Ryan Jahn - The Last Tomorrow

But that’s over now. That’s a faucet he needs to shut off.

‘I’m sorry for what I did.’

‘I don’t care.’

‘Just the same, I’m sorry.’

‘I thought. . I thought we had-’

‘We did. We do.’

‘You framed me for murder.’

‘It was my job.’

‘I know.’

‘That doesn’t mean I don’t care for you, Gene.’

‘Shut your fucking mouth, I’m not here to work this out with you. You can go to hell, and the sooner the better. I’m here to find out how to clear my name. I‘m here to find out how to get out of this mess you got me into.’

‘You can’t. It’s too late for that.’

‘I’m innocent.’

‘You’re wanted for murder. I can’t make that go away. I’m sorry for my part in it, but it’s done. The best I can do is help you get to Mexico, and get you some money, enough to live on for a long time down there.’

‘I don’t want your money. I want my fucking life back.’

‘But can’t you see that that’s over?’

‘Don’t you try to tell me what’s over. You don’t get to make that decision. You don’t get to make any-’

A knock at the door, three quick taps. Eugene’s first thought is that he was too loud, that the man in the next room heard him in here, heard him and is now just outside the door, waiting to make sure everything is okay.

Then he speaks: ‘I’m stepping out. You might want to make sure your door is chained. Don’t want the milkman to get you.’

Then silence stretches out for a full minute.

‘Don’t move,’ Eugene says.

Keeping an eye on Evelyn he walks to the door and unlatches the deadbolt. He pulls open the door. He glances left, then right. The corridor is empty. He closes the door and locks it once more, the deadbolt clacking into place.

He turns his attention back to Evelyn.

‘Where were we?’

2

Evelyn sits on the bed, looking across the hotel room to the man who only a couple nights ago was inside her. The flesh on her chin is still a bit raw from his beard stubble scratching her as they kissed, and she’s still a bit sore. She should have trusted her first instinct. She could see from the beginning, from the night she met him in the bar, that he was not a man to run from trouble but rather to grab onto it and try to bring it to its knees. Not that there was time for her to do anything; she only found out he slipped away from the police thirty minutes ago, and even now, while he’s here in the room with her, while he’s threatening her with a gun, part of her is glad he did. If he’d not had this sort of thing in him she wouldn’t have been attracted to him in the first place.

‘I’m sorry, Gene,’ she says, ‘but there just isn’t-’

Then something occurs to her, something both terrible and great. She thinks there might be a way to do what he wants. It’ll take planning and forethought, and he’ll have to trust her when trusting her is likely the last thing he wants to do, but it might be possible to clear his name. If it’s something she really wants to do.

After a moment’s consideration she knows that it is. She even lets herself believe that once Eugene’s name is cleared they might be able to pick up their relationship where it left off. They might be able to have something together.

‘What?’ Eugene says.

‘I think there might be a way.’

Hope flickers in his eyes, but the shadow of suspicion quickly clouds over it.

‘Do you?’

‘I do,’ she says, ‘but you’re gonna have to trust me.’

‘After what you did?’

Evelyn knows convincing him will be difficult, but she has to try. She closes her eyes a moment to think. She opens them again and looks at Eugene. Looks at him and allows herself to feel what she feels. She prepares herself to speak, and when she does the words that leave her mouth are honest ones.

‘I like you, Gene. We have something. I did what I did because it’s what I came here to do. It was my job. But when I came here I hadn’t met you. I’ve felt crummy ever since I last walked out of your apartment, and that isn’t like me. You have to understand, I’m not a soft woman. I’ve done worse to men than I did to you and lost no sleep. I know that doesn’t speak well of me, but there it is. Whatever Daddy has in him that makes him who he is, I have it in me too. But it was different with you. I’ve felt rotten. I haven’t slept. When I read that you’d escaped the police, part of me was glad, despite the fact that I knew you might come after me. That’s the truth. Now I’m telling you another truth. I think I know a way to get you your life back. All I’m asking you to do is listen to what I have to say, listen to my proposal. If it sounds like something you’re willing to do, if it sounds like something you’re capable of, I want to help you. I want to help you because I still think we might have something between us, and I’ve never felt like this about anyone before.’

As difficult as it was to allow herself to be vulnerable, it felt good too. It feels good. She looks at Eugene, searching his face for something other than suspicion, for something other than complete mistrust.

Finally, she thinks she sees it.

‘Okay,’ he says after a while. ‘What do you have in mind?’

3

Eugene steps out into the rain. The sky overhead is dark with clouds, only diffused gray light seeping through the cover. He walks toward the street wondering if Evelyn’s plan could possibly work. He believes it could. He believes that, like a hammer, it’s so simple it almost has to work. But there’s no reason to believe she has any intention of following through on it, no reason to believe she’d be willing to bring heat down on her father to save him, some guy she met less than a week ago. No reason to believe it beyond her saying so. And there’s plenty of reason to doubt what she says. He wants to believe her, more than anything he wants to believe her, but he’d be a goddamned fool if he let himself take her at her word.

She betrayed him, planned to betray him before they even met, walked into that bar on the evening he first saw her with a sensuous smile on her lips and fluttering eyelids, with the knowledge that she was going to do things that all but guaranteed he’d end up sitting in a chair wired for death.

Yet standing in her hotel room only minutes ago pointing a gun at her, looking at her as she looked back, he wanted to believe every word she said, and some innocent part of his heart did believe, and wanted to embrace her, and feel close to her again.

But his mind is not so stupid as his heart.

After three attempts he manages to kick-start the motorcycle, then straddles the leather seat and gives it some gas.

No, his mind is not nearly as stupid as his heart. Maybe Evelyn’s being straight with him, anything’s possible, but he can neither believe it nor act as if that’s the case. Until he knows better, he’ll have to operate under the assumption that every word she spoke to him was a lie. He’ll use her if he can, and it seems to him he may be able to, but he’ll not trust her.

Only a fool would do that, and in this situation he refuses to play the fool. It happened once. It won’t happen again.

1

Eugene wakes in darkness. He wakes from a dream. In the dream he was trapped in an office building, a skyscraper. Because the elevator was broken, he walked down the stairwell, trying the reach the bottom. He walked for days and days but the stairs never ended. There was nothing to eat. He lost weight. At first he believed he was alone, believed the building was empty but for him. But soon enough he began to hear voices. They were distant, always a floor below. Sometimes there was laughter, and the laughter wasn’t the laughter of the sane. He checked the corridors, the offices, but they were always empty. So he’d continue down the stairs. Then one time an office wasn’t empty. He walked into the room and found four men in tattered clothes, covered in filth and blood, with long beards and long hair, sitting in a semi-circle. In the middle of the semi-circle was another person, a young boy. He was lying on his back. He was dead. His eyes were open. They had a white film over them, like the eyes of a rotten fish. The mouth was open, swollen tongue protruding. Eugene felt like he should recognize the boy, and in some shadowed corner of his mind he did, but his conscious mind couldn’t pull it from the darkness. Some mental barrier prevented it. One of the four men reached out with a knife and cut a piece of meat from the boy’s arm. He put it into his mouth and chewed. Then grinned at Eugene through filthy teeth. He cut off another piece. He held it out to Eugene. Blood dripped from the meat, ran down the man’s grimy hand.