“Listen,” she said as if she had just made up her mind about something. “We need to talk some more. Don’t just disappear on me. Call me tonight.”
“I’ll see where I am then.”
“I know some stuff I didn’t tell you yet…things you need to hear. Will you call me?”
“I’ll try.”
“It’s important.”
We seemed to have reached the end. But she was reluctant to let me go.
“Cliff, is this really what you want?”
“No. But it’s what I’m going to do.”
23
How do you disappear in the other man’s town? I went about it step by step, covering my tracks, playing the odds, counting on what I knew of the supercop mentality to help me along. Aandahl would be getting back to the scene right about now, just as I was packing my stuff out of the Hilton and loading up in Eleanor’s trunk. She’d be starting to tell them now, as I turned into University and hit the freeway. She’d probably start out talking to the quiet one, Mallory: that was her nature, avoid the supercops of the world as long as possible. It wouldn’t be possible for long: Mallory would call in supercop as soon as he realized what he had…just about now, I thought. She’d be segregated in one of the rooms away from the investigation and they’d start on her slowly and work their way up to heat. She’d have to repeat it all, everything she’d told Mallory: supercop never settled for hearsay, even from a partner. Again Mallory would ask the questions and she would answer, and when it was time for the heat to come down, supercop would take over and see if she scared. Maybe she’d tell him where to shove it. I thought about her and decided she just might. It would take an hour off the clock for them to get to that point.
I found a bank that was open on Saturday, half-day walkup-window service. My paper trail would end here, it was cash-and-carry from now on. The paper I had already left would soon take them through Slater to the Hilton. Supercop would also know that I’d been driving an Alamo rental, but he’d be annoyed to find it disabled in the Hilton garage. How long a leap would it be until he had me driving Rigby’s car? It could be half a day or it might be done with two two-minute phone calls. A lot depended on luck—his and mine—and on how super the asshole really was.
I drew a $3,000 cash advance on my MasterCard. There was more where that came from, an untapped balance maybe half again as much. In the other pocket of my wallet I had a Visa, which I seldom used: the line of credit on that was $2,000. I never maxed out on these cards: I always paid it off and the jackals kept bumping my line upward, hoping I’d have a stroke of bad luck and they could suck me into slavery at 18 percent along with the rest of the world’s chumps. It was good strategy, finally about to pay off for them.
I took the cash in hundreds, two hundred in twenties. It made a fat wad in my wallet.
I stopped in a store and bought some hair dye, senior-citizen variety, guaranteed to turn me into a silver panther. I’d have to do it in two stages, bleach my dark hair white and then dye it gray with an ash toner. I’d be an old man till I dyed it back or it grew out. I bought a good grease pencil with a fine point and a hat that came down to my ears. I bought some sealing tape, shipping cartons, a marking pen, and a roll of bubblewrap. I doubled back toward town. In the Goodwill on Dearborn I bought a cane and an old raincoat. For once in my life I left a thrift store without looking at the books.
I sat in the car with the windows frosting up and did my face. I gave myself a skin blemish under my right eye, added some dirty-looking crow’s-feet to the real ones I was getting through hard living, and headed out again. I looked at myself in the glass. It wasn’t very good, but maybe it didn’t have to be. All I needed now was to pass in a rush for an old duffer with the hurts, when I talked to the man at the check-in counter.
I chose a motel not far from the Hilton, the Ramada on Fifth just off Bell Street. I pulled my hat down and leaned into the cane as I walked into the lobby. For now I would be Mr. Raymond Hodges, a name I pulled out of thin air. I also pulled off a pretty good limp, painful without overdoing it. I gave a half-sigh, just audible with each step down on my right foot. The guy behind the desk didn’t seem to notice me beyond the bare fact of my presence, a sure sign that he had taken me at face value.
It was still only midmorning: registration for the night wouldn’t be opening for another four or five hours, but the man let me in when I told him I was tired. The only thing that seemed to throw him momentarily was the sight of cash. In the age of plastic, a man with cash is almost as suspicious as a man with a gun.
For my own peace of mind, I had to get rid of Otto Murdoch’s books, and it was Saturday and the post office was on a banker’s schedule. In my room I sealed the books in the bubblewrap and packed them tight, with the other books I’d bought all around them. I sealed the boxes and addressed them to myself in Denver. I called the desk for directions and he sent me to the main post office at Third and Union. I insured the boxes to the limit—not nearly enough— and felt a thousand pounds lighter when they disappeared into the postal system.
The library was just a few blocks away, and I stopped there to look at a copy of
