Infinity + One (35 page)

“It’s the recycling—there’s a delivery dock on the other side of this wall and a dumpster where we keep the empty glass bottles until they are picked up. This shoot feeds the dumpster. Careful. There’s lots of broken glass.”

Jagger shimmied into the opening, feet first, and disappeared almost immediately. Bonnie didn’t need prodding and copied his exit. The opening was a little narrow for someone Finn’s size, but he turned his shoulders, squeezing himself through, and dropped into a half-full bin of glass bottles, most of them still in one piece. The dumpster was shoved into the right angle between the back wall and the wall with the recycling shoot. There was only one way to go, and the young bartender was already loping down the narrow loading dock toward the sliding metal door.

Finn called out to him, warning him. He knew what would be on the other side of the door. The police weren’t stupid. They would have the exit covered, and if he went out, they would come in. Jagger halted and ran back as Finn swung out of the dumpster behind Bonnie and looked around for another way out that wouldn’t be as obvious and destined for failure.

A door opened across from them, and an old man with a janitor’s uniform and a haggard face stepped out onto the blacktop, pulling a cigarette from his breast pocket, the pocket with a laminated employee badge with a picture, an employee number, and a barcode clipped to it for all to verify. Apparently Verani’s wasn’t the only business that used the loading dock. The janitor patted his pocket for a light and Bonnie ran toward him, Finn and the bartender on her heels, digging in her purse as she did.

She held a hundred dollar bill out to the man as she approached him.

“We need to get out of here. Can you take us through there?” She nodded toward the door he’d just exited.

The man looked at her as if he didn’t understand English and lit his cigarette, puffing as he ignored the money in her outstretched hand and stared at her face sullenly. Bonnie looked at Finn and shrugged helplessly.

Finn took it from her and held it in front of the eyes of the man who didn’t seem inclined to help, or even acknowledge them. The movement drew the man’s attention from Bonnie’s face to Finn’s hand. The man’s eyes clung to the five dots on Finn’s skin between his thumb and his pointer finger.

“You do time?” he grunted, and his eyes swung up to meet Finn’s.

“Yeah. You?” Finn said, not batting an eye.

“Yeah.” Another grunt in the affirmative. “Long time ago.”

“Verani’s is crawling with cops,” Finn said. “And I don’t especially want to serve any more.”

The man stubbed out his cigarette on the concrete wall and nodded once.

“You two runnin’ ‘cause you’re guilty?” he asked, looking from Bonnie to Finn.

“No. We’re running because we’re not. What’s going down in there has nothing to do with us.”

He nodded again, like that made sense to him.

“I’ll let you two go through. Not him.” He used a jut of his chin to indicate the jittery bartender.

“Wh–what?” The bartender bounced nervously.

“You’re dealin’. I’ve seen you out here. Selling snort. To kids. You go out that way. Take your chances.” He used his chin once again to point toward the entrance to the loading dock. “I’m not helpin’ you.”

The bartender looked to Finn for support, but Finn shook his head, not giving it.

Jagger shrieked out a string of obscenities as he realized he was on his own. “I’m telling everyone I saw her! I’m telling! I’ll tell them Bonnie Rae Shelby came here tonight looking for a hit,” he said, pointing at Bonnie, threatening to tattle like he was nine years old and had been snubbed on the playground.

Finn turned on him with a curse and a well-placed swing to his wagging jaw, and the bartender crumpled into a heap. Out cold. For the second time in five minutes, Finn’s time in prison had come in handy.

“If he does, you can bet I’ll be telling what I know too,” the janitor said, swiping his employee badge in the card reader by the heavy door, disengaging the locks. He held the door wide for Bonnie and Finn, and seemed almost pleased as he tossed a final look at the unconscious dealer laying on the concrete.

“Karma’s a bitch, but I sure like her tonight,” was all he said, and the door swung shut behind them.

It was an office building, cubicles and phone systems packed into the large room that the janitor led them through. When they reached the lobby, he disengaged the alarm, dug in his breast pocket, and handed the bill back to Bonnie, insisting that he didn’t like bribes any better than he liked drug dealers. But he acquiesced and took it back when she signed it with a black sharpie she dug from her purse, telling him it was a gift.

Bonnie gave the old ex-con a big smile as she dropped the pen back into her purse, and he took a step back, momentarily dazzled, lifting his hand in farewell as she slipped out the entrance into the dark street beyond. Finn knew how he felt, and he trailed after the girl who had brought him nothing but a pain in his ass and fire in his heart since the moment he’d met her.

They walked quickly but approached the parking lot warily, trying to remain in the shadows, not knowing what they would find. What they found was chaos. Chaos could be good because it provided cover, but from what he could tell, nobody was being allowed to leave. Something major was going down, and Finn doubted the bust was about Jagger. This was big time—big drugs, big players. Verani’s was a hot spot for more than the music, late hours, and food, apparently, just like the Escalade driver had hinted. It wouldn’t be re-opening anytime soon, and Bonnie and Finn wouldn’t be getting to Bear’s car anytime soon either.

“What time is it?” Finn asked Bonnie. He couldn’t see the face of his watch, and she was the only one with a phone. His throwaway model was in the Charger, and the phone he’d started the trip with was in the Blazer—the first ride they’d had to abandon. He cursed.

“Three. It’s three o’clock in the morning,” she answered. “We’re going to have to leave the car, aren’t we?” As usual, she was taking it in stride.

Finn looked at her soberly.

“That convenience store, the one where we got gas?” he said. Bonnie nodded. “It was a Greyhound stop. I saw the logo in the window. How do you feel about taking the bus?”

IT IS NOW believed that Bonnie Rae Shelby and ex-convict, Infinity James Clyde, are driving the black, 2012, Dodge Charger that belongs to Malcolm “Bear” Johnson, Miss Shelby’s long-time bodyguard, and victim of a convenience store shooting yesterday. Mr. Johnson has been upgraded from critical to serious condition, though police say he is still not able to communicate or answer questions at this time.

Allegedly, Shelby and Clyde fled the scene of an accident in the small town of Guymon, Oklahoma, earlier this morning, but a witness to the accident took down their license plate number and later verified that a man and woman matching the description of the couple in question, were indeed driving the vehicle.

In addition, a rental car loaned to Mr. Clyde on February 26, and not returned as contracted, has now been reported as stolen by the rental car company, adding to the growing list of charges being leveled against the ex-con, and possibly Bonnie Rae Shelby, as well.

THE BUS WAS only half full, if that, and we slid into two seats about two-thirds back on the left-hand side. We hadn’t even had to wait. The bus rumbled in ten minutes after we purchased our tickets from the tired cashier, who happily took cash and didn’t ask for ID, though she told us to have it ready when we boarded, along with our tickets. For the first time in my life, I was thankful that my name was Bonita, and my license said so. Finn’s name was pretty memorable, but we bought his ticket under Finn Clyde, figuring nobody would recognize the name Finn anyway, seeing as every news report shouted out his full name, complete with his middle name, like he was John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, or John Wayne Gacy. It was four in the morning, and the tired bus driver took our tickets, ripped off the top portion without a comment or a second glance at the tickets or at us.

I wore the glasses I’d purchased at Walmart—one of the only things I still had from the second Walmart shopping spree, besides my makeup—and Finn had snagged two ball caps sporting the telecommunications logo of the business we’d traipsed through with the surprisingly helpful janitor. He’d had a change of heart when he’d seen the small tattoo on Finn’s hand. Finn said it was a symbol of the scumbag brotherhood—another prison tattoo, easily recognizable by other ex-convicts.

He might have been less helpful if he’d seen Finn take the hats from the shelf, but Finn had stuffed them in his jacket and informed me on our walk back to the convenience store that if we got caught with the hats on, the company would be thrilled with the free publicity.

With the hat and glasses, I felt fairly safe, but the moment Finn dropped into his seat beside me, I found his hand. My bravado was gone, as was the adrenaline from the stage. The euphoria from having Finn’s eyes on me, from his hungry mouth pressed to mine, from running from the police, all of it had worn off. We stayed silent, hands clasped, until the Greyhound pulled away from the convenience store and rumbled out onto the freeway, taking us away from yet another fiasco.

I was scared again, reality almost too much to take at the moment. I’d had too many of these moments, teetering between disbelief and elation at the twists and turns our days had taken, and I felt more alive than I’d ever felt before, but reality could be a trip.

We were running out of time. We needed to get to LA. We needed to make our grand statement. And then it would all go away. It would be over. But that’s not why I was scared. When we reached LA, when we openly contradicted the media craze, would we be over too? And how many cars were we going to abandon on the way? What the hell were we doing?

“What the hell are we doing?” Finn sighed next to me, his words mirroring my thoughts so exactly I jerked, staring up at him. And then I started to laugh. A few people turned toward us, and Finn cursed and pushed me down on his lap, and I pressed my face into his thigh until I could control the semi-hysterical giggles.

Finn bent his head over me, and rested it against the seat in front of him, his upper body at a forty-five degree angle above my head where it lay in his lap, creating a dark, triangular cocoon where we could converse without being overheard.

“Why did you do that, Bonnie? Why did you sing? Are you so hungry for attention that you couldn’t resist?” His voice was soft, but confused, like he didn’t get me at all. My bubbling laughter fizzled immediately, tamped down by the gulf that separated me from his understanding. I wanted that understanding. I desperately needed it. Without it, he was lost to me.

“I wanted to sing to you,” I said. “I needed to tell you how I feel. I needed for you to believe me. And you listen best when I sing.”

“But it was foolish. And you know it.”

I felt tears prick my eyes at his censure. He’d been angry with me all night. And I didn’t know why. “I thought you liked it. You . . . you kissed me.”

“I kissed you because it was beautiful and you make me feel . . .” he bit out, his voice a harsh whisper. “You make me feel . . . crazy things. Desperate things. Impossible things. You make me feel. And feeling that much is irresistible sometimes. You are irresistible sometimes.”