21 Tales (7 page)

“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 with 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.

“My name is Andy Lenscher,” I said. “This is Lena Hanson. Five months ago she stole two hundred thousand dollars from the People’s Credit Union of Wichita. She killed the man she stole it with. His body’s in the well.”

The two officers exchanged glances. One officer kept his service revolver trained on me while the other flashed a light down into the well.

“There’s something down there,” he said, his face as white as the moon.

While we waited for the emergency workers to come I told the two officers the whole story. They looked skeptical but they put Lena in handcuffs. I could tell from her expression that for the first time she realized I wasn’t Dave Stevens.

It didn’t take long for the emergency workers to get Dave Stevens body out of the well. While his face was mostly rotted away, there was enough left for me to see the resemblance. One of the EMT workers noticed it too and remarked to me about it. I asked him why I didn’t hear the gun splash when it dropped in there.

“Well’s bone-dry. The gun must’ve landed on him.”

I thought about the sound that distracted Lena enough to keep her from killing me. I know it probably didn’t come from the well. It probably came from an animal in the woods, or maybe it did come from Steven’s body adjusting a certain way. But as I looked at him, I’d like to think that it was some kind of cosmic settlement for all the grief he had caused me. That somehow he saved my life.

As they carted away his corpse, I nodded farewell to Dave Stevens.

Alternative ending (starting from the point where Andy is being backed against the well):

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, his 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. As she pulled the trigger, I fell backwards. She ended up taking off a chunk of my shoulder instead of shooting me in the chest like she intended.

I tumbled in the air for what seemed like an eternity. The well must’ve dried up years ago, and when I hit the bottom I hit hard ground. My legs were twisted behind me in a way that shouldn’t have been physically possible, but other than the throbbing in my shoulder I felt nothing. I knew I was paralyzed from the waist down. Then the stench overwhelmed me. It was the most godawful thing I had ever smelled. Even though I was in shock I knew what that smell was. I fished a book of matches out of my pocket, lit one, and there he was waiting for me. Even with his face mostly rotted away, there was enough of him left for me to notice the resemblance.

“Dave Stevens, I presume?” I asked the decomposing corpse. Then putting everything I had into it, I punched what the flies and other insects had left of his face. His head broke off and skidded along the dirt floor of the well before bouncing off the wall and rolling back toward me. I think that was when I went insane. I started laughing like a madman, laughing long after the match had burnt out, long after the cosmic joke that had been pulled on me made any sense.

View From The Mirador

This story was inspired by a trip to Acapulco. While the tone of the story has an almost old-fashioned cheery quality to it, this may be one of the sickest stories I’ve written.

The maitre d'hotel ran to greet Oscar Heile. "It is good to see you!" the maitre d'hotel exclaimed as he pumped the fat man's arm. "We have been so worried!"

A great wave of relief had broken over the maitre d'hotel's face, leaving a joyful smile. "And who could blame us?" he asked as he walked with Heile to the Mirador's entrance. "For eight months you have been a fixture here. Every day, every show you are here. We always have the very best table set aside just for you. And then what happens? You disappear for six whole days! Not a word! The cliff divers look up and see your empty table and they are heartbroken. We all are heartbroken!"

Heile smiled apologetically, his lips almost lost on his large, pink face. "I am very sorry," he said stiffly. "But unfortunately, personal business kept me away."

The maitre d'hotel, now beaming from ear to ear, gave Heile a clap on the back. "You are here now. That's all that matters." He turned and motioned to a waiter standing a few feet away. "Almondo, show Senor Heile to his table."

The waiter, a small thin man with slightly stooped shoulders, approached and bowed politely. "It is very good to see you, Senor Heile," he said, a wooden smile intact on his face. "Please follow me." He escorted Heile to the table on the second level that for the last eight months had been reserved exclusively for the fat man. The best spot from which to watch the cliff divers.

Heile waited until he had squeezed himself into his chair before asking the waiter whether Sunday was his day off.

Almondo nodded. "Normally, yes. But how could I not come today worrying about you?" He gave Heile a sly wink. "The two ladies behind you were very mad that I would not give them your table. But I held it for you, hoping you would come."

Heile glanced over his shoulder and saw two ladies glaring at him. They were both young, beautifully sculpted, obviously part of the jet set Acapulco crowd. One was honey-blonde and wearing a wide-brim gray hat, the other was a dark brunette with very rich red lips.

Almondo smiled slightly at him. There was no warmth in his eyes. "I will get you your champagne right away, Senor."

Heile nodded. "Bring a bottle to the ladies," he commanded. He watched uneasily as Almondo walked away. All he could think was damn him! Damn that little man to hell! The last six days had been torture for Heile. And it was all Almondo's fault. All because Almondo thought he saw something.

Oscar Heile shifted uncomfortably, feeling a queasiness stir in his stomach. Almondo had been his waiter for eight months and like everyone else at the Mirador had treated him with genuine warmth and adoration. Until a month ago ...

It was after Roberto had made a successful dive from the one hundred and thirty-five foot cliffs that Heile had momentarily forgotten himself. For a split second he had let his true disappointment show on his face, and during that split-second he noticed Almondo staring at him. He could see the little man's face grow dark and he knew the little man understood everything. Understood why Heile had become a patron of the cliff divers. Understood what Heile was waiting for. Since then all genuineness in the waiter's manner faded. His civility became a facade and his dull black eyes masked something Heile dreaded.