21 Tales Page 5

  “What’s wrong, Hon?” she asked. “You hardly touched your food. Anything wrong with it?”

  “Everything’s fine. I guess I’m just not as hungry as I thought I was.”

  She gave me a sympathetic smile. “Hon, you should try to eat. And if you want to tell me what’s troubling you, I’m all ears.”

  There was nothing but genuine concern in the smile she gave me. That’s the thing with Midwesterners, most decent Salt o’the Earth types you’ll ever run into. But how in the world could I tell her, or anyone else for that matter, about Dave Stevens?

  “Nothing more than I got a long day ahead of me,” I told her. “But I’ll make more of an effort.” I took several bites of the hash while she stood and watched approvingly. The bill for my food came to five dollars and seventy-four cents. When she turned to take another customer’s order, I dropped twenty dollars next to my plate and left the diner.

  I had several sales calls to make before leaving Wichita. It was at the first one, The People’s Credit Union of Wichita, that I spotted her. I had an appointment to talk with the operations manager about switching their business to us, but I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw her. According to the plaque on her desk her name was Lena Hanson and she worked as a loan officer. She was sitting down so I could only see her from the waist up, but that was enough to know she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen or was ever going to see. For a long moment I stood there lost in her golden hair and green eyes and perfect soft lips, watching as she absent-mindedly chewed on the end of a pen.

  She sensed that I was staring at her. As her eyes caught mine, at first there was nothing but a slight frown, then I could see the recognition hit her.

  Dammit, she knew Dave Stevens. Dammit!

  I wanted to bolt, pretend I never saw her, anything as long as I wouldn’t have to stand there and watch her hate me – or at least hate the person she thought I was. But I couldn’t move. It was like my legs had turned into bags of wet sand and I had no strength to move them. So I stood frozen, dreading what was coming, but unable to look away. The hatred never came, though. As the recognition drained away, it was replaced by something more like surprise, maybe even fear. She seemed to freeze up, her color dropping several shades. Then, looking around to see if anyone was watching us, she stood up and came out from behind her desk. As I looked at her I realized she was even more beautiful that I had at first imagined. Her body was damned near perfect. Thin, athletic, but with all the right curves. And those legs, Jesus, I felt my mouth grow dry as I looked at those legs.

  Moving cautiously, she walked over to me, stopping about two feet away. “How… what are you doing here?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

  There was a faint smell from her, something like magnolia blossoms, at least that’s what I would’ve imagined magnolia blossoms to smell like. I wouldn’t have been able to move away from her if my life depended on it. Not if you’d put a knife to my throat. Over the pounding in my head, I heard myself telling her that I had to see her, that I couldn’t leave things the way we had left them before.

  Fear flickered for a moment in those heart-stopping green eyes. “Meet me tonight at Maloney’s. Seven o’clock. We’ll talk then.”

  She glanced around to check whether anyone had noticed us, and then walked back to her desk. She seemed like some fragile, beautiful porcelain statue as she sat staring intently at her hands folded in front of her, her face tense, unmoving. I watched her for a long moment and then turned and left the office. I didn’t stop until I got into my car.

  I sat there feeling shaky inside. After taking a few deep breaths, I called the manager at the credit union whom I was supposed to meet and told him I had to cancel our appointment. He didn’t much care. There was only a small chance he would’ve switched his business, anyway. After hanging up, I closed my eyes and thought about Lena Hanson.

  I had never pretended to be Dave Stevens before. I didn’t intend to with Lena either, but the words just came out of me. Of course I could’ve gone back in there and told her who I really was, but I didn’t. I had to meet with her. I had to somehow have a chance with her. The thought of doing anything else was suffocating. Later I’d figure out a way to set things straight between us, but until that time I would be Dave Stevens. I had no choice.

  With the way I was feeling I knew there was no point in going through with any sales calls, so I cancelled the rest of the ones I had that day. I couldn’t keep from thinking about Lena, about the fear I saw in her eyes. I got the sense that she wasn’t so much afraid of Stevens as she was of being seen with him. Then it hit me. It was only a hunch, but in my gut I knew it was more than that.

  I drove to the public library. While they only kept a week’s worth of Wichita Tribunes on the shelves, I was able to access all the old copies I needed online. After an hour and a half of searching I found what I was looking for. Five months earlier two hundred thousand dollars was reported missing from the credit union Lena worked at. I found more stories about the missing money over the next few weeks worth of papers, but what it came down to was that they had no leads or suspects.

  I sat for a while thinking it over. Then I found a yellow pages, copied down the numbers of the motels in the area, and went back to my car so I could have some privacy. I went through the list of phone numbers, calling each motel and telling the clerk that I was Dave Stevens and thought I might have left my Rolex in my room the last time I was there. The first eight motels had no record of a Stevens ever staying there, the ninth confirmed that I’d been there five months earlier. The desk clerk I spoke with gave me the date Stevens checked out – the day before Lena’s credit union had reported the missing money. He insisted that no Rolex had been left in the room. I told him I’d probably misplaced it somewhere else and thanked him for his time.

  So there you had it. Five months ago Stevens had convinced Lena to rob her credit union, and then skipped with the money leaving her high and dry. No wonder she reacted the way she did when I showed up there.

  As the magnitude of what I was getting involved in fully hit me, I started to panic. I’d never broken the law in my life – never even come close, and here I was getting in the middle of a two hundred grand robbery. As far as Lena was concerned I was the guy who planned it and I was the guy with the money. I took out my Palm Pilot and brought up my schedule from five months earlier and saw that I had sales calls in Topeka at the time of the robbery. Topeka to Wichita is only a little over two hours. I could easily have traveled back and forth between the two cities. If Lena accused me of being the guy she robbed the credit union with there would be no way of me proving otherwise.

  I decided then to leave Wichita. I’d follow through with my sales calls in Topeka, Lawrence and Kansas City, and then I’d quit and find a job in another part of the country. Maybe California.

  After twenty minutes of driving hard, I was past the city limits and hitting the cornfields. Miles and miles of cornfields – as far as the eye could see. As I drove, though, I couldn’t get rid of the shakiness inside, and I couldn’t keep from thinking of Lena. About thirty miles from Topeka I stopped at a roadside diner, but I just didn’t have much of an appetite and left most of my food untouched. I had a couple of cigarettes and then continued driving. By four, I pulled into a motel off the highway a couple of miles outside of Topeka.

  I sat in my car feeling too weak to move, as if all the strength had been bled out of me. I just kept thinking of Lena, of how damn beautiful she was. It was as if her image had been burnt into my brain. I was thirty-two, and so far my life had been nothing but one restless moment after the next. I think that’s why I ended up in sales, so I’d always be on the move, always trying to outrun my restlessness. I know this will sound sappy – after all, I knew almost nothing about Lena and only saw her for at most a minute, but I couldn’t keep from thinking that she was the person I was meant to be with, that somehow she could bring me some peace. And hell, if she could fall for Stevens, the
n why not me? I thought through a dozen different scenarios where I’d convince her to join me out in California. Nothing quite clicked, but I realized I couldn’t just give up. At five o’clock I was still sitting in my car. I made the only decision I could make, and headed back towards Wichita.

  I drove like a madman, my hand aching as I gripped the wheel. As I approached WichitaCounty, I called information and got the address for Maloney’s. A quarter to seven I pulled into its parking lot. From the outside the place looked like a dive. A drab concrete one-story structure with a lone neon sign out front. I waited in the car and watched as Lena pulled in a few minutes before seven. I felt my heart jump as I watched her get out of her car and enter Maloney’s. She had changed her clothes and now wore a pair of jeans and a tee shirt. She was breathtaking in it. I followed her into the place.

  Maloney’s was as much of a dive inside as it was out. The smell of stale cigarettes permeated the place and there were just enough overhead florescent lights to keep the room mostly in shadows. About a half dozen guys were sitting at the bar, nobody at any of the tables. Lena jumped a bit when I took hold of her elbow, but she let me lead her to one of the tables in the back where we’d be able to talk without being overheard.

  What next?” she asked.

  “Let me get us some drinks. What do you want?”

  She shrugged. “I guess a beer.”

  I went to the bar and got two drafts. When I returned to the table, Lena was watching me intently. Her skin had lost most of its color.

  “You were watching me from the parking lot when I pulled in, weren’t you?”

  I didn’t say anything. Instead, I looked away from those mesmerizing green eyes and took a long drink of my beer.

  “Why’d you let me walk in here?” she asked.

  Confused, I asked, “What else was I going to do?”

  She shook her head, smiling over some private joke. “Again, what next?”

  As I watched the anxiety tighten the skin around her eyes and mouth, I wanted to end the charade and tell her who I really was but I didn’t see how I could do it without her either walking out on me or not believing me. So instead I kept the lie going, mumbling something about how she was all I’d been able to think about the last five months. I felt a hotness flushing my face as I added, “I couldn’t just leave things the way we ended them before.”

  The anxiety in her eyes was too much for me. I reached out to take hold of her hand – anything to try to comfort her, but she jerked back from me and knocked my beer over.

  “That was an accident,” she said.

  “I know, don’t worry about it.”

  “I’ll get you another one.”

  “You don’t have to –”

  She didn’t bother listening to me. As I watched her walk back to the bar, I felt sick inside. I decided enough was enough, I’d tell her the truth and let the chips fall where they may.

  When she brought me back another beer, I looked away from her as I drank down half of it. “I’m not who you think I am,” I told her. I tried to make eye contact, but couldn’t quite do it. Self-consciously, I wiped a sleeve across my face. “I’m not Dave Stevens. I know I look like him, but I’m not him.” I paused, and then forced myself to meet her stare. “I know about the two hundred thousand you two stole. I’m not going to say anything to anyone about it.”

  She sat quietly, her eyes narrowed to thin slits as she stared at me. I waited for her to say something, but nothing came.

  “I don’t know why I pretended to be Stevens before,” I said after a while. “When I saw you I guess I went kind of nuts, and, well, from your reaction I knew you knew Stevens. It just happened, I’m sorry.”

  Still nothing from her. “I know this is going to sound crazy,” I went on, “but things could work out with us. Besides, you can’t stay in Wichita. Sooner or later someone’s going to find out about the money.”

  I realized I was slurring my words. My eyes had gotten so damn heavy. I put my elbow down in the middle of the spilt beer so I could support my head.

  “So what if someone did,” Lena was saying, her voice barely above a whisper. “You were the one who stole it. No one can connect me to it.”

  I had gotten so damn tired. I could barely keep my eyes open. The next thing I knew the side of my face hit the table. Then blackness.

  Consciousness flickered on and off for the next few minutes. At one point I remember two guys dragging me to a car. Lena was saying something about me having too much to drink, but that she’d take care of me. I tried to say something but nothing audible came out. Then the world disappeared and the next thing I knew I was being bounced back and forth. I was still mostly out of it and it took a while for me to realize that I was sitting in the passenger seat of Lena’s car. As she drove, a smoldering intensity burned on her face.

  Lena noticed me. Her lips twisted into a thin smile. “You’re finally conscious, huh?” she asked.

  I was being jostled back and forth in my seat like a rag doll. Whatever I’d been drugged with, I still didn’t have the strength to talk or even hold myself upright. From what I could tell we were on a dirt road.

  “I don’t know what type of game you thought you were playing, but it wasn’t very bright of you to give me a second chance,” she said.

  In the moonlight her face looked so pale and grim. I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer. I let them close.

  Next thing I was aware of was a clapping noise, mixed in with someone yelling over and over again “wake up”. I realized Lena was slapping me in the face. When I opened my eyes, she pushed something hard and cold against my temple.

  “You should be able to move by now,” she said. “Get out of the car.”

  “Lena, this is all a mistake –” I had to stop for a moment, my throat feeling as if I’d swallowed a handful of sawdust. “You don’t have to do this …”

  “Shut up!” She pushed the gun barrel harder into my temple. “If you don’t get out now, I’ll kill you right here and leave you for the crows and raccoons.”

  I caught a glimpse of her face. There was nothing beautiful about it anymore. Instead it had been transformed into something hard and violent. With some effort I opened the car door and got to my feet. Lena followed, keeping the gun trained on my chest.

  “Start walking,” she ordered.

  We were on some sort of path. I could barely lift my feet, and moved about as fast as if I were wading through a pool of molasses.

  She said, “I have to admit I’m curious. How’d you do it, Dave?”

  “I don’t know what you’re asking. And I told you before, I’m not Stevens – ”

  “You don’t want to tell me, fine, you can keep your secret. But I would’ve thought you had more brains than to show up the way you did. Especially after last time.”

  My eyes were starting to adjust to the moonlight. I could make out what looked like a small structure up ahead.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “You should remember this place. This is where we said our last goodbyes.”

  As I got closer to it, I realized the structure was the remains of a shack. We walked past it, and that was when I saw the well.

  “Lena, please –”

  “Shut up!”

  The base of the well was stone, maybe two feet high. She backed me up until I was against it.

  “Do me a favor, Dave, this time die like you’re supposed to,” Lena muttered half under her breath. With her arm outstretched, her gun was only inches away from me.

  In the moonlight I could see the knuckles on her gun hand turn white. I could see my death shining brightly in her eyes.

  Something happened then. I’m not sure what the noise was – an animal howling or maybe a groan of some type – but whatever it was, it seemed to come from deep inside the well and it distracted her for a split second which was long enough for me to grab her gun hand.

  My muscles were still rubbery from whatever she’d drugged me wit
h and she fought with a manic intensity, but I was still able to slam her gun hand down against the base of the well and the gun tumbled down into it. We both froze waiting for the sound of a splash, but there was nothing. It just disappeared as if it had fallen into a bottomless hole. I faced Lena then. The pale grimness faded from her eyes and mouth. She started to look more like she had when I first saw her. Beautiful, vulnerable…

  “Dave,” she said, her voice a breathless whisper, “let’s forget this. We can still work something out.”

  I hit her in the jaw and knocked her out cold. After lowering her to the ground, I searched through her pockets and found my cell phone on her, then called the police and told them a woman had tried to kill me and that there was a dead body in a well. My phone had GPS tracking and I gave them my coordinates. The person I spoke to told me that officers would be right out.

  It took longer than I expected for the police to show up. While I waited Lena started to come to. I flipped her over and sat on her. As she realized what was happening, she started swearing at me but I ignored it. When she heard the police sirens she struggled harder and I saw the same brittle grimness from before come over her face.

  “You’re making a big mistake,” she forced out in something that was more of a hiss than a human voice. “We can still split the money instead of both of us going to prison.”

  I ignored her and pushed down harder to keep her on the ground. When I heard car doors open and slam I yelled where I was and kept yelling until I saw two wide-eyed state troopers come through the woods. They both had their guns drawn.

  “Help!” Lena yelped, her voice mostly a hoarse whisper at this point.

  “Move slowly off her,” one of the officers warned me.

  I shook my head.