Pursuit: A Novel

he could come through the bushes behind Prescott’s car, be at the open window in a second, try to disable Prescott’s left arm and maybe get a hand to his temple, eyes, or throat. But it was midday, and the car was in the open, far from any others. Prescott might see him coming. Prescott wasn’t just some guy sitting in a car, either. He was here in the first place because he was expecting Varney, and he undoubtedly had a gun he could put his right hand on in a second.

Varney was not going to try it. He would have to be satisfied with simply getting out clean. He entered the motel through the back of the lobby on the other side of the building, then walked along the side of the pool in the interior courtyard. He stopped to feel the water, then moved on until he came to his room. He knew the sliding glass door was locked, because he had locked it himself. But the lock was a simple mechanism. The latch was a hook that went over a little bar in the frame. By the time he got to it, he already had his thin plastic phone calling card out of his wallet. He stepped close to lean against the edge of the door, inserted the card between the frame and the window, and pulled the card up. The latch came with it, and he was inside.

Varney closed the drapes, went to the closet, lifted his suitcase, and checked to be sure it was still locked. Then he snatched a damp towel from the bathroom floor, wiped off all the knobs and surfaces he might have touched, slipped out the sliding door to the courtyard, and walked along the pool to the lobby. He stopped at the desk to accept and sign the bill that had been charged to his card, and to turn in his key. He had taken a risk, then compounded it by taking the extra time to clean his room and leave the right way, but he judged that it would give him peace of mind later. The man at the desk had to go into a back room to get the paperwork. Varney could see filing cabinets and the corner of a desk through the door. He saw the man quickly leafing through a card file as he spoke to someone in the back room. Then he found the registration card and the credit card slip and returned. Varney heard another door open and close.

As Varney signed and pushed his key across the counter, he became aware of a rattling noise outside, but dismissed it. There was nothing Prescott would do that made a sound like that. The rattle grew louder, now and then punctuated by a bump-bump. It was just a maid pushing her cart along the side of the building. His heart sped up. The maid! That’s what the clerk had been doing in the back room—sending the maid to make up his room for the next customer. Prescott would see her go in. He took his slip and picked up his suitcase. As soon as Prescott saw where the maid was going, he would come straight to this desk to learn when Varney had left. Varney had to do something, and as each second passed, choices went with it. He turned and moved to the rear door, went out on the courtyard side, and walked back along the pool to the room he had just vacated. As he reached the sliding glass door, he saw the maid grab the two plastic rods to whisk open the curtains to get more light to work.

Varney smiled at her, quickly opened the sliding door, and slipped in past her.

“Sir?” she said, a little frightened. “Forget something?”

“I’m not sure,” he said. “I just want to take a quick look.” He stayed in the shadows near the closet and stared out past the cart she had used to prop open the door. He could see the parking lot, but his mind stumbled. The dark blue Cadillac was still there. How could Prescott not have seen the maid? But then he saw that the head behind the wheel was gone. Prescott was out of the car.

Varney moved to the side of the door. Prescott wasn’t coming to the room on foot. The maid was pretending not to watch Varney, but he could see that her head was held in a stiff-necked angle to keep him in her peripheral vision. He took out his wallet and handed her a twenty-dollar bill.

“Thank you, sir,” she said.

“You’re welcome,” he muttered. “Might as well go out this way.”

She didn’t answer, but as she watched him sidestep past her cart and out the door she seemed relieved.

Varney looked up and down the building in both directions, then began to walk quickly toward Prescott’s car. The suitcase was small, but he hated the weight and imbalance it forced on him, and the visibility of it. If he could ditch it somewhere, he would be just a man walking down the street. With it, people were going to see him, remember him, wonder if he was on foot with a suitcase because he was skipping out on a hotel bill, or if he was a thief. He couldn’t leave it, because Prescott might find it and use what was in it to hunt him. As soon as he was away from here, he would try to find a place to open it and at least remove the plane ticket.

He crossed the parking lot, glancing now and then in the direction of the motel lobby. Prescott must still be at the counter, trying to pry some information out of the clerk. At least that would help delay him. Varney passed to the side of the car and looked inside on the unlikely chance that Prescott had left a gun. It was no surprise that he had not. Varney stepped through the bushes and out to the street, then took his last look at the motel. He saw nothing in the direction of the office, but he could see the open door of his room, and he could tell someone was now inside with the maid.

He turned and ran across the street, dodging cars and trucks until he was on the seaward side near the harbor fence, where he had hoped there would be a few other pedestrians to complicate Prescott’s view. But the only people around were far away, beyond the fence, on other parts of the vast network of docks and boat slips. He looked back at the lot, and he could see the tall, thin figure emerge from the room. Varney would have to do something better before Prescott reached his car and pulled out of the lot. He tossed his suitcase over the chain-link fence. He took three steps toward it, ran up, digging his toes in, and rolled over to the other side. Then he snatched up his suitcase and stepped off the nearest dock with it.

He ducked under the water, then came up, smelling the film of leaked gasoline that he could see reflecting liquid rainbows on the surface. He moved under the dock, only his head above the surface. He waited patiently, letting the water seep into his suitcase and soak the clothes, so the suitcase would sink.

It was night before Varney let himself drift out of his hiding place under the dock, then pulled his heavy suitcase to a ramp where boats were launched from trailers. He was shivering with the cold. He found his key and opened the lock on his suitcase with shaking fingers, then let most of the water pour out. He stood and walked with care, keeping in the shadows, letting the water drain from his clothes and his shoes. He had only a block to go to find his rental car, but he moved in the opposite direction, because that was where Prescott would be waiting for him. He left the marina and walked along the beach for a half hour, just above the water line, where the sand was wet and firm. The breeze was cold, but after fifteen minutes he began to feel it less intensely. When he stopped dripping and began to feel, not dry, but a granular stickiness on his skin from the salt water, he went out to the pavement again and turned at the first street that would take him off the Pacific Coast Highway. He went to a closed gas station and used a pay phone to call a cab.

He told the driver that he wanted to go to the airport, but when the cab let him off at LAX, he walked to a cheap-looking motel on Century Boulevard, checked in, and opened his suitcase. He took each item out and hung it on the railing over the bathtub. He looked closely inside the lining of the suitcase, then looked again. The suitcase had been locked. The ticket to Buffalo was still hidden in the lining exactly where he had left it. But how could he be sure that Prescott had not seen it?

10

Varney understood what had happened as though he had seen it. Prescott had gone into the room looking for Varney. He had found it empty, then spent a moment teasing himself with the idea of doing this job the sensible way. He had undoubtedly been tempted to sit there with his gun in his lap, watch Varney walk in the door, and then drop the hammer on him: maybe one through the head, or maybe be safe and conservative and put two or three into his chest while he was standing there, caught in the doorway.

But if Prescott had done it the sensible way, the police would have come in, looked things over, and known that they had Varney and Prescott too. He had to sit around outside, observing the letter of the law until Varney showed up in the open air of the parking lot. Then Prescott could have arranged an execution that at least appeared legal.

Well, fuck him. He was the one who wanted to be famous, so he’d had to give up the advantages that notoriety cost. Varney sat on the edge of the tub and the shivers returned. The salt residue on his clothes and skin seemed to draw water out of the air and renew the bone-chill he felt from his hours in the water. He could not get himself to forget the image he had constructed. There is Varney strolling back from the library unarmed, wearing a T-shirt and jeans. Inside the room, sitting in the only chair, which he has moved to the side of the door, is Prescott.