Damned If I Do (21 page)

“How do you know it’s for me?” she asked.

“It’s for you,” he said and he turned away and started walking toward the stairs.

“Is this from you?” Holly Diehl asked.

But Randall was gone. He walked down the stairs and out onto Wayland Avenue. The cold wind blew open his jacket and he pulled it closed, zipped it as he walked. He looked in through the window of the Oriental rug store where none of the salesmen spoke English, at least pretended not to speak English. Randall had gone in when the shop first opened, but when he figured out how much they were trying to tell him a rug sold for he got mad. He turned his gaze away when one of the mustached salesmen waved to him.

A blast of heat pushed through Randall when he entered the Osco drugstore and made him too hot. He unzipped his jacket and let out a breath.

“Morning, Mr. Randall,” the young clerk, Susie, said. She was setting up a display of blank videotapes.

“Hi, Susie,” Randall said. He liked her, liked to look at the way her makeup curved up at the corners of her eyes. He had always thought that Claudia would look good like that, but had never said anything, knew she would take it the wrong way. Claudia could try something, he thought, more makeup or wear her hair differently. She didn’t even try. All she ever did was complain about her knee. Susie always smiled at him, so he knew he was still an attractive man.

At the back of the store, the druggist, a fat man named Willy, was in his booth. Randall hated looking up at the an. He didn’t like Willy, was sure that the man was cheating him somehow, maybe putting less medicine in each capsule.

“How’s the pressure?” Willy asked.

“Under control,” Randall said. “How’s yours?”

“Oh, I don’t have a problem. I watch my diet and walk to work.”

Randall nodded as Willy turned away to collect his medicine. “Sure you do, you fat bastard,” he said under his breath.

“Excuse me?” Willy said.

“Nothing.”

“Oh, I thought you said something.” Willy reached through the window and handed down the vial of pills in a small white bag. “There you go.”

“Thanks.”

“You ought to get some exercise,” Willy said. “Gotta stay in shape just to run from the thugs in this neighborhood nowadays.”

“You can’t outrun them bastards,” Randall chuckled.

“Don’t need to. Not now.”

Randall nodded and walked away down the aisle of foot-care items. He remembered once when he had athlete’s foot and how good that spray had felt. It was funny he had thought then, and thought now, that his feet didn’t usually feel good, bad, or otherwise. It was something when that spray had felt good. He met Susie at the checkout.

“Is that it?” Susie asked.

“That’s it.” Randall looked at her eyes. “I like your eyes,” he said. “The way you paint them.” He had never mentioned them to her before. “How’s school?”

“Stopped going.”

“Oh. Are you still going out with that guy? That cook guy?” Randall remembered his white clothes from when he would pick up Susie from the drugstore.

“No. He thought he was hot stuff because he was going to Johnson and Wales.”

“Oh.”

“I’m trying to get a job as a cosmetician,” Susie said.

“You’ll be good at it. You always look really pretty.” He paused, watching her nails on the register keys. “I hope you don’t mind me saying that.”

“No, I don’t. Thank you, Mr. Randall. That will be twelve forty-seven.”

He handed her a ten and a five. “This stuff just keeps going up.”

“Everything does,” Susie said. She counted his change out to him. “Want your receipt?”

“I guess.”

“Bye now.”

Randall waved and walked away, the blast of heat at the doorway bothering him once more as he exited.

Randall paused at the entrance to his building, looked up its side to his window. He decided to walk around back and check on the situation with the driveway and the Dumpster. He rounded the corner and saw the car before he was there. He couldn’t believe it. After all his complaining and his last letter, here was Holly Diehl’s car, big as life, in the very same spot, blocking the Dumpster. He saw exhaust coming out of the tailpipe and realized that the car was running. Holly Diehl must have just run inside for something. He walked to the driver’s side and peered through the window at the purse on the seat. Dumb girl, Randall thought.

Mr. McRae came out of the back door with a bag of garbage and had to squeeze by the blue Honda.

“Can you believe this?” Randall said.

McRae looked at the car. “Pretty tight.”

“I’ve begged her not to park here. It’s a fire zone, you know.”

McRae nodded and tossed his bag into the container. “I guess it’s not a good idea, all right.” He was back at the door now. “Nice car, though.” He was gone.

Randall looked at the car, then at the closed door. He thought about taking Holly Diehl’s purse, to teach her a lesson, then it occurred to him that he should just take her car. He could get into her car and park it around the block. She’d get the point then.

There was no one on the street at that moment and Randall opened the car door. His heart was racing. He looked around again, then fell in behind the wheel, keeping his eye on the door of the building. He stepped on the clutch, put the car into reverse, and released the brake. He backed out slowly, still watching for Holly Diehl. He drove forward away from Wayland Avenue and toward the stop sign at the corner, but he didn’t stop, he rolled through it, turning right and noticing behind him a Providence city police car. The cop turned on his blue light.

Randall was sitting in Holly Diehl’s car, her open pocketbook beside him. He had taken the car without her permission. He had stolen it. His foot pressed more firmly on the accelerator. The policeman honked his horn. Randall looked at him in the mirror, saw the cop see him looking. He floored it. The car lurched forward and Randall sped away toward the university. The cop turned with him and switched on his siren. Randall felt a pressure in his chest. He careened through a series of alleys and side streets and lost the police car when it slid into a white Plymouth. He saw a cop talking on his radio as he rolled out of sight.

Randall was terrified. He was a criminal on the run. Holly Diehl had no doubt called the police by now to report her car stolen. It occurred to Randall that the policeman could have gotten hurt in the crash. What if that had happened? He would be to blame. He saw the man on the radio, but what if he was calling for an ambulance? What if he had sustained internal injuries or had a bad heart? He could be dying. Randall Halpern Randall could be a murderer. He looked at the little white bag on the seat beside him. He needed one of the pills now. He tried to breathe calmly and deeply, tried to slow his body down. What he needed to do was stop the car and get out, run, hide, and sneak back to his apartment. No one knew that he was the car thief. McRae had seen him by the car though. He needed to get to a phone and call Claudia, tell her to tell anyone who asked for him that he was in the bathroom or something like that. He began to slow to a stop when another siren blast pushed his foot to the floor. The tires of the blue Honda squealed as he narrowly missed hitting a woman with a sheepdog. A light snow began to fall. The cop was right behind him, talking on his radio as he drove. Randall found himself on busy Thayer Street, college students everywhere, cars everywhere, people pointing.

There were two police cars behind him now, lights flashing, sirens blowing. Randall imagined he heard his name over a loudspeaker. He made a sharp right and headed down the bus-only tunnel toward downtown. The police were caught off guard by this maneuver and slammed into each other at the mouth of the tunnel.

To Randall’s surprise there were no police at the bottom of the tunnel. He screeched to a halt and got out of the car, ran along Main Street for a half block, then up through someone’s yard, through a couple of yards and up the hill until he was on the campus. In fact, he was suddenly back on Thayer Street, just a block from the accident involving the two police cars. People were standing around, watching, telling each other what they had seen. But no one was looking at Randall even though he was panting and his clothes were grass- and dirt-stained from his scurry up the hill. He walked away from the commotion, looking up at the snow, which was falling harder now. The white flakes made him think of his white bag and he remembered that he had left his medicine sitting on the seat of Holly Diehl’s car.

He found a phone booth on a corner in front of a gas station. He closed the door, fumbled through the change in his pocket, dropped in a quarter and called Claudia.

“Where are you?” Claudia asked.

“Shut up and listen,” he barked.

“Don’t you tell me to shut up,” she said. “Where are you?”

“Has anyone asked for me?”

“Randall? What’s going on?”

“Has anyone asked for me?” he repeated.

“No, no one has asked for you. Why?” He could hear her sitting down on the recliner. “Where are you?”

“If anyone calls or comes by, just tell them I’m in the bathroom.”

“Why?”

“Just do it!”

“Don’t yell at me,” Claudia said.

“I’m sorry. Do it, please?” Randall hung up the phone, knowing that she wouldn’t do it. An ambulance rolled by him, lights flashing. The cop was hurt. He knew it. He couldn’t count on Claudia. He was suddenly very cold. The snow was beginning to stick to the grass and bushes.

Randall pushed through the wind to the gas-station office. He pieced together forty cents and dropped the coins into the vending machine. He collected his bag of cheese curls from the tray and pulled it open, began to eat as he watched the weather. The man behind the desk, a big greasy man was staring at Randall. Randall left, shoving the remains of his snack into the pocket of his jacket.

Randall counted his money. He had nearly seven dollars, not enough for anything, certainly not enough for a life on the lam. If only that cop hadn’t died in that collision. He was sure the matter could be straightened out if not for that. The cold air was beginning to make his lungs ache when he entered a branch of his bank that he had never visited. There was no line and he went directly to a teller, a youngish woman with big glasses and a gold crown that showed in the back of her mouth when she said, “May I help you?”

“I’d like to withdraw some money,” Randall said. He felt his pocket and realized he didn’t have his checkbook. “But I’m afraid I don’t have my checkbook.”

“What’s your account number then?” the woman asked.

“I don’t know.”

She looked at him over the rim of her glasses.

“My name is Randall, Randall Randall,” he said.

“Randall Randall,” she repeated. “Would you mind waiting here for a second?”

“I just want my money,” Randall said.

“I’ll be right back.” The woman fell away from her stool and walked briskly across the floor to another woman and together they regarded Randall.

Randall looked around. The bank was empty of customers. The guard was by the door looking at him. He looked up and saw the video camera looking at him. Randall began to whistle. He turned, continuing to whistle as he moved toward the door.

“Sir,” the young teller called to him, but Randall was gone. He ran down the street and around the corner, stopping finally, hands on knees, panting.

Randall went back to Thayer Street and boarded a bus. There were a couple of kids in the back and a blind man up front next to the driver. They rolled toward the tunnel and Randall saw the faces of the policemen. Their cars were connected to purple tow trucks with
Buzz
painted on the doors. The bus passed by and went through the tunnel. Randall looked at his watch and thought about that armed-forces ad that said soldiers did more before eight than most people did all day. It was nine-thirty.

Randall wandered into a McDonald’s to get warm. He bought a cup of coffee and sat in the middle of the restaurant, away from the windows. His mind was racing, but could find nowhere to go. He wouldn’t be able to sit here forever. Too long and the workers would get suspicious. Besides, the little, yellow, plastic chairs hurt his butt.

A man in a tattered coat had been sitting in a booth when Randall arrived. He wasn’t eating or drinking, just sitting. A kid in a McDonald’s hat came and asked him to leave.

“It’s cold out there,” the man said.

“I’m sorry, sir, but you’re going to have to leave.”

“It’s cold out there.”

The kid looked back into the kitchen and caught the eye of another man. He said something to someone Randall couldn’t see and came out to the scene.

“He won’t go,” the kid said.

“Sir, we’re trying to run a business here,” the new man said. He was tall, lanky, and not too old himself. He wore a brass tag that said MANAGER.

“And I’m trying to stay the fuck alive.”

“Listen,” the manager was getting tough. “You gotta get out of here right now.”

“Or what?” The man in the tattered clothes looked the manager up and down. “Or what? You candy-ass, made-up little prick-faced boy scout.”

The manager got mad. “Listen, asshole, the police are coming, already been called.”

“The police are coming,” the man repeated. “Is that because you can’t
handle
the situation?” The man pulled himself up and out of the booth.

The manager and the kid fell back a step.

“Boo,” the man said.

The manager got mad and started for the man in the tattered clothes, but the kid stopped him.

“You’d better stop him,” the man said, headed for the door. “Don’t make me have to hurt the sorry-ass.”

The manager stopped pushing and said, “Get out of here, you boozed-up, pathetic, homeless motherfucker.”

The man in the tattered clothes stopped, holding the door open and looked back at the manager. His eyes were steady. “I ain’t pathetic.”

Randall watched the man walk past the window and out to the street. He got up himself and threw away his empty cup. He had to use the toilet, but he wanted to be gone when the police arrived.

Randall Randall was scared. He couldn’t go home and he had no one to whom he could turn. He thought about the people who liked him. Susie liked him. He liked her. Maybe she would help him. He wondered what she could do, being just a cashier at the Osco. She could go to his apartment and get the checkbook. He would call Claudia and tell her that Susie was coming by for it, but then Claudia would see Susie and get jealous, jealous of her youth, jealous of her makeup, and then she would get mad and not give it to her. For that matter, why couldn’t Claudia just bring the checkbook to him herself or even go to the bank and bring him the cash? Because she wouldn’t, that was why. She had always insinuated that he was only interested in her money and this would just prove it. And what would he say when she asked him when he was coming home? It was her fault that he was in this mess. He had no problem with the Dumpster, he was just worried about her knee, all her complaining.