Ken Douglas - Gecko

“ That’s over five hundred miles,” Jim said. “Why there?”

“ Julia went there with Dr. Kohler. They left first thing this morning. He has a house there. I had the phone number and address in my purse, but I think we can find them. She said it was a big house, on Mountain Sea Road, overlooking the ocean. How hard could it be?”

“ Why?” Jim asked.

“ She wanted to get away.”

“ With him?”

“ Yes, with him.”

“ No offense,” he turned to Edna, “but when you said this car would take me anywhere I wanted to go, you didn’t have five or six hundred miles in mind, did you?”

“ No, I didn’t.” She clutched the wheel.

“ We need another car. Edna, when you get to Spring Street, turn right. We’ll rent a car at the airport.”

It was noon and sprinkling when Edna parked in the overnight parking garage at the Long Beach Airport. They started to get out of the car when she spoke up.

“ You two wait here. I’ll rent the car and come back. We can’t be carrying a shotgun through the terminal, now can we?”

“ You’re right,” he said.

Twenty minutes later she beeped the horn of a new Ford Explorer. She stopped the SUV in front of her Charger, put it in park, but left the engine running and got out.

“ Let’s move it,” she said. Then she added, “I always wanted to say that.”

Jim tossed the shotgun in the back.

“ Shotgun, I call shotgun.” Edna was laughing as she got in the front seat on the passenger side. “I always wanted to say that, too.”

“ Tampico, here we come,” Jim said as Roma got in the back.

Ten minutes later they were on the freeway. An hour later they were leaving the Grapevine and moving onto the long straight road that is Highway 5. After another hour both Roma and Edna were lulled to sleep by the rolling wheels and the warm sun and Jim was fighting to stay awake.

“ I can appreciate that you’ve got heaps of problems, but can we take a bit of time to worry about mine now?” Donna interrupted his thoughts.

“ I forgot about you.”

“ It doesn't look like I’m going anywhere.”

“ No, I guess it doesn’t.”

“ I’m somebody too, at least I was until this started. The last thing I remember is driving up from Auckland with my parents for my brother’s wedding. We checked into a motel, because it was late and they wanted to surprise him in the morning. I went to sleep. Then I woke up in your head. I hear what you hear, see what you see, feel what you feel.”

“ Pain or emotions?” Jim asked.

“ Both and it’s creepy. It’s like I’m involved in some kind of super movie, but it’s not a movie. It’s your life and I’m just along for the ride. But it’s better than I thought it would be.”

“ What?”

“ At least there’s something, it’s not just all over. The essence of me, my mind, is still intact. I have my memories. It could be a lot worse.”

“ What are you talking about?”

“ Don’t you know?”

“ No.”

“ Death. I’m dead. That’s the only answer. I died and somehow my soul got trapped in you.”

“ Give me a break.”

“ Do you have another answer?”

“ Yeah, a real simple one.”

“ What?”

“ I’m going crazy, Looney Toons, I’m losing my fucking mind.”

“ You don’t have to swear.”

“ Now I know I’m losing my fucking mind.”

“ Really, if I have to be here, can we watch the language? I can take a lot if I have to, but I draw the line at swearing.”

“ Okay,” Jim smiled, “but if you’re right and you are dead, then you don’t have a problem.”

“ What do you mean?”

“ All your problems are solved. You’re dead. It’s all over.”

“ But I’m here?”

“ That’s right, you’re here and we’re just going to have to accept it for now. You’re here, trapped in my life. Mine, not yours. So if we accept your thesis, then my problems, at least for now, are the only ones that count.”

“ That’s cruel.”

“ Look Donna, you may be dead, but I’m not. I’m alive and right now I’m trying to stay that way. I’m fifty-five years old. I’m out of shape. I’m scared. The police are after me. People keep trying to kill me. I miss my wife. I miss my life. I miss David. I really miss David.”

“ Okay, you’re right. I’ll put my problems away and we’ll find out who’s trying to kill you and stop them.”

“ I don’t need your help.”

“ Two heads are better than one.”

“ I make the decisions.”

“ Of course, it’s your body.”

“ You won’t keep interrupting me?”

“ Only if it’s important.”

“ Fair enough.”

“ Jim,” Roma said, yawning herself awake, “how are you doing?”

“ It’s a little before 3:00 and we’re about twenty miles from the Collinga off ramp. We can stay at the Inn at Harris Ranch. We’ll get some rest, have dinner, spend the night in comfortable beds and get an early start tomorrow.”

They drove on in silence and Roma fell back asleep, leaving Jim to concentrate on the never ending white line and the painting of the pretty girl on the rear of the tanker truck ten car lengths ahead. She was holding a glass of fresh white milk, sitting atop the words, Milk drinkers make better lovers.

The women woke when Jim took the off ramp.

“ Where are we?” Edna asked.

“ Halfway to San Francisco,” Jim answered as he backed into a parking space. They checked into the hotel, using Edna’s credit card, taking two rooms, one for the women, one for him.

“ We’re going to need some things,” Edna said after they got their keys. “You know, a change of clothes, toothbrushes, toothpaste, Jim needs a razor and I need solution for my contact lenses. And since I’m not the least bit tired, I’ll go and get them while you two rest.”

“ I’m going to get a wake up call for six, for dinner, any takers?” Jim asked. Both women nodded their assent. “Fine, I’ll see you then. Right now I have to get these shoes off, my feet are killing me, and I need to get some sleep.”

Jim and Roma each went to adjoining rooms, while Edna took the car into town.

The clock radio woke him at 6:00, halfway through Bob Dylan’s Like a Rolling Stone. Washington shut it off, stripped, shaved, showered, put on clean clothes and gave himself a final once over in front of the bathroom mirror. Satisfied and awake, he went to the kitchen and, while waiting for the coffeemaker to work its magic, he called Walker.

“ Walker here,” came his partner’s early morning rasp.

“ You don’t have to go today. I can handle it,” Washington said.

“ I said I was with you and I meant it. I’m in it all the way. I’ve already called in.”

“ Okay, see you at 8:00.”

Walker rang the bell an hour and ten minutes later. He was five minutes early. Walker was never late.

“ We’re going out Pacific Coast Highway to Huntington Beach. Monday has a place at Beach Side Condos, you know, those places by the pier.”

Walker backed out of the apartment complex, pointed the car out of Belmont Heights, a section of Long Beach just north of the Shore, and toward the Pacific Coast Highway. Fifteen minutes later they pulled up in front of the security gate to the condos. Walker parked in the red.

“ Can’t park here.” The security guard scowled. He was a young man with a military bearing and pasty white skin, despite the fact that he worked at the beach. He was wearing a starched white guard uniform with a forty-five automatic on his belt, along with a pair of handcuffs and a night stick. His shoes and leathers were spit shined to a high gloss and Washington quickly identified him as a cop wanna be.