Everything seemed quiet as we drove out of Kansas, tranquil in fact. But somehow, the untainted serenity just added to an eerie and somewhat ominous atmosphere that filled the empty highway, that night.
It seemed strange to me, in all honesty. After everything that had happened, how could things just seem so peaceful? Don't ask me what I was expecting. For the roads into Kansas to be in a state of chaos, jam-packed with cop cars and ambulances? Maybe. I don't know. Just something more than this.
I thought back to the events of the evening, for at least the hundredth time since we set off in the car, replaying memories over and over in my head, like a broken record. Part of me refused to believe that what we did was true, the rest just wholeheartedly wished it wasn't. Not that any of that made a difference, I couldn't change what had happened, however much I wanted to. The fate of the Clutters was already sealed, and maybe, I feared, so was our own.
Another wave of nausea flowed through me. If we got caught... when we got caught, we'd hang for sure, I was convinced of it. Nobody could ever get away with doing what we did; how could they? My heart began to pound harder and faster in my chest at the thought of what might, and most likely would, happen to us, once in custody. No jury in their right minds would let us live.
Feeling on the verge of hyperventilation, I buried my face deep into my palms, in a futile attempt to calm myself. Not that it worked in any way. Then again, would anything?
~X~
As much as I wanted it to, my increasingly panic-stricken condition didn't go unnoticed.
"You alright?" the driver of the car asked me, surprisingly care free. He sniggered at the state that I had got myself into. "Christ, Perry, don't go having a coronary on me now, Honey. Just relax, we've got nothing to stress about."
I really didn't understand him at times, and this was one of those many occasions. After everything that had happened that night, everything we had done, how could he not be even slightly affected?
"How can you say that?" I muttered back to him, quietly "we have nothing to stress about?" I turned my attention to the still-empty road behind us. "I'm telling you, Dick, someone's going to be onto us soon enough. For all we know, they already are."
Dick let out an exasperated sigh, which I assumed was due to my doubtful attitude towards his positivity. "You're getting paranoid" he told me, and maybe he was right but my feelings were hardly unjust. As they say, just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they're not after you.
"We pulled off the score perfectly, left no witnesses, just like we said. No one can possibly be onto us" Dick spoke to me, never once letting his cool, care-free demeanour slip.
"I sure hope you're right" I replied, my voice soft, barely audible, trying but failing to keep my sceptical thoughts to myself.
And that's when I heard it, the faint, distant sound of a siren, that was gradually growing louder as the vehicle approached. It was the cops, it had to be.
"They've found us" I flustered "were dead, we're going to die." As I glanced over to the man beside me, I noticed for the first time that night, the slightest hint of emotion flicker in his eyes. Fear.
~X~
As the flashing, cyan light atop the emergency vehicle became visible, over the horizon, my body was consumed by panic. Something inside me compelled me to snatch the steering wheel out of Dick's hands and turn hard right, into off road territory.
My logic at the time was that if we went off road, maybe the cops wouldn't follow us. It all sounds so stupid now.
"What the hell, Perry" Dick exclaimed as he slapped my hands away from the wheel and pushed me back, hard against my seat, before attempting to regain control over the car.
"Jesus, are you trying to get us both killed!?" Dick yelled at me, once he had successfully brought the car to a halt, narrowly avoiding a head-on collision with a near by tree.
"They're here for us" was all I managed to say, before the vehicle arrived at our location. However, it didn't stop there, it just sped on, right past us, sirens still blazing. As it did, I noticed the word 'ambulance' printed across the vehicle's side.
~X~
To be honest, I didn't whether it was relief or embarrassment that I felt in greatest quantity at that moment. Perhaps both in equal measures. I turned back to the man in the drivers seat, avoiding the humiliation of eye contact. "Sorry" I murmured, embarrassment now definitely taking over as the dominant feeling.
Dick just shook his head at me, bemused "you almost put us both in hospital for nothing, and that's it, you're sorry." A snide tone coating his usually soft voice. "What more do you want from me?" I snapped back at him in return.
"Well, an explanation would be good to start with. What in God's name has got into you?" He spoke to me as if I was a misbehaved child in need of scolding. "Surely, you couldn't have been this bad last time or you'd have never got away with it."
"What the hell are you on about, what last time?" I replied, my mind far too preoccupied to think properly. Dick gave me a cold, hard stare "the last time you killed a man"
My heart sank as Dick spoke those words, I suppose I was hoping, stupidly, that he would have forgotten what I'd told him, back in the prison days. Truth was, I lied. I'd never actually killed anybody, not before that night at least. To be honest, I don't even know why I told Dick that I had, I guess I just wanted to impress him, at the time, make him think I was tough. I felt much the opposite now.
"Oh... that" I stuttered, my voice trembling heavily through every word "that... that was different." I stared down at my feet, attempting to avoid contact with Dick's ever-unreadable eyes.
Dick chuckled slightly, but I could tell from the tone of this that he wasn't at all amused. "Yeah, different because it never happened" he stated, coldly. I felt my breath hitch in my chest as I waited for some sort of response from him. "Well, Perry, are you going to deny it?"
I shifted awkwardly in my seat, before shaking my head, accepting my defeat.
"Then you lied to me." Dick stated, patronisingly "so much for a natural born killer. You're nothing but a scared, little kid." His harsh words cut into me, like a knife.
"I should have silenced you, back there, once and for all, when I had chance. Don't think it never crossed my mind" he growled "I'd watch your back, if I were you, Baby. It's not the cops you need to be afraid of" With that, Dick re-started the car and continued on down the lonely highway, without another word.
In that moment, the dynamic of our relationship changed. Dick wanted to kill me? It would be a lie to say I'd never thought about ending him either, how much easier would all this be if there truly were no witnesses to worry about? The question was, would either myself or Dick have the guts to kill our partner in crime?