The Kindness of Strangers, The Foulness of Friends
The Kindness of Strangers, "Mom, everything is just fine," Laura said, as she leaned on the pay phone near the noisy kitchen door of Denny's in Shamokin Dam, PA.
"No, Laura," her mother objected, "everything is not fine. There is nothing FINE about spending three days in jail. There is nothing FINE about having a criminal record. There is nothing fine about selling yourself to an FBI agent so he'll bail you out of jail--"
"What?!"
"That's what they said! It's true! It's all over the cable, and the newspaper, Laura. I don't know how I'm ever going to face the neighbors again, with you--"
"Mike is not an FBI agent, mother. He's a geologist."
"Oh, well, did you ever stop to think that maybe that's just what he told you? He could be a spy, or a hit man, or the operator of a white slave ring. . .You never think about appearances, Laura. That man bailed you out of jail and then you disappear with him for two days in some sort of flophouse--"
"The Day's Inn hardly qualifies as a flophouse."
"It's hard enough to explain to everyone that you and Will are just 'good friends,' and now you're using sex to pay your debts. This has gone far enough. I'd tell you to come home, but I don't even know what they'd think of you in this town."
"Mom, I really don't give a damn what they think of me in that town. Mike is just a really nice, wonderfully generous man who just happened to bail out Will and I. We were all just exhausted after the time in jail, and Will was saying he wouldn't go another step without a Jacuzzi bath and three hours of cable television. We just needed some time to crash somewhere and re-group."
"In two separate hotel rooms? So you could be alone with that man?"
Laura knew that it was futile to try and explain anything else to her mother. She silently cursed to herself. She'd known this entire venture was going to be like living in a fishbowl, but she had no idea it was going to be this bad. She couldn't understand how the media could have tracked them down so quickly, and how grossly they could twist the truth. She glanced back into the restaurant. Will was plowing through his Moons Over My Hammy, slightly bouncing on the bench of the booth, and Mike sat still, absentmindedly holding his cup of coffee and staring out the window with his soft, soulful brown eyes. Somewhere in Iowa, one of her mother's dogs barked, snapping her back to reality.
"Mom, I've got to go. We're already way over budget for this month, and we've barely been on the road a week."
"Maybe you can find another man to sell yourself to."
"I'll ignore that. Look, try not to watch the news reports about us. You aren't getting the facts."
"I did not raise my daughter to--"
"Gotta go, Mom. Bye." She hung up.
Laura took a deep breath and walked back to the booth.
"How goes it on the prairie?" Will asked, swirling his hammy around in maple syrup.
"Not good," she said, plunking down beside Mike. "I think we're being followed."
"Why?" asked Will, stabbing the gooey mess on his fork through a pile of hash browns.
"Because the media already knows where we are. They've concocted some story that Mike is an FBI agent, and that he bailed us out in exchange for--for--"
"Hot, steamy sex?" Will asked. "You bad girl! Buying your freedom with sex! Just like Ashton in North and South!
"Will, it's not funny. Christ, my mother thinks I'm still a virgin."
"Thought," Will said, with a wicked gleam in his eye.
"I'm so sorry," Mike said gently. "Maybe we just should have parted paths in Centralia, and none of this would have happened."
"It's not your fault," Laura replied, scooping up his calloused hand." You've been really, truly wonderful. And I swear that Will and I are going to pay you back. If Will and I have to sleep in KOA Kampgrounds from now till doomsday, you'll get your money back."
"I don't do campgrounds" Will said matter-of-factly into a piece of toast. Laura and Mike ignored him.
"It's okay," Mike grinned sheepishly, " I've got a really low interest rate on my credit card. You can pay me back when you win the contest." He stared into Laura's eyes, his stubbly cheeks dimpling slightly.
"Boys and girls," Will said, tapping his knife on his water glass. "Hey. Good morning. We need to decide on our plan. While you two were nestled in your love shack, I called Faye, Christine, and Holly in Chicago. They said we could crash with them. I told Faye about the clue, and she's going to start investigating drownings, shipwrecks, and beachfront accidents in the city. Remember? 'Two elements remain to choose, in which the dead do slumber'?"
"I've really got to get going," Mike announced. "I've got to go meet up with the rest of my team in Cleveland. We're assessing cityfront beach erosion and its impact on pollutant trajectories."
"Fascinating," Will said dryly.
"And you guys," Mike continued, "need to get going to Chicago." He stood up. "Laura, do you want to walk me out to my car?"
Nodding, Laura slid out of the booth. Mike went to shake Will's hand, but Will grabbed it and kissed it. Mike blushed and chortled. "Take care, Will. You really are quite a guy."
"So are you, Agent M," Will replied genuinely. "I'd put you between me and disaster any day."
Fifteen minutes later, Laura returned from the parking lot, tears smoldering in her eyes, but not quite rolling out. She sat down with a sigh. It was the first time they'd truly been alone since the night at the anchor in Centralia.
"So," Will asked airily, "was he good?"
"Don't be crude, Will."
"I bet he was," Will mused. "His chest could comfortably sleep three. Hairy or smooth?"
"Oh, don't be gross!"
"I'm not being gross. This is important information! Anyway, I'm proud of you. He was very nice and very cute. The photographic memory thing was a little spooky, though."
"Oh, Will," Laura said, as one fat tear slid down her cheek. "He was just wonderful. Chivalrous, but not overbearing, smart but unassuming. . .and he'd look great in a tux."
"After a haircut and some poise lessons. He was kind of boring, hon. Kind of that boring straight man thing."
"Well, pardon me for liking straight men."
"I want my girl to be happy," Will brogued in his best Gerald O'Hara, " and you'll not be happy with him."
"I would, I would," Laura fake-pouted, attempting to do Scarlett's part.
"Wouldn't you know it," Will sighed. "The only time I'll probably ever spend in jail, and you're the one who gets lucky. Jeez, where's the love of my life?"
*******
David Nimoy sat slumped in his sleek '98 Isuzu Trooper, courtesy of Waterbury Publishing, coyly tucked behind the Denny's dumpster. He could just dimly perceive the back of Will's head through the restaurant's plate glass window.
He had not lost his job. True, he could not remember the last time he had slept for more than a few hours, but Vesper Shillington had not fired him. She had ranted, she had raved, she had docked his first two weeks pay, and threatened to blacklist him in the publishing world, but in the end, he had found Will and Laura.
Of course, it was Vesper herself who had helped him find them. Late Thursday night, he was making a beeline for Harper's Ferry, West Virginia, after having heard on NPR that a woman in a Pennsylvania comfort station had spoken to Will and Laura, and that they had told her they were heading there, when he got a cell-phone call from Vesper. With an uncharacteristic quaver in her voice, she had told him that the two were in Centralia. So, David had hightailed it back to Centralia, traveling 300 miles in the wrong direction before realizing his gaffe.
Once in Centralia, he had talked to some locals, hired a reticent townsperson named Billy Huffmann to take him on an overland hike to Simon Waterbury's anchor clue (so as not to get arrested), and discovered that Will and Laura were in jail. He'd spent the next two days whipping up brilliant copy for Vesper, and discussing with her how to precisely handle the details of the adventurer's discoveries.
He felt guilty that he had let the country know about the Laura's budding romance with the Federal Agent who bailed them out.
He felt even more guilty that he had followed them all to Shamokin Dam, and checked into the hotel room right next door to his ex-boyfriend.
He felt supremely guilty that he had spent the night with his ear plastered to the wall of the Day's Inn, listening to Will's phone conversations with his and Laura's friends in Chicago. Will had always talked really loud on the telephone.
But beyond feeling guilty, he felt strange. Trepidatious. Unnerved. When he had last communicated with Vesper, and told her that Will and Laura were definitely traveling to Chicago, she had not sounded surprised or curious.
She had said: "Chicago. Good. We'll be ready for them when they get there."
The steel in her icy voice had scared him.
David Nimoy had not lost his job, but he was miserable.
*****
Vesper punched the elevator button to take her to the penthouse floor of Waterbury Publishing. She was calmer, now. The planets were falling back into line. Nimoy had found her prodigal children, Chad was packed off to Chicago, and the sales of Sooner Than Never had begun to skyrocket again. Shortly before leaving her desk that evening, she had learned that all tri-state area Barnes and Noble were sold out of the book. Again. Some enterprising New Yorker was evening planning to start shuttle-bus service to Centralia, so gaggles of would-be treasure hunters could marvel at the embedded anchor at the crack in the road. Simon would be pleased. The hysteria over the book was not yet leveling off; in fact, it was bolstered by the fact that Will and Laura had actually found a tangible clue. It gave hope to the masses.
But why Centralia? she thought nervously. What was Simon up to? Why wasn't the hunt sticking to her previous discussions with the old lunatic?
Pull yourself together, she hissed inwardly at herself. You can figure out what he's up to tonight..
The elevator melodically dinged, and she stepped off into the shining white linoleum cubicle outside Simon's apartment door. Milton, Simon's doddering head of security, glanced up from his paperback to face her.
"Miss Shillington. It sure is good to see you. Is he expecting you?"
"Yes, yes. We're having dinner tonight."
"I think he's in the middle of his air bath."
Vesper winced. Upstairs, she knew that Simon had the gigantic dormers of the penthouse open to the city night, with the chilly autumnal breezes swirling in over his fat, doughy, naked body.
"That's just fine. Let me in."
Milton brandished a stainless-steel bin, its edge encrusted with pearls. "Please put your metals in the basket. Mr. Waterbury will return them to you at the end of the evening."
"Yes, yes, I know. . .don't give me the spiel, Milton." Vesper pulled off two bracelets, one anklet, and the simple gold chain she always wore around her neck She pulled on the carnelian ring on her left hand, but it wouldn't come off. "I'm bloated, darling," she said sweetly. "This bauble won't let go of me."
Milton giggled. "I wouldn't let go of you either, Miss Shillington. Awright, I suppose you ain't got any bombs strapped to your bazooms or nothin'." Milton clicked open the heavy door, and Vesper stepped inside.
Simon's immense foyer was made up to look like the entrance to a bayou. Fake stars glittered high on the domed ceiling; a shallow but wide lazy river snaked along one wall; trees with faux Spanish moss stood everywhere in giant planters. Piped-in crickets chirruped in the cool darkness. Vesper hated this place. It reminded her of the Pirates of the Caribbean.
From somewhere in the shadowy depths of the penthouse, Simon boomed, "Vesper, is that you?"
Vesper glanced down at her carnelian ring, and gently flicked the large stone to the side with the talon on her pinkie. Inside the small compartment of the ring, the crushed up half-packet of Sominex was secure, waiting to be dumped into Simon's meal.
"Yes, darling," she shouted. She heard Thaddeus bark. "I'll be right up."
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