the staff happy. I want to read about this place in the Times.” Though, no doubt, he’ll see me in it first.
“But, wait, don’t—”
I put my arm around him, slap his back a few times. “You have not seen me at all today, capice?”
I look out the back door as I pass it on my way through the kitchen, see Peter getting out of his car, Tommy Fingers pulling up the alley.
I run out the front of the restaurant, hop in the car and toss the bag behind me, pop the clutch and have all four wheels squealing. Melody looks at me with uncertain relief. “They were coming in the back,” I tell her. She slinks down in her seat, turns and watches the door of Sylvia as we speed away.
I push the Audi to its limit, speed around cars waiting at lights, cascade from side to side like a speed skater. I take the well-memorized maze of streets that will liberate us, liberate her. Berry. Metropolitan. Meeker. The BQE.
Melody seems certain I’m taking us to LaGuardia, her head twisting to watch the planes approach and depart in the far distance. But confusion shows on her face as she realizes we’ve turned in the opposite direction, intensifies as I pull off the highway and eventually wind us onto Livingston Street, and when I stop the car in front of the Greyhound bus terminal, Melody turns and squints.
“What’s going on? What are we doing?”
I turn the car off and throw the flashers on. I get out, reach in the back and grab the bag with the money, walk to her side and pull her out of the car as I scan the area, watch every position, every angle.
Melody stumbles a little as I lead her inside the terminal. “Wait, are we—”
“You wouldn’t get anywhere on a plane without identification. This is your only route of escape. Not to mention my family would never think to come here.” Then, quieter, “Though I bet they sent people to LaGuardia, Kennedy, and Newark.”
I hand her the bag. Melody looks inside, closes her eyes and slouches. The money implies the end as much as a suicide note.
“Should be about nine grand,” I say. “That’s all the money I had laundered; it’s totally clean, untraceable. Not a lot, but it’ll get you started.”
She drops her hand to her side, holds on to the bag, and stares at me, waits for me to deliver the final blow, knock her out.
I can barely get the words out, swallow a lump so large I nearly choke. I look away and stare at the ticket counter, but I know I have to look her in the eye when I say this. I turn back and say, “Just go away, Melody. Just leave.”
She shakes her head and cries, drops the bag and balls her fist up in my clothing. “No, Jonathan. I can’t.”
“Go somewhere you’ve never been before. Move to a town where I’d never guess you’d go, in case I weaken and try to find you.”
She keeps her fists twisted up in my sweater, bangs me in the chest three times before falling into my arms and weeping. “Please, Jonathan, I’m begging you. I’m beg…”
As I feel my eyes fill, the burn in my nose, the thick paste in my throat, I have no idea how I manage to utter these words into her ear: “Never call me or my family again. Never call the feds or the marshals again. Never use any of your aliases again. Do you understand?” She weeps so hard I can feel the vibration of her jerky breathing against my chest. “Do you understand?”
Melody stops fighting, buries her wet face in my sweater. She goes limp, slips down as if she’d just died in my arms, her weight supported entirely by me. I feel her nod her head a little. Then, finally, “Yes.”
I kiss the top of her head and whisper, “This is the last time you’ll ever have to run, Melody. I promise.” I sigh with relief, feel composure returning as it seems she comprehends—and plans to comply with—what must happen.
All of a sudden, she regains her footing, pulls back, and stares me down. Her eyelashes are wet and clumped together, her eyes red, her cheeks pink from rubbing against the weave of my sweater.
“You knew, didn’t you,” she says. “You knew I might not be free to make the decision to leave if we’d made love.”
And in that second all my composure vanishes.