stepped through. He wound his way through row after row of cars, some of which had been crushed flat and stacked three high. A few of them he had to reconstruct mentally to decide whether they could be the boxy Packard. There must have been a couple hundred of them altogether. Finally, he found himself in a corner of the lot that was farthest from where he had entered the property. And there it was, sitting on the ground, its tires still inflated. Once pink and white, the steel body was now mostly pitted red-brown, but intact. He walked around to the driver’s side and tried the last long key in the door lock. It turned easily. He got in and gave the interior a cursory search, finding nothing but some old registration papers in the glove box.
He reached back and unlocked the rear door, getting out. The hinge on the back door was rusty, and he had to use considerable force to pull it open. The rear seat came up easily, but there was nothing underneath it. That left the thing that he had been avoiding—the trunk. Remembering the “flamethrower,” he slowly pushed the key into the trunk lock. Standing as far to the side as possible, he turned the key and suddenly felt his heart beat a couple of hard strokes when the lock snapped open. He held the lid down as he walked around the side of the car. When he was completely clear, he let it rise a couple of inches on its own. Nothing happened. He stepped a little closer and peered into the partially open trunk. It appeared to be empty. He raised the lid. All the way in the back of it was a new battery, which had a plastic carrying handle across the terminals.
Walking around to the front of the Packard, Vail searched under the hood with his hands until he found the release. Feeling around it, he tried to determine if there was anything connected that shouldn’t be, not that he would be able to identify anything out of place in such an old vehicle. Slowly he pulled the release. The hood popped up an inch. As he had done with the trunk, he went around the side of the car. A strip of chrome molding was hanging off the side. He tore it free and, again keeping as far to the side as he could, pried the hood up. When it was raised a foot, he could see there was nothing out of the ordinary, except that the battery and distributor cap were missing.
He stepped back a couple of feet and examined the position of the Packard. It was surrounded by other wrecks. There wasn’t enough room to drive it more than five feet forward, if that. So why had Radek disabled it by keeping the battery in the trunk and its distributor cap under lock and key at his home? Had the money been stored in the Packard’s trunk at one time and moved to another location? But then why keep the part and key? He looked around to see if there were any other cars that might have become a newer hiding place. Finally he decided this was one of those problems that if you stared at them too long, you’d never find the solution. He had found the car. If there was more to it, maybe it would come to him when he stopped thinking about it.
When he got back in Radek’s Chevrolet at the house, he took out the key ring and inspected the lone unidentified key again. It was definitely not a car key. Everything was starting to take a toll on him and he suddenly felt exhausted. He tried to remember when his last full night’s sleep had been, but his mind wouldn’t calculate anything more complicated than his most immediate perceptions. He leaned his head back and quickly fell asleep.
The 2 a.m. messenger came early, causing Vail’s eyes to snap open. It was dark. He checked his watch to figure out how long he had been sleeping, but he had no idea when he had dozed off. Not remembering where he had put the key ring, he searched himself quickly. Then he realized it was in the ignition. He held up the last unidentified key and said, “Now I think I know where you go.”
He went to the trunk and took out the two empty suitcases.
Turning on his flashlight, he made his way