American Elsewhere - By Robert Jackson Bennett Page 0,28

will come.

He walks to the window, but does not look out. He shuts his eyes, hoping to see nothing. Then he opens them.

There, standing in the center of the blue spotlight of the farthest parking lot lamp, someone looks back at him. The figure is so far away that it is tiny… but Bolan is sure he can make out a blue-gray suit, and a white panama hat, and below that a face lost in shadow…

The white hat inclines slightly, then rises up again: a nod. Then its owner steps back into the darkness, and is gone.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Mona’s night at the Ponderosa Acres did not go well. She found no restful sleep in a place where the air felt so stale and undisturbed, and though she knew there were no other boarders she never felt alone. And sometime around one thirty she awoke—or she thinks she awoke, because the whole thing might have been a dream—with the strong conviction that something was wrong, and she went to the window and saw someone standing in the parking lot perfectly still with his hands at his sides, his face and front darkened by the yellow streetlight behind him. Though Mona felt a great unease at the sight of this person, she was not sure if he saw her or not; he might not have been looking at the motel at all. He made her think of an escapee from a mental institution, wandering aimlessly and wondering what to do with all this freedom in a strange new world. She must not have been terribly disturbed by this, she thinks as she fumbles through her morning routine in the motel room, if she went back to bed after.

Once she gets herself cleaned up she goes to see Parson. The morning sky is blindingly blue, and the air is crisp and cold. She finds it hard to reconcile this sky with the one last night, dark and wreathed with blue lightning and burdened with the pink moon.

When she enters the front office she sees that the darkness from last night was concealing absolutely nothing: the office is completely empty save for the card table and the desk. It feels like an awful waste of space. Parson is sitting at the table playing Chinese checkers as if he’s never left the spot. He is too involved in his game to look at her when she enters: he purses his lips judiciously, scratches a temple, and begins to make a move before suddenly rethinking, his hand darting back as if the checkers were poison. He shakes his head, silently scolding himself for considering such a poor choice.

“Do you often play checkers by yourself?” Mona asks.

He looks up, surprised. “By myself?” he asks. Then he smiles and laughs, as if this is a grand joke. “Ah, I see. By myself… very good.”

Mona chooses to change the subject. “Any idea how the probate courts work around here?”

Parson sets his coffee aside to think. “I am not sure about probate courts. There is only one court, though, and only one court officer—Mrs. Benjamin.”

“There’s only one officer? How does that work?”

“Very well, apparently,” says Parson. “There is not exactly much to do in the courts here. I believe it is overstaffed with just one person, really.”

“And where is this Mrs. Benjamin?”

“In the courthouse. Her office occupies the majority of the basement. You need only find a set of stairs there—any stairs will do—and go down them. Inevitably, you will find her.”

“Where’s the courthouse at?” Mona asks, slipping on her sunglasses.

“It’s in the center of the park, which is in the center of the town. Go inward. If you find yourself on the border of town—and it would not take very long—then you have missed it.”

“You can’t give me any street directions?”

“I could,” says Parson, “but they would not be as good.”

“Fine,” says Mona, and thanks him.

“Are you hungry?” asks Parson earnestly, as if her allowing herself to be hungry would be an abominable crime. “I can spare you another complimentary breakfast, if so, even though you have already eaten yours.”

As Mona has kicked the habit of morning beers, she politely declines. “When’s checkout time?”

Parson appears to debate getting up and going to his desk and rifling through his cards and papers again, but instead he just shrugs. “Whenever you check out, I suppose.”

“Is it okay if I leave my stuff here until I figure out how long I’ll be staying? I don’t expect that they’ll let me have the house