Dinner-a-Deux...or Is It Duh?

Way too many forks, way too many glasses with way too much wine to put in them, too much food and not enough light to see to eat it or even to know what it was, and if I wore my 'appropriate dress' much longer I would catch my death. Two-face kept the conversation going in his multifacted way, so that all I was called upon to do was sit and shiver. He really was quite a fascinating person, if what you liked was delusional criminal minds. It helped that half of him looked like an ambassador and the other half like Uncle Miltie. It was a way to keep things in some kind of perspective.

Two-face:  Are you enjoying your dinner?  Can we get you more wine?

Ed:  Anything but more wine.  The dinner is lovely.

Four peas and a cracker with some goofy sauce.  Lovely, all right.  The
only thing I'd had to eat all day was a Filet-o-Fish that Billy had stopped
to buy me under duress, and which landed in my lap like a Nolan Ryan 
fastball.  The food, whatever it was, seemed to my ignorant palate to be
very tasty.  There just needed to be a little more.

Ed:  I'm sorry to be so nonverbal...I'm a little overwhelmed by everything
that's happened today.  I need to be blunt, now, if you don't mind.  I need
to ask you a question if I'm going to be here any length of time.

Two-face:  Ask away.  We're all ears.

I wanted to drop my head to the tablecloth and leave it there, but the
plate was still in the way amd I wanted what there was of the sauce in my
stomach instead of all over my face.  I attempted to explain.

Ed:  Well, to be honest...it's your name.

Two-face:  Our name?

Ed:  Yes.  What else can I call you?

Two face:  Why would you want to call us anything else?

Ed:  It's just that where I come from, when you call somebody two-face, it
usually means you want to sock them in the mush.  It seems disrespectful,
and you've been very nice.  It's not...

Two-face:  Apropos?

Ed:  Not to the situation, no.

Two-face smiled, a really startling sight becasue it made him look
vaguely like Nixon.

Two-face:  Well, my dear, Two-face is the name we really prefer, but if it
will make things easier for you, then you can call us Harvey.

Ed:  Thank you, er...Harvey.

I wasn't going to last long.  That much was very plain.  One of the cheap
suit brigade bustled up before Two-face/Harvey and I could continue our
conversation or rather, their conversation.  He was followed by his idiot
twin.  He spoke quietly to Two-face/Harvey, who took care to tip his
non-mangled ear toward the man.

Thug1:  We thought it best to inform you right away, Mr. Dent.  There are
Federal Marshals in the process of surrounding the building.

Thug2:  Yeah, Two-face, the cops are here.

Two-face:  Federal Marshals?  We'll be damned.  The attempt to lay a finger
on us, they'll find we've brought them up on so many charges they won't
know which ones to answer first.

Thug2:  It ain't you they want, Two-face.  It's the dame.

Thug1:  That's correct, Mr. Dent.  A Deputy Samuel P. Gerard said to tell
her that the Big Dog intends to take her for a long walk, whether she wants
to go or not.

Beth's phone was tapped.

Ed:  Harvey, I need to go, now.

Two-face:  Relax, my dear.  We've tangled with Deputy Gerard a time or two.
He's really very easy to confuse, we've found.

Ed:  I don't know what Sam Gerard you've met, Harvey, but the one I know
isn't called the Big Dog for no reason.  Man's half bloodhound.  I need to
get lost.  I'm serious.

Two-face:  If you insist.  Tommy, have the headwaiter phone for a taxi.  It
should come around to the kitchen entrance.  Then drive the car back to get
the lady's bsggage, and meet us at the airport.  Thomas, stand by.

Thug2:  Okay, Two-face.

Two-face:  We'll send you anyplace you want to go.

Ed:  I need to think about this.

Where did I want to go?  My first impulse was to go to where the boys
were so well hidden, but I had to dismiss that immediately for a couple of
reasons.  Firstly, I had a feeling Sam would have eyes on Doctor Jake's
movements.  Secondly, I didn't want to be analyzed.  Then I considered
throwing myself on Reverend Roy's mercies, but he would doubtless rat me 
out to Sam.  That or he would spend so much time chucking Bible verses at
me that I would rat myself out in self-defense.  I thought of Los Angeles,
and the Director of the Office of Emergency Management.  If this wasn't an
emergency, I didn't know what was.  What about Chicago?  Sam wasn't there...
no, that was too obvious.  I could try and touch base with Kevin Cunningham,
a/k/a Agent K, but he would neuralyze me every five minutes and I was messed 
up enough without that.  And I couldn't go home.  Sam probably had the 
National Guard parked in the garage.  So I kept shying away from and
circling back to the idea of Lubbock.  On the surface, it was a fool-hardy 
idea, even more obvious than Chicago., but then I let my thinking get
convoluted.  Sam knew I had contacts, friends, in Lubbock.  He would tell
himself I wouldn't go to Lubbock because I was afraid they were being
watched, therefore he wouldn't bother to have them watched because Lubbock
was the last place I would show up.  There was the risk that he would take 
this reasoning a step further and have them watched anyway because he would
decide that I would assume they weren't being watched, but I was running
out of both alternatives and time.  Sam would come tear-assing in any
minute.

Ed:  Lubbock.

Two-face:  Consider it done.  Thomas, an airline reservation to Lubbock
for the lady.  Use the encrypted cellphone.  Come with us, my dear.

Two-face was as good as his word.  Within hours, I was hailing a cab
outside the terminal in Lubbock and giving the cabbie Beth's address.  I
told him to take the long way around.  When I was sure there were no boring
looking sedans on our tail, I had him take me to Beth's.  It took me a
while to get her to buzz me up, I was afraid she'd think I was Billy 
because of the late hour and hide under her bed, but when I finally got in
I was amazed at how safe it felt.

Beth:  What are you doing here?  Are you out of what's left of your mind?

Ed:  Probably.  Your phone's tapped.  Sam found me.

Beth's eyes widened comically.

Ed:  Two-face had me in some four-star restaurant in a dress about the
size of a postage stamp and Sam almost flushed me out.  Two-face got me
out through the back door and sent one of his goons off as a decoy.

Beth:  What did you think of old Harvey?

Ed:  Psrt of me thought part of him was gorgeous.

Beth:  The rest of you's not so sure.

Ed:  The rest of him looks like Bobcat Goldthwaite.  I don't think I'd
better stay here too long.

Beth:  Probably not.  Once Sam figures out you bugged off on him again
he's gonna be ready to eat sand and shit cement.  Maybe you'd better go
lay low at Chez Billy.

Ed:  Maybe I can stack a few z's on the holy army cot.

Beth:  Maybe you can get yourself tossed into the corner if he catches you.

Ed:  Maybe we can check the basement.

Beth:  Maybe now you're making sense.

Except it didn't work out quite that way.  There were lights on in the
house, the garage door started opening on its own when Beth pulled into
the driveway, and Billy met us at the service door with something less than
a smile on his face.

Billy:  Brothers and Sisters, especially Sisters, I say unto you - put your
hands on the radio one more time and I'll knock your ass across the room.
Got me, pipsqueak?

Beth:  Aww, you didn't like it?

Billy:  Little maintenance in order here.  Say, I thought you were with
Harvey.  What the hell you doin' here?  They decide they had enough of your
mouth?

Ed:  No, Sam found me.  Beth's got a tap on her phone.

Billy:  Damn!  Ryan, I thought Beth's phone was clean.  We miss anything?

Ryan:  Nothing that was there for the finding, William.

Billy:  So why do I get her?  I don't need any more shit.

Ryan:  Where else could the lass go, William?  Samuel has eyes everywhere.

Beth:  This is the only place Sam hasn't found yet.

Billy:  You keep comin' here like this, it won't take 'im long.

Ryan:  Think of it this way, lad.  Any port in a storm.

Billy was about to open his mouth for further protests, but Beth and
Ryan both moved up on him.  It must have been too late for the Rowdy One
to want to be double-teamed.

Billy:  All right, already, back the hell off.  What do I do with you now?

Ryan:  For starters, lad, put her to bed, she's all in.  Time enough
tomorrow to decide what needs to be done.
  
Ed:  I've had about enough of your mouth, you musclebound...

Billy:  I'm scared.  Damn, somebody save me.

Ed:  I'm too tired to slap you up now.  Maybe I'll just insult you 
until you cry.
 
Billy:  You are wiped.  G'wan, use the room across from the head.  Git.

Beth:  I'd better get on back home.  I'll see you guys tomorrow.

Billy:  Her, you'll see.  We're outta here.  Gotta drive all over hell if I
wanna get any business done, thanks to you two.

Ryan walked with me down the hall, showed me the room Billy wanted me to
use.  I locked myself in and started getting ready for bed.  Halfway
through my simple preparations, when I was less than decently covered, the
lock released and the door began to open.  I leaped at it, slamming it shut
with the impact of my body.

Billy:  Ow, shit, my nose!

Ed:  Serves you right.  It was getting into things that weren't any of its
business.

Billy:  Only doors locked around here are locked by me.  I want in that
room, I'll get in.

Ed:  Pooh.

Billy:  Crapper's across the hall.  Don't let me stop you.

Ed:  Despite my astonishing facility with the language, Billy, I'm really
not up to mind games.  What do you want?

Billy laughed softly, a sound that went directly to the pit of my stomach 
and nestled there.  My knees started to buckle and I slid down the door
panel helplessly for a second or two.  With a massive effort of will, I got
hold of myself.

Billy:  Good night, baby.  You're safe now.  Big bad Dawg won't get you.

Ryan:  Rest easy, lass.

And surprisingly I did just that, reassured by the knowledge that my
two certifiable cavaliers were mere feet away from me.  I slept just as
securely as I had in San Saba, with Sam in the next room and Billy on the
loose outside.  There was comfort in the proximity of their devious minds
and Charles-Atlas-after-photo physiques.  Not ever my ever-present low
grade lust for Strannix could keep me awake.

TO BE CONTINUED...