The Patrolman - 40

 

 

40.

 

 

 

If someone wanted to feel truly alone, they only had to stand still in a train station. June Hartsfield stood there, among the rush of passengers, doing nothing. Watching them hustle past her. Feeling them barge into her.

'Excuse me,' she said. A woman looked her up and down like she was some common whore. The woman pulled her coat tighter and pushed through the doors without a word.

Union Station never failed to amaze her. It looked like an eighteenth-century Catholic missionary. The ones they took kids on field trips to. Pink and blue lights glimmered on the clock tower.

The 96 bus pulled into the depot. Its doors opened with their pneumatic hiss. Old men, young women, and school children got out. Lenora Childs was the last out. Then the driver swung the bus around onto Alameda and was gone.

'Lenny,' Hartsfield said.

Lenora wrapped her arms around her and kissed her on the cheek. Heads turned. Let 'em stare, she thought. 'Did you bring what I asked?'

She reached into her bag and took out a key. A locker key.

Hartsfield pocketed it, and they walked.

'Hey, hey,' she said.

'I'll explain later.'

Too late, Lenora grabbed her wrist and pulled her around.

'What's gotten into you?' she said. That was when she saw it in her eyes. The hurt, frightened. They were shining. 'You said you trusted me, what gives?'

'Of course I trust you.' The silly girl. 'We've gotta keep moving.' Hartsfield tried to pull away.

'Are we in danger?'

Whatever the face Hartsfield made answered her question.

'Who?'

'Brenda, Elmer, the cops. Everybody. I've gotta disappear.'

She got her arm free and turned on her heel.

'So that's it, after everything? Six months of you fighting my corner. Now you're throwing the towel in?'

Hartsfield stopped. Lenora's heels clip-clopped around her. She was blocking the entrance. 'You've grown a conscience all of a sudden? You want to go back to Indiana and pick up where you left off? Start over? Is that what it is?'

She tried to go around her, but Lenora stepped out in front of her.

'Get outta my way.'

She headed her off again.

'What about your children?'

'They're better off without me.' Hartsfield rushed her and caught a smack in the mouth for her trouble.

There were tears in Lenora's eyes. 'We did all this to try and get them back. Now you're leaving me in the lurch? Painting a target on my back?'

A redcap came over.

'Is this woman bothering you, ma'am?'

Lenora looked beautiful when she was angry. She laughed. Daring her to say something.

Hartsfield took a breath. 'Thank you, no,' she said. 'She's my friend.'

'Then get a train or move it along, ladies. Any soliciting and I'll be forced to call the police.'

Her face twisted, but Hartsfield beat her to it. 'Get lost, buster.'

The redcap looked at them the way the woman who barged into her earlier had. He pushed off and left them to it.

They were making a spectacle.

Hartsfield shrugged. 'Can I trust you?'

Lenora glared.

'Fine,' she said. 'Follow me.'

They headed through the ticketing hall. The temperature dropping. The ceilings soar above them, exposed wood beams and brass chandeliers hanging. Despite all the sweat and humidity, she could taste the waxed floors and cigarette smoke. The newsstand vendor hawked the Times near the side wall.

Their heels clacked on the Spanish-tile floor, but the acoustics were strange. It echoed like the architects had meant for the place to hush people. To hush them. To keep Hartsfield's secret. They moved past rows of leather chairs. A cop eyed them from near the information kiosk but didn’t move.

Most of the traffic was in and out of the side tunnels to the platforms, or up toward the concourse. They didn't need a ticket. Hartsfield kept to the left, and Lenora dropped back to follow her. She didn't know where they were heading. Past the cool tile and polished wood was a sign to the back for "BAGGAGE CLAIM AND LOCKERS".

The light in there was dimmer. The air grew close. A redcap pushing a cart full of steamer trunks nodded at Hartsfield and ignored Lenora.

The lockers were inset into a tiled alcove of clay walls. Rows of steel boxes had numbered doors. Hartsfield walked along them until she found number 237. She kneeled and looked around. Lenora got the hint and stood behind her, covering her from view.

She palmed the brass key. She slipped it in. Click.

'We good?'

Hartsfield twisted the key and swung the door open. Inside was a tattered leather bag.

'We're good.'

They found an empty bench and Hartsfield sat it on her lap. It was a weather-beaten relic. The once-rich leather scarred from years of roughhousing. Scratches covered the handles, telltale signs of cash grabs and desperate escapes. Not including her own.

It was the bag she had lifted from the robbery.

'What's in it?'

She unhooked the clasp and opened it.

'Everything,' she said. There were two ledgers and a small black book on a bed of fastened bills. 'Every deal we ever made, every penny I ever spent on the club. Every dollar we paid to every cop. It's all here.'

Lenora closed her mouth.

She took out the small black book. 'And this?' she held it up. 'Every powerful man in this city would kill for it.'

'What is it?'

She dropped it inside. 'Names, addresses, times you visited the club, what you're into, everything.'

Lenora looked around and leaned closer. 'What're you gonna do with it?'

'Give it to those cops in exchange for a new life.'

'You're serious?'

'Elmer won't stop until me and Colm are in the ground. I've got enough in here to burn this city to the ground.'

Lenora jerked her chin. 'Am I in there?'

‘No,’ June Hartsfield lied. 'Of course not.'

They sat there for what seemed like forever. Then Lenora put a hand on her leg and stood up. 'You better go.' She went for her bag when Hartsfield snatched it away.

'Here,' she said. Hartsfield took five fastened bundles of cash and stuffed them in her bag. It barely held. 'That's five thousand dollars. More than enough to start again.'

She shook her head. 'I've made something of myself here.'

'Then find a better apartment in a safer neighborhood. Hell, buy a house with it. Whatever gives you your happy ever after.'

She turned to go, then hesitated. 'It's blood money, isn't it?'

Hartsfield shrugged. 'Look up John D. Rockefeller.'

Lenora looked coy, like she might cry. Hartsfield got to her feet and kissed her. She took her hand. 'Goodbye, Junie,' Lenora said. She spun on her heel and walked away, leaving her there.

Hartsfield went back to the locker to see that it was empty. It was. She closed the door, but the thing wouldn't shut. No matter how hard she slammed it. No matter how many times she kicked it. No matter how hard she cried, and cursed, and shouted. The door wouldn't close. She couldn't put it back.

 

 

When she got outside, there weren't many people around. That's why he stood out.

Jake Lacey leaped out of a yellow cab and slammed the door behind him. He didn't wait for his change. He was in a hurry. Under the fedora's brim, the eyes swept the bus depot looking for someone.

He hadn't seen her. Evelyn couldn't have called him. She had left for work before Hartsfield had even left. If Lacey was here, it wasn't about her.

But she followed him anyway.

He pushed past a line of taxis, checking their front windows like he'd lost something. Or someone. Desperate. It didn’t involve her. Carruthers wasn’t behind him. Lacey was looking for someone. Someone in a cab. Hartsfield gripped the leather bag tighter. If he spotted her and the bag, there'd be questions. About the robbery. About the money. About everything.

Still, she owed him. He'd saved her life twice. She could return the favor.

Hartsfield picked up her pace.

Businessmen carrying suitcases hailed cabs. Drivers sat on their hoods smoking. Afternoon horns blared from Figueroa.

Wherever Jake Lacey was heading, he didn't look like he wanted anyone to follow him. Somehow, he hadn't seen her. He walked fast while checking both shoulders. All the while checking in front of every cab in the lot. The farther Lacey moved from the station, the quieter it got. And the fewer people around to see what happened next.

There was an L.A.P.D. recruitment poster with a stern-looking officer staring down at them. Union Station's architecture was beautiful, but the area was full of creeps. Some guy murdered a girl down here a few years back. It was hinky, she thought.

Hartsfield was thirty feet or more away. Up ahead, Lacey stopped beside a cab parked at the edge of the lot. The driver hadn’t gotten out. She went to turn back when something flew out of the window onto the floor. Lacey stooped to pick it up. Something dark, a hat or something?

Setting his fedora on the cab roof, Lacey pulled the sack over his own head. Then he opened the rear passenger door and got in.

'Jake,' she shouted, stepping forward. 'Wait!'

The cab peeled out, tires screaming, door slamming shut mid-turn. Gravel kicked up. The green taxi fishtailed, the back end swinging wide.

She sprinted after it.

Lacey's fedora blew across the dirt.

She sidestepped it. Her wedges skidded on the gravel. She didn’t have a plan. Not a good one. But Carruthers would ask where the car went. If she could just keep an eye on them.

She cut across a diagonal path, almost eating the curb. She was gasping now, chest on fire. The car slowed at the edge of the lot. Lacey’s silhouette was visible through the back glass.

The car stopped.

June Hartsfield stopped too, panting.

The cab lingered there, like it was thinking. The driver stared at her in the rear-view. Watching her, working out what to do.

She raised her arms. 'What the hell?'

The engine screamed.

White lights flared.

The car flew into reverse. 

He was trying to run her down.

Her legs reacted before her brain caught up. She dove sideways, using all her bodyweight to throw herself clear from his path. Too slow. The bumper clipped her hip in mid-air and hurled her into a patch of grass.

She hit the ground hard. Her ribs sang.  The wind left her lungs.

Before she could move, hands grabbed under her arms and dragged her backwards. Her heels tore trenches in the dirt. She kicked, once, twice, but had nothing.

'No,' she mumbled, the word sticking in her throat.

He spun her, shoving her into the trunk. The smell hit her first. Rot and ammonia and something sickly sweet.

Her leather bag landed beside her head.

Then came the rag.

It stank of hospitals and death. She twisted, tried to scream. The hand clamped the rag over her mouth. Her body betrayed her. A cry formed in her throat before the darkness stole her voice. The corners of her vision curled inward. Her muscles slackened.

'Rushing around but going nowhere fast,' she heard her brother's voice say.

And then nothing.