gravel.
I was going to have to explain to Fred and Alan why the front seat of the rental car was covered with moldy, junglelike decay. Maybe I could clean it up a little myself before I returned it.
When Ames had closed his door and was sitting with shotgun in hand, I turned the car around and went in into thunder, lightning, and rain in search of the person who had shot at me. I hit Midnight Pass Drive no more than fifteen seconds later.
Ames looked right. I looked left. Not a car in sight.
“He pulled into one of the driveways,” I said.
“Looks that way,” Ames agreed.
“Which one and in which direction?”
“We can start trying ‘em,” Ames said.
We started toward the left, the logical direction if he was trying to get off the key and not get trapped at the dead end to the right at the end of the key. We found some cars parked on paved paths, found driveways leading into developed communities like the one the plastic surgeon lived in, found homes with high walls.
There were some cars parked in many of the places we looked, but no one sitting in them. He could have been hunched down or leaning over. We could have gotten out and started checking and feeling the car hoods to see if they were warm. And as much faith as I had in Ames, there was always the possibility that the shooter would be waiting for us behind a tree, a rock, a wall, or an SUV.
“No point, is there?” I said, after we did stop to check out a Jaguar and a Ford Explorer parked side by side in a driveway.
“No,” said Ames.
The curtains of the window of the house in whose driveway we were standing parted and an old woman looked at us, horror in her eyes. Before her in the rain stood a tall old man in a yellow slicker cradling a shotgun in his arms and next to him stood a shorter, thinner version of the Swamp Thing.
The curtains closed.
Ames and I got back in the car and headed for home.
“You all right?” Ames asked, tucking the shotgun in a deep pocket he had created inside his slicker.
“He missed,” I said.
“Question was, are you all right?”
“Yes,” I said.
For a supposedly suicidal man, I was doing a remarkable job of surviving.
I dropped Ames at the Texas Bar and Grill and told him I’d be back later, that we had something to do. Ames didn’t ask what it was. He never did.
The rain was no better when I pulled into the DQ parking lot. There were no customers. The girl at the orders window had her head in her hands, her elbows propped up on the counter. She was watching traffic slosh by.
When I got to my office and opened the door, I kicked off my muddy shoes, took off my shirt, pants, underwear, and socks and dropped them in a heap along with my drenched Cubs cap. I padded carefully to my room, picked up my last clean towel, wrapped it around myself, and grabbed my soap.
I pushed my wet clothes out of the way with my foot, left the door unlocked, and went outside on the landing. No one was there. It didn’t matter.
No one was in the rest room either. It looked clean and smelled good. Marvin Uliaks had done his daily cleanup. I locked the door and ran both faucets of the sink full blast, cupped my hands, and covered myself with water. I repeated this four or five times before I started using soap, lots of soap. Then I rinsed twice more with cupped hands and began drying myself.
I was clean. The rest room floor wasn’t.
While I was drying, I saw myself in the mirror. Someone had tried to kill the man in the mirror, the unremarkable man in the mirror.
It hit me. If he or she had succeeded, there would have been some kind of funeral, probably paid for by Flo, and people would actually come to the funeral-Ames, Flo, Adele with her baby, Ann, her husband, Sally, Dave, John Gutcheon, maybe Billy the bartender at the Crisp Dollar Bill, Marvin if he could get a ride, and maybe even Digger, though I doubted that. Then, if someone tried to find them, some of my family in Chicago would show up. My father would insist on an Episcopalian minister.
Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.
I finished drying and wrapped the wet towel around my waist, took my soap, and headed back to my office. My plan was to write a will saying I wanted to be cremated and have my ashes buried next to my wife in Illinois.
When I got back to my office and opened it, the lights were on and the window air conditioner that Ames had put in about a year earlier was humming.
Detective Etienne Viviase was standing in front of the small Stig Dalstrom painting on the wall. He turned his head to look at me.
“Wanna get dressed?” he asked.
I went into my room, threw the towel over my chair, and found something dry to put on while Viviase talked from the other room.
“Called the FBI,” he said. “Told them about Kevin Hoffmann’s Social Security-number theft, suggested he might be covering up a crime.”
“And?” I said, tucking a gray cotton shirt into my worn jeans.
“Nothing much yet, but they did find out his real name.”
I hopped around, putting on my socks.
“His name is Alvin York Dutcher,” Viviase said. “He’s fifty-five, born in Mill Valley, California. One older sister. Parents long gone. Young Alvin York spent two years in the army. Sniper in Vietnam. When he came back, he picked up an arrest record. Small stuff. No convictions. Then…”
“Then?” sitting on my cot and tying my shoes.
“House was robbed a few miles from where Alvin lived,” said Viviase. “Very rich retiree who owned jewelry stores all over the country, South America, Europe. Victor Sage.”
“I know the name,” I said, brushing back what was left of my hair with both hands.
“Two men in masks. Got Sage to open his safe. Sage’s wife was asleep upstairs. Got away with millions in cash and jewelry.”
I stepped back into my office. Viviase was still looking at the Dalstrom painting.
“Reminds me of you,” he said.
“People tell me,” I said. “Alvin York?”
“Alvin York Dutcher left home a week after the Sage robbery. Kevin Hoffmann came back to life in Atlanta, Georgia, about two months after that.”
Viviase turned toward me. He could have told me this on the phone. He could have not told me at all. I waited.
“You went to see Dr. Obermeyer this morning,” he said. “Dr. Obermeyer called in with a complaint. I caught it on the morning list. He says you’re harassing him.”
Since Obermeyer was right, I said nothing.
“He says you threatened to have someone break his hands if he didn’t let Trasker out of Hoffmann’s house.”
“I never threatened to break his hands, head, legs, or heart,” I said. “You might want to check the doctor’s record. He loses a lot of indignation when he’s reminded of it.”
“I need a statement,” he said. “Obermeyer and his receptionist have already given theirs.”
“Your office or…”
“Just write it out,” he said. “You know the drill.”
“Anything else?”
“No,” he said, putting his notebook away. “You?”
“Someone just tried to kill me,” I said.
“Where?”
