A Killer’s Kiss

32

We were back on the road, Antoine and Derek and I, heading farther south on I- 95 in that blue Camaro, driving deep into Julia’s past. What was going on was so obvious I should have figured it out before. It wasn’t like she hadn’t been telling me over and over what she was doing and why. She was begging me to understand, but I guess I was so blinded by my own lost love that I hadn’t been able to see hers.

Terry. As in Terrence. You should have seen him then, she had said. He was Romeo in his bones, she had said. Now all I had to do was find him.

We were still about thirty miles from where we were headed, just rounding Fredericksburg, when my phone rang. It was noisy in the Camaro – a car built for speed, not comfort – so I pressed the phone hard into my ear.

“Victor, where are you?”

It took me a moment, within the din of the backseat, to identify the voice, but finally I did. Sims.

“What do you want?” I said.

“We need to talk.”

“I think I’ve talked enough. You’ve had me down to the Roundhouse three times. Next time you want to chat, bring a warrant.”

“That can be arranged, I assure you,” said Sims. “But maybe we should talk in an unofficial capacity. Where are you?”

“You tell me. You’re following me, aren’t you?”

“I was, until you arranged to lose me. Not the most innocent of actions. You are the chief suspect in a murder case. And I must say the evidence is lining up quite neatly against you.”

“I’m being framed.”

“Yes, you’ve told us. By Mr. Swift, who I don’t think could frame a poster, better yet a cookie as smart as you. But I could be convinced to see it your way, Victor. I could turn my attentions in another direction. I am more flexible than you might imagine.”

“Oh, I doubt that. I think this-” I stopped talking. “What is best is-” I stopped talking again.

“Victor, you’re breaking up.”

“Am I? That’s a shame because-”

“Remember that I told you not to leave town.”

“I remember.”

“There will be costs if you have discarded my advice.”

“I’ll be in touch,” I said. Then I hung up. Then I turned off the phone.

“Who was that?” said Derek.

“Johnny Crow,” I said. “How much longer?”

“About twenty minutes now,” said Antoine. “Then we have to ask.”

“Won’t be a problem,” I said. “Everyone knows where the high school is.”

Just north of Ashland, Virginia, after we had left the interstate, Antoine pulled us into a convenience store. The Sav-A-Minit. Which looked amazingly like a Git-n-Go, or a Loaf ’N Jug, or an XtraMart, not to mention the famous K collection of the Kuik-E-Mart, the Kum & Go, and the Kwik Trip. They must pay people to come up with names for these things, but they don’t pay them enough. What they should call them is the Over-Priced, or the Beer ’N Bellies, or the ever popular Krap-to-Go.

“Let me get out,” I said. “I’ll ask.”

“Nah, mon, I take care of this,” said Antoine. “You-all want anything?”

“We-all?” said Derek.

“Need to be speaking the patois down here, you want a be getting anywhere.”

“I wouldn’t worry about the patois, I was you.”

“You don’t think I can fit into this cracker town, mon?”

“Hardly.”

“Just be giving me some money,” said Antoine.

“Are you rehearsing your lines?” said Derek. “What, you going to rob the Sav-A-Minit, get away with a buck and a half?”

“Be quiet, Derek,” I said as I pulled out my wallet and handed Antoine a twenty.

“Back in flash,” said Antoine as he climbed out of the Camaro.

“They’re going to be chasing him with pitchforks and torches,” said Derek.

“You ever been out of Philly, Derek?”

“I got a cousin in Chicago.”

“You visit him?”

“Why would I want to do something like that?”

“You should maybe travel a bit, see the world, broaden your horizons.”

“My horizons, they broad enough.”

“I don’t think so. Things aren’t what you might imagine outside of the city. People are pretty much okay all over.”

“For you, maybe, with your suit and all.”

“If that’s what you think, then get one of your own. Probably cost less than those sneakers.”

“Yours, maybe. But nah, man, can you see me in a rig like that?”

“Sure. Why not?”

“Because I got style,” he said.

Antoine came ambling out of the Sav-A-Minit without pitchforks and torches in his wake. He held a plastic bag loaded down with cans and junk. He climbed into the Camaro and tossed a Coke to me in the backseat and another to Derek.

“We need a keep going straight and then turn to the right,” he said. “It not so hard. John Paul Jones High School. Strange territory, hey, Derek?”

“I got my degree,” said Derek as he popped open his can. “Still, I didn’t need to show up every day to know they wasn’t nothing there they could teach me. So what we doing in a high school, bo?”

“Not we,” I said. “Just me. I’ll take care of it from here on in. You guys can head out to the park or something. I’ll call you when I need you.”

“What are you going to be doing?”

“First I thought I’d pee, seeing as sitting in the back of this car has near ruptured my bladder,” I said. “Then I’m going to start a discussion about Shakespeare.”