certainly make sure they didn’t contain anything they shouldn’t
Once the Vice President and his entourage reached the main waiting room level of the station, there were three possible routes to where he would enter his official car. There were east, west, and south entrances.
The logical place would be the east exit, but that did not mean he would use it. There were a number of factors that would be considered by those in charge of the Vice President’s movements, and there was just no telling, with any degree of certainty, which one would be used.
All three routes would have to be covered. The east and west routes, conveniently, had rows of lockers. If he placed in each of two lockers on both the east and west routes one device, the lethal zone of the devices would be entirely effective. The south route did not have a row of lockers.
Marion thought that it was entirely likely the Lord was sending him a message via the lockers in the Pine Barrens. In other words, why the symbolism of the lockers if they were not in some way connected with the disintegration of the Vice President?
It was unlikely, following that line of thought, that the Vice President would take the south, locker-less route.
But on the other hand, it was also possible that he was wrong. It was also clear that the Lord expected him to be as thorough as humanly possible. That meant, obviously, that he was going to have to cover the south route, even if the Vice President would probably not use it.
There was, of course, a solution. There was always a solution when doing the Lord’s work. One simply had to give it some thought. Often some prayerful thought.
There was a large metal refuse container against the wall in the passage between the main waiting room and the doors of the south exit. All he would have to do is put the fifth device in the refuse container. For all he knew—and there was no way to know without conducting a test—the metal refuse container would produce every bit as much shrapnel as one of the lockers.
The only problem, which Marion decided could be solved as he left 30th Street Station, was to make sure the metal refuse container would accept one of the AWOL bags through its opening.
Marion bought one of the last copies of the Sunday edition of The Philadelphia Inquirer on sale at the newsstand. He sat down on one of the benches in the main waiting room and flipped through it for three or four minutes. Then he left the station by the south route, stopping at the metal refuse container to place the newspaper in it.
He kept the first section. First he opened it and laid it on the opening horizontally, and then tore the paper to mark how wide the opening was. Then he held the paper vertically, and tore it again, this time marking how tall the opening was.
Then he folded the newspaper, tucked it under his arm, and walked out of the station and home.
He had thirty minutes to spare before Masterpiece Theater came on the television.
Magdelana Lanza was waiting for her son Vito on the sidewalk in front of the house on Ritner Street.
“I had to call the plumber,” she announced.
“I told you I would go by Sears when I got off work.”
“The hot water thing is busted; there was water all over the basement. And the pipes is bad.”
“What pipes?”
“What pipes do you think, sonny? The water pipes is what pipes.”
“What do you mean they’re bad?”
“They’re all clogged up; they got to go. We have to have new pipes.”
That sonofabitch of a plumber! What he did was figure he could sell an old woman anything he told her she needed. I’ll fix his ass!
“I’ll have a look, Mama.”
“Don’t use the toilet. There’s no water; it won’t flush.”
“Okay, Mama. I’ll have a look.”
No water, my ass. What can go wrong with pipes? What I’m going to find when I go in the basement is that this sonofabitch has turned the valve off.
Vito went in the house and went to his room and took off the good clothes he had worn to take Tony to the Poconos and put on a pair of khaki trousers and an old pair of shoes.
I got to take a leak. What did you expect? The minute she tells you the toilet won’t flush, you have to piss so bad your back teeth are floating.