“Dry as a cracker.”
“But she sure does give the man major class and respectability. Now you go out there and do the right thing, okay?”
Noah raised his eyebrows. “What? You mean… you want me to give this bag of money to the cops and press charges against the congressman?”
This time, the pacifist didn’t smile. “Guess I should have said do the smart thing.”
“Just clarifying,” Noah assured him.
“You could clarify yourself right into a casket.”
With the coils of his soul exposed for all to see, the bagman, sans bag, swaggered toward the front of the tavern.
On their barstools and chairs, the cowboys turned, and with their glares they herded him toward the door. If they had been genuine riders of the purple sage instead of computer-networking specialists or real-estate salesmen, one of them might have whupped his ass just as a matter of principle.
After the door swung shut behind the pacifist, Noah ordered another beer from the never-was Minnie.
When she returned with a dew-beaded bottle of Dos Equis, the waitress said, “Was that guy a stoolie or something?”
“Something.”
“And you’re a cop.”
“Used to be. Is it that obvious?”
“Yeah. And you’re wearing a Hawaiian shirt. Plainclothes cops like Hawaiian shirts, ’cause you can hide a gun under them.”
“Well,” he lied, “I’m not hiding anything under this one except a yellowed undershirt I should’ve thrown away five years ago.” “My dad liked Hawaiian shirts.”
“Your dad’s a cop?”
“Till they killed him.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“I’m Francene, named after the ZZ Top song.”
“Why do a lot of cops from back then like ZZ Top?” he wondered.
“Maybe it was an antidote to all that crap the Eagles sang.”
He smiled. “I think you’ve got something there, Francene.” “My shift’s over at eleven.”
“You’re a temptation,” he admitted. “But I’m married.” Glancing at his hands, seeing no rings, she said, “Married to what?”
“Now that’s a hard question.”
“Maybe not so hard if you’re honest with yourself.” Noah had been so taken with her body and her beauty that until now he hadn’t seen the kindness in her eyes. “Could be self-pity,” he said, naming his bride. “Not you,” she disagreed, as though she knew him well. “Anger’s more like it.”
“What’s the name of this bar — Firewater and Philosophy?” “After you listen to country music all day, every day, you start seeing everyone as a three-minute story.”
Sincerely, he said, “Damn, you would have been a funny Minnie.” “You’re probably just like my dad. You have this kind of pride. Honor, he called it. But these days, honor is for suckers, and that makes you angry.”
He stared up at her, searching for a reply and finding none. In addition to her kindness, he had become aware of a melancholy in her that he couldn’t bear to see. “That guy over there’s signaling for a waitress.”
She continued to hold Noah’s gaze as she said, “Well, if you ever get divorced, you know where I work.”
He watched her walk away. Then between long swallows, he studied his beer as though it meant something.
Later, when he had only an empty bottle to study, Noah left Francene a tip larger than the total of his two- beer check.
Outside, an upwash of urban glow overlaid a yellow stain on the blackness of the lower sky. High above, unsullied, hung a polished-silver moon. In the deep pure black above the lunar curve, a few stars looked clean, so far from Earth.
He walked eastward, through the warm gusts of wind stirred by traffic, alert for any indication that he was under surveillance. No one followed him, not even at a distance.
Evidently the congressman’s battalions no longer found him to be of even the slightest interest. His apparent cowardice and the alacrity with which he had betrayed his client confirmed for them that he was, by the current definition, a good citizen.
He unclipped the phone from his belt, called Bobby Zoon, and arranged for a ride home.
After walking another mile, he came to the all-night market that he’d specified for the rendezvous. Bobby’s Honda was parked next to a collection bin for Salvation Army thrift shops.
When Noah got into the front passenger’s seat, Bobby — twenty, skinny, with a scraggly chin beard and the slightly vacant look of a long-term Ecstasy user — was behind the steering wheel, picking his nose.
Noah grimaced. “You’re disgusting.”
“What?” Bobby asked, genuinely surprised by the insult, even though his index finger was still wedged in his right nostril.
“At least I didn’t catch you playing with yourself. Let’s get out of here.”
“That was cool back there,” Bobby said as he started the engine. “Absolutely arctic.”
“Cool? You idiot, I liked that car.”
“Your Chevy? It was a piece of crap.”
“Yeah, but it was my piece of crap.”
“Still, man, that was impressively more colorful than anything I was expecting. We got more than we needed.”
“Yeah,” Noah acknowledged without enthusiasm.
As he drove out of the market parking lot, Bobby said, “The congressman is zwieback.”
He’s what?”
“Toast done twice.”
“Where do you get this stuff?”
“What stuff?” Bobby asked.
“This zwieback crap.”
“I’m always working on a screenplay in my head. In film school, they teach you everything’s material, and this sure is.”
“Hell is spending eternity as the hero in a Bobby Zoon flick.”
With an earnestness that could be achieved only by a boy-man with a wispy goatee and the conviction that movies are life, Bobby said, “You’re not the hero. My part’s the male lead. You’re in the Sandra Bullock role.”
Chapter 4
Down through the high forest to lower terrain, from night-kissed ridges into night-smothered valleys, out of the trees into a broad planted field, the motherless boy hurries. He follows the crop rows to a rail fence.
He is amazed to be alive. He doesn’t dare to hope that he has lost his pursuers. They are out there, still searching, cunning and indefatigable.
The fence, old and in need of repair, clatters as he climbs across it. When he drops to the lane beyond, he crouches motionless until he is sure that the noise has drawn no one’s attention.
Previously scattered clouds, as woolly as sheep, have been herded together around the shepherd moon.
In this darker night, several structures loom, all humble and yet mysterious. A barn, a stable, outbuildings. With haste, he passes among them.
The lowing of cows and the soft whickering of horses aren’t responses to his intrusion. These sounds are as natural a part of the night as the musky smell of animals and the not altogether unpleasant scent of straw-riddled manure.
