Chapter 32. Anna at Large

It was a dream… a dream of the tropics… of a temple ruin in a tropical rain forest. Rain… not your regular rain coming down in drops dripping but rain that comes down in thundering sheets… a waterfall of rain … from under and between gnarled and twisted roots overhanging the decaying stone edifice of a jungle temple ruin, a procession of a hundred monks wearing rain soaked saffron robes came out in twos, led by an ancient monk. She stood facing the procession in the middle of a causeway on which the monks stepped to the slow beat of drums towards her. Each reverently cupped a bowl in both hands containing a lotus blossom. It appeared to be a funeral. She stood in front of the procession waiting for it to arrive. She couldn’t hear herself begging the leader something… his head was shaved like hers…his face was kind though crevassed and creased with age. He whispered, “You belong to us.” “You know that by now, don’t you?” She recognized the voice from behind a burgundy mask that covered the contours of its face. It was that of the Bird Dog.

“No… I can’t. I must find my father.”

The saffron robes of a monk in the procession directly behind the leader turned blood red. He was Smerdyakov, “You need to flee.”

Bird Dog barked, “Your father’s fallen into a deep well.”

With a start… startled, Anna tried to get out of the bed. Dogs outside barked. She didn’t understand, it was a hospital bed… the kind with rails on the sides. She pushed herself out and off but something was off. Her body leaden, her feet were as though equipped with bad prosthesis… they wouldn’t follow commands. She fell forward but caught her fall, hands out, on the bed tray. It rolled away but she gained control in time by falling to the side and landing on the bed. She saw police patrolling with K-9’s outside her window. There was a closet across the room. It was far away enough to be daunting but she felt she must check to see if she had clothes.

An attendant rushed into the room before she was halfway to it. “Anadel, you mustn’t be out of bed. Let me help you back.”

“No… no. I don’t want to be here. My father’s in a deep well!”

The nurse humored the girl as though she was a child, “The doctors are making their rounds and will be here within the hour, stay.”

She gently pulled Anna back further onto the bed while another attendant wheeled a gurney into the room.

The attendant was a robust man with biceps as thick as Anna's thighs. The nurse patted the gurney and asked, “Can you get up on this on your own, honey?”

“Really? You call me honey. Who are you and where the fuck am I?”

The attendant stood by, “Is this one gonna be trouble?”

The nurse nodded his way. He clasped his arms around her and lifted her in a swoop to the gurney.

Anna’s body felt as though her body was moving through thick air and there wasn’t enough in her to resist when the nurse and the attendant strapped her down and wheeled her out the door to an elevator and a small room. They had her reclined in a gyno-chair within seconds. Under normal circumstances, she felt vulnerable with her feet in stirrups trapped in one of those chairs. She had less than no time and little energy to object.

A doctor entered… well, he looked the part wearing in a white coat accessorized with stethoscope. The nurse frowned. Anna sensed there was no love between the nurse and the doctor, “I’ll take it from here,” he said.

“You know the rules, Doctor Coxcomb. We must have a female chaperone for all pelvic exams.”

The nurse smiled while opening a box with swabs and paraphernalia wrapped in crinkly medical paper, “Now, honey, this is a rape kit. Have you ever seen one?”

“No, fuckin’ no way. I haven’t been raped, have I?”

 “You tell me. We’ll administer a rape test just in case. You were kinda out of it when you came in. Can you remember any of it?”

Anna remembered the boat. Larry --- Casey --- Casey! “Yes, Casey. They killed Casey!”

“Who”

“Yuri… he killed Casey.”

 “I don’t want that man to stay here.”

Anna gathered what strength she had and resolved to escape.

 “Don’t worry, Hon,” the nurse assured her, ”I’m not going anywhere. Got that, Doctor?”

The doctor nodded for the attendant to act, “What are you waiting for? Get her out of here.”

The nurse shrunk enough to avoid the behemoth’s grasp. Doctor Coxcomb helped to shove her out the door. The nurse struggled to get back in the examination room. She put up a hell of a fight. Anna saw her chance while they pushed and shoved in the hallway. Of the three, only the nurse, saying nothing, let her slip past and behind the Doctor and the hulk. With her hospital gown flapping, opened in back, the last they saw of her was her butt passing through the door to the stairwell. The attendant took off in full pursuit mode while Doctor Coxcomb followed. Anna’s coordination returned enough so that, one hand gliding down the rail, she damned near flew down the stairs, leaping four or five steps at a time. She exited the stairwell to find the first floor was one level above ground level. It was her good fortune the nearby window was a fire exit. She opened and burst through setting off the alarms.

Once on the ground she dashed to the parking lot on the opposite side of the street. The dogs were not in sight. She spotted a VW Van parked within a short sprint, and ducked down next to it. She tried the door. It was locked but the wing window was easily pushed open. She heard a commotion from frantic security guards and police shouting orders and more dogs barking. Her arm was thin enough to reach inside the wing window and pull the latch. She cracked the door enough to get inside and close it sliding under the dash before a squad car passed. The barking faded into the distance. She groped inside the glove box for anything that would work towards connecting the ignition pegs and hot-wiring it. She felt some letter size forms folded and held together with a large paper clip… perfect. In seconds, she loosened the nuts on the pegs by finger tips, twisted the clip around two and screwed them back down clamped tight by the nuts. Leaving the third starter peg open she kept the end of the clip unattached to be used as a spring connector. Touched to the third peg would kick in the starter when she was ready. She sat up enough to peek over the dash to see if the lot had anyone in it looking for her.

VW’s, vans and bugs, make quite a racket when they start and Anna knew she didn’t have a chance to outrun anyone if she was caught firing it up prematurely. Several uncomfortable moments passed. She crawled behind the seats to seek out anything useful and found a laundry bag. Among skid-marked skivvies and tees, stinking of beer and sweat, she dug out a beer stained hooded San Francisco Giants sweatshirt and greasy jumpsuit. Getting out of that hospital gown was good and the hoodie afforded her an extra layer of cover from getting ID’d. Night had fallen by the time she fired it up and headed West on I-80 towards Vacaville.

She’s taken the old VW because they were the easiest vehicles to hot-wire. However, it bothered her that the contents of the dirty laundry bag told her it belonged to a working man. She’d try not to trash it but would need a less conspicuous car by morning. She had no money or plan beyond getting to the Island Mansion. Bird Dog was the clue her dream provided. Father is in a deep well… blood… raining blood. She exited at Vacaville where she knew of an artist that worked running an arts program in the prison. Max and Crash had been involved in a Vietnam Veterans group and had shared a few hours at Mel’s and the Ofice in Santa Barbara. Crash told her about the distinct triangle building where Max had his studio on Main street. It was a long shot but she thought she might be able to hit him up for some cash and possibly a ride.

The door to the studios upstairs was locked. The bicycle shop below was closed but a light was on in the rear. She went around to a side door, ready to break-in, but was relieved when a young man answered from the other side of the locked door, “We’re closed. Come back in the morning.”

She played the damsel in distress, explaining, “I came to visit Max McGee. Does he still have a studio upstairs? Please, please... I can’t get in. Please, can you let me in?”

It works most of the time, the cute little girl act. He opened the door, “No, sorry, McGee skipped out on rent a year ago. If you see him, tell the fucker he owes my dad three months’ rent. He might have forgot but we haven't.”

Flipping her hoodie back she wagged her head, “Son of a bitch, I’m sorry to hear that. He owes me money too. Do you have any idea if he’s still in town?” It crossed her mind to rob the asshole but thought better of it.

The kid softened up a little when he saw how her cute matched her voice, “His old roommate told us Max went to Santa Monica. Ralph still lives on Holly Ln. Maybe he’ll tell you more than I can.”

“You wouldn’t know his address, would you?”

“Sure, come on in. I’ll look it up.”

Ten minutes later Ralph, looking like Joey Ramone, opened the door for her. “Max, naw. He ain’t around. No one knows where he is.”

“Can you tell him a friend needs his help… a friend of Crash, if you hear from him.?”

“Crash, no shit. I met Crash once. A good guy and a bad assed dude. Kicked ass --- whooped-up and tore a new one on a biker at the Library. Come on in and have a bong-hit?” Ralph stood back to let her in.

“Don’t mind if I do. library?”

"That's a bar. The Library used to be a library." he spaced "It's in the basement where the children’s section used to be." and laughed a stoner's laugh, “I played there in kindergarten.”

The two sat at a card table while Ralph served up a couple bottles of beer. They talked a few hours and went to bed. Ralph was smooth that way. If he met a woman and didn’t have her in the sack within a couple hours he considered his life a complete failure. Anna wasn’t horny but she figured the best way to a man’s heart wasn’t his stomach at all… at least not a young man Ralph’s age.

She was out of bed at sunrise. Ralph’s leather jacket hung over a chair, its inner pocket exposing a wallet. She found that it contained a couple hundred bucks in twenties, tens, and smaller bills. She would’ve taken all of it but felt he wasn’t such a bad guy… she took only what she needed… forty bucks.  He wouldn’t miss it unless he counted it right away. He snored peacefully while she rummaged through the cupboards in the kitchen to find a few cans of refried beans, an opened bag of chips and salsa. The fridge was more promising. It had a half carton of eggs and a slab of bacon. She did her best to cook up a breakfast but the culinary arts suffered in lieu of nutritional value.

He woke to breakfast of bacon, refried beans, and eggs with tortillas. From the ambience of the night before he hadn’t seen her bruises and scratches.

“What happened to you. Did Crash do that?”

“Oh no, definitely not. No.”

“Then who?”

“I can’t tell you but I’m in trouble. I need to get out of here. Can you help me?”

“Where? What can I do?”

She liked that he didn't hesitate or ask who was after her or what for, “You know Rio Vista?”

“Sure, I’ll take you there.”

“I need to go near there. You ever hear of the Island Mansion?”

“Yeah. Born and bred… lived here all my life. Island Mansion, shit, I tried to check it out a few times. Something weird about it though. It looks abandoned, you’d think. But, I been there several times, and every time, some bad-assed lookin’ dudes chased us off. Like Hells Angels or something. I used to be a prison guard here in Vacaville. I know ex-cons when I see ‘em. I figured it ain’t healthy to get too near there.”

He lit the bong. While it gurgled, she raised a hand, “No thanks. That’s all I need to do though, is get near there.”