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Grace and Harmony walked down three blocks to a bus stop. Grace had developed the habit of looking all around her, and Harmony watched with approval as she checked out her surroundings. “You learning,” she said. “Now, what made you so uptight all of a sudden, there at Matty’s?”
Harmony was the most observant person Grace had ever met. She didn’t even try to blow smoke. “I was thinking of leaving.”
Harmony’s eyebrows slowly climbed toward her yellow-white hair. “Was it something I said? Maybe you don’t like my cooking? Or maybe something’s got you scared.”
“Nothing has happened to make me nervous,” Grace tried to explain. “It’s just… I don’t know. Intuition, maybe.”
“Then I guess you’d better be packing,” Harmony said calmly. “It don’t pay to go against your gut feeling.” She looked up the street. “Here comes the bus.”
Grace bit her lip. Though Harmony hadn’t asked her to stay, and wouldn’t, suddenly she felt the other woman’s loneliness. They hadn’t been intimates; both of them had too much to hide. But they had been friends, and Grace realized that she would miss Harmony’s tough unconventionality.
“You need to stay a couple more days, if you can,” Harmony continued, still watching the bus. “Let me get some food in you, build up your strength a little. And get you some clothes that fit, damn it. Plus I got a few things I can show you, too, things that might come in handy.”
She could live with the edginess for a day or two, Grace thought. Anything Harmony wanted to teach her was bound to be worth the stress. “Okay. I’ll stay until the weekend.”
Harmony’s only reaction was a brief nod, but again Grace felt her pleasure.
That night, sitting in the kitchen while Harmony worked a small miracle with a wok, Grace idly leafed through an impressive stack of newspapers. Harmony read the morning paper while sitting at the kitchen table and methodically emptying a pot of coffee, and tended to toss the paper onto an unused chair rather than into the trash. It had been so long since Grace had read a paper or listened to the news that she had no idea what was happening on a national level, and it felt strange to read the headlines and peek into an unknown past.
She had flipped through about half the stack when a grainy newsprint photograph caught her attention, and her gaze flew back to it. Suddenly she couldn’t breathe, her lungs stilled in her chest, and her ears buzzed. Parrish, Parrish was one of the men in that photo.
Dimly she heard Harmony say something, then a hand was on the back of her neck, pushing her head down until it rested on her knees. Gradually the buzzing in her ears began to fade, and her lungs began working again. “I’m all right,” she said, the words muffled against her knees.
“Izzat so? Coulda fooled me,” Harmony said sarcastically, but she released Grace’s neck and plucked the newspaper from her nerveless fingers. “Let’s see. What did you read that made you keel over? ‘Peace Talks Resume’? Don’t think so. How ’bout this: ‘Graft in City Hall Costs City Millions.’ Makes my blood pressure go up, but it ain’t never made me faint. Maybe it was ‘Industrialist’s Wife Dies.’ There’s even a picture of the poor grievin’ husband to tweak your emotions. Yep, that looks like something would hit you hard.” She slapped the paper down on the table, staring at the photo. “So, which one of these guys do you know?”
Still breathing deeply, Grace looked again at the photo. It was still a shock to see Parrish’s handsome face, but now she noticed there were other people there as well. The husband, for one, his face stark with grief. Beside him stood a man who looked vaguely familiar, and a quick look at the caption beneath the photo identified them as Bayard “Skip” Saunders, wealthy industrialist, and Senator Trikoris. Three other men were in the background, Parrish among them, none of
them identified by name. Parrish’s expression was suitably somber, but knowing what she did about him, she didn’t trust the impression he gave.
Swiftly she read the four inches of column space. Calla Saunders had apparently fallen to her death from her penthouse balcony. There was no evidence of foul play. One of Mrs. Saunders’s high-heeled shoes, with the heel broken off, had been found on the balcony. Investigators surmised she had fallen off balance when the heel broke, and gone over the railing; flecks of white paint from the railing had been found on her evening dress. She had evidently been alone on the balcony.
The investigators didn’t know Parrish Sawyer the way she did, Grace thought, shivering. If he was anywhere near a death scene, she doubted the death was accidental.
She had forgotten how handsome he was. In her mind he had taken on a demonic aspect, his features shaped by the evil within, but the black-and-white photo captured his smooth, blond good looks, the chiseled face and slim, athletic body. As usual, he was impeccably attired. He looked completely civilized and cosmopolitan, a gentleman to his manicured fingertips.
His expression had been just as pleasant when he shot Ford in the head.
He was in Chicago. She checked the date on the newspaper, saw that it was almost two weeks old. Parrish was here. She wasn’t safe, as she’d thought. Her instincts were right; it was time to leave.
“Let’s see,” Harmony mused when Grace didn’t answer. “Wouldn’t be the senator; he’s all bullshit. Forget that Saunders guy; he’s a complete wuss, just look at him. The other three… hmm… one looks like a cop, see the bad suit?”
Harmony was systematically, and with irritating accuracy, summing up every person in the photo. In another few seconds she would arrive unerringly at the correct conclusion. To save her the time and trouble, Grace tapped her fingernail once on Parrish’s face.
“Now forget you ever saw him,” she advised, her face and voice tense. “If he even thinks you might know something about me, he’ll kill you.”
Harmony’s lashes shielded her eyes as she studied the photo. When she finally looked up at Grace, her green gaze was hard and clear. “That man’s evil,” she said flatly. “You gotta get out of here.”
The next two days were a flurry of activity. Grace worked furiously on translating as much of the Gaelic as possible, because she wouldn’t have time to work while she was traveling. Harmony made the rounds of yard sales, and came up with some jeans that actually fit Grace, as well as some tight knit tops and a pair of sturdy hiking boots. When they were together, Harmony talked. Grace felt like Luke Sky walker listening to Yoda, but instead of imparting pearls of mystical wisdom Harmony discussed ways of losing a tail, how to travel without leaving tracks, how to get a fake driver’s license and even a fake passport if she didn’t have time or it was too dangerous to acquire the real thing. Harmony knew a lot about how to survive on the streets, and on the run, and that was her gift to Grace.
Her final gift was borrowing a car and driving Grace to Michigan City, Indiana, where she planned to catch a bus. Grace didn’t tell Harmony her intended destination, and Harmony didn’t ask; it was safer for both of them.
“Watch your back,” Harmony said gruffly, hugging Grace to her. “And remember everything Matty and I showed you.”
“I will,” Grace said. “I do.” She hugged Harmony in return, then gathered her bags and trudged into the bus station. Harmony watched the slight figure disappear inside, and blinked twice to dispel the blur from her eyes.
“God, you watch over her,” she whispered, giving her orders to the Almighty, then Harmony Johnson got back into the borrowed Pontiac and drove away.
Grace watched from the window, her eyes dry despite the tight ache in her chest. She didn’t know how many more good-byes she could say; maybe it would be best to stay on the go, not staying in any one place long enough to get attached to people.
