“The insurance man? Now I’m sure you’ve lost it, Lenny. Why don’t we go back to my apartment and we can talk about this,” Samantha said, looking around at the diners staring at their table.

“I’d rather talk about it here, Samantha. How long have you known about the sweater? How much is he paying you?” Lenny said. By now, his face was red and spittle was flying out with each word.

“Who are you talking about? Is this the insurance man again? Lenny, you need to get a grip on yourself. You’re scaring me. You sound like a madman. This does explain a lot then. And here I came here expecting to have to apologize, not understanding why I was feeling what I was feeling. Now I know why. You’ve gone off the deep end. Lenny, let me help you, please. I know I can help. I know we’ve had problems, let me try to help you with this. I want my old Lenny back,” Samantha said.

Lenny studied Samantha. She looked so honest when she said that. If he did not already know the truth about her, he might have believed her. He might have gone into her outstretched arms and sacrificed everything his aunt had given up for him to have the sweater. But, thanks to the sweater, he knew that she was lying. He knew that she had met the insurance salesman two days ago. They had worked this all out. It was not the cops that Lenny was supposed to be running from, it was Samantha he was supposed to run to.

“I know all about it, Samantha. The sweater gave me the insight. I’m going to get up and leave now. You can tell your friend that I won’t be taken so easily. Don’t do anything stupid like try to follow me. I’m leaving town and I will never see you again, Samantha. Know that you brought this upon yourself and I have no guilt about this arrangement,” Lenny said.

He rose from the table and watched Samantha warily. The diners around their table were watching Lenny and Samantha carefully. Lenny realized he must have been talking louder than he supposed. It did not matter to him anymore. He had more important things to do, and none of those involved Samantha. He started backing away from the table toward the door, keeping his eyes focused on Samantha, ready for any false moves on her part.

“Where are you going?” Samantha said.

“I’m going away from here, Samantha. At first I thought I was going to run away from the insurance man. But now I realize it was you all along I had to run away from. Ah. I see Jake was also involved in this little ploy. I’m not surprised by this,” Lenny said, continuing to back away from the table. He bumped into the diners behind him and altered his course, still focusing his attention on Samantha.

“Jake? Now you’ve completely lost it,” Samantha said. She made a strange gesture with her hands and Lenny stiffened.

“Nobody move,” someone shouted from the door. Lenny spun around and saw a man in a trench coat holding out a badge. Lenny turned to see Samantha shrug his shoulders and point in Lenny’s direction. Lenny searched the restaurant and knew that there was a back door in the kitchen. He tried to silence his mind as more information about the architecture of the kitchen and the make of the door flooded his thoughts. He knew that the door was crafted in upstate. It was the work of an eight-year old craftsman who handmade each door. He was expensive, but the fit and quality of the door were unmatched until the last few years, when the process for mass-crafting doors of exceptional quality was mastered by a small company in Indiana. Lenny shook his head to clear his thoughts and ran for the back door. He heard the man crying something and Samantha responding in some way. He did not stay long enough to hear what was said.

He flung himself through the swinging kitchen doors and bounced off the door. Lenny looked back and saw the man running toward him, and he returned his attention to the kitchen door. It was not a swinging door as he expected, but a more traditional pull door. That was strange. The man who crafted it, Igor, specialized in swinging kitchen doors. Why he would have crafted this door for this restaurant baffled Lenny. He pulled the door open with the handle and entered the kitchen. He remembered that most chase scenes eventually went through a kitchen, and the thought tickled him. He looked around for the chef with the cleaver, but there was only a slight woman, calmly chopping carrots on a stainless steel table. Lenny made his way around her and found the rear door where he expected it. He unlatched the door and ran out into the darkness, the warm air cooling the sweat that began to gather on his brow.

“Lenny, stop. We need to talk. You don’t know what’s going on. You’re confused,” someone yelled from behind him.

Lenny ignored the voice and continued running. He circled around the restaurant and ran toward his car. He expected people to jump out of the grass. He performed a dive roll onto the grass when he turned the corner, sure that there was a black-clad individual waiting to grab him, but when he stood up, rather impressed with his gymnastics, he could not find the individual. Those ninjas were sneak devils.

His car was parked where he left it and nobody was around it. He saw Samantha coming out of the front door and the man who yelled from the restaurant turning the corner. Lenny fumbled with the keys to the car and opened the door. He gunned the engine and threw the car into drive. Samantha waved at him from the front door and Lenny’s car turned out of the parking lot. He swerved to avoid a Mercedes that was turning in to the lot, and he entered the traffic on the street leading away from the restaurant. Lenny’s heart still pumped and he breathed a sigh of relief. He was away. He got away from Samantha and the mysterious man. Now that he thought about it, the screaming man looked suspiciously like the insurance salesman.

Lenny checked his rearview mirror and noticed a blue sedan following him. The driver, a Karl Thompson of River Oaks Estates, was hired by the insurance salesman. He knew about the rendezvous, late at night. How the insurance man handed the driver a brown paper bag and instructed him to keep a good distance from Lenny’s sedan. He should have been studying the cars that followed him all along, but he did not realize how pervasive the surveillance had become. While he knew much, he had to consciously think about things before the information popped into his brain.

Lenny took a sharp turn at the next corner and watched his rearview mirror. On cue, the blue sedan took the turn. Lenny pulled an unexpected U-turn in the middle of the road and sped off in the opposite direction. He did not need to look behind him to know that the blue sedan was doing the same. As he turned on the next street, he noticed a yellow station wagon accelerate up to his rear bumper. Damn. The blue sedan’s driver must have switched cars. They were very sneaky, but thanks to his sweater, he knew what they were trying to accomplish.

Coming up on his right side, Lenny saw a crowded movie theater complex. He slowed down and waited until the last possible moment before pulling into the right lane and turning into the driveway. The yellow station wagon continued on the street and Lenny smiled, satisfied that he had, at least for the moment, lost his tail. He parked his car in the middle of the parking lot, and looked around the car before getting out. Many people were returning to their cars, a show must have just ended. Lenny felt too conspicuous getting out in that crowd. He would be the only person heading toward the theater, and it would be too easy for his pursuers to find him. He hunched down in his seat and played with the bottom of the sweater, biding his time. In chases, people usually got caught when they did not think through their next move. They forced themselves to make a move when they were not ready. Lenny was not going to fall for it.

After twenty minutes of waiting, people started to trickle from their cars to the theater. Another show must be close to starting. Lenny followed an older couple to the theater, looking behind him nonchalantly every ten feet or so to see if he was being followed. Whoever was out there, and he was now sure that someone was out there, was keeping their head down and was good at this surveillance thing.

Lenny made it to the box office and skipped the credit card machines. He knew how easy it was to track someone when they used their credit card, and wanted to avoid leaving an electronic trail. He bought the ticket from the man behind the glass. He chose a line that lead to the least suspicious looking ticket seller. Lenny had to fight down the paranoid feeling. He kept telling himself that it was not paranoia that was doing this to him. There really were people chasing him.

He went into the theater and looked at his ticket. He forgot which movie he bought. It did not matter because he just needed a dark room to hide out for a few hours. Once he got his bearings and some time to think about his next move, he would leave the theater. He knew they would be looking for him.

Lenny found an empty seat near the back of the theater and sat down. He studied the people around him. He must have bought a ticket for an older show because not many people came into the theater. He was now safe.

When the room darkened and the projector turned on he leaned back in his chair thinking about what he needed to do next. He had enough cash and enough luggage to go on the lamb for a while, but he needed to figure out where best to go. He turned around as the theater door opened. He saw Samantha and the insurance man enter the theater. They were holding hands and a carton of popcorn. How did they find him? Lenny lowered himself in his chair and tried to create as small a profile as possible.

“I can’t believe you bought a ticket for this movie, Lenny. Don’t you remember we watched this preview and you said, and I quote, ‘never in a million-billion years would I be caught dead watching that movie,’ and here you are, and you’re not even dead yet,” Samantha said.

“We could help him in that,” the insurance salesman said.

Lenny stood up and looked back toward the door, but he did not see Samantha or the insurance salesman. The theater was empty except for him.

“Sit down, man. I’m trying to watch the movie,” the man sitting behind him said. Lenny ignored him and continued searching the seats behind me for Samantha and the insurance salesman. Except for the man, who sat right behind Lenny even though the theater was mostly empty, there was nobody else in the theater.

“I said sit down. I’m trying to watch the previews,” the man said.

“Sorry,” Lenny mumbled and walked into the row. He did not know where Samantha and the insurance salesman went, but he knew they might be back at any moment, and Lenny was not going to stick around and wait for them. He headed for the door. The man behind him followed.

Word count: 2,005

Words left: 6,021

Caffeination: none

Feeling: Blah. I was headachy (again) today, but I finished my word count. I’ve realized that dialogue is much easier to write than action/description. Who would have thunk it? A few more days left!