a hearty reading of Where the Wild Things Are.
Then I took the deepest breath of my life and eased open the door. The alarm didn’t blare. I walked straight out into the cool sunlight. I waited for a bullet to pound the pavement in front of me, or to cut into my kneecap. I waited to be hurt and fall and for a man to hustle me into a car at gunpoint and call on Howell to say I’d been a bad boy, asking me to explain the dead body in the neighboring apartment.
Silence. The bars were widening, just a bit.
I walked to a nearby car I’d noticed parked on a side street, same place every week, in front of a strip shopping center. The model was one that was easy to boost, and it had no GPS system to track it remotely. I hot-wired it and was gone in less than the proverbial sixty seconds. No sign of pursuit in the mirror; any watchers used to my routine were probably keeping their eyes on the front door or considered themselves clever by monitoring the Internet searches.
I drove north, making a stop at a Wal-Mart for the rest of my disguise, then I drove on and found a truck stop about thirty miles south of Albany. I parked the car in the far corner, went inside for coffee. Many ate here because it was cheaper to eat a couple of hours out of New York than in the city. I drank three cups of excellent coffee in unhurried progression, watching the truckers come and go. Mostly they sat and listened to the news: a bombing at a train station in Amsterdam that had killed five, a dive in stocks yesterday, an indictment against a congressman for bribery.
In the hush of the commercials I listened to them chat, in their varying levels of sociability; I wanted a talker. Talkers don’t ask as many questions. They like to discuss themselves, not you. You are just there to drink in the wisdom. Often they talked about their cargos, a conversational opener the same way one might ask about the weather. Forty-five minutes after I came in, a trucker, silver-haired and with a slight Southern accent, sat next to me and wolfed down a hamburger and fries, half-drowned in ketchup. When his plate was clear, he mentioned to the uninterested trucker next to him that he was hauling flannel and buttons to be shipped overseas for fashioning into shirts.
“Why they can’t stitch together shirts here is beyond me,” the talker said. “We got sewing machines.”
“Yeah,” the other trucker said, “Japanese sewing machines.” He shrugged at the shrinking world. He got up and left.
The talker ordered a cup of coffee.
After it had been poured and the first curl of steam was rising from it and he’d taken an ample sip, I asked, “Are you heading to the port, sir?”
He gauged me with a look. “Yeah.”
“I’m trying to get there. My car broke down here. My brother’s working on a ship sailing out of New Jersey and he got me a job.”
“Usually it’s not American boys working those ships.”
“I know. He’s a supervisor. He got me the job.” I tucked my teeth over my lip, all small-town sheepish. “I’m a little desperate. Ship’s coming in and leaving tomorrow and I’m stuck here, drinking coffee. I kept asking for rides earlier and I think I asked wrong. Everyone said no.” I let a shade of heartbreak show on my face.
“That’s tough.” He looked at the empty, ketchup-smeared plate like it was a painting.
“I know, sir. I wouldn’t ever ask but I need the job bad. If I can get to any Port terminal I can get a ride to my brother’s ship.”
“I’m not supposed to take on riders. You understand.”
“Sure, of course. But this wouldn’t be out of your way.” Then I went for the knife. “Like you said, wish they’d make shirts here. I’d have a job where I could stay on dry land. I got to take what I can get.” I had been careful to count out sparse change for the coffee in front of the waitress. I wanted to look like I was what I said I was the moment I walked into the truck stop. You have to play the role to the hilt. The waitress, listening since the crowd had slowed, put a bit more coffee in my cup without me asking.
The trucker set down his coffee cup. Thinking it over.