“Oh God, oh God,” one of the kids was saying. “Please don’t turn us in! We weren’t doing anything-honest!”
The other kid didn’t say a word-he was too busy bawling.
Resnapping the holster, I raised a finger to my lips in shush fashion, whispered, “As you were,” and moved on.
Thank God for those signs at intersections, because soon I was headed in the right direction. A black staff car rolled by, slowed momentarily, and I suddenly felt absurd in my baggy uniform, and even as my hand drifted over the holstered revolver, I wondered if I really had it in me to start shooting it out with the Air Force.
Then the car turned left, onto the adjacent blacktop artery, and slipped away into the night. Three minutes and no further incidents later, faithfully following the intersection signs, I found the building I was looking for: off by itself, with driveways flowing in and around for easy access, the long, low, unpretentious white clapboard structure with USAF HOSPITAL over its folksy screened-in porch.
I now had a wristwatch-a Bulova, courtesy of that colored sergeant-and it was shortly before ten o’clock p.m., which could be a piece of luck, as ten was when Air Force nurse Maria Selff’s shift ended. I needed one more piece of luck: for Maria’s powder-blue coupe to be unlocked. There were perhaps twenty-five cars parked in the front lot, but the sleek Studebaker, with its short hood and long trunk, was easy to spot.
The driver’s-side door was locked; but the rider’s-side wasn’t, and with a quick look around the rather brightly lit lot, to make sure I was unseen, I opened the door and slipped into the snug backseat, shut myself in, sitting low, below the wraparound rear windows. My timing was good, because within a minute, cars began rolling in as new personnel arrived for shift change. The lot was alive with slamming car doors and coworker chatter. I kept low and waited.
Not long: within five minutes, she exited the building with two other nurses, chit-chatting as they each withdrew keys from purses, the other two women separating off to the left and their own cars, while Maria headed right, toward me, as I spied her through the side window, from my backseat slouch. Clip-clopping in her white nurse’s heels, she came across the parking lot, the generous curves on the small frame packed into her khaki dress, overseas cap jauntily cocked, lustrous black hair pinned up.
I ducked down onto the floor just before she got in, the dome light briefly blinding me before she shut herself in with me. Before she had started the engine, I sat up-not way up-and said softly, “Maria, stay calm, it’s me.”
Startled, she turned, eyes wide, mouth open, and I said, “Just talk to me in the rearview mirror-I don’t want to attract attention.”
She turned away and the blue eyes, round with alarm, stared at me from the rearview mirror. “What are you doing?”
“Waiting for you.”
“In the backseat?”
“Well, we did have a date.”
Her eyes tightened in the mirror. “Nathan, why are you in an MP uniform? You’re scaring me.”
“Listen, I’ll go if you want me to. I’ll try to find a fence without an armed MP walking it, to climb over, and hoof it back to town. But what I want, if you’re willing, is for you to sneak me off this goddamn place; I’ll just duck down back here, or climb in the trunk-whatever makes you most comfortable.”
“I … I think the trunk. When I go out through the gate, the guard would see you back there…. What’s going on, Nathan? Are you going to get me court-martialed?”
“That’s a possibility,” I said, “and I’ll head for that fence if you say so,” and I filled her in on my kidnapping, up to and including my escape from the base “guesthouse.”
She was shaking her head, and the eyes in the mirror were closed. “I told you … I told you I was putting all of us in danger. They warned me not to talk … I should never …”
I put a hand on her shoulder. “Now, you gotta get hold of yourself, beautiful. We just don’t have time, either one of us, to have a nervous breakdown right now. Understand?”
She swallowed, nodded.
“You okay? Got your composure back? Why don’t you dry your eyes.”
She got a hanky out of her purse and did.
“All right,” I said. “Okay. Let’s see if I can fit in that trunk….”
Some other hospital personnel on Maria’s shift-nurses, orderlies, a doctor or two-were getting their cars; we waited for a clear shot, then we got out, she opened the trunk and I crawled in-just me and a spare Goodyear, in the red blush of her taillights, a big fetus in an MP’s uniform. I heard her get back in the car, shut the door, ignition key bringing the engine to life, and the Studey had a smooth ride, as she guided the buggy down the blacktops and glided up to a stop at the front sentry.
I heard some muffled conversation, friendly, male laughter, female laughter-some son of a bitch was flirting with my date!-and then we were moving again, more quickly. My muscles and bones ached, as if I had the flu-or maybe it had something to do with my 190 pounds being stuffed in a car’s trunk.
In under five minutes, the Studebaker rolled to a stop. I heard her get out, and then the lid lifted and there she was, Maria, my personal nurse, framed against a starry sky that was the same color blue as those concern-filled eyes in the heart-shaped face under the cute, cocked hat. With her in my life, what was I doing dreaming about space men?
She helped me out of the trunk, and I needed the help, my legs still rubbery, joints creaky as a rusty gate, and I found myself in the alley behind the Mission Revival-style bungalow she rented on Pennsylvania Avenue. We went in the back way and she sat me down at a Formica table in a cozy white-trimmed-red kitchen.
“I’ll put some coffee on,” she said.
“Please.”
“You need anything to eat? There’s a couple kinds of sandwiches I can make you …”
“No. No thanks.”
Maria got the coffee going, then sat beside me; if she looked any cuter in that khaki nurse’s outfit I would have done hand-springs, or bust out crying. “They’ll be looking for you soon, Nathan.”
I nodded. “Do you think anyone’s connected the two of us?”
She took off her hat, tossed it on the table, began unpinning her shining black hair; her mouth glistened with bright red lipstick. “Other than Glenn, no-and he wouldn’t say a word. He’d want to protect me and, anyway, he has to do business at the base, wouldn’t want it known he gave you that information…. Oh my God!”
She covered her mouth in horror.
“What?” I asked.
“Your spiral pad … your notes, my name, everyone you talked to, if they took that from your hotel room-”
I shook my head, no, my expression reassuring. “It wasn’t in my hotel room; it’s locked in the glove compartment of the rental. I doubt they’ve got it.”
“How can you be sure?”
“If they did, we’d have company by now.”
I put the gun on the table, where it served as a strange centerpiece; the pageboy once again brushing her shoulders, she looked at the weapon gravely.
I said, “I need to get out of this town-this state. Look, I may still have a little time, before they find that MP, or he hobbles out of that bathroom…. I better go get my car….”
She touched my hand. “What if they’re watching, what if they’re waiting …?”
“I won’t go to my hotel room-I’ll just fetch my Ford, which is out in the open, in public. They grab me, I’ll make a big loud stink.” I patted the .38. “And loud noises. … I wasn’t arrested, remember-bastards kidnapped me. That’s illegal, even in New Mexico.”
Her eyes narrowed in thought. “Have you considered going to the sheriff’s office?”
I smirked, laughed once. “You really think I should go anywhere in Roswell, but here?” I pushed my chair away from the table, stood. “Listen, Maria, you’ve been terrific … but I don’t want to get you in a jam-I’m gonna walk over and get my car, and get outa this tinhorn town. I’m not even waiting for the noon stage….”