Halovic stepped out of his car and into the sticky warmth of a late summer afternoon. His nose wrinkled in disgust. From the smell and the flies buzzing around his head, he guessed that the owners of the StarBrite Motel rarely bothered to have their trash removed. Or perhaps they simply could not afford it, he thought coldly, eyeing the deserted parking lot again.
The contrast between this place and the tidy suburban communities he’d grown used to seeing around Washington was striking. It was a reminder to him that America’s elites built their fortunes on the backs of the poor, both abroad and here in their own land.
The StarBrite Motel’s office was no cleaner or fancier inside than its exterior suggested. Dust leered a rack of sunfaded tourist brochures and local maps near the rusting screen door. Flies circled lazily around the room. The smell of fried food and stale beer hung in the air.
Halovic let the screen door spring closed behind him and walked up to the deserted front desk. The sound of a television filtered out through an open door behind the desk. From the muted crowd noises he heard, he assumed the set was tuned to one of the mass sporting events which seemed to preoccupy so many Americans. A baseball game, perhaps?
He stood waiting for a moment, listening, and then cleared his throat.
“Excuse me, please? Is anybody there?”
Halovic was proud of his assumed German accent. Together with his own native speech patterns, simply substituting “I” for “th” and “v” for “w” made his words decidedly Teutonic. The accent lent credence to his new alias as Karl Gruning, a German postgraduate student on an extended vacation to America.
“Be right there, mister,” a slow, southern drawl answered him from the back room. The owner of the voice, a wizened old man, emerged a few seconds later, blinking rapidly against the sunlight streaming in through the windows. He finished buttoning a plain white shirt that had clearly seen cleaner days and smiled nervously, showing an uneven row of yellowing, tobacco-stained teeth. “Now, then, what can I do for y’all?”
“I would like a room, please. You have a vacancy?”
“A room?” The old man seemed surprised by the notion that anyone would want to stay at his establishment. Then he roused himself. “That ain’t no problem, mister. I’ve got plenty of rooms.”
He looked Halovic up and, down, clearly weighing what the traffic would bear. “Now, I charge twenty-five bucks a night~ash. In advance.” He looked almost defiant as he continued: “I don’t take no credit cards. And no checks, neither. Too much trouble.”
Halovic nodded. Better and better. He had hoped that the motel oh’s — Keeping would be on a par with his eanliness. Carrying out this phase of the mission already entailed more risk and personal exposure than he would have preferred. At least staying in this rattrap would not require leaving a paper trail for the police to follow. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a full wallet, and carefully counted out fifty dollars in crisp ten-dollar bills. “That is not a problem. I would like to stay at least two nights, please.”
“Two nights?” The old man seemed even more astonished, but not so astonished, Halovic noted, that he neglected to grab the money in front of him. “You can have number five. Tidied it up myself yesterday.”
He reached under the counter for the right key and dropped it onto the desk in front of Halovic. “Scuse me for asking, mister, but you’re a foreigner, ain’t that right?”
The Bosnian smiled politely. “Ja, that is right. I am German.”
“Thought so,” the old man said with satisfaction. “I thought so.” His eyes narrowed in speculation. “Now, I don’t mean to pry or nothing, but I was wondering what you’re doing here in town. Can’t say as we get many foreign tourists here in Walker’s Landing.”
Halovic allowed himself to look embarrassed and eager at the same time. “I have come for the shooting. To shoot the guns, you understand?”
“The shooting?” Understanding dawned on the motel owner’s lined face mixed in with some surprise. “You mean you come all the way from Germany to fire off a few rounds at our local gun club?”
“Oh, no. That is, not only to shoot.” Halovic paused, pretending to search for the right English words. “I am in America on a holiday. A sabbatical. I was in Richmond when I was told of your gun club.” The Bosnian shrugged. “It seemed a good opportunity, you understand? Firearms are restricted in my country. There are few places to shoot. It is not like here.”
The old man nodded slowly. “I’ve heard about them goddamn gun control laws like they gotwer~pe.” Although obviously still puzzled that anyone would come ad way to Walker’s Landing when there were more and better firing ranges closer to Richmond, he had clearly decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth. “Well, mister, I sure do hope you enjoy your stay.”
He nodded toward the door. “There’s a working phone in number five. You need anything, you just give me a holler, you hear?”
“Dazzle.”
“If you get hungry or want a drink, there’s a couple of bars and a diner in town, just up Route 250. Okay?”
Halovic politely nodded his understanding and turned to leave. He could feel the old man’s interested gaze as he walked back to his car. That was not surprising, really. In fact, he fully expected the story of the gun-crazy foreigner to be all over Walker’s Landing by nightfall.
That was exactly what Sefer Halovic wanted.
It was still daylight when he wandered up the road into town, trudging slowly along the grassy verge in the stifling heat. Although an occasional car or pickup truck passed him, the traffic was extremely light. Walker’s Landing was not really on the road to anywhere in particular. Certainly, the hamlet had very little to attract anyone to itself, he decided. Two churches, wood-framed houses, and a combination general store, post office, and pharmacy lined Route 250. Poorly paved streets on the right and left led off to more houses and a tiny school.
He stopped first at one of the local bars, the Riverfront. He didn’t stay long.
A loud rock sound track pounded at him as he walked in the door. Four or five customers were scattered around the bar, all of them in their early to mid-twenties. Halovic frowned at the bare wood dance floor and drum set that dominated one end of the interior. This place was not what he was looking for. This was a dance club, not a drinking saloon. Besides, the bartender and two of his patrons were black.
Halovic made sure that everyone noticed the hard, angry scowl he directed at them before he spun on his heel and stalked out. He had an image to create and maintain.
The Riverfront’s sole competitor looked more promising.
The Bon Air Bar sat at the north end of town, flanked on one side by a rutted, boggy field the bar’s customers used as a parking lot, and on the other by a small stand of trees. The ‘brick building’s brown-painted wood-shingle roof might seem rustic or even homey at night, but the harsh late afternoon sunlight would not tolerate such friendly illusions.
Right now the Bon Air Bar looked bleak and shabby. A neon sign on the roof advertised Budweiser beer, but Halovic wasn’t sure it would actually light once the sun went down.
This time he heard country-western music coming out of a corner jukebox. There was no sign of a dance floor. The room smelled of tobacco smoke and beer, and its dark wood paneling seemed to absorb the dim light. The only bright color in the bar was a five-foot American flag tacked up across one wall. Two middle-aged men sat together, talking, while a younger man, thin with long hair, tended bar. A TV blared in one corner, tuned to yet another baseball game.
Halovic stood in the doorway for a few moments, taking in the scene in front of him. He actually liked country-western music, which had a fair-sized following in Eastern Europe. And this appeared a quiet place, one not used to strangers, but certainly more restful than the Riverfront. It should suit his needs.
He walked over and sat down on a red plastic barstool. When the bored-looking young bartender glanced in his direction, he asked for a beer, carefully picking an American brand.
He sipped the pale, cold brew cautiously, comparing it unfavorably to the darker, warmer European beers he’d first tried as a student in Sarajevo and then again as part of the intensive preparation for this mission at Masegarh. Alcohol was forbidden to followers of the Prophet under normal circumstances, but God would understand the need to camouflage himself in this land of unbelievers. He was supposed to be a German and Germans drank beer.
Still drinking slowly, he let his eyes focus on the unfamiliar game being played out on the television set. And then he waited.
