In the back parlor Steven tracked the GPS chips inside their flashlights. They were beefy transmitters, powered by a parasitic feed from the four brand new D-cell batteries, with long antennas taped inside the aluminum cases. Currently they were moving from the edge of the forest toward the back of the motel. Medium speed. Walking, not running. In a precisely straight line, which was in stark contrast to their previous navigational performance, which had been chaotic. They had been staggering uncertainly south of west from the get-go, in a tight curling line they evidently thought was straight. Their left turn looked good temporarily, but they wandered again, almost in a circle, and then their final turn brought them back to where they had started. On two occasions they had crossed their own tracks, apparently without realizing.
He watched. They made it to the motel’s back wall. Then they retraced their earlier steps exactly. They tracked back around the end of the building. Around room twelve. Into the lot. Past room eleven. Then they stopped, outside room ten.
Chapter 37
Shorty raised the Honda’s hood, and felt around under the battery. The stiff black wire, chopped in half, the cut ends like new pennies. He backed away, and walked through room ten to the bathroom. He grabbed up all the towels, a big messy bundle, and he carried them outside. He dumped them on the gravel, near the Honda’s rear wheel.
“Check the other doors,” he said. “Get more if you can.”
Patty started with eleven. The door was unlatched. She went in. Shorty went back to ten. He picked up the suitcase. Both hands, around the rope. He staggered out with it. He rested it a moment on the boardwalk. He heaved it down the step to the lot, and staggered with it all the way across, short uncertain steps, to the grass on the far side, the meadow before the woods. He blundered through it, his heels sinking in the soft earth, the case swishing against the seed heads. He made it thirty yards, and stopped, and dropped the case, and laid it down flat in the grass.
Then he walked back. Patty had gotten towels out of eleven, seven, and five. Altogether they had four piles. He went back to ten’s bathroom and came out with a jagged shard of tile. Broad at the base, wicked at the tip. He dropped it on the towels, near the Honda’s rear wheel.
He asked, “Which room had the most stuff?”
“Seven,” Patty said. “Lots of clothes. Lots of potions in the bathroom. That guy takes good care of himself.”
Shorty walked down to seven. He ignored the clothes and the potions. Instead he checked the wash bag on the bathroom vanity. It was black leather. He dumped it out in the sink. He found what he wanted, right there. Bottom of the bag, top of the pile. A nail clipper. The usual kind of thing. Metal. A moon-shaped pincer, and a swivel-out file.
He put it in his pocket. He walked back to the Honda. He put the shard of tile aside. He laid the towels neatly one on top of the other, like a thick quilt. He shuffled it into position, flat on the gravel, under the Honda’s rear end. He did the same thing with the towels from five, seven, and eleven, under the Volvo, the Persian carpet van, and the pick-up truck respectively.
He went back to the Honda and lay down on his back. He squirmed into position. He stabbed the shard of tile into the bottom of the gas tank. Again and again. It was tougher than he expected. A flake of porcelain smashed off the tile. Shit, he thought. Please. I don’t want to look stupid. He knew what she was thinking.
But for once in his life he got lucky. The missing flake of porcelain sharpened the tip. It added a third dimension. It made it a needle. He changed his position and seated the base of the tile in his blunt potato farmer’s palm, and he stabbed it upward, as hard as he could.
He felt the tip go in.
He felt a stain of gasoline.
He widened the hole, and a minute later he had about five gallons soaked into the pad of towels. He did the same thing three more times, under the truck and the van and the Volvo. His head spun from the fumes. But he