Fashionably Late (For My Funeral) Pt. 03

"Constantly. We have another year or so to go before we have enough set aside so that we can retire and do something less strenuous like raising a family."

My mind went back to Melissa and our plans for a family, plans that went horribly wrong. This was something that I would probably never experience, ever. My thoughts then went to Sendi, could I ask her to commit herself to me knowing that we could never have children of our own? While Sendi was on my mind I wondered what she was doing, had she finished the shoot and gone to our house or was she still in Mexico?

"Where are you?" Ruiz was snapping his fingers in front of my face.

"I was in Mexico."

"What or who is in Mexico?"

"Sendi Soren."

"Not the actress Sendi Soren? How do you know her?"

"When I was in Hollywood writing scripts for the studio they made sure that Sendi and I were seen together, often. They were hoping that a romance would develop and that they could score some publicity mileage out of it."

"And did it?"

"Not initially, no."

"Are you telling us that you and she are now an item?"

"You could say that. I am going to have to talk to her soon and let her know the latest. We were planning to get together soon."

"You could ring her from here." Ruiz pointed to the phone.

"Not yet, do you realize what time it is out there, they don't get out of bed until lunchtime."

"Whenever you need to, just call her. If she is ever in New York we'd like to meet her."

Ruiz left for work soon after, it would have been sooner except that he and Phoebe took forever to say good-bye to each other. After he left I sat and watched as she fussed around the house tidying already tidy rooms and chatting non-stop about anything and everything. I got the impression that she was pleased to have company and that she would be unhappy to be alone. Her chatter was clever though.

I was being interviewed without being interviewed, she steered the conversation around my problems and then steered it away again only to bring it back from another direction. Phoebe was very clever at her job.

At around tweve I rang Sendi's Hollywood number only to get her answering service who told me that she was out of town until further notice and could not be contacted. When I identified myself the tone changed, "Mr. Feldham, Miss Soren left a phone number that will get a message to her for you." I was given a number that turned out to be the village store in Maine.

Thirty minutes later the phone rang. My world took on a new light to hear her voice on the other end of the line, "When can you get here? Please say soon." Phoebe moved a discreet distance away.

"Sorry Darling but I'm stuck in town for the time being, you see I'm being kept on ice until the trial."

"Can I come and see you?"

"I don't see why not, on fact my friends would be delighted." I raised my voice a little so that Phoebe could hear and she nodded her head vigorously. "How soon can you get here?"

"I can be there by this evening, now where are you?"

"We'll meet you at the airport. Let us know when you expect to get there and we'll be there with bells on." We said our good-byes to each other, very quietly because neither of us wanted to be overheard although I suspected that both of us were.

Phoebe spoke to Ruiz who arranged that he would go to the airport with us. The waiting was dreadful, I willed the clock to speed up but it defied me and seemed to slow down even further. Phoebe tried hard to keep me going with no great success.

At last the time arrived and we left, I seated in the back of the car, a position that I was to maintain. Ruiz was to meet Sendi and bring her to me. We waited in the car park for years while he went inside.

As she emerged from the line of passengers, looking around her for some sign of me, Ruiz sidled up to her. "Don't look, don't ask any questions, Jason is outside in my car waiting for. In case we are being watched I want you to act as normal as possible. I want you to walk from here as slowly and as naturally as possible. I will walk beside you as if I was a member of your family that you don't like terribly much. Nod your head if you understand what I have said."

She nodded her head and said in a quiet voice that even the person walking no more than a yard away couldn't hear. "Is he in that much trouble?"

"Yes. He has been beaten up by some people who aren't about to give up on him. I think that they are hoping that if they cut him enough slack he will lead them to the money."

"They don't know him very well do they?"

"No." Eventually emerging together, Sendi almost broke into a run, striding in front of him while he was trying to restrain her. She threw herself into the car and my arms. Bliss.

"Oh Darling what have they done to you? Let me see you." I let her see me and she was not impressed with my condition.

"I'm alright. I see that you have met my friend Captain Ruiz from the NYPD, he is one of the good guys, and this is his wife, Detective Phoebe Travis, also a good guy."

She held me in her arms for the entire journey back to Ruiz's apartment, murmuring sympathetic noises to me and listening to Ruiz while he narrated my experiences to her. "We have to get you away from here. It isn't safe."

"No. He stays here until after the trial. As long as he doesn't go wandering around the city on his own, or with anyone for that matter, he'll be safe. If you need anything Phoebe will fetch it for you. He is to stay inside the house and recuperate and the best thing that you can do for him is give him all the love and attention that he needs to help in that process."

"Consider it done. I am going to enjoy this role."

"I hope that you are genuine and this is not another part for you." I mumbled from the vicinity of her neck.

"Shut up silly and sit back and enjoy the attention while it lasts because, believe me, when you recover from this and after the trial is over you are going to have to earn my love and respect or I won't marry you."

"I haven't asked you yet."

"You are going to, aren't you?" She took my injured hand in hers and squeezed it threateningly.

"I give in. After this is over we'll get married and live happily ever after and raise a huge brood of adopted children as if they were our own."

"Thank you Darling for that proposal. You know what? I've been thinking that, not being able to have our own children will have a bonus for me in that I won't lose my figure carrying all these kids."

"Stop it you two!" Phoebe almost shouted at us. "You are in serious trouble and you're behaving as if nothing is wrong. Get serious will you."

"We were never more serious. We just don't want it to get to us and upset our happiness at being with each other. You two are in love, surely you can understand that?"

I could tell by the exchanged glance that they knew what I was talking about.

I slept easier that night. I somehow felt safe with Sendi beside me, comforting me and loving me. I needed to catch up on a lot of sleep and she had allowed me to do that so that in the morning I woke feeling much more alive.

The four of us breakfasted together and Ruiz left for work. Sendi helped Phoebe with the housework while I scribbled notes to be used when I could return to writing. I rang Felix who had just about given up on ever seeing me again. He wasn't thrilled at the news that it would be some time before he saw another manuscript but his mood picked up when I explained the publicity benefits of my present situation.

At around eleven Phoebe left to meet Ruiz for lunch. Before she left she warned us against leaving the house (again) and told us that she would call in to the supermarket on her way home to pick some groceries. This left Sendi and I alone. We had a lot of catching up to do love-wise, so we caught up.

We were just coming off an orgasmic high when the telephone rang. I debated for several rings whether I should answer it and the affirmative argument won. It was Ruiz. "Get out of there now! Don't wait for a cab! There's a subway station just around the corner get to it fast and get as far away from there as possible. When you have found somewhere safe ring me at work and we'll sort something out. Now move it!"

We moved. Sendi took only enough clothes for a couple of days and left the rest behind. I took what I had, which wasn't much. We walked as calmly as possible to the subway station and caught, just, a train to the station nearest the First National bank where I had the safe deposit box. I am pretty sure that I wasn't seen walking in or out of the bank.

I took the money from the box, kept ten thousand for immediate use and transferred the rest into an account that I set up that would allow me to access the money electronically. My intention was to transfer the money into an account that I would set up in the Cayman Islands, then transfer it into a Swiss Bank Account which would effectively hide it from scrutiny and then transfer it back to another Cayman bank. This way I would have easier access to the money and it would not be traceable.

We caught another train to Grand Central and then took a train to Hartford where we rented a car to drive the rest of the way to our house.

We bought enough food for a couple of weeks, telling the shopkeeper that we would be staying for three months at least.

Our first morning was glorious. We walked for miles along the beach sharing the vastness with no-one, just a large flock of seagulls hovering overhead anticipating food from humans. It was a wonderful time for us, quiet, intimate and relaxing. We grew closer together and our bond was, as now firmly established.

Over lunch we planned what we would do if we were discovered by the bad guys. We needed to contact Ruiz and find out what happened to force him to change his plans so dramatically.

"Phoebe was attacked right outside the precinct by someone wielding either a flick knife or a razor. They have carved her face up pretty badly. I have just come from the hospital and the plastic surgeon has done a good job on her but it will take a lot of makeup to cover the damage."

10

"I hope that the damage isn't going to change the way you feel about her?"

"No, but I think it may change the way that she feels about me. She will think, at least at first, that I won't love her as much and I'll need to give her all the love and support that I can to overcome that thought."

"Do you have any idea why this happened. Is it to do with me?"

"Yes. The person that did this told her that this was a warning and that, if they didn't get the money from you soon there would be further trouble. They know about your friendship with Sendi and hinted that she will be the next target. Keep close to her and don't let anything get to her."

"I will, on that you can count."

Sendi was quiet for some time after I told her of the latest events. "I want you to stay close to me. I want to feel safe with you and I know that I can. If, and this is a big request, if something should happen to me, don't blame yourself, it isn't your fault that you're mixed up in this, but if something does happen and I am unable to function normally or I'm disfigured like Phoebe, I don't want you to feel guilty about leaving me."

"Don't even think of me leaving you. You have supported me unconditionally and I will do the same for you in the unlikely event that anything bad should happen to you."

I wish that we had been together under different circumstances. Sendi and I were never able to fully relax, every sound at night woke us, every car driving past on the road half a mile from the house had us listening to see if it stopped. Even when we went for a walk along the beach we were on the lookout for strangers, not that there were any this time of the year. We only went into the village to collect supplies and make necessary phone calls. Any messages were relayed on to us by the storekeeper who was quite thrilled to be involved in our drama.

He thought, and we did nothing to dissuade that thought, that we had gotten married and were in hiding from the media on our honeymoon. He treated us that way, giving us discounts on goods and once, in a magnanimous gesture, throwing in a bottle of champagne.

The messages we got came from three sources, Ruiz keeping us up to date with happenings, Felix begging for a new manuscript and Sendi's agent touching base.

Ruiz's news was a mixed bag of good, bad and worse. The good news was that Phoebe's scarring would be hardly noticeable and she was feeling much better. The bad news was that the DA was putting pressure on him to bring me in and the worse news was that pressure was being exerted from a much higher level for him to be taken from the case because he was 'too closely involved' with it.

The man that they wanted to put in his place had a reputation for acceding to the demands of organized crime. Ruiz felt that the pressure from the DA's office could be because some of the money used to finance the drug operations came from the establishment and they didn't want an investigation that could get too close. I'm afraid that, having met some of the establishment, I tended to agree with him. Some of the richest people in the city got there because they were ruthless when it came to protecting their investments, even to the point of taking the law into their own hands.

Whatever direction this whole mess took it didn't look good for my safety and that of anyone around me. As I saw it I had two choices, the first would be to sit and wait for them to find me and to come and get me, not my choice. The second option open to me would be to meet them head on. Open confrontation just might throw them enough for me to take the advantage and succeed.

I put this to Sendi as we lay curled up on the huge stuffed sofa in front of the open fire in the living room. "Are you sure that there aren't any more options open to you?"

"I can't think of any, can you?"

"No, but both of yours seem so dangerous and I don't want to lose you, not now."

"And I don't want to lose you." I could see by the expression on her face that she was trying hard to find either another option or a way that she could help me.

"One thing that I have to insist on and that is as soon as I am ready to make my move I want you to go back to Hollywood and stay close to your work and friends."

"No, please Darling don't ask me to leave you."

"I'm afraid that I'll have to do that. It's better that we do this separately, if we try to do it together they will be able to use you the same way that they did to Melissa and I don't ever want that to happen to you."

"But Darling I can protect myself, I come from Hollywood remember, one has to be adept at fighting off unwanted attention. I've found that when all else fails a swift kick in the balls works wonders."

"But you may not get the chance."

"I would rather go down fighting that let some goon take advantage of me."

"I'm sure that you would but I don't want to put you in that position."

"And I'd rather go down fighting with you beside me than on my own. Can't you see that the two of us would make a great team and together we can lick the world."

"There's nothing that I'd like more than to have you with me but.."

"No 'buts'. We are in this together or not at all." The nerd in me gave in to that, the lover in me gave in to that, but the realist in me was outnumbered. I gave in.

"All right. We'll go out to Hollywood, if they want to get to us then they will have to come to us there." This was the start of the most amazing journey I have ever been on, which wasn't really saying much because, apart from my trips to Hollywood and Mexico, I hadn't been anywhere.

The renter went back to Hertz. We pooled our resources and bought a Winnebago and started south. We didn't travel in that direction for very long before turning West through New Hampshire and Vermont where we spent the night in a trailer park near Rutland. Leaving Rutland we moved through to upstate New York. We bypassed New York City looping through Buffalo and Cleveland, where we again stopped for the night, before once more turning South through to Pittsburgh.

We weren't in any hurry to get to Hollywood so we kept as close as possible to the Atlantic Seaboard. I had it figured that if the bad guys wanted to find us they would have to work at it.

I had kept a regular watch in the rear view mirror for suspicious looking vehicles without noticing any and I was beginning to relax when I noticed a black Ford sedan that seemed to be following us. I first noticed it as it passed us as we crawled up a hill outside of some small town that didn't rate a mention on the map that we had.

It disappeared in front of us but was waiting in the next town as we drove through. Several miles out of town it once more passed us and was waiting just past the intersection where we turned towards Charlotte.

Around ten minutes after turning off the car passed us. "There it is again." Sendi said as it passed.

"I know, I've been watching it for some time. He doesn't seem to want to do anything to us so I guess he is just keeping tabs on us."

He kept tabs on us for several days, stopping where we stopped and driving when we drove. The beauty of the Winnebago is that we didn't have to check in to a motel or hotel each night. If it was a lonely stretch of road we could pull into a lay-by and sleep. Sometimes we pulled right off the road and slept by a stream. We would have enjoyed it much more if it wasn't for the constant presence of the black Ford.

We tried to confuse the driver of the Ford. We waited until he passed us going up a long hill and, seeing a convenient side road, turned off.

The dirt road snaked along a valley that would have been beautiful under different circumstances until it passed through a small village. A few miles beyond the village it petered out beside a small, clear creek. It was a perfect site to spend the night, so we spent the night.

I didn't sleep well, listening for the approach of the black Ford. It didn't.

Regaining the main road we snaked our way through Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi before arriving at New Orleans. The trip through these states was interesting to me as a writer and observer of people. I had seen the movie Deliverance that depicted the inhabitants of that part of Tennessee and Mississippi as in-bred idiots. The people that we saw sitting on their front porches, living in slow motion watching the world go by in fast forward, certainly fitted into that category.

The townsfolk were a little more intelligent looking but they all had an underlying suspicion in their eyes that we found uncomfortable. I remember reading a book once that described the in-bred inhabitants of the backwoods as having the facial features of a chipmunk, I don't know about that but the universal appearance was one of prominent ears sticking straight out of a small head dominated by a large pointed nose close set eyes and a very small chin. I have also read the description of the in-bred British aristocracy as having all nose and teeth and no chin or brains. I guessed from this that in-breeding, no matter where, resulted in similar dominant features.

We stayed in New Orleans for three days, taking in the sights of the French Quarter, the Cajun music and cuisine. It was a great time for us, we had checked in to a hotel so that we could take advantage of the room service, bathrooms and huge beds. I especially liked the huge beds.

We didn't see the black Ford or anyone following us but I still had the feeling that he was there. I was looking over my shoulder constantly for a sign that he was still there, but no sign of him.

While we were enjoying ourselves exploring the sights I took advantage of the respite to make some interesting purchases. I was concerned that, while we were only being followed at this time, things could change.