Key Lime Blues by Mike Jastrzebski

sigh and looked in my direction, waiting for me to agree with her.
    “Fearing germs or even the dark is not very unusual,” I admitted. “Obsessing over those things is an illness.”
    “So what if he’s a little strange?” she said. “He’s got a real gift and he has never been wrong in any of the prophecies he’s made for me.”
    I stared into her blue eyes. They reminded me of a cat I’d owned when I was a child. She wore the same look the cat possessed while playing with a catnip toy, wild and uncontrolled.
    “Okay,” I said. I didn’t want to argue with her anymore, so I changed the subject. “Let’s find a place to stay. Any hotels or motels you can think of where they might have a vacancy?”
    “At this time of the year? I kind of doubt it.”
    “We’ve passed half a dozen small rooming houses with vacancy signs on them,” I pointed out.
    “Those places aren’t like the big hotels. It’s four in the morning. It’s not like they have someone on duty twenty-four hours a day.” She stopped, reached into her purse and pulled out a cell phone. “I’ll call Tanya. Maybe we can crash at her place for the night.”
    She hit a single button and waited. “Her phone is ringing now.”
    All I could think of at the moment was how tired I was, and how surprised I was when I realized Destiny’s phone was still working. I would have thought after the way she’d been slamming her purse around all night, anything inside would have been reduced to rubble.
    I looked up and down the street, then wandered away from Destiny and sat down on an open piece of curb. While I waited, I reached up and caressed my temples. Across the street the fronds of a small palm tree danced in the shadows and the early morning breeze carried the scent of the ocean inland. For the first time since leaving the bar I began to relax, and my headache had almost disappeared by the time Destiny got off the phone.
    She walked over and stood next to me. “We’re all set. Tanya said come on over. She said we could use the spare room.”
    “What did she say when you told her I was with you?”
    She sat down next to me on the curb, stretched her long legs out into the street and took a deep breath. I watched her breasts rise and fall, and rubbed my fingers a little more furiously along the side of my head.
    “ Dammit . I forgot to tell her. I said we were in a jam and needed a place to crash for a couple of hours. I’m sure she thinks it’s me and Billy. It won’t make a big difference to Tanya. I’ll explain it all to her when we get to her house.”
    Standing up I thought, this should be interesting. I stretched my back, and reached out my hand to Destiny. She took it, and while she scrambled to her feet I looked around and saw the headlights of a car turn onto the street a couple of blocks down. The car was creeping toward us and although it could have been a lost tourist, I was afraid Bob had found us.
    Without a second thought I grabbed Destiny’s wrist and dragged her along while I dove behind a nearby van. When I thrust her up against the van she began to hit at me with flailing fists.
    “What do you think you’re doing?” she asked.
    I put my lips close to her ear and said, “Shut up. There’s a car coming. It might be Bob.”
    She stopped struggling and, when the car approached, I pressed her against the ground where we tried to hide in the shadow of the van.
    The car moved down the street, stopping every few houses as if the driver was looking for an address, or perhaps us. When it stopped in front of our hiding place, I reached behind my back and pulled the gun from my shorts.
    The driver sat there for what seemed like an eternity, and Destiny began to shiver, whether in fear or anticipation I wasn’t sure. When the car moved on I held Destiny down until the sound of the engine faded away.
    This time when I helped Destiny to her feet she held on to my hand and moved in close to me. “Do you think it was him?”
    “I