He dipped into his pocket, came out with a wad of ten-dollar bills big enough to choke a bison. “Morgan, give Junior the keys.”
Morgan handed the keys to the valet.
Jakes gave the kid twenty bucks. “Don’t park it next to any shit-mobiles.” He peeled off two more bills and gave them to the valet. “Some kind of stench in the car. See what you can do.”
“Yes, sir.” He hopped into the driver’s seat and drove away.
“Let’s go, fellas,” Jakes said. “Chop-chop.”
A brace of bellboys leapt into action. They’d been unclear if Morgan and Reams were worth fawning over, but clearly Jakes was a man used to first-class service. They scooped up the luggage in a heartbeat. One took Morgan’s bag away from him like Morgan had no business touching it.
The professors followed the luggage into the lobby. Jakes identified the bell captain and waved him over.
“I’m going to need a cold six-pack waiting in the room,” Jakes said. “Also a plate of scrambled eggs, toast, and whatever fruit is fresh. I don’t know the room number yet, but you’ll find that out. Name’s Dirk Jakes.” He shoved a wad of cash at the bell captain.
“Very good, Mr. Jakes. What kind of beer?”
“Does the bar have Red Stripe?”
“I’m sorry, no.”
“Find some.”
“Yes, sir.” The bell captain sped away with his orders.
Morgan could only stand with his hands in his pockets and wonder where his bag had been taken.
It was only 7 A.M., and the desk clerk was sorry to inform Jakes that check-in wasn’t for several hours.
Jakes gave the man hell.
Nine minutes later Morgan stood in the room he was sharing with Reams. The luggage had been waiting for them. Jakes had his own room down the hall.
“I’m going to the conference rooms to check in, get my badge, and all that,” Reams said.
“Uh-huh.”
After Reams left, Morgan stripped down to his boxers and crawled into bed. His head hit the pillow, and he was out.
Morgan dreamed.
It was the updated version of a recurring dream he’d had in high school. In the high school version he drove his father’s Pontiac. The steering was noodle loose, his arm muscles wouldn’t work. The Pontiac was barely in control, all over the road, the fifteen-year-old Morgan paralyzed with cold-sweat fear. Not for his life. He feared what his old man would do to him when he wrecked the car. The brakes wouldn’t work.
Inevitably, he’d be heading for a tree, a mailbox, another car, and his eyes would pop open right before impact. He’d awake with a strangled cry caught in his throat, heart pounding out of his chest.
The new version of the dream was similar but more terrifying. He was behind the wheel of the Mercedes, trying to turn it around, so he could get back to Fumbee.
But when he tried to pull off the highway, the car refused to obey. He couldn’t control the steering, kept missing the exits. Jakes yelled unintelligibly from the backseat. Reams wouldn’t help.
Finally, Morgan wrenched the wheel. The Mercedes spun into an unreal blur. He pulled out of the spin, headed back the wrong way on the dark interstate.
He headed straight for a pair of headlights. Strangely, Morgan had control of the car now. He beeped his horn, flashed the high beams. The oncoming headlights remained on course, arrow-straight and fast. Morgan wouldn’t budge either, but this time he had control of the car. He was committed to the deadly collision.
The headlights grew enormous in the windshield.
Reams grabbed his arm. “Morgan. Morgan.”
Morgan wouldn’t swerve, hands clenched to the wheel, teeth grinding. The engines roared, the monstrous headlights only a dozen feet away.
Reams screamed, “Morgan!”
“Morgan.” Reams kicked the side of Morgan’s bed. “Come on, now. It’s noon. Let’s grab a bite and catch the first session.”
Morgan sat up in bed. He felt cold and not much rested.
Reams had showered, slipped into a pair of khakis and a navy polo shirt. A badge hung from the collar. It had his name and the name of the conference on it.
“I checked you in as well.” Reams held up Morgan’s badge then dropped it on the dresser. “It’s 150 bucks for the whole weekend.” Reams waited, looked expectantly at Morgan.
“I’ll pay you back. Thanks.”
Reams smiled relief. “Oh, I knew you would. We’re supposed to meet Jakes in twenty minutes. Better snap to it.”
“Right.”
In the shower, Morgan leaned heavily against the tiles, let the hot water pelt him. Memory of the dream was already fading, but the sick feeling of worry stayed. And he hadn’t forgotten about the man at the rest area or the headlights that dogged him until dawn. After sunrise, traffic had picked up, and he couldn’t tell if he was being followed or not.
He tried to explain to himself rationally that he was being paranoid-a bit timid and pathetic, in fact. But the worry clung to him. He thought about Ginny’s bruised face. He thought about the old man and Sherman Ellis and the upcoming poetry reading. He thought about the whole long, bad list of things he didn’t want to think about. Annie and the peach orchard.
For the hundredth time, Morgan thought,
But could he do that now? He hadn’t detected any sign of sympathy or understanding in Officer Hightower. The cop had seemed only smug, like he resented Morgan for some reason. And how would it look now to go to the police, when Hightower had been right there in his living room? That had been the time. It would have been so easy.
And Ginny. If he went to the police now, he’d have to drag her into it, and she’d suffered enough. Worse, she might turn on him, blame him for everything.
The hot water ran out and Morgan shut off the shower. He dried himself, dressed in jeans and a green-and- yellow Hawaiian shirt with hula girls on surfboards. The conference was in the hotel, so he wouldn’t need his jacket.
In the elevator on the way down, Reams said, “I’ve narrowed it down to two panels that start at the one o’clock session. Either one sounds interesting.”
“You pick,” Morgan said.
“No, no. Wait and hear the choices.” Reams thumbed through the program. “We can either see
The elevator opened and saved Morgan from deciding. They stepped out into the lobby. It writhed with activity. Conferencegoers with dangling clip-on badges swarmed the place. It was like a tweed bomb had exploded in the Sheraton.
“This way,” Reams said. “Jakes said he’d meet us in the lounge.”
The lounge was crammed with scholars bracing themselves for the upcoming sessions. Jakes perched at the bar, chatted up a busty woman with her coppery hair piled in a tight bun. Morgan and Reams stood behind him.
“So I go out to the mailbox one day, and there’s this check for 132,000 bucks,” Jakes told her. “I didn’t know what the hell it was for, so I called my agent. Turns out they’d sold the Asian rights to my last three novels. That’s when I ran out and got the Mercedes.”
The woman looked bored. She wore a pair of old-fashioned, black-framed glasses, which reminded Morgan of
