When Spratt awoke the next morning, he immediately looked out the window and only noticed a peaceful morning rising; no cops. There were no weekend morning news shows so he got dressed and went to the Waffle House to get some breakfast and a newspaper and returned to his room with both. There was no mention of the escape in the newspaper which again struck him as strange. Spratt drank more coffee and chain smoked until 10:00am when he called a taxi to take him to the Flea Market.
The route to the Flea Market took Spratt right past the prison and he prayed that he wouldn’t be recognized. It didn’t look like anything unusual was happening there; just the normal amount of people lining up for weekend visitation. Spratt did wonder if there might be some off-duty guards visiting the Flea Market this morning and reminded himself to be extremely vigilant. Spratt arrived at the Flea Market, paid his fare, and started looking for the correct booth.
Spratt found his ‘friend’ and explained that he had escaped the day before. Spratt reminded him of the deal that they had reached but the ‘friend’ wasn’t ready to relinquish the truck. He told Spratt that he needed the truck until at least 2:00pm and that he would give it to him then. Spratt agreed to come back at that time and wandered around the Flea Market for a while. Spratt soon realized how small this place really was and had visited every single booth within half an hour. He started making another round in order to waste time when he noticed four Sheriff’s Deputies walking around and scanning the crowd. Spratt could tell that they were looking at people and not looking at items for sale. “They must be looking for me,” Spratt thought and went out a side exit. Spratt noticed an old barn type of structure next to a large patch of pine trees. Spratt snuck behind the barn and went deep into the woods where he spent the next couple of hours smoking cigarettes and killing time hoping that the cops had been there for another reason and were now gone.
At the appointed time, Spratt walked back out of the woods and cautiously peeked around the old barn. Not seeing any police cars, he straightened up and walked back inside the main building of the Flea Market. When he arrived at the correct booth, he saw that his ‘friend’ was loading his things into the truck and looked surprised to see Spratt. “Maybe he thought I just got tired of waiting and left.” Spratt thought. Spratt reminded his ‘friend’ of their ‘deal’ again and the ‘friend’ stammered something about having to go unload his truck and then visit his grandmother in the hospital. “Will I be able to get the truck from you after you visit your grandmother?” asked Spratt. His friend assured him that Spratt would have the truck later that evening. “You can meet me at the hospital near the end of visiting hours and I will give you the truck and ride home with my wife.” Spratt had no choice but to accept the delay and asked for a ride back to his motel room to save the cost of a taxi. Spratt’s friend agreed but they had to stop off at a self-storage center to unload the truck first. Spratt offered to help with that in exchange for the ride.
Once the truck was unloaded, they stopped at a convenience store and Spratt loaded up with cigarettes, snacks, and beer to wait out the next few hours. On the way back to the hotel, the ‘friend’ told Spratt that, after speaking with his wife, they had decided that they needed to use the truck to set up their Flea Market booth the next day but, since the Flea Market was only open on the weekend, he would be able to take it after they closed up the next afternoon and they would give him the three day head start before reporting it stolen at that time. “Damn,” Spratt said, “that really puts a damper in my plans; I wanted to be out of this State by tonight!” The ‘friend’ responded by saying, “Dude, I want to help you right now but I can’t piss my wife off at the same time and we can’t miss tomorrow’s sales…we depend on that money!” Spratt made his ‘friend’ promise that tomorrow would be the day and there would be no further delays. His ‘friend’ agreed and they shook hands on it as Spratt was dropped off at the hotel. Spratt didn’t like the change in plans and he was kind of pissed that his ‘friend’ was putting so many conditions on the deal; this wasn’t going anything like he had imagined but, once again, he had no control over the situation and would just wait things out until the next day. “If he doesn’t give it to me tomorrow,” thought Spratt, “I’m gonna take the motherfucker from him!”
Spratt took a shower, dressed in a nice pair of Levis, pulled on his favorite pair of brown leather work boots (so much more comfortable than the prison work boots!), pulled on a jacket, and went to the Holiday Inn where they had a ‘Steak Night’ every Saturday and would grill steaks to order on the outside patio bar. “If I somehow get arrested between tonight and tomorrow,” Spratt told himself, “at least I will be able to describe a delicious steak to the other convicts when they take me back! Hell, I’ve already beaten the last escapee’s record; he was caught within an hour…I’ve made it a full day!” Spratt entered the bar and ordered a Michelob and waited for the ‘grillin’ to begin. Several beers later, they announced that the coals were ready and Spratt ordered a medium-rare Ribeye and a baked potato stuffed with bacon and cheese. It was DELICIOUS!!
Spratt stayed at the bar for a couple of hours talking with some of the out-of-town guests and trying to get ‘buzzed’ enough to forget that he wasn’t a ‘regular’ person like everybody else here. His very existence was precarious at the moment and he hated the fact that he had to scrutinize each person entering the bar lest they be a cop and his freedom be immediately taken away. Conscious of the high prices at this particular place, Spratt reminded himself that he needed to save as much money as he could for his trip tomorrow and left the bar around 11:00pm.
Spratt used the public restroom just outside the bar area and walked through the lobby relishing the anonymity of his favorite hotel chain. He had stayed at Holiday Inn’s since he was a child and continued to patronize them during his travels as an adult. He had seen the chain transform from a ‘family vacation’ oriented hotel to the mid-level business traveler hotel. Each hotel had standard amenities that could always be counted on; you didn’t have to call and ask if they had ‘this’ or ‘that’ because each one was almost identical. Holiday Inn was a nice hotel chain…not too exclusive and not too cheap; just right. Businessmen and construction workers were equally accepted guests and all were treated fairly while, at the same time, being a safe haven from ‘riff-raff’. Any Holiday Inn in any city was the perfect place to be anonymous. Yep, Spratt loved the Holiday Inn.
Reluctantly, Spratt left the relative luxury of this hotel to return to his ‘riff-raff’ motel next door. He went out the side door of the lobby and slowly meandered through the parking lot in the direction of his motel while enjoying the cool fresh air that tasted sweetly of freedom. It was amazing to look up and see the stars shining since, in prison, if any inmates are outside at night for some reason, they can’t see the stars for the glare of the huge lights illuminating the perimeter. For some reason, the air smelled better outside the walls of the prison and the stars were a sight to see! Spratt walked slowly so that he could prolong his enjoyment of both.
There was a man-made knoll separating the two properties and Spratt imagined that it had been built by the Holiday Inn so that the people at the ‘nice’ hotel wouldn’t have to look at the people at the ‘bad’ motel. Spratt could only see the roof of his motel as he started to walk up and over the knoll. As soon as Spratt had reached a point on the knoll providing a larger view of his motel, Spratt almost shit his pants as his face was bathed in flashing blue lights! He dropped to the ground immediately!
“Holy Shit!” thought Spratt, “What the FUCK is that?!?” Spratt knew that blue lights meant ‘POLICE’ but “Are they here for me or somebody else?” wondered Spratt. He slowly crawled to the top of the knoll to peek over into the parking lot of his motel. Six fucking police cars were parked in a loose semi-circle with all of their lights flashing so brightly that an Alien spaceship would have appeared dim in comparison. Spratt didn’t actually see any cops and didn’t know if they were in their cars or in the motel somewhere. “Probably in my fucking room!” he told himself. “Shit!” Spratt tried to quickly calculate the odds that the cops may be there for somebody else. “It is a crappy motel,” he thought, “surely there are some criminal elements staying there; maybe it’s not me they are looking for.” Spratt thought of all the various reasons that police might be called to a motel but, apart from rape or murder, none of the scenarios that he could think of would justify sending six patrol cars except for one; an escaped inmate.
Spratt backed down the knoll into the Holiday Inn parking lot and quickly returned to the lobby. He realized that, even if the cops were there looking for somebody else, he had to go on the premise that it was him that they were hunting. The lobby of the Holiday Inn was only a temporary haven since he knew that, if they were looking for him, the cops would start canvassing the area after not finding him in his room. He had to get out of here before they came searching. He left through the back door of the lobby and walked past the pool and through the stairway entrance of one of the buildings housing guest rooms. Spratt walked to a wooded area at the back of the property and followed the tree line along the frontage road until he reached another commercial area and was forced to make a decision of whether to stay hidden in the woods or expose himself by walking down the road.
Spratt’s adrenaline was pumping too much to just hunker down in the woods and he knew that if they called a K-9 unit out here then he would be discovered fairly quickly. The frontage road was not like a city street where it may be expected to have pedestrians at any time of the day or night; this was a road that there were never any pedestrians and somebody walking down the road at nighttime would certainly stand out like a sore thumb to any passersby whether they were cops or not. There was hardly any traffic at this time of the night so it was relatively dark but he couldn’t remember where, exactly, this road ended up at. He knew there was only a chain link fence separating this road from the Interstate and that the Interstate went directly over the river into South Carolina. “That may be the best route” thought Spratt but he quickly discarded that idea knowing that people would certainly call the police if they saw somebody walking down the Interstate. Spratt tried to remember where the next bridge crossing the river was but there were none close by. The frontage road HAD to end somewhere and Spratt assumed it would end near the river which may just be a dead end for him. His only other option was to just sit and wait for the dogs to find him though so Spratt made sure there were no headlights coming in his direction and slowly stepped out of the woods and onto the pavement heading in the direction of the river.
No comments:
Post a Comment