Chapter 25
I let the voice in my head make my decisions, he got me as far as the airport taxi lines and told me to ask for Chase Nursing Home. The driver looked at me. “Where is it? What city?”
“I don’t know,” I said helplessly and waited for his revelation. The driver sighed and Googled it.
“Chase Nursing and Rehab in DuPont on DuPont Circle?”
“Yes, that’s it.”
“Okay.” He pulled out eliciting a chorus of beeps and I opened Parker’s wallet to inspect the contents. My own wallet, passport, birth certificate were locked up in his aluminum briefcase. Parker had a platinum American Express, a black see-through card with a chip in it, driver’s license from Nebraska and a scan key that said US Department of Agriculture. Oh, and a thousand bucks cash. All hundreds.
Danny and the driver were silent the trip out there and I kept myself entertained by watching the meter rack up the dollars. None of the way look familiar. Expressway, Beltway gave way to a two-lane country highway out in the sticks with big trees, forests, up and down hills and vistas I should have found exhilarating. He pulled into a gated driveway in front of a two-story fancy building designed like a southern plantation of rose red brick. Ivy climbed up the white columns and portico. I opened the car door, and gave him a hundred.
“You want me to wait?” The boy in my head hesitated. No, he said and I echoed him. “Okay.” He peeled out keeping the change, a hefty forty dollar tip.
“Now what?”
Someone I know lives here, he said I could see him squinting, rubbing his head as if he could pull it out. The front door opened and several people walked out saying hello. One asked me if they could help me. I realized they were wearing scrubs with pretty print tops. Must be employees.
“I used to know someone here,” I said slowly.
“Used to? Did they pass?”
“Never mind,” I turned on my heel and headed for the driveway, seeing the parking lot out back. It was full of cars.
He was frantic. Please, he begged. Don’t go yet! My uncle. My uncle lives here! Uncle Town! I remember him, he told me about the vault!
“Uncle Town,” I said, and the girl’s face brightened.
“Townsley. Townsley Hutton. He was so nice. He was your uncle?”
“Was?” My mouth dried instantly.
“I’m sorry,” she said, and laid her hand on my arm. “He passed away two years ago. He was eighty-eight. In his sleep.”
“Oh.” I waited, felt his crushing disappointment. “Will you call me a cab?”
“What’s your name? We would have notified you as next of kin, but only Senator De Rosier was listed.”
At that name, he shrieked in my head. I know! I know! That’s my name! His emotion was so great that it felled me. They carted me inside the home, gave me water and wanted to call someone. Instead, they had the head RN, the Director of Nursing check me out. She seemed puzzled when she discovered Parker Ames ID in my pocket. He looked nothing like me.
Pushing her away, I managed to get up, asked again for her to call me a taxi. I didn’t know where I could go, my inner voice told me it wasn’t safe to linger, especially with him in such a state of euphoria. I was afraid Parker would track me down and put me back into my prison cell.
“Wait here, Mister Ames,” the DON said. “I’ll call you a cab. You should rest, you’ve had a shock.”
She left me on the couch in her office and almost without thinking, I followed her in the mind of a Greyhound that slunk after her, from where it had been hiding under her desk. She didn’t travel far, just two doors down to what I saw was the Social Worker’s office and once inside, she made a beeline for the phone.
I heard her call as clearly as if I were standing next to her, she had her hand on the greyhound’s sleek, bony skull.
“Hello? Is this Agent James? You told me to call if anyone came making inquiries about Townsley. Yes, a young man. His papers say his name is Parker Ames, but the license doesn’t match. No, 6’2”, blue eyes, brown hair. Very good looking. Dimples in both cheeks, slim, but well-muscled. 20s. He looks tired, dazed, and not well. Bit of a French accent. He seemed stunned when I told him about Townsley. Shall I hold him here?”
I got up and made my way back to the front door in the lobby and found it locked with one of those electronic key code boxes, but my luck was in as the CNAs came back from cigarette breaks. She let me out and I hurried down the drive, ignoring both my exhaustion, Danny’s frantic shouts in my head and the conversation going on in the room with the greyhounds.
I found a crow and it showed me a way through the woods, bypassing the road. Of course, he could fly and I could not. The woods didn’t seem to be my natural element. I tripped over my own feet, slipped on mossy rocks, fell into icy streams until I was soaked, scraped and a bloody mess of ineptitude. I sat down finally, too tired and disheartened to go another step, when a big buck stepped out of the underbrush to regard me. Then Danny spoke to me. Wow. What a rack! He must be a twenty pointer! The deer coughed. An eerie sound I’d never heard before as he lowered his head to the ground and knelt at my feet. Get on, Daniel, Danny said. He’ll carry you.
I protested, I was too big.
He’s strong. Mule deer. He can carry your weight for a little while. Get on. There are people after you.
“Who? What people?” Alarm woke me from my stupor. I would not go back into slavery now that I knew I was enslaved.
Parker Ames. The Colonel. The man she called. Her security staff. They’re all at the home. I’m tracking your footprints, you’re very tired and left a trail a blind man could follow.
Laboriously, I climbed to my feet and gingerly slid my legs over the deer’s back, holding onto its rack for balance. It climbed to its feet, shook as if to adjust my weight and took off at a bone jarring trot that made my balls ache. I grimaced and tried to find a less pulverizing position, only to hear Danny’s groans of laughter.
Even carrying me, the buck moved like a graceful shadow, eating up miles through the woods until he dropped me on the outskirts of a small town named Pine Tree. He left me in their city park.
I found a bench and stretched out, letting the sun warm me. Thought about a nap. What a wonderful idea it was and leaned on my arm, watching the inside of my eyelids.
Woke to the tapping of a police baton on the bench and the blue uniformed officer who told me I couldn’t sleep in the park. Asked for ID and I couldn’t hand over the license. For one thing, it was clearly not me and the other was the DON had the entire wallet in her possession, save for the cash I’d stuck in my pants pocket.
Danny told me to run. I told him to shut up, eliciting some nasty words from the cop. Within minutes, he was convinced I was crazy when he heard me talking to someone who wasn’t there.
He hauled me up by my elbow. I reacted instantly, dropping him with two well-placed blows. Stared helplessly at the unconscious officer. “Now what, Brainiac?” I asked Danny. He told me to run.
A man running through the park posed no problem. There were a dozen of us doing so, even though my attire wasn’t quite up to jogging gear, I only elicited a few stares. The path wound through the trees, paved and with good footing. Was even clean of dog poop. Every hundred feet was one of those dispensers with plastic bags and paper towels that read ‘Please Scoop Your Pet’s Poop.’ Boy, it took a real genius to come up with that one.
I ran only a few hundred yards, the nap I’d acquired on the bench had only teased me. I was still exhausted and I think Danny hadn’t woken up yet, he was curiously quiet since he’d told me his last name.
I found curiosity was my second strongest emotion, fear being the first. Curiosity brought me into town where I found a small Starbucks on the corner where crepe myrtles and Spanish oak trees made a sort of cathedral whose cloisters I marveled at. The streets were cobble stoned with real gaslights and I almost expected to see ladies in long gowns and mob caps.
The door had an old-fashioned bell on it that tinkled as I entered. The smell of coffee got my eyes functioning. I shuffled up to the counter, ordered a double shot of espresso Mocha Grande, chocolate croissant and snagged a computer terminal at the Wi-Fi bar. Googled Townsley Hutton. Senator De Rosier. None of it seemed relevant to me. No matter how the little guy in my head thought.
“My name is Daniel Atkinson,” I mumbled and licked my fingers. He didn’t deny it in my head. “Danny boy? Are you there?” I asked. “Can you hear me?” I tried to reach him. Felt hot stares on the back of my neck. Turned slowly and saw the counter staff staring at me. Cleared my throat, picked up my coffee cup and left quietly for downtown where I’d Googled the directions to the bus station.