From the glove box, he retrieved John Knox's wallet. Using the dead man's money pricked his conscience, but he had no choice. His own wallet had been taken from him in Julian Campbell's library. He took the entire $585 and returned the wallet to the glove box.
He got out into the wind, locked the car, and went into the gun shop. The word shop seemed inadequate for such a large store. There were aisles and aisles of gun-related paraphernalia.
At the long cashier's counter, he got help from a large man with a walrus mustache. His name tag identified him as ROLAND.
'A Springfield Champion,' Roland said. 'That's a stainless-steel version of a Colt Commander, isn't it?'
Mitch had no clue if it was or not, but he suspected that Roland knew his stuff. 'That's right.'
'Beveled magazine well, throated barrel, a lowered and flared ejection port all come standard.'
'It's a sweet gun,' Mitch said, hoping people actually talked that way. 'I want three extra magazines. For target shooting.'
He added the last three words because it seemed that most people wouldn't have a use for spare magazines unless they were planning to knock over a bank or take potshots at people from a clock tower.
Roland appeared not in the least suspicious. 'Did you go for Springfield's whole Super Tuned package?'
Remembering the words engraved near the muzzle, Mitch said, 'Yes. The whole package.'
'Any further customization?'
'No,' Mitch guessed.
'You didn't bring the gun? I'd feel better if I could see it.'
Incorrectly, Mitch had thought if he carried a pistol into the store, he'd look like a shoplifter or a stickup artist or something.
'I've got this.' He put the magazine on the counter.
'I'd rather have the gun, but let's see if we can work with this.'
Five minutes later, Mitch had paid for three magazines and a box of one hundred.45 ACP cartridges.
Throughout the transaction, he had expected alarm bells to go off. He felt suspected, watched, and known for what he was. Clearly, his nerves didn't have the tensile strength required of a fugitive from the law.
As he was about to leave the shop, he looked through the glass door and saw a police cruiser in the parking lot, blocking his car. A cop stood at the driver's door, peering into the locked Honda.
Chapter 59
On second look, Mitch realized that the driver's door of the cruiser wasn't emblazoned with the seal of a city but with the name — First Enforcement — and ornate logo of a private-security firm. The uniformed man at the Honda must be a security guard, not a police officer.
Nevertheless, the Honda would be of interest to him only if he knew an all-points bulletin had been put out for it. Evidently this guy did listen to a police scanner.
The guard left his car athwart the Honda and approached the gun shop. He appeared purposeful.
He had most likely stopped to do some personal business and had lucked onto the Honda. Now he was psyched up for a citizen's arrest and a taste of glory.
A real cop would have called for backup before coming into the store. Mitch supposed he should be grateful for getting even that much of a break.
The parking lot wrapped two sides of the freestanding building, and there were two entrances. Mitch backed away from this door and headed quickly for the other.
He left by the side exit and hurried to the front of the store. The security guard had gone inside.
Mitch was alone in the wind. Not for long. He sprinted to the Honda.
The First Enforcement car trapped him. The back of the parking space featured a steel-pipe safety barrier atop a six-inch concrete curb because, from the lot, the land sloped steeply down six feet to a sidewalk.
No good. No way out. He would have to abandon the Honda.
He unlocked the driver's door and retrieved the Springfield Champion.45 from under the seat.
As he closed the car door, somebody coming out of the gun shop drew his attention. Not the security guard.
He popped the trunk and snatched the white plastic trash bag from the wheel well. He put the pistol and the gun-shop purchases with the money, twisted the neck of the bag, closed the trunk, and walked away.
After passing behind five parked vehicles, he stepped between two SUVs. He peered in each, hoping one of the drivers had left the keys in the ignition, but he wasn't lucky.
He walked briskly — did not run — diagonally across the blacktop, toward the side of the building from which he had recently exited.
As he reached the corner, his peripheral vision caught movement at the front door of the gun shop. When he glanced along the covered boardwalk, he glimpsed the security guard coming out of the store.
He did not think that the guard had seen him, and then he was out of sight, past the corner.
The side parking lot ended at a low concrete-block wall. He vaulted it, onto a property belonging to a fast- food franchise.
Cautioning himself not to run like a fugitive, he crossed the parking lot, passed a queue of vehicles waiting in line for takeout, the air redolent of exhaust fumes and greasy French fries, rounded the back of the restaurant, came to another low wall, vaulted it.
Ahead lay a small strip center with six or eight stores. He slowed down, looking in the windows as he passed, just a guy out on an errand, with one point four million to spend.
As he came to the end of the block, a squad car went by on the main boulevard, emergency beacons flashing red-blue, red-blue, red-blue, heading in the direction of the gun shop. And immediately behind it sped another one.
Mitch turned left on the small cross street, away from the boulevard. He picked up his pace again.
The commercial zone was only one lot wide, facing the boulevard. Behind lay a residential neighborhood.
In the first block were condos and apartment houses. After that he found single-family homes, most of them two stories, occasionally a bungalow.
The street trees were huge old podocarpuses that cast a lot of shade. Most lawns were green, trimmed, shrubs well kept. But every community has landscape slobs eager to exert their rights to be bad neighbors.
When the police didn't find him at the gun shop, they would search surrounding neighborhoods. In a few minutes, they could have half a dozen or more units cruising the area.
He had assaulted a police officer. They tended to put his kind at the top of their priority list.
Most of the vehicles parked on this residential street were SUVs. He slowed down, squinting through the passenger-door windows at the ignitions, hoping to spot a key.
When he glanced at his watch, he saw the time was 1:14. The exchange was set for 3:00, and now he didn't have wheels.
Chapter 60
The ride lasts about fifteen minutes, and Holly, bound and blindfolded, is too busy scheming to consider a scream.
This time when her lunatic chauffeur stops, she hears him put the van in park and apply the hand brake. He gets out, leaving his door open.
In Rio Lucio, New Mexico, a saintly woman named Ermina Something lives in a blue-and-green or maybe blue-and-yellow stucco house. She is seventy-two.
The killer returns to the van and drives it forward about twenty feet, and then gets out again.
In Ermina Something's living room are maybe forty-two or thirty-nine images of the Sacred Heart of Jesus,
