Page 39 of A Handsome Devil

“That’s bad,” agreed Denmark. “Hey, where’s Gunning? He was gonna find us a place to stay.”

As we all twirled around, I said, “I saw him go in the bathroom. Gunning! You can come out now!”

Gunning emerged skeptically from the waterless bathroom. I shone the light on him as though he were an actor shyly coming onstage to accept an award. “Is it safe?”

Alessio said, “We don’t know. I guess Jack Hoffman could be outside right now. But we’re gonna meet him tomorrow. You three just go get hotels. Alessio and I’ll take the heat if Hoffman busts on in.”

I added, “Though I doubt he will. I mean, he knows we’re armed. We’re the notorious crime couple, so we’ll take the flak. I don’t want to get these guys in trouble.”

Denmark protested that he wanted to have our back, but eventually we shoved them out the door. Nobody seemed to be lying in wait for us, and I wondered how precise Hoffman’s geofence could be. Back in the warehouse, we jammed a two-by-four under the doorknob, a feeble defense against Hoffman’s blitzkrieg. We made our sleeping bags as comfortable as could be, leaning against the wall as a headboard. We both probably thought the same thing. Winter was coming on and we’d need to find a place to settle down, to change identities, to meld into the background.

I rested my head on Alessio’s bare shoulder as we lay side by side. “I wonder what kind of place Gunning is looking at for us to stay?”

His voice resonated through me. “I got the impression it was a trailer court.”

“Oh.” I perked up. “That’d be perfect. We could stay there long enough to pretend we’re the kids of Pickett Yarborough, get him on our side. He could be our spy.”

I could practically feel Alessio grin under his horseshoe moustache. “Old people love to be spies. Play games.”

I forked my fingers through his chest hair. “What do you want to do when we finally find a place to call home? Who do you want to become?”

It was obvious he’d thought about it, as we all probably had. “Become Ignaz Semmelweiss.”

I frowned. “Isn’t that a real guy?”

“Wow. You really are educated. Okay. I’ll become Neil Downs, composer. If I just sell compositions I wrote hardly anyone will see me.”

Sitting up, I faced him. “But you love performing. That’s your joy in life.”

He looked at the far wall. “I can’t risk anyone recognizing me, even if we find a safe place. They don’t know I killed the prison guard. But they know I killed Les Moore.”

“Les Moore was a pedo. You could cut and dye your hair. Turn your soul patch into a ducktail.” I knew facial hair was part of Alessio’s image, but it’d be worth it to see him perform. Again. Of course I’d watched many of his show videos after first meeting him. His arrogant confidence, his smirking talking head, his flowing arms with the baton, it was overwhelming. There was something thrilling about him commanding a symphony of horn players, two drummers, a few guitarists other than himself, a crazed, blurry percussionist.

And he sometimes performed shirtless.

His chest heaved with a sigh. “I suppose I could. But facial recognition would bust me in a hot minute.”

I sighed too. “I wonder if they could let you off on the Moore thing. Self-defense and all. Protecting the kids. The kids would back you up.”

“I’m sure they would. But I wouldn’t want to put them through more grief. What will you do when we find a safe place?”

Of course, I’d pondered forever on it. But opening a recovery facility again would be far too obvious. “Maybe I’ll run for mayor.”

This tickled Alessio so much, he lifted my chin and kissed me deeply. It also seemed to give him an idea, and he reached for his phone. I saw he was texting Jack Hoffman. He wrote:

“Someday they’ll go down together

Side by side with their crew.

To few it’ll be grief,

to the law a relief

but it’s death for Alessio and Tru.”

“We could pretend to die?” I suggested as he replaced his phone face down on the floor.

I adored that grin. He shrugged lightly. “Why not?”