by Laurel Dewey
“Hey, Jane!” she heard Hank call to her from outside the door.
“What?” she shouted.
“We have to talk.”
She stood up, securing the towel around her wet body. Taking a deep breath, she swung open the door. “I’ve already said everything I’m—” She stopped and froze. Hank was calmly seated at the round table in front of the window. Across from him in the other chair was Harlan. Locked in Hank’s right hand was the 9mm and it was pointed at Harlan’s head.
CHAPTER 18
Jane stood there dripping wet, speechless and shaking. “What in the hell—”
“You said for me not to open the door unless I heard your name?” Harlan offered in a strangely relaxed manner. “He put the key in the lock and when it clicked, he called out that ‘Jane’ was lookin’ for me.” He shot Hank a look. “So, I come to the door.”
She glanced at Hank. He might have retired from the force years before, but like all cops, he never lost his edge. His blue eyes were hard, angry and confused.
“First I checked your wallet in your leather satchel,” Hank stated, never lowering the gun on Harlan. “The credit cards were all there. Then I found the 9mm. It’s not your service weapon. And then I found the room key. And since you got up here so quickly after I called you, I knew the room wasn’t far away.” He turned to Harlan and then back to Jane. “I figured you had another guy stuffed away. I just didn’t think it was this guy.”
It took Harlan a few long seconds to feel the insult. “Hang on, Hank. Don’t judge me ‘til you hear my story.”
“I know your story,” he replied in a frosty tone.
“No. You don’t know his story,” Jane stated, carefully covering her body with the towel.
“Jesus, Jane!” Hank exclaimed. “I found this just now in your satchel,” he waved Harlan’s fake ID in the air. “Hartley Llewellyn, eh? And yours?” He held it out. “Anne LeRóy? And this one? Wanda Anne LeRóy? Both have your photo on them. What in the fuck is going on here?” He brought out his cell phone. “One call, Jane. One call and this is over.”
“Don’t!” She moved toward Hank. “He’s innocent!”
“Prove it!” Hank rejoined.
“After my car was stolen, I walked to the bus depot and got on and then transferred to the Anubus. The one that exploded? Before we took off, there was a girl on the bus who knew Jaycee. She’s the black prostitute Harlan is accused of killing.” Jane continued, giving Hank an overview of everything. “The kid was heading to Denver to talk to PD about what she knew. She wanted to clear Harlan’s name.”
“So why didn’t she?” Hank asked.
“She found out that morning that Harlan had escaped from custody. She freaked out and wanted to get out of town, because she said she knew he wasn’t running from the cops. He was running from the people who set him up. I believed her. She had nothing to gain from telling me that story. And she knew she had everything to lose because she kept mentioning a red-haired guy outside the bus who was acting suspiciously. It was the same psycho she met in the back of a limo and who later paid her off after she lured Harlan up to the motel room. She was convinced he came there to kill her. And obviously, the poor girl was right!”
“What? Jane, this is sounding sketchy as hell—”
“I’m telling you the fucking truth! If I hadn’t walked off that bus, I really would be dead.”
“Why did you walk off that bus?” Hank asked.
She let out a tired breath. “Fuck if I know. I just…I felt sick…I smelled death…”
“You smelled death?” Harlan interjected with a curious expression.
“Yes. I didn’t know I was smelling it until everything went nuts. And then I realized that somehow I sensed it before it happened.”
Hank considered her comments. “So you witness this whole nightmare and still you do nothing?”
“It was fucking chaos, Hank! Bodies everywhere! And then I sneak a look over and I see the same red-haired freak she was talking about, leaning on his black sedan and calmly watching the whole massacre. It didn’t take me more than a few seconds to figure out that if I so much as lifted my head, I’d be dead. So, I waited for him to drive away and then I did the first thing that came to my mind. I tossed my license.”
Hank never let the gun waver from Harlan’s body. “You knew exactly what you were doing, Jane.”
She stared at him, shaking. “Put the gun down, Hank. He’s not going to hurt you. Believe me, he doesn’t know how to hurt a soul.”
“Because he’s an idiot?” Hank asked. “Isn’t that what you called him?”
Jane felt her world crumbling.
“How many sides of the fence are you playing here, Jane?” Hank asked.
“I’m not playing anyone,” she softly replied.
“Well,” Harlan interjected, “to be truthful, I did tell you that it wasn’t fair what you was plannin’ with Hank.” He turned to Hank calmly. “I thought she needed to be up front with you from the get-go but I think she was worried you would do what you’re doin’ right now. As far as her callin’ me an idiot, I guess that’s between her and me. It’s not like I ain’t heard that one before.”
Jane stood straighter, re-securing the towel around her body. “Put down the gun, Hank. Do you honestly believe for one second that I’d get involved with a killer?”
Hank stared at her. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”
She looked at him in stunned silence. Every cell in her body vibrated with ire. “You know exactly what I mean.”
“And so do you. You couldn’t see it back then, maybe you can’t see it now.”
“Jesus Christ. I’m trying to save his life!”
Hank leaned forward. “What about your own life, Jane?! Does that count for anything? You have people who genuinely care about you. Did you see Weyler on TV when he announced you were dead?! He was a damn mess! Don’t you care about that? What if your brother gets wind of this when he’s coming home from his honeymoon? How’s he going to react? Thought about that? What are your plans? I brought you five hundred bucks. How long will that last you? How far can you drive your non-descript van before you run out of gas and money? Then what? Skip to Mexico? Are you going to abandon Harlan or drag him along?”
“Stop it,” Jane insisted.
“I’m asking you serious questions, Jane! It’s not too late to get the authorities involved and sort through all of this—”
“The authorities can’t fix this! And it’s not the authorities I’m worried about!” She took a much-needed breath. “Look, I’ve done a lot of work on this case over the last four days and I just need a little bit more time to sort everything out.” She stared at Hank with conviction. “He did not do what they are saying he did. He had nothing to do with Jaycee and he had nothing to do with Dora Weller’s shooting.”
Hank lay the gun on the table. “Holy shit…They think you’re the accomplice?”
“No, they don’t have a name. And I don’t think it’s the cops who are feeding that story to the media—”
“Jane, you’re starting to sound—”
“I know how I sound, Hank! I get it! I sound fucking nuts! Harlan was not involved in Weller’s shooting. I wasn’t involved in Weller’s shooting. But the next time Weller’s puppet replacement gets on the tube to make a statement, check out the line of people behind him. Look for the red-haired guy in the dark suit. It’s the same fucker from the bus crash and it’s the same guy who’s disguised in a videotaped interview and who claims he saw Harlan rip off my car. I can verify the guy in the video was nowhere near that Quik Mart. Check it out for yourself! You’ve got a good eye. You should be able to see the similarities immediately. Harlan knows him by the name of Rudy. He was with him at the hospital when he got his heart transplant. He’s basically been monitoring Harlan and setting him up before Harlan came out of anesthe
sia.” She took two deliberate steps toward Hank. “I’ve done my due diligence, Hank! I know what I’m talking about. I might sound bat shit crazy but, goddammit, if you’d seen and heard what I have over these last few days, you’d be standing right here, pissed off that anyone wanted to stop your forward progress.”
Hank leaned forward, burying his head in his hands. “Oh, Jesus, Chopper.” After a few seconds, he came up for air. “They can’t call you dead and call you an accomplice.”
“I bet they can figure out how to do that. Any story worth fabricating is worth the time to get it right. They’d say they made a mistake about my premature death and then like me for a shooting I had no part of. Just like they pegged Harlan for smashing the head of that prostitute. Don’t you see? That’s why I have to figure this out.”
He regarded her with caution. “There’s something else you’re not telling me.”
“There’s a lot of shit going on, Hank. I’m just covering the basics here.”
Hank bored into her eyes and turned to Harlan. “What’s she leaving out?”
Harlan looked at Hank, giving the question serious deliberation. “I like to eat raw eggs.” He thought a little more. “And I never liked Italian but now I’m partial to it. And pine needle beer. Damn, I love that pine needle beer.”
Jane nodded. “That basically says it all right there.”
Hank turned back to Jane. “You still haven’t told me what your plans are.”
Harlan piped up. “I was askin’ her the same question earlier, Hank.”
Jane felt like the odd man out suddenly. “There are certain…forces at work here that are requesting certain…things…that I need to clarify before I can answer what the master plan is.”
“You sound like a politician, Chopper. Why aren’t you telling me what you know?”
“Because you wouldn’t understand.”
“Really? Am I an idiot too?”
“I didn’t say that. This is just a little outside of the scope of what we normally deal with.”
“I see,” he said, seething. “So, I’m good for a three a.m. call and a two hour plus drive in a rented van with food and money and disposable cell phones—”
“That’s not true!”
“That’s what this looks like. If I hadn’t snooped through your stuff and found the key to your room, I would have left here suspicious, but not onto you. You never would have given Harlan up. So, which one of us would look like the fool?”
“I’m not trying to turn you into a fool—”
“Well, you pointedly told me that your Mustang is parked in a wooded area that’s one block west of here! I know what’s coming next, Jane. You want me to drive that car back to Midas. You want me to either wait until night or figure out back roads to stay off the highway and avoid detection. You want me to put my ass on the line for you. Given the situation, it takes a fool to do that. You want me to pretend none of this happened. You want me to go about my days and ignore the fact that I know you didn’t die in a bus crash and that you’re out on the road with a wanted fugitive and I’m the one who helped you get there. Only a fool would do that for you, Jane.”
Jane looked at him, eyes welling with tears. “So, be my fool.”
They stared at each other in heartbreaking silence. Harlan stood up and walked to Jane.
“I think you and he need to be alone,” Harlan whispered to her.
She never took her eyes off Hank. “Go in the bathroom and close the door.”
Harlan obliged.
After another hard minute, Hank finally spoke.
“I think I get it, Jane. You’re only really friendly with people you can control.”
Her gut clamped down. “No. That isn’t true.”
“It is true,” he replied quietly. “You control your brother but you can’t control his new wife, that’s why you like to visit him when she’s not there. You don’t have any problems with Harlan because he’s not that bright and he does what you tell him to do. As long as you’re in control, you can somewhat function. But when you don’t have the reins in your hand, you lose your reference point. And, God forbid, anyone tries to control you. You’d just tell them to ‘fuck off,’ and walk away. It really must have taken a lot for you to call me. I bet you rehearsed what you were going to say for at least half an hour.” He looked at her with sad eyes. “What do you want, Chopper? I don’t mean in the next day or two. I mean what do you want? You want to keep running even when this is over? The world’s not big enough for you. You can’t run long enough or far enough because when you land, you’re still standing with yourself.”
Tears streamed down her face. “Maybe I don’t know how to live unless I can control the outcome.”
“Maybe you just don’t know how to live.”
That hit her hard. She wiped the tears with the back of her hand.
“I thought you were done with all the fighting,” he gently added. “But I guess it’s embedded in you.”
She stood straighter. “That fighting kept me alive.”
“And eventually, it will kill you.” He observed her. “But I don’t think you really care about that. As long as you have someone to save, you can get through the day. But if somebody tries to save you, you push them away because you don’t believe you’re worth saving.”
She bit her injured lip in an attempt to feel the greater pain. But no matter how hard she dug into the cut with her teeth, the pain in her heart overwhelmed.
He looked at her with pleading eyes. “Why do you make it so damn hard to love you, Jane?”
There was lingering silence until Jane worked up the courage to speak. “How do we rescue this day?”
Hank stood up. “We don’t.”
Waves of regret rippled through her. “I can’t…” She stopped herself. “What does that mean?”
“It means I’ll be your fool one more time.” He dug his hand into her leather satchel and recovered the keys for the Mustang. “There’s a cell phone I bought you with a yellow stripe down the back. I got the number for it. I’ll call and leave a message on it when I get back to Midas.” He brought the van keys out of his pocket and lobbed them to her. Lifting his small overnight bag off the floor, he walked to the door. “Be safe, Chopper,” he said without turning around and walked out the door.
For a moment, there was nothing. Just a blank space she occupied with orbits of life circling but never touching her. She was drawn into the bottomless pit and felt the pull to fall deeper. Safety. What an exceptional concept. What a luxury granted to so few.
She grabbed her clothes and threw them on before tapping on the bathroom door and freeing Harlan. He wandered into the room, looking lost.
“He seems like a real nice guy, Jane. How’d you two meet up?”
“Not now, Harlan,” she said softly, walking to the window and peeking outside the curtain. She forced the logical side of her brain to kick into gear. “We’re going to stay in our room tonight. We need the rest. We’ve been pushing it too hard.”
“He’s pushing it.”
Jane turned to Harlan. He was pointing to his heart.
“It’s always been about what he wants,” Harlan continued. “From the second I woke up, there’s been two of us in my body. And until I find out what he needs, I’ll never be able to rest. I’ll never be safe.”
She looked at Harlan with callous eyes. “Safety is a fucking illusion. We crave it but it doesn’t exist. You come into this world screaming and you go out begging. And in between, you find whatever cushion you can to fall back on. You’re born, you work, you die. The end.”
Harlan regarded her with trepidation. “Hell, Jane. That’s depressing.”
“It’s the truth, Harlan.” She swept up her bag and satchel from the table and chair. “Either accept it or live in a fucking fantasy world.” She turned back to him. “Come on.”
He held back. “We got two rooms,” he said with a shrug of his shoulders.
“I have to keep my eye on you,” she stressed.
“I ain’t goin’ anywhere, Jane.”
“You wandered off before—”
“That ain’t gonna happen again—”
“Harlan, for God’s sake, would you just—”
“No,” he said, his voice raising an octave. “You told me to start taking initiative.”
“Oh, God, stop bringing that up—”
“Well, too bad. I just did. Which room do you want?”
She tried to convince him for a few more minutes, even stooping to tempt him with a deluxe pizza she figured she could furtively buy at a local take out joint. But even the promise of far too much cheese and pepperoni wasn’t enough to sway him. Finally, realizing it was pointless she acquiesced. It was agreed she would return to their room and then retrieve him in the pre-dawn light. Checking the small cooler that Hank delivered, she pulled out a dozen eggs, and enough lunchmeat and cheese to keep Harlan somewhat sated until morning. Hefting her bags and the one that Hank dropped off across her shoulder, she rolled the cooler to the door. “I can’t change your mind?” she asked, almost desperately.
“See ya before the sun rises,” he said, waving her off and turning on the TV.
Jane opened the door and quickly slid the “Do Not Disturb” sign outside before returning to her room. After letting the bags fall where they chose, she lay back on the bed. God, a cigarette sounded good, she thought. Digging into her satchel, she retrieved the pack and slid out a fresh one. But when she couldn’t locate her lighter, the whole process became more trouble than it was worth. It was a fractal moment that represented the last four days. Three steps forward and two steps back. Sitting up on the bed, impatience crept closer. That was always a dangerous guest to Jane’s party. Once impatience shadowed her door, one thing was certain. Growing umbrage would show up next and the two of them would start a fight where Jane would have to intercede. But when impatience refused to listen, she always had to muscle it into submission. After kicking impatience’s ass, she allowed growing umbrage to hang out a little longer and party. And that is where she stood at that exact moment. She was tired of being restrained and at the whim of everything out there that was determined to thwart her progress. She would be heartless. She would “drive the wedge” and face the darkness head on. She had a new vehicle and a fresh fire in her belly.
