Orchard Grove

by Vincent Zandri

  “Can I help you?” she said, forcing the words from the back of her throat along with a generous chunk of phlegm.

  “Sorry to wake you,” I said, knowing full well that the day would soon come when she wouldn’t wake up at all.

  “I was just about to get up anyway. You look like you need a room.”

  “That good, huh?”

  “Would you prefer an ocean front view?”

  I just looked at her, perplexed.

  “That’s just a joke. What’s the matter, mister? Too tired for a sense of humor?” She looked down at my feet. “Take a step back,” she added.

  I did it. Her eyes went wide.

  “That foot looks like hell. You’re not bleeding on my floor I hope.”

  “It stopped,” I said, hoping that it had. I was leaving a blood trail all over upstate New York.

  I pulled the baseball hat farther down my brow so that my eyes were entirely hidden.

  “You should be on crutches.”

  “I forgot them.”

  She looked up, cracked a sly grin.

  “Booze will do that,” she said. “Or is that Jack Daniel’s toothpaste I smell on your breath?”

  I tried to work up a smile, but my face felt like I was wearing a mask of concrete. I also felt relieved. If she’d only just woken up, then she wasn’t yet aware of the cop I helped kill in Albany or that old man I put down thirty miles back in Nassau. To her, my face was just another face in a lifetime of faces. No more or less important than a manikin.

  “Been on the road all night. Need some sleep. You have a corner room available? A quiet room?”

  Mounted to the wall behind the desk was a square unit that had been divided up into about thirty or so separate six-inch-by-six-inch cubbies. She gazed at the boxes until she found the key she wanted. Pulling it from the cubby she then slapped it down onto the desk.

  “You got some plastic for me?” she said, digging into the pocket on her housecoat for a pair of reading glasses. The fifteen-dollar jobs you can buy without a prescription in the drug store. She slipped them on and stared uncomfortably at the screen on her computer.

  Without thinking, I dug out my Amex, handed it to her. It took a few beats, but it wasn’t until she had the card in hand that I realized what I’d done. I felt my stomach tighten up and my pulse take on an added velocity. The one thing I didn’t need was for her to get suspicious, so I let it go and hoped the card wouldn’t be traced. At least, right away.

  She swiped the card in the little credit card machine and waited, her eyes glued to its small digital screen. After a few long seconds she shook her head, whispered, “Declined.”

  A truck started up in the lot, startling me. From the sound of it, a big semi.

  “Jumpy this morning, aren’t we?” the woman said without ever looking up from the little credit card machine.

  She ran the card again.

  “Just not your day,” she said. “Declined again.” She pulled off her glasses, peered up at me. “Got anymore plastic that’s willing to cut you some slack?”

  “How do you feel about cash?”

  She smirked, handed me back my card.

  “Your ball cap says NRA, but you don’t by chance work for the IRS, do you?”

  I shook my head, returned the card to my wallet.

  “Cash is fine as wine,” she said. “Forty for the room. Ten extra for towels and maid service. Daily tip is up to you. You pay for the entire stay in advance.” Reaching under the desk, she pulled out a white index-sized card that had some black print on it. “Fill this out, if you please,” she added, setting a Bic ballpoint on top of the card.

  My eyes peering down at the black space where the word NAME was printed, I made the split second decision to go with the first fake name that came to mind. Jim Summers. After all, it was summertime. I wrote down a fake license plate number and a fake phone number in the spaces provided, and simply didn’t bother with an email. When I was done, I slid the card back toward her. She picked it up, read it.

  “How long will you be staying with us… Mr. Summers?”

  I figured I wouldn’t be using the motel for more than a few hours. Four hours at most, depending upon how close the police were to picking up my trail. Just enough time to get some rest, maybe eat some takeout, catch a shower, clean my foot, and figure out my next move.

  “Just a day and a night,” I lied, reaching into my pocket, shaving off two twenties and a ten, handing the bills to her. She didn’t store the cash in the register, but instead stuffed them in her housecoat pocket.

  “Enjoy your stay, Mr. Summers,” she said. Then, “Oh, and before I forget.” Once more she reached under the desk, came back out with a business card that she set out onto the desktop. The printing on the card said, “Catskill Escort Service” in big block letters. Under that it said “Discreet and Affordable.” A phone number was printed below that.

  “Listen,” she said, “I know how all you guys on the road get lonely, and since I don’t want no strangers coming and going at all hours, I only allow one escort service to operate here. Understand, Mr. Summers?”

  I took the card, slid it into my pants pocket with my cell phone.

  “Gotcha,” I said, nodding. I added, “What, no bellman to assist me with my luggage?”

  “So you do have a sense of humor after all,” she said. “I’ll have you know the bellman was my husband and the son of a bitch took off ten years ago with a cocktail waitress and never came back.”

  “Men are jerks.”

  “He wasn’t very well endowed anyway. And even if he was, he had no idea how to use it.”

  “Maybe you’re better off.”

  “You’re right. Just look around you. I live in Camelot now.”

  She exhaled, turned, then disappeared back behind the curtain to be alone with her memories of far better days.

  I got back in the Porsche and drove it the short distance across the lot to room 30 which, it turns out, was the far corner room, just like I’d requested. I wasn’t sure how good an idea it was to park directly outside the room, so I drove around the side of the motel and parked it behind the blue dumpster, entirely out of sight. There was a good-sized patch of second growth woods directly beside my room which would come in handy if the state cops or local sheriff made a visit. I could only hope that I’d had enough of a head start on them to earn me at least a few hours peace. Picking up the shotgun along with the jacket that concealed it, I got out of the car, and headed for room 30.

  Slipping the key into the lock, I opened the door and closed it behind me, engaging the deadbolt. I flicked on the air-conditioning unit, which was installed in the wall directly beneath the curtain-covered picture window and laid the shotgun out onto an easy chair that was positioned immediately to the left of the door. While the big cooling unit spit out red/orange sparks along with something that smelled more like an oil slick than air, I hobbled on past a kitchenette efficiency unit that contained a small gas-fired stove, and stole a peek inside the bathroom. There was a sink, a toilet, and a shower stall that was covered in a bone-colored curtain that had green and brown mildew stains on its bottom. A narrow slider window was installed over the toilet. It was too small to push myself through if I were to suddenly require a second means of escape, which meant I was leaving this place through the front door, one way or another.

  Coming out of the bathroom, I went around the side of the bed and took a painful load off. To my right, at the end of the bed sat a television. The old kind with the big tube in it. I could turn it on, check the news, but it was the last thing I wanted to do right now. What’s the saying? Ignorance is bliss. Well, I don’t know if what I was experiencing was blissful, but it seemed somehow better than knowing precisely how screwed I was at the moment.

  The nightstand contained a phone and a laminated card that advertised local services like twenty-four-hour pizza delivery and a Chinese food takeout joint. I realized that I hadn’t eaten since yesterday’s breakfast of to
ast and butter. Without having to look at it, I knew my cell phone still had power, but something told me not to use it unless it was absolutely necessary. Cell phone calls could be tracked. I also knew the phone itself could be tracked with GPS, but I was betting on the APD not being sophisticated enough to sport that kind of high tech.

  FBI would be a different story, however. I would need my phone later on down the road so hanging on to it was a chance I had to take.

  In the meantime, I’d turn it off to conserve power. But before powering down, I’d check it for any texts or messages. There were none, telling me two things. First, that Lana and Susan were avoiding me like the plague. And two, Miller wasn’t ready to make direct contact with me for whatever reason. Maybe he assumed I’d do something even more stupid than killing a convenience store clerk. Maybe he thought that by calling me, he’d scare me off even more. Make me run faster and farther. Who knows? Maybe Miller who was waiting for me to call him. What did the cops call that? A passive/aggressive apprehension tactic? Now I was back to being the scriptwriter, making shit up as I went along.

  I did know this: When the time was right, I would call Miller and make a few demands. That is, he wanted me to turn myself in. But just when that time was and what precise demands I would make had yet to reveal themselves. They would have to wait while I sorted things out and gave my head and bad foot a rest.

  Depressing the small narrow button on the side of the phone, I powered it down. Then, I picked up the receiver on the room phone, dialed the pizza place and waited for an answer. When someone picked up, I told him I wanted a delivery.

  “This early?” the kid said. A young man. A boy from the sounds of it. “It’s not even seven.”

  “Says on your advertisement you’re open twenty-four hours a day.”

  “We just say that shit because it sounds good.”

  “Tell you what I’m gonna say because it sounds good,” I said. “You bring me a cheese pizza and a pint of Jack Daniels and a can of Flex Seal, I’ll make sure your wallet is glad it got up with you today.”

  “Did you say Flex Seal?”

  “Yup, as seen on TV. The twenty-four-hour chain drug stores should have it in stock.”

  “Okay. Might take a while. I gotta heat up the ovens and then I gotta find the nearest CVS.”

  I told him my address at the motel. He said he knew the place better than the back of his hand.

  “Who really knows what the back of their hand looks like?” I said.

  He hung up.

  I stood up, heavy on the good foot, light on the bad, shoved the cell phone in the pocket opposite the one that held three or four shotgun shells. When I pulled my hand back out, something fell out onto the floor. The card for the escort service. Ever since the woman at the front desk had given it to me, it had been burning a hole in my pocket.

  I peered down at the card where it rested on the floor, read the words Escort Service yet again. No matter how many times I read them they didn’t change. Some people’s bodies shut down under severe stress. But I was one of those rare men who needed a stress release.

  Committing the phone number to memory, I picked up the landline again and punched it in. A woman answered. I told her who I was and where I was.

  “What did you have in mind?” she said. The raspy voice was young, but not that of a child. More like a woman in her thirties or forties who was no stranger to cigarettes.

  “I didn’t know I had a choice,” I said.

  “You always have a choice,” she said.

  In my head, I pictured precisely who I wanted, but could no longer have.

  “Do you have anyone who’s blonde? Naturally blonde? Well built, but doesn’t look like one of those female bodybuilder types? I want someone who’s feminine and proud of it.”

  “I think we can do that for you,” she said. “Anything else?”

  “Can she wear a red robe?” I said. “Like a Japanese kimono.”

  She giggled. “That’s pretty specific. But I’ll see what I can do.”

  Then she told me the woman I requested would be there within the hour.

  I suddenly felt happy. Lana was coming to see me.

  Sort of.

  Her company would do me good before I had to resume running for my life.

  When I hung up, I laid back on the bed and put my feet up. One good foot, one bad foot … a foot bloodied and throbbing and soon to be smelling of gangrene. Or so I was convinced. It desperately needed cleaning. Correction… It desperately needed an emergency room. But I was too tired and too wanted by the cops to even think about cleaning it right now, much less risk exposing myself to the medical staff of an emergency room. The second I walked in through the sliding glass doors of a hospital ER, it would be game over.

  Silence seemed to surround the motel. It was almost unnatural. A serene quiet where there should be sirens and the locking and loading of firearms, all of them pointed at me. Maybe I was already dead and didn’t even realize it.

  Looking around the motel room, at the TV, at the old, clunky AC unit, and the kitchenette, I was reminded of the week long sea-side summer vacations my family would take on Cape Cod, back when I was a little kid. How much I looked forward to digging in the sand, swimming in the sea and the hotel pool. Going to bed at night to the ocean breeze and being lulled to sleep by the ocean waves that steadily slapped the shoreline. I remembered how as a skinny, undersized seven-year-old, I stepped into the ocean one morning and immediately felt something stab my foot. It was like a pair of heavy-duty scissors sliced my big toe off. My dad picked me up by the waist, only to discover that a crab had clutched me in its claw. I screamed and cried, more filled with fear than actual pain. A million years had passed since that bright summer morning, but somehow it all seemed like moments ago.

  Soon I began to doze off. I tried like hell to think about nothing. But as soon as the lights went out in my brain, I thought about Lana. When I thought about Lana I automatically thought about Susan. Thought about the two of them together. I saw them naked and I saw them making love to one another in the heat of the long night. I saw myself making love to them at the same time. Even though they were dozens of miles away from me, I could feel their presence inside my chest and my sex as if the two of them were somehow crawling around inside my flesh and bone.

  It was the strangest thing, but now that they’d set me up to take the fall for John’s killing, I wanted them both more than ever. Rather, I wanted Lana. Have you ever wished you could open up your skull, extract the piece of brain that holds the memory of a woman who controls you more than you control yourself? That’s precisely what I would have done, if only it were possible. But thus far, the only one who’d made out fine as red wine in this mess was John Cattivo. He might be dead, his brains blasted all over his gunroom wall, but at least he was free of Lana.

  As sleep began to take over, the events of the past couple of days took on a new clarity. It was as if I had a tumor growing on my liver and somehow I could see the big pink lump like my skin had turned translucent as glass. The world loved to see a big man fall. But then, I wasn’t a big man in any sense of the word. Sure, I was a screenwriter who’d had some films produced. Sure, I once had a name and reputation. I had friends and was invited to parties in LA that other screenwriters and movie stars also attended.

  Here’s one for you: I once got high with Brad Pitt back in ‘90 or ‘91 out in the turnaround of the Avalon Hotel in West Hollywood. I did shots with George Clooney in his trailer on the Universal Studios set of Out of Sight for which I was the show runner. I even hitched a ride with Johnny Depp to a 7-Eleven on the corner of Olympic and Reeves when he needed a pack of cigarettes and I needed a sixer of beer. On the way back to a mutual friend’s townhouse on Santa Monica Boulevard, he stole one of my beers and I stole one of his butts. We blared Nirvana and laughed at the stupidest shit.

  Now I’m not sure Johnny Depp or George Clooney would have the slightest clue who I was. That’s how long gone I’d bec
ome. How positively yesterday I was. Like an old T-shirt that had been ripped and shredded and tossed into the corner of the garage to collect dust and spider webs.

  But I was still a writer.

  No son of a bitch could ever take that away from me. But what if I turned myself in? Would the cops believe me when I told them I just wanted to see what it looked like when a man ate his piece? That I was conducting research at the time? That I had no idea his wife had planted a bullet inside the gun? That John insisted on demonstrating how it was done. So what if his teeth were broken. Maybe he did that by mistake when he shoved the barrel inside his mouth on his own. Just because his teeth were broken didn’t mean I shoved the gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

  It’s how I would explain it to Miller. But chances are, he wouldn’t believe me. Or maybe believing me would be beside the point. A man was dead and it was my fault. There was also no getting around the fact that it was my prints on the bullet casing and no one else’s.

  But John Cattivo was just the first in what would become two dead bodies in less than twelve hours.

  Would Miller believe me when I said I was defending myself against a raging convenience store clerk? It wasn’t likely. Even when forensics scoured the place and discovered he shot at me first, they’d come up with a scenario that proved I was physically threatening the old man. In the end, they’d work it out so that he was the one acting in self-defense. Not the other way around. After all, I’d already killed a cop.

  The future looked black and bleak.

  And now here I was lying on my back inside some roadside motel, filled with fear and exhaustion so deep, I could feel it in my teeth and in the core of my bones. What I should have been doing was heading south to New York City where I could ditch the Porsche in the East River and then blend into the crowd. At the first chance I got, I could either steal away on a cargo ship bound for South America, or I could somehow figure out a way to pay off some Chinese smuggler for safe passage to Asia where I’d disappear forever under a false ID.