The Undertaker

“Jamal was right. He's got you in his cross-hairs.” She still had her arm wrapped around mine and she tightened her grip even more. It didn't look to me as if she had any intention of letting go. I knew it, she knew it, and we both knew the other one knew it, but neither of us wanted her to take it away. There was a newly found warmth and energy there and God, I had to admit it felt good. It had been a long time.

Behind us, some of the police cars had already turned around. Lights flashing, they raced north on LaSalle, trying to catch up. On the busy city streets at that time of day, they stood no chance. Sometimes though, if they couldn't do anything else, cops just liked to make noise. Eventually, Tinkerton would send a small army after us. The man had no shortage of anger or motivation, but he had no idea where we were going or where we might get off. For the moment anyway, we were free.

“How long do you want to stay on this thing?” she asked.

“You're the local expert, you got any suggestions?”

“The El drops underground in another mile and turns into a subway. It runs north under State Street into the Loop. We could get off at Randolph and run like hell.”

“Running would not be a good thing. We want to be quick, but melt into the crowd.”

“I'm much better at melting,” she hugged my arm tighter.

I looked down at her, exasperated. “Are you going to keep making suggestive comments like that, because…”

“Hey, I'm just fooling around, Talbott,” she said, not backing off an inch. “So lighten up. You sound like an old man.”

“I am an old man. How old are you? God, you are sixteen, aren't you?” She smacked me on the arm. “That was to show you I do have a sense of humor.”

“Humor? Well, they might lock you up for a lot of things, but you are way too late for statutory rape.” she said with a twinkle in her eye. “I'm twenty-four.”

“And I'm thirty-four and the longer I hang around with you, I'm not sure I'll ever see thirty-five.”

“Then I've got a lot of work to do to “young” you up, don't I?” She squeezed my arm tighter again. “’Cause I'm not ready to act thirty.”

The train rolled on north through another station. “Okay,” I said. “We'll get off at Randolph.”

“We could go back to my aunt's. And I have a couple of girlfriends out in the suburbs I could call. Or we could hop on another subway and head north to Evanston.”

“Bringing your friends would be a bad idea, but what's in Evanston?”

“My Toyota. I have it parked up there in a rental garage. It isn't much, but it's a car and it can get us to Milwaukee, or Peoria, or St. Louis, or somewhere.”

“No, Tinkerton would have already checked on vehicle registrations and they'd have an APB out on your car and the license plates.”

“Well, we can take the El out to O'Hare or Midway and catch a plane.”

“You and me make it through airport security? That won't work.”

“Let me think,” she said. “There are some commuter railroads that come into the Loop. The Northwestern Station is about a half mile away. Or we could run over to Michigan Avenue and catch the Illinois Central or the South Shore.”

“The South Shore? Where does that go?”

“South, dummy! Well, actually it swings east around the south shore of the lake into Indiana, as far as South Bend, I think. Eddie took me there once, to a Notre Dame game.”

“Eddie? Did he go to Notre Dame?”

“Get real. His golden dome was above his ears. No, Eddie was a gambler and he liked to watch his money work. He bet like Pete Rose and he lied even worse. He would tell me he quit and then put down serious money on a half-dozen football games the next weekend. The bastard borrowed money from everybody, always looking for that big score. He hocked my camera once. I chipped his front tooth over that one.”

“A real sweetheart.”

“Yeah, he was a walk in the park. We had our moments though,” she smiled wistfully. “They lasted about a week and a half after the honeymoon, when the love muffin disappeared and I woke up next to the real Eddie.”

Through the window, I watched the train drop lower and lower until we disappeared inside a tunnel and everything went black. The lights came on inside the car and the rumbling clickety-clack of steel wheels reverberating off the concrete drowned out her voice. Outside, the first sign for the Randolph Street station flashed past.

“Is this where we get off?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

I turned her around so she faced me and looked into her eyes. “Look, you can stay on the train and ride it to the end of the line, you know.”

“Then what?” she asked. “Go home and feed the cat? Clean the kitchen? Bury the stiff in the rear yard? I don't think so.”

“If you come with me, we're getting out of Chicago. I don't know where we're going, probably to Boston, and I don't how long it will be before you ever get back here.”