‘Fuck!’ he said as he reached for his cellphone and pressed ‘redial’ on the last number he had called.
The call was answered after the second ring.
‘I’ve lost her,’ he said, looking down at his shiny shoes.
There was a long, slow exhale… a second later, the line went dead.
Twenty
Less Than Five Minutes Earlier
The kitchen door at The Whiskey led Mary straight onto a smelly alleyway filled with large restaurant dumpsters. Two lampposts bathed the narrow street in a weak orange glow, reminiscent of old 1950s horror films. Mary hesitated for a second, but she knew exactly where she was. No need to consult the map application on her phone. She could see the thirty-three-story-high AT&T building directly in front of her, just past another row of shops.
She looked left then right. The alleyway looked deserted – there was no sign of gangster-suit man.
Mary veered right, took three steps in that direction and then paused, her brain half disagreeing with her move.
The alleyway wasn’t exactly a long one. It ran parallel to the Broadway, behind that particular row of shops, bars and restaurants – ten in total. The Whiskey Bent Saloon was the third building from the right, but the seventh from the left, which meant that the run to the side street was much shorter for Mary if she went right instead of left. The problem was, it would also be a considerably shorter run for the stranger coming from across the road from The Whiskey, which Mary had no doubt he would do, as soon as he figured out that she must’ve fled through a backdoor – and the last thing that Mary wanted was to bump into gangster-suit man as she got to the side street.
Run against the tide,the voice in her head told her.Do the unexpected.
Mary turned left and ran as fast as her cowboy boots would allow her. As she got to the side street – 4th Avenue North – she paused again. Turning left would take her back to The Broadway – opposite end of the block from where The Whiskey was – turning right would take her north, past the AT&T building, with several intersecting streets crossing the long avenue, giving her a lot more escape options. That was clearly the obvious choice.
Run against the tide. Do the unexpected.
Mary turned left and quickly made her way back to The Broadway, but before doing so, she opened her handbag, reached for her cellphone, and dropped it inside the dumpster to her right – just in case, somehow, the stranger was using the GPS on her cellphone to track her.
Despite being a Monday night, there was still a considerable number of people walking up and down that stretch of the boulevard – too many for Mary to be able to spot gangster-suit man – and if Mary couldn’t spot the stranger, then he wouldn’t be able to spot her either.
But luck also seemed to be on Mary’s side that evening. After quickly checking The Broadway, she turned right, moving away from The Whiskey. She had only taken a couple of steps when she saw a cab pull up by the sidewalk to drop a passenger. She quickly walked up to the passenger’s window and gave it a quick knuckle knock.
‘Are you ending for the night,’ she asked, as the driver rolled down the window. ‘Or can you take one more fare?’
‘I’ve actually just started, ma’am,’ the cab driver replied. He was a slim man with kind eyes, wearing a cowboy hat and sporting a thick, peppery horseshoe mustache. ‘I’ll be going until morning. Hop in.’
Mary quickly got into the back seat.
‘Where to?’
‘Greyhound bus station please.’
‘Sure.’ The driver switched on the taximeter, indicated left and pulled out onto The Broadway, heading southwest. According to his ID information displayed on the dashboard, his name was Travis Anderson.
As the cab pulled away, Mary saw a man wearing what looked like a marching-band military jacket, walking along The Broadway. That was when she had a brand-new idea.
When the estate realtor showed her the first few properties around Nashville, he mentioned a few touristic attractions not only in Nashville, but in some of the nearby towns as well. One of his top recommendations was the city of Franklin, a mere twenty miles away. Franklin, the realtor had explained, had been a key site of the American Civil War, and all throughout the year, with its antebellum plantation homes and civil war-era wooden houses, the city attracted a diverse multitude of tourists.
Mary sat back on her seat and began pondering an alternative. She hadn’t really had time to check which buses she would be able catch from the Greyhound station at that time of night. And the one thing that she didn’t want to do was hang around the station for too long, waiting for the next bus. However small, there was always the possibility that gangster-suit man could come looking.
‘Excuse me,’ Mary said, leaning forward on her seat. ‘How long would it take for you to drive me to Franklin instead?’
The driver looked at Mary through the rear-view mirror before checking the dashboard clock. ‘At this time at night, ma’am, not long at all. Less than half an hour, for sure.’
Mary took another second to think about it. She didn’t need to ask about the fare price. She had almost seven hundred dollars in cash in her wallet – more than enough to cover the trip and a one-night stay at any hotel in Franklin. The advantage was that inthe morning, she wouldn’t have to rush. She could take her time and pick a better city to travel to, without having to worry about the stranger tracking her down again.
‘Is it easy to find a hotel there? Do you know?’
‘In Franklin?’ The driver, once again, checked Mary through the rear-view mirror. ‘Oh yeah, for sure, ma’am. Franklin is almost as touristic as Nashville itself. It’s a great little town. You can even get a room in an old-style plantation house, if you want.’
