Chapter thirty nine
Before Sean and Mandy left Davenport, Mandy took him shopping. Prior to this shopping trip, Sean had bought his clothes at K-Mart, Wal-Mart or mom and pop general stores. He had never been in a men’s store let alone an upscale men’s store. He wasn’t used to being fawned over and catered to and at first, he didn’t like it. It made him nervous and self-conscious. Mandy noticing his discomfort, said, “If you think this is bad you should try shopping on Rodeo Drive in L.A.”
Her mother had taken her to Los Angeles for her twelfth birthday and they had gone shopping on Rodeo Drive. It was one of very few pleasant experiences with her mother after the age of ten. She had been fascinated, not only by the shops and the way the clerks catered to you, but also by the patrons. She had never seen such elegantly dressed and coifed women in her life. Mandy had decided right then to have class when she grew up, unlike her mother. Her mother although wealthy, perhaps more so than many of these women, appeared frumpy beside them. Mandy was aware that her mother spent a small fortune on clothes, but somehow she didn’t manage to create the perception of class that these woman did.
Aside from their finery, or possibly because of it, they exuded an aura of confidence and bearing that Mandy had never seen in women before. Mandy never forgot that experience and vowed that someday she would be like them.
Sean bought only casual clothes somewhat like he had always wore albeit with less of a western flare. He had to admit, however, he looked far more fashionable than he ever had before. Sean knew that without Mandy’s influence there wouldn’t have been much of a change other than what the clothes cost. He did very much like the way he looked. Mandy also bought a decent set of luggage. Nothing expensive or flashy, but luggage they could take into any hotel without the bellhop looking at it like bugs might crawl out. When they had finished with the shopping, she picked out a fancy restaurant for lunch. It crossed Sean’s mind that she was trying to give him some culture.
They driven pretty much straight west until they reached the Oregon coast and then turned south. The rugged Oregon coast fascinated them and they stopped at almost every turn in the road to take in the view. When they reached Northern California, they swung inland to explore Jedediah Smith State Park. If Samantha found the coast fascinating it was nothing compared to what the redwoods did to her
She was enthralled beyond words and would stand gazing intently up through the branches until her neck cramped. Sean was no less impressed than Mandy. Having grown up in the desert, he had never seen anything like this coastline and certainly nothing like these massive trees. Where he came from there were few things that grew over a few feet tall. The many contrasting moods of the coast also fascinated them.
Over the following days they found that the coastline could change almost hourly. One minute it would be serene with gentle waves lapping at its shore and then the tide would rush in with huge breakers battering the rock formations and beaches. Sometimes it would be coated in fog to the point that you could barely see past the hood of your car. Then a few short hours later, bathed in sunshine. The beaches could change from warm and inviting to bone chilling cold on the whim of the breeze.
After leaving Jedediah State Park, they rounded yet another curve, and a large rustic inn came into view. It was set against a backdrop of towering redwoods and looked as if it could have been there as long as the trees. The structure was set well back from the highway. On the opposite side of the road the land dropped sharply to the rugged coast below. Near the road was a sign carved into a slab cut from one of the giant trees and hanging by a chain with links that looked like something out of a Paul Bunyan cartoon. It read, “The Redwood Inn- Est. 1964.” The chain hung from a redwood beam between two large totem poles on either side of a gravel driveway. Attached to the redwood slab was a neon sign that read “Vacancy.” The neon sign struck Sean as totally out of place in this setting. He then noticed that there was an unlit no in front of vacancy and realized it would have required a ladder to change a printed sign once their rooms filled.
Sean turned under the sign and parked in front of the office. It was a two-story log structure with single story wings on both sides. The two story portion housed a front desk and large common room. The common room was furnished with overstuffed leather furniture, low tables and a massive fireplace along the back wall. There were also writing desks and isolated nooks and crannies for reading or just solitude. In front of the fire place two large apposing sofas faced across an even larger coffee table hewn from a redwood tree. The entire arrangement formed an inviting conversation area. A large open stairway led to a wide balcony that accessed the guest rooms.
They signed in and the man behind the desk followed them to their car to help with the bags. The room was large and old fashioned with a patchwork quilt on the bed and doilies on the nightstands. The paintings on the walls depicted scenes of the coast, and the Redwood Forrest. The one modern concession was a console television situated so that it could be seen from either the bed or couch. Even that however, had its screen tastefully hidden behind the folding doors of an ancient armoir.
They spent the rest of that day and all of the next exploring the redwoods. They spent Jedediah State Park on a narrow unpaved roads that were not wide enough to pass a car in most places. The road weaved in and out around the trees in a manner that caused very slow driving. Luckily enough, there were few other cars. In fact, they didn’t see more than a dozen people their whole time in the park. Mandy, who had grown up in Toledo found this strange, but to Sean it wasn’t at all unique. In either case, they both enjoyed the solitude of the forest. In a small glen, they came across a doe and fawn. Mandy said it was the first wild animal she had ever seen outside of a zoo.
They carried on like the tourists that they were. They climbed on the giant fallen logs, walked through hollow logs and even had their picture taken driving though a tree. Mandy used up three rolls of film. She was filling up the trunk with pinecones and souvenirs. One day in the trees she said to Sean, “I have never enjoyed myself this much, not ever. Maybe after I get my inheritance we could move up here, at least for a while.”
Rick thought why not, then the thought flashed though his head that after she inherited her daddy’s money he may be doing a lot of things that she wanted to, but he said, “Why not, it’s nice here.”
When they had been at the resort for two days, and had spent another day in the forest, they were ensconced in the common room enjoying cocktail hour and chatting with a couple from Los Angeles. The man had been on a rant about the illegal immigrants pouring across the Mexican border. He contended that they were clogging up the welfare system, stealing American jobs, driving up taxes and generally destroying the state of California. He said it had gotten so bad that a cottage industry had cropped up to supply them with new identities, including green cards for as little as a hundred dollars. Sean’s ears perked up.
“You mean to tell me that you can buy an identity for a hundred dollars?”
“Yep. It’s done all the time. Half of the illegals in southern California are carrying false I.D.”
“It seems like a hundred dollar I.D. would be awful easy to detect.”
“I’m told that you can’t tell it from the real thing. Part of the I.D. is a driver’s license for picture I.D. I’m sure that wouldn’t stand up to a police check, but most of them don’t drive anyway.”
Sean’s first thought was that with decent I.D. he could get a real license by saying he’d lost his. Another thought is that he could say he was from New York City. It was his understanding that no one drove in New York. He sure wanted to get safe I.D. They were still driving the Sable because he was afraid that if he bought another car under his real name the cops might find him. If crime shows were even close to accurate, the police had all kinds of ways of tracking you through records.
That night in bed, he discussed it with Mandy. She was skeptical of the price but enthusiastic about the idea. While in prison Sean had heard a lot of talk about buying new identities and although he hadn’t given it much thought at the time he was now fired up about it. After a little more discussion they decided to check out, and head for Los Angeles in the morning.
They hugged the coast on the trip south and Sean just couldn’t get over the scenery and never tired of driving along the coast. Sean had never given much thought to his future but he was now starting to look ahead and what Mandy mentioned about settling on the coast was looking more and more appealing.
What with the winding road and frequent stops for sight seeing they only made it to San Francisco the first day. They checked into a nice hotel and on the clerk’s advice spent the evening on pier thirty-nine enjoying the food and atmosphere. They took a taxi because by the time they had reached the hotel Sean had had all he wanted of San Francisco traffic. The cabbie asked if they had been to the city before and when they said no, suggested the long route. He took them through China Town, by Hoyt Tower and most of the other main sites. He wound up by driving down Lombard Street on the way to the pier and they were both fascinated. By the time he dropped them at the pier the bill was a hundred and twenty dollars. Mandy gave him two hundred, asked him to pick the up where he dropped them off at about midnight and told him to keep the change.
The next day they drove through Sacramento and down through the Napa Valley. They were both intrigued by the lush farmland, Sean more so than Mandy, but then she had grown up where farming was common place.
They came into Orange County on the five and by the time they were getting close to Los Angeles Sean was a nervous wreck. If Sean was intimidated by San Francisco’s traffic, he was terrified by Los Angeles’s.
Neither of them had a clue as to the size of Los Angeles and when they got there they were totally lost. Mandy had been in Hollywood when she was twelve, with her mother, but they had landed at LAX and taken a cab to the hotel. Sean had never been in a city of much size, and Mandy had never been in a city remotely like this one on her own. They wound up in what appeared to be the seedier part of town by accident and decided that it just might be a place to start.
Mandy stuck to the motel while Sean started hitting the bars asking questions. If it weren’t for the fact that he had the Glock, he would have felt very vulnerable. The area he was in, seemed to house a worse grade of people than he had encountered in prison. He soon found that almost everyone he talked to claimed to have what he wanted or knew someone that did. He also soon learned to be very leery. After being in Los Angeles only three days, he had already been scammed twice. On the fourth day he met a man in a bar that claimed to be able to get him what he was after.
Though skeptical, Sean followed him to a brick building covered with graffiti. They went up a dark flight of stairs that smelled of urine. Sean tagged behind making sure he had ready access to his gun. They entered a small office with a hugely obese man sitting behind a desk. The man looked at him suspiciously and asked him what he wanted in a rather gruff voice. It didn’t seem to Sean that he wasn’t all anxious to do business with him. The man that he came with lounged against the door in a manner indicating boredom.
Sean said he needed a set of I.D. that would pass police scrutiny. “Something that was good enough to get a passport with.”
The man behind the desk nodded and the other one came away from the door and patted him down. He took the Glock and laid it on the desk along with Sean’s wallet. The man behind the desk said, “Nice piece.”
He picked up the wallet and rifled though it.
“Have you done time Proudfoot?”
“Yeah.”
“Where?”
“La Tuna.”
“Okay, you have any particular location in mind.?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean where do you want to be from.”
“I guess I don’t care.”
“That makes it easier. How old are you?”
“Twenty-one.”
The man turned to a filing cabinet and went through the folders. He pulled one out and leafed through it.
“I got a guy here that’s twenty-three, from Chicago. Drivers license, Social Security card, Master card, library card, SSI open water diver card and voter registration card for ward twelve in Chicago. No birth certificate, but that shouldn’t be hard to get if you need it.”
“If I show up in Chicago using this I.D., am I likely to run across my name sake?”
“If you run across him anywhere, it will be a miracle. Literally. Look, this I.D. is clean, that’s what you paying for. If you called the credit card company and gave a change of address, you could go right on using the card. No sweat.”
“Sounds good. How much?”
“Two grand. Cash.”
“Wow.”
“You want it or not?
“I want it. It’s just that I heard the mex’s can get I.D. for a hundred bucks.”
“Yeah, I do that too. All that is, is phony I.D. with their picture and name on it. If anyone checks it, it won’t stand up. What I’m sellin you is the good stuff. It’ll stand up to any inspection.”
“I can be back with the money in fifteen minutes.”
“Mind if my friend here tags along?”
Sean thought a minute, and said, “I guess not. I wont be there long after I get the I.D. anyway.”
“You’ll be there for one more day. It will take me that long to get your ID ready.”
“I thought it was ready to go.”
“Not unless you want someone else’s picture and signature on it.”
Sean and his escort walked to the motel. Sean told Mandy that they would be leaving tomorrow, got the money and returned to the office. The guy with the gruff voice motioned for him follow him though a small door to the side of his desk that Sean hadn’t noticed before. The door led to a room even smaller than the one they came from. In this room was a Polaroid camera on a tripod facing a wall with a blue sheet tacked to it. Along the back wall was a counter with a paper cutter, a machine for plastic coating documents, a computer, scanner, printer and assorted hand tools. Sean was instructed where to stand and the man snapped pictures of him. Once he was sure he was satisfied with the pictures he laid a blank Illinois drivers license in front of Sean. He had him practice signing his new name on a blank sheet of paper until he felt comfortable with it and then sign the license. He told Sean to come back at ten that night and everything would be ready. Sean wanted to say something. He was reluctant to leave them with two grand of his money and trust that they would be there when he returned, but decided he had little choice. He said he would be back and left.
As it turned out Sean had worried in vain, the ID was ready when he returned. When he returned to the motel, Mandy said, “What’s your new name?”
“Jason, Jason Harris. You like it?”
“It’s nice. It just doesn’t have the same ring to it as Cochise Though.”
“Smart ass.”
“Yeah, but you already knew that and you still adore me.”
“Only because your smart ass is extremely cute.”