I ran down the embankment to a parking lot surrounding a huge office park. Angular, glass-sheathed buildings sprouted from the sea of pavement like alien crystals. Three steps across, I hesitated—the architecture too stark to feel like a refuge.
And then I heard this little engine rev up to a shrill whine. Tonio’s car bolted free from the toll booths like a sprung colt.
I had often complained about movie scenes where someone is fleeing from bad guys in a car down the center stripe of some, probably just because the director thought it looked cool. Well, it’s just plain stupid and enough to make me lose all sympathy with the characters (not to mention, dragging me out of the story—wink wink).
So I didn’t run across that lot. I doubled back into the trees where Tonio couldn’t reach me with his car. I ducked down behind a patch of blackberries as his car came whipping into the lot, weaving back and forth, creeping down each row of parking spaces, hunting for me.
But I couldn’t stay put so close to the scene of my escape. The toll booth was just the other side of a long row of pines. So I followed some power lines deeper into the woods, skirting the edge of a bulldozed area where they were putting in more parking lots and office parks.
All in all, I had made out well. I had a ticket to Rome and a good fifteen hundred bucks in cash stuffed in my pockets. With more time and patience, I could have done even better, but if the deal had taken any longer to set up, those Cleveland guys would have nabbed me in Pittsburgh.
It shocked me how quickly they had homed in on Chinstrap and Soul Patch. Apparently their network had its fingers in every pie. I felt sorry for those two. I hoped nothing horrible happened to them. Maybe the bad experience would steer them out of the drug trade, or … lead to better business opportunities. Whatever.
As bad as I felt, I obviously had no intention of giving the money back or making it easy for Tonio to find me. I plunged deep into the woods, crossing muddy sloughs and fighting my way through patches of brambles that ripped at my clothes.
When the woods ran out, I found myself on the edge of a series of cornfields separated by windbreaks—narrow strips of oaks and junipers. The corn was only chest high, so I used the windbreaks to screen my traverse, keeping to the side away from the main road. There was a long drive leading to a farmhouse behind me, but I could spot any cars coming that way before they spotted me.
Planes came howling down one after the other, each about two minutes apart, locking their landing gear right over my head. It heartened me to see how close I was to the airport, only a couple miles north of a major runway. Hard to believe I would be sitting on one of those planes only a few hours from now.
The windbreak led me to a stone wall running along a larger road with some light but steady traffic. No way around it, I was going to have to expose myself and cross. But for now, I rested in a patch of spongy moss, sitting with my back against a fallen tree.
I turned my head and was struck by how the fields behind me caught the slanting light of the setting sun. It would have looked amazing in a painting or postcard.
Experiencing beauty in such moments confused me. When I was depressed, walking down a beach surrounded by all these golden dunes, feathery clouds and glittery waves—it just didn’t seem fair. The world had no right to flaunt its prettiness at me like that. Why couldn’t my surroundings match my moods?
I turned my attention to the residential complex across the road, planning my next move. They were condo and townhouses mostly, pretty upscale for being directly beneath the landing pattern of a major airport. The buildings were densely packed but nicely landscaped, with patches of grass to walk your dog in and plantings of dogwood and oleander, all of it nestled in this pocket of woodland.
