria reached over and patted his cheek. ‘Such a blessing. Off we go!’
As they trudged toward the rocks, Emil was finding it difficult to quell his growing panic. What had he been thinking? Sure, just jog across the desert with a couple of old crazy ladies, no worries, no problem. But the thing was, they were old. Those two had no business being out here.
Up ahead, he watched Gloria stumble and dropped his head. This was absolutely without question the dumbest thing he’d ever done in his life, which was really saying something. ‘Are you okay, Gloria?’
‘Yes, dear, I’m fine,’ she said weakly.
‘Look, we’re almost there. I’m just gonna jog on ahead and check things out, make sure it’s up to snuff for three kings.’
Edith and Gloria both smiled, which was a relief. Keep the mood light: don’t mention that scorpions and lizards and rattlesnakes probably loved rock overhangs just as much as three fugitives.
‘That’s very nice of you, Emil.’
Emil wasn’t so thrilled with the accommodations, but at least there was soft sand to sit on amid all the sharp rocks, and the sun was already warming things up nicely. He found a gnarled piece of sagebrush and started poking around to flush out any potential enemies.
‘What are you doing, Emil?’
‘Just making sure we don’t have company. Okay, we’re good. Just settle in right here and take a load off, you two.’
Edith and Gloria sagged down to the sand in relief, and Emil squatted near the entrance, his eyes constantly moving, watching for search parties or coyotes, not sure which of the two was scarier. He took Gloria’s knapsack off his back and placed it in the sand between them. ‘Anything else in here besides Ensure?’
Edith nodded.
‘So let’s take a look.’
‘Be our guest.’
Emil started unloading the contents. There were eight cans of Ensure left and some packets of oyster crackers. The rest was just useless lotion and bars of Ivory soap.
He handed Gloria and Edith each a can. ‘Drink some more of this.’
‘That’s a wonderful idea, and you should have one, too, Emil, to keep up your strength.’
Emil’s eyes brushed over the remaining inventory and he shook his head. ‘Nah, I’m good for now.’ He passed out the oyster crackers. ‘Eat these, and you’ll feel better.’ He closed the backpack and watched nervously as the sisters devoured their sad little meal.
‘That was just delicious,’ Edith said, reclining in the sand. Gloria followed suit. ‘We should all sleep for a bit now.’
‘That’s exactly what we should do.’ Emil forced enthusiasm into his voice. ‘We’ll have a good snooze, and when it starts getting dark, we can get back on the road to the City of David …’
Edith and
Gloria were already snoring, and Emil collapsed in relief. He needed a plan, and fast. He squinted eastward and thought he saw the faint shapes of buildings in the far distance. If it wasn’t a mirage or wishful thinking, they were close. He could probably make it there on his own in an hour, call for help, then disappear. The sisters would be sleeping for a long time and wouldn’t even know he was gone.
And what if they just happened to wake up and saw you were missing, Emil? They’d flip their lids, panic, run out into the desert and roast alive in their stupid costumes or have heart attacks or both, and their blood would be on your hands. Kidnapping, manslaughter. You want to die in prison?
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The rising sun was just beginning to tinge the desert horizon pink and Nurse Griffin could hear the faint morning stirs of the less medicated patients, whose internal clocks were calibrated perfectly to the rhythm of day and night. It was time to do the morning bed checks and turn things over to Nurse Thompson.
She stuffed her last-minute Christmas Eve grocery list into her purse, grabbed her clipboard and moved slowly down the hall, feeling the pain and exhaustion of a twelve-hour shift deep in the small of her back. She was getting too old for this.
When she finally got to Edith and Gloria’s room and saw the empty beds, she was no longer exhausted.
***
Dr Harold paced tight circles in his office while he waited for Sheriff Clancy to arrive. Head down, hands behind his back, one-two-one-two. In all his years as a commander, he’d never once had a deserter. Now he had three. Three lives on the line, and this fell squarely on his shoulders. He’d failed in his duties, and he’d also sorely underestimated his charges.
He had had no doubt that Emil Rice would take any opportunity to escape, but he was also fairly certain that Gloria and Edith had spear-headed this entire plan without Emil’s prior knowledge. They knew this place better than anyone, including any possible escape route that had been overlooked, and they had a clear mission.
We were just planning our pilgrimage to find the Christ child in the City of David.
