The Escape Diaries: Life and Love on the Lam

by Juliet Rosetti

  A narrow gravel road meandered between fields here. A mobile satellite van was parked on the road’s shoulder. Bold red letters across the van’s sides read Action 13! Milwaukee’s First with the Latest! A radar dish the size of a flying saucer perched atop a cherry picker pole. Cables and cords dribbled out of the back doors, which astonishingly—were open! Cautiously emerging from the sunflowers, I duckwalked to the van and peeked inside. Empty.

  Acting on impulse, I hoisted myself into the back of the truck. The Action 13 team were slobs. Electronic gadgets, camera equipment, and fast-food wrappers were strewn all over. How did they ever find anything in this mess? Then again, neatness was highly overrated; three out of four fleeing felons preferred clutter to organization. I crept beneath a recessed bench seat, pretzeled my legs, and hauled a thick black cable cord over myself, feeling like one of those circus midgets who crawl out of clown cars. Stinky, the Eighth Dwarf.

  I took a deep breath. Then was sorry I’d inhaled. Minutes trickled torturously by as I crouched there, chewing my knuckles, mentally pummeling myself because I’d trapped myself in this van. I should have taken my chances in the fields. It might not be too late. I was just starting to extricate myself from my hiding place when I heard rapid footsteps outside the truck.

  Nearly fainting with fear, I braced myself for the drawn guns and shouted orders. But it wasn’t cops. It was just a couple of slobby guys in baseball caps and jeans, tossing stuff in the van, rolling up cable, slamming doors. They climbed into the front, started the truck, and took off. The van bumped along the dirt road, then sped up as it turned onto the highway. Peering out between the strands of cable, I checked out the guys. The driver, bearded and scruffy, wore a camouflage pattern baseball cap. He sniffed. “Jeez—what’s that smell?”

  “I don’t smell anything,” said the shotgun guy, who was also scruffy: hair way past its trim-by date, ditto for shave, Manitoba Moose Hockey cap.

  “Like cow crap. It reeks in here.”

  “Probably on our shoes. I must have walked through every cow flop on that farm.”

  I was the source of the cow crap odor, of course. I was a stowaway, an unwanted passenger like a wood tick on a dog. At the moment I would have traded places with a wood tick on a dog. I hurt in so many places my ailments had to take a number for my brain to process them. But I couldn’t think about my cuts and bruises at the moment, because it would take up valuable energy I needed to worry that the Action 13 guys would decide to investigate the cow crap aroma. There was no partition between the cargo hold and the front seat, so my manure odor could circulate freely, stinking up the whole interior.

  Both men rolled down their windows.

  “We’re going national,” chortled the Moose cap guy. I couldn’t see his face, just his dark, unkempt hair. “CNN picked up.”

  “Turn it on.”

  Moose punched on a television monitor mounted in the dashboard. Peeking out between the gaps in the cable cord, I could catch glimpses of what they were watching. It was the Lautenbacher farm.

  “Unbelievable,” Camo Cap said. “Oh, man—check out this part. Here she comes!” There was Norbert’s stupid, ugly barn on the small screen. Then the camera zoomed in on the open hatch door with the grain elevator jutting out. There I was! Dangling on the end of the elevator, legs swinging out into space, clutching the elevator lip for dear life. Zoom again as Katz appeared in the hatch door, all G-Man square jaw and gallantry, extending his hand and then—

  “Je-sus!” Moose said. “There she goes.”

  Camo Cap shook his head. “Could of broken her neck.”

  We all watched the crazy woman leap through the air, shrieking and flailing. We watched her land in the giant manure mound. Then we watched as the phoenix of cow crap rose from the heap and sprinted off.

  “I think she just did the four hundred in six seconds flat,” said Camo, who was making me nervous. He needed to be watching the road instead of the video, which was now showing me vanishing into the Holstein herd.

  I didn’t think either of these bozos were reporters; they were too grungy-looking to be on-camera talent. They must be camera crew. And if I was lucky, they were heading back to their home planet, Milwaukee.

  Moose changed channels. “Here’s the bit we filmed with the cow herd.”

  Now I understood why the cops hadn’t sent the dogs chasing after me. The dogs must have had border collie blood, because instead of obeying their trainers’ commands, they were racing around trying to round up the panicked Holsteins.

  Coming next on Animal Planet: When Police Dogs Go Wild.

  Peter Polifka, the station’s main anchor guy, appeared on-screen back in the station’s studio, his teeth white against his tanned face, his jaw manly, his voice a rich baritone. “So Mazie Maguire eludes the authorities yet again,” he said, chuckling. “And as we can see in this footage”—instant replay of my jump—“she literally slips through the fingers of Federal Marshal Sylvester Katz.”

  The camera cut to a young female reporter, standing outside the Lautenbacher barn.

  “Umm, I think that’s Irving Katz?”

  Right. Sylvester was the cat who was always after Tweety Bird.

  “Well, I’d say that this jailbird is leading the Katz on a merry chase, wouldn’t you, Brittany?” He chortled at his own lame pun.

  Brittany forced a smile. “She certainly is, Peter.”

  “Do the police have any idea where Mazie Maguire might be headed next?”

  “Authorities refused to comment, Peter.”

  Camo Cap punched off the TV and said in a deep, pompous voice, “Any idea where my brains are stashed, Brittany?”

  Moose said, “I believe you’re sitting on them, Peter.”

  They both laughed, then Moose reached into a cooler beneath the front seat, pulled out two cans of beer and popped them. He handed one to the driver and took one for himself. Icy driblets ran down the sides of the cans. I could almost taste the cold wetness sluicing down my own parched throat. My stomach let out a gurgle nearly audible above the sound of the engine. The van rolled along, the rhythm of tires on road so lulling my lids drooped and I fell into a waking doze, too dopey with fatigue to plan what I was going to do next.

  An hour or so passed. Although I couldn’t see out, I figured we must be in Milwaukee because of the traffic noise and the stop-and-go driving. Camo’s cussing becoming more inventive. His actual name, I’d discovered, was Bob, but I hadn’t heard Manitoba Moose’s real name yet. I hoped we didn’t have much farther to go. My muscles were cramping and I was so thirsty I was ready to lick my own sweat.

  The van slowed, made a sharp turn, and stopped. Bob and Moose got out of the van, came around to the back and began removing equipment. I scrunched myself into an even smaller ball, keeping my eyes down because most people possess a sixth sense that warns them when they’re being watched. At last the rear doors slammed shut.

  “I’m leaving my car here and taking the truck,” I heard Moose say. “I’ve got an early-morning assignment.”

  “Hey, while you’re at it, stop at a car wash and get them to clean off that stink.”

  Moose grunted a response, climbed in the van, started it, and drove off. About twenty more minutes passed before he finally parked and got out.

  Go away, I silently willed him. Nothing happened. I waited a few beats, then cautiously raised my head and peeked out through a side window. I knew immediately where I was—Five Points on the east side of Milwaukee, where Murray, Farwell, and North all come together to create a traffic nightmare. Hoolihan’s Bar was off on the left; the Oriental Theater was to the right.

  The van’s back door opened. There was a silence, then Moose spoke.

  “You can come out now.”

  Escape hint #10:

  Sell it with skin.

  I felt as though someone had stuck a turkey baster down my throat and sucked all the air out of my lungs. Busted, five feet from freedom. I crawled out from under the bench, sprang out of
the van, knocked Moose Cap sideways, and took off running.

  That’s what happened in my mind’s eye. Here’s what actually happened: my cramped legs accordioned on me and I crashed to the pavement. Moose Cap grabbed me under the armpits, heaved me to my feet, and propelled me along the sidewalk. Ordinarily a man hauling a woman in manure-stained clothes along a public street would attract attention, but this was the lower east side of Milwaukee; among the kids scoring drugs, the street people sifting through dumpsters, the drunks staggering out of Hoolihan’s, and the Goths spilling out of The Rocky Horror matinee, Moose and I were just street theater.

  I couldn’t yell at someone to call the police. The price on my head was enough to keep a crackhead in product for six months. Moose manhandled me around a corner, into a building, and up a flight of stairs. Easily sidestepping my kicks, he fished a key out of his jeans, unlocked a door, and shoved me inside.

  This was his apartment, I assumed. It wasn’t the milk crate and pizza box décor suggested by his overall grunge, but a high-ceilinged place with hardwood floors, comfortable-looking furniture, and walls hung with photos. Through an arched doorway I glimpsed a kitchen with a porcelain sink and old-fashioned glass-fronted cabinets.

  “Bob was right,” Moose said. “You do smell like cow shit. It hit me like a ton of bricks when we got back in the van.” He let go of me, but didn’t take his eyes off me. “Get those clothes off.”

  “Go screw yourself!”

  Being raped by this creep would only be one notch above being molested by Norbert Lautenbacher while hanging from a pipe, but it wasn’t going to happen. I lunged toward a lamp on an end table, snatched it up, and swung it at the guy with all my strength. Unfortunately, he was too tall and I only managed to whack his shoulder. Reacting as though I’d swatted him with a newspaper, Moose wrenched the lamp out of my hand.

  “I don’t find manure a big turn-on. Your virtue is safe with me. Come on—bath time.”

  He dragged me into his bathroom and locked both of us inside. This bathroom wasn’t going to make the starting lineup at the Vonnerjohn Design Center. Its floor was laid with those nickel-sized tiles all old bathrooms have, made of some substance that will be here long after the rest of the planet is a big cinder in space. There was a radiator under the window currently being used to dry wet socks, an old, plain white toilet, and a claw-footed tub the size of an ice rink. A jock strap hung jauntily from a towel bar.

  “Shower stopped working a year ago,” Moose shared as he tidied up, tucking the jock strap and socks underneath the sink. “So I started taking baths. Got so I liked ’em. I read halfway through War and Peace in that tub, until I got so bored I didn’t care which side won the damn war. Now get your clothes off.”

  “All right,” I said, stalling, trying to keep my gaze away from the window. “But I’ll need some privacy.”

  He looked at me. “You’re a scary woman, you know that? You survived a tornado, a wall of exploding toilets, and a four-story leap out of a barn. For all I know, you can turn into a bat and fly out a ventilation duct. So. You think I look dumb enough to leave you alone in here?”

  No, actually—I didn’t think he looked dumb at all. His eyes stayed on me, unblinking. Eyes the color of Hershey Kisses, but not as warm and sweet, and they didn’t miss much. We stared at each other, taking each other’s measure. He was linebacker big, not the sort of cameraman who’s going to get pushed around while filming a riot. He had lots of straight, dark brown hair and bristles way past five o’clock shadow—getting on toward midnight. His general scruff made it hard to judge his age. Early thirties maybe?

  He leaned over the tub, ran hot water, and dumped in half a bottle of shampoo. “Swish that around and you’ll get some great bubbles.”

  The water got higher. Bubbles bubbled, froth frothed. The scent of coconut shampoo mixed with the stench of drying manure. My eyes darted around the room, searching for something to use as a weapon. Punch the cabinet mirror and go for his jugular with a shard of glass? Rip off the toilet seat and clobber him? Strangle him with his own jockstrap? There had to be some way out of this situation, but my tired brain refused to function.

  “Take ’em off.” He folded his arms across his chest. “Or I do.” The arms were hairy and muscular. The chest was encased in a T-shirt that looked as though it’d been used to clean a car engine, the long legs in old, ripped jeans. What a slob! I know, I know—people in glass houses and all. But this guy had chosen to look like a slob.

  “Bath,” he said.

  Fine. He was going to win this particular battle. But the war ain’t over yet, jerko. Hopping from foot to foot, I slid off my cheap prison-issue sneakers—more hole than canvas by now—peeled off my wet, slimy socks, ripped off the garage sale sweats and T-shirt, unhooked my bra, and slid out of my underpants. I flung the whole stinking mess at Moose’s feet with a screw you flourish. Then I climbed into the tub.

  Hot, soapy water. Sheer, decadent, exquisite, toe-curling bliss. I shuddered in head-to-toe ecstasy, not caring at the moment whether my captor was a serial rapist with a bathtub fetish. I submarined beneath the suds, immersing my whole head. When I surfaced, blowing like a whale, Moose was bent over the tub, looking concerned.

  “Scared I was going to drown myself?” Ticking off this thug was probably dangerous. He might have control issues, and if challenged, would go all gonzo. At the moment, though, I was too hungry, tired, and battered to rein in my anger.

  He backed away and sat down on the toilet seat. “Nah. You’re a survivor.”

  I looked around the room for the hidden camera. “I’ll bet you’re filming this.”

  He looked insulted. “What kind of person do you think I am?”

  “The kind who sells pictures of naked jailbirds to tabloids.”

  “I’m a highly respected photojournalist.”

  “Bullshit. You shoot car wrecks and burning buildings for a third-rate TV station.”

  “We’ve moved up to second-rate. We’re seventh in the local ratings.”

  “Out of what?”

  “Eight.”

  I splashed around in the water, watching him out of the corners of my eyes, trying to figure his angle. Was he another Lautenbacher, turned on by the notion of sex with a female convict? Lots of guys wanted to be pen pals with inmates. Women in stir received marriage proposals all the time. Some guys wanted to bring inmates to Jesus, some wanted the privilege of conjugal visits, and some just wanted the chance to get their hands on a woman whom they felt deserved to be tortured and killed.

  So where was Moose on the whack job scale? He appeared to be normal enough, in a grubby kind of way. He wasn’t even that bad-looking, if you didn’t count his nose, which looked as though it had collided with a baseball bat.

  “If you knew I was in your van, why didn’t you turn me over to the cops?” I asked. “There’s a big reward on my head.”

  Don’t say head, stupid! It might give him images of my severed head in a pillowcase.

  But I couldn’t seem to shut up. This guy irritated me so much I just wanted to jab the hell out of him. “If you collected the reward you could probably buy some new jeans. Maybe get a shave and a haircut.”

  “I don’t care about the reward.”

  Ominous. People who didn’t care about money were, in my experience, deeply warped. Or fabulously wealthy. Which this creep obviously wasn’t or he wouldn’t be living in Five Points. I kept on my guard, waiting for him to lunge at me.

  He got to his feet, but it was only to pick my dirty clothes off the floor and toss them in the wastebasket. He leaned against the sink, keeping his eyes a scrupulous two inches above my head, but this sudden regard for my maidenly modesty was a bit too after the fact. “The reason I haven’t turned you in?” he said. “Because I wanted to hear your side of the story. About your husband’s murder. The truth.”

  You can’t handle the truth: Jack Nicholson’s great movie line immediately leaped to mind, but I rephrased it. “Yeah? Well,
guess what? No one wants to hear the truth.” Lots of bitterness and self-pity there. I thought I’d gotten it out of my system long ago, but apparently a reservoir still remained.

  He swiveled his eyes to mine. “Try me.”

  I scrubbed my neck, which in three days had morphed way beyond ring-around-the-collar into circle-of-crud territory. Why was I talking to this guy? It wouldn’t make any difference what I told him. He was going to go ahead with whatever twisted scenario he had planned for me anyway.

  “The truth. Okay. I’m innocent. I didn’t do the crime.”

  “Lady, I saw the video.”

  Everything always came back to that damn video. Nabbed by Nanny-cam! shrieked the tabloids, knocking the story of the televangelist caught cavorting with the porn star off their front pages.

  “It’s not me on that video,” I said.

  “Then how do you explain it?”

  “The woman in the video is wearing a nightie. I don’t wear nightgowns. I wear pajamas.”

  He spread his hands. “There you have it. Conclusive proof of innocence.”

  I grabbed the shampoo bottle, poured the glop over my head, and worked the lather into my hair. Damn, that felt good! As I raked my fingers across my itchy, sweaty scalp, clots of straw, hay, and various creepy crawlies worked loose and plopped into the water.

  I ran more hot water, stuck my head under the faucet, rinsed out the shampoo, wrung out my hair, and settled back against the warm, sudsy porcelain, determined to enjoy what would probably be my last bath. The odds were looking very good that I would soon be returning to cold showers once a week, always keeping one eye peeled for Mona the Monobrow, who liked to sidle over and offer to lather up my backside. That is, if this nut job didn’t chop me into little pieces first.