THE BANDIT QUEEN - Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

Deakin and Eden drove back to the security service and parked in the dark shadows along the street. There was only one small light inside the building and a few cars in the parking lot. All the cars bearing the company name must already be out on the street, guarding the homes and businesses of the fair city of Dallas. Deakin scrunched down in the passenger seat and rested his head against the door. He stared off into the distance and ignored Eden’s presence. She left him to his own thoughts and pulled out the binoculars to study the small building in front of them. No shadows moved across the lighted window but Eden assumed there must be someone inside, answering the radio calls and making sure the alarms were monitored. None of the cars in the parking lot had been there earlier in the day and no one drove in or out of the fenced lot.
Deakin pulled himself up in the seat and Eden asked him the first question that came to her mind. “Do you have a driver’s license?”
Deakin jerked his shoulder in her direction and said, with a hurt voice, “No, but I can drive. I’ve driven lots of times.”
Eden leveled a look in his direction and he said, with a shrug, “Well, a friend of mine let me drive his car once and I didn’t get stopped by a cop or wreck the car or anything like that. Why?”
“Well, we might need to leave quickly and I might not be able to drive so you’d have to. Do you think you could do it in this car? It has an automatic transmission so you wouldn’t have to shift gears. We’ll find a big parking lot tomorrow and let you practice. I’ll get some more keys made and you can carry a set in your pocket.”
Deakin brightened up a little and Eden found him watching her closely as she drove away from their stakeout and returned to the motel.
“I just can’t sit in the car anymore tonight. I don’t care what we miss. I need to sleep on a bed, not in a car.”

The next morning she found Deakin curled in a ball next to her on the bed. She quietly slid off the bed and shut herself in the shower. When she came out, dressed for the day, she found Deakin sitting on the bed with his head hanging down. From the look of his eyes, he’d spent most of the night on the Internet, following clues from one site to another. He stumbled into the bathroom and stayed there until Eden returned with breakfast. He looked much better after a shower and some food. Eden still hadn’t asked him how he felt about seeing his “mother” again and knew she wouldn’t for some time yet. Certain emotional experiences needed to age a little before they could be brought out into the light of day. The two young people talked about cars and errands and other unimportant things while they ate breakfast. As Eden packed up their stuff, Deakin stared out the window.
“Are we leaving this place? Does it cost too much? Can we stay here at least one more day? I really need to connect with some people again tonight. I’ve thrown out a lot of baited hooks and I should be getting some answers by tonight.”
Eden nodded, but she said, “Pack up your stuff anyway and slide it on the luggage shelf in the closet. Grab the computer and let’s get moving. Here are the keys. Get yourself loaded and I’ll stop by the desk to tell them we’re staying another day.”
They drove carefully away from the motel and headed for a large shopping mall a few miles down the road. Eden drove to the far corner of the parking lot and stopped her car. For the next hour, she let Deakin drive the car around the edges of the parking lot. When she felt he’d become at ease behind the wheel of the car, she pointed him toward the road that ran next to the mall building. Deakin threw her a scared glance before a look of determination settled on his young face. He slid into the long line of slowly moving cars and drove a complete circle around the mall. The tenseness of his face and the death grip his fingers had on the steering wheel were the only signs of his lack of expertise. He drove away from the mall and turned left onto the street. Eden waited until he stopped at a traffic light before she broke her silence.
“Lean back a little and relax. Tense people draw police attention. Don’t speed and always use your turn signal. That’s all I’m going to say right now.”
Deakin drove through the streets of Dallas for the next hour, getting more and more comfortable behind the wheel of the small car. He finally turned into the parking lot of a small key shop and disappeared inside. He returned a short time later with a small sack. Eden moved into the driver’s seat and waited to be shown the contents of the bag. Deakin pulled out a high-tech looking padlock with a keypad on the front of it.
He smiled at Eden’s baffled expression. “It’s an alarm for motel doors. Before long, some people are going to be looking for us, so we’d better start paying attention to our own safety. Should we get some weapons of some kind?”
“No guns. I don’t know anything about them. We could get some hunting knives at any Wal-Mart or sporting goods store. Let’s start with those, okay?”
Deakin nodded happily and led Eden straight to the sporting goods section in a large discount store. They looked at all the hunting knives and pocket knives before picking out two knives with sheaths to slide on their belts. Eden smiled at the middle-aged clerk and said, “Our cousins will really like those for Christmas, won’t they?”
The man nodded without paying any attention to their story and wrapped up the two knives. Deakin wandered away to look at guns. He pointed eagerly at a pellet gun on the wall above the clerk’s head. Eden shook her head at the gun but added a couple of cans of pepper spray to their purchase. Deakin returned from his foray with a couple of thermal ponchos. Eden grudgingly put more money out on the counter and grabbed the sack to leave.
Deakin ran behind her like a puppy dog and caught up with her in the food section. Eden bought energy bars, cans of fruit juice, trail mix, bananas, apples, and oranges. Deakin carried the sack containing the knives to the car and fell into the front seat. He opened the sack and pulled out the knife he’d chosen. Then he carefully threaded the sheath onto his belt and practiced reaching for the knife like a gunfighter in the western movies. Eden grabbed the can of pepper spray out of his hand before he sprayed it inside the car.
“This stuff is terrible, Deakin. We’d probably have to go to the hospital if you sprayed it right now. Have you ever rubbed your eyes after touching a jalapeno pepper? Multiply that by a few hundred or a few thousand and that’s how much this stuff hurts. I am glad you found these ponchos though. We can really use them in the car or sitting outside at night. Now, let’s get back to our stakeout.”
Deakin fiddled a while with his knife and finally asked, “Do you think my “mother” told someone we came to her house?”
“Yes, I do. I’ll bet she called as soon as we left. Your ‘father’ has probably been warned and may not show up at work at all. We’ll have to be really careful from now on. They’ll be looking for us at the same time we’re looking for your ‘father.’ Keep looking around as I drive.”
Deakin immediately looked at all the cars around them and, with his head turned away from her, asked, “How did you know how to hit her? How did you know that you could? I mean, have you ever hit anyone like that before?”
“Well, I’ve never hit anyone like that before but I knew I’d have to do something to make her talk quickly. I learned where to hit people in martial arts class when I was a kid. I wore a white suit with a colored belt and punched and yelled and kicked for months. The only thing I ever hit was a board. I’ve never hurt anyone in my life until now but I know I can do it. All it really takes, Deakin, is the willingness to punch clear to the other side of the person. You don’t think about your fist or foot hitting their stomach. You think about your foot pushing into their stomach clear to their backbone.”
“How do you know all this stuff? You’re only a few years older than me but you know how to take care of yourself so much better. I’m the one who’s been on his own for almost two years but you’re better at this.”
Eden smiled easily at Deakin and said, “You spent your time on the two biggies: food and shelter. I’ve read and thought about a lot of stuff and I’ve watched people a lot. Most of them are so wrapped up in their own worlds they don’t pay any attention to anyone else. That’s why three different people will give three different descriptions of the car that ran over the kid on the bicycle. They weren’t watching at all until the crash happened. I learned a long time ago that it was better to be the watcher than to be the watched. I have six brothers and sisters and they all are louder and larger than I am. I was the quiet one who was no trouble so nobody paid any attention to what I did. Actually I did more unacceptable things than any of the others did but I never got caught. You can get away with most things if it looks like you know what you’re doing. Remember that, Deakin. Never look guilty and never confess to anything and we’ll get through this.”
Eden pulled into a parking place about a block from the security service. Deakin focused the binoculars on the office door. “There’s a man standing at the gate to check every car in and out. It looks like there are more cars in the parking lot than before and there are lots more people standing around on the street.”
“Duck, Deakin. We’re getting out of here.”
Eden pulled the car quickly out onto the street and drove easily and slowly through the traffic to the next corner. She turned right and headed away from the area. She checked her rearview mirror just before she turned right again and noticed several tan cars screeching around the corner in her direction.
“Instead of looking at the floor, look at the map and tell me how to get out of here. Corner of Gillespie and Duval heading west. Now, I’m on Duval and Real, heading sort of north.”
Paper rustled from Deakin’s direction and then he said, “Stay on Real. It goes clear to downtown. Then we can catch a highway in any direction. I’d say we should go west and then north. It will be hard for someone to follow us through all the highway changes.”
“How far on Real?”
“Two miles, tops. You already should be getting close to all those huge buildings.”
“Sit up now and help me watch for cars. They haven’t seen you so maybe they’ll think this is the wrong car since there are two people in it. Give me your baseball cap and I’ll cover up my hair.”