Parker was already in her PJs by the time she slipped under the covers and looked over at the movie poster facing her bed on the other side of the room. It was one of Johnny Depp as John Dillinger in Public Enemies, a film she along with a few friends were fortunate enough to see during the big Chicago premiere a month earlier.
As she stared at this poster of him and that sly smirk of his she immediately thought of that strange man she helped out earlier that afternoon. Not so much for the name, but for the striking resemblance between him and the man in the movie poster. He had short dark hair that seemed to fall around his forehead. He also had these sharp, angular cheekbones, one of which was accented with a scar on his right cheek that ran just underneath it. On top of that he had these big coffee-colored eyes that seemed to hypnotize her in a strange way.
There was no question on her mind that this man was quite handsome, but that didn't necessarily make her believe that he was in fact who he said he was. With these thoughts still fresh in her mind, Parker got out of bed and walked over to her bookshelf and pulled out a book on John Dillinger that featured a picture of the man himself on the cover. She took one look at the cover and furrowed her eyebrows in utter confusion. She looked over at the poster once more before looking back at the book cover, only to realize that the faces on both the book and the cover were very much the same. The same dark eyes, the same lazy smirk, the same everything. An image of the man she met earlier popped into her head as she kept looking back and forth between the poster and the book before finally reaching a conclusion.
"You son of a bitch," she said to herself as she put the book away and slowly but surely turned to go back to bed. To say that she couldn't believe that this man was perhaps telling the truth would be an understatement. She was baffled, terrified even, to think that the same guy that laid passed out by the theater earlier that day could in fact be the original Public Enemy #1. As shocked as she was to know this, she also felt a little bit of guilt for snapping at him and eventually walking out on him when he reaffirmed that he was in fact John Dillinger. If she'd have known this earlier, she would've stayed back at the hotel for the night, no question about it. So what if her parents wouldn't approve? Screw them, she thought. I'm going with Dillinger. The only problem of course being whether or not she was to see this handsome Depression-era man again. After all, the only thing she really told him about her was her name. There was no way of him knowing where she lived or what she did in her daily life. This of course only made her guilt grow stronger.
She curled up back into bed, with such heavy feelings still lying in the pit of her stomach, turned off the light, and went to sleep.
Dillinger woke up the next morning, and of course the first thing that came to mind was that girl Parker. He looked around the room just to see if she came back at some point while he was asleep. No such luck. Determined to find her, he scrambled out of bed, still wearing the same clothes as the day before, grabbed his hat and sunglasses which were lying on the nightstand by the bed, and hurried down the hallway and into a crowded elevator that went down to the lobby.
As the numbers on top of the elevator door got smaller, he took a look at some of the people the surrounded him. On his left there was a woman in shorts and a pink tank top with a small blonde child sitting on her hip. Behind her were a couple of young children, a boy and a girl. The girl had light brown hair and blue eyes similar to the woman standing next to him and was carrying a stuffed Minnie Mouse doll dressed as a ballerina. The boy standing next to her also had similar blue eyes, but his hair was blonde like that of the toddler sitting on her mom's hip. While the boy was busy playing with his Nintendo DS, the girl kept staring at Dillinger with big bright eyes before opening her small mouth to speak.
"Hey mister," she said innocently enough. Dillinger looked down to see what the little girl wanted. "Why are you dressed like an old guy? You're not old."
"Suzie," the woman yelled as she turned to face the little girl while still hanging on to the toddler on her hip. "That wasn't very nice. Now what do you say to gentleman?"
"I'm sorry," she pouted while clutching her Minnie Mouse doll.
"Oh it's okay," Dillinger said with a small smile and gently patted the little girl's shoulder. "No harm done."
Just then the elevator doors opened, and everyone stepped out into the busy lobby. Hoping to blend in just a little after taking a look at everyone around him, Dillinger rolled his sleeves up to his elbows and unbuttoned a few top buttons on his shirt before approaching the young guy behind the front desk.
"Hi there," Dillinger said. "Checking out."
"Alright sir," the young man said as he tapped a few keys on the computer. "Name?"
"Um...Parker I believe."
"Let's see. Parker, Parker..." The young man stared at the computer with concentration for a bit before finally making eye contact with Dillinger. "First name Allison?"
"Yes sir."
"Looks like everything's paid for...You know this girl's actually a pretty good friend of mine." Upon hearing that Dillinger perked up. To him this was another lucky chance to try and find that girl.
"Really?"
"Yeah, we went to the same high school. She and I both worked on the school paper."
"I see. What else?"
"Well uh, I know she's about to start her freshman year of college up at Northwestern and as of now she's taken a summer job at Gino's East."
"Where's that?"
"Um, out of North Wells. Right across the street from Ed Debevic's." The young guy looked at him with much confusion. Dillinger was now a little confused himself. He'd never heard of these places, thought he knew exactly what street this kid was talking about. As confused as he was, he certainly didn't show in his face. In fact, the look on his face suggested intimidation rather than confusion to this young man.
"Alright then," Dillinger stepped back while the young man just stood there awkwardly. "You have a nice day now Buddy."
"You too sir."
As soon as Dillinger stepped into the bright sunlight he squinted a little as he put his sunglasses back on before catching a cab conveniently parked in front of the hotel. He opened the door and slid on in to face a rather large, rough-looking man of about 50 or so for a driver.
"Where to?" the driver asked in a thick accent that seemed to come someplace like Brooklyn rather than Chicago.
"Gino's East. North Wells."
The driver looked up at Dillinger through the rearview mirror before peeling out into traffic.
"Y'know something," the bus driver said in a curious tone. "You look a little bit like that Johnny Depp in that new movie of his. Y'know the one where he plays, uh, John Dillinger."
"So I'm told," Dillinger said in a very confident tone. Needless to say, that lead to a very interesting conversation between the two of them on the way to Gino's East.
