The Heavenly Fugitive (37 page)

“I’ve always wanted the wrong things, Rosa,” she whispered. “The world’s got a hold on me, and I can’t break away. All my life I’ve run from God. Phil calls me heaven’s fugitive,
and . . .” Here Amelia’s lips trembled, and she had to pause for a moment. Finally she shook her head and rose. “I guess I always will be. I’m happy for you, Rosa, but I’m a lost cause.”

****

Leo Marx stared out the window but really saw nothing. His mind, always quick and impulsive, leaped from point to point. He ignored Jake Prado, who stood behind him like a shadow, and when he turned, his eyes glared with rage.

“Jake, they got me. That DA and his assistant!”

“You mean Winslow?”

“Sure. He’s been in my hair for too long, and he’s sharper than anybody I’ve ever been up against.”

“What’s he got?”

“He’s got evidence is what he’s got. I got a call from him thirty minutes ago. He’s got it on paper, black and white, enough to put me away.”

“What did he want?”

“He wants me to turn state’s evidence. He says he’ll get me a lighter sentence if I’ll do that.”

Jake Prado stared at his boss. “You’d never do a thing like that. You ain’t no stoolie, Leo.”

Leo Marx gripped his hands together. He stared at them as if they did not belong to him, and then flung them apart in a wild gesture. He was usually a careful, guarded man, but now facing a long sentence, he cast all caution aside.

“Okay, there’s one way out of this, and we’re going to take it.”

“What’s that, Leo?”

“We’re going to get that evidence back. If I can get it, he can do all he wants to, but he’s got no case. Black marks on paper is all it is, but it’s life or death to me, so we’ve got to get it.”

“Do you want me to bust into his office? I can get Sammy. He can open any safe ever made.”

“No, he wouldn’t be fool enough to leave it where we could find it. He’s got to give it to us.”

“Give it to us!” Prado stared at Marx. “Why would he do that?”

“He’d do it,” Marx said slowly, “to get something from us that he wants more than he wants me in jail.”

Jake Prado was shrewd, but he could not understand this. “What do you mean? What have we got that he wants?”

“Nothing now, but we’re
going
to.” Marx lifted his eyes and held Prado’s gaze. “We’re gonna snatch his sister, that nightclub singer.”

“Kidnap her?”

“That’s right.”

Jake Prado was a tough individual. He had killed before, but this plan shook his confidence. “You know what they do to kidnappers? It’s the death penalty, Leo.”

“It’s the death penalty for me if I get twenty years in the pen or even more, and don’t think you’ll get off, Jake. They’ve got the goods on all of us. You included. It’s the only way. We grab his sister, he gives us the papers, and that’s it.”

“What if he won’t?”

“He will. I had some people looking at these two. They’re real close, Jake. His own flesh and blood. Don’t worry. Once we get her, he’ll do anything to save her.”

Jake nodded slowly. “You’re the boss, Leo. How do you want to do it?”

“It won’t be any problem, Jake. Her name is Amelia Winslow, and she’s working every night at the Orchid Club. Stake her out, and you can either take her there or in her apartment. Probably coming out of the club would be better, but I’ll leave that to you.”

“Where do you want to hold her?”

“We’ll take her out to the farm. No one knows about that place.”

Jake Prado was a simple-minded man who attacked one problem at a time. He nodded. “I’ll do it, Leo.”

“Call me when you’ve got her out there, Jake.”

****

As Amelia emerged from the Orchid Club, the doorman smiled and said, “Good night, Miss Winslow.”

“Good night, Kenny.”

Kenny walked to the curb and opened the door of the cab that had pulled up. He waited until Amelia stepped inside, then shut it firmly and stepped back. The cab pulled away, and Kenny walked back to take his position.

Amelia gave her address to the cabdriver and said, “You’re new, aren’t you? Usually Kelly takes me home.”

“His night off, miss.”

“Oh, I see.”

The cab moved down the street, and Amelia slumped back against the seat with her eyes closed. She was tired, and she had struggled with her decision about
All for Love
until she was weary of it. Sid, her agent, thought she was crazy. His hair practically stood on end when she had told him she was having trouble deciding.

“Having trouble!” he had shouted. “What’s trouble? You’ll make tons of dough and be the brightest star on Broadway. You call that trouble? Come on, wake up, Amelia!”

Amelia tried to put the thoughts out of her mind, but they would not leave. Suddenly the cab swerved, and she was thrown to one side. Looking out the window, she saw they had pulled into an alley. “What are you doing?” she cried out. She hardly had time to think as the door opened and she was roughly seized by her wrists and dragged out of the car. Panicking now, she opened her lips and screamed, “Help!” But she only had time for that one cry before a blunt object struck her in the temple, and a thousand brilliant, dancing lights exploded across her vision. Then she knew nothing.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Amelia’s Choice

The sun dropped slowly behind the low-lying hills in the west, and for one moment shadow and light seemed to stand still. Rosa held Boadicea’s reins firmly, looking out on the rolling countryside and admiring the pearl-colored air that surrounded them.

“It’s been a fine day, Phil,” she said, turning to meet her companion’s eyes.

Rosa had invited Phil to go riding with her at the Morino estate, and he had gladly accepted the invitation. The two of them had ridden hard until both horses were now ready to move more slowly. They slowed their mounts to a walk, and he turned and smiled at her. As the years had passed, thoughts of Rosa had never left Phil’s mind and heart, and now as he studied her face, he knew with a certainty that his life would never be complete without this woman in it. He met her glance and was struck anew by her physical beauty. She had a teasing expression in her eyes and a youthful air. She also presented a provocative challenge, which for all her youth made her a complex and unfathomable woman. Color ran freshly across her cheeks as she studied him. She drew away the curtain of reserve, and at that moment her face graphically registered the light and shadows of her feelings. Phil saw the wonder and fullness of heart that flowed in her. He was aware that her search for love had come to an end, and he knew that he loved her.

The thought stirred him, but it was not new. It had been
coming on for some time. He said nothing until they reached the stables and let O’Connor take the horses, and then as they walked slowly back toward his car, he paused and turned toward her. She turned to him quickly, her eyes beautiful and dark in the deepening twilight.

Rosa, too, was lost in her own strange and humble thoughts. As he drew her close she saw the scar on his temple and noted the breadth and regularity of his face. She lifted her face and met his lips with hers, clinging to him with a fierce, quick, and loving spirit. She was not quite crying when she kissed him, but an emotion so strong filled her she could not explain it. She only knew that this was right and that she had found a harbor for her love. When he pulled back and searched her face, she smiled at him with tears glistening in her eyes, knowing that her girlhood and all the things that belonged to it were gone, and she came now as a mature woman ready for love.

“I’ve loved you since I was fifteen years old, Phil,” she whispered.

Her words caught at Phil, and he held her lightly in his arms. “I don’t know when I started loving you. You were just a child to me then, but you’re not a child any longer, Rosa. You’re a woman.”

“Do you love me, Phil?”

The question was simple, childlike. Rosa indeed had a childlike spirit, which had increased since she had found God. Phil tightened his arms. “Yes,” he said. “I love you, and I’ll never love anyone else.”

“Then that’s enough. Whatever happens, we’ll have each other.” She lifted her lips, and he kissed her again, more gently this time, and the two turned and walked into the gathering darkness.

****

After Phil reached home, he found he could not stop thinking about Rosa. His life had changed, and he knew he would
never again be alone. As he started to undress and get ready for bed, he marveled at how things had worked out. A sheer stream of pleasure ran through him as he recalled their evening together, and even more as he thought of the love that shone in her dark, eloquent eyes.

He sat down on the bed to remove his shoes but paused when the phone rang. Reaching over, he picked it up. “Hello?”

“Winslow?”

“This is Phil Winslow. Who’s this?”

“This is Leo Marx.”

Instantly Phil grew wary and concentrated on the voice. “What do you want, Marx?”

“I want the papers you’ve got that can send me to the pen.”

“You’re not likely to get them.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I think I might.”

“If that’s all you wanted to talk about—”

“Wait a minute. Don’t hang up. There’s one more thing. I’ve got somebody here that wants to talk to you.”

“I’m not interested.”

“I think you will be. It’s your sister.”

A cold rush of adrenaline shot through Phil Winslow. It was like the time on a hunt in Africa when he had looked down to see a black mamba rearing up at his feet ready to strike. He had been momentarily paralyzed then, and now was much the same. “Marx, you’d better—”

“I get the papers, you get your sister. It’s that’s simple. Here, I’ll let her talk to you to show you we mean business.”

Phil grasped the phone harder as he heard Amelia’s voice. “Phil, don’t give it to them!”

“Are you all right, Amelia?”

“Never mind me. Don’t let them make you do this!”

And then there were sounds of a scuffle, and Marx’s voice came back. “I’m not fooling, Winslow. If you don’t give us the papers, I’ll send your sister back to you one finger at a time. I’ll call later to tell you where to bring them.”

The phone slammed down, jarring Phil. He sat there
blankly, his mind still momentarily paralyzed by what he had heard.

“I’ll send her back to you one finger at a time.”

One thing Phil had learned about Leo Marx and others of his kind—they were men who were missing normal human compassion. It would not give Leo Marx any sleepless nights to murder one more person. Phil knew, without a doubt, that Marx would do it.

He slowly put the receiver back on the hook, then sat for a few moments. Finally he knelt beside his bed and began to pray, silently at first and then aloud, his voice choked with fear.

****

“You think he’ll come through? Winslow, I mean?” Jake Prado poured himself a drink out of a dark bottle and downed it. He flinched as the liquor hit his stomach; then he poured another. “He’s a pretty straight arrow, this Winslow guy.”

Above their heads, Amelia peered down at the two men through a crack in the pine-board ceiling. She had regained consciousness before reaching this apparently abandoned farm and had been hauled inside and shoved into this room. She had heard the hasp and the lock on the outside and had quickly discovered that the one window in the room was barred. It had evidently been used to imprison someone before.

She had been stunned by the rapidity of all that had happened, and she had sat down on the single chair and gazed hopelessly around the room, which was illuminated by an oil lamp.

She had heard voices below her, then noticed light coming from the crack in the floor. She had knelt down and peered through the crack at the two men, listening carefully to their conversation.

She heard one man call the other one Leo. Leo answered roughly, “We gotta have those documents, and this is the only way to get ’em.”

Amelia knew of Leo Marx from what she had read in the papers and what she had learned from Phil. She assumed this was the same man. He was as evil as Al Capone—not as famous but just as vicious. Now as she listened it became clear from the men’s conversation that there was no hope of mercy from these two.

The men fell silent as they drank, and then the one called Jake said, “Leo, even if you get the stuff from her brother, this woman’s a problem.”

“I know that, Jake.”

“What I mean is she’s seen us. She knows who we are. I can just see us in a courtroom and her pointing her finger at us saying, ‘These are the men that kidnapped me.’ You know what that means, Leo.”

“Yeah, but she can’t testify if she’s dead.”

The coldness of Leo Marx’s voice ran through Amelia. She knelt there paralyzed as Marx said calmly, “We make Winslow bring us the papers, and then, Jake, we feed both of them to the fish.”

Amelia quietly got to her feet and stood there in the amber corona of the lamp. The light twisted her shadow into a tortured shape on the floor and painted odd yellow shapes on the walls. Amelia was a strong young woman, but now all of her strength seemed to have evaporated. There was no hope at all. Even if Phil brought what Marx wanted, he would still kill her and Phil too. Somehow the thought of Phil’s death seemed worse than her own.

Her knees were suddenly weak as she thought of death. She had always avoided thinking about her own demise, but now it was here, and she could not escape it. She started to pace the floor, but soon the fear became greater than her physical strength. She slumped down on the bed and buried her face in the musty pillow, rank with various odors, but she hardly noticed. Finally she fell into a fitful sleep.

She must have slept for at least a couple of hours, for she remembered parts of several upsetting dreams, but Amelia
had no watch to know for sure what time it was. All she knew was that the darkness outside was no deeper than the darkness in her own soul.

As time crept by, hope fled, and for once in her life Amelia Winslow was alone with herself—and with God.

She had always scorned deathbed confessions. She thought they were phony and had always vowed she would never do such a thing herself. But as time passed, and she knew that within a matter of hours she would be dead, something changed within her. She began thinking of words her father had spoken in a sermon on the text “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”