Straits of Fortune - Anthony Gagliano [58]
Where the hedges ended, a wrought-iron fence began. It surrounded the condominium where Susan lived. The building was six stories high, set well back from the street, and looked like a green-plated icebox with row upon row of windows far too small to leap from if the mood should strike you. I walked around the fence’s perimeter till I spotted her black Honda in its berth in the parking lot. I went back to the gate and rang the buzzer.
Her voice asked who it was, and when I told her, there was a very long and important silence that hung like a divide between us. Then the door buzzed, and I went through the gate and across a short path flanked by clumps of small purple flowers up to the glass door, where another buzzer on a timer went off just as I reached it. The lobby was far too bright, and the mirrors lining its walls were far too revealing. If a cop had seen me then, I would have been spread-eagled over the hood of his car in thirty seconds, and that without reference to the gun. I looked haggard and dark and hunted and hollow-faced. The elevator was a long time coming.
I turned left on the sixth floor and saw Susan at the end of the hall, standing in her doorway. She watched me coming toward her, and the closer I got, the more she frowned, and I knew my looks weren’t improving as I got closer still. She stepped aside, and I stood nervously in the tiny foyer while she locked the door behind me. She was wearing a pair of faded jeans and a white tank top with her law firm’s name printed in blue letters on the front. I remembered they gave them out after the 10K race they hold each year in downtown Miami.
“I guess you did the corporate run again this year. July, wasn’t it?” I said.
She looked me over without approval. Her eyes lingered on my high-water bell-bottoms, the cuffs of which ended just under my calves. Then her eyes came up, and it was only then that I realized she’d been crying.
“I ran in that race once,” I continued. “It’s a 10K, right? You may not believe it, but I think one time I ran seven-minute miles. Of course, I was lighter then.”
I smiled. Susan didn’t.
“How did you get out of Krome?” she asked.
“I don’t think you want me to tell you that.”
“Probably not. Otherwise I’d have to call the police.”
There was something a bit wrong with the way she said it. The tone was off, her voice far away from her words. She seemed distracted, enough so that the sight of me standing there in all my lack of glory was merely a mild annoyance, when in reality my just being in her place was a threat to her license to practice law. I had expected a tirade and then, if I was lucky, a little help, but not this red-eyed look of emotional distraction.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. “It can’t be me. I just got here.”
She looked at me for a long moment. I thought she was on the verge of throwing me out, but her face softened, and she smiled.
“You know,” she said, “strange as it may seem, I’m actually happy to see you.”
“That may change.”
She came forward and hugged me around the shoulders. That’s when I really started to get scared, so much so that I forgot to hug her back and just stood there like a column holding up the ceiling. Then I woke up and held her gently, her blond hair under my chin, and I felt my shirt get wet from her tears. If it weren’t for the fact that I was already a fugitive, I would have run for the hills.
Susan pulled away and looked down at my attire. “I won’t ask where you got those clothes—and by the way, you need a bath. You smell like three nights in Central Park.”
“Sorry, but I’ve been having a strange evening. Listen to me, Susan. I’m not here. We’re not talking right now. None of this is happening. Okay? The last time you saw me was this afternoon.”
“You busted out of Krome.”
“Right.”
“You