Tightrope
by Carol Johnson

If Rhonda cleared her mind of the noisy smoky bar and the constant beat of the music, she could almost hear Mama calling, all the way from Oklahoma. She caught her breath to still the pain she felt inside, in the pit of her being. "Mama," she cried silently. "Mama."
As the music ended, she gave her hips that extra little flick the bartender said drove men wild. Someone touched her leg and she looked down, startled. "Oh, jeez, Mona, you
scared me."
Mona laughed and offered her hand to Rhonda, who took it and climbed down from the stage. In three months at the Top Hat, she hadn't mastered the art of gracefully descending the steep steps. Once down, she watched Mona ascend. Most of the dancers just walked down the narrow bar top to a low stool at the far end, next to the dressing room, but Mona refused. "I'm not a tightrope walker," she often said. "I'm a dancer."
That statement always made Rhonda uneasy, because a tightrope walker was what she felt like since coming to Dayton with Lloyd. She continually did a balancing act. Most of the time, her chief priority was hustling enough drinks to escape Lloyd's wrath, while preserving what dignity she could. Her spare time was usually spent soothing Lloyd's easily bruised ego. She learned early in their relationship the value of a calm voice and an impassive face.
Rhonda walked through the smoky crowd toward the dressing room. She heard her name over the p.a. and changed direction, going back to the bar. She saw Dirk (Dirk the jerk, the girls called him) holding the phone receiver above his head with one hand as he continued to squirt cola and soda and such into the line of glasses on the mixing bar.
Rhonda took the phone from him with one hand and covered her breasts with the other. Dirk lived to pull pasties off the unwary. She moved as far out from behind the bar as possible, around the corner, slipping into the cold walk-in cooler. Putting the phone up to one ear and a forefinger into the other, she said, "Hello?"
"Hey, babe."
"Hey, Lloyd. What's up?"
"The usual. Tryin' to make some money. Just wanted to tell you I won't be there to pick you up tonight. See if Mona can drop you off."
Rhonda's heart beat against her ribs and she fought to breathe. In the three months that she had been here, Lloyd had never failed to pick her up, all though the term "pick up" was used loosely. He waited for her to get off and then they walked the mile and a half home. Sometimes they stopped at the all-night donut shop down the street from the house, but Lloyd always met her after work. Maybe tonight was the night, finally, after--
"Rhonda Lee? You there? Is somebody listenin'? Who's with you? Don't you be trying to run one a your bullshit scams on me, do you--"
"I-I'm here, it's just--just hard to hear with the music and all," she hurried on, breathless. Lloyd was silent for a moment, and Rhonda pictured him, chewing his lip and
smoothing the odd-looking mustache he cultivated. With his widow's peak, and the way the mustache ran into his dark full sideburns, she thought he resembled a rhesus monkey.
"Ok," Lloyd said. "Just don't screw with me, kid, understand?"
"Sure I do, Lloyd. You know I wouldn't mess you around. We been gettin' along real good," she soothed.
Seemingly pacified, Lloyd repeated what he'd said earlier. "See if Mona can drop you off, and I'll be there later on. I gotta game over on the west side."
"OK."
"Make sure you go straight home, Rhonda. Don't you be stoppin' anywhere, you understand? I'll know if you do."
"I know, Lloyd, I won't."
"Ok, babe, gotta go," he said, and hung up.
She came out of the cooler and moved behind the bar to hang up the phone. She didn't see Dirk reach out to her until it was too late. He grabbed the tasseled end of her pasty and jerked, pulling off the pasty and a little skin, too.
"Dirk, you asshole," she heard, and saw that Mona was down from the stage. The older woman reached over the bar, snatched the pasty from Dirk's hand, and jerked her head at Rhonda to follow her.
Rhonda covered her bare and sore breast and left the bar, conscious that Dirk was watching her with a slight smile on his face. In the dressing room, Mona re-applied adhesive to the pasty and handed it to Rhonda. "Here, little one, cover yourself. Somebody's liable to see a nipple and get offended."
Rhonda smiled. "Not likely," she said, and looked in the mirror at the two of them, both attired in nothing but g-strings and heels.
Mona smiled back and turned to the lighted mirror. She smoothed a cover-up stick under her left eye as Rhonda watched, fascinated. She herself wore very little make-up. When she left home a little more than a year ago, she had not been allowed to wear it and had never really learned to apply it properly. Though she was nineteen, her lack of cosmetics, small breasts and slim hips gave the impression of a much younger girl. Only her eyes gave her away. Wide and gray, with depths of misery that never quite disappeared, the black fringe of her lashes seemed to all that separated her from the woes of the world. It was her childish body that attracted Lloyd, and it was Lloyd who had put the misery in her eyes. Everything came back to Lloyd. Everything.
"Mona?"
"Hm?" Mona said, blotting her frosted peach lips on a tissue.
"Can you give me a lift home?"
Mona looked surprised. "Where's your old man?"
"He--he had to go see a guy. He said to ask you."
"Sure, I can give you a ride. I just don't want to be the cause of any more -- problems." Six weeks before, Mona had made the mistake of telling Lloyd about Ron Troyer, an off duty cop who frequented the Top Hat and had it bad for Rhonda. Ron's persistent requests for her phone number and dates were a club joke, and though Mona had related it in jest, Lloyd had reacted the way he reacted to any other perceived threat--by beating the shit out of Rhonda. The beating she took in stride--it was the norm. But she was mortified that, because of her working attire --or lack of it -- several ugly bruises on the back of one thigh were apparent to anyone who gave her more than a casual glance.
When questioned about them, Rhonda blamed the bruises on a fall down a flight of stairs. It was lame, and she knew Mona didn't buy it, but it was the best she could do. Lloyd's verbal attack on Mona was even more humiliating to Rhonda. Even now, his words rang in her head, and she cringed inwardly: "Keep your nose outta our business, you God damned dyke, and I won't cut the fucker off."
Even living the way she did, Rhonda thought that bringing up so personal a subject as a person's sexual preference was unneccesarily rude. In her mind, it was like asking a lady how old she was, or how much something cost. It just wasn't done.
Mona had taken Lloyd insults and threats with a grain of salt, and later assured Rhonda that she had received worse from better men than Lloyd. "Why do you stay with him?" Mona asked now, her hand on the dressing room door. "You're such a pretty girl, I know you could do better. It's a cinch you couldn't do worse."
Rhonda shrugged and looked down at her feet. The reply on the tip of her tongue--"Because he's my old man"--seemed as lame as "I fell down the stairs" had a few weeks earlier. Lloyd wasn't her anything. She was his--his meal ticket, his punching bag, and whatever else he wanted to use her for. Where had the soft-spoken, protective Lloyd gone, the one who had promised 18-year-old Rhonda the sun and the moon? She
suppressed a sigh. Guess I can chalk that one up to experience, she thought.
"Hey, Earth to Rhonda, come in," Mona waved her hand back and forth in front of Rhonda's face. "You in there, kiddo?"
Rhonda smiled wryly. "Yeah, I'm in here. Day dreaming, I guess."
Mona studied Rhonda in silence for a few moments. "He's not God, you know."
Rhonda blinked. "What?"
"Lloyd. He's not God. I'll bet he's got you convinced that he knows everything you're thinking, everything you do, even before you do it. Am I right?"
Rhonda moved over to the dressing table and fingered the tubes and jars on it.
"Am I right?" Mona asked again.
Rhonda's eyes met Mona's in the mirror, then dropped to the table top. "You don't know him, Mona. He does know, I swear." She turned to face her friend. " I tried to leave, just once, but I tried. It was just before I started here. I was so homesick, and things were so different from how I thought they'd be. I went to Traveler's Aid. I didn't even tell them about Lloyd, just told them I was stranded. They said they'd buy me a plane ticket. I signed a paper saying I'd pay it back when I got home. I didn't even mention it when I wrote Mama, I didn't want to jinx it, you know?" Rhonda halted, out of breath. "And anyway, Lloyd reads every letter I write."
Mona nodded. "So what happened?"
Rhonda sank onto the chair in front of the dressing table. "Oh, Mona, he knew. I don't know how, but he knew, just like he knows everything. I left like I was goin' to do the laundry, cause that's the only time I was ever outta his sight long enough. I made it clear to the airport. Clear to the airport, Mona." She looked up and held her forefinger a fraction of an inch from her thumb, and said, "I was this close, Mona. I was almost home. I was at the gate. I had that Traveler's Aid voucher in my hand, just waitin' on that plane. I didn't think there was any way in this world Lloyd could know, but he did." She looked up at Mona, with tears shining in her eyes. "You just don't know, can't imagine what it was like, thinkin' I was finally gonna wake up and this--" she waved her hand to indicate the room, "this would all be a bad dream. I just blinked, and there he was, lookin' like the wrath of God." Rhonda wrapped her arms around her middle and looked down.
She felt a single tear roll down her cheek.
Mona knelt in front of her and tilted the younger woman's chin up. "Hon, listen. Lloyd's a lotta things, but the Almighty he ain't." Mona laughed. "He's not even close.
But I'll tell you what he is. He's smart, is what. Not book smart, but people smart. He reads people like some people read books, and when he looks at this face," Mona turned
Rhonda's chin gently so that she faced the smoky lighted mirror, "When he looks at this face, he can tell in a heartbeat if something's on your mind, or if you're upset, or even if you're up to something."
Rhonda studied her own face doubtfully. "I don't know, Mona. I keep an awful lot to myself, I mean stuff that happens here, stuff that would just tick Lloyd off."
"Mark my word, Rhonda. You're such an up-front, what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of person, you're just no match for somebody like him. I'm not telling you how to run your life, but if you take a notion to cut and run, don't think twice. Just do it. If you don't, you'll wake up in twenty years and be like me." Mona smiled at Rhonda and patted her knee with one peach-tipped hand as she straightened to a standing position.
Rhonda felt a rush of love and sympathy for the older woman. It couldn't be easy, nearing forty, being in a world where looks were everything and nobody cared when you were down, or lonely, or just plain tired. She stood, and smiled back at Mona, then, on impulse, hugged her. "You're some kinda lady," she said.
Mona's face pinkened under the artfully applied make up, and she hugged Rhonda back. As they left the dressing room, Rhonda wondered if Mona's words could really be the truth. If so, the only way she would ever be free of Lloyd would be to hit the road, just cut and run, like Mona said. Still, Lloyd knew so many people. This was his home.
It seemed like he knew everyone who was anyone, at least the seedy ones. What were the chances of getting out of this in one piece? She sighed and wondered why she had let Lloyd take her away from familiar ground. Since their arrival, things had gone from bad to worse. To do work like this was bad enough, but she feared something even more degrading was coming.
Last week they had been visited by a friend of Lloyd's whose apparently uncustomary wealth had piqued Lloyd's curiosity. It seemed the friend, known to Rhonda only as Booger, had hooked up with a young woman who didn't mind making her money on her back, and minded even less sharing it with Booger.
The girl, Teri, turned out to be nearly as homely as Booger himself, with a foul mouth and total disregard for custom. Since that day, Lloyd had run on and on about Rhonda's superior looks and manner, and how she was "sittin' on a gold mine." In his opinion, if Teri could charge fifty dollars a trick, Rhonda could easily charge a hundred. His constant harping on the subject sickened Rhonda and served to compound her misery at the thought of a life spent at the mercy of his every whim. When she began dancing she had thought she could sink no lower, but even that and the idea of prostitution were not as bad as the fact that she had given her love and her body to a man who could entertain such
ideas. It made her want to vomit.
I was so stupid, she berated herself. I knew what he was, and I ignored it, just did what Mama always told me to--look on the bright side, concentrate on people's good points, expect the best out of them and that's what you'll get. She laughed to herself, without mirth. I was so sure my love could change him. It would just take time. "Ha," she said aloud, as she wove a path through the crowd, with one eye out for a likely customer. All the Top Hat regulars knew there was no alcohol in any of the expensive drinks they bought for her, but they weren't paying for alcohol. They were paying for her, in bits and pieces. Sometimes she felt that every time a man put a hand on her knee, or thigh, or worse, a piece of her soul shriveled up and died.
Time crawled, and Rhonda kept glanced repeatedly at the clock over the bar as she listened to her customer's boring monologue. She smiled in the right places and uh-huhed when she should, but her stomach rolled and cramped in response to her tension.
Dear God, she breathed silently, please let this be the night. An old hymn echoed in her head. "He Set Me Free." Yes. Free. Free or dead. When the club closed at 2:00, her back ached and she swallowed convulsively againsr all the sugary drinks she had consumed. She always led the pack in the number of drinks hustled, and tonight she had outdone herself. She sometimes wondered if her percentage of the money was worth it, but as she considered the small roll of bills she had just untaped from under the dressing room table, the result of three weeks of hustling more than her quota of drinks and lying to Lloyd about it, she concluded that it was.
Her queasiness about what lay ahead increased as she followed Mona across the parking lot to an ancient white Monte Carlo. She pushed it from her mind and made small talk as Mona drove her home.
Fifteen minutes later she was waving down at Mona from the window of the small house she and Lloyd were renting. The four rooms were built over a three car garage had once been servant's quarters. A steep flight of stairs ran up the outside, and the only furniture was an aging mattress in the bedroom and a rickety table in the kitchen. A screened-in balcony ran the length of the building, and Rhonda often sat there on a rusted metal chair left by a a previous tenant.
From that vantage point she could see the donut shop down the street and watch the Greyhound buses pass by on their way west. She would sit lost in thought, and dream of being on one of the buses, imagining what it would be like when she got to Tulsa. She would arrive at the depot downtown, and call Mama. Harsh words would be forgotten, and Mama and Russell and Gene, Rhonda's little brothers, would come to fetch her in the old Chevy pickup. They'd talk, and laugh, and it would be as if she had never left.
Rhonda shook her head and ran on silent feet through the house. She peeked into all the rooms and reassured herself that Lloyd had not come home early. She stood in the living room for a few moments, frightened and fearful of failure, then straightened her shoulders and she went back through the front door and down the stairs. She couldn't afford to waste a minute, even to pack a bag. She wished she could have included Mona in her plans, but the fewer people who knew, the fewer people would get hurt.
No airport, this time, she thought as she descended the wooden steps. The phrase, "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me," went round and round in her head as she hurried down the gravel drive way. She reached the sidewalk and broke into a trot, headed in the opposite direction from the bright lights of the main thoroughfare. The bus terminal was on it, but she dared not walk there. She chose instead the darker street one block over. She hurried beneath the catalpa trees, and silently thanked God for the jeans and tennis shoes she wore to and from the club. Even with her coat, her skimpy working attire and spike heels would have made her conspicuous, and slowed her down.
She reached the corner of Davenport and Macklin and paused. Should she continue on foot, or wait for a city bus? Buses ran all night, but there was a chance that Lloyd would
be returning from the west side on one, and see her. Rhonda chewed her lip and cursed her indecision. At last she compromised and continued walking, in the shadows, while
keeping an ear open for the sound of a bus. There was a bus stop every couple of blocks or so, and she was sure she could hear the vehicle's approach soon enough to dart over to the main thoroughfare and make it to a stop.
She felt a few drops of rain and pulled up her coat collar. The rain wouldn't improve the appearnace of the brown fake fur, The drops fell faster and harder and she trotted from beneath one tree to the next, with an occasional glance over shoulder. The conviction that if Lloyd came home and found her gone he would know exactly where to look for her wouldn't leave her. Behind her she heard the welcome sound of a large engine as it slowed for an intersection. She broke into a run toward the bright lights of the necxt street over. Reaching the corner, she looked ahead sprinted toward the stop in the
next block. Thirty feet from it, she felt her right foot slide from under her. Unable to stop the slide, landed hard on her butt with one leg bent beside her.
She grunted as she hit the ground and immediately saw what had caused her fall. The whole sidewalk was broken and cracked, with one section lower than the rest. Dirt had collected in the recess and turned to mud in the rain. She brought herself up on first one foot and then the other, just in time to see the bus lumber past the stop.
"Damn," she breathed, and applied weight to her leg gingerly. "Damn, damn, damn!" she said. She moved along, slowly now, with more caution. She estimated the bus teminal's distance at a little more than ten miles, and felt a momentary stab of
hopelessness before she squared her shoulders and took a deep breath. It didn't matter. She would get there, and when she did, she would take the first bus west. Damn the rain, damn Lloyd, damn everything, I'm as good as gone, she thought. Another city bus would come along in twenty minutes or so, and, by God, she'd be on it.
About two miles later, she heard the next bus coming. She increased her speed while still traveling with caution. Five feet from the stop, she heard a horn honk. The sound startled her, and she looked around frantically for a place to hide. At that moment, the slowing bus pinned her in the glare of its headlights. She heard the horn again. Even as the bus's headlights released her, she was caught in those of a car behind it. Poised to take a step forward, she heard heard someone call her name. Her shoulders slumped and she turned toward the car at the rear of the bus. She could not see against the glare, but knew she was caught, pinned motionless in the headlights, as surely as if she had been
nailed to a tree.
"Hey, Rhonda!" she heard to the left, as to the right the bus doors hissed open.
The bus driver, thin and gray, leaned over his steering wheel and looked at her. "You gettin' on or not?" She looked at him, then back to the rear of the bus. Someone walked toward her but she couldn't make the figure out against the headlight's glare. She looked at the bus driver, who glared back with obvious irritation.
"If you don't wanna get on, don't be waitin' at the friggin' stop," he said, and the doors hissed shut.
"No, wai--" she said, and flinched as someone grabbed her arm.
"Well, if it ain't Rhonda. Looky here, Teri, it's Rhonda!" Booger's grip was almost painful, and Rhonda pulled away.
"You scared me half to death!" she said, heart racing. "What're you doing out this time of night?"
"I might ask you the same thing. Where's Lloyd? He don't usually let you get too far outta his sight--'fraid somebody else's gonna get some a that sweet thing," he said, and grabbed Rhonda's butt, seemingly oblivious to Teri's presence.
Teri moved up beside him, and Rhonda edged slightly away from the two of them. Booger's eyes narrowed slightly. "You never did answer me," he said. "Whatcha doin' out here in the dark and the rain so far from home? I never knew Lloyd to be so careless with his women." He moved closer to Rhonda, stroked her cheek and pressed himself against her thigh.
"If you want to keep that thing you better keep it offa me," she said, backing farther out of his reach. Teri emitted a bark of laughter, cut short by Booger's open palm.
Booger turned back to Rhonda. "You might wanna be nice to me, girlie. You don't never know when Lloyd will see the light and trade you in on somethin' with tits." He roared with laughter.
Rhonda sidled toward the sidewalk, sensing that the immediate danger was over. "Yeah. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. I gotta go now--I-I gotta meet Lloyd at a place over here."
Teri looked at her. "Doncha wanna ride, Rhonda? We can drop you off, wherever you're going." She smiled, revealing gapped teeth.
Rhonda froze, and felt her bowels loosen. Teri knew, oh, shit, Teri knew. She stood motionless a minute, then shook her head. "I don't need a ride; you know how jealous Lloyd is. Another bus'll be along soon. You know how he is," she said again, and eyes fastened on Teri. Teri said nothing for a long breathless moment while Booger looked from one woman to the other, eyes slitted.
Finally he growled, "Fuck'er. Let's go," he said, and headed back to the car. Just before Teri followed, Rhonda saw her raise both hands slightly in a thumbs-up gesture.
Rhonda's knees weakened in relief, but she walked swiftly away from them. In a moment, Booger and Teri passed her. Teri sat on the passenger side, impassive face to the front.
Fifteen minutes later, she again heard the whine of a cross-town bus, and made it to the next stop just in time. The bus pulled up to it and the doors hissed open. The
driver, a rotund woman with a frizz of red hair and improbably white teeth grinned as Rhonda dropped her fare in the box. "Nice night for a walk," the driver said.
Not really," Rhonda replied, and slipped into an aisle seat. She only saw three other riders. A black couple whispered together two seats in front of her and a man in
khaki pants and a khaki shirt slept with a billed cap pulled low on his face against the bus's lighting. Rhonda tried to settle back for the ride, but found herself on the edge of the seat, gripping the back of the one in front of her. Faster, faster, faster, she thought. Lloyd could be home by now, maybe even closer, searching for her. Her heart beat so loudly that she expected the couple ahead of her to turn and look at her, but they did not.
A few more people boarded the bus and Rhonda fumed at the delays, but, finally, she glimpsed the brightly lit Greyhound terminal. The doors hissed open, and she followed the black couple off the bus. She was on the bottom step when she felt a hand on her shoulder. She jumped, and barely suppressed a scream. She turned with her heart in her throat. There, smiling from beneath a billed cap, was Ron Troyer. The khakis that
he wore turned out to be a uniform, one that Rhonda had never seen. It certainly was a switch from the gray-green uniforms and stiff leather-visored caps the police usually wore.
Rhonda let her breath out, relieved, yet still wary. "Ron, jeeze, you scared the shit out of me. What're you doin' out this time of night? I thought you worked days." She flicked the flap of one pocket and looked at him before he could answer. "What's this?"
"I work in PR--you know, go talk to schools and churches, stuff like that. The chief thinks these look more friendly, kind of informal." He looked down at himself and
smiled at her. "I think I look like a dog catcher."
Rhonda made distracted denials and walked toward the terminal. Though he was a good six inches taller than she, Ron was having trouble keeping up with her.
"What's the hurry?"
"Gotta catch a bus," she said, and pulled open the glass door. She made straight for the counter, all the while looking at the list of departures on the wall.
"Where you going? Maybe I can wait with you, keep you company. My shift doesn't start till 7:00 anyway. I just have to be there at 6:45 for roll call."
At the counter, Rhonda pulled the roll of bills out of her jeans hip pocket. "Can I get a connection from Kansas City to Tulsa?" she asked the counterman.
"Sure can. Have a couple hours lay-over though."
"That's ok. Give me a one way," she said. "A one way ticket to Kansas City." She counted out the required money.
"Say, you mean you're not coming back?" Ron asked. "I kinda thought we could get together sometime--you know, have dinner, see a movie, whatever you want."
The counterman counted out Rhonda's change enclosed her ticket in an envelope like banks used. "That'll be leaving at 6:20 a.m.," he said.
"Fine." She put the ticket and change in her hip pocket and looked at the large Seth Thomas clock on the wall. Fifteen more minutes, she thought, and looked at the
departure board with regret. If I'd gotten here thirty minutes earlier, I could already be on the way to St. Louis, she thought. No sense crying over it now.
She heard Mona's name and looked up sharply. "What did you say? What about Mona?" Her breath caught in her throat and she seemed unable to swallow past it.
"I said, it must not be true, you know, what everybody says about her. Being gay, I mean."
"Why do you say that?" Her breath came reluctantly as from her tight throat she moved to a row of plastic chairs against the wall.
Ron sat down beside her, removed his cap and ran his fingers through his short blond hair. "I saw her. She was with some guy standing out by her car over by that all night donut shop at Wechsler and Macklin. If they'd been any closer together you couldn't have got a thought between 'em."
"What did the guy look like?" Rhonda's knuckles whitened as she gripped the chair's armrests.
Ron looked at her. "Hey, are you ok? You don't look so good."
"What did he look like?" she asked through clenched teeth, hazel eyes locked on his.
"I couldn't see him real well. I guess he was thin, and not real tall, maybe 5'9", and--" he stopped, tugging on his ear lobe. "There was something else, something funny about him." Suddenly, he let go of his ear and snapped his fingers. "His moustache!" he said. "It sort of ran into his sideburns, like this," he said, and drew a forefinger down
the side of his face from his temple to the corner of his mouth.
Rhonda squeezed her eyes shut against the tears that sprang up in them. How could she have been so stupid? Oh, God, please, she thought, not Mona, please. Not Mona. Even as she prayed, even as she opened her eyes and looked into Ron's gentle face, she knew. Lloyd would not allow Mona to escape unscathed, not this time. There was no way even glib Mona could convince Lloyd that she had not known Rhonda's
plans.
"Somebody you know?" Ron asked.
Rhonda shook her head. "No, nobody I know," she said. "Listen, I need to make a phone call. Could get me some milk and a package of donuts or something to take on the bus?"
"Sure," Ron said, his eyes sad. "I guess you're really goining, aren't you?"
Rhonda nodded. "I--I have to. I got family out there." She smiled and gave him a gentle push. "Go on--remember, donuts, milk?"
"Oh, yeah," he said, and waved away her money. "I'll get it."
As soon as he disappeared into the depot's small restaurant, Rhonda hurried to the bank of telephones near the bathrooms. She didn't have change, but for this call, she
didn't need it. She dialed and tapped her foot until the ringing was at last answered.
"Dayton PD, Jacoby speaking," a voice said.
"There isn't much time," Rhonda said, "So listen good. Go to the all night Winchell's at Wechsler and Macklin. Look for a white Monte Carlo. If it isn't there, look down the street at 2615 South Macklin, in the rear. It's a garage apart--"
"Name, please?" the voice asked.
"I told you, there isn't time for all that," she said. "Somebody is gonna get killed. You've got to hurry. If you don't find them at Wechlser and Macklin, go to 2615 South
Macklin, in the rear, a garage apartment, his name is Lloyd Lee Exendine, calls himself Lloyd, and he's dangerous. He's got Mona. Hurry, please help her!"
As Ron approached, she banged down the receiver and went toward him. A voice over the loudspeaker announced the boarding of the Kansas City-bound bus.
Ron handed her the carton of milk and a small package of donuts, along with a piece of paper. "My phone number and address. In case you come back. Or even if you don't. Write, ok?"
Rhonda looked at the piece of paper, then folded it and put it in her back pocket. She glanced around her once more before they walked toward the bus. When they reached the vehicle, Rhonda turned and looked at the young policeman.
"Thanks. Thanks for everything." She turned away, but he caught her.
"Write, ok? Let me know how you're doing." He put a forefinger under her chin and tilted her chin up. "You take care, you hear?" With a light kiss on the lips, he released her.
Rhonda looked at him silently for a minute, and felt a stab of longing for what might have been. Turning, she made her way up the steps and onto the bus, and selected a window seat near the rear. She lifted a hand to Ron, and tears slid down her cheeks.
Her tears increased when the bus approached Wechsler and Macklin. She cried harder still when she saw the ambulance and several police cars at in the parking lot of Winchell's.

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