From the moment the flimsy door banged shut behind Wiley, Erica savored the quiet and her privacy. She picked up his dirty socks and underwear, threw them in the sink with a dollop of lavender shampoo, and washed as best she could, wringing out the clothes and hanging them from the shower-curtain rod. His white briefs reminded her of holiday bunting. The domestic ritual brought an ease to her thoughts; she hummed a few bars from “Get Down Tonight” and waggled her hips in time. He hated that kind of pop disco, but she liked to secretly dance to its insistent rhythms. The song was company, but not enough. Tired of her own voice, she clicked on the television and lay on the rumpled bed.
Some old movie in black and white, all shadows and crazy angles, quick crosscut shots of men looking for someone: a man runs through a series of dark tunnels, a storm drain beneath city streets. The police are chasing him, shots are exchanged. Wet down there. Like a cornered animal, he looks fearful and desperate. Disembodied German voices echo from all sides. A staircase appears at his shoulder, and he looks up to freedom, climbing as fast as he can—is he shot?—till he reaches a grate above his head. Pushes but it stays stuck, and then on the darkened street, a miasma of mist and shades of cold gray. A wind howls. His hands unclench from the iron grid, fingers emerge through the holes, stretching, reaching for the salvation that will not come. Mere hands reveal the heart.
Outside, a car pulled into the gravel parking lot, diverting her from the story, so she went to the window, fussed with the double curtains to peer into the night. A man emerged from the car, lurched as he stood, then staggered right to her window. Through the glass, he looked straight into her eyes. Old enough to be her father, but younger than the real thing. A shot rang out from the movie, distracting her for an instant, and then the man at the window had disintegrated. She checked again the bolted door, the latched chain. Heart pounding, Erica slid into bed and tried to refocus on the movie.
Two men ride in an open jeep, chatting amiably, and pass by a stylish young woman who refuses to acknowledge them.
“Let me out.”
“There's not time,” the man in uniform says.
“One can't just leave. Please.”
The driver stops. “Be sensible, Martins.”
As the man grabs his suitcase and leaves the jeep, he says, “I haven't got a sensible name, Calloway”
A sensible name, Erica thought, and laughed over her inspired choice of Nancy Perry. The girl in the high school parking lot had no clue that the real Nancy Perry was martyred for the cause in a shoot-out with the police in Oakland, California.
Martins leans in a nonchalant manner against a cart parked by the road to wait for her. The camera locks on the approaching woman, cool and elegant and beautiful, walking along a gallery boulevard lined with glorious leafy trees. Crazy music begins to play and Erica wonders what on earth can make such a weird noise, somewhere between a harp and guitar but with vibrato. Angels on acid. The man waits and waits. The woman walks by, passes him, walks on without even glancing in his direction; she wants nothing to do with him. Walks past him, right past the camera, and out of his life, and he just stands there and watches her go, that mad music the only sound till he flicks away a match, and then “The End” in white letters on black.
Daddy would have known what that music was, would have told her all the trivia connected to the film, the other movies the actors appeared in, the name of the man with the expressive hands, and the meaning of it all. Too late. Suddenly cold, she pulled the blanket over her legs. Had she the courage to ask her father, he might have explained, too, the reason behind Wiley's invitation to the girl back at the high school. Come along for a ride. The thought of another creature in their bed swept over her like a winter storm, and the room began to shrink and close in on her. She turned on all the lights. The wet clothes in the bathroom dripped against the porcelain tub. That drunk would be coming any minute now to burst through the locks and chains to abduct her. She plucked out a thread from the covers, unraveled a stitch. Mother will be furious. Leaping from the bed, she pressed her ear against the door to listen for footsteps.
9
As he tucked the pistol in his waistband, Wiley flinched when the cold barrel brushed against his bare skin. Careful to leave the car door unlocked, he crossed the empty parking lot to the restaurant, adjusting his gait so that the gun would not slip to the ground or peek out from behind his denim jacket. A bell tinkled when he opened the door, and the clerk behind the counter glanced up from his paperwork and nodded. The menu along the wall displayed a raft of choices, but Wiley kept his head down as he approached and did not look at the man, focusing instead on the handle of the pistol bulging against his jeans. “Two burgers, no, make it three. And a large fry.”
The clerk, a thin white man with a regular boy's haircut, sighed and straightened his stack of papers, taking time to staple a cash register tape to the topmost page. “We're closing.”
“Sign outside says open to midnight, and by my watch, that's another ten minutes.”