Paul Kavanagh - Not Comin' Home to You

“I thought you were asleep.”

“Not asleep and not awake. Go ahead.”

His change was on top of the dresser. She took a quarter and put it in the slot. She turned the volume down low so that it wouldn’t keep him awake.

The radio helped her avoid thinking. She listened to it without paying it much attention. Sometimes she would turn to look at him. He never changed position, lay absolutely motionless. She listened to Tammy Wynette and Buck Owens and Waylon Jennings and Jeannie C. Riley. When the ten o’clock news came on she heard about a Congressional investigation into meat prices and a snag in disarmament talks, and she wasn’t paying much attention to any of this, and then the voice was saying

“—breakthrough in the investigation of last night’s robbery homicide in Grand Island. State Police sources reported tonight that a crumpled sales slip has given them a strong lead to the vehicle used in the gas station holdup in which nineteen-year-old Richard Sturdevant lost his life. The slip was one which young Sturdevant made out incorrectly, and a check revealed that a correct slip for that particular sale was not to be found.

“A call to Standard’s credit card department established the card as the property of a Mr. Walker P. Ferris of Balch Springs, Texas. Ferris, a Texas businessman, was expected home several days ago. His wife told investigators she has not heard from him in almost a week, but that his business ventures require considerable travel and that she was not unduly alarmed by his extended absence.

“Ferris was driving a new Oldsmobile Toronado, blue with a white top. The car bears Texas license plates. The license number is 4-YJ-302. Let me repeat that — 4-YJ — that’s Y as in Young J as in John-302. Police at the present have expressed no opinion as to whether Ferris is a suspect in the robbery and murder or whether he himself may have been an earlier victim of an as yet unknown killer. A special police number has been established to take calls from anyone having information on the Ferris automobile. The number to call is—”

He gave the number and repeated the description of the car. She waited for him to say more, and then he was talking about a tanker truck carrying a load of propane gas which had overturned near Flagstaff, Arizona, and she got up and turned off the radio.

It couldn’t be. It was all wrong. He must have bought gas there that afternoon and the sales slip got lost or something. The robbery had taken place late last night and he was with her that night, she remembered when she first heard about it, remembered thinking how it must have happened just while they were making love. He was with her, he couldn’t have been at that gas station and—

But he had gone out. He left her to sleep and went out for a little while. For how long? Not long enough to rob a gas station, certainly. Not long enough to kill someone.

He did things so quickly. Made up his mind and did them and they were over. How long had he been gone? She had been asleep, she didn’t know. But all at once he was back and he was making love to her and—

He had made love to her tonight, too. On her living room floor, with the barrel of his gun still hot.

No. No, this was all impossible. Talking about Walker P. Ferris’ wife, and how she was expecting him to come home, but Walker P. Ferris had died in a hospital and his wife had died years and years ago, that was what was so sad, the rich old man who had no one in the world, and that was why Jimmie John had known it was only right to take the car and—

“Jimmie John!”

He didn’t move. She put her hand on his bare shoulder under the sheet. Her fingertips felt the bone close beneath the skin. She shook him and said his name again, and his eyes opened and locked with hers.

“They know about the car!”

“What are you talking about?”

“On the radio. They know about the car; they gave a description and the license plate number and everything. They—”

“That’s impossible. Nobody saw us.”

“There was a credit card slip. At the Standard station.”

He sat up. His eyes were so sharp she felt impaled upon them. He said, “When was this?”

“Just now. On the ten o’clock news. What are we going to do?”

“Tell me everything you heard.”

“They know about the car. They know about Mr. Ferris, but they think maybe he was the killer. They—”

“Slow down and back up. Steady down, Betty. Everything is gonna stay nice and cool. Just go back to the beginning and tell me everything they said.”

She couldn’t tell it in order. She had to back up and fill in a couple of times, and when she had finished he took her back over it and questioned her on a couple of points, his voice as calm and level as if he were inquiring about a weather forecast. When he was satisfied he got out of bed and began dressing.

She said, “What are we going to do?”

“We’re going to get the hell out of here. Soon as the sky lights up some son of a bitch’ll see that car and they’ll throw the whole National Guard around this cabin. I got to get us a car.”

“How?”

“There’s other people staying here. All I got to do is get somebody’s keys and we got us a car.”

“But—”

“First step is to move this one around in back so nobody sees it from the road. You stay right here. I’ll be a couple of minutes. You stay right inside here and wait and I won’t be more than a couple of minutes.”

There were so many things she had to ask him. But he didn’t give her time to put her thoughts together. He went out the door and closed it behind him and she looked at the closed door and wanted to scream. But she did not scream.

She was still looking at the door when it opened. Her mind was wandering and it startled her when the door burst open. Her first reaction was that it was Them.

But it was Jimmie John. He had a ring of keys in his hand and he was grinning.

The new car was a two-year-old Dodge station wagon. There were candy wrappers on the floor and cigarette butts in the ashtray. The windshield on her side had a streak from a defective wiper blade.

They were heading south now. They had backtracked to Thedford and headed south on 83. “They’ll find the car and figure we kept on in the same direction,” he explained. “We were going northwest. So now we back up a few miles and cut south while they’re running around looking for us in Wyoming or some such place.”

“They’ll know to look for this car, won’t they?”

“Not just yet they won’t. I don’t figure to keep this car forever.” He patted her hand. “Tell the truth, I’m not all that fond of it. That Toronado was a beautiful car. Knew all along I couldn’t keep it forever, but I sure wanted to.”

“I couldn’t believe it about the gas station.”

“Oh.”

“I just couldn’t believe it.”

He drove awhile in silence. Then he said, “It was him or me, Betty. Came at me with a tire iron. Damn fool to charge a gun with a tire iron, and nothing I could do but put a bullet in him. It was that or stand there and let him split my head.”

“Like with my father, hitting you and coming at you the way he did.”

“Like that.”

She hesitated, then nodded. “I guess it must of been while I was sleeping. At the motel.”

“That’s right. I had to get us some money, you know. Knew I couldn’t use the credit cards much longer.” He laughed shortly. “Used ‘em one more time than I shoulda done.”

“Jimmie John? Whose car is this? That we’re in now?”

“You can say it’s ours now.”

“I mean who did you take it from?”

He glanced at her, then turned his eyes back to the road. Suddenly he laughed. He said, “Never saw anything like it in my life. You might of noticed there were two cars there besides ours. So after I moved the Toronado I checked ‘em both out, because sometimes people’ll leave keys in the ignition. Be surprised how many people will do that. Not this time. So I took a look at the two cabins, and one’s got the lights on and the other doesn’t, and I figured the hell with trying to wake some fool up and I went to the lit one.