We went careening down the road. TTirough Whittier. Pedestrians and dogs scattered before us. Blank faces turned to us. Cars pulled onto sidewalks. I dragged myself from the floor. I sat upright on the seat.
Jack Donohue was singing a hymn, banging on the steering wheel …
‘Brighten the corner, where you are,’ he bellowed. ‘Brighten the corner, where you are …’
JOURNEY’S END
Now I knew I was changing. I knew how I was changing. Up to this point I had been a war correspondent, accredited to report but not to play an active role. Oh, I could, willy-nilly participate, but I could not influence.
But now I had planted myself on a dirt road in Georgia and fired a lethal weapon at duly appointed representatives of the law. It was really, in my mind, my first act of conscious illegality. I might have killed someone, although I doubted it. I couldn’t have cared less.
‘How old was he?’ Jack Donohue asked.
‘Thirty-two,’ Jannie said. ‘I think. Maybe he had a birthday. Maybe thirty-three or — four. Around there.’
‘You don’t knowT he said incredulously.
‘No,’ I said.
‘Sheesh,’ he said.
At the same time my role as war correspondent came to an end. I became dissatisfied with what I had written in Project X. It seemed to me I had not told the whole truth about Dick Fleming, Hymie Gore, Angela, the Holy Ghost, Clement, Smiley, Antonio Rossi. Or even Jack Donohue. Or even myself.
As a journalist, I had limned us all as two-dimensional characters, cardboard cutouts. But reading back over what I had written, remembering the contradictions and complexities of everyone involved, I yearned for a larger talent so I could do justice to their humanness. Not only their frailties and inconsistencies, but their constancy and brave humor.
‘Where was he from?’ Jack Donohue asked.
‘Somewhere in Ohio,’ Jannie Shean said. ‘He never spoke of it. Never went back, as long as I knew him.’
‘Have any family?’ he said. ‘ ‘A mother living, I think. Never mentioned his father. I had the feeling the father had deserted or maybe he was dead. Dick never said and I never asked.’
‘You didn’t know much about him,’ Black Jack said. Accusingly.
‘No,’ I said wonderingly. ‘I didn’t.’
Hadn’t wanted to, I almost blurted out. Hadn’t wanted to pry, probe, ask questions. If he had wanted to tell me about himself, he would have, wouldn’t he? Or was that a cop-out? Did he interpret my lack of curiosity as lack of interest? I thought him a very private man. Perhaps he was, not from choice but because that was the kind of friend he thought I wanted.
Donohue was right: I hadn’t really known Dick Fleming. Who he was, what moved him. I saw his body flung into the air, then crumpling, rolling. I wanted him back. I wanted to hold him naked in bed, stare into those guileless blue eyes, and whisper, ‘Who are you?’ I think he would have told me.
‘He had class,’ Jack Donohue said.
‘You have class,’ Jannie Shean said.
‘No,’ he said sadly, ‘all I got is front. I know it.’
At the same time I realized I had been hardened. I could feel it in my bones. I am speaking now not of Jannie Shean, a novelist, mother of Chuck Thorndike, Mike Cantrell, Buck Williams, Pat Slaughter, and Brick Wall. I am speaking of Bea Flanders, nee Jannie Shean, refugee, criminal, and most-wanted. I had learned the argot, habits, fears, precautions, cruelties, and cunning of the lawbreaker on the run.
When I had been casing the Brandenberg job, I had felt something of that: me against society, everyone’s hand raised against me. I had found a kind of wild exhilaration in it: rebel versus the establishment. Now I felt no excitement. Only a savage resolve. Simply to exist. Acknowledging that I had turned a corner in my life and could never go back.
‘He was a marvelous lover,’ Jack Donohue said. ‘You know?’
‘Yes,’ Jannie Shean said. ‘I know.’
‘He was so fucking elegant,’ Black Jack said.
He wanted to talk about Dick Fleming, to remember
him. Bea Flanders didn’t. I wanted to forget the dead and get on with the perilous business of living.
After that bullet-studded getaway at Whittier, we fled along backroads to Homerville, Donohue threading a maze of dirt lanes he remembered from his rum-running days. The Plymouth had no radio, but at Fargo we ditched the car and stole a Chevy pickup, the keys kindly left in the ignition. There was a scratchy radio in the cab, and we heard hourly broadcasts of the hunt that had been organized, the net drawing tight around us. ‘An arrest is expected momentarily.’
We took turns at the wheel, and north of Lake City in Florida ditched the Chevy pickup and caught a bus to Jacksonville. There, after spending half a day in a fleabag hotel, we bought a rackety heap in a used car lot. It was a ten-year-old Dodge. We paid cash, gassed up, and headed south on Route 95 again.
In all these switches and changes, we had carefully transferred all our luggage. There was never a question of leaving anything behind; we didn’t discuss it. We even brought along the suitcase containing Dick Fleming’s clothes, and toilet articles.
During the time we spent in Jacksonville, I found a drugstore that was open and bought hair bleach, dye, and some other things. We changed Donohue to a straw-colored blond, a process that took more than six hours. His eyebrows were lightened with white mustache wax and he donned a pair of mirrored sunglasses.
The next day, at St Augustine, Jack bought maroon slacks, white socks, leather strap sandals, and a short-sleeved sport shirt in a wild tropical print. He wore the tails loose, over his belt, not only to look like every other tourist on his way to Disney World, but also to conceal the revolver he carried at the small of his back.
We knew there had been no photos taken of Bea Flanders; the best they’d have would be a police artist’s sketch or a retouched photo of Jannie Shean. So I stuck with the curly red wig, heavy makeup, falsies under a tight sweater, and floppy slacks with wide cuffs above high-heeled shoes.
Also, for additional camouflage, we bought a cheap camera which Jack wore suspended from his neck on a leather strap. And I put away my Gucci shoulder bag, and carried a straw tote bag that had ‘Florida’ and a palm tree woven on the side. The only thing we lacked were three messy-faced kids, screeching and blowing bubblegum.
We spent the next night at Daytona Beach, and realized Christmas had come and gone. We went out separately the next morning and bought each other gifts. I gave Jack an electric shaver and he bought me a string bikini (too small) and a blue velour beach coverup (too large). But we kissed, and it wasn’t the worst day-after-Christmas I’ve ever spent.
We cut over to Orlando, traded in the ancient Dodge, and bought a two-year-old Oldsmobile Cutlass. In all these trades and buys, Jack had to use his identification. We had no doubt that our trail would be picked up eventually. All we hoped to accomplish was to confuse our pursuers long enough for us to get to Miami. There we could hole up in a safe place and figure our next move. We were still carrying more than five thousand in cash, plus the big, valuable pieces from the Brandenberg heist. It was, we figured, enough to get us through with maybe another switch of cars before we arrived in southern Florida.