doors, tossed the Irons brothers’ clothing in, and shut and locked the doors. She put the keys in the truck’s ignition and locked and closed the door. Then she swiftly walked to the front of the motel where there was a public telephone. She telephoned an anonymous tip to the El Embudo police about two young men who had stolen funds from a brothel and a laundry service. She left the room number and motel name before she hung up. Then she walked to the freeway onramp to hitch a ride west.
Brandon and Clapton were drying off when officers, with the motel clerk in tow, entered and arrested them. They were unable to account for the missing money, their missing clothes, or their missing mother surrogate.
The Bus Not Missed
Vanna’s walk along the frontage road toward the onramp disclosed to her a bus stop. The inter-city company advertised its routes. From where she was Vanna could ride to downtown Keystone, and from there take a bus to the City. She checked the schedule. This time of day several buses passed within minutes of each other, carrying commuters to the city center. Vanna waited less than five minutes. She got on the bus, paid her fare, and took a seat on the western, or shadowy, side of the bus. Several passengers rose out of their commute stupor long enough to notice the gaunt woman in the drab dress and quickly sank back into numbness, forgetting her. She rode to the city center. As she got off the bus, she glimpsed her face in the bus’s rear view mirror. The aging woman reflected at her had a lined and bitter face under graying black hair that straggled over her skull in random disorder.
Schedules to the City were less frequent. The next would not leave for three hours. Vanna determined to freshen her wardrobe. She remarked a thrift store two blocks from the station. It was the Previously Loved Garment Boutique. A regal elderly lady greeted Vanna as she entered. Vanna didn’t quite understand what the woman, whose accent was northern British had said, but took it for a standard greeting. The woman’s nametag said Lynne O’Liam.
“Ms. O’Liam,” Vanna said, “can you direct me to garments appropriate for a recently widowed woman? You see, I lost my husband in a traffic accident not long back, and I am only now entering a period of slightly greater social activity following my deepest mourning.”
“Yes, my dear, I quite understand,” Ms. O’Liam said. At least Vanna thought that was what she said. Ms. O’Liam led her to a rack near the rear of the store. It had a great variety of garments representing several degrees of formality. All were black, and quite sober in cut. Vanna rooted through them while Ms. O’Liam stood by. Vanna found two that suited her, one formal gown almost suitable for evening wear, and another, a simple frock, with a slight, soft flare to the skirt and a simple bodice. Black lace trimmed the gown’s neckline. The frock’s neckline was untrimmed, though narrow lapels emphasized its modest plunge toward the bosom. Vanna frugally consulted the price tags; they were not inordinate, in her estimation. She asked Ms. O’Liam about underthings.
“We have a supply of modest undergarments that have never been worn,” Ms. O’Liam said. She took Vanna to that counter. Vanna selected a week’s supply of sensible modesty to wear under her new garments. She also bought two pair of shoes, also black, and a battered suitcase to carry it all in. Her bill came to nearly forty dollars. Carefully shielding her bankroll from Lynne’s eyes, she extracted the required bills, and accepted her change. She took a little time to pack her purchases in the suitcase. She returned, then, to the bus station, bought a ticket for the City, and waited for the call to board the bus.
The bus boarded several minutes before its scheduled departure. Vanna was the first in line, and so could select a seat anywhere she wanted. She chose the right side of the bus, which would be on the north as it traveled to the City. She deliberately left her bag on the seat and stared pointedly out the window. Her ploy worked. No one sat next to her. The bus left the Keystone station, and traveled for twenty minutes to a suburban station. More passengers boarded here. Most passed by Vanna’s suitcase, though several glared at it. The only empty seats on the bus were near the restroom. That was not prime bus territory.
The last passenger to get on was a woman of color, though the color was an indeterminate brown that could have been skin tone, or ingrained dirt, or even walnut juice stain. She was of medium height, dressed in a dull brown coat and wide-brimmed brown hat decorated with small green apples. She wore thick gray socks over feet thrust into sandals devised from tire treads and strips cut from tire sidewalls. Vanna thought she looked like a mushroom. She even smelled a little earthy, as though mushrooms might be growing on her.
“Here, let me move this suitcase for you, honey,” she said to Vanna, and swung it up onto the rack over the seat. “There,” she said, and plopped down in the seat next to Vanna, who was preparing several cutting remarks.
“Thanks for having me, honey,” the woman said. “I’m Idabet, Idabet Moore,” she said. “I hail from Oklahoma originally. What’s your name?”
“Donna,” Vanna said. “Donna D’Schuys. I hail from the insane asylum.” Idabet seemed not at all put out.
“Which one?” she asked. “Bubblebrook or Singing Springs?”
“Neither,” Vanna said. “I’m from out-of-state.”
“Been traveling a long time, have you, honey?”
“Several days. Please don’t chatter at me. I need to sleep.” Vanna closed her eyes and pretended to sleep. It worked for a while. Idabet engaged the older man across the aisle in conversation. Her prattle was so dull Vanna dozed for another half hour. Mercifully, Idabet dozed herself for a short while. Her snores were irritatingly arrhythmic, but Vanna managed to endure them. At Cebolla the bus stopped for a half-hour rest break. Idabet led the passengers off the bus. Vanna stayed. She hoped Idabet stayed in Cebolla.
No such luck. The bus took off again for the City. A refreshed and renewed Idabet nudged Vanna in her ribs. Vanna glared at Idabet. Idabet responded.
“You look like you’ve got a tummy upset,” she said. “Here, have a ginger mint.” Vanna declined, silently. “Oh, go on, honey. It settles your stomach like nothing else. Regulates the bowels, too, if you’ve got trouble that way.” Vanna stared at the brown lozenge on offer. Her stomach churned. The brown fingers holding the lozenge looked very dirty. Some compulsion must have forced her, Vanna thought later, to take the ugly abdominal roborant. By the time she got to the City her stomach was engaged in all out civil war.
On top of this she heard all of Idabet’s family history for three or four generations back. The Moores were prolific unto the ultimate generation, and Idabet talked lovingly and at length about each clan member. Vanna came away with an impression of a clan frequently bloodied by divorce, murder, and suicide. Perhaps Idabet should have written it all down for daytime drama.
In the City Vanna hoped to escape her seatmate. Regrettably she had mentioned she meant to stay for the night at the YWCA hostelry. Idabet immediately decided to stay there, too. “Maybe we can share a room,” she said. Vanna waited for a narrow opening in the traffic flow. When one came she shoved Idabet ahead of her into the stream of cars. While Idabet was negotiating her way to the opposite curb, Vanna disappeared down a side street to seek alternative lodgings.
Homecoming
Las Tumbas had changed only a little since Vanna had been sent to prison. A few more cars clogged the streets and some of the stores had changed businesses. A couple of storefronts were boarded up. Vanna met no one she knew. She had never had a wide circle of friends in Las Tumbas, though she had a vast set of acquaintances from her membership on the Coastal Commission. Few of those acquaintances would venture into the streets around the bus station. People from the State Building where Vanna had had her office avoided this area, even though it was only two or three blocks from them. The luncheonettes on the other side of their building had far more cachet than the narrow diners with fly-specked windows that catered to bus passengers.
Vanna knew her appearance had
changed considerably. She had age lines creasing her face. Gray streaks shot through her hair. Her trim body had thickened with the manual labor and big calorie diet in prison. She presumed that news of her escape from El Serrucho Oxidado had been widely disseminated in Las Tumbas. What she didn’t know was that she had been declared dead based on an old skeleton tagged with scraps of orange canvas. She had overheard a conversation in a parking lot that implied the authorities thought she was dead, but she had not seen a newspaper article or heard any news report that backed up that conversation. She hoped no one expected to see Vanna Dee on the streets of Las Tumbas. Maybe that would increase her chances of passing unnoticed while she was in town.
She rented a room for the night at the Folded Arms, a notorious flophouse. Her room was on the top floor at the back. She had to dispossess several fleas and cockroaches of their customary abodes, but she appreciated the quiet it offered, as well as its easy access to the alley, so she could come and go unobserved by the desk clerk. She registered as Sarah Toga. Police might be looking for Donna D’Schuys, either as a thief or a kidnap victim.
Vanna stowed her suitcase in the closet. She had looked in the
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